Turn Three: The Lovely Smell of Hellfire
(written by @Gargulec with my approval)
Miriam Half-Flame hated the Northeast. She was a child of the wastes through and through; half her blood was icewalker, the other half the slayer-demoness Zsofika. Desolation was what she grew in, and what she understood. And the Northeast was anything but - it was this great fecundity of life, forests with trees as tall as mountains, rivers teeming with fish, game so plentiful as to take away any pleasure from the quiet days of the hunt. It was a busy land, a lively one, and she resented how much longer she had to spend here.
But more than the Northeast, she hated the savage Linnowan and their darned pride. They each thought themselves her better; they saw in her a frail cripple from the wastelands of the North and they addressed her with the mixture of contempt and pity reserved for children and the agonal. And under any other circumstances, she would not be spending a minute on their damp little islets, in their ramshackle huts, under the baleful gaze of their countless totems. Under any other circumstances, she would be leaving those places in ruin and drinking deep of the wailing that followed. But she was a woman for hire, and the Cynis woman who paid for her services was adamant that she should conduct herself peacefully and respectfully. More: that she should be pleasant towards those barbarians, that she should be helpful and kind. So instead she gritted her teeth without a word, rested the weight of her weary body on the ornate cane and turned to face the masked warrior. The Linnowan hid her face behind an elaborately carved, jagged piece of ironwood.
"Raiding the river settlements will not do," she declared. "I know this, you know this. Haltans will retreat deep into their woods with their valuables, and we will get their garbage, not their treasure."
"Do not explain to me what I already know, air-woman," the warrior replied, her voice the dry tone of someone long past actual outrage. "If we follow them, it will be…"
"I know," Miriam cut in. "The trees speaking Haltan. The forest devils striking from all sides. Slaughter. Humiliation. You have explained this before, and at length."
"Then why are we having this conversation again?" the Linnowan shrugged, clearly eager to be done with this.
Miriam tapped her cane a few times; in a civilized place, the ironwood would strike the floor with an impressive clang, but in this fetid den, it just sank into the beaten soil.
"Because I have a solution, river-woman," she said, stepping aside to reveal a small copper mortar, filled with a handful of viridian dust. "Observe."
She waited for the warrior to come closer, and then reached for a glass filled with transparent, viscous liquid. Carefully, she uncorked it.
"Soon," she declared as the familiar smell of vitriol irritated her nostrils, "there will be no more woods for the Haltans to hide in."
The Linnowan opened her mouth to speak, but was not given an opportunity. Miriam tipped the vial, and allowed a single drop of vitriol to drop down into the mortar.
In silence, they watched the sizzling green flame erupt and rage for minutes, as if unconcerned by the absence of fuel. It wasn't until the mortal was a small pile of foul-smelling slag that the fire went down. Miriam continued to say nothing, with vicious satisfaction watching the Linnowan freeze.
"You have more?" she asked finally, struggling to keep her voice steady.
"We have enough."
***
A report from Valetari Aurie to the esteemed Matriarch of the House, Valetari Seia.
Honourable Matriarch,
I am pleased to report that the local tribes have turned most amenable to our advances. Trade really is an universal language, and in the situation of increased regional tensions, many of smaller local confederacies are more than eager to establish links with a House of the Realm, even one as small as ours. Such diverse entities as the Łomshe, the Seven Boar Peoples, or the White River Assembly have now all established links with the Verdant Possibility Frontier Outpost.
However, while doubtlessly beneficial to the development of our trade interest in the region, the fact that such a throng of previously isolated nations now seeks to barter the treasures of their land for the Realm's steel and firedust speaks of the air of danger that clings to the region. To not mince words, the perennial conflict between the river Linnowan and forest Haltans has recently reached a new pitch, threatening to throw the entire Northeast into a kind of a war that I struggle to describe in words of the language of our ancestors.
Honourable Matriarch, I regret to inform you that the gangs of air-pirates, likely bankrolled by House Cynis and aligned with the Linnown leagues have recently acquired a terrifying new kind of a weapon…
***
The Cynis war advisors did not need long to concur that the idea to utilize a devilish concoction known as algarel against the Haltan woods was an inspired one. Deployed from air-ships and ignited with a drizzle of vitriol, the fire-storms it caused were unlike anything the Haltans had ever seen. Oh, the forest-people were no strangers to forest-fires, and had lore aplenty on how to handle them, but the generational wisdom did nothing against a green fire that seemed to want for no fuel but suffering, which burned through water and sand as if they were dry grass, and whose smoke was causting enough to rust iron and make flesh run like mud. So they perished in it, or worse, survived, and carried scars and nightmares into the rest of their life.
Yes, assisting the Linnowan raids with algarel drops turned out to be an inspired idea, and many Haltan holds were looted, ones previously thought immune from danger for their seclusion in deep forests and stewardship of the forest-spirits. Slaves, wealth, fame, all at the petty cost of never being able to forget the stench of a land that wasn't just burned, but rather desecrated by a fire that did belong under the gentle light of Creation's sun. But the Linnowan were hardy folks, and they did not allow such base terrors to turn them away from the path of conquest. And so the Cynis war advisors and the air-pirates they hired were feted for their brilliance; finally, the river leagues could be ascendant.
It wasn't until almost a year after the first stretch of the ancient forest was turned to caustic slurry by the noxious flame that the real price of those victories became apparent. It was paid in the weeds that grew over the uncooling ashes, their bronze leaves sharp as knives and peculiarly hungry for blood. It was paid in the trunks of the trees too massive to burn fully even in the algarel's furnace, which then grew spindly limbs of black glass and marched into the still living forest to hunt for animals, men and fair-folk alike. It was in caustic flows turning streams and rivers into acid, and in brass-shelled beasts that found their new home in the rivers that Linnowan lived over. It was paid in gods that burned in the undying fire of Malfeas, and yet could not perish, and instead entered legend as baleful spirits of the Hell-forest, venerated by mad-men who have lost everything to atrocity, who would not be, for many years to come, in short supply.
- House Cynis has made an alliance with the Linowan River Tribes, who now lend their martial might and ancestral magic to Sekhara's claim.
- The Kingdom of Halta has been ravaged by pyro-chemical weapons of blasphemous design and soul-scarring nature. Though Halta yet endures, all the more stubborn and hateful for the cruelties they have endured, they have been significantly weakened.
- Large sections of the borderlands between Halta and Linowan are now hell-tainted wastelands where no sane soul is like to tread.
- Houses Cynis and Valetari made a truly impressive profit off the proceeds from these atrocities, though to be entirely fair only one of them knew it was going to happen.
- Realm Divide is unaffected. Nobody cares about atrocities committed upon barbarian savages.
Turn Three: Heroes of the People
(Written by @EarthScorpion with my approval)
Article:
a lawman watches
the mountain and forest seek
scarlet's empty throne
Decisions, Ferem Odat Mai
In the smoking garden of the Gateway house, Vesusa Salira and Amira Kasuko play their game once more. But the pieces aren't being moved much. They're matriarchs of Patrician houses, and even the sweet scent of passionfruit blossoms can't shed the knowledge that they're pawns in a much larger game. In the skies overhead, there's the signs that there'll be rain. Not too soon, but soon. Maybe this evening.
"You know," Salira says, huddling over her over-large glass of plum wine, "when you think about it, barbarians have to be able to deal with their ruler dying. Even the hicks in Lookshy manage it. So why do I find myself having to take laudanum to sleep at night since Her funeral was announced?"
"Because you're a decadent lush?" Kasuko asks, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
"Harsh! Harsh!"
"Not inaccurate, though."
"I hate you."
"I know you do, sweetie." Kasuko makes a move on the board, more for having something to do with her fingers than actual strategy. Their match is sloppy, and a first chu player could probably beat them at this standard of play. But there's something else occupying her mind. "So, Mnemon owns the magistrates now."
"Is that the right word?"
"Oh, she says everything is going to be as it was before. But she's not her mother."
"Wants to be."
"Ha! Yes."
Rubbing her eyes, Salira makes a barely-considered move as outside the noise of a musician in the streets outside drifts over. "At least the screaming's died down."
"The screaming? I wouldn't have called it screaming."
"Screaming from the people the magistrates have been settling grudges with."
"Well yes. They were screaming. I wonder who they were employed by? Probably Sesus. But let's be fair. Did you actually like any of them?"
Salira looked vaguely offended. "Of course not. They were stupid to get caught. But you know how Mnemons can be. They're nearly as sanctimonious as Cathaks. And more arrogant."
"So Cynis has bought you."
"Oh, dragons no." Salira leans forwards, covering her mouth with her hand. "Cynis Sekhara is a fucking psycho, pardon my Rivertongue."
"That is one way of putting it," Kasuko says, as she is more sober and so her tongue has not been loosened.
"Seriously it's hard to relax at someone's party when you're afraid she's going to drink your blood."
"... wasn't that Berit?"
"We can have two blood-drinking matriarchs. Or… whatever Berit is. Not a matriarch."
"A not-matriarch is just a person."
"Is it, though?" Salira scratches her chin. "Yes, probably. I'm too sober for this."
"You are a long way from too sober."
"I disagree."
Article:
PORI SI does it again. Hero of the Realm, brave and heroic Magistrate Pori Si clashes with the greatest of all threats - a pair of CORRUPT MAGISTRATES in VOICE-OF-THE-WAVES! Can our heroine stand up to TWO THREATS who are HER EQUALS? Now the Dancing Dragon Company brings you the latest HIT PLAY recounting her THRILLING ADVENTURES in the LANDS OF HOUSE PELEPS!
WONDER at what HORRORS might have been HIDDEN
JEER at the CORRUPTION of those WICKED MAGISTRATES who BETRAYED THE EMPRESS
CELEBRATE her new love interest, CATHAK IRI
CHEER for YOUR HEROINE
PORI SI AND THE BLADES OF THE TRAITORS
Promotional Materials from the Dancing Dragon Company, RY766
Article:
Be it resolved that:
The Lintha are a degenerate race who have no place within Creation, and none should deal with creatures such as them.
That the sworn affidavits presented to the Deliberative by House Ledaal alleging the involvement of House Sesus with the Lintha family are greatly concerning, and the sworn word of a Great House is not to be lightly questioned.
That House Sesus does swear that such allegations are deception and slander by other parties seeking to lessen their image in the eyes of others, and the sworn word of a Great House is not to be lightly questioned.
That no person is above Her Imperial Majesty's law, be they the lowest peasant or Her own daughter.
Therefore an inquiry shall be formed, under the authority of Magistrate Hu Than, which shall run from the start of RY767 to the end of RY768, which shall have authority and funding to investigate the matter of these allegations and others presented to it. The inquiry shall present its findings to the Deliberative at the end of RY768 without fear or favour.
In the name of Her Imperial Majesty, so shall it be.
Excerpts from the Deliberative Motions of Fire RY766.
In the eyes of certain Houses, Mnemon's new allegiance of the magistrates - and what she can do with them - becomes clear very soon.
In Numinous Rolling Waves, the stage is set. Just up the Imperial River from the Scarlet Prefecture, it is a place where everything has a place and all things know their place The land itself has been hammered into shape to satisfy the all-important dragon-lines that lead from the Imperial Mountain to the capital. It is said sometimes that the air itself crackles with power, and there are places one can stand to see five, ten, fifteen manses! Sometimes the sacred geomancy flares, and at that point the night sky is lit up with five-fold colours of light.
Magistrate Wisel Althea. A scholar, an academic, her blade taken from an oni she slew when she was leading her band of forbidden occultists and her left arm covered with self-inflicted scars of blood oaths she had sworn with the elemental folk of the forests. The Immaculate Order tracked her down twenty years ago, but before she faced the pyre the Empress had intervened. Perhaps she had been impressed. Perhaps she had just seen this cunning, brutal woman as a tool she could use. Regardless, she commuted the sentence of death to life in the Magistracy, at her pleasure.
Patrician House Ikimi. Originally, a cadet branch of House Iselsi, but three centuries ago Iselsi Ikimi had impressed Her Imperial Majesty with her work in capping manses in the Threshold. She granted her her own House, and a holding in Numinous Rolling Waves with the duty specifically to aid her geomancers in maintaining that land. Over the past century, its star had fallen somewhat and fewer numbers of dragon-children born to them had seen them slip down to the status of a patrician house. Perhaps it was the knowledge of their decline that led certain members of their family - allegedly - to resort to less-than-permitted means.
The Society of Pure Souls. One of those quiet backroom secret societies so common among the Dynasty. This one had a focus on ritual purity. Pure diets lead to pure deeds lead to pure thoughts. A little strange, but strangeness among the wealthy is just eccentricity. But the allegations that come out later is that they were worshipping a heretical sixth dragon, one whose suspire burned away sin and cleansed one's blood of impurities.
Wisel Althea suspects them. Perhaps she learned something in her disreputable past. Or maybe she's settling an old grudge. She investigates, and then she looks for support. She finds it in Magistrate Ahi Three Pig, one of the earliest to stand with Mnemon. Three Pig speaks with Mnemon, who agrees. There is plenty of support for Althea from the Magistracy now. No shortage of requisitioned assets, of legal cover, of the Guardians making sure everything is in the open and formal.
House Ikimi is devastated. Wisel Althea was always brutal, even when the Empress was around. The Empress's running dog, sent to make an example of people. The arrests take out the flower of the house, and do not stop. The Immaculates are brought in too. Wisel Althea is adamant that House Ikimi have betrayed the trust the Empress granted them, betrayed the Realm by their position here in a crucial dragon line, betrayed the Dragons themselves with their heresy. The trials are short; the punishments unusually harsh; mercy for youthful foolishness (so expected by young Dynasts) not given.
"This wouldn't have happened if the Empress was around," some say, and maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. Memory can be deceptive, and the Empress was no stranger to brutality or harshness whenever a House threatened her interests - and the geomancy of Numinous Rolling Waves was very much her interests. But she is not here, and it is Mnemon's hands behind this. Many just grumble, but House Hoto - old friends of House Ikimi - declares instantly for House Cynis. Speaks loudly of Mnemon's grasping brutality, of her lack of decorum, of her lack of respect for the rights of the Houses. Asks Cynis Sekhara for protection from Mnemon's running dogs.
The Magistrates do not like to be called dogs. And they too say things. They wonder loudly what House Hoto has to hide.
Mnemon and Cynis go head-to-head for control of the Magistracy. It is a war of shadows, and a few magistrates decide that things in Scarlet are far too hot for them to handle and that they need to head out to more remote areas of the Blessed Isle - or sometimes the Threshold - to avoid having to make a choice between two undesirable options. In the chaos, other people's corruption in Scarlet takes hits from being caught up in unrelated arrests or Magistrates taking the chance to go after people they knew were guilty but were too well protected before. However, when the dust has settled, a majority of the Magistracy has overtly or more implicitly sided with Mnemon, who has put work in for the past couple of years to lay the groundwork and build up the ties with them. A smaller contingent - mostly those who attend Cynis Sekhara's quite wonderful parties on the regular - lean more towards Cynis, while a few claim neutrality (alternatively cowardice, refusal to pick a side until paid more, being already in the pocket of another Great House, or in some rare cases genuine moral principle).
Scandal in Voice-of-the-Tides! Magistrate Pori Sia has always had something of a mixed reputation in the Magistracy, with most of her peers believing her to be an incompetent bumbler who only maintains her position by sheer luck while others think she's the sharpest mind in the magistracy who pretends to be incompetent as a cover. This argument does not look to be settled any time soon, because when investigating a minor smuggling ring, she vanishes for a month and emerges with (somewhat singed, water-stained) evidence that Magistrates Yu Susho and Kako Mai have been taking a stipend from House Peleps to turn a blind eye to any matters involving House Peleps. It is unclear whether House Cathak instigated this incident, but she escapes to Myion on a Myion Customs Fleet boat after - she claims - accidentally burning down several warehouses.
The Deliberative has, at the urging of House Ledaal, commissioned an inquiry to investigate allegations of Lintha involvement in areas of the South West. The bill, due to a busy legislative agenda and a lack of a seconding party, only passed in late Fire and so the two-year inquiry body of magistrates will begin its work next year. During its activity, the Magistrates will be watching matters pertaining to its authority much more closely.
Magistrate Wisel Althea brutally cracks down on a patrician secret society in Numinous Rolling Waves with the aid of Magistrate Ahi Three Pig and the overt support of Mnemon herself. No regard is given for the customary rights or privileges of the patrician houses, as magistrate Althea states that they were unregistered demonologists and heretics. Patrician House Ikimi is gutted by the raids, and their traditional allies in Patrician House Hoto publicly declare for House Cynis. Some say this is outrage at the trampling of the rights of patricians, but there are whispers in Numinous Rolling Waves that House Hoto has other reasons for seeking Cynis protection from Mnemon's magistrates.
In total, Realm Divide increases by two, with support given to some Magistrates and the institution mitigating some of the damage done by such a famous institution now being almost entirely partisan (and divided against itself)
Citadel of One Thousand Branches
(Written by @etranger01 with my approval)
From the desk of Mnemon Liese, Private Secretary to the Matriarch, to Mnemon:
Highness,
I have just finished debriefing Mistress Atesa and the news is dire indeed. As you requested, we mobilized Lady Sava's Brass Legion near Thorns to provide it with a convenient staging ground. Unfortunately, the Brass Legion itself was attacked shortly after its deployment. Mistress Atesa informs me that the aggressor force consisted of Cynis tyrant-lizard cavalry, with assistance from Tairan cataphracts.
The Brass Legion held firm against the initial charge of the tyrant lizards, to be sure, but the prolonged engagement was not in their favor and the Tairan super-heavy horse broke their lines in the subsequent attack. Lady Sava's fate is unknown, but we must presume her dead and her Brass Legion no longer an effective fighting force. Mistress Atesa is very upset about this.
Following the attack, the Cynis cavalry has refrained from the usual rapine and pillage. They appear to be turning southwest, toward Jiara.
I do not expect that they know we are here.
-L
---
Dispatch from Mnemon Ta'an, Outland Delegate to the Confederation of Rivers, to Mnemon:
Honored Matriarch,
The portion of the Grand Council open to foreign delegates has just concluded. The results aren't as we hoped.
In short, the position of the member-states is that they wish us all the luck in the world, and are encouraged by our diplomatic approach, but they are not yet prepared to acknowledge an imperial successor. Several directly cited the clash outside Thorns; the others merely indirectly alluded to it.
With that said, while we did not gain the official ties we had hoped for, I have made numerous friendly contacts among the river states. Should events develop further in our favor, I am confident that more ground can be gained, perhaps even leading to some form of formal alliance?
I do apologize, grandmother, for not achieving all that which you desired. I shall return home shortly to present my full report in person.
With filial affection,
Ta'an
---
Hastily-written note sent to Mnemon:
Highness, they are here.
---
Excerpt of after-action report of Cynis Tamaz, annotated:
"...and she just came out, all by herself! A full dragon of super-heavy cavalry on my side, flanked with two wings of tyrant lizards, and she came out by herself!* It was the craziest thing I've ever seen!"
(* Intelligence reports indicate that a small contingent of Jiaran shield-guards were present but remained in the rear echelon.)
"Some genius Tairan horselord yells out 'She's just one woman!' and before I can do anything, the absolute madman orders a charge! At this point, with the House's honor at stake, I've got little choice but to go along. Can't have foreigners showing us up, you know."
"The lizards get there first, but as soon as the first rank's within standard bowshot, they just... evaporate. Torn apart into little pieces by the biggest swarm of bats* I've ever seen in my life. The entire formation breaks, just like that. In an instant!"
(* Likely to be the spell "Death of Obsidian Butterflies")
"Anyway, I'm about to tell the horselord next to me that we'd better shear off, when suddenly him and the front half of his horse just kind of go up in smoke, and I barely dodge the huge fireball* that does it."
(* "Flight of the Brilliant Raptor," for the record.)
"Since I'm about to be the only one left in my squadron, I figure it's do or die, so I leap off my horse and make for her. I'm just about to pounce, and then... look, something weird happens to her shadow, I don't know what. It comes off her and turns into a thing. It's like... half a person, cut down the middle, covered in this huge ratty black cloak.*"
(* Believed to be Alastor, Perfection of the Edge, Demon of the Second Circle.)
"So there I am, cataphracts running every which way around me to avoid whatever horrible fate she's got in store for them, and this half-person charges me like a rampaging river dragon. It's got a brass sword bigger than it is and it looks pissed. Fortunately, I'm pretty great, so I hold my own just fine.*"
(* Tamaz offered this report after spending a week in the hospital for, among other things, severe cuts and burns.)
"After a while, though, most of the cataphracts have run off, and Mnemon herself turns toward me. I brace myself. I'm ready for it. And then... and then... she just calls off her sword-thing and lets me go. Lets me go!"
"Craziest damn fight I've ever been in. Say, is that plum wine you've got there?"
- House Mnemon attempted to make various diplomatic overtures and economic ties to places across the East this turn. Some success was achieved, but the activities of her rivals introduced doubt in the mind of foreign rulers.
- House Cynis invaded with their Tyrant Lizard Riders and associated cataphracts. They destroyed the Brass Legionnaires that Mnemon had hired and sacked numerous satrapy and client kingdoms in the East, before turning towards Jiara.
- In total, this has cancelled out all gains that House Mnemon would have obtained from its strategy and reduced their eastern satrapy income to 20 wealth (10 after tax).
- Further damage was prevented by the direct intervention of Mnemon in person. The Tyrant Lizard Riders and Cataphracts have both sustained the 'Heavy damage' tags. Cynis Tamaz sustained the "Brutalised" tag. However, Mnemon neglected to pursue the enemy when they broke off, deeming it better to reserve her energies and resources for what is yet to come.
- Realm Divide has risen by three points. Open warfare in the threshold, even if it is mostly between mercenaries, is still very concerning for all involved.
Grand Theft War Machine
(Written by @Gargulec with my approval)
This is how it starts.
***
Few things in Creation could terrify Sesus Ifran Anfa. But an invitation for tea from her mentor and adoptive mother was certainly one of them. She made her way through the silent, airy corridors of the Palace of Burning Winds, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand. Every mote of her Essence screamed warnings at her as she crossed a bounded field after a bounded field, layers of ancient protection meant as much for the protection of the Palace-dweller, as for her containment.
Out of the force of habit, she looked behind her before knocking on the black-lacquered door to Lady Smoke's chambers. Once, twice, pause, pauce, thrice. A cipher. Again, an old habit. She was lapsing. She was feeling fifteen. When was the last time her mother demanded her presence this deep into the Palace?
"Come," a frail voice invited, cutting her train of thought. She pushed on the door, and entered a blind room.
The smell of incense was overpowering; fragrant haze filled the chamber with a thick fog, turning the tea-table and the woman behind it into a vague silhouette. Anfa coughed, and made her way through, quietly praying that she still remembered the safe path through the floor-tiles.
She managed to avoid setting any traps before sitting down, cross-legged, across the outline of her mother. Through the smoke, she managed to pick more details of the table. Agelin's favourite kettle, a handful of incense sticks, two cups. And a map of Scarlet, defaced almost beyond recognition with scrollwork script. It was no language that Anfa could recognize; she doubted it was a language that existed outside of Lady Smoke's head.
"I was pondering the fortunes of our house," her mentor spoke in a tone of an idle tea-side chit-chat, "and the inevitable collapse of the celestial order."
"As you do," Anfa nodded, bracing for the blow.
"As you know, collapse," she continued, little more than a wraith in her home of haze, "is but another name for opportunity. And the greater the collapse, the greater the opportunity."
Anfa swallowed, and allowed her mother to explain.
***
The incense had all burned off; the tea had gone cold. The haze dispersed, revealing a lithe woman wearing too many veils and too many shawls for her shape to be discernible. But while on most days, she appeared barely present, little more than a wisp of fog waiting to be blown away by the morning breeze, tonight she was full of life and colour. Her hungry smile burned from beneath the shroud.
It was Ifran Anfa, usually so colourful and vibrant that seemed pale, ghostlike, terrified. Not of madness; no, madness she was used to. It was something else.
"All the Dragons guide me," she implored in a voice like cracking porcelain, "and grant me clarity. It's…" she took a deep breath, before letting the terrifying word out, "it's possible, mother. Mother, it's possible."
***
"What do you mean you're buying my warehouse?" Szas Yu rocked back and forth in his chair, staring alternatively between the massive stack of scrip on his deck, and the smiling secretary on the opposite side of his desk.
"My apology," the man replied, his smile too sweet to be false, "you must have misunderstood. We are leasing your warehouse, for the next year. What we are buying is your silence."
Yu blinked. He was no stranger to underhand dealing; no one in Scarlet was, not after the last few years. But he had made a decision, some time ago, to leave the imports business and instead focus on warehousing lumber for a trusted eastern merchant, and that decision was motivated entirely by his desire to leave the world of smiling secretaries, enormous piles of money and the inevitable knife in the back that followed. But then again, the pile was really quite something to admire, and the fact that the offer had been made was enough for him to realize that it was too late to back down from the deal.
"I'm told that Prasad is wonderful all year long," the man continued, smile not a iota less radiant. "I am sure that a man of your history is eagerly looking forwards to a chance to rest and recuperate."
Yu nodded nervously.
"I will be glad to leave the warehouse in the management of someone so obviously capable," he blurted out. Blasted years; he used to be better at handling this.
"Wonderful," the smiling secretary cheered. "Now, before we part, there is one more question I would like to ask. Do you happen to know anyone else in your business who would likewise enjoy a vacation like that?"
***
The engineer with a starmetal hand read through the letter again, and once more found herself at the loss of words. Your request for the additional funding for the purpose of [REDACTED] has been approved. A mina of jade has been disbursed for the purpose, alongside all the other requested materials.
Your request for the additional funding for the purpose of [REDACTED-1] has been approved...
The list went on, fifteen positions in total. Enough funds and enough resources to not only continue the maintenance, but also to make up for the lean years. It was, frankly, impossible, and the first time she read through it, she was sure it was some kind of a twisted joke played by one of those assholes in the Deliberative on them, now that their Imperial Majesty was confirmed gone. But no. This was the real thing, with all the stamps, seals and signatures. As good as in Bal Keraz's own handwriting.
