Heirs to the Final Empire: Roleplaying Thread

Wyrmhero · November 14, 2015

The Turn is over!

...And the Skaa Rebellion takes its effect. Rather than PMing everyone individually (because that will be a real pain), I'm going to PM the people who don't have anything to worry about. There will be one attack on a Property per player.

Everyone aside from those I contact needs to tell me how they're going to respond to this attack. The Skaa Rebellion's forces are Weak compared to the average MP, this Turn. Any guards sent in this way won't be available next Turn!

If you do not respond, I will assume you attempt to send enough guards to protect it, but not enough to mount a counter-attack or have overwhelming forces.

Mailliw73 · November 14, 2015

Can you clarify what you mean? We need to say that we are sending _ MP to deal with the attack or what?

Creccio · November 15, 2015

Can you clarify what you mean? We need to say that we are sending _ MP to deal with the attack or what?

I would like to know about this aswell.. we are sending x MP to deal with the rebellion or how does that work?

Also what does weak mean? If we send MP, do we ever get it back?

Edited November 15, 2015 by Creccio

Wyrmhero · November 15, 2015

Yes, that you are sending X to defend your stuff. That MP will not be available during the next Turn.

The army is 'Weak' compared to the average MP that you guys have. You do not need to send that large an army to just defend yourself. You will get back the MP you put into this, though there may very well be casualties.

Wyrmhero · November 15, 2015

Generation 5: Turn 2

Olim looked around the room, mentally taking stock and going over the lists in his head. Everything had to be perfect for today. It was do or die – hopefully not literally, but quite possibly so. All it would really take was someone running to their master, and everything would be ruined. But then, what skaa would tell the nobility that abused them of what they were planning? What noble would listen, for that matter?

There were stories, of course. House Penrod was said to be accepting of all skaa, even those who were former rebels. Olim wasn't sure whether it was true or not, but what did it matter when everyone else was quite happy to treat them as though they were worth less than even the ground they stood on? The nobility took care of their land, developing or cultivating it, making it grow into whatever they desired or needed. The skaa, on the other hand, were a necessary evil, slaves designed only to do the actual work that the nobility would never want to do.

And then there were the others, Lesser Houses that Melit and his friend Bose had bullied and cajoled and threatened into helping them. Those, Olim at least knew where they stood with. A grudging, forced help, accepted only by both sides because the Houses had no choice. There were few sympathisers there, though there were some who actually seemed to want to change things when one moved away from Luthadel. Further away from the fear of The Lord Ruler and his pet Inquisitors.

Finally, his tally was complete, and he nodded, satisfied. Enough seats for the amount they had 'expected' (in truth, they had invited twice that number, the image of an overstuffed room being sold to their followers as evidence of their righteousness), and food for more besides. The nobles starved them, so the rebellion would retaliate with food. People might not be keen on following an idea such as this all the way, but he had little doubt that following their stomachs would be a different matter entirely.

They came in dribs and drabs, vagrants and strays searching for a better life. Austrex was a haven for people who wanted to slip through the gaps, who wanted to disappear. Crime was rife here, and the influence of Luthadel was hardly felt. What better place to make two hundred skaa vanish, straight into the ranks of the local skaa rebellion?

They did not speak to each other, they only looked down at the floor. Perhaps hoping that they weren't really here, that this was not them plotting against the Empire. They were in for a rude awakening when they went through training, that was for sure. And now they were here, they couldn't leave. A few cut-throats had been employed to make sure that, one way or another, no-one at this meeting continued to live within Austrex.

Melit stepped up onto the stage that they had erected, and two hundred sets of eyes followed him. He wore a short-sleeve shirt, not only because it was hot within the room, so many bodies pressed close to each other, but because of his scars. He was proud to display them, a declaration that he would not cower, and that this was what the world had done to him. He was a fearsome sight, so large and strong and scarred, but Olim knew that the man should not be judged on sight alone. He was pragmatic, but underneath that lay an optimist. He was, for lack of a better word, kind, when he was able to be.

Of course, none of that dispelled the memory Olim had of him, with no fancy tricks or magic, taking down a thug in unarmed combat. Melit was a leader who led from the front, not by shaping speeches, or through intimidation, but with the respect of his men, and with the passion of his vision to guide them all. A free world, preferably without the nobility. Where Allomancy belonged either to all or to none, and the skaa could live without the shadow of The Final Empire looming over them.

Melit began to speak, and Olim found himself mentally repeating the words. It was a speech he had heard many times, with little deviation from the theme, but he could not doubt its effectiveness on the assembly. He surreptitiously took a swig from his hip-flask. The whiskey inside burnt his throat, but it was a welcome pain compared to the taste of zinc that it overpowered. He listened to the story, waiting for his cues. Everyone was tested for Allomancy within the skaa rebellion. Their numbers were few, but enough for their purposes at present.

Melit had once been a foundry-worker and a smith in House Wair, pounding hot iron all day to make weapons for their soldiers, and the armour to keep them safe. Items that would have made rebellion all but impossible for any disorganised rabble of skaa. It was while working here that he received his scars, a punishment from an Obligator for working too slowly on a batch of spearheads. The man had tied his hands to an anvil, taken the spearheads out from the mould with a pair of tongs, still red-hot, and pressed them to his arms.

He had resigned himself to this life, and to the early grave he would undoubtedly meet, when everything suddenly changed. After a particularly rough beating, his friend and right-hand man Bose had manifested Allomancy. He was, it was declared to the crowd, a Coinshot. Together they hatched a plan and sold a dream to the other foundry workers, a dream of freedom and a future with no back-breaking labour. Then, when the moment was right, Bose used his powers to disarm their guards, their swords flying into the hands of the other skaa. Then, when all was done, they stripped the guards of their armour, fixed it as best they could in a hurry, and fled into the night.

The room was quiet now, and Olim knew that was not what was needed. He tugged on heartstrings, practised now at working with the lightest touch, piling sorrow and rage on top of each other. Eventually, someone spoke up. An old man, far too old to fight, who spoke of his granddaughter, taken from them to be a noble's plaything for a few days. Then, as always, she was cast aside and slaughtered for fear that she might become pregnant.

Melit welcomed the man, of course, despite his infirmity. He would be taught to cook, he said, and to care for weapons and to treat the wounds of their valiant soldiers. Together, they would avenge his granddaughter and all the others like her.

Then, another rose to his feet. Melit listened to the man's story with practised concern, though he had heard many like it before. Afterwards, he declared that the man would be accepted into the rebellion with welcome arms, and taught to wield a sword and to shoot. A woman followed him, and to the surprise of many, he said the same to her. Women have far more reason to fight for freedom than many of the rest of us do, he said.

And we need all the soldiers we can get, Olim thought to himself. He took another sip from his flask, and continued. It was going to be a long night.

Generation 5 Player List

little wilson - Allera Wilson
Unodus - Victel Uethorn
Adamir - Thay Farrsolin
Venture Mistborn - Anatax Orielle
Orlok - Nestor Tekiel
Aonar Faileas - Kyrien Izenry
Quiver - Samden Queade
wblk - Irim Wair
phattemer - Vulco Erikell
Araris Valerian - Hadrian Penrod
Shallan - Coanti Vinid
Haelbarde - Graeth Heatherlocke
Mailiw73 - Kler Zerrung
Kasimir - Jocasta Heron
Winter Cloud - Dieter Venture
IrulelikeSTINK - Phil Domos
TheMightyLopen - Ophelia Nohr
polkinghorndb - Elijah Lignum
DeathClutch19 - Soren Jormundgand
Creccio - Inor Haze Olimac
Sogaple - Cade Malroux

Generation 5 Turn 2 has begun! It will end on Saturday 21st at 6PM GMT.

Skaa Rep will be decreasing at a steady rate this Generation, by the way.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Wyrmhero

Kasimir · November 15, 2015

Thales Heron #7: Moraine

Accumulations, Thales thought.

