The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 310 – The Art of The Bait

Arascus sat down as he brushed Baalka’s hair out of her face. The little Goddess of Disease lay in her bed in the massive tree at the heart of Central Requisitions, her skin pale, her hair dark, her eyes closed as Arascus tucked her under the blanket. She was breathing slowly, her heart did beat and her blood did flow, but she remained unconscious.

She was just as unconscious now as she had been when she was first found. Kavaa had tried at first, with her healing. And Kavaa could do nothing. Neneria had tried prodding the woman’s soul. And Neneria could do nothing. Anassa had tried to figure out what was wrong with the woman. And Anassa could do nothing. Even Elassa had tried to manipulate the woman’s soul to wake up. And Elassa could do nothing.

Arascus didn’t know whether it was the Jungle’s draining of his daughter’s strength, or if Baalka had closed herself off to everyone around her. He sighed, leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead.

He stood up, turned and left, there was an Arika to conquer. He would make sure that Baalka would be proud of him when she awoke.

Iliyal peered at one of the tiny microphones that he had set up throughout his meeting room. Helenna had sent them to him, apparently, she needed a final piece of dirt to tie everything together and an argument with government bureaucrats would do exactly that. The woman didn’t even give him a script, a line to bait them with or what she wanted them to say. All she had communicated was that any sort of disagreement would be enough and the more natural the disagreement, the more she would be able to do with it. The elf straightened his back and readjusted his black suit, complete with cap and boots and perfectly ironed down to make sure that not even a crease remained.

He could be using the elves he was training for such subterfuge, if they were recording, they could no doubt get closer than stationary microphones. Yet the reason not to was rather simple, if they knew, they could spill. Iliyal trusted them not to be traitors, and they would have no reason to switch sides as long as the positive morale kept up as well, but he didn’t want any news of drunken boasts in the mess hall of a lieutenant hinting at sabotage. And, most importantly, they weren’t needed for this. The more moving parts a plan had, the worse the plan was. Just because there was a hammer about didn’t mean it needed to be involved in the process of baking a cake. Goddess Kassandora had taught him that.

And so Iliyal readjusted his suit as the radio came through. It was Menith, who had been tasked with monitoring Kaczaw Main, the city’s central train station. Beryon was on the civilian airport. Aryon on the military heliport. “The Zawitz train just arrived, I saw peacocks get off it.” Iliyal smiled to himself as he sat down and made the final touches. Peacocks was the term they had chosen to use for Jozef’s bureaucrats. Only he and Helenna actually knew the plan. Fer had been warned to listen about and intervene when she felt she needed to, whereas Olonia had not been told anything. Fer was to keep her corralled and healing. Iliyal put the Lubskan passport Olonia had secured for him, a small red book bearing the insignia of the same eagle she could summon, on the table. He knew that would get on their nerves.

And so, he waited. Alinth’s voice came over the radio eventually, he had been tasked with watching over the camp entrance. “Peacocks are strolling in.”

Iliyal supposed there was no reason to have them standing about on watch anymore. He picked up his own radio and pressed the transmission button on the side. “All of you return to standard duties. Well done on this.”

He got a series of “Aye Aye boss”, as confirming replies. And Iliyal waited. He waited as his elven ears listened to the sound of an engine that obviously wasn’t military pulled up to his tent. He waited as he heard men and women talk in-between themselves in Lubskan. He waited as he thought about whether they realised he had learned the language or not. He waited as the sounds got closer. He waited as the guards to his command tent inspected papers and documents. He waited with a grim face, elbows on the table and fingers interlocked, as he watched the fabric pull back and a group of seven enter.

What a grand party Jozef had sent just for him.

Three women, four men. All in dark blue suits and white undershirts, as if they tried to match Iliyal’s clothes. But there was obviously a shortcoming, Iliyal’s cap displayed Kassandora’s insignia of a skull being pierced by a blade. His coat was heavy leather and it had specks of dirt near the bottom. As did the boots. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, since this was a proper war and not an officer’s school. His clothes weren’t so clean that the fabric glinted with light. And he always carried a pistol and a blade irrelevant of what the local administration said. These people did not. “Welcome.” Iliyal said. “Apologies for the mess, we’re in a war.”

