V9: Chapter 3

…

The Elves worked hard at making their new home both beautiful and defensible.

I gave them one of the encampment spots left over from developing Talon Hills.

Development of a region is costly, and in-game it’s better to invest and build one city or fortress at a time. In the early game, the strategy is to place basic villages to make use of tiles close to encampment spots and make them contribute to your empire. The rule of thumb is that if an encampment slot is surrounded by at least three hex-tiles with more than one unit of any resource, it’s worthwhile to place people on early in the game.

The key is to make sure the people you send out at least contribute the same amount as they would if they were in the capital. Spots that don’t have any special tiles are better left aside for future investment, when tile improvements can be built, or early-game constructions of fortresses for regional security bonuses.

The Elves’ got an empty encampment space that had some nearby forests, but just plains on every other tile. Good for a large agricultural city in the endgame, or an artillery fortress in the mid-game, but not worth settling in the early game. Since I had other spots to take care of and invest into, I just ignored the future town construction site along with a few others in Talon Hills that didn’t meet my requirements.

The Children of the Elm, moving to assemble around their goddess, basically had a blank canvas to cultivate.

They went ham.

The modest forests were now immense. Their trees going from regular ones to the equivalent of sequoia or redwoods. Naturally, not all the trees would fit in the forest with magic making them all gigantic… so they moved them with magic. Or, rather, the Children of the Elm made them move and plant themselves all around their new town. The trees literally uprooted themselves from the ground, shook off soil, and dug themselves into new homes in the surrounding plains. Over the course of a month, a massive forest filled with absurdly tall trees formed a day’s walk away from the capital easily visible from the top of any modest building.

I’d watched from the Citadel for a while at the sight of it.

It was one thing to know that the Elves can do it, but a whole other thing to see them tell hundreds of trees to get up and walk to replant themselves.

Once their new home was surrounded by giant trees, they started working in earnest.

The border got surrounded by fortifications in a hurry. Defense in depth with an emphasis on ambushes and tunnel tactics. Since I wanted my people to have practice at it, since we were going up against more horrible masses of enemies later, I sent in my own strategists to help and test them out in mock combat. That led the to the ambushes and tunnelling being supplemented by bolt holes for recovering wounded, pits filled with explosives and shrapnel, and hidden emplacements for our new cannons… everywhere.

They can shape the insides of those massive trees and even travel between them by making root tunnels.

Fighting the Elves in the late game with all their territory bonuses is partly why you need to take them out early. That’s just common knowledge. However, seeing it all in person made it clear that putting them down early was a good choice.

Any army going in there will come out as ground meat.

If I gave them anti-air, they’ll be able to defend it from me.

Anyway, behind those defenses was a hidden city that could relocate all over the forest. Their buildings were all living trees that could relocate as they wished. With the ability to carry around their farms, as well as just generate water with magic, there was no need for them to stick around in one place. Everything they needed moved within their new forest, and once the smaller trees grew in, they planned on making the paths only visible to invited guests.

Basically, the Children of the Elm made a fairytale nightmare forest, and then upgraded it with guns and cannons.

Again.

I’m glad I kicked these guys out of the game before they ramped up.

…

Once past all the horrific defenses, the Children of the Elm had a nice city.

All their homes were embedded into the immense, mobile trees that they made. One tree was like a single, self-sufficient street. People lived higher up, and shops and industry were kept closer to the ground. At the base of the trees, trash was sorted into compostable and non-compostable, with the former enriching the trees in question. The tent-like houses that hung from the trees, either in branches or stuck ascending up the trunk, were light and easily packed up or even joined together. At night, when they lit up lanterns, it was like the trees had loads of golden lights shining in their branches.

There were caveats of course. The Elves kept heavier industry groundside. They didn’t put forges in trees. Instead, they employed moving rock formations or hollowed out boulders, both of which had wood intertwining around or into the stone. They trundled along close to the ground when the rest of the city got up and walked. On those rock constructs, they also housed the heavy weapons, equipment, and ammunition that we gave them for their defenses.

