Chapter 5: Turnabout is Unfair Play
When she and her people returned, there was already someone waiting for her, Robel, and he had the single largest smile on his face that she had ever seen. Beyond the walls, she heard cheers like nothing she had heard since the victory over the Demon King Jaldabaoth. "What's happened?" Neia asked.
"The King has granted our request, he has given us permission to build an official temple for Black Justice, he's said that the site of your current headquarters, along with the adjacent building ruins on each side, was authorized for its construction. He did, however, lay a few caveats." Robel said.
Neia's building excitement was tempered, but she waited for him to continue, "The priest who tried to kill you must be tried privately and punished by exile instead of publicly and executed." Neia shrugged, she'd hoped to see him publicly humiliated, but if it got them official acknowledgement to show some mercy to an old fool, so be it.
"You are forbidden from profiting in the same way that the temples of the other six gods do. You must not receive public funds from the Crown. And lastly, before you break ground on the new temple, you must complete the existing rebuilding project for the Capitol." Neia's smile grew large.
"I'm guessing that healing and funding restrictions were at the insistence of temple advisers. They're stupid that way." Neia said.
Robel looked a little confused, so Neia elaborated. "The temples draw most of their income directly from charging people for healings from injuries or illness, their influence is so pervasive on this issue that it's literally a requirement that adventurers abide by it. In theory, this keeps them out of politics...in practice...well, have you ever not seen priests or paladins in court, and when was the last time one of them did not endorse the established crown?" Neia said.
"They expect that by imposing a restriction against profiting from healing, they'll strangle us financially, because the cost of a magical education is so high, if we can't profit from it, we won't train people in it, and they assume, wrongly, that this means we won't be able to do it, and as a result we won't be able to match their services, and we won't have their income, especially if we do not draw support from the crown, the result will be our temples won't be able to be maintained, and we'll collapse under the weight of even modest success."
Robel's expression turned dark.
"However, they're thinking with their prejudice again." Neia said. "They're thinking about the Sorcerer King as just an undead magic caster who is only capable of taking life, they have no idea that he's capable of saving it through healing, and they haven't given thought to his ability to produce runcrafted and enchanted equipment, they've blinded themselves by their faith, to what is...for us, easy to see. I never had any intention of charging people for healing, that blackhearted policy was never going to be something I was going to tolerate, I have the shape of a plan slowly forming in my mind as to how to maintain it, and I will look for an opportunity on my journey to execute it, to really stick it to those stupid priests and blind temples, all I need are a few people willing to execute it, capable of fighting and healing and willing to move around a lot. How we'll sustain the temples...well I have a slowly forming plan for that as well, but I need to see what the situation in the villages is like. But I think we have nothing to worry about." Neia said with a smile, "It's OK to be happy."
Robel's smile returned.
"How much remains of the Capitol to rebuild?" She asked.
"We've got..." he paused and dug into a pack and pulled out a sheaf of papers, "Twenty-two manor houses of the nobles, fourteen public buildings, comprised of one sick house per quarter, three orphanages, two guard barracks, four public fountains for water access, and one prison." He said, rattling them all off rapid fire. "There are more private residences that have not been built, but these don't really matter, because quite frankly, there were so many dead that we have empty houses here as is. This city wasn't used as a large-scale prison like some others were. We can knock down the damaged empty homes and use the materials and rebuild faster." He finished.
"See that done then, tear down the damaged houses, and then focus on the orphanages and the public fountains. Sickness isn't large right now, but there are a lot of orphans, and it is taking a really long time for people to draw water because of the shortage of fountains to use. The sick houses can come after that, then the prison, and the noble houses can come last. However, tell them that if they want their manors rebuilt faster, they can send their soldiers to do so alongside everyone else." Neia said, "For now, though, take the day off, this is now a holiday." Her smile was broad, and her men all cheered. They went into the city and found the members of Black Justice dancing and music playing. It appeared that they'd declared an impromptu holiday all on their own, and she wasn't inclined to argue.
Sebas took it all in stride as he followed beside her, and happy as Neia was, she was also anxious. "What's the matter?" Sebas asked, "Aren't you happy? Lord Ainz will now be properly honored."
"That brings joy to my heart as nothing has in years." Neia said, "But...how do you think some of the Paladins will take this? How do you think Remedios will take this? She's convinced all undead are evil, she has the stubbornness of a bull and the brain of a rock, you don't have to be smart to be a paladin, and even some of those who are smarter than she is, will NOT take this well. Tonight, we're going to establish a watch here at our headquarters." She said.