You accumulated things through life: debris, possessions, the marks that others left on you… He was, on reflection, as much of a product of House Heron as his older brother. A strange thought to have, years after he was supposed to have put his House behind; years after he had become the adjutant to the aging High Prelan of the Canton of Finance himself, and, it was whispered, tapped to replace the man when he died.

Thales didn’t think much of these rumours. They weren’t part of his job.

He glanced at the battered watch sitting on the wooden dresser. By now, the worn brass casing--a curiosity, at that time, if rather ironic--was slightly dented and its polished face was marred with numerous scratches. When he’d joined the Steel Ministry, he’d done so with little more than the clothes on his back, and this pocket watch in his waistcoat pocket. The Ministry had allowed him to return home to pack his things, before heading off to join the training programme at Vennias.

He’d taken little; scarcely more than writing materials, clothing. He did not take boxings; he did not want to feel more beholden to House Heron. Already, the separation had begun. No keepsakes, either, for the same reason.

He hadn’t realised--until he was in the narrowboat, with the new acolytes--that he hadn’t removed the watch from his pocket. And in truth, it comforted him. So he kept it.

He looked at the letter, unopened, on the writing desk. He’d already read it, already knew what it said. And still, he hesitated. The prelan in Tremredare had passed away. There were discrepancies: reasons to suspect it had been foul play. He had been involved--intimately--with a faction within the Steel Ministry who urged a more aggressive stance towards the Canton of Inquisition.

The High Prelan had been shaking his head wearily. “If there’s Inquisition involvement behind this…” he murmured, and had to cover his mouth, wracked by a coughing fit.

Thales pressed his lips together. “It won’t be pretty,” he said, simply. “You must know it. Valin’s aiming for your job, and he won’t be happy until or unless he gets it.” He named the leader of the small but increasingly vocal separatist faction, who felt that the Cantons had not been adequately standing their ground against the Inquisitors.

The High Prelan sighed. “Valin is a fool,” he said, eventually. “You cannot expect to act against the Inquisition and not expect reprisal. They enjoy the Lord Ruler’s favour, and it is only at his sufferance that we are allowed to police ourselves. If Valin has his way, the Inquisition will control the entire Ministry within three decades.”

And now, Valin was dead.

Thales began to quickly and neatly pack what he needed. He hadn’t spent the past years travelling as much; the higher-ranked a prelan was in the Steel Ministry, the less footwork they had to do. But as the High Prelan’s adjutant, he was just as often his boss’s eyes and ears, just as he was their secretary and right-hand man. The murder of a prelan in Tremredare--particularly one as contentious as Valin had been--required personal attention from the High Prelan, and when he was too weak or ill to travel, that meant that Thales was deputised to travel down to Tremredare, to investigate for himself and to do what needed to be done.

He still remembered how to pack light. He glanced around his room and shook his head. He’d saved most of his stipend, rather than spend it on pointless odds-and-ends from all the places he’d seen. Even so, his room was filled with pointless detritus, and he told himself he’d have to make some time in the near future to clear it up; probably when he returned from dealing with Canton business in Tremredare.

It was, otherwise, a spartan room; obligators were permitted to marry, to have families, but he’d never quite seen the point. Instead, he’d spent most of his life in service to the Final Empire.

You took stock of such things, Thales thought, even if they didn’t make you unhappy. But they did make you oddly thoughtful: about what you would be leaving behind. He’d heard, for instance, that Kyrus was happily married to Fianna Urbain, with a gaggle of daughters.

He didn’t feel wistful. Simply: odd. Removed, in a way. Detached.

It had not been his life. His place was with the Steel Ministry. It had been his choice, and he was content. But strange, to think of it: that he could’ve married into another House, could’ve been a father, a nobleman…

That he mightn’t have seen all the places he had, done the work he had done.

It was shaping up, Thales thought, to be one of those days. The mention of Tremredare had brought back involuntary memories of his childhood, of his former House. The High Prelan had to have known that; he’d instructed Thales to be careful as he investigated Valin’s death.

