MoneyB and his friends were gathered over a cup of tea when the latest what if discussion came up.
"So, if you get to be a Elector Count of the empire in Warhammer, but the downside is that you have a chaos cultist hounding your tail. Would you accept?"
"Sure, half of the EC already have a cultist cell after then, and while Warhammer suck it would suck less for an EC."
"Oh, that is no ordinary cultist cell, it's a.... mmm... Oh, a former EC who fell to chaos and now is trying to kill you."
"Well that is more problematic, does that mean that we at least have a record of him and his possible character before he fell to chaos, giving that he was a family member?"
"No no... he... he is from another province"
"what the hell them? why does he care about us?"
"I don't know, something about him blaming you for his family fall, look his reasons doesn't matter, would you take the deal?"
"Sure, seems worth it, just double the guards and we should be fine, right guys? It's not like a chaos conspiracy is anything new in the setting"
"Nope, you die. He got blessing from his dark patrons that allow him to subvert and bypass your guard"
"Fine, so we will ask the priests for help, they should be able to counter that, no?"
"Nope, dead again, normal priests are not enough against a favored agent of the dark gods, and a former EC will most certainly be."
"wait, which Province are we ruling? can we pick and choose? I always wanted to live in Talabecland."
"You and your hunting habits... fine we are ruling Tabaecland."
"Wait guys, doesn't Talabecland have that Taal blessed river? shouldn't that help against demons"
"It would, but it is not strong enough against those merely blessed and mutated by Chaos, you are dead again."
"Can't we just put a bounty on his head? let the underworld sort it out"
"Dead again. He is too sneaky for that, they can't find him. beside it is not like the bounty hunters could help you against his ritual"
"Wait a second, what ritual? didn't you say he does that as some weird twisted up revenge against our family?"
"ahm... sure, but he also dedicate the murders to the dark gods, something about a symbolic gesture of how his own family fell. Seems appropriate for a follower of the dark gods."
"Couldn't you have mentioned it at the beginning? if there is a ritual involved can't we just call in the wizards? which of the orders were the anti demons again?"
"that would be the Lights, and yeah you should have told us it was a ritual at the beginning, we can just request a Light Wizard that specialize in Wards to help defend us. No need to go find the cultist if he can't get near us to do the ritual, and then all that is left is to wait for the Dark Gods to turn him into a Chaos Spawn for failing to dedicate the murders."
"Nope again, you die. the cultist manage to catch one of you when out of sight of the Light Wizard. you are a big family, and some of the members are too decadent to stay under the disapproving gaze of a Wizard for weeks to pass without indulging in one vice or another."
"Wait. didn't you say we are swapping in as the Elector Count, are we him or the entire goddamn family branch?"
"This is not relevant, point is the Light Wizard can't stop him, what do you do?"
"Goddamn goal shifting bastard, fine. We do all the previous options together, double the guards, call in the priests. go take a sweet vacation in the Taal river summer palace, and give the Light Wizard enough time to ward that place till kingdom comes. There, let hi choke on that."
"You know MoneyB will just say that the cultist pull a demon out of his ass or something, like the last time he gave us a stupid hypotiesis choice. I'm still angry about that stupid Dor-Cum Fiasco."
"goddamn Dor-Cum..."
"Fine. If going defensive won't work, we need to go on the offence. Doesn't the Wizards have their own shadow mages? they should be able to fight the cultist in his own game, I think it was the Black Magisters."
"No, that is the outcast wizards, and could be a solid back up plan, if we find one not tainted by Chaos. What you are thinking about is the Grey Order."
"Cool, so we get one of those to go ham on the city next time the Cultist try and make a move."
"You don't actually know when he is going to strike next."
"Shush it. You told us he was was killing us like his own family was killed, and they were also an EC family, that murders should be public enough that we will know when he strikes next."
"That was covered up by the witch hunters."
"Grey Wizard trump that, Article 15 in your face"
"Fine, Grey Wizard find the date, and also that one of you will die choking on fish bones. Then what?"
"He could move over the city and try and find the Mutant, no taksies backsies, you mentioned it during the whole Taal river part."
"Over the whole city?, no way, the city is too big"
"Smoke and Mirrors"
"And what, spent the entire day chain casting it?"
"Yes!, it's the bloody wizards. One of them should be crazy enough to have tried it."
"Fine. He turns his beard into smoke but manage to do it. But he still can't be at all places."
"That is why he called in the Longshanks, all they need is to cordon off the city and that should make the whole search easier."
"Ahm... well the city defenses are not good enough to be able to cordon off the whole city, so all you got is the cultist going where there is no blockage."
"And doesn't the Grey Wizard find him?"
"The cultist also has witchsight, so he can see the Wizard teleporting around all the city and he use a carriage to hide his features."
"Ah, at this point means he is inside a carriage and going to one of the the few places where there is no Witch Hunters cordon, meaning the other Grey Wizard can find him easily."
"Wait. What other Grey Wizard?"
"The one we also hired"
"You can't hire two Grey Wizards!"
"Fine, she came to help us out of some weird secret imperial grey wizardness reasons, and decide to wack the cultist out of some weird grey wizardness. Maybe she hates his family or something."
"His family has been extinct for decades."
"A very long ago something, look the Greys are weird, even the official supplements say that, they have a former Magister Patriarchs who likes to hang out in the Moot with halfings and smoke pipes or something."
"...How in the hells do you know so much about Warhammer and still can't catch a lord of the rings reference is beyond me..."
"Wait, is that what his stupid deal was, that can't be right. They called him Olórin, not some weird Gandalf proxy name like they do to all the other stupid pop culture characters... Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Alright guys, enough about LOTR, you still haven't explained to me how you got two Grey Wizards"
"I don't know, he is her dad or something"
"...Fine, so this second Grey Wizard manage to find the carriage that the cultist is in then what?"
"If we kill him does his cell of contact keep trying to hunt us down?"
"No, just him."
"We blow him up."
"...This is Grey Wizard, not a Bright Wizard. those are the ones that deal in explosions. Beside it is the middle of the city."
"Fine, she commissioned an artifact from the Brights, A Dragonbottle or something. And this is the first time she get to use it so she doesn't really care about a few burned city stalls."
"Won't work. the cultist is protected by an artifact."
"Goddamnit, she wacks him with a big sword, would that work?"
"She is a Wizard, they don't do Greatsword, beside still won't work. the Artifacts and spells he have protect him"
"Wasn't it just an Artifact"
"No, Both."
"Fine, if he get to be loaded up then so can she, she got a big magic sword that dispel all enchantments and deactive protective artifacts. Would that work?"
"From where the heck will she get a sword like that?"
"I dunno, the dwarves or something. You always did harp about that Dwarf Runes are sheer bullshit, like that one time you mentioned an automatically recalled ballistae bolt."
"Fine, but how would she get the sword, those kind of runes are reserved to the dwarves."
"They do have a history of giving cool shit for humans, like Ghal Maraz and the Runefangs."
"I don't see any Everchosen for her to stomp on to get that kind of shit."
"Look, if you can pull weird shit then so can we. She got her cool magic sword from a cool friendly Runelord for reclaiming the cool dwarfhold, I don't know lets go with Karak Eight Peaks. And she goes in after spotting the cultist and wacks him and all his bullshit with her very nifty Greatsword and dispel all his buffs while he is unaware because she is a Grey Wizard and that is how they roll. Now, would that finally stop that accursed cultist and end this stupid what if question you had us going on for the last fifteen minutes?"
"...It was a decoy cultist."