"A watch?" Sebas asked, "You doubt my ability to guard you?" His tone was somewhat chiding, but Neia shook her head, "Never that dear Sebas," she said with a sincere smile, "but at the moment when we think we are safest, we are at our most vulnerable, and I won't lose a single one of my people because I failed to think my actions through, or assumed that things would work out because my idea of planning was 'hoping really hard nothing goes wrong'."
Sebas stroked his beard. "That's very wise, Lady Neia, very wise indeed. I am sure my Lord Ainz would be proud of that thinking. What did you have in mind?"
Neia had a twisted smile on her face, "An ambuscade, if discovered and promptly surrounded, will repay the intended mischief with interest." She said, "A man named Vegetius wrote that, and it's not hard to conclude that we're going to face a repraisal, or that it will happen tonight." She said as she opened her office door.
"Why tonight?" Sebas asked.
"Because today we're happy, it's our new holy day, our people are drinking and laughing, they're overjoyed, what better time to respond, than the time when our happiness can turn to misery, our triumph to tragedy, or joy at a new phase of life to a state of mourning, many deaths?" Neia said. "Remedios may or may not take part, but with her mentality, it's hard to imagine that she won't. I doubt all the paladins will either, but I'm sure those who do will find some support among the nobles." She said.
"Why would the nobles help?" Sebas asked.
"Some of them wouldn't, but the corrupt ones like Handor, who find us interfering in their business, they would, others would because of ties to the temples or out of some genuine, misguided devotion, or just to back the side they THINK has more power." Neia shrugged it off.
"How many do you think they'll use?" Sebas asked.
"Well, my hundred and I are here every night, there are also usually around three or four hundred more who simply encamp here out of a sense of general eagerness to work or, embarrassing as it is, to be close to where I am. If we usually have about five hundred people in this part of the city, not counting the thousands elsewhere scattered about...even attempting to catch us by surprise, if their goal is to kill me and decapitate our leadership, at least twice that will be necessary, and that is if we're equal opponents, but we're not. Black Justice has engaged in two activities, working and training, for months. Ordinary guards are no match for us, but paladins...maybe. So they'll probably arrange an attack with 1500 men." She said as she went through her papers.
"Tell me, Sebas, is there something you can put into a drink that will sober someone up quickly, say within a few minutes?" She asked.
Sebas thought for a moment, "Nothing that I know of, however, healing does that since alcohol is a form of poisoning, what if we provided a crystal with a mass healing spell you could use after the celebration and people go to sleep, if combined with a 'quiet casting' spell, nobody would even be aware it had been used." Sebas said.
"That would do nicely. Now...I need to ensure this goes well, so I suppose it is time to test my hundred, but I'll also need to ensure we have enough people ready to delay any attack while the remainder prepare..."
Sebas watched as she quickly drew out a map of the headquarters area with buildings and features marked, and when she started talking to herself about how to detect the inevitable surprise attack, he interjected, "Why not ask for CZ?"
Neia looked up from her drawing, "Would the Sorcerer King allow it?" She asked.
"You're CZ's friend, of course, he'd encourage her to come and help you." He said, "I will just be a few minutes." He said and stepped through a gate. Neia marked off a half a dozen locations, and then the gate opened again, and CZ stepped through, followed immediately by Sebas, who was holding two crystals.
"CZ!" Neia said as she rushed over to hug her maid demon friend.
"It is good to see you Neia." CZ said as she hugged her back...and put a sticker on Neia's face. Neia laughed, but then asked seriously, "Did Sebas tell you?"
"Yes," CZ said, "and Lord Ainz, who was not happy, he initially planned to send all of us, but Demiurge suggested this would be an adequate test of your progress as a leader. Cocytus wanted to come too, but he was talked out of it for the same reason. Instead, Cocytus, Demiurge, and Lord Ainz will be watching how you handle everything."
Neia fidgeted… "My god will be watching over me...may I make him proud that I am his." She said with her head reverentially lowered, and CZ responded by putting another sticker on her other cheek. "Cute." She said.
Neia smiled broadly and said, "I need your help..."
Sebas waited as Neia went over her plans. That night, Neia declared that in honor of their holy day, everyone should sleep with armor on and a weapon beside them. It was a good enough excuse that nobody thought to question it.
Back in Nazarick...
The other guardians were watching behind Ainz Ooal Gown as the events unfolded.
"Her planning skills have grown considerably." Demiurge said as he pushed his glasses up.
