The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

There is a great lie in the Pantheon. It’s one of the biggest fucking lies to exist on top of this sorry mountain, and it is do with Kassandora’s imprisonment. The fact of the matter is that Kassandora is Kassandora, and whilst she may be dislikable and obviously not the sort of person you would wish to keep even as a friend, Kassandora as a prisoner, is an entirely different matter.

Because who does not wish for the Goddess of War as a confidante? Paradeisius and Tartarus were both told that Kassandora was not to be killed, and Helenna made sure they caught the hint that she was a warning to them. And yet there is one more thing, that I think most of us will not admit.

Kassandora is a Goddess that is too respected to be killed. The opinion on her is irrelevant, she is simply talented and efficient and good at what she does.

- Excerpt from the diary of God Atis, of the Hunt.

Fer and Maisara had gone to get drinks. Or so, that is what they told Fortia before they disappeared to whoever knew where. Although it must have been that Maisara too had grown tired of Ciria, Of Civilization was starting to repeat her arguments and Of Order wasn’t enjoying herself that much anymore. Fer had not even bothered with Ciria yet, although Fortia would drag Of Beasthood here eventually.

But for now, it was Fortia’s job to stand at the Phalanx as everyone had taken to calling it. It had been a month since Esberia, in that month, the Empire had settled down and settled in. Neneria was running rampage north Kirinyaa, Sokolowski’s Sledgehammer was covering Imperial Ausa. General Ekkerson had finally received the permission to launch nuclear missiles through the Ashfront. So far, the desert had been blasted four times. Iliyal was in charge of Ainai, although he was just following the script that the Goddess of Peace had set. There was talk of opening the Eparika, although ships would still struggle to sail the strait. Tartarus was digging in in Arika, the Empire was pulling fortresses out of the ground in Esberia.

And back at home, there was Ciria and Arascus wanted someone to always stay and keep watch on Ciria. Fortia pursed her lips as she stood, hands behind her back, her thoughts straying idly down whatever patterns they wished. Of Peace didn’t care much for Ciria, the little Goddess of Civilization in her white dress wasn’t important. She and her husband were only here to work their job and to save the world.

And they would save the world.

And in saving it, they would hand it to the Empire.

Fortia was almost baffled as to how Ciria could be so stupid in the first place. The Goddess who pretended she had studied Kassandora’s and Arascus’ and Fortia’s own writings was letting herself be used and thinking that what? That Arascus would suddenly decide not to conquer the world because Ciria did him a favour? Or did she think that Arda as a whole would see the ICDT towers flying through the air and think Ciria was responsible for their entirety and suddenly decide to cast away the Empire?

It was a harsh lesson, but everyone had to learn it sooner or later. Fortia had certainly did, thousands of years ago. No good deed went unpunished on this world and the only thing that good deeds managed to build was a road to hell. Fortia watched Ciria finish off another tower and throw her hands down to her sides. Even the Imperial troops here had stopped reacting to Ciria’s tantrums.

Halkus was working the factories that the Empire had brought to him. The massive smelteries into which trucks were bringing roar ore and material. Fortia had never seen such clean steel pour out of a forge on the first time round, and especially not when it had been done so quickly. That was a Divine for you though. Halkus refined materials, along with plenty more brought over in trucks and wagons and on the backs of trains, a railway had been dragged to the Phalanx, were all getting deposited into massive sets of mounds which were devoured as quickly as they grew.

Ciria kept on building the Phalanx, the ICDT towers that had been tested to work in Esberia. The question was no longer one of feasibility, of technical specifications, of magical power. They had made it long past the stage of theory and were now in the simple stage of implementation. And ultimately, they were implementing something across a desert that would span a continent.

Today marked tower one hundred and sixty-five. Ciria was singlehandedly responsible for a third of the Empire’s output of Inter-Continental Drop-Towers. Three, sometimes four, rarely five, a day would be added to the Lubskan Phalanx. Fortia had given it that name, after one of the engineers had commented to the Goddess that the line of towers reminded him of a spearwall and she had corrected the terminology.