With her flesh hand, she reached for a bottle, and poured handsomely into a battered steel mug.
"Want a shot, Sapphire?" she pointed the neck of the bottle at her friend.
"Sure," the woman - barely a woman, in truth - nodded, light playing in her crystalline hair. "So this is legitimate?"
"This is legitimate."
They clinked cups, drank. In a good, soldierly fashion. There was a reason to celebrate, after all. And then, another round. For a good measure - but they didn't get to drink it.
Steel-Eyes battered down the door with usual swagger, a grin as wide as if he had just returned from a particularly bloody battle.
"Mia?" he called.
"What is it?" the engineer with a starmetal hand groaned, putting the bottle down.
"There is a woman waiting to see you in the office," Steel-Eyes dropped onto an empty chair, swiped her cup and poured himself richly. "Smells of roses, somehow. Wants to know if we need anything. Figure it may have something to do with our lucky break?"
***
In a private, secure room of her Imperial City's apartments, Sesus Ifran Anfa listened to the reports. There was the Smiling Secretary, the Attentive Clockmaster, the Seasoned Thaumaturgist. The Trusted Knife, too, as always. That is how she knew them, and that is how she preferred to know them. To never as a name was the sign of the highest trust among the Sesus.
"It's ready," the Smiling Secretary declared.
"It will be ready," the Attentive Clockmaster added.
"I am currently making sure it's possible," the Seasoned Thaumaturgist finished.
The Trusted Knife, as was their wont, said nothing.
"Good," said Ifran Anfa, "My hooks, too, are in."
***
They called it the Feast of the Heavyweight Puppeteers; a tongue-in-cheek name for private celebration for a circle that was as small as it was elite, as vital as it was often forgotten. Gathered together, all forty odd souls, they barely managed to fill the emptiness and silence of the Vacated Bay. Most of them engineers, sorcerers, tinkerers, thaumaturgists and occult metalworkers. A handful - five, to be exact - pilots. They were close as kin, and they were also all recently bereaved.
Chief Sparrowhawk clambered atop a pile of rusted plates and battered machinery that had once been the Sky-Wrath. He helped himself to the traditional post in the cleft of the split gargantuan helmet and with a few quick kicks, brought the crowd to order.
"It's official," he declared. "She is declared dead."
He flipped over the glass in his hand and allowed the wine to spill down the ruined chassis, sinking into the grating of the floor below. Everyone followed suit; it was only appropriate.
"A libation to her soul!" Mia shouted.
"A libation!" Steel-Eyes picked up.
"A libation! A libation! A libation!"
The chant took the bay over, with all the grief of abandoned children, of knights left behind, of great people found themselves lost and without a path forward. Because without Her, what were they? An asset, a tool to be exploited, or worse yet - a resource. After all, they knew that they were not of the Houses. They were Hers as much as the Legion of Silence was, but while the Legion was an army in its own, they were what - a gaggle of odd-balls, heretics, firebrands shielded from the cruelty of the Realm by Her caring hand, now gone?
So they offered a libation. Then they drank, hard, and danced, harder, with fury and fire. And then, when they were too tired, and the shadows of the broken colossi around them loomed as large as the threat that was the future ahead, they clustered together around a burning fire, and talked. Asked each other the question - "what will become of us?". Sure, a benefactor's hand ensured that they - and their steeds - were as well maintained as ever. But that did not resolve the question, none at all. They were not fools, and they understood the war on the horizon, and they feared it. Not because they feared battle, but because they knew that there was no good role for them to play in it. Would they be divided, like the magistrates or satrapies, between the Houses? Would they be forced to stand against each other in the field? They were close as kin; the idea was unbearable.
But what if they refused? What then? The weapons that they were, the weapons that they knew, were too valuable to pass on. Not only for what they could do, but what they were made of. If they refused to divulge the pass-prayers, if they refused to strap into harnesses, if they sabotaged the steeds, their beloved puppets… then the Houses would just strip them for parts. Melt jade armor into daiklaves or powerbows. And they would be bereaved not once, but twice. If they were allowed to live at all.
"Fuck this," Steel-Eyes grunted and threw the rest of his booze into the fire. "We can't end like that."
"Do we have a choice?" Bleak Dia lived up to her name as always. She shrugged angrily and ruffled her hair; she was already preparing to grieve for when her adored puppet was consigned to occult butchery. "It's already in motion. You know we don't."
"We…," Mia, the engineer with a starmetal hand, cut in, voice tense. She didn't like what she was about to say, but all the alternatives were so much worse. "We do, actually. You remember that rose-handed woman? The one who secured our funds?"
They nodded, all to the last one. Like every family, they thrived on gossip.
"The other day, she approached me. Made an offer. It'll sound crazy, but I think it can work…"
***
If others struggled with the decision, Bleak Dia didn't. For her, it was a matter of a basic calculus: one fork in the path leading to a future with her beloved puppets being cut for parts like a carcass of a beached whale, and the other fork offering a chance. And though many called her a pessimist, she was just a realist, one appraising chances, potentials and risks soberly and clearly. Up until a week before, she had no hope, because there were no outs on the horizon. Now, there was one, and she would die before allowing it to pass her.
Which is why she was now pacing a quiet room in a Sesus' mansion, stopping only to point her calloused fingers at the man who called himself a thaumaturgist, but in her eyes was little more than a complete hack.
"Bluntly put," she recited, the notes she had been shown still clear before her eyes, "your plan is bogus. Warstriders are not 'modular', you can't mix and match their parts like some mundane engines. They are each a legend wrought out of jade and history, and if you damage this legend, you damage the puppet itself."
"But," the thaumaturgist muttered, clearly embarrassed and out of his league, "they can be disassembled?"
"Yes," Dia snorted, half-annoyed, half-amused, "they can. But if you do it wrong, what you end up is a pile of jade, and a crippled weapon-spirit out to get you. No. The entire proposal you offered is bunk. If you want to smuggle our puppets from their bays, and hide them, this is how you do it…"
Azure sparks trailed after her finger as she drew a complex diagram in the air, punctuating each important point with a thrust and a bright crimson dot. The thaumaturgist and his rose-handed mistress watched, enchanted.
***
For the first time in her - admittedly short - life, Sapphire feels the claws of doubt close over her heart. It should be such a simple decision. In fact, she knew she had already come to it, and only needed help coaxing it out, like tears held back. But this help was not coming - and so she was growing restless, spending hours in the bays, as if hoping that the still, cool shells of the puppets she knew so intimately would advise her. But the engines of destruction were quiet and no help at all, so she roamed the town instead, getting drunk, into arguments, into brawls, into all sorts of messes, only to be dragged out from them by the caring, rose-scented hand. As obnoxious as it felt in the moment, she was grateful for it all; it was almost like having Her back. Enough like having Her that she decided to try treating the woman like she would treat Her.
"I'm glad you came," Sesus Ifran Anfa beamed at her from over a bowl of delicious, spicy ramen. Sapphire ate voraciously, and allowed the older Dragon-Blood to speak at lengths. "I understand well the kind of uncertainty that plagues you. It speaks well of you, actually, to consider your actions at length."
In those words, however sweet, she was nothing like Her. She would have just told Sapphire to get over it, directed her towards the right path and been done with it. There would be none of that ass-licking, none of that pleasantry. Well, at least the ramen was good. Sapphire brought the bowl to her lips and slurped the rest of the soup out, barely stopping herself from wiping her lips with the hem of her robe.
"I just don't trust you, Sesus," Sapphire shrugged. "Your House is all smoke and shadows, and I am anything but. The puppets are not for espionage, they are not for back-handed strikes, or whatever it is that you are doing in the South."
She had hoped some of that would get a raise out of the Anfa, but the woman had to be used to such words; her face remained neutral and welcoming all the way through.
"They are meant for more than victory," she continued. "They are engines of Her justice, nothing more, but also nothing less. And I feel like you… like you don't stand for it."
For a moment, Anfa remained quiet, pensive. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"You are right," she admitted.
Sapphire blinked in surprise. She had been expecting lies. Not admissions of duplicity.
"Fortunately," Anfa added a monter later, "we do not stand in this plan, alone. We are, in fact, only a part of a greater whole, and there is someone who you should know who has Her legacy and Her justice always in her heart."
"And who that is?"
"Let me introduce you."
***
This is how it goes wrong.
***
Cynis Sekhara, the Matriarch of House Cynis, waited in the next room, looking so much like Her that for a moment, Sapphire was almost fooled. For a moment, she wanted to be fooled.
"You have beautiful hair, pilot," Sekhara complimented after the welcomes were exchanged.
"It's after my mother," Sapphire smiled back, settling in for a conversation with the woman who threatened Mnemon's claim for the Throne. But she already knew that it would be a formality. She had been right before; she had already made her choice, and she just needed someone to coax it out of her.
She just didn't expect that this someone would end up being the Butcher of Pangu.
***
Sapphire's favourite training bag, and at the same time her best, most intimate confidante was a corrugated plate of steel, left discarded in one of the empty bays. Whenever she had a need to clear her mind, to think, or to cry, she would come by it, breathing her exalted Essence deep, and start boxing, giving herself in to the simple joy of feeling metal dent and deform under the pressure of her blows.
On that day, the drum of her fists played well into the night, until her hands were a mess of blood and shredded skin and the floor the bay strewn with a thick carpet of crystal needles of her anima. But by the time had she finally let go, and dragged herself to somewhere where Mia, the engineer with a star-metal hand, could clean her wounds and dress them properly, she was happy, and her mind was clear.
"There is something I need to tell you," she whispered in an exhausted voice, reclining in a seat and waiting for Mia to be done with her medicinal ministrations. "But you have to promise you won't share it with anyone. Not even Steel-Eyes, or Dia. Especially not Dia."
***
In Sesus Ifran Anfa's rooms, the Attentive Clockmaster unfurled the final map; like the previous two, it was an accurate plan of one of the small towns near the Imperial City, notable only for its seldom-assessed manse, and a presence of the Guardians of the Realm heavy even by the high standards of the Scarlet Prefecture. And overlaid upon it was a tangle of colored lines, routes plotted, patrols marked, time-tables calculated with an exalted precision.
Anfa studied it for a long minute, finger tracing the path through the streets and into the extraction point, stopping at each red or orange mark of warning to consider the next move.
"We're ready," she decided at the end of the route, and even she couldn't help but to feel her heart race at the proclaiment. "Three days."
***
In the end the plan, like many good plans, was neither especially elaborate, nor devilishly sophisticated. Instead, it relied on tried and true methods of knowing the way the hearts of women beat, and accounting for every contingency twice-over. In fact, as the Trusted Knife observed Her Late Imperial Majesty's most trusted engineers heave the massive torso of the Heaved Banneret Triumphant out of its crypt of an arsenal manse, and onto an ordinary looking cart, they could not help but to see the entire affair as a bit unglamourous.
To begin, most of the actually dangerous work had been finished over the past month. The Ragara crypt-breaker team spent two sleepless weeks in the bowels of this squat, ugly manse, disabling and disarming countless occult alarms, diverting curses and placating guardian spirits. The work crews, of course, helped them at every turn. They didn't know everything, of course. Her Late Imperial Majesty, in her characteristic paranoia, put in many security measures meant not only to protect her private warstriders from outside interference, but also from having one of the pilots take them for a joyride out of spite or thirst of vengeance. But she clearly had not accounted for a close and tight cooperation between the subtle Great Houses and the Puppeteer Corps, subverted through and through like a worm-riddled apple.
The Trusted Knife shook their head. It was such a typical example of her thinking. As long as she remained on the Throne, her hand-picked and boundlessly loyal Puppeteer Corps would remain the final bulwark between her warstriders and any kind of interference, while if one of the Puppeteer's minds cracked and they tried to make a move on their own, her Realm would put them back in their place. A brutally simple system of checks and balances, with her as its fulcrum.
They flicked a razor between their fingers. There were times when they thought that the Realm was designed to collapse, that Her Late Imperial Majesty built it up so that it wouldn't last without her out of some kind of spite, that if she was not going to be around to maintain it, then no one would. But this was no time for such political questions; they had a heist of the Age to see through. Even if it was so very unglamorous.
To think - spend enough time planning, buy enough souls, sow enough chaos, and then you can just ride the most treasured war machines of the Realm Before from their arsenal manses like sacks of rice.
This Realm really didn't deserve to survive.
***
"Weren't we supposed to be patrolling the Nellens Boulevard today, captain?" the young Guard asked, marching down an unfamiliar beat.
"The Boulevard's closed for renovations," the captain responded with the confidence of someone bribed well beyond shame. "Who do you think we could catch there? Brickwork thieves?"
***
"The first shipment is in," the Seasoned Thaumaturge reported. "Secure in the seaside warehouse. Export scheduled for tomorrow. No issues at all."
"Fourteen more to go," Sesus Ifran Anfa sipped from a cup of tea, trying to appear relaxed in her balcony seat. In front of her, the Imperial City spread like a brickwork sea, quiet and peaceful on this sunny morning.
***
The infernal clangour of metal, machinery and human shouting pulled Nidat Bin from her sleep. She ignored her wife already whining about how they should have moved out of the portside years ago, and blearily dragged herself to the window to see what this entire commotion was all about.
A large group of serious looking men and women thronged around the warehouse on the other side of the street, the old crane helping them unload two massive carts. She had no idea what the cargo was, and frankly didn't care; it was too early to think about business. Still, it was good to see that Old Yu's enterprises were moving ahead; this had been a quiet year for him.
She slipped back into bed, pulled the pillow over her head, and tried to catch some more sleep.
***
"Twelve more to go."
The Smiling Secretary nodded, and vanished from the balcony to see to the next shipment. Anfa smiled nervously, and requested another cup of; she wondered if it was how her mentor picked up the habit.
***
The carnival rolled down the main street, from the Sky-Splitter Tower, all the way to the sea. Musicians - mortal, elemental, demonic - kicked up tunes jaunty enough to make the dead dance. Sweetest confections from the East were served by armfuls, and honey-voiced criers sang the praise of House Cynis and its great victories of the barbarian Halta. The festival was such a roaring success that even the officials convinced into approving it almost forgot the implied consequence of denying the House Cynis humble request.
And as with all festivals, it was also a hotbed of violence, drunken misbehaviour, Mnemon loyalism and other similar vices; thankfully the Cynis guards employed to keep it safe did their job admirably, escorting the caravan of garishly adorned festive carts all the way to their eventual resting place in the yards of the Shan Va's Shipment Company without letting anyone lay as much as a finger on the expensive decorations.
All in all, a day well spent in Scarlet.
***
"Seven remain."
The tea lost its taste; the bright mid-day sun seemed to burn her skin. It was all working out, somehow. But…
She could taste salt on her lips.
***
"Excuse me, governor, but why are we evacuating the city?"
The governor shot her aide a death glare. The last thing she wanted right now was someone second-guessing her.
"I was warned this morning that the city manse is compromised. A crack Mnemon geomancer team is on site, trying to stabilize it. But if they fail…"
She shuddered, remembering what the rose-handed woman explained to her would happen, if the team was to fail. Have you ever heard of what a misfire of the Realm's Defense Grid means?
"Those people are under our protection. The city must evacuate."
***
"Four."
Sesus Ifran Anfa's entire body was a steel rope, twisting tighter and tighter.
***
"There is one more left to pack," Mia, the engineer with a star-metal hand announced to the Trusted Knife. "And then we can leg it. I can't believe no one interrupted us."
"I, for one, can," they replied with a shrug. "Where is that pilot with the nice hair?"
"Sapphire? She's inside. It's her puppet, she's making sure no one dents the engravings."
***
"Two. Everything's working exactly according to the plan."
Sesus Ifran Anfa's tried to swallow, but her throat was too try.
***
On the way to her puppet's bay, Sapphire stopped by a small nook in one of the lesser-used corridors of the cavernous arsenal manse. There, cut in old wood, stood a small shrine, profoundly un-Immaculate, to a goddess that no one was supposed to worship. But heresy was just one of the little luxuries of belonging to the Corps. She crouched by it, and set an incense stick aglow. Then, after a moment of consideration, she put a full obol down right below.
"Mother of Woes," she whispered to the misshapen figure of a woman grimacing at her from the shrine. "Grant your errant servant your red blessing, for she is about to stray."
***
"What is taking her so long?" the Trusted Knife asked idly.
"It's a complicated procedure," the engineer replied.
They didn't like the tone of her voice at all. A razor flicked between their hands.
***
"Still two. And that means we are behind schedule."
It felt perversely good to say those words into the emptiness of the balcony. It meant that her worries were not unfounded. Sesus Ifran Anfa put the empty cup down and hurried downstairs.
***
The cradle of her puppet smelled like ass and felt like home. Sapphire grabbed the strings, socketed the inky-blue stone into the heart, and inhaled. Through the visors, she could see Meren of the Narrows give her the go-ahead. She was so very grateful. What she was about to do couldn't be attempted alone. She closed her eyes, and remembered the face of her mother. She had her hair, the same hair that made her so valuable on the slave-markets of Pangu.
The words of the pass-prayer came to her lips unbidden.
"Do not feel safe," she whispered into the cavity of the Unrelenting Light of Mercy, "the poet remembers."
***
"What is that sound?" the Trusted Knife inquired about the peculiar whine coming from the bowels of the mans.
"Just machinery. Don't worry about it," the engineer with a star-metal hand responded, clearly nervous.
They judged the distance between them and the engineer with a star-metal hand. Not enough for a lunge to be a sure kill.
***
"You can kill one," Sapphire continued, and with each word, a new kind of consciousness swelled in the back of her head, like a flower unfurling its petals after a long night, like a friend's embrace, like everything that was good and just about the world, "but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date."
***
The message that the Magistrate Topaz Vaum found on his desk at mid-day perplexed him. A scrap of paper, delivered by sorcerous courier, a small sapphire disk attached below.
Sound the alarm. Search the docks.
At first, he was ready to discard it, assuming it to be some kind of a joke, or perhaps an element of the shadow-war between Cynis and Mnemon he had sincerely hoped to avoid. But then, a peculiar sound reached his ears - a low, steady whine, at a pitch he had only heard once before, but never since forgotten.
He gripped the sapphire disk so tight enough to cut his fingers, swore profanely, and rushed out to find that idiot of the governor.
***
"And you'd have done better with a winter dawn," the prayer flowed from Sapphire's lips in a voice that was no longer her own; her anima awakened and spread over the great engine like a second skin, wreathing it in ethereal, jewel-like radiance. "A rope, and a branch bowed beneath your weight."
The presence in her heart exploded, and she roared in its clarion voice.
All across the city, alarm bells began to toll.
***
The Trusted Knife took the risk and lunged; the engineer with a star-metal hand parried the blow; she danced a step backwards and looked at the sky, split by the shrill sound of bells.
Behind her, the massive manse door started to open, letting out a river of serene, blue light.
***
"There is a magistrate headed to our warehouse," the Attentive Clockmaster announced to Sesus Ifran Anfa, somehow managing to not to shout. "The Mnemon city governor in tow. And half of the local Guardians, too."
The bells screamed, their hateful voice pounding on the inside of Anfa's head. But she had planned for this, too. She rushed out into the back-garden, and pointed her hand at the open sky, letting a scarlet bolt of Essence crack high like a signal-flare.
***
The Cynis elementalist watched the red-and-black firework explode over a city in uproar. From the deck of her ship, she sighed to maintain an appearance of disappointment, but in truth, she was more than excited to see how the contingency would play out. She allowed her consciousness to flow down from her body, into the waters below, and towards the great, serpentine mind slumbering below.
"Awaken," she implored, "Awaken."
***
The Unrelenting Light of Mercy burst out of its dock to the sound of crystal cracking, wreathed in a searing corona of light; a thing that massive shouldn't be this lithe, this grateful. The Trusted Knife stumbled back and committed their soul to the Great Nowhere beyond, but the engine did not come for them.
Instead, it skidded across the ground, one slender arm scooping the cart with a packed warstrider, the ox (and invisible demons) lashed to it screaming as they were ripped from their harnesses and splattered against the manse's wall. And the other reached out for Mia, the engineer with the star-metal hand.
The Trusted Knife grabbed a blade from their belt, weighed it, threw; but it stopped in the air and shattered before it could even reach near Mia. The woman smiled hatefully, and held on tight as the warstrider lunged forwards, smashing through the outer wall and into the city beyond.
All around, the bells rang at highest alarm; and in the moment, the Trusted Knife realized why. To distract them from following the fugitive. They sighed, and embraced the bitter taste of failure.
***
The great elemental serpent the size of a Peleps battleship parted the waters of the harbour in an explosion of splintered boats and to the music of a thousand screams. Filthy spray doused the magistrate and the contingent of the guards surrounding the warehouse, buying a precious moment.
There was no time to do it subtly. The packed warstriders were lashed together, the signal given. The serpent dove down, its head smashing the warehouse roof; it seized the package in its jaws, wrenched it clear from the rubble, and launched into the sea.
And then, to make sure that no one followed, three massive charges of firedust went off, one after another, throughout the harbour.
***
This is how it ends.
***
Sesus Ifran Anfa knelt among haze, hands folded on her knees. Yet, it was no supplication; she held her head high.
"In the end, I must deem Operation Colossus a success," she announced into the vague outline of an old woman's shape in front of her. Then, she paused, half-expecting a rebuke. But none the Matriarch instead focused on her favoured kettle, letting her speak on. "We have managed to secure thirteen out of the fifteen known extant Imperial warstriders. Despite the problems in Scarlet, we have managed to extract them all, and move them to a secure location, alongside most of the Puppeteer Corps."
She looked down at her own cup of tea cooling below. After that day in Scarlet, she had lost the taste for it.
"The extent of our actions remains obscured from most. Although the destruction of parts of the Imperial City's harbour in the course of the emergency extraction alerted many, we have thus far managed to avoid notice. The Mnenom blame the Cynis, the Cynis blame the Mask of Winters, House Ragara is suggesting that it was all the work of a 'rogue Simendor operative'. In essence, there is enough confusion and misinformation to occlude our role. It even seems that most officials are not even aware of what, precisely, was lost."
Still, Lady Smoke kept her quiet, a biscuit vanishing under one of her many veils.
"The two remaining warstriders," Anfa reached the painful part of the debrief, "and four members of the Corps remain, for now, unaccounted for. We are searching for them, but the operation is complicated by the political situation in Scarlet and adjacent prefectures. Thankfully, it does not seem likely that they have defected to any other House. They may have gone rogue altogether."
Half of a biscuit returned to the saucer. The cup was turned over, once, twice. Anfa immediately quieted, returning instead to a breathing exercise that, over this year of constant stress, had become second nature to her.
"So what do we know of this Sapphire?" Lady Smoke asked finally. Even now, she was speaking with calm ease of someone sharing choice gossip during soiree.
"Very little," Anfa admitted. "There are no records on her in any archive I can access. A Lost Egg, most likely, of uncertain origin. Handpicked by the Empress at a young age."
"And apparently very resourceful," Lady Smoke laughed. "I must say, for a scheme concocted by a brash pilot, I am impressed. She played us."
"She played the chaos," Anfa protested. "It was a mad gambit, with exceedingly low chances of success. Had she failed…"
"You are my favourite student, Anfa" Lady Smoke shook her head. "And the best one I've had in generations. You have executed my plan perfectly, and improved on it in many ways I couldn't expect. That trick with the parade? Marvellous, simply marvellous. But you do have a single flaw.
She poured herself another cup and leaned back.
"You overvalue sanity," she explained, satisfied, "and see audacity as danger. And this is why this no one of a woman played you, and got away with it. And this is also why I want you to find her, and observe her. At a distance. She may yet have a role to play in this coming calamity."
- Someone... ok, House Sesus has stolen the bulk of the Imperial Warstrider Corp. A dozen or more three-story mecha, with crew and pilots (all dragonblooded or otherwise enlightened) have gone AWOL from their armoury-manse berths in Scarlet Prefecture.
- Nobody knows where they are now. The only certainty is that they must be somewhere near Scarlet, and that the amount of infrastructure and specialist support necessary to actually make a warstrider operational is damn hard to hide; most likely, they are still in transit.
- At least two of the Warstriders have instead gone rogue, walking off into the wilderness or pursuing their own paths and ambitions. No one knows where they have gone, but warstriders are not subtle things.
- IC, while people have suspicions about the culprit, there is no hard proof. That said, proof is increasingly regarded as an unnecessary luxury as the Realm divides ever further, and this is a serious enough incident that there are few who will object to decisive action based on uncertain reasoning.
- Realm Divide has advanced by four points. People get antsy when giant war machines with no purpose other than mass slaughter or the duelling of behemoths get up and walk away.
Turn Three: Song of the Earth
(Written by @Crilltic with my approval)
"I had the dream again" the Cathak Nala said as she lifted the cup of tea to her mouth.
"Oh? The same one you mentioned last time?" Her half-sister said as she poured her own cup. Theirs was a monthly occurrence, a lazy conversation of gossip and inane chatter to distract from their lives. Two sisters, once rivals, but now time and distance had made them thick as thieves. "The one about the Sea?"
"Yes that one" She said, with distant looking eyes, "though it was much more than that. I can still feel it, the sand on my feet and salt in my eyes, and whenever I think of it it's as if I'm back there." It was an experience impossible to describe, so visceral as to send chills down her spine in her waking moments. The feeling of standing just shy of something endless and timeless, the crash of the waves like a massive heartbeat reverberating in her chest. The pale blue of a clear sky stretching out into infinity before here. Something, obscured by the haze of distance, towering over her stretching upwards to scrape the heavens itself.
"Odd, that. It's what? Your seventh time having this dream?" Her sister inquired
"Tenth, it's happened twice more since I last wrote. It's starting to come more frequently now." She sighed, "and what's more, Tellen told me he'd been seeing something similar."
"Did he now" Her sister idly set her cup down, "We both know how Tellen can be."
"He wasn't drunk that time, I swear" Nala huffed, "He saw the same thing, I could tell"
"Still, I wouldn't worry about it, they're just dreams. Don't have to mean anything more than that" Her sister said, she never had been one for superstition, "and if you're so worried, just write Cal'ta. She went to the Heptagram, probably knows more than both of us put together."
