The rumors never stopped.
Gossip was the lifeblood of a city, and meant as much as trade, or food, or water, or force of law. And when the word of Neia's trial and the events that took place there entered the realm of gossip, it was like kicking over a nest of ants. People swarmed for information over the accusations against the hero, and when a copy of the scribe's transcript was leaked, and Neia's speech in her own defense began to circulate by lunch the next day, the controversy was inescapable. At cafes, in offices, among the laborers of the fields and in the salons of the nobles, even within the very temples themselves were priests and commoners divided. The violence to be done to her was no less controversial than the message she conveyed, because what had she done except speak the truth about temple policy? Members of Black Justice however...had a very different take on things.
Skana found out what happened over breakfast the next morning. Neia was sleeping in, and Skana got up, stretched, bathed, dressed, and went to the first floor to eat breakfast. She sat at a small table in the dining area, and next to her two men, obviously merchants from different companies, were arguing.
"I tell you she has a point. The high cost of healing from the temples is crippling, and the charitable donations to cover it don't change that, all it means is that they're raking in money from elsewhere, its shifting the cost without solving the problem." He said.
"So what?" His counterpart asked.
"I had a customer that used to buy from me on the reg, when his son, a member of the city guard, got injured, he had to pay through the nose to the temples to save his son's life, that customer stopped buying from me for months because of the cost. His injury cost me money, that was money he wasn't spending on me; you're a merchant, you know the logistics of a budget, it means money is going to them and not to us."
Hearing their fragments of conversation that sounded suspiciously like a conversation about one of Neia's many speeches, Skana turned to look to the next table over, "Pardon me, I couldn't help but overhear, could you tell me what you're referring to?"
The merchants paused and looked her over, "You mean you didn't hear?" One of them asked.
"Hear what?" She asked.
"About the trial of Neia Baraja and her speech just before her whipping was to take place." The merchant said, and Skana's eyes widened in absolute horror.
"Tell me everything..." She said in a hushed voice, and one pulled out a piece of crude paper, a copy of the transcript detailing the events, from the moment it began, to the failed attempt at beating her, Skana stared at it with her mind going numb, and she thought of the danger Neia had been facing, the picture of her whipped, slashed, bleeding body falling to the stone while Skana herself drank beer with CZ was to much. Her body began to shake as she gingerly handed the transcript back to the merchant. "T-thank you." She said, and quietly, unsteadily returned to Neia's room, leaving her food untouched. There was a lot to say, and her appetite had completely fled.
...Previous evening...holding facility next to the court of law...
In the holding facility near the pavilion there was an unusual sight, guards on the wrong side of bars, they lacked their weapons, but had been left with their armor as their 'colleagues' had acted in haste. They paced back and forth within their respective cells, anxious and uncertain, they didn't have much to say to one another, it had been a difficult few hours as they built up in their own minds, the unpleasant fates sure to come their way. First they imagined losing their work, becoming homeless, and dying in the streets of in poverty in want. Then they imagined themselves between the pillars of discipline, the lash falling on them, leaving them beaten and scarred and in agony for weeks or months, or dying of their untreated wounds if they were less...or more fortunate. Waiting and uncertainty make for fear, and fear was their new normal, at least it had been for the last few hours.
Then they saw something...very strange. A large hole appeared in the middle of the hall that ran the length of their cells, and out of it stepped a beautiful woman.
"I am Yuri Alpha." She said, and she walked the length of the hall, grabbing each door one by one, and ripping them free, before gently placing them against the wall. "You can come with me, if you don't want to wait on what will happen if you stay here. I advise that you take my offer, unless..." She paused and gestured to the now row of broken cells, "You want to stay here and explain this to your captors." She said, and stepped back through the large gate. The men gave one another a somber glance, more than one expression seemed to ask if they've gone mad, but between the unknown and the certain doom, the unknown is usually preferable. So one by one they stepped through the gate into the unknown.
...Previous evening...Nazarick...
The guards...former guards they now collectively supposed...found themselves looking at the impossible. They didn't even notice Ainz at first as they came in facing the wall to his left, and then proceeded to look around in shock at the equisite workmanship of the hall, taking in every detail. "Amazing..." One of them said in a hushed, reverential whisper.
"Thank you." Ainz said simply, and this sudden spoken phrase drew their attention to the throne, where Ainz sat dressed in his rich kingly robes in all his skeletal glory.
"Kneel!" Demiurge said from beside him, and they immediately obeyed the command mantra thrown at them. "No need for that demiurge, these are guests and they did not know what to find here, release them." Ainz said magnanimously.
"Releasing control." Demiurge said, and they found that they could move again.
