Shalkar.
The Citadel.
Deep below the Bunker, set against an excavated root stem of the World Tree, a newly erected warehouse known only to the upper echelons sat in its own Pocket Dimension, gently illuminated by the subterranean fungi.
The space it occupied was a realisation the Regent of Shalkar had recalled with the help of the Dwarves—that a World Tree was not only capable of creating arboreal “pockets” within its canopy, it was equally capable of sustaining “pocket” caverns down below.
In hindsight, the knowledge should have been a given, seeing that the Guardians of the primordial World Trees forged their living spaces in the roost and hollows of their sky-spanning trees. For Sulfina, the Dryad had also created extensive warrens using the vast land occupied by its Banyan roots.
Whatever the case for her new real estate, the Regent of Shalkar could only be glad that her Dwarves concocted the “Mental Clarity” Elixirs as a malt beer, not red wine. The very idea that she, the Pale Priestess herself, would have to knead grapes with her pearly-white toes while dripping droplets of glowing Essence into the admixture was a commercial prospect too daring to imagine.
She was likely thankful that the Bavarian Dwarves took their brew-making as an exact Magi-tech science. No detail was spared. From malting, mashing, and boiling to fermentation, the High Brewmaster of Mimm Agaeth Kjangtoth oversaw each step. Additionally, the water used to soak the germinated grain was tapped from the World Tree’s root, creating such a dark, aromatic malt that additional guards had to be brought in to watch the brew crew if they succumbed to temptation.
Gwen’s role was to be present in the kegging stage, where a quarter-quart of her most concentrated Golden Mead was scraped from her palms into flasks, then injected wholesale into Rune-covered, enchanted kegs. A slow carbonation process would occur within these Dwarf-loved vessels as each keg made a trans-planar journey from Shalkar to their new homes in Citadels around Europe and beyond, ready to be tapped…
…and ready to expel any Sinneslukare squatters that had taken up residence.
For all involved, it was unfortunate that there was no cure for the parasitic invasion of a Sinneslukare larva. Still, it was a price the Dwarves were willing to pay to ensure the security of their grand expedition back to their Mecca of the Murk.
Deepholm.
What had been just a word and a vague promise of the future now occupied her mind and the reports she received from the Citadel Below.
With her support for the traditionalist Factioneers, a great change had catalysed the usually slow-roving world of the Dwarves. The less-indoctrinated generation of Deepdowners who felt their people had it made in the Prime Material no longer opposed the expedition and so mildly applauded the effort. Those with ties to Deepholm, such as the scions of Varekan-Kül, consequently saw Gwen’s involvement as the best chance to prove that Deepholm was a real place and that it was worth returning to their proverbial roots.
As for herself, Gwen felt half-convinced that whatever they may find in Deepholm, the discovery would involve a plot by Spectre that aimed to further their strange agenda of destabilising Terra’s precarious balance of powers.
To plan for Spectre also meant that the expedition involved a personal commitment. Garp and Strun would feature prominently as the spearhead of the expedition, and to maximise their chances of survival, she had to be there with Ariel and Caliban. Conversely, Richard, Petra, Golos and Slylth were all secondary options as companions whose prowess functioned best in places with open spaces rather than claustrophobic tunnels. However, she would bring Lulan along, for the Sword Mage’s mastery over Earthen transmutation and her close-quarter capabilities could not be underestimated, even against Balefire Golems.
If the beachhead was successful, establishing a low-way node was only days away, meaning a supply line of personnel and equipment could be used for future operations.
In a similar mana-vein, those same low-ways would soon bring her Leviathan Cores into the city, creating a plethora of new challenges.
However, to enable her plans, she first had to prioritise stabilising her city, and as always, the loss of time as a luxury meant compromises had to be made, and certain actions of her chief advisor certified.
image [https://i.imgur.com/2b85nMm.png]
Shalkar.
In a district a dozen storeys away from the city’s Regent, Alexander Fishenko, "Fish" to his friends, sat on the central committee of the Shalkar’s Worker’s Party’s office, feeling frustrated.