Iliyal extended an arm over the table that was overflowing with papers and documents. Anything important, Iliyal had already hidden, this was just the public information that was readily available: logistics routes and news of the food riots in Allia. He had purposefully not prepared any seats for them to sit on. Iliyal did not bother to apologize for the lack of seating, nor did he say anything more. They had come to him after all. The lead woman, short and stout with a round face framed by shorter and stouter hair, stepped forwards and pretended not to be interested in the papers on Iliyal’s table. This split of attention was exactly why the trivialities had been laid out in the first place. “We…” She blinked and looked up from today’s news. “We have to discuss what happened yesterday. My name is Barbara Anchuk, I’m here on behalf of the ECCCC.”

Iliyal whistled. “Four Cs? Very impressive.” He simply wanted to aggravate them, and direct the tone of the conversation to something more argumentative and emotional.

“Epan Coalition Counter Corruption Commission.” Barbara quickly explained and Iliyal didn’t let her speak to explain what this E-Four-C organisation did exactly. No doubt something very important in theory that caused a lot of trouble in practice.

“What did happen yesterday?” Iliyal asked. Everyone in the room knew, everyone had to know after all. Olonia had almost died and Fer had saved Olonia. That’s what happened yesterday. It was simply a matter of phrasing.

“The fight between Olonia and Naro, in which…” The woman trailed off for a moment again. “Fer intervened.” She finally said. And Iliyal leaned back as if he didn’t like what was being said. It was one thing to crush them in argument, it was another to let them burn themselves.

“Fer did…” He played along with the woman and pretended to not be confident. “Intervene, but she did so for good reason.”

“That is the issue.” Barbara said. “That intervention.”

“I don’t see the issue.” Iliyal purposefully made the aggravating comment and Barbara’s face, already mirthless, lost a little bit of mirth that she managed to claw out of nowhere simply for the purpose of throwing away. Another man intervened, short, just slightly taller than Barbara.

“Iliyal Tremali, everyone here knows you’re smart enough to know what is going on. A man does not get to the position you sit in through sheer luck.”

“I appreciate the compliment.” Iliyal said. “But war has plenty of luck. Imagine if I stepped outside and a bullet fired off miles away happened to hit me in the head. No amount of skill would prepare me for that.”

“Let’s be serious here.” The man said.

“Improbable, yes, but impossible? No.” Iliyal talked over the man. “So as I said, I don’t see the issue.” He finished and sat there expecting a reply, he knew he had basically ignored the man’s point, but sometimes, argumentation relied on side-stepping the opponent. War was much the same.

Barbara took the stage. “The issue is that this sets a dangerous precedent in which Epa becomes reliant on the Daughter-Goddesses of Arascus.”

Iliyal sighed and shrugged. “So you don’t want help?”

Barbs took the bait. “We do not need help.” Iliyal raised an eyebrow at the woman but inside, he was very pleased. Helenna was going to be pleased too with that voice line no doubt. Iliyal could already imagine the image of a burning village with that audio line being played over it, and if he could imagine that, then Helenna could make it twice as effective.

“Do you not?”

“Epa can fight her own wars.” And another line! Excellent.

“And how will you fight against Zerus, can you tell me?” Iliyal said. “Or Alkom? Sceo? Fortia? We have killed Maisara for you in the UNN.”

“Maisara is dead?” One of the other men in the back asked. Too tall and too skinny to be pleasant to look at, with a head that wasn’t unreasonably shaped, but his face still made it look as if the man was a picture that had been stretched out.

“I’d like to hear your thanks. Or what? Were you thinking that the Paladins stopped attacking because they got tired? No. It’s because we cut the head off the snake.” Iliyal said and then he caught himself. He saw he was starting to make these people cower and cowering people started to think too much. They needed some confidence, he needed to bait them with a life-line. “I can recall Fer from the front.” Iliyal made his tone weaker.

