Chapter 619 - Interlude - Iona - Overthrowing the Tyrants XII (Patreon)

Iona drummed her fingers against the throne, watching people slowly trickle into the throne room. They were trying to figure out what their new world would be like after she’d just shaken up the existing order. The Valkyrie had already sent off a letter to Skye, asking for advice, and she suspected [Social Lubricant] was about to get a workout. She’d already issued her first orders - looking to send a message - but now it was time for the next ones.

Iona had never needed to consolidate power like this before, and was leaning on a few basics. Learn the people involved. Align incentives. Act with confidence.

Power was granted through belief. Anyone could put on a crown and declare themselves [Queen]. The issue would be if people listened to her. Her legitimacy didn’t matter if people obeyed her orders - or refused them. 

The first decision she made was about her helmet. Being able to look people in the eyes was great for the personal, friendly connection, but she didn’t need that right now. The culture - that she heard of, she desperately needed a crash course on how things were actually like here - didn’t approve of the friendly gesture. Keeping it on kept her aloof and distant… and kept her alive if any [Mage] tried to blow her head off with a spell. She’d just disposed of the prior ruler, the sharks would be circling to see if she could be removed as well.

The second was about the normal line of succession. Iona waited for the throne room to be filled with enough bold people, and scanned through their stat sheets to find the best member for the task she was going to issue. Eventually she found a [Meek Messenger] who’d actually taken an [Obedient] skill, and pointed right to him.

“Conifer. Tell the [Heir], or whoever was being groomed to take over Iya Sahel’s position, that they have an hour to gather their personal belongings and as many loyal retainers as they’d like, and to leave the city. If they’re wise, they’ll grab enough to leave the Omospondia Confederacy entirely. Go.” Iona ordered, and Conifer obeyed.

Everyone noticed, and Iona could practically feel the small shift in the room as her authority was obeyed. Two commands successfully issued. Iona wanted to ask for help and advice, but doing so at this early stage would entirely undermine her rule and authority. Part of her wanted to run away from the whole thing - she had no training for this task, no experience in the role, and her [Vow] promised to grate the entire time - but she’d chosen it. This was the single best way she had in the moment to help.

The mercy was mandated by her [Vow] - ‘go execute this person because they were born wrong’ was a horrific violation - but the way she went about it was just as important. Time to leave, but not so much time. An invitation to bring loyal retainers with him or her wasn’t a kindness. It was removing problematic individuals from the government before they could start being a problem. Before they could properly scheme if they should stay and spy, before they could coordinate. Plucking the thorns off a rose.

The last part was the deliberate use of the [Meek Messenger's] name. It made Iona a mystery. How did she know? What intel did she have? His name hadn’t been mentioned, and Iona believed the more intelligent members would take note. They were the dangerous ones, and the longer Iona could keep them off balance, the better.

Iona watched groups instinctively form, a glimpse into the factions and groups of the Sahel court. She didn’t believe that the groups being formed were the true groups - if nothing else, the various factions would be spying on each other - but she doubted that people would think to wholesale create new groups on the fly in the chaos. There were probably more factions than were obviously on display, but no ‘false’ ones, so to speak.

The Valkyrie was flying by the seat of her pants. There was no plan. There was no grand scheme. Simply surviving one moment to the next, using her long experience with social situations guide her. It was like cliques trying to plan an event, except they controlled the fate of multiple cities, and the planning was ‘which knife into which back?’

Nina had a strong point with ‘thinking through what happened next’, and the consequences of Iona’s actions being just as important, if not more important, than righting the original wrong. Which was why Iona was here in the first place.

She’d fixed one of the great problems the place had, but she wasn’t going to walk away and let someone else handle the fallout. She was going to fix it, herself, personally. Threat or no, Iona was going to do better.

Iona scanned skills and classes, picking out various retainers from different groups. She called them all out by name, then gave her next set of orders.

“... secure the treasury. I’m sure none of us want to find the contents of the vaults have gotten up and walked away in all the chaos that’s been going on today, hmmm?”

It was possible, but staggeringly unlikely, that she’d ended up picking all people from the same faction by accident. Iona didn’t think for a moment that they were guarding the treasury for her. She simply needed them to guard it from each other. The various factions would want an overwhelming front to overthrow her, and if she could keep them bickering with each other instead of pointing their knives at her, it was a win.