On paper, the “democracy” heralded by the “vote” of the Human citizens of Shalkar, formerly citizens of Yekaterinburg, had chosen to separate itself from the powers that controlled the city. However, their celebration was cut short by the sudden introduction of SATCOI, known to those familiar with the propaganda as The Shalkar Agricultural Trade Co-operative International.
While the cowed citizens of their former city were far more likely to fall in line with the demands of Sergey Ivanov, Chairman of the Secretariat of the Worker’s Party, almost all of the city’s original human denizens managed to shrug off their socialist fervour.
The reality of a people’s revolution, Fishenko realised, was much more complicated than what they had been brainwashed to believe. Shalkar wasn’t a Frontier that exploited its citizens, meaning most propaganda had fallen on deaf ears. For that same reason, asking the city’s citizens to give up their share of the Agricultural Co-operative with its yearly pay-outs was akin to prying sweetmeat from a starving child’s fingers.
The delay wasn’t personal greed but something the Ministry of Information Research termed “Keeping up with the Maguses,” A psychological ploy deployed by the capitalists where proles saw the loss of equal privilege as a personal affront to their being, something akin to the manifestation of acute moral and material failure. In the Frontier oblasts, where the peasant farmers arguably had little more than their lives and the safety to work, socialism worked wonders. However, Shalkar, with its generous wages, numberless Rat-kin labourers, and intricate financial mechanisms, had founded the basic tenet of its growth on providing citizens with material excess.
Thereby, convincing the members of the Worker’s Party to renounce those privileges had struck a brick wall, one that Fishenko wasn’t confident the Party faithful could overcome without drastic persuasion.
Nonetheless, the table was set, and at worst, all Lit-Colonel Ivanov had to endure was the patience necessary for the Sparrows to rile up enough violence to establish a casus belli. Once the former citizens of Russia were maimed, dead, captured or imprisoned, the Towers could declare their special operation in full force and move rapidly into Shalkar to establish a foothold in the region, starting from the Common Districts.
Such an inorganic result, however, was something Fishenko loathed, for he was still Fish to his friends. The old boys from London seldom saw him these days, but the occasional meeting at the pubs wasn’t out of the question, especially if he provided the Dwarven beers.
Knock-knock—
“Yes?” Fishenko looked up from the small hill of paperwork he was buried under. “Who is it?”
“Me,” came a voice that was as sickly sweet as golden honey.
Fishenko felt his pants tighten.
Natalia Volkova, Natalia to her friends, was the kind of woman that started as a dream and ended as an endless nightmare. Unlike Fishenko, a regulation Mage trained in espionage, Natalia hailed from the direct line serving under Tower Master Popov himself. She was a perfect specimen, both physically and in her Mind Magic, and any poor boy who found themselves fascinated with the honey-haired succubus would soon find themselves knee-deep in an ongoing conspiracy.
“Come in…” Fishenko replied reluctantly, though he had no choice. Technically speaking, Natalia was his subordinate. Yet, even when Lieutenant-Colonel Ivanov addressed her, he kept his eyes and hands to himself. His superior also told her the truth, for the female Sparrow’s true role was more like one of Mycroft Ravenport’s all-seeing crows.
The door opened, and Natalia slid into view like a haughty white cat.
Fishenko felt his cheeks grow hot as what can only be described as unadulterated visual pleasure entered his field of vision. Natalia was dressed in a sheer cotton blouse and a blue-white pair of jeans imported from the better regions of Europe. The way she moved indicated that she wanted something from him, and her amicable attire stated an expectation of obedience.
“Fish.” The girl smiled, and Fishenko was sure that if one of his old London boys had been here, the poor bloke would need to visit the laundry. “Come with me for a moment. I’ve something important to show you.”
Fishenko indicated toward his work. “This cannot wait?”
“Fish,” Natalia leaned in so that her heady scent, something between flowers and milk, invaded his nostrils. “Miss this opportunity, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your questionable life.”
Fishenko found himself staring. He had to, which was natural, but he also felt uncertain.
“Is this a summon from… the Head Office?” he asked. Fishenko wasn’t afraid, for he felt they had done enough and that there was no real reason for punishment. After all, with their resources, how could the Worker’s Party compete against the Regent’s open bribery?
