Chapter 193: Prep For War; Demme's Prayer

In the hours after I left the dinky tavern, leaving Fragas behind to think on his choices or rather, the lack of it with my two unconscious victims. I settled nicely in the Mayor's Mansion, as always, luxury and fortune does well with me.

The place, much like any other excessively luxurious building has it all. Nice carpeting, empty armours and stairs leading to many, many rooms.

What it doesn't have however, is exclusivity, something I quickly establish with my presence. I may be their saviour but that doesn't mean I want to share my space with just anyone. 

Still, the Mansion, true to what Shaco scouted for me, has a presence to it. The air is heavy and smothering to breath. Like trying to breath normally in a tornado, fortunately, it's something you get to.

Another thing I changed the moment I stepped foot in the place were the altars to the Benefactor. Many of the people living in the Mansion, sleeping and lounging on the dirty floors and dusty carpets – I suspect Alric has long neglected cleaning the place with more important matters like starvation at hand – the altars were usually made up of bones from small animals, likely the left overs of their meals. 

All were arranged in a similar circular pattern with an incomplete 'X' in the centre, making a slanted 'T'. That is then tied up in red cloth, although I suspect the cloth isn't actually red and was simply stained red from the blood it was soaked in.

To his credit, Alric hasn't protested to any of my actions, just kept on a tight jaw and a clenched fist. I decide to tease that bridling anger a bit.

"You're probably thinking about how you're going to come back together and after me if my way doesn't work." I point out, sitting at the end of the least comfortable bed I've been on in a Mayor's residence – Demme really has it bad.

His surprise of my accurate reading of him is also shown on his face and body language. He tenses up a bit then relaxes.

"Yes, I am." He admits with a decided glare, "And I'm sure it'll be hard but I don't intend on giving you a good time if this doesn't work. I have never given into the pressures of others and this will be the first and last time I do." He spits this out through gritted teeth, no doubt recalling my predecessor, Trever.

"Trever was a fool." I say, surprising him yet again, "If he really wanted to take control of Demme as it was back then then, all he really needed to do was make you incompetent, all he needed to do was instead of hiring denizens of Demme for the steel refineries, he should have set up his people there instead."

"Causing my people to view me as incompetent as they lose work opportunities to outsiders." Alric completes.

I nod, "I suppose you've thought of this already."

He shrugs, pacing about the room, "It's one of the things my counsel and I anticipated him to pull; an attack on Demme's economy, an attack on its people. Like what you're doing with the Warriors." He glares at me with the last line.

Merely chuckling I answer his accusing gaze, "You can't blame me, can you? I'm a conqueror, or at least a vying one. I see an opportunity for a bloodless conquest and I'll take it, I'm power hungry, not blood thirsty."

At my admission he snorts, "Well at least you're self-aware, Trever would never admit that he was greedy, even as he carried out the most heinous acts in pursuit of his selfish, covetous goals. Truly a fool."

I give a hum of agreement and we stew in a comfortable silence for a while longer, allowing me the chance to pet and play with Shaco before he speaks up again, questioning.

"But why? Why have you chosen to gather the people now? Is this another attack? We are far too beaten for this."

He almost sound desperate, desperate to know the logic behind my thinking, the method to what surely appears to him as madness.

Meddling with a Daemon from the depths of Reais? Surely, I've gone mad.

But I haven't.

In that moment, before he could pressure me for mor answers, Anselm floats in through the wall and announces.

"They're here, Asher." He grumbles a bit, still mad at being left out of the plan.

"And the altars?" 

Upon seeing so many of the damned things littering the floor and walls of the Mansion, it was clear to me that there would be many of these in households and all sorts of buildings.

As such, I ordered the guard, or rather, my burgeoning militia under the command of Juri to gather up all the people here at the Mansion's steps and make sure all forms of the altar to the Benefactor have been destroyed. 

"There's an insanely large heap of it burning outside the gates. The fire is good too, it'll keep the monsters away for a while longer tonight, or at least that's what they say."

"Perfect!" I chirp, hopping to my feet. I look out the window and surely enough, there's a crowd of people numbering the thousands outside the Mansion.

Many of them have climbed up the walls and others hang on the buildings nearby. I worried my voice wouldn't reach them all, but that worry was squashed when Alric revealed he'd enchanted an object solely for the purpose of enhancing one's voice. 

Something I can imagine coming handy when you're trying to order people around in a chaos or giving large, regular announcements on why everything is still so fucked up.

The object happens to be a glove and the instructions are ridiculously simplistic. All I need to do is press the glove to the side of my mouth like one would when trying to amplify their sound, but instead of relying on the curvature of your hands, the object activates and booms your voice out through the air.

Alric may be nervous about having some usefulness in the Kingdom I'm building but I already think a he's priceless.

Slipping on the fortunate accessory I start off to the outside with a plan only I know of, "Let's go meet the people, shall we?"