[X] [ULTHUAN] Cooperation
[X] [BLOOD] Personal (book agreements with all possible kislev libraries)
[X] [BLOOD] Empire (Docking rights in Erengrad for Imperial military and commercial ships)
[X] [BLOOD] Empire (Canal linking the Urskoy and Lynsk)
my only worry about the Kislev canal is that eyeballing the map it is 3 times longer than both Dwarf canals
Huh this waystone meeting is going to be interesting;
Prince Eltharion: I could be rebuilding Tor Yvresse right now.
Tzar Boris: I could be rebuilding Kislev right now.
Prince Eltharion: Mood kindred?
Tzar Boris: Mood kindred.
I just realized a bit of a problem...
I really hope the ice witches have a way of adding new waystones to their network because I'm fairly certain the high elves codes will do jack for kislev...
[X] [ULTHUAN] Cooperation
[X] [BLOOD] Personal (book agreements with all possible kislev libraries)
[X] [BLOOD] Empire (Docking rights in Erengrad for Imperial military and commercial ships)
[X] [BLOOD] Empire (Canal linking the Urskoy and Lynsk)
my only worry about the Kislev canal is that eyeballing the map it is 3 times longer than both Dwarf canals
They're also very willing to go along with "good enough", rather than making a marvel where the banks will never overflow and the locks will stand for millennia without maintenance. Makes for much speedier projects.
One thing that strikes me with the Canal vote ascendant, is that we're invoking the prospect of a major new canal right as the last major canal project, Black Water, winds down.
I wonder if that would lead to any of the staff on the old project joining the new. Not all, I imagine it won't include the day laborers, for instance. Still, given that an Empire-Kislev canal also stands to benefit the Karaz Ankor, via closer connection to the High Pass and Karak Vlag, what are the odds that some of the foremen, architects, etc. in Black Water find green new pastures in Kislev?
Soo... are they going to call this the Vladimir Bokha Canal? You know in honor of the late Tsar's great foresight, slain before his time by Lahmian vampires without even getting the chance to unveil his great work.
Fritz of House van Haagen nervously pulled at his sleeves, the action thankfully hidden by the crowd. He looked around him at the many foreign notables excitedly mingling with the native Kislevites. He didn't know why he had to be here.
Oh, he knew why someone had to be here. But why did it have to be him?
He remembered years ago when that blasted Black Water Canal opened up and Marienburg's fortunes shifted. He was too young to really comprehend the fullness of what it meant when it was first conceived of, but having grown up in its shadow he had had plenty of time to internalize his elders worries of doom and destitution that it would cause. In retrospect those had been overblown, though it had definitely pushed hard times on his family, not helped by the immediate announcement of the next economic disaster project to Marienburg, this time Kislev edition.
The opening celebration for which he was currently attending.
It wasn't menacing or anything. Won't even be as damaging as the Black Water Canal was, but the sequence of events was still sufficient to push many of the Great Families to worry, which he had absorbed by proximity. No matter that it's announcement right on the Black Water's completion was almost certainly a coincidence. At best one inspired the other, though there was certainly no grand plot to weaken and destroy Marienburg.
Right?
Regardless, the paranoia that had taken root in his family saw him sent here, for peace of mind. Even if those fears were accurate, what did they expect him to do?
He was being silly. The real origin of his uncomfort was the contrast between his own feelings and those of, well, everyone else here. He was pretty much the only attendee who wouldn't be definitely benefitting from this development, even if many of the locals disagreed with the project as an expenditure of resources better spent elsewhere. It was… a somewhat alienating feeling. And the weather certainly didn't help-
There was a commotion near the stage, at the edge of the crowd.
He moved to try and get a better view. That was the Tzar, not his first speech of the day, probably a final one to close off the party proper. He wasn't alone though, by his side was a woman in gray robes. Who was-
Mathilde Weber.
Oh Gods.
The Arch-Enemy of Marienburg, whispered by some. The Black Water Hand. A terrifying shadowmancer of the Empire's Orders of Magic. If you believed what they said, she was the mastermind behind the conspiracy dismantling their fair city. As one of the Founders of the Eastern Imperial Company and a known friend to the Dawi she no doubt had a significant hand in the construction of the Black Water Canal, and from there look at her burgeoning relationship with some of the highest echelons of Kislev's rulership, in the middle of which Kislev's own project was announced right as the Black Water was completed, and right after that her toadying up to their Asur backers, it all had to be a plot to eliminate Marienburg's international influence in preparation for a new Empire invasion. Her goal was nothing less than the death and destruction of all the good burghers of Marienburg held dear.
Or so they said.
Calm down, Fritz. This didn't mean anything yet. Her connections with Kislev were well known and her position in the EIC means it makes sense she would show up here. They had supplied much expertise for the construction of the canal, paid for by Kislev's coin or no. Yes, there was nothing odd about this at all, this was completely normal…
She was climbing the stage.
