When Heroes Die

“A land in chaos is one rife with opportunity, a land in order is one absent of it. Those who seek to accrue wealth should never shy away from sowing discord, for opportunity is where profits are made.”

– Extract from “Bought and Sold”, a collection of the teachings of the Merchant Prince Irenos, founder of Mercantis

Wekesa looked down at the instruments on his work bench and considered the readings from them. With a deft hand, he jotted them down in a leather-bound journal. In most cases he would use magic for record keeping, but these tools were so sensitive that even the faintest of sorceries would interfere with the results.

“Masego, have you confirmed the measurements on the outer boundaries?” he called out, turning away from his desk to the boy.

Across from him, at a table to his left, stood a dark skinned pudgy Soninke boy, not even twelve years old. His long hair, normally divided into half a dozen braids, was instead carefully tied back. Some of it had become caught in one of the instruments earlier, skewing their results.

“Yes, father,” the boy’s eyes lit up. “There has been a shift in the boundaries of Creation. Whilst I have been unable to determine the exact cause of the phenomenon, I have narrowed down the source to somewhere within the Chain of Hunger.”

Which matched up with his own findings as well. The specifics had yet to be determined. It would likely take months of careful experimentation to reach any conclusive results. Regardless, it was confirmed that only a week past, something within the Chain of Hunger had mutated parts of the underlying nature of Creation.

He was yet to determine exactly what had changed. Were he at the source of the phenomenon, it would have been easier to perform more detailed analysis. It was unfortunate that an excursion into the Chain of Hunger could not fit into his itinerary. The echoes from the event would have faded by the time he would have arrived. There would be no detectable residue left to examine.

It made the process more complicated and added additional steps that there otherwise wouldn’t be. In this case, that would merely delay the inevitable, not prevent it. Sooner or later, he would discover exactly what had evolved.

“Initial readings suggest a shift in the Fae Courts. Either a change in the existing Courts, or the formation of a new one. The focus of the experiments should be adjusted to account for this. Father, we could be seeing the birth of a new Court,” Masego continued, sounding excited.

Carefully resetting the instruments on his table, Wekesa began the process of scraping the now tainted ground devil off of the disk in front of him. Then, he reached for a vial on the desk, carefully removed the stopper and sprinkled a few fresh grains onto the device.

He was measuring how exposure to different kinds of magical phenomenon influenced devil residue. While the core nature of a devil did not change, with age, their expression of that nature would become more nuanced. With experimentation done in the past, he had developed methods for directed changes among the more simplistic types of devils. The research had yet to yield results among more complicated specimens, but that was not what interested him presently.

What drew his attention was the results of the original experiments. He had compiled comprehensive notes on them, proving the basis for his work without a doubt. The measurements he had taken had left no room for error, and now they were being thrown entirely off.

Whatever had occurred in the Chain of Hunger, the possibility existed that it had rewritten parts of the fabric of Calernia.

Wekesa stroked his beard in thought. Best to repeat the experiment once more, before moving on to the next set of tests. He needed to be certain the results could be replicated, else they were not valid at all.

“We will have to wait for further results before we can make any claims one way or another. Adjusting the parameters so early on creates room for errors to slip in,” Wekesa admonished.

“Of course,” Masego reponded absently.

While a new Fae Court was the most likely explanation, it was not the only one, and narrowing their focus in before they had a better idea would only contaminate the results. The possibilities ranged from the most likely — a change in the Courts — to the least likely — a change in the Creational Laws. Wekesa did not want to waste months performing experiments based on a faulty set of assumptions on his part.

It was best that he remained rigorous.

Ever since that ripple in Creation from Bayeux, oddities had been popping up. The city that later became known as Constance’s Scar had been the first of many irregularities. It made for fascinating research. Disregarding the fact that it had arguably set back his efforts to map the boundaries of creation by years, it still left him in an amicable mood. It was an academic enigma that had done much to refine his understanding of magic, even as it overturned thousands of years of research.

