God Rising: The Cult of Ainz

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

...Wenmark...

They woke at the same time the next morning shortly before sunrise when CZ returned to them through the gate. "Lord Ainz will see you now." She said abruptly.

Neia didn't waste a moment's time, if Lord Ainz said now, then now it was. She leapt out of bed and charged through the gate, immediately kneeling before the throne as soon as she came close to it's bottom step.

"Eeeehhhh!" His mouth dropped open, and beside him, both Albedo's and Shalltear's fists clenched in a rage. Neia kept her eyes down, "I come at my lord's command." Neia said.

"Miss Baraja, why are you in your night clothes?" Ainz asked in surprise.

Neia kept her eyes down, "I was told, my lord, that you would see me now, that left me no time to change."

"Miss Baraja, you may return to your room and... dress properly. When I said 'now' I did not mean you had to appear in your night clothes. From now on whenever I say 'now' please know that this includes enough time for you to be bathed and dressed. If I truly do not have time for you to do that, then I will say I wish to see you urgently." Ainz said, and Neia nodded in embarrassment.

"As you say, my lord. I will return hastily." She said and rushed back through the open gate to her quarters.

"Excuse me, my lord." Albedo said.

"As you wish, Albedo." Ainz replied.

"And I, my lord." Shalltear said, to which Ainz nodded.

The pair walked out of the throne room briefly, and Ainz heard several loud thuds and a pair of shrieks, and then Albedo and Shalltear returned looking as demure as they had minutes earlier. "Apologies, my lord, we seem to have hit the wall." Albedo said.

"You are both alright?" Ainz asked with concern.

"We are." Shalltear replied.

Demiurge, Sebas, and Cocytus shared a knowing look, while Mare and Aura glanclooked confused at eachone another, slightly confused.

After a short time, Neia returned bathed and fully dressed, and again presented herself to the throne.

"Now," Ainz said, "What is it my loyal Pope asks of me today?"

Neia then relayed to Ainz all she'd learned of the city of Wenmark, and some of what she said reminded Ainz all too much of the horrible world from which he came, and the suffering his own mother had to endure, and he found himself grateful for his emotional dampener.

"Would you have me rain fire on the city then?" He asked.

"I do not ask that of the king of kings, of the god of justice, you are rightful ruler of all the world, and so I would never ask you to do something in contradiction to your justice." Neia said, calling upon all her skill as an orator as she prepared to make her case.

"What do you truly want?" He asked, "And how can it benefit my kingdom to do it?"

Neia silently made a mental note to express her gratitude to CZ for telling her to prepare for that question.

"My lord, I want you to take the slaves away, starting with all the elves, but truthfully many of the humans as well." Neia said.

"And the benefit to my nation?" He asked.

"I am told that when your majesty won his great victory at the Battle of Katze Plains, many fools who did not know your magnanimity or your greatness chose to flee your wondrous rule in terror, and that many others were lost in the battle itself, this has left your state with too few people to work the land. If my lord takes away the elven slaves from Wenmark, and sets them free like the other demihumans, then you will gain the labor of the people, whom you may tax accordingly and increase your nation's power." Neia said.

Ainz looked over at Albedo. "What do you think?"

Albedo looked at Neia with an odd mix of annoyance and amusement, but after a bit she said, "The plan has merit."

"Demiurge, what do you say?" Ainz asked.

"I agree with Albedo, but I wonder about the cost." He said. "Taking them by theft... since these are technically citizens or resident aliens, or at least criminals under punishment in the city, taking them stealthily could be counted as an act of war and aggression, a mass kidnapping of a neighboring country's population. Buying them would probably be easy, however they would not likely sell all of them, and the cost would still be very high." He said.

Ainz stroked his jaw in thought, pretending to mull over their words while frantically trying to come up with an option that didn't make him look like an idiot. Frantically he sought to stall.

"Neia Baraja, I am inclined to agree with my advisers, however I must know how the elves themselves would feel about that, would they be willing to come to my nation at all? If I just took them, or if I bought them, they'd no doubt just see me as another master no better than their current situation, they'd never think of themselves as free, even if I declared them so."

Neia's heart beat faster at his considerate and gentle answer, and she was moved by his compassion, even thinking of their wellbeing in how they were liberated.

"I can't say, my lord. I had not considered it, forgive my negligence in investigating this subject." She stammered out, and he raised his skeletal hand to stop her.

"It’s alright, anyone can make a mistake." He said.

"Related to that, what do you know about what is going on in the rest of your country?" He asked.

"Little." She admitted. "I heard that a number of copies of our sacred text have been printed, they're holding off on officially giving one to the Holy King until they have enough to send copies out far and wide, and Robel has told me that won't be much longer."

