The carnage and destruction wreaked upon Hardhelm Forging the next night was the talk of the capital.
Unlike earlier liberations of the dwarves, there was nothing subtle or mysterious about this. Overseers, slavemasters, and guards died in great numbers, many of them without any idea of what was happening as they did so. The facilities came crashing down, sublevels collapsed, and the whole area became a fiery hell of crushed stone, wrecked machinery, and dead strewn everywhere.
Up on the Sixth Circle, the great palatial estate of the Helmreich Family burned to the ground, taking with it centuries of their history and accumulated artwork. Most of the people got out alive, although the flames that enveloped the servant’s quarters were so intense that only the finest ash was left behind, to say nothing of their indentured hyn and gnome servants. Even the deepest family vaults cracked, burned, charred, and collapsed under the inferno, and if a whole lot of the family treasury ended up missing, it was quite hard to tell what amid all the destruction.
Of course, Grym, Feist, and Hazé could not be responsible for all of this, as they’d been seen riding the Wagon away from Zynozure early that morning, totally obvious and watched by many interested parties who’d had their suspicions.
Certain members of the temples of Sylune and Harse got roaring drunk together on moonwine. It was even a scandal of sorts. And if the Tiirithar spread all sorts of rumors about what really went on in that burned manor and some of the things found there, well, it was really no surprise given all the other stuff that had been going on, was it? Nod, wink, nudge...
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Errant waved his sister goodbye, knowing he’d be seeing them soon, and if her sisters were a bit depressed that they hadn’t been able to discuss certain things with him more intimately, they sort of glanced at Hazé and the looks she sent after the silver-eyed young noble, and decided that holding their tongues might be rather wise.
The road to the North was thousands of miles long, their trip was not going to be completed shortly... and then there might... no, most certainly would be excitement along the way. But the Rift wouldn’t be closing any time soon, so they had time... and if not, well, wasn’t there a ruined city up there full of things to get excited about? Who better than they to delve old Cursed ruins?
Errant returned to the city. There were millions of people here, and the corruption had come in very deeply, very secretly. The number of inhuman and supernatural forces that were working out of here was simply beyond what one person could handle... but that was fine. Given his skill, he was being led to the most challenging of assignments, and that would keep him busy in the interim.
And, of course, the assassination attempts every day or two were sources of constant amusement...
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Grym and Feist stepped off the Greater Seal Focus with Hazé, two Rockborn Priests moving immediately forward to receive them. Naturally, such elders of Dauerhamar recognized a returning Clanhammer, and if they were briefly surprised at the strength of his Aura, they said nothing.
Seeing a hyn arriving, especially one with such a subtle and dangerous Aura, was also a rarity, as the hyn weren’t noted as an ambitious, power-seeking people, even here in the North. Their gardens fed a good portion of the dwarven kingdom, protected by the spears of the armies of Dauerhamar, but their own martial tradition was largely limited to skilled hunters and trappers. A native of the Hove like Feist was truly surprising.
Hazé, of course, was welcomed as the honored Starsister and Archtheurge of Sylune that she was. She had brought many dwarves, gnomes, and hyn to freedom here, many of whom chose to stay in the kingdom, and the others were slowly and carefully making their ways back to their native realms, where doubtless her name would be spread further... as would all sorts of foul opinions of the Rosencrux Empire
Alas, she could not stay long, nor could Feist and Grym. The news of a Rift to the Warp rippled through Dauerhamar, and the most adventurous of young Rockborn and Hyn signed up with the Shadow Stalker and Clanhammer of their people who had signaled their intent to bring the battle to the coming enemy, afore the battle came to them! Given the reputations they’d made by freeing so many of their races from servitude and slavery, this was not unexpected, and their words were taken seriously.
Hazé waited until midnight to go through Renewal and regain her magic, as Valence V’s were required to Teleport, and it took two of them to reach the Kalden lands, even with a Great Seal there to receive her.
She had not completed any running of her Lived-Line to the north or east of the Sidhete, or through the Giantback Mountains that bordered Kaldenheim to the east, something she promised herself to do in the future. Running up and around the great forest to link up with the Wagon would require weeks, given the distance, and with the length of the trek to the North, she was unwilling to leave the girls on their own for so long, especially given their proclivity for finding trouble.
Grym and Feist saw her off as she disappeared in a swirl of silver, watched also by hundreds of those she had rescued from bondage. While her grace had not wiped away the hatred for those of the Empire in their eyes, it had at least softened their stances on all humans being devils.
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Honus Hardhelm was the patriarch of a Ducal family, a cold and hard man whose clan had supplied the Empire and its many legions with arms and armor for centuries. The war against the dwarves of the Kahlete Mountains had been partly instigated by his family, at once getting rid of a major competitor for his wares, and the slavery rules for prisoners of war ensuring that he could get a skilled workforce to increase his production.
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He had sponsored slaving raids into the mountains for decades, always interested in acquiring more dwarven slaves, and if that meant kidnapping and enslaving dwarven travelers and merchants from clans not in the Kahletes, well, that was business.
The burning down of his business and home, and the vanishing of his slaves enraged him... moreso when his vaults were finally dug out and the wealth within them was gone, or melted or crushed into unusable slag and dust.
Still, the coffers of the family were deep and immense after so many centuries, and he had other foundries and smithworks that were unaffected by this debacle. Rebuilding his family’s manor would also allow him to put his personal stamp on their home for centuries, and he was actually looking forward to it, as the architecture had been centuries out of style.
