In any contested situation, the most important resource is information. That was why I’d let Rankin believe I’d entered the town today. I hadn’t snuck in using [Phantasmal Emissary] as a distraction. I, and my team, had entered through the southern gates yesterday.

  With the help of [Disguise Other], of course, though I honestly think we could have managed with some hooded cloaks. I’d finally picked up the improved spell and had been a little mad to discover that it also worked on me, and so was a simple improvement to my original spell. If I’d had five extra points to spend back then, I could have saved myself the cost of getting both.

  The spell was barely necessary because the south gate had been taken over by the eclectic collection of buildings that housed the local beast-kin community. It was on the south side, because however comfortable beast-kin were with Nature, they still wanted the added security of a river between them and whatever wandered out of the Great Wild.

  The initial construction of what I definitely wasn’t calling Shantytown had given some of the more staid members of the council conniptions. They liked orderly rows of similar houses, tucked neatly and safely behind high walls. The beast-kin… well, I’d never seen any evidence that any beast-kin liked the same thing as any other beast-kin. Their tastes were eclectic and personal. Chaotic, some might say.

  In the short time that I’d left, Tradertown had only grown busier and more chaotic. Some rules had been adhered to. There was a straight, wide avenue along the road to the gate, allowing plenty of room for wagon or foot traffic. However, anyone who wanted to could duck in between the houses, stalls and tents and make their way through a maze of paths that barely rated being called alleyways and find themselves right at the gate without anyone aware that they were approaching.

  At the gate itself, the guards were hardly in a position to do much scrutiny. One of them was busy arguing with an otter-folk merchant who was claiming that the goods he was carrying were for personal use and not subject to taxes. The other was trying to coax or order a squirrel-kin child down from climbing the inner arch of the gate.

  We handed over our fee for entering the town and walked right in. I made a note to reorganise customs and excise collection when I had a chance.

  Once we were within city borders, I tried doing something that hadn’t been working for a while.

  [Territory Status]

  Nothing happened. That made it official: I’d lost control of Talnier. It would have been nice to have received a notification; it was possible that I would have if I’d been in Talnier at the time. Then again, I was used to the System giving me the absolute minimum in terms of information.

  Well, it didn’t really matter. I just had to take it back and that was already on my list of action items. First on the list was a visit to High Priestess Tonet. I had wanted to delay visiting her until I’d done more to secure my position, but my beast-kin companions had insisted. Aelira Windtail and Therris Boulderpaw were in disguise, but only to the extent that they weren’t wearing their priestess uniforms. They made an oddly matched set, the diminutive foxkin was half the size of the six-foot-tall lady bear-kin.

  My party and I were disguised as humans. Different humans, of course. Walking behind the pair let me get a feel of how accepted beastkin had become in the town proper. The answer wasn’t good. Tensions weren’t as high as I’d seen them before, but there was a strong tendency for people to glare at the pair, and then glare at us for walking too close to them.

  Relations had obviously deteriorated. This hadn’t been evident in Tradertown. It was mostly beastkin, true, but you needed two parties to trade and there was a lot of business going on there. Both Tradertown and Talnier proper looked more prosperous than ever, so I didn’t think it was poverty or jealousy that was causing the tension.

  It felt like Aeilira and Therris were being glared at because they were out of place.

  Well. I couldn’t do anything about that now. I just tried to note any demographic groups that were particularly overt about it.

  Despite the armed guards at the gate of the Temple of Naldyna, I’d never been stopped from entering, and today was no different. We stepped into the lush garden behind the walls and the two priestesses breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Feels like home,” Aelira commented. She led the way deeper inside, striding unhesitatingly into the inner sanctum. Here, I had been stopped, but Aelira and Therris kept going. No one stopped them, they must be able to sense something about the pair even without uniforms.

  We followed, with some hesitation, but they only managed a few more steps, before Tonet came out to meet them.

  “Sisters,” she said, bowing her head. She glanced appraisingly at me, reminding me that we were in disguise.

  “Ah,” she said when I dropped the spells. “That’s what this is about. I suppose you’d better come in.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “We have news, Sister,” Aelira said. “We’ll need privacy.”

  Tonet started to say something, before thinking better of it and simply inclining her head.

  “This way,” she said. She led us all to an alcove wreathed in greenery. It didn’t seem private to me, but when a wind I couldn’t see started to rustle the leaves, I suspected there might be a spell or two in play. I looked, and there was mana in it, but there was mana running through everywhere in this garden.

  “I haven’t heard any news about your efforts abroad,” Tonet told me. “I hope they were successful. Matters have gone less well on the homefront.”

  “We are going to talk about that,” I told her, “But your sisters have got something more important to share.

  I observed Tonet closely as they told her about Naldyna. I watched her go from calm and in control, to shocked, passing through anger and denial, and finally landing on something close to smug.

  “A human body, you say?”

  Aelira sighed. “Choosing one of her daughter-races would have elevated that race above others. Choosing a human form might have the same effect, but as the baseline form, one could argue that it is the choice that averages out all the differences.”

