Dominion of Men

Hello, dear reader. I write to you today to tell you a strange tale, a truth much stranger than those Lovecraftian fictions to which you are accustomed; indeed, Chtulu would seem ever more docile in contrast to the story I bring you today. You see, many years ago, there was born a child; a boy, healthy and strong, and a gift to his mother. He was always ahead of his peers, being the first among the neighborhood children to walk, at the age of 9 months, and speaking by 14. The boy was a prodigy, and grew fast and strong, becoming a notable and powerful young man. Through diligence and hard work, he came into his own, forming the connections that gave him the run of his fair city, run down though it was. And yet, there was an oddity about him, something remarkable and yet, oddly, entrancing. This man, who, among his friends was known as Brutus, possessed a pair of horns. They protruded from either side of his brow, and had the texture of an elephant's tusk. There was a steep curve to them, and always were they hot, as though they were laid upon a stovetop at full boil. His family, nor his friends, never understood where this deformation was inherited from, and none among the general populous could begin to make sense of it. Certainly no children had poked fun at young Brutus; he had always been of a decidedly muscular stature, and had towered above his peers all throughout his school years. What they had all noticed, however, was a peculiar habit, or rather, eccentricity, that he could never seem to break: when he spoke, he would touch each hand to like sided horn, and lightly grasp it until he was finished. Even his first word, "Mum", saw this action performed, and it perplexed even the most gifted of psychiatrists and assorted quacks.  Would that they had known it's dark power, the boy would not have reached 13; his compulsion was in fact a gift from the Dark Lord himself, Lucifer. This gift, the gift of mental dominion, unwittingly gave Brutus domination over the lesser minds of those around him. Anything he had ever wanted, needed, or begged for, he had always gotten. His connections in the city's political body always did as he asked, doing his bidding for nothing more than a pat on the back. One man, who shall remain anonymous here, described his influence as "... a fire lit in your heart, telling you to do as he asks, as your body moves against your will, not unlike being pulled along by a rope".

Such favor, caused by the dark energy in his horns, and channeled through his hands, spoiled Brutus, and as spoiled children are wont to do, began to hoard for himself. Entire fundraisers, and the whole of the city's taxes, went solely to his bank account; here was funded a statue in his name, there a mansion, and so forth. The city became decrepit and disease ridden; children dying in the streets, wild dogs feeding upon their carcasses as drunken fathers raped their daughters and condemned building fell on the homeless. Mortgages were increased, the banks having been bought by Brutus himself, and 90% of the population was thrown from their homes, forced to get their sustenance from the rotting gutters of a dying town. For 33 years this went on, day after day the city howling, not unlike wolves in the hunt. And so it came to pass that at 6 P.M. on the 6th day, of the 6th month, Lucifer himself appeared on Brutus' golden doorstep, disguised, as it were, as an out of town salesman. There he was invited into the parlor, where the two sipped on chardonnay as laughter filled the air. After many hours of reckless celebration, after the smoke from  the Turkish cigars had begun to clear the air, the Satanic carpetbagger let loose rumors that, underneath the all the brick and mortar streets, below the concrete jungle and the urban squalor, lay a vast ocean of gold. In fact, there lay enough gold to, said he, to buy oneself an entire continent. Brutus (having discovered his power over lowly humans) spoke to him, asking how he might obtain this ocean of gold, rubbing his horns as he did so, the air above them coming nearly to a boil. Lucifer played to his creation's power, and spake of entirely annihilating  the city, a task that could never be performed in a single lifetime. Brutus could not believe that such wealth could lay beneath him, and yet be unreachable by even him. Using  his seeming dominion over his alleged salesman friend, he asked if there was not some way to reach this gold. Yes, was the scheming reply, it could be attained through a drilling machine,4 miles tall and 2 miles at its base. Brutus was not phased. The money was readily available, said he, but what fuel should be used, and when can I start? The clever Daemon looked into Brutus' eyes, then to his horns, exerting his own powerful dominion through them, and spoke: "Not so quickly, good sir. You cannot use just any fuel. There is but one substance on this rocky ball of dust and water that burns slow and strong enough to power such a machine, and it is neither a precious mineral or expensive coal. This source is common and cheap; you own more than you know what to do with. Such a machine is fueled by feeding the people to furnace, my friend." And with that, he turned and bound out the door, leaping into a well bound to his fiery throne deep under the surface.



It is needless to say that Brutus did indeed build such a machine; in fact, he built it much larger. He continued drilling for the rest of his 200 years, but never finding his payoff, continued drilling the planet, modifying it to continue even after his death, so that his heirs might reap the rewards. The infernal machine incinerated such a number of people, and in fact, all life on the planet, that the fumes choked all the oxygen from the atmosphere, finally releasing into space some millions of years later.



This planet is known to you as Mars.