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The Onmar Gamblag Paradeum had been imprisoned following a battle in Lucerna province, which saw the militia of Lucerna attempt in vain to repel the invading forces of King Decimus and he now finds himself within a magical prison cell beneath Vallenford wizard's tower. Fearful about the prospect of losing his ability to fly over years of confinement, Gamblag spends hours unfurling and furling his wings, a feat that requires him to stand sidelong to the door, as the cells are rectangular in shape and too small for an Onmar to spread their wings any other way.
Then, one day as he engages in his wing exercises, Gamblag hears a key in the lock of his cell door at an unusual time and the sound of deadly magical wards deactivating to allow safe entry. Furling his wings and turning to face the door as it opens, he spies two Atoning Toadman, one of them wreathed in an aura of icy cold and the other wearing a fine hat with a feather in it.
"I am Chairman Jack of the Central Council and this is Tika the White Witch," the one with the feathered hat tells him as they enter.
"What is the Central Council?"Gamblag asks.
"We are a group of beings that govern the Kingdom on behalf of King Decimus,"Jack explains.
"Chairman Jack is a busy man, so it is I, Tika that you will have to worry about, Onmar,"Tika adds.
Chairman Jack, understanding her implication leaves without saying anything more and Tika moves further into the cell, so that Gamblag can clearly feel the cold of her aura on his skin.
"What do you want?" Gamblag asks fearfully.
"To get to know you, since were you not an important person, then you would be dead rather than here," Tika replies flatteringly.
Obviously she wants information, but I don't have any important information to give; but what if she tries to forcibly extract information I don't have?Gamblag thinks anxiously.
"I cannot be an important person, for the only notable thing I ever did was lead an army against your people and lose," he insists.
"Ah, but you led that army because of your powerful family,"she points out.
My family is only powerful because it is in charge of Lucerna, but that isn't an important town,he thinks.
"It must be so miserable to be stuck in this cell, with nothing to do,"she remarks in an empathetic tone.
"It is,"he admits.
At this point Gamblag realises that Tika is carrying a bag in her hands and she offers it to him. When he opens it he finds that it contains dried fruit, mostly raisins.
"This fruit from Casterlan is a gift to make your life less dull, so eat them," she tells him.
"What if they are poisoned?"he asks suspiciously.
"If we wanted you dead, then you already would be,"she points out, leaving the cell before saying anything more.
Gamblag decided it would be best to eat the fruit with his regular meal in order to make it less bland and so Tika's bag of dried fruit ends up sitting on his bed for some time before being eaten.
The next morning Tika returns to Gamblag's cell once more, bearing another gift; a coat with a soft woollen lining, specially fitted for an Onmar and their wings. Given how cold things were getting during the nights, he is eager to accept her gift and pleased to learn that it did not come with any strings attached, apparently.
"So where were you born, where did you grow up?" Tika inquires.
Though he knew better than to answer, days of being deprived of social contact still got the better of Gamblag,
"I was born in Sacrosanct, many years before Lucerna even existed,"he answers.
"So you were born in the Onmar capital, but where is Sacrosanct?" she asks.
"I am not going to tell you that," he asserts.
"We'll find that out ourselves soon enough,"she responds dismissively.
Tika once again leaves the cell without saying goodbye.
Two days later, Tika returns bearing two gifts this time, more dried fruits from Casterlan and a book.
"I brought you a book on King Decimus to pass the time, I am assuming you can read your own people's writing,"Tika announces.
Reading the cover page of the book, Gamblag quickly becomes dismissive.
"King Decimus is nothing to me other than the King of the Toad Invaders,"he asserts.
"So his story is our story; but what is it?"she challenges him to answer.
"Your people are tools. Your creator made you to serve her evil ends, but then she became disappointed with you and replaced you with better tools. But even cast off as you are, your tool-like nature remains, so your King eagerly embraced the opportunity to once again serve Nimue, even though she killed millions of your people,"he replies viciously.
"Our present alliance with our creator is temporary and it is our revenge on her,"she responds.
"How so? If you ally with the one that killed your kin, then you are selling their lives cheaply. It is at twisted thing your King did, but then he is a twisted being,"he objects.
"If you kill of million of us, then it is a small matter for our kind to spawn a billion to take their place. Nimue's killing so many of us, it was small offence compared to the one she committed by rejecting our use; for we are as you say tools," she claims.
"That was meant as an insult, I did not expect you to agree with it!"he exclaims, taken aback.
"During the time we are serving Nimue as her ally on Grexolis, we shall prove ourselves more capable than her present servants, our 'replacements' as you put it. Thus, she will spend eternity regretting the loss of us and that will be forever be our revenge on a being that cannot die," she tells him.
Tika once again leaves the cell without saying goodbye and Gamblag is left with nothing to do except to read the book he is given.
The next day Tika once again returned, but this time she arrives without gifts to give and for a while she stands in silence, as Gamblag pretends that she is not there, though her chill still makes him uncomfortable .
"I have read your book but am left with a question : who are King Decimus's parents?"he eventually asks, breaking the uneasy silence.
"Normally we spawn in pools and we regard our parents as those who adopt us once we emerge onto the land,"she explains.
"So on that basis Nimue would be his mother, since she took him from the pool and raised him," he concludes.
"But he still had *biological* siblings and it is from them that our entire people descend,"she adds.
"That would make him your uncle, your whole people's uncle,"he deduces.
"Unlike us, your people know exactly who their mother and their father are, thus they can know who their parental siblings are, so the concept of an uncle means something to Onmar,"she remarks in response.
"I am very much an uncle, I have nephews and nieces,"he recalls proudly.
"Then you must have siblings,"she realises.
"When I moved to Paradeum they lived with me for a while but ultimately they all drifted east to Arcadia where the ground is greener,"he reveals.
"You have just told me what I sought to learn,"she replies, immediately heading to the door.
Tika leaves Gamblag's cell for the last time and they never met again.
Gamblag is left alone in his cell, becoming increasingly anxious about the fate of his siblings now that he had revealed their location to Tika, who clearly sought such knowledge all along. After nearly two weeks have passed, a visitor arrives at his cell and he is surprised to learn that it is Chairman Jack wearing his feathered hat, but Tika is not with him.
"The information you provided Gamblag, it was invaluable in locating your siblings at their residences in Arcadia," Jack informs him.
"What did you do to my siblings?"Gamblag asks desperately.
"We put them in charge of Lucerna," Jack answers warmly.
"What! They work for you now?"Gamblag responds disbelievingly.
"They work for King Decimus, as the governors of the new Lucerna,"Jack confirms.
Gamblag stands in silence, too shocked by the revelation to speak.
"You, Gamblag Paradeum will shortly be released to join your siblings in Lucerna; you are to be our gift to them," Jack informs him.
I am being released only to serve my siblings, the new tools of a race of tools that look like toads,Gamblag thinks bitterly.
"You seem surprisingly unhappy for a prisoner about to be released,"Jack remarks.
I'll feel better when I see the sun again,Gamblag decides.
Wilderness north of Lucerna, Grexolis, GC 5483
The Atoning Toadmen had long since deduced that Sacrosanct, the legendary capital of the Onmar Civilisation and home of the Guardian Turial Tolarim, had to be somewhere to the north-west. But recently, following the fall of Lucerna to their forces, scouts mounted on pigs had finally been able to pass through the volcanic wastelands to its north; there they found an abbey of the Onmar religion and soon afterwards they had learned Sacrosanct's exact location.
When the news got back to King Decimus, there was much excitement, as the war against the Guardian had gone on for nearly 20 years now and they had long ago ceased thinking about what would transpire once the war was over and there was peace. The discovery however, that Sacrosanct was location just to to the north of their new conquest of Lucerna, led to speculation that the war might soon, finally be won.
