AN: Here you go, and I'll thank you to not complain about the release schedule, discord members get first access, in no small part because a number of them help to edit and improve the final product, others show fan art…including fan art of characters I created, make suggestions, donate to charity, or otherwise just make it a great supportive and creative community. You do not have to do any of that, but if you want to simply sit back and passively wait to receive the product, you're going to have to wait a little longer…and you're still not having to wait for a month as you do with most authors. Also…if you ask a question in a review as a guest, or have you messaging turned off…how do you expect me to answer you? OK, on to the story…
...Ikari City...
Enri was telling herself how not tired she was, all while certain nobody had ever lied to themselves about that to themselves as often or as vigorously as she had in the last two days. But at least it was a productive self-deception.
Ikari city fell with relative ease thanks to her fifth column of elf slaves who were happy to betray their masters when the chance at being set free came...as well as the raw power of Lupu's strikes at the stone and at the gate...and the dragons...and her deception...it was just...everything. Everything worked so well that she could hardly believe her luck.
But while winning the battle was almost 'easy'...winning the peace, that was hard. The city had to be administered, and that meant military officials had to be put into place above the citizens of the city. Justice had to be done.
Two of her soldiers had gotten drunk and been caught in the act of rape against a city citizen, and had been publicly hanged for the crime. Ironically this had done more to keep the citizens compliant than any other measure. It worked that way for two reasons...first...because if General Enri 'Hard Eyes' Barear would hang her own soldiers...what would she do to those who rebelled among the conquered? Second…it was made abundantly clear that justice would be given to the citizens, there was no reason to rebel if those over you were ensuring that your lives neither ended nor became nightmare.
Though there was a great deal of grumbling about the liberation of slaves, Enri settled the matter by asking all those who objected to come to her that very evening for dinner. She sat at the head of a long table, laid out with many different plates of different colored glass. Over the course of the dinner she listened to their complaint.
"I have none to tend my house, it will fall to ruin and be a blight on the city!" A rather obese figure complained.
"And my farms need laborers or the city will starve." A thin elder gentleman remarked.
"And who will do the work of the city, if not our slaves? The trash must be taken up, the roads swept and maintained." A smallish bureaucratic looking man with deep set, beady looking eyes remarked pragmatically.
So it went, and Enri listened to them all, smiling outwardly as she fumed and swept her hard eyes from one to the next.
When at last silence fell, Enri stood and said patiently, "Gentlemen, I acknowledge the validity of...most of the complaints laid out here, however I do not have the authority to reenslave the elves. They are prisoners of war, and by way of the Draconic Accords, and our sacred laws, no living person may own another as property."
They looked disgruntled, but she carried on. "However, you are not of my country, are you?" She asked.
They shook their heads, anticipation building as her tone suggested compromise was coming.
"Therefore I can present you with two options. The first is to accept the reforms brought upon you by the Sorcerer King and his victory, hire labor for pay in accordance with the minimum wages set by calculating the cost of living versus current currency value and appraised annually, while you also comply with the workers' rights laws of the Sorcerous Kingdom..."
Her gaze swept over them all.
"OR..." she continued, "I have had placed beneath each of your plates, one of two letters. 'M' for Master. 'S' for Slave. If you reject these reforms and insist upon the old system of bondage, then simply remove your plates and see which letter lies beneath your plates. If it is an 's'" she said as she leand towards them menacingly and snapped her fingers. From beyond the door came heavily armed soldiers… "then you and your families will be stripped and chained and handed over to those whose plates have an 'M' under it, and you can spend your lives serving those you now sit beside, while your property will be confiscated by the city and sold to pay into the city treasury for public use."
Faces paled. They were all looking down at their plates as if the little round shapes had turned into coiled deadly serpents.
"Of course, if you prefer to accept the reforms of the Sorcerer King, you need only rise from the table and walk out, and you needn't fear what lies underneath that plate." She said, smiling ever so sweetly and looking at them with steel in her gaze.
It was a long, long moment of silence, then one by one, they pushed themselves away from the table, declining to touch the dreaded things further. "As you would not be slaves, do not seek to be masters." She said coolly. "Hire your workers, pay them fairly, treat them well, and do not ask me about this again." She said, and unable to bear it any longer, they got up and walked out without a word.