It wasn’t the worst job. Waiting was painful, but they were waiting for victory at this point. This was nothing like the wait for collision with the enemy. It was just waiting. Fortia sighed as she realised that Ciria had finally gotten bored of these silent breaks. Of Peace kept a distance specifically so that they wouldn’t have to talk or argue. Halkus watched from a distance, although he too didn’t bother approaching. “Now it’s you?” What a tone to use. Fortia didn’t even know if she should be offended by this little runt or annoyed.

“Now it’s me.” Fortia said and looked down at the Goddess of Civilization. Bronze-gold eyes stared up at her, almost like Fortia’s but far too bright.

“Is that it?” Ciria said.

“That’s it.” Fortia said. “I’m not here to argue with you.”

Ciria sighed and shook her head. “So why do I always have someone watching over me?” Ciria asked and Fortia sighed.

“Because Arascus does not want you running around the Empire unsupervised?” Fortia asked. “Is that not enough reason?”

“And what would I even do?” Fortia stared down at the little girl before. Was it a case of poor intelligence? Just a lack of wisdom? How could someone be so stupid? But actually, was it a lack of wisdom? What created this sorry of a soul?

“You’re the Goddess of Civilization Ciria.” Fortia couldn’t believe she was reminding such a Divine of her Divinity.

“And?” Ciria said. “I’m good! I’m not you. I’m not going to…” Ciria blinked. “Why don’t you get a chaperone? What? You join and suddenly everyone trusts you?”

“Because I am Fortia.” Fortia said. “What is your question even? Why is Fortia trusted? Because she is? Because Fortia is reliable?”

“Even after you abandon the Pantheon?”

“It was mine to abandon.” Fortia said. “We won the Great War, the Pantheon completed its objective a thousand years ago.” She said dryly. “What else am I supposed to say? We were there to defeat the Empire in the Great War, from how I remember it, we won, didn’t we?”

“And yet you still ended up joining Arascus?”

“And?” Fortia asked. “So what? I told you this before, we have all fought against each other at one time or another. When Fer’s Incursions first took place after she and Anassa created the beastmen, it was Kassandora and Elassa who stopped them.” Ciria shook her head.

“Don’t give me that shit Fortia.” Ciria said and Fortia sighed. Theosius knew what buttons to press on her to get to break down, but Ciria did not. Who did the little girl think she was to speak to a Divine such as Fortia with a mouth like that? “You stand here, act all high and mighty and how mature you are because you put differences behind you all of a sudden, somehow, you’ve learned this ability. Right now was it? Right after Elassa and Kassandora crack a continent and right after the Empire draws Tartarus into a war? Right after Arascus manages to build a dictatorship over all of Epa. Right after all that is the moment when you actually sit down and learn how to let bygones be bygones?”

“What is the issue with Arascan rule?” Fortia asked dryly. The wind moved past them, another set of trucks came in the distance, dropping off a series of steel beams which were tipped onto the ground. As long as they were in the general vicinity, Ciria could use them.

“Are you serious?” Ciria asked.

“I am deadly serious.” Fortia said. “What exactly is wrong with Arascan rule?”

“Am I actually supposed to stand here and explain to you why a dictatorship is bad?”

“It’s an Empire.” Fortia said. “Are you going to run Epa as a democracy instead? Why yes, excellent, the Dosch all vote for a Doschian, the Lubskans all vote for a Lubskan, what a way to decide the best to lead.” A better Goddess would be able to resist the smirk, but Fortia was not a better Goddess. At least she managed to stop her brows from furrowing though.

“That’s not going to happen Fortia.” Ciria said. “How about you actually go ahead and trust people not to be as bad as morally bankrupt as you.”

Fortia raised an eyebrow at Ciria. Maisara would take the bait and launch into the attack. Kassandora would probably do something similar. But Fortia could only stand there puzzled. Her being morally bankrupt? One may as well describe mountains as small, or the oceans as dry. “Alright?” Fortia said. She didn’t even know what to say? “Ahh… No?”

“No.” Ciria tasted the word. “No what? How no? You are!”

“I’m not?” Fortia asked the word, not because she doubted it but because she doubted herself actually needing to speak it.

“How are you not?”

“How am I?”