“We would much appreciate that.” Barbara said and Iliyal saw the battleplan in his mind as clearly as if he were looking at one on the table filled with papers before him.

“What would you have me do?” Iliyal asked. “I admit, I have been rather…” He tried to be sheepish, it was a difficult emotion to feign. “Forward in taking the initiative.”

Barbara smiled and immediately took the chance to unleash her little bureaucratic urge to micromanage every little thing. Iliyal had never liked such people, they were all the exact same. “We would like to recall Fer from the frontlines and send her back to Arika even!” She said, full of excitement.

“In regards to this.” Iliyal pretended to be thinking about what he just heard. “I would raise the notion of what would happen if someone like Naro were to appear again?”

“We handle problems as they appear.” Barbara said and Iliyal spoke slowly, feigning a very careful planning of his words.

“I apologize.” One should never apologize in an argument, this Malam taught to Kassandora. It was an admission of wrongness. “But…” He trailed off, paused for a few moments, inspected the seven faces that had spread out before him and realised they wouldn’t step in. “Some problems need to be prepared for in advance.”

“If the war is planned carefully Iliyal, with our own generals, we can slow it down and not have these mistakes in the first place.”

Gold. Iliyal had struck gold. “So you think that Olonia engaging Naro was a mistake?”

“What was it if not a mistake? She shouldn’t have been there to try and stop him.” When Helenna and Malam both had said that drones should be sent into the air to record for propaganda purposes, Iliyal had done it without question but without excitement. When they had told him that soldiers needed body cameras, Iliyal had silently disagreed but still went along with it. He did not see the purpose of pulling back the curtain on mythologized war, the excitement was good for recruiting after all.

But now he did. He just needed the voice-line. “Olonia stepped up to the task at hand.”

“Olonia should not have put herself in danger.” Barbara said. “She is the Goddess of this nation, she shouldn’t be sacrificing herself in pointless duels.”

“If not her, then who?” Iliyal let the woman keep digging.

And dig, Barbara did. “We have troops, we have men. We have lives to spare Iliyal. You of all people should be aware of this. Olonia should not be allowed near the front, she is more valuable alive than dead.” Iliyal didn’t know if the woman realised she had replaced her shovel for a damn excavator with the things she was saying. Nothing was wrong of course, but these were the sorts of discussions one had with people they trusted. Iliyal and his lieutenants, Iliyal and Sokolowski, Zalewski and Ekkerson, Iliyal and Goddess Kassandora could talk privately about having lives to spare. Publicly though, every life was irreplaceable and every death was a tragedy that could only be redeemed through total victory.

“If we remove the Divines from the front.” Iliyal said. “I’m talking about the National-Divines here, not the Weapons, we will slow the war down.”

“By how long?” One of the men asked this time.

Iliyal shrugged. “Months? Years?” He said. “I can’t tell you.”

“Then the war will be extended. This is an Epan war you understand? Not a fight between Arascus and the White Pantheon.” It was a small statement, almost innocuous, but it was there. And whereas before, the lines were gold, this was pure platinum. Frankly, he may as well have struck oil in his backyard. Then the war will be extended? The elf had to force himself not to look down at the article describing food riots in Allia.

“Mmh.” Iliyal said. “I’ll take everyone you said into account. Thank you very much.” That was more than enough from these people. They had just demolished the Epan Coalition by themselves. Iliyal had simply handed them the tools to do it with.

“We thank-“ Barbara was cut off by a gust of wind from outside and the cloth swung as if blown by the wind. It was not the wind though, it was a Goddess. Fer entered, Iliyal had known her long enough to know exactly what she was going to say as the cloth settled down behind her.

“I am Fer!” She proclaimed her own entrance with so much grandiosity that Iliyal couldn’t help but smile. The Goddess of Beasthood was tall enough to need to bend her head to stop her ears tugging on the ceiling cloth of the tent. The woman wasn’t particularly broad either, she had the build of a leopard rather than a bear, but her sheer size still meant that even with that build, she was more than twice as wide as Iliyal. The addition of that golden mane made her seem wider though, and the woman had such a presence that she instinctually claimed a quarter of the large tent for herself. The bureaucrats all moved all away from her.