"I'm not going to write her over a dream, she'd never let me hear the end of it" Nala sniffed at the mention of their cousin, "and I'm not scared I just...I'm starting to miss it, when I'm awake, I miss being in the dream." She said the last part in a small voice.
---
Article:
There is something happening in Daoshin.
The Elementals are more active that I have seen in a long time. Something is charging them into a frenzy, and I have never seen anything like it.
It's starting to affect the local villages too. Guardians and the houses are keeping it hushed, but people are getting antsy, starting to act out. Could be the lights in the sky making them superstitious, they are peasants after all, but I've heard darker things. A loving husband beating his wife to death. A mother eating her own baby. Grape-vine says that the Guardians had to put an entire village to the gallows, but no ones said a word why.
What's more, the local hunters are scared to even leave their homes, afraid something is hunting them. And from the rate they're dying, I'd believe it. That, or deer suddenly learned how to shoot a longbow.
If I was feeling unlucky, I'd say it looks like Her work.
I'll stay here as long as I can, but I want out of Daoshin after this, especially if She is here. Something is coming.
I can feel it.
Signed,
R
---
The trio of Guardians stood in the clearing, their conical helms gleaming in the cold light of dawn. One of them, their leader, knelt down to examine their find, brushing dirt and debris away to reveal what lay beneath. A half covered campfire, hastily extinguished with a boot, and so recently there were still the faint glimmer of embers shining through amidst the dirt and leaves. This was the proof they needed. There were no game trails here, at least none that were used by any but the most desperate of poachers. Little more than a mile from the main junction routing Daoshin's dragon lines into the rest of the Isle, none would typically dare.
There had been reports. Frightened peasants and superstitious hunters reporting sightings of cowl-clad figures in the woods, scared of bandits behind every tree. Guards would typically investigate the rumors, but no trace could ever be found, and manpower was at a premium these days. So guards were increased where they could, and the stories and rumors fed the grape-vines even where they weren't.
This was different though. One of the three was a former poacher, though he would never admit it, and he knew forests like they were his own village. He had led them on this trail for almost a day's riding. Their leader was a former legionary, and she had faced the Moon-Maddened, and survived to learn their lessons. Enough to keep looking even where others faltered.
Then a branch snapped, and the three whirled around, to see a cowled man emerge from the shadows that surrounded the clearing. Then another, and another, until at last more than a dozen cowled figures surrounded the clearing. As one, the three drew their swords. The steel shining brightly in the dawn light.
Article:
Honorable Commander,
A portion of Squad 3 has not reported for three days. They last reported conducting an investigation into a local banditry issue near the border. This is the third such team to go missing in as many months. Additional reserves are requested to launch a thorough investigation.
Note given to Ah Ten Tree, Commander of the Western War Manse no. 13 Garrison
---
"Did you hear about the attempted incursion in the outer perimeter last night?"
"Yeah, didn't someone try to do a hit on the 8th Squads commander?"
"Yeah, almost slit her throat before the rest of the squad showed up to find her dueling something with her anima on full display. One of the girls got burned pretty badly trying to put the fires out after that, they drove it off though, whatever it was."
"Thank the gods for the new officers Lady Berit staffed us with... though that reminds me, 3rd Squad also found something during their patrol of the Dragon Lines. Someone tried to set up a ritual there before they scared them off. Must not have counted on the doubled patrols."
"For both to happen in one night though..."
"Say, it was a full moon last night, right?"
"Yeah, yeah it was. You don't think..."
Conversation overhead in Guard Camp attached to Storm-Breaker Spires
---
Article:
Honored Matriarch,
Attached is a report on my studies in Radimel's Seat and the local geomancy reclamation projects undertaken by House Ragara. The summary is that the damages caused by the Anathema defies imagination. The very dragon lines turned against themselves in a sickening perversion of the natural order that actively resists attempts to stabilize them. It will likely be the work of generations to restore the region to what it once was.
It is a sobering thing, to see first hand the capacity for the destruction the Anathema hold, and the speed by which they managed to accomplish it. Regardless, the fact there is an effort being made to do so has given the local populace hope.
Something I fear is in short supply these days.
Yours,
Yueh Nalanie
- Work continues on the Daoshin Geomantic Array. The elemental courts are disturbed, and strange dreams fill the minds of all who rest within a hundred leagues of the growing array. The amount of power being channelled through the network exceeds anything in living memory; only the Realm Defence Grid demands a greater tithe of the world's essence.
- Someone, or something, is attempting to interfere with the work. Not stop it, nothing so crude, but... change it. Twist it. Malevolent intent and an evident skill at sorcery are confirmed, the necessary combat prowess to attempt assassination of a veteran dragonblooded officer a minimal baseline.
- Strange figures, veiled and cloaked, have been reported near prominent manses and geomantic nodes across the Blessed Isle of late. No reliable pattern has been discerned as to their identity or motives, but numerous local investigators and watchmen have disappeared without trace.
- House Yueh is working with House Ragara to continue repairs and development in Radimel's Seat, where Lunar sabotage of the dragon lines turned a fertile province into a blasted wasteland and left millions bereft in search of refuge. This is entirely unconnected to anything else in the report.
Turn Three: The Monster's Prize
(Written by @Gargulec with my approval)
Mnemon Elissa's log of the excursion into the territories of the Queen of Fangs.
Day three
Today morning, we have forded the Golden River, and entered the formal borders of the Ten Thousand Fangs Total Control Zone. According to our guides, the region is mostly wild, and we should not run into any Anathema servants just yet. All the same, we remain cautious, proceeding through the thick bush towards the location marked on the recovered map. With Sextes Jyils' guidance, we should be able to reach it within a week.
Day seven
Fortune continued to be on our side. A run-in with an obviously sorcerous beast aside, we have not met anyone on our way. In fact, we are yet to find any signs of human - or beastman - presence. Our guides are anxious, however; as is common with Threshold savages, they are now imploring us to turn back and warning of some great evil waiting ahead.
Day nine
The guides have deserted us. Thankfully, this close to our destination, the map and my own abilities should be alone. The bush will not stop us.
Day ten
We have located the temple complex, preserved immaculately within the jungle, and made camp inside. The architecture here clearly indicates the Realm Before, which is a good sign. Still no signs of the locals. However, the area must not be as deserted as we have first assumed, as the initial survey of the complex managed to uncover several, more recent constructions - idolatrous shrines in the far-eastern style, filled with paltry offerings. It seems likely that the temple is only populated seasonally, likely for some kind of heathen festivities. Hopefully, we will have dodged those.
Day twelve
It is increasingly probable that we have been unfortunately misled. The complex is well preserved, but entirely stripped of valuables. Perhaps if were to scrape the last bits of gilding from the walls, and melt the idols down, it would grant us some wealth, but in truth such petty robbery should be left to the Cynis. We will be spending a few more days here, but unless a breakthrough is made, we should soon pack our camp and trace our steps back out of this barbarian land.
Day fourteen
This is not a temple. This is a tomb.
Day fifteen
The tunnels do not seem to end, and the script that covers them is in no language that I recognize. Whatever lies below has been buried deep. Thankfully, we've brought excavation equipment, which alongside the arts of Pasiap should facilitate access. However, I am getting worried about security measures. This place reminds me of the Valley of the Ancients, and not in a good way.
Day sixteen
Progress is being made. The demands of the excavation and the scope of the tunnel network demands that we move some of our camp belowgrounds. Our women are getting restless and anxious, and the unpleasant air of the tomb complex is getting to me too. I take it for a good sign; we must be getting close.
Day eighteen
The Anathema know we are here.
Day nineteen
The above grounds camp is lost. Casualties devastating. However, the beast refused to follow us into the tunnels. A sound decision, I am worried. This place is a maze, but seems without an exit; they can just seal us in. I worry that we will not be making it out of here alive. Our only hope is that the weapon we were sent here for is real. We press on, deeper. The amulet recovered last year is getting warmer to touch.
Day twenty
I wish we had listened to our guides. I wish we had never come here. I wish that the Anathema had slain us all. I wish we had never found what was interred. I wish the amulet had not been the key. I wish I had never had to learn the name Karvara.
Day twenty one
They are all dead. I am coming home. The forest withers ahead of me. Her hate is in my blood; her desire in my soul.
***
Article:
Matriarch,
Three days ago, Mnemon Elissa emerged from the eastern jungle after being presumed dead, piloting a colossus of moonsilver and unidentifiable materials. I hasten to add that she was covered head to toe in blood, barely communicable and alone; not a soul remains of the crossbowwomen detachment that accompanied her to her expedition.
After being administered healing sorceries and local tonics, we have managed to get a kind of an explanation from Elissa, alongside the log-book of her expedition, which we are including with this missive. Apparently, the colossus is some kind of a weapon from the Realm Before, outwardly similar to the warstriders of our Realm, although as far as we can tell its operating principles are completely different and far beyond our ability to understand, especially in the field. Elissa claims to have used to battle out of the Ten Thousand Fangs Total Control Zone, killing two Lunar Anathema in the process and laying waste to significant portions of the countryside. Her stories are too wild and grisly to believe, but it remains indisputable that this so-called Karvara is an engine of war of unparalleled power.
Elissa is insistent that the engine should never be allowed on the Isle; however, we believe that in the face of the disappearance of the Puppeteer Corps, it is a kind of an asset we simply cannot allow to lay fallow. The only possible complication seems to be that the engine has, thus far, stymied any attempts at attunement; it seems that only Elissa is capable of piloting her, which, considering her sorry mental state, may prove to be a challenge. All the same, we are certain those difficulties are far from insurmountable. We wait for your orders, and already make preparations for the transport of Karvara to Dejis.
- Working on information gathered covertly last turn, House Mnemon has mounted an expeditionary raid into the Thousand Fangs Army Total Control Zone, dominion of the Witch-Queen Raksi, most ancient and terrible of the Anathema. All participants save one perished in the attempt.
- Mnemon Elissa has recovered and attuned to the Imperial Warstrider known as Karvara, the Walking Devil Tower. This titanic war-machine is both prison and armour for a primordial spirit that has existed since before Creation's birth; it is a strategic terror weapon of unparalleled might, and a potential source of knowledge of things not even the gods dare to know.
- Karvara is sentient. Karvara wishes to be free. Karvara cannot exist within Creation; should the armour be breached, the paradox will resolve itself, one way or another.
- Mnemon Elissa gains the tag 'traumatised by the apocalypse'. Karvara accepts no other mistress.
- Raksi, Queen of Fangs, was not present within her dominion. She is elsewhere, attending to a project of appropriate scope.
Turn Three: The Tairan War
(Written by @etranger01 with my approval)
The night air was pleasantly chill after the baking heat of the day. Carried by a gentle breeze, it stirred the scrub of the valley with a faint rustle, the hardy vegetation bending slightly in the indirect light of the half moon.
The Malran commander was well-pleased with himself. His own horsemen had kept pace with the northern cataphracts throughout the previous day's march, and with this final overnight approach, they would be in Taira proper, within striking range of the bloody-handed usurper-child herself. He fully expected to bring her back, suitably bound, and to be showered with gifts by his naib. His smugness radiated off him like heat off a rock at midday.
Riding four abreast through the entrance to the ravine, laughably unguarded in a display of youth and inexperience on the so-called Shahzadeh's part, the horsemen soon disappeared into the shadows of the tall, tall rocks.
High above, two black-clad figures watch their progress with interest: one, tall and willowy; the other, slight but possessed of a certain undeniable magnetism. The taller woman stood in a slowly-growing puddle of sandy mud, though this did not bother her companion, whose anticipation grew by the second.
The smaller woman glanced up at the taller, not for permission, but rather advice, confirmation. Sesus Vahelo inclined her head slightly in agreement. The Shahzadeh lifted one gloved hand.
Across the opposed rock faces of the valley, hundreds of dust-covered eyes blinked open. Hundreds of blackened blades whispered free of their sheaths. Muscles tensed. The air thickened.
The Shahzadeh's hand fell, decisively.
Another breeze, this one man-made, and then the screaming began. Liquid gurgles intermixed with panicked shrieks from men and horses alike. The futile sounds of mercenaries scrambling for their weapons, for any source of respite, echoed throughout the canyon.
The black-clad Sabah made as though to step forward, hungrily, only to be intercepted by a quelling motion from the Sesus matriarch. She paused a moment, then nodded thoughtfully, leaving the professionals to their work.
There would always be more blood.
---
Article:
"There is one choice before you, honoured naibs. Bow before the throne, and renew your oaths of loyalty to my family. Or serve the cause of Imperial Taira in... other ways."
Message recited by the walking corpses of Malran soldiers, dispatched by the Shahzadeh to all remaining rebel lords.
---
A wind-carried missive to Sesus Vahelo:
"Bees! Apes! From the skies! They're everywhere! Giant apes! BEEEEES!!! <incoherent screaming>"
---
A more thoughtful report, sent from one of Vahelo's scouts:
Honored Matriarch,
The Tairan horse-fiefs have been devastated by what our sorcerer informs me was a massive, externally-controlled demonic incursion. Swarms of jewel-wasps dropped packs of blood-apes into settlements occupied by the horselords as part of a campaign of pillage and destruction. No quarter was offered.
The ruling nomad class has incurred serious losses, as have the local residents. The peasants cower within their huts, terrified of future attacks. I anticipate a substantial decline in tribute capacity.
We found the House representative in various places around one of the settlements. The parts have been collected and the appropriate rites performed.
Further instructions would be welcome.
- In Taira, the Shahzadeh's war to secure her throne continues apace. The Naib of Malra, despite foreign backing from unknown parties, was soundly defeated in battle by the loyalist forces.
- Sabah II, Shahzadeh of Taira, has continued to display ruthlessness and power beyond all expectation. Her soldiers are skillful and fearless, her holdings prosper under her brutal yet even-handed rule, and she has begun to display a prodigious gift for necromancy. None of this is entirely impossible for a mortal woman of skill, which the envoys of House Sesus assure everyone she remains.
- House Ledaal has recaptured its former holdings in the south-east, through the bloody efforts of its Matriarch and a sizeable host of demons.
- Realm Divide rises by two, as proxy wars continue and dark rumours circulate.
Turn Three: Princes of Endless Summer
(Written by @DarkMagyk with my approval)
The fields keep a harvest of ashes, everything not taken burnt and given to cruel gods. A bull lies across the burnt farmhouse's steps with a bloody second mouth at its neck. The liquid is precious, but no insect or carrion bird dares sacrilege to steal from the offering.
Two Varangaians split off to approach the bull. Araken spits out his chewing weed: "Get back in line shoe-brains! We might just be fetching refugees and sitting on walls but no one disrespects Ahlat in Red-Feather's band. Now march you sons of donkeys! We reach Perch tonight and wine is on me!"
The fools fell back in as a feeble cheer rang out from the rest of the band. The sullen villagers and their loaded wagons plodded silently behind, resentful of his formations' failure to meet the raiders in battle.
That Maweti bitch, she had shown up promising help and protection, stability against Sesus pursuit. All of it lies. Her hired firewands had raided up and down the Elidad River stirring up trouble with previously peaceful kingdoms, only avoiding the undead necropolis Twilight Grove. The she-devil had left her mercenaries to play dumb to every entreaty to stop, causing the very chaos that Maweti had warned about. The only saving grace was that his employers were surprisingly understanding.
The walls were manned and nothing important to the north besides a few peasants had suffered. Come next campaigning season if his Ledaal employers kept the flow of supplies and reinforcements maybe they'd be on the winning side of a battle for once.
If not, at least wall duty beat being run down by horselords.
Carried by a experienced messenger of House Ragara to the Dragonfire Legion's marching encampment
To be delivered to the hands of:
The Unconquered Falling Ash, Crown Marshal, 3rd Imperial "Dragonfire" Legion
I am delighted to finally have another chance to exchange words with you, a pleasure denied since your brilliant campaign against Greater Zhao last century. I hope to alert you to the upcoming movements through the southern Satrapies of Houses Tepet, Sesus and Ragara, that we may coordinate to properly ensure Imperial peace throughout the south.
Trade will soon be flourishing, born by ships full of goods with the Ragara flag to fill every port of the South. Our auxiliaries and paramilitaries shall be overseeing the security all who bear allegiance to the Five Dragon Throne, ensuring that any instability in these trying times is minimal as House Ragara assumes governance over them. Throughout this explosion of prosperity, House Ragara has employed experienced Line infantry who could prove excellent auxiliaries to legion actions to maintain peace.
I do look forward to an excellent chat about how our mutual cooperation will best ensure the south's affluence.
May Hesiash look fondly upon you,
Ragara Banoba
-------------------------------------------------
A reply delivered by a Outcaste officer, stoic and unwilling to be plied by soft promises, pleasures or even Jade:
Banoba,
I'm glad you remember our last meeting, but unfortunately any repeat shall need to wait until our current deployment is concluded. The Southern legions are currently securing Chiaroscuro. I won't trouble you with the details, but your excellent infantry may be better served defending your new trade routes for now. However, should cooperation still be your desire, perhaps you might direct your words to our current field commander, General Saloy Hin, who is organising such matters while I turn my eye to greater strategy.
General Saloy is presently preparing the 17th to receive it's Imperial Triumph, once the delays in the deliberative are settled. If you would like to speak with him in Chiaroscuro, I should be pleased to make introductions, both for you and for any other people of standing you think might benefit from the experience. Promising students from Pasiap's Stair, perhaps - they would do well to begin their experiences with the southern legions in coming years, and gratitude make opportunities for future cooperation more plentiful.
I hope to have a chance to reminisce with you next year, until then may Sextis Jylis favour you.
I'm completely distraught, Pavoqe. I can't believe those paper-pushers would be so incompetent to delay Saloy's triumph for an entire year! The heat is bearable in his company, but I cannot wait to return to proper climates again. Thankfully Hin is very much forward looking: he has already prepared shipping for the 17th to return to the Blessed Isle, and even secured significant extra capacity if for some reason the other southern legions were to need swift transport anywhere in the south.
It has been a glorious sight to see all four legions prepared and encamped, though the 17th swiftly split off to take residence around the Tri-Khan's residence at his generous invitation. There was surprisingly some unrest in the city, but I and a dragon of the reliable 17th escorted the Tri-Khan on a glorious parade through the city to reassure the masses.
Hin has really been a dear - he said he quite understands the haste and expense of preparation for the Empress's funeral(I still can't believe she's gone!) led to the current confusion, and he's always quick to step in whenever any of the other officers begin grumbling a bit more than is entirely necessary. I'm sure that House Cathak will make sure that nothing like this could happen again. I'm visiting his wing of the Tri-Khan's palace for dinner and entertainment tonight, so wish me luck!
M
PS: there have been some Ragara letters flying around the Crown Marshal recently, and she's been holding a number of meetings of the legion staff. I'm glad she was wise enough to appoint Hin to her personal council, but perhaps it would be wise to speed my marriage negotiations along before anyone gets any ideas? It'd just make House Cathak's control over the situation much more clear!
News from Cathak Maweti's personal letters (nominally private, in practice wildly popular at salons and galas and meetings of the Cathak General Staff)
- House Ragara has, through deals with Houses Sesus and Tepet, assumed a commanding economic and military position in the southern Threshold (details to come). Their flags fly in every port, their ships supply every nation, their guards stand watch over every trade route.
- House Cathak has, through mercenaries led by House scions, continued plundering and making troubles in the satrapies belonging to House Ledaal. Ledaal's own mercenaries have largely managed to keep said plundering directed at actual rebels and divisive elements, and thus the damage to the parts of the land that the Realm cares about has been minimal. Open conflict was largely replaced by a wide variety of posturing and negotiation on the grounds that mercenaries like being alive to spend their pay.
- General Saloy Hin has led four Imperial Legions to seize... to peacefully secure the port city of Chiaroscuro, which pays tribute to the Realm but is not a direct subject. Crown Marshal Falling Ash appears to be supporting him in this... which is fine, because everyone is being very peaceful and law-abiding, and the bulk order of shipping is merely a logistical concern.
In Garianghis, the City of Dreams, heroes die in their sleep.
Understand me here, child, for I do not speak of a quiet death, a last slumber that takes the elderly softly into the grave. Women of means and power, in the prime of their life and the height of their glories, die screaming in Garianghis. They choke on the blood of their sisters in arms, roll over in their beds to the staccato crack of breaking bones, and unfold themselves like flowers to glisten wetly in the moonlight. Officers, commanders, respected veterans - the carnage is selective, for all its horror, and in patterns of blood and broken meat the crusaders read the name of their foe. This is the work of the Lunar Anathema, of the Third Daughter of Leaves.
The first impulse is to abandon the city, for the pattern suggests that only those who sleep within its bounds are prey to the monster that lurks within their dreams. A sound tactical choice, one that logically leads into quarantine and slow reclamation by specialists from the homeland, and entirely unacceptable in practice. This is holy ground, the sacred gift of the wood dragon, the temple-hearth of Sextis Jylis. To leave it in the hands of demons and madwomen is unconscionable, and so an alternative is sought. A hearth is drawn together, a sworn kinship of the Crusade's mightiest and most experienced dragonblooded brought together under the leadership of Cathak Cainan, forces mustered for a wyld hunt of most unusual form. Then, when all is prepared, the heroes proceed to the centre of Garianghis and… sit. In a circle, under the watchful eyes of the untiring Myruun, they sink into meditative slumber and from there the realm of dreams.
The sights that await beyond conscious thought are of their foe's design. A great dragon lies broken and bleeding upon the ground, and its ribs are great redwoods and its scales a billion emerald leaves. Its blood brings life and vigour to the land, and its laboured breathing becomes the waters that feed the world. In the broken void of its ribcage awaits the Third Daughter, and her hate burns hot and sharp.
What follows is perhaps best described as slaughter, as butchery, as the act of taking that which lives and breathes and feels and rendering it down into nothing more than meat. In the land of dreams it is will and belief that form the bedrock of one's might, and though Cainan and his hunters blaze with pious determination their foe knows hate beyond the bounds of sanity. Her grievances stem from lives lost in their multitude, from grudges borrowed and legacies passed down, and she wields them with a killer's eye. General Mors Redo of the 13th dies with a dagger in his eye, his jaw working soundlessly as he speaks the names of daughters dead four centuries past, while Mnemon Sereha of the 10th is unmade by the grief of a dream stolen forever beyond a husband's reach.
In the end, salvation comes from those who seek it for themselves. The Penitent Legion of the Ashen Dragon are not truly part of the Crusade, for their nature sets them apart from the living at their side and they are thrice mad besides, but their goals are shared and their eyes keen enough to see this opportunity for what it is. This place, this working of Third Daughter's magics, is a monument to life at its end and the legacy of ancient wounds. Where better place, then, for the faded memories of heroes to make their final stand? They bleed from between the dragon's bones like shadows at the forest's dusk, and as the Anathema snarls and turns on them with tears of molten flame, they draw their blades with a smile.
When Cainan wakes, it is with Third Daughter's broken corpse at his side.
With the Second City safe at last, the Crusade forges on towards its prize. The jungle ends but scant miles further on, giving way to hills and dales covered in hardy scrubs, and while the open ground allows for proper formations so too is it open to attack. Progress slows to a crawl as packs of vengeful turtle-wolves harry the flanks and flights of shrieking hawk-folk strafe columns with the barrage of arrows, and orders are given for the construction of a great chain of wayforts stretching all the way back to Faxai to secure supply lines from this threat. One is destroyed in its entirety mere days after completion, the titanic form of Sandswept Garuda Empress descending from the clouds to carry it off in her claws, but it is swiftly replaced and the host forges on.
In his command tent behind the lines, Cainan takes advantage of the slow advance to get a full summary of the wider theatre provided. It makes for grim reading.
In Asura, Yueh Alika has been murdered, her attempts to expand the Everblooming Ash company to these foreign shores cut abruptly short by a Lunar infiltrator who tore her heart out while she slept. In Kama, efforts by Cathak Kiriz to perform outreach and missionary work were interrupted by a sudden raid of Lintha, seemingly hell-bent on sacking the town and dragging the inhabitants away in chains. The monk had saved hundreds from a grisly end, but at the cost of his own life, and while initial reports suggested that the Caulborn would honour his sacrifice and give greater consideration to the cause he died for, the news is still enough to cause the old Matriarch a moment of quiet grief.
On the waves, things are more ambivalent. The Order's Harmonious Elemental Squadron has been destroyed, torn asunder by the fury of the beast Leviathan, but eyewitness accounts from the few survivors attest to the sight of the great orca descending to the depths on a trail of blood from ever-burning wounds; two score dragonblooded dead, for a Lunar elder wounded to the point of retreat. A fair trade, Cainan concludes, especially as it has freed the fleets of House V'Neef to keep their supply convoys secure and their troops well fed. As for Faxai… none of the reports there make any sense. At least a dozen different covert operations, his scouts confirm, backed by an unknown number of patrons and working at cross purposes when not outright opposed... they cannot even say for sure which ones belong to the Lunars, though surely at least a handful must. It is a headache in the making, but provided the infighting stays far away from the military realities of his campaign, Cathak Cainan is prepared to do the smart thing and make the whole mess someone else's problem instead.
And so at last they come to Houshou, the Pyre that Consumes Itself. Here can be found the blessings of Hesiash, the Fire Shrine that tests the will, and here can be found the Lunar known only as Skathra Venomchild.
Even by the standards of its damned and forsaken kin, the Venomchild is a monster. It taunts them with piping laughter that echoes without end, and it kills them with an axe of flowing silver that trails a poison smoke behind every stroke. On each of a thousand reptilian scales has the Venomchild carved a flametongue mockery of Hesiash, and on the first day alone it matches the crusaders in a dozen independent skirmishes. There is no trap here, no great host or devious stratagem, only the Venomchild alone against an army of thousands, and that may very well be enough.