If they thought about rebellion, they had about a month’s worth of ammunition and replacements.

The assault through their defenses would still be hellish and probably eat an entire army, but it was better than them getting domestic production of heavy weapons and munitions up and running.

But that’s enough ruminating.

It was time for me to check up on the Goddess of Nature, and see if there was any difference since I last saw her.

She was in a pure-white, elm tree that was massively enhanced and improved by the Elves. Less like a tree and more of a castle, its trunk was shaped and guided to look like a combination of a fortress and shrine. About the size of a city block, the immense tree had living towers manned by guards, and its roots were obviously not fully embedded in the ground. Anyone assaulting it would find themselves having to fight massive tree roots stronger and more durable than steel, but more than capable of speeding along as fast as cars.

It was pretty much a smaller version of their Purifier Titan, and that massive, skyscraper-sized thing was basically a regenerating giant robot with a nature aesthetic. No anti-air attack, though, so if they were planning on springing one on me, I had the answer to it already.

Anyway, I was let in without a fuss into the Shrine Fortress, surrounded as it was by praying followers and faithful from the Children of the Elm.

All of whom took up the ‘righteous’ garb of just vines and leaves, since they learned what their goddess clad herself in.

No matter what I do, the fanservice of this game just keeps bubbling up to the surface.

The innermost sanctum of the fortress shrine was past three layers of defenses, chambers where the defenders could fire arrows through walls, and where lights were all under their control. Magic was practically in every surface. Wards you’d normally find on castle walls fore sieges were on tables, so that they can be upturned and used for cover. Our more experimental wards to protect against shadow creatures and intangibility were also implemented again and again, despite their cost. The Children of the Elm did not hesitate to go into my debt for their goddess… not that I minded giving them the loan in the first place.

I passed through multiple checkpoints with Ayah and Rita following with my Iterants when a thought occurred to me.

If they wanted to ambush and kill me, they’d probably have a great chance at doing it now.

And, I would’ve feared that possibility, if not for the mark on my hand given by their goddess.

The Children of the Elm, one and all, recognized me as their goddess’s chosen with the marking.

Even the most extreme of them in our ranks looked at it and acknowledged it, then basically said that I’m one of them despite my outward appearance.

Yep.

They’d rather attest that I’m actually one of them in soul and spirit, trapped in another mortal race’s body, than consider the fact that their deity chose a regular dude than one of them.

Those guys are gold medalists for mental gymnastics.

The last set of doors were massive with an edifice made of gold. Gold was easy enough to produce in the Citadel, so when they requested a ton, I just allowed it. They used that gold to color in parts of the pure white door that they sculpted from the living tree. It depicted two hands, one for each door, holding the entire world.

Jeez, these guys are evil-flavored even when they’re trying to be good.

With a raised fist towards the door, showing the back of my hand, I gained entry into the sacred meadow within the fortress shrine.

Instantly, I could feel the difference.

Ayah took note instantly.

“You were correct, my lord. This is an exceptional increase in power.” The reports from the Iterants stationed on site, regularly rotated out and examined for any mental manipulation, told me that the Goddess’s physical form was growing and changing. They did a physical assessment after we shipped her out. Yep. She went from nearly six feet tall to almost seven since she was interred to rest here. “I believe that the reports say she still grows to this day?”

“We won’t awaken her until she’s fully strengthened. We have need of all her strength.” The Goddess of Nature was still asleep upon a plush white bed in the middle of a meadow, beneath a magical sun, and a cool pond. A tree grew beside her exclusively to give her shade. In the air, there was a tangible feeling like electricity, but somehow softer and more fluid. Kinda like when dozens of mages were prepping and pooling their power for a single spell. “I think that’ll be a few more months, still. Call the Head Priest.”

“I am here, Chosen of the Goddess.” I turned towards the source of the voice, and I was unprepared to look an elf grandpa wearing only a leaf skirt. It took all my diplomatic skill and prowess to not recoil at the sight. It was like a mental flashbang of wrinkled patches of skin over wiry muscle. “I am afraid that I cannot follow as closely as you. Only maidens may cater to her eminence. How may I serve?”