The result was an outbreak of 'peace anxiety' as the Atoning Toadmen began to fear a collapse of the economy and society resulting from the end of the ceaseless demands of war, while the Onmar feared for their fate once the strong leadership of the Guardian and King Decimus were both gone. To counteract this, Decimus had reminded everyone that while they were presently locked in what was largely a stalemate with the allied Shad'rai powers of Lithyl, Yaka, Nimue and Ydgaard, the Covenant powers of Shira, Meandor and Fangir would remain once the Guardian was defeated; meaning that there would be no peace for many years and thus there was nothing to worry about.
The practical undertakings of preparing an assault of sufficient strength on a target so far away from the Kingdom's core holdings were however daunting, and Lady Lagoona 'the Elder' found herself tasked by the King with arranging the logistics necessary for an invasion of Sacrosanct to actually succeed; in particular the construction of an outpost in the unclaimed, lifeless and largely worthless wilderness north of Lucerna. Once constructed, the outpost would provide a safe place for injured troops to be taken for medical treatment and also for fresh recruits to be gathered in order to reinforce under-strength units; but she also knew that building anything in the volcanic wilderness was not as easy at it seemed.
Understanding the difficulty, Lagoona had brought with her a number of surveyors from Lucerna in order to locate a suitable location for the outpost to be built, this being one where the expected level of tectonic activity was sufficiently low that it would not simply tear apart any constructed structure built there. Once the Onmar surveyors had found such a location by utilising their skill at mapping underground lava flows, Lagoona led her army there to protect them as they began a more detailed survey of the terrain in which the outpost was to be built.
There, Lagoona's spider, having made the long journey to their present location with a rider on its back, decides to lie down on the warm ground and take a nap. Not far to the west, is the unofficial 'edge' of Grexolis on all the established maps, but in reality Grexolis went on for many, many miles more, but these were miles of volcanic wasteland regarded as worthless and beyond them was only the astral sea. As she stands beside her huge sleeping green spider, with nothing to do, Lagoona gazes westwards into the ashlands and thinks about the edge of the world.
Beyond the true edge of Grexolis there are numerous fragments that exist floating in the astral sea, I recall that centuries ago the Guardian actually sought to control the edgelands and ultimately he built a great bridge to one of the fragments. There they found mole people hidden inside and these made their way first across the bridge, then secondly across the wasteland; quickly becoming known as the Mole Villains. In response the Onmar destroyed the bridge, but it was too late since so many Mole Villains had made their way into Grexolis and now we even have one of them sitting on the Central Council,she recalls.
But we know of what Lithyl's people call the Tome of Fertility and this gives us the means to turn those wastelands into lush grasslands and forests, just as I have already done in the deserts east of Casterlan. The ashlands may represent for the Guardian, the edge of the world, but we could, with a minimal expense of mana crystals expand all the way beyond his map-edge to the *actual* edge of Grexolis,she realises.
Yet the Onmar live far closer to the edge of the world than my people do. We might make the lands beyond habitable with *our* magic, but what if it a majority of Onmar that ends up living there? Given that we increasingly *are* a kingdom of Onmar, does that still constitute success? What if they became so powerful, so numerous, that they no longer see any need to cooperate with us 'Toad Invaders' and, driven by nostalgia for the time before our coming, they then invite the Guardian back to Grexolis so as to take revenge for their previous defeat and kill us all?she considers.
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59. The Lonely Besieger : Turn 106-107 Citadel, Grexolis, 5483
Shel Sunseeker spreads her wings within the central atrium of Citadel and basks in the light of Grexolis's sun. Decades ago she could never have imagined herself where she is now, fighting against Turiel Tolarim, for the cause of a race of toadfolk and their leader King Decimus. In truth though, Shel had yet to get over her perceived rejection by Decimus and the apparent peacefulness of things in Citadel, now that the enemy armies had been repulsed, ablaut at great cost, leaves her with no distraction from her innermost thoughts.
Decimus is so much like Turiel, yet there is one difference between these two men; Turiel wasn't born the way he is but became so through many years of self-discipline, incrementally becoming a creature beyond natural Onmar emotions like love,she thinks.
But Decimus is like Turiel, only because his whole people are. The Archons took Turiel from our people and they taught him to be unlike us, claiming that this would make him greater than his people, but in reality they made him lesser. The Archons taught him not to feel, to become useful for their task which would never end; that task of guarding those held within Grexolis from the rest of the universe. Nimue, by contrast created not an individual but an entire species, yet the Atoning Toadmen were still created and not for their own sake,she reflects.
Shel's eyes drift to the emblem of King Decimus that now adorns the heraldry of her guards. A number of years ago, when Citadel had first been conquered, the new guards of Citadel, proud of their city's coveted autonomy under Turial Tolarim's regime had been allowed to not wear their new king's insignia, but those days were now long gone.
Decimus's insignia is not of a frog or of anything else amphibious, cold or scaly; it depicts a lion. The lion is seldom alone, it is the most sociable of all the forms of cat and partly owing to this, the most deadly of all of them. That he chose as a symbol a hunting creature that is highly social, tells us something about how he sees himself and what he aspires to resemble,she reflects.
Yet he cannot ever escape his nature. The Atoning Toadmen do not grow like we Onmar do, as babies en-furled in the warmth of our mother's wings, but rather spawn in the cold wetness of a muddy pool like the amphibians they are. They are not shown love, but rather they know only fear and hunger and they have no family until the day they emerge from the water. Then they do learn to resemble people, but they are primarily taught one thing; to be useful to those who uplifted them from the simple world they once knew and to those above them in their hierarchy,she thinks darkly.
The lesser toadmen, they all serve those above them and in the end there is only King Decimus, who has none above him to serve. Yet he adopted as his symbol a predatory beast, which implies he lives only to wander the universe, devouring anything smaller and weaker than himself. Nimue may have taken him from the pond and raised her as her own child, but his inner nature remained unchanged, so that the predator of the water merely became the predator of the land,she concludes bitterly.
A new guard enters the atrium and draws Shel from her thoughts with a single alarming phrase.
"Turiel Tolarim is besieging our city,"they say.
"With what?"she immediately asks.
"I was speaking literally, there is just him and his wyvern,"the guard clarifies.
"It seems that Turiel has finally lost the last of his sanity,"she responds half-jokingly.
Vallenford, Grexolis, 5483
Over the years, a great wizard tower had been raised above the skyline of Vallenford, growing ever taller as the magical needs of Decimus's Kingdom steadily grew. Despite the increasing use of magic in their ordinary lives, most of the people of Vallenford still looked at the structure above them with considerable foreboding and how it replicated the style of those wizard towers which had once stood above the cities of Nimue back on Tidolon, did nothing for their reputation.
Deep within a secure chamber within that tower, Headmistress Lisa of Severford's School of Cryomancy steps out of a new experimental magical portal; a moment before, she had entered another portal built on the frigid grounds of her school. There are hundreds of miles between the two locations, but in an instant the white witch had accomplished a feat that would have taken weeks of travel on foot.
Officially, Lisa's journey was part of a test, but everyone already knew the experimental teleportation device they had built worked perfectly, since they had sent about twenty pigs before her. Their device was also not truly a prototype, it was called a chronogate and the Atoning Toadmen had encountered chronogates before, back on Tidolon when they had been employed by their ally Armok Bloodmaster and his Fortress Dwarves to move between the islands of the Enchanted Archipelago.
A chronogate was no ordinary teleporter, but the pinnacle of all forms of teleporter, inspired by the World-Gates of Magehaven. An ordinary teleporter consumed a large quantity of mana to fuel the magic needed to transport their charges to their destination; by contrast however, a chronogate used the currents of the astral sea to transport its charges between physical locations and since these were the ultimate source of mana itself, they could simultaneously fuel the operation of the chronogate itself; meaning that it cost nothing to use. Under favourable circumstances, a chronogate could not only mitigate the cost of its own operation, but actually produce a surplus of mana that could be extracted and stored as mana crystals.
As she looks about the room, Lisa spies a large number of familiar faces, but this does not make her very happy, for they are the faces of the members of the Spellcaster's Guild of Severford and since they have made the long journey to Vallenford without the benefit of teleporters, she knows that they are here to ask her challenging questions about the chronogate project.
