Gods.
I want to murder them all so fucking badly.
I could methodically go through every last one of these cells, string my enemies up in bonds, and leave them gagged at the bottom of these dungeons to die.
Candace said it herself. She doesn't want Mercy.
Both of your fists are still clenched tightly, nails digging into the palms of your hands— but the small trickle of blood you produce, the reminder of pain, and the urge to punch a helpless woman is like a bucket of cold water splashed across your face.
You're in a cold sweat, and thinking to the last heretic you found in this position. You might as well still be under a black light sun, staring down a succubus in diamond-coated chains.
Remigius never asked me for a second chance. I never compromised my mission to get my Relic intentionally, but...
The tension in your hands relaxes. It's been nearly a year since you escaped from the bottom of the world, and it has been a
long road to get to where you are today.
This wouldn't be the first time my actions have gotten someone else killed. My neglect. My failure to act in time. Even in Ostedholm— Gods, do I miss it— I couldn't save everyone. Not by a long shot. There were over 50 people in my original congregation. I still call over a dozen of them my best friends, but it's nowhere near enough.
To hurt this woman now is to admit defeat. To accept that their battle to destroy me has won, and that something can be stronger than my faith.
You laugh a little to yourself at how ridiculous the notion is, and kneel down beside Candace, staring her dead in the eye (despite her awkward position looking towards the floor). She seems a little disturbed by you chuckling in reply to her statement.
I won't abandon my quest. I knew this wouldn't be easy from the start. It's felt like such a tremendous waste of Time, but that can't be the case. Mercy would never lead me astray— and I won't let Her down.
Mercy should be given to everyone. I have always preached that the undeserving need Her most of all.
This is about more than Mercy, too. More than Agriculture, even. Mercy's counterpart has a place in all of this.
I won't fall prey to the same madness that took Stace.
Vengeance waits for those incapable of making this decision, and saves them in His own way.
Those who are making an effort to change shouldn't suffer such a fate.
Especially not when Candace needs to live with what she's done.
"We both are aware that my actions with you all will set a precedent for all of my enemies." You say it as plainly as the Goddess of practicality at your back has been speaking all morning. Agriculture stays a step behind you, straight-faced and quiet, while you wind down just a little further. "Mercy is not a
lack of punishment. I am offering you all the chance to atone, and to— and to see the error of your ways. To find a new way forward. To undo your mistakes of your own accord, in your own Time."
You lean a little closer towards Candace, and viciously grin at her. It gets her attention. She's nonplussed, but stares at you with those same, wide eyes.
"You all were in the middle of an attempt to summon a monster of incomprehensible proportions. It would have killed you all, and everyone in my city. You yourself have said you did not want Mercy— and I didn't listen. You all felt forced into a situation for freedom outside of these walls
or in death. I see no point in prolonging my attention towards you— especially when you
explicitly have stated that
you do not wish to be spared."
The pitch and volume of your voice lowers even further. It's scarcely audible, but Candace is looking at you intently now.
"You don't want to rot in these dungeons for the rest of your life. But there's more to you than Inertia.
I want to get it, Candace. I have a feeling that there is more to you than suicide. More to you than a half-baked attempt to get under some fatass, unhinged, exhausted enemy
priest's skin."
Agriculture makes a sound like She REALLY wants to protest. Candace snorts.
You talk over it. "I have a mass murderer and a mass arsonist as friends, and you've seen me try to save demons just this morning. It might be pointless for us to speak about it if you want to die, and you may not believe me, but I want to ask.
I still want to know what— besides politics, or some mockery of the Gods creed— that Inertia has caught you with."
That attitude is back in full force. Mere inches from your face, Candace snaps, "they didn't
catch me with
anything."
You don't budge an inch. "Well? A cult isn't successful if people are happy with the way that things are. You all may tout inaction, but that can't explain why everyone is doing
nothing to improve the current situation. Tearing down the theocracy isn't the answer if there is nothing left in its stead."
