Province of Pergamon

While I was waiting in Pergamon to incorporate the conquered territories, our fleet was securing the coast and I was receiving new pigeons every new day. It seemed that the fleet took down four coastal castles and occupied numerous towns, and they were on their way to attack the biggest town as well as the island in the region, Chios.

After the newly raised troops and the supplies arrived from Alta through Nicea, I tasked Sir Thalandir to take the majority of the troops, and most of the artillery except for my bodyguard and the newly arrived force and secure the rest of the country as well as the borders.

Apart from the administrative intuitions and public courts, I also planted a seed of the World Tree in Pergamon too. Though the height of the World Tree in Pergamon was only 100 meters, the appearance of the tree remained majestic. In front of the tree, the missionaries, the priests, and even I myself gave speeches and performed the minor healing spells, and taught people how to perform the auxiliary life support spell on themselves, which was basically yoga... The Goddess had a really good laugh about that. She was silent throughout the whole conflict and only reacted after the conflict was resolved. I suppose it was her consideration to leave everything to me, but there were times when she seemed to be in a really good mood. It felt to me that she seemed to be a bit mischievous like a kid who prepared a prank and was waiting for their victim to fall for it.

The missionary work was quick and the majority of the city converted soon after. There was of course an element of fear in there too, as most of my soldiers were clad in armor too advanced for the era, and the presence of a fully armored Paladin was truly intimidating, yet the newly incorporated beliefs of humanism, and the notion of just law and the "innocent civilian" concept made a huge difference in treatment of the civilians by my soldiers. Majority of human history, wars were waged at the expense of the poor peasantry, and the notion that an invading army shouldn't plunder the land they conquered would've been as bizarre an idea as the idea of Earth being flat. I instilled in them those notions slowly and in stages, with miracles to distract and deepen their faith in me and the Goddess. Instead of shouting and scaring non-believers with the notion of hell and the reward of heaven, the missionaries of Alta talks about unity, fairness, and comfort on Earth, while being supported by institutions that I made available to them.

I took my time during this period to drill the newly recruited troops and the motivated soldiers among the volunteers and organize them into a tercio unit. At the same time, I recruited locals to guard the city of Pergamon, which was to be the capital of the province of Pergamon. The locals were recruited as Alta's soldiers and were trained under the sergeants of the army of Alta and were equipped with the same equipment as that of the guards of the core provinces of Alta. I also sent these local recruits as well as missionaries to other lands in the province that Sir Thalandir took control of.

I was also welcoming the lords and governors of the towns that surrendered to me without a fight. Their faces upon seeing the 100-meter-long copy of the World Tree were worth a thousand golds. After I accepted their surrender, I instructed them to learn Alta's methods of governance and told them to be given a brief education in Pergamon, as well as ordered civil servants to be sent to these provinces to ensure that the transition to the system of governance of Alta proceeds without a problem. I told these new vassals that their power to influence law and order will be minimal and that their role in governance will be to mainly organize and double-check the overall process and that they now were subject to the same laws that the commoners obeyed and their right to hold private soldiers as bodyguards were limited, and lastly the serfdom was abolished in their lands. They were obviously displeased, so I told them that they and their families, in turn for giving their power in legislation and governance, were given certain rights to operate and control some of the future facilities that will operate in their home regions, such as paper and soap factories, poultry, meat, and dairy farms. The presented conditions didn't satisfy all of them, but I had no intention of satisfying any of them in the first place. They were lucky I didn't stumble to my emotions and beheaded them at sight. The sight of self-entitled people claiming they cannot be subject to the same laws as others were sickening to me. It reminded me of my parents looking annoyed at the troubles of ordinary people as if they were so much greater than them. And yet it was they and their kinds who were the most shameless. I still remember the fact that a neighboring country's president, who was supported by the country my parents worked for, stole countless treasures from a world-famous palace. Clowns.

It wasn't all smooth sailing though. Some of the castles and towns resisted, and others switched allegiances to other powers in the region. The castles and towns that resisted were put under siege and conquered, then the ruling aristocrats were sent to me, where I made them be charged with the defiance of orders as technically my father was the new lord of Pergamon as we captured their King, and transferred the authority. The trials were conducted not by me, but by judges and we allowed anyone regardless of their status to testify against and for them. The trial also included the judgment on their lordship and corruption. It was there that we tested the newly invented lie/ emotion detector that my scholars and I theorized about and then experimented on. The person being judged would sit in a metal chair with an extended metal wire that was connected to a small scale held by a figure of a Goddess blindfolded, symbolizing fairness and a judge would read the crimes that they are judged for and they were asked numerous questions which they could only answer "yes" or "no" unless the judge asked them to explain further. The chair as well as the scales were enchanted with a magic spell that checks the natural flow of magic in a human's body and only reacts to the abnormal flows and broken frequencies when telling a lie. We know what the frequency of magic when lying is because we tested it with numerous people from all parts of life. Such as asking a guard if they drank while patrolling the city, and if they lied then we recorded the behavior of the magic. We recorded the response from the heaviest of crimes to the slightest irresponsibilities. We also have plans to introduce a slightly less serious system to check the bureaucracy and install a sense of fear among the populace that even the slightest of corruption can be traced and known. The part of the scale and the Goddess' blindfolded statue helps with the theatricality of the whole court. The Goddess loved the idea as the voices of her laughter sounded as if she was rolling on the floor from laughter.