Royn's death did not seem to make any waves in the social sphere at all. No one important had even known that he had started working for Ted, so it was not a big deal at all.
Ted did feel something tightening around his throat, and it was not the ruffled collar of his best everyday suit.
There was a rat infestation in the common spaces of the cultists. Ted, going against his own wishes, decided to get some cats. He dreaded the moment when he would get attached to the animals.
Cats only lived for a maximum of twenty or thirty years, after all, and Ted, he intended to live forever. That was a recipe for heartbreak.
Ted installed a set of harsh rules about the cats in the heads of the cultists, elevating the animals far above the regular human beings that the members still were. He kind of implied that the punishment for harming a cat or a kitten would be a gruesome, slow death.
Luckily, there were enough animal-friendly people in the Society that this was explained away as Ted being the most charitable person in the entire country.
The next thing on his list was fooling the recovering addicts. Of course, saying that there could be heightened mental and spiritual states on the path through the Society was not an outright lie by any means. Ted merely had to cause a few hallucinations that seemed benign enough to act as embellishments of what was essentially becoming a slaughterhouse of souls.
It was funny that souls had been doubted for so long. For the last fifty years or so, it had been a staple in occult literature to at least mention the certainty of such a thing existing. The trinity doctrine of the soul was still going on strong, and Ted thought it had been valid since the beginning of time. He did not see why earlier witches and occultists had ever thought otherwise.
As to what happened after the sacrifice of ten thousand souls – well, that was something Ted had debated with himself, Eknie, and, lately, a particularly calm white cat.
Everything seemed to be going just fine for a while. Ted was still on his toes. He couldn't allow his concentration to be divided, the cult was his lifeline now and he fully intended to get ahead of the schedule.
The paperwork was still waiting to be done, though.
Ted arranged a meeting with a familiar tax man who had always been very lenient in most things. He let his servants make the special coffee he reserved for the most dignified guests. He would meet Lacksman in his own, cozy manor, that would establish a nice and familiar connection.
"Is it a…sorry, cor, I don't quite understand the fine details. The name sounds like it is indeed a society, not any religious organization or a company."
The man rolled a cinnamon bun on his plate. It caught the fine sugar on its sticky surface. Both of the men would need to wash their hands after this – the delicious buns were the good stuff that had the gooey substance on the surface, that special sugar icing that all bakers worth their bread put over their buns.
"Honestly, I was more concerned with actually helping people than fitting into a specific category." Ted chomped on the bun. "But you're right, dear Lacksman, this is a social organization that hopefully brings some benefits to all members of Neulian society, not only our members."
"Of course. I think that's what we all want to promote. Too much selfishness in the world, don't want to add to it." Lacksman moved his elbows around, seemingly uncertain of the proper place to rest them on. Putting them on the table was out of question in the manor of a fine cor, but he was dressed in an obviously tight suit that looked to be close to ripping apart in some positions.
"But is that all you seek to get from this endeavor?" the tax man asked.
"I don't have much need for money…but I can reveal our ultimate goal to you. It is simply to make sense of the dangerous storms surrounding the Fin."
"A noble cause in itself. Tell me, cor Tobias, how about you make an airship or a ship that can fare those storms, and then claim the colony? Governor Tobias? Would that be bad? And…what's more important to me…will you remember your friends once the colony is wealthy and well again?"
Ted smirked. He lived for moments like this one, when the supposedly virtuous came crawling to him, begging to be bribed, begging to be remembered in a positive light, although Ted did not much like to think of light as a positive force any longer.
"That is a given, my dear Lacksman. That's a given."
That was it, and the Society received some mighty reductions in the taxes Ted started paying from the membership fees. Of course, it was not very nice to have to pay those taxes at all, but the reality was like that – he had to induce that logical fallacy of earlier investments, collecting fees was a good way of doing just that, and collecting money from people happened to be of some interest to the tax man.
The next visitor Ted received was much more interesting.
Eknie drove a steam car into the yard, accompanied by an exotically dark man with a strong, angular face and folds over his eyelids. He was holding a pair of eyeglasses in his hands as he came to meet Ted, but he did not seem to need them. Maybe they were for reading. His heavy suitcases suggested a strong presence of books and papers in his life.
"Professor Madorn," the man introduced himself. "Maxim Madorn, but they call me Mad."
"Will I be able to find out why?" Ted inquired with a smile that felt surprisingly genuine on his face. "If that is not too personal."
"I am not sure if you want to know everything about that right away, cor. I have heard of the Society. I happen to have a passion for steam and storms. And meteorology. And machines."
"Give your suitcases to my servants, Professor Madorn. You have many passions. I have a lot of work for a passionate man."