Roko stood in front of the doors to his least favorite person in the school. Unfortunately she was still the boss and it's been a while since he arrived back so he should probably report in already. So he opened the door.
"Roko!" Zadkiel welcomed him with open arms, "It's been so long!"
"Mmhm."
"Ah, it truly is like the people say. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder."
Roko didn't answer for that one.
"So I've read your reports and I have to say, I'm quite proud of what you've done. Your achievements are piling up like gold for a dragon!"
"Mmhm."
"And so, I would like tell you that I've decided to give you my full trust."
Roko had a lot to say but chose to not reply.
"However..." Zadkiel said, "And don't get mad at me immediately all right? I hear you've got new powers and I'd like a final demonstration of your new abilities before I reveal to you everything."
"Mm."
"...So...how does leading an entire rebellion sound?"
"Mhm." Roko turned and began to walk away.
"AH, not so fast! I'm afraid your usual travel companions still have some exams to catch up on after their trip. So I'm going to have to ask you to bring only one of them with you at the beginning. The rest are allowed to come with you. Just...after they catch up."
"Mm."
And then Roko left.
"...What a productive conversation."
"You ever feel like you never stay in one place for long?"
"That's what happens when you don't have a home."
"I mean you can always settle down somewhere."
"I don't have the money."
"You've been here how long and you still haven't made any money?"
"Not for lack of trying." Roko scowled, "And I've made SOME money, just...not quite enough."
"You know any one of us would be willing to set you up in one of our countries."
"I'm aware." Roko sighed as he put down his binoculars, "Anyway, I think I have a good layout of this city now. Let's get going."
"Let's." Momo grinned.
The moment the two walked into the city, they could see a big entry sign stating, "Welcome to Mulapin! Let us live together under the stars!" With an old looking map that had been vandalized. A big black line had been spray painted over the map cutting the city right down the middle. An unprofessional correction as this line now represented the sizable wall that had been built to clearly divide the city. A no surer sign of the corruption that had gone down since the city's inception. There were even guard stalls built into the sides of the gate they entered that were not manned and probably haven't been manned in a long time. Walking into the actual streets, poverty was written across the walls and floors of every building they could see. While not quite a city of dilapidation, the houses were clearly not particularly well cared for and were barely keeping out the elements. Few people roamed the dirty, unkempt streets and the rickety stalls selling daily necessities were barely getting customers.
"Wow, you can tell just by looking this place needs a rebellion." Momo smirked.
"Maybe don't talk about government upheaval so openly." Roko said, "Now come on, we've got places to go."
"I kinda want to try these kebabs though." Momo said, already at one of the stalls, "How much for a skewer, sir?"
"120 gold." The stall owner replied in a drained, emotionless voice.
"I'll take two. Here's 500 gold. Keep the change."
The stall owner looked at her sudden windfall with shock so intense, one could think the gold were hot coals instead.
"You're not one for subtlety are you?" Roko frowned as Momo returned with the food.
"First impressions are important." Momo smiled, a hint of mischievousness in her eyes as she handed Roko one of the skewers.
"Well, we better finish these before we enter the sewers." Roko said as he began eating their little snack, "I have a feeling we're going to lose our appetite once we get there."
Down a manhole cover and into a wide sewer complex, Roko followed the directions given to him by Zadkiel, opened a door with a key provided by him and entered a darker part of the sewer, lit only by sporadic torches. There he found a wooden door and opened it into an empty room. There was a board with several pieces of paper attached to it, including a more modern map of the city. Plans and observations were written in the accompanying notes that Roko took a quick glance through. A table sat in the middle with a few more documents and crates of unknown contents scattered around the room.
"Looks like nobody's home." Momo noted the obvious.
"Well, this place only has a light layer of dust over it so it's probably still used to some extent." Roko said as he plopped down on a chair at the meeting table, picking up some documents to read as he propped his legs up on the desk.
"You're taking this pretty casually."
"Well, it's not the first time I'm dealing with a rebellion in the sewers." Roko replied, "First time on the rebellion's side though. At least this sewer smells better."
"True."
The door to the room suddenly burst open and a lone figure darted into the room, charging right at Roko before stopping in front of the table to hold a crossbow up at his head.
"Who are you?" This woman demanded.
"I'm the help Zadkiel sent you." Roko replied casually, "You've been informed of me, I heard?"
"...That doesn't answer my question."
"I'm Roko." Roko handed the documents back towards the woman, "My companion's name is Momo. Let's talk more peacefully before Momo cuts off your head okay?"
The woman now took notice of the sword that had been pressed against her throat ever since she charged in. Momo held her weapon close to the intruder's neck, not quite drawing blood yet but one sudden movement from either of them could easily change that.
"We're here to help." Momo smiled reassuringly, "So give us a chance, why don't you?"
The rebel quietly considered her limited options and slowly drew her crossbow back. Momo relaxed her sword as she did until they were all now standing a comfortable distance from each other.