Before he had encountered the outsider, he would not have considered it possible for a being of pure essence to earn a Name. The specimen had been new to its Role, clearly unused to having a Name, but that was irrelevant. Irrespective of its experience, its mere existence had startling implications. Was it then possible for Devils and the Fae to also achieve the same?

Wekesa found the notion that the name was heroic to be extraordinarily amusing.

The specimen’s essence was corruptive to the fabric of Creation. It shared this similarity with demons. Unlike demons, the corruption seemed superfluous. It could be compared to a layer of oil atop water. The water below was not disturbed, even if the light which passed through came out the other side different to how it had entered.

It was not one of the traditional twenty-three kinds of demons, instead it seemed to be something entirely different. The possibility existed that it was an undiscovered type, but Wekesa considered that to be unlikely.

There was too much evidence hinting at something else.

His research suggested it was an intelligent creature, possibly a person, who came from outside the outer spheres.

The implications were staggering.

It opened the possibility that there were inhabitable places beyond the Gods' remit.

That was not to say that this creature came from such a place. It might very well just be from another Creation made by the Gods. A creation that obeyed a different set of axioms. Even that had the potential for so many new discoveries. If there was another Creation, and it could be reached, it presented opportunities for performing a comparative analysis between two different sets of Creational boundaries. With a larger set of examples to work with, it might be possible for him to engineer something similar of his own.

The idea had made Wekesa more eager to continue his research than ever before.

Surely there was no better time to live as the Warlock. A lack of knowledge was always the greatest limitation, and new frontiers had opened for exploration.

Idly, he wondered what kinds of rules such a place might follow. Maybe devils were fixed in number and angels were variable. Would villains win more often than heroes there? No, it was better for him not to make any assumptions until more had been established.

Containing the entity had not been difficult. It lacked the necessary experience to fight him, although it learned fast.

It was a pity that the specimen had managed to escape. Were his containment not interrupted by the Rogue Sorcerer, the experimental data that could be obtained from it might give birth to an entire new dedicated school of magic. To his annoyance, not only had the Rogue Sorcerer managed to flee, he had stolen some of Wekesa’s magic during his escape.

The chime of the doorbell pulled him out of his musings.

“Masego, go see who it is,” he called out.

Hopefully it wasn’t another priest. They did not show up at his residence often, but some never learned any better. Wekesa thought that after the fifth one he turned into a chamber pot, they would have received the message. Unfortunately, it appeared that the clergy were more academically challenged than even he had expected them to be.

“Yes, father,” Masego replied.

Masego left the room, while Wekesa continued to go through with the experiment. Moments later and Masego returned.

“So, who was it?” he asked.

“A messenger from the Legions,” Masego answered, making his way to his desk.

Wekesa turned around, facing the boy.

“Well, why didn’t you let them in?”

Masego continued digging through vials on his desk and answered without turning around.

“Was I supposed to? You only told me to go look.”

“Yes, you were supposed to let them in.” Wekesa tried not to sigh.

The boy was brilliant at magic, but was sadly blind when it came to anything else.

Disappearing again, his son returned not long after with a pale faced messenger in tow. After the traditional legion salute, she passed him a written message and left.

The Eyes had found another hero that had shown up in Callow. Ever since the Rogue Sorcerer had escaped, they had tightened their security. They could not afford a repeat of that kind of fiasco. The man had run into the Waning Woods and hadn’t been seen since. It was likely that he had been slain by the Fae, but you couldn’t count out heroes until you had seen the corpse.

Black would have taken more time to prepare for this encounter were it not for the risk of another city being put to the torch. Three dozen legion soldiers had attempted to pepper her with bolts in the first encounter. Their efforts had yielded no results.

Two bolts from the rooftops hammered at the location of his foe from either side. The girl shrieked, blasted out a cone of flame at one of them, then reappeared inside the blaze. Another failed shot, but it didn't matter. Black was a full street over. He remained shrouded in shadows as the fight progressed.

“I can burn the shadow man,” the eerie voice of his opponent crooned. It could be heard calling out from every fire that she had set. “The night is dark and cold, but flames bring light to darkness.”

The girl’s speech had never been coherent while they fought, although that was allegedly not always true. Witnesses claimed that her words had been comprehensible when she first spoke outside the Laure House for Tragically Orphaned Girls. That is — before she had torched it.

