Mol beamed as he heard the question. "Before I tell you everything, I must have your allegiance."
Solon didn't wait—he stood to give his allegiance, but Mol shook his head. "Not here. Come with me!"
It was the middle of the night, and they followed him into the room with the stone chair and glass table.
Mol approached the chair and faced them, his hand trailing along the table's surface.
"This allegiance is different. You must place your hand here and pledge it."
"That way you will enslave us?" Dol accused.
"Absolutely not." Mol shook his head, his calm demeanor never wavering. "The table doesn't have such powers, and I don't want to do that."
He became very serious. "I will tell you how we can make the Cursed One sit here, but only after I have your allegiance. However, if you are skeptical, then there's no need to do it. Just make sure more than half participate. That way I know no one will usurp me with your youthful power."
They were all skeptical—the old man was too cunning for their own good. Even Dol, who desired to get rid of him, held himself back because the man was the brain behind everything.
Solon was the first to place his hand on the table. Rol followed, then the others slowly joined.
Dol stood aside, watching and saying nothing.
"I, Solon, give my allegiance to Old Man Mol!" he spoke, and each of them repeated the oath.
Mol's hand was on the table too. "I..." he whispered his name, "accept your allegiance!"
As he spoke these words, he sat on the lord's chair, and their bodies tensed. They could have removed their hands, but they held on despite their wide-eyed surprise.
The old man was sitting and the chair activated, but what was amazing was that the effect was shared with them.
With a strained smile, Mol said, "What we did here is called unity. The amazing part of unity is simple—we can store energy inside the table."
He panted. Though they shared the strain, he as the sitter bore more of it.
"But the greatest part is that we can harness the power of the people's will. We can make sure that even if they change their minds, it won't affect the Cursed One."
He fell silent, his eyes red by now, his body trembling.
After a few minutes, he stood and breathed a sigh of relief. They too shook their hands and checked their bodies. They were perfectly fine.
What had changed was the glass table, which was now glowing. They stared at it in wonder.
"A lord needs confidants. I have made you all have partial authority over the table. What's amazing about this is that we can make others sit while we command the table and the world."
"You mean some random person can sit and hold the position in exchange, and we won't fear them commanding the table?" Solon asked, and the old man nodded.
"But before that, we need 100 people to give their allegiance. And we need at least 1,000 people to truly believe in us and follow us in everything. That will convert the will of the world toward the table."
They all nodded in understanding. Certainly, they hadn't changed and the old man wasn't in control of them—they were fine with it.
They also understood that the old man did this to make sure none of them would steal the opportunity from him with their own little faction.
"Then, about the Cursed One?" Dol asked. He was the only one who hadn't given his allegiance.
"If we command the people with absolution, we can command the world's will and bind him to the chair."
"Fine. I will give you my allegiance!" Dol said in defeat.
"Haha!" Mol laughed. "That's more like it!"
"But how did you know all this? I mean, we should know this too!" Rol asked. There was inbuilt knowledge they all had about things everyone should know.
"Because he was here during the previous Lord and might have served under him," Solon said.
Mol shook his head. "I was a toddler then. But even after he was gone, things weren't as bad as this. Back then, at ten you were Rank 1, and at 15 you had to be Rank 2..."
"What?" they exclaimed. How could that be possible?
The old man sighed as he remembered the good old days. He pushed his sleeves away, showed his hand and made a fist. Behind his hand, a symbol formed before it vanished quickly, and he panted, drained of energy.
"Rank 4!" they exclaimed in fear and surprise.
"This is me as just a scholar. Warriors start at Rank 5 and above. Everyone at 30 years old would be Rank 4 even without training. But true warriors were Rank 6 at 15 to 20 years."
"Ha," Dol laughed. "It bugged me before, but now I know why you did what you did. The cure made you remember things you had forgotten because I know you suffer from memory loss. And as someone who remembers, you know the world has other fighters lurking inside. You fear their mass cure, which will make them recall things that may oppose you!"
"Very perceptive, Dol." Mol said without hiding anything. "From the age of 30 and above, everyone experiences memory loss, and the older they are, the worse it gets. But what you got wrong is that even I didn't recall everything—it was gradual."
They stared at the man before Rol blurted out, "That means you're a century old since the previous lord disappeared a century ago!"
"Yes. I'm 113 this year!" The old man winced at his words before he sighed.
Then they heard a flurry of steps. One of their loyalists came inside unannounced.
"Leaders..." he shouted, seeing them all there. "We have a problem."
"Calm down and speak," Dol commanded.
"There are writings. There's an uprising. Someone is worshipping the Cursed One!"
Dol, Rol, and Solon bolted out to go with the man to see what was happening.
Having worshippers meant one thing—their reign was coming to an end and the Cursed One would be free.
