Riez couldn't believe how hard it had been not to unleash some divine ass kicking. She had taken some damage, but considering that she had been walking from elite spellcaster to elite spellcaster, cutting them down from behind, the three points of damage she had taken in total weren't even enough to scratch her. It had taken all her focus to try and not be some kind of chaos monkey that would redirect spells and stab these snobbish imperial mages with a bouquet of flowers.
Since she had agreed that they should pretend to simply be mortal adventurers, Riez had taken on the persona of the party rogue, which she had found incredibly hilarious.
The predictable had happened, and thanks to the party of divine adventurers, the rebels had won the battle. When the imperial forces had routed, the cheering from the rebels had echoed over the muddy battlefield, and Riez had gone back to her party only to find them in talks with the old man and the young, clumsy girl. They were flanking a serious-looking woman who had the remnants of some banner tied around her head as a bandana.
The young girl had seen Riez and split from the rest of the group to approach her, giving a slight bow of her head in greetings. "I saw what you did with those mages, and I thank you for risking life and limb to take them out." She spoke, her voice oddly chirpy and upbeat, especially considering that they were in the middle of a battlefield.
In that moment, Riez had tapped into the very caricature of a rogue and looked the girl dead in the eyes. "If only these good deeds could wash away the blood that soaks my hands, but the darkness in my heart stains my very soul" Had been her answer, and the visible discomfort that the young spellcasting girl had shown was absolutely delicious to the point where Riez almost broke character.
"O-okay." She had stammered, looking around for someone to distract her from Riez. "I was just hoping that you could rein in your friends a little." She tried looking over at Spif and Spaf, who were fighting over a helmet. The fact that a rebel was still wearing the helmet and was very much alive didn't seem to bother them.
Riez nodded slowly. "If only I had friends. My family was killed before I was born. So my adoptive parents had to give birth to me. My tragic background is too intense for most people to handle." The goddess said with a level of angst that could have been lethal.
Fortunately for the young girl, the spoil-sport Celeste decided to rescue her. "Riez, Grand Wizard Tim and rebel leader Rebecca were saying that they would like to invite us to the feast to celebrate our victory."
Riez cringed a little at the title of the spellcaster. She added it as a non-critical bug, though she was sure that the European mindset was interpreting the title of Grand Wizard as something fairly innocent, while she couldn't help but draw some rather extremist parallels to real-world titles.
They slowly started to move towards the encampment of the rebels, however, they had made it little more than a mile before the entire world seemed to freeze up. Not even Celeste, who was supposedly immune to time stops, could move. Her body was frozen in the middle of a stride.
It felt like an eternity while the two gods were locked in place. However, Riez didn't really panic. The only thing going through her mind was that if she was stuck in the game, her European workers' compensation would kick in, and that thing was more generous than her grandmother.
However, before she could start planning what she would spend her well-earned money on, the world continued. Celeste got a panicked look on her face, but based on the world around them, they were the only ones who had noticed that something had happened.
"I am going to kill him," Celeste muttered under her breath. "I will smother him with a pillow."
Riez agreed. For something like that to be resolved so quickly. She had just gotten her hopes up that she would be able to go full isekai, or at the very least get a buttload of money for being stuck in this world.
The feast at the camp was more fun than Riez had expected. Turned out that this collision with the Empire was something that had happened fairly regularly, to the point that the tents of the rebel camp had been replaced with makeshift houses. Some of the rebels had even taken up farming in the hopes of sustaining themselves through the siege, and Riez couldn't help but note that the camp had become a town in all but name.
The rebels celebrated the victory with roasted piglets, something that the farmers in the camp town had been breeding for quite some time, judging by how many there were.
Riez did her duty as the party rogue and found a corner to sit in and brood. Spif and Spaf were enough chaos for everyone running around stealing meat, not only from each other but from whatever plate they could get close to.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Jasmine and Celeste were in talks with the leadership of the rebels, clearly trying to figure out what the rebels were fighting for and if they would be willing to team up with the adventuring party.
It was a splendid day, battle, brooding, highkinks and Riez couldn't help but drift off to sleep with a smile on her lips, while most of these people weren't real, she was glad that she got to experience it.
Celeste had never met a woman who was as dense as Rebecca. Not only did the rebel leader refuse to see any reason for the purposes of better organising her people. The fact that she insisted on calling her town a camp was beyond infuriating, and even this minor concession was not something the woman would agree to.