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I don’t recoil at the sight of you, and you call me a virgin!?

The Children of the Elm are truly nefarious beings one and all.

Never trust an elf.

Also, I took note of the fact that he called me the Chosen of the Goddess and not by my proper title and its associated authority.

This guy’s gotta go.

Either he’s too stupid to remember to call me the king and lord of this land, or he’s got his own ideas on how rulership works.

Newsflash buddy: I’m the guy with shapeshifting terminators.

No clue how he got this far to be honest.

“Continue gathering the Children of the Elm and bring them here. Make sure that they all worship the Goddess of Nature properly.” I kept an idle eye on the guy. He had followers behind him, and he’d entered right after I crossed the threshold without greeting or acknowledging me. The followers that he had behind him were suspiciously looking older than the typical Children of the Elm. I hadn’t spared any of the Children of the Elm above certain age, but I let them in once their Goddess came into play. My gut was starting to tell me that was a mistake, and that this guy and his followers needed to be investigated and routed. “She needs more faithful—

Quite suddenly, the head priest and his fellows started coughing.

All at once.

Then, they didn’t stop coughing and began wheezing and crying out in pain.

“My lord, your hand.” Ayah spoke softly, while she and Rita took out weapons to protect me. The other Iterants in my entourage didn’t hesitate to drop the act of looking like clerks and started converting bodily mass into weapons. I looked at my hand, and found the stylized tree on the back of it aglow. I barely felt any magic, but the soft glow it gave was like the glow being given off by the Goddess of Nature still sleeping behind me. But… she didn’t give any combat bonuses, right? “I think that she has detected traitors.”

The word traitor seemed to get through to the Head Priest.

“N-no! We are not traitors, your grace! W-we are true believers! The most true!” I was seeing where this was going. The Head Priest probably passed our assessments and got radicalized while in service. Khanrow was thorough with his vetting of the Children of the Elm we let in. The evidence lay in a few inconspicuous new gravesites all over my territories. Only 1/3rd of the Children of the Elm coming here got the Khanrow seal of approval. That seal of approval represented by the fact that they were still alive. “You are the savior of this world! It is only right that you rule over it! Su-such is the true path—gaghr!?”

The Head Priest doubled over in pain and agony, while from his insides sprouted a full-grown tree that subsumed and consumed his body for nutrition. It was a small mercy that he seemed to die before the tree burst through his skin and his skull. One of his followers was silently screaming as a whole branch was coming out of his eye, and he only perished and slumped over when roots started growing from his waist into the soil.

It was mercifully silent for a second when the trees finished growing and walked out of the meadow.

Then, one of my guards pulled out her communication slate, read the report it was transmitting, and handed it over to Ayah.

Ayah reported to me.

“Multiple Children of the Elm have experienced the same fate as this. The count is nearly two hundred.” Damn, these people were radicalizing fast. I guess having higher highs and lower lows when it comes to emotions can really mess with your head. “No more cases so far. The people outside are terrified that their Goddess has abandoned them.”

Hm.

This sounds like an event.

I probably had three options available to me, but I just had to figure them out.

The first was to tell the truth, which will lead to a loss in faith and in incoming Children of the Elm, while also making it so that no more of these zealots pop up. Short-term, great. Long term, poor. I’d rather cull a few zealots every couple of months, then lose out generated faith. It’ll probably be like a ten percent decrease to faith generation permanently or worse. The devs are never nice enough to give just a flat decrease.

So, telling the truth is out.

The second option was probably to just lie and say that the High Priest and his ilk were chosen by the Goddess to become part of nature. Make the executions look like some form of ascension. However, that sounded a lot like the bad options for managing a religion. In fact, that’s pretty much just emulating most cults. The dissidents going against the word of the prophet have been sent along into paradise. That sort of jazz. Going that route sounded like a surefire way to get mind-controlled or usurped by the Goddess.

Those two options are probably the default, if I didn’t have the assets I had at my disposal.

