Hlaeth Chapter 42 – A Little Bit of Administration

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“They were administered a concoction whose origins lie in the Hells, an abomination known by my people as Chattel. It changes the recipient into the perfect slave.” Before she could speak or the townsfolk could do more than gasp in horror, I went on, “I administered a Greater Restoration, so they will recover, and retain their memories… but they will lose many of the emotions associated with them. Old loves and longings, deep feelings of attachment… these things will be lost. They will know who they loved and why… but they will not feel the same, and will have to learn to love and find friendship anew.”

Still, the relief on her face was quite apparent, as were the awed whispers that I could heal the enslaved mindset of the dreaded foul southern alchemy!

Well, it was what it was.

Fucking Hells. Shit like this was one of the reasons Mnecromonics on a Weapon was so useful. It was plenty damn hard for even the Styx or Lethe to wipe memories that were anchored by a power that drew on Mnemosyne, the River of Memory…

How long was I going to have to be here to fix what needed to be fixed? Yeah, I was souring on this place already.

Obviously, I needed to fight the Yellow and whatever was causing it. As part of that, I probably needed to eliminate most of the lifeforms driven mad and mutated or transformed by the energies involved… which was a lot of things over a very wide area.

The status of the Children here needed to undergo a major revision upwards. Doubtless I was meant to help with that.

An Empire ruled by devils masquerading as angels! Ahg. I just couldn’t let it stand as it was!

Obviously, the proper way to handle things was to have the solutions of the one funnel the solutions of the others, and expand on scale.

That way would take time. But not nearly as much time as certain things would think, if I was at all good at the job…

------

“Master Aelryinth, you seem… angry?” Kord Blackaxe asked me carefully, as I sat back against a new stone wall.

I had not been impressed with what they called a town hall, so I had pulled it apart, stacked all the wood to the side, and then remade a town hall four times the size, with three levels of basements, a second floor, walls of stone two feet thick with honeycomb insulation and a dirt layer to absorb shelling, indoor plumbing, an internal spring with water flow hooking both to the sewer system and accessible for free water by the people, Eternal Flames heating the place through a floor-based heating system that could be turned off in the summer, Eternal Fans to rotate the air through the place, a better floor plan, an elevator made up of Disks to move heavy loads and people up and down through the place without needing the stairs, clear windows and sun windows, Eternal Lights for illumination…

And I was doing it all while also splitting the logs and putting them back up on the outside in layers of wood while shellacking on some preservatives and paint, leaning back against the wall outside and enjoying the outdoors sun.

Needless to say, I had a bunch of wide-eyed people staring at me as I did all of this, but Good Heavens, I had so much experience making buildings and dwellings now, this was basically relaxing, even after paving most of the town and introducing a basic sewer system.

“The idea of an empire of conquering humans misled by devils portraying themselves as righteous angels offends me on levels you really don’t want to think about, Kord,” I replied evenly, trying to keep the frown off my face and failing.

He sat down on the new stone bench opposite me. “So, that’s what’s going on with Rhonidum?” he asked, considering that.

“The captain of that ship made it very obvious with the appearance of Chattel and her self-righteous racist hypocrisy. You can’t make the stuff without the blood of Styx Devils, and since such Devils can’t be Summoned in any more, that means one was already here to be tapped… and since it is being freshly produced, it means that Devil is still here. No Good person would dare make something like that, but wrapping it up in terms of racism to make it more palatable is just what Hell loves to do. Picking on elves, who tend towards individuality, free wills, and joy in their lives, is also exactly what I’d expect of them.

“Naturally they would not restrict their racism to just other species, but also to any children born of pairings with those peoples. It’s an abomination and affront to everything Heaven stands for. We are meant to care for and bring our Children up, not abandon them and persecute them.”

There was a flicker in his eyes at that. “Well, sir, that’s not the normal experience in our lives, here…”

“Indeed, but I think we can change that.” I eyed him speculatively, then the others waiting nearby, listening and waiting for something to do. “How many other Children do you know of, who want to make a better life for themselves? I’m thinking I need to scale up my efforts here in the North, and for that, we’re going to need more recruits. If I can better your lives while doing it, all the better.” I raised my head to the rest of them, letting them know my gaze was on them. “The more Children you can recruit, the better.”

“What do you intend to do, sir?” Hano asked respectively, the towering ogryn curious now.

“I am going to make war on the Yellow in a way that has never been done before. In doing so, I’m going to raise any of the Children who care to join me to levels of power and skill they’ve never imagined they would attain, and set the foundation for a land and place of their own.

“If that sounds like something they and you would like to fight for, then send out the word, and bring them to join you.”

