The Revolt

The Revolt is the first episode of Foribus Mentis Saga 5

## Summary:

Sometime between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a war occurred of which, mysteriously, there is no record.

In a humble village, a boy named Daniel is helping his family with farm work. His father complains that the taxes the villagers must pay to the king have increased and that if they are not paid, they could be imprisoned or even beheaded. To make matters worse, the weather in recent months has ruined the crops and plantations.

Meanwhile, at the castle, a man leading an angry mob violently enters the castle to kill the king for all his abuses. This man meets the king and promises him that if he resigns, he will help him escape quietly and tell the others that he is dead. Once he manages to get his group of henchmen soldiers, he decides to put the king to death under his view that he had brought misery to the kingdom because of his greed and tries to cause a riot. His plan was to keep the few remaining royal forces distracted so that no one could defend the king. When he was alone, Marbella enters the royal chamber with a dagger ready to commit murder, but the king tries to explain that the misery the kingdom was in was due to a series of unexplained factors that had been happening to its inhabitants and that he had been doing everything possible to maintain order in society. Marbella does not believe him and tries to kill him but, at that moment, foreign invading forces (who made a surprise attack on the country without knowing the internal mutiny that had been taking place) enter the palace and kill the sovereign with several bullets. They also shoot at Marbella, but he manages to dodge some of them and throws himself from the castle into the water, falling several meters.

After this event, the inhabitants of the village lived chaotic days due to the established oclocracy. Now without a king, some villagers continued with their routine life, happy for not having to pay taxes to the crown, but, while things were trying to be solved in the castle, now without guards the villagers began to rob each other and escape with the goods that once belonged to the royal family.

The plans Marbella had were contrary to maintaining the peace and prosperity he had promised to those who trusted him blindly. Once things were settled, Marbella sent the new royal guards to retrieve all the stolen jewels and goods since according to him "they were still the property of whoever ruled the castle". If it was necessary to kill those who objected, then it should be done.

Meanwhile, a woman with no identity is accused of stealing gold and is about to be hanged in a town square in full view of many onlookers. Even though she had not stolen anything, she no longer had the will to live because of how difficult her life had been and her lack of hope so she accepted the guilt and decided to die by hanging. While the executioners were preparing everything, the box Marianne was in broke and the process took a few minutes. The guards complained that everything was poorly constructed. In the meantime, one of the executioners decides that it can't be delayed any longer and they decide to kill the man first. Suddenly, as soon as the man is dead, a rebellion against the king arises and the town is scattered by the rebels' attacks, causing the trial to fail. Then, Marianne manages to crawl through the crowd and finds shelter in a small space between two houses.

Later, she manages to escape by mingling with the crowd and goes to a place farther away from the castle, which is where the highest concentration of people were attacking. It is there when she sees that some people were attacking a child. This causes Marianne to remember a similar situation from her childhood, in which she was beaten and abused by two guards. Mysteriously, Marianne seems to be able to channel this feeling of revenge into something physical. Extending her arm, she feels a small object run down the inside of her arm to her fingertips. Unconsciously, Marianne aims at the head of one of the men and pretends to fire a shot, as if it were a gun.

To her surprise, the solid object turns out to be some kind of invisible bullet that hits the man's head, killing him on the spot. This causes the man to look back to where she was and begins to threaten her. Marianne then proceeds to make the same move and kills the second guard.