“All right, everyone!” Thorne shouted over the thumps of colliding wooden poles. It's time to pack up. Good job today.”
The students, who had been beating each other senseless just a moment before, all got up when hearing Thorne’s command. “Hey, Aral,” Thorne said, leaning down and helping the scrawny kid to his feet. Blood and sweat coated the boy’s face, but that didn’t seem to dishearten him. “Good job today,” Thorne said with a small smile, “Just remember that when you're being attacked, you want to use your energy in an orderly way. You have to work it like a machine, and you must have total control over that machine.”
Some other students shot annoyed glances at Thorne, and his apparent favorite student, but no one dared speak out against Thorne. He had made sure to establish his authority over the kids.
Aral nodded at him, “Thank you, teacher Thorne. I’ll make sure to remember that.”
“Good,” Thorne nodded at him as he went to help other students in the cleanup process. He had been engrossed in his role as a teacher for an entire week. Over that time, the students had considerably developed their talents with energy. Thorne could boast that most of his charges could now feel and even possess marginal control over their power.
The cleanup soon finished, and Thorne trotted out of the gym shortly after the students left.
As he departed, Thorne looked over at a particular supply closet, ‘He’s here again.’ Thorne sighed as he sensed the denseness of light-purple energy in the closet. The principal had been stalking Thorne for the entire week. For some reason, the man hadn’t even left the closet to approach Thorne and opted instead to stay in the closet and simply...observe.
‘He probably thinks he's hidden.’ Thorne shook his head, ‘These people are pretty primitive about controlling their passive energy. He probably doesn’t even realize that just standing around is like a massive flair.’
Unbothered by the principal’s strange actions, Thorne left the school and started walking toward a smaller steel building. It was situated in a quiet corner of the industrial sector—away from all the massive skyscrapers and expensive homes—and was only a simple three-storied building.
Opening the glass door, Thorne trotted into the building. Immediately, as Thorne walked in, he was assaulted by the endless sounds of clamor and chatter. 'Only drunk humans can be this loud,' Thorne sighed. Dozens of different people—all cultivators—languished in the room. They leaned on the walls, ate and drank at tables, or waited in line to order food or drink at the small counter.
Thorne’s head was on a swivel as he pushed his way through the crowd to an unoccupied table. Every tenant Thorne had to bump his way through was heavily muscled, with a lean and inhumanly fit physique. Upon sitting down, Thorne retrieved a sweet orange fruit—native to this world—and started to munch on it as he leaned back in his seat. With his hood up, Thorne surveyed the room and focused the most on the glass entranceway.
‘There we go.’ Thorne sighed, a small smile running across his face. The door opened with a quiet creak, and in came another figure. They were dressed in the standard white uniform of a Kroll city officer—just like many other residents in this building.
With hurried steps, the newcomer made his way through the crowd of people right toward Thorne. Without saying a word, the man sat down at the table just across from Thorne.
“You aren't dead yet, Thorne?” The man finally whispered after checking that no one was eavesdropping. A wide grin was on the man's face—on Zal’s face. Despite his smile, deep black bags caused his normally jubilant eyes to sag. The typical sparkle that made his amber eyes so unique in time’s past was wholly gone—replaced by dull exhaustion.
“It's nice to see you, Zal,” Thorne said with a smile as he looked back at his teammate, “Though it has been a pretty long week.”
Zal scoffed, “Tell me about it. These bastards have me working for the entire day, and they are also having a…” Zal quickly scanned the restaurant before leaning in close to Thorne. "They have a guy who’s watching me.” He whispered, “I don’t even know why; I haven’t done anything.”
Thorne sighed and took a bite of his fruit; “Yeah, they have someone watching me as well; I think I may have…” As Thorne was about to tell Zal about his potential slip-up during the mini-interview with the principal, the door cracked open, and another figure stomped its way through. Rather, multiple figures stomped their way through.
Zal and Thorne looked over, before a similar grin came over them; “Moravian and Procka.” Zal beamed under his hood, “I can't believe they got time off. Y’know, considering their job.”
“Yeah.” Thorne chuckled. As soon as the pair of non-humans opened the door, the crowd became silent and watched on as the two of them entered the establishment.
Some of the more inebriated patrons even glared and cured under their breaths. Uncaring, Moravian and Procka plowed their way through the crowd. Procka simply pushed anyone who would resist out of the way using her massive frame while Moravian reaped the benefits and trotted along with ease behind her. In no time, the two of them had seated themselves with Thorne and Zal. The tenants, while flashing cold looks at their table, eventually ignored them in favor of food or conversation.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Hey, you two.” Zal smiled as their other two teammates seated themselves.
“Hello, teammates; it is…nice to finally see you two again,” Moravian said with a toothy smile. Procka also nodded at the two of them but remained quiet.
“Good to see you both as well,” Thorne said with a genuine smile. It had been quite lonely over the week without peers. ‘It's almost like I'm back in the Wilderness for a week.’
Thorne sighed, 'An hour of teaching, then unrelenting training.’
“Yes, I agree,” Moravian said, but his previous smile suddenly morphed into a horrible grimace, “Unfortunately, we don’t have much time. Our human commander doesn’t like beings like us having freedom.” He snarled while looking down at the ground in shame.
Thorne patted the Draugr on his black-robed shoulder—the most distinctive brand in a sea of white uniforms. “I know, though it won’t be this way for long.” He reassured.
“Yes.” Zal grinned. "We can't put this off anymore. We have more important things to do than live in squalor in one of this world's backwater cities.”
