==Kopenka, Somewhere on Terian==
Baron Gonseng is a genius.
There is a limit to how much abuse a person can take. It differs from person to person, I suppose - some may snap at the smallest thing, others can take a lot before it is too much to keep bottling inside. Some rage at the increased prices of bintmeat, while others rage at the sight of their loved ones slowly wavering in the wind, strewn from the steeples of the Baron's castle. As it is painfully obvious, there is a rather large discrepancy between what makes each person's mental braces bend and break under the pressure of boiling hot anger. And that, I therefore deducted, is what makes the Baron such a gifted individual.
He managed to cross that line for every single person in Kopenka nearly at the exact same time.
Without the Sovereign's watchdogs, at times hilariously pious in the execution of their duties, it is safe to say that no one truly liked living under Kronos' reign. The Lich, no matter how saint he made himself seem at times, was not loved. Truly, how can one love a half-decayed corpse? He littered the streets with the walking dead, making a sniff of an Albatrash dung pit seem like a wave of sanctified aroma sent by the divines. He created arbitrary laws, only to strike them down the next day - and without telling anyone. Indeed, a fellow may be imprisoned for life because of a law that is gone with the following dawn, only to serve as a momentary source of amusement for Kronos.
Yet despite all these, as a friend put it, shortcomings, Kronos was tolerable. His corpses did, in fact, made lives easier for many people who toiled in the fields or broke bones at construction sites. He edified the simple folk, granting many peasants education, as well as jobs, and, subsequently, payment to fit. As for his musings... well, he has claimed victims, but he was different - he was the only one.
When he expired, all Citadelic hell broke loose.
Every single scribe, every single guard, every single whore, every single nameless idiot who has ever stepped foot into the Citadel had scattered all across Terian. The Baron was one of those - lucky little people, bitter at their treatment by the Sovereign and mindless from the surge of personal power, went off to claim a city as their personal play-toy. They came and declared their lordship in the name of the new Sovereign, who didn't even know about three quarters of these incidents. Gwen was completely powerless; she was a General, not a politician. Now, perhaps in many other cities like Kopenka, there are people just like me - crowds just like us - brandishing pitchforks and torches, advancing toward the raving fakes' castles to wipe them off the face of this planet. Free from any oppression, free to start anew...
The crowd advanced, slowly but surely, like a thoridium caterpillar. The younger ones were scraping their pitchforks against the ground, likely in an attempt to seem threatening. I think the Baron's guards did not need any more demoralization after they saw the castle's only Vanguard ripped to pieces by the angry mob. Most of them were now holed up inside the dark building in the middle, peering out in the manner of chipmunks hiding in a rotten hollow log from a python. As the mob hit the impenetrable walls, they surged outward, burning surrounding buildings and trampling each other. It was then that the despicable Baron made an appearance.
-"Peasants of Kopenka!" His shrill voice pierced my eardrums, even from this distance. My place was behind the crowd - I would have to be twice as young as I am now to charge mindlessly at the castle. "Hear me, peasants! I think you have the wrong idea here: I am the one with the guns! I am the one to give orders! Now back off and into your homes, and maybe I will spare some of you later!"
A well-thrown torch, barely missing the short Baron's disproportionally large top-hat, answered for itself.
-"Very well!" the Baron shrieked. "You choose to die now! Guards, spears!!!"
The three-foot long spears barely made noise as they cut through the air, and, seconds later, through flesh. On another tangent, he who invented spear guns really did have the right idea in mind: they may use up unholy amounts of metal, but the spears were a truly demoniacally effective demoralization tool. The entire front row of the crowd froze in grotesque positions, impaled by the enormous projectiles. Only seconds later the second wave came, fired at a lower angle; these spears dug through the flesh of several before finally settling at their grim rest. The scene of the rebellion soon took the shape of a child's insect collection, immortalized by pins on wood.
Mass panic ensued. I myself felt the stings of unease strike my heart. How many more spears did the body guard unit have? How are we going to get through those walls? Were we truly destined to fail?
-"Coscades!" I heard a call from the side. I recognized a colleague of mine, working in the same library, calling my name. "Coscades, we have to run! I heard the Baron kept a stash of spears in his castle; there is no chance we'll succeed!"
His voice of reason worked, but not as well as a dark reminder of the situation that came to me in the form of a spear. As I dashed to turn toward Suran, all I saw was a glimpse of his face, frozen in a surprised grimace, and two streaks of metal extending to and from his head, down into the ground. My mind was quick to purge itself of any thoughts other than "run", turning me to the same animalistic state as every other participant in this rebellion.
[This post 12, reclamation: 15]