The Architect of Reality had been arguing with the woman for most of the night, but they had gotten nowhere. She could not make the woman change her mind on any topic, and as such, Celeste had gone to bed in a foul mood.
Waking up, her mood had improved significantly as she was met with a new pop-up. It had been some time since she had gotten one of these, but it was always nice to see her resources growing.
Text from Image:
You have helped push back the Empire and its tyrannical rule of law and welfare.
As a reward for changing the world, you have gained 20 Worship.
One thing that Celeste found slightly alarming was the fact that she had gained so much Worship from interfering and stopping the Empire. Slipping out of the tent that she had stayed in, the goddess in disguise saw Riez eating breakfast.
The little gremlin had taken far too much to her rogue persona, and was currently iterating that she took her coffee black, which was apparently also the colour of her soul. Celeste just shook her head before walking over to her friend.
"Morning, did you get some resources?" She said, not wanting to specify what kind of resources.
Riez perked up seeing Celeste appear, and was clearly about to put on some nonsense about her tortured past, though, hearing the question, the chaosmonkey sobered up a little. "Yeah... twenty of the big ones."
Celeste nodded. "That is the same I got... that is a lot, right? I got 26 now... that can make some really major changes." She sat down and poured herself some coffee from the campfire cettle.
Riez nodded before taking a sip of her cup, and a look of disgust crossed her face. Apparently, she wasn't that big a fan of black coffee. "Ergh... I mean, I got 55 now. I really should start spending these."
The Architect of Reality sipped some of the coffee, though she couldn't help but wince a little. The stuff was practically water, though, spending years as a teacher, that might just be her. "It is not so much that. It is more the fact that you almost doubled your resource cap from just helping stop the Empire."
Celeste wasn't really sure why she was skirting around the topic of being in the game, though she imagined that anything she said would get handled by the AI. Even so, there was no need to create more problems that the omnipotent overseer would have to resolve.
"So you think that we changed something major thanks to interfering?" Riez asked, about to take another sip of her coffee, but in the last possible moment, remembering that she actually didn't like the brew, set it down on the wooden table. "But why? I mean, mean, yeah, the Empire would probably have won, but honestly, the rebels would just flee, regroup and then take up the battle again, when they were ready."
It was like lightning struck Celeste at that moment. "No... no, they wouldn't have. Rebecca is the most stubborn woman that I have ever met, but I don't think that is her fault. What if the world prevents her from changing her mind? What if, and I am just thinking here, she can't change plans? She would never call for a retreat, and most of her people would have been slaughtered where they stood." Celeste clapped her hands and spread out her arms as she presented the theory.
"Normally, we don't go so hard on the philosophy in the morning", the voice of a battleworn warrior came from next to her. The man had clearly been listening in and had decided that whatever they were talking about was over his pay grade.
Celeste cleared her throat and smiled as the veteran rebel stood up and headed over to another table to eat his breakfast. "So, I think I have figured out what is happening. For some reason, the rebel leaders get stuck in the same mindset. They cannot change their minds once appointed to the position, which means that even if they win a revolutionary war, they will not be able to shift out of that mindset. They will continue to try and perform some kind of revolution, which means that they are not allowed to take the throne, since they will try and perform a revolution against themselves."
Riez took a sip of her coffee only to spew it out in a spray, as if she was utterly shocked by this revelation. However, Celeste was pretty sure that the intern was only really doing it to act surprised, since the poor girl couldn't quite hide the grimace on her face.
"That means that no revolutionary will try to implement a new system, since they will just try to overthrow it in an endless loop", The Anarchist of Existence said while cleaning up the puddle of coffee she had made with her sleeve. "Sooo, the Empire can just roll in and take over the place, since nobody is claiming the throne, meaning that the revolutionaries have something to fight against, and they go on the war path, overthrow the current leader and boom, we have constant revolutions."
Celeste nodded eagerly, her eyes brimming with joy. "Exactly! Now we just need to figure out what makes the rebel leaders unable to change their minds."
Riez shrugged and stood up, which didn't really change her height by that much. "True, though you do know that it might be some programming bug, right? We have no way of knowing if it is an object in the world or just some of Martin's haywire code that is messing with their brains."
Celeste stood up as well and smiled. "Well, I think we should go take a look at the palace anyway. Besides, Rebecca wouldn't really let us join... she said we would just mess up her plans."
Reiz whistled, and the sound of Spif and Spaf making their way through the camp towards the whistle became quite clear. "Welp, let us go to the capital then." She grinned.
Are there any plotlines/plotpoints that you feel I have forgotten?
