Part MMMDCCLXXXI: The Soul of the Matter
The Soul of the Matter
Twenty-Second Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC
"Souls are magic, souls are minds, above all other things souls are power imperishable," you reply, speaking slowly, though more for effect than because you cannot find the words. In truth you have long since practiced them, before you had even heard of Heaven's Shore, before the Sundering was more than a ominous line in an ancient text found in the library of the Red Priests. It is the kind of lecture you had imagined yourself giving to initiates before the Scholarum was more than a gleam in Lya's eye. Even when the wheels of the world ran true they could still grind exceedingly cruel.
Evil souls go down into the Pit to be devoured, or the forges of Baator to be consumed and forged anew, or the bleak fields of Abaddon to be hunted until they change to the likeness of their hunters... Such a neat little phrase for all the suffering it contains. How many of the men and women now sitting in this hall would be willing to agree that their kith and kin deserved to be rendered down to energy for the thirsting founts of the Lower Planes because of 'arcane resonance' if that should be what the divinations they shall no doubt seek should show? Few indeed you would judge, and to be entirely fair you do not blame them.
This day, this hour and all the days and all the hours that follow, the revelations of how the ordering of the world is set shall you realize raise an unseen wall between the folk of this chamber and those outside it, lords and generals, judges and governors, all will be bound together by the shared secret that is more than fear.
But for now fear is foremost, and many are the eyes that look on in desperate hope, that you could somehow give reassurance, some simple answer that would make the world fair again... as it had never been. "Souls are used in the forging of new spirits bright and dark. Most do not recall what they had been and serve only the ordering of their making. As to where the souls in the keeping of dead gods pass, to that, my lord Alexi, is a matter for the god in question and the deals they might have made in the days of their might..."
"And us all unknowin' that we are meat to the slaughter, woe to the children of man," Hern Lampmaker curses long and hard as you had not known the gentle man could do as he reaches out to try to pat Veda's hand. It does not seem to be doing much. For the first time since you had seen the man inquisitor Valens looks a touch uncomfortable, second guessing himself if he aught to have tried to prepare his fellow ministers you suspect. At least the new Minister of Magic seems to be taking matters well enough, one might almost think she is one of those who had been informed beforehand were if not for the white-knuckled grip she has on the railing in front of her.
As for Tarly... well, for the life of you you could not guess what he might wish to say, but you count it a good sign that he asks to be recognized instead of blurting out whatever is on his mind as so many have done.
"Can these hosts be fought on their own ground?" he asks "I know a fiend will die true if you kill them in the place of their making, but that does not tell me how many of the sons of..."
The Minister of War glances towards his fellow, the Minister of Taxation, only for Iziku to give him what one might almost count a droll look. "I take no offense at whatever word choice you are about to invoke. No matter the manner of my forging, now my kinship is closer to you than to the thralls of the Nine."
"Right," Tarly clears his throat while you are still amazed not only at the tact, but that he actually knows a fiend slain in their own realm shall remain dead. Did he actually listen to some of his son's arcane lore? He turns back to a point about halfway between you and Bloom. "What's the ground look like? Can they die, the Hollows, the Freaks and the Burning Bastards? Can we drive them back with steel and fire and the likes of the Dauntless like that burning bitch... Ymeri her name was, right?"
You are left without an answer for a moment, as you try to process that Randyll Tarly had, in the fine tradition of soldiers since the dawn of time, had given new names to your principal foes, the Void, the Dominion of the Mind and you assume fiends taken broadly.
What do you do?
[] Ask Yrael to present the military situation on the Planes—he is a celestial, though one who has Fallen. Grim is likely to be his answer much as he might try to lighten it.
[] Ask Mereth to present the military situation on the Planes, taking advantage of the unexpected moment of tact to drive home the notion that your baatezu are in the same boat as the rest of the Realm
[] Write in
OOC: Here we go, a nice dual choice, this should hopefully get more engagement.
Last edited:
