An Age of Dreams
There was light, and suddenly Augustine's enchantments failed around her, spellcraft become fleeting delusion like a dissipating dream. Freed of her soul-binding prison Hunger surged forth, blade alight with the glow of the Praxis, and struck her down. Waves and torrents of Nullity tore through the Lord Protector's form, neutralizing every trick and contingency, now mere matter to be efficiently slain.
All that she built was ripped from her in an instant, and by the very Sorceress that reminded her of her mother, the so-called 'Purple Bitch.' In truth it had all gone so perfectly, and with such choreographed grace, that he wondered sometimes on the truth of Augustine's paranoia. He thought at times of her disposition in those final brutal moments, whether she'd despaired or remained steadfast to the end. Beneath the mask of iron there had been no telling, and nothing left of her body to witness its expression.
There were revelations, in the wake of Augustine's demise: Gisena's ascension, her now-verified theory of Foremost magic, the nature and possible identity of her Maiden progenitor. Savaged in spirit by Augustine's last trap, Hunger could not maintain his focus on such affairs, and withdrew into a period of solitary meditation.
Absolute clarity and focus had been the pre-requisites for anything approaching effectiveness against the Tyrant. That he'd fared as poorly as he had was perhaps a condemnation of his ability to achieve such, but nonetheless he'd been taught the methods to try.
Time passed, and empowered by his Ring, his spirit slowly recovered.
He stood now at the site of their battle against Augustine. The warped space had reverted to normality, but the fields were still barren of life, poisoned by the undying malice of her blood-and-iron magics.
The aftermath of victory, he mused, could be a surprisingly hollow affair. After the rush of triumphal satisfaction came the ever-present question: what now? Regardless of victory or defeat - save for the final defeat which preceded nothing - life was a series of answers to that question, and the quality of one's answers characterized the tenor of one's life.
Sharp was the contrast between the immediacy of a job well-done and the prospect of a future that was uncertain once more. They'd won; what now?
He was being more philosophical than usual, in the wake of another victory delivered by Gisena's hand. The renaissance-woman had co-opted Augustine's sorcery into her own Graces, thereby also somehow ascending to become a nascent version of her own magical forebear, the Maiden who had delivered humanity from the depredations of the Manifest Realm. Alongside her new transformation had come a broad increase in all attributes; though Hunger with his world-bestriding Rank was still capable of conversing with her normally, her now-transcendental force of charm and heart-rending personal beauty left the kids staggered and helpless before her whims.
Of course, Gisena was not one ever to hold back socially, preferring instead to use the full force of her charms to tease, manipulate, fluster and bamboozle her interlocutor as a means of amusing herself - the actual objective of her persuasion being a foregone and secondary conclusion. He shuddered to think what damage she could do had his personal Rank not advanced sufficiently to check her influence.
"Augustine," Hunger shook his head, surveying the wreckage of the Lady Protector's estate, her towers of earth and adamant now torn down around them, soil of her ramparts reduced to smoldering ruin. The air was choked with ash and dross; sky the color of freshly-spilled blood: Augustine's final preparations had exacted brutal sacrifices from caster and domain both. They were fortunate not to have given her any more time, lest the entire realm of Nilfel, rather than this single battlefield, have been reduced to this dire state.
Beside him, Adorie nodded. "She... was a worthy opponent, wasn't she, Lord Hunger? At least she went down fighting, the only way she knew how."
"All her powers torn down in an instant by Gisena, not the most pleasant way to go. If she could have reined in her less ethical proclivities, she would have been a powerful ally," Hunger said. "To think she nearly overcame us despite the vast gulf in Pressure and physical might... She was undoubtedly a prodigy, though ours proved the stronger in the end."
Pointedly he looked at Gisena, happily trawling through the ruins for intact runes, followed by the kids like ducklings who served as her gophers.
"Don't tell her I said that. Her ego doesn't need more feeding."
Now that she was (presumably) capable of producing Graces over time as her Maiden had, Gisena had taken to the magical arts with the same poorly-suppressed enthusiasm she'd once reserved for technological inventions. He worried in fact that she was overflowing with so many ideas it would hamper her growth from lack of focus.
"Naturally, I won't tell," Adorie said, stifling a giggle. "I hear Lady Gisena has declared some form of contest against me. Even if I am uncertain as to its nature, it would be remiss to give an advantage to my rival princess."
As the only other member of their impromptu expedition whose Rank offered resistance to Gisena's wiles, the Princess was one of the few with which he could discuss the Sorceress without expecting his words to get back to her.
"Don't worry about it. Soon you'll be Queen Mirellyian. No longer a valid target. Everyone knows queens are no threats to princesses, they always lose direct contests."
"Queen of Nilfel..." Adorie said quietly, almost wistful. "Not since my childhood had I envisioned such a role for myself in the future. At some point I must have resigned myself to be the princess in the tower for ever. And now, all of a sudden, it's upon us! Isn't it strange how life turns out sometimes?"
"I'm condemned to live in interesting times. My expectations for life can't be applied to the typical order of things. And there had better be nothing strange about the trade agreements we brokered, Miss Queen-to-be."