When the last was gone and Enri reseated herself to have another glass of wine, one of the soldiers approached her. "Dangerous move." He said.
"How do you mean?" She asked.
"How did you know none of them would look underneath the plates? You know the Sorcerer King's thoughts on forced labor." He said.
She smiled and nodded, "Look under the plate." She said.
"Which?" He asked.
"Any." She replied.
He walked down the length of the table and randomly stopped at one near the middle, and he lifted it up, he looked at her in surprise.
"Right." She said, "There were never any letters. But they didn't know that, and they didn't need to, those who love to be masters, would never risk becoming slaves themselves, especially not to others at the table, they know each other far to well to take that chance." She replied as she finished her cup and set it down.
"I'm going to bed, that was unpleasant, you should do the same, tomorrow in the early morning we ride to the Latifundiums and clear those out." She said, and the soldiers bowed and filed out of the room back to their stations or quarters.
...Draconic Kingdom the day General Enri advanced on Ikari city...
Queen Draudillon was satisfied in the extreme, she had successfully raised...not the twenty thousand soldiers the Sorcerer King had asked of her, but thirty five thousand, having found after her report that she had more volunteers than she needed, and enough coin from completing the purging of the nobles to fund the training and arming of the entire lot. She fumed at the dead, it was only now...sober and after having taken a full accounting of what they held for themselves...that she realized how thoroughly they had been screwing their country.
One noble had an entire room coated in gold, right down to the furniture, another had his silverware carved out of precious gems instead of metal. Another had a room of priceless artwork, while another turned out to have held eight different estates in eight different locations, each of them overwhelmingly valuable. All of them were very dead now. She'd been scraping by on the scraps of what they'd collected, barely able to keep her people alive, unable to do so for half of them...and this..this was what they had been hoarding for themselves. It made her physically ill.
The night before, Vermillion sat across from her in her private office while she held her face in her hands and sobbed. With the wealth of those nobles, they could have raised a half a dozen armies, hired every adventurer team in the known world, and even paid for the armies of their neighbors to march with them and taken the fight directly to the beastman kingdom. So many dead...because a handful of nobles hoarded coin intended for national defense. "Why...why...why?" She'd asked over, and over again to a silent Vermillion. Or perhaps it wasn't to him, perhaps it was asked of the dead? Or asked of herself? Even she wasn't sure. Realizing how badly she'd been screwing her own country through her system of relying on the nobles to collect and forward wealth to the treasury for the general defense had spun her into a depression that had lasted all night long.
But to her credit...she had not touched a drop.
Though the night was spent in tears of regret, and the steadfast company of a silent and faithful Vermillion, when the Sun arose she had tea, at a light breakfast, and she found herself quite hopeful. With the army she'd raised she was poised to prove herself as something OTHER than a drunken and bumbling...but well-meaning...incompetent.
That afternoon she had a meeting with her generals, and for the first time in a long time, a meeting like that did not involve her drinking heavily and listening to hopeless casualty reports.
"The Sorcerer King has ordered us to march. I have informed him of our success in raising the soldiers we require, and that our troops are 'adequate' for combat." She said to her leaders, she looked over each of them, asking with her eyes for any dispute. There was none. "He has informed me of his intentions, and we needn't fear pointless losses, we are to declare war on the Slane Theocracy, advance our soldiers into the interior, and focus on seizing farms, villages, towns, mining complexes, and so on. We are to deprive them of the means to feed and maintain an army, but...we are NOT under any circumstances to 'mistreat his people' as he put it." She said flatly.
"Ahhh...sire..." One of the generals asked.
"Yes?" She said with an arched brow.
"What does he mean 'his people'?" The general asked curiously.
Queen Draudillon smiled, "He's calling the people of the Slane Theocracy 'his people' in short, he considers this war to be already won, we're just 'informing' them of that. Quite frankly, I'm inclined to agree, is there any way you can imagine that those fanatical morons could defeat the Sorcerer King?" She asked.
She let them stew on that for a bit.
"No." He said. "We will win, we cannot lose." He said, his voice began to choke up with emotion as a long held at bay realization finally struck home and burst from within his breast…his people were safe, his people would live, his people had a future as something other than food.