"How long before these chronogates are ready for widespread use?"the Guild asks.
The question irritates Lisa greatly, for she had been instrumental in the ultimately failed campaign to ban the Magical Recipe Book, which she had intended to be a prelude to a general crackdown on 'civilian' use of magic.
"The chronogates are not intended for widespread use,"she answers sharply.
"Then we shall rephrase the question, when shall they enter into general military use?"the Guild clarifies.
"This chronogate is a mere experimental prototype, too small for general use,"she informs them.
"Explain!"the Guild interrupts.
"Chronogates benefit from scale, this one is too small and it will be at least a week before it can be used again; thus I must return to Severford on pigback," she responds.
"So when will these larger chronogates be built?"they ask forcefully.
"It is beyond any of our means to create even one such structure, so they will only be built when King Decimus wills it," she insists.
"If we built one chronogate in Vallenford and another in a second great city and then made it available for general use in return for a suitably large fee, we could gain private financing for the project,"they suggest.
"Chronogates cannot be built in the heart of a city, for prolonged exposure to their proximity is known to disturb the sleeping mind; it may be desirable to move instantly between distant cities, but more important is the ability to sleep,"she explains.
"There are magics that induce sleep," a guild member points out.
"They are better described as magics that induce temporary death; also such magics are forbidden to us," she responds.
There is a silence in the room as none seem to know how to respond to what Lisa had just said.
"We could change the rules,"a guild member suggests.
"They are not merely rules, they are laws,"she concludes.
"And laws may be followed or broken, but can never be changed,"they agree.
When they had arrived at Grexolis from Magehaven, the Atoning Toadmen had taken with them their 27 books of law, originally written on Tidolon. Though it was according to these, extensively interpreted texts that they had governed their society, they had long since forgotten the actual process by which their laws were actually made or amended or whom even had the authority to do so.
Citadel, Grexolis, 5483
Even in their present weakened state, the defenders of Citadel were still numerous enough to deal with a single individual, however powerful he may be. Yet even with this being so, to actually take down a powerful Godir, wielding powerful magic and with centuries of experience at fighting was still proving a challenging feat for the defenders.
The battle takes place in the skies above Citadel, in full view of the people, as Turiel Tolarim is mobbed in flight by dozens of Onmar warriors as he circles in the air upon the back of his golden wyvern. Shel does not lead them herself, but rather delegated the task to two of her descendants, a brother and a sister named Celes and Sarya Sunseeker, the former with a pale green complexion and the latter covered in skin alabaster white.
The battle appears to merely be a chase, but its observers are reminded that it is not by the heavy thud of fallen Onmar warriors falling to earth onto the masonry below. As it goes on, the Guardian constantly casts curses and incoherent angry phrases at his enemies; it is only as he and his wyvern begin to tire that he finally says something coherent.
"Your proud city was conquered by the Toad Invaders! Yet you still fight your Exalted Warden when there are no Toad Invaders present?"he shouts at them, referring to himself by his seldom-used official title.
Shortly afterwards, Sarya manages to score a hit on one of Turiel's wings with an arrow from her bow loosed at close range. Though the wyvern he is riding still manages to evade her subsequent arrows, the damage had been done all the same, and this despite all the protective magic surrounding its Godir rider.
"I got his wing, now Turiel can no longer fly without his beast!"Sarya tells her brother Celas.
Instantly understanding how to make the best use of the fact, Celas flies right in front of the wyvern, forcing it to swerve away to avoid a blow from his claymore, however this manoeuvre brings it into the vicinity of Sarya, who heads right towards it as it changes direction. With no other option if it is to evade both siblings, the wyvern begins a sharp dive, but this exposes Turiel to Sarya's feet. While protective magic keeps those feet from inflicting any direct injury, the sheer force of her kick proves sufficient to throw Turiel off the back of his wyvern.
The wyvern continues to fly away from them, as its Godir rider, cast out of its saddle and rendered flightless hurtles to his death on the ground below, or what would have been his death were he not immortal. Yet as Turiel Tolarim hits the ground and is thrown into the Astral Void, his golden wyvern, bound to him by powerful magical bonds is dragged along with him in a flash of light.
The Guardian of Grexolis is defeated and he leaves behind no physical evidence of his ever having assailed Citadel aside from a pool of blood on the paving stones of one of its streets.
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60. The Counterattack : Turn 108 Outpost north of Lucerna, Grexolis, GC 5484
Having completed their outpost in the wastelands between Lucerna and Sacrosanct towards the end of the year 5483, the armies of King Decimus had obtained the logistics for an assault on Sacrosanct, the Onmar Capital. This fact had however, not gone unnoticed by the Guardian's regime, which despite Turiel's present banishment to the astral void resulting from his suicidal one-man siege of Citadel, were still able to command the clone of Shel Sunseeker to seize the outpost and destroy it.
Yet the army that Shel had ended up hastily assembling for the task was evidently under-strength and lacklustre. Additionally, as she and her army made its way towards the outpost, Decimus's white witches unleashed from hundreds of miles away a series of terrible blizzards, yet the army still staggered its way forward despite the freezing cold. As there were not sufficient space within the grounds of the outpost itself for everyone in the King's massive army to reside within, orbiting camps were set up in its vicinity and ironically it was in one of these camps that Shel's army ended up taking shelter, huddling together against the freezing cold to survive.
With their enemy pinned down by a blizzard, Decimus, Dafa and Baloric assembled their forces for battle. As the magical blizzard abruptly came to an end, a great cloud of steam rose above the enemy army, as the thick layer of snow rapidly evaporated due to the volcanic heat of the ground itself. Gazing through this steam, Decimus can see strange lights and closer examination with his long-distance vision reveals them to be glowing humanoid figures.
"What are those shining beings that I see through the fog?"he asks.
"Those are the ancient spirits of dead Onmar brought back to life to fight in the armies of the Guardian,"Baloric answers.
"They are merely blessed souls and we have fought their kind before,"Dafa summarises dismissively.
"You are both right, what they are is blessed souls, but they are still the souls of the ancient Onmar dead,"Decimus remarks.
"But to us they are *merely* blessed souls, another enemy we will defeat," Dafa asserts.
Baloric silently awaits his King's response, sensing a barb in what Dafa is saying.
"At the moment I am still a young Godir and have seen no more worlds than Dafa, a mortal has. Yet in time I will have seen hundreds of worlds and on each of them I will encounter similar creatures, which I will then identify according to the exact same set of categories I learned about in Nimue's library. Then, after surveying those hundreds of worlds, were I somehow to encounter you again, would you still be Dafa 'the Executor' to me, or just my classification of a 'woman with a lance'?"Decimus responds.
Nobody answers for some time and Decimus can tell that Dafa is uncharacteristically rattled by what she has just heard.
"I have a right to my name because I serve you, but there is no purpose in the individual names of our enemies, for they will not be remembered," Dafa declares in conclusion.
Decimus gathers his forces at the edge of the camp where the Onmar army had taken refuge from the blizzard and raises his tree-like staff into the air to cast over them a powerful protective spell. Having deliberately gathered his forces together so that he stands at the centre of their formations, the resulting blessing spreads equally to all.
To his right-flank, other forces, led by Dafa and Baloric make their own preparations for the assault to come; in response the Onmar army splits into two columns, one of which heads towards Decimus while the other heads towards Baloric and the blessed souls are part of the second group. At the edge of the camp, amidst a crude wall of stakes that were ironically built by the now-attacking party to keep invaders out, a wall of glowing beings bearing swords and shields clash with a formation of similarly equipped wights, who were in life Atoning Toadmen warriors of Tidolon drowned by Nimue in her terrible stormy genocide.
Knowing that such sacred warriors are ideally suited to strike down undead wights, Baloric lands before their ranks wielding his great hammer and hoping to prevent the blessed souls from closing in on their opponents. Yet things did not go as he had expected, for obscured behind the ranks of the blessed souls were another form of magical being, the lightbringer.