Bristling like a feral cat, Candace darts her eyes between you and Agriculture.
"Do you have
the idea of a world worth striving for?"
It hasn't escaped your memory that she tried killing you less than an hour ago, so you pay no heed to the woman nearly throwing out her shoulders from a violent motion to try and attack you from within her bonds. Wincing in pain, Candace stares at you with enough hate in her eyes to kill a lesser man. Her eyes are red from smoke and old tears, but the light brown irises almost look gold under lantern light.
It seems she finally wants to talk.
"A world without
tyranny. A world where we could be free to live our own lives— without surrendering our hard work to the first stuck-up priest who wants to seize it. Free of brainwashing, and preaching—!" She fires a particularly scathing look to Agriculture. "Free from so-called
Gods who decide on a whim who's shit to sniff. It's all a farce. You live in a castle of gold,
Father Anscham, but how much do you know of the children who bled and died to build it? How many people want nothing to do with your lovesick drabble, and are forced to live under your shadow?"
Something snaps. It's not anger, but rather intense grief that seizes the woman before you. "How many people are
terrified that you all won't answer the call when we're sick or in danger? We're all helpless, all the time. Helpless in a world of Gods and demons,
dependent on you all to keep the last of us alive! It's sick. I'd rather die than feel like I have to rely on you all for another day. To
serve under you for one more fucking
second."
While the Goddess at your back is
deep in thought, you simply sigh. "I have half a mind to just let you out."
Both women present snap their gaze to you like you're absolutely insane. You are, and laugh again. Staying up the entire night (and all the events of, well, your entire life) are starting to get to you. For a brief moment, you wistfully think of a simpler time when you could simply strong-arm your enemies into submission.
The sight of your gut on your swimming peripheral vision is enough to crash-land you back to earth. You take a deep breath. "Half a mind. The other half is just incredibly tired. Okay. Then what? What next? What would you do to make what you want any more real?"
"You're crazy, and you're joking." Candace has dropped her attitude once again. She might be more worried for what she
can't expect you to do than what she
knows you're capable of.
"One more cultist won't make my life much harder— or much easier, should I choose to actually kill you."
You can't help but think of the mountains of work ahead of you.
Investigating the families of the deceased from today.
Looking into every other cultist here in your dungeons.
The countless other demons in said dungeons, all of which need your help.
The ruins of Ostedholm, and your best friend Archdemon Yech, who you SWORE to one day return to.
The war to the west, and everyone else who's gone off there to die.
The care of Eadric and all of your family and friends in your upcoming absence.
Getting that
fucking door at the front of your dungeons replaced.
The road trip to Wearmoor.
Saving Brother Hillbrush.
Investigating the Church of Agriculture.
Hunting down Omerus with Father Pevrel.
All of the obligations your other church leaders have that need your personal attention.
And every other pertinent matter that simply will have to wait until an opportune moment presents itself to see to it.
Like researching your Relic.
Your memories with Beltoro.
What happened when you transcended the earth and sun with Agriculture and Mercy.
What consuming the green dahlia will mean for you and Agriculture.
What it means to be a man of all the Gods.
And finding a cure for the Catalyst.
A ragged breath leaves you. You speak like a man who has pissed off the God of Rest. "It certainly wouldn't make a difference in the amount of work cut out for me."
All of the color has left Candace's face. She's looking at you like you're utterly insane, and like she's directly responsible for a fraction of the strain on your faculties. "Oh."
A long silence fills the air between you all.
Your prisoner could not look more uncomfortable, and probably starts talking just to fill the silence.
"I learned a lot from Inertia, but after everything I've seen today, I don't think there's a single fucking thing they can do against you. I'd want to get away, and maybe try to help as many people as I could to get away, too. No one is going to want to be caught in the fallout between you all. I don't want to. I can hold my own. You want to know what I'd do? I'd get away—" She stares you dead in the eye. "—and kill anyone who tried to stop me."
