While Zelsys and her companions engaged in revelry and worked towards the Butcher’s rebirth, the Revenant King spent that same time unraveling the conspirator-clans’ plot and meting out judgment.
The Revenant King’s powers of insight made themselves known during the investigation, as he unraveled the conspirator-clans’ schemes merely by asking questions and compelling those involved to answer with truths whose full scope they themselves often did not know. Members of the Hulson Clan and their allies were present in the throne room throughout the whole thing; most of them came and went as they needed, but Fryg remained throughout. She, it seemed, was among the few able to withstand the Revenant King’s presence for protracted periods of time. She also had no need to rest or eat; or, at the very least, watching the schemes of those who had sought to destroy her family was sustenance enough.
Kristina’s plans for Eisengeist mostly lined up with reality, the only major differences being unforeseeable factors – that is to say, Jorfr Hulson’s return with his foreign compatriots and the debacle resulting from Asgeir’s mishandling of the situation. She had intended to use the dragon as a means of exterminating the Hulsons as well as several other households that she feared might bring accusations against the conspirator-clans. Where things became truly severe was the revelation that the Ramdalls and Buhaugs had been working in concert with Pateirian and Ankhezian outlaws who dwelt in the Crescent Jungle, all for the purpose of taking control of other sapdragons just the same as they had done to Eisengeist. The true nature of the mask used on Eisengeist was not that of a Number Eight, but a Number Nine, a further evolution on the already experimental design that allowed a degree of direct control over the victim by actively altering their perception of reality.
This raised up the grim possibility of the Divine Emperor somehow learning of the incident and resurrecting the original project, but the Revenant King himself dispelled it: “IT IS NOT THE DRAGON WHICH WAS CONTROLLED, BUT THE ANIMAL WHICH REMAINS WITHIN EISENGEIST; THE SAPDRAGONS ARE YOUNG, YET TO EMBODY DRAGONKIND IN FULL. SUCH AN ARTIFACT COULD NEVER TAKE HOLD OF A TRUEBORN DRAGON DESCENDANT. I SHALL SEE TO IT THAT SUCH PETTY WEAKNESSES ARE SCOURED FROM THE SAPDRAGONS, IF THEY ARE TO REMAIN GUARDIANS OF THE CRESCENT JUNGLE.”
The Ramdall, Eisen, and Buhaug Clans were dissolved, catastrophic loss of members being a factor in this decision. The Aase had been terribly wounded by their involvement in more ways than one, but one of Gjermund’s offspring took over, pledging that the name Aase would earn the honor of belonging to a Primary Clan before the next Seven Suns Solstice.
Many who claimed to have been uninvolved in the conspiracy were deemed guilty nonetheless, some outright killed, others sentenced to outlawry. Many still were either innocent, or only possessed a modicum of guilt, and so the dissolution of their clan was deemed a sufficient punishment and they were allowed to join non-ranking families.
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Most of these innocent members of the conspirator clans chose to go a-viking as a form of self-imposed exile, in an effort to regain their honour through deeds in foreign lands or die trying.
Most grave of all, were the punishments faced by the likes of Kristina Ramdall. Those who had awakened the Immortal Blood and who bore full guilt in the conspiracy, three in all they were - Kristina Ramdall, Adrius Buhaug, and Ignar Tande.
Their punishment was Kurgan Burial. A means of sealing immortals in burial mounds where the Stillness of Death ruled, whose flow of time was a hundred times slower compared to the rest of the world. There, beneath these Kurgan Mounds, they would be interred in glacierglass sarcophagi in dreamless slumber. They would be all but dead to the world.
Many fragments of the Serpentkiller Black Rod yet remained, even after it had been shattered. Fryg, with her grasp over ice magic and near-unparalleled wisdom in the mystic arts, learned several antediluvian glyphs from the remnants of the Serpentkiller Black Rod. She did not reinstate the Hulson Clan’s practice as it had once been, instead expanding it to the replication of past feats whether their originators were living or dead; henceforth, the art would be known as Sagacalling.
As for the Serpentkiller itself, it was buried underground until the Revenant King compelled Sprengfaust to retrieve the Black Rod fragment it was melded into. The spear thereafter remained stuck inside the pyramidal hunk of glacierglass-blackstone composite, none able to grip its shaft properly, their hands always slipping off the metal. After recovering from his injuries and partaking in the celebrations to the fullest extent, Jorfr was finally able to make his way to its resting place. The voice of Wide-wuth himself had bid him to come. There, guarded by druids, it awaited, glistening in the Seven Suns’ twilight glow.
They made no effort to stop him, only watching as he stepped into empty air and stairs of ice took form beneath his feet.
Jorfr Hulson grasped the Serpentkiller in hand, and his grip did not slip from its shaft. The antediluvian armament reached a silver tendril up through his arm deep into his soul, and a thunderous voice echoed inside his skull.
“THOU, WHO HATH RESTORED THE HONOR OF THINE CLAN. THOU, WHO HATH RESTORED THE MEM’RY OF MINE CREATOR. GIVE ME A NAME.”
“A name?”
“I WAS WROUGHT TO SLAY THE GODS OF OLD, AND MINE NAME MATCHED MINE PURPOSE. DEICIDE, HUL CALLED ME. THE WORLD IS BEREFT OF MY PREY. THY KIN, IN FORGETTING MINE TRUE NATURE, CALLED ME SERPENTKILLER. DRAGONPIERCER. DRAGONKIND BECAME MY PREY, THOUGH NONE OF MY WIELDERS SUCCEEDED IN THEIR ATTEMPTS AT DRAGONSLAYING. NOW, MY TRUE SELF RESTORED, I ONCE MORE LACK A NAME TO GIVE ME PURPOSE.”
“GIVE. ME. A. NAME.”
Jorfr Hulson, he who had done battle against Ubul the Beast Reborn in Stone, he who had awakened the Immortal Blood, he who had brought about the restoration of his clan’s honor, smiled.