The Soul Engine Ch. 42 (Original Fantasy) (Patreon)

A/N: The results are in...

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Timothal Dawnguard’s ominous words hang in the air like the headsman’s axe over all their necks. Mikael wonders if even after everything, it’s still going to turn out to be a fight. But… no. Instead, the Order of the Rose’s Grandmaster surprises all of them once more… by actually cracking a smile as he gives them all a respectful nod.

“It would seem my daughter has found good, albeit unconventional allies.”

Well shit. Mikael hadn’t even known that Thayla’s father was capable of smiling. Sure, there’d been that bark of laughter earlier, but that had been more an exhalation of air than an expression of mirth in Mikael’s eyes. Now though, as Timothal lifts his head, the man looks surprisingly warm… for all of a moment before his expression turns dour and grim.

“Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends I’m afraid.”

The tension in the room, which had just been beginning to die down, ratchets up again on the spot. Thayla is quick to interject, gasping as she steps forward with wide eyes.

“Surely you can’t still mean to hand them over to Foss Sangrey, Father!”

It would make some small amount of sense if he did. It would be… politically advantageous, probably. Or so Mikael assumed, he wasn’t really a politician. And yet, the Knight-Superior shakes his head at his daughter’s pleading.

“No, of course not. I can say with near certainty that you are all innocent of the crimes that Foss Sangrey accuses you of. And once the rest of the Order is told that you have willingly subjected yourselves to the Truth Above All, I know they will believe it as well. However… that is one thing. And it is not why you all came here to the Citadel, is it?”

Mikael and the others exchange looks at that. Or rather, Mikael finds himself exchanging looks with Avina and Thayla. Bula looks rather bored with the whole situation, her head turned off to the side, staring blankly at a wall. She’s clearly not paying much attention at this point. Which is… more than fair to be honest. The half-orc wants to fight more than anything. Mikael supposes he should just be grateful that she was even willing to put herself through the Truth Above All.

But then, if she’d faced what he’d faced… he could just imagine how that had gone for Bula. More than likely, the somewhat simplistic warrior woman had come out the other side of the magic mirror even more sure that all she wanted to do was find a good fight. And now here they were, chatting again.

In the face of their silence, Timothal just nods, reaching up to stroke at his well-groomed silver beard for a moment before sighing.

“As I suspected. You lot didn’t even know of the Supreme King’s letter before arriving at the Citadel. So while it might look like you all came here to absolve yourselves of your crimes in Ocreatha, at least in the eyes of our Order… that’s clearly not the case, now is it? No, you all came here… looking for allies.”

Mikael has a sinking feeling in his gut and meeting Avina’s eyes only makes it grow worse. She doesn’t look like she’s any more excited to have this conversation than he is. Especially not when the Knight-Superior is pretty obviously telegraphing that what they weren’t going to get what they wanted.

Of course, Thayla isn’t so easily dissuaded.

“Father, it is true… I brought the Princess and the Hero here because they need your help. Avina in particular needs our help to avenge her family and retake her country. Foss Sangrey was the one who had the King and Queen and all their children murdered all those years ago!”

Looking to Avina, Timothal lets out another sigh.

“I am sorry for your loss, Princess. As belated as my condolences might be. Unfortunately, while I know you have come here to secure support from our Order and Zuveria as a whole to regain your throne… you cannot expect much I’m afraid. Relations between Ocreatha and Zuveria have been… strained since the deaths of your parents, but only because of the perceived corruption of your Council of Lords spilling over our borders into the Empire.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, the Knight-Superior doesn’t look happy. Rather, he looks resigned.

“I won’t lie. There have been murmurings in Zuveria about Ocreatha becoming too much of a hassle. People would talk about how little sense it made allowing Ocreatha to maintain it’s independence when the Kingdom didn’t even have a Royal Family anymore. Regent-Lord Sangrey has cultivated a very specific sort of reputation both in Ocreatha and Zuveria. One of a man who was doing all he could to keep things under control and to keep the squabbling of the children that make up the Lord’s Council to a minimum.”

Avina’s eyes flash at that, but then she speaks up and her words cause a hush to fall over the room.

“I don’t need to rule Ocreatha once the deed is done, Knight-Superior Dawnguard. So long as Foss Sangrey is defeated and dead… I would gladly give up the Kingdom to the Zuverian Empire… if that’s what it takes.”