Out in the streets among the common people, the mood was no different. The deaths of those nobles who had for so long exploited so many had been a celebrated affair as soon as the purges were complete; and nowhere in the country was this more true than among the soldiers and their families who had suffered so much because of their greed.
The day of the purges, some weeks before, Queen Draudillon had ordered the estates opened. The soldiers who had fought with inadequate weapons and armor had been taken on tours of the homes of the elite. The rage, the tears, the WRATH of the common class had been so great that those who had survived arrest had been given a...special punishment, and today, on the day of the order to declare war, was the day it was to be carried out, but business first.
"With the destruction of almost all our noble class...save the gentlemen at this table, an opportunity arises that has not been present in centuries." She said, "An opportunity for best and the brightest, the bravest and the wisest, to rise within our country and to become a new type of leader." She said, her voice remained calm, but an undercurrent of excitement was evident.
"What is that?" One of her men asked.
"The Sorcerer King talked to me of it, he called it 'meritocracy' where those able to perform, rise into positions of leadership, rather than merely inheriting it forever." She said.
"Curious." He replied.
"Maybe, but the opportunity this presents for the ambitious cannot be underestimated, I want you to be sure that soldiers and administrators who perform well are at all times recorded as such and are given ever higher stations. Send their names to me and Vermillion and I will go over those who we think suitable for higher station when they return home. Wealth, nobility, and so on. If they know that they are not trapped where they are born, who knows what might be accomplished?" She said rhetorically.
"Why does it feel like we're bearing witness to the birth of a golden era?" One of them wondered aloud. "Boundless power behind us, the corrupt purged from our ranks, an enemy that cannot win, our Beastmen neighbors have started exporting food and have not attacked us in years…it feels like we've been blessed by the gods…" He said in a hushed voice.
"Perhaps we're blessed by one." Queen Draudillon said quietly, "But if this is the birth of a golden age, then we must remember that such ages have labor pains, and many people will not live to see it come to this world." She added.
"We will do our best majesty, to ensure that as many survive, as can be allowed to survive, to see that we build something great in this new world." One of the generals said with an almost fanatical look in his eyes.
"See that you do." She said, "You will live off the food of the places you take, but you are not permitted under the Draconic Accords to starve, or abuse, or steal from the peasant class, you will pay them for their food, if you run out of coin, use promissory notes and we will dispatch adequate coin to the region to cover the cost. You are simply to ensure that the Slane Theocracy's cities do not receive shipments, and that the Slane Theocracy's armies do not have adequate supplies. Even with all thirty-five thousand, we don't have enough to face off against the better equipped and more experienced and larger numbers of the Slane Theocracy, if defeated, we would open ourselves up to counter-invasion, and I don't need to tell you how that would go." She said bluntly.
They looked at her with blank faces.
"I don't…right? I don't have to tell you that such a defeat might well make the Sorcerer King decide that I'm not an effective Queen and I'd need to retire…to put it bluntly I'm lucky, very lucky, after what happened with Vanysa." She gulped hard as she imagined how close she'd come to a most unpleasant fate.
"And worse than that, a military response on our own ground would meet almost no resistance, we simply don't have the soldiers needed to defend the border…speaking of which?" She looked around the table.
"My Queen, we have raised five thousand more soldiers for border defense and are currently building a system of forts and walls along our border with the Slane Theocracy, they seem to be unaware of our actions…" He began, and the Queen interrupted him.
"Because the Sorcerer King exterminated the entire Slane Theocracy intelligence network. What wasn't killed, was mostly captured, what wasn't captured, had to be withdrawn entirely. In short, the Slane Theocracy is fighting blind and will be for months, they simply don't have the intelligence network anymore to observe anything, puts them at a huge disadvantage I should think." Her voice was deadpan, as if she was mentioning a cloud overhead, hardly suitable as a tone of voice explaining such an operation…but such improbably damaging operations were the province of the Sorcerer King.
"Yes…yes it is." He said with surprise, "That gives us almost total free reign, they probably won't even know we've invaded until we reach the gates of Kami Miyako." He said with a laugh.
She shook her head. "My lord was very clear about this. We MUST issue an official declaration of war."
They looked dubious. "Do you want to explain to the Sorcerer King why his orders were disobeyed?" She asked.
