Laura was spawning full scale cultural revolution in Thorwal. She had awoken cool and stiff-necked but less hungover than she might have, though much of yesterday's memory escaped her. She must have consumed something that really messed with her digestion though, for it was that kind of nature call that had woken her up and prompted her to rush to the cliffs to relieve herself. Where the day before they had dumped the dead into the sea, Laura sprayed those she had eaten on top of their flattened peers' remains, liquefied to diarrhoea. She was belching an awful lot too.

After a shivering dip into the water at the mouth of the river to clean herself as well as her clear her head, she had proceeded to examine the situation. She had killed again, she saw, and must have been in quite the drunken stupor. Arva Hjettisdottir was dead, laying smothered to death in the imprint of Laura's tit. There was evidence of weapons around too, suggesting they had tried to murder Laura in her sleep. The ships from out at sea were in the harbour and there were armoured persons among the slain. Laura did not have to play detective to get an idea of what had happened. Anyway, Thorgun confirmed her suspicions.

Bera had spent the night half-crushed under the breast that killed her sister and suffered a severely messed-up leg. The little, treacherous girl was barely able to speak, but that was fine since Thorgun was remarkably forthcoming about the whole deal. What role he had played in it she didn't know and he didn't gave himself a part in it either. Perhaps she'd get to the bottom of it later and kill him too, she decided.

After a nights drinking, Laura was always hornier than usual and so it was only logical that Bera be her first victim of the day. Her and five others, chosen at random, entered Laura before she had even dried off. Swafnir's cock was lying besides as well, as if it was meant to be. The feeling of a tiny person caught in between the stone dildo and her vaginal walls was exquisite, though the person did not last very long. She rode the shaft eagerly on the market place and without consideration for anyone, in- or outside of her. Of those she had ordered to scrap the new bodies off the ground and throw into the sea, three, either stupid or suicidal, tried to work right beneath her naked butt. She pumped herself harder, pounding them into the ground without remorse, and laughed.

She came fast and hard, and Thorwal nine souls poorer. After, she found that Thorgun had watched her, sporting an enormous hard on, grinning when their eyes met. He was a weird character indeed.

Before her post-intoxicated brain could think of anything clever to throw at him however, Hammar Ingvarson timidly emerged to announce completion of repairs to Laura's shirt.

“Worked all through the night, huh?” She grinned at him, pulling his god's cock out of herself.

“W...we did what we could.” He managed, shaking. The poor man looked as though he had seen a monster, but then again, perhaps he was looking at one right now.

She inspected the work, found it good and put on the shirt immediately. The longer she was awake, the more she felt the effects of last night's excesses and the cold that had crept into her bones sleeping. The patching worked better than she had dared to hope, but a shirt was a shirt and not very warm at all. To remedy that, the large fire in the market place had to be rebuilt while Laura thought about what to do. In truth, she already knew what to do, just not how to start.

She wanted to turn Thorwal into a greater Lauraville, make it work again. It was fun to make things run, making little people run. It gave crushing and abusing them so much more purpose, if the joy of seeing them not stand around helpless was not enough.

“What's on your mind?” Thorgun gleamed up at her like an enchanted lover.

Smoke was already pouring out of the remains of the fire Laura had tasked him to oversee.

“Bring me someone I can torture to death while I think.” She replied, absent.

She was not going to entertain an argument, but found that she did not have too either. He just went and pulled a tall blond woman from the people building the fire. At first she was perplexed, then she wrestled him. He punched her square in the face, viciously, breaking her nose and ruining her before not unpleasant features.

“Urgh, don't start with the head!” Laura frowned. “She won't be able to feel when I pull her arms off!”

“She will.” He promised with a smile and punched the woman in the gut, sending her to the ground, gasping for air.

Laura smiled back at him. She was feeling incredibly sadistic for some reason.

“Nah, come on, you did it on purpose.” She teased. “You want to protect her, you little priest.”

“If I wanted to protect her...” He kicked the struggling woman in the side. “...I'd offer myself to you.”

The fire builders were watching in disgust and confusion. Something had changed, Laura noticed that too.

“So, you're scared all of a sudden, is that it?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I just feel like we've been worshipping the wrong god all our lives.”

“You fucking...!” Came a growl from the line of workers and a tall man with long grey hair stepped forward. He was taller than Thorgun by quite a bit and easily equal in muscle mass.