"You may raise your heads." Ainz said, and they raised their eyes to meet his.
"Do you know who I am?" He asked.
They didn't speak at first, "Who is the most senior among you?" Ainz asked. One of them spoke, "That would be me, my lord." A young man said. Ainz looked him over, he was in his early twenties at a guess, a slender but solid looking build, not the most imposing figure, but brave enough to speak at least a little.
"Approach the throne of kings and kneel." Ainz said, holding out his skeletal hand invitingly. The man hesitated, glancing at his comrades, but stood slowly, approached to the base of the stairs, and knelt again.
"Now, do you know who I am?" Ainz asked again.
"I can guess." He said.
"Then guess." Ainz said.
"You are the Sorcerer King known as Ainz Ooal Gown. The undead ruler who threw down Jaldabaoth, victor of the battle of Katze Plains, and founder of your kingdom." He said as formally as he could, stumbling slightly over his words as nervousness crept in.
"Correct." Ainz said.
"Do you know why you are here?" He asked.
"I confess I do not." He said.
"You aided one of my servants." He said, "Or tried to anyway. And you were going to suffer for it. It seemed right that you should be preserved from that."
The young man seemed not to know what to make of that, but he managed to stumble out an awkward, "Thank you my lord, but I was just doing what I thought I should."
"And you were right in what you thought." Ainz responded. "Now the question is what will happen to you as a result?"
"If we stayed there?" The young man said rhetorically, "Prison, beating, and definitely losing our positions, I wouldn't be surprised if at a minimum we lost our homes and were kicked out of the city." He said dejectedly.
"I see." Ainz said, "Suppose I offered you compensation for the loss?" He asked the guard.
"What do you mean?" The young guard said, his head tilted curiously to one side.
"Your lives there are over, but as a reward, I will offer you a new life. The human villages in my domain are growing, there is ample farmland, and there are positions open for security forces there, as well as other opportunities. If you wish it, I will provide you with the means to start over into the life you desire, you and your families. If you wish to become a merchant, I will provide you with a modest sum to begin, and allow you to apprentice to one of the merchants in the guild at E-Rantel. If you wish to farm, I will grant you land enough to grow food, and exempt you from taxes for seven harvests. If you wish to return to military service, or pursue the life of an adventurer...well there are plenty of options in towns, or you'll be allowed to enter the nationalized adventurer's guild and begin training there. Also..." Ainz paused and reached into a hole in reality, and pulled, seemingly from nothing, a purple potion. He held it out. "One of you said his father was still carrying around a painful stump where his hand used to be. Use this, it will restore him." Demiurge took the potion and carried it down the steps and placed it beside the young guard.
The young man was stunned. "Why...would you offer this?" He asked.
"Will you make sure you deserve it, even if you do not think you deserve it now?" Ainz asked.
"On the hand of my father, I swear I will." He replied.
"That is why I offer what I do." Ainz said, sweeping the guild staff in front of him to point at the gate, "Now go, and do not forget what justice and good service have given you." He said to them.
"May I confer with my men?" He asked. Ainz waved his hand in their direction. "Go, confer, but my patience is not infinite, make it quick as I have other matters to attend to." Silently Ainz gave thanks to his undead nature, and the fact that the lack of a need to sleep meant he could practice in front of that mirror for hours to perfect his acting.
The man stood and went back to his little group, a flurry of quiet discussion passed, and after a minute or two, he returned and knelt again before the throne. "We'll relocate to your kingdom, to one of your human villages if we might ask that much. We can't swear our families will go, but I think most of them would prefer to be with us than be far away. If we could inform them first, we would be grateful, this...might be a bit much for them to take in." He said, gesturing around the grand hall, prompting a deep hearty laugh from Ainz.
"I suppose so. Very well. Relay your requests for the life you wish to pursue to Demiurge, he will handle the fine points about what lands or goods or admittance to organizations that you need, as well as your return to your families and your departure for my Kingdom. You have served me well, though you knew it not, and now that you know who you are serving, I expect you'll be even better." Ainz said, leaning forward for emphasis as he spoke, and when the portal reopened, they stepped through with side glances at the Sorcerer King, and vanished.
"That went well." Ainz said, softly, making a mental note to practice his 'impromptu speeches' to new people.
"Demiurge, do you have the report on the people Neia fought? The ones identified as a 'Gray Scripture'?" Ainz said as he turned to face him.
"Yes my lord, interrogation of the two we have in custody has given us at least a few details, though stubborn enough for humans, they couldn't resist the order to answer when it came, which made their successful early resistance to interrogation all the more bitter to swallow when the realize they could do nothing but speak the truth."
