“Now, Lady, I think we need some explanations here,” one of the guys in the group demanded, his voice edging the boundary between panicked, desperate and angry. It was quite the combination, though I had to give him compliments for his mental fortitude. The rest of the group didn’t appear to be in any shape to do much of anything. So, keeping it together enough to ask questions and hope to understand the answer was quite the feat.

  “Mhm, where to start…” I mused, trying to show just how unimpressed I was with his attitude, “As you might have heard, my family and I were in this area last winter. We didn’t stay; we left to continue our journey as soon as the weather permitted, but we had a fair idea of the local situation. As in, we knew where people had gathered, the general situation in those communities and their respective leadership and focuses.”

  “Now, imagine my surprise to see a completely new community, with brand new buildings, large fields and everything, just as big, or bigger, than the other communities I had known about. That’s not something that grows organically; somebody had decided to grant that community patronage. Protection, magical support, some powerful entity had put its hand over that community and was assisting them,” I paused for a moment, trying to get them to realise just how artificial the Blessed City and its success had been.

  “Given that I’m a curious person, I decided to look into the situation. And came across the wonderful Blessed City,” I didn’t even try to hide my scorn as I used the name their community had held for months, “And, obviously, I investigated that supposed Blessing. The wards that kept you safe, the magic that allowed you to grow crops even in winter with much higher yields than should be possible, there were a number of things that impressed me.” I paused again, this time for dramatic effect.

  “So I decided to dig deeper,” another pause. By this point, I had captured the entire group's attention, despite the obvious nausea and mental anguish they all suffered from. Maybe focusing on my voice was even beneficial to their mental state; it kept them from agonising over the events that happened in the city. “What I found wasn’t good. The wards that kept you safe and that kept some of your buildings standing weren’t just doing that. They also ensured that the hierarchical structure of Sunna’s worship was maintained.”

  “What does that mean?” the other woman, who had mostly been silent thus far, asked, her voice concerned.

  “Should be obvious, no?” I replied, “The higher you were in Sunna’s eyes, the stronger your worship and the more she got out of your obedience, the higher you were in the hierarchy. And those lower on the ladder couldn’t really resist those higher up, not if the higher-ups were asserting their will in the correct way. You couldn’t resist the commandments of your Goddess while living within the domain that only existed thanks to the Goddess’s blessing.”

  “Are you serious?” another guy asked, briefly making me wonder if I had heard their names at any point, or if I would be doomed to just think of them as different guys. I briefly considered asking them, but, if I was being honest with myself, I doubted I’d ever need their names again, so the designation of guy and woman worked just fine.

  “Sadly, yes, I am,” I replied, “From what I’ve been told, you started a Christmas celebration, right? That’s how all this started?” I asked. My plan to have them assign blame and come to the conclusions I wanted them to draw was shaping up nicely.

  “Yeah,” the original woman nodded, “People had been tense, a few fights had broken out. With winter and snow, people had largely been stuck in the city, unwilling to head out into the cold and danger of the forest. A few people tried, but when they didn’t return, nobody was willing to take the chance, unless they had a few levels and were confident in their ability to survive.”

  “Close quarters, little entertainment, and, from what I’ve seen, strict discipline, right?” I summarised, hoping for her confirmation. “That sounds like a recipe for social tension and conflict.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Yeah, you can say that again. Things got seriously tense. A few people got into fights, but that got shut down quickly. And it only made things worse. I think some woman cheated on her partner, and things escalated from there. That’s when Lorgar decided to do that,” she snarled the last word, unwilling to verbalise the things they all had seen. Seen, accepted and participated in.

  “Why didn’t we say something? We should have pushed back, put a stop to it!” she insisted, despite my earlier words. I was tempted to repeat myself, but I simply let the silence do the talking. It stretched for a minute, then another, until, finally, one of the guys spoke up.

  “That’s what you meant, right?” he asked, “With the hierarchy. We literally couldn’t, we couldn’t even question those actions, or contemplate the horror we were participating in. We simply saw it as divine judgment and justice, and that was it?”

  “I believe so,” I agreed, “Keep in mind, I never set foot into those wards, so I can’t positively make that claim. I kept well away from the wards and your city. Call me paranoid, but I’d rather not expose myself to that sort of magic, or even that possibility.”

  “No, I can see why,” the guy nodded, “It sounded like such a great deal. Speak a prayer each morning and night, channel the Astral Power you didn’t use anyway into the prayer, and reap massive rewards. A safe place to live, training if you wanted it, a community so you didn’t have to worry about getting food and attacks from wild animals, it sounded awesome.”

  “All for the low price of your submission,” I replied, noticing a few grave nods, “You just didn’t think the submission would be so total. Or that the people you submitted to would use their power over you.”

  “Kinda, yeah,” Now, it was the woman’s turn to agree, “I think we still had a bit of common sense from before stuck in our minds. You know, we might have looked at the whole deal like an employment contract, thinking that the usual terms and conditions would apply. That we wouldn’t be violated in body, mind and soul.”

  “You mean, you didn’t read the terms and conditions beforehand?” I asked, laughing despite the seriousness of the conversation.

  “Yeah, something like that,” the sound that escaped was somewhere between a chuckle and a sob.

  “What had that Christmas celebration to do with anything?” another of the guys asked, pulling the conversation back onto its original tracks.

  “Think about it,” I challenged, “Christmas is, fundamentally, what?”

  For a few seconds, there was no answer as they considered the question, likely already aware of the answer but not yet putting it together.

  “A religious holiday,” the quiet woman said, her voice slightly horrified, “A religious holiday that wouldn’t be celebrated by those worshipping Sunna.”

  “Half-right,” I interjected, “I’m fairly certain that even people worshipping Sunna would perform some rite during the longest night. It’s not just a cultural and religious holiday; it replaced one tied to the seasons and the cycle of the year. Those astronomically significant nights have power now,” I informed them, putting more seeds of awareness into the ground, hoping that they would sprout into a wonderful flower, with pollen that would poison others away from divine worship. At least from worshipping Sunna.

  “Winter solstice, so the longest night of the year,” one of the guys spoke, apparently thinking out loud, “Which, consequently, puts it as the shortest day, the time during which Sunna has the lowest influence and the least power.”

  “And we celebrated a conflicting holiday,” another picked up the thread, “Not necessarily aware of the conflict, but we wouldn’t necessarily need to know about it, to shatter the hierarchy. And, with the hierarchy, it would also shatter the protections, what you called the wards, right? If the hierarchy and abeyance of it were built into them from the start?”

  “That sounds like a plausible scenario,” I agreed, “But remember, I never interacted directly with the wards. I only studied them from outside, always cautious, just in case Sunna would take offence at a mortal’s interest,” I paused for a moment, “Some deities are quite protective of their secrets. And what they consider ‘secret’ varies widely.”

  “So, if that's all true,” the original woman spoke again, “Then we were under the influence of those wards, our minds and desires suppressed. Until, suddenly, during the celebration, that suppression vanished, and what had been artificially held at bay flooded our bodies. Like somebody who hasn’t had a drink in years, suddenly chugging a whole bottle of vodka without even realising it.”

  “Shit,” one of the guys muttered after a few seconds of silence, “That makes far too much sense.”

  I didn’t even try to speak further; I simply let them hold onto their conclusion. I doubted I could have engineered it better if I had been present in person.