Thorgun hooted in response as if this was exactly what he had been waiting for. Suddenly, there was a short axe in the tall man's hand. Laura hadn't seen it before. She put a stop to it by poking the attacker into the ground with her index finger. It didn't work the way she had wanted it to because his body twisted aside instead of being crushed like an accordion. His pelvis, upper legs and knees one with paved ground, he screamed in sudden terror.

“Hey, he was mine!” Thorgun protested, more earnest than Laura would have thought.

“Well, uh, you can finish him?” She offered. “Use his axe?”

“No, the old bastard can die fine on his own. Get back to work!”

He had shouted the command without looking and his words did not seem to move anyone until Laura did. She extended her hand to end the injured man's screaming but pulled back after he ceased on his own.

“Your plaything is getting away.” Thorgun nodded at the woman on the ground. She was crawling, her ruined face a grimace of pain.

Laura picked her up gingerly, listening to her frantic screams for a moment before carefully starting to bend her back.

“You were saying something about worshipping wrong gods?” She gave the tiny priest a glance.

“Yes.” He replied, looking on in eerie fascination. “I think it is very obvious once you stand before a real one.”

Their eyes met.

“Not to disappoint you, little guy, but this is not the first time I'm hearing this.”

“Of course not.” He smiled warmly.

The woman's screams suddenly stopped when her back broke but she started again a moment after. Laura crushed her head between her fingernails and flicked the body into the starting fire.

“I think you're not a goddess though, in truth.” He frowned in amusement.

Laura smiled: “No?”

“No.” He said determined. “You're a tool.”

Laura considered for a moment, screwed up her face and laughed heartily. Thorgun did not understand what was funny about it which made her laugh even more.

“Haha, you're a tool too!” She quipped, curling up in a fit of giggles.

“No...” Thorgun frowned again. “You're a tool for something greater!”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Laura calmed herself. “Is it no enough that I eat and crush people and fuck you little guys to death whenever I want? I could get up and crap on all your heads right now. If that's not godlike, I don't know what is.”

Thorgun scratched his left nipple: “Certainly less divine than one might expect.” He offered. “But that's not what I meant. I might have brought it up too early though. I just thought, since you were in such a good mood...”

“Mentioned what?” She interrupted him. “You're being confusing.”

“Cryptic.” He corrected with one of his handsome smiles. “What if I told you, that I could make it rain by fall of evening?”

Laura glanced out to sea from where the wind came, already seeing the thick clouds on the horizon.

“That's a cute little trick.” She scoffed. “I could have predicted that with one eye and both arms behind my back.”

“What if...” He looked around cautiously and motioned her to place her ear at the ground next to him. She obeyed, curious as to what this was.

“What if I told you, that I can breathe underwater?” He whispered carefully.

“Well, you'll have to apply that trait in my stomach if you keep talking like that.” She frowned at him in turn after sitting up again. “Which actually reminds me, I haven't eaten anything yet. I'm not sure if I still trust your Thorwalsh cooking though. It seems to have given me indigestion.”

“Forget all that!” He snapped. “Forget food, forget...I'm talking of something greater here!”

“Greater than me?” She gave him a tired wink. “I'm sorry little priest, but crazy or not you'll have to accept that there are no gods. Only me.”

The fire builders had completed their work now and just before they edged out of reach Laura took one of them and fed him to the fire alive. He screamed, burned, struggled and came out running as a living torch. Waiting for this, Laura gave him a cocked flick that sent him smashing back into the pile of burning wood like a bowling ball.

“What if I brought one here?” Thorgun asked, sounding serious. “What if I brought one here, would you kill him for me, a god?”

Laura had had just about enough of this weird conversation: “You know what?” She said briskly, picking him up in one swift motion and turning towards the sea. “I will. But first you may try that underwater-breathing some more.”

She threw him forcefully, more to avoid him being killed by crashing onto the docks or buildings on the way than anything else. It occurred to her a moment later that he would very likely be killed by hitting the water anyway, just from the height, the force and the angle she threw him with.

She didn't feel sorry per se, not consciously, though she felt that sense of viciousness dampen considerably all of a sudden.

She sighed: “I need food. And I seriously don't know what to eat. Bring me Hammar.”

Hammar was the last person in the city she knew was capable of getting things done. He was crucial if today was going to be any success.