"It is thanks to the education of Lord Ainz." Cocytus said, "The library has given her the knowledge to be not just a warrior, but a leader."
"I'm sure my Lord Ainz could come up with a much better plan though." Said Shalltear.
"True," Ainz said, while privately thinking that...no...he probably couldn't, she'd considered everything he would have, "however, she is only human, and she's done a very good job in that respect."
"They're sure having fun down there." Aura said casually, "But it will be a whole lot more fun soon." She grinned.
As they watched, Black Justice elites took up positions where Neia instructed them, cloaked in black, and CZ took a high position where she could observe. Neia had several others set up barriers of black painted stone in key positions, things that either blocked or channelled easy access to her headquarters area. And as soon as the lot of heavily intoxicated people were asleep, she used the quiet casting spell, followed by the mass healing. Everything had been in place for hours before anything began. Ainz saw the gathering of people, and zoomed his remote viewer in on the group.
"Remember," Remedios said, "they're going to be mostly drunk, this was a big day for them, they're quiet, they're happy, and we're going to make them dead, screaming, and sad. Even catching them by surprise, this won't be easy, but we've got to chop the snake's head off before it grows enough to bite. I'll handle Neia myself, the rest of you, kill everyone there, just go by your respective routes, and everything will be fine."
Ainz zoomed the mirror out and finished repeating what he'd seen her say by reading her lips. "That is not warrior-like." Cocytus said critically.
The group grew larger as it moved through the city, and as Neia had anticipated, Ainz guessed there was somewhere between one thousand and fifteen hundred troops, however none of them noticed CZ's silent signal, and Neia and those closest to her, began to wake everyone up and warn them to be ready to receive an attack, training had included a willingness to follow urgent orders without taking the time for questions, and as a result, before the parties of hostiles had gotten halfway there, over three hundred were awake, and by the time they were three quarters of the way there, all of them were awake. Sebas quietly released two more spell crystals, one for quiet casting and another as a booster charm to put the people at peak efficiency.
When the hostiles had come close, Neia did her part and stepped out into the street holding a torch, and she said, "Remedios, I wouldn't do this if I were you. Go home. Things are going to get a lot more painful if you don't. This is your only chance."
Remedios laughed and said, "The pain is all yours now bitch." And she drew out her bow and fired, the dropping of the torch when Neia dodged was the signal, and Black Justice fighters atop roofs stood up, and fired down into the thick crowds. CZ's gun started firing as she picked off targets in quick succession, and the various bands of attackers found routes they thought they knew, either closed off or slowed, and the readied Black Justice was on the offensive, firing arrows had become second nature, and mass targets were easy. Remedios's people had brought few bows, expecting to just storm a camp of sleeping people and start stabbing everyone to death, but now, instead, they were fighting a pitched battle from a secure position.
Remedios was unharmed, and sought to end it by charging after the one she blamed for everything, Neia Baraja, only to find that Neia was waiting for her, with an immaculately dressed butler, the scenes were impossibly incongruous, between the desperate struggles of blood and steel in the darkness, and the formally dressed old man in front of her, Sebas moved to confront her, but Neia touched his shoulder, "Wait." Neia said. "I won't say no to a rescue, but honestly, I need this, one way or the other. People have to know." She stopped her sentence cold, and Sebas wondered what it was they needed to know. But he stood aside.
The Black Justice ambushes, supported by the distance shooting of CZ and with prepared positions that limited access of numbers, took a butcher's toll, and the fifteen hundred was down to...much less, in very short order. Fighting, however, is a noisy thing, and the sounds of such fighting roused the attention of the entire city, even if it was in one quarter, nobody could have heard so many shouts and so many swords clash.
The power of preparation was made clear, and when their numbers had dwindled in various positions, and no reinforcements came in the form of successful companions from any other path, while from victorious positions, Black Justice fighters arrived to reinforce their own.
But Remedios was unaware of all of this, she had eyes for only one thing. The death of Neia Baraja.
"Smart move, old man." Remedios said, and as she began to advance, she froze. Neia was removing her armor. The torches and fires around made it obvious what she was doing, but what she did not understand was why. When the armor fell, Neia began removing her boots, and she said, "You know, at one time, I admired you greatly. You were my goal." Neia said, hopping a few times as the stubborn boot at first did not want to come off. "I admired your sense of justice, your willingness to place a single life above your own, even when preserving yourself could have let you save more." She tossed aside the other boot, more cooperative as it was than its twin.
"I thought, if only I could be like her, as strong as her, I could protect everyone." Neia said.
