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Chapter 97 - Paranoia
🕑 Added 2023-10-18 15:13:14 +0000 UTCHow do I know?! I can't! I can't know!
One and a half months was more than enough to turn the normally calm Queen completely paranoid. The only people she still trusted were her Spymaster, her husband, and her own Party members turned personal Guards.
Shadow had successfully captured the false Ambassador Lagurith and spoiled the cult's plans, so she couldn't be a member. And after the cult had been revealed, the Spymaster had taken some extreme precautions to stop any possible attempts of mind control on her, so her alignment wouldn't suddenly change.
Enania herself wasn't mind controlled due to the simple fact that she was never alone. Either she had her Guards with her or she was with her husband. And if either of those had been members she would have been either mind controlled or kidnapped by now.
And while Advisor Acacia certainly hadn't been mind controlled when she notified them of the problem, there was no telling whether that had changed since then. Enania hadn't been as careful with those she trusted in the beginning due to how chaotic it had been, and she had let the Advisor out of her sight and protection.
And while the story of the mysterious Dungeon which could free people from mind control had arrived with the knowledge of the cult and thus should have been trustworthy, it simply seemed too good to be true. And when her precious heir had begun reciting the report about the Dungeon through the emco, it had seemed too different from normal Dungeons for even a System blessing to explain it.
Then her daughter was finally home, only for her behavior to prove her suspicions. Talindra had always been a wild child who cared more for immediate pleasures over her responsibilities. But this version of her daughter hadn't run away at first opportunity. She hadn't complained - even once! - about how unfair anything was. Or simply argued that she had a high enough level that she didn't need guards anymore.
Either the Dungeon really is too good to be true, like I fear. Or Talindra was mind controlled again at some point during her travels. For that!
That wasn't my daughter.
"My Queen. The Ambassadors are ready for you." The voice of Ralnor Liriodendron broke through her internal despair.
Right. I was about to have a meeting. I wonder how long they've been waiting for.
"Send them in."
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The Windin Ambassador had seemingly confirmed what the report had said, making the idea of an anti-mind control Dungeon simultaneously more trustworthy while making the cult potentially way more terrifying in the mind of Queen Enania.
If the Dungeon actually could do as described: Good. The agreement for Windin to send all the cultists they had discovered to the Dungeon of Karma would be a devastating blow to the Order of the Broken Goddess.
However, if it didn't?: That meant the cult had widespread forces in high places, making them exceedingly difficult to deal with. That was why Enania had rejected the return offer of a lended herd of unicorns, meant to help Alfamér detect the cult, 'for now'. She had told the Windin Ambassador she needed to prepare her Queendom and judge her people's reaction before there could be any talk about unicorns entering the nation.
'Otherwise some elf might harm the unicorns in their fear of the creature,' the Queen had explained, which made the human immediately agree to Enania's words.
In actuality, Enania simply didn't know whether or not the unicorns were a trap laid by the cult.
If all of it was just some elaborate ruse to make her put her guard down.
I have to be careful. One wrong step and the cult could win.
But we can't keep staying on the defensive like this. Hiding is their element, so we have to flush them out.
But how can I trust any of them? The only one I trust not to have their mind taken over should they be taken is Shadow.
Enania signed in the meeting room, empty except for her trusty Guards.
Then Shadow will have to discover the truth for me.
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Uh? Back so soon? And you didn't just convince the giant to join you in your task to repay me for freeing you, it seems.
Just over a month - 33 days to be exact - had passed since the three former cultists had left to reunite with their families. The Gravity Mage - I was informed - had no desire to return. The Paladin and Axe Master, however, had brought family back with them.
In the case of the Axe Master, his family had come in the hopes of better business, while the Paladin's sister was on a mission on behalf of their nation.
And while that at first had sounded really important and cool, and soon as she and the Lightning Mage started talking politics it turned boring.
I didn't care much for the details around the deal, but as it involved me getting cultists hand delivered to me for me to free - which would bring me closer to my next tier up -, I made sure I understood the broad strokes.
At first it hadn't seemed like my 'mistress' was even allowed to accept the deal. While she, for the most part, was essentially a queen when it came to the laws of still-developing-town surrounding my Portal - now named Karmaria -, she couldn't contradict the core laws of her nation. If she did, she - and thus Karmaria - would be considered rebels, which would bring the military here to 'establish order'.
One of these core laws was 'no unicorns'.
… Well technically it was a long list of things like 'you aren't allowed to own a unicorn', 'no unicorns are allowed to cross the border', 'if a unicorn is spotted, you must either kill it yourself or notify the local authority' and so on.
So the proposed deal of having their cultists freed by me in return for the use of unicorns to detect any remaining cultists couldn't be accepted as it was.
And when the Lightning Mage revealed that several members of Karmaria, including herself, had an Ability which allowed them to detect people with 0% karma like the cultists, the entire idea of unicorns helping out was scrapped.
Of course the Lightning Mage would love to accept the deal on behalf of her nation, as the rest of the elves certainly needed help identifying the cultists. So she called her mom to have the deal presented to the Queen.
Who simply told them to wait for one of her trusted servants to arrive and evaluate the deal.