The tiny craftsman emerged shortly after, visibly tired and still afraid of her, much more than yesterday.

“I had nothing to do with what happened!” He swore without solicitation. “I was working on your garment, all night long! Please don't eat me!”

“There would be little use in eating one guy.” Laura promised awkwardly in response. “I need feeding though, and I'm afraid it's going to have to be people.”

She let that sink in.

“Why?” He asked, talking upwards from what seemed like a painfully crouched position. “I heard you were fond of our food yesterday, so long as it not be fish?”

“Was I?” Laura barely remembered. It had been okay, she guessed. “But I seem to have some trouble digesting it, you see. So...”

“That must have been the poison!” He blurted.

“Poison?!” Thorgun had left that part out.

Hammar had not been there, and the story he told sounded sufficiently like hearsay. There was no telling what it was that she had ingested, but the description of 'a tub full of 'black, thick, stinking liquid' was enough to have her worried.

“I hear it was some fat, foreign poison witcher have something to do with it!” Hammar struggled helplessly. “It was his work, it must have been! He vanished, from what I hear! I swear it, no guilt befalls us!”

He scratched his head and chewed on his lip, any confidence he had yesterday gone: “P...perhaps Alrik Oilboiler knows! I'll send for him at once!”

“Still, that changes things.” Laura said before an unseemly belch escaped her. “You might have convinced me not to eat anyone, but with poison...”

“Preparations are already undergoing!” Hammar urged. “We knew you'd have to eat and we feared...I beg you, please!”

“I'll hear from that oil boiler.” Laura decided. “I can make no promise. Meanwhile I need you to gather yourself up and be my man in charge of the city. I know you are tired, but you're the only one I have. Choose three foremen from amongst your piers, the ones you deem most suited. They shall direct the revival of this place. I'm not going to destroy you after all.”

That seemed to give him back some confidence while she thought about what Thorgun had been saying.

“I also want you to round up all remaining Swafnir priests and bring them to me.” She added. “I should like to have a talk with them and learn about your god.”

That was the cultural revolution she was going for. She had no intention of learning about the stupid whale god, but if she said outright that she was going to crush them all and put herself in place as a goddess in turn, none of them would show. Intrigues were surprisingly exciting somehow, even blunt and short ones like this.

“I've been boiling all night long!” The old Garethian alchemist said after arriving in front of her in the market square. “Used me finest fat too, and scents, as much as I found! You'll be pleased, by the honour of my profession! Don't need to cut it up into small pieces either! Reckon a hole in the roof shall be needed for you to take the soap out!”

“Oh, soap!” Laura had almost forgotten that too. “How wonderful! But say, what can you tell me about that, uh...” she was uncomfortable. “That poison I drank?”

Alrik's confidence had not wavered it seemed: “Ah, that was ill done!” He proclaimed. “Nasty business indeed.”

He stroked his white beard with a strangely coloured hand: “Uh, I had no part in it. I can assure you of that. From what I heard, sounds like Boronwine. Not really a poison in truth. Can be used to soothe pain. I wouldn't know how it was made. That kind of knowledge is, uh, forbidden. If it didn't kill you by now, it won't tomorrow, if that's what you're asking.”

He bowed as though he had just advised a customer.

“Could it upset the stomach?” Laura asked, rubbing her belly. She was already feeling much better, not physically, but less concerned.

“It's thinkable.” He shrugged. “But I reckon, your belly troubles are from the mead. It does that, to those unused to drink it. It still gives me the shits every know and then, uh, begging your pardon.”

“Thank you.” She said in earnest. “I will have regular food today. But no fish or mussels or that stuff.”

He mumbled something about fish and mussels being delicious and her large piece of soap being done by break of night before withdrawing from her presence.

The priests arrived, looking like an old, gay fetish club. They were naked, except for fishnets, fish scale vests and those sort of things. Queer to the bone. Laura didn't mind gays at all, but she felt quite righteous in getting rid of this lot. She told them to move beside her, which they did. Some were looking anxious, worried, others seemed pleased with being important or perhaps doing their god's work or whatever.

She never wanted to see them again. Some city folk had heard of her wish to see the priests and watched to see what would happen. Converting Laura to their whale cult would have been quite the victory, she guessed. The thought was shuddering. From one instant to the other, she lifted herself and sat back down, right on top of them. The group wasn't too large, but in order to count she would have had to look closer. They were gone in a second, just another stain on her already dirtying jeans. There was no staying clean on this planet.

