Recruitment Propaganda.

At the base of the great fountain at the heart of his city Ulal starts laughing. Quietly at first, just a little snicker, but slowly escalating. No one is around to hear the Demonmagus exhibition of insanity as he laughs and laughs, his clawed hands stretched towards the midday sky. No one but Alratha of course. The assassin is watching her master with a smile as he continues to laugh excessively.

“All of this.” He screams, “All of this is mine.” He is pointing at the stream of people in the far off distance. “All of them. Mine. All of these buildings. Mine. All of the power. Mine. All MINE!” He chuckles one more time, his face hidden behind his gauntleted hand. “You know Alratha I will have to act a lot these coming days. I will have to get them to believe that I am just and merciful, that I love them as my citizens.” He takes down his hands and just smiles at the sun.

“Will you not be a just and merciful ruler?” Alratha asks, “If you act like you are and you treat them like you want them to believe it, wouldn’t that make you what you want them to believe you are?” Ulal glances at Alratha, the green and the red eye contrasting each other but connected by unending amusement. “How philosophical of you. Sounds a lot like Talsay’s play ‘The phony and the tyrant.’” Alratha grins, “Exactly. It is better to be ruled by a lying egomaniac than by an honest tyrant.” “I guess so.” Ulal agrees, “Let’s start this con then.”

Index and Middlefinger pressed against his Adam apple he clears his throat. Then he activates the enchantments in his armour. A heavy pulse of purple arcane energy goes through the runes and then echoes back from the gauntlet a few shades darker. The second pulse is a lot weaker as the tingle of magical energy on Ulal’s skin subsides and most enchantments fall into passivity.

“Dear new arrivals.” He says, his voice reverberating from the stone in a distorted way as the gauntlet connects to the magical circuit of the city. “I am Ulal, Lord-Regent and Creator of this space, the city of Ultopja.” He ignores Alratha as she breaks out laughing. “I congratulate all of you for making the sensible choice of going here instead of following a group of radicals. Now, to keep living in my city you will have to go through two easy steps. One, go to the new office that is currently being set up at the gate and fill out the documents. If you cannot write, grab somebody who can or tell the officials. Second, my apprentice Catherine will test all of you for magical potential.

Afterwards you have a few simple choices to make. If you want to keep working in whatever field you worked in before you came here or want to find out what jobs we need, Glenn is the one you want to talk to. If you want to learn to read and write come to the fountain in the middle of the city tomorrow after noon and speak to the officials.

I want to make this one thing very clear: I am a male and I do not intend to bow to Estarian law. This is an independent city state. We welcome all religions. We welcome all genders. We do not discriminate. Whatever crimes you committed in Estara are of no importance to me as long as you abide to the laws of my council.

If you want to keep it this way, if you want to defend these new ideals, you can join my military. You can find me at the heart of the city right now. I will be here until sundown so get your papers done first.

To all of you who want to join my military, see you soon, to the rest: Welcome in Ultopja.” He lowers his hand and stretches. “How was that?” Alratha is currently making a handstand on the edge of the fountain. “Okay, I guess.” She says and laughs at Ulal’s annoyed expression. “What? You are not the most charismatic guy in existence.” She looks at the people in the far off-distance. They are in turmoil as many of them try to get their papers as soon as possible and go meet that being that was able to spawn a city into existence. “But you have a very easy crowd.”

The sun is slowly drifting under the Wekgrond as Ulal goes over the last one of the potential recruits. The paper he holds is very orderly designed and the fields filled by Aclysia’s own handwriting. The immortal apparently made three copies of every paper, one for the person, one for the bureau and one for the archives. A very good idea as Ulal finds as this makes scanning people a lot easier than asking question.

He reads the paper quickly. Name, Former Occupation, Age, Height, Religion, Description of appearance and a lot of other information. “So, Hans.” ‘What an unfortunate name.’ Ulal thinks as he puts the paper down. The thin man in front of him is nervously wringing the edge of the ragged sack he calls a shirt.

