Patience, my flock of... dudes and dudettess!
Your thirst for knowledge regarding previous events will be quenched soon!
Until that time comes...
ENJOY THE CHAPPY, YE BASTARDS!
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Amalthe Vess POV
I hope god is with us today… The council will probably execute every single one of us if they hear what we are planning.
Inside the forest surrounding Tikil, we stand in fright of what might happen if we are discovered. Thus far no one has been found out, but today might be the first, right?
“Amalthe! Go and report to the generals. They wants to question you regarding your report”.
I look over at the man in charge of my group of spies. We have been heavily infiltrating the council military system – under the guise of being prostitutes -, and found something rather chilling.
A month or so back, the military started preparing human subjects for “Alteration”, as they put it in the report to the council. The only reason I even found it was due to the laziness of one high-ranking gentleman I had been tasked. He didn’t even bother putting his report in a secure room, making my job a lot easier.
No matter how much I tried to get any work related information out of him, he always shut up, or with a gentle voice told me to be less curious.
“They will get you killed if I tell you”, he said.
The “alteration”, as they called it, took advantage of half elf blood they had acquired. Apparently the half elf blood was close enough to our own to give us the same abilities as the elves and half elves. That didn’t come without a price, however.
Almost 90% of all “Altered” became ruthlessly homicidal for some reason. It is as if the human part of their brain was switched off, and never returned.
The murder rates in Tikil spiked to new tops, and the council didn’t lift a finger to change it. The reason the Union Intelligence Service picked up on it, was due to their extensive intelligence service amongst homeless people.
When murderers run free, the first ones to seek protection is the homeless. They are already vulnerable, and information like that will literally determine if they die or not.
When a group of big strong men ask if they have any info on the perpetrator(s), they will get everything they need, and more.
Whoever came up with the system was pretty smart. They take advantage of the knowledge the homeless provide, and use return the information with coin. Pretty well paid as well, if I must say so myself. After I heard about the system from a friend, I dropped everything I had to get in. I was technically not homeless. I had a “steady income”, and slept in the beds of willing men for shelter. I was a parasite. A woman that latches on to unknowing victims.
Prostitution was my salvation from the poverty my region suffered. I am a beautiful woman, if I must say so myself. Beauty I often took advantage of.
Most of my clients didn’t want to fuck, oddly enough. They wanted a woman to listen to them without judging. I became better at listening and giving advices, than sexing them up.
I think that is why I am so good at gathering information from men who have their guards down. Nothing drops your guard faster than a butt naked babe standing in front of you with a gentle smile on her face, and seductive gait. It is even better when that woman will listen to all of your complaints afterwards without thinking you are any lesser of a man. Of course I silently judged them, but I never let that show on my face.
Yeah… I became good at gathering information. That is until someone inside the council grew wary of us. Over the passing months, we have given thousands of reports to the main branch. With each and every one we had tangible proof. Proof that something was up, and the main branch had to figure out what.
Everything from human trafficking, to supply of illegal substances was provided by the military. Hey… you have to have subjects for those “Alterations”, right? You also need income to further develop it. Do you seriously think that the council will send you the millions of coins needed for that?
You also need the subjects to remain docile. Nothing makes a man more docile than the magic mushrooms they seem to eat for breakfast and dinner.
Apparently a man named Akif came here to take care of that particular problem. The mushrooms became a hit amongst the lower social classes. That includes the labourers and the homeless.
The homeless were literally too high to gather info. It isn’t their fault, per se. Apparently those magic mushrooms give you a way out of your misery. Akif replaced those mushroom induced hopes and dreams with actual goals and motivations. He gave the order to set up special forces specializing in interrogation, execution of sensitive missions, and intel gathering. A lot of homeless men used to be in the military. They have training and good mechanisms in place to help them cope with any situation.
Those forces were directly under him, or the general. Normally they would talk with the other leaders in the Union Intelligence Service, but ultimately, Akif and Atre – as he is called – are the leaders.
Lots of homeless people enrolled in those special forces. The pay was decent, and they had a stable home. The barracks they lived in even had some sort of privacy – cloth walls making up rooms.
Yeah… Akif is strong. Stronger than any man I have heard of. He is kind as well. Stern, but kind. If you do your job, you will be treated with respect. That is all he asks for. Do your best. It makes you want to work harder.
