Hovering in the air while seated cross-legged and at peace, the king’s mind rapidly addressed the numerous pings waiting patiently for his attention.
Suddenly, he got an alert from one of the divisions he’d ordered to spy on Lord Walker’s budding following in Hennings. Immediately reading it, his entire mind turned its attention to what he was seeing.
It seems the young man’s fervent request for people not to follow him has resulted in exactly what he’d expected to happen, but not in the WAY he expected. True, they’ve formalized their little cult and have now begun acting. Yet, instead of focusing on what he’d thought they would, they’ve pivoted their entire purpose.
Reading over the report, he had to admit, if only to himself, that he hadn’t seen this coming. Their structure was cohesive, logical, and entirely for the good of their members. They did not advocate anything other than personal development and had no overarching goal. As secret societies went, it was almost refreshing to see them so community-minded.
They even had a private Thought Hub set up to request aid from other members and an agreed-upon payment structure.
At most, he’d expected some idiots in robes following the little anomaly’s life like a story… not this… whatever this is.
Should he do something about it?
It had been a long time since he’d been in a situation where he couldn’t predict what would happen… or at least have enough information to make an educated guess.
‘Hmmm. Well, as long as the plan for the Tower of Fate continues to follow the expected pattern, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I sincerely doubt a community of fanatics advocating hard work and professionalism will amount to anything other than a boon for the city, so it’s best to just let them go about their business. I can always deal with it later if I have to. Besides, eventually, the anomaly will have to come here, and it will be interesting to see what happens when he does,’ he thought to himself with no small amount of amusement.
—--
All things considered, the rest of the meeting went surprisingly well. No one asked too many clarifying questions about his principles, or who Nero was as a person. Aside from needing his reassurance that he would, in fact, be there for the ceremony, the rest of the meeting focused entirely on logistics.
While Cathleen led the rest of House Walker’s leadership through what responsibilities they would have, Nero was able to mostly mentally detach himself from the conversation and focus on his link.
Yet, his perusal of the pings he’d missed didn’t stop him from occasionally listening in to what the group was talking about though.
Group Leader Keening was apparently in charge of politics and party planning, although that’s not what they called it. As far as he could tell, despite having been a guard, Cathleen had put her in charge of creating ‘engrams’ that her team would post on the Thought Hub for some reason. She also was in charge of coordinating with Vera on getting the ceremony set up. Although, from what he could tell, it sounded more like a fundraiser or something. There were guest lists mentioned, caterers, decorators, and if he hadn’t misheard them… a band.
Meanwhile, Knight Angleton was handling their future deployment plans. Conveniently sidestepping the issue of where Nero himself was going to be, House Walker was going to be all over Dorchester for some reason. Hunter teams were being sent out to the wilds to complete missions through the Hunter’s Hall. Two groups under the command of some guy, whose name Nero didn’t recognize, would be remaining here to represent House Walker as the army pushed into the tunnel. And finally, the main force, led by Cathleen would be heading toward the mountain gate and joining the rest of the army.
Not wanting to engage in the conversation, Nero was forced to check his pings to see how many freaking people were actually going to be under House Walker’s banner after the ceremony. It took longer than he’d like to admit to find the relevant pings, but find them he did. There were actually two lists, the current roster, and the estimated one which included everyone who’d be giving their oaths tomorrow. It even included a schedule listing what times each group would be giving their oaths and had links to each of their records. Altogether, after the ceremony, he’d have 1543 ‘members’ of House Walker.
It was a ridiculous number, an incomprehensibly stupid number.
There were household servants, managerial positions for his interests including accountants and managers, lawyers, store owners for his trading hubs, guards for his estate and his warehouses, hunters, and soldiers… so many soldiers. Unsurprisingly, there was a note at the bottom in bold which stated emphatically that most of these people would be serving House Verena on detached service, while still ultimately being under House Walker.
‘Thank all that is holy I’m not going to have to pay for all of these people… honestly, what the hell is Vera thinking accepting all these applicants,’ he thought to himself in annoyance.