The winged half demon in front of him has a calming smile but Hans knows that over half of the one-hundred people that came here were turned away. As such the calming smile does little against his wrecked nerves. “I don’t think you meet the standards I have in mind.” The thin sheepherder’s heart sinks a bit and he is getting ready to leave. “But I am willing to give you a chance. You will have to work harder than most others but I am confident you can make it. Are you willing to try?”

Hans straightens his back and gives a dull smile. “O’ Course, Lard.” Ulal barely keeps his eye from twitching in annoyance. Instead he hands back the paper with an encouraging expression. “Very good. Come to the District Imperja tomorrow morning. That is the tower at the back of the city.” He adds the last part after the recruit looks at him in confusion. “Now spend the rest of the evening however you like. Dismissed.” Ulal looks around to see if anyone else arrived in a hurry. The answer is no and with the sky slowly blackening Ulal turns towards three guys he has told to wait until he is done. All of them have a bulky build and although none of them look like much Ulal has picked them out for a simple reason.

They are in prime condition for fighting. Most of the other recruits, Ulal reckoned, would give up striving for greatnesss within two weeks or so and be content of being foot soldiers and archers. However, these three had the build, strength and, what he found out after a short exchange, the mind to be of potential use in his elite. Likely, all of them will give up as well but he needed to start somewhere and if even one of them stayed, it would be a lot of progress.

“Come with me.” “Oka, Lard.” ‘For the love of everything don’t talk.’ Ulal thinks and supresses a sigh as they walk towards the Imperja district. He guesses that the ‘Lard’ thing comes from saying Lady all the time, the title of Lord after all is more of a once in a hundred years out of ordinary honour and less an actual title. The uneducated masses likely have forgotten that the word exists after such a long time under female rule. Ulal would make sure to remind them of the word and it’s meaning in due time.

For now though he has to wonder where Alratha vanished to. During the trials she suddenly excused herself, grabbed somebody with a hood and pulled him away. Shame as well the person seemed very eager to talk to him, although his build was a bit thin for a man so it was unlikely for him to be accepted into his military.

‘Whatever she will come back eventually. Likely with a stupidly wide grin and a bad joke.’ He thinks as he walks over the bridge. Ulal makes his wings disappear, he had put them out for the effect, also because they kept people from encroaching him from the sides.

He finds Tang and the other recruit doing push-ups. “You have exchanged your training a bit I see.” Ulal says, “Legs got to tired.” Tang says and continues the exercise. “With weapon training missing I suggested other arm exercise.” “A very good thought Tang. You are also quick to assume responsibility. I like that.” “Who are they?” Tang asks and puts a stop to his movements to point at the other three newcomers. “These are three new recruits for my elite. They will train with you from now on.” Tang looks them up and down. “Okay.”

Ulal takes the now unused third table and transmutes it into five wooden swords. “Take one each.” He commands, “We will make a few basic movements today. Tang I put you in charge of them afterwards. You will make sure everyone follows the training regimen while I am pre-occupied from tomorrow onwards. Understood?” “Yes, Lord Ulal.” The Demonmagus takes a deep breath ‘The sweetness of correct pronunciation.’ He extends his right, human, arm and his axe materializes.

The demonic weapon work has the intended awe inspiring effect on the newcomers as he easily weighs the enormous weapon in one hand. “So, the correct way to execute an overhead strike…”

The training stops only after the first person collapses in the middle of the night. To Ulal’s not surprise it was Tang. The man worked harder than everyone else but apparently his will was stronger than his body. To Ulal this is a good thing of course, bodies he can reinforce but wills he can only break. “I wonder if my, that being Uklag’s, sister is able to do reinforce minds.” He mumbles as he walks up the stairs towards his room. He doesn’t need to sleep but napping a bit every day during the boring night hours makes it unnecessary to sleep for an extended period of time instead. At least that is the theory and it seems to work thus far.

He disrobes and lies into his bed, alone. Catherine is preoccupied in the Arcana district, Aclysia with the bureaucratic work, or her experiments and Alratha is still missing. For a moment he is tempted to call for the twins just to have some fun before sleeping but he discards that thought as quickly as it came. Ulal closes his eyes, ready to fall into the embrace of sleep when he hears a knock on his door.