Shape of Things to Come Part 3:Seeds of Time Chapter 27 ‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts' ...William Shakespeare. As You Like It

Demondom’s recognition of the success of the Briareos and his allies San Francisco battles, and the related battles and riots that followed in England and India had many consequences for the Source, Tempus, Briareos himself and his allies and indeed the way Evil, and Good, would function in this new age of Evil.

To maintain their status both Briareos and the Brotherhood had to pretend to the demonic world that the San Francisco battle was a great victory when in truth, it did not eliminate any witches, and many demons and their grunts were sent to the wasteland after the attack. In truth the only victory from the battle was the damage done to the Charmed Ones’s Power of Three. Luckily for Briareos, the whole of the demon realms, indeed all the nearer earth magic realms, actually shook as the spirit winds morphed into an out-of-control hurricane when Power of Three, or as some said, parts of the Power of Three of the Charmed Ones was ripped from them. Although the hurricane only lasted for seconds, demons who had fought the Charmed Ones and lost brethren and kin to them openly rejoiced and saluted the new demon Briareos on his achievements. There were feasts in many of their halls and lairs as demons everywhere contemplated the possibility, perhaps the probability, of the fall of the accursed witches.

Furthermore, those servants of Evil who reported to Tempus about affairs in the realms of Good were able to inform their master that its leaders were in a state of something like panic, at the fracture of the Power of Three. For demons frustrated by Tempus slow and careful policy since he took power, there was now hope that the constant loss since the Charmed Ones had arisen, was over. Tempus, aided this belief in his sly and cunning way, by being effusive in his approval of the results of the San Francisco battle, although a few older, wiser, and more cynical demons thought the praise was out of proportion to the actual gains for Evil.

However, whilst Briareos and the Brotherhood were receiving demondom’s acclaim over what were less than successful battles, those demons that did the fighting, Briareos’ first demonatrix ally the Amniga fared very badly from it all. The accolades from the demon world, finally brought understanding to the Amniga, that their alliance with Briareos and the Brotherhood was not one of equals. During the chaotic battle at the San Francisco university they provided the vanquish fodder as the Charmed Ones and their acolytes vanquished many of the upper-level demons of the Amniga sect and their minions. Within hours of the San Francisco battle, Briareos, or perhaps in truth Elisheeva, then ordered the Amniga to send their remaining darklighters, trackers and sniffers to fight in two more battles, in India and England. And the results of these battles were also not happy ones for the Amniga themselves.

Indeed, the Amniga fared very badly in the Indian battles. What was supposed to be a witch massacre in several northern Indian University campuses, a massacre planned to instigate similar events at other universities, was turned into a demon massacre. Certainly, Briareos and Elisheeva could and did claim a victory in India, as seven witches and three whitelighters were lost, but Evil had planned the loss of many more. The failure was most likely, although this was not admitted by any demons, due to some excellent and effective planning by some minion of Good, most probably a whitelighter, who organised the Indian witches using a battle plan that protected many of them and for which Evil had no defence except sacrificing more minions.

Due to this strategy, the demonatrix sect the Amniga lost the largest part of their grunt forces, to no real gain for them. In desperation because there were large numbers of witches present and they needed obvious results, the Amniga had been forced to sacrifice their lost souls. The lost souls had been killed in such a way that the witches should have been in great peril with the mortal legal system. Only to the despair of the Amniga leaders that did not happen because somehow or other, the body count after the massacre became less, and any evidence that mortal authorities could use to identity individual witches as being responsible for the deaths was corrupted.

The English battles the Amniga fought were a direct consequence of Briareos and the Brotherhood’s previous actions when they had instigated a movement using Brotherhood grunts to create outrage for historical misdeeds in many educational institutions by ensuring that anyone, staff or student, who disputed the ideas they propagated were openly vilified in newspapers and other social media, pilloried so to speak. The demonatrix Amniga sects were then ordered to ensure riots occurred in some of the university towns, where many people were arrested and mortal adherents of all extreme opinions were charged and pilloried in the same courts.

The demon Elisheeva then ordered some Amniga shaker demons to trap and badly injure some witches in what was designated in the newspapers and media as a student protest about these outrages. The witches were killed but the shakers were also lost in the crossfire. These efforts had also resulted in four more whitelighters, sent to support their charges before ‘up there’ was locked down, being attacked and destroyed by Amniga darklighters although it cost the demonatrix sect the last of their darklighter minions.

Even more successfully, for demondom, the impact of the Amniga shakers on the protests was put down to violence by the students, and all participants in the battle including witches, were being held legally liable. More Amniga lost souls were sacrificed to make the legal culpability of the participants more damning but this was whispered, around demondom, as a failure because the evidence against the witches deemed responsible for of the deaths was lost before the legal authorities could act. A failing that Elisheeva and Briareos were happy to inform Tempus was the fault of the Amniga leaders.

Tempus greeted news of the battle losses, and the reality of the less than successful outcomes of the battles with a sly primness. This attitude was recognised by some upper-level demons, as meaning the Source was very pleased to find an excuse get rid of ancient demon factions who had not been wholly committed to his support, so he was not to concerned of the lack of real gains. The Source then confirmed this by wiping out the demonatrix Amniga leaders who were foolishly present at his court, and then he banished the Amniga who had wisely stayed away, leaving the cult to share the same fate as the Renove allies of Briareos.

Tempus then took the powers and resources of the Amniga and distributed them to the Briareos/Brotherhood alliance, so pleased with the results of the battles he only kept about a third of the powers for himself. To the satisfaction of the Brotherhood who hated Amniga and the anger of Briareos other ally, the scribes of the Agures who tried to claim the victories were only possible because of their information, and then shrivelled away when Tempus cynically asked “Victory?”