“Yes,” Natalia’s hands found themselves on his shoulders. “It’s Head Office.”
Fishenko exhaled. Natalia’s fingers massaged his collar bones, and his stiff shoulders felt like they had suddenly descended into a woolly heaven.
Slowly, softly and intoxicated by her gentle fragrance, Fishenko felt his body become boneless.
Popov, eh? He felt his final doubts dissipate. Guess I’ll have to make up a plan. After all, what else could he do when the Head Office calls?
image [https://i.imgur.com/2b85nMm.png]
When Fishenko opened his eyes again, he knew he had awakened from an unexpected cat nap.
He looked down and saw that he wore a pale blue patient’s gown.
There were strange inscriptions upon his back, some of which were visible from the corner of his eye.
He was in an impossible chamber, for his prison was a small cabin that seemed tethered to nothing. Outside the singular window, he could see leaves waving languishingly in the sun, and in the air, he smelled a fragrance of verdant nature free from the human stench of the Common Districts.
Very slowly, Fishenko made his way down from the soft linen bed.
On the second inspection, it wasn’t a bed per se but a platform of wood that was grown into place, and what felt like fabric was, in fact, large sheaves of woven leaves.
“N-Natalia?” he sounded out his last contact, finding that, together with his mind and voice, he was unrestrained. “Are you there?”
As if in response, the cabin door opened, moving with a mechanism that affirmed his suspicions of where he would be.
Once more, a vision of femininity entered his field of view; only the dread now engendering in Fishenko’s heart made Natalia seem like a nagging schoolgirl. He felt suddenly ill; he wanted to vomit but dared not show any hint of disrespect.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Alexander Fishenko, I presume,” the flawless face with vivid eyes spoke with the bearing of an alien sovereign from an immortal tree. “Richard tells me you were instrumental in establishing the Shalkar Worker’s Party.”
Fishenko licked his lips, feeling that they were dried and cracked. “You are… the Regent. Ma’am.”
The woman who stood at the doorway wore a dusky blouse of pale blue and a pleated skirt that reached her knees. Her hair, long and dark, was tied with a sky-coloured ribbon. Her skin was flawless porcelain, not so pale as the figure the Rat-kins worshipped in their homesteads, but fair and possessed of the quality of a classical portrait from Pushkins. His mind told him that she was a lovely young woman, but his magical senses felt she was older… far older.
“You are correct, Mr Fishenko. You may call me Gwen.” The Regent willed a seat from the wooden floor, then sat staring at Fishenko with eyes that made his soul tremble. “Do you know why you have been summoned?”
“I thought I was being called to the Head Office,” Fishenko answered demurely. “Although I can see that Natalia has not lied.”
“She did not,” the Regent seemed amused. Fishenko regarded the lithe figure of Shalkar’s leader. In his eyes, the Pale Priestess of the rumours looked so… vivid. She was like the personified manifestation of a beacon, a fount, an inexplicable loci. Not knowing why, Fishenko felt a strange desire to kneel and worship her feet. “Once more buildings are sung into place by our Druid, it will become Natalia’s Head Office.”
“I see,” Fishenko did not dare to offer a rebuttal. The prospect made no sense to him. How did Natalia free herself from the Geas? How did she survive the wards placed upon her Astral Body?
“You are here because we’re short-staffed,” the Regent smiled, though Fishenko saw a Dragon showing off her pearly whites. “We need men and women like yourself for our new agency.”
“A new… Agency?” Fishenko felt his heart shudder. They were close—very close—to the Geas that held his body and mind in check. “What organisation might that be, your Highness?”
“I was going to keep the name as it were,” the Regent shrugged. “But @SerialBeggar can’t be choosers, so we’ve decided on a local fauna— the Sparrowhawk.”
Fishenko felt a wave of weakness as the first Geas unfurled like a blooming fern, dulling his mind. The next second, a jolt of electricity entered his spine via the strange inscription on his skin. Strangely, the nausea of the Geas fell palpably away, and Fishenko found that he was still lucid and could still talk.