Supposedly, the servant would be here in only a couple of days.
Doesn't it usually take longer than that?
Maybe they just didn't start in the capital or something…
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"What's our next step, cardinal Hydrus?"
Things hadn't been going well for The Order of The Broken Goddess recently. Hephetrius Hydrus was one of only two cardinals, who hadn't been killed, captured, or compromised like Lagurith.
They hadn't known at first that Lagurith had forsaken their goddess and joined the heathens. The old siren had led them right to their inner sanctum! The heathens had captured most, killed those they couldn't, and only few had escaped the unexpected massacre.
If we hadn't been ambushed we could have taken them! Even in those numbers!
Initiation took too much time and only worked on one at a time for it to be used mid combat. And with The Order's more physically inclined members being without their weapons due to not expecting they needed them-!
The heathens got at least a quarter of their numbers with that attack alone. And they had already dismantled the cell meant to deal with The Royal Dungeon of Alfamér beforehand! Which was where the majority of their members in that nation were located. Alfamér only hosted about a dozen or so members around the entire Queendom these days.
And the attacks hadn't stopped there. In fact, the few members they had left looking for new Dungeons in Alfamér were the safest of them. Many of the other nations on the continent had started using various different creatures to identify their members for capture.
Windin and Pasan used unicorns, Mammalia had their kirins and marakas while Geniss preferred the aid of the long but stubby bā zú lung dragons. Only the unicorns were actually domesticated, the rest were mainly tamed. Though for some individual creatures it could be debated if one could even consider them that much. It hadn't led to casualties on the side of the heathens, but several of the creatures had run off rather than give them aid.
The Siren Seas and The Siren Mountains had yet to receive the honor of hosting a member of The Order and might now never receive it, terrifying as that thought was. The only siren members The Order had ever had had been outsiders, for whom it would have been hard to explain their return to their motherland. As such, Hephetrius neither knew nor cared how the sirens were reacting or if they even knew.
As a whole, Tharesaly didn't know. Due to centaurs' normally nomadic lifestyle, the heathens had only been able to spread the news of The Order's existence to the biggest and the most well-established herds, the super-herds. These were the ones their own leaders had personally met during peace talks, which had enabled them to call using an emco.
But despite Tharesaly's slow response, Hephetrius knew exactly what his old stomping grounds would do when the news hit. Majority of the super-herds had their own flock of Púcas helping them out on a daily basis, and the smaller herds would simply seek out their parent super-herd for reinsurance of their heathen ways.
With the presence of Púcas amongst the super-herds, The Order only had members placed in the common herds. But at least they had plenty of members there, due to centaurs' wandering nature being helpful for gathering information on vulnerable Dungeons.
Hephetrius had always been proud his people were so useful to The Order that he had been able to convince the other cardinals to focus their initiations on Tharesaly.
And drive them away from initiating any more useless sirens. They wouldn't be of any help, as Lagurith had so clearly proved.
Knowing all this, his fellow remaining cardinal, Melanie Pierce, a human woman much like the prophet, had suggested they retreat to Tharesaly to regroup and gather their forces for a counterattack.
But Hephetrius Hydrus had had a much better plan. One Melanie had agreed to the moment she heard it.
"We are going to The Empty Forest to rescue the main piece of our goddess. Once freed she'll tell us how to deal with the heathens. And with a combination of the 'allow all'-tool and The Song of Liberation the Dungeon itself stands no chance! We simply need to ensure we arrive with a strong enough flock that the heathens around its Portal can easily be dealt with. So, spread the word! The Order of The Broken Goddess will congregate at the edge of The Empty Forest near the Pasan border!"
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A couple of days passed and the Queen's servant had arrived on hippogriff. She was an elven woman simply known as Shadow.
Well, that's ominous. Clearly a codename of some sort, 'cause that doesn't sound at all like a typical elven name.
I had met more than enough elves by now to be able to draw that conclusion, where I likely wouldn't have batted an non-existing eye back when I first opened my Portal to The Surface World.
But she's not a part of the cult at least. So, it's likely due to privacy reasons. Maybe she simply doesn't want her work for the Queen to follow her home.
But when she finally entered my Dungeon - supposedly only out of curiosity - her identity only became a bigger question.
Shadow
Elf
Scout
Level 29
That doesn't feel right. Shadow might be her preferred nickname, but it can't possibly be her real one. So, why is it showing me it is? Is it broken?
What was the description of Identify Identity again?
Identify Identity: Everyone can see the name, species, class, and level of everyone in their sight while inside your Dungeon. Only while using a Skill or Ability to hide is anyone exempt from being identified or able to fake their identity. Said Skill or Ability have to be of the same tier or higher than the Dungeon Core or happen with the Dungeon Core's approval.
Oh! So, she's faking her identity!
But wait! I'm level 59+ which means I'm 6th almost 7th tier. I don't believe a mere level 29 Scout can have a Skill or Ability of a high enough tier to overcome my rule.
She must be faking her Class and level too!
Boy are you a mystery! The only thing I trust here is your species!
And now I've bought that in doubt! Ahh!!!
