The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 409 – Basic Self Initiative

Monstrosity. Scientific Experiment. Abomination. Terror. Hulk. There are many names that have been ascribed to the things that Anassa and Baalka created. Maybe they had their own name for them: Walking Disaster or Living Weapon could fit. Although knowing them, the creatures would have some ironic name: The Next Step or Soldiers. I have my own name to call these things, and I think my name is the one that works the best compared to everyone else’s: Mistake.

They were created and given life solely for the purpose of once again being annihilated. That is all I have to say about these creatures. Such things are common enough. Mages create these every now and again. It is simply that Baalka and Anassa are very successful and proficient in their fields, whereas the biological automatons that mages create tend to wear themselves out after a short time, the creatures that the two Goddesses created need some assistance in dying.

Honestly, the reaction of the rest of the White Pantheon is what puzzles me the most. I am simply saying the things that they are thinking. I am not offended by the existence of these creatures. I am offended by the attempt to try and overthrow natural order. There are certain things we simply should not do for the sake of Arda. We should not try and fall towards the sky and we should not try to disrupt the cycle of day and night. These things are sensible. Arda is not a game, when the table is flipped, then we all die.

Likewise, we should not pretend to be life-givers. When something is meant to die. It is meant to die. These creatures will be killed. Natural Order shall be restored, whether the rest of the White Pantheon help me or not.

- Excerpt from “The Restoration of Order”, written by Goddess Maisara, of Order.

Eliza awoke before Anarchia even entered her room. Her eyes flicked to the time and she relaxed with a deep breath. She had an hour to kill, that meant there was time to plan and prepare for today’s draining. She stood up and didn’t use her sorcery. It would have regenerated enough by this point for her to use it. Any serious attempt at escape would need a full week’s worth of rest and regeneration. Most of Anarchia’s followers had been blessed with sorcery already, it wasn’t a free walk out of this place at this point even if Eliza and her three friends were at full strength.

Eliza scurried around the room. Anarchia had moved them to the centre of some huge building. There were no windows here and the ceiling couldn’t be the roof because men shouting could be heard from above. Eliza doubted them being at ground level, the room got too hot to be underground too. It was small, with a sink and a thin mattress rolled out on the ground for Eliza to sleep on. She had been given a few amenities to entertain herself with, a small collections of book none of which she could read since they were all in Rancais and a radio that broadcast the local music stations. Eliza had already given up on the idea of turning the receiver into a transmitter, it wasn’t simply that Anarchia unplugged the radio every time she came in, it was that Eliza had no clue what she was doing with the electronic circuits themselves. Nothing was too grand save for the sheer size of the building. The doorway was enough for three Elizas side-by-side and tall enough for the same amount.

Eliza knew she had a guard standing by the door, that was all she knew of the guard save for the fact he was tall and a man. The fellow had shared the grand total of maybe a hundred words over the past three days and even that was pushing it; it was all for informing Eliza of dinner time or lights out, although he didn’t seem to particularly care at what time Eliza actually went to sleep to.

Eliza tapped her fingers along the table and tested her magic. Her catalyst earrings had been taken away from her but every mage knew that catalysts facilitated magic rather than enabled it. Minor verbiage in theory, major difference in practice. Magic without a catalyst was like trying to swim through jelly. Eliza could feel her power within herself and even call upon it, but her mind would simply resort to crimson sorcery over elemental manipulation if she had to tear her own barriers down.

Eliza dressed herself, brushed her teeth, brushed her brown locks and paid attention to the clock. For a Goddess of Anarchy, Anarchia was unbelievably punctual. She would turn up an hour before midday on the dot every day. She would take fifteen minutes exactly, and she would be gone for the day. When Anarchia left, she would exhaust Eliza completely. The sapping of strength always made Eliza feel as if she was out of energy and she knew that certainly there wouldn’t be anything left after Anarchia was finished. So something had to be done.

And yet what?

Eliza sat there for a few minutes. Her eyes once again went to the radio. If she could get it working… Surely it had to transmit, right? Surely. What sort of radio didn’t transmit? She grabbed the small box and started messing with the controls. Sometimes, she wished she paid attention to the engineers in the military. Back then, she had always droned them out. The maintenance of the things that made the army keep turning forwards was simply not the job of sorcerers. Now, it kicked her in the rear.

There were six buttons in the middle, above was a tiny display. Eliza pressed every combination of buttons in every order she could count and find. The display flashed, from adjusting the volume to adjusting the settings to adjusting what frequency it was receiving from. Apparently frequency 99 was wholly devoted to Imperial propaganda and news. But…

Was it even possible? Eliza had overheard the men talk of receivers and transmitters before. Weren’t they different parts entirely? Would it not be like the difference between a cow and a horse? Both great farm animals yet both with their own individual roles that simply could not be replaced? Eliza sat in the room as she stared down at the radio.

An idea popped into her head.  

It was stupid. Eliza knew it was stupid, but what else was she supposed to do? Magic and sorcery only brought one so far. She couldn’t magic this fucking radio into being something it wasn’t, and even if she could then she had no damn idea how to. Eliza stood up with the small grey plastic in her hands. She held it up above her head.

And she slammed it down with full force onto the floor.