The dubious looks vanished. "Think nothing of it, they'll have their hands full soon enough, and this should force them to divert some of their armies away from the Abelion Hills to ensure we don't strike at Kami Miyako. Our goal is to lead them on a merry chase and deny them any and all resources that would sustain their forces. March in, occupy farms, purchase the food that would be shipped to Kami Miyako or the other Theocracy armies and cities, and move on, ship what you can back here, burn the rest…after you've bought it, and leave enough for those living there to actually eat for themselves."
"This is an…unusual strategy, your majesty." He said.
"This is an unusual war." She said with a shake of her head, "This a war to bring down an entire old world and build something new in its place, our new lord has said that our actions lay the foundations for the new on the ashes of the old, if we merely repeat the wrongs of the past, they will become cracks in our foundation that will haunt the generations to come, we set the standard for the new world in all ways, and therefore we must conduct ourselves in such a way that all future generations remark on our virtue in the face of horror, that we treat life as if it has value, even if it stands in opposition to us, and have a care for those who are enemies only by the misfortune of being born on the wrong side of a border, rather than by some intrinsic wrongness in who they are or what they seek for themselves."
"That is…amazing. But can a war be won on such idealistic terms?" He asked.
"Have you seen him lose yet?" She asked him.
The table fell quiet.
"Exactly." She said. "Now you have your orders, ensure you convey the promise of a better life for better performance to your soldiers, I am sending out the official declaration of war after the ceremony punishing these nobles, it should arrive in Kami Miyako in a few days. Now if there is nothing else, I'm going to be meeting a guest who will be carrying out the punishment, you're all free to go." She said.
They stood and bowed to her before filing out. Queen Draudillon stood and walked quietly to her throne room, it was late afternoon, and most of the capitol was gathering in the great square to see the last of the purged nobles perish. Vermillion, true to his nature, remained in the throne room standing next to her empty seat with his arms folded behind his back.
"Your majesty." He said, inclining his head.
"Vermillion, you didn't have to wait for me you know." She said.
"I know, your majesty." He said. "However it was my pleasure to do so." He said.
"Well thank you anyway, but our executioner will be here shortly, and I'd prefer to be alone with her for a little while, for her, this is a bit more…personal." Queen Draudillon answered softly, "And also for me." She said with a sigh.
"Oh…I understand your majesty." He said, "Shall I at least leave a guard?" He asked.
She shook her head, "No need, I doubt she'll let anything happen to me, if she'd wanted me to suffer, I'm sure she'd have asked for that already and probably gotten it." She shuddered at the thought.
"Point taken." Vermillion said, and he gestured for the few guards along the walls to follow him out, a moment later as the last had exited, he turned and closed the door behind him, rendering a reverential bow to his Queen before he did so.
At last she was alone, seated on her throne, it would be the throne of a vassal soon enough, like most of the world she knew, but somehow she found herself at peace with that. She felt fear towards the Sorcerer King when he'd been sorely displeased with some failure of hers, but his reactions had been rational, shockingly so, and though he could be very brutal, he seemed to acknowledge the difference between accidental and intentional failure and regarded those two things profoundly differently in a moral sense.
It was in the midst of this that a portal opened near the door and a beautiful and buxom peasant girl with long blonde hair in a braid stepped out, she had a toothy smile on her face and her grayish-green eyes bounced like the golden locks that moved as she walked, she had her hands low behind her back and held together, she was the picture of whimsy and almost childish happiness. Her clothing was considerably improved, the fabric looked phenomenally expensive…yet it was still cut in the fashion of a peasant, it was mind-boggling to contemplate why someone would take such a fabric and do…that with it. It was akin to shoveling horse dung from a barn with a shovel made of gold.
The reasoning behind it became more evident as the girl drew closer to the throne and she could see deeper into the girl's eyes, a dichotomy was evident there, a kind of frenzied madness held just below the surface by the focus of her attention, which was the task given to her by the lord they had…or would officially have…in common.
"Hiya majesty!" She said, waving cheerfully as she approached.
"Hello Vanysa." Queen Draudillon said with a smile that was still somewhat…sad, or perhaps ashamed of her role in what had happened to the poor girl.