The girl had pleaded and asked after her lost friend. Her cries had continued even as she began to set parts of Laure ablaze.

“Such a disappointment,” the corpse taunted.

She shrieked, then seized it in her hands. Notes that had been compiled on his opponent mentioned that she was destabilized by banter. It was a weakness to exploit while he strung her along. Fire began to spread. The other corpse reloaded its crossbow and tried to pin her down. She teleported once again.

“Not true: you, who made me into the monster that I am. Not so: creature of darkness. Your cage shall clip my wings no longer. I refuse the shackles you bring.”

The corpse she grasped followed with her as she travelled. It pulled up a knife from its hip and tried to bury it in her gut. The knife melted to slag before it struck. An explosion of sparks marked her departure, and another marked her arrival somewhere else. Another fan of flames extended upwards. She teleported beside Black’s other corpse.

“It's a shame that this fire has burned out,” the corpse she appeared beside replied.

“Burn,” she shrieked.

His control over the corpses vanished as the girl set them ablaze. The unnatural sticky green fire from her aspect consumed it in moments. It was not the first time she had used this Aspect. Black did not know how often she could wield it. The girl failed to realize that the more she used it, the less weight that it had.

The Eyes did not have much time to compile information on her after her first appearance. She was an orphan by the name of Lydia who had an obsessive relationship with one of the other girls staying at the orphanage. A few days after the other girl had disappeared, Lydia’s rampage had begun.

Black pulled back further, careful not to draw any attention to himself as he made his way to the Lake. They had left the populated parts of the city some time ago and now moved about in parts of it that had been abandoned during the rebellion a year past. He sent out a tendril of shadow, detonating a brightstick in one of the alleys near the girl. She teleported towards it once again.

That Aspect was by far the most dangerous one she possessed. An Aspect like it always came with a downside, and this one appeared to cause her mental faculties to deteriorate fast. The girl had come into it before their clash had even begun. Black had not yet had time to unearth her Name. Were she blessed by the Heavens, Black would assume that they were stacking the fight before the fight ever happened.

Evidence pointed towards the opposite. She belonged to Below. Her unstable nature and violent predisposition towards the Empire made any ending except her death unacceptable.

A third corpse on the rooftop watched as she appeared beside his distraction, then attempted to nail her through the heart. The girl pivoted at the last moment, causing the projectile to miss. She disappeared again only a moment later.

Amadeus was faintly amused at the notion of anyone trying to kill him with fire and brimstone, when he was known to be friends with the Warlock. The amusement was tinged with irritation. Another volley of fiery projectiles peppered the wall beside one of the bodies he was animating as it ducked behind an old mill house, leaving a trail of scorch marks in their wake. The initial confrontation with the legions had come as a surprise out of nowhere and had given him the impression they were facing a sorcerer of some kind. The fights that had followed had given lie to that. She might have been a newly fledged wizard, but her sorceries were limited to flames alone. An arsonist and nothing more. The green-eyed man had tactics for those.

He pulled the animated corpse back further, sending out another tendril of shadow around the corner and baiting another strike near an old well. There was an explosion of flames as his foe scoured Black’s distraction. Amadeus waited. He predicted that there would be another detonation. Lydia failed to surprise him. She appeared beside the well only a few heartbeats later.

A twelve-year-old girl with badly cut brown hair, shredded clothing, and bruises trailing all over her. She was wreathed in flames from head to foot.

Black sent out another tendril of shadow. She followed, drawing her closer to the Silver Lake.

The corpse had finished repositioning and crouched atop a rickety wooden pier. It fired its crossbow. She vanished once more before the bolt struck. She reappeared beside it. Predictable. Her poor strategy was in the vein of an older breed of villains, and even then was a disservice to Below. She would have perished during her first engagement if it weren’t for the Aspect she used to reposition.

“Burn.”

“Shut up,” the corpse replied.