In an abandoned location where people rarely came was large graffiti:
[The 17 leaders are tyrants. The Cursed One gave them full cure enough for everyone, but they hoard it for themselves to control us]
[They prevent us from using Ancestral Buildings to control our resources. They force us into hardship with no proper feeding.]
[Ten people died yesterday, not of disease, but because they were exhausted from grinding and inhaling the dust]
"Quick, find something to clean this fast!" Dol shouted. "Go back to your father and tell him what's here. I will investigate more!" he commanded Rol.
Rol returned and explained everything, and the old man's face became ashen. "This is bad."
"Call back Dol now!"
---
"We need one hundred today. And we will distribute the uniforms we have to the selected 1,000 people," Mol explained.
"We must have 200 people who do nothing but patrol around to make sure they find who wrote these things..."
"What is patrol?" Rol asked.
"Like soldiers who will go around to see what is happening!" Solon clarified.
"We also need people among the normal citizens to bring us information. These ones shouldn't be tied to us. They should be our supporters that no one knows about..."
The meeting went long, and after it ended, Mol cleaned himself, wore his expensive robe, and walked toward the Hollow Fell.
---
There were guards at the gate—four of them, well-fed, clean, and under training. They were all Rank 1, which meant regular citizens wouldn't win against them.
They opened the gate and he passed through. The alien was still tied down—from leg to thigh, to wrist to stomach to hand and shoulder, and then his mouth was sealed.
Mol sat two feet away from him. "Greetings, Cursed One!"
Eiran's crimson eyes opened. The old man was younger than he was, clean, his eyes filled with wisdom, well-kept beard and hair.
He waved his hand and the bindings were removed. "I have been wondering," Eiran said, "why would a ruler like you curse us with blood rain? That action chained you."
"You are making the same mistake. Denying the people the cure to control them. When—" Eiran was cut off by the old man.
"It's not the same. I gave them a temporary cure. I gave them unity. I spearheaded them toward a greater future."
"You could have done all that with me. And if you desire to rule, I won't be staying for long!"
"No. The curse you sent us makes you an evil lord."
The old man moved faster than his body should have allowed and was very close to Eiran's face. His rough hand, forged from hardship, poked Eiran's face. "So tender," he muttered with a frown.
"You are here to aid us with some things," he said slowly, "and then you leave. I can allow you to aid us, and then you can leave."
Eiran blinked. The man was too close—he might be clean, but there was a stench about him, something Eiran couldn't grasp. And the roaring of the old man's blood was loud, and he could even taste the old man's ambitions.
"You turn to tyranny with the little power you are given?" Eiran said. "Don't you think that's not foolishness?"
The old man stood, and the chains made Eiran bend up and look at him. "This isn't tyranny. I'm giving them opportunities they will never have otherwise. I'm giving them freedom they didn't even know they were missing."
"I am here for that. I am your freedom, your salvation. With me, you will see beyond your little area," Eiran said.
"Then why curse us!" the old man repeated.
Eiran smiled. The old man knew the truth. He knew Eiran was innocent but was just refusing to acknowledge it.
"You are afraid, but also filled with greed. Your greed for leadership and also fear that power will slip from your hands."
Eiran looked down, closed his eyes. "You have wisdom that would suffice to make you achieve all this without tyranny, but you lack confidence in that!"
---
It has been a week already. Uniformed people worked at the ancestral ground, some patrolled the settlement—everything was moving according to their plan except for one thing.
The number of writings on the wall was increasing. Now inside houses, even the leaders' houses, and on public tools like hammers and swords, you would find defiance.
They had rounded up some people and punished them, but it proved futile.
Of course, most people were shocked at who was writing and no one publicly sided with it, especially now that there were clear benefits to those who followed the new leaders.
But the leaders were paranoid. They felt like a community was rising in the dark, and the people's minds were changing—they were just too afraid to voice it out.
Mol stood in a foul mood. No amount of investigation yielded anything. The worst part was that the person behind this seemed to know what they were doing.
They were overworking people and some were dying because of that. Just recently, over 109 people died due to exhaustion.
This was coming close to the number of deaths the Cursed One brought through the blood rain.
Rol and Solon advised they should slow down the work. People weren't truly healthy even with the healing, and the work exposed that.
But if they stopped now, the cultists of the Cursed One would be growing nevertheless.
For once, Mol and Dol agreed on something. They should not care about public perception and speed up everything. Because even with rebellion, the will of the world was with the table—the Cursed One would not be free.
"I suggest we look for volunteers. Fathers, siblings, or those with close relationships who are willing to do everything for their loved ones to have a better life, and promise them the chance to sit on the lord's chair for a longer period!" Dol said.
"That will speed things up."
"They will die!" Rol interjected.
"A noble sacrifice!" Mol concurred with the idea.