It was early morning in the swathe of Communion known as the Divine District. The megacity lay across a massive bay with little regard to things like natural obstruction; the city’s foundations were laid so widely that even with vertical habitats climbing to the skies and descending into the depths of the planet, enough people still lived here to warrant time zones.
Two months post-coup, Netta’s normal office as a mere Godsworn of the Tyrant was a small, obscure room located deep in a floating sky-tower near the Tyrant’s official residence on Elikos. It now sat abandoned. She hadn’t used it for weeks - she’d given herself a promotion, after all.
She now ran her office through the Tyrant’s executive suite within the massive central dome of his kilometers-long palace complex, lounged in an overstuffed throne-scaled recliner, covered in lavishly expensive blankets across her crossed legs, luxuriating in the feel of excess. Godsworn weren’t usually allowed the trappings of wealth - their august station was meant to represent their Tyrant, not themselves. A supposedly humble life of religious asceticism in service to a greater power. At least, that’s what her seniors told her.
A few items of personal or practical use were allowed, of course - Netta favorite anklet was one such permitted item, comprising an orb of vibrantly blue star sapphire approximating 30 carats bound by countless looping ribbons of pure platinum. The anklet was an heirloom from the time before her sixth great-grandmother. When the Sundered Lands had been whole continents. When her ancestors had been a proud, independent people, ruled by a council of the wisest elders; not some power-mad despot sitting on a golden throne.
Netta allowed herself the indulgences of the vast resources of the Tyrant’s - now it was her Empire - in the reasoning that nobody knew any better. The number of still-breathing beings that had ever truly seen the interior of the Tyrant’s abode was in the low double digits, and all of them knew the winds were changing. Tens of thousands of years of constant social manipulation by the Tyrant upon the prevailing attitudes of Alinean citizens had made them a supremely compliant peoples, but it had also allowed a festering undercurrent of resentment.
Almost everybody respected the Tyrant - many still truly worshiped him. But anyone in a position of power knew that his intervention in Alinean politics was unnecessary and often disruptive to a smooth-functioning bureaucracy. The intentional favoritism for certain factions and ethnic groups had led to a kind of institutionalized caste system based on your ancestor’s continent of origin. Naturally, less status was given to those descended from conquered foes or refugees from wars elsewhere. It had allowed Netta fertile soil to sow the seeds of further discontent, bordering on heresy, among the peoples least blessed by the Tyrant’s light.
On the subject of the Tyrant’s deeds, however, Netta had checked historical records from before she was born, and before the Empire; classified reports and first-hand accounts had confirmed that Elikos would have been incapable of supporting life within 200 years of the Ascension Wars’ conclusion, had the Tyrant never risen to True Divine. Ecological survey data confirmed it, as did recorded images of the surface of the planet from - in what Netta now knew to be space - the golden city where the Tyrant allowed contact with the few alien races that had proven themselves smart and powerful enough to reach his usual place of residence - the records called it a “Cosmologically-Significant Dimensional Anchor” or something, some Divine-based science. The authors of these reports were very, very dead and forgotten. But the knowledge that it wasn’t just the round-ears - Humans, Netta had to constantly remind herself - that were the problem. Other worlds might take notice of her warmongering with the Humans, make a wrong assumption, and move to intervene.
Netta didn’t think too hard about what this meant for her - she’d won her gambit, after all, and felt like she deserved some minor indolence. If necessary, she would erode the egos of the Divine weapons stolen from the Humans and turn them against any Divine aggression levied at her. The Sanctum was still hers, and she could communicate with it from a distance so long as her magical mark remained. Merging their powers was impossible for obvious safety concerns, but she could bring its vast intelligence out of its constant slumber in order to work on projects over the short-term. If she acquired new Divine artifacts from the Humans, she would let other living beings study them in the open, which would allow her to funnel any discoveries made by her Sanctum as the product of sanctioned research.
Just thinking about that reminded Netta of her next appointment. Daintily pushing a button from a hidden console on the armrests of her lounge-throne sent a signal that opened the ornate bulkhead doors sealing the throne room from a small, dour antechamber where supplicants usually met and commiserated with each other while waiting for the Tyrant’s judgment. A small crowd made up of a mixture of representatives of special interests, noble Houses, and her own partisan loyalists made for an interesting display, each of them wearing colors and clothing styles that practically shouted their political loyalties, to those with a trained eye for it. As one, they turned from their own murmured discussions to face Netta expectantly.