"I'm Azimuth." The woman pulled back her scarf to reveal the rest of her face, "I'm the rebellion, The Earthbounds' leader."
"Nice to meet you." Roko replied, "Now, if I have your trust, I'd like to see the rest of your facilities in order to get a good measure of where your rebellion's at in terms of organization."
"You think you can waltz in here and demand us to reveal all our secrets?" Azimuth scowled.
"From what I hear you don't really have a choice."
"Even still, I can't just trust you. I have people to look after."
"And what should I do to earn your trust? You're aware of your situation. You're aware of my situation. I can give you as many empty comforts as your want but that will do nothing to get us any further. So what more do you want?"
"..." Azimuth didn't respond for a moment as she considered her options.
"Chop chop." Roko clapped his hands, "Time's a wasting."
"Ability." Azimuth responded, "I want an idea of what skills you can offer."
"Capability you say?" Roko replied, "Well I'm sure you're well aware of Momo's abilities. She is the crown princess of Momokami so there's no need to question her credentials, I hope."
"You flatter me." Momo said modestly as she sheathed her sword.
"So I'm assuming I'm the nobody you want information on." Roko replied, "Am I right?"
"..."
"Very well. This space is a public meeting room disguised as a central meeting room. The information on the board and in these documents go back several years meaning that your rebellion's probably gone through a generation or two of leaders already. Probably more depending on how bloody this fight's been for you. This meeting room was meant for you to meet up with people outside of the organization with, In a safe enough space away from the main headquarters while giving off a false measure of where you're at as an organization. The dust proves how long it's been since you've had to use this room. You haven't found support in a while. Long enough for this place to get just a bit of dust that you couldn't tidy up before we showed up. The bigger concern were the lights, keeping as few lit as possible to show us the way while hiding your presence. After all, you have no back up with you. Perhaps you wanted more to back you up but none felt well enough to bother with this endeavor. That's just a total guess on my part though. All I know for certain is that you are alone right now. Something I confirmed with my analyze map spell. However, I feel confident in my scenario as the space here has signs of blind spots meant to hide more people. The alignment of the crates and the fact that these crates are packed with sandbags point to that conclusion, along with the clear particles of sand that have leaked out from these crates in the time they've spend unused. If you did have even one person to ambush us, the smart move would have been to meet us directly. Instead, you came in with crossbow in hand to pry as much information out of us as fast as possible. You're here out of duty but you're alone because you've lost the faith of your people. Care to confirm the second half of that statement for me?"
Azimuth was shocked for a while but the more Roko talked, the more her expression hardened again. By the end of it, her face had been frozen into a mask of unpleasant anger to try and hide her real feelings.
"...You pass." She said shortly, turning away from her would be collaborators, "I'll show you to our main base."
And with that she quietly stormed out of the room. Momo exchanged glances with Roko who simply shrugged and got up, following the leader out into the darkness of the sewer.
After turning a few dark corners, the sewer actually did brighten up significantly with streams of sunlight peeking out from overhead grates, meaning they've broken out to underneath the main street. But the further they followed Azimuth, the brighter it got until they came up to a cistern, a cavern with a large hole in the ceiling to allow in rainwater while to the sides were a series of doors leading to other rooms.
"The sewer smell's pretty much gone now." Momo noted as they approached this underground square.
"The river this city uses to run its sewer system isn't exactly strong enough for everything we have to use it for." Azimuth explained, "This cistern was made to collect rainwater to add to the system but was sealed away when we started having floods a long time ago. The rebellion just opened it back up and repurposed and expanded the maintenance rooms for our own purposes."
As they approached, Roko could see that the water in the cistern was crystal clear and even had a few small boats tied to small posts on the sides. People were bustling about with more life down here than above ground. Even happier than those that were above ground. It was a peculiar juxtaposition.
"Azimuth!" A few children ran up and hugged the legs of their leader, "Did you get any new toys? Any new foods?"
"Not today children." Azimuth said with a up to now unseen tenderness in her voice, "Just more mouths to feed."
"Whoa, this big sister looks strong!" One of the kids said as they crowded around Momo.
"Big brother, are you strong?" One of the children asked Roko.
"I'm...not really..." Roko said, unsure of how to handle children. At least...for children this young.
"Leave them alone for now, kids." Azimuth called, "I still have business with them."
"Kay!" The kids said as they cheerfully moved on to a different room.
Following Azimuth again, the three entered through a different door into a crude looking hallway with more doors, Azimuth guiding them to a final room near the end of the hall. Walking into a much cleaner, well lit and well stocked meeting room, Azimuth removed the heavy cloak she had been wearing and threw it on top of a chest, revealing a set of casual dress shirt and pants underneath thin leather armor. If it could be called armor. It was thin and more stylish than it was practical, at least in combat. Her leather bracers and greaves were doing all the heavy lifting to qualify it as armor but the rest of her outfit was left so exposed that Roko had to believe this must not be their usual combat attire. Azimuth took a seat around a much better crafted circular table and sighed, "Now. I'm sure you've been informed but I want to make sure of how much. What do you know of our situation?"