Because Darklighters and their acolytes with their cults and rituals, had become an intolerable burden to his new Evil order, the demonatrix Amniga’s downfall then inspired Tempus to rid himself of one of the greatest hindrances to his total control of Evil. Rather than worship the Source as was expected of demons, darklighters worshiped their own power as a spiritual entity, whilst possessing an extreme hatred of lesser cults like the Brotherhood that merely worshipped the power of the Source for their own advancement.

In the last five hundred years, darklighter’s ability to control magic through taunting the angels of Good had made them legendary and Tempus was determined to free himself from their influence. They were so powerful that the last Source had to humour their legend, bow to their role, and protect their interests because they had been the first line of protection against Angels of Good.

However, over the last decades the darklighter legend had fractured. By the time Tempus came to power they were almost a medieval anachronism. Indeed, thanks to the efforts of the Charmed Ones, the mythology of darklighter invincibility had disintegrated. These efforts were aided by Good acquiring some vital information about darklighter vulnerabilities traded by seemingly mortals, who were actually lost souls and grunts of sects that were the enemies of the darklighters. Therefore, basic whitelighter training now included detailed instructions on how to avoid being followed by darklighters and darklighters were no longer feared by the minions of Good as they once had been.

A creature of time,Tempus understood changing eras and now intended to consign warrior darklighters to the status of forgotten legend. He aimed to replace them with more pragmatic, subtle and adaptable underlings who could fade into the mortal realms and more importantly, make sure he benefited from the Evil they created. It was just an extra benefit that Briareos battles gave Tempus the opportunity to sacrifice darklighter sects, destroy many orbing creatures of light and rendering others effectively impotent.

Tempus gained great satisfaction contemplating how through the simple expedient of sacrificing the demonic feudal cults of darklighters so revered by demons, Good could be intimidated. Tempus determined to extend the damage to Good while ridding himself of more demontrix. He therefore further rewarded Briareos and the Brotherhood for their deeds, by giving them stewardship over most of the demonatrix darklighter sects, effectively neutering darklighter masters. Tempus’ only condition in granting Briareos and his allies the services of the darklighter sects, including warriors and addendums such as trackers and sniffers, was that that they destroyed orbing creatures, not as individual warriors of legend but as vanquish fodder. He softened the blow to the demontrix sects by ordering a furious Briareos to risk himself by leading this army into battle.

Despite being forced to grovel at Tempus feet in gratitude for the honour, Briareos was not pleased to be identified as a field commander with the title’s accompanying risks. In his mortal life as Pope, Briareos had only taken to the battlefield when victory was assured, which was why he appeared to mock the Charmed Ones at San Francisco university. Nevertheless, he had no choice but to pretend to accede to Tempus demands.

In consequence, within a few short days, earth time, of the battles in India, Britain and San Francisco, Briareos alliance was no longer one where members had to be carefully nutured until he could take over their powers. His lair when he called his allies and cohorts together was awash with darklighters and their adherents, and he had at his call trackers and sniffers whose numbers were such he did not have to calculate how many he could afford to lose. And every one of them bitterly resented him, blamed him for their loss of status and would destroy him at the first opportunity.

With so many warrior types at their disposal the Brotherhood demon Elisheeva devised a plan to send legions of sniffers and trackers into the spirit winds to locate the pathways and eddies most often used by the Angels of Good in the Spirit Winds. Elisheeva then sent packs of darklighters to hang near Good’s known exits. These tactics meant that traversing the winds was still relatively safe for Good’s Angels and orbing creatures, but if they materialised anywhere that did not have demon blockers protecting them it could be lethal to them.

Even this did not occupy all the darklighters Briareos and his allies had at their disposal. Therefore, with less than perfect harmony Briareos and Elisheeva ordered darklighters into the near earthen realms to blockade ‘up there’ very close to the edges of territory forbidden to Evil. The darklighters masters were so confused by their loss of status, they did not know how to resist the orders given to them under the authority of the Source, and they obeyed.

This strategy worked for some days as some orbing creatures including those from ‘higher up’ who risked leaving the safety of blocked realms were taken out, including a few of their oldest and greatest. Good therefore became more determined to hide behind their blockades and not venture into neutral territory, something heralded as a great victory amongst the ranks of Evil and increasing Briareos status.

Thus, despite the highly dubious outcomes of Briareos battles, the events led demondom to destroying many of Good’s orbers. These included, to the joy of Evil, an ancient venerable who by the force of his personality and the dominance of his legend had, in the opinion of Evil, and some minions of Good, held far too much leeway defining the role of the Powers that Be, of witches, and other magic creatures of the earthen realms. The Great One had been caught traversing one of the adjacent realms by orbing. However, although Tempus nor Briareos nor the Brotherhood admitted it, the cost to Evil was extreme because at the loss of a Great One, the warrior Archangels, decreed the demons had intruded intro sacrosanct Good space and on the advice of the Guardians Arturo and Durand, deeming it strategically necessary to protect the Great Ones by driving the barricaders to the edge of the neutral realms.

Once archangels intervened to protect territory declared to belong to Good by those who oversaw the balance, Evil’s success of the first few days against the orbing creatures was not, of course, repeated to the same extent. However so determined were the leaders of the earthen realms of Good to protect themselves and their immediate territories by maintain its barricades, Evil soon discovered they were prepared to sacrifice witches and other mortal adherents of magic. Thus, many of the sects of Evil, even those not allied with Briareos, were able to take advantage of unprotected and unguided mortals while the whitelighters who would have healed and guided them, remained hidden away in their realms. Additionally, clever demons such as the members of the Brotherhood, particularly following Elisheeva’s advice, used the time to recruit lost souls and infiltrate more and more of their grunts into mortal institutions and businesses, setting themselves up for the greatest gains and advances to be had when the barricades would be lowered and Good would emerge.