No.
It couldn't be.
She wasn't the first to speak. Tzar Boris began, thanking the people of Kislev for their hard work in the completing of the Canal and the rest of the crowd for attending the event as appropriate, and Fritz had almost gathered himself enough to begin contemplating what this could mean, when it was 'Atavanka Weber's time to speak.
"People of the Old World, I would also like to thank the many people here for the contributions to this momentous project, and for making the long journey to make it to this event. As many of you know, this isn't just a victory for Kislev, but for the whole Old World."
The shadows begin to shift and writhe.
"Never before has trade between the many good peoples of this continent been so easy, our nations so connected as they will be from this day forth. A new age of prosperity is surely on the horizon. But this is only the start."
The Lady Magister threw out her hands, and a map of the Old World was conjured into the air by way of her sorcerous powers. The Old World… and the East?
"News may not have quite reached all corners of our peoples quite yet, but in the eastern mountains, beyond the Karaz Ankor there have been some significant developments in recent years. The Ogre Kingdoms have come together to form a union of hitherto unprecedented sophistication, and unprecedented willingness to take part in diplomacy and large, national scale projects."
The shadows creeped out from their confines, crawling and digging through reality, tendrils reaching out and through the crowd towards him.
Please no.
"An Ogre is an imposing figure, as I'm sure many of you have seen firsthand, and while that is normally of note only in military matters, when properly harnessed this can allow for construction of truly impressive scale."
She pointed and long line was drawn across the map, from west to east, cutting right through the vast stretch of mountains.
"It is my pleasure to announce. A collaborative project between the Empire of Man, the Karaz Ankor, Kislev, Grand Cathay and the United Ogre Kingdoms."
Please.
"The Old World-Cathay Canal Project!"
The shadows pulled him into their embrace.
"OH BY THE GODS, PLEASE NO-"
—
"-PLEASE NOT THE CANALS!"
Fritz woke up screaming, his heart pounding in his chest.
…
He hated these Gods damned nightmares.
He wiped at his face, and looked out the window. Not dawn, but not far off. He wouldn't be getting anymore sleep today. Might as well get up.
Beginning his morning routine, he grumbled to himself of recent events. Blasted canals.
It had been almost two months since the Black Water had been completed, when his family finally thought things would calm down. In the early stages of its construction, those years ago, he remembered the pall that seemed to hang over them all. As the project came to a close he personally had almost started to feel a sort of relief, and he wasn't alone in that. Sure, Marienburg's monopoly would be ruined, but cooler heads had long since prevailed. So what? They were still well positioned, they would survive, could easily transition to other markets.
The second Canal… it hadn't brought things back to the early days. The doomsaying had been far too paranoid, and with the gift of experience they could ration out the situation better than before. The new canal would be less impactful to them than the first. And besides, they still had Ulthuan on their side.
…well, they're pretty sure they did, anyway.
Last week, the whole lot of the Ulthuan quarter had just… up and left. It was bizarre. And it wasn't just them either, all magic users in the city had seemingly left weeks prior. The Council had been tense with the second Canal's announcement so hadn't noticed until the Asur had left. From what he had heard, when asking them where they were going they had only replied with something about fish.
Weird.
Well, that wasn't important to him. Let the Council figure that out. He had a morning meeting to get to.
He had just stepped out of his door when he felt it. The earth trembled. What was that? Fritz looked around, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.
The earth trembled again. He saw some servants pause, looking around in confusion. He started to feel wary. What was happening?
Abruptly, a great voice seemed to come down from the heavens, seeming to blast from every direction.
"People of Marienburg, this is Lady Magister Mathilde Weber of the Old World Trade Development Council."
What the hell?
The rumbling of the earth increased, and he thought he could hear something in the far distance. He looked to where he thought it came from, towards the east, and saw… a greyish black blur on the horizon? It sat at the top of a hill, and seemed to be growing nearer.
The blur crested the horizon in full, allowing him to see behind it, where a stream of water seemed to follow it?
The water followed behind the black blur, as if a river, and considering the distance…
"As you are probably aware, plans for the development of the outlying regions of the Old World involve the building of a canal route through this area…"
That was a lot of water.
The dark blur grew close enough for Fritz to begin to comprehend the full scale of what he was seeing. It was massive. A twisting shape of gray and black shape, almost painful to look at and easily large enough to tower over all but the greatest buildings in Marienburg, though looking at it half of it seemed to be dragging through the earth. Consuming the earth. Carving it.
"…and unfortunately, your city's location in the way of this ongoing development means that it is scheduled for demolition."
The rumbling increased, shaking the street, buildings shuddering.
The people of the city began to scream.
Fritz screamed.
The orb screamed.
"The process will take slightly less than two minutes. Thank you."