Houshou burns with the passing of the sun, a brilliant pyre that consumes flesh and stone alike repeated each and every day, and seizing it fully between dawn and dusk is a feat even the legends of antiquity would be hard pressed to match. To secure what one has taken in the face of active opposition, in the claws of a monster like Skathra Venomchild, is a task beyond the impossible. Only those willing to remain in the city when night falls, willing to die screaming in the flames as many times as necessary to form and tighten the perimeter, could ever hope to win the day. It is clear to all that the Lunars hope the impossibility will cause the crusade to stall and delay, to seek answers in cleverness and cunning artifice and so buy time for some greater strategy still, but this is not a war of thought and deed alone. This is a war of faith, and so Cainan turns to the faithful and bids them see it done.
The warrior monks of the wyld hunt, the grandmaster Ragara Myruun, the exultant fanatics of the Saffron Pilgrim Army. They cross the perimeter to the sound of bells and clashing symbols, to the whispered prayers and muffled curses of their neighbouring legionnaires, and block by block they bring Houshou under their control. It takes them five days to do it, and for those five days not a single soul passes back across the boundary of Houshou. They die screaming when the night comes, each and every one of them, and when dawn brings fresh life they stand and they continue their hunt once more. At noon on the fifth day they send a message, a single runner with tears in his eyes who calls to the legions encamped beyond the border - the Venomchild has been pinned in place.
This deed, Cainan sees to in person. He is an old man and a vital commander, but his faith is strong and his honour unbreakable. He has asked the faithful to die for him, and die they have, but here at the last he will not ask them to fight and kill alone. He enters Houshou with a handpicked unit of his finest veterans, and in a war that levels a tower and leaves steaming rents upon the ground, a series of running battles that stretches half the day and more, he runs the Venomchild to ground and takes its ugly head. Then, with no time left to retreat to the borders once more, he sits on the ground next to his enemy's corpse and awaits the coming of the flame.
Cathak Cainan dies.
Cathak Cainan lives.
Houshou has been reclaimed, bringing three of the five great Shrine Cities under Realm control.
Third Daughter of Leaves and Skathra Venomchild have been slain. Leviathan has been forced into retreat, badly wounded, and will not participate in the fighting next year.
There will be a second Caul report, detailing everything that happened on or relating to the Caul that wasn't a direct example of frontline military conflict.
House Cathak
Penitent Legion - Destroyed, their martyrdom obtained.
Hero of the Damned - Lost, presumed destroyed, last seen locked in combat with Third Daughter amid a collapsing dreamscape.
First Cathak 'Wildfire' Legion - Light casualties overall, gains 'blunted edge' to represent heavy losses to the elites and dragonblooded officer corps.
Immaculate Order
Warrior Monks - Destroyed, slain by Sakthra Venomchild.
Saffron Pilgrim Army - Heavy Casualties.
Ragara Myruun - Gains "Broken Spine" (not irrecoverable for the Exalted, but temporarily crippling)
Harmonious Elemental Squadron - Destroyed, giving their lives to drive off Leviathan.
Imperial Legions
13th Imperial "Emberstride" Legion - Loses 'Exalted Officers' tag
10th Imperial "Stonespire" Legion - Heavy Casualties
House Nellens
1st Southern Troops formation - Destroyed, broken by aerial attacks
4th Southern Troops formation - Destroyed, torn apart by vengeful turtle-wolves.
Turn Three: Merchants of Death
(Written by @God and the Snake with my approval)
If you were to, by some inexplicable quirk of fate or heavenly scheme, meet Cathak Satare in a bar… well, she probably wouldn't be disposed to giving you the time of day, let alone having a conversation. But presume you managed to strike a chord with the old strategos, presumably via a mixture of flattery and expensive drinks. She'd be more then happy to discuss her work, which remained a passion even this late in her life.
The first thing she'd tell you is that war was, in fact, horrible. Oh, she'd wave off your concerns of the horrors of the battlefield: Such nonsense was the purview of bleeding-hearted monks and wailing Cynis poets. No, the real horror was in the tedium: Waking up an hour before the crack of dawn, marching twenty miles, making camp, grappling the endless bureaucracy of supply-lines and after action reports, then sleeping for five hours to wake up and do it all again tomorrow.
But the second thing she'd tell you about war, which she'd insist made it all worth it at the end of the day…
...Was that it was very, very profitable.
----
Though ironically, it wasn't profit that spurred the machinations of House Cathak in Myion, but ambition.
...As well as boredom, but that and ambition can go hand-in-hand.
While its siblings plundered vast riches across the south and fought with divine purpose in the Caul, the Inferno Legion languished in the squalor of inaction. Myion was secure, and all but unassailable between the legion and its fearsome fortress… which left the scions of House Cathak hungry for any measure of acclaim they could find. Anything to stave off the ennui between patrols.
And their salvation came in the form of a curious little device of the First Age.
Firewands were by no means rare in the south, but were delicate and temperamental enough that they'd never truly caught on in mass formation fighting… at least, not for very long. But the scholars of House Cathak unearthed a true treasure! Intact Shogunate era variants, far more reliable! The find of a lifetime.
Firewands had spread like... wildfire… among junior officers of the Inferno Legion, who began rearming their own companies with the incendiaries even while their more conservative peers ground their teeth at the expense and the flagrant violation of protocol. Unauthorized changes of unit formation? Wild changes in legion doctrine? Cathak Cainan wouldn't stand for it!
And he wouldn't. If he were there. But Cathak Cainan was far away, and Strategos Satare was here and saw an opportunity to solidify her tenuous position in House politics.
That's the way of things: One's ambition feeding off of another's.
By hook and crook she gathered every speck of firedust she could find in the south, and turned to using the Inferno Legion as a testbed for new designs. Once where there had been a scattered few firstdust squadrons, now the legion saw the introduction of entire Fire Companies and grand flame cannon artillery batteries.
Of course, this only angered the traditionalists further. What was once a dispute into protocol became a schism, with Duster and Conservative factions clashing weekly in sprawling war games, each dedicated to discrediting the other.
But that was an issue for another time, because Satare had loftier aims for her firedust production.
Namely, making House Cathak incredible amounts of jade.
The Imperial Legions were hesitant at first to purchase Satare's weapons: They were anything but cheap. But when their representatives gathered in Myion for a live demonstration, and a firecannon barrage seared clean a mock encampment they changed their tunes.
In her Myion office, Satare samples imported ice wines and thrills at her luck. While most of the southern legions had only made tentative testing purchases, both the 3rd and 17th Legions had already made bulk purchases, far beyond even what she'd hoped for two field forces! Falling Ash, a Crown Marshal, had even sent a personal missive praising Cathak's designs and extolling that her cannonades would guarantee the Realm's future.
How silent were those upjumped adjutants who'd been crowing for her retirement now! The strategos reclined back in her plush velvet chair, content that not even Cainan himself would find fault with her work.
Of course, House Cathak is far from the only family eager to provide for the Imperial Legions.
----
Firedust is a wonderful weapon. Mystical. Powerful. Devastating.
And also expensive. Not to mention temperamental. And while the southern legion on the frontier seemed eager to adapt these new arms, the central bureaucracy in Scarlet was far less willing to embrace such radical designs! On the mainland, the myriad dignitaries chose to hold to the old creed of faith and steel.
And steel House Petal was more than happy to provide.
Petal Lotus walked the halls of power in Scarlet, and she found little need to extol the virtues of her House's work: Their craft, the regalia of matriachs and a pillar of crusades, spoke for itself. Certainly, the scale of their craft had always limited uptake, but that was a constraint of availability, not customer appeal. A program of expansion, funded by the guarantee of future clients, would see the House's prospects flourish like never before.
And indeed, the year was one of full bloom for House Petal in the capital. In the midst of tumult and change, the poorer of the city's craftswomen and peddlers had begun to wilt under the weight of uncertainty. And here it was that House Petal offered their aid: Investments and loans, enough to encourage budding fortunes all across the city.
Some among these fortunate beneficiaries even went so far to begin decorating their shops with the House's mon, in a show of gratitude and solidarity with their august patrons. A scion of the house (one of Lotus' influencers, by now synonymous with Scarlet's social scene) dubbed these shops 'Petal Gardens' during a casual gateway salon, a name that quite unfortunately stuck.
But regardless, the public expansion of Petal saw fine successes in Scarlet this year.
In private, however…
---
In the privacy of her forge, far from the now ceaseless sound of steel pounding at steel (for the Matriarch required the forges and foundries of Mavinyos remain lit night and day, blacksmiths working in shifts to meet the House's new demands; some cursed Ragaran concept, no doubt), Petal Anemone examined the work of one of her apprentices. It was… a spear. Her apprentices watched, shifting on their feet, waiting for her review. And as they did, she… ruminated.
Oh, it was one of excellent quality of course. Its head was finely tempered steel, mined and refined in Mavinyos itself! Its shaft was smooth to the touch, comfortable in her grip, and perfectly balanced. By any measure, it was a weapon any legionnaire would be ecstatic to carry.
It was one of the most disturbing things Anemone had ever seen.
The spearhead did not shimmer with a cornucopia of colors in the light cast by her forge. It wasn't even jadesteel! The shaft was well-treated oakwood, but she would never have settled for less than Haltan ironwood for her craft! And where was the ornamentation along the shaft? Carvings that flowed like dragonlines, such that every thrust was a prayer?
Petal arms were a statement, an instrument of state. And this was…
...Just a weapon.
Anemone pushed the spear back into her apprentice's hands. "Acceptable," she murmured and swallowed her fury when relief and not shame crossed the young woman's face.
---
But regardless of their radically different approaches, and despite any slight hitches along the way, both House Cathak and House Petal had found success! The Imperial Legions, near and far, took to their arms with aplomb.
But, a few might argue, they'd made two mistakes. Or perhaps it might be better said, they'd missed two opportunities.
The first was that they had perhaps limited themself, focusing so heavily on the Legions as their market. After all, the Realm had many bodies preparing to gird themselves for the war to come.
The second was that they had focused so heavily on the weapons of the future, and not the ones holding them.
Set a peasant in a warstrider, and she'd hardly be able to make it move let alone fight. Give a hundred scared farmers daiklaves of jade and hauberks of sorcerous steel, and all you'd manage is making the first band of veterans who scattered them very wealthy.
Armor was only as good as the body it protected. Improve the warrior before you improved the weapon in her hands! Or at least, one could call that the argument of House Valetari.
And the service they offered their clients.
In the far north, Valetari Nimes leads her family's Wayfinders on a tireless hunt across the Haslanti tundra. The Deliberative had hired their services, and they would not settle for half measures. Their quarry is strange this season, for they hunt death itself. And they found death in a dozen forms: In the blades of blurry-eyed caravan guards, lost to all purposes but this final charge. In the snapping jaws of hungry spectres, bound and hateful and eager to share their fate. In the glistening stones they tracked, whispering with all temptations of unspoken dreams, if they merely set them on their brow.
In the smile of a pale-skinned man who's tired grin opened to show a hungry oblivion.
But death was a familiar companion to the Wayfinders. As was sacrifice.
And victory.
And so as the year draws to a close and the League is consumed in the euphoric high of change, Nimes and her scale found themselves plied with drinks and gratitude of a people dazzled by their tales of battle and daring.
And their tales reached further than just the Haslanti League.
The powers-that-be on the Blessed Isles watched with keen eyes the diligent work of the Wayfinders against the anathema in the north. Those same eyes considered as Matriarch Seia appeals to the Deliberative for the right to build a fleet to defend North-Eastern trade interests.
And so when the Valetari build the Cloud Forest Sanctuary, a temple-manse gifted freely to the Immaculate faith, deep in the woodlands of Six Vines, the monk sent to lead its first sermons offers more than just prayers to their Valetari host. After all, the reward for work well done is more work.
And to the sufficiently ambitious, that was far from a curse.
- House Cathak has moved into the firedust trade, having unearthed and developed a new breed of firewand and portable artillery from their excavation work in the Daoshin Peninsula. The House and much of the wider Realm is now split on the wisdom of this radical new technology and tactical doctrine, but there is great profit in it, and House Cathak has established an early monopoly.
- Lore Note: Exalted doesn't do guns, generally. Firedust weapons tend more towards musket-sized flamethrowers and trebuchets that fling crates of napalm. Similar tactics, in many ways, but different aesthetics and routes for development.
- Crown Marshal Falling Ash and General Saloy Hin have bought a great deal of firedust weapons this year, paying for much of it with war plunder from the Sul Amor campaign. For... modernisation purposes. It's fine.
- House Petal have, through politicking and exemplary work, secured themselves an imperial mandate to provide arms and armour to the Imperial Legions. It is their responsibility to produce the necessary armaments from now on, or sub-contract with those who do. This has increased their court power and legitimacy, but also created a growing rift in the family between those who adhere to the old ways of perfection and artistic craftsmanship and those who take a more pragmatic approach.
- House Valetari's work has secured for them a legal mandate to create fleets for the support and protection of trade in the north, north-east and east. Moreover, it has drawn the attention of the Immaculate Order: the Mouth of Peace is looking to have the faithful take a more active role in the expansion and defence of civilisation, and now seeks to form a compact with House Valetari for trainers, equipment and experienced command staff. Details to follow.
Shadowed Depths
(Written by @etranger01 with my approval)
From the journal of Mnemon Tisca:
When I first heard rumors of the Velvet Glove, I thought they were ludicrous. Insane. Impossible.
I know better now. I've seen the patterns. I know where they wriggle in, through the little cracks and shadows just outside your sight. Once you see one of them, that's it. You see them everywhere.
It takes a toll on you. I've lost weeks to this investigation. My partner moved to Daoshin just to be as far away from me as possible without crossing an ocean. Now that the children are at secondary school, we never talk or write anymore. It's just me and my agents now.
The only thing keeping my operatives from sending me to the House of Blessed Seclusion now is that they've seen too much themselves. Operatives skinned alive and nailed to walls. Heist attempts on secure Realm facilities. So many mysterious disappearances. We're all in too deep, together.
I don't expect you to take my word for it, so I've enclosed a taste -- just a TASTE -- of what madness you can find if you just look hard enough. Not too closely, though. Once you see the pattern, that's it. You're in it too.
---
After-action report from Sacred Elm, Second Praetor of House Mnemon's elite guard:
Regret to report loss of commanding officer to assassination at boarding-house. Attempt to detain assassin resulted in operative committing suicide. No further leads available.
Took the villa this afternoon. Inhabitants were all long gone. Dust on the furniture. Only signs of traffic were outside, likely to forestall suspicion.
Unremarkable findings until we hit the servants' quarters. Losses sustained to multiple layers of traps disguised as household objects, including poisoned snack cakes and sharp corners coated in hallucinogen. Inside, the household staff was intoxicated and frenzied. No captives taken.
Analysis indicates that the intoxicants and poisons were all sophisticated, pointing to expert manufacture. Servants were all of foreign extraction, some with hidden slave brands.
Found a hidden cache of saffron dye. Pursuing lead to next suspect location.
---
After-action report from Relis Fraal, acting Second Praetor of House Mnemon's elite guard:
Regret to report loss of commanding officer to acute poisoning, likely induced by nerve agent mixed into saffron dye.
Broke up group of false Immaculate monks last evening during sermon of questionable theological accuracy. Losses sustained to blowguns concealed within ring-staves, strangle-cords within prayer beads. Multiple "monks" entered into drug-induced frenzy during combat. No captives taken.
Several weapons retrieved found to include makers' marks from Ioran forges. Full evidence report enclosed within.
No further leads remaining at this time.
---
Transcript of verbal report from Poros Five Elms, junior customs inspector at the Myion docks:
"... everything seemed fine until the inspector said he couldn't take the usual gratuity. The captain clearly hadn't been back recently, didn't know the new policies and how to contact the middleman, so the inspector, he was real kind about the whole thing."
"Anyway, the captain invites him belowdecks for tea, and the inspector, he tells me to bugger off and bring some fresh buns from the office. So I head out right quick."
"I'm just coming back when... I don't know what happened, I hear shouting, there's a flash, and then that cargo ship, she just blows up right in front of me! Knocks me right into the drink, buns and all. Lost my eyebrows and an inch of hairline in the bargain."
"Unfortunately... well, you all know about the powder barge moored next slip over, and the two others besides. Pretty soon everything's going up all around me. Me, I book it for deeper water. Better the sharks than the fireballs, you know? That's where the cutter found me, right before I freezed to death."
"What do you mean, 'do I know why he blew the ship'? Of course I don't! Only a crazy person'd detonate their whole livelihood over a customs inspection!"
---
Letter from V'neef Agayo to the Matriarch:
Milady,
Dancing Boar has completed his main mission without incident. His full report is enclosed. I write you on a different matter.
When we encountered the fae captain, he was attended by several hooded figures. They attempted to engage me with a variety of light weapons, suitable for use by covert operatives. Unfortunately for them, their knives and darts were ill-suited to handling my blood-ape entourage, and their skulls not quite up to being used as percussion instruments.
I attempted to take a survivor, only to find that they were tongueless and nearly featureless besides. They screamed something inarticulate at me, then succumbed to some kind of suicide drug.
I can only assume that from the trio of captive men they had brought that they were trying to bribe the fae for some unknown purpose. But what kind of madwoman would do such a thing?
---
Excerpt of debriefing conducted with Fa-Lo Di, Guardian of the Realm assigned to Chanos:
"... and they were all... all..."
Inarticulate noises.
"Take your time, daughter."
"Yes... yes, ma'am. But I just can't... their eyes..."
Inarticulate noises.
"How many did you find in the basement?"
Inaudible mumbling.
"A dozen?"
Mumbled affirmative.
"By the Dragons."
---
Excerpt of debriefing conducted with Ragara Golden Orochi, Matriarch of House Ragara, in Corin:
"Thank you for your time, my lord."
"Of course, of course. Anything for the Realm."
"Thank you. Now... you say that you happened upon the warehouse..."
"Correct."
"... several hours before dawn, yes. And you entered because...?"
"I heard a suspicious noise inside."
"Of course. That was when you found the criminals."
"Why, yes. We were all very surprised, of course."
"And in your statement you claim... you assert... that they initiated violence against you."
"Savages."
"And using your mastery of the Immaculate Martial Arts, you defeated them all in close combat."
"Acting in accord with the inspiring example of Daana'd, yes, I was so blessed."
"My lord, there were thirty-seven of them. Six confirmed Dragon-Blooded."
"The power of the Dragons was great in me that evening."
"And the other wounds we found on their bodies? Arrow holes? Strangulation marks?"
"Perhaps they turned on each other. I was quite consumed with Essence fever, you know."
"I see."
"Anything else, constable?"
"No, my lord. Thank you again."
"Any time."
- Numerous Houses committed themselves to hunting down some strange, sinister conspiracy known only as the 'Velvet Glove' this turn. Others stumbled across operations in the course of unrelated investigations.
- The Velvet Glove appears to have ties to at least one Great House, and is capable of creating and deploying brainwashed agents possessed of subtle alchemical augmentations and impressive martial skill. They are also quite willing to engage in acts of terrorism and association with Fae and perhaps other, darker forces.
- The organisation's goals are unknown, but appear aimed at the Realm as a whole rather than any specific House or personage.
- Many players have pieces of the overall picture. I leave it to you to decide what to share, and if any coordinated action is to be taken.
- There is an additional report to come, focused around similar occurrences in the Imperial City.
Turn Three: Fortitude
(Written by @Crilltic with my approval)
Fog was a common occurrence on the White Sea, great clouds of thick air that could choke out vision for miles in every direction as warm air from the south moved north. It made navigation tricky at the best of times. The service of navigators and look-outs for ships traveling through those waters were highly-prized.
Rasa Hasan considered herself one of the best there was. A veteran of the Imperial Navy, she had lived nearly her entire life upon the water.
Her captain had been a good woman, the best she had served under in the Air Fleet, and so when the Admiralty Board accused her of corruption and drummed her out Hasan had followed, as had many of the other girls into the service of House Sesus. Now they found themselves here, amongst the Pinewood Flotilla, as it trundled through the north. Carrying valuable women and supplies to help transport two of Sesus's legions north on campaign.
So when she scaled the riggings, she did it with practiced hands, nevermind the gloves and thick fabric to ward off the chill of the fog. When she looked through her spyglass and the multi-faceted lenses of the drones that hummed through the air around the flotilla like insects, she did it with a practiced eye. A practiced eye that noticed things that others would not, like the way the fog swirled and twisted was wrong, that there was something there. Something hulking and far more massive than it had any right to be. At first she thought it might be an iceberg, and she reached for the bell that hung beside her next in the rigging, when she saw something that turned her blood to ice.
The standard of the Imperial Navy broke through above the fog, flapping hard in the wind, something that in her previous life had always been a welcome sight of hope and strength.
Hasan was a smart woman though, and she knew what that flag meant now. So she grabbed the bell with all her might and screamed out into the icy air.
"Flag off the port side! Flag off the port side! Battle-stations!"
The bell and her words cutting wind, and she could already hear the shouts and cries from below, ropes and riggings rising up as the crew rose to their stations. She clung to her rope harness as the entire vessel lurched beneath her, but it was not a moment too soon, as the fog was lit with an orange glow. A lance of fire carved through the fog, cutting through the path they would have taken had she been a moment slower, and revealing the hulking form of the Air Fleet ship that had been laying in wait for them.
She could see the tell-tale flash up ahead that told her another vessel of the Pinewood Flotilla was not so lucky, and her stomach dropped as she saw three more shapes moving in the fog, and three more flags cutting through the top of the fog.
Article:
Operation Report:
*Admiralty Board Eyes Only*
Air Fleet Squadron Dove reports successful interdiction of House Sesus supply convoys heading for the Northern Threshold. Minimal Damage sustained in operations. Squadrons Hawk and Gull report partial success. Squadrons Albatross and Eagle report failure in their operations, House Sesus naval forces successfully evaded trap.
House Sesus military operations in the Northern Threshold hampered, but intelligence suggests that the landings were still initiated.
Air Fleet awaits further instructions
---
Born to Kill
- Words found etched on a blood-stained legionary helmet in the depths of Fortitude
Diary of General Sesus Arat, Commander of Fourth Sesus "Sirocco" Legion
Damn those Peleps bastards. They really hit us hard on the way here. Supply ships burned to the ground, good women lost to the waves, they really did everything they could to keep us out. They failed though, we made landfall off the northern coast this morning, and the march for Fortitude begins in three days time.
I will be damned if I let House Peleps be the reason that we fail here. I have already ordered the legions to begin scavenging what they can from the wilderness. Supply should not be an issue for now, and reports on the region say that most of the outlying settlements of the region are unwilling tributaries of the current regime in Fortitude.
---
After Action Report: Operation Northern Storm
Fortress Walls of Fortitude successfully breached by elements of Fourth and Second Legions. Heavy resistance encountered amongst local defenders. Local defenders' supply situation better than anticipated, conventional siege tactics rendered largely ineffective, Demolition and assault tactics proved invaluable.
Collateral damage within acceptable parameters.
Heavy losses taken to Fourth Legion shock elements in assault operations. Enemy casualties estimated to be extreme. Minimal numbers captured, most strong-points fought to the last woman.
Upper levels of Fortitude secured. Heavy fighting remains on-going in lower levels. Local civilian populace actively resists pacification efforts, and on-ongoing guerilla action by remaining enemy combatants persists. Local under-city proving nexus of resistance.
---
Diary of General Sesus Arat, Commander of Fourth Sesus "Sirocco" Legion
This city is hell.
I thought we had been close when we broke the walls. When the garrison died to a woman and we put their leaders to the sword. When the blood ran in the streets, I thought we had won. But that was a facade that we took. What is above the ground is not Fortitude.
The real battle is beneath my feet. Down there in the dark, that is the real Fortitude, and it is hell. We found maps, here in the upper city, of what lies below. It is an iceberg, and taking it is the only way forward. They have tunnels running for miles outside the city, dozens of miles even, we cannot hope to starve them out.
Those tunnels are a grinder, women and men go in, and meat comes out. I have lost an entire company to those tunnels at this point, just to establish a toe-hold. Every battle we have fought, we have killed them almost to a women, and yet they keep coming, throwing themselves on our swords and axes. I have the lost count of the number of suicidal charges into our back-line, spawned from yet more of those infernal tunnels.
Despite all that, we are winning, and each day we claw more of the tunnels out of their grip. But the city has not submitted to us, and each day brings new ambushes and more dead women.
We are winning, but I must ask at what cost?
- Fortitude was once the prison-city of a long-lost Empire, where condemned souls toiled in the lightless depths for treasures to pay their debts. Now it is a place where the darkness is worshiped, the winter is hated, and every man believes he is cursed. It is a place where people are born believing that only their deaths can atone for their lives, and that the only way to erase the stain of darkness on one's soul is to lead a heroic life and to die an immortal death.
- House Sesus dispatched two legions and a fleet to see to the conquest and pacification of the place. They are now embroiled into a brutal subterranean war with a populace who regard death in battle against the Legions in defence of their home to be the highest form of heroism, and their own lives as worthless and accursed.
- Sesus Fourth Legion and Pinewood Flotilla gain the "heavy casualties" tag.
- Hopes for a swift conquest have been dashed by the attentions of House Peleps and the Imperial Navy, which has begun preying on Sesus supply convoys and raiding coastal settlements in Chanos. Peleps Senators, when questioned, speak of the enforcement of imperial law - it seems the House is unwilling to wait for the results of the official magisterial investigation into House Sesus' wrongdoing, and is taking matters of justice into its own hands.
- Realm Divide rises by two, as everyone is reminded that the seas can become a battlefield just as easily as the land... and House Peleps has the Navy.
Nobody was surprised, really, when Mnemon made her claim. With the Empress being declared legally dead, and suitable arrangements for a funeral and mourning period made, all eyes turned towards the matter of succession. The Realm could not exist without an Empress, not in its current form, and it was an open secret that her eldest daughter possessed among the strongest claims. The official announcement, the proper declaration of intent, was more of a formality than anything mired in doubt.
Of course, mere formality or not, there were yet standards to be observed. Mnemon would not suffer the history books to speak of her ascension in less than approving terms, nor for there to be any doubt in mind as to her right to rule. The legalities of the matter were somewhat vague, for the Empress had never formally established a method of succession, but those judges and magistrates willing to take questions in the public forum could generally be prevailed upon to confirm the right of the eldest daughter to at least make a claim. Mnemon was not firstborn of the Empress, that was true enough, but she was the eldest living daughter… and her only senior sibling was Ragara, who had long since retired and expressed no great willingness to return from his rest.