The literal stacks of bodies she’d made during her assault on the palace didn’t hurt. A large amount of military power they could immediately, directly call upon was gone.

Iona stood up and stretched.

“The next order of business. I took the throne with blood and violence. Who wishes to challenge me to a duel to claim the throne for themselves?”

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To Iona’s mild surprise, nobody had taken her up on the duelling offer, and business had continued. A number of people were being more bold and forward, attempting to seize the moment and curry favor with the new order, as others vanished to plot and try to work out their own position.

Iona didn’t have time to meticulously work everything out and find all the right people. Fortune would favor the bold today, and she invited them to a smaller council meeting.

She sat down and deliberately lounged as everyone else came in. She didn’t say a word as they tried to work out their seats, an orc and a naga nearly coming to blows over a particular chair. A hierarchy was already forming, and Iona was content to let them work it out among themselves. Eleven people ended up in the room along with the Valkyrie and now-ruler of Sahel - including the elven representative from the New Remus Empire, who insolently leaned against the wall, smirking the entire time. Iona couldn’t wait to wipe the look off his face, but now wasn’t the time or the place. Iona pretended to be aloof from the bickering, all while keeping a sharp ear out.

The orc and the naga were still bickering when Iona clapped her hands. They ignored her, continuing to spit insults at each other. Iona flicked a finger - entirely unneeded, but the small gesture was to show she was responsible - and a pair of naked blades ended up hovering an inch away from their eyeballs.

They shut up and sat down.

“Introductions are in order.” Iona said. She fluidly moved between a half-dozen different languages, occasionally using the Trader-tongue favored by the nation, usually slipping into each person’s native tribal language and dialect, speaking them only as a native could.

“You are Kerk, the [Master of Rituals]. You are Daphne, [Wily Court Mage]. You are Ysmela, [Marshal of the Roads]. You are Allfool, [Player of People]. You are…” Iona did the introductions, shamelessly revealing everyone’s class. They flinched at how accurate she was, then started eyeing each other up, realizing that if she was accurately revealing their class, she was also revealing everyone else’s class. The knowledge was a knife, one they were happy to point at their rivals. She’d named an orc, a naga, a medusa, and a goblin.

“And I am Iona, a Valkyire. I travel around, righting wrongs. It wasn’t my intention to end up ruling the place, but unless you want an eighth of you to be murdered by our cheerful friend in the corner, it seems like I’m stuck in the job for a decade or so. I’ll pass a few reforms, get them to stick, then happily pass the throne off to…” Iona paused, dangling the promise of power in front of nearly a dozen people who wanted nothing more than to have it, offering up the criteria to slowly scheme their way to more. “... whoever is worthy.”

A shame she was still wearing her helmet. Grinning would’ve been so satisfying.

The door slammed open, and an armored ogre with blood and fresh gore splattering his armor and tusks shoved his way in.

“I am Blacktusk!” He roared - no question how he’d gotten the name - and stomped his way beside Iona. “and by right of conquest, I am the new [Captain of the Guard].”

He stared out at everyone, daring them to challenge him. Ysmela tittered a laugh, and there was a mix of chuckles and eyerolls. 

His move was a surprise to Iona, but she seized the moment - carefully keeping an eye on him, though. She patted his arm.

“I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job of it, Blacktusk. I look forward to working with you.”

The ogre swelled with pride, and Iona wasn’t expecting too much of his intelligence. The Valkyrie didn’t give the council a moment to regain their balance or their momentum. Out-leveling and significantly out-statting them all had its advantages.

“First order of business. A few of you have skills that are suboptimal. Allfool, please replace your [Plotting, Scheming, Conniving, and Conspiring] skill with something else. I can see you’ve been hard at work on it, but let’s not have any of that here now.”

The goblin looked crestfallen, and Iona almost bought the look. He mimed a full-body nausea spasm, and even managed to vomit on command. His neighbors leaned away from the puddle, the medusa looking like she wanted to murder him for getting puke on her boots.

“It is done, your most maleficent majesty.” He croaked out.

Iona sighed.

“Let’s avoid lying to me, shall we?” She said, then sprang into motion. Her blade came down on his right hand, severing it in a bloody and bony spray. Her blade sank into the table. Allfool started to scream, started to grab his hand.