"Then you have not heard." Ainz said.

"Not heard what, my lord?" Neia asked uncertainly.

"Your king has informed me that he intends to accept your faith after reading your sacred text, so long as it does not contain anything that would ruin his nation." Ainz said.

Neia's heart did joyful backflips in her chest and she could not keep her enormous smile back. "That is wonderful, Your Majesty."

"Agreed." Ainz said, "However, as you know, there is opposition to this and violence may occur. So this is my proposal. If the elven citizens are willing to fight for Black Justice should war break out, I will see them armed, equipped, and even trained, on the condition that afterwards they migrate to my Kingdom. If they agree, I will see to it that the ones who did them wrong are punished for their actions. If they are unwilling to do any of these things, I will conclude they have no interest in my support or in changing their circumstances, and I will leave them to whatever fate decrees thereafter."

Ainz waved his palm in front of himself and said, "Is this not reasonable?"

Neia held her smile. "It is all anyone could dream of my lord. I will find out what they have to say, and report back to you soon."

"Then you may go Neia, and I wish you luck, and please, be careful out there." Ainz said, and Neia's eyes welled up.

"I will, my lord, and thank you." She said and stepped through the gate again.

When Neia returned, CZ was at the table and Skana was just stepping out of the bath drying her hair. "How did it go?" Skana asked, and Neia's wide smile said plenty.

"Very well, thanks to CZ's advice." Neia said.

"No problem." CZ replied.

"So now what?" Skana asked.

"Now we wait for Illyana to return, I need her to get some questions out to the other elves, if they're willing, they've got a shot at getting out of this nightmare." Neia said, and just then there was a knock at the door. Neia opened it to find Illyana standing in front of it, eyes downcast, and Neia stepped aside and allowed her in. As soon as the door closed, Illyana looked up at her. Neia gestured to the table where she'd sat before.

"Please, sit. I have a proposal for you, and for all the elves of this city, will you hear me out?" Neia asked.

Illyana looked confused, but hesitant or not, she sat and as Skana dressed, Neia talked, and Illyana's eyes went wide as Ainz Ooal Gown's proposal was presented.

"So the only question is, are you willing to fight if you're given the means to win, and are you willing to leave here and go live in the country of your savior when the fighting is done?" Neia asked.

Illyana asked softly, "Could we truly have a chance?"

"You do." Neia said. "The training the Sorcerer King provided me and my people, as well as the equipment he provided to us, made us dangerous enough that we exterminated a scripture of the Slane Theocracy recently."

"It cost me this." Skana said, pointing to her eye, "But we won. And we won handily too." She finished.

"So the real question is, are we willing to kill humans, to be free of human abuse?" Illyana asked.

"Yes. That is about the size of it." Neia answered.

"I can only speak for myself, the underground has no governing power, they can't make decisions for other elves, but if your master provides us with what we need to fight, I think almost all of us will throw ourselves into his service with joy, if only for the real chance of taking one of these bastards down with us." Illyana said with a soft and menacing voice.

"Then go, carry word around to those who can leave the hotel, have them put feelers out, consider this room to be a place to operate out of." Neia said, and Illyana stood up again and took Neia's hands in hers, "For the first time since coming to this nightmare... I have hope for something other than death. Thank you." she said, and went out the door.

Neia stood up after Illyana left.

"Impressive." CZ said.

"No wonder you follow him." Skana said to them both, "That offer was inspired."

Neia and CZ gave her an almost perfectly synchronized nod.

"I have to go out, check our people, see if anyone left last night, and find out if Tinamoc needs anything, you two can relax here for now, I promise I won't go anywhere without you." Neia said with a grin, and walked out before they could protest.

Neia checked in with the party on watch in the lobby, only one group had signed out the previous day, and they'd come back in disgust, the rest had thought better of it and remained in their rooms. When she went to the formation, several of those reported 'buying' some of the elves they'd seen, and asked, to Neia's pride, how soon they could get them out of their chains and out of the city. It was pretty clear she was not the only one to feel the oppression of this place. Several others had asked for pay advances because they'd been sickened by what they saw and wanted to use their pay to free several of those they'd seen around the city, they heard a scream somewhere in the distance that punctuated their words, and they itched to draw weapons.

"Fight to win, not to die bravely." Neia said sharply. She hadfell the formation fall out and had them come close to her, and she whispered to one group after another that she had sought the aid of Ainz Ooal Gown, and that even while she was out here with them, elves were being questioned by a newly recruited agent within the hotel, if the elves were willing to fight, then Ainz was going to make them citizens of his country when everything was said and done.