"If you're trying to flatter me to save your hide...!" Remedios began, prompting a laugh from Neia.
"No," Neia said, "all that was in the past. Now I hold you in the highest contempt. Especially in this moment, as you lead over a thousand people to their deaths rather than spend even a moment reflecting on your actions, and on the true nature of those with whom you work." Neia took off her quiver and dropped it.
"You failed to see the greatness of the Sorcerer King even when he risked himself to save us all. You failed to see the evil in manipulating others or in throwing away innocent lives just because the bearers of those lives didn't look like you." Neia said, as she dropped her sword still in its sheath.
"You threw away your justice a long time ago when you stopped thinking about what justice meant, and have been clinging to the tatters of it ever since, and blaming everybody else for your own failures." Neia said as she took off her bow and set it gently aside.
"Shut up!" Remedios said.
"You now betray the Holy Kingdom, the Kingdom of your beloved Queen Calca, because you'd rather its people burn than its people change. I doubt she'd be proud of you if she saw you try to sneak through her Capitol and murder five hundred innocent people in their sleep." Neia said, continuing to egg her on, and Remedios shook her head and shut her eyes in denials, shaking with rage, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut UP!" Neia set aside the last of her magic items.
"Fight me!" Remedios said, "Pick up that sword and fight me!"
"Why?" Neia asked, "You were already prepared to kill me while I slept, you can't do it while I'm standing here looking at you telling you the truth, you can't HANDLE the truth?"
Neia gave Remedios a bitter smile, "We both know I can't beat you with a sword, or even if I use my bow and magic items, no matter how low you've fallen, and no matter how much I've trained, you're still a better warrior than I am, so go ahead and do it, and I'll prove that even being a weaker fighter, doesn't mean I'm not stronger than you." Neia stood now in nothing but bare feet and an ordinary tunic.
"Fine, then you brainwashed servant of evil, now you DIE!" Remedios said and launched an attack meant to annihilate evil, and holy light fell where Neia stood, and Neia stood with arms out and gaze upward as if to receive it, and Remedios smiled with satisfaction, evil would always perish to her, one way or another. Only to see...nothing happen.
"I told you." Neia said, "I am the servant of the god of justice. How you could be so stupid as to think a holy light meant to hurt evil would hurt me, I cannot imagine." She still held her arms out, and Remedios couldn't bear the sight. In a flash, she was in front of Neia, and her sword went through Neia's arm. It hurt. She screamed.
By this time, most of the battle had already ended, with many of the attackers dead and some survivors arrested as they tried to flee, some survivors had been captured by members of Black Justice, either after surrender or being wounded, and were being dragged to the center where the expected to find Lady Neia standing tall and proud, but instead found a commotion as a still standing Remedios savagely attacked the evidently defenseless Neia.
But Remedios STILL either did not notice or did not care what was going on around her.
"Go ahead!" Neia spat out, "Kill me while I'm unarmed and unarmored!" She said as Remedios pulled out her sword and stabbed Neia in the other arm. It hurt. Neia screamed.
"Behold the greatest of all paladins!" Neia shouted, "Killing the unarmed and unarmored while they do not resist!"
Remedios kicked Neia in the stomach, forcing her to double over, and then she back-handed her across the jaw, sending Neia falling to one side. She forced herself up to all fours, and then to her knees, and as she rose, Remedios kicked her in the teeth, dislodging several of them.
Neia spat them out, a mass of teeth and blood and saliva stained the stone. "You think that will silence me! Any weakling can be a torturer, but power isn't just what pain you can inflict, it's what you can TAKE, and justice, service, is the reason to take it." Remedios screamed and cut off Neia's ear.
"I'll cut out your tongue next!" She screamed.
"It would still be a tongue that spoke the truth, not one that ordered fifteen hundred to kill five hundred of their sleeping neighbors in the night!" Neia said, and promptly lost her other ear, and a small part of her wondered as the sword fell, if she would hear the inevitable scream...she did.
"The Sorcerer King IS justice. Strength exists to create and protect justice, and killing me won"t change that," Neia was gasping hard, and another kick and she felt her ribs crack in her chest, "nothing will change that, and you will never be strong enough to beat me, even if you kill me, because I am only the messenger of the god of justice, Long Live Ainz Ooal Gown!" Neia shouted. And as Remedios moved in to make the killing blow, Sebas chose to intervene.
He caught her arm in his grip, right at the wrist, and said, "I will not let you kill her."
Remedios snarled and said, "Let go, or you're next."
He snapped it. Twice. Then he took her sword away as a parent would take scissors from a wayward toddler.