I wasn’t there, but apparently he and two ladies accompanying him, took out a whole caravan of altered guards. From the rumours originating from the trackers, they ripped the altered to shreds so fast no one knew what happened.
I still find that hard to believe, but even if the rumour is false, the caravans never reached their destination. There have been no more caravans going either, but we still have lookouts guising as bandits on the road. They check every single cart passing through. No more mushrooms have been delivered.
They also freed a few freshly converted Altered. They figured the Altered hadn’t gone through the process of indoctrination yet, so they took a chance, and it paid off.
Akif tasked himself with staying in Val for a while to train the men, and run special operations. His unusual methods have kept them away from the spotlight of the council, but I wonder for how long. The council already knows something is up after the fresh batch of altered got kidnapped.
After the Altered got trained, shit quickly rolled down hill for the program the council started. They haven’t ended it. Ooh no… They still keep it up, but their ability to produce new altered has plummeted.
The council doesn’t seem to know what is going on, but as I previously stated, they suspect something. They probably have an outdated intelligence system.
The guys making the reports dies too fast for them to properly make a report. They tried to implement a buddy system, where not just one man saw or experienced something, but two. Hell… they couldn’t even take a piss without their buddy in the same room.
The result of that was that those “buddies” died. They had literally twice the casualties from that system, and even less intelligence.
Humans can’t keep their mouth shut. They are by law they are required to keep silent about any military operations, but just telling one other person that you were a part of something, and you are dead. UIC (Union Intelligence Service) is scary efficient. They have made people able to be ruthless killers, and still function like normal human beings when they return home from missions.
My first target was a merchant selling slaves. He was also the head mushroom distributor in the area, and the union wanted to eliminate him.
The instructors taught me to look upon the man not as a human, but as a beast. They pointed out everything he had done during his lifetime. All of his bad deeds were pointed out, and we were given proof. It made us unable to feel any sort of remorse for what we did.
I just hope this system doesn’t get out to the other countries. It is very logically made, but it is far from what we learn in Val. Here we are told that according to a book, these guys are bad. Bad guys need to be killed.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
We didn’t get that explanation. We were shown what they had done, and we were given reports given by other groups. All we had to do was ask the person that gave the report, and we would know the truth – if we suspected something, that is.
Me and my squad went out, and in his bedroom we found him raping a slave. She was crying with despair when we entered his room. The slaver was eliminated before he even knew what happened. I didn’t feel a thing after killing that man. I felt scared about how little I cared for that mans life. He was a man, and he had a family. We didn’t care for that.
It turns out he was a mean son of a bitch to his family as well, so it was all good.
That event was credited to the homeless. They had their eyes and ears up for suspicious people and conversations. If it wasn’t for the homeless, he would probably still be alive.
The elves seem to have an additional way of gathering intelligence it seems. I don’t know what they do, but it is as if they read the mind of captured assets. Give an elf an hour in a dark room, and that man sings like a bird – sort of… I have never heard a word being uttered in that room, but they always come out of there with massive intelligence gains.
It is quite scary, actually. After the rest of us – the humans – learned that they don’t have to talk to us to know what we have done, we stopped lying. No point in lying if they can look you in the eyes, and know everything from what you ate a week ago, to who you are cheating on.
Yeah… You have to give it to them.
They are effective.
Even at the size we are operating on right now, intel spreads like wildfire. I don’t know how they do it, but you can give a report to one elf, and before you have reached the next one, he knows everything you said. It is as if we humans are only good for gathering the information. The feeling of inadequacy is unfamiliar to me.
Yeah, I was a prostitute. But I was the best one out there. I could make any man sing like a bird, and if they didn’t, I would always find out what they were bothered by through other means.
I thought I would be able to move up in the ranks, but now that I have seen the capabilities the elves have, I can’t help but think I am stuck here forever.
I don’t hate gathering intel... But it is not something I want to do for the rest of my life, that is for sure. I have to do a lot of things I don’t like – such as sleeping with men I much rather would stab repeatedly.
That being said, the leadership doesn’t discriminate. They know that we don’t have the same capabilities as the rest of the Union. They don’t expect us to do what they do.
