It turned out that the old proverb held true – everything in life starts with the chicken.
Or was it the egg?
Not the time.
Momo cleared her throat. Five thousand faces – a healthy mix of eager grins and skeptical scowls – stared at her from benches, rooftops, chimneys, coops, and street corners.
The entirety of Mole City had been summoned to hear the word of the queen, and they had come in droves. The Old Town was stuffed to the brink, every townsperson and their chicken waiting to hear about supposed “salvation.”
At least, that was how Momo sold it. Banners throughout the city read off The Church of the Feather: Undead Salvation Awaits. It was a mediocre name for a C-list Hollywood film about zombie chickens, and an even worse name for a political event, but it was the best she could come up with under pressure. But it worked; the turnout turned out.
Her hands grabbed fruitlessly at the edges of the podium, too sweaty to get a good grip. She could feel nausea nipping at her neck. I’m going to make Viktor into the new Court Jester for this.
For all the times she’d done it since she got to Alois, Momo still hated lying.
And this was about to be her biggest, stupidest deceit yet.
If it wasn’t clear from the way she was shaking in her clogs and unconsciously twitching her eye, she wasn’t exactly crazy about the solution she was forced to choose for this particular political problem. The Counter-Brainwash Brainwash Strategy, she had self-dubbed it.
It entailed, to her grave dismay, taking advantage of Viktor’s societal mindgames. Despite the moral complications, Momo had quickly come to realize just how powerful the stupid religion Viktor had cultivated really was. All it took was one quick look at the city’s page in her courier.
Mole City – De Jure Holding
Control Rating: 40%
* 10% from fear-based positive association with Viktor Mole
* 30% from neutral association with Baryte the chicken
* -70% from Viktor Mole’s negative association with everyone else
* 75% of the residents are under The Church of the Feather’s [Bu-cuawk!] effect, which makes them solely loyal to the teachings of Baryte the chicken.
* 25% of the non-affiliated residents are still living under the doctrine of King Jarva. Due to Kyros’s [Brainwash] Area of Effect spell over all of Jarva’s holdings, residents are initially predisposed to hate you, even if they didn’t like Jarva much.
The [Bu-cuawk!] effect. It effectively canceled out [Brainwash], loosening up Jarva’s hold on the people. Or rather transferring it to a bird, but Momo tried not to think about that.
So the plan was as follows: 1) Align herself with the bird, and 2) reduce that 25% residual loyalty to 0. Total religious control, with Momo as Baryte’s human spokesperson. She’d figure out the ethics of it later.
“Hello citizens,” she whispered into the wand-microphone. The crowd’s murmuring dulled, their attention turning to her. “You might recognize me from a few months ago. I go by Momo. Had a brief stint as the Ruler of Nam’Dal. Had to go run some errands.”
Some laughs – a lot of silence. Tough crowd.
“It was a pleasure being your mayor for thirty-two days. Today, I come back to you as something a little different… your queen.”
Judging by the disjointed applause, it seemed a few Momo sympathizers did still remain even amongst the disaffected crowd. That reassured her slightly, but it still was nowhere near enough of a majority for her to use pure ethos to get them on her side. Too much had changed since she left; too much resentment had sprouted in the city’s cracks.
Chicken strategy it is. She breathed deeply. Keep going.
“That’s enough about me. Let’s focus on the reason you all came here today,” she turned her body slightly, revealing an object on the stage behind her. “Sitting just below this canopy, napping peacefully, is a chicken you might be familiar with. Goes by a name starting with B.”
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A monk in yellow robes – not one of the two brothers she recognized, but a different, somewhat sinister edition – ascended a small platform in the city square and grabbed his own wand-megaphone. He had seemingly prepared it for this very occasion.
“Listen well, Ruler Momo, do not tempt us with falsities like He did, the dastardly Mole Man,” the monk shouted, his voice bellowing through the square. A group of sympathizers nodded in agreement below him, all dressed in the same shade of sunflower. “We have paid our dues and deserve to see the feathered god. He has been hidden from us for so long, weeks upon weeks, months upon months, imprisoned in that tower by that man who calls himself our lord. Let us look upon him, new queen, let us see his face.”
The monk created a turkey with his hand, then opened it, both palms facing outwards. The men below him did the same. It seemed to be some sort of cult-like hand signal.
“Lord Viktor has conducted no such imprisonment!” another monk countered. Momo recognized him to be Brother Hencrest, the excitable man she met at the gates. He was part of a different mass of yellow-robed clergymen standing several yards away, and he too had his own platform and wand-o-phone. “He alone knows the secret to Baryte’s powers. That is why we entrust in him the great bird, and do not question his absence.”
