The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

When it comes to the issue of Fortia and her specialization in warfare, then a fool would relegate it to the realm of oxymoronic only. Whereas this is no language for a serious textbook, and I am aware of the fact, ‘foolish’ is the only way to describe those who try to besmirch the Goddess of Peace through comparisons to the Goddess of War.

Kassandora is not Fortia and Fortia is not Kassandora. Kassandora incarnated during the end of the Age of Heroes, soon after Allasaria, in the city-state of Sythia. It is unknown where either of them came from, which Divine was killed to allow the essence of Allasaria and Kassandora to roam free, because so many Divines were killed in such quick succession right before the death of Paramethus. And in that, it is obvious to see that Fortia’s realm is far wider than Kassandora’s.

It is unknown where the Goddess of Peace incarnated, as it is unknown with most Divines of her era. I am sure she herself knows, but she will not share. It is evident that sJhe is one of the first, like Arascus, it is difficult to place her. We know she is pre-Concordat, we know she did not feature in the Age of Monsters. The common assumption is that the ‘Peace’ that finally resulted in the creation of Fortia was the ‘Peace’ that came from humanity securing its place as the apex predator in the world.

Unlike Kassandora, who is politically savvy but woefully lacks the will to engage in that field, Fortia is politically savvy and has far too much of the will. The new Divines of Pantheon Peace assume that the woman is only skilled because of her experience in the White Pantheon. That statement could not be further from the truth. The Concordats, humanity’s successful diplomatic trial, were famously headed by Arascus and Fortia. Humanity brought the dragons to heel there. Likewise, as all the Divines with enough power in that era, Fortia headed a tyranny.

Yet Fortia was one of the first to step down from her throne. In the Age of Heroism, it was Fortia and Maisara who beat Arascus’ plan of uplifting humanity into Divinity and they did it through the conception of heroism. In Magic, we have the magicians and the ‘mundane’, that barrier was invented by the Goddesses of Peace & Order when they made sure that a Hero was no longer a human.

I have written extensively about the Reconstruction Authority for I was there, in its fifth decade, when factionalism was starting to appear, Fortia led her own faction, as did Arascus and Allasaria. During the Great War, Fortia led the White Pantheon Armies. It was her and Helenna who organised more than five hundred independent kingdoms, duchies, nations, city-states and two more additional worlds, into a unified force.

Likewise, if it was Kassandora instead of Fortia in the White Pantheon, we would have been far more stable precisely for the reason that Kassandora self-segregates into warfare and nothing else.

It is impossible to remove personal bias in its entirety from a piece of text. I am not fond of Fortia. Nevertheless, it is discrediting to Divinity as a whole to call her a lesser Kassandora.

- Excerpt from “Archive of Arda”, written by Goddess Elassa, of Magic. This in in book four: “On Individual Divines”

It was one thing to be working with Fortia when time was short and good enough was an acceptable standard. That had been the initial Ainai defence before the nukes started flying. But now, with five souls around a square table working to plan the annihilation of Tartarus, they were not under any immediate time pressure. The only person who would accept good enough under such conditions was Kavaa, and Kavaa was only here because Kassandora wanted her to be.

The Central Strategy Council was an old town hall that had temporarily been put under a mobilization offer. This is how Kassandora did things, there was no point on having a permanent structure. The modern miracle that was a laptop and a printer ensured that they didn’t even need to supply trains. The headquarters as a concept was thoroughly out of date.

And apparently, only Iliyal Tremali agreed, although he would agree with everything Kassandora said so how much could he actually be trusted? A bright lamp hung from the ceiling above them, illuminating the map of all Epa and Arika. And on the other side of the table was Fortia and Maisara. The two had created some terrible amalgamation of the modest, crisp, rather excellent, professional HAUPT-style military uniform and instead adopted their own monstrosity of a skirt and a shirt and a coat that paid homage to the Empire only in its black colour scheme with highlights of red and white. She had thought it before, she thought it now: They were absolute harlots. Divinity should not dress like that.

Kassandora took a deep breath as she started placing small circular counter on the map. One after the other, so that they were overlapping slightly. “These are the ICDT towers.” Kassandora began to form a line down to them. “We will have to make an avenue, a road, down to the rift.” Kassandora pointed to where the estimated rift location was. “Somewhere here.”

Maisara was the first to have a problem. Of course she did. “Somewhere?” From Kassandora’s side, Kavaa made a faint sound of agreement. Bad news if Kavaa and Maisara were on the same stance on any issue.

“It’s somewhere here.” Kassandora pointed to the purple set of lines on the map. That had been worked out from the past data, from where Fer found the gap in the desert, and from the old geological data when the assumption had been catastrophic tectonic plate failure followed Continent Cracking.

“So we don’t know?” Kavaa said. “Are you serious about this Kass?”

Fortia held up her hand. “Are we going to pre-scout it?” She asked the table. Kassandora already knew the answer she had decided on but she let the rest figure it out for themselves. This was a common explanation tactic. No one said a word and Fortia had to answer the question. “No.” She said. “We’re not. So I assume your plan is to saturate the area with ICDT towers.”

“We could do a nuclear strike in sync with the drop.” Kassandora said. “Give it what? An hour’s gap between the strike and tower drop?” Now that she had said it, it was an excellent idea. They would be doing a coordinated tower drop in that manner.

“You’re still going to have troops near the rift.” Fortia leaned down to draw a circle to it. “But otherwise, I agree, they had plans to build fortresses on Arda in the Great War.” Kassandora blinked and looked back at Fortia. Tartarus could build? She had honestly been working under the assumption they had some style of mineral that broke down in Arda’s atmosphere or some other equivalent.

