"Your life depends on how still you remain." Neia said with contempt to the guards as she sat down on the edge of the fountain and crossed her left leg over top of her right and crossed her arms just below her chest.

She looked to the side, there hadn’t been any more hesitation, the remaining guards had all been bound.

"Now. You are going to stay where you are, and not move except to tremble, and you are going to listen as the people tell me their grievances, and when your men wake up, they’ll get the same treatment you did, THEN and only then do you have my permission to go." Neia said in a voice of steel, and the guard could only stay sprawled out and red faced and nod numbly, hardly able to believe how badly his day was going.

“Who are you to think you can get away with this?” He asked in a cracked and broken voice.

“Neia Baraja. Before you came to stop me, you should have found out who you were trying to stop.” She said flatly, giving him an ugly stare of abject disgust.

One by one the people spoke up, and the crowd grew larger as word spread, the roads into the square began to back up, and Neia heard dozens of complaints before the first man woke up, his arrogant demands to be untied went quiet when he saw the person who had beaten him was still there, and when she dragged him bodily behind her by his hair he cried out in pain. That was better as far as he was concerned than what she did next, just like his boss, he was thrown over the fountain and had his ass spanked like a wayward child. “You can’t do this!” He screamed in disbelief as she did what he said she couldn’t do.

When she was done beating his ass with the flat of her blade, she yanked his head back and forced him to his knees. “The strong can ‘take’ justice, and they can ‘make’ justice. That is the least of what has happened here. Now beg their forgiveness or it’ll be worse for you in about six seconds.” Her piercing eyes filled his vision and he felt ice flowing through his veins as death spoke to him.

He fell forward and wailed, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Under the disbelieving eyes of the crowd, before she pointed to a place near his leader.

“Sit. Stay.” Neia ordered, her hand playing on the hilt of her sword as she gave the command. He then inched his way over to the spot without standing up, and planted himself in misery, still red faced and near tears.

The cycle repeated itself for the better part of an hour until the last guard had apologized to the sound of laughter raining down on them. Neia got back atop the fountain, and she began her sermon.

"People of Prart, I have heard what you have said, and I am distressed at how low this city has fallen. Many of you were saved by the Sorcerer King, the god of justice, and yet, is this what you were saved for? To live like this? To live lives of weakness and fear and poverty, exploited by people who insult you and degrade you and take advantage of you? Is THIS how you want to live?!" She shouted, pointing out to all of them and demanding an answer.

A chorus of "NO!" answered her.

"The one true god has said that strength is justice, not because might makes right, but because only might can enforce justice, the sin of weakness has infected this place, these guards are weak, the morals of the authorities are weak, the economy is weak, and when weakness pervades, INJUSTICE REIGNS!"

"I am but a shadow compared to the might of my god, yet I had the power to impose justice on those who degrade you. You ALSO have that power. If you claim your dignity and demand that right be done, you in a mass cannot be crushed by something so weak and petty as a bully in a tin suit! Demand justice, support one another in the pursuit of fair and honorable treatment, support one another in the pursuit of strength, follow me to the justice of the one who saved our nation, follow me in the ways of the Sorcerer King, the god of Black Justice, and you WILL NEVER BE BEATEN AGAIN!"

Her speech sent a wave of excitement through the crowd, it electrified them, they cheered, up and down the streets as far as her powerful voice could carry. "Return to your lives for now, I will see to these tin covered cowards, find me in the marketplace if you have need!" She said, and she jumped down and approached the prone men.

"Get the fuck out of that armor." She said with contempt. They looked up at her, stunned. "You cannot hold the people in contempt, and remain fit to wear it. Your armor is not for you, your armor is so you can protect them, and you used it to abuse them. So you can’t have it any more. Get... the fuck... out of it. Here, now." She said with the voice of death itself. She tapped her foot and opened and closed her hand over the hilt of her sword, the threat to draw it loomed large.

Their spirits were broken. They did not resist. Their eyes shot down to the dirty, broken stones, and stayed there.

They slowly stood and began taking it off, watching every piece hit the ground and listening to the various clanging noises as the metal hit stone, it was the sound of hope fading from their lives.

"You are the product of the corruption here, you are not the cause of it. You will tell me now, everything you know. Then you will go back to your residences, gather your things, and get out of Prart and never come back, consider yourselves banished from here." The leader managed to find his voice and said, "I-I don’t rightly know everything, I’m an enforcer, nothing more, but I know that some of the ones running things came from Re-Estize, got here after the liberation, they set up shop, maybe bribed the regional governor, maybe blackmailed, I wouldn’t know that, but he’s in their pocket too one way or the other. They got the brothels, the pubs, the gambling houses, they decide what gets built and what doesn’t." He said in a cracked and broken voice.

"The warehouses too?" She asked.

"I done guarded some of those, the renters pay protection money or we..." He trailed off.

"What?" Her voice commanded answer.

"Look the other way while its robbed or burned." He finished.

"Or do the robbing or burning yourselves?" She guessed.

He gave several small rapid nods.