When it came down to it, Nero could only hope that most of these people would be put off by his recent statements, and as a result, wouldn’t show up for the oath-giving ceremony.
The rest of House Walker’s leadership was going to be dealing with supplies and coordination. Teams were assigned, orders given out, and weird topics like center representation and keep management were also discussed. Nero followed maybe five words out of ten of what they were talking about.
Seemingly forgotten, he was free to eat his breakfast and deal with his pings without anyone bothering him.
This time, rather than pretending to sound like someone he wasn’t, he responded to his personal correspondence in as blunt and straightforward manner as possible. He made it clear that he appreciated their support, but was currently focusing on his own stuff, and he recommended that they do the same.
He ended up replying to over fifty pings with variations of ‘it’s not you’ - ‘it’s me’. In every one, he tried to include one or two cat-poster-worthy quotes to inspire them while telling them to essentially leave him alone.
‘You’ll go only as far as you want to!’
‘Who you are is a product of What you do!’
‘Be better than you were yesterday!’
‘The world is what you make it!’
None of them were particularly impressive if he was being honest, but he figured if they hadn’t heard them, they’d probably be sufficiently satisfied. All that mattered in the end was that they got the point, and stopped ping’ing him. He had enough to deal with.
The other pings he’d neglected to answer weren’t any easier to handle.
Jennings had sent him a long-winded ping talking in circles about responsibility, destiny, and taking advantage of his level to address the problems that he and other big shots were restricted from dealing with. In response, Nero sent him an equally long-winded and meandering response about his own journey and how everything would work out in the end. Nero wasn’t sure how well sarcasm translated across pings, but by the end of what he had written, he was thoroughly chuckling at how pointless his response ended up being. Literally, every buzzword he’d ever heard was included.
‘Recalibratory living’, ‘Dynamic learning’, ‘Coordinated journeying’, ‘Emotional stability’, ‘Personal responsibility’, ‘Enlightened self-reliance’, ‘Logistical competency’, ‘Healthy incentivization’, ‘Impactful retargeting’, and an obscene number of variations of the word ‘Synergy’.
Whether or not Jennings would see what he was doing was anybody’s guess, but Nero made sure to specifically save a copy so he could look at it later and laugh about it.
Other than that, he had to deal with forwarded pings from Vera addressing the multiple businesses and deals she’d been handling on his behalf. Most of what he was reading he didn’t understand, so he ended up just signing his name to whatever she sent him and offering her his congratulations and thanks.
At the end of the day, he either trusted her, or he didn’t… and considering that he didn’t really have any other option at the moment, he was perfectly fine with letting her handle everything.
He then had to skim Cathleen’s after-action reports. While dull, they did unfortunately have a recounting of all the people he’d lost from the forces who’d agreed to follow him during the battle. From what he could see, everyone who’d died was one of the criminals who’d intended to join his house. It was a decidedly somber feeling that went along with his signing their death certificates. Since he’d been ‘sponsoring’ them, as short a time as it was, he was responsible for tracking them. They’d all died during their assault on the central chamber, having agreed to take the lead in return for a substantial decrease in their societal debt. While he theoretically understood the concept of dying for their freedom, he still couldn’t help but think it was a waste.
‘Stupid system full of stupid people believing stupidly that their deaths mattered,’ he thought to himself sourly.
Shaking off the feelings of doom and gloom, he told himself that they were free to do what they wanted, and he wasn’t going to waste his time worrying about it.
Finally having dealt with what he could, he marked the remainder to be sent off to Vera to handle when his link rejoined the Dorchester Thought Hub. Some of the pings had official-looking headers and concerned lawyer-looking stuff, either requesting his presence in the capital to receive honors, or other such incomprehensible nonsense. Seeing as he had no idea when he’d be able to deal with any of it, he figured it was best to just pass the buck off to her and let her deal with it.
By the time he was done with everything, the meeting looked to be wrapping up.