Demiurge gave a sadistic smile that would have made Ulbert proud, and he took a sheaf of papers out and began to read it aloud. "The Gray Scripture is made up of people who would be ranked platinum or higher, some of them are former workers who ran afoul of guilds in other countries, others are born in the Theocracy and had a lot of talent...but also had vices that put them into trouble with the law. Their name 'Gray Scripture' comes from the fact that they operate in the 'gray areas', of law, usually targeting renegade human elements, heretics, apostates, or organized crime. Where the Windflower scripture handles intelligence operations, the Gray scripture handles organizational type tasks that relate to violence, for example the myriad of dead that Neia fended off first, seem to have been mercenaries and bandits that the Gray scripture exploited. They maintain ties to various third party nongovernmental military and criminal factions, allowing some outside the Theocracy to exist purely to make use of them to find 'expendable' bodies to throw at a problem." Demiurge said, he paused.
"Its not a bad idea really." He said, interjecting his own thoughts.
"And their weapons?" Ainz asked. "Are they a threat to us?"
"No my lord, these are low level weapons able to only effect those far weaker than even our lowest level goblin summons." Demiurge said.
Ainz racked his brain trying to remember what the lowest goblin summon scroll in Ashurbanipal was, but when he couldn't, he simply said, "Yes, of course...that rank is no threat to us..."
"May I say how delightful it is to know that you remember even such small details as our weakest summons my lord? I expect nothing less out of the leader of the supreme beings." Demiurge said with delight.
"Of course, of course." Ainz said, hoping he wouldn't say more, mentally sweating bullets. "Now, just what do they do?"
Demiurge took out one of the captured weapons, and held it up. "These are Yggdrasil weapons, and what they do is...interesting. They impose immunities, but not of the positive sort, of the negative sort wherever they strike. For example the woman Skana's wound to her eye from one of their bows, lead to a wound that could not be healed through ordinary magic. Curiously, they have another ability as well, immunity to resurrection...but these are both probability based, not with every blow, there is a small percentage chance of either being imposed, but only if the one using the weapon is weaker than the one they strike. Its quite the paradox, it makes the weaker more dangerous to the stronger...but only for a difference of up to ten levels, after which they cannot impose immunities on the target at all."
"Are the effects permanent or is there any way to reverse them?" Ainz asked, thinking about how unpleasant it would be to lose all the work he'd put in to some of the more delicate human agents who now served him.
"The immunity to healing can be undone by killing the target and resurrecting them. The immunity to resurrection would require the use of a world level item, but the immunity is only effective if the target dies within ten minutes of their first wound." Demiurge continued, and Ainz raised his skeletal hand to stop him.
"I knew that sounded familiar. Shitty devs." He said softly as the memory came back, he remembered it now. The shitty deves had created these weapons to balance things out between the guilds who were of not quite equal strength, to keep the more powerful from endlessly PKing the smaller guilds, a lot of smaller or weaker guilds were given these weapons as quest rewards so that they could make the fight more even. And of course more powerful guilds started hunting down anyone who used one, until they'd hoarded most of them out of the hands of the very people intended to use them. That an entire scripture could be armed with them told Ainz that a large and powerful guild had been here at some point in the past, and the fact that the Theocracy had them meant that it was almost certainly the same group that they revered as the 'Six great gods'.
"If we encounter this 'Shi Tee Devs' person, what shall we do my lord?" Demiurge asked in seriousness, almost causing Ainz to burst out laughing.
"They are long dead." Ainz answered cryptically. "It is only their work that remains behind."
Demiurge nodded, accepting his words, and building in his mind an elaborate story about how the supreme beings must surely have killed the one responsible.
"Now, do you have the prisoners from the trial? That noble and those priests?" Ainz asked.
"I do, though I confess my lord, I am confused as to your strategy." Demiurge said.
"What do you mean?" Ainz asked.
"My lord, I thought it was reckless to have them taken so early, while Neia and her Black Justice team are still inside the city, surely they'll be blamed. Of course if this is your judgement, then it must be correct, and my own poor intellect cannot begin to fathom the depth of your intricate schemes." Demiurge said.
Ainz mentally facepalmed and thought, "Shit...he's right, that was dumb, I should have waited until after they left...well fuck, I'll have to go with it now, I'm committed."
Ainz laughed, "I'm sure you'll understand soon, but for now, bring them to the throne room, including the two Gray Scripture survivors if you're finished with them."
"As you say my lord." Demiurge replied and parted ways with Ainz after rendering a proper bow, and Ainz waited patiently on his throne, until the entire lot was thrust to their knees in front of him. Their hoods were removed and when they saw who they were looking at...the now one eyed noble shat himself. The priests were made of sterner stuff, and were about to shout when Demiurge used his command mantra. "Prostrate yourselves and be silent."