In salons and galas across the realm, scions of House Mnemon and their supporters made their arguments with heads held high. The Realm needed an Empress, for reasons both strategic and legal, and more than that it needed proper leadership. The Anathema had laid claim to Gloam, the war for the Caul was yet in doubt, and with each passing week fresh word came of atrocities on the frontier or the political maneuvering of those who dreamed themselves the Realm's successors. The time for a regent was past, a mere caretaker insufficient to address the challenges before them - an Empress was needed, and Mnemon would be that Empress.
Certainly, she was not without supporters. The Immaculate Order was in her favour, the Mouth of Peace having spoken openly of a willingness to oversee and sanctify a coronation as soon as one should be required, and the bulk of the magistrates had sworn themselves in turn. Politicians, bureaucrats and officials by the score spoke out openly in favour of Mnemon's claim, of her rightful inheritance, many of them graduates of the Spiral Academy whose headmistress had openly adopted the House colours, while multiple years of large-scale charitable donations and the expenditure of a small ocean of jade had cultivated a strong base among the peasantry. Yet it was not they who would see a successor crowned, or who held in their claws the means to thwart such a scheme from ever coming to fruition, and so all eyes turned to the Ten who truly mattered - the matriarchs of the Realm's Great Houses.
First to stir from contemplation, in a surprising twist of fate, was V'Neef. The Empress' youngest daughter was inexperienced and matriarch of the smallest House, but she had something her peers could never hope to match; the charisma that comes only from genuine, heartfelt sincerity. When she spoke out in favour of her elder sister at salons and galas, when she proclaimed Mnemon the best choice for the throne, listeners highborn and low found themselves moved. The two had been fierce rivals once, but in the light of their mother's disappearance and supposed death they had taken great strides to mend their relationship, and now pooled their resources to see the Realm endure past this time of chaos and hardship.
House Ledaal, by contrast, were widely reputed to have all the personality and warmth of a block of frosted steel, and their grand parades and declarations of support were considerably less spectacular than those of their peers. What they lacked in natural showmanship, however, they made up for in reputation and good standing. When a scion of Ledaal spoke out in favour of Mnemon's claim, when they labelled her as the best and most fitting choice to sit upon the Five-Dragon Throne, others might yawn and roll their eyes at the stiff delivery, but none could doubt their sincerity.
Popular support, legitimacy and funding were at Mnemon's command, and all she lacked was the force to see the potential turned to actual, and it was here that House Cathak would oblige. Though Cainan was still unavoidably detained upon the Caul and most of his House bent in service to that holy cause, there was no hiding the smooth, almost rehearsed way in which the House's scions lent their support to Mnemon's claim. In truth they had been preparing for this day for years, secret agreements and quiet negotiations bearing fruit at last, and with faith as their guide they threw in with what Cainan proclaimed to be the only righteous choice.
Such were the forces aligned behind House Mnemon and its claim to the throne. Such were the foes that Cynis Sekhara would need to somehow overcome.
The Matriarch of House Cynis made no grand declarations of intent, held no feasts or public displays of piety to cement her legitimacy in the eyes of the Realm. She placed her trust in action, instead, and even the most hateful of her critics could not deny that she was a force to be reckoned with. What need had she for carefully reasoned laws of succession? The blood she had spilled would serve as well as ink. What need had she for officials and mandarins? The spearwomen of the Legions backed her in full, rumours circulating of cliques and supporters in every Legion. Where Mnemon hesitated, seeking to line everything up perfectly before committing so much as an errant word, Sekhara would act. Was this not what the Realm needed? Was this not how the Empress founded her Realm all those years ago, wrenching her destiny from Creation's jaws with a bloody hand and unbroken will?
House Sesus supported her, its children laughing and saluting their foes with a rogue's flamboyant smile, all but eager for the battle to come. They brought with them the naked sword and the hidden blade, a network of friends in the shadows and enemies buried unmourned in shallow graves. These and nothing more were their gifts to their beloved cousins in House Cynis - certainly not an entire corps of stolen warstriders, or a hidden trove of blackmail, or the profits of tax payments diverted wholesale. Perish the thought. Perish the woman who spoke of them.
House Ragara supported her, with friendly smiles and hands held open, urbane and witty and possessed of oh so many friends. No grand parades for them, oh no, nothing so crass or lacking in confidence. No, they made their case in a hundred smaller ways, a thousand sly comments and private meetings and homilies resounding with significance. How many people depended on their support for success, do you suppose? How many private habits, how many grand displays, how many prosperous businesses were there, did one suppose, that might suffer in kind should Ragara withdraw its largess? Not that it intended to, of course not, the bank prided itself on reliability and honour… but even so, what if?
Four Houses against three, then, or so it seemed. And what of the remainder?
What of Peleps, so proud, so bitter? They kept their council, though some thought resentment of V'Neef would see them take the opposing side and others countered with claims of mutual support and hidden alliance. Most could only assume they had little interest in the throne at all, much less who sat upon it. Their eyes were fixed elsewhere.
What of Nellens, quiet and unassuming? Neither had come to court them, it seemed, nor had they been the ones to reach out a hand. Instead they spoke only of a grand gala to come in the following year, a celebration of the Dynasty and all its works. Their allegiance could be bought, most assumed, and the gala in Juche would be their auction house.
What of Tepet, freshly bloodied yet triumphant? Both had reason to think the devotees of Mela were inclined towards their cause, though for now it seemed they were intent on striking a balance and walking it to the end. A score of prominent marriages between scions of Mnemon and Tepet, many freshly widowed, saw them lean one way… the appointment of Cynis Khatreen to oversee the grand funeral for their fallen Matriarch in Lord's Crossing saw them lean the other. If either was true or both were false, only the children of Tepet could say.
Four and three and three, a balance most keenly felt across the Realm. No clear winner, no certain loser, only the promise of utter ruination if all involved committed to walking the path of blood. It would take decisive action, a move of great weight and significance, to tilt the scales irrevocably in one direction or the other, and both contenders saw it clearly.
And so Cynis Sekhara went to the Imperial City. And so Mnemon went to Gloam.
Mnemon and Cynis Sekhara have both made their claims to the Throne clear, and begun gathering allies and supporters.
Mnemon is publicly supported by Houses Cathak, Ledaal and V'Neef.
Sekhara is publicly supported by Houses Sesus and Ragara
Houses Peleps, Nellens and Tepet are at present neutral.
Mnemon has the majority of the Realm's civic bodies and titled officials on her side.
Sekhara is disturbingly popular among the Legions, and moreover has the advantage of momentum.
Realm Divide is unaffected. With the Empress being declared legally dead, mere establishment of claims and support is considered routine. Granted we're on 29 points accumulated this turn already.
Turn Three: Blood Red Velvet
(Written by @Gargulec with my approval)
According to popular knowledge, Ragara Tou was little more than a scion of the Imperial Bank given a comfortable sinecure in the Imperial City as the local representative of the Faithfully Laborious Sodality of Jade Miners. It was also popular knowledge that it was a duty that fit him; widely regarded as bookish and prickly, he tended to spend most of his time in a small villa in a quiet part of the city, content to let his sister run the Sodality out of Corin. As such, he was regarded as a somewhat insignificant representative of his House. A bit of a wastrel, to be sure, but not more than it was expected out of a Dynast of his age and pedigree, and one interested neither in politics, nor in the goings-on of high society.
To be sure, there was much truth to that image, and Tou could not be accused of cultivating it consciously; it was a by-product of his general disposition, and also of the fact that his actual obligation to the House was to remain an observer and analyst of the political maneuvering in the City, which, as of late, had been becoming increasingly hectic and, frankly, insane.
This is the reason why, instead of attending Cynis Mikia's famed salon, he was spending his mercuryday evening in the library of his villa, hunched over a stack of papers, his beloved northern fox long given up in fighting for his attention and instead sleeping blissfully on top of the last year's edition of the Scarlet Almanck. Unfortunately, as much as Tou himself would wish to sleep too, this was not an option. Instead, he clutched in his hands a warm mug of this wonderful Yueh beverage from the south, black as and invigorating no worse than the best Cynis drug, and stared at the map in front of him.
It was a peculiar map, depicting no territory and no geography. Instead, it was a map of the Realm as it really was: a network of interlocking offices, titles, institutions and armies, linked together by increasingly strained connections of blood and politics. Once, it served as a reference guide to the complicated inner workings of the imperial machinery of the Realm; as of late, Hue had been using it as a battle-map.
Right next to it, arranged in neat little stacks, there were wooden chips, painted in the colors of the Houses. Many stacks were untouched and gathering dust; there was not much use for Peleps' blue and black or Tepet's blue and white. Those Houses had stepped out of the Imperial City, of Scarlet, and increasingly, of the Realm itself. Other, however, were all but depleted, the chips scattered across the map of the Realm's institutions to denote possessions. The Magistracy, divided between Cynis' green and Mnemon's purple. The Imperial Legions, increasingly likewise, only with a few now colored with Ragara's gold or Sesus' red.
But those were not the issues Tou was working on tonight. No, his eyes turned to a different part of the map, more central. He read the last report again, and then, with a faint smile, moved a golden chip to cover the Serene Office of Roads and Bridges. Another ministry, theirs, counteracting Mnemon's recent takeover of the Devoted Board for RIver Works. And so it went.
There was a part of Tou that would have once wept at watching the Home Office be divided like that, like carrion between scavengers of Her Imperial Majesty's corpse. But the more he ended working the map, the more the interconnected network that was the Realm became familiar to him, the more he held it, and Her, in contempt. Because, he thought to himself, dropping a purple chip over the Fastidious Ministry of Lower Reaches, this was not a realm. It was a puppet, and all the strings went back to the Throne, now empty. This Realm was never meant to last without Her, and that was not a mistake of design, but the whole point of it. She had built the Realm up that way, and now that she was gone, it was falling apart.
The news had reached him - of course they did - that the Deliberative had finally declared her dead, and now the entire Scarlet prefecture was abuzz with the preparations for her grand funeral. Although he did not share that thought with anyone, it felt like a joke to him. The war and devastation that was on the horizon as sure as the coming summer was her work, her responsibility. She set up the Realm to fail that way. If the Dynasty was to be honest with itself, it would throw Her effigy into the bombed out harbour, along with the rest of the rubble from the recent Sesus' heist.
Alleged Sesus heist, he corrected himself, glancing at the red chip over the Puppeteer Corps. If there was a reason to live through the disaster, for him it was the chance to one day tell his children of that time he watched warstriders dash through the streets of the Imperial City, and into the wilderness beyond.
But that would require living through this mess, first. And that seemed increasingly unlikely.
He leaned back in his chair, hand idly scratching the fox behind its ear. The map was almost filled - but there were still some blank spots that refused to accept any chip, no matter how much effort and jade was poured into that. And those spots worried Tou most of all. Because there was a chance that they were not empty at all, and he just didn't have the right colors to represent what really occupied them.
Take, for example, the Silent Legion. A borderline comically secretive and powerful fighting force, blindly loyal to - who else - Her. He knew that the agents of Mnemon were doing their best to subvert and take over the force, and according to the report he had received, the efforts were progressing - but barely. Someone was stymieing them. Reconditioning the mute soldiers to new trigger phrases and new drug regimes, seizing control.
And there were more points like that. Ministries going entirely rogue, or just vanishing from the face of the Blessed Island. And then, of course, the All-Seeing Eye. Of course, of course she had left no one to supervise that circle of spies and mad-women. Of course it had gone immediately off the grid. Of course it remained active, and probably up to nothing good.
What the map, really was, in truth, was a diagram of an explosion unfolding in slow motion, and meant to destroy them all. Her Imperial Majesty's spiteful death-curse, an insurance that if she had somehow gone away, no one else would get to rule her Realm.
Tau drank some more of the coffee, and quietly sighed. If he was right, it was all going to get so much worse, because each and every compartmentalized blank spot on his map was nothing but another of her many contingencies, left behind to make their lives hell. And they were already getting triggered and spurred to life, one by one.
Ever since, a week ago, someone sabotaged the locks and wards in that impressive Cynis menagerie, the city was taken over by speculation on who was responsible for unleashing three fully grown and quite starved tyrant lizards into the crowd. At least those parts of the city that were not, currently, in mourning, Tou corrected himself again, remembering to try to be empathetic.
In any case, most Mnemon supporters seemed dead set in the idea it was a Cynis false-flag operation gone awry, most Cynis supporters (and quite a few Ragara clients, too) sure it was Mnemon seeking to discredit Sekhara and stain her reputation even further, and then there were those who felt convinced it had to be the Crown Marshal Unbroken Amethyst herself, looking for a chance for glory. After all, had it not been only the hasty intervention of her and her troops that prevented the Menagerie Massacre from taking countless more lives? Tou knew Unbroken Amethyst, briefly, and he wouldn't have put such ideas beyond her. The issue was more that he knew her enough to know that if she had come up with this plan herself, it would have turned into some kind of mildly comical disaster, not an actual slaughter, and glorious rescue.
So if not her, then who? Not Ragara, either, unless there was something he was not privileged to know about, in which case he preferred to not even consider the option. Not Cynis, either, for reasons obvious to anyone who wasn't a deranged, marble-licking Mnemon crony. And not Mnemon. Tou had suspected her at first, but some of the intercepted missives that went through his desk were clear that the heir apparent's House was as surprised and shocked by the even as anyone else.
Not any of them. But someone? Who? And why? Perhaps that was the better question. Why such a stupid waste of life? The Kashkassu terrorists, trying to win something? Impossible, they were just mortals. So a rogue part of the Dynasty? Technically speaking, most of the Dynasty qualified as rogue, recently. Sesus? Immaculate Dragons themselves couldn't explain to Tou what was going through the diseased mind of Lady Smoke, but there was usually a logic to her madness, and there didn't appear to be any here. So who? Why?
There was one option that made Tou's hair stand up, and that was it was all a distraction. In the papers that followed after the disaster, nested somewhere in the back pages there was a brief mention that Mnemon Iuva, a secretary and aide to Mnemon Rulinsei herself, was found dead in her quarters, an apparent victim of poisoning. Of course, everyone knew that Iuva, whose public feuds with Cynis salon-goers went back decades, was a prime target for Sekhara's assassins, so no one really doubted it was the Cynis, someow. But what if that easy certainty was a part of the game?
Tua nodded to himself. Last time he had checked, Iuva was involving herself in a series of interrogations among the members of the patrician houses in Incas Prefecture, under a flimsy and obviously fabricated justification. She returned to the Imperial City only recently, only to be murdered with fast-acting Malfean venom.
"What have you learned?" Tou asked into the quiet of the room; the fox blinked, stirred from its sleep. Tou petted its narrow head apologetically, remembering to be silent. But the question did not go away. What had she learned that brought her death?
***
Article:
My lady Rulinsei,
If you are reading this, then it means I am dead. I apologize for contacting you in such an indirect manner, and for not sharing what the rest of the missive contains sooner. I hope you will understand that under the circumstances I found myself in, I could not have acted more directly.
Enclosed with the message is my report from the Incas Perfecture, as well as preliminary findings from my network of contacts in the Imperial City. Unfortunately, the results are meagre; they serve only to confirm our prior suspicions. The Velvet Glove is not an organization, but a name. But that does not mean that there is no organisation helping Velvet Glove herself with her agenda. On the contrary, there is one, and it is not a mere conspiracy, but rather a ghost of something we have long thought dead.
House Iselsi yet lives, and yet remembers our role in its downfall.
- The Thousand Scales have become a battleground, of sorts, a place of contest between (principally) Houses Ragara and Mnemon. Thus far Ragara has made great strides in securing the Home Office, while Mnemon has won over most of the Imperial Treasury, though both have supporters and bought officials embedded in both. Generally Ragara has the loyalty of the most senior officials (many of whom required considerable financial support climbing the ladder to get there) while Mnemon has won over the middle ranks and recent graduates from the Spiral Academy.
- The decision of House Sesus to withhold all of its tax income this year while openly supporting Sekhara may have something to do with the Treasury's decision. Bal Keraz is a man of limited patience.
- Precise mechanical impact of this ongoing dispute to be clarified at a later date, likely as part of a general rules overhaul. Assets are an increasingly clumsy way to represent this sort of thing.
- The Velvet Glove is now widely known to be synonymous with House Iselsi, as reports of extensive anti-espionage actions trickle back to members of both alliances. Private reports will be provided towards the end of the turn with the result of specific actions taken by individual players - there were a lot of them.
- Iselsi, for clarity, were once a Great House that attempted to coup the Empress. Everyone thought them destroyed outside of a few isolated remnants in Incas, but new evidence indicates that the Empress made a point of providing many of them with new identities, hidden bases and secretive training that they might be her knife in the darkness. With her death, they appear to be pursuing their own ambitions... and a vendetta against the Realm that impoverished them.
- Evidence seems to indicate that they were taking action to subvert the Silent Legion, and perhaps to undertake certain other, hidden actions within the Imperial Palace proper.
- In Scarlet, the House Cynis tyrant lizard zoo was sabotaged by an Iselsi who possibly overreacted to a crackdown led by Sekhara. The tyrant lizards got loose, and a great many people died. The asset is destroyed.
- The 1st Crown Legion has moved to secure the city. Ironically, a motion to legitimise their actions and ordering them to protect the capital was passed through the Deliberative literally one day beforehand, headed up by House Nissar. This is probably a coincidence.
- Realm Divide increases by three points, as official bodies are divided up between the claimants and everyone starts jumping at shadows.
Turn Three - Weight of the Mountain's Shadow
(Written by @etranger01 with my approval)
Proclamation posted in Brilliant Autumn Shades:
Let it be known henceforth:
In light of the sudden passing of the illustrious matriarch of the House Simendor, the mantle of acting matriarch has passed to the most glorious scion of the House, the Lord Toren.
Lord Toren has returned to Brilliant Autumn Shades to restore the good name of House Simendor, to reassert the natural order, and to decisively end all rumors of heresy and malfeasance.
Those who have conspired to bring shame to the House have been removed from their ill-gotten positions and brought to justice, in accordance with the precepts of good governance.
Loyal scions and subjects of Simendor, act with virtue and goodwill, and you shall be rewarded! Harbor treachery or seditious thoughts in your bosom, and face retribution!
This proclamation brought to you by the Assiduous Conveyers of the Written Word, a House Ragara subsidiary.
---
Letter from Yueh Sahvin, Treasurer of House Yueh, to Yueh Nalanie:
Nalanie, I finally got the matriarch to let me do a full audit of the House books, and it's worse than I ever imagined. I have no idea what they were thinking.
I ran the numbers three times, and the most favorable estimate has a full thirty percent of House assets under some form of financial obligation to the Imperial Bank. More than a quarter, Nalanie! A quarter!!
From what I can tell, someone realized that they had expended all the available capital from the enormous development loan they had taken out, and they took out a second loan of equal size to cover the shortfall! Before the first one had even been paid off! And to make it work, they laundered it through a whole different section of the House! Now the second loan is paying off the interest on the first one!
I tried to put together a list of our liquid resources to see what we can divert to paying down the principal on our loans, but we've got so much tied up in Realm political moves, the Baihu League, and the Everblooming Ash Company that there's hardly anything left to spare.
I don't need to tell you that this whole situation is Lintha-fucked all the way to the depths and back. I've got to put all this in High Realm for the matriarch and I don't even know where to start. We'll have to make some serious moves to get out from under this load, and if House Ragara doesn't want us to, I'm not even sure that we can!
First step, I'm posting this. Then I'm going to crawl into a bottle for a while, and maybe when I come out I'll be able to put pen to parchment...
- Sahv
---
Wind-carried missive from Seven Stars to Matriarch Nissar:
Finished here. I'm coming home. Details to follow by post.
---
Letter from Seven Stars to Matriarch Nissar:
Honored Matriarch,
The Sdoia venture is officially complete, and the results are not satisfying.
On the positive side of the ledger, the assets in question are complete and should turn a modest profit, once all is said and done. There was indeed available property for expansion.
However, I must report that the prospects for future growth are virtually nil. House Ragara has had its agents combing the entire province for the last nine months and they've locked the entire province down for commercial expansion. Unofficially, I have heard that this is part of a coordinated effort to prove the soundness of their alliance's financial footing.
I was unable to secure high-level meetings with civil officials or opportunities to address the localities. Any inroads I made outside strictly official channels regarding permits and access were either blocked or reversed shortly thereafter. I get the sense that I was only allowed to establish our enterprise here as a sort of consolation prize.
The entire situation has been quite demoralizing. Nonetheless, some success has been made, and perhaps conditions will change in the future. For now, this is where we are.
With all reverence,
Seven Stars
---
Letter from the Charono representative to the Deliberative to Charono Panj:
Honored Matriarch,
I have, after expending a great deal of time and effort, finally determined what happened to our bill. It seems that it was referred through several committees and discussion groups before arriving at the Conclave for the Northern Seas and Shores, a regional sub-committee. It was briefly discussed there, then put on permanent hold by a patrician vice-chair who has strong ties to House Peleps.
If House Peleps is indeed behind this maneuver, then our legislative effort is at an end. No one in the Deliberative is prepared to gainsay the Imperial Fleet on Western matters, even with the latest legislative rebuke on their record. At least, not with the resources I have at my disposal. They're simply far too powerful to risk retribution.
I regret that more could not be done, but rest assured that I shall continue to tirelessly pursue our most august House's intended aims, no matter what may come.
---
Transcript of after-action interview from Petal Rose, House Marshal:
"So we're all set to break up this midnight gathering, right, and I drop myself through the opening in the cave ceiling so I can land right in the middle of all the scum. Great maneuver, scares the hell out of people, never fails.
But then, I swear to the Dragons, I look around the cave, and nobody's even flinched! They're all still, quiet, pale... hells, they're dead, one and all! A bunch of half-skeletal corsairs, chattering their teeth over their latest haul of jade.
Anyway, not quite the shock and awe I was hoping for, so I give a good battle yell and shoot off my flare to signal the Immaculates, but before I've even got my arm down they're all over me.
Fortunately, the exorcists were pretty quick on the uptake, so the doctors say I'll keep my leg despite all the, uh, gnawing. We even got a nice little cache of loot once we were finished pounding them all into bone dust, though I expect most of it will go to the mercenaries' payroll.
Still, what grinds my teeth the most is that there are more caves out there just like that one, full of pirates. Living pirates! And the Matriarch tells me we're not allowed to do anything about them! Those damn Chanosian bastards...
It's a sad state of affairs, I tell you. Hey, you free for dinner later?"
- House Simendor has suffered a legally-not-coup/regime change at the hands of House Ragara, made infinitely easier by serious backlash against the previous Matriarch's decision to start adopting mortals and peasants en masse. Simendor Toren moves to be a character of House Simendor (and is lost to House Ragara) and begins the process of straightening out his wayward family.
- In the south-west, the process of continually taking out loans and entering into partnerships with foreign investors has left House Yueh dangerously overleveraged. There are no consequences to this as long as everyone keeps playing nicely, it is just worth highlighting.
- House Nissar has continued its efforts to expand and solidify its gains in Sdoia, but has run into complications as both Houses Ragara and Cynis have begun major development work in the region. Local opinion is strongly against getting involved with a minor House if it brings the risk of setting them against the financial and cultural titans in their own metaphorical backyard.
- By extension, places all across the Isle are falling into line with one side or another, and increasingly reluctant to get involved with anyone not on their 'side'.
- House Charono attempted to push a bill granting the Knowledgeable Advisors increased funding and support to look into the nature and purpose of the funds that Skullstone appears to be spreading around the North-West. Their bill was quashed by House Peleps, indirectly; future legal and diplomatic success will rely on gaining supporters and patrons of their own.
- House Petal undertook a major purge and anti-espionage action in Mavinyos, and uncovered a network of undead pirates and their victims bound in service to House Charono. They also uncovered some evidence of extensive criminal and black-ops work being done by House Sesus in the region, but were under orders to turn a blind eye and take no action. Members of the House are increasingly upset about being forced to yield their own home territories to another's operation for fear of the consequences of objecting.
- Overall, pressure is mounting on the Lesser Houses to join their efforts together in some way, or else throw in with one of the bigger alliances now forming.
Turn Three: Fire Beneath the Mountain
(Written by @DarkMagyk with my approval)
Cold winds sweep across Chanos Prefecture's rocky hills and down the rapid filled rivers to Chanos City's docks. The mines at its heart run fast in these months of wood, crude rafts harnessing the seasonal rains to carry precious cargo to the city forges. Onwards and forwards, never stopping, a ravenous maw with appetite unending. There is extra urgency this year: a pronouncement from the newly established Sesus Governor.
"For the first two weeks of Ascending Fire, the City's rivers will be kept clear of industry, the forges of Smokehearth must only run when the wind prevails away from the city, and room for visitors in grand form will be reserved at the docks. The city will be made clean and resplendent to prepare for a grand occasion."
Speculation runs rife through the common folk and less informed, though in truth most are too busy being pressed into mass labour groups to really dig into the meat of the gossip. Those of idle work and the more astute note the heavy preparations through the ranks of House Sesus, the myriad invitations to dynasts of note. A salon perhaps, or a gala or even a marriage, but with who at this scale?
-/-
It takes a grand Junk and several escorts to carry Ragara Orochi's court into Chanos Bay, such are the numbers and style in which they travel, and the celebrations last for hours. They are welcomed in style, dignitaries giving escort to a great parade, a grand mansion set aside for residence as the ritual groom price is displayed throughout the city. A dowry to beggar a king, yet for this union of Houses Ragara and Sesus, nothing less could possibly do.
For such an important personage the rituals proceed almost scandalously swiftly and simply; only two weeks' celebration planned, barely a few hundred dynasts invited, a small fortune spent on food and drink and secondary gifts. A statement of some kind, no doubt, but while some whisper to themselves of hidden poverty in the newlywed's house, others mark it as a deliberate flaunting of the norm. A statement of power and understated confidence, in so much as anything involving quite so much jade can be understated, a reminder to all that House Ragara scarcely needs to flaunt its wealth any more than the mountain needs to decorate its flanks.