“What have you done to me, Lord Regent?” Fishenko felt his heart pounding so fast that he was sure a secret Suggestion was about to make it explode.
“An… evolution of sorts,” the Regent seemed to refer to something he could not know. Her eyes lowered as the mana in his body began to surge, growing so full of pity that Fishenko wanted to beg for a painless release. “If you survive the next ten minutes, Fish, we will discuss your future remuneration package and what is possibly the greatest Healthcare insurance in the world…”
image [https://i.imgur.com/2b85nMm.png]
“Your Highness, Fishenko doesn’t know anyone with the Glyph Keys,” Natalia reported from behind Richard, her head bowed and her shoulders tucked carefully by her sides. “Neither does Oleg Petrov. I am very sorry, Sister Kuznetsova. I had thought one of them might have more accessible avenues.”
In the round table at the central conference chamber, the Regent of Shalkar received the latest reports from her new vice head of Security, the Sparrowhawk Natalia Volkova. Thus far, all three of Russia’s covert operatives have been headhunted into the fold, leaving the clueless lieutenants and the middlemen of the Worker’s Union in the dark.
“A discouraging result, but not one we didn’t anticipate,” Richard explained in place of his new favourite aide. “We will work our way up and down the chain of command and find someone eventually. Zinichev can’t be the only one with the keys. No way Popov can be that trusting.”
“Then how is Uncle and Aunty?” the Regent spoke for her cousin.
“They’re perfectly safe while our operatives here continue their reports,” Natalia answered. “Fishenko will take care of the Worker’s Party’s reports, and Petra and I will work closely to ensure no suspicions on our side. So long as our independent briefings thematically collude, the oversight committee in Moscow’s Nest won’t raise any alarms.”
“Petra?” the Regent asked their silent Magi-tech officer and Dwarven liaison. “Are you okay with this?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Petra bowed her head. “And it's better than raising alarms with Popov’s people.”
“Perhaps we’ll have better luck with the contacts in London,” said Charlene Ravenport, freshly arrived from the ISTC. She was here to access Richard’s proposal and submit a report to her father’s Ministerial office. “If true, at least one is a senior supervisor.”
“Tell your Ravenguards to be especially discreet,” Richard voiced his worries. “We want to be in the shade for as long as we can maintain it.”
“Which is a few months at best,” Charlene dipped her head. “But I do concur. That’s why we’re not using clandestine Mage Flights from the Ministry.”
“Then we shall leave it at that,” Gwen passed over some documents, stamped them with a Glyph conjured from thin air, and then swapped the folders on her desk. “Our next agenda?”
“Master Petyr Shuysky of Nizhny…” Richard rubbed both hands together like a Dwarf about to tuck into a good keg of Essence Beer. “As suggested by Natalia, we’ve sent out the bait.”
“And regardless of the outcome…” Natalia’s warm smile was full of guile and invitation, paralleling Richard's own. “I shall draft a suspicion report for Moscow on Master Shuysky’s meeting with yourself.”
“We haven’t met yet,” the Regent raised both brows. “Is that…”
“It’s more convincing if no one knows or has evidence of such,” the newly minted mother hen of the Sparrowhawks batted her long lashes. “Our people have absolute faith in suspicion and hearsay but are always sceptical of truth.”
“Somehow, I find that very convincing,” the Regent made a face, then nodded to herself. “Very well, those are sound plots. Richard, Natalia, I leave it to you.”
“I am confident the Tower Master will bite,” Richard added after Natalia retreated. “According to Natalia, the man is slipperier than a Sargasso Eel, so I doubt he will allow an opportunity for more life to slip by. As such, please be on standby while we wait.”
“I have an upcoming expedition into the Murk with Garp and the Rat-kin,” the Regent reminded them. “I’ll be gone for some time, though I believe transit is possible.”
“I am confident you’ll manage, your Paleness,” Richard laughed even as Gwen frowned prettily at his teasing title. Winking at Natalia, he continued his praise of the Regent with the confidence of a prideful father. “Didn’t you say that old men were your expertise, cousin? The older, the finer, right?”
image [https://i.imgur.com/2b85nMm.png]
Far north of Shalkar, the Dmitrovskaya Tower floated as an affront to the unblemished vista of the Steppes.
