Death: Genesis

Zeke shook his head as he looked at the long lines of shackled prisoners. There were thousands of people there, and plenty more remained within the city, where a few pockets of resistance had sprung up to defend the civilians. The scouts had found more than one mass grave containing hundreds of beastkin, elven, or even dwarven bodies, and by all indications, they would continue to find the results of the Imperium’s barbaric practices.

If Zeke had felt guilty about the prosecution of the war, those feelings were quickly banished by the reality of the evil associated with the Radiant Host and the citizens of their empire. Still, knowing that he was doing the right thing didn’t help with the logistics of the situation.

“Where the hell are we going to put them all?” he wondered aloud.

Eveline answered, “The dungeon will accommodate as many people as necessary.”

Indeed, the tower had a habit of growing when necessary. The fields of the Artisan’s Terrace covered miles of territory, and the Residential District had grown to encompass an area large enough to be called a city in its own right. Even the grounds associated with the Lord’s Manor had expanded. So, if the Crimson Tower deemed more space in the dungeon a necessity, then it would grow to suit those needs.

Still, Zeke didn’t like the idea of imprisoning thousands of people. Sure, they had tacitly approved of the Imperium’s evil practices, but despite Zeke’s previous assertions that there was always a choice, he could at least acknowledge that they weren’t entirely to blame for the immorality hosted by their country of origin. Most of the civilians he’d seen were bigoted toward non-humans, but they had never actually harmed anyone. So, it begged the question of whether or not he could rightly imprison those people for no more than having the wrong attitude.

But it was more complicated than that. Ideas gave way to actions, and without their approval – or at least tolerance – the situation never could have degraded so thoroughly. So, even if they hadn’t actively participated in the enslavement of non-humans, they were at least partially responsible.

Not that that distinction made it any easier for Zeke to figure out what to do with them. In truth, there was a part of him that just wanted to execute them all and be done with the issue. That would have been much easier. However, even at his most bloodthirsty, Zeke could never approve of that path.

In a perfect world, the captives could be rehabilitated and incorporated into the tower’s society. Maybe then they could see that all non-humans weren’t inferior. Yet, Zeke knew just how unlikely it was that those people’s minds would be changed. Even back on Earth, prejudice had been pervasive. People distrusted anyone who looked or acted differently. And that had been when everyone was the same species. It would be much worse when one was dealing with elves and dwarves, and it would result in nearly insurmountable differences when beastkin were considered.

Zeke sighed.

“We’ll just have to imprison them for now. Give them a chance to change, I guess. But…”

“But don’t hold your breath, right?” Eveline said.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

The likelihood that those people would change was, to put it lightly, a low probability proposition. Once bigotry was ingrained – especially considering how the Imperium seemed to reinforce the notion of human superiority – it was incredibly difficult to bypass. In such a situation, facts and logic had no place. Only hate.

“It’s not even hate. It’s just narcissism. Those people can’t stand the notion that they aren’t inherently the best. And if they fail, they have an easy scapegoat,” Eveline pointed out. “It’s not just humans, either. On my world, we had similar issues. We moved past them, but there were still pockets of the population that refused to see the truth.”

Zeke ran his hand through his hair and said, “I can’t solve discrimination. I’m only one person, and I’m not going to be here long enough to change anything. Not for good, at least.”

“Nobody expects you to.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. He’d seen the looks on some of his people’s faces. The kobolds were largely unaffected by the scenes of slavery. For them, the world was a simple place, and they didn’t have the experience to recognize the moral implications at play. They saw an enemy, and they killed them. That was it. They didn’t even feel hatred, as far as Zeke could tell.

The beastkin, elves, and humans beneath him were very different. They were more than capable of hatred, and they had no issues aiming their ire at the sorts of people who would enslave them, given half a chance. It was an ongoing problem, just keeping them from executing the citizens of the Imperium.

Only the children were relatively safe, and even they found themselves as the targets of revenge. After all, if you truly wanted to hurt someone, there was no more effective action than killing their children. Zeke and his immediate underlings had done everything to curtail such actions, but he knew those efforts weren’t entirely effective. Wronged people were prone to lashing out, and there was little he could do to stop them.

A part of him didn’t even want to, which was a troubling realization, and one he pushed aside. Ignoring it didn’t stay his ire, though.

Those thoughts and many more raced through Zeke’s mind as he toured the city. He didn’t lend his power to the ongoing battles, instead leaving his people to solve the problems on their own. He’d learned that maintaining an army meant walking a tightrope between giving them the assistance they needed and letting them figure things out on their own. On one side, he would protect them. On the other was true growth. Balance was the key.

Regardless, he didn’t see anything that required his intervention. But he did realize that he didn’t even remember the name of the city he’d taken over. Ever since the fall of Moreth, the prosecution of the war had grown blurry. Three other cities had already fallen, and it was only when he’d found the way barred by the powerful peak Knight had he risen above the malaise that came with what felt like an endless battle.

“Oh, don’t even lie and say you don’t enjoy that.”

“What?” Zeke asked.

“Fighting. You live for it. You just don’t like it when they can’t challenge you,” she said. “But I have a surprise for you.”

“Really? How?”

“I see things. I hear things. Just trust me when I say I’m not quite as bound to you as you might think. You know I have some freedom within the tower, but I’ve recently discovered that you don’t necessarily have to be inside of it for me to gather useful information,” Eveline explained.

“That’s…a little troubling.”

“You know I’m on your side. Don’t worry about it. Instead, look at this shiny new thing I’m going to dangle in front of you,” she said. “Jingle.”