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A quick scan found Ken standing near the center of the mass, notable for his military dress uniform (a very sharply-cut coat and trousers combination with a minimum of embellishment for trim with a half-cape woven with a magic-resistant thread) but in a very non-standard light azure-purple. It was, Netta realized, a very passing facsimile to her own skin tone. Was that her faction’s insignia on his shoulder patch? She was actually a little flattered by it.
“I assume you have figured out the order of your address already. I don’t particularly care. Lord Lysandro, attend me.” her voice carried via magical means across the hundred meters of open colonnades, rippling through the assembled crowd. Ken nodded an affirmation and gave her a small, private smile that she pointedly did not return until the others had looked away from her direction and back to Ken. Encouraged, he stepped forward briskly until he was ten meters from her throne, whereupon he stopped and knelt respectfully before giving his report.
“Your Grace, it humbles me to inform you that our lord Tyrant’s legions have…met with defeat.” he began humbly, his voice performing an admirable job of pretending to be dismayed. Netta almost laughed, but realized that such a flippant reaction would not go over well to the audience still watching them.
“The Tyrant’s armies have not suffered defeat since the foundation of this Empire, Lord Lysandro. By what means was this defeat managed, and against whom?” Netta asked, as if she had not been privy to the intelligence briefings and front line status updates from this morning.
“A large force of Humans, your Grace, supported by what we suspect are some alien version... of demi-Divines. They emerged from a portal in the eastern district of the golden city and rapidly pushed our forces back. They now hold a beachhead and are establishing what we believe to be a forward operations base within one of the buildings seized from us.” he replied, this time more loudly, so that those eavesdropping at the back could gasp scandalously.
“Demi-Divines… we have not seen them in ages. With the Tyrant’s current indisposed state, we cannot rely on him to sweep them away like he has done before. My seniors were skilled enough to contend with those monsters, but they too are dead. Most likely, I will be needed personally on the front lines in order to confront them, before our lines break and we are routed. What does our current disposition of forces look like?” Netta said musingly, a graceful hand rising to hold her perfect face up at an angle.
“Manageable, your Grace. We have established a more firmly-entrenched position around their forwardmost units and are creating kill zones and hardpoints to funnel their forces more effectively into our war mages’ optimum spell range, but the enemy is cunning and well-trained, and our attempts only delay them briefly while they adapt and try again elsewhere against our lines. Casualties are still below what I would personally consider excessive losses. More units were being brought up to bolster them, but some units were almost destroyed outright by the initial fighting. Near-total losses, in those cases.” Ken replied smoothly. His voice was pleasant to the ears, and a broader register than Netta remembered. Then again, odd things had been happening to her these last few days.
It started with her height. Netta was always slightly taller than the average elf at just under two meters, but as she now shed her blankets and rose to her full height, she realized she towered over a man she once stood eye to eye with. She hadn’t felt any worse for wear - just different. More, somehow. Internally, the Godseal looked to be corroding faster now, though its appearance was still unchanged. Her vision, too, was sharper, richer in color and visible light. She almost thought she could now see in the dark, but she hadn’t bothered testing it.
“The fallen shall have their names recorded in the histories of their company, and their families will be given appropriate stipends, as is tradition. Begin deployment of our elite units to the golden city. I want them working on counter-tactics and strategy. We need to keep these demi-Divines tied down as much as possible by our regular troops to avoid them grouping up and driving a wedge through a vulnerable position.” her voice echoed commandingly, and Ken nodded hurriedly before scurrying away, silently acknowledging the dismissal.
As he passed the threshold, Netta tore her gaze from where it had anchored itself to Ken’s retreating form and onto the rest of the group.
“Now that the immediate is dealt with, you may all resume the previous order of audience. I will take the next issue.” Netta declared firmly, staring the smaller elves down with her radiant pink gaze. A few of them even flinched under her direct attention. Interesting.
“Approach.”