You don't even blink. "You think that would help change the state of affairs?"
"Oh, fuck you." She rolls her head back— which is just about the only part of her that has any mobility— and groans. "I don't think things are going to get better. Obviously! The fuck you think I asked you to kill me for, my health? If things are only going south from here, then maybe..."
She gradually relaxes her position, and starts muttering to herself. "...I don't really know."
Agriculture finally speaks up. "it seems like Inertia didn't provide much more for you than the power to kill or destroy."
This isn't exactly the Goddess of grace... or honesty.
You catch onto the leading question instantly, but don't interject. Candace is predictably outraged. "Of course there's good. They take in everyone.
Everyone." A sneer drags over you. "Even you and your sicko friends would be right at home. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from some of the lechers there. Not that I'd have anything to do with the likes of that, but
Inertia tries. With safe places to stay, and
actual support. Not that either of you would know anything about
that."
Most of this is not news to you. You personally granted clemency to a man with the worst inclinations you've ever encountered, knowing he would go running back into Inertia's care. The cult IS helping the populace is ways you can't right now.
But you do provide shelter for the sick and weary. You saved the lives of dozens of people with your own two hands just the day before yesterday. This is to say nothing of a lifetime of self-sacrifice, working for the very church of healing.
Might as well ask.
"How do I prove you wrong?"
She blinks like you've just hit her. "What?"
"How do we prove you wrong," Agriculture adds. "You've felt abandoned and under threat from every horror conceivable— and many that most people would never think of. You've seen a lot. You can imagine it. How would we prove you wrong?"
It takes her a long minute, but the sinner finally replies. "Give it all up. Put some of that power in the
people's hands. You're only one person, right?" She's looking directly at you. "They knew that we'd overwhelm you so easily, they only sent a couple hundred of us total—"
She winces. The loud-mouthed heretic has once again let slip WAY too much information. With the current death toll in Eadric, and given this estimate, you can safely assume that your city is
completely free of cultists— save for the ones that are in your dungeons, or a few stragglers that Father Pevrel's men will pick off in the coming days.
It takes every ounce of willpower you have to not smile, but you keep a straight face. Candace sighs. "It doesn't matter if you know now.
That's my point. We underestimated you and it cost hundreds of lives. One man, versus hundreds of people who have dedicated their entire lives to a cause. And you're coming out on top as soon as they start making a big move? It's insanity." Bitterness creeps into her low voice. "They all had their own story, too. Those men and women you've been killing with old rot-eye.
My brothers and sisters might have been willing to die for a cause, but we were all hoping to be the one to make sure
you actually died. And just look at us now."
A sad, long glance goes around the dank, dreary, and bare cell that you all are in. "This isn't what I wanted when I joined Inertia. I've been trying to make the most of it, like all of us have been. No one wants to join some stupid fucking organization that's obviously out for their own ends." You must look like you're desperate to know what those ends actually are. "Like I said! I was just a fucking pawn! No one told me shit about shit, save for putting me through pain like you couldn't imagine."
You can imagine, and fight down any heat coming to your face. It's bad timing, and you hate it, but it can't be helped.
Candace gives you a disgusted, downright venomous stare. "You want to prove me wrong? You'd have to be a different person. You'd never give up what you have. You
can't." Another, even dirtier glare goes to Agriculture. "Seeing as how the Gods only listen to some of us."
Something between sadness, apology, and irritation flits across the face of the Goddess of life, death, and everything in-between. "Do you honestly want an answer, or would you prefer to continue believing what has helped you get through your life?"
It's like she's been slapped again, though there's enough fury behind tattooed eyes for Candace to bark back, "sure! SURE! Go ahead! Go right on ahead, and prove me RIGHT!"
"Do you ask a tree to prove you right," Agriculture asks.
Some of the fury drops off from Candace's form, though it's replaced more with confusion than anything. "You don't expect me to believe that shit. You're not a fucking tree."
