Meanwhile, Mantis and friends found an increased religiousness in the people of their nation. The Talals were supposed to be the goddess’s most fervent followers and the elites of her military force. Yet, eliminating them did not seem to have the least effect on the goddess, the Zealots, or their activities.
The Zealots preached the dignity, beauty, and might of the goddess to increase her following.
Other religions were declared heretical by state edict! Everyone openly practising one of these heretic faiths was brutally and publicly dismembered. Their gods were either exiled or, in cases where they were not able to flee, sealed away.
Executive power had recently been stripped from martial clans and schools. Instead, the queen had founded the Moralice, a religious police force true to the queen's agenda. Most of the martial clans and schools would be forced to either join this newfound organisation or run the risk of going bankrupt. Only a few powerful martial organisations could get by with other jobs or had enough funds to observe the situation for the time being.
The many merchant guilds and labour guilds were put under increased pressure and threats to join up and form a single guild under the umbrella of the queen’s religion. This massive organisation was often only called The Queen’s Guilt.
It was not unheard of that some more defiant guild leader supposedly vanished overnight.
A new class of priests was roaming the cities, able to talk in the voice of their goddess, and imprint images of her glamour unto the congregation. The general masses coined the term Chosen for these culters.
The few diplomatic ties the nation had, to other states and tribes were broken.
The queen had even built ten militaristic outposts to further isolate the nation.
Each day more and more civilians joined the queen’s religion helping her in her quest to become the only revered being in the region. Few out of love for the queen, some out of approval for her values, but most joined out of fear for economic ruin or physical pain.
This increased the pressure on the politicians and military personnel to adapt. Else they would have to fear to be next on the chopping block.
On the other hand, the rebelling, talal-sealing organisation had not been inactive either. Thus, there were not many active Talals left within the borders of the nation. In their stead, there was a nice collection of stones and monoliths in one of Bae’s pocket-dimension.
One of the remaining Talals was proclaimed leader of the Moralice and the other stood as the head of The Queen’s Guilt. These two were so well defended any assassination attempt on them would be sure to end in failure.
As things stood the rebels had to admit defeat. They would not be able to dethrone the goddess.
“Fuck!” a woman cried out while sitting in a lavishly decorated cave “How did this crazy bitch manage to consolidate that much power in just a few short years?”
“I am starting to think that Bae may have been right! maybe I am simply inferior in strategizing. I was unable to do anything against that woman!” after a long sigh, Mellde answered the question in a depressed tone.
“That is not at all true! You are a military tactician, while the goddess is using political and social tactics!” The Traitor, a male senior citizen, tried to console the martial and best tactical mind in the room.
“Your words are empty! As every tactician and every strategist in history could tell you, no war is won without the support of the people! And despite that, for the longest time, I turned a blind eye to the queen’s accomplishments!” she refused the encouraging words, in a very angry tone.
“Calm down, Mel! Enstarin wanted to be nice, he wasn’t asking for a deathmatch!” Drane called the strong woman out on having adopted the wrong tone.
“Yes, I am sorry! It is just so depressing! I could massacre a whole town and still have left-over resentments!” the woman did not sound sorry at all, instead she sounded angry.
“How about we do?” Ella suggested: “It’s not like many of the people living there are on our side anyways!”
“I have a better idea!” after taking multiple deep breaths Enstarin offered them a better use for their excess energy: “How about we help those unwilling to bow to the queen in fleeing the grasp of Zealots!”
“And how do you want to do that? It’s not like there is a city left within the nation, meeting this condition!” after a short sarcastic laugh, that obviously wanted to be a snort but wasn’t, the other male at the table enquired.
“I surely told you about the military outposts that were constructed around the nation! Haven’t I?” getting some affirmative murmurs, grumbling and nodding he continued: “So you know that they are all led by a talal, that their main reason for existence is to store the military, and that they are massive?”
“Yeah ok! I get your point; you can stop now!” the male exclaimed, not even trying to hide his annoyance and disgruntlement.
“But how do you want to find out who is worth taking away? Not trying to sound like a bitch, I am simply asking how you want to find out if they even want to leave their homes! And on the other hand, how do you want to make sure that they are not spies!” Drane, the female Coordinator, asked a question, but while voicing it realised how it sounds and explained her intentions.
“I have thousands of spies all over the place! And should they fail, there are still the Siepers to check on the refugees' loyalties!” the politician answered diligently.
“If you have so many spies how is it that you did not warn us about the massive shift happening within the nation?” the Coordinator complained.
“Didn’t I do exactly that just earlier?” Enstarin argued defensively.
“Yeah, now that it is too late!” Drane admonished The Traitor.
“It is too late because these things have begun!” the politician tried to remain calm, but if one listened attentively, they would hear the subtle aggression in his words. This aggression got increasingly more obvious as he continued: “It’s not as if the citizens knew about these changes in advance!”
“So, you are telling me all of this happened over the last few days?” the coordinator voiced her disbelief in a tone that made her aversions to the man abundantly clear.
“Yes! And I am sick of constantly having my loyalties questioned! Since I am physically here, the Siepers would know right away!” The Traitor tried to argue his innocence.
“Which one of these outposts do you suggest we take?” having decided that the two had bickered enough Mellde changed the subject before the two could hijack the discussion completely.
