He woke up early the next morning to blend with the crowds of workers that got up at their humble homes to work on the repairs of the city. Most of them were wearing relatively simple clothes made from animal skin and fur, though Petrió observed that a select few were wearing more comfortable clothing made from a mix of animal and plant materials.
He decided to wear one of the more common clothes as that way his sudden appearance would be less likely to be caught by anyone. There were hundreds of people wearing almost the same clothes, so one more or less would be barely noticeable.
And indeed, he managed to get a few orders from someone else to “keep buildings as they had before” and was divided into a group that was made of about twenty people. The idea was that they built a whole room within the day so that after a week they’d have a full house ready to have a full-fledged family inside.
As Gabriel slaved the day away, he used the times he was near other workers to talk about their current situation, but most didn’t voice their opinion. One mentioned that It’d heard that fake workers were sent to some groups to check on their beliefs and if they didn’t align with the ones of the hunter-god, then they’d disappear.
This made Petrió realize that the problem was deeper than what he first thought, as there was a firm control over the people, though some people wanted to resist. At the same time, the cult in power knew that most people didn’t approve of them but were either to busy or scared to do something about it. After all, they couldn’t escape so, being stuck within the city, they had to work for the cult in order to eat, have a place to sleep or protect their families.
The one that had told him about the disappearing people had lost both his father and older brother in the same manner and his rage against the government was very high, meaning that he was trying to recruit more people for a coup against the followers of the hunter god and return the power to the citizens of the city.
He was thinking of a pipe dream, because the other two cities that followed the same god wouldn’t let it fall and even if they were busy for something else, basing himself of the current situation, other religions would fight for their spot. But he also had a point, why should they follow someone which hadn’t been seen for tens, maybe hundreds of years? Were they ever coming back? There was no proof of it, maybe they were even made up and the knowledge that they had “given” the people was actually research made by themselves. Or perhaps it was something an ancient civilization left that was found and then spread through these groups.
But it couldn’t be done, there would be too many enemies if anyone tried controlling a city without a religion on top of it, as all the others didn’t want such a city to exist. Maybe time could be made if no one was let in or out, but at some point, news would reach the world and that city would be in a world of hurt.
It’d also need to target a small religion, maybe one that had only managed to get control of a single city, but that was rare because any other cult would take it for themselves. Petrió could spend all day thinking about this, but it would get nowhere, so he decided to go back to his home and research the people of this city a bit more.
He worked for a week before deciding to go for another approach, listen in to other people’s conversations, hopefully where they’d feel safe and give off their real feelings. They might’ve talked about this to him within a month or two, but it’d take too long for Petrió as he wanted to know what he should do soon.
During the first few days he didn’t get any new information which made him start to doubt that he’d learn anything this way and that he should revert to his previous advances, but then he overheard some guards talking about them needing to leave the town because another one of their same religion had been attacked and before it fell it needed backup.
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The very next day, Petrió still missing on the action, caught two regular citizens talking at the border of the town about taking the power back. Looking at their clothes Petrió could see that they were luxurious and supposed that they were nobles, probably unrelated to the religion before it took over.
He waited until they left just then did he leave his hiding spot. Now that he knew that not only was the common man against the new power, but also some higher-ups and that they wanted to take action it was likely that he himself would do something as well… If the nobles hired anyone because they needed people to fight for them, he’d go for the job.
And indeed a few days later inside some taverns and other places where mercenaries and fighters would be present some messages were being shared, though to very little people at a time so that no guards heard of the congregation. They didn’t need that many people either as most of the defensive force had left the city.
This way about thirty men of different height congregated under the house of a noble, though they reached different paths to get there not to arouse suspicion before they were hired and paid. After a bit of haggling, they were paid 40% up-front and the rest would be given after they’d taken over the city.
And without further ado, the very next day, they were sent to the temple in order to take over. To prevent them from attacking each other, they were each given a red band which they had to put on their arms or head and were then ordered not to attack anyone with it. It also meant that they shouldn’t lose it as that way they would be fighting against both sides.
It was a relatively easy battle because even though they were very unorganized, their enemies were as well, being taken by surprise and with somewhat equal number of fighters, the ones who had surprised their enemies had the advantage.
This didn’t mean that it was easy, it was still a battle and the last few enemies, now that they were both better prepared than the first ones who fell and enraged by the loss of their friends, were the toughest ones to fully defeat, and fought until they fell over by exhaustion, rather than being killed by their enemies.
Overall, they lost only eight of the thirty hired mercenaries and they had killed about twenty enemies and captured the rest. This way, they presented the temple to their contractors, and they happily paid the promised amount. What the fighters didn’t expect was for the nobles to destroy the statues of the previous cult and instead place a new, quite small one, that represented another god. Then, they asked them to join them in their mission for the war god that believed that everything should be attained through conflict.
And they were conflicted, because they didn’t believe in no god and that was partly the reason why they were hired, to give the people the power instead of a religion. But if they rejected, now that they were tired, who knew what was going to happen.
- Can… - the man who had started speaking huffed for a moment and then continued. – I answer tomorrow. I need a clear head for these things…
- Yes! – One of the nobles that had hired them quickly answered. – Of course, of course, we understand. – His mouth formed a wide grin. – But make sure to make the right decision! – He finished and his smile turned larger, bordering creepy.
After this almost everyone asked for more time, though a pair joined the cult towards the war god and a few others stayed behind while most of them left the mostly destroyed and bloodied temple. Petrió was one of the many that asked for more time, though he didn’t plan to give an answer.
He knew that it was a bad idea to stay behind and would leave the town not tomorrow, but the same day. He realized that these people would force him to fight with more people and honestly, he didn’t really feel like it. Fighting once in a while was alright, but all the time it would turn to be too much. At the same time, he wanted the freedom to move wherever he wanted and being inside a cult wasn’t the way.
What this experience taught him, though, was that the hold on power of these religions over the cities they ruled over was quite shaky and it wasn’t that hard to take over. At the same time there was at least some sentiment of the people to take these cults out of power and if this repeated itself over multiple towns… perhaps he could do something with his life for once.