He knew that he hadn’t been referring to Valin’s killer, who was undoubtedly still out there: Kyrus had ordered a temporary lockdown of Tremredare, ignoring the complaints from the unhappy merchants, traders, and skippers. Which made it all the more imperative that he head down to Tremredare with all possible haste.

No, the High Prelan had been referring to his knowledge that Prelan Thales had once been Thales Heron. And he had offered the warning, in full knowledge that negotiating family connections often proved to be more dangerous for obligators than the waters of the various canals.

To make matters worse, the Inquisition, no doubt, would be seeking to interfere. To find a reason to implicate Ministry incompetence and inform the Lord Ruler that they were undeserving of autonomy.

If they hadn’t arranged for Valin’s murder on their own. It was a chilling thought, but one that Thales had to consider. To do otherwise would be foolish.

It wasn’t politics that even a prelan would’ve been aware of, but Thales was the High Prelan’s adjutant, and he heard more about Ministry and Canton politics than the average prelan. The High Prelan, of course, trusted him to keep silent about those. So he did so.

For no particular reason, he picked up the battered pocket watch, off the dresser, and slipped it into his pocket, determining to take it to Tremredare with him.

Thales Heron #8: Annan Waters

Kyrus was waiting for him at the expanded docking station. A few guards waited by the city walls; a safe distance away, Thales noted. Enough to ensure they could not overhear, unless one of them was a Tineye. He shook his head ruefully. Nobles were not supposed to make use of skaa Mistings--the very concept had been declared anathema by the Canton of Orthodoxy. For all of that, though, nobles continued to play dangerous games with bastards and Mistings. Allomancy was that rare, that precious, and that valuable.

The water of the Conway gleamed in the sunlight; the morning mists had barely begun to disperse. The waters lapped against the wooden posts of the new docking station. Nothing, Thales thought, like the small, cramped docks of his youth. Tremredare had changed, in more ways than one. What had he expected though? While the larger world of the Final Empire was being transformed as he lived and breathed, why should Tremredare have been any different? Why should it have been insulated from the waves of change spreading throughout their world, leaving their mark on how things were done?

The Canton of Inquisition and the different factions in the Steel Ministry were only the ripples spreading out on the surface of a very still pond.

A part of him wondered how far these ripples would spread; what distant shore they would break upon.

“Prelan,” Kyrus said, with a nod of his head.

Thales returned it. “Lord Heron,” he greeted. Strange, unutterably strange, to refer to his brother by the name that his father had once borne. They were both far older now; the weight of their various responsibilities had changed them. He was surprised to see that the cold and the distance had changed, somewhat. For all they moved in two different worlds, here on the banks of the Conway, it seemed as though they were still the two sons of Lord Aniketos Heron, gazing out upon the Conway on some misty morning. “The city remains shut?”

Kyrus nodded. “The traders are displeased,” he said. “Best make it quick. I doubt I can hold any longer.”

A younger Thales might have said, “You are Lord Heron. Your word holds in this city, does it not?” An older Thales understood the contingencies and limitations of power. He returned Kyrus’s nod with his own. “I plan to,” he said, shortly. “The Steel Ministry is most displeased.”

They stood there for a time, looking at each other. Words, Thales thought. They were unnecessary. And on another level: they were completely necessary. Yet he could not find them, no matter how he fumbled. Could not will his throat to give voice to them; to whatever lurked within that needed to be uttered. Should he, even? Would that have been a betrayal of the precepts of the Steel Ministry? He could not read his brother’s expression; could not tell what lurked behind those sharp eyes. Kyrus’s hands twitched, for a moment, and then fell still by his side. Ever the artist, Thales thought, and was faintly surprised by the fading bitterness in the thought.

Time had changed both of them more than he’d thought.

“It’s been a long while,” Kyrus finally said. “I barely believed it when I’d heard word from the speed-courier that the Ministry was sending you to investigate.”

“It has,” Thales acknowledged. He hesitated, before deciding that that last statement deserved a response. “It is commonly against Ministry policy to allow employees to fraternise with their former Houses, as you know.”