“The most south-western one! Us loyalists still have a lot of friends among the desert-tribes! And if we are lucky, we may be able to negotiate the founding of a new nation around a handful of fountains!” the politician explained his idea.
“And you really think they would agree to let us permanently occupy a fountain?” the other man spat his reply, pushing as much contempt into his voice as possible.
“The argument may be valid but watch your tone!” the female martial showed a scary face while talking in a sweet and innocent voice.
“If the incentive is strong enough, yes!” upon being once again reminded what true terror means, the politician answered in a most virtuous manner before explaining the incentive he had in mind: “I want to have them join us! Not just in settling but also in administration and leadership!”
“Do you know how many batteries and syphons our dear queen stationed there?” ignoring most of the conversation, the martial asked the last important question.
“My data on this is inconclusive! But from what I know there should be about five to ten each in every outpost!” The Traitor informed the assembled leadership of their little rebellion of his best guess “They are meant to watch over an army after all!”
“Fine then, Mr Traitor! While you prepare to start sending civilians into Fort –“ the civilised martial began to announce the conclusion of this meeting.
“ZraKi, named after the talal holding it! She is a hybrid of ArmyBuider and MindFucker! As all of these fort holding ones seem to be!” unwilling to anger the terrifying woman, the politician answered in an extensive yet concise manner
“we will conquer it.” Mellde ended her sentence and with it the meeting.
And so, the rebels shifted their efforts to funnelling heretics, gods, and like-minded out of the nation.
While the bulk of their army was distributed among the twelve cities, a small team was sent out to scout the situation at fort ZraKi.
In the cities, the rebels started to calm down the general population, in an attempt to minimise casualties over the next few days. This, however, did not go ahead without a few scrimmages against Zealots.
The scouting-squad on the other hand soon confirmed that the structure in front of them was a prison, rather than a fort.
Ino the Coordinator, was mentally connected to Halv the Sieper; Josy, a Mind-Mage specialised in collecting intel about energies; and five Martials led by the Martial Mnight Wran.
As Josy found out that the whole thing was a giant creature, all of the connected team-members immediately knew as well.
The next thing Josy found out was that most of the inhabitants of the prison were close to death and that everyone struggling with this condition was either a soldier or an officer. Her best guess was that the massive prison-creature was feeding on the soldiers.
As the outpost had not even been manned for a hundred days, it was inconceivable that the condition of the soldiers could be explained by any other natural phenomenon.
Despite the massive size of the structure, Josy found that the few thousand soldier-signals were all close together.
These soldiers were all separated by organic structures, it was likely that despite their close proximity to each other not one of them was able to interact with another.
Aside from the area, the soldiers resided in the structure was filled with all kinds of organic structures and organs. There was not a lot of unoccupied room.
The formation crept closer. While the two mind-mages and the coordinator stayed close together the five martials were tasked with protecting the three from any potential dangers.
Two Martials were each carrying one of the mind-mages, another two were protecting the formation’s flanks and attentively observing the surroundings, while the Knight was leading the way.
Coming closer the Sieper Halv confirmed that most of the dying ones were fervent supporters of the queen-mother. And even most, of those not yet dying, were true to her cause.
There was in fact just one single signal loyal to the hated goddess.
Analysing the energy-signature of the being giving off that signal resulted in a mixture of many different energies. But what gave the creature away as a Talal of the goddess was the high amount of divine energy it contained.
The nonexistence of syphons was confirmed by the lack of beings other than the imprisoned and the talal.
With this information, the last thing the team had to find out was the amount and location of the batteries.
This was not at all easy as the batteries were of the mindless variant.
It took Josy multiple hours of observation to figure out the flow of energy around the prison.
But once she did, there was no denying it. As part of the prison-structure, there were hundreds of pieces constantly sucking in energy from the surroundings. Effectively making the prison itself the only battery present.
After collectively agreeing that they got everything they needed, what followed was a quick retreat.
After having returned from the scouting mission the coordinator reported the team’s findings to the mind-mage of the rebel’s leadership.
“Meaning our friendly Traitor once again gave us bad intel, who would have thought!” the man voiced his anger.
“Sir, at least it means that civilians would be unlikely to have a pleasant experience living there.” the coordinator offered her opinion, neither knowing what exactly the mind-mage was referring to nor willing to badmouth any of her superiors.
“In case we were to free the soldiers, what is your verdict about their suitability for combat?” voicing but this one inquiry on the scouting report the man turned his back to his subordinate.
“They are unlikely to be of help, but freeing them may very well reduce the amount of energy the enemy has at her disposal!” having to deny the inquiry, the coordinator offered another reason why freeing the soldiers may be a good idea.
“Great, just great! You are dismissed!” the mind mage was not at all pleased with the reply he had gotten.
After sending the woman away, the rebel-leader briefly thought about simply killing Enstarin, but as every day postponed the idea. He would have to wait! At least until the rest of Kini’s church was in safety from the queen’s crazy followers.
After finishing this routine he kicked at the black sphere in the room.
“The meeting has been scheduled! It will take part in two and a half hours!” the sphere answered his abuse in his own voice.
“Do you want to mock me? It has already been two hours since I requested a meeting! You know what, I am not going to wait for another two hours!” after getting angry at the inanimate, non-responding object the mind-mage went to see if one of his wives had time for him.