The lightbringers unleash their power and quickly break through the webs of shadow magic, none of it Nimue's own that magically hold the minds of her undead wights subject to their King Decimus.
"You were killed by Nimue, your kin were also killed by her. Those in the blue uniforms are allies of Nimue, those in the pink uniforms her enemies. You should avenge yourself, avenge your kin," the lightbringers coldly whisper into their undead minds.
"Truth," the undead wights agree, dispassionately comparing what the voices tell them with what they know to be factual.
As, in unison, the formation of wights turned around to attack their own allies, Baloric knew that he must do something about the lightbringers whose control over his own forces would be ended were they to die. Fortunately for him, Baloric had studied in his youth, a form of dark teleportation magic known as the demon step which, like other dark magics had an ambiguous status in Onmar society, being simultaneously despised as unholy and also studied as potentially necessary to defeat invaders.
With an incantation, he calls upon the power of the fiends of Obbadoth and his living forces are shocked as he rapidly sinks into the earth, as though he were insubstantial. He then quickly reappears behind the blessed souls' formation, unscathed at the centre of a great fireball, but despite the searing heat around him, the majority of the lightbringers still remain alive, even if they are left somewhat singed.
With little effort given the hot air rising from the now superheated ground beneath his feet, Baloric launches himself into flight. As the lightbringers continue to hover without moving, utterly focused upon maintaining control over their stolen undead slaves, as Baloric approaches with his hammer they are unable to evade him. The first lightbringer falls to the ground, its carapace shattered by a hammer-blow, then the second, then the third.......
The battle is over and it went as expected, King Decimus won and Shel Sunseeker's clone lost, again. As the victorious separate their own dead from the far more numerous dead of their enemy, a certain corpse is identified, before being brought before King Decimus and Lady Dafa.
"One of their giant serpents got Baloric, I can tell from the nature of the puncture wounds on the back of his neck,"Decimus remarks.
"He sacrificed himself well, killing every lightbringer before the snake got him,"Dafa remarks in response.
"But now he is dead,"he points out sadly.
"He doesn't have to be 'properly dead' like the others, for we have enough more-than-enough mana crystals to bring him back; I am already on my third life,"she points out in response.
"It is true we can't bring everyone back, having only have mana crystals for about five people,"he says uncomfortably.
"That is just how it is, there is you my King who the most important so you don't die at all, opposite you are the common toadfolk who live just once and then there are those of us in the middle who live many lives,"she declares soothingly.
Decimus is momentarily assailed by a vision of a future in which his people are divided into petty lordships, whose uncaring rulers are all cut in Dafa's image. Then he sees it all end in bloodshed, as Atoning Toadman turns on Atoning Toadman and the common toadfolk against their grasping oppressors.
"Everyone who dies among those 'common toadfolk' you spoke of, has siblings and elders that care for them; who if they were able would bring them back just as we will bring Baloric back,"he reminds her.
"But while we can, they cannot," she points out.
"You, like they were only given a single life and your extra lives were bought at great expense. This means that you, Dafa, owe others a debt for every breath that you take," he chides.
Dafa flares up in anger, so it takes all her iron self-discipline to accept that she is being reprimanded by her king and to not reply.
"How are we to get Baloric's body back to Vallenford for his resurrection?"she asks to change the subject.
"I am not stupid enough to trust the Paradeum or indeed anyone in Lucerna with the task, but I have my Flying Throne,"he answers.
"So we are tying Baloric's corpse to that crude thing, but we still need Onmar to fly him back,"she remarks.
"It will be Onmar we trust, Onmar rather like Baloric himself,"he assures her.
Sacrosanct Province, Grexolis, GC 5484
Lagoona and her spider scuttle over the volcanic ground at full speed. The spider bleeds from many wounds in its carapace, but seven of its eight legs are still fully functioning which means that the spider can still run away from the battle, something it is now rather eager to do. Thanks to her spider, Lagoona has been able to make good distance between her and the enemy army, but the others were not so lucky and so they died.
A forest of ancient trees, mummified by volcanic ash stands before her and as she retreats into it she knows that she is truly safe from the pursuing Onmar, as their wings cannot fit into the narrow gaps between the long dead trees, but her safety gives her time to think.
I should not have fought this battle,she reflects darkly.
Casting her mind back to events prior to the battle, she confirms her suspicion that she may have had a choice.
If I had ignored the plight of those scouts, then I could have avoided the whole thing; this is a mistake we have made before,she realises.
In any case though, we made the best of our mistake, killing as many Onmar as we could before we died,she reminds herself.
During the desperate battle heavily weighted against her, Lagoona had made good use of a power developed by the Vine Druid in order to inflict heavy losses on the enemy. To aid them, a number of floral stingers, plant creatures originally encountered as enemies defending mana nodes against exploitation had been brought into existence by transforming the very mummified vegetation that covered the region.
In the short time in which they remained alive, these floral stingers, had been able to inflict considerable damage on the Onmar army, even killing one of its commanders. Even as she regretted fighting the battle rather than retreating, Lagoona still remained quite proud of how skilfully she had arranged for random bushes in strategic locations to be turned into deadly plant creatures.
But still, only two survive from the army Lagoona commands, her spider and herself.
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61. The Bard of Morn : Turn 109 Outpost north of Lucerna, Grexolis, GC 5484
The Onmar bard Beth Silverwing had been active in her profession for over a decade; she had moved to Morn with the first settlers, but had then found herself crossing the line into criticising the Guardian's regime, which had resulted in her being sent back to her birthplace of Arcadia, and imprisoned there.
Arcadia's fall to King Decimus had led to her release, but it was only recently that she had returned to Morn and upon arriving back she was immediately struck by how much the city had grown in her absence, but with such a large audience for her work, she saw no reason to leave. Already having a reputation in Morn due to her previous arrest and imprisonment, Beth's return was seen by many as triumphant and she was considered a local legend.
The people of Morn loved their conqueror King Decimus 'the Unwavering' and equally hated their former ruler, Turiel Tolarim. In truth though, Beth had not willingly sought out her subversive status but had rather protested her innocence before the Guardian's judges, but those pleas had just (as was usual) been ignored; yet now that status had become her ticket to fame and fortune, so she felt bound to cultivate it.
At the urging of her fans, she had sent a letter to King Decimus, against her own intuition. She had expected this to be a mere gesture, that would receive a perfunctory reply, if any, but instead she had received back an official letter, containing detailed instructions from the King written in the most beautiful prose upon the highest quality paper. She was required to hold a grand musical performance, in which she would extol the greatness of his Kingdom and of its defenders, with a particular emphasis on convincing more Onmar from Morn to enlist in the army.
Beth had no real affection for King Decimus or belief in his cause; rather she saw him and the Guardian Turiel Tolarim as essentially similar, the only advantage of the former over the latter was that Decimus did not regard Grexolis as his home and was likely to leave once he had defeated all his enemies, instead of remaining for centuries oppressing its people and his departure would allow her to sing songs again about love, flowers and sunsets rather than about war.
The performance she had devised in order to meet Decimus's request she did not personally consider very good and it did not have to be. Yet as she exits the stage, lute in hand, she is struck by the horrifying realisation that the music she considered to be droning nonsense devoid of creativity was seemingly regarded by the audience as her ultimate masterpiece.
Now, a few days later, as Beth relaxes upon the balcony of her new house, with wings spread wide and wine glass in hand, gazing down upon the streets of Morn, she observes the damage that her music has wrought. Line after line of Onmar wielding spears march proudly through the streets, bearing on their shoulders sashes of dark blue cloth to identify them as followers of King Decimus. Then, marching behind those with spears she sees white witches wreathed in their characteristic icy aura, but these are not Atoning Toadman like usual but rather Onmar from Morn who have undergone the same dark transformation.
The combination of the cold aura of a white witch with the natural angelic aura of an Onmar creates a visual effect that Beth finds nauseating and she quickly averts her gaze, before heading back inside.