Timothal’s eyes widen in surprise at Avina’s convictions. Meanwhile, Mikael isn’t all that shocked. Avina didn’t want to rule, she wanted revenge. Though he wasn’t sure she could necessarily have one without the other…

“… That is certainly a powerful statement, Princess.”

Avina shrugs, looking to the side.

“Admittedly, I don’t know as much about the Zuverian Empire as I should. But clearly if someone like you isn’t willing to condemn someone like me to death… then it seems that Zuveria is already better than Ocreatha, at least in that way. And… I haven’t been a Princess for a long, long time. I’m not sure I’d make a very good Queen anyways, so why not let Zuveria step in instead?”

Raising an eyebrow, Thayla’s father chuckles at Avina’s words. It seems he’s at least somewhat loosened up around them, Mikael notes.

“It seems you’ve given this more thought then I credited you for, my apologies. That said, you misunderstand me. Those within the Empire murmuring for us to intercede in Ocreatha’s affairs did so because they thought the Council of Lords was a problem too large to be ignored and ultimately too big for the Regent-Lord to handle. Those same individuals are no doubt overjoyed that Foss Sangrey has taken over Ocreatha as Supreme King now. Even I was initially relieved when I heard the news… though I obviously have cause to doubt his good character now.”

That last bit, said in an incredibly dry tone, has to be the understatement of the century. But Timothal doesn’t even know how much of an understatement it really is. Clearing his throat, Mikael steps forward.

“You should know, Knight-Superior, that I was not the only Summoned Hero brought to this world by Zadicus Quinn. I was merely the last.”

Thayla’s father frowns at that, but slowly nods.

“I suspected as much, given just how long ago we started hearing rumors of the Hero Summoning Ritual being abused. Still, I imagine you have a point you’re trying to make, Sir Hero?”

Mikael resists the urge to grimace at the respectful address. So it wasn’t just Thayla, in the end. Apparently ‘Sir Hero’ was a common title for Summoned Heroes. Good to know. But ultimately, at least at the moment, irrelevant.

“Yes. I’m sure someone like you has wondered how Foss Sangrey did it. How he took command of Ocreatha and disbanded the Council of Lords. I assume you’ve heard about his army. But where did that army come from, exactly?”

The Order of the Rose’s Grandmaster doesn’t take long to figure out what Mikael is getting at, his eyes widening in understanding but then narrowing in confusion.

“The Regent-Lord and this Lord Quinn worked together to summon that many heroes? Was the stipulation for their summoning that they all had to help Foss Sangrey become Supreme King? Is that how he bound their loyalty to him? But no, if that were the case they would already have begun disappearing…”

“Father.”

Thayla’s voice sounds rather distraught as she cuts in from the side, her expression ashen. Timothal looks over at his daughter… and then fresh realization hits him and he looks to Avina.

“Your father was a True Necromancer like you, wasn’t he?”

Avina wordlessly nods.

“… But Foss Sangrey is not. He’s a trained necromancer.”

“Yes.”

Now, Timothal Dawnguard looks just as ashen as his daughter.

“His entire army?”

Avina nods sharply.

“Undead Summoned Heroes. Every last one, as far as we could tell.”

It’s a little scary, seeing a man as tough and intense as Thayla’s father had been so far suddenly look weak and weary. In fact, the Knight-Superior has to make his way over to the nearest chair, sitting down heavily as he processes their words. Still, when Mikael thinks back to watching from the balcony as Foss Sangrey’s army marched on Alether with eerie precision and unnatural speed, knowing what he knows now about all those gleaming, armored soldiers… yeah, he fully understands why Timothal might be a little taken aback.

Maybe they were getting somewhere now. Maybe they just needed to push a little harder and the Knight-Superior would be willing to help them out after all. Making eye contact with Avina, he jerks his head in Timothal’s direction. It feels like it has to be here. After all, she’s the one who knows the most about all this stuff.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Avina nods slightly and continues on in a grave tone.

“Thousands and thousands of them, all outfitted with what looked to be enchanted armor and weapons. An army that managed to march from who knows where to Alether just five days after Zadicus Quinn died. An army that doesn’t need to eat or sleep. That doesn’t produce waste and doesn’t need supplies.”

Letting out another sigh, Thayla’s father sweeps his gaze across all of them again.

“… I understand. Truly I do. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.”

Thayla squawks at that.