“The Goddess of the hour.” Iliyal said, still sitting down extended an arm to her and Fer immediately launched into her assault. “Since this is about you, what do you have to say for yourself?” He changed tune immediately now that Fer was here. Frankly, he had what he wanted anyway, so he’d simply go along with whatever tone Fer set.

“In regards to what was being said.” Fer began and Iliyal smiled, Kassandora had said this to him in the past. He had doubted the words until the first time he had seen his wrongness be put on full display: Fer was the Goddess of Beasthood, she had all the strength of a bear, the speed of a leopard, the cunning of a wolf, but it wasn’t just that. She could be as innocent as a kitten or as devious as a snake. And there was no one who knew Fer better than Fer herself. She had just told them she had heard the conversation, she didn’t slip a single note of judgement into it, nor raised any argument to try and defend herself. That holding back of her own thoughts would create an anticipation far worse than any terror she could raise against them. “I have absolutely nothing to defend myself with because it does not need a defence.”

She raised a golden eyebrow at the seven bureaucrats. The tallest of them, a man who would reach up to Iliyal’s shoulders and barely managed to get to Fer’s hips, spoke up. “We are thankful for what you did but…” He trailed off. “It sets a precedent of assistance now.”

“This is the issue.” Fer said. “I do not really care about your precedence Mister what’s your name again? You didn’t introduce yourself.” Iliyal leaned back as he saw the blood drain from the bureaucrats faces, if there was one thing Fer couldn’t really do, it was hold back. Barbara opened her mouth and Fer interrupted before the woman could get a word out. “Barbs, I’m a Goddess, you’re a human. Let’s not pretend we’re the same here so hold yourself before you say something you’ll regret saying.” Brilliant bait and brilliant terror, because she had just told them she heard the entire conversation without needing to state it directly.

“I represent the entire Epan Coalition!” Barbara said with some bravado that tried to be real confidence.

“Right.” Fer said. “So if I go to Wissel right now and tell him what you just said, would he agree? Or Aimone? Richard? Artois?” Iliyal realised Fer had actually come in to fix a mistake he had made. It was one thing to get callous bureaucrats saying egregious things. It was another entirely to smear an entire bureaucracy because of a few callous bureaucrats.

“It is they who created the Epan Coalition! Of course they would!”

“Brilliant.” Fer said sarcastically. Iliyal did not know if that was for herself or for them. “All of it?”

“Every last shred!” Barbara said. “The Epan Coalition nominated us to make sure that we will retain some form of independence after this war is over.”

“I simply do not believe that you represent the Epan Coalition like this.” Fer said, it was so innocent that Iliyal did not know if he wouldn’t have fallen for it himself.

“Well then we have to agree to disagree.” Barbara said.

“But you do?” Fer prodded again. Iliyal sat there and watched this relentless assault. How Fer managed her tone, from annoying to gentle and back again, was a work of art.

“Yes. We represent the Epan Coalition.” Barbara answered and Iliyal had to stop the laughter in his throat. Fer really did make it seem easy.

“That’s great.” Fer said, and she switched immediately again. “But for you to represent anything, you have to win the war first.” Iliyal smiled. Whereas he had tried to methodically bait responses out, Fer did what she did best: Fight snark with snark.

“The Epan Coalition will win the war.”

“So far it looks like all your major victories were done by us.” Iliyal saw the opportunity to get Barbs to say something downright terrible.

“Well Fer, I’m not certain you can make comparisons like that because it is us.”

“Exactly.” Barbara said. “No one is denying you are strong yet Epa needs to stand and fight by itself.” Fer looked to Iliyal, pretended to scratch her back but really shot the elf a thumbs up. They had another solid gold ingot of a line: Epa needs to stand and fight by itself.

“And if Naro killed Olonia?”

