“What do you mean by that?”

The giant spider could not fully grasp what Vaile had said. The high-leveled Dwarf would not be enough? Enough for what? Surely something with a level that high would be enough to keep her going strong for quite some time, if not eternally. The hatchlings that would emerge from that being’s flesh would be powerful and would grow in strength just as quickly as any of her other children. They would become strong, and then she would allow them to breed once or twice, and then she would eat them. That was how things had been before, and it was how things would always be. The Dwarf would endure for eternity, his status as being such an anomaly made that a certainty.

“Even beings such as he and I can die if we are taxed enough. What you will be putting him through will tax him greatly each time you do it. You may give him weeks, maybe months between such things, but eventually, he will die. Even a body such as the ones that he and I both have can and will break and die given enough torment. And when that happens, which will happen, what will you do then for the sake of survival? Will you go back to being the paranoid, instinct-driven being you were just a few minutes ago? I suspect that would be the case, more often than not, and it will only drive you to new depths of cruelty.”

Vaile’s words were spoken with the tone of a man who was beyond certain of his ideas, and the fact that he was so sure of himself let the slightest bit of the spider’s old survival-driven self come back. The more she thought about it, and the more she looked at the thousands of people who shared the Dwarf’s future fate, the more she realized that the odds of the Dwarf lasting more than a few tens of sessions was slim to none. He would die, and then she would be right back to where she was before.

“Then what solution would you have?” the spider asked with a nearly undetectable hint of anxiety.

“I will give you something that will change things forever. Something that, had I given it ages ago, would likely have led you down a radically different path. However, a Name will not come for free, as much as I would love to give one here and now.”

A Name! This was something that would almost certainly change things, just as Vaile had said. In this world, names had power. The average monster had no name, at least not a ‘true’ one. If a Tamer gave their ward a name, then that named entity would find their power and ability to grow and expand by at least a small order of magnitude.

All of the others had names, and only she was without one. Likewise, they had gotten their names long before this new world existed, meaning their names did not grant them much power, if any. Those names were now essentially just the same as one given by one member of the Races to another: but to be given a name by a tamer in this new world? That would change everything. Her ascension and survival would be all but assured!

“Then what must I do to earn such a thing?”

Vaile chuckled a bit before replying with a question of his own.

“You wish to rule over the cult forever, yes?”

The spider nodded in response, or at least made the equivalent action, which Vaile picked up on rather easily.

“There is an old saying along the lines of ‘The tighter an iron fist clenches, the more grains of sand slip through its fingers. An iron-fisted regime can only maintain full control after it has learned to choose when to crush and when to nurture, and only then when it knows these things and acts correctly can it hope to keep the masses aligned to it.’”

“Meaning?”

Obviously, the spider had never taken any classes in philosophy or the workings of governments, and so Vaile had to explain.

“It means that the way you do things now will only result in the people you want to serve and be obedient to you eventually deciding to attempt to destroy you. Fear, cruelty, and oppression are powerful tools, but to rely on them entirely will only result in your new order eventually being undone by your own hand. I will help you gain control over this land and the place above it, but you must learn to know when to spare the rod and when to indulge in it. A donkey that has been beaten once may do as it is told, but to beat the creature repeatedly will only cause the animal to bite the hand that disciplines it.”

The spider took Vaile’s words in, but it could not really understand the full weight behind them, and Vaile seemed to pick up on this. Turning to Gareth, he asked the man a few questions while taking the response to them as well.

“Gareth, I assume recruitment has been difficult lately.”

Gareth nodded.

“And some people have left of their own volition, right?”

Once again, Gareth nodded.

“And the number of people leaving the faith has been gradually increasing, month after month, no?”

Gareth confirmed non-verbally a third time.

“Those who left claimed they could not stand with something so cruel, correct?”

Gareth now refused to nod, but his silence and lack of movement was enough to confirm Vaile’s assumptions.

“Lastly, it is assumed that the reason your bases have been being targeted so frequently and found out so easily is because there are either traitors in your midst or that those that leave go and report the location of the bases, correct?”

Again, there was no action taken, which confirmed Vaile’s words as true.

“Now, then,” Vaile said as he got up from where he had been seated. “Add all that together and you get the picture, more or less. Your iron fist has caused grains, in this case, people, to slip out, for one reason or another. Likewise, it has resulted in them urging people to stand against you, which causes you to tighten further, which in turn causes more to slip away. If this continues for much longer, only the truly desperate and the absolutely mad will remain. And you can’t make a good, lasting cult that way.”

“And what would you suggest we do?” Gareth asked, almost pleading to know how the destruction of his faith could be averted.

“Simple,” Vaile said matter-of-factly. “You lower the doom and gloom, you act to make the people who denounce you look like they are liars, and you engage in a multi-pronged propaganda campaign the likes of which has never before been seen in this nation. Slowly build support through charity and compassion; gather supporters by drawing them into the truth of the cult gradually, like a fish being slowly pulled towards the fisherman, and when you’ve made enough allies and fellow cultists, you begin to destroy your opposition’s reputation with gradually more potent mud-slinging.”

Vaile then pointed at the stadium-sized spider.

“You’re a spider and you’re spider cultists. Act like what you are and weave a web of deception and manipulation so fine and hidden that your foe won’t know he’s hopelessly trapped until it is far too late to do jack shit about it! Most spiders don’t go out and cause undue harm to their environment, as that would lead to them being crushed. Instead, stay in the shadows and build up your web bit by bit, with more and more flies turning into spiders to add to the web. And once the web is big enough, the target you want to trap can be led in and find themselves in a battle they have no chance of winning. And once that all happens that way…”

Vaile then looked the big spider in her eyes.

“Then, and only then, will grant you what you need to overcome the shackles of instinct.”