While in Nizhny, Petyr himself called his home the Nizhny Tower. However, as they were no longer in Nizhny, he felt it strange to call his arcane fortress by the name of its mailing address rather than its original denomination.
Petyr also preferred the name Dmitrovskaya because, as a survivor whose family name was indexed in the history books, he could not disassociate the original, non-magical Dmitrovskaya Tower from its post-Tide successor.
Indeed, the original Tower had existed long before the rise and fall of the Communists. It was part of the Kremlin of Novgorod when the Romanovs still ruled the Russian Empire, and after that, it served as a place of schooling for Elite Mages in service to the newly formed commissariat.
When the Tide came, Dmitrovskaya Tower was one of the few bulwarks that managed to stand against the horde of tundra monstrosities escaping from the Black and Purple Zones surrounding the Novgorod Frontier. Its tenacious Mages, under Petyr’s leadership, held off the Beast Tide for six months, thereby ensuring that supplies up and down the Volga River continued, single-handedly feeding the entirety of the Eastern Front.
In the aftermath, Petyr was awarded two Mithril Stars of the Hero of Socialist Service and one Orichalcum Star of the Hero of the Federation. The metal itself was symbolic, for its true value lay in the official certification that Petyr Shuysky, last in line to the House of Shuysky, once heir to the title of Grand Duke, was a true adherent to The People.
The official propaganda was that he had sacrificed his health for the Party. Yet, before the Tide had even occurred, Petyr’s body was already in tatters. As a teenager, he was abducted by the Red Guard under orders of the Bolsheviks. As a high noble with a distant claim to the throne, he was accused of conspiracy by Necromancy. What followed was an excruciating six months of daily beatings, weekly tortures, starvation and mock executions. Once imprinted with a Geas, he was sent to the Moscow Front as a part of its penal expedition.
Of the fifty thousand men and women sent into that hell, Petyr alone returned with the head of a Necromancer to earn his freedom in New Russia.
He was then sent to a gulag, perhaps as a test, more likely out of spite. Nonetheless, Petyr endured, living as a quiet skeleton in service to the expansion of the Ural mines.
At the age of almost forty, the powers that be in Moscow felt that he was more useful as a Party cadre than an Earthen Mage who moved a mountain bit by bit. He was a capable Magus by then, but the Bolsheviks broke something in him, and Petyr didn’t know how to repair that which he could not see.
Wars came.
Wars went.
And then a Beast Tide.
After the Tide, the titled Hero enjoyed a short decade of prosperity with new leadership, hope, and resources thrown into reconstruction. For its service in recovering human landholds from the Beast Tide, Moscow would be given the resources and expertise to construct four Towers. The largest of the monster-repelling defensive structures would be built in Moscow, simultaneously acting as the heart of the rebuilt Kremlin and the centre for the dissemination of Spellcraft.
The second Tower would be erected in St Petersburg as a gateway into the heart of the northern continent and a cultural and academic centre.
The third was Yecteringburg, who oversaw the Eastern Frontiers and, most importantly, the mana mecca that was the Ural mountains.
The fourth was in Nizhny, and the location of Dmitriyevskaya was chosen as the heart of Novgorod Oblast’s Kremlin.
More Towers came and went after that—but that detail was unimportant to Petyr.
Impressed by his lack of ambition over six decades, the state promoted Petyr into the Tower Master of Nizhny, a Tower that, until the fall of the Urals, lavishly lived as the second line of defence against the Undead.
It was there, in the half-excavated ruins of the new Kremlin, that Petyr met Henry Kilroy.
As a man without outward greed, Petyr only knew Henry Kaine Foster Kilroy as a name that travelled freely through the grapevines of power. He was the man who proposed the Tower System and, somehow, transcending culture, history, conflict and selfishness, managed to convince the once-warring nations that they all needed to subscribe to a common vision.
