The villagers who lived in Mudalal Village, or Mud Village as they liked to call it, had grown accustomed to their situation. That did not mean they liked it. None could forget the pain of being torn from their homes and then forced to work for and pay tribute to the very “lord” who ruined their lives.

The powerful instinct of self preservation can not be understated in a populace who is ruled by tyrants. When resistance means pain and probable death, a subtle transformation spreads through the citizenry. Often, this transformation takes the form of hopeless surrender. Whereby the oppressed submit to the authority of their masters and live in constant fear, with a deep appreciation for the little moments shared between friends and family.

The citizenry in The Mud Village might not have fared much better if it hadn’t been for the quite dangerous presence of a single unattended resource. This resource has been universally feared and respected by tyrants in all times and in all worlds. Foolish rulers have attempted to eradicate it completely, only to find their efforts backfired. Savvy ones have tried to feed it to their subjects in measured amounts. Its very presence, when left unchecked, can potentially topple empires.

The element in question, is none other than hope.

Lord Zarik was by no means a physically weak man. His combat prowess had earned him the uncommon Dark Knight class, and he had raised his level beyond what adventurers called the ‘first wall’, crossing over into the second tier of power. He had even gone beyond and was now level seven, a respectable strength among the enlightened on the Vitalian peninsula, if somewhat less than he would have liked after so many years of battle.

Despite his physical prowess, his greatest weakness by far was his arrogance. He never thought to question how easily his subjects had fallen into line, and merely gave himself much more credit as an administrator than was his due.

He, and by extension his mostly uneducated employee base of bandits and ruffians, were blissfully ignorant of the endemic lie that bubbled under the surface of the civilian labor force that were little more than slaves.

Such a small thing as politeness would be their undoing.

Smiles appeared where spite hid just under the surface. Obedience became perceived as obeisance. Cooperation had been confused with capitulation.

No one, least of all Lord Zarik, bothered to look beneath the surface of an apparently happy and docile slave force.

The mastermind behind this peculiar brand of resistance was a retired adventurer who, despite having grown frail in his sunset years, had lost none of the cunning that had seen him through a successful, if not particularly lucrative adventuring career.

Johan, the Crooked Cleric, hated his old adventuring nickname. There was no one around to remember it anymore, so he seldom gave it much thought beyond reflecting on how apt it was to describe his bent spine during his later years.

His spine wasn’t bent any more. In fact, the unassuming man who spent most of the day moving from one end of the village to another helping his people with their chores, could barely be called an old man. The frail half dwarf had undergone something of a metamorphosis since the arrival of his lady, Sly.

His peers could scarce believe the muscled creature with broad back and shoulders, a thick head of bushy hair and a full set of teeth was the same man who had counseled hope and patience for the day they would seize an opportunity to take back what had been taken from them with interest.

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Had they not seen the changes occur gradually, and had he not the same kind eyes and smooth, comforting presence they all loved and respected, they might have thought differently. Yes, there were some zealots who thought Johan had sold his soul to a devil, but none would think less of him for it. Nor would they fault him, as any of them would do the same for a chance to bring vengeance for their lost loved ones against their slavers.

“So you understand what you need to do, yes?” Johan whispered as he worked, pulling feathers from the chicken that would be part of Lord Zarik’s evening meal.

“Yes,” said the female cook, who chopped her vegetables with more force than was necessary. “I just don’t understand why we don’t use something like that right here and now, and be done with it! We could poison his stew right now and then that would be that.”

“Calm down lass,” said the half dwarf soothingly. “Proper time and place for all things. A little more patience means less risk and greater reward.”

“I still don’t get it,” said the woman shaking her head. She tossed her vegetables in a cauldron over the fire and snatched the half plucked chicken from Johan. “Give it here. Yer going too slow and I need teh make use of me hands.”

“Marie, you’re an essential piece of the plan. I need your promise that you can keep doing as well as you have been these past years. What’s another few days in lieu of that?”

“Alright, Johan,” she said with steely resolve that hadn’t been there moments before. “You know we all trust yeh. I just had ‘em jitters for a spell. I don’t need to know the whole plan and all them moving parts and the like. Just me own part is enough. You can count on me.”

“Never doubted you, luv,” Johan said with a reassuring smile.

He washed his hands in a nearby pail and dried them in his tunic. Then he turned to go.

“Oh Johan,” Marie said, pausing in defeathering the chicken. I’m just a few seconds she was already almost done. “I don’t know what that woman’s giving yeh, but you’re looking right sexy. Fancy a tumble with me tonight? I could use the stress relief.”

Johan was taken aback. This wasn’t the first time he’s been solicited since his dramatic age reversal, but Marie was half his age— or had been before. Now he looked like the equivalent of an unusually well-built human in his fifties, while she was a woman in her early forties.

Johan flashed a smile with a full set of fresh pearly whites.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” Marie said, her neck and cheeks growing beet red. Then she resumed her work in the kitchen and Johan left for his next meeting.

The man who was once known as the Crooked Cleric did not earn his name by being a corrupt clergyman. He had been a devout man, once. But even if he had long ago walked away from the church he felt walked away from him first, his nickname didn’t have anything to do with immoral or nefarious deeds. Nor did it have anything to do with his somewhat unsavory repressed appetites.

Johan earned the nickname early in his adventuring career for his ruthless and cunning tactics, which seemed unfitting of a man of the cloth. They had only ever been employed against monsters, but there were entire generations of goblins that didn’t exist today thanks to his efforts years ago. He had never been interested in fame or fortune, and often let others take credit for deeds he only ever performed for the sake of helping people and in the spirit of adventure.

As he left Marie’s kitchen in the castle, he went over his mental checklist, grateful his beloved lady Sly came into his life. He had been leading his people from the shadows for years, cultivating hope for an outcome that he had neither the resources nor the strength to achieve on his own.

His prayers had been answered beyond his wild imagination, and now he could put paid to those who murdered his friends and uprooted him from his hard-earned quiet life and death in obscurity, which was all he wanted from his last days.

Now, if everything went according to plan, there was a whole new tribe who wouldn’t live to regret the machinations of the Crooked Cleric and his lady.

Only, instead of goblins, the ones who died screaming would be a bunch of bandits and their clueless lord.