They all looked at one another, dhatun and ogryn, halvyr and urukhar, the halvyr minstrel present looking particularly interested. “Where will we be fighting at, sir?” Kord asked reasonably.

“We’ll start with where we met, and as our numbers grow and we beat back the Yellow, it will expand.”

“Will you be able to support everyone?” Kon Blackaxe asked directly, asking the pragmatic question.

“I can easily support a hundred people, but I won’t need to. I’ll get the dwarves to sponsor you all.”

That widened a few eyes. “You make it sound so easy,” Kon almost scoffed, but not quite. “The dwarves are famously insular and isolationist, and suspicious of outsiders who come looking for their gold, and that includes the dhatun.”

“Perhaps excluding father?” Kord snorted right back at him.

Kon looked away evasively. “You know father is an odd one among his people, Kord,” he said, but did not deny it.

“I’ve already spoken with dwarves of Ironaxe, and hopefully made a positive impression. I can carry it forward,” I stated confidently, dismissing their concerns. “The dwarves know work, and they know war. This is a fight they’ve been aching to pursue for generations, and I’m going to give them the tools to do this. They’ll be the anvil, and you all will be the hammer.”

“And what will you be, sir?” Shirrazor asked daringly from next to Pounder.

“The smith.”

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It wasn’t hard to find the main fortress-delve of the Ironaxe clan, considering it was dominated by a statue of its founding King Under the Mountain about four hundred feet tall, quite visible for miles. I only needed a rough direction of what mountain to look for.

I left Hriegard with a few additional buildings: a vastly improved fish market for the fishermen to bring their catches into, a couple warehouses with greatly improved capacity; and a granary that could both store a lot of grain and sift it among different levels of quality, too, removing chaff and scree and dirt and all that fun stuff to leave a much higher quality of seed behind.

The fountain in town and the one coming off the town hall gave everyone basically a free and clean water supply, which was important enough. I spent a bunch of Valences, but since I didn’t have anything better to do with them, that was totally fine. Combined with the paving, sewers, new wall, and leaving the Great Tufan as advisor and protector for the town, Hriegard actually had a decent future ahead of itself.

A clap of thunder and a streak of lightning announced my arrival over the dwarven city, and I dropped from the sky as a glowing light, about as easy for the sentries to see as I could possibly make it. Horns were blowing well before I hit the ground, mist billowing out around me as Arms of the Angels caught me just before hitting the stone slope, I didn’t even pop my Wings.

The fortifications were of a scale enough to impress giants and dragons, and made to fend off either. None of the siege engines were pointed my way, of course, but there were a lot of armored helms craning for a better look at me, equal parts curiosity and dour suspicion coming from them at such an abrupt arrival.

The main doors were closed. No merchant caravans or anything to warrant leaving them open, probably cause a draft if they were. Postern gates would suffice for patrols and the like.

Times like these, Magevoice comes in handy. Range of three miles, heard by anyone you wanted to be heard by… which in this circumstance, could be anyone and everyone.

“Aelryinth of Heaven, Magos, Master Theurge of the Eight Traditions, and Bearer of the Vivic Fire, seeks audience with His Majesty Ferruk of Ironaxe, King Under the Mountain!” I politely announced myself… to every living soul within three miles.

Nope, they wouldn’t be needing to send any runners to ask permission of the King.

And I stood there, leaning on Mortus Dius, while doubtless a whole lot of dwarves were looking at the king whose day I had just really interrupted, and were hustling around to respond to my arrival.

I had just demonstrated a lot of subtle power, and of course I had given them the vivic fire to spread among all dwarves to battle the Yellow.

Now I intended to take things up a notch, and the dwarves were going to be how I did it.

It took about ten minutes, and there was a grinding of great gears moving, bars being removed from colossal portals weighing probably a thousand tons. Yet when they started to move, it was in total silence and grace, pushed forward by one hand from one of the dwarves each, a flexing of engineering skill and know-how that had me smiling in complete appreciation for what they had done here.

An honor guard of dwarven soldiers was already drawn up within, down the length of the great hall there, and what looked like a group of four dwarven clerics from four different branches of the faith.

Two of them hard White, one White and Blue, one White-washed Green.

Without a god to lean on, Silver was a hard thing to come by, it seemed. White would die, Blue could be a stick-in-the-mud.

But it was a completely appropriate greeting party for a Master Theurge who claimed to be a servant of Heaven.

I waited until the doors stopped moving and the openers had taken up positions before starting to move.

I didn’t walk above the ground, like normally. They would likely take that as an insult and belittlement, as well as arrogance.

Around my feet, the wear of boots and travail and weathering for at least four hundred years swirled and went away.

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