And immediately she screamed, fell on the floor and grabbed her knee as if it hurt. A moment later, the man outside her door opened it to check up on her. “What is happening?” He asked. The fellow was tall in a white suit and a stupid hat that was some a hundred years out of date. “Are you alright?” He spoke Allian in a terrible Rancais accent that grated on the ears, but at least he spoke Allian. That was already better than the rest of the men. “Hello?”

Eliza realised there was no way she could fake crying now, so she stopped shaking and rolling on the floor. Instead, she grit her teeth and hissed, then slammed her closed fist onto the wooden panels. The huge sound echoed around the room as she slowly picked herself back up. All that was needed was an awkward stance, flat on one foot with the other on her toes and there we go. Eliza didn’t need a mirror to know she did a convincing job, the sorry look of worry painted across her guards face said it all. He was obviously torn, she was a prisoner but she was also just a poor girl who had hurt herself. Eliza made her brown eyes large and jumped on one leg to rest on the couch. “Sorry sorry.” She apologized quickly, making sure her own voice cracked as she spoke. “Sorry, accident.”

“Are you alright?” The man asked. How lovely! Eliza could almost believe he was actually worried for her. She leaned back and made sure to make her posture small. Men were always more protective and kind-hearted if you were small. She thought of an excuse.

“I collapsed.” That was all the reasoning needed. People who were truthful didn’t need great stories and collapsing was one of the most unimpressive stories to exist.

The man sounded as if he bought it. “Are you alright now-?”

“I’ve been in worse.” Eliza cut off his final word and looked away. The intention was to make the man think she was feeling hurt but holding it together and didn’t want to talk about it.

He did not get it. “Did you bang your head?” He asked in terrible tone.

“I’m fine!” Eliza shouted, not even looking at him. This time, he seemed to get it. The man sighed heavily and looked at the mess. The radio looked as if it had been hit by an artillery shell. The plastic casing had broken into a thousand different shards and the green electronics board inside had snapped into several pieces. Frankly, it was a mess. “Can we get a new one?” She redirected the conversation to what was needed to be said.

The guard sighed and looked at her. Eliza smiled, she wished she had spent more time getting into this man’s good graces. Frankly, she had just written him off the moment she saw him. Eliza forced herself a hopeful smile, the sort she imagined a lost puppy would give to its mother. “Please?”

That please killed it. The man visibly shivered and looked at the radio. “Anarchia will be here at eleven, we’ll be fast.”

“Thank you!” Eliza hopped from one leg to another and then realised she was supposed to be playing hurt. The man didn’t seem to notice, instead he just blushed and looked away.

“Alright.” He said and turned around. Eliza kept her smile up, but that was all she did. Lyca was lecherous, she wasn’t stupid, she knew the man had a soft-spot for women, but that was all the more reason why she felt so much better because of how he picked her. It was obvious he was veering on the edge of control, but he did it for Eliza. A lesser woman would fail. And this fellow? Who gave up the moment Eliza even glanced at him?

He would never make a sorcerer. Eliza didn’t have to be Anassa to know. She followed the man out of the room and through the corridor. It was rooms with open doors, with more of Anarchia’s blessed men and women sitting there. Some looked curiously at Eliza as she passed by, close behind the guard, but none raised a word.

For a bunch of men who said they were against all order and hierarchy, they were very timid. Most of them simply looked away as if it wasn’t their problem. Eliza turned down a large corridor and followed the guard in his white suit. That hat was utterly ridiculous. Who wore such a thing? Did the man even know what shame was? Eventually, after taking her down a set of massive marble stairs which were large enough for a Divine to tread upon, the man came to a stop. “Is this it?” Eliza asked.

“This is our storage.” The guard said. “I’ll follow you inside but you can pick one out.”

Eliza immediately saw the problem, she didn’t even have to experience to know the issue. The man couldn’t be staring over her shoulder if she was going to pick out a radio with a transmitter. The man would definitely have an issue with that. Eliza let him open the door and felt her heart beat with relief with when she saw the size of this storage room.

It was a huge storeroom filled with mundane electronics. Radio and generator and light-bulb and monitor and laptop stack in boxes and kept on steel shelves. Boxes were crammed with various devices and stacked high. Eliza managed to contain her excitement and instead feigned confusion. “Where are the radios?” She asked, even though she scanned the entire room.

“Over there.” The guard said and led the way, walking half-turned to keep an eye on her. So he wasn’t completely stupid then. Eliza looked around with wide eyes. It would be suspicious if she pretended not to be shocked, this was obviously impressive. She kept up the stupid girl routine, looking around with a huge smile. She spotted the radios immediately and made sure her eyes passed over items. Eliza looked around, up and down. Past monitor cases and below boxes filled with internet modems. Above televisions and next to microwaves.

And then Eliza saw the gold mine hidden in these mountains. Near the floor was a box, it was filled with phones. Eliza immediately looked away and at the man. She forced surprise onto her face. “Are those radios? They look good.” Eliza asked, pointing to the wall behind him. They were military grade radios that soldiers carried on them. Eliza had seen similar ones in the Invasion of Kirinyaa. The man turned around and started to inspect the electronics behind him.

Eliza did not waste a single moment. She held her breath. She felt her entire body tense.

And Eliza swiped a phone.