Cathleen thanked everyone for their service while making it clear that she would be watching them. From the tone of her voice, Nero could tell that her management style was more suited for threats than encouragement. Now that he thought about it, It was actually kind of surprising how well everyone responded to her fascist commands.
‘Whatever… I’m sure as hell not going to stick my nose into it. As long as she’s willing to lead them, she can do whatever she wants,’ he thought to himself.
When he was about to leave with everyone else, Cathleen’s hand reached out and gripped his arm in a vice-like grip that left him stumbling.
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“A moment, little lord,” she said threatenly.
Awkwardly turning to face her as she still had his bicep firmly in her grasp, he replied with a smile, “Of course, pretty lady. What can I do for you?”
Glaring deeply into his eyes with that intense stare of hers, she said, “I still need to hear on what front you’ve decided to include yourself.”
When she let go, Nero rubbed his arm and turned to face her. “Right. Well, I figured I’d wait to decide until after the ceremony thing. Who knows how many people will actually show up? Plans might need to be changed, you know. We might not have enough people to send off in all those directions you guys were planning. After all, I’ve made it pretty clear that they were signing up for a fairy tale. I doubt there will be all that many who are willing to stick around.”
Raising a singular eyebrow in amusement at his statement, she replied, “I see. We’ll just have to wait and see then. Am I to assume that you won’t be taking up the Tower of Magic’s request to help them with the scrying then?”
Snorting, he replied, “Yeah, you could say that. I’ll be in the field, regardless of what happens. I’m guessing most of this craziness will die down when the ceremony doesn’t live up to expectations. After that, we’ll go back to having our little troupe of wackos who will join me with the army heading into the mountain gate. If we have 50 people coming along, I’ll be surprised.”
That statement earned him the other eyebrow along with a small smirk. “Of course. We’ll just have to wait and see, little lord.”
Not liking her tone, he glared at her and replied, “Yes. Yes, we will.” before turning around and heading off.
‘She’s buying into the hype… It’s not surprising, she’s always been a little fanatical,’ he said to himself while rubbing the arm she’d assaulted.
All around him, he could see people stripping the tent down and organizing the supplies for the move back to Dorchester. As he’d gotten used to carrying everything he’d owned on his person or in his personal space, he didn’t have to bother with going back to his room. Instead, he headed outside and chose a good, out-of-the-way place to watch over everything.
After pulling out his trusty tree stump and a book from his personal space, he sat his ass down and tried to get some reading done while everyone was working their ass off. Unfortunately, he was almost immediately interrupted.
First, it was a random person delivering him a replacement set of armor on the orders of Cathleen. Not seeing any reason to wait, he stripped down right there in the middle of the encampment and changed. While he was doing so, the woman who’d delivered the armor narrated all the features, taking advantage of the opportunity to praise Lady Verena for her foresight and tactical thinking. Nero smiled and nodded, doing his best not to engage so he could avoid it turning into a conversation.
Then, before he was even done strapping down his leather chest piece, another soldier strolled up to discuss something with him.
“I’m sorry to bother you, my lord. But, I just wanted to ask you about something you said,” the young man stated while practically shivering in fear at the prospect of confronting Nero.
Feeling half dressed, and half the man’s size, Nero found the situation amusing enough to merit a chuckle. Looking up at the overly nervous armor-clad man, he replied, “Sure… fire away.”
“You spoke about focusing on one's own path, instead of those around you. I’m having trouble understanding what you meant by that. I’m sure you didn’t mean that people shouldn’t work together, or that a successful society isn’t everyone’s responsibility… So, I guess what I’m asking is… what did you mean by that?” he asked.
Nero suddenly felt the ether in the area practically grind to a halt. Glancing around, he could see that the man’s question had earned the attention of everyone within hearing distance… and with how well people could hear in this crazy world, and how much they were paying attention to him, that was just about everybody.
‘Great…. Just great,’ Nero complained to himself, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes or pinch the bridge of his nose in response to the sudden headache he was feeling.