Oddly enough, she didn't stop when she came close, instead, she simply slowed down, her eyes locked with those of the Queen. "Shame…" She said in a hushed voice, "Guilt…" She said again, her eyes went narrow as if she were going to grow angry, Queen Draudillon froze…this was different, her heartbeat quickened in her breast.
Vanysa, the beautiful buxom bouncy girl of a burned-out village and a burned-out life, approached the queen, and fearlessly reached out to touch the ruler under her chin, she drew close, and held her gaze, close enough that with but the slightest motion, she would have kissed the woman…but it was not warmth she saw in Vanysa's eyes…instead, Queen Draudillon saw the rise of a hungry sadistic glee as Vanysa searched the eyes of the monarch for things only she could see, and then the seemingly normal(ish) girl stepped back and allowed her touch to fall away. "No." She said, and the look of sadism and hunger that had been there was gone as if it had never been, and a clear-eyed look of cunning and intelligence took its place.
"You feel guilt, but are not guilty. Not of what you feel guilty for." She said softly, as if pronouncing sentence, and Draudillon's heartbeat began to resume its normal pace. "You should stop feeling bad about me. I'm…better." She smiled her toothy smile, "Your mistake was small, the true guilt lies with someone else…and my master now knows his name."
"Can you tell me?" Queen Draudillon asked softly.
"King Astraka." She said. "He was waiting for me outside when everyone else was gone, I remember everything now, and master says I can have him."
She grinned and her eyes went a little wild, "We gonna have soooo much fun, ahl betcha he's gonna be soooo happy ahm alive." She grinned and clapped her hands together with glee.
"Ahhh…yes…" Queen Draudillon said hesitantly, putting false confidence in her tone of voice as she watched the sadistic gleam grow in Vanysa's eyes again.
She coughed into her hand briefly and then said to Vanysa, "Well, ahhh…the crowds are gathering. What do you intend to do exactly, to punish the guilty?"
Vanysa smiled, "Well…yah know what ah am now, yah?"
"A Tisiphone Fury…" The Queen said softly as she recalled the name.
"D'yah know whas special bout that?" She asked softly of the Queen.
Queen Draudillon shook her head.
"Ah don't just ENJOY punishin the guilty…no, no, no…ah gets stronger from it, thas why his majesty lemme come here, it ain't just cause I was born here an it be right fer one a them peasants they done wrong to ta punish em…its cause I gets better fer doin it."
Her eyes went clear and shone like stars, "And the more I hurt them, the more I may improve, and the better I may serve my master until I reach the limits of this new body, whatever they may be. So to answer your question your majesty, of what I intend to do, is to make them wail for the sweet release of death…and it will be…a wonderful show. After all, it has to be, doesn't it?" She asked rhetorically.
The Queen nodded in agreement, "Yes it must, everybody knows what these men and women have done now, the hate for them as 'bad nobles' is overwhelming. Everybody who ever held a sword or spear for the country knows that they lacked armor so a noble could buy a solid gold chair, or that their food at the front was short so that a woman on a grand estate could feast herself to fatness by selling more food abroad." She shook her head, "I've said before I made a grave mistake in trusting them to contribute all they could to our kingdom's survival…and now there must be blood for blood to avenge the ones who died or hungered because of their failure to meet their obligations as they pursued their lusts and their greed." Queen Draudillon's gaze turned hard with hate.
Vanysa reached out and touched her cheek and said sweetly, "There will be, your majesty." She said in a very sweet voice.
Curiously, looking into the eyes of the sadistic fury, Queen Draudillon felt perfectly safe.
"Will you be introducing yourself?" Queen Draudillon asked? "After all, though you look the part of an ordinary peasant girl, we know there is more to you than that now.""
Vanysa stepped back and looked to the ceiling as she thought it over, her hands went to her hips as if annoyed with herself. "I hadn't considered that your majesty. What do you recommend?" She asked.
"Well, to see one of their own be given the task of slaying their oppressors would certainly embolden them and show that they have my support. On the other hand, if you're going to be very publicly connected to the Sorcerer King, showing them your altered state will be…illustrative, of what happens to those who do wrong in his eyes." Queen Draudillon said.