The Goddess stares down the woman before her with absolutely no humor. A little more soil, and the feeling of a shovel in the back of your mind digs into your ears as she speaks. "Do you ask death for
anything but for it to come more swiftly?"
"Y-you aren't going to prove me wrong if you just kill me."
"You seem to misunderstand." Her tone resumes its normal pitch, but Agriculture couldn't look sadder. "I do not have the luxury of speaking with you all day-to-day. My clergy are my voice, and this meeting has only been made possible by such a man. And
that is why he has asked you this question. Not me. Richard is
only a Father, who wants nothing more than to understand his children. He loves you all
dearly— and couldn't be hurt any more by your actions if he tried."
She takes a single step forward. The sway of her hips dusts long, bright skirts across stagnant water and dirt. The edges are nowhere near frayed. It's as if the garment has always been filthy. "You wanted to hurt him." Kneeling down beside you and Candace, Agriculture murmurs, "you permitted a little girl and three other innocent people to lose their lives today, and all in the name of saving your own skin."
The heretic makes a sound to protest. Agriculture talks right over it. "The break you attempted from these dungeons was made long before Richard was ever here. Right? You claim that you want a better world, and that you want everyone to listen to you— but you have yet to demonstrate the capacity to do the same thing."
She waits a moment. Candace looks like she still wants to protest, but simply darts her eyes away from a neon-green gaze.
The intensity of Agriculture's stare sparks of a deity who has been scorned. "I am neither all-seeing, nor all-knowing. If I was, I would have prevented the deaths of Eryn, Mariel, Ian, and Felicia today." Grief is all across Her features. "But we didn't all come down here today to listen to me. We didn't come down here today to kill a little girl. None of us expected for the trees or the final shroud on every body to hold hands with a demon."
Agriculture looks seriously disturbed, and continues, "I am what it is to bear a child— but not to protect one. I do not believe I will
ever be able to lend myself to every last person in this world, and
I'm sorry."
It's never occurred to you that anyone could be jealous of Mercy's position. You stare at both women as they exchange miserable glances.
"You don't need metaphor, apologies, and platitudes," Agriculture states. "We came down here to get you real answers."
Candace looks like she's on the verge of tears. "You're damn fucking right."
Your Goddess fires a loving and incredibly sad stare your way. "It's a good thing you have people who
are listening, Candace."
"Out of every air-headed idiot I could see on my death-day," she mumbles, right to you. "But that's not exactly your fault, right? Is that what you want to tell me? I've heard about the scandal with those two priests of yours. Stace and Morris, was it?"
You avoid the urge to fidget. "You can expect no excuses from me, but what— but what did you hear?"
"Wasn't it you who came crying to the King about it? Whatever. Whole country must know by now. I heard that the two of them kept you in the dark your entire career." A nauseated look goes around the dungeons. "Literally. The rumors about what they did to you is fucking disgusting, and I mean that. So it's obviously not just Inertia that's been working to keep you from doing your job." Candace's mumbling is so quiet, you have to strain to hear it, but she almost sounds ashamed of herself. "I'm just as much a part of the problem. I'm not apologizing for shit. Doesn't mean I regret anything. But how am I supposed to say no if you're telling me I can just get out of here? No one's that stupid."
You're not going to kill anyone today. You're not going to get caught up in another swell of emotion. There's no need to hyper-focus on how long it might take to forget to stop giving this woman food and water. The ache in your soul surely feels better. Surely the splitting pain in your skull (or is it somewhere deeper?) isn't anything you can't handle.
"Would you excuse us for a minute," you choke out, already moving to leave the cell.
"Wait—!" The cultist is practically hanging in her restraints, trying to move for you not to go.
You pause just at the locked door, while Agriculture looks between the two of you.
You actually
are the lord of honesty, and have to be frank. Enough grief and anger and guilt and one hundred other emotions drenches your voice that you can barely speak.