Did they really both bring their own debate podiums? Momo thought bleakly. I thought this was supposed to be my campaign event. Not a face off between the two branches of the Crazy Feather.
“Entrust him we do not,” declared the opposing brother. “All he gives us is altars to pray, shrines to patronize – shameless money grabs and ponzi schemes that force us to pay for the illusion of a connection with our god. Yet we see nothing of the holy bird himself, praise be his many feathers. He remains caged in that tower. Caged!”
Brother Hencrest scoffed. “As Brothers of the Feather, it is not our responsibility to see the Holy one on this plane, but to connect with him through the spiritual,” he said, his voice rising steadily. “And trust that our coin is going towards his blessed welfare.” He raised a pointed fist. “Your impudent slander insults the chicken himself, Brother Plumequill.”
Brother Plumequill gasped. “Don’t you dare suggest I would insult the Most Holy –”
“I do not suggest it, I state it as fact –”
“Citizens,” Momo said again, louder now. The brothers’ red, furious heads pointed towards her. They were moments away from settling the debate with not-so-holy magic. “Would you like to see the bird or not?”
That did the job of quieting them – but it seemed like an imperfect peace. She’d need to act quickly.
Momo stepped back and pinched the edge of the tarp.
“I will warn you,” she said, her nerves pricking. Now begins the hard part. “Calling him the feathered god might be a bit of a misnomer these days.”
With a swift pull, the tarp flew upwards. It revealed the frail, skeletal body of none other than Baryte himself, sitting politely on a stool and chewing on a cat toy Momo loaned him.
“Oh, dear sweet Nether, our god is dead!”
Shrieks followed. Several clergymen fainted. The townspeople clogging the square began to chatter fearfully, some running backwards, others forward. Knees and elbows collided, faces fell to the cobblestone. It had all the trappings of something that was about to devolve into a very fatal crowd crush. Momo swallowed hard.
Ok. Just like we practiced.
“[Crowd Control],” she murmured under her breath.
She had tested the Demagogue skill before she went on stage, using Grimli and Viktor as her victims. She had them pretend to be fighting – it didn’t take much, they both had a fair share of ridiculously specific and antithetical opinions – and then she snapped her fingers, cast the spell, and watched them go wide-eyed and drugged out.
It was like giving toddlers xanax.
Luckily, similar results occurred to the brethren. Both Hencrest and his opponent simultaneously agreed to give the squabbling a rest, deciding instead to gawk, slack jawed and dead-eyed, at their bony savior. The townsfolk too paused their thrashing, their knees and elbows falling into an amicable truce.
Momo smiled. Now this is a much more manageable crowd.
She hoisted Baryte upwards, displaying him in a Lion King-esque pose to the audience.
“Your savior, Baryte the Chicken, has entered a new stage of life – the, uhh – unlife. He died due to natural causes, but was revived by the healing power of necromancy so that he could continue to reign supreme and grant his holy blessings upon Alois,” Momo said, putting her bullshitting powers in full gear. “Please bow to your, uh, chicken.”
The [Crowd Control] did its part. Momo never saw bodies fly with such a quickness. Every yellow-coated man in the crowd flew to his knees; every child, woman and reptile took a kneel. Even the lesser chickens themselves squawked in awe and appreciation.
“Err… well done,” she said, ushering them to stand. “Now, for those who are still disbelievers…”
She eyed the back border of the crowd, the restless twenty-five percent which were unconcerned about the chicken. The [Crowd Control] seemingly couldn’t reach them – either just by distance, or by ideology. She could see some of them turning to leave, others passing weapons and torches hand-to-hand. This could get really messy.
“Before you do something silly like stage a coup d’etat,” Momo said with a smile. “I think you’ll want to see this. Viktor, please.”
With a sharp, mechanical whine, wheels began rumbling across the stage like thunder cracking. Three skeletons helped Mr. Mole to push a beast of a vehicle towards her; it was as tall and as wide as a forklift, made of many interlocking copper gears, metal chains, gas valves and inscribed runic patterns.
Where a driving wheel would naturally sit, was a hole. Momo stepped towards it, carrying Baryte.
“And you’re sure this will work?” Momo whispered harshly at the wizard.
“Not in the slightest,” Viktor whispered back, smiling wildly. “But I have full faith in my chicken.”
Momo stared down at the skeletal bird, took in a breath, and shoved it in the machine.
I hope everyone else will, too.