"Of course not!" She said, feigning shock. "The word of Mirellyian is as good as our bond, you'll see. Favorable as those agreements may be to your ever-distant backwater."
"We don't all have a well of primordial Myth upon which to succor our realms. Kind of you to finally distribute the good fortune."
Adorie adopted an air of faux-haughtiness. "Nay, my lord. 'Twas not our kindness, but your valor, which earned that right for your benighted peoples. At last they shall, through communion with our body politic, arise from provincial squalor to the light of true civilization!"
"Truly I'm humbled by this opportunity for our Royal family to single-handedly destroy all your enemies and put you upon the throne. Let us know if your kingdom ever needs saving again."
"Should Augustine's mother resume activity, I shall send you a courier forthwith!"
---
There was much in Nilfel still to be dealt with, the remnant vestiges of the Lord Protector's power which had infiltrated and ruled every echelon of society above the grassroots, loyalist enclaves and the more bloodthirsty Legions to be beaten into surrender. Decapitated and rootless, these final partisans stood little chance against Hunger's overwhelming might, but the process of re-integration and legitimization would still be a gradual one. Under Augustine's influence the national spirit had become one of arrogant domination, and not all of the blame for that transformation could be laid at the Lord Protector's feet.
Nonetheless, the Mirellyian Restoration was largely considered a success, lightning-swift and sure in its execution; and though some grumbled at the Princess' use of foreign mercenaries, many agreed that her cause was ultimately just.
The large faction of entrenched interests that had both profited from Augustine's expansionary wars and reveled in the self-congratulatory supremacy of their uncontested might found in Hunger the antithesis of their modus operandi: for if a foreign interloper could embody such power in his own personage alone, what was there to say about Nilfellian greatness, really?
Those who did not merely believe, but vocally supported, the ideology of 'might makes right' found their fundamental precepts abruptly lacking in the face of a power even greater than their own.
With Hunger's nation-spanning Rank smoothing the path forward, much of the work that otherwise accompanied even a successful change in government was taken care of with relative ease. For the first time in several weeks, Hunger had possession of a luxury he'd been hard-pressed to find since his induction as a Cursebearer: the appearance of spare time.
Of course, there was still Aobaru's fated opponent on the horizon, an enemy supposedly capable of challenging even a Progression-type Cursebearer, as well as the problem of extracting the kids - all magi - from the Voyaging Realm intact. They had precious few leads on the nature or qualities of the Voyaging Realm's "apocalyptic" ban on magus export, and most of what was known was held in Republic data-banks far away within the Human Sphere.
Hunger considered the divinatory entity again, but did not want to incur its rapidly-escalating cost when other avenues of research were readily available. This was a situation with some urgency, but not to the pressing level necessitated by the Lord Protector. They had time to investigate and potentially even develop relevant capabilities.
Their defeat of Augustine had empowered his Cloak again, though the capability he'd gained was oddly time-limited; not until the hour of the new moon would he be able to witness the full scope of this new power, though by feel (and Sorcerous examination) they had concluded that it granted access to a parallel dimension of some kind.
Today, however, he was in council with Gisena while the kids worked on repairing Verschlengorge, adopting large-scale Nilfellian enchantments in place of his badly-degraded technological weapons and armor systems. For objectivity's sake he could no longer consult with the children and Gisena in the same room, as she would inevitably convince them of the rightness of her cause regardless of its soundness.
"Have you considered bridling your powers somewhat?" He asked. "I'm concerned that even your passive influence will have permanent effects on the kids."
The Cloak of Evening served that purpose for him; he'd tapped its powers to conceal the mind-searing apparition of glory that otherwise reduced ordinary humans to awestruck followers. It was difficult to engage otherwise, though Gisena's social technique was both more refined and insidious.
"Holding back is no fun," Gisena pouted, playing with a strand of gossamer hair. "Instead, I've been working on a Grace that effectively nullifies the permanent consequences for onlookers. That way, the whole world can appreciate my beauty at all times! It's been trickier than expected. Human minds gravitate towards the strongest positive stimulus, and prolonged exposure reshapes naturally behavior as a matter of course. I'm not sure how the Maiden did it!"
"Admitting that your Maiden was smarter than you? I see your humility has leveled-up as well."
"The Maiden was a genius," Gisena said firmly, "though quite possibly possessed of unfair advantages which I didn't receive, so how could you compare the two?"
"Apply your own genius towards our problems," Hunger admonished. "We've still got to return Letrizia to the Human Sphere and eventually conquer it, all while protecting Aobaru from his fated nemesis. While the Decimation is staved off, we should use this time to research a means of safely removing mages from the Voyaging Realm."
"A girl's got so much research on her plate," Gisena sighed. "If the Republic, a high-technology civilization comprising thousands of worlds, has been trying and mostly-failing to avoid the consequences for millennia, do you really expect me to magically pull out a solution in less than a month?"
"Yes," Hunger said seriously.
"Aww," she wrapped an arm around his. "You always know just what to say. I've got you perfectly trained!"
"I praise you, you do all the work; everyone wins. It's a good arrangement."
---
The winners were
[X] Pillars of Creation with
[X] Direct Mitigation and
[X] Artemisinin.
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