We Follow the Leader - Dystopian Progression Fantasy

Watching the magents interact with one another, Dolor realized Schmal must be the superior officer. Otherwise, he wouldn't be indulging in this sadistic banter so freely.

“You see, young Dolor, word is, there was another reason your late father had fallen out with the Leader. Not the official one that was given in the media” Schmal was very interested in telling this story, which made Dolor think that what he was about to hear from Schmal would be bad enough to warrant the sadistic SSB elf delaying Dolor’s execution.

“Really? And what was that? Wasn’t it because my old man was worried about the Leader betraying the ideals of the Revolt?” Dolor asked provocatively.

The sight of the magents’ uniform brought back memories—ghosts of his father being dragged away. Dolor could still hear his mother’s screams, her voice breaking as the SSB magents restrained her with spells. His father’s last look, the words lost in the chaos... From what his mother told him later, Constans, who was manaless just like the ninety-five percent of the kingdom’s population, was one of the early supporters of the Conclave Revolt of 9871 and of Artifex Crudele. Constans served as a colonel in one of the Royal Artillery regiments and had always sympathized with the plight of the magekind, many of whom, including Crudele, had served alongside Constans in the Royal Army. Magekind’s use and possession of mana had been outlawed under the threat of death by the Royal Family. Nobody knows why exactly the Royal Family banned the use of all magic and ruthlessly persecuted any potential person who possessed mana. Some say it was because the first King of Lestralla received a prophecy that said that the rule of his family would fall by the hand of one of the magekind, some say it was because the Royals recognized the power of magic and thus sought to keep its practice strictly prohibited to anyone who was not a member of the Royal Family or was under their control. The paranoia had gotten so bad among the Royals that they created registries of families with aptitude for magic and each child born into the family would receive an injection of a special mana-suppressant which would prevent these children, or their future descendants, from using any magic. By the time of the Conclave Revolt, only five percent of the Lestrallan population could use magic, mostly the Royal Family or those under their control. The magekind eventually ended up overthrowing the monarchy, as it was allegedly foretold, and Dolor’s father ended up being honored by the Leader as “one of the many manaless allies who helped ensure the victory of the just struggle against the tyranny of inequality and oppression of the magekind”. These, like most of what the Leader had said during his life, were merely words with not much substance behind them, as the oppression against the magekind was quickly supplanted by policies promoting the oppression of the manaless majority by the ruling magekind minority.

This was, as far as Dolor was told by his mother, the reason for the falling out between Constans and Crudele. Constans, being manaless himself, raised concerns about the policies aimed at the wholesale imprisonment of the former manaless elites, even those who were supportive of the Conclave Revolt, and the increasing surveillance and discriminatory treatment of the manaless population of the Free Republic. Crudele supposedly told Constans he valued his opinion as a friend and a comrade and thanked him for helping him stay on the right path and not veer off the revolutionary ideals that had led them thus far. However, three days after that meeting, the SSB showed up at the Patiens' residence and escorted Constans away. His friendship with the Leader, many medals earned for Achievements for the Benefit of the State, and his support for the Conclave since the early days of the Revolt meant nothing. Two weeks after his father’s swift secret trial and imprisonment, Dolor would learn that Constans was stabbed to death in his holding cell by an inmate who somehow got an assassin’s magic dagger that could strike foes from a distance without approaching their target. That very dagger was delivered to their family home along with an official state letter notifying the family of “Great Ally and Loyal Friend of the Revolt Constans Patiens” of his untimely passing in his prison cell. Dolor’s mother started whimpering as she was reading the letter.

The sight of the bloody dagger that came with the letter and that killed her husband, with his dried blood still adorning the blade, sent Nathalia Patiens over the edge and caused her to have a breakdown. Her mind succumbed to madness, and she locked herself in the room for several days, attempting to dissolve her sorrow in the cheap alcohol she spent the last mana ticket on. Dolor attempted to console his mother, take care of her, and nurse her back to health. She recovered temporarily after spending several years in a state of absolute apathy and indifference toward her own fate and the fate of her son. She would spend most of her waking hours drinking or talking to herself and only rarely would she speak to Dolor, warning him to “stay low” and “not go against the Conclave” to avoid repeating the fate of his father. She would die several years later, ostensibly from severe depression and liver damage. “The dagger was sent as a warning,” thought Dolor “They wanted to ensure that she and I would learn what happens to those who go against the Conclave and the Leader.”

Dolor tried to collect his increasingly scattering thoughts once again. Schmal and Mons were SSB magents. Just like the ones who took his father twenty years ago. They were here to purge him, to kill him on a trumped-up political disloyalty charge, and to leave his body to rot in a nameless frozen ditch in some back alley, just to appease the Leader’s increasing paranoia. He had to get it together and think of a way out of this situation.

Schmal’s voice took on a mocking tone, dripping with false sympathy. “Your dear late father—Constans Patiens, the great ally of the Revolt, the shining beacon of manaless loyalty—he was a bit of a cuckold, if I say so myself. And your dear late mama? Well, let’s just say she was quite popular with our Leader and even some of our closest allies at the Conclave.” Schmal grinned, his eyes gleaming with twisted delight. “Yes, indeed. Word around the Office is that your mother had often visited the Leader’s study late at night. I was told that her moans were loud enough for the entire first floor to hear. And can you blame her? Our Leader must be packing some serious heat down there if you ask me!”

Dolor’s hands clenched behind his back, his nails digging into his palms. Rage boiled in his chest, each of Schmal’s words like another knife twisting inside him. The cold air burned his lungs as he struggled to steady his breath.