Kyrus arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“However,” Thales continued. “The death of a prelan is a matter of utter seriousness. Especially when foul play is involved. As such, the High Prelan decided it was best to send me to observe in his stead.”

There. As little of Ministry politics as possible, and every single word was true, from a certain point of view.

Kyrus nodded, gravely. He hesitated; glanced around them, and for a moment, his eyes flicked to his waiting guards, before he said, his voice dropped calculatedly low: “A boat arrived from the Canton of Inquisition yesterday.”

Thales did not swear; he, however, bit back an imprecative he’d picked up from dockworkers in Lansing. “Was he allowed into the city?”

Kyrus rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how you do things in that Ministry of yours, bro--Prelan, but it’s unwise to obstruct a Steel Inquisitor in the course of their duties. Furthermore, as I was forcibly reminded, a Steward ‘s authority is superseded by that of the Canton.”

Thales had not missed that slip. He narrowed his eyes. “We set aside our previous lives when we join the Ministry,” he said, more harshly than he’d planned. “Thales Heron is dead.” He regretted that impulse; regretted those words. But there was no taking them back, not now. They lingered in the air between them: final.

He found his hand slipping into the pocket of his robes, feeling for the battered watch. Still ticking, still counting the hours and minutes and seconds, even after all these years. Sentiment, the Canton of Inquisition would say. Perhaps it would even accuse him of corruption.

“So he is,” Kyrus said, peaceably.

His past, Thales thought, was like a piece of ice held in the hand of a child: you could not hold on to it too tightly, for fear of the cold. But neither could you let it go.

“Are you faring well?” A peace offering.

Kyrus nodded. “Marital bliss,” he said. “Which is far more than some of the other nobles can say. “I suppose you could say we crept up on each other. Even have three daughters, now.”

Thales tried to imagine himself presiding over a gaggle of daughters. He could not.

“Oh?”

“Jocasta’s oldest,” Kyrus said. “Bookish, quiet.” He shrugged. “Could do worse for a House Lady, I suppose. The middle child’s Sofia. We’re trying to look for a suitable House at the moment. Her grandfather spoiled her rotten; she loves looking at the stars.”

“I see.”

“Last child’s Thalia, and Lord Ruler help me, I think she’s going to put me in an early grave.”

“A wild one, then?”

“Very,” Kyrus agreed. “But I suppose that’s what you live for, as a father. Even if you’re not quite supposed to play favourites.”

But Aniketos had, Thales thought. Kyrus had been the favoured one; the one sent to learn useless skills, meant to secure the future of House Heron. He shook the thought off; he’d made his peace with it, a long time ago. House Heron preferred succession through primogeniture. It was the way of things.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No,” Kyrus said. “You wouldn’t.”

They looked at each other: House Lord at Prelan, and Thales wondered what his brother was seeing. Eventually, it was Kyrus who once again broke the long silence that had sprung up between them.

“Last chance,” he said. “Once we enter Tremredare, it’s straight to work.”

“I know.”

“Anything you want me to do about the Inquisitor?”

Thales’s lips peeled back in a gesture that might have been a smile, charitably considered. “Keep him out of my hair. I’m here to work.”

“Consider it done.” Kyrus nodded towards the city gates and his waiting guards. “Let’s get inside. It’s good to see you again, brother.”

Thales Heron #9: ripae ulterioris amore

Valin lay, spread-out, on the surgeon’s table. Thales firmly put away his distaste, frowning down at the body, as the skaa surgeon who’d attended to him waited by the side for the prelan to complete his investigation. He breathed as shallowly as he could, despite the fragrant oils burning in the room.

It wasn’t pretty, but at least the reason for Valin’s death was readily apparent: the ragged tear on his throat gaped. Equally appalling: his eyes were empty sockets, crusted with blood. Someone had gouged them out. Thales glanced over at the surgeon. “Did that kill him?” he wanted to know.

The surgeon shook his head. “There wasn’t much blood,” he said, firmly. “If the wound was inflicted when he was still alive, there would’ve been a lot of blood when they cut his throat, but we couldn’t find any.”