“What? Why didn’t they?” Maisara and Kavaa both looked at Fortia and the Goddess of Peace smiled. Her cheeks actually coloured into a blush.

“I didn’t allow them.” Fortia said.

“You didn’t allow them?” Kassandora had to repeat. “What? And they listened?”

“Well I didn’t allow them and there was discussion on it, but…” She looked at Maisara and Kavaa. “Why are you two looking at me like that. Everyone backed me up.”

Kavaa took a deep sigh and confirmed with a nod as Maisara explained. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact Paradeisius also demanded to be allowed to build. And Tartarus didn’t want the angels to have fortifications here, nor vice-versa, so they both agreed that if Fortia didn’t allow them, they weren’t going to build.” Kassandora raised her eyebrows at Fortia. Honestly, she was impressed. That was some good Ardan thinking.

“But they can build?”

“They can build.” Fortia confirmed. “Allasaria has seen their fortresses, I have not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve never left Arda?” Fortia replied. Kassandora shrugged, she couldn’t argue with that reasoning frankly.

“Alright, back to the plan, so we one, nukes, two, towers. Hour in between. The towers are in flight when the missiles are hitting.” She looked around the table, half-hoping someone would say something to her. Maisara and Kavaa remained silent. Iliyal made the sort of comment she had trained him to make.

“Will we know if the shockwave from the nuclear missiles won’t affect the ICDT towers?” Excellent catch from the elf. That was why the man was here, no one else caught tiny little errors which could become mistakes like that.

“We’ll test it then.” Kassandora looked down at the map.

“Ainai.” Maisara spoke just as Kassandora thought it. Ainai was the obvious solution, it was still striking enemy territory so a nuclear bomb was not going to waste. It was close enough to the frontlines that Imperial troops could come and assist. The area north of it was the Eparika, and that was entirely Imperial control so the entire drop could be reported from the ground as well.

“Ainai.” Kassandora confirmed.

“Ainai is the obvious pick.” Fortia said.

“There’s legitimate reason to strike it too.” Iliyal said. “We could push further west even.” He pointed west of Khmet’s population centre. “There even, just cut them off.” This is why Kassandora held meetings and didn’t plan everything herself. Could she win? Could she lead her own side to victory? Undoubtedly. But she knew how to appreciate someone having a good idea. The Goddess of War fixed her crimson eyes on Kavaa.

“Ahhh…” Of Health her said, some colour coming into her pale cheeks framed by grey hair. “Ainai?” She asked.

“Why?” Maisara asked. Kassandora saw the move immediately. It wasn’t a questioning of the end result of the decision, it was a questioning of what logic had been used to get there.

Kassandora was about to step in to guard Kavaa’s honour when she felt the Goddess of Health grab her hand to shut her up. “Because the rest of you agreed on it already and I have no intention to go up against everyone here.” Kavaa replied immediately and flatly, her tone thoroughly unimpressed.

“Alright.” Maisara somehow accepted the answer. Maybe it was Kassandora who had the issue then? She herself would never be able to accept that.

For6ia seized the initiative before Kassandora could. “I have a proposition for the rest of the Council to consider.” Already, that a bad sign, a terrible sign in fact. Fortia giving a pre-emptive warning in this context? Kassandora thought of what it could be although it had to be with taking the initiative too far. Side-stepping Arascus or Kassandora herself most likely. “I would suggest not having a complete cleansing of Arda’s atmosphere.”

Fortia dropping that bomb into the room finally made Kassandora sit up and pay attention. That was some logic there that she would not even consider. “Why?” Kassandora asked. She swept her hand over the map.

“What does clearing the sky actually give us?” Fortia asked.

“We can reactivate the air-force again.” Kassandora answered. There was nothing else that needed to be said. Activating the air-force in mass would put an end to any sort of Ardan rebellion. With Baalka’s power affixed to a jet aircraft, they could go ahead and poison to shut a degree that new biomes would be created. “Is that not reason enough?”

“We don’t…” Fortia stopped talking as Kassandora watched her. The Goddess of Peace stared back, the flung her long not-quite-bronze hair backwards with a flick of her head. “We should not open the airspace. That is precisely why I’m against total clearing.

Kassandora took a deep breath as Iliyal shook his head. “”And that gives us what advantage exactly?” Kassandora sked. She was all for securing advantages, but they had to be sensible. Not opening the airspace simply because Fortia was part of the vogue, trendsetting class of Divines wasn’t a good reason.

“Think big Kassandora.” Fortia said. “We can clean the atmosphere of ash and that gives us what? What? Of Peace shook her head. “No, gratitude buys you a drink of spirits. We’re talking about proper good fashioned internet debt here. The sort that makes you sell out a country.”

And this is where Fortia could actually help, Kassandora could talk of winning the war for twenty-five hours a day. But it was Fortia who knw how to manufacture and exploit a crisis. “So you’re talking we ransom Arda’s skies?”

“I’m saying that the sky will be cleaned eventually, one the ash starts to fall without more of it being pumped into the atmosphere, we have fresh air again.” Kassandora took a deep breath. “Continue Fortia though, I see what you’re doing.”

“Empty, beautiful, safe and clean skies.” Fortia extended an arm top the edge of the paper, where those who did not respect Divinity were starting to look like a general proper. “But four such feats are reserved only for the Empire. Any who wish to join can, and then we will drop an ICDT tower on them. Independence is a choice, and it has a price. I’m just going to test out who can actually combat it.”

Genius. Kassandora would have never thought of that. She would have just tried to do a conquering spree.

This was better.