  It seemed like petty one-upmanship could be found wherever you went. Despite Tonet’s blatant favouritism of the Tribal nation, anyone could tell by looking that she was a Latorran-born human. Her name was Tribal, but I always assumed that she’d taken a new one when she became a priestess.

  Humans weren’t discriminated against in the Tribes, or in Naldynan theology, as far as I knew, but they were rarer. And that “daughter-races” thing was real. The Beast-kin races were older than the Godwar, so true knowledge was hard to find. But the Beast-kin were sure that they had been created by Naldyna.

  “As interesting as this little episode of ‘Who’s mother’s favourite’ is,” I said. “I’d like to bring up more mundane concerns.”

  Tonet scowled at me. “Why we should be helping you escapes me. After what you did to Mother—“

  “Mother has reserved acting on this matter for herself alone!” Therris snapped.

  “And mind control magic is an offence against the freedoms that Mother holds dear,” Aelira added.

  “Which brings up an important topic. Why didn’t you tell me you could break mind magic when I was asking for your aid?” I asked. It took all three hundred and sixty points of my [Charm] skill total to make that come out calmly.

  Tonet shrugged. It was easier to keep from launching myself over to her and strangling her than it was to keep my voice calm. Violence had never been my choice.

  “There were multiple reasons,” she said. “You made a good case back then, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust you—either your word or your ability to come back from your adventure. I didn’t want to make myself a target, and I thought that I would be more useful, and hence better rewarded, if I was part of the reconquest, rather than the resistance.”

  “Entirely mercenary reasons, then,” I said. “Well, as it turns out, I’m not sure that we’ll be able to manage a relationship quite as favourable as I was offering.”

  “Oh?”

  “Circumstances as they are, I suspect that the Priesthood of Naldyna is interested in much cooler relations than before. Possibly even frosty.”

  “You can hardly begrudge us that, after what you did.”

  “I can understand it, but I’m not interested in turning the other cheek. Any unfriendly actions from your side will be reciprocated.”

  “Hmm, I see,” Tonet said, looking slightly displeased. “As it happens, I’ve hardly had time to react to this news, but it occurs to me that there might be some career opportunities at the Mother Tree that were previously absent for the likes of me.”

  She glanced at the other two priestesses. “Perhaps someone else will take on my role and you can build a fresh relationship with them.”

  “That might be wise,” I agreed. In truth, I was more ambivalent than I made it sound. Tonet teaming up with Naldyna could go either way for me.

  “But that is for the future,” Tonet concluded. “For now, we should discuss the present situation.”

  “And how we can work together to resolve it,” Therris put in. “We are allies, in this.”

  “Yes, of course. Allies,” Tonet agreed without showing too much reluctance.

  “So to start with, perhaps you can fill us in on what happened,” I said. “Everything seemed to be going fine, when suddenly the reports started to get vague.”

  “Your people were doing well,” Tonet told me. “I was keeping my distance, but I am reasonably certain they dealt successfully with all the minions and devices that the Countess smuggled into the town.”

  “So what went wrong?” I asked.

  “Having dealt with the minions, they were unprepared when the puppet master made a personal appearance.”

  “She’s here? The Countess?”

  “In the mind-controlling flesh.”

  “So, what, the whole town is mind-controlled now?”

  “No.” Tonet paused and then corrected herself. “At least I don’t think so. I’ve mostly confined myself to the Temple and relied on reports and rumours.”

  “Notoriously unreliable when dealing with mind mages,” Aelira sniffed.

  “I’m aware, but I can ensure that those I speak to haven’t had their memories changed,” Tonet replied. “Which seems to be her preferred method; I haven’t heard any reports of her directly controlling people.”

  “That’s… qualified good news,’ Aelira said slowly. Looking over at me, she explained. “Mind Control is an active effect. We can oppose it, but we need to overcome her spell total. Priestesses must be generalists, while mind mages tend towards the specialised, so they often have higher totals.”

  “Is that not the case with memory alterations?” I asked.

  “Those are a form of damage and can be healed without overcoming the caster,” Aelira said. “Given time, they will reverse themselves on their own.”

  “How much time?”

  “It depends on a person’s Soul,” Aelira said. “Not less than a week, and for many it might take a year or more.”

  Soul is the most common dump stat, I thought. There’s always a catch.

  “From what I can gather, she only altered enough of the minds of the town council and officials to sell her absurd story of your crimes,” Tonet said, taking up the story again. “Once you were declared a criminal and kicked off the Council they convinced themselves that they could elect her by acclimation.

  “That’s not what it says in the Charter at all,” I said waspishly. “Why write these things down if no one reads them?”

  “To be fair, I imagine she altered their memories of what they read,” Tonet said.

  “Hmph. And where was the Guild during all this?”

  “I don’t have eyes in the Guild,” Tonet said, “So I can’t tell you their reasons, or if they were working in the background. They were quite active in the first phase of the conflict, but when Lady Rankin showed, up, they disappeared.”