The Grooms are formally introduced at the end of the first week. The brooding Sesus Kyoji is presented to Ragara Orochi, who seems to welcome him with a display of warmth and personal consideration quite out of line for a merely political match. As they dine together at the head of a feast, whispers spread, rumors of Kyoji's true history and capabilities spreads, stories of hidden assassins and mad passions hidden behind a mask of perfect dignity… and then all such gossip is quite thoroughly derailed by the announcement of the true dowry.
Ragara governors and administrators leaving the North, southern satrapies once sworn to Sesus seeking protection under Ragara mercenaries. A grand exchange of land and title, twin empires coalescing at a stroke to the North and South. Those who watch the political winds also see another alignment: Ragara Orochi compliments the wise business sense of Cynis Sekhara while enjoying the fine music presented to him and his groom, and burgeoning economic crisis is staved off as the Sesus mines sate their need for manpower with vast shipments of slaves.
As the Festivities reach their height Chanos Bay is silent: the air fleet's docks are unused while the Sesus Pinewood fleet fights for what the criers call the integrity of the realm. The Air fleet workers are patriots throughout, and you cannot ask patriots to sit back and do nothing for the cause. The great Matriarch Sekhara is known to be the kind of woman of action needed for the Scarlet Throne, and those who might claim otherwise now find themselves subject to the kind of attention from House Sesus that they were privileged to avoid previously.
Demon strangler clenched around the stone frame, shining ultramarine glyphs sealing the fate of the guardian demon. Three students readied the great Yasal crystal for it's new inhabitant, angling it to suck in the spirit feet first as Mnemon Rulinsei tore it from it's previous purpose.
"That is enough for today, children. Ensure that your professors in the basement need no more aid and then rest, we will resume at the standard alignment tomorrow morning."
Her eyes, starmetal and flesh scan the adjusted defenses as she returns to the offices she claimed from former Headmaster Bhagwei. For a Ragara he was clever, and skilled enough that she might have been tempted to make an exception... but unfortunately politics did not allow for exceptions here.
Four of the Heptagram's Seven Towers secured and defenses realigned, the other three still in the hands of the Ragaran loyalists and now playing host to the former headmaster. Bhagwei refused to acknowledge the proclamation commanding his resignation, and galling though it was to leave such a sizeable portion of the facility in his hands, her Matriarch's orders had been clear. No harm was to come to the Heptagram or its students, only careful shepherding and vigilance against hostile acts. The Ragarans had clung on to enough to maintain their status as a threat - as long as they remained on the island they would continue to be one if she was honest to herself - but they were still clearly in the minority, and those supposedly neutral had been pushed out some months past.
The venerable institution no longer had space for fence-sitters, and when the word was given those who sat in direct opposition would be torn out like the weeds they were.
In Chanos, a grand wedding is held, uniting the Matriarch of House Ragara with a highborn husband of House Sesus. This is taken as a sign of alliance between the two Houses, and through understated gestures, of their support for the claim of House Cynis.
Tenfold described his new husband as Sesus Itachi, and if I have to suffer that knowledge so too does everyone else.
Houses Ragara and Sesus are trading satrapies between themselves - all Sesus holdings in the South are transferred to Ragara, and all Ragaran holdings in the North are transferred to Sesus. The legality of this could be argued, but the facts on the ground remain undeniable.
At the Heptagram, both Ragara and Mnemon continue to solidify their hold, each opting to focus on cultivating and protecting what they have instead of taking direct action against their rival. This has led to an uneasy standoff… but with political developments elsewhere, there is now a serious danger of House Mnemon becoming over-extended by trying to secure a holding in House Sesus' metaphorical backyard.
Realm Divide rises by one point, as everyone scrambles to adjust to the sudden geopolitical realignment.
Turn Three: Win Before you Fight
(Written by @Crilltic with my approval)
After Action Report: Operation Red Tide
First infiltration attempt successful. Breached outer lunar perimeter defenses. Exploitable weaknesses in perimeter defenses successfully identified. Concrete examples of Lunar counter-infiltration measures observed. No survivors amongst infiltration teams.
Second infiltration attempt failed. Outer lunar perimeter defenses secured beyond initial observations. Concrete observation of Lunar second order defensive measures observed and documented. Infiltration team survivors liquidated to prevent Lunar counter-infiltration.
Third infiltration attempt successful. Outer lunar defensive perimeter damaged. Lunar defensive asset expenditures projected to be beyond sustainable levels given current circumstances. Intelligence forwarded concerning counter-measures observed for future documentation. No survivors amongst infiltration teams.
Sesus Forward Command Team Cerulean: Faxai Segment
---
Honored Matriarch,
The situation is a mess on the Caul. You would think, given the nature of this endeavor and the holy ground that everyone here walks on, that there would be a minimum bar for cooperation to save our own skins, but you would be wrong. I would honestly rather believe that we have already failed in our efforts to prevent infiltration by the Lunars, at least that would provide an excuse.
Instead what we have is an ouroboros of an intelligence effort, eating our own tail as everyone maneuvers for their own petty advantages, and that is before getting into whatever mad scheme that House Sesus has concocted. Whose only goal seems to be the recurring murder of an every growing supply of mercenary troops shipped in from the mainland.
House Cathak and the Immaculates remain as close as ever though, and as of late, there are even more ships bearing the flag of the Order at port every day. Warships too, not the usual pilgrimage ships, and I have even spotted some House Cathak banners manning them as soldiers. It is not surprising to see the Order militarizing like this, given everything, but it's one more barrel of firedust to add to the pyre.
I have done what I can to help protect against the Anathema and prevent our own failings from getting out of hand, but I am at my wits end, and I fear the worst is yet to come.
With Regards,
L
---
Willow Wind was the best of the hunters in her village. Not a large accomplishment, given its small size, and the propensity of many there to try and claim the bounty of the sea than anything on land, but she took pride in herself all the same. She had made her bow herself, and practiced with it every day since she could hold it in her hands, and the bundle of rabbit meat she had slung from her pack a testament to her skill with it. It had been a good hunt, and one where she had seen little evidence of the war currently gripping the Caul in its bloody hand. Theirs was an isolated village, of little true importance, and one left alone by both sides.
The Dragons and the Moon-touched had both left their village be, and it was that this mercy could continue that Willow prayed to the gods every day. She had heard stories once, from her mother when she was a babe, of the horrors that visited the lands the Dragons marched over and she did not wish to live to see that day.
It was the memory of those same stories that sent a chill into her heart, when she saw the harsh black smoke rising high into the sky as she made her way down from the hills surround her village. It was like no smoke that she had seen before, she was accustomed to the light gray smoke of the communal bonfire, that always burned clean, and had been present as long as she could remember, and that she used to guide her way home. This was a black pillar, rising high above her head in voluminous clouds.
It was only when she broke through the trees and looked upon what remained of her small village, that the fear coiling in her gut turned to despair though. The small wooden houses reduced to blackened husks, acrid black still coiling from them, a would-be funeral pyre for Willow's entire world. Even from here, she could see the red stains atop the white sand of her home.
Ruin had come for their village after all, and there, in the distance, Willow Wind could see those that had brought it.
As she fell to her knees and screamed with no one left to hear it, the black sails of the Lintha drifted away to their next port of call
---
Mother,
I write to you now to let you know that I am safe. I know how worried you must have been when I wrote to tell the that my legion was being deployed to the Caul, to see that holy ground retaken from those vile monsters that despoil it. I'll admit I was scared too, but now my fight is over. I lost my arm to a moon-maddened's pet beast there, I owe my life to the Dragon that commanded my segment, she kept me alive while everything was dying around me. I lost a lot of good friends that day.
When I arrived back on the Isles, I thought that was the end, but some of my comrades sent me to the House of Blessed Restoration, established by the Lady Berit herself! Can you believe that, me, being tended to by doctors hired by a daughter of the Empress herself. I cannot even begin to describe it to you mother, I can scarcely believe it myself. What's more, every veteran discharged is entitled to their own plot of land upon Iora, to be claimed whenever they wish. My own land mother, not sharecropping.
So do not worry Mother and know even in these dark times, there are those that still care.
You Son,
Brightest Fire
- While fighting continues on the frontline of the Caul, there are any number of plots, schemes and machinations being played out behind the lines.
- House Sesus has begun feeding mercenaries (terrified, blackmailed and threatened into compliance) into the Caul in a series of brutal suicide missions to strike at Lunar-held domains and points of interest. In terms of relative casualty counts the Lunars are coming out ahead, but only one side cares about the lives being spent here. This has, at least, kept the Anathema's own operatives busy, and there seems little sign of direct action by the Lunars against the Realm's back line.
- The Lintha continue to strike and reave the coastlines with savage glee. They are avoiding those lands held by the Realm, and the Lunars cannot pull forces or agents from the front lines to defend against them effectively.
- Faxai and the other Realm-held territories are a poisonous nest of intrigue and counter-espionage. Houses Cathak, Nellens, Sesus, Nissar, Mnemon and Yueh are all involved in some fashion, and precisely none of them are coordinating.
- The Immaculate Order has begun overtly militarising, commissioning the production of actual warships in considerable quantities from shipyards across the Realm. House Cathak has pushed through a motion in the Deliberative to legalise these "Caulrunner" fleets, which will be added to the Immaculate mercenary rota, but few expect that the Mouth of Peace would have stopped had the law failed to pass.
- Berit, with funding and support from V'Neef, has begun establishing a program of care and support for injured veterans and their families. This has done much to win the two daughters of the Empress support from the peasantry and the lower ranks of the military, though the Cynis outreach program has the advantage of greater scope and momentum.
In taking Gloam, the Mask of Winters overreached. Such is the consensus that developed across much of Creation as the news came in, at first hesitant and then said with confidence. The gamble was an obvious one, the logic not unlike that of the Silver Pact; the Realm is weak, divided against itself, on the verge of outright fracture and dissolution. In such a world, prizes vulnerable and valuable can no longer shelter beneath the Imperial aegis, and those willing to press their claim first would reap the benefits.
Yet in making this gamble, the Mask overreached, for the meaning of the gesture was not lost upon the Realm or its would-be rivals. The Seventh Legion of Lookshy issued a declaration of war, seeking to both oppose the machinations of the Anathema and to steal a valuable sea port out from under the Realm's nose, and in response a motion was brought to the Deliberative to order the Imperial Legions into motion. Mnemon's growing Concordat threw their weight behind the bill, while those who opposed her were generally content to save their political efforts for a less quixotic cause - no one wanted to be the senator to sign her name against the reclamation of Gloam from the Anathema. Indeed, when news spread that Mnemon herself intended to join the effort, her rivals were all too glad to see her go, laying plans in motion to seize the momentary advantage her absence from the mainland presented.
Mustering the Legions would take time, however, and so the honour of the first blow fell to the Imperial Navy. House Peleps might have been growing closer to a renegade state with every passing day, but even they could recognise the threat and the potential for glory in the Mask of Winters squatting on Gloam, and so the Wood Fleet slipped its moorings and made for open water with all appropriate fanfare. A loose blockade was established, navy ships interdicting anything that sought to approach the island and attacking anything that sailed from it, but the obstruction was perforce somewhat loose and thinly stretched. There were holes in the net, points of weakness and vulnerabilities, and into that gap stepped House Nissar.
The Lesser House had a relative handful of ships compared to the Navy, but Nissar Weihin was a veteran pirate hunter and his fast interceptors were perfectly suited for the task at hand. Without a true shadowland at his disposal the only fleet elements that the Mask could bring through into Creation were isolated scouts, small frigates and ghost-bound hulks fit for skirmishing and harassing trade, and these were Nissar's targets in the early days of the war. They kept the deathlord pinned in place, while elsewhere the Realm's hammer blow took form.
The satrapy of Jiara would be the forge, yielded temporarily to the cause of the war effort by the overseers of House Mnemon with the authority to make those decisions. Their Matriarch arrived scarcely a week after the official proclamation, and with the air of one exercising muscles long left dormant set about organising the necessary camps, forward bases and logistical support facilities for a major campaign. A small city sprang up in the Jiaran coastal regions almost overnight, each building cut and shaped with meticulous precision and dragged from the earth by Mnemon's will, to be filled with supplies and troops brought from far afield by ships under the command of Nissar Sedal. What negotiations and arrangements the two dynasts would reach in the course of their cooperation would be confirmed by no one, but speculated endlessly upon by those with an eye for conspiracy and plot.
Scarce days after the final stones were laid, the Imperial Legions began to arrive, rank upon rank of smartly attired soldiers marching to the beat of the drums and preceded by an endless hail of handwritten letters and words whispered in the wind. At their head was Crown Marshal Onyx Wolf, a towering giant of a woman whose pitch black skin and burning golden veins had inspired a small legion of poets to sing her praises. They called her a volcano in human form, an eruption held back by discipline and honour alone, a peerless warrior with the charisma to move mountains, and in her burning eyes Mnemon could see only her mother's easy charm.
The impression had not been lost on those soldiers who counted themselves as the Crown Marshal's peers and subordinates - the 18th, 24th and 25th legions arrived within days, called by Wolf's request long before the official dispatches had reached them, and all regarded the Crown Marshal with an almost insultingly obvious level of devotion. Of all the Legions in the East only the 20th was absent, having been deployed to the defence of the Greyfalls satrapy by the will of its General, and though none spoke the name of Cynis all present in the command tent when word came through heard it even so.
Still, with her own 5th Meruvian legion taken into account, Onyx Wolf now counted four whole legions and a small host of secondary and auxiliary forces under her command, bound in common purpose by personal ambition and Deliberative writ alike. The tension between the soldiers and House Mnemon's own gaggle of dynastic hangers-on was palpable, and despite the efforts of Charono Melosi to build bridges via advice and necromantic expertise her status as a ghost-blooded outsider brought three sneers of cold disdain for every attentive frown. The divide was highlighted beyond all doubt when the mercenaries under House Cynis made their attack on the satrapy, for the Legions flatly refused to move from their barracks to answer the attack even as Mnemon stood alone against the tide - they were Onyx Wolf's women, not the Realms.
The arrival of the Lookshyans did nothing to calm the tension. The First Field Force made for a magnificent sight, marching into camp under Shogunate-era banners held aloft by elite mortal soldiers in insectoid power armour, but few had eyes for the soldiers next to the woman who marched at their head. Taimyo Karal Linwei, hero and victor of the War of Thorns, was a name that none present would ever forget. Scarcely a decade had passed since she had burned two whole Imperial legions alive in a battlefield pyre to win the day for her insolent nation, and the pride of the Realm tensed at her confident approach. General Ocean Pearl came within mere moments of challenging the Taimyo to a duel, only standing down by personal request of Onyx Wolf herself, who greeted her Lookshyan counterpart with a disquieting level of easy familiarity.
Mnemon was a savvy enough politician to trace out the lines of allegiance and negotiation, both confirmed and tentative, but the commanding of armed hosts was a field she had only passing expertise in. Thus she found herself relegated to the role of specialist support alongside the Charono, while Onyx Wolf and Linwei hammered out the bulk of the assault plan between them, with Nissar acting as the go-between for their troops and the Navy that would be required to escort them in.
Playing second fiddle sat poorly with Mnemon's pride, but her piety would not allow her to compromise the assault with petty infighting. Her memory was long and her claws were sharp; there would be time enough to address this disrespect once the day was won.
-/-
The assault began just after dawn, a decision made in hopes of maximising the amount of available daylight and extending the weakness of the undead for as long as possible. The first target was Juggernaut, the name bestowed upon the reeking carcass-fortress that loomed over Gloam's harbour like a mountain, for while it yet persisted any hope of landing a sizeable assault force was doomed to failure. Whipped up by sorcery, a rolling bank of cloud descended from the sky to veil the sea in misty shade, and even as caution rolled through the ranks of Gloam's defenders the first of the reclamation forces were upon them.
The Sky Guard of Lookshy spread their wings and took to the air, flitting moth-like outriders clustered tight around the elegant eagle-shapes of battleships and destroyer-hawks, filling the air with the soft melodies of their song. Each was a relic, a precious heirloom of the time before kept in careful stasis and repair by a nation that lacked the means to replace its losses, but if ever there was a war to hold nothing back this was it. They dipped low over the city, their essence-lances pulsing and sizzling with murderous volleys that lashed out at hard points and watch posts, and when their guts folded open it was to reveal dozens of warriors in segmented dragon-plate who descended on wings of fire.
To be Gunzosha is among the highest of honours that the Seventh Legion bestows upon its citizens, the right to lead them into battle one reserved for only the fiercest and most respected of its dragon-blooded scions. Clad in powered armour and fed on alchemical paste, their bones marked with prayer-strips and their flesh treated with energies unknown to the modern age, the Gunzosha commandos burn their life's blood at an inhuman rate. None make it to retirement age, falling in battle or suffering catastrophic organ failure long before their third decade, and yet each generation fields heroes willing to make the sacrifice for what it gains them - the strength and speed to fight alongside the Exalted as peers, the stamina to endure blows that would cleave a stone pillar in half, the perception to peer through wood and stone and track the enemy's very soul. Heroes, every one… and on that beach, in those streets, upon the back of that mighty beast of forgotten antiquity, heroes die like gnats.
This was the domain of the Soul Unburdened, the Anathemic sorcerer-architect granted the duty of defending the border of Gloam against all who might seek to breach it. From hidden redoubts his horrors crawled on bloodstained claws, and from concealed emplacements his machines of bone and sinew flung razor spears to pierce the vault of heaven. A Sky Fleet escort detonated like a newborn sun, the cage around its dragons-breath heart breached by a spear of unborn bone, and the remainder scattered and fled for high altitude moments later. All save one, which dipped low enough to drop off a single extra fighter on the back of Juggernaut before banking away on wings of golden light.
Nissar Anahera was not meant to be part of the invasion force, having been stationed with the Sky Fleet solely to act as a relay and observer between the Dynastic and Lookshyan elements of the invasion force. She was no general or admiral, no great strategos or leader of women, but rather a bloody-handed pit fighter who found faith late in her life. She was also, today, the woman who spotted the lithe figure in fluted armour on Juggernaut's back and remembered her duty in time to act.
There were few witnesses to their duel, for all that the Soul Unburdened made a show of it. His armour shrieked and wailed as he fought, the poisons he spat and the monsters he summoned the stuff of darkest nightmares, and though Anahera fought with pride and bloody-toothed defiance a single dragonblooded against one of the Anathema in his place of power could only be expected to end one way. The beast drew out the ending, taunting her with this fact, questioning her arrogance and presumption… and found, at the last, that the Dynast was smiling. She had never meant to defeat him, Anahera explained through broken teeth and a half-crushed throat. She had only meant to hold him long enough for the Gunzosha team to get their payload to its destination.
The light of Anahera's Sacrifice banished the mist for a mile in every direction and rattled the hulls of the Sky Guard ships in the heavens. It was the signal that the invasion fleet had been waiting for, and with a solemn prayer for the souls of fallen heroes the ships began their approach. The snap of their sails echoing across the waves, and it would be said in days to come that the sight of their banners unfurled in the wind would put the poetry of any woman to shame. There was nothing left to stop them save the ugly obstruction of their own numbers, a problem which the generals opted to solve by ramming the ships into the shore and each other en masse and laying planks between the deck of one and the next. With a triumphant roar the legions made landfall, and the real battle for Gloam began.
The fangs and scales of the Dragon knew well what to expect, having been briefed in depth by the sanctioned necromancers of House Charono in advance, but there is a difference between knowing the shape of your foe and coming face-to-maw with slithering monsters from a child's nightmare in the depths of a conquered city. The fighting was slow and brutal, a threshing machine of steel and blood into which both sides fed troops one after the other, but as bad as the undead were, the faces of the living were worse.
The Mask of Winters had held Gloam for scarcely a year by the time the reclamation effort began in earnest, but a year was time enough for his plans, and for a captive population to break beneath the silver tongued lash of the anathema known as the Guiding Light of the Void. Her sermons echoed through Gloam's streets and caused loyal women to claw at their ears in pain, while the unholy passion she ignited in the hearts of weavers and bakers and prostitutes saw them throw themselves at veteran legionaries with fearless howls. No mindless berserkers these, but hardened killers blessed with skill and daring that hollowed out the warmth of their hearts and left only razor steel in its wake.
The 25th Legion took point, backed up by Lookshy's Third Field Force, the two formations each famous in their way for their skills at siegecraft and urban warfare. General Peleps Xosi and Taimyo Yan Tu Weko stood as one in those dark and shadowed streets, directing the merciless butchery of Gloam's living and dead alike, while Crown Marshal Onyx Wolf busied herself as the mobile reserve. A dozen different key points merited her attention over the course of the battle, a wavering line steadied or a hardened nexus of opposition shattered, and behind her the First Field Force formed up into a score of elite strike units to deal with that which lesser troops could not.
In the shallow catacombs beneath the city, the Deceiver known as Wages of the Spear lead a brutal insurgency and guerilla campaign against the advancing Realm troops, wielding ancient horrors and pact-bound ghosts with a surgeon's precision to cut reinforcements and bleed isolated elements of life. Charono Melosi hunted her down with the aid of a kill-team from the Fifth Legion, and collapsed a small mountain's worth of architecture atop her corpse.
In the slum district near the outer wall, the Wretched Anathema who proclaimed himself the Feast of Crows burned whole scales of women alive in green pyre-flame, a firewand in each hand as he duelled the officers and slaughtered the troops with equal aplomb. Karal Linwei burned brighter than his unholy witchlight could bear, and at the head of a heavy cavalry unit ran him down in one of the major thoroughfares and trampled his corpse into paste.
On and on the legions marched, taking the city back one block at a time, one district after another. Hundreds died, torn apart by unliving horrors or unable to defend themselves against the hardened killers that once filled an orphanage, but progress remained steady. So steady, in fact, that behind the lines the reclamation's command staff began to consider the possibility of a trap. Alas, the realisation came just a handful of moments too late.
The vaults beneath Gloam are older than the city itself. They are older than the written world, than the laying of laws that bind time and space into uniform shape. The things imprisoned there were the terror of the old world, and though few indeed remembered their name, the Mask of Winters was among them. He waited until the Legions were too far into the city to properly respond, then he went to one of the least of those temple-tombs, and with a word of power from before the age of man he broke the seals and let the things within go free.
The 18th Legion, cognomen 'Abyssal', died screaming. Their shadows seethed with vermin, their minds filled with the rasping cries of worms, and those who rallied against the darkness found themselves surrounded by the hollowed-out husks of the women they had named comrades mere heartbeats earlier. Stone turned to glass, life melted away to nothing, and like a plague the infestation spread through air and ground and water, born on the breaths of the damned and in the bodies of the slain. For a time it seemed the day was lost, and orders were roared to fall back and retreat… and then Mnemon arrived.
Here is a secret. The world is full of ancient horrors, of blasphemies born forth from before the dawn of time and sins made manifest in things that shun the world and all its laws. They lurk in the shadows and they hide in the corners, and they are never there when you turn to look. This is because they are scared. They are scared of the gods who cast them down, of the world that had the strength to reject them, of the champions who bound them in their chains. Those ancient heroes are dead and gone, but their heirs yet walk the land, and today those nameless horrors will learn anew why the world yet bows before the Exalted.
Why it bows before Mnemon.
Across the legions, a dozen women died, their debts called in and paid in blood, their souls bound into a cage of light and fire that erupts from the stone like a volcano. Walls melt and reform, air gives way to shrieking void, and with the Jade Crucible burning like a star between her outstretched hands Mnemon invokes the most ancient and sacred of rites. By the authority of her name and the power of her words she condemns the section of Gloam's streets given over to the darkness, and with the strength born in stolen blood she enacts due punishment upon it. The whole district and everything in it, guilty and innocent alike, simply cease to exist. Not destroyed, as the Matriarch herself makes clear, merely… bound. Held at bay, for as long as she yet lives.
If the Mask of Winters has his way, that will be a length measured in hours at the most.
The legions rally as best they can, their best and freshest troops brought to the fore, buildings torn down and reshaped by hand to form a makeshift set of fortifications in the middle of the city. They have scarcely begun the second phase of the work when the dead arrive. Gloam's old royal guard and the remnants of its garrison, slaughtered and raised anew in death, ride on skeletal steeds behind the leering rictus grin of the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile. Shambling abominations secure the flank, a cloud of conjured darkness roils with shades and spectres, and at their heart… the Mask himself, a Lord of Death crowned in unholy splendour, marches towards his destiny.
Later accounts of the battle would be fragmentary and sensationalised at best, outright delusional at worst, at least by the judgement of those far from the battlefield who had the pleasure of reading the reports inked by shaking hands. Surely, they would tell each other, the stories of Mnemon carving stone with a bare hand to crush a swarming chorus of ghosts between two halves of a street were exaggerated. Doubtless the tales of Onyx Wolf stirring the flames of courage and duty in the hearts of the dead with charisma alone were self-glorifying lies. Such things simply did not happen in this world, they assured themselves, and consigned reports to the contrary to the fire.
Other claims were easier to stomach, more in line with what the worthies of Creation had come to expect. That Karal Linwei had sought to intervene, only to be stymied by the screaming faces of every soldier who burned at her command, that was a fitting trial for one so arrogant. That the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile would be held at bay by the bisected form of the Demon Lord Alasator was widely believed, for it suited the prejudices of many to believe that Mnemon would find some way to command the service of demons that only true infernalists would otherwise be able to sway.
In the end, it came down to a duel, as all knew it would. Mnemon met the Mask of Winters with sorcery's flames and daiklaive's edge and the granite edge of her fists, and the Deathlord responded with whispering shadows and weapons that wept for the cruelties visited upon them. Stone broke and air fled screaming, blood spilled and ichor boiled to nothing, and by the end there was nothing left of the place they met save a crater ringed by rock turned inside out. Only when the sounds of violence had faded and the ground ceased to tremble did the legionnaires dare to approach, and what they saw at the centre of the pit took the breath from their lungs.