He was certainly not expecting to be beheaded in the night by a glowing Sword that sent him off to Hell, where he would learn what it meant to be the lowest thing on the totem pole personally. With him went every adult male member of the lineage in the city, and several of the women. No one saw the silver eyes of the Warlock who saw them all off to their final lack of a reward. In the power struggles within the family that rapidly erupted for control of their enterprises and the controlling seat, who actually killed them all was a minor detail that ended up being blamed on several of the ambitious heirs who tried repeats of the deed on one another, to varying degrees of success.
After all, being tenth in line to the Ducal title suddenly becoming top three was not something they could pass up on...
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Several days later...
Hazé opened her eyes in some shock as she came out of Renewal.
Verd was standing guard, taking the midnight shift as Hazé Meditated and Communed with the Silver Queen.
It was very unusual to get such direct contact from the Goddess. Divine powers tended to give omens, dreams, general guidance, and leave the particulars to mortals as an exercise of their Free Will, which in turn empowered their Faith and the moral choices that drove the engines of the afterlife. Making decisions for them just encouraged apathy and faithlessness, and the Divine had long ceased such blatant instructions, as it dried up the very waters of Faith that they sought to encourage.
But Hazé usually left a Commune open and quiet for just this very reason when she Meditated. If the higher powers of Heaven had something to say, the link was open, without her nagging the Goddess with pleas for guidance and stuff. She had received more than a few instructions and urges to do this or that because of this... but never so directly as now.
There was something Bad going down in the Empire, and they needed to get out of there, with the good and the true. The message was going out through all the faiths of Heaven, and in no uncertain terms.
There was a disaster coming, and not just based on the Warp Gods. Indeed, the Rift opening was a great opportunity and excuse to mask the movement of the faithful to a new land rising there, covering it in the guise of a grand Crusade, while it was actually swimming away from a rotted ship heading for a reef that could not be saved.
She had to warn Mama. The vision had been remarkably clear. The roots of the rose had rotted away, the stalk had withered up as the leaves dried up and fallen off. The blossom had fallen, but seeds had spilled away, to take root elsewhere, and grow and flourish once again.
The roots were the South, the leaves were the East and West, the blossom was the North, the stalk was the center. The blossom had retained its color as it fell, but without its roots, it would no longer remain part of the Rose and the Cross.
Hazé took a deep breath. All the missions she had run for the Void Brothers, the Inquisition, and her Church itself came to mind, yet were still not enough to forestall what was coming...
She had killed literally thousands of people. None of them had been innocent, none of them caused her much guilt, secure in her faith that she had done the Right Thing. The Void Brothers... how many had they killed over these last few years? Perhaps not always centered in the Empire, but still, they had pulled so many weeds before they could spread...
And yet, that still wasn’t enough, either.
Being as inhumanly smart and comprehensive as she was, far beyond what she had been capable of in her former life, she understood that immense forces were moving. A disparate coordination of events that had taken place across centuries was coming to a heady fruition... and it had all been done so subtly, so grandly, that the powers of Heaven didn’t have a clue it was truly happening until right now.
So, Divine powers at the very least, and given the things she had encountered so often - the plethora of Great Old Ones, Aberrant influences, and Mythos creatures getting active - likely from Outside Creation, entities who saw Time as just another carpet to be woven and rewoven at their whim...
How much did the Brotherhood know?
She found it impossible to believe they didn’t. They might not be able to stop the How of it from going down, but the What of it was not something people as aware as they were could miss, especially the way things were building.
And the Warp Gods had come.
She ran through mental scenarios, and sighed...
The Warp Gods, so visible, brutal, and far away, were probably the greater threat. A standing Rift to their pet universe, through which they could send out endless amounts of mortal servants, expand their power into another world...
They wouldn’t care about moves by the Old Ones, as their own actions were also outside the purview of the Mythos. They would just enjoy the fight. The power of the Mythos was, in the end, limited by the movements of the stars. As long as any Divinities were around to make use of them, they could use the stars and mortal agents to send the Old Ones back beyond the Veil, as the universe itself didn’t want the Aberrant here.
But the Warp Gods... that was a direct invasion, and if not nipped, could lose the whole planet once it reached a certain level.
They would be up north fighting now, she was certain, except possibly Brother Waterspear, who basically never left his waters.
A lot of innocent people were going to die. A lot of Good people were going to die. And there really wasn’t anything she could do about it. Trying to warn everyone would just cause a panic and catastrophe, the fear would accelerate the whole process, and make it easier to start what was going to come as the psychic energy and nightmares strengthened the ties to beyond Dream and Nightmare through the lands of Leng, and the stars would just go wrong that much sooner.
She was truly inhumanly powerful, a superhuman in all respects, capable of magic and miracles and wielding a might that might be called that of a goddess back on old Terra.
She felt very small and helpless once again, and could only sigh. Too many forces, too profound, not finite, and she was only a Ten, a mortal.
The only way to truly mess with those kinds of plans would be to be beyond Twenty, and step onto the Road of the Eternal.
That... was a long way off. But the crushing powerlessness she felt right now was nothing but motivation to get better, get stronger.
Her childhood was now over, and she could only wave it goodbye. It was now time to Get Serious, and start doing stuff that would truly Make A Difference.