Most specifically, my control over the narrative and my secret police.

“Nothing has happened here.” My words made everyone freeze in place. What I was saying, after all, was patently ridiculous. However, I’ve made sure to constrain my use of my political and social influence. It’s a rare commodity. Something that I use with great care. The last time I did anything crazy with it was probably with Executive Harper. Hopefully, the tanks were full. I didn’t exactly have a number to look at, but I was going to try and tap into it anyway. “What happened to the Head Priest and the others is a mystery. No one knows what this is. They may be been sent ahead to Paradise, dispatched for wronging the Goddess, or anything else.”

I’ll turn it into a rumor, then when it turns into a conspiracy, have Khanrow replace the ringleader who pops up. The populace will just know that something happened, make their own ideas with it, and be placated and forget. The key to this event is that it shouldn’t happen again. That can be arranged through our current assets.

“This mustn’t happen again. I don’t wish for the Nature Goddess to have to act this way. Make sure that none over the age of twenty may serve her directly, and even then, they shall be watched by Iterants. The rest of the Children of the Elm may perform pilgrimages, but they will only enter the outermost ring of the shrine at most.” Ayah and Rita were quick to pick up on what I was outlining. Basically, we were going to say nothing, let people think things up, and set up safety precautions. We can probably obfuscate and file some reports and studies about the trees. Maybe, we could make bullshit up about them having souls still, and let people fill in the gaps, and take those people over later. “And, let it be clear to those present: the deaths that we saw and heard of today were by my hand. The Head Priest’s thoughts were plain to see, even before he professed them. That was when the Goddess of Nature acted in my defense. The blood spilled this day was by my command and my responsibility.”

There.

I’ve taken responsibility over the situation and provided a method to control over it through assets that I have available. Like any optimal solution to an event, I was leveraging assets that I already had, expending a resource (influence), and following a clear path. I’m responsible for what happened here, not the Goddess of Nature, so there should be a greatly lessened chance that we accidently get onto the route where the Goddess tries to usurp me.

In short: I’ve used money and assets to make sure I don’t get bad-ended.

Go me!

I turned to Rita and Ayah, who were both looking my way with rapt attention, waiting for orders.

Hm, maybe I didn’t have enough influence to push the insanity I proposed through?

Still, though, I’m going to try anyway.

“Arrange a meeting with Khanrow, and contact the heads of our printing press, Ayah. Rita, I want you seen cordoning off the trees that have been created. If there are any questions, tell them we’re investigating. Remember, the crux is to let the world know that the Goddess has done nothing wrong. It is the truth, if not the complete one.” I drilled my commands a bit more towards the two, and they nodded in sync. Good, I was getting through to them. Hopefully, this will all work out. They moved and the rest of the Iterants that composed my guards headed my way with a bit more caution than usual. Probably because I usually didn’t spout of crazy stuff like that usually. “To keep up the act, we’ll be going straight back to the Citadel under emergency procedures. Understood?”

As one, the entire group went to one knee and spoke as one.

““““““Understood, your excellency, your will shall be done!””””””

Maybe, I laid it on a bit too thick?

…

Interlude: Khanrow

…

I laughed at the absurdity of the command that I saw at the end of the report sent my way.

The Goddess of Nature acted on Jack’s thoughts and slew zealots forming a powerblock within our new village. She acted in his defense, after the Head Priest’s true nature was discerned by Jack, and as a result the Head Priest planning to elevate the Goddess to rulership and all associated to him were killed.

Jack could have seized power, could have called himself a prophet, and instead chose another path.

The path of a sovereign who simply had one of his people act in his defense.

“Nothing happened, indeed.” I shook my head, after finishing reading the report. Morgan’s brow was furrowed as she considered the words. She looked my way. Her question obvious. “You’re about to ask why he didn’t simply call himself her prophet, correct?”

“It would instill his position over the Children of the Elm.” Morgan confirmed her thoughts with nod. She was spending more time with me as of late. Learning and listening, so that she could be of more help during the coming efforts against the Wardens. She was a swift learner. However, as I taught her, she showed me some weaknesses of hers. Whether they were fabricated or not, I still sought to fix them.