She tried to hit him with her free hand. Her hand broke when it connected.
He grabbed her throat and squeezed.
She choked...and it hurt. She tried to fight, raining blows with broken appendages, but it did nothing but hurt her worse, and eventually, the struggling slowed, then stopped, and she went limp. He dropped her like an undignified sack of potatoes and stepped over her to Neia
"That was...painful looking." He said. "What was the point?" He asked as he took out a potion.
"I beat her." Neia said. Sebas looked confused.
"I fought her, without fighting." She grinned through the pain. Everyone who saw her, my people, or her own, will know how low she's really fallen now. You can't pretend to be the hero to others, only to yourself, when you do...well...this, to someone who is not going to fight you." She managed a chuckle through her softly spoken, barely whispered words, as Sebas knelt and cradled her limp and barely moving form, and through a toothless mouth, shaking in pain as the stopper was pulled, she said, "Thanks for the save." She reminded him of the battered Taure, the first time he'd seen her, and when the potion was put to her lips, she drank greedily. Her people, finally seemingly free to move after the shock of what they saw happening wore off, rushed in to help her up as the potion took effect.
She looked over at the crumpled form of Remedios Custodio, "Is she dead?" Neia asked Sebas.
"No, but she will have a very bad headache when she wakes up." Sebas answered.
"Oddly enough, I'm glad she's not dead...I did admire her...once." Neia said. "It's sad to see how low she's fallen, attacking innocent people at night in their sleep, who wanted to do nothing more than praise the one true god and worship what should be worshiped and live as they should live. How do you plan to kill people the way she did...how do you actually try to do that, to carry it out against your own people...and still think yourself the good and noble hero...and still be surprised that when you use a holy strike against someone, it doesn't work on THEM?" She asked softly.
Sebas shook his head as Neia straightened herself up and began to put her armor back on and reclaim her gear, "Sometimes people lose sight of what their values are really supposed to mean, or they apply even good values so narrowly that any evil becomes good if it is turned on someone outside their narrow view. I don't know, and perhaps I never will." He said and stepped back as color returned to Neia's face.
Neia nodded, "Whatever the reason, many paid for her folly."
By this time, uninvolved city guards had begun to filter in and...
They found a very ugly situation. The wounded were being gathered up together, friend and foe alike, though only foes were bound. In other circumstances, it might have been questionable just what happened, but thanks to the war with Jaldabaoth, there was no an ample number of people with experience looking at the aftermath of combat, and it was very clear who the aggressors had been, the burned bodies on the other side of the various barriers, had included noble household troops, a few paladins, and armed men of uncertain allegiance, while on inside of various barriers, were only Black Justice, and everybody knew this was the area of the city they occupied...but if the commander needed any further confirmation, it was given when he approached and Remedios woke up chained together behind her back.
"Why...did you attack them?" The commander asked.
"They"re EVIL! They're EVIL!" They're EVIL! Remedios screamed, "Why doesn't anyone GET that?! She serves the undead, she's his brainwashed servant, they all deserve to die!"
More witnesses than he needed, but he had them all. The commander shook his head.
"How many dead?" He asked Neia.
"Among ours? About ten, maybe twenty, I haven't heard from everyone yet." She answered.
"Among theirs, though...they lost somewhere around one thousand three hundred, but we're still counting, you can have the wounded if you want." She finished saying, and the commander's eyes bulged.
"How..." He asked.
"I figured out what they were likely to do, then I set up barriers, I changed available paths of approach, I stationed people on the rooftops with bows, had scouts watching for where they were coming from, and took control of the flow of battle by removing their leader immediately as a threat, while she was trying to hurt me, her side was losing. Between that and getting hit on all sides, they were just standing corpses holding weapons, and all we had to do was push them over." Neia said nonchalantly.
"I am not looking forward to explaining this to the king." The commander said as he looked at the half-mad mad struggling and screaming Remedios, not but a few feet away from the dead paladin with an arrow sticking out of his eye.
"Well, I didn't enjoy killing them either we were on the same side of things when Jaldabaoth came, that man over there with the arrow in his eye, he was with us when we went to the Sorcerer King, he was with us when were just a rag tag liberation army, I wouldn't ever have wished him dead, but he made his choice and was willing to kill me and everyone with me. It was a stupid waste, but we've all got to do what we've got to do." Neia said, and as she privately contemplated the result of these events, she felt an abiding sadness well up, which, in that moment, she didn't think she'd ever really be rid of, no matter what happened after this.