"How do the temples play into this?" She asked.

His eyes jumped to hers in surprise.

"Don’t be surprised, I saw a temple, it was completely rebuilt, and I’m not about to believe it is because of some devotion to the gods." She said contemptuously. Her teeth ground visibly, her jaw worked back and forth, her eyes twitched as word after word threw dry grass into an already growing fire.

"I don’t know everything, but... well the priests help keep the people in line, they are the mouthpieces of the governor, and when people get uppity, charges of heresy or blasphemy are hard to fight and you don’t even have to plant fake evidence, just have someone make the accusation and a few people back it up." He said, he began to tremble under her gaze.

"Where do they end up?" She asked.

"Prison mostly, a few of the more talented get "work release" where they work for free on what the bosses want." He said.

"Anything else?" Neia asked. "What about the brothels?"

"Who cares about them ‘ores?" He said, and found a sword at his throat.

"Oh... eh..." He stammered.

"Anything less than the truth, and I’ll cut you in ways that’ll let you enter their line of work." Neia said between clenched teeth.

The lot of them paled at her words, but the pathetic and humiliated guard didn’t have the fight left to argue, "They borrow money for things, can’t pay it off, so they work the brothels to repay the debt." He spilled out the words almost too fast for her to understand, but it all clicked into place for Neia, and she stepped back and sheathed her sword.

"OK, now you get get the fuck out of my sight, and get the fuck out of this city. If my eyes ever catch you again so much as taking a sweetroll from a child, my face will be the last one you ever see." She said, and stepped aside. "Now RUN! Run and never stop!" she barked and smacked the leader on the ass with her sword again. They ran like scared rabbits after that.

She mentally ticked off what she’d gathered from the little bird she’d just made sing for her, all was going well, but she had to inform Tinamoc of what she’d learned, as well as the rest of her company of fighters. The next move in her mind was fairly predictable, when you humiliate evil authority that way, it has to respond, and there are only two ways to do that. Against the public to remind people they’re still in charge... or against the singular party in opposition... which even if they did the first thing, they’d still have to do the second, and because she had acted in public, they would want to act against her in public in turn, by any means necessary.

A savage grin appeared on her face, the regional governor would have to act quickly, she was going to look over what were no doubt phony books tomorrow, he would definitely not want that. Quick decisions are seldom safe decisions. He was cowardly, he was weak, and he thought he held all the cards. Within a few hours if not sooner, the humiliation of several guards and their dismissal from the city would reach his ears. If she wanted this to work, she had to act quickly.

She cast a silent thought of gratitude to her divine god of justice, and after a brief stop to inform some of her people that she needed them to shadow her, she went to the next public place, and again began to speak on the subject of the god of justice, the war for liberation, she began to praise the crowd as survivors who carried within them the seed of strength, that all they needed to do was nurture it by following Black Justice and the way of the Sorcerer King. Prart was full of camp survivors and liberators, which meant it was packed with people who favored the Sorcerer King, which meant there was a ready audience for her message, and more than that, her message of hope and her praise for their potential was a welcome relief from the grind to which they had been subjected.

"When thugs come to demand coin so that your shop does not burn, stand against them, when you see your neighbor harassed by thugs, join with your neighbors, when you see the neighbors of your neighbors threatened and extorted, join with those neighbors, they cannot steal from even ONE of you, if ALL of you refuse to tolerate being stolen FROM!"

Her speeches ignited the crowds, and she went from one square to another, with some of those from one inevitably following her to the next speaking point, and after hours of this where she praised the Sorcerer King as the god of justice and the only one worth following, she got the expected result.

From her position atop another ruined public fountain, she saw them coming, a priest, who looked... rather lumpy to put it plainly, backed by several men in shining armor, they could only be paladins, and about two dozen or so soldiers. The governor was clearly not taking chances after her having humiliated the unprepared guards, these were more fit and more professional looking. Her bottom lip curled as she nodded. ‘Not bad.’ she thought to herself. "Not good enough... but not bad." She resumed her speech after the thought, having pretended not to notice them as they forced their way through.

When they made it to the front, some of the guards turned about and turned their spears on the crowd, forcing people back.

The remainder stood at either side of the priest.

"Neia Baraja, you are under arrest on the charges of heresy and blasphemy, and are hereby ordered in the name of Alah Alaf, all the gods, and regional governor Baron Nigrand en Tusia, to surrender yourself immediately!" The priest said in a voice that suggested he expected to be obeyed.

The crowd went quiet and waited for her to be taken away.

"I say I am NOT under arrest." Neia responded flatly and looked down at the priest with contempt. "I am indeed Neia Baraja, servant of the Sorcerer King, bearer of the armor of the Grand King Busar, rescuer of the Zern Prince BeeBeeZee, guardian of royal merchant Tinamoc, bane of bandits, savior of Ilyatown, protector of villages, bearer of the Ultimate Shooting Star, founder of Black Justice, arbiter of Capital Reconstruction and liaison of the Sorcerer King, and I tell you you have no right to arrest me. I am no servant of dead and do nothing gods. I serve the one god of this world. Your temples have no right to presume anything of me, least of all to accuse me of crimes against them for calling them into doubt. And as to the Baron? I come under the King's writ. I am not under his authority for as long as my mission endures. Press me, and we will see who hangs."

