Old Yoss tried to cleanse a pantry, this was a feat he had done many times over his career as both an ancestor spirit and a god. And yet, the normal veritable river of faith he could direct at such problems felt...blocked. No not blocked, rather it felt clogged. As if someone had poured barrels of syrup or some kind of heavy water into the stream. The true water diluted the pollutant but it was still there, and it made making miracles...difficult.
Not impossible, just difficult. Things that he had done with ease before was now in need of concious effort, and things that would have been difficult were almost beyond his reach. If for example Old Yoss would have to conjure the dome shield again, then he couldn't honestly say that he would be certain he could do it.
It had been a gamble at the time as he had repurposed a miracle to keep vermin out to evaporate entire living beings if they tried to enter. The cost to maintain it had also grown more steep as the clogged faith made it harder to draw out the clear water.
He knew of course that it was that ritual. How a mere monster could have found an ancient rite of such power was beyond him, but the damage was done so it wasn't worth thinking about it. Every moment that passed he felt the faith in him weakening as the corruption of the ritual lodged itself deeper.
And every time he failed he could feel the clog grow denser, like now when he actually failed to cleanse the pantry. He stood outside of the home with the pantry in question and despite being unseen by the mortals he could feel that the town itself saw his failure. Old Yoss's worshipers felt his failure and the ritual dug in deeper.
"DAMN IT!"
Old Yoss shrieked in frustration and he accidentally smashed a nearby feeding trough to splinters with a casual smack as he hit it. His brand startched itching and hurt as he felt it pulsated in response to his anger. That ugly mark of his failure, that taunted him with each passing moment.
He could feel the malevolent intent behind it, the cruel desire that lay in its creation. A nameless hunger for all that lived and an insatiable lust to see all submit to it. The mark of a Sovereign on its slave- no on its chosen cattle.
It made him shudder and before anyone could see him Old Yoss retreated back through the streets of the town and made his way to the Temple. There it would be safe for him to...fail, his Acolytes were still clean.
"But for long?"
A voice taunted him in the back of his mind, it felt almost like a song of multitudes whispering to him over an unfinished bridge between mountains. He did not allow it to continue distracting him, his focus directed itself to more pressing events. Once again he could hear the roar of a mob moving down one of the streets, searching for "enemy agents". Yesterday crowd had killed one of the foreign families that had moved to Hor from another County. Today they were outside the local blacksmith since rumor was that his well and pantry had not been poisoned.
Old Yoss could feel his worshipers congregate outside of the home and shout in rage at the perceived betrayal. Rocks were thrown shortly after the insults but the crowd could not follow through as another "snowfall" came. This made him hurry even more as he retreated into his temple and made sure the doors were closed and sealed shut.
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"Smithies are important infrastructure and hard to replace, even if we will demolish most of the town and repurpose it we were right to keep the tools."
Mar explained to the Ant-Termite General who hmmed and responded with a distinctly more male voice than previously, which was interesting considering that majority of their units were female.
"And the timing will make it seem like the blacksmith is our agent. Which will build more resentment in the hive and add to the growing instability."
"Humans do not live in hives!"
Logistics Collective shouted from their side of the "conference" and Mar silenced Ant-Termite General before the two collectives could descend into another argument.
"The Fungal-Floral Network should finally be able to spread to the plain and we will pour most of the available energy to accelerate the infection so we could darken all the grassland outside of Hor as further evidence of their god losing power. It is imperative to not let anyone learn of our ability to subjugate plants, we will make it seems like their god has failed rather than any deliberate efforts on our part."
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Mar felt the tendril of the network that Ysandra and the responsible collective had worked hard to stretch through the forest and to the grassland with a combination of her magic and liberal useage of the Infestation power.
Infecting grass took almost no time comparatively speaking, only a few minutes really. The process usually destroyed the grass straws and made the roots merge with the network. Animals could take hours or days to infect depending on their size and a few other factors like poison, disease, and magic resistance. Trees were the real problem as their size made them tough to work through. Mar had to almost empty their entire energy storage to accelerate the infection to the point that it handled her.
So, when the tendril reached the grasslands surrounding Hor, Mar allowed the floodgates to open as all of the fragments involved rapidly used Infection and Enhance Poisons. The Sovereign Swarm smiled despite their depleted stores as the entire grassland was infected in what looked like moments but which was in reality about 10 minutes.
"That should accelerate tensions."
* Congratulations: Your Potency has increased to 10
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Helena Penchard felt her face whiten like a bedsheet as Old Yoss screamed and collapsed to his knees in the center of the temple. The little figure which had inspired the entire town seemed in that moment so...frail.
"What...what has happened."
Yorich croaked out because in that moment they all felt it, that sensation of something cruel reaching out and grasping their hearts. Like a robber on your grandfather's grave or a rival in your lover's bed. Helena didn't stick around to ask questions, she practically smashed through the temple doors and she ran for the walls.
She didn't know why she knew that it was there she had to go. If one took time to logically analyze such things it should be obvious enough, but Helena was more of a living conduit of instinct. It felt like the place to go and therefore she went there. Staying in the temple was certainly not right in this time. It hadn't felt right at all since the beginning, but it felt even more wrong now.
To state that the walls were crowded as an understatement, the Millitia which had been so busy trying to keep the peace for the last two days had seemingly given up even attempting to put on the pretense of order on the wall. They just let people surge up to see whatever there was to see, most hadn't even bothered to climb up on tall buildings to see, no this time it seemed like the wall was warranted.
Helena had to elbow her way through the crowd to reach the top and aside from the occasional cuff over the ears and one smack to her face, she got up practically without issue as the crowd almost parted for her.
It was clear enough to her why they were gathered once she saw the plain. She didn't understand what she saw for a few seconds, it was all so...different from what she was used to that her mind almost refused to accept it. All grass on the plains around Hor was...dead, even the nearby farming fields which the Thrall-King had left alone for some reason were dead.
All plantlife around the town and almost as far as the eye could see had died and based on the whispers she heard around her the fields had blackened almost in moments. The verdant and bountiful fields of Hor had died. She could feel the despair in everyone around her as the pride of the region had just casually...disappeared almost as if it had been a snuffed out candle.
She vaguely sensed two things through the horror that she felt. The first thing, was that Baron Heraclius had dropped his mace to the ground with an almost inaudible clank through the silent murmuring. Second, was the minions of the Thrall-King who usually seemed to stand watch with eerie determination were scurrying about with what looked like...worry on their usually blank faces and empty body language.
"Skam"
People whispered the word and looked from the fields and over to the temple and Helena couldn't help but do the same. If the enemy looked surprised then the obvious conclusion was that the Rite of Skam had worked better than they expected. Yorich had led the clergy in prayer against it and preached to them that the rite was powerless compared to their god and that it wouldn't work.
He was wrong. And in that moment she believed in their doom just as strongly as everyone else who had seen the very symbol of their town die in mere moments. In that moment she and everyone else in the town doubted their god. For just a moment and then that doubt became...faith.