STEEL Dominion

Awesome stories BlindScribe!  Even if they are mostly propaganda 

So there we were at the Christmas Ball, with the cries of "Raiders!" still echoing 'round the room.

All thoughts of festivities came to an end, and all the Lords and Ladies of the REALM retired to their apartments in the Great Hall of Cerilon to await word.

Odds were that it was simple theivery, but understand...to a trade based alliance such as ours, an attack on trading resources is every bit as hurtful as an assault on the main gates.

Besides that, our Dyallom Gall patch produced more revenue in a month than many smaller alliances received in total, from all their cities combined, so this was a fairly big deal for us.

We'd never had a sovereign violation before, and we didn't quite know what to make of it, or even how to respond.

The action was unquestionably hostile, as our borders were well known and well established.

What did it mean?

The troubling thought was that it could be the opening shot in a broader invasion of the island.  Disrupt the flow of goods and money, then land the troops.

Unlikely, true, but we had to consider it.

For the moment though, all we could do was wait, and let me assure you, the wait was an agony!

At length though, word came back, and our attackers had indeed been identified.

It was none other than our sometimes contentious neighbor, the demigod Zolvon! (ooc: description taken from his profile page).

As the son of a minor love goddess, and keeper of the Sword of the Pleades, Zolvon simply did not obey or abide by the normal conventions of men.

It was even possible that he did not understand what "borders" were...at least not in the sense that we humans, elves, and orcs did.

We knew then, based on our prior history with him (the tensions over the 20-food tile near Parthaway, previously written about), that we had to act quickly and decisivly.

"Clearly, he's a menace."  Timrath said matter-of-factly.  "We can't have random demigods taipsing through our sovereign territory, especially when they or their minions tear up sites of such economic value as the one we nearly lost."

"And we may yet lose it."  Renn said darkly.  "It remains to be seen if we stopped them before irreparable harm was done...only time will bear that out."

"I observed something of note."  Juggernaught (one of our newly arrived Lords of the Realm) offered."

All eyes turned his direction.

"There was a rare herb patch on the side of the mountain he lays claim too....my scouts inform me that it's now gone."

"So...what?  You're thinking he mismanaged his and figured he'd go find one somewhere else, and never mind if it's in someone else's territory?"

Juggernaught shrugged.  "I don't pretend to know how a demigod thinks...just putting it out there."

And it was as likely a scenario as any, we supposed.

"Only one solution."  Velociryx said finally.  "All this conjecture is nice, but it doesn't actually get us anywhere."

"What's your plan?"  Bezi asked, coming in with an enormous leg of lamb, still dripping with grease.  He took a huge bite out of it and chomped merrily as he waited for an answer to his question.  "Delicious."  He said, his words barely intelligible for all the food.  "My compliments to the chef." (which came out sounding a bit like "my comumphs a chuf" or something close-ish to that)

Velociryx shook his head.  "I'll leave at first light tomorrow.  Ride down to KV and see if I can convince him to stay the hell off our land."

"This isn't the first run in we've had with him."  Machete said darkly.  "How many second chances are we going to give this character?  There's the matter of the grain fields practically on top of Parthaway that he holds sway over...the fact that he turned hostile during trade negotiations, and now this.  Can we afford such an obviously hostile neighbor?  Can we risk it?"

That raised a number of eyebrows and the debate raged through most of the evening.


At the end, it was decided (with a fair amount of trepidation) that no...we couldn't risk it.

Zolvon had a track record with us.  One of hostility and suspicion and now, it seemed to have escalated for reasons not known (and perhaps not even knowable) to us.

One of us had to go.  We had dozens of cities on the island, and he had one.

That made the calculus pretty simple in our minds.

"Very well."  Velociryx told the assembled Lords.  "A slight change in plans...rather than riding to see if he even understands why we're upset, I ride now to deliver an ultimatum.  We will tolerate no further incursions.  We offer to buy the city from beneath his feet and build him a new one somewhere else, or...we take it from him.  One way or the other though...it's now clear that we cannot remain neighbors."

Velociryx rode.

This was a first for us.

War?

Would it really come to war?

Gods and Saints.

I have never seen a more fearsome look in our Highlord's eyes, and he was not alone.