“You joined Arascus.” Fortia sighed. This again. Wonderful. Excellent. Of Peace stared down at the little Goddess of Civilization. This again, but at least Ciria went on. “What’s wrong with Arascus rule? What about the fact its Arascus’ way or the highway? What about that Fortia? What about the fact that the Empire is so reliant on Arascus that it will collapse should he disappear? What about that? It’s not a system, it’s a cult, you’ve just managed to convince yourselves it’s an Empire instead.”

Fortia raised an unimpressed eyebrow. She had seen this style off argumentation before. “You tell me what is wrong with Arascan rule.” Fortia said. “And what sort of rule would be better.”

“How about self-rule?”

“We effectively had that under the White Pantheon for a thousand years. And the Divine Mountain got endless critique for the fact it left humanity to its own devices.” Fortia said dryly.

“So because you can’t make everyone happy, you sit on your mountain and won’t give a hand when it’s needed? Is that the reasoning or what? I don’t understand it Fortia.”

“I will flip the script.” Fortia replied. “Is the reason you don’t like Arascan rule because you can’t make everyone happy?”

“Because it’s dependent on Arascus!” Fortia sighed. If Ciria had been around during the Age of Heroes, she would have been killed already, maybe a few times over even. And for no other fucking reason than because of how annoying she was.

“I’m not a passive coward like you.” Fortia launched into the attack. “I do not believe in passivity, I do not believe in systems, I do not believe in what you believe Ciria. Should it be Arascus? Yes. It should be Arascus because if Arascus ever does something actually irredeemable and not just what you find distasteful, we are here to put him down. Because Arascus is a man as I am a woman. That is why he should lead. Because he takes control and because he bears the responsibility.”

Fortia didn’t even let Ciria speak. “And do not talk to me of your systems and your grand solutions to all the problems of this world. No Ciria, we had self-rule, and we saw the crisis that were brought on because of it. Because the ideology itself actively shouldered the responsibility and let everyone else be passive. Save your judgements and talk to me of reality. You stand before a nation capable of producing towers that are going to be launched through orbit so that they can transmute the sky. What other land is capable of that? What land is capable of the O-Bomb? Or of the power and industry that the Empire can produce?”

“Should that even exist?” Fortia could not stand this smug little girl’s voice. It was so high-pitched and annoying.

“Ignore the substance of what I am saying so that you can nitpick at whether nuclear weapons should exist or not, even as those nuclear weapons have put a stop to the Tartarian advance in Ainai. No Cira, no system and no ideology has ever woken up in the morning and decided to build a farm, a clinic, school, power plant or nuclear missile for that matter. It was done by people. That is what I value and it is why you are wasting your breath with the moralising to me. I do not care on whether we vote or roll dice on who the boss as long as the boss is does everything that needs to be done.”

“Then why are you responding?”

“Because I am bored?” Fortia asked. “You came up to me, I consider myself a polite Goddess. Cultured at the very least.” She extended her arm out to the field of towers. A Phalanx aimed at the sky. “There’s only so much one can look before it gets boring.”

“Why are you a coward then?”

Fortia sighed. She was a coward, back when she had abandoned Maisara. If a Divine from the White Pantheon or from the Empire said it to her, as Irinika did, she would shut up immediately. But Ciria was not any of them. And Ciria would not get satisfaction. “I am ancient Ciria, but I am not a backwards Goddess.” Fortia said dryly. “And I know what you are looking for, and you will not get it.”

“What am I looking for then? Oh so smart Fortia.”

“It’s not even my agreement with you.” Fortia said. “You want me to make some self-flagellating humiliation ritual of an apology.” Now that she launched into it, she couldn’t stop herself. “It’s not what I believe, it’s the fact that I stand here and I know I am better than you.”

Cira’s eyes sharpened with rage at that. “You know you’re better than me. You? Of all people you? Who ran to Arascus after you had lost? I’m sure Fortia. I’m just damn sure that you are better than me.” The sarcasm came on thick then. Fortia didn’t particularly care.

“Good.” Fortia said. “Then since you’re obviously lying, we at least come to the agreement that one of us is better than the other. Now the conversation can end because the one who is worse will never agree.”