"So the question is…what should people fear, and what should people respect," Vanysa stated very matter of factly. Her arms folded behind her back and she grabbed one wrist in the other and she began to pace as she spoke her thoughts aloud. "I think the reason those who inflict fear, choose to do so, is because they desire to enforce compliance with instruction. Tell a man you'll burn him if he does not submit, he's likely to submit, even if you have no fire and no way to make one. You want the next crop to be obedient to your will, such public and bloody punishment should be seen as being inflicted by one of your own. You want the peasants on your side, so it is best that I am seen as a peasant Your justice will reign, and of course, it must align with that of the Sorcerer King who sent me back to you in the first place…so…peasant it is." Vanysa said, pouting slightly.
"Something wrong?" Queen Draudillon asked.
"Nah…s'just that ah really like flyin." She perked up and smiled her toothy grin, "Don't matter, I'll get plenty ah that later. Fer now, ahm right hungry an ah think ther all a'waitin on us ther now. Yah gonna speak first your majesty?" Vanysa asked happily.
"I will." Queen Draudillon said. "I must, after all our soldiers will be marching soon, they have to know I am backing them all the way, up to and including destroying the ones whose entitled, spoiled greed, nearly undid everything we have worked for." Her voice was filled with wrath, and Vanysa gave a rare solemn nod.
"Then after you, majesty, I will make my appearance when you have said your peace." Vanysa said as her eyes cleared up again.
A few minutes later Queen Draudillon stood on a dais overlooking the great square. The guards below beat shields with mailed fists to alert and still the crowd, and eyes gradually turned to meet her.
Queen Draudillon stood with back straight, bearing the regal form of a good royal, then took a very deep breath as she addressed the crowd. "People of the Draconic Kingdom…I come to you today, as a Queen…and as a failure." The population stayed quiet…this admission was unexpected.
"I have not been the finest of rulers, and the finest ruler is what you truly deserve. I failed you in that I trusted that these men and women," she gestured to the series of noblemen and noblewomen who stood bound to individual stakes posted evenly around the raised wooden platform, in full view of the crowd, "sought your interests, sought your security, they had their obligations you and to me, and they failed in them. They were not happy with what they were given, they chose to demand more, and more, and more, far more than what they deserved, far more than what they had earned, they demanded what they did nothing to gain for themselves, and still they were unsatisfied. Within their rotten souls lay greed so great that they would prefer your cities be consumed than that they have a single coin left in their undeserving fingers!" Queen Draudillon was shouting fiercely now, and the crowd was with her.
"I confess, I fell into despair, because I worked so hard to do my duty to you, and I failed…I failed and I must beg your forgiveness, and making amends for my poorly placed faith, is the beginnings of that! No more will I fall into despair, to drink, to desperation, no more will I trust those who should not be trusted, and ever harder will I labor for your prosperity! The wealth that they held back has been confiscated, and with it an army raised to prove the worth and FUTURE of our kingdom is NOT to be FORGOTTEN by history, the future of our kingdom is to MAKE HISTORY!" She shouted and raised her fist to punch the air.
"Draudillon! Draudillon! Draudillon!" The crowd chanted back, and the condemned began to shake. She raised her hands to call for silence.
"Now it comes time for justice to be done, to end these reprobates, We begin…with a blood debt!" A hush fell over the crowd as the mood turned and eyes centered on the platform. "Will you let them hurt you?! Will you let them get away with stealing from you?! How many of you lost loved ones at the front who were not armed as they should have been?! How many have been hungry while fighting for our nation, while they sat at home, safe and fat and happy as you bled and starved?! They were the beastmen behind our lines! They ate up your wealth and your work and took everything from you, before serving you up like cattle to a foe you could not defeat! NOW! WHAT DO THEY DESERVE?!l What sentence do you give to them?!" Queen Draudillon's voice echoed over the square, and the crowd ate it up.
"Death! Death! Death!" The crowd shouted, and the smell of shit began to waft away as the bound-up nobles began to lose what little dignity they had left before the mob. It was then that Queen Draudillon gestured towards a long street that led to the square. "I thought it best that their demise comes from one of your own, one whose life was destroyed by the avarice of the nobility that should have protected her future, she stands now, RESTORED! As I have returned to her the future that was stolen from her, so too I will return your stolen futures to ALL of you!"