“We already have the highest position over the Children of the Elm. We decide which of them gets to live, where they work, and how they think. Not only that, but we do so without being noticed. We rule over them while they believe themselves free… and so they come from all over the continent.” Morgan’s eyes shone at my explanation. The Children of the Elm would act against the King of Wisdom if he proclaimed himself the prophet of the Goddess. As of now, many ventured to her with the intent of becoming Chosen as well. The vast majority of those we culled from entry had not-so-secret designs to be the sole bearer of the Goddess of Nature’s mark. “With this move, we retain our current, unnoticed rule over them. They will come, we will take the best of them, dispatch the rest, and the Goddess will continue to grow in strength from the faith.”

Morgan’s appreciation for the plan became more pronounced as I explained.

My gut told me that she already knew, but wanted it confirmed.

She’s quite the clever granddaughter to have.

“But we are taking action against the possibility of such zealots forming again, correct?”

I almost snorted at her question.

It was obvious that such a thing would not be accounted for.

“The protocol was already in place and ready. We shall be dividing them up and putting them against one another, while controlling the center. Look here. We are set to seed three separate theories on what happened to the High Priest. One is to assuage the vast majority. The other two is to grasp the two ends of extremes.” It was brilliant. Jack predicted properly that the people will think and gossip and create stories to align themselves with. Instead of desperately trying to stop thought, he was going to fill them with ideas to latch onto. The vast majority will be placated by the news from the papers, but those who search for more will find our operatives. Both parties that rise will be under our control. “And, if we cannot control them, they shall be replaced with Iterants. Iterants who are already seeded in their population.”

Morgan was silent for a while, before sighing aloud and shaking her head.

“How do you all do it? Everything’s accounted for. No. What’s more important is why you wouldn’t share all this information so that everyone can stay calm!” Morgan stalked ahead and rounded on me with crossed arms. We were walked about the Scholar’s old Citadel. There were rumors of the Scholar’s remains finally making their move. A good chance as any to train Morgan in investigation and espionage. At her question, I just raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to think and not just talk. Her brow furrowed and she frowned… before a sigh left her lips. “It’s compartmentalization, isn’t it? It’s more than just a technique to keep information from spreading.”

“Indeed, it also keeps people focused. Too much information, too much understanding, and you can become lost. No, you may even lose sight of what in front of you. I experienced it as a warlord.” Those days felt like an eternity ago. Days where I spent nights sleepless trying to do everything, give every order with care, and barely relied on others. I made many mistakes and erred so much, because I simply had to do everything. “Even Jack limits what he sees. He looks at the numbers produced by our actions, bids them to change, and sets guidelines. From then on, it falls upon those who he gave orders to, just as we have officers we give missions to in a campaign. Sometimes, if something is of immense import, he goes there himself to handle matters… and reminds us why he holds his title.”

Morgan was silent at my words. We both walked through snow for a while, stretching our bodies, after a long day reading reports and updates from the agents we had in this land. Riegert’s creation was formulaic, but he built up the Scholar’s former capital into something that can be shaped into whatever we needed. Sarala could have been sent here to make it a land to produce wealth, but it had dissidents and bordered the Guardians of the Moon. Jack was correct in leaving this place to Riegert for development.

Once war began, it will hold against the tide of Undead that was to come.

The silence stayed for a while, before it was once again broken by silence.

“I want more. At the very least, as much work as you and Riegert do, grandfather.” Her words gave me pause. Not because she lacked talent, but because of what I didn’t want her to do. “Send me out there. Let me see the enemies we will face. Allow me to be more than just a weapon, but a true asset to our nation.”

However, if I looked past the fact that she was my granddaughter, I could find no reason to refuse.

She had the power, the talent, the skill, and the intellect to do as Riegert and I did.

She can truly help us and stand next the two of us as peers.

As I gave a nod, and as she smiled in triumph, a thought occurred to me.

Maybe, she planned for this all along.

If so, she truly deserved the position.