The watchers' faces hardened, but no one dared to say anything. They all turned in silence, back to their work where they belonged. Soon after was breakfast, though it was almost noon from what Laura could tell by the sun. Breakfast in Thorwal meant cold food, apparently, lots of bread baskets, apples and pears, pots of cold gruel and some cured meat.

Some resourceful cook had come up with something just for her, a large barrel full of scrambled eggs, onions, bacon, bread and some butter. That one was savoury, Laura found, and a shame it was all gone in one bite. She praised the cook to everyone's hearing, but inadvertently punished him for his good deed when she ate a random skinny girl that she crunched between her molars before hearing that it was the man's daughter.

He was very distraught, whining about her soul and it's path to some paradise, whether or not she would find the way there without guidance of the priests, especially in light of the fact that she had not died in battle.

Laura's first impulse was to console him by saying that she had fought bravely in her mouth or something, but thought better of it.

“Your priests are paste beneath me.” She declared, shifting her butt left and right, still sitting on the crushed men. “Your god is a dream, a wisp, an afterthought, none more substantial than a gust of wind.”

“A gust of wind can carry far!” A one-eyed old man with a bent back swore smartly. “It can move the thinnest of weeds as well as the largest ships!”

With a splat, Laura's hand smacked him dead like a pesky fly.

“I am your goddess now.” She declared. Saying it out loud got her strangely wet. “Bring me any who blaspheme against me, so that I may smite them.”

She looked around at the people present, expecting to see Thorwalsh defiance. By then though, she had crushed and eaten so many, caused so much horror, that they only stared back at her blankly. This lack of spirit was going to interfere with her plans of rebuilding, she knew already.

“Be good and faithful and I will be good to you.” She vowed in turn. “We will rebuild this place together, a token of my-”

“Swafnir!”

It was a child's voice and Laura laughed at first, mistaking it for the expected but belated battle cry.

“It's Swafnir, he's in the harbour!” The boy was perhaps six or seven years old, having come running from the piers. “He's here to save us!”

“Don't be-”

'foolish.' Laura had wanted to say, but curiosity had her on her feet already and just as she stood a gust of wind hit her hard in the face, almost knocking her over. Pieces of wood and all manner of things lying around picked up and took flight with it.

When last she had looked the clouds had been miles away. Not now though. Now, they were darkening the sky in an instant. Heavy rain started falling all at once, like a shower. People screamed, prayed, ran, stayed, flocked to the harbour and salvation.

Laura wiped her face, having to blink a few times as the strong wind punched the drizzly water into her eyes with menacing force. Three steps and she was at the piers, looking into the angry, dark, black waters. Waves came crashing in, so high they threatened to wash the watching city folk into the sea.

“I told you!” A voice screamed over the wind. It was Thorgun, though Laura could not spy him in the floods.

She saw something else though, something that gave her more pause than anything she had seen thus far. It was a sperm whale, impossibly large, perhaps thirty metres in length. Not only that, but it was white all over, except for long, pink scars and a menacing red eye, staring at her in hatred. The animal seemed utterly impervious to the violent forces of the water surrounding it too.

She was dumbstruck for a moment. Swafnir. All this time, she had thought him as much as myth as any religion. An immensely loud detonation brought her to her senses and she shrieked with pain. All her hairs stood upright at the jolt of electricity she received. With her heart racing in panic, she only recognized that it had been lighting that struck her a moment later.

“Ow!” She wined and some people on the ground started cheering.

She was unused and unprepared to being challenged, something she had already recognized when Janna and her had been attacked by the catapults and fireballs. Lightning struck again, sending her down, knees buckling. She felt bodies of people pop and liquefy beneath her falling ass.

Others started to attack her immediately, but in jeans, shoes and socks, Laura did not need to pay them any heed at all. Her surprise turned to anger and fear and she tried to re-evaluate the situation. Fleeing was an option, but it was uncertain if she could escape the thunderstorm or if the whale god would have it follow her. Thorgun's babbling did not seem have so mad any more in the light of the unfathomably weird situation she found herself in. But if truth be told, the lightning strikes were only reasonably painful, stronger than the jolt after putting on a wool sweater, but not much.