Turning to look at the man, he sensed a powerful essence field being down on him. Tilting slightly to the side, he saw Knight Angleton standing off in the distance with his arms crossed with the most intense expression he’d ever seen on the man’s face.
Nervously licking his lips, Nero realized he better choose his words very carefully. The last thing he needed was that monster of a man going from a fanatic follower to a torch-wielding lunatic screaming about heresy.
Looking up at the man, Nero replied, “OK. I can understand how you might interpret what I said as not giving a shit about other people, and that is your right. However, that’s not what I meant.”
Seeing as how multiple people were standing in place, clearly waiting for him to say more, Nero felt the emotional weight of multiple essence fields bearing down on him.
He really missed the times when he could just argue with Nick in a lab over a cup of coffee. Sighing, he decided to just get it over with. He just needed to bullshit a bit, and not get carried away. He could do that.
Hopping up onto his trusty tree stump stool, he addressed the entire crowd, “I think you are all living under the mistaken belief that you can only be a good person if that’s all you are. I’m not going to tell you how to live your lives, as I sure as hell won’t be listening to you about how you think I should be living mine. But, society is about realizing that we’re all in this together.
You don’t have to be a ‘good’ person because some asshole in a chair tells you to. You should be a good person because it makes you feel good to be one. When you help someone with something, it doesn’t have to be some sort of sacrifice for the greater good. It can be a selfish act because everything you do is actually pretty selfish.
Hell, look at the economy. The only way an economy works is if everyone gets something out of a deal. Someone makes bread, they sell the bread, and if the bread is too expensive, the customers won’t buy it.
It’s the same thing with good deads. When you do something nice for someone, the reason you do it should be because you think it’s worth doing, not because of some arbitrary moral decision made by some asshole up in a tower telling you that you should. When you give a hungry person some food, it’s because it makes you feel good to help. You shouldn’t HAVE to give them your food, it needs to be your decision.”
Still feeling the attention pressing down on him, Nero felt his inner troll bucking out of his control.
Rubbing his hands through his hard, he shouted, “God dammit. I don’t want to be the one explaining this to you. I’m not your dad or your moral authority. Just… don’t be an asshole to each other because you don’t want other people to be assholes to you. How hard is that?”
Fed up with his mini-rant, Nero hopped off his tree stump, picked it up, and threw it over his shoulder. Completely done with the situation, he began stomping off while ignoring all the looks he was receiving.
Realizing that this kind of thing was just going to keep happening if he didn’t find somewhere to hide, he altered his essence field to blend into the surroundings, fading away into the crowd.
Thinking about what he’d just said, he realized he’d just accidentally ‘preached’ at them… like an idiot.
‘OK. That went a little off the rails,’ he thought to himself.
He was the kind of guy who was used to being able to share his opinions on life and moral responsibility without having to think about anybody taking him seriously. He could argue against the belief that you had to be a religious nutjob in order to not be an asshole all he wanted from the comfort of his recliner while sipping a beer. But now, people were in danger of LISTENING to him, and he had no idea what he could do about it.
Granted, he had carefully constructed his beliefs over his entire life through careful arguments over the internet. Sometimes, he’d play the troll, stirring up the threads to see how people reacted. But, in his head, he always filtered what he was reading through what he considered logical and reasonable. He could play the asshole whenever he wanted, while not letting himself ‘become’ the asshole, or so he thought.
Now, there was no time off. Everything he said was under the microscope, and people were taking him seriously. It was infuriating.
Was he never again going to be able to mock people without someone believing he was being serious? Would he never again be able to rant about the military-industrial complex and political interests interfering with society without causing a riot?
Honestly, this was the worst-case scenario for someone like Nero. People weren’t supposed to take him seriously… if they did… he’d end up destroying the entire damn world. It would be freaking anarchy!
Practically having a panic attack, he found himself collapsing onto his tree stump behind a few crates while holding his head in his hands and trying to catch his breath.
“Do you really believe that?” asked a voice from his left.
Nearly jumping out of his skin in fright, Nero fell over the side and onto his ass. Looking up in shock to see Academian Quincy standing over him with a curious expression on his face, Nero shouted, “What the fuck man!?! I thought I was hiding… hidden… whatever!”