Mnemon, mother of dragons, stood with one hand left and one eye plucked from her polished skull. Fully half her body had been scoured, skin and meat left broken and bleeding and strung through with the molten remains of silk and gold and the shattered remnants of jewels. Yet she stood yet, and breathed freely, and when they approached turned to glare at them for their shameful lack of discipline and faith. At her feet, smoking gently, was the shattered remnants of the armour once worn by the Mask of Winters, twin faces staring at the azure sky forever more.
Mnemon, of House Mnemon, left that pit on her own two feet, a Taimyo on one side and a Crown Marshal on another. Neither much liked her, both could easily be an enemy if the faint seeds planted this day were allowed to waste and wither, but as she walked the streets of Gloam and listened to the rapturous cheers of an army bloodied yet victorious, Mnemon could not help but smile.
It was a good start.
Gloam has been reclaimed. The Mask of Winters has been slain, his deathknights scattered or forced into hiding, and the last of his horrors hunted down.
The 18th Imperial Legion was destroyed in its entirety, and all other forces involved took significant casualties.
Mnemon has been badly mauled, and is closer to death than she has ever been before, but yet stands. Nissar Anahera perished, destroying (for now) the beast-titan known as Juggernaut.
Houses Mnemon, Nissar and Charono (in that order) have earned great fame and glory, and monks and old women alike praise their names from one end of Creation to another.
Crown Marshal Onyx Wolf has three full legions loyal to her and her alone. She has yet to declare for any given side in the coming conflict, and may yet be persuaded. Mnemon is closest, and her offer will be heard first, but this is no guarantee of success.
Lookshy committed two Field Forces and a number of irreplaceable relics to seeing the Mask of Winters repelled, easily the largest and most successful joint operation between them and the Realm in recent history. They might yet be persuaded to build upon that success… or to take what they feel is their just reward for righteous service by force.
Turn Three: Where Evil Dwells
(Written by @Gargulec with my approval)
In the waning days of the year, as the nights of Calibration near, strife is on the lips of many. The talk of war seizes the Blessed Isle and its people. It is an anxious time, a grey time, when peasants and patricians alike scour the horizon for the tell-tale signs of Princes of Earth's power unbridled. And in those wretched days of expectation, when the air itself seems pregnant with bloodshed and neighbour eyes neighbour looking for a knife drawn, stories are told. Not happy stories, though many of them are grand, but stories of disaster and destruction. Of the great machines of war stolen from their cradles in the Realm's heart, of the Threshold on fire, of the signs of the Anathema, and the signs of disaster. Even the crusade's progress across the Caul's soil so sacred offers no reprieve, even when the news break of the triumph on Gloam, spirits are not lifted.
For those are all stories of war, and to a nation so long at peace, they mean one thing only.
But in all of that idle, tense chatter, not all is mentioned, and not all is known. Chaos maybe the name of history, and the dispatches from all across Creation may bring news of new horrors previously unthought and unfought, but for each thing revealed, another is hidden. Obscured beneath the foaming calamity, passing unnoticed.
And so, no stories are told of the bitter, subtle war in Willow's Edge, war not against the living, but against the dead. The bravery of Ledaal elite shikari is passed on with silence; no witness to bring news of their thin line holding back the restless unliving. And perhaps for the better; languages of man are poorly suited, if at all, to describe the nature of this struggle that Ledaal Jinu learns slowly, and at a great price. But learn it he does, deciphers the patterns in sand and bloodshed. The shikari recognize their purpose and accept it without protest; they lay their lives for the cause without hope of being recognized and venerated. But even sent into an impossible fight, tasked only to fight, bleed and with their deaths sanctify great acts of binding, they do not resent their orders, but cheer for the Shadow Crusade's triumph.
Their death, and what follows, is one final lesson for Jinu to learn. They used to call him unbowing in the past; now he has to sacrifice himself by degrees until the price is paid and the seal rendered permanent. He struggles, but manages, and though his heart may break, his soul is tempered. No morality play for the pious masses is made of this education, and the wisdom earned is not shared. But at the end, he returns from the sands, alone, victorious, changed.
Neither is discussed the matter of the House Charono's excursion into the ashen lands of the unwholly dead, and to their funerary cities. Part of it is Charono's own aloofness and apartness; they are after all a House better known for a good rapport with the departed, not the living. But part of it is the confirmation the House's agent receives in Stygia. There, she observes grand preparations, a grave carnival being assembled. As with all things of that realm, it is at once maddeningly alluring and violently repulsive. Wise in the occulted ways, Charono Silia asks not the flocking spectres and wights from where their food and drink comes, nor does she accept to partake in the ghastly feasts. That marks her an outcast, an intruder, but allows her to return - after much struggle, most of which she is blissfully never made to divulge. And when she does, she delivers into the hands of her Matriarch a simple report: as above, so below. The Underworld readies its own celebration of Her Imperial Majesty's Departure.
The Matriarch, in turn, shares this report with those who are meant to be in the know, and they keep it to themselves. Better for the people of the living Creation to know not of what frenzies take over the dark world on the other side of life.
But not all stories unmentioned are kept from the anxious circulation in such a benign way. Some are suppressed more violently, akin to a contagion that must be quarantined. An apt metaphor, considering the events in the Dhorash Perfecture.
What exactly happened there is difficult to puzzle out, and those few who manage do not live long afterwards. Secrecy is just a good practice among women of business, and House Ragara is the best among those; so they too are best at keeping the umentionable unmentioned. So no stories are allowed to spread of whole villages seized by a strange and malignant fever, quick and vicious enough to cut women in their prime a week, or less. There is no mention, in the great circulation of rumour and frightful tales, of what happened to those who perished to the disease. And again, it is a good thing: no one would want to hear of corpses that the fires of funerary pyres reject. Better that the people do not know of how those corpses then throw the living into the still-blazing pyres, and then drag them out, transformed.
And more importantly yet, better that no witnesses were allowed of what happened next, of the arrival, on the back of demonic wasps, of black-clad soldiers whose weapons spew infernal fire. Of the terror briefly seizing the Ragara commanders realizing that the dead were not simply feral, but rather animated by some malevolent intelligence, and of the plant hatched to counteract it.
Those fallen in the plan's execution were not allowed to be remember; those who survived were rewarded beyond their wildest dreams, and then sent so far away into the remote Threshold as to count as dead, and forgotten. Because while the public could not be allowed to hear the rumours of the war against the undying-from-flame, no one is meant to know how the war ended.
Only Ragara Golden Orochi, and the few closest to him, are allowed to know about the body of a young man, preserved beatifically in spite of the infection eating it from inside out, and made animate by a flame that had been burning since the primordial night before Time. Only Ragara Orochi, and the few closest to him, are allowed to know of the secret vault, deep, deep below Corin, where the body sits upright, bound in jade and soulsteel, smiling idly. Only Ragara Golden Orochi, and the few closest to him, are allowed to learn the language the body speaks, and to listen to the stories it tells. And what stories those are!
Yes, better that it all goes unmentioned. Better that the people do not know. Every horror spared in those times is a mercy unlikely to be repeated.
And so, even the Immaculate Order, ever honest about matters of faith and doctrine, does not make it publicly known that the number of Anathema occurring all across the Threshold is more than should be possible; more than the Wyld Hunt could ever hope to match, even in years of peace and prosperity. In a missive circulated between the Houses Great and Small, the Order makes it known that the old prisons of those malignant spirits have been compromised. It also cautions that this means a need for peace and unity, but even the scribes of the Order putting those exhortations into beautiful calligraphy do not believe in their power.
All recognize that dark days approach, and those spared knowledge of where evil dwells are, after a fashion, blessed.
- In Willow's Edge, House Ledaal succeeds in purging the undead lord Honoured Vows and his deathless host. The effort costs every one of their soldiers their lives, and leaves the dynast in charge a changed soul, but the dead are returned to their rest. Note that this does not make Willow's Edge any safer to plunder, save in the very short term.
- House Charono ventures into the underworld, and returns with a disquieting tale. The dead of Stygia, great mausoleum-capital of the underworld, are preparing a grand celebration of their own, a dark mirror to her funeral on the Isle. It is funeral, celebration and potential coronation all in one, though Charono find no evidence of Her ghost. At the very least, the dead believe she has joined their ranks.
- In Dhorash, nothing happens. It's a very normal year, honestly.
- The Immaculate Order has distributed messages to the Matriarchs of the various Houses and the heads of those remaining Imperial institutions. The number of Anathema has spiked dramatically, and evidence indicates that the Jade Prison has been breached. Now, as the Realm falls further into disunity, the sins of its ancestors rise anew in the quiet places of the world.
When dragons weep, nations drown. So it is said in many lands along the coast of the Inner Sea, and while the Realm turns against itself in a growing succession crisis and the threat of civil war, the danger even its most casual of motions might pose has not diminished. Indeed, one might even say it has increased, especially if you happened to hold land between the territories of two rival great powers yet seeking advantage.
In the north-eastern quarters of the Blessed Isle, such was the dilemma facing many of the Realm's lesser houses. Oh they were dragons in their own right, no doubt about that, but when compared to the roaring titans that shared their borders such boasts offered scant protection indeed. Unity was needed, friends and allies to add weight to their words and make others think twice before devouring them whole. To this end, the North-Eastern Mercantile Concern was founded.
Funded and organised as a joint venture between Houses Valetari, Ferem and Petal, with discreet backing from hidden patrons elsewhere, the Concern was designed to be a pact of mutual cooperation and sustainable profitability across much of the north and east. Ferem provided the raw materials, Petal the artisans and Valetari the merchants, and together all would prosper. Though not a military alliance, it clearly signalled the willingness of the three to support and protect each other, and so prompted strategists across the Realm to adjust their predictions accordingly.
Of course, mere financial arrangements between Lesser Houses would hardly be worthy of notice in the halls of power, and the Concern's members knew this. To that end, they began work on the ambitious Post Osemes - an artificial island in the middle of the Inner Sea, to coordinate the protection and taxation of all cross-sea traffic in much the same way as the now-ravaged Gloam had once sought to do further south. Lumbering barges filled with stone, sorcerers on their shimmering clouds and spirit allies from across the region all pooled their resources, and by year's end an island was created where none had previously been, a ready-made nexus of trade and military power in the north-eastern seas.
Buoyed by this show of support and evident wealth, House Ferem turned its attention to its neighbours. They had all been one people, once, the heritors of Grand Cherak divided by the Empress into a multitude of lesser houses and isolated families upon their submission to her imperial rule. Now, with a growing vortex of instability to the south and the looming power of the Tepets to the north, Ferem's cousins met their entreaties with willing ears and open hearts, ambition and self-preservation coming together to form a potent blend indeed.
The news spread quickly, born by traders and nomads and Tepet soldiers recuperating in Ferem's hospitals - Grand Cherak would rise again! A grand conclave had been arranged for the coming year, where the women of every House and line associated with the old nation would come together, and there hammer out the full details of their renewed unity. Who would be ruler of this new nation? Would existing treaties with constituent members carry across? Such questions would take time to answer, and involve many fierce debates, but the hearts of those who bore them were filled with hope and purpose all the same. A new dawn beckoned, and Grand Cherak would rise to meet it.
Further north, House Tepet steadied its hold, emerging victorious from its battle with the Bull and looking out upon a changed world. Tepet Marek was chosen to replace her sister as the Matriarch, and before the tomb of her beloved sister she swore an oath to make her sacrifice worthwhile. None would doubt Tepet's commitment, nor its honour, nor its strength. As a symbol of this vow, the Tomb of the First Daughter was carved into the rock of Medo. In the upper reaches of the complex the soldiers who died fighting the Anathema were memorialized, while in the depths an honor guard of those adopted into the House following the battle, or unable to continue their legion service kept their chilly vigil. There the air freezes and ice rimes the stones carried and carved from the Imperial mountain to this desolate corner of Creation that stole a daughter of Tepet. There are no remains within, the bodies were cremated and returned to the winds in battlefield rites, but the place is for the living to honor that sacrifice and contemplate.
Symbols are a fine thing, of course, but so too would there be concrete action taken, starting with Tepet's noble allies from among the children of Medo. They who had fought for their liege lords would be subjects no longer, the satrap's obligation released and those who desired it inducted into the Great House directly, newly minted Dynasts of the Tepet Medo line. Niruz, once a satrap and always respected warrior, sealed the bargain with a marriage, a feat repeated across the House's line as the new generation began laying down its roots. The Medoans were only too happy to embrace their respected commanders as kin, adding many names to the immortal lineages of their grim families, and redirecting satrapial tribute into their own projects for the first time in centuries.
Among those projects was a great census, a study of the northern lands and their people, undertaken by a House Tepet with increasingly obvious ambitions to both rule and protect the entire Direction in days to come. Oh their given reasons were respectable enough, a mere pursuit of the duty of care which any patriot would hold in the absence of direct imperial oversight, but in such days as these women saw plot in every shadow and ambition in every smile. Tepet was clearly preparing to declare itself an independent power in the north, one on at least neutral terms with both major claimants for the Scarlet Throne, and those legions which occupied the lands felt considerable unease at the increasingly pointed questions from smiling dynastic scions and their barbarian cohorts.
And then there was Jira. Jira the Wave-Froth Serpent, Jira the holy ally of Daana'd, Jira who seemed determined to move beyond the strictures of his heavenly appointed role and lift himself to the status of guardian deity for the whole of the North. In this he was assisted by Houses Tepet and Ferem, both of whom chose to embrace him as their patron and totem, both of whom cooperated to send missionaries and scouts the length and breadth of the land to encourage his ambitions. To the icewalker tribes, who frequently held for themselves primal avatars as totem-spirits and distinguished themselves from their neighbour by the traits of said avatar they most embodied, such a decision made perfect sense - a dragon for the dragon's blood, a guardian for twin nations of guardians!
The Immaculate Order was, needless to say, rather less impressed.
The Grand Conclave in Pneuma was a rather strained affair, with numerous spirits declining to attend in favour of joining Jira's growing court, or else daring to negotiate with both as though the Perfected Hierarchy were naught but an auction house. Representatives of House Tepet were forcibly expelled from the summit after a mere handful of days, though it did not stop several curious divinities making private enquiries and arrangements, while Ragara Tsaia ran her family's networking business in the background with rather more discretion. She was, after all, officially in the region to simply visit the Old Dragon in his seaside retreat, an eminently respectable undertaking for any filial child.
The Mouth of Peace sent several strongly worded missives to the newly chosen matriarch Tepet Marek in the following weeks, while monks led groups of pious peasants to protest outside the family's holdings in Damson and Lord's Crossing as a warning. Still, few seriously expected the House to change course - Tepet's Melaist traditions had been a headache for the Order for generations by this point, and in these uncertain times, the comfort of your ancestor's faith was a hard thing to forsake.
Houses Valetari, Petal and Ferem have founded a trade compact in the north-east (both the threshold direction and the relevant sections of the Isle). As part of this, they have begun expanding their port facilities, constructing an artificial island, and lobbying for increased contracts and official support in the Deliberative.
House Ferem has begun the project to resurrect Grand Cherak, and their Court Power increases by one as a result. The exact shape the new Cherak will take is dependent on the outcome of negotiations during turn four.
Tepet has begun establishing the groundwork for an independent northern polity, adopting the Medoans into their House en masse and conducting census and survey work across the north, among other projects designed to facilitate local growth and integration.
Ferem and Tepet have both embraced Jira the Wave-Froth Serpent, who now leads a growing regional court of non-Immaculate spirits as a patron and guardian of much of the north. Heretical worship and spiritual practices are increasing at a major rate, much to the displeasure of the Immaculate Order. Whether the Order feels driven to take more direct action will depend on Tepet's response to their protests.
Realm Divide likely increases, much as it dropped due to events in Gloam. Specifics matter little as we are comfortably beyond the RD3 threshold (I will resume tracking points more precisely with the start of turn four)
Turn Three - Sword Saints
(Written largely by @Wade Garrett with my approval)
This is the Imperial City. The eternal city, the crown of the world, where the fates of gods and nations are decreed each day. In addition to other, less weighty matters.
Like the Kasskashu. The remnants of a remnant, shattered, cast down, ground beneath the Realm's heel time and time again, what more is there to say about them? They are figures at the edges of the market, faces pressed into the dirt whenever the true masters of the Blessed Isle pass by, as beneath the notice of the Realm as the stones they walk upon.
And so it is that when the enlightened monks of the Immaculate Order and the wise ministers of the Thousand Scales propose that these tattered leftovers, a people all but ground to dust be ground finer still and scattered to the wind, the great and learned Senators of the Deliberative simply cannot be bothered to care. Cannot bring themselves to devote even a second's thought to the Kasskashu, of all things. Not ever, really, and especially not now. Not when wars and rumors of wars are whispered in ears and screamed from the rooftops, as plots and schemes are woven, as spearpoints gleam at dawn and knives flash in the shadows, the Deliberative considers the proposal and then ponders the objections raised by the representatives from House Muq, the dreary, tedious, scrolls piled upon scrolls, upjumped farmers droning on and on about the unpredictable effects of uprooting so many laborers and casting them about the Isle hither and yon, and the matter is not so much quashed as simply forgotten about.
No one has the time, no one cares enough to spend breath debating and discussing the matter, let the bill be shoved into some committee or other to die and let House Muq celebrate if they choose to, let them boast about a glorious triumph over a legion of completely indifferent and utterly apathetic foes. The truth is simply this: no one cares about the Kasskashu. For good, or for ill.
-/-
Jei Xhin is content with her lot in life, and that is no small feat. The rank and position she has achieved in the Immaculate Order suit her perfectly, when she desires company she ventures out among the traveling households that criss cross Last Breath with their herds and earns her way teaching children their letters and setting a broken bone or two, when she desires solitude she retreats to the cottage beside her hillside shrine and arranges the stones and flowers that decorate it. The land itself suits her, the hills and mountains so different from the Province she was born in but they speak to something in her soul, and so she lives her life and is content.
Demon cultists, blasphemous usurpers seeking the Imperial throne, all the concerns that occupy her sisters in the Order, here they are distant to the point of seeming not quite real, fading memories of an unpleasant dream, quickly dispelled by the first rays of the rising sun. And so when there is a knock at her door in the middle of the night she rises from her cot with concern, not fear.
Jei Xhin expects it is her skills as a healer that will be called for, a sick child or a feverish elder whose plight cannot wait for daylight, her face is already set in a properly compassionate mask when she opens the door and sees the torchlight flickering off drawn blades, the many faces, Kasskashu faces, staring at her, alien and inscrutable in the darkness, as they've never been in the years she's walked among them.
Xhin has never been a fighter. Never pretended to be, never aspired to be, her talents lie in other areas. But that doesn't stop the shame rising in her chest, writhing in her stomach, the self loathing at the catch in her voice as she reminds them all that she's harmed no one, done no evil to them, done nothing wrong at all. And the relief, oh the sweet relief, when the stern eyed man tells her, not unkindly, that they know, that this is why she has to gather her things and depart Last Breath, never to return, she will do penance later but in that moment she can feel nothing except sudden and sharp relief, as soothing as a polutice on a fevered brow.
-/-
...do something, I beg you! They're an army, a horde, flames burn every night at the old temples, Muq and Cathak have armed them, trained them, they're expelling the monks, for the love of the Realm, if you would be Empress I beg you to do as she would have done...
- excerpt from a missive sent to Djelis and Pangu by Magistrate Matze Liang of Last Breath (deceased)
...apologize if my former colleague's raving caused any alarm, everything is peaceful here but from what we've uncovered he'd been corresponding with the Pretender, I imagine the idea was to stir up chaos and then...we aren't quite sure about the and then but the investigation is ongoing and of course we'll keep the rightful Empress informed of further developments...
- excerpt from a missive sent to Djelis and Pangu by Magistrate Gamra Bhei of Last Breath, doing rather well all things considered
-/-
Cathak Rasira's hand is a claw. A white knuckled talon, crumpling yet another roll of parchment in its clutch. Another plea, another accusation, another knife in her heart. They have driven us from our monastery, defend us. The House demands we go to war, lead us, scroll after scroll, message after message, and all the Cynis bathes its hands in blood and Peleps wallows in sedition and blasphemy, both of them enemies more terrible by far, she cannot, she will not commit Cathak's Legion to this fight, will strike at a stinging insect and bare her neck, the House's next to a siaka...and still they come. Letters aren't the worst of it, not compared to the faces of monks bruised by thrown fruit and sometimes stones, the glares of young Dynasts who cannot understand why she won't lead them forth.
And the thought. Never spoken aloud, but never needing to be, it rings in her ears, in her very soul. If Matriarch Cainan were here... Cathak Cainan would know what to do. Cathak Cainan would do the right thing. Cathak Cainan would sweep Muq and the Kasskashu and Cynis and Peleps aside and jade would rain from the sky, if only he were here and not this crippled coward...her free hand falls to the hilt of her sword.
Or it would have, if she still had two hands. Slowly, carefully, one finger at a time she opens the claw, letting the crumpled scroll fall to the ground, and carefully reaching across her body to the blade at her belt. The motion is awkward, clumsy, and Rasira storms out of her study, ordering the slaves to put up the rest of her correspondence, tell any callers that she's out, and to tell any important callers she can be found at the practice yard.
-/-
On a barren mountainside, Muq Fan dances, steel shining brightly in his hands. Stripped to the waist, his muscles gleam and glisten, his long hair hangs like a sodden mane, colourful strips of silk and cotton hanging from his limbs and waist and the hilt of his blade. He has been dancing since the sun came up, his sword moving in elegant patterns with his every movement, an ancient ritual studied and practiced with the same tightly focused discipline he brings to everything in his life. He is the Eldest Grandson of the line, his sister has retreated from the land to go fight in distant wars, he is the heir apparent of House Muq. He cannot fail.
Further down the slope, the Kashkassu watch. Their sword-priests study his form, their elders admire his dedication, their young warriors express rather more base appreciation for the physical perfection before them. Fan ignores them all, his concentration unbroken, but this is as it should be. He dances to impress them, to prove his merit and his worth to their judgemental eyes, to back up the words of his family with deeds of his own. The Kashkassu have been granted new rights, new responsibilities, new powers in this land that they will rule together, but now he must complete the alliance. Now he must show them that he respects their ways, that he will submit himself to their judgement, that his proposal was sincere and worthy of she who he would court.
Noon arrives, the steel drums of the Kashkassu sword-priests ringing out, and she steps into the ring. She is Haseya, a Child of Flame, and the sacred war garb she wears has been forbidden to her people for centuries. In her hair she wears strips of coloured cloth, one for every year of her people's suffering, and in her hands she carries a two handed blade of sacred jade. She eyes the man standing across from her, this Lord of Muck who would take her as his wife, and she smiles. Let him prove himself worthy, then, before the gods and their priests and her own skill. Let him claim the future he desires in the way her people always have - with the sword.
She steps forwards, her blade rising to clash against his own, and in the light of day they dance.
-/-
...what does it profit us, to gain the Caul and lose our homes? To seek the heavens and forsake the earth is folly, not enlightenment, and to grow so concerned with the future that we let the souls of so many present slip into darkness is perhaps the greatest failure of duty I can imagine. If Her Serenity will not call for direct action against these wicked souls, if she will not command us to steer our misguided children back onto the proper path, then we shall do it ourselves.
- The Kashkassu Scattering bill was defeated in the Deliberative by the joint efforts of multiple Houses, though Muq takes both the majority of credit and blame due to later actions.
- Muq has embraced the Kashkassu in full. The restrictions placed upon their rights and religious traditions have been removed, new responsibilities as keepers of the peace have been granted to them, and new incentives given to promote their autonomy and prosperity.
- House Muq have purged their Immaculate faction, and with Kashkassu aid expelled the majority of monks and true believers from Last Breath province. This was done without violence for the most part, justified here and there by tales of abuse or improper spiritual guidance, but the impact and intent are undeniable.
- Attempting to justify and legitimise the Kashkassu, Muq have prevailed upon them to enter the service of the Realm as a 'martial race'. New Kashkassu mercenaries will be added to the rota for next turn, in the form of skirmishers with slings and smaller units of their famed sword-saints.
- House Cathak were aware of the impending action, and while displeased were unwilling to go to war to prevent it. Cathak Rasira has spent her time in Myion recovering from her injuries, training to learn the skills she will need in future, and dodging increasingly strident demands from her House's younger and more fervent scions that she Put A Stop To This Heresy.
- The Immaculate Order has officially Lost It's Patience. As of Turn Four it will begin generating military units on the Isle to drag recalcitrant and heretical regions back into the orthodox fold by force.
"Come in, come in, put yourselves at ease, take something that catches your fancy." Sekhara gestures grandly at the new arrivals, the motion setting her long hair and the sharkskin cloak drawn around her shoulders to swaying as she beckons the motley crowd of soldiers, former soldiers, and the odd Magistrate to join her inside the bathhouse.
There is such a thing as tradition, after all. Some customs simply must be followed, some standards must be met, and so she beckons them into a scene from a Prasadi's hookah dream, scaled pleasure slaves taking their clothes and leading them into the hot water, trays of fruits and sweets ready to hand, all the amenities one might expect from a Cynis revel, beckons them with nothing between her skin and their hungry gazes but her cloak, her long hair, and her scars.
Those last drive her attendants to distraction on evenings like these, ropelike twists hacked across the sinuous perfection of her rippling muscles, a source of constant quiet hints and polite suggestions, mentions of methods surgical and sorcerous that could wipe them away, leave her body unmarked and unblemished. Hints and suggestions she will never act on. They're hers, almost the only things she possesses that truly belong to her. Her, Sekhara. Not to House Cynis, not to the Cynis Matriarch. Hers.
Almost the only things. She smiles with that thought, a wonderful smile, wicked and wanton, gesturing for one of the scaled women to attend her, a fetching creature, who would be taller than the Matriarch if she stood to her full height, the cobra hood outlining her head and neck providing a hint of the exotic, Sekhara favors her with a smile that almost no one present will be able to tell is a lie, wearily steeling herself for what is expected of her as her thoughts flit elsewhere, flying backward, ever backward through the decades.
She is sobbing. Weeping, the unashamed, unapologetic tears of a child mingling with beads of perspiration rolling from her shaved head. No one who matters will hear her, the walls of a novice's cell in the Cloister of Wisdom swallow all sounds. Better for the initiates, to keep them distraction, her teachers say.
