NOVEL NEXT Chapter 141: Cult of Personality
The faded parchment continued with two last, tattered testaments...
Sentry Demon #1 landed, gravely injured, amidst the sands and dunes of a southern desert. Its wings were frayed, a Fort Duran-forged gladius sat imbedded deep into its armored hide.
It had shadowed the rebellious Brand-slaves trough the length and breadth of the Demon King's realm. In single-minded pursuit of this mission, it had begun to feel, think. Elements more akin to a dire-beast than aspects of the Old Lord. Those Templar and Castellan demons were allowed a modicum of autonomy in pursuit of their goals, but such a low-ranking sentry was not spawned to think. To think risked rebellion and a defiance of orders. But once started, the process of growing as a sentient entity would not stop.
For that, it had been cast out.
Winds howled, half-burying the heavily-damaged fiend in a dune. If it remained here, it would be covered and forgotten, another dormant demon cast out when it was no longer a useful appendage for quarantine duty.
It felt the death of the Demon King the instant it occurred. All other demons still tethered to the central control unit were, at once, adrift. It felt a clutch of Collector Demons some twelve leagues away lose their connection to the central command authority and go feral, dispersing throughout the desert.
Newly capable of higher thought, Sentry Demon #1 did not wish to lay down and die. Being cast out just before the collapse of the demonic regime had advantages. Kept it sane, within reason.
Molt. The thought came to it at once. In this way it would survive.
It craned its thick, demonic neck up to the night sky and opened its mouth. A thick webbing covered the beast, solidifying into a circular cocoon. Now safe from the elements, its physical form disintegrated into more of an ooze. There it remained, swiftly buried in a protective layer of sand
Over several centuries and many molt phases the Lord's shackle disintegrated. Reincarnation was perhaps a better word for the process in human terms. What came out would be demonic in origin but also... otherwise. It all depended on what blueprint happened upon the cocoon amidst the dunes...
Untold years passed. The cocoon was occasionally buried and uncovered by the winds. Until one day, it was happened upon by a foreign trader. A plain-looking man from more temperate lands to the south. He was unassuming aside from a massively tall frame and scraggly beard. The man approached as Sentry Demon #1 slumbered deep in this shimmering shell.
With natural curiosity, the foreigner reached out to touch the cocoon. His hand made contact with the shell and in an instant, the merchant was deleted. Footprints in the sand were the only trace he was ever here. The shifting landscape consumed them within the day.
The old demon now had its template. As a foreigner, the trader had been unbranded, and this status would pass on to what would emerge from the cocoon. Many centuries still would pass before the resulting entity, a gestalt mesh of human and demon, would emerge.
For now, it slumbered...
Priestess Mia, mother of the church, sat upon a throne in the hollowed-out cranium of the foul carcass of the Demon King. A gravid belly marked the widow as eight months pregnant.
Branded and unbranded both hailed their victory over the Demon King. All agreed to sequester key regions around the Demon Lord's Fall as a reserve for the Shackled, who could use it as hunting grounds to gain levels and rank under the System by which they were bound. It would be Cleric Mia and the surviving heroes who would oversee this preserve. Battlemages of the tower stopped by to assist with cleaning the cranial structure out, to serve as yet another place of learning in Menucraft.
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Much of the population of the land had been Shackled, both before the rebellion and as punishment upon captured prisoners of war or innocent settlements in retribution for Roland's victories. They needed guidance and purpose, for many were cast out at level one with little knowledge of what being Brand-bound involved. Long did Cleric Mia serve to provide guidance and relief to these liberated Brand-slaves.
A riverside hamlet in the glenlands had been mass-Shackled by a demon war party in the first act of retribution against the heroes' march. This, and the Southern Shackled Asylum, were granted as a pale of settlement for the mass population of Brand-slaves. Smaller outposts were likewise set up in the desert and in an arrondissement of the capital. Soon Branded from all over were a common sight on the road, seeking settlements where they could operate under the Interface.
The weeks passed, after which Branded doctors did aid her in delivering twins. And it is from this blessed day from which all calendars henceforth count down. The Cleric's grief was great, even as she continued to oversee the early days of what was called the Branded Guild. A secular authority for the advancement of those Shackled with demonic slave-brands.
Foul miasma seeped from the pores of the Demon King, and from the volcanic marsh that was its grave. So heavy was Mia's grief that she noticed not the effects on her and her offspring for many years. She reported in her final days that her vision had drained of all color in the moment Roland thrust his spear into the Demon King's vital weak point.
In time, Aldia returned to the Battletower to pursue his research into the voice in the fire. Further experiments are lost from all records, and he has not even a ceremonial tomb for pilgrims. Gustavo, too, distanced himself from the site rather than face exile; for new advisors came to command Cleric Mia's ear. Mysterious figures, castellans emerging from remaining ichor pools and providing counsel that was soon as good as law in the realm.
At age six, Cleric Mia discovered the eldest of the twins to have beaten to death their pet dire-dog, a joint gift to the twins from the magistrate of Port Town. While at first shocked, counsel from her advisors urged her to encourage such behavior. For it was a strong act of decisiveness, they argued. Ruthlessness was strength, and leaders would have to be strong. The miasma spreading through the fallen king's resting place did cloud her mind and harden her heart, and it was done.
At age sixteen, the eldest of the holy twins was found having beaten his sibling's twinbranded left eye, swollen and shut. Again, the advisors and the miasma counseled the Holy Priestess. Years of immersion in the miasma did harden Mia's heart, and counsel was heeded. The beaten child was administered further martial punishment by the new class of Arbiters (for weakness was to be discouraged) and, once complete, the child was cast out into the wastes. Scouts last reported them scaling the great glaciers to the north, where they were lost to history.
All this was scarcely known to people outside the Demon Lord's Fall. They would know the remaining holy child as Select I, elected by unanimous vote upon the passing of his mother many years later.
No confidants were to be had for the Holy Priestess, save for these advisors that came and went as if from nowhere. During Mia's long reign, though, society continued to change in the lands freed from demonic influence. Shackled formed great bands of adventurers, mercenaries, and controlled the trade routes. Branded skillsets were considered well-suited for these activities.
Freeborn lords, some who had ruled over Shackled as serfs and others who'd fought alongside the Shackled knights of Roland, made pilgrimage to the Demon Lord's Fall. There, they prostrated themselves and submitted to Branding as a way to curry favor with the new conglomerate of fighters and traders. This act, powerful lords set to level one with a Shackled status once reserved for slaves, proved popular with the commonfolk. The ranks of Branded, now-willingly converted or made through procreation between free Branded or mixed couples, grew a hundredfold.
By Cleric Mia's sixtieth year, a clear majority of the populace were Brand-bound. Society was reorganized around the needs and preferences of those so-Branded as dictated by the organization, now a holy church, created to address their needs. The pilgrimage became the center of life, adapted from the trade routes early Shackled took between their outposts. Gone were the more secular purposes of Brand-based governance, replaced with the trappings of faith.
Travelers, adventurers, dire-beast slayers. The Church of the Menu came to celebrate these roles. Farmers, smiths, and masons had their place under the Menu, but many proud professions fell out of favor. For traveling the path, journeying from the asylum to the dangerous Fellmarsh, meeting allies and overcoming travails along the way… it was the only life Priestess Mia knew. With Roland gone, there was nothing after the journey in her mind.
And the realm was remade in her image forevermore.