With a song I have sent my audience to their deaths on the battlefield and even worse led some of them to accept transformation into..... ice monsters, she realises unhappily.
Sacrosanct Province, Grexolis, GC 5484
Decimus and Dafa had reached the end of the trail that Lagoona had taken before them. As they gaze down upon corpses of her defeated army decaying upon the blackened volcanic ground, their suspicions as to its fate are confirmed.
"Who is to take over Casterlan now that Lagoona is no more?"Dafa asks.
"We don't know that Lagoona is dead,"Decimus reminds her.
"We don't know that she has survived, when the others have not,"Dafa contradicts.
"Lagoona's surviving is what we hope for," Decimus declares.
"Indeed,"Dafa responds insincerely.
But what of those who defeated her? Are they still close?Decimus asks himself.
They head to a high point in the volcanic landscape and with their long-distance vision they gaze down into the wastelands below. Through the ashy smog they are just able to make out the huge wings of a giant eagle over the horizon.
"We can see the enemy,"Dafa remarks.
"What we can both see is an exemplar's eagle,"Decimus remarks in response.
"Now we know where they are, we can defeat them,"Dafa concludes confidently.
Weakened by losses during their previous battle against Lagoona and never prepared to face the full might of Decimus's army, the force gathered by Shel to deal with Lagoona was predictably defeated.
Having won, Dafa and Decimus, along with their soldiers scour the battlefield for any evidence regarding Lagoona's fate but find none.
"It seems that Lagoona has escaped,"Decimus remarks.
"It seems so, but it may actually be that they took Lagoona, dead or alive to Sacrosanct, along with her spider," Dafa points out.
Decimus does not answer because he is distracted by the arrival of a soldier bearing in their hands a large shard of green chitin, clearly from Lagoona's spider.
"Clearly Lagoona's spider was harmed during the earlier battle, as a piece of it was torn off,"Decimus concludes.
"A creature such as a dread spider is not held together by bones as we are, so if sufficient damage is done to its carapace it may collapse under its own weight; shattering into pieces. The Onmar may have retrieved most those pieces to return them to Sacrosanct, but then missed a single shard by happenstance,"Dafa reasons.
"But the spider is not merely an empty carapace, it contains much blood and other liquids. Were it to collapse in the manner you speak of, it would create a great stain upon the ground that our enemies would lack either means or motive to remove; thus it seems most likely that only a single piece of carapace was torn off, but the spider survived,"Decimus responds.
"We have a basis to conclude that Lagoona lives, but we shall find out for certain soon enough," Dafa concludes.
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The Onmar monks at the abbey south-west of Sacrosanct had made their way into the volcanic wastelands in order to avoid the distractions that were offered in abundance by the bustling capital itself. But as of lately, with the 'Toad Invaders' having crossed the border and now looming down upon their abbey from the high ground, there is distraction and commotion aplenty.
In the abbey's central shrine, the abbot faces down a crowd of monks who are demanding that they abandon the place.
"We cannot remain here any longer, give us the order to retreat!"the crowd insists.
"Retreat to where?"the abbot challenges them to answer.
There is a silence.
"To safety,"one of his monks finally answers.
"Where is this, safety?"the abbot asks.
"Behind the walls of Sacrosanct,"they answer.
"What safety is there in going where the an army is headed?" the abbot asks rhetorically.
"Then we go north, to Cyrona,"someone suggests instead.
"If we fly to Cyrona, then we will never get this abbey back even if our side wins," the abbot points out.
"That is why we must go to Sacrosanct and keep faith in the Guardian's victory!"someone argues.
The abbot does not say anything but rather paces about the shrine, furling and unfurling his wings in a silent gesture that somehow calms down the mob.
"I am asked to lead us to Sacrosanct, to hide behind walls and to put faith in the Guardian's victory; but I do not know if we are witnessing the end of Turial Tolarim's time on Grexolis," he suddenly declares.
What he has said riles up the crowd once again.
"That is unthinkable! Invaders from every form of life have always come to Grexolis, but they have prevailed, never! The Allfather does not allow Turiel to be defeated!"one of his monks declares in response.
"Nor has any invader ever come this close to Sacrosanct," the abbot points out.
"We have no walls to protect ourselves here, if we do not retreat then we have no chance of survival,"a different monk responds.
"We will end up like those to the east!"a third monk adds.
The abbot is told numerous stories about the atrocities of the Artic Felines, Shira Snowblood's people, each more terrible than the last and he does not doubt their veracity.
"Those are Cat-Invaders, while those that now march on us are Toad-Invaders,"the abbot remarks.
"Invaders are invaders!"comes the objection.
"The two kinds of invaders are actually at war with each-other and the only atrocity the Toad-Invaders are known to have committed is that of their own arrival on Grexolis,"the abbot responds.
"If what you say is true, then why did the Guardian, in his wisdom choose to fight both groups of invaders rather than ally with one to fight the other?"he is asked.
"Because he has lost his wisdom," the abbot answers sharply.
"How can you say that!" many declare angrily.
"If the Guardian's time on Grexolis is fated to come to an end, then the Allfather may have clouded his mind to speed his downfall,"the abbot suggests.
He does not receive a reply and quickly realises that this is probably because his opponents are now just too incensed to say anything.
"We are monks, not soldiers and it is not our place to determine the course of events, merely to observe their unfolding and learn,"the abbot concludes.
Desert south-east of Vallenford, Grexolis, GC 5484
Surprisingly close to Vallenford lies a desert, for the towering mountains which funnelled the rain originating in Grexolis's astral voids to create the city's lush, swampy valley, they had stolen the water from this land. The desert was as rich in magic as it is poor in water and numerous conduits had been built to drain the desert's magic, to form mana crystals to meet the needs of their armies and increasingly of their daily civilian lives.
But now, to the existing magical infrastructure, the Atoning Toadmen of Sacrosanct had applied the knowledge of teleportation recently obtained to build their first, fully functioning, fully sized chronogate. A colossal structure in the form of a massive hexagon surrounded by four huge pillars, the chronogate represented a breach in the already unusually thin barrier between Grexolis and the Astral Sea. In theory it could be used to facilitate astral travel, allowing people to go to other times and other worlds independently of Magehaven's worldgates, but the narrow minds of the Atoning Toadmen of Sacrosanct did not see anything of interest beyond Grexolis.
Yet the completion of their first chronogate was still regarded as an event of great importance and a large throng had made their way through the desert to witness the completion of the structure. Among them are the white witches Tika and Headmistress Lisa, whose cold icy auras stand in stark contrast to the warmth and extreme aridity of the desert around them; thus, the two toadwomen end up meeting once again, something they had been seeking to avoid for some time.
"There is something wrong about this place, do you feel it as well?" Lisa asks.
"Yes, there is more wrong here than merely the heat of this desert, something deeper,"Tika replies.
Headmistress Lisa does not respond but rather stands in silent meditation for some time.
"That structure, it disturbs the astral sea and *things* are drawn to that disturbance, hungry things. We feel their presence nearby and it makes our minds uneasy,"Lisa decides.
"My source told me the chronogate facilitates travel between worlds, not merely between two locations on a single world," Tika remarks.
"It does," Lisa confirms.
"Then why do we continue to rely on the limited numbers on Grexolis when we could open a portal to Tidolon and bring from there millions of our kin to aid our struggle,"Tika asks.
"Because to use the chronogate disturbs the astral sea even more than its existence does and the creatures within would descend to devour any large throng that attempted to make that journey," Lisa explains.
Then, as if from nowhere the Vine Druid appears before them.
"We should be thankful those creatures exist, for by keeping apart the peoples of different worlds they prevent the formation of multi-world empires and ultimately the emergence of an Absolute Power over the Universe," he tells them.
"Power does not accept limitation, it will defeat those creatures and unify all worlds into one," Tika objects.
Much to her distress, Tika quickly realises that Mistress Lisa and the Vine Druid are both smirking at her.
"What power to you have, Tika?" Lisa says, asking a rhetorical question she cannot answer.