Silence, stunned silence endured. Eyes went wide, mouths fell open, armor clinked as those who wore it began to look profoundly uncomfortable.

"More than that, I am not under arrest because I have committed no crime, do you really need to protect the gods by saying I’m guilty of blasphemy? I can only blaspheme against the true god of Justice, Ainz Ooal Gown! Heresy? How can I be a heretic? I praise the last and greatest god, the only god worthy of worship in this world, before all the people here!" Her voice carried to the crowd, and she said, "If your life was saved by the true god of Justice, Ainz Ooal Gown, then raise your voice in praise to him!"

"Long live Ainz Ooal Gown!" Sounded with earth shattering force, echoing off the walls in the square, it rang out again, and again, drowning out the priest. Still he didn’t act, she needed more to provoke him. She kept her thoughts to herself, but stared down at the priest with blue eyes hard as steel and cold as ice.

She held out her hands to still the crowd, "Do you see?!" She said to the priest, "There is no blasphemy here, we praise the god who cares for his people, not the gods that ignore the people as they die and cry out for aid!"

His face turned purple with rage, and Neia’s company began to move from out of their positions of observation, what alone would simply look like a well outfitted soldier, gathered together in a group, became an intimidating military display. The priest however, with his eyes up on Neia, did not notice.

"I will have you dragged down from there!" He shrieked.

"You will?" Neia said laughing, "Because your gods cannot do it for you? The gods of old might have been powerful in their time, but they did not protect us! They did not instill strength in us, they did not save even a single infant from being devoured on their very altars, even as their worshipers who had lived their lives devoted to those gods, pleaded for mercy! It is not blasphemy to praise the god who acts for his people, it is not heresy to serve that god, it is heresy and blasphemy to DENY that god! YOU are the blasphemer, YOU are the heretic! You corrupt reprobate, you who steal the hope from the people in exchange for power and peddle your notions of righteousness before dead gods who care nothing for your oaths and nothing for their people! I serve the one true god in this world! Praise to him, the savior of the people of the Roble Holy Kingdom, Ainz Ooal Gown! Long may he reign!" She shouted and pumped her fist to the sky with her sword aloft as if calling for her soldiers to charge.

"Long may he reign!" the crowd echoed.

The priest could bear no more, "Get her down NOW!" He shouted, "And arrest all those who you saw speak with her!" The paladins were distraught, some of them had served with the Sorcerer King in the time of liberation, they had seen him sacrifice himself against Jaldabaoth, and they saw him risk himself and save the Kingdom at the final battle, bringing down Jaldabaoth forever.

“Sir, maybe we should…” One touched the priest on the shoulder, his youthful face anxious, nervous, uncertain. He had a definite tic at the cheek and his fingers only barely touched the priest to get his attention. He didn’t look directly at the priest as he spoke, but kept his eye mainly on the anxious crowd.

The priest flung his shoulder back with a snarl, “Do as you’re told!” He said with a deep growl, and stopped speaking.

He stopped speaking because that was when the priest saw the other members of Black Justice, and the more distraught paladins who looked around as if seeking some answers that they could not find within themselves... saw the same.

A common soldier however, was not so observant, and accustomed to obedience and unquestioned authority, he thrust his spear out, stabbing one of the peasants.

The old man he’d thrust his spear into, fell with a cry, clutching his belly and howling. “Murder!” Someone shouted.

“Murder, murder, murder!” The shout went up, and a peasant took up one of the many loose and broken stones, and from within the crowd, threw it, striking a guard in the helmet with a loud ‘tink’.

Another common soldier thrust another spear, another howl of pain, the cry of ‘murder’ redoubled and the peasants went mad with sudden anger as word spread through the crowd. “They’re killing us!” Someone shouted with fury.

"Take them if you can, kill them if you can’t!" Shrieked the priest, igniting the crowd.

To that rising madness, Neia added her powerful evangelical voice. Piercing the madness, she shouted, "Black Justice! Protect the people! Protect them all!"

As one, their bows came out and their arrows loosed in almost the very same fraction of an instant. The endless hours of training made them move like parts one creature. Like the legs of an insect all operating independently to drive the whole. They split into two directions and began to reveal what the fruit of months against skeletons, homunculi giants, and more, were like. To Neia, it was sweet and beautiful, they flowed like water as they unleashed their arrows until closing to use their swords.

Neia’s voice echoed far enough that even in the market where Tinamoc was setting up, he heard her voice and so did her warriors. "Go”, he said encouragingly as he waved his hands away from where he was setting up shop. “Leave ten for here, take the rest." He added, his eyes darting around anxiously as his heart started to pound.

The street was then filled with the black clad fighters moving like the wind, but behind them were many converted guards eager to put their refined skills to the test.