"So far it seems like halfway between our two hypotheses," you observe. "There's some sort of central control mechanism, but the flow can continue when cut off from the greater network, up until the Waystones reach capacity." You look to Zlata. "And if the flow was maintained instead of being dammed, and energy was being taken out at least as fast as it is being added, then it could last indefinitely." Zlata returns your gaze, gives it some thought, and nods.
"So if we had a way to spend the energies..." Sarvoi begins.
"Including the Dhar?" Elrisse asks pointedly.
Sarvoi considers that. "Ah. Yes, I see your point. There are arguments to be made about lesser evils in some circumstances, but scaling up to a size of a continent means rapidly running out of evils great enough to justify such widespread use of corruptive energies."
"Unless there was a way to convert Dhar into some other, more benign form of energy." You turn your look to Thorek.
"It is said," he says heavily after a long period of thought, "that the Ancestor Gods and those that learned from them could create Runes with that capability. Some of the very least of those techniques were rediscovered by the Runelord Alaric, but he drove himself mad seeking more than that. And only a very few Runelords are capable of reliably using them."
"Would they be at all scalable?" you ask.
"If Kragg had spent his entire long life doing nothing else, then he would perhaps have managed enough to protect a tenth of Altdorf."
You grimace. "And it stands to reason that even if any logistical concerns were handwaved away, any still-existing examples of the greater Runes would have a finite throughput."
Thorek takes even longer to consider this answer. "It does stand to reason," he eventually concludes.
"The only other possibility would be divine," you observe. "A deity willing to dedicate Themselves to a land and take upon Them the burden of purifying a constant stream of Dhar within that land into divine energy."
All eyes turn to Zlata. "Kislev is land, land is Kislev, we are Kislev," she says simply, her voice only betraying a hint of nervousness.
"But even if we simply assume that it would be possible to implement the same approach in the Empire, the merest hint of the idea would instantly split the Empire into at least three parts."
"Bretonnia might be capable of it," Elrisse observes.
"Maybe so, but Bretonnia doesn't have the Grey Mountains between it and Ulthuan."