Vallenford, Grexolis, GC 5485
Minister Theodoric 'the Scholar', as he presently styles himself has been brought before Chairman Jack and the Central Council in order to either confirm or deny rumours that his department had developed a means to 'conjure warriors out of thin air'.
"Answer simply, have you actually managed to develop a magic to conjure warriors out of thin air, or not?"Chairman Jack asks on behalf of the Council.
"It is not possible to answer the question without clarification as to what is meant by the three terms, to conjure, a warrior and thin air,"Theodoric answers.
He has to wait for nearly half an hour as the council debates how to define the meaning of conjuration.
"To conjure, we mean to bring something into existence by means of magic,"they ultimately decide.
"Now what do you mean by a warrior?"Theodoric asks.
It does not take as long for the council to reach a verdict this time.
"A warrior is an entity employed on the battlefield that employs artificial weapons rather than employing only those parts and abilities that are integral to its own form,"they declare.
"How do you define thin air?" Theodoric inquires.
This time the debates are seemingly endless and it is just over an hour later that Theodoric receives his answer.
"By 'out of thin air', we mean that the product is not created from a pre-existing substance, but we do not mean that resources were not used in order to accomplish this feat; provided that the product itself is not formed out of any of those resources,"they ultimately conclude.
"Then my answer is two-thirds no and one-thirds yes. Our newly developed magic allows the creation of armed phantasms, these beings are warriors but they are not being conjured out of thin air,"Theodoric replies.
There is some commotion as the council discusses what he has just told them.
"So explain the nature of these phantasm warriors," Jack inquires.
"The distinction between the world-that-is-true and the world-that-is-not, lacks perfection. While the majority of the other Grexolises that do not exist do not exist absolutely, there are also some that exist only slightly and this where the phantasms dwell,"Theodoric explains.
"So you don't create these things, but merely bring them to our world," Jack concludes.
"I do not always need to bring them anywhere, for they are not necessarily at a different location; our spell merely merely feeds them mana so that they become more real, real enough to be useful to us,"Theodoric clarifies.
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As King Decimus 'the Unwavering' and Dafa 'the Executor' invaded the territory of Sacrosanct with their combined armies, a large force of Onmar amassed to their east, threatening the autonomous regime of Citadel and creating another front in the war. Baloric Sunseeker, having been resurrected in Vallenford after his death during a battle in Lucerna Province, was assigned to lead the army ordered to march north from Morn and deal with this threat.
As he circles in the air above his army to observe the enemy ranks from a greater vantage point, Baloric is rather distressed by what he observes. Landing in the midst of his camp, he converses with Mistress Lucine, who is the leader of half his army's Onmar white witches and they speak in their own language regarding what he has observed.
"They have awakeners, a large number of awakeners!"Baloric informs her.
"I have seen the eagles of exemplars, who are even more elite," Lucine responds.
"Those units cannot be compared,"he objects.
"Obviously, for an exemplar kills its enemies up close while an awakener does so from afar as I do,"she admits.
"That is a detail that matters greatly, an army that fights up close does not become stronger out of proportion to its numbers, unlike one that shoots from afar,"he claims.
Lucine spends some time reflecting upon what Baloric has told her.
"You are correct, if there is group of archers then all can simultaneously shoot their bows at their enemies, but if they were instead fighting with swords then only those in the front row could cause harm," she agrees.
Lucine then gestures towards the ranks of glade runners in Baloric's army, followers of the Vine Druid's philosophy who are armed with bows.
"But we have our own, shooters,"she adds.
"It is worse than that," he responds.
"How so?" she asks.
"Because the awakener 'softens' its opponents with its blast, undermining their defences to make them vulnerable to further attack, including from other awakeners," he answers.
"Why are you telling me this? As commander it is your duty to conceal truths that might undermine morale,"she asks suspiciously.
Baloric is troubled by his inability to answer her question.
I may be getting too close to Lucine,he realises.
Rather than deploying his forces into one huge mass, Baloric instead deploys his army as a series of triangles arrayed into a very long line. This formation was intended as a compromise between the need to repel melee assaults and the need to reduce the damage that the enemies' awakeners could inflict by avoiding too much concentration of his ranks.
Unlike most in his army, Baloric's wings and power of flight allow him to see two covens of awakeners on the far side of a hill and they are shining like the sun as they charge their magic for battle. Descending close to his knights, Baloric issues a command to them and also to Lucine's white witches, that they swiftly deal with the awakeners beyond the hill before they could do too much damage.
Then Baloric once again launches himself into the air and lands atop the hill where all can see him. As soon as the knights, both living and undead charge into the Onmar formation, Baloric seems to disappear into the earth as he demon-steps away to join the fight.
Baloric finds himself where he needs to be, directly facing down a group of awakeners who struggle to wield their luminous magic effectively as he looms down on them with his great hammer. While all nearby awakeners are singed from the fiery eruption created by Baloric's return from Obbadoth, he is happy to observe that Lucine and her white witches were still able to successfully execute their orders, encasing the other coven of awakeners in ice; rendering them unable to unleash their deadly magic for the time being.
Before him, he sees a cluster of volcanically mummified bushes come to life, as the magic originally developed by the Vine Druid is unleashed to knit together ordinary plants into a huge floral stinger. Once so knitted together, the floral stinger wastes no time in laying into its enemies, lacerating an Onmar warrior with each lash of its deadly, poisonous tendrils.
Yet as Baloric strikes down the last awakener with a single blow of his great hammer, he recalls that he is only engaging a small part of the enemy force. While he has taken out two covens of the awakeners in the enemy army, four others remain at large. Then, soon afterwards, Baloric sees the bright flashes of awakener blasts far away across the battlefield and realises that even if they win the battle, they will not do so without a heavy cost.
The battle is now over and as Baloric stands over the massive pile of his own dead, the heavy cost of his victory becomes clear. Despite knowing better than to mourn his dead soldiers, he finds his eyes lingering on the corpse of Mistress Lucine. An awakener blast has melted away half of her face, but she is still recognisable to him and as the minutes pass he still cannot avert his gaze.
As he finally looks away, he observes the others who have survived the battle and sees a large number of glade runners prancing about happily, paying little attention to the carnage around them, aside from when one them spots something of value among the dead and swoops down to pocket it.
I am the last Onmar remaining in my army, no others have survived,Baloric realises.
Then as he continues to pile up the dead, he is struck by the relative absence of formerly living Atoning Toadmen among them, as opposed to the much larger number of corpses from his own people and Nimue's undead wights.
The glade wardens are still so upbeat only because so few of their people, the Atoning Toadmen have died,he thinks to himself bitterly.
Western Sacrosanct Province, Grexolis, GC 5485
From the back of her wyvern, Dafa 'the Executor' spots a strange sight, the unmistakable form of the Guardian, riding upon his own wyvern but accompanied by only a single formation of swordsmen rather than a large force.
"I would never have expected the Guardian to make the same mistake twice in a row," Dafa comments to Chaplain Bruno once she has returned to camp to report her strange findings.
"You are referring to the infamous incident by which the Guardian tried to lay siege to Citadel entirely alone and it ended as you might expect,"Bruno eventually answers, once he realises to what she is referring.
"The difference is that this time Turiel has taken a single formation of basic infantry to his die with him," she reveals.
"Yet he, like Decimus does not truly die, for like our King he is immortal; but those who follow him die in actuality,"he points out.
"Which is good," she remarks in response.
Chaplain Bruno does not say anything but Dafa can sense that he does not agree.
"It is good that our enemies' leader is insane and now leads his followers to their death,"she repeats.
"Very soon Decimus will have more Onmar subjects than Atoning Toadmen, so we are no longer fighting for ourselves and our people; we are fighting to replace Turiel with Decimus as the ruler of the Onmar. Many of the Onmar have come to realise this and so they seemingly abandon their own people to side with our own, but it is in their interests to replace their present insane ruler with another,"he responds bitterly.
"That is the brilliance of our King, that he can see every interest and spin each one together like a weaver,"she declares poetically.
