Reaver's 3 Step Guide to Surviving, Evading, and Quelling a Rebellion by Knead-Boric, Step 3


Step 3: Quelling


So you've survived a rebellion. You've evaded from said rebellion. However one's mind can never truly be free from a rebellion without finishing it. It would've been a shame to allow Bloodstone to fall into the hands of those foolhardy ex-thugs to be frank. As such, I took it upon myself to quell the altruist rioters.

Lesson one: build a sizable army. It didn't take me long to find a number of bloodthirsty mercenaries, in spite of Westcliff's status as a vile mercenary breeding ground no longer being boast-worthy, - thanks to our late Majesty, you see. Also thanks to our late Majesty however, the winners of the Crucible were now out of job opportunities since Lord Lucien's fall. As such, I was able to fill two whole galleys of them (and I can tell you how unpleasant it was filling them all into one ship, but for brevity's sake, I shan't), no longer needing Annabeth to row for me. - A shame it was to see her sink into the ocean, but space was needed to fit in every man I had.

Lesson two: the element of surprise. When trying to stamp out such rebellious subjects, not a single rebel must know how, where or when you're going to strike. So it comes to no surprise that I had to dispose of every pair of wandering curious eyes and snoops in Westcliff and sink every passerby ships on the way back home. As many strategists might agree, you mustn't risk word of your movements reaching the enemy, ever. To add to that, we approached the bay in the dead of night, when the town slept.

Oh how I remember how the defiled, hand-reproduced portraits of my posture lined the walls of the town that night. Surely they got a hold of that photograph that fool Barnum "developorised". I could tell you how insulted I felt when they dared not only to steal and copy my photograph, but also sullied my lovely image. Such audacity couldn't go unpunished.

Lesson three: put an end to it all. With such a quarrel caused by the townsfolk, can anyone truly blame me for the way in which I disciplined my subjects? To skip the details, the mercenaries did the clean-up as they were told to the letter. It was quite satisfactory, the way they cleaved, slashed and blasted their way through the streets. The renegade citizens tried to resist, but it mattered not. They were mere thugs, and the mercenaries I had hired were warriors seasoned and battle-hardened by the Crucible. Soon enough I had quelled the rebellion. But left the whole place in such a sorry state. So much that I had them raze the place to the ground, twice. Couldn't have left it the way it was, certainly not after all that has transpired.

Lesson four: should you require to erase all traces of culpability, cover your tracks by disposing of all used assets. This included the hired soldiers. Obviously I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of paying each of them individually, far too much effort that would be. Not to mention that all former accountants and coin purse carriers laid dead in the streets. So I cast off my ship, burning the ones at port and leaving all the mercenaries to burn along with the city, picking off any that would try to retreat into the waters or the Wraithmarsh with my trusty pistolet. As far as the mainland was concerned, they were just a band of brigands acting alone. Who, taking advantage of the townspeople outing me, sacked Bloodstone for all it was worth and singed it to a crisp. But alas, the townsfolk would not go easily; and in the defense of their city, not a single one of them, townspeople or invader, escaped the blaze that had set loose in the town - an accident amid the chaos most likely. Leaving moi, Reaver, the only survivor to tell the tale, as I was watching it all from my pleasure boat whilst escaping.

Now you, my readers and the rest of the hopefully still-living citizens of Albion, know the truth behind the Sack of Bloodstone. However there was little care for that cesspool of a pirate den then, and my actions behind its fall will likely come to no surprise or bother now.


And so, that is how I, Reaver, managed to survive, evade and quell a rebellion. Hopefully this guide has helped.

PS: Should you ever feel the need to write me, note that the postmen are all likely dead and that I probably wouldn't care about what you'd have to say in the first place.