“Could he have been moved?”

The surgeon shrugged. “It’s a possibility,” he said, at last. “Look.” Getting into the flow of things, he pointed to the man’s hands. “Thumb is broken; here, there’s damage to the wrist. He fought his attacker for control, at one point. Likely he carried a knife and it was used on him. But even that didn’t kill him.”

“What did?”

Wordlessly, the surgeon turned the dead man over. The back of his head gaped; through crusted and dried blood, Thales saw traces of smeared pink. His gorge rose; he forced himself to swallow and keep his mouth firmly shut. “Suggests a second assailant,” the surgeon said, calmly, as though he did this daily. (He probably did.) “I measured the entry wound, too. I’d say being hit in the back of the head by a boxing killed him. If it’s any consolation, it was a quick, clean shot.”

Except, Thales thought, it wasn’t a consolation at all: Valin was still dead, and he’d still precipitated a mess that the Steel Ministry was going to have to clean up before they came to blows with the Canton of Inquisition. He was on the clock here.

“Coinshot, then.”

“Hard to say,” the surgeon disagreed. “It’s definitely an Allomancer--a flung coin can’t kill, and it was driven more forcefully into his head than, say, a sling could manage. And a boxing makes an odd choice of bullet for a sling. There’s a chance it could’ve been one attacker, but then from the angle, they’d have to be a Lurcher.” Thales could see it in his mind’s eye: Valin struggling with an attacker for control of the knife, before the Lurcher yanked a boxing clean through his head, killing him.

“Any purpose to the boxing?”

The surgeon shrugged. “It was whatever that came to hand? I really don’t know, Prelan. The dead speak, but they aren’t that informative.”

Thales studied the corpse on the table. Eventually, he said, “In your professional opinion, a clip would’ve killed him just as well?”

The surgeon snorted, and then realised he was talking to a prelan. “Right. Yes, Prelan. Anything flung at a high speed from that angle would’ve likely killed him, whether it was a clip, a boxing, or an ordinary ceramic bullet.”

Thales frowned. “Why the boxing then?” He didn’t expect an answer, and the surgeon certainly wasn’t about to give him one.

He bent over the body once again, setting aside all self-consciousness. They’d cut away Valin’s robes, of course, leaving him stark naked. While the stench of rot had not yet begun to truly set in, given how fast word had gone out to Luthadel, it was still strongly unpleasant, and Thales had to forced himself to carry on.

He picked up on the defensive injuries the surgeon had indicated and pointed to a few extra wounds on the inside of the man’s forearms. “Defensive wounds,” the surgeon said. “Likely from when they were fighting for control, once again. Bruising began to set in, indicating that it was likely quite a rough scuffle.”

And Valin had lost. Which put his attacker as being stronger than him. Not, Thales thought, sardonically, that this piece of information was particularly helpful. Any dockworker or canalworker could easily overpower Valin, and in a city of artisans, at least he wouldn’t have to check on the mosaicists and glassworkers.

Valin had been a Seeker. If he’d been a Pewterarm, the question of how he’d been overpowered would’ve become even more important.

“Were there any hints on him?”

The surgeon shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Prelan. I suppose not all the blood might’ve been his, but there’s no real way of telling, absent his cutting off bits of his attackers.” He pointed to the fingers. “Look at the nails.” Thales did; they were crusted with drying blood. “He managed to draw some blood, at least, but whether he did to any substantial amount is an open question. There were no traces left on him that I could conclusively identify as originating from an attacker.”

“Not even the murder weapon?”

“Oh, no. Wait here for a moment.”

The surgeon rummaged in a tea tin to the side, and finally presented him with a bloodied coin with pink bits on it that Thales didn’t even want to think about. “The murder weapon,” he said, with grim cheer. “I had to dig that out of his head and stitch him up again, I can tell you that much.”

This time, Thales didn’t quite succeed in hiding his distaste. Gingerly, he stuffed the coin into a pocket. “Where was the body found?”