"It is not in our People's interests to make the Onmar People stronger," he objects.
"Our interests concern our Toad Mother trapped within Grexolis, while the Onmar's are to accept defeat and embrace our ways to become strong as we are,"she argues.
"We do not even know that the Toad Mother is within Grexolis; for only King Decimus himself seen her there,"he points out.
"We have Faith!" she asserts.
"Faith in what? Do you refer to our faith in the Toad Mother, or in King Decimus?"he responds bitterly.
Sensing dissent, Dafa's eyes flash with anger and Bruno steps backwards fearfully. It is some time before Dafa answers his question.
"It does not matter what we have faith *in*, what matter is Faith itself. The universe is a storm and we go to the centre, around which everything spins and yet calm is found. We know that we are stolen, that the one who claims to have created us not in her own image instead took us from another bloodline. The others just spin, that is Nimue, the other Shad'rai, the Onmar, their Guardian, the Covenant, also the Drowned Recreants and the Fertile Goblins; they are carried along by the currents and so can be called insane but we head to the centre, to Grexolis and that is what Faith *is*. The Onmar are close to the centre, merely the last layer of the storm that remains before we obtain the calm we seek," she preaches.
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64. The Cost of War : Turn 113 Citadel Territory, Grexolis, GC 5485
Still grieving for Lucine despite himself, Baloric Sunseeker spies on the horizon columns of troops shrouded in a haze of volcanic ash and from the fact they are walking on the ground rather than flying, he concludes that they are troops of his own side rather than of the Guardian, though they are too far away for the colour of their uniforms to be seen. Leaving his own army behind with their pile of corpses from a previous battle, he takes flight and lands before the new arrivals.
Once Baloric has landed, Gondelion Diama emerges from the ranks to greet him.
"I had heard news of your great victory and bring reinforcements,"Gondelion politely tells him.
My victory has left me in great need of reinforcements,Baloric adds in his mind.
In silence, Baloric examines the fresh troops that Gondelion has brought him. He is happy to find many of his own people among the ranks of the army, but also gazes upwards upon the towering forms of ogres. He is surprised however to spot the small, flying forms of fairies, darting about in the air, naked aside from a tiny sash of blue cloth that identifies them as in the service of King Decimus.
Much to his displeasure, the fairies quickly notice that they are being observed and soon he is surrounded by over a dozen of them. From the chill in the air surrounding them, Baloric determines that they are bonded to ice magic in a similar manner to white witches. They speak to each-other rapidly in their own language which is incomprehensible to him, but one among the mob is fluent in the Onmar tongue and this fairy comes to the fore to speak.
"You are sad, what are you sad about?"the fairy asks sharply.
Baloric has no desire to answer, but still ends up subconsciously adjusting his cloth face mask, worn to protect his lungs against the volcanic ash, so as to better conceal his expressions.
"What kind of creatures are you?"Baloric asks evasively.
"We are fairies, fairies of the winter; but our question was not answered," the fairy replies coldly.
"That is because I do not wish to answer it,"Baloric tells them.
At this point Gondelion intervenes.
"You have clearly forgotten what I told you before about 'aggressive questioning',"he sternly tells the fairies.
The mob flits away without saying a word and Baloric is left alone with Gondelion.
"I gather that somebody important to you died in the recent battle,"Gondelion says.
"A lot of people died in the recent battle," Baloric reminds him.
"But it does not feel the same this time, as it is somebody who you were close to that lost their life,"Gondelion suggests.
"Yes,"Baloric admits uncomfortably.
"If a thousand people die then we should be a thousand times sadder than if one person died, yet if that one person is special to us, it is the other way around," Gondelion claims.
"So it is only when nobody is special to us, that we can accurately calculate the value to King Decimus subtracted by a certain quantity of death,"Baloric states in response.
Gondelion does not respond but Baloric can sense he is shocked by the callousness of what he has just heard.
"I know of a force of Onmar nearby, probably intended to reinforce the army that you have just destroyed; you also know of them?"Gondelion asks to change the subject.
"I do,"Baloric confirms.
"Then shall we employ our combined armies to overwhelm this second force?" Gondelion suggests.
"Yes,"Baloric agrees.
Vallenford, Grexolis, GC 5485
The wizard tower above Vallenford had grown into a massive structure, one so vast that it now inspires as much awe as it does resentment among the people that have their sun stolen by the tower's shadow. Its primary purpose was to support the ever-growing demands of King Decimus's army for magical support, particularly battlefield healing and it could truthfully be said that Vallenford's magical tower had saved thousands of lives.
Now a whole floor of the tower had been cleared in preparation for the construction of a significant and highly expensive internal structure that would greatly enhance the overall ability of this tower to channel magic. Theodoric 'the Scholar' and the Vine Druid now stand on this empty floor, as the former goes through the schematics for the new structure and explains them to the latter.
"This *thing* is called a bolstering matrix and it assists the tower in channelling magic of a particular affinity, in this case my own; hence why I am invited here," the Vine Druid summarises.
"To be more precise, it gathers wasted mana and there is always wasted mana," Theodoric clarifies.
"Yes, nobody has ever managed to cast a spell without consuming a great deal more mana than is used by the spell itself; but I see nothing in the bolstering matrix that would allow it to either materialise the wasted mana back into crystals or else store it within the device itself,"the Vine Druid comments.
"That cannot be done, since the wasted mana has now been bonded to an affinity and if somehow materialised would be too unstable to be successfully stored," Theodoric tells him.
"Then why gather it?" the Vine Druid asks.
"Because with some difficulty, hence the need for a huge structure, part of the affinity-bonded mana wasted by a spell can be channelled towards a particular location in time and space," Theodoric responds.
"To what end, when this magic cannot be controlled?"the Vine Druid asks.
"We do not need to control it, for it demonstrates properties of spontaneous manifestation which are predictable according to its particular affinity,"Theodoric explains.
"So what kind of effects are we hoping for?"the Vine Druid inquires.
"The Nature Affinity, or as you prefer to call it the Affinity of Life; its way is to sustain living creatures, so it will heal the injured exposed to it even without being subject to any deliberate focus,"Theodoric replies.
"The idea of the planned device still makes me uncomfortable," the Vine Druid admits.
"Why?"Theodoric asks.
"I can see that this structure will work for its purpose, based upon the total beauty of the crystal alignments, but it seems wrong somehow to channel the magic of the Affinity of Life through a non-living thing made of metal and gemstones,"the Vine Druid answers.
"You have changed Vine Druid, for when we first met I found nothing could bother you," Theodoric remarks in conclusion.
Sacrosanct Province, Grexolis, GC 5485
Decimus stands atop the roof of the flight-tower of a mansion within a now abandoned Onmar farming village and gazes eastwards with his long-distance vision. Just over the horizon he sees the top of a great tower, immediately understanding that it is part of Sacrosanct and that his army is finally drawing close to the enemy capital.
Then he feels an unnatural chill and quickly realises that one of his white witches has climbed the flight-tower to join him.
"Tika!"he cries out.
"I am Mistress Tika,"she responds.
"So have you just returned and assumed your old title?"he remarks disbelievingly.
"I left behind my civilian life of being disrespected, to return to military service and I told my new brethren a story. That led to the old Mistress of my coven handing over her position to me, as clearly I was the better qualified,"she explains.
"A rather swift rise to power and the story I surmise is of how you took command of an army because all the other officers were dead," he figures.
"The enemy approach,"she reports, changing the subject.
"I just looked and my long-vision saw no enemy," he responds.
"Look again, my King,"she suggests.
Decimus gazes down from the tower with his long-distance vision a second time and spots an Onmar army approaching from the east.
"It is like they just appeared from nowhere," he remarks in amazement.
"There is probably magic that would allow them to that, but actually they have been visible for quite some time,"she responds.
"I looked to the east and saw only the wizard tower of Sacrosanct itself, but no enemy soldiers even though they are in the same direction,"he explains.
"We do not see what is the case, but what we want to see. We want to see an enemy capital unguarded and so that is what we see in our minds, even when it is not truly the case,"she concludes.