Waving his hand as if Nero’s pathetic attempts at essence concealment didn’t matter, he said, “Yes, yes. You were sufficiently hidden. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d really like you to answer the question. Do you really not consider duty, honor, and humanity a sufficient reason to act for the betterment of all?”
Feeling his heartrate slowly backing down to normal, Nero stood up to pat himself down and glare up at the older mage. Maintaining eye contact the entire time, he reached over to collect his tree stump, sending it back into his personal space.
When he was done, he placed his hands on his hips and said, “I get what you're asking, and also understand the danger of putting that kind of belief out there for the masses. I don’t know what to tell you. I absolutely don’t want to ruin this little slice of paradise you’ve all created, but I believe what I believe.”
Sighing heavily, he broke eye contact to stare up into the sky in defeat. “It’s like this. I believe that everything everyone does is by definition a selfish act. People delude themselves into thinking they're doing it for some grander reason, but that is just so they can sleep at night. Recognizing that you are doing things for yourself is important. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a good person. It just means that you realize you're being a good person because you WANT to be, not because someone told you to. Society is everyone deciding to work together, right? I don’t see why it has to be any more complicated than that. Don’t be a dick, and focus on your own shit… that’s my life philosophy.
When I see something that pisses me off, I do something about it. Not because I feel some kind of moral outrage, but because I want to. It’s like adventuring. Someone has a problem they’re willing to pay to have solved. I get to feel like a hero and be paid for it. If I were really rich, I’d set up some charities and give to the less fortunate so I would no longer feel guilty living in my sick-ass mansion, sipping on expensive drinks, and enjoying the good life. But, it’s about how I feel… nobody else’s opinion should matter.
But now, people are listening to me, and trying to be like me. I’m like a social influencer or something, and I’m freaking out man. I’m not cut out for this shit.
Like, if I keep making fun of your dumbass light hat, are you going to suddenly agree with me and take it off? That would immediately take the fun out of giving you shit about it. These assholes are ruining my fantasy world by actually listening to me!”
Academian Quincy stared down at Nero in silence, his facial expressions giving absolutely nothing away. For several long seconds, the quiet stretched out, giving Nero the opportunity to notice the tension in his shoulders and the sweat running down the back of his neck.
Finally saying something, Academian Quincy quietly noted, “I actually think you make a very convincing argument. What you said isn’t all that different than the founding principles on which our kingdom was built. It’s why our cities are left on their own, to rise and fall under their own power, and it's the responsibility of every citizen of Oglivarch to wake up every morning, choosing to work together so that the kingdom keeps running. Everyone is responsible for their own life, and any duty they choose to accept is worthy of admiration for their sacrifice. You haven’t said anything that is all that inflammatory. I don’t actually see what you’re so worried about.”
Nero listened in stunned silence, struggling to understand what Academian Quincy was telling him.
When the man finished, Nero’s blank stare was all he received in response.
That was until Nero lost it, and began shouting at the top of his lungs. “What do you mean it wasn’t inflammatory? I’m advocating chaos! A world where everyone is out for themselves! Are you all freaking out of your minds! The people in charge have to control the masses, brainwashing them into believing that they need to sacrifice for the greater good! What kind of messed up society would you have if everyone just looked out for numero uno? The people in charge can’t be telling the truth… it would bring down everything! It would be bedlam! City’s would fall! Prices would rise! Nobles would become warlords faster than a stripper grabbing a C-note!”
Panting heavily… Nero’s shoulders slumped before finishing quietly, “You all are so God damn crazy, I just can’t take it anymore. None of this makes any damn sense. Let’s just go back to Dorchester, sign up some morons willing to follow me underground, and kill some clone-baby kobalds. Hopefully, some ultra-violence will make me feel better about having to live in the same plane of existence with all of you lunatics.”
Academian Quincy awkwardly patted Nero on the shoulder, having no idea what to say to the excitable young man.