They do expect us to do what WE can do. We have greater natural strength and stamina. We can go for way longer than the elves and half elves can. We prostitutes have a lot more experience regarding sex, and anything sexual. The elves have too much pride to sleep with anyone. That doesn’t mean they aren’t gathering intel that way. It just means they are worse at it than we are.
The elves can’t control their body language as much either. Me and my squad are all ex-prostitutes, and we have been like sister since we were children. We taught each other from a young age how to hide what we truly felt – only showing our true selves to each other.
Yeah… The council members have a few rotten eggs. Children are being raped by the same old geezers that are telling the masses of people to keep it in their pants.
The hypocrisy is real!
I walk over to the anonymous tent the general is staying in. Atre, as he is called, is pretty much the boss man when it comes to military organization. Akif is the man you seek when you have a target that needs eliminating. I have heard rumours that the two of them are princes, but I hardly believe that. There is no way two princes would be behind enemy lines like that. Yeah, the two of them are scary strong, but they are also high risk assets if the rumours are true.
You can’t just send a prince into a different land, and not expect people to notice.
I can hear two deep voices mumbling to each other. They seem to be discussing something important, so I figure I should wait. Sadly, the fabric the tent is made out of muffles the sound, so I can’t hear much.
The flap covering the entrance, and a gorgeous big chested woman comes out.
Her silvery long hair falls like curtains down to her amazing chest. Her face is round, and gentle – giving of a motherly aura I have never encountered. It is as if she is built for gentleness.
Her crimson red dress hugs her forms tightly, and I can see some slight sagging in her chest area, but not too much. They are still nice and perky.
She doesn’t look a day older than 25, but somehow has the charm of a mature woman. I think that charm comes from her wide childbearing hips. I don’t have the opportunity to properly study her butt, but I imagine it is just as firm and perky as her chest and waist.
There is not a single gram of excess fat on her. Through her tight fitting dress, I can see the outlines of a muscular body. Not masculine, but a healthy strong woman who takes care of her appearance.
I have a healthy attraction to women, but the giant assets she is practically waving around in front of me, makes me incapable of taking my eyes of them.
“Akif! I think you have a fellow worshiper. Please don’t tell her the nickname you have for me!”.
The gorgeous woman calls out to “Akif”. I have never actually seen the man in person. He was always too far away for me to properly get a look at him. The fact that he is inside this tent, makes my heart beat frantically. I can feel my nervousness leaking through my tightly controlled facial expression, but I don’t feel threatened. It is as if I am going to meet an idol or something.
That is one of the leaders!
“Well… you have great tits, Valeria! I hardly believe I am the only one worshipping those mammaries of yours, Am I right, Atre”.
I can hear a “Yeah” poorly disguised with a cough, and I can’t help but laugh at this whole scene.
The stunning beauty named Valeria turns her attention back to me, and gently asks;
“How long were you going to stand out there? Come in! We asked for you to be here anyways!”.
“Aaah… sorry… you guys seemed busy, so I figured you would want your privacy. I couldn’t hear anything except for muffled sounds, but you guys seemed busy”, I tell her with a weak smile.
Valeria has a warm aura around her, it is as if the woman I just met has known me since I was born. Logically, I know that is not the case, but somehow I cant help but be drawn in by her gentleness.
I feel sorry for the man that tries to stand against this one. Since she is here, she must be pretty good at manipulating. No man can resist that charm of hers…
“Don’t worry. We are just doing some finishing details. That is why we want you here.
Please come in, young lady”.
She motions for me to enter the tent with her, and the sight I am seeing is practically out of this world.
A handsome man in light military armour is sitting in front of a map with a frown on his face, as a lady that wouldn’t lose out in looks to Valeria is gently massaging his shoulders.
On the far edge of the table, a rugged, but incredibly attractive man is looking at me with steel eyes. There is nothing threatening in his look, but I can feel that pissing this one off means death.
His big, muscular body is laying half-heartedly across the ground. His long, brown hair is gently flowing down his back. He is resting his head on veiny muscular hands that seems to be perfect for physical labour.
Two beings I can only describe as an angel and a demon are using him as a chair. The elf has a sleek, but firm look making her look like an anger straight out of the mass of pictures the council is distributing, and the half- elf looks like a fucking succubus.
“Soo… You are Amalthe, huh”, the succubus asks me with a small smile.
“Come! We have a few things to discuss”, she adds.
Well… that doesn’t sound ominous at all!