Of course, Petyr was a Master Mage by then, and he saw the absolute boon that was the construction of these Planar Pillars that suppressed the Axis Mundi’s fluctuations and brought peace to Humanity’s slice of the Prime Material. He also knew that Kilroy was responsible for the unification of Spellcraft and its subsequent spread across the Mageocracy’s institutions, an achievement his salty colleagues often lambasted as a form of arcane Imperialism.
In their first meeting, he was as surprised as anyone to find a middle-aged man looking to be in his late thirties, with a shocking head of black-on-grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard that looked to belong to the world the Bolsheviks had burned.
What had impressed Petyr more than the regal aura of wisdom that radiated from the man like a Radiant Mage’s mana, was Kilroy’s student. A fair-skinned English rose with a figure like a bone china doll, following behind Kilroy as a lost kitten, hanging onto his every gesture and word.He recalled the girl vividly, for she reminded him dearly of the soft-handed noble ladies who used to frequent the Kremlin and visit his mother and aunts. Like companionable swans, they moved like liquid, spoke through tendrils of cigar smoke, and filled the room with intoxicating fragrances from the House of Rallet.
The Magister had given a speech, and men like Petyr went to work.
A decade later, when he met Kilroy again after his Tower was inaugurated, the Magister had aged sixty years, and the young lady was rumoured to be deceased.
Of course, what had happened to that ruby-lipped student of Kilroy’s was now public discourse.
With her re-emergence almost eight years ago, the new darling agent of Spectre had made her indelible mark on the world by murdering the “Deathless” Mage known as Henry Kilroy in his own home.
And now, the world turns, Petyr thought to himself as he poured himself a stout vodka infused with alchemical vitality.
His mid-tier office in the modest mid-section of his claymore-shaped Tower was modelled after another place of his childhood, the National Library of Russia, specifically the west reading wing. From its vaulted ceilings with patterned murals of orthodox scripture to the dark mahogany setting of its tables, bookshelves and fireplace, his workplace was cosy and functional.
It was an apt place for Petyr Shuysky, Tower Master of Nizhny, to rest his mind and recollect past occurrences.
On his desk was a vial of amber liquid in a mithril-laced container ringed with Dwarven runes carved into pressed gold plates.
Beside it was a letter, one delivered by a passing Sparrow.
In expert cursive, the hand-written letter had informed him that the shining city across the steppes had no particular feelings of hostility toward Nizhny. Far from it, they would benefit from some mutual trade to offset the escalating tension.
As a show of goodwill, the Regent of Shalkar wished to gift the Tower Master an Elixir that could be freely traded with Nizhny.
Petyr did not need Divination to know what was in the amber vial.
Nonetheless, as insurance against any wayward birds, he opened his mind to the various wards in his office. He also ran a diagnostic Divination across the layers of the Tower that may have access to his abode. Finding nothing worthy of suspicion, Petyr turned his attention to the vial.
A long time ago, when the stitches holding together his tattered body still held his bones and flesh intact, he had seen a young woman sip away greedily on such a supply of liquid ambrosia. Petyr had been intrigued, but he could read from her addled face and love-drunk pupils the intoxicating allure of the Elixir and what it might induce in a user.
Life… Petyr had learned, as a younger man—was not so generous.
More life… he understood now as a Tower Master—costs more than life.
“Gwen Song…” Petyr Shuysky mouthed the name aloud so that his ceiling murmured his thoughts back at the Tower Master. In his mind’s eye, he saw the Lumen-casts of the girl’s IIUC highlights, her youthful face pale with a sheen of sweat, her eyes greedy for glory as she consumed Shenyang.
They share the same silhouette—Petyr felt suddenly sentimental as he recalled a similar waist-length fall of playful hair, so lovely, dark and deep.
Henry Kilroy… He once more fell into the past, an unavoidable condition of dotage. What a creature the Magister was.
With one swift move, he snatched the vial, broke the seal, and poured the Golden Mead into his parched mouth.
The vitality spread across his old bones like double-proof vodka; only his organs weren’t in pain, and his mind wasn’t threatening to revolt.
The stitches of his loosening sinews seemed to tighten, and his breath came easier.
It’s good to live. Petyr watched the trembling of his fingers cease. It’s good to escape the gentle lull of the long sleep.