When Vanysa made her appearance, she did so, skipping happily down the street in her playful, bouncy form, for all the world an ordinary if very pretty looking girl, it was something of an oddity then, when she didn't stop where the crowd did, packed as they were around the square, save for the roped off area that allowed her easy passage to the 'stage' where her performance was to be.
The crowd was booing the helpless nobles by then, throwing rotten garbage, offal, and more, but as Vanysa mounted the stairs, the throwing eased and finally stopped.
She began to skip her way around the platform until she came to someone on the far side.
The noble looked at her curiously as she took his face in her hands and met his eyes with hers. "Guilt…" She whispered and moved to the next. She repeated the motion. "Guilt…" she whispered and moved on to the next. One by one she sought the truth of their guilt, under the terms of Ainz Ooal Gown, the innocent were not to be punished, and she…seeing as only a Tisiphone Fury could, that there were those who needed to be avenged upon those into whose eyes she looked. Her soft and feminine hands were almost a caress, but they did not feel desire for her, quite the opposite, their lust stilled or never sparked as soon as they met her eyes, the lust for pain was clear within her gaze, and there they saw chains tightening to bind them to terrible fates. A few broke down weeping, a few more wet themselves.
"You're permitted final words." She whispered softly, and going from one to another, she visited the position of each of the noblemen and women, several of them simply begged for their lives, a few cursed their own fates or called for the gods to come and save them. Then she came to the last. He looked sullenly, "Do you wish to die silent?" She asked him.
That did it. He began to shout. "Damn you all to fucking hell you limp dick peasants!" He started to shake and tremble with rage. I am Tesug Ryvr! I am a noble damnit! I was OWED your work and entitled to your goods! So what if some of you had to pay the price?! You filth should count yourselves lucky I even acknowledge anything you do when I tell you to bring me MORE!"
Tesug's rant of impotent rage frothed over so much that he foamed at the very mouth, and his tangent was only cut short when Vanysa drew a knife and began to cut. She stood behind him, so that he would not be hidden from the crowd.
Then with small slices at first, the beautiful and sweet sadist gradually began to skin him as she had practiced with the pandaman whose skin now served as her favorite coat. She put on a fine showing before the crowd, turning the demanding noble into a weeping pathetic mess of blood and sinew.
Calling on her time with the Sorcerer King, she turned to her skills in showmanship, and flicked the blood to the crowd from off her knife shouting, "He owes you his blood doesn't he! Take it! Take what is yours from his veins!" She pranced, not walked, from one to the next, to the next, to the next commanding both stage and crowd by her bouncy, lithe leaps and prances from one to another, as if she were making them to sing, killing each by inches to thrill a different part of the crowd. Her bouncy ways as she played with her blade along the stage, twirling with it overhead as if she were dancing, before darting down to slice off a strip of flesh, such as an ear, a nose, to pop an eyeball from a glaring stubborn face…for the crowd it was exciting…thrilling, and added to the heady feeling of finally taking some measure of final revenge on those who had in their minds, betrayed their nation for wealth.
It took over two hours for them all to die. And when they did, Vanysa went to each part of the stage, after putting the bloody knife between her teeth, and curtseyed to the crowd, removing the blade to say to them, "Did yer Vanysa do a good job fer yah?!" As loud as she could. "YES!" The crowd chanted back.
"Well good, cause she's gonna do good fer yah too! Everthin is gonna work out now!" She shouted, pointing up to where Queen Draudillon stood, watching the whole thing play out.
When she was done, she bounded off the stage like a fawn, and pranced her way back the way she'd come, holding her knife in both hands behind her back, with her long braided blond hair bouncing behind her.
AN: Well there we go, we're up to Sixty Six chapters, the Draconic Kingdom is about to enter the war, special thanks to all the readers in my discord who helped me fix and tweak the small things along the way. Any mistakes there were…or still are, fall into MY lap, please do not hold them at fault for missing any, they helped out of love for the story…and a little bit of greed in wanting to get another chapter sooner…which is fine by me. If you appreciate this story you can show that appreciation by donating to the author's charity organization: bdgiving dot org.
Also…had a formatting issue when updating last night, and was absolutely DONE with FFN's bullshit for the evening, so I went to bed deciding to do it now.