If this war is to be like the war against Nimue back on Tidolon, then we will win only because our ability and willingness to die exceeds that of our enemy; of course I wish the war to be different, with far fewer deaths on our side, Decimus thinks unhappily.
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After his expulsion from its abbey, Gordol the Preacher had spent years wandering Severford, afflicted by the region's biting cold and left hobbling about its streets as a result. In time, as was known to everyone and even dimly to himself, the damage done by the formation of ice crystals in his flesh would claim his life, but Gordol yearned to be free of his mortal existence anyway and most of Severford yearned to be free of his incessant preaching.
Once, the people of Severford had eaten their food whole and uncooked. This had been (according to Gordol) a time of simple virtue and it was this simple virtue that had made Severford into the great city that it is now. Thus, he preached endlessly against the 'spreading evil' of cooked food, which he saw as primarily responsible for the city's vaguely defined 'moral decline' and general ill-health, things which were poorly distinguished in his mind.
"Our ancestors were strong, they did not waste time standing over steaming pots, they ate their food whole and raw; so that the hardness of their food would make their bodies strong!"he preaches.
Nobody bothers to take any notice of Gordol as they pass by his preaching post, but he thinks he spots a gleaming of guilt in the eyes of certain people as they pass him by.
As Gordol's time at the preaching post comes to an end, he makes his way back towards his humble abode, barely warmer than the city outside. However, as he walks through the streets he suddenly finds his nose assailed by the scents of cooking food and soon he finds himself gazing upon a great festival being held in one of the plazas of the city. Already desensitised to the 'culinary wickedness' of the people, Gordol resolves to walk past the celebration without paying it any further attention; however, as he spots the wings of Onmar poking out above the crowd, he finds that he can longer avert his gaze.
This is almost the very image of the problem, I see our food-softened people inviting conquered enemies to eat with them,he thinks hatefully.
At the heart of the festivities stands a certain Atoning Toadmen, decked out in fine clothes and jewellery. With his enormous girth, this individual seems to Gordol as the very incarnation of everything wrong with Severford's diet and that was before he even began his speech.
"On behalf of our heroic Lady-Governor Dafa 'the Executor', I invite our special guests from Severford, Morn, Arcadia and Citadel to partake with us in the much sought after 'potato dumplings' for which our city has become famed and in return for learning the secrets of their making, these four cities have promised to share with us recipes of their own,"the celebrant announces.
Then Gordol sees it, Onmar and Atoning Toadmen shovelling mashed potato into their mouths side by side.
We mash potatoes! It is not enough just to steam them, or boil them, or fry them or whatever; people actually mash them into goo! he realises in horror.
Disgusted by what he is seeing, Gordol turns away and continues his journey through the back of the plaza. Leaving behind the scents of cooked food, he arrives back at his abode and succumbs to the cold soon afterwards; he was not missed.
Sacrosanct, Grexolis, GC 5485
It is summer in Sacrosanct and the weather is hot and dry. In addition to raising her metabolism and making her feel just great, the heat creates strong thermals that enable Dafa and her gold wyvern to soar high above the ground.
From this enviable vantage point, she gazes down upon the city of Sacrosanct to study its defences and layout. Below, she can see seemingly tiny Onmar affixing strings of barbed nets above Sacrosanct, denying access to the city from above.
I am not surprised that they know we are coming, but the important thing is what kind of forces they have and in what quantity,she thinks.
As her wyvern flies in circles, Dafa scans Sacrosanct with her long-distance vision. Though she sees a large number of Onmar and a smaller number of other beings among its residents, she fails to spot a single warrior. Even those who are affixing their nets to tall buildings, whom she was entirely sure would be soldiers even if nobody else was, turned out to be civilians.
The city appears to be undefended, but yet the gates are barred and the nets fixed into place, but why do they bother?she asks herself.
When Dafa descends from the sky, in order to return to the captured tax office that presently acts as King Decimus's HQ, the answer comes to her.
Since the Onmar can fly and are also able to open the nets over their city, they can quickly land troops from far away to defend them as soon as they become needed,she realises.
When she lands and reports her observations to her King, he adds something more to her conclusions.
"There is an advantage in what the Onmar are doing, for by not deploying a large army within Sacrosanct itself, they can avoid having it consume the subsistence of the people, causing hardship and unrest," Decimus remarks.
They spend the rest of the day within the walls of the tax office, planning their upcoming siege.
Severford School of Cryomancy, Grexolis, GC 5485
Headmistress Lisa did not have to invite Theodoric 'the Scholar' and his entourage to come all the way to her School of Cryomancy in order to demonstrate the functionality of her newly developed form of battlefield teleportation, but she simply relished forcing him to make such a long journey through the snowy wastes. Now, he and his entourage are left standing at the gates of her school, wary of the magical wards surrounding it and Lisa is in no hurry to answer the door. She had hoped Theodoric would end up bashing against the door in desperation to escape the cold wait, thus giving her the satisfaction of observing his impatience, but instead he and his group stand serenely for nearly an hour, so Lisa suddenly brings the farce to an end.
"Welcome to the Severford School of Cryomancy," Lisa says as she opens the door.
"I am here by invitation, to observe a demonstration of the new magics developed on our behalf by this school," Theodoric responds in a formal tone.
"You are here because you have a right to be here, the invitation is a pretence,"she points out.
"But everything runs on pretence,"he remarks in response.
"You would make a fine white.... wizard Theodoric," she compliments.
Together, Theodoric and Lisa make their way through the grounds of the great school and then descend into the darks depths below its ice-wreathed main structure. Moving through the under-school, Lisa leads Theodoric into a large chamber, lit by strange ghostly lamps which make Theodoric feel uneasy to gaze upon; but he does his best to hide his discomfort.
"It is clear the lanterns in this room disturb you, but why?" Lisa inquires.
"They are no ordinary lights, they are magic and not a sort of magic I am familiar with,"Theodoric answers.
"You wish to know how they work?" she asks.
"Well obviously they are magical lanterns powered by mana," he responds dismissively.
"Wrong, they are soul lanterns powered by contained souls,"she corrects.
"That's illegal, it's necromancy,"he objects.
"But as we imported the soul lanterns rather than making them ourselves, we broke no laws,"she reveals.
I doubt there is a law that the White Witches have not figured out how to twist to its breaking point, he thinks to himself.
"Why bother, it is surely cheaper to use regular lanterns?"he inquires.
"Pretence, Minister Theodoric,"she answers.
Theodoric silently responds with a gesture than indicates understanding and then some of Lisa's students arrive in the chamber.
For some time, these students work to set up the pieces of a dense maze inside the chamber. Theodoric quickly figures out, from the glowing symbols of warding embedded into the wooden walls of the maze, that powerful magic has been employed to reinforce the otherwise quite unremarkable wood against both magical and physical damage, to prevent anyone from forcing their way to its centre. Then, having finished their work the students leave and soon afterwards there arrives a second smaller group of eight, who had not helped set up the maze and hence do not know its layout.
Theodoric and Lisa climb a tall lectern from which they can see over the walls of the completed maze and they can see that there is a large pile of snowballs at its centre. Then the eight students begin their demonstration, racing through the maze in a competition to collect these snowballs; according to the rules of their game, they are each to pick up a single snowball and add it to a pile before the lectern. The one with the greatest number of snowballs deposited this way is to be declared the game's winner.
Yet the game also serves as a demonstration, for in pursuit of an advantage the students regularly employ the newly developed teleportation magic they have been taught and they can be regularly be seen phasing past the maze's magically fortified walls, either to relocate to a better position, or to leave the maze altogether with a snowball. Theodoric is pleased to observe that the snowballs, despite their inherent fragility are not altered in any way due to being phased along with their bearers.
"And the winner is...... everyone,"Lisa announces as the last snowball is deposited atop the pile beneath her.
This is incredible, all eight students got exactly the same number of snowballs each, what was the odds of that?Theodoric realises, amazed.
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