“Why, might you ask? Why would a proud and distinguished man, or at least as distinguished and proud as a manaless man can be, let his wife become the Leader’s personal on-call whore and not make a fuss about it, when everyone knew about their affair? Was it perhaps because old Constans was a sexual degenerate, as befits the manalaess scum like him, and enjoyed sharing his wife?” Schmal leaned in closer, his grin widening like a predator. “Perhaps, but the main reason was because your father, as he said it himself, didn’t want to betray the ideals of the Revolt!” Schmal burst into laughter, stepping back and almost doubling over. “The great Constans Patiens sacrificed his pride and his family for the greater good of the Revolt, only to be put down like a rabid dog. That’s loyalty to the cause, Dolor. We could all learn a thing or two from your old man!”

Schmal wiped a tear from his eye, still chuckling. “And then, when your mother decided she’d had enough of being known as the biggest whore of the Conclave, she finally settled for your father shortly after you were born. But jealousy is a dangerous thing, young Dolor. The Leader didn’t enjoy losing his favorite toy, even though he had access to any man, woman, or Conclave, forgive me, child in the Republic. So, he got rid of the competition. He had the Bureau take care of it, you know, allegedly. Sent your daddy to a filthy cell, and had the Bureau sneak in a magicarm to one inmate with a grudge against your old man and…well, I am sure you know the rest. But just in case you don’t or need a quick refresher, your father died in hellish agony as the magic-user manipulated the dagger through the cell bars and stabbed your father sixty-four times while he was asleep. They say the mage used the now-strictly prohibited Red magic to give the stabbing a little extra oomph.”

He paused, savoring Dolor’s silence, letting his words hang in the cold air. “You know, Dolor, if the Leader offered to fuck me or my wife, I’d take it in a heartbeat too. Anything for the Benefit of the State, right? We Follow the Leader, even if it means letting the Leader have his way with us both physically and metaphorically. I am sure you must be intimately familiar with the feeling you used to be frontline cannon fodder after all!” Schmal laughed again, his voice echoing in the cold night.

Dolor was still stunned; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was his punishment for something his parents did in their love life. He did nothing to deserve this. The reason for all his pain and suffering since his childhood and the reason for the suffering of his family…all of that just because of some young love affair between his mother and the Leader. It was not some fundamental issue between his father and Crudele, irreconcilable ideological dispute, or the threat of Crudele losing power to Constans, but merely a love interest for his mother Nathalie.

“The dagger!” Dolor suddenly thought to himself, finally snapping back to his immediate task of survival. “I still have the dagger!” Yes, the same dagger that was used to kill his father in prison and sent to him as a warning. He carried it around all these years in vain hopes that he could sell it to a fence for a decent price, as he could not use it anyway. Despite being a bladed weapon, the dagger was still a magicarm and could only be used to its full potential by a member of the magekind. “The dagger is sheathed and attached to my belt, which these two took off my body as soon as they used that knockout Purple spell on me when I left the bar,” Dolor thought to himself disappointingly as his memory slowly returned with the diminishing effects of the spell that Schmal and Mons used to ambush him and tie him. “Well, that’s of no fucking use to me, is it?” Dolor was making peace with his situation, now fully convinced that his life would end on this snowy backstreet of a Capital City bar. No big deal, just another nameless internal enemy of the people shot through the back of his head with a signature SSB Purple lightning bolt spell.

“I had done nothing but show my loyalty to the Conclave and the Leader, despite all that I suffered in their name,” Dolor was slowly losing himself in the swelling rage. “And this is how the Leader pays back his loyal soldiers and citizens? Those who only sought to stay out his and the State’s way and to contribute to the Bright Future despite being manaless?” Dolor queried to himself. “I wish I was not born manaless,” he thought clenching his tied-up fists behind his back “It has brought me nothing but grief.” “I wish I had the power to wipe that psychotic shit-eating grin off the elf’s face,” Dolor was feeling the rage welling up inside him, “I wish, I could pay them back for all this undeserved pain and suffering they’ve inflicted on me for something that was not even my fault!”

“Ok, are you done being a psychopath, Schmal? I have finished digging the hole,” Mons appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The orc was carrying a large agri-farm shovel covered in snow and dirt, which seemed tiny in his giant hands.

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing, Mons! Let’s just blow this bastard’s brains out and get out of here,” Schmal stated casually and with no interest in continuing Dolor’s mental or physical torture. The elf had his fun and was no longer interested in playing with a broken toy. “After all, I am akin to the Great Lestrallan Eagle, who hunts his prey when they are alive and are at their strongest, not a cowardly vulture, who mutilates mangled corpses for sustenance,” Schmal proclaimed proudly as Purple magic lightning bolts began dancing between the elf's fingers.

“Just shut the fuck up and do it, Schmal,” Mons insisted, his tusks bared in irritation, his eyes narrowing as he shook his head.

“Alright, my good man,” stated Schmal ceremoniously, as he slowly walked around the kneeling Dolor, until finally the elf was directly behind his prisoner’s back. “I am afraid it is time for you to die now,” Schmall slowly lifted his pistol-shaped hand and pointed his index finger at the back of Dolor’s head, using his thumb to imitate the cocking back of the invisible hammer. Time slowed. The air crackled with purple lightning, the hairs on his neck standing up as Schmal whispered, ‘Bang.’ Dolor’s breath was caught, and his heart was pounding. He wasn’t ready to die—not like this.