The corpse detonated. Black had only prepared a few corpses with explosives for this fight. If the tactic was used too often, then she would come to expect it. She staggered, then fell into the lake below as the pier collapsed. He took a moment to aim at the figure flailing in the boiling water, then released the first bolt of his own. It took her between the eyes. Two more bolts, and the flailing came to a stop.

The situation was troubling despite the ease with which she had been dispatched. She had been the fifth anomalous Named to have arisen within the past three weeks alone. Both Sabah and Wekesa were busy extinguishing fires in other parts of the Empire. Amadeus sourly acknowledged that more conflict was soon to come.

Discord was spreading throughout the heart of the Empire at a rate far exceeding the threshold allowed by any of his contingencies. The grain of sand in the cogs of the machine had grown into a boulder.

Amadeus knew who was to blame.

Merchant Lord Mauricius sat on the balcony in Sub Rosa and looked out over the Irenian Plaza as he mused over the letter on the table beside him. This was the third such missive he had received. The first had related to some of his holdings on the southern coast of the City of Bought and Sold. A disgruntled savage had seen fit to darken Mauritius’s door with his presence, claiming ownership of one of his ships.

The man was quickly disabused of that notion and convinced to leave before Mauricius chose to seek redress for his impertinence. Ever since he had sold his first wife’s lover and the entire man’s family into slavery in Stygia, his rivals had spoken in hushed whispers when he stalked the halls of the Forty-Stole Court. It remained the only black mark on his name, but it was enough to warn his rivals that his lines were not to be crossed.

The second piece of correspondence suggested that someone had managed to convince Merchant Lord Fabianus they could sell him the Guild Exchange. To both Mauritius’s surprise and dismay, the man had paid the full price the trickster had listed. It was less than a day later that the fool had discovered it was a scam. When searched for, the trickster could not be found. It interfered with many of Mauricius’s existing schemes.

Mauricius gestured towards the waiting attendant hidden behind the sculpted marble arch, signalling his desire for chilled wine. The day was sweltering, despite the turn of the season.

Mauricius had intended to treat campaigning for the office of Merchant Prince as an opportunity to line his pockets. He would have run in opposition to Merchant Lord Fabianus, buying the votes of the streets and the lesser courts. Once the threat he posed to the other candidates was established, he would then accept bribes from Fabianus in excess of the amount he had spent.

Fabianus’s finances had collapsed in the wake of his poor decision-making, leaving the Forty-Stole Court in a state of disarray. It was of no consequence, Mauricius had extended the same offer to the next mostly likely candidate. It was not as if he was short of opportunities, all he sought to do was swell his own hoard. Now it had come to his attention that his secondary candidate had fallen for the same scam as Fabianus.

A clever con artist had been travelling the streets of Mercantis, auctioning off properties they did not own to people with fewer wits than coins.

The attendant arrived with haste, placing a chilled Baalite red on the table beside him. Mauricius did not deign to drink it just yet. Instead, he pondered the other troubles to hound the streets of Mercantis.

Dread Empress Malicia’s schemes had been a delight to watch. She funnelled coin through the Pravus bank, and the Principate tore itself apart. Taking advantage of the chaos she sowed did much to fatten his own purse as well. Mercenaries in the Free Cities required arms to wage war in Procer. Arms that Mauricius sold. Seeing a similar scheme unleashed on the streets of his own city had at first been equally amusing, but quickly given rise to concern.

Merchant Lord Mauricius did not know who it truly was that sought to play games within the confines of Mercantis. The newly arisen Ravel Bank had already sown chaos among the Lesser Courts, but who stood behind them remained a mystery. Their rates undercut any existing opposition to the point where it could not be anything except a ploy to undermine the City of Bought and Sold.

Many knew this and chose to partake regardless. They argued that of the few who would have sufficient wealth to see the scheme through to its end, none would make the attempt. Mauricius was less certain. He was not one to turn away from gold, however, and so he would treat the chaos this Ravel Bank created as an opportunity to fatten his own purse.

And should a guiding hand prove to be necessary, there was nothing preventing Merchant Lord Mauricius from stepping into the role of Merchant Prince that he so judiciously avoided.

Discord presented an opportunity for profits, provided it stayed out of his own household.