Thorne glanced around the room once again, “Be careful.” Thorne whispered to Zal, “Gotta be wary of how we speak about this place. We don’t know if people have unique methods of listening.”
Zal gazed at him, his brows knitted together in confusion before it dawned on him: “I'm sorry, man.” He muttered, rubbing his neck, “It's hard to be so on edge all the time.”
“Stop this pointless time wasting,” Moravian interjected, “We must plan quickly. Do you two of you have any ideas?” he asked.
Silence. Thorne peered over at Zal, only to realize that the amber cultivator was looking at him similarly.
“All right,” Moravian mumbled grumpily, “if you two have nothing, I will say mine. I propose we revolt against the leader by gaining sympathy for us five as a group.”
Thorne squinted at the Draugr; “Explain?” he prompted.
“Of course I will.” Moravian sneered, “We will create a fake story about the atrocities that were committed against us when we first sought refuge. Maybe we had to pay a lot of money to be allowed in, or we were forced to do horrible things…it could be anything.”
As he kept speaking, a devilish smile started to creep across Moravian's long face; “We use this story, as well as the abuse against the non-humans, to gain sympathy with the cultivators. Then we use our numbers and take over.”
“No,” Thorne uttered with a resolute glare. A scene from his past replayed itself in his mind. When he was a young kid in the foster care system, he had been scrawnier and more pathetic-looking than the rest. He was bullied and teased with, yes, but no more so than other kids.
One day, when he felt ravenous, Thorne devised a plan to stockpile food.
He had decided to play on the sympathy of his housemates. He would run up to them with fake tears in his eyes as he cried out that other kids had stolen his food. At first, it worked well; the kids decided to pity him and give him a portion of their food, but eventually, events went sour. He had played this trick on so many of the kids and had taken so much food that they had found him out and realized it was all a rouse.
The next day, he had been beaten to a dried pulp, and all his stolen food—as well as his original portions of food—were stolen.
Thorne sighed as he looked at Moravian; “Lying only works if it's hidden very well, which will be difficult, especially with the number of people who witnessed us enter the city. Even if it does work, the people will realize at some point that we exploited them and will revolt against us.” He bore into Moravian’s sable eyes. “People who lie almost always get punished by their victims, especially when the lie is large.”
“So…” Moravian growled, “What do you propose then.”
Holding out his hands, Thorn began to pitch his master plan; “There’s a couple layers.” He stated, “The first step is both the safest and the most difficult; we have to gain the trust and companionship without peers.” He said, gazing at his three teammates; “So for me, I have to gain the trust and loyalty of my students, Thorne, you have to gain the trust and loyalty of your men, and you two have to gain the trust and loyalty of your fellow non-humans” he said, heavily enunciating the trust, and loyalty aspect of the plan.
Upon hearing Thorne's first step, Moravian, Procka, and Zal nodded in understanding.
“This is the most important because we need power, and there is always power in numbers,” He continued. “Now we move onto step two, the most dangerous part of the plan and the most likely to fail.” His face darkened as he looked out at his peers; “We have to take control of the farms.” He murmured in a low tone—surveying the room with his five physical senses and his energy senses for potential snoopers.
“How will we do that?” Zal whispered furiously.
“Lyra,” Thorne responded, “Me and you, as humans, will have freedom in most sectors. So, we find the farms, say we want to visit Lyra, and when we get in, we fight our way through and take control. Then you two…” Thorne nodded at Moravian and Procka, “You two bring your troop of non-humans to help us secure and defend the area.”
Zal and Procka nodded, but Moravian was not on board, “But what will that accomplish,” He snarled.
“A couple of things,” Thorne said, leaning back in his chair as he took another bite of the fruit, “For one, we will have a temporary base of operations and control of food and water. This will put pressure on the people in charge.” He said, “Then we use our leverage over food and water to gather all the enemy's powerful cultivators at the farm.” Thorne smiled wide as he said the next part, “Then, as we have gathered all the powerful people, we make a speech.”
Zal frowned, “A speech?”
“Yes,” Thorne stated, his face shadowed in gloom, “You have all seen the horrible things in this city. The control that the top cultivators have. Even a powerful officer like you is barely compensated or treated with respect,” He said, looking at the fatigue-riddled Zal, “And the non-humans have gone through many, real, atrocities.” Thorne asserted, looking pointedly at Moravian. “But that’s not all,” Thorne continued, “We also send another person to give a speech to the outskirters.”
“You lost me,” Moravian scoffed, “Your plan so far has been…passable, but this makes no sense.”
“It does, though,” Thorne declared, holding his ground. “Who builds the roads, the mesh nets, the buildings, the infrastructure?” he asked, staring at Moravian.
“I see.” The Draugr nodded. "So our main goal will be to gain the support of the poor and weak outskirters while pretending to get support from cultivators as a distraction and a side benefit.”
“Exactly,” Thorne smiled, “And just from observing the city, we all know that the treatment the outskirters get is far worse than they deserve.”
“Yeah,” Zal nodded, his face a light shade of green, “The soldiers treat them like cattle." He growled.
Thorne nodded and patted the man’s shoulders; ‘he's seen some shit,’ Thorne sighed. While he had been cozying up in the industrial sector, Zal, Moravian, and Procka were participating in blood-boiling activities. “Yeah,” Thorne said as he removed his hand from Zal’s shoulder, “But we can turn the helpless cattle into a ferocious pack!”
He beamed wide, looking over at his teammates, "And then...we take over the city!"