Fortia wandered how long that verbal trap would shut Ciria up for. It worked for a moment, then two, then a minute. And when Ciria spoke again, she was considerably more composed. “I don’t want your humiliation or flagellation Fortia.” She said. “I just want to know why.”

“I’ve given you why plenty of times.” Fortia replied. This is why Maisara had gone away, she had enjoyed herself at first because she assumed this would be a game made out of an argument, but Ciria did not do debates. “You are simply incapable of accepting them.”

“Because you just say Arascus this or Arascus that.” Ciria said. “What? Do you love him then?” Fortia blinked and cracked a smile.

“Do I love him?” Fortia asked. “No. Not like his daughters do and I would not marry him. Do I like him? I do but we are of the same age so the material that made him is the same material that made me.” Fortia realised all she had managed to say ‘we agree with each other’ in the most roundabout way possible. There was no way Ciria would catch that.

Ciria did not, in fact, catch that. “So what? You’re just friends? All this time?”

“There is mutual self-respect.” Fortia said and kept it at that. She didn’t like this girl anywhere close to well enough to actually discuss what Fortia thought of Arascus. Frankly, it would be easier and more productive with the God of Pride himself than with this child that was Of Civilization.

“After you tried to kill each other in the Great War?”

“That’s precisely why we respect one another.” Fortia said. “If I had caught him back then, or he me, then one of us would be dead. That did not happen though.”

“Then how can you kill anyone?” Ciria said. “Don’t you see the issue? You two wanted to kill each other in the past, now you respect each other. Can’t you just… not?”

Fortia blinked at Ciria, then at the towers, at Halkus, then at the little Goddess in the white dress again. “You do realise that me and Arascus signed the Dragon Concordats together Ciria? We’ve known each other for thousands of years at this point. We’re not…” Fortia didn’t even know how to say it. “I mean, we’re not children, either of us.”

“And you still decided to fight each other?”

“The only reason we can look each other in the eye right now is because we would have killed each other during the Great War.”

Ciria sighed. “I still don’t understand how that can work.”

“Because you’ve never been in a war and you’re not a soldier. Unlike the people you talk about.”

“So what? Will you let him adopt you then? Another one added to the collection?”

“No.” Fortia said. “Because I do not fit in. Nor do I need it.”

“Need it?”

Because Fortia had Maisara and thus didn’t need the family. And not everyone could join the family in the first place. Unless Arascus personally offered, and even then, Fortia wasn’t certain whether she would take him up on the offer. Because each of Arascus’ daughters had something going on that the God provided for them? “Not my place to talk.” Fortia said. “And I’m not going to explain myself to you.”

“Of course you’re not.” Ciria said and Fortia smiled. She could end this conversation right now. But then this conversation would repeat later. It wasn’t a case of awakening Ciria to her naivety, it was just making sure that she wouldn’t return next time and Fortia could be allowed to drift off to her daydreams in peace as she waited.

“Don’t come back next time. Just talk to your husband and not to me Ciria.” Fortia said.

“I’ve talked with Halkus plenty.”

“Then talk with him more. We do not like each other and you will not get satisfying reasoning from me. I am the Goddess of Peace, I am unique in that, but I am also a Divine of Pre-Tyranny Breed. And in that, I am not unique whatsoever. You will not get a damaged story with me, nor some ancient scar on my mind, nor anything else on the matter. Not because I won’t say but because they’re not there.”

Ciria stared wide-eyed at Fortia as Of Peace kept on talking. “You will get nothing from me that will fit your framework because our frameworks do not fit in the first place. I called it flagellation before, I will be more direct now. It is submission for me, a Goddess of my age, of my stature, of my experience, to be explaining myself to you. Ciria, you do not have a single conflict under your belt. Not one. And you expect to talk to me about the matters of life and death when you have never taken a life?”

“We both know you don’t have to kill to know that life has meaning.”

“That is your framework, not mine. Your pity, your rage and your judgements fall on deaf ears Ciria. I do not respect you in the first place. I am not going to bully you like Maisara does, I will simply tell you direct and flat out. Do not bother with me. I do not enjoy it, you will not get any results, there is no point to it.”

“Do not bother with you.” Ciria mumbled.

“No.”

And finally, Ciria made the right choice. She did not respond.