“How can it not be simple, father?! Foss Sangrey has raised an undead army! An undead army made out of innocent men and women from other worlds, kidnapped and brought to Vaclatora to fight and die in Zadicus Quinn’s barbaric arenas! This is as simple as it gets. Was the Order of the Rose not made to fight against these very sorts of crimes?! Were you not fully ready to prosecute and punish my allies for the exact same things if they had proven to be guilty of what Foss Sangrey accused them of?!”

Her father weathers Thayla’s rant in silence until the female knight has finally gotten it all out of her system. But to Mikael’s consternation, Timothal doesn’t look any more swayed than before.

“I believe you, Thayla. I believe all of you in fact. But there’s another very good reason that the murmurings in the Empire about taking matters into our own hands and ending the corruption in Ocreatha were only ever just murmurings. Put simply… the Zuverian Empire does not have the forces to fight a war on two fronts. And you well know that we are at war with the Savage Lands, Thayla. Perhaps others might call them simple border skirmishes, but with more than three quarters of Zuveria’s entire military tied up in protecting the border from the orc tribes, it very much is a war.”

Timothal gets a far off look in his eyes.

“… It’s a war that’s been going on since before you were born Thayla. Since before I was born too. And it’s a war that will likely continue on long after we are both dead and buried. Ocreatha might only be half Zuveria’s size, but so long as the Empire is stuck with the orcs on one side, relations with the Kingdom of Ocreatha have to remain as stable as possible.”

Thayla looks betrayed. Like she can hardly believe the words out of her father’s mouth. Mikael sort of gets where she’s coming from. It’s hard to see someone you think can do anything say they can’t do something, isn’t it? At the same time, he also sort of sees where Timothal is coming from too. Even if it feels ridiculously short-sighted.

“You know that Foss Sangrey won’t stop with Ocreatha, right?”

Mikael’s tense words cause Timothal to look at him with a frown.

“Men like him… they don’t ever stop. He’s even calling himself the ‘Supreme King’ now. With an army like that at his back, it’s only a matter of time before he attacks Zuveria. I understand that the Empire has a lot of its military tied up on its other border. I get how dangerous orcs are… I’ve fought a half-orc a number of times now.”

He tosses a smile and nod in Bula’s direction at that, which the half-orc returns rather distractedly.

“… But that doesn’t change the facts. Rather, it only makes it more obvious what Foss is going to do. He’s going to invade Zuveria. It’s only a matter of time. Even if he doesn’t want to conquer the Empire, though I guarantee you he does… he needs Avina. He wants Avina because with Avina, he can make more soldiers like me. He can make himself like me too. And then you aren’t just dealing with a self-proclaimed Supreme King Necromancer and an army of undead heroes on your border… you’re dealing with one that’s immortal and has all the time he could possibly want with which to conquer the world.”

For a long moment, Timothal is silent, his brow furrowed in consternation as he thinks over Mikael’s words.

“… You might be right. But we still can’t attack Ocreatha unprovoked, no matter how much I personally might want to. Even if I were to recall the entire Order of the Rose to the Citadel to begin making preparations for battle against Ocreatha, it wouldn’t be enough. And the Emperor would have my hide. Conversing with him, convincing him of the danger Foss Sangrey represents… that will take time.”

That was better than a flat ‘no’, Mikael felt. Still…

“That makes sense… but we might not HAVE time, you know. Whatever Foss is planning, he’s going to be going after Avina hard and fast. She’s the key.”

Timothal nods and suddenly that presence from before is back. Knight-Superior Dawnguard is suddenly before them again and as he rises from his seat, he straightens to his full height.

“Yes, of that I have no doubt. Do not fret. If there is one thing that I can offer immediately and without reservation, it is sanctuary. While I send a message to the Emperor apprising him of the situation, all of you will remain safe here in the Citadel. It’s the least I can do for you, all things considered… and I hope in time, there’s more that can be done as well.”

Mikael hopes so too. Because as much as the situation in Zuveria might not allow for them to immediately mobilize for war with Ocreatha… he just doesn’t see a world where someone like Foss Sangrey decides to let bygones be bygones. Either the self-titled Supreme King is going to send some sort of force after Avina specifically, or he’s just going to invade Zuveria wholesale.

Still, he and his allies have done what they can for now. It seems in the end all they can really do from this point is sit and wait to see what happens next.

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A/N: Well they have sanctuary for now. And a promise that Thayla's father will at least bring this to the attention of Zuveria's Emperor too!

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