Every lord from every Noble House in our alliance was behind him, all with steely gazes and looks of disgust on their faces.

The emissary from STEEL pressed on, undaunted, apparently not realizing how close he was to death.

"...my Master bids that you begin these war preparations at once."

"But your Master refuses to even tell us who we'll be fighting, where, on what terrain, or even why?"

The weasel-faced Diplomat sneered.  "That's on a need to know basis, I'm afraid, and you don't need to know.  All you need to do is what you're told.  Begin preparations at once!"

"We will do no such thing."  Velociryx told him flatly.  "First, if it's our men to bleed and die on some field of battle far from home, yes we damned well do need to know the reasons why.  Second, it wasn't very long ago that right here on these shores we faced almost certain extinction, and do you know what happened?"

The diplomat looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"Damn your hide, you will answer when spoken to!  Do you know what happened when we faced the full fury of a demigod right here on these shores?"

"I....well, there were extenuating..."

"Don't."  Velociryx told him with venom in his voice.  "Don't even say it.  What happened was...members of our own confederation SIDED WITH OUR ENEMIES!  They refused...flatly refused to stand with us, and now...oh now when our men and materials are needed, now we're expected to jump to without so much as a question or a raised eyebrow.  Where were you when we needed your help?  Where were you then?"

"I...well...that is we..."

"Exactly."  Machete rumbled as he cracked his kunckles.

"I think you have your answer."  Timrath said from over Machete's head.  "And I don't think you'll be getting your army from here.  Well....you may be getting the business end if you're not careful, but I don't think that's quite what you had in mind."

Vel looked over at Renn.  "Are the Jaguars ready to march?"

"At a moment's notice!"  He said proudly.

"And our corps of Assassins and other assorted Ruffians?"

There were other nods from the assembled Lords.

"Kleo...does this man before you look like a demigod?"

She tried valiantly, but ultimately failed to hide her smirk.  "He does not, My Lord."

"No...he most certainly does not.  And given that we stood completely alone facing the full fury of a demigod's wrath this past Christmas and managed to come through that unscathed, I think we'll be fine against the likes of this one here."

"Watch yourself, Highlord!  My Master wields the ancient Axe of the Dwarven Kings, and will not...."

Our Highlord silenced the man with a sharp gesture of one hand and his lips flatted to a harsh, thin line slashed across his face.

When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, and I've never heard anything more deadly in all my years in Elgea.

"Now you listen to me, cur, and you listen well.  Over the last two months, my People and I have discovered a new, living Goddess in Illyriad....we have personally met and spoken with the Goddess Kumala.  We have stared down the fury of a demigod and faced almost certain destruction at his hands, and we did so with our so-called 'allies' lining up against us.  Frankly, I don't give a rat's arse if your Master wields his blessed mother's brassier as a sling, the fact is, you'll be getting no forces from us to persue a war you plan to leave us in the dark about till the last possible moment, and because you saw fit to leave us in the wind and facing certain destruction, you have broken the covenant with us.  You sir...not us.  And now that is is broken, there's no un-breaking it, do you understand that?

We are done with you."

The man stood there for a long moment, looking mightily distressed and not knowing what to do...how to proceed.  A part of me felt for him.

"Bezi."

"Yes, My Lord?"

"If this man does not take his leave of us in the next span of heartbeats, I want you to behead him and send his head back to his 'Master' in a rosewood box."

"With pleasure, My Lord."  He cracked his knuckles in a fashion not unlike Machete, and took a menacing step forward.

The diplomat let out a thin, girlish wail and bolted for the nearest exit, leaving a collection of grim faced Lords of the REALM staring after him.

In a moment, they all let out a collective sigh.

"Well...we've really gone and done it now, haven't we?"

"Aye...that we have."

What a strange couple of months it had been.

It will be my honor, duty, and pleasure to fill in the gaps between the Christmas Ball and the item above, but for now, the duties of my Station call.

I'll write more if we survive the night.

~Your Humble Scribe



Edited by BlindScribe - 25 Jan 2013 at 19:46

Thank you sir, but the honor has been mine.  

I don't know 'bout you, but I can hardly WAIT to see what happens next in our shared story.

Whatever comes...it's gonna be pure awesome.  :)

Edited by BlindScribe - 13 Dec 2012 at 18:24