Fritz ran, praying to all the Gods he could think of to save him. It hadn't even been a minute but already the streets were packed, fleeing in every direction as if there were anywhere for any of them to flee to. Fritz chanced a glance behind him, just in time to see the maelstrom of twisting shadows to impact the walls.
"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. The plans have been on display in the night sky for the past fifty days, so you've had plenty of time to lodge formal complaints."
The walls were devoured instantly, and the orb pushed through, devouring not just any buildings in its way but their very foundations… though that paled in comparison to the destruction the water caused, as it followed in its wake. It spread out of the furrow carved by the orb in all directions, immense waves running through the streets. Fleeing crowds and even whole buildings were swept away.
"What do you mean you can't read the stars? Oh, for heaven's sake Marienburg, you don't even need to be a master at magic to read the message. It isn't even encoded! I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout."
Those damn Elves.
Fritz barely had the presence of mind to have the thought before it all got worse. As the orb finally traversed the fullness of the city, leaving a line of devastation running through Marienburg, a great crack seemed to run through the earth, and the city… folded.
The edges of the city that had escaped the destruction thus far went from solidly horizontal to increasingly vertical. Buildings seemed to slide slowly down into the new river… no, not river, canal, running through the center of the city. Fritz held on for dear life, but it was fruitless. His handhold failed him, the whole construction falling with him, down, down towards…
"Apathetic bloody city, I've no sympathy at all. Completing canalisation…"
The canal consumed him.
—
Fritz gasped as he woke up in a cold sweat.
…
These damn dreams could not be natural.
So, uh, not gonna lie, this got a bit away from me. Thought about splitting into two parts, but eh.
Huh this waystone meeting is going to be interesting;
Prince Eltharion: I could be rebuilding Tor Yvresse right now.
Tzar Boris: I could be rebuilding Kislev right now.
Prince Eltharion: Mood kindred?
Tzar Boris: Mood kindred.
On a more serious note since the Ulthuan appears to be locked in, how do you guys see this affecting the next turn's plan? Personally I think the following actions will be impacted:
Mapping: Ulthuan would know where all the nexuses are so there is no sense mapping them
Talking to the Bretonians: With the lore of the Asur it becomes less urgent to talk to Bretonnia to get any second hand Asrai lore they might have
Putting Waystones together: this has rather abruptly changed from 'make a working waystone' to 'make a resource efficient Waystone'. We were going to get a minimal viable product anyway, but this shift impacts where we take it from there
Karaz Ankor Network: Any questions we ask would have to be very circumspect, but the fact remains that dwarf stone on the way to Dum took orders in elvish, that means the Asur should know what's going on with that and maybe, potentially even what it powers
For the first one it really depends on if they kept that knowledge through the war of vengeance.
And for the second one that was never the only reason to go to bretonnia, most of the leylines still go through it to reach the vortex and the asrai still (probably) sit on one of the lines that would take the brunt if those ones get diverted.
I mainly want to talk them so all the major nations of the old war are united in the waystone project and making sure it works. Also I am not sure the asur knowledge might be very outdate by this point in some areas.
For the first one it really depends on if they kept that knowledge through the war of vengeance.
And for the second one that was never the only reason to go to bretonnia, most of the leylines still go through it to reach the vortex and the asrai still (probably) sit on one of the lines that would take the brunt if those ones get diverted.
There is no reason why they would have lost information that general, their imperial core never fell and dark elf raids are well... raids, not the kind of stuff that wipes out knowledge of infrastructure. For comparison the much smaller Laurelorn has a map that contains Albion, much older and much less relevant to them.
The second one is true, but we do not need them to make waystones so we can just pay them in completed waystones for whatever we want out of them
I mainly want to talk them so all the major nations of the old war are united in the waystone project and making sure it works. Also I am not sure the asur knowledge might be very outdate by this point in some areas.
It certainly is very outdated, but as far as we know no on but the elves and dwarfs of the golden age has ever made a major waystone in the Old World and certainly no one made new nexuses so where their maps point there is either a nexus or there should be one.
I meant lore as in any Astrai Waystone lore they may have, stuff to make the stones.Personally I am not eager to poke the land of daemons, trees and daemon-trees just because they have a nexus, so do a lot of less horrifying places.
Honestly, once word gets out that Ulthuan was so impressed with our progress so far that they've joined the project we're going to start seeing organizations beg to join.
I meant lore as in any Astrai Waystone lore they may have, stuff to make the stones.Personally I am not eager to poke the land of daemons, trees and daemon-trees just because they have a nexus, so do a lot of less horrifying places.
... No one ever talked about contacting the asrai to learn their knowledge. The only reason we want to even have the option is that the one leylines that would function if certain key points get taken out goes straight through their Forest... And we don't know what they would do with that much magic.
I mean, finding out how much survived and remains intact is still useful, as well as answering questions like, "Is Skavenblight being fed a massive amount of free magic?"