“You’re not helping your case very much. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m aware. But the real question is if I’m acting this way, knowing that you’ll see through it, or –”

“It’s kind of obvious that you’re trying to distract me from whatever it is you’re doing in my tower,” Zeke said. Though he wasn’t really all that worried about Eveline, he still wasn’t quite sure what to make of her freedom, such as it was.

“That’s my point,” she said. “You’d obviously see through it, so maybe I’m trying to lower your guard. But it’s not difficult to see through that, either. So, am I banking on you knowing that I know? Following that, maybe I know that you’ll know, which you know. Of course, I’d know that, too. And –”

“I get it.”

“I don’t think you do, Ezekiel. The real point here is that if I haven’t earned your trust by this point, then I never will. In that case, you’re going to be going round and round as you try to figure out what my real goal is.”

“What’s the solution, then?”

“Trust that I’m sincere in my desire to help you. Or failing that, trust that I want to help myself. We’re in the same boat, so by assisting you, I accomplish that all-important goal of survival,” she said.

“Fine. So, what kind of surprise do you have for me?” he asked.

“Jingle.”

“Please stop.”

“But you’re so fun to tease!”

Zeke didn’t overtly respond, but his attitude must have seeped through, because she gave a mental nod before going on, “You need to lighten up.”

“Thousands of people died here,” Zeke said, looking around the city. Most of it was intact, but there were still fires raging out of control. Those had been set by skills, and the only way to put them out was for someone with the opposite skill to extinguish them. Or by letting them burn themselves out of mana. “I’d have to be a psychopath to lighten up.”

“Fair point. So, I’ll just move right along here. I found a dungeon,” she announced. “And it fits one of the attunements you need. If we play our cards right, we might just tick another one of those boxes and get that much closer to finishing your quest.”

“Which attunement?” Zeke asked excitedly. He’d been worried about finishing that quest, largely because he knew that powerful natural treasures weren’t widely available. Certainly, he had a large cache of weaker items, but while those would satisfy the terms of the quest, he wasn’t willing to compromise the original vision of making the tower upgrade as powerful as possible. The Hall of Affinities would assuredly be a huge boon, regardless of which treasures he used, but he owed it to the kobolds – and himself – to avoid shortchanging the process and using inferior items. Belatedly, he asked, “Where did you find this information, anyway?”

“I listened.”

“Go on.”

She gave a mental roll of her eyes. “The kobolds that raided the affluent district found a map. There are two dungeons listed on there. So, naturally, when the spoils were brought back to the tower, I helped myself to the information. Both dungeons are close, too. One is about a hundred miles into the mountains, while the other is located on the northern coast of a nearby inland sea.”

“Earth and water?”

“Close,” Eveline said. “Fire and water. Two that you need.”

“Interesting. Did you discover anything else? And why didn’t someone tell me?” he asked.

“You’ve been moping around ever since you had to kill that knight,” she said. “Nobody wanted to bother you.”

Zeke sighed.

He needed to remember that, for all that he still thought of himself as a simple person, he had become a ruler. The kobolds revered him as something akin to a god. Or if not that, then close to how they’d viewed the wyrm who’d ushered them to the edge of sapience before sacrificing herself so her children could escape the mines beneath Min Ferilik.

“This is my own damh fault, isn’t it?” he muttered to himself.

“It usually is.”

That much was certainly true. If he wanted to be kept abreast of the happenings within his tower, he needed to make an effort at being a more active ruler. That meant less brooding in his manor and more attending meetings.

“Or you could appoint me as your voice,” Eveline suggested.

“What do you mean?” he asked, rightly pointing out that she was, in fact, an incorporeal mind spirit who presented as a succubus. The latter was a problem, but the former meant that she literally couldn’t affect anyone in the physical world. As far as Zeke knew, she couldn’t even manifest visually unless he was nearby.

“That’s true,” Eveline said. “But you’re forgetting two things.”

“Yeah?”

“First, the Crimson Tower is as much a part of you as any of your appendages. As such, I can appear anywhere in the tower with only a little expenditure of mana,” she said. “Second, do you really believe that everyone in your army has failed to notice that you wield corruption? Those domains of yours – you know, the ones you use in every single battle – have begun to inoculate your people against corruption. Some of have even manifested demonic attunements. They know what you are, and they don’t care. Following that, they won’t care what I am, either.”

Zeke considered her pitch – for that was what it was – but in the back of his mind, he questioned whether or not he wanted to be alone with his own thoughts. He’d often joked about wanting her out of his head, but the reality was that he’d gotten used to her constant company. And as annoying as Eveline could sometimes, be he still valued her input. More than once, she’d helped him survive, and he was loathe to leave that behind just so he didn’t have to attend a few meetings.

“I’m touched.”

“Please don’t make this weird.”

“Oh, I’m going to make it extremely weird, considering you just admitted that you can’t imagine a world without me in it,” she said smugly. “But before that, I’ll point out that, as a mind spirit, I can process multiple threads of thought at any given time. I can be with you – a desire you so lovingly expressed, I might add – and I can attend to your affairs in the tower without either suffering my absence.”

“Are you sure?” Zeke asked. “If people start to depend on you, and then you disappear…”

“I won’t disappear. I can promise that. I’ve had free rein in the tower for months now. I think I would know if I couldn’t make good on my promise.”

There was a firmness to that statement that allayed any of Zeke’s doubts. So, he said, “Fine. But if it’s something you know I’ll care about, you need to swear to me that you’ll let me know so I have an opportunity to give my input. And I know you know what kind of things I’m talking about, so no excuses.”

“I agree to your terms,” she said. “Now, when do we get to tell the kobolds? I’m very eager to meet everyone in person.”