That seemed to settle them down somewhat. "Return to the hotel for now. I'll let you go out in teams to 'buy' elves for the caravan, and I'll ask Tinamoc to give you advances on your pay or to let us borrow in exchange for payments from our temple's funds to cover the cost of loans."

There was some comfort in what Neia said, and her people filtered back to their rooms, they'd all found elves sent to their rooms as well, and there was a sickening general agreement that the city needed to burn. Neia wasn't about to talk them out of that.

When she made her way to the lobby, Tinamoc was waiting for her. "Let me guess, you need me?" Neia asked.

"Yes." He said.

"I'm going to be visiting the council, and it would help my presence to have you escort me." He said.

Neia gripped her sword tight enough to turn her knuckles white as she contemplated meeting the oligarchy behind this twisted city, but she bit her tongue and ground her teeth together and managed to get out, "If that is your wish."

"It isn't." He said, "But it is necessary." He said somewhat apologetically.

"Should CZ attend as well?" She asked.

"The maid demon of the Sorcerer King?" He asked rhetorically. "Not for this one, but I think for the next one, better to build their expectations than show the whole hand at once." He said after thinking briefly.

As they left the hotel, the same elf boy from the previous day approached drawing their horses behind him, his eyes downcast, he held the reins out to them, and it was then that Neia saw that he had a large ugly purple bruise on his face. She paused, she was about to ride away, about to keep her 'tolerant' appearance up... but she felt something snap inside her. She got down off her horse and knelt in front of the boy.

"Point to the one who did that." She said, pointing to his face. He turned pale, making the ugly bruise look even worse. "It’s OK, trust me." She said. The boy pointed to a man near the entrance of the hotel, and she whispered, "Stay here." And held the reins of her horse back out to him.

"Neia..." Tinamoc began, but she turned her face to him and took off her visor, and his mouth closed. "Just make sure you have a good excuse." He said after a moment.

Her cloak flapped behind her and her killing intent was already strong enough that it didn't take the man very long to realize that she was behind him. He turned around and saw her face, but he was more confused than anything else.

"You've offended me." Neia said with a snarl as she looked over the pampered but... at least somewhat bulky man. He wore silk clothing and expensive leather boots, he also had numerous rings on his fingers and an expensive looking necklace.

"What?!" He asked.

"YOU... have offended me." She said again, her voice colder than mountain snow.

"How?!" He asked.

"That boy over there attends my retinue personally. You made me look at ugly marks on him, you have offended me, and now you will suffer for it, we do not pay at the best hotel in Wenmark to see bruises." She said, and by now several others were gathering who overheard her rising voice.

"He moved too slowly..." The man began to sputter.

"Broken and damaged ones tend to do that." She said. "See, watch."

And before he could say anything more her fist plowed into his nose.

"My dose, you bwoke my dose!" he said, unaware she'd pulled her punch a little to keep him conscious, so that he could feel what happened next, which was her palm striking his ribs, cracking several first on the left side, then on the right. Followed by a punch to his belly button that crumpled him and brought him to his knees.

She spat on his face, and drew her hand back, and began to slap him across his face with the utmost contempt, tears formed in his eyes and obscured his vision of her, but his mind held the terrifying vision of her eyes nonetheless. "Marks offend me. Your weakness offends me. It is very unhealthy to offend me." She said, each sentence punctuated by another slap until he toppled over on his side as he flailed his hands and arms in a futile attempt at fending her off. When he toppled, she drew back her foot and kicked him, it rolled him onto his back, and Neia was suddenly reminded of the meaning behind the name of this hotel and she kicked his ankles, forcing his legs open. "Never... ever... offend me." Neia said, and she brought the full force of her strength, which was greater than that of a platinum ranked adventurer, down between his legs in a brutal stomp, prompting a scream that had people go silent for a long way around her, before he passed out.

Neia looked at the gawking people who had stopped to watch. "Someone make sure this shit doesn't just die right here." She said, her voice clearly conveying that she did not care if he died or not. "Oh, and do pass the word, Black Justice is staying at this hotel, and we are offended by seeing marks on anyone that might serve us."

There were a number of swallows, and Neia was quite sure that the rumor mill of Wenmark was as busy as that of Yanana, and within hours the Golden Roan would find its guests being much more gentle... or at least... not as obvious. It wasn't perfect, but Neia comforted herself with the thought that it was a start. She returned to her horse where the boy barely suppressed a smile, handed her the reins, and walked away. Neia spurred her horse into a canter, as did Tinamoc.

"Feel better?" He asked.

"No. But it's a fucking start." She said.