And, to her, the whale was only as large as a medium sized house cat.

Another jolt of lighting caught her when she set the first foot into the water. She only hissed and grimaced at that one by now. In one motion she grasped the whale's tail with both hands and employed all the strength in her back to yank it out of the water, swing it in a high arch and have it's body smash onto the piers.

“Raaah!” She screamed, raised the creature and sent it down again. Then she threw it, sent it flying towards the market place where it missed the fire by an inch and smashed into one of the houses on the other side.

Her wet sneaker gave smacking noises as she took two large steps and jumped into the air. The whale's jaw was moving furiously and it's blowhole threw out a white gust of water and air. When Laura's weight came down upon it, the water turned to blood and then innards, squirting out. The body popped and exploded into a sea of guts. It was dead, flattened beneath Laura's feet, it's whale bones broken to splinters.

She stood on it for some time, breathing heavily, but as her heart rate returned to normal, so did the weather.

“He was only a half-god, in truth.” A familiar voice said from the other end of the market place.

Laura stepped off the corpse and sat down: “He's only an albino whale.”

“Do you believe that?” His manner was as flamboyant as ever, though she saw that he has injured, dragging one leg behind and bleeding from a head wound.

She didn't. Magic had been cruel enough, but real actual gods were sheer torture to her mind.

“Bring me Hammar.” She demanded with a sore throat. “I want to rebuild the city.”

'Concentrate on normal things.' She told herself.

But Thorwal wouldn't let her, it seemed. People flocked from everywhere, crying, bemoaning their dead deity. Others started praising Laura as their new goddess, while still others started preaching damnation. Perhaps taking him for a traitor, someone had cut Hammar's throat and no one seemed to know who his choices for foreman had been.

That left Thorgun, but he was downright crazy and embodied all that Laura did not want to talk about. If she tasked him with this however, perhaps she might be spared of having to talk to him too much.

The sight of the dead god made her sick to the stomach and she threw the corpse into the sea after the tiny priest reassured her that it would not come back to life or something like that. Her clothes were wet, but she felt so much like sleeping that it made no matter. But she had only just gotten up, how could she feel so tired? It had come over her all of a sudden, starting as soon as the terrifying ordeal had been over. It was the electricity, she concluded, having read something like that once, like a thousand years ago. Her muscles ached.

Huddled, cross-legged by the fire, she wished for nothing more than a hoodie that she could vanish in and a bed to crawl into and sleep and sleep and sleep. Reality seemed strangely blurred, like waking coma. Thorgun climbed first her shoe and then her knee, blaring out a roaring speech to the people. The entire city, or what was left of it, was there.

“A new Thorwal is rising!” He proclaimed, his voice ringing sharply in Laura's head. “Under a new queen!”

'No, not queen.' She thought. She was a goddess. But she wasn't a goddess, she knew the same instant. Just a terribly large girl, tired and stupid.

“Under new sails, a new god, we shall be the terror of the world, for all generations to come!”

'New god', that didn't mean her, she knew somehow as well. It didn't matter, she was too tired to care.

“First we shall conquer the rest of Thorwal!” Thorgun screamed into the sky. “And then, we shall conquer the world, as the most vicious pirates ever seen! We will make slaves and live as gods in our own right! The Horasians, the Garethians, the free cities, all shall tremble before our might!”

During his speech there were shouts of criticism at every turn. Each time, he looked down and seemed to make a mental mark. Many were cheering though, far many more than Laura would have expected. She didn't know how long it had been, minutes, hours, but Thorgun had the city at work terrifyingly quickly. Tired or not, she did not fail to note his use of young, violent men, sometimes children still, to keep the others in line. They rounded up perhaps two hundred people whom he declared traitors and blasphemers, presented to Laura so that she might dispose of them. She killed them tiredly but efficiently, eating a few and then just crawling on top of the bulk, crushing them beneath her hands and knees, buttocks and calves. She could not have said whence this purge had taken place, how much time had passed.

Ships were being built, using wood salvaged from broken buildings. Smoke rose and the clanger of hammers suggested that steel was being worked again. She remembered Lauraville and how long it had taken her to get it going. Thorgun was either an administrative genius or this was some sort of other magic at work. She had wanted to get the city going again, but now that she saw it she couldn't not help but notice that it left her cold. Everything left her cold.

Sleep was a blessing whence it came.