"Well, a few years ago, a famous merchant set roots here." Momo began as the two took a seat, "This merchant, Sirius von Sol took over more and more of the city until he set himself up as a sort of pseudo king and split the city in two, hoarding all the opulence to his own half of the city."
"That'd be Muldingirmus." Azimuth nodded, "And Sirius' full name is actually Regent Atria Sirius auf Eltanin de Vega von Sol.
"What the hell's that name?" Momo grinned, "That's long as hell."
"Regardless, from there he only made things worse for the remaining half of the city." Roko continued, "Taxes, policies and price hikes. He only widened the class gap between the city and sealed away the dissenters. There was nothing left for the commonfolk to do but rebel."
"You make it sound so easy." Azimuth shook her head, "In truth, it took years to organize a rebellion. Even with such a wretched person in charge, people aren't immediately willing to pick up weapons and risk their life to kill another. Even now, the comfort we fought for in our base has pacified many of our members. That and our recent string of failed missions has lost the morale of even our most committed members. The people meant to fight for our rights now want to keep what little peace we have. The rebellion has lost its way."
"I mean, frankly speaking, life here in the rebellion seems much nicer than the surface." Momo said, "No wonder people don't want to fight."
"Our previous leader was all about adding more numbers to our cause." Azimuth sighed, "'So long as there were people around, we will have the strength to keep trying and eventually win' was the idea."
"It's not wrong per say." Roko shrugged, "However this is an odd amount of creature comforts for a military group."
"I can't say I'm not responsible for that." Azimuth rubbed her temple, "Once the rebellion grew old enough that members were starting to have babies, there was an overwhelming demand for all sorts of unnecessary things."
"I'm surprised you managed to provide them." Momo blinked.
"The last head was surprisingly resourceful." Azimuth shrugged.
"Now tell me." Roko said, "What was the last important battle that you fought?"
"That'd be the retaking of Fort M48." Azimuth answered, "Or at least… the attempted retaking. It's a guard base near the wall, Minchir, on the Muldingirmus side. It was given to us by its captain, a sympathizer that we owed a lot to as he slowly replaced its staff with ours and covered up for our activities. It was our way into Muldingirmus and losing it meant we could no longer launch any attacks on their home turf. We tried retaking it but we couldn't beat them and had to retreat."
"Then our first mission will be to retake that base." Roko said as he got up.
"If WE can't do it, what makes you think you can?" Azimuth scoffed.
"Well, that'll depend on what I find out about your organization." Roko said as he walked over to the door, "Day's getting late and I need to find out as much of your organization as possible."
"Don't overwork yourself!" Momo called as Roko left.
Roko spent the rest of the day getting familiar with the rebellion's base. What was a small cistern concealed considerable hallways behind their doors which then lead into even more rooms of surprisingly size. It was not nearly as large as Ereshkigal's cave that everyone worked on but it was much more organized and easier to navigate. Roko found their armory and quickly took stock of their equipment. Then he simply wandered around a bit, observing the people wandering around living their lives and the mostly empty training room with only a few dedicated soldiers continuing their practice. Finally he returned to the meeting room to read as much about The Earthbounds' structure and history as possible. And when Momo finally went to find him for dinner at their dining hall, it was time to report in over a bowl of simple meat with mixed vegetables stew.
"So?" Momo asked, "What did you find out?"
"Thankfully The Earthbounds have better armor than I was dreading." Roko sighed, "Both armor and weapons are there in plenty enough quantity and at good enough quality. No named swords here but there should be no problem putting up a fight even with a few members."
"And the problem?"
"The problem is these people really are too peaceful." Roko scowled, "I've seen more adults playing with kids than training which is unacceptable for a military organization."
"I tried talking to them." Momo nodded, "And the idea of continuing their rebellion seems to be pretty unpleasant to most of them. Even when I told them that Regent Sirius wouldn't allow this level of comfort should they leave the rebellion, they were still resistant."
"I was mistaken." Roko growled, "It's not that nobody believes in Azimuth, it's that no one believes in this rebellion anymore."
"Peace is one hell of a drug." Momo nodded.
"I don't think we'll even be able to scrape together a good enough band to attempt another retaking unless something changes. I'll have to start talking to some of them about what it is they want to continue fighting. God that's going to be such a pain to quantify."
"Good luck with that." Momo smiled, "I've already been hearing talk about this mean looking strange man that just stares at them before writing furiously into a notebook."
"Like I care about what any of them thinks of me." Roko retorted, "I'll do whatever I have to do to drag this rebellion's heels out of the ground."
"I'll help." Momo nodded, "Though all I can really do right now is offer combat lessons at their training room. That's if anyone even wants to attend."
"I'll make them attend."
"You're much more forceful than usual."
"My job is to make this rebellion succeed and by blood or miracle, I will make that happen."