Their mouths shut and they fell on their faces.
Ainz let them remain in that posture long enough for them to know for sure who was in charge.
"You may allow them to raise their heads." Ainz said.
"Raise your heads." Demiurge said.
"I am sure you know why you are here." Ainz said. "You are corrupt, you are degenerate, and you threatened a loyal servant, and I would not have the name of Ainz Ooal Gown tarnished by allowing that to stand."
One figure was struggling to speak, while the others seemed content to remain silent, and Ainz gestured to him, it was one of the more frail looking priests, and his eyes blazed with hostility.
"You may speak." Ainz said, and Demiurge released his control to permit it, but kept him frozen in place despite his struggles to move.
"Monster!" The man snarled out.
"Yes." Ainz said, "It is also night time. Are you intending to just have us go back and forth saying things we both already know?" His sarcasm was thick in his voice and the man's face turned purple with rage.
"Just kill me and get it over with, monster, then I don't have to hear your voice anymore!" He snapped out.
Ainz laughed, not lightly, not a mere chuckle, he through back his head and laughed uproariously, and when at last he calmed himself, he leand forward on his throne, in all his terrible looking glory, his glowing red orbs bored into the priest's skull.
"Kill you? No, not kill you, killing is easy, its a crude...albeit sometimes useful way to set an example, this is going to be much, much worse, and you'll go on hearing my voice until the day you die, a living nightmare for all the public to see, the ordinary world a hellscape of your own imagining, and even if I never think of you again, which I do not plan to, you will never not think of me, and I will always be in your ear, and all who see you, all who hear you, will tremble at the thought of what opposing me means."
Ainz said, and as his words sunk in, he said, "Aura of Despair...Level four.
True to his high luck stat, all of the prisoners were immediately afflicted with permanent insanity and terror. While it 'could' be cured through magical means, Ainz was quite sure that nobody on the continent had the power to defeat his magic, they'd need a world item, and he very much doubted anyone cared enough about any of these men to waste a world item on them.
"Return them to their homes." Ainz said, let them walk the streets and hide in its dark corners and dark alleys, let them fear the water to wash themselves, the light they see by, the darkness they hide in, let them gibber like maniaces of offending god and needing to hide, let them speak of hearing the voice of god and knowing that god's wrath is on them, let them go, and let them long for someone to kill them, until old age or misfortune choose to do so." Ainz said, and resumed his laughter as they were all reduced to gibbering insanity.
Demiurge was in awe of his master's unique and effective vengeance, his capacity to inflict suffering seemed to surpass even his ability to plan for the ages, it made Demiurge so happy that as he began to go back and forth from gate to gate, returning the men to their homes, he could not help but hum a happy tune and waved almost pleasant farewells to the ruined little maniacs, for good measure, he stripped them of their clothing, leaving them with not even the slightest bit of dignity, as he was sure none of them would remember how to work their own clothing.
The last to be delivered was the fat and now one eyed nobleman, and that one Demiurge went one step further with, and delivered him to his own dungeon. He wondered idly how long it would be before his people went looking for him, and how much longer after that before he was found behind bars in his own residence. His master's choice began to make far more sense now, as divine servants faced divine wrath.
"Its so good to serve a capable lord." Demiurge said to himself as he completed his task.
AN: I'd had additional content planned for this chapter, but on reflection I cut it out (and put it in another document for later use) because I thought it distracted from the main thrust of the story, I may use it as a standalone, or it might never see the light of day, I don't know yet. Anyway it's enough to know that the result is that this update is a little smaller than it otherwise would be. Interestingly enough, a reviewer for another of my stories set in this line of events suggested that I could spend more time on the main ongoing plot if I stopped spending time on short one shots and offshoots. Of course...he's technically right, that's just logistics, there are only so many hours in a day and time spent on X is time that can't be spent on Y. But...I think I have to reject his suggestion for a few reasons. First...I love world building, and exploring the forces that shape characters helps me create a more enriching environment in the main storyline because they stop being just 'props and tropes' and start to take on depth. Second...I'm pretty fast at updating anyway, no story has gone longer than a few days, and sometimes I get several done in a single day, so my update speed is such that I'm pretty sure none of the stories are suffering from 'lag'. :) And last but not least, nobody's story happens in a vacuum, and I think it enriches the main story to see that it isn't just a straightforward walk from A to B with everyone not the main character, just reacting to the main character. Of course...it only works if people read the other stories, but hey, all I can do is give the option. :) As Sinatra said, "I did it myyyyyyy way!" ;) Thanks for reading, and please leave reviews, even if its just a thumbs up, or thumbs down.