“If Naro killed Olonia then Naro would have killed Olonia.” Barbara replied. “It sounds to me like you wanted him to kill her.”

“I trained Olonia, I have nothing against the little kitten.” Fer said and added a purr the bureaucrats gawked at her.

“Olonia is not a kitten!” One of the men shouted. Ironically enough, from the accent it was obvious he wasn’t Lubskan.

“Right.” Fer said slowly. “And I’m not the Goddess of Beasthood.”

“She’s the Goddess of Lubska!” Barbara said.

“Divines fight each other, it’s only Mascots that don’t do anything.”

“That’s what she is!” Barbara shouted. “This isn’t your age anymore! We’ve moved on since those times! Divines are representatives and mascots! There’s more glory in joining people together like that than fighting how you do!” Gold! Iliyal leaned back and let Fer handle it all herself. Frankly, he wasn’t needed for this.

“Mmh.” Fer could somehow even make her purring seem sarcastic. Iliyal sat there and marvelled at the woman’s display in rhetoric. “Definitely. Who are you trying to convince? Me, Olonia or yourself?”

“No one needs convincing here.” Barbara said. “It is simply a new style of thinking.”

“Naturally a bureaucrat would like the idea of turning Divines into Mascots.”

“Are you not one?” Barbara asked.

“Am I?” Fer half-chuckled, half-laughed. “Do you think I am?”

“It could be argued you are.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s not a dirty word.” Barbara said and Iliyal caught his breath as the gears in his mind caught up to the line of attack Fer was leading this lot down.

“Is it not?”

“I am a bureaucrat and Olonia is a mascot. It’s a new style of rulership and a new style of Divinity.” Iliyal wanted to pour himself a drink to celebrate this achievement. Fer and Kavaa and him had trained Olonia, they all knew that the one thing the Goddess of Lubska despised more than anything was that label.

And Fer had just gotten that label on mic.

Helenna had not even said the lines had to be particularly damning, and that she would be able to work with anything they got. And they had secured maybe the most damning strings of words imaginable. “Very well.” Fer said. “I’m glad you think you represent the Epan Coalition and that Olonia is a mascot. Truly humble of you.”

“We do represent the Epan Coalition and Olonia is indeed a mascot. Times have simply moved on.”

“Fantastic.” Fer said, and she changed tones now to the sort of prim voice Malam would use when mocking pretentious aristocrats. “You can fuck off now.”

The seven bureaucrats had to exchange between themselves for a moment. That tall man spoke. “Excuse me?”

“I did not come for a discussion with you, I came to pester Iliyal on why Kassandora does not answer my phone-calls.” Iliyal wanted to burst out in laughter. And she had just managed to start a false rumour that pretended the unified solidarity amongst the Daughter-Goddesses was waning! Just like that! So innocently that even he would have believed it! “As I said, you can fuck off now.”

“I…” The bureaucrats looked to Iliyal.

“Go to Zawitz. I’ll send a letter on what changes I’ll make later.” Iliyal would nothing of the sort of course. But the seven left anyway. Iliyal and Fer waited for a few minutes, looking at each other, both with smiles creeping onto their faces.

“How was that?” Fer asked.

“Helenna’s the true judge.” Iliyal said as he smiled. He generally tried to hide his emotions, it made him less of a myth and more of a man and at this point, he knew that the myth of the thousand-year General of the Eighth Legion was far greater than Iliyal the man could ever become. But with Fer? The most respectful thing she had ever said to him was that he was Kassandora’s favourite elf. There was no reason to hide emotions in front of Beasthood. “Well…” Iliyal leaned back, cracked a smile and laughed out loud. Since the moment they left, she had been mirroring on her face what Iliyal was feeling inside. Just pure joy at the performance they put on and what words they managed to get out of the bureaucrats exactly. “We did a damn good job.” It was much better than that. They had secured everything that Helenna wanted secured and then some. They had gone above and beyond.

“I’ll say it how Kassie says it.” Fer said. “We annihilated them.”

Iliyal finally stopped and saved the recording.

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