Moving so quickly that she was a blur to everyone else in the room, she grabbed Allfool’s shirt and pants, and heaved him through the window, defenestrating the goblin. He got his scream out as he started to fall, surrounded by shards of broken glass.

Iona dusted her gauntleted hands off as she strode back to her chair. Only Blacktusk was willing to wander over to the broken window, peering down below with a satisfied nod and vicious smirk.

“Let’s skip the whole ‘lying to my face’ thing, yeah?” Iona proposed as she sat back down, kicking her feet up onto the table. “Daphne, be a dear and change your [Machiavellian Machinations] skill around. You know the parts I’m talking about, unless you’d like the details aired in public?” The System was remarkably responsive to will and desire, and it took weeks to years of effort to improve and upgrade a skill. Making a skill strictly worse was far easier to do, only requiring will and acceptance of the offered downgrade.

The naga’s poise was incredible. Iona couldn’t get a hint of what she was thinking, which was probably a necessary survival skill in the cutthroat court of Sahel. She did see the skill shift around, and nodded.

“Excellent work Daphne. Ysmela…”

A few servants discreetly entered the room, bearing snacks and refreshments. Iona scanned them over, and was vaguely amused when she couldn’t tell if the [Assassin] was after her, someone else, or that was simply her class and the job was her role. Either way, she used her skills to tap a blade against the woman’s leg, and shook her head at the woman.

The Valkyrie didn’t eat or drink at the meeting… and nobody else keeled over dead.

“The second order of business! I need names. Names of people who are competent in their position, and names of those who are woefully placed. Yes, yes, I know. You’re all going to recommend your allies, and disparage your enemies. Please. You saw what I did to Allfool. Keep the lists short and topical. If yours is wildly different from everyone else’s, I’m going to have… questions.”

Iona deliberately looked to the broken window, the curtains still swaying in the sweltering breeze. The lists came in, and miracle of miracles, the secondary exit wasn’t used at all.

Iona learned far too much, and not nearly enough at the same time. The moons were rising by the time she was willing to call it quits, having just barely gotten the political, cultural, and economic lay of the land.

All of her ‘advisors’ were convinced that riots were going to start any day now as the drugs wore off.

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Iona claimed she was going to sleep in one of the smaller rooms. She didn’t want to bother with the no-doubt lethal traps Iya had laid in her own room quite yet. She wasn’t Elaine, she couldn’t see every trap around her with perfect clarity and shake off virtually every method of death.

Iona closed the doors and windows, stuffed pillows and blankets to look like a lumpy version of herself sleeping on the bed, and gave Blacktusk strict orders.

“Nobody enters until the sun is fully over the horizon, on pain of death.” She told the ogre. Iona didn’t trust him yet, but she literally had to sleep sometime.

Saying that, she waited under her bed, still in full armor, and waited. She needed to sleep at some point, but she could run a day or two with no sleep, especially if it let her sleep later.

The first attempt was practically amateur hour. An [Assassin] snuck down the side of the tower outside the window and tried to riddle her mattress with crossbow bolts. A flurry of telekinetically controlled blades sent the assassin plummeting to his death.

The second one was clearly not working with the first at all, and tried to fill her room with gas. It blew right out the window, but it did make Iona cough and splutter as she exited the room, Blacktusk still dutifully standing guard with two more [Guards]. Iona scanned their skills, but neither of them had a Miasma class, nor did it look like they’d let anyone in.

The third wasn’t strictly speaking an assassination attempt, but someone managed to lay a mild weakening curse on Iona. It was so weak she wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but eventually worked out that she’d ‘lost’ only a few thousand of each of her physical stats. Iona could break it with one of Elaine’s gems, but they were a precious resource. She shrugged and figured it wouldn’t hamper her performance in the slightest. Let them wonder.

The whole night Iona thought. Thought about what she’d learned. Thought about what could go better. Thought about how every piece of the puzzle was assembled, and how fixing one item would lead to a host of new problems, and how to fix those.

Iona had thrown a brick through a delicate stained-glass window because she didn’t like the picture that was there. Now she was picking up the million shattered shards, and delicately piecing them back together, one at a time, to make a more pleasing picture.