Sometimes the young girl believes them. Other times she wonders if it might be better for the teachers, to let them ignore tears shed in the dark night. Not that any of them would care about hers. That sets her sobbing again, face pressed into a warm shoulder as two slender arms fold softly around her and a whisper quiet voice hums soothingly into her ear.
They'd care about this a great deal. She knows it, knows that that she should tell someone even if she hasn't, even if she won't, she hasn't broken her oaths, hasn't broken a vow, she never will, but nothing she's ever said, nothing she's ever sworn...someone to talk to in the dark lonely night. Someone to hear all her fears and dreams, someone to hold her, just hold her, to even pretend it matters to them if she lives or she dies. She never swore to give that up. Having that, just that, only that, it's not sullying her vows, it's not wrong.
And what would she tell them? That a dynast of House Sesus has infiltrated the Cloister, that she slips into the massive fortress monastery in the dark so she can...hide in a novice monk's cell and talk to her. Sekhara imagines her Shifu's face if she was ever foolish enough to say that to her, and smiles despite the tears blurring her vision.
She can never speak of this, and the other girl, who can she speak to? What can she say, that would make Sekhara's teachers think any less of her than they already do? None of this matters, it's as harmless as a dream, and so Sekhara closes her eyes and lets the soft voice lull her to sleep, lets the slender arms gently lay her onto the bare floor. And if she thinks, if she hopes she feels dry lips brush feather light against her forehead, it's only a dream, it isn't real, she's done nothing wrong. It's all only a dream.
Memories of the Cloister, even those particular memories, it will have to do. The tension in her spine, the red edged anger that makes her teeth grit, they will serve, they will get her through this evening, she loops one arm around the cobra woman's waist and pulls her close, hip to hip, and then Sekhara's other arm slashes out, seizing the slave's hand in an iron grip, freezing it and the needle thin blade protruding from between the knuckles in place. She's attacking even as she defends, free hand closing into a spearpoint as she stabs at a chakra point and the strike is deflected, scaled arm clashing against hers to parry, no one notices, no one cares, the dance playing out between them is about the tamest interaction of two or more bodies currently taking place in the water or upon the stone benches, both her arms are bound but Sekhara is leaning forward, white teeth bared and her eyes on the throbbing vein in the slave's elegant neck, she feels scales against her lips but before she can bite down a familiar voice whispers into her ear.
"You're robbing me."
The young woman's voice is a rasp, her bloodshot eyes sunk deep into dark circles, she leans on her walking staff as if it's the only thing holding her up, but she still manages to put something incredulous into her tone.
"I know, I understand, believe me, I get it." The older woman grins through yellowing teeth, brandishing her hook bladed knife as she speaks, her every movement a theater of pomp of melodrama. "One woman, walking, walking, not riding, in this stretch of forest, one woman afoot." The grinning woman clouts one of her companions on the back of the head with an open palm, staggering the man.
"What do you think she's got, mmm? What could she be carrying, can't even afford a mule to carry her arse, what do you think she might have that's worth popping out of our blind for?"
"Chief, I-"
"Don't say ransom. Do not say ransom, I will knock teeth out, your teeth, people worth ransoming don't walk - walk, mind you, alone through the forest, Dragons Above and Below, this isn't banditry, it's begging." the leader draws a hand over her forehead, and then she's all business.
"It's embarassing, really it is, but there's my reputation to consider, folk that are fool enough to jump out at one person walking, can't trust them to keep their fool lips closed, I have to take something. That stick of yours, maybe, bit of firewood's always handy, or I can use it to beat an idiot, give it over and be on your way. Savvy?"
The bandit leader is perfectly confident, absolutely self assured, as arrogant in her superiority as the High Abbess of the Cloister, as patronizing and condescending as Matriarch Cynis Jehanes herself. And now Sekhara is smiling back at her, smiling sincerely, genuinely, her first real smile in a long time, fear tries to claw at her, fear whispers that this isn't a spar, these are killers, used to violence, but it's a weak voice, it's barely real, not the way the hate and bitterness and rage singing in her blood are real, she sees the bandit's smile waver, sees the faintest crack in that armor of confidence and she savors it, and then release.
The former monk slides forward on the balls of her feet, body turning, narrowing her stance, the hook blade draws a line of fire across her side but it doesn't matter, she doesn't care, she's throwing a strike of her own, a roundhouse kick that drives her shin deep into the flesh under her enemy's chin, crushing meat and gristle, stealing breath, the bandit is falling to her knees, hands clasping, desperately trying to force air through her ruined neck and Sekhara throws her arms wide, welcoming the others, beckoning them on.
There's a commotion at the back of the group, one of the ragged figures clutching at another but there's no time for that, the others are on her, are charging forward with weapons raised and her soul blazes around her, thorns lashing like the limbs of a devilfish or some great spider, and she shows them the truth of what she is. Nights of hunger and thirst, denying herself, stomach shrunken and skin shriveling to gain just one word of praise from Shifu, and a bandit's ribs break open. Her mother's voice, by turns icy and insinuating, those long, strong fingers clutching and caressing her shoulders and her fingers drive into and through a bandit's skull, she needs more, she has more, has enough poison in her veins to slay the Dragons themselves, there's one left standing, a corpse at their feet and a thin strangling cord falling from their hands, raising their arms in a meaningless gesture of surrender, Sekhara is laughing, her muscles coiling, she'll drink this moment, this joy, drain it to the very dregs, and then a familiar voice slices through her euphoria.
"Sekhara, it's me, it's Agelin!" A hand passes over those grimy features and something familiar appears from the unknown, cheekbones and forehead changing shape like a conjurer's trick, and the Cynis scion freezes. She knows that face. Knows its contours and lines even if she's never seen them, she's run her hands over them in the darkness of her cell, delicate and angular, it's Agelin, yes, of course, Agelin with her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed, looking at her with fear, and she's aware, then, conscious of the gore splattered on her hands, her chest, on her face, she must look a fright and she opens her own hands, mirrors the other young woman's gesture, "I, yes, it's not mine, all this, you see," the words are falling from her lips, trying to reassure, to comfort, and it's Agelin.
How many nights. How many nights has she nestled against Sesus Agelin, taken the comfort and support offered to her, only that and nothing more, never more, never anything that would have dishonored the vows she swore, denying herself, wanting more, wanting until it almost hurts, but she never did. Not once.
But now there are no vows. There is no oath. There's only the thunder of her own heart, the blood racing in her ears and then she has her arms around the other Dynast, pressing her lips against the smaller woman's, her mind is aflame, what to do next, how to proceed, scenes half glimpsed in her mother's villa, snippets from the Immaculate scrolls and long nights when it hurt, it hurt so much...and then sharp nails rake against the cut in her side and a forearm is between their bodies, levering her away, and Sekhara reels back, she's crying now, she didn't cry when she left the Cloister, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction but her eyes are burning and she's sick, physically sick, she thought the other girl, that she knew, she must have known, and then a gentle hand cups her chin, turns her face down, moves her eyes to meet Agelin's as a thumb tenderly brushes drops of blood off her cheek.
"A gentlewoman asks permission first."
The past and the present together, that voice she knows so well speaking words from her, from their past, and just like back then, it changes everything. Sekhara purses her lips together into a kiss against that lovely neck, her fingers entwining with the other woman's as she leans forward, rests her full weight against Agelin. Lingering in the moment, savoring the sensation, she's learned restraint since their younger days, practiced control.
And so as she closes her eyes and luxuriates in the sensation of skin against her skin, she whispers "Sesus Agelin, you are an arse." into her lover's ear.
"Cynis Sekhara, you are a grump." Agelin, Lady Smoke, she's whispering back and nibbling at Sekhara's ear and the Cynis Matriarch concentrates, tries to think, no one around them can spare an ear to eavesdrop, they're all focused on their own pleasures, and the Sesus Matriarch is wriggling under her, focus, restraint, focus.
"I'm glad I, I need to speak with you, it's very important..."
"You need to enjoy yourself. Really, Sekhara, one partner? What will people say?" Agelin lifts their entwined hand, swings the Cynis Dynast's arm through a beckoning motion, and others are sloshing through the water towards them, a broad shouldered woman with the look of the Legions about her, a dark skinned beauty with hints of the Southlands, others, all of them lovely, she opens her mouth to object, she wants to, she needs to talk to Agelin, and the legionary puts calloused fingers over her lips.
"They need to see their Empress has blood in her veins." the muscular woman says, and it's Agelin's voice, the same voice as the serpent woman she leans against.
"That she knows how to indulge her appetites." Agelin's voice again, from a short haired woman with a Heptagram tattoo over eye as she massages Sekhara's shoulders with clever fingers.
"I don't, you, which one of you is the real..." her gaze whips from one to another, from slave to freedwoman to noble, all of them whispering to her with Lady Smoke's voice as they caress her, press against her.
"Which one of us feels like the real one?"
"Which one of us would you like to be the real one?"
"Agelin this is important, an Empress must have an Imperial Consort, there's been talk of, Banoba and the older Cynis, a Tepet or Nellens..."
"Such terrible choices," says the sorcress. "Some fragile little thinblood that might bruise if you looked at her sternly," continues the legionary, "or a bellowing Tepet that won't even take off her armor during, imagine that." a noblewoman with an achingly beautiful heart shaped face puts a hand to her chest in mock horror. The cobra woman nibbles her ear again, lightly runs a forked tongue over her cheek as she picks up the refrain.
"Less talk, more debauch. You don't want the lasses to be disappointed in their Empress, and we plan on enjoying ourselves this evening as well."
Sekhara knows she's lost this battle, knows that she's about to throw restraint and patience to the Elemental Poles and that what comes next will be just as frantic, just as feral as that decades ago night in the forest, the two of them atop her cloak amidst the butchered dead, but she has just enough will left to lean forward and whisper one last thing. One question. Six words, hissed into the serpent shape's ear.
Six words, and then Sekhara has the rare pleasure of seeing the Matriarch of House Sesus, the spider at the center of so many dark and terrible webs, watching each and every one of the mouths around her fall open in unison as every one of the bodies around her go rigid with shock.
The Knowledgeable Advisors' Report on the Threshold, RY 766
The Most Obsequious and Humble Offering of the Knowledgeable Advisors to the Scarlet Throne
In the Year of Her Glorious Reign 766
Most glorious respected ladies of the Imperial Court,
Contained herein; the abridged summary of the full report, available by request from the First Servant of the Knowledgeable Advisors.
Please note that the processing of such requests may take an indeterminate time due to present difficulties in staffing and resource allocation. The All-Seeing Eye maintains the right to censor any information contained within these reports.
The Mysterious North East
With the recent chastisement of Halta, the Linowan Nation has vastly expanded its reach and local dominion, absorbing several smaller periphery states and tribal groups into its structure. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Haltans have made pact with the Raksha warlord Prince of Mourning Leaves, who now prepares to assist them in a grand retaliatory strike of some form. It must be stressed that, with virtually all Realm-friendly citizens and traders expelled from Halta, such reports are impossible to verify.
The plague of spiders that recently overwhelmed the city of Khut are reported to be sentient, capable of engaging in trade and diplomacy with nearby polities. Attempts to deduce their character or intent have been stymied by a seemingly pathologic hatred for all nations claiming descent from the Glorious Shogunate of old for unspecified trespasses.
The Haslanti League has agreed via internal political process to adopt the Immaculate Philosophy as the state religion, and has sent envoys to Incas Prefecture to request the appointment of appropriate spiritual teachers and guardians. The Knowledgeable Advisors wish to hail the forethought and righteous wisdom displayed by the August Deliberative in its handling of the Haslanti situation.
The Verdant East
Reports from the Confederation of Rivers suggest that the Grand Council has left the delegates with agreements in place concerning the formation of a central trade body, legal alignment and the formation of an undefined number of Confederate Legions, each to be trained by Dragonblooded officers from the City-State of Lookshy. The Knowledgeable Advisors wish to register their alarm at this development, and to draw the August Conclave's attention to the possible repercussions of a unified polity of such size forming in the Threshold absent Imperial oversight.
The Serpent-Lords of Ixcoatl have halted their expansion for the moment, entering a period of stabilisation and consolidation over their recently seized dominions. The presence of an Imperial Legion in Greyfalls Satrapy is, by the judgement of the Knowledgeable Advisors, key to explaining their hesitation, though already raitonfolk diplomats have been seen in the courts of neighbouring lands.
Dread Mahalanka stirs. The dominion of the dread anathema Raksi, Queen of Fangs, has begun mustering its bestial legions on the borders, prompting neighbouring regions to send great caravans of tribute to appease its wrath. Curiously, no sightings of Raksi herself have been made, and it is the belief of the Knowledgeable Advisors that the Anathema is abroad elsewhere.
The Dream-Washed South-East
The Immaculate Order has named Shahzedah Sabeh II of Taira as Anathema, after reports from local monks were received concerning her conquest of Malra. A great horde of undead, backed by elite cohorts of seemingly fearless Saturnine militia, laid siege to Pershwa and conquered it after a surprisingly short conflict. It is believed that Sabah has taken the witch-queen of Pershwa as consort and advisor, and in accepting the Anathema to her side has become so herself.
The Satrapy of Prasad has submitted a missive to the Bursars of Barbarian Tribute that they are breaking their satrapial agreement, declaring independence from Her Imperial Majesty's Realm. Already, Prasadi diplomats have been sited in the courts of numerous other local satrapies, and it is believed they intend to stir rebellion in the hearts of as many as will listen to their poisonous lies.
The Sweltering South
With the withdrawal of the Imperial Legions to the port of Chiaroscuro, the Despot of Gem has sent a diplomatic notification that he does not believe it is within his ability to guarantee the safety of tribute payments going north, and as such is suspending such payments until circumstances change. Such a decision is not one he has the legal authority to make, and the Knowledgeable Advisors urge the August Deliberative to chastise him before other local tributaries take similar inspiration.
Numerous reports have confirmed the previous year's rumours - the Dune Folk appear to have united under the leadership of a messianic figure, a woman who burns with green flame and promises her people the love of a green sun to replace that of the golden one which burns their flesh. It seems quite apparent that this messiah is some form of Hellish Anathema, but the Dune Folk have ever been an insular people, and there is little further information to be found.
The Fragrant South-West
The predations of the Lintha Family have gone unchecked, expanding to the shores of the Sacred Caul and virtually all local coastal nations. The Baihu League has remained untouched, as has An Teng, but the local economy is otherwise being rapidly strangled by the rampant piracy and daemonic allies of the Lintha.
In An Teng, the Golden Lord has appointed a Righteous Master of the Waves, a high priest blessed with a portion of his blessed light, to train and upgrade the satrapy's naval forces. It is strongly suspected that the Righteous Master is some form of Anathema, but in the absence of unified Imperial control and with the Lintha growing more rapacious every day, there is a notable reluctance to confirm the threat, much less act against it.
The Distant West
The Black Fleet of Skullstone has begun a series of aggressive patrols against local pirates and the dread scourge of the Lintha, apparently via agreement with numerous local nation-states. Formal announcements accompanying the fleet suggest that a being known as Gift of Welcome Oblivion has been appointed as the Black Fleet's admiral, and it is strongly suspected that this creature is Anathema similar to nature to those who fought at the side of the righteously vanquished Mask of Winters.
Siakal, Goddess of Western Warfare, Slaughter and Sharks, has defied the strictures of the Immaculate Order and begun demanding sacrifice from all who sail the West to stave off her fury. The Tya have formed a local nexus of resistance to her dictates, providing navigators and expert pilots capable of seeing a ship safely to support despite the Shark Goddess' displeasure. The Knowledgeable Advisors believe that it is only a matter of time before the matter escalates to outright war.
The Storm-Wracked North-West
Several minor nations and tribal groups along the north-western coasts have pledged themselves as vassal-states to the Principality of Skullstone. Preliminary reports suggest that the use of Skullstone-marked currency was the most common in those nations swiftest to swear their loyalty, but the precise relationship is impossible to determine given the ongoing infighting between Realm forces in the region.
A particularly harsh winter and late spring has led to crop failures across the North-West, and those handful of nations which embraced the Gethamane lichen farms have begun leveraging their sudden relative prosperity to destabilise the whole region. One bad winter is insufficient for long-term change, but the Knowledgeable Advisors believe that more may be on their way.
The Frozen North
The Cult of Jira has spread itself far and wide across the North, and the opposition to its structure by the Immaculate Order appears to have delegitimised the Faith in the eyes of some and stirred the crusader spirit in the hearts of others. It is the opinion of the advisors that unless action is taken soon, much of the North may be lost to sectarian violence.
The Syndics of Whitewall have publicly offered shelter and citizenship to one of their subjects who was accursed to become a member of the Solar Anathema. This short-sighted and wicked action cannot go unanswered, and the Knowledgeable Advisors urge the August Deliberative to take action against Whitewall.
Conclusion
Your humble servant hopes that this abridged summary of extracts from the full report has identified certain flashpoints abroad which the Knowledgeable Advisors have judged worthy of drawing to the keen eagle-like eyes of the fine ladies of the court and the Matriarchs, wisest of all women. Once again, it is humbly requested that the full report be requested by those who wish for further information on these topics beyond the capacity of this short and abbreviated document to contain.
Signed in the Imperial City on this day, Calibration 1, by Her Imperial Majesty's most unworthy servant,
Ledaal Mana
pp Nellens Kirima
"No I don't know what the Order is doing up in that fancy new monastery of theirs, and if you're smart, neither do you. Yes I'm… no, listen to me, it doesn't matter. The only thing that comes of getting tangled up in that business is making enemies with the Cynis and their friends, and I don't know if you've looked at a map recently, but… yeah? Yeah.
Twin Leaves, Merchant's Scribe, Six Vines Province
Article:
"The slaves have started singing in the fields again. Some barbarian ditty from their homelands, no doubt, but the way they smile when they recite the words makes me nervous. In times of peace I'd count us able to handle any trouble from idle hands and rebel minds, but in these times… well, the legions won't be here forever, will they? And when they move out, who will keep the workforce in line? There's so many of the wretches."
Sesus Alagani, Landowner and Administrator, Chanos
Imperial River Basin
Article:
"Let Mela guide your thoughts, sisters. Let Pasiap steady your will, and Hesiash strengthen your arms. This is a time of trial, a time of tribulation, but hold to the dragons and their teachings and we will come through stronger. These weak-willed scions have allowed their hedonistic pursuits to rot their minds, and they have forgotten the cost of leading the souls of man astray. We will remind them."
Righteous Tiger, Immaculate Monk and Revolutionary, Pangu
Article:
Iselsi. Of all the fucking things, House Iselsi is yet alive. On the run now, broken and hounded by the combined might of the Great Houses, but… I retired early today, into contemplation of the world, and tried to find the sense in it. Why would her Majesty permit such poisoned blades to exist? Why would she tell nobody of her diseased hounds, slavering for the flesh of the innocent? I cannot answer, and it troubles me deeply.
Ahri Three-Pigs, Magistrate, Scarlet Prefecture
Luo-Han Plains
Article:
"Oh, stop screaming love. Nobody is coming to help you. Everyone's far too busy chasing their own tails, carving out their own little part of the Isle, and that… wait. Who is… who the fuck are you? Get back, I've got a…"
"Peace, child. You are safe now. Now, I need you to think hard - did the wretch say where his comrades could be found?"
Overheard in a ruined farmhouse, Bucolic Hymn
Article:
"Fifteen dead, their bodies displayed on spikes. Three camps left abandoned in the woods, one village utterly depopulated. Two monks, slaughtered like cattle and left to rot. And every survivor we find just babbles about black flames and their sins come back to haunt them."
"There is one of the Anathema in Incas Prefecture, operating practically within eyesight of the Palace Sublime, and I swear by all the Dragons I am going to break its wretched neck."
Peleps Deled, Incas
Dragonwrath Desert
Article:
"Alright, let them go. We've got what we need, and… excuse me? Oh, is that what he said. Mm. And you think… oh, I see. Well, let us get this little miscommunication straightened out, shall we? I owe that bastard on the mountain, this much is true. He gives me orders, from time to time, that is also true. You are here on his behalf, I acknowledge that, but - and this is the important part - you are not him. He would know better than to give an order like that, and if you insist on pressing the issue, I will pull your spine out through your mouth and hang you from the nearest tree. Do we have an understanding? We do? Marvelous."
Magistrate Li Kali, Dhorash
Article:
"Oh, bless you kind lady, bless you. A thousand blessings on you and your children and your children's children. In our time of need you came to us, when we were beset by foes you sheltered us, and though our land is barren and ravaged still you have worked to save us. May all the blessings of the Immaculate Dragons rain down upon House Ragara like the nourishing rain, from now until the end of time."
Iron Crane, Widowed Peasant, Radimel's Seat
Arjuf and the Tarpan Wastes
Article:
"No traitorspawn will lay a hand on this place. For millennia has Honoured Vows kept its vigil, and for millennia more will he endure. Trust in his watch, my child, and know that if he does not smite the wretches of Ledaal for their presence today, then surely he will do so tomorrow. Surely. Surely."
Whispered Conversation, Willow's Edge
Article:
"I'm sorry, sister. I truly have enjoyed our talks, you know, and if the world were kind and women were sane we could live out our sunset years in peace, sitting by the beach and complaining about our grandchildren. But I have seen what your House would do, and I will not have it. In deference to our long friendship, I will give you this chance to stand down. No? Then draw your sword."
Mnemon Vishnara, Retiree, Bizen
Plains of Rusted Iron
Article:
"Wretches with dirt for blood, the lot of them. They hunger for coin, for jade, for power that is not theirs to claim, and I will have it no longer. The House cannot afford to strike against them, this might be so, but a pious soul tolerates no excuses when duty comes calling. Raise your spears, sisters, and follow me."
Unknown Firebrand, Justicar Province
Article:
"Hope. Do you know, can you even begin to understand what that feels like? It is the fresh rain after the drought, the banquet on the edge of starvation, the look in your daughter's eye when you carry her from her prison with a smile on your face. So no, Dynast, I will not be surrendering. Nor will I be telling you a damned thing. Draw your sword, and we shall let the song of steel decide our fate!"
Kiss of Falling Rain, Kashkassu Sword-Saint, Red Sky Province
Daoshin Peninsula
Article:
"Let this be a new day for House Simendor! Let us not forget the traditions of our past, let us not turn our eyes from the bright horizons of tomorrow, and let none of you inbred snakes forget for one second what happened to the last bitch who crossed me. We're under new management now, ladies, and I am done cleaning up your shit."
Simendor Toren, Newly Appointed Matriarch of House Simendor, Brilliant Autumn Shades
Article:
"You know, I'm almost tempted to let her go through with it. The sheer beauty of what that hateful snake is attempting… it is intoxicating, in its way. What would Creation look like, should she succeed? But, ah. Duty calls, and her teeth are red with blood.
???, Wading Crane Rookery
Silk-and-Pearl Peninsula
Article:
We regret to inform the Great Houses of the Realm that the Most Blessed Matriarch Peleps Araska has perished in the line of duty. A funeral will be held in due time, and further missives shall be sent.
We regret to inform the Great Houses of the Realm that the Most Valiant Admiral Peleps Lai has perished in the line of duty. A funeral will be held in due time, and further missives shall be sent.
We regret to inform…
Official Proclamation by the Righteously Guided Admiralty Board, Voice of the Tides
Article:
"No! No you can't do this! We were loyal, you dogs, we were loyal! Get your hands off… no, don't you… no!"
Last Words of Autumn Wind, Legitimate Businesswoman, Steel Wind Province
Fields of Rue
Article:
"Did you hear it, last night? They say she started laughing. Nobody's been able to get so much as a peep from that monster since this place was built, and now she's laughing. I'd request a transfer, but… yeah. Yeah, we both know what happened to the last guy."
Comment overheard at Ice-Above-The-Water Prison, Ventus Prefecture
Article:
"Ah, such an exquisite vintage. Our young mistress did well for herself, picking up these old vineyards as the centre of her new House's trade. Nobody thought they, or we, would be anything more than a rare curiosity, but look at us now! A powerful patron, old enemies made friends, jade that runs like rivers… I think the Lady has earned some consideration when it comes to matters of forethought and prediction, don't you?"
V'Neef Wild Owl, Eagle Prefecture
Imperial Mountain
Article:
"I can hear them. The drums, the horns, the singing. The dead are celebrating. Every night I hear them, when the sun goes down. This Realm of ours is sliding closer to the brink with every passing day, and the dead are waiting to welcome us below."
Gu Mao, Peasant, Winter's Blossom
Article:
"There's a bandit out there. A queen of bandits, so they say, with twin axes and a smile like fresh-spilled blood. Her and her gang hide on Meru's mighty back, and the Guardians don't have the men or the coin to root her out any more. Hells, the Dragons themselves aren't stirring to shake her from the sacred stone. How did it come to this…"
The Throne is empty, and increasingly regarded as a prize to be taken rather than a duty to be granted. Claimants have gathered factions around themselves and begun vying directly against one another - bloodshed is expected and increasingly acceptable, and mobs supporting one side or another clash in the streets. Military action is frequently employed, but generally veiled in terms like 'restoring order' and 'securing vulnerable assets'. The general expectation is that one side will emerge victorious and the others will bow their heads and serve.
- Withholding tribute is allowed
- Establishing sovereignty is restricted
- Raising armies is allowed
- Raising fleets is allowed
Military actions against Patricians are Allowed Hostile actions against Patrician Capital assets are Allowed
- Civic bodies are ineffective; matters of banditry, natural disaster, famine and plague are left for players to address.
- Invasions become possible in Satrapies, foreign powers consider funding rebellion in Realm territories.
- Wyld Hunt is reduced in effectiveness, Anathema can operate within the Threshold without impediment.
- Hostile actions against another player's Character, Dynastic or Levy assets are restricted.
- Hostile actions against another player's Capital or Military assets are allowed.
(Please check the asset sheet for details of new assets representing pirates, banditry and a very angry Immaculate Order)
(Apologies to all for the delay in getting turn three processed, but we are now ready to move on)
