With the invaders gone, Petrió could once again send people to the city to take it back and rebuild the place. It couldn’t be considered a city in its current state, so he sent soldiers, carpenters, woodcutters and a few architects in order to rebuild what was necessary in a safe environment.

As soon as the place was more or less ready, Petrió opened the migration to the city, giving preference to the ones that had to escape from the town. The first thousand people to migrate would be able to get a “free” home, as in they didn’t need to purchase it, but they had to pay an increased tax for a year if their new home wasn’t originally theirs.

If it was, however, they could get it back for free, with no trouble or needing to pay for the new furniture he had gotten them, they paid their taxes for that and if he forced them to pay their sentiments against his enemies would turn to feelings against him. He had enough enemies outside of his territory and had no need of creating more within his lands.

The people were appeased, and the city actually grew in size, even though some of its previous citizens had perished and others had decided to move further inside the country, where they expected to be safer. Others unsuccessfully attempted to escape their country, yet they were stopped by border patrol, who either brought them back or made them go missing.

But he knew that people would manage to escape one way or another, people would fight the odds if they really felt like they needed something, so he started a propaganda campaign which would make people see him in a new light and support him, almost religiously. It was a way to replace religion, because people needed something to trust and if he still let religions go around and convince more and more people to join them, he might experience a coup. To prevent this, he installed a law that dictated that the religions could only work in cities where they had originally been in, so they couldn’t expand into multiple cities.

This helped his cause, but on some cities a lot of people were religious already and his command over them was dependent on keeping them happy, which wasn’t always easy, because they knew of their power and at times made outrageous petitions that, in the end, weren’t totally done but he ended up giving up more than what he was willing to give.

The eight cities where this situation occurred experienced the most turmoil with the current situation. Centuries of experience told them what was happening, Petrió taking the people from them, but alas he had already gotten too much power, just not the people. If they tried anything they might suffer harshly, but some thought that there was also a chance of the people allying with them and providing assistance.

This was the case with the religion that praised the beaver, who could no longer contact their god nor use their powers, yet over half the population of the city they lived in were at least somewhat into their religion, so they gathered some weapons and stormed the city’s administrative office, taking control of the city through violence and demanding to be freed from Petrió’s absolutist regime.

He, in consequence, sent an open letter for everyone in the city to inform him about his standpoint and to veer the public opinion, as he hadn’t written the letter, just signed it after a few corrections from his part, fixing some sentences with which he didn’t agree.

In this letter, he called out that the leaders of the “cult” of the god of the beaver were terrorists as they had taken the power by force, while there were democratic ways of getting their people into power. At the same time, he commented on the improvements that his government had brought to the city and how, both before and after the earthquake, the cultists had done the bare minimum for the rest of them.

The letter was left with an open question, to everyone and anyone who read it. The question that was at the end of the paper, with a different typography to highlight it more, read as follows: “Who do you prefer?”. A simple question, but now that most of the population could read, almost everyone could understand it, as was with the rest of the letter and its date limits for the terrorists to concede, or else.

But most people still didn’t have critical thinking and wouldn’t be able to compare the two situations that well, but some individuals who understood the situation better, preached in favor of one or the other side, depending on their beliefs.

The population quickly stopped its usual activities as this was the focus of the town for the next week. Groups emerged and the majority supported Petrió, mostly because they had gotten more opportunities with his government. Maybe the cult of the beaver would change, in order to make themselves appear better, but Petrió was a safer bet.

Still, there was a clear division within the population and a large part remained neutral still. The supporters of Petrió were about forty percent of the population, while the supporters or the beaver represented a thirty percent.

The remaining people hadn’t voiced support for one side or the other. This data was pretty trustworthy, having been repeated in many surveys throughout the week, though the section that changed was the neutral one, which originally represented a seventy percent, but was slowly withering to the two sides.

This meant that whoever managed to convince to the remaining thirty percent was guaranteed the existence, if Petrió respected the majority’s opinion, which he wouldn’t, but he preferred to be supported by the population than fight against it.

When it was time for the cult of the beaver to respond to the ultimatum and decide on whether to give the city back or not, the town was divided with half of the people supporting Petrió’s government, forty percent wanted the cult of the beaver back and the ten remaining percent were still undecided.

With so many people supporting them and convinced that they could fend the invaders off, they decided not to give the city back and fight to keep it instead, which caused some manifestations to arise, but they were repressed as soon as they appeared.

At the horizon of the next day, an army of over a thousand soldiers approached the city. It was late, but they were trained to continue working efficiently during harsh conditions. They set up different machines to invade the city, some typical siege weapons, but others were creations by his scientists. He wanted to send a message to all the cities and religions that wanted to rebel, they wouldn’t be able to free themselves from him.

As the sun started to light everything up, the guards of the city realized that the army had come and had come in great size. They called for an emergency call and wanted everyone ready to defend the city, but during the whole day they didn’t attack the city at all. They sent a letter offering a last chance to give up, which they clearly rejected and then continued waiting the attack. But it wouldn’t come until it was late at night and the people of the city would be tired. During the whole day, most of the soldiers following a general appointed by Petrió had been resting in order to prepare for this nightly raid.

The tired guards could barely defend themselves, but they managed to hurt some of the invaders, yet it wasn’t enough. The city fell back to its “rightful” ruler within three hours and the city was barely damaged, only sections of the wall had suffered, and the rest of the town was in mostly pristine conditions.

There was a small parade receiving the soldiers that had just invaded their town that the supporters of Petrió’s government had quickly organized, though there were some clear opposers from his presence, as was brought to light with some manifestations that blocked the path of the parade as well as the trash that was at times thrown at them.

Petrió would keep his stance with the city, governing it as he had done until then, but he would certainly change his behavior to the church of the beaver. First of all, he ordered there to be a change of authority, taking previous leaders out of power and inserting some partial supporters of him in the positions instead.

Secondly, they were no longer allowed to publish their own books and everything they wanted to publish had to pass through the government’s checkers. Third on the list of changes was the limitation of their public prayers; they’d only be allowed inside their buildings, so anyone who didn’t manage to get in wouldn’t be allowed to listen.

Lastly, all contact from them towards other cities had been completely banned. Petrió understood that they’d manage to get the information from somewhere, but he was stern in the fact that they shouldn’t and wouldn’t be able to ask for outside help from other cults.

And because this had been the rebellion of the church of the beaver and though it had been only in one of the three cities where such a religion existed, it was decided that each presence of this cult should endure the same limitations.