The surgeon named a part of the city Thales was still familiar with: on the edge of the marketplace, near the glassworkers’ section. He nodded his thanks and showed himself out.

The dead Valin had spoken, in that room. Hopefully, Thales would be able to trace down his killer, and the reason he’d been killed. Frankly, Thales expected it would be a difficult task: Valin hadn’t been particularly helpful.

In the room he’d left behind, Thales heard the skaa surgeon whistling to himself as he prepared the body for burial.

Thales Heron #10: Many Waters

Dinner was a solitary affair, back in the inn he’d rented. Some prelans preferred to be accommodated by the Steward of the city. For Thales, he felt it was better to avoid such complications. He’d considered dismissing the guardsman, but had chosen to allow him to take a watchful position by the door.

How was he supposed to investigate Valin’s death? There were too many possibilities, and the city watch had been about as helpful as a dead pigeon. None of them seemed to have any idea of preserving evidence, let alone cordoning off the scene of the crime. No, Thales thought, grouchily chewing on his food, he was lucky to have as much as he did. He made a mental note to commend the helpful surgeon to Kyrus. There was at least one person in the city of Tremredare who knew his job.

He’d walked the streets, before dinner. Searched the glassworkers’ section for any possible eye-witnesses. The city watch had even placed up flyers the previous day. Most of these, Thales was frustrated to learn, had been stolen. Perhaps they were even being used to wrap food by those street hawkers peddling fried tubers in their carts.

He wouldn’t have put it past any of them.

No one in Tremredare seemed to have any idea of what was going on. No one in Tremredare seemed to have even witnessed anything, and a prelan was dead, and the Ministry and the Inquisition was about to be at cross-purposes. This was ridiculous.

On a hunch, he’d even visited the official metallurgists of the city. All of them were happy to show him their ledgers, and Thales swore he’d never seen work as sloppy as in some of the ledgers the skaa had presented to him. He’d inspected them, but couldn’t pick out any inconsistencies. For all that, he was certain that at least three of those had been illegally selling Allomantically pure metals to people who weren’t supposed to be needing them.

This meant only one thing: there were skaa Mistings in Tremredare.

Was this supposed to be a big surprise? His family had never quite been close to their skaa. House Penrod, of course, worked very closely with their skaa. In theory, that was none of his business. Half-breed children, if they existed, were the strict province of the Steel Inquisition, or so it’d been announced. All prelans and obligators were reminded it was not theirs to enforce: as Thales’d heard, the High Prelan of the Canton of Orthodoxy was furious at what she saw was an encroachment of the Canton of Inquisition on her jurisdiction.

Skaa Mistings. Thales thought about it more. Given the news, he’d heard rumblings of rebellion in the distant estates of Izenry and Wair. More locally, he knew that House Jerzy was beginning to have difficulties, though those were apparently of a different nature. And House Lazcar was already dealing with at least three workshop fires each day. It was a quiet sort of rebellion: the sort that made House Lords look weak and made prelans and obligators shake their heads and write unfavourable reports to the Ministry.

Could Valin have stumbled on something? Something deeper than just local rumblings of rebellion and discontent?

Could he have been murdered for it?

With bad grace, he left his half-finished dinner to the side and began writing up a careful report to the High Prelan in the shorthand code he’d devised. Kyrus was his brother, but all the same, Thales didn’t trust anyone; something as high-profile as this would attract unwanted political attention, and likely not just from the Inquisition. He could think of some information-dealing Great Houses who would give their spleens to know more about Ministry business.

High Prelan,

No hint of--

There was a series of knocks at the door. Thales’s reed pen jerked off abruptly, leaving a jagged line of ink erupting across the page. Irritated, he bit back the impulse to curse. He was going to have to make a fresh copy later on; the page was ruined, now.

He got up to open the door, but the guardsman beat him to it, yanking open the door with a practised efficiency, hand on his sword-hilt, ready to draw in an eyeblink.

Abruptly, the guardsman bowed and held open the door. “M’lady,” he muttered. “What