It happened on a sunny afternoon several years ago, but for White Stone Town, it marked the beginning of a long night.
No great army came to besiege them. Instead, a missionary delegation arrived in spotless white robes, accompanied by a hundred fully armed knights of the faith.
They came to the stone temple of the Dragon Ancestor in the town center, where he had been worshipped for a hundred years.
It had been the spiritual refuge of generations of townspeople. The old priest Cohen was telling the children stories about dragon knights.
The Golden Feather Flower bishop approached with a smile and spoke in a voice full of compassion. "Poor children, you have been deceived by the lies of beasts for far too long. Dragons are greedy reptiles. Only the Golden Feather Flower is the truth."
The old priest Cohen angrily raised his staff to resist. "False gods are not welcome here!"
The bishop merely sighed. "Heretic, your soul has rotted. It must be purified by fire."
The knights behind him drew their swords and swarmed forward.
They severed the old priest's head, splashing blood across the Dragon Ancestor's stone statue.
Then they demolished the stone temple, and the knights smashed every slab carved with dragon patterns.
They planted a golden thorn banner in the ruins and declared that this place now belonged to the divine throne.
That night, the townspeople tried to resist, but the knights suppressed and slaughtered them, seizing the water supply and the granary.
The former stone temple of the Dragon Ancestor was rebuilt into the lavish Golden Feather Cathedral, and the town began to change.
The Holy See did not plunder them outright. It invented a new term: the sacred quota.
The bishop said gently, "God created the land. God bestowed the sunlight. Farmers