"Good people were killed by my attempts to help you, Candace."
"I know." She sounds desperate.
"I don't want such a mistake to happen again." You're trying incredibly hard not to cry, and choke down as much emotion as you can. It's not enough. "
Sorry. Not with you all. Not
again."
Candace is panicking. A frantic look goes around the cell, to Agriculture, and to you. "Wait. Just wait a second."
You wait a second. It seems like she thinks this is the last time she's ever going to speak to you. "Listen to me, okay? Just for another second. There's a lot of shit going on to the north. A lot of shit. Rimilde is overran, and I know that they're using the ports as a base of operation for some of the sicker fucks that Inertia is sheltering. I didn't want anything to do with it, but that's what I heard."
You were game to listen, but this completely tracks with what little news you've already heard to the north. She was a pawn, who probably picked this information up on the way down south. You move to go.
"Murgate is worse—!" Her panic is rising. "Please don't leave me here. Listen to me! The White City is running red. You left all of them. Everyone knows it. The place has been overran for ages, and I haven't heard of anymore help coming. Not from you, or the Church of Flesh, or anyone! They say the Church of Spirit is going to try and divide from the theocracy, or worse! I know we—" She's obviously talking about Inertia. "—have tried to fight them tooth and nail, but there's just too much. We can't keep up with that shit. We can't fight them, and everything else there. Demons in the streets. It's been a nightmare."
You're not going to let on that you thought the Church of Spirit and Inertia were in league, but take a further minute to process this information.
It seems Candace isn't done. Her voice drops further. "...a lot of the villages on the western outskirts of the country are getting attacked by demons leaking in from the 'fen, too. Outside the rivers. Outside the cities. I know the Church of Vengeance handles it, but I don't know how the fuck they're being dealt with while Father Pevrel is over here doing his own sick shit. Maybe he runs a tighter ship than you do." She pauses. "I know he runs a tighter ship than you do, never mind. But there's still
people out there."
"You actually care about them." It's a simple enough observation.
Candace keeps her eyes locked with yours. "Someone has to."
>A] This is one cultist in an endless sea of enemies. You don't even care anymore, and are too grief-stricken and pissed to linger. Just let her go.
>B] Candace is obviously still too hot-blooded from what happened today to process the lives she's responsible for ending, so you'll give her some time to contemplate things. She's staying in the dungeons through the rest of the week. Move on, and keep her gagged if necessary. You're done giving her so much as the time of day. (Harvey will make sure she doesn't die in your absence.)
>C] Candace is obviously not going to repent this instant, but there is a tremendous amount of promise here. You ARE very out of touch with the world, and want to promise you'll repay her. Start by letting this young woman go.
>1] No strings attached, but if she tries to ever harm you or your family again, you'll kill her on-sight. Tell her as much.
>2] This has nothing to do with the Gods. You want this woman to have a second chance at life, won't sour any sort of forgiveness, and will part ways on the best terms you can manage. See if she could share any other tangible information or guidance with you before she goes, too. It might actually help a lot of people, and ultimately, both of your causes.
>D] You are so distraught that
you simply need more time to process all of this. Move on to the rest of your prisoners, and keep it brief. You'll decide what to do with them once everyone has made their case.
>1] As much as you love Agriculture, you need to do this yourself. Promise you'll see each other again soon, and end the summoning.
>2] Keep Agriculture with you, but take a measure or two to help not tax your soul too severely. Your Goddess actually helped enormously with questioning Candace, and you want Her support.
>E] You actually have a LOT of questions for Agriculture. Speak with her privately for just a few minutes. (Write-in anything you might want to express.)
>F] Write-in. (Due to the overwhelming resolve and rationale expressed to honor your mission from Mercy, write-ins to torture and/or kill your prisoners will not be accepted. Any other actions, discussion, or ways you'd like to add to the prompts above are welcome.)
