Tla’al knew better than to be taken aback. But the red coloring surprised her. “Oh.” She composed herself. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to offend. Just not what I expected.”
She smiled brightly, remembering how the Earther mayor treated his consitutittuentsns… or whatever he called them. “I see a statue in front, and this appears to be some Earther-style house of worship. Since the Earthers don’t know much about it, I thought I’d ask, if you’d be willing to speak about it.”
Na’z’ez maintained her smile, and nodded slightly. “Maybe Earther-style, but i can’t imagine too many earthers would join a church in which we our focus of faith is an Olgog. Although, if they wished to do so, they would be welcome.”
She smoothed out the front of the cloak, and closed her hands in front of her, fingers entwined. “You have questions. Please, ask away. What would you like to know?”
Tla’al didn’t know what to make of it all. But at least they were willing to answer her questions. “Well, first off, who’s the statue of?”
“That statue is Krodnok,” Na’z’ez replied. “And he is the Olgog who is the focus of our faith.”
Na’z’ez turned and held out an arm, indicating that she’d like to walk. “Krodnok isn’t like most Olgogs.”
She led Tla’al further into the complex. They walked past other ‘priests’, and a few rooms where there were small gatherings of Olgogs, engaging in prayer, or just conversation. “For one, like me, he’s Dead’” Na’z’ez continued. "I allowed myself to be killed, and converted. A choice that I made freely. I was ill-informed though, as it turned out. I thought that doing this would offer benefits. And don’t get me wrong, it does. I no longer need to sleep, or eat. I no longer have to breathe. I don’t get sick. And, as far as existing goes, it’s really very, very difficult for me to die.
“All, at least in what was my young and very, VERY naive mind, improvements on mortality. However, what I wasn’t told, is that the people who put me through this process were cultists of the Evil Warmonger.” She shrugged. “Some sort of ‘recruitment drive’, i guess. I was made to serve. Near the end of the conversion process, there is a crystal that is inserted into the back of the neck, at the base of the skull. Through that, the Warmonger issues it’s orders. And through that crystal, we are artificially given an extraordinarily strong desire to carry out those orders.”
Na’z’ez paused at a doorway and watched a small group of children playing outside for a moment. “Orders, for example, if i were still in it’s service, would have me kill those children. For no reason, other than that they lived.” She looked at Tla’al, an expression of great sorrow on her face. And when she spoke, her voice was hollow. “I was forced to kill hundreds. If not to expand the ranks of soldiers, then it was for no reason. Just because.”
She shook her head, cleared her throat, and continued walking. “Krodnok’s path to service, however, was different. The village in which he lived was attacked and destroyed by the Church of One. Every inhabitant of that village was killed and left. Homes were burned, everything destroyed.” She cast a sideways glance at Tla’al. “You know how Earthers can be.”
“The site was later found by what is now Warmongers primary force, the Unit 111. They gathered corpses, and took them to conversion facilities. The process is slightly different, i think, in a facility, but the result is about the same. Crystal, convert, control. Krodnok now belonged to the Warmonger.”
She nodded in greeting as they moved past a pair of people on the stairs leading to the second floor. A balcony overlooked the main entrance and front room on the first floor. There were more rooms up here, and more Olgogs. More praying, more talking. More learning. "Krodnok served Warmonger for two decades. For every one i killed in my fifteen years of service, he killed three. Until he ‘earned’ a position leading his own Unit.
"He wasn’t ‘the favorite’ of the Beast, but as for as that list goes, he was near the top. Important missions went to him and his Unit. They were called on less for random destruction, and more for the jobs that had a ‘purpose’. And he was exceedingly good at it. Most missions his Unit received, he was the forward force, the rest of the Unit was just backup. And he’s like that, still to this day.
"I was in my fifth year of service when Krodnok escaped. From how he’s told it, it was akin to ‘waking up’. The desire to serve was just, gone. I don’t know if his crystal just malfunctioned or cracked or something, nor does he. I do know that the first thing he did with his freedom was to break the crystal. Just in case.
"The second thing he did was to find his daughter, Lotara. She had died, the same day he had, and was one of the corpses Unit 111 salvaged. She had been made a Surgeon, and was one of those who converted the deceased, and turned them into Dead soldiers. He found her, shattered her crystal, and they fled.
Na’z’ez stopped walking, turned to face Tla’al, crossed her arms across her torso, and leaned against the railing at the balcony. “He now works to remove the Warmonger from existence. We put our faith in Krodnok, because we believe he is different, special. I myself served for fifteen years, and have been free for ten. And in all that time, i have never heard of another Olgog who, in full and complete service to the Warmonger, just ‘woke up’ for no reason. It doesn’t happen. But he did it. And it is that fact, that has us believe that he is the only one who can permanently rid us of the plauge we call the Warmonger.”
She heard the front door open behind her, and turned her head to watch a few guests leave. Then, Na’z’ez turned her head back and looked at Tla’al. “Have i answered your question? If so, please, what would you like to know next?”
Tla’al looked at her host. Ok, she thought to herself, he’s a leader. But why form a cult?
“That’s interesting. I see why you follow him as a leader. But why a god?”
When Tla’al said the word ‘god’, Na’z’ez laughed loudly. "Krodnok is not a god. Far from it, in fact. However, those of us who follow him, we recognize that he has something that we don’t. We don’t know exactly what IT is, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’s what allowed him to escape the Warmongers’ control. And is what makes him worthy of our faith.
She nodded to a group of priests and followers who passed where she and Tla’al were standing. “Krodnok is not a god. He’s a focus for our faith, our devotion. We’ll follow him as far as he asks us to.”
Tla’al was confused, and looked it. How do you focus faith and devotion on something and not elevate it to a god? At least, that’s what Urog always said. “How do you put faith in something without making it a god? Doesn’t devotion, like, mean godlike??”
Na’z’ez smiled softly. “No, my dear. Not necessarily. Gods aren’t the only beings you devote yourselves to. Family, comrades… Devotion is nothing but the showing of love, of belief, of loyalty… Krodnok is the person we choose to devote ourselfves to.”
Na’z’ez continued to smile. “What do we get out of it? Let me ask you this… You came in, thinking we worshiped Krodnok as a god. Now you know that we don’t. Instead, we devote ourselved to a living person, like we would a member of our family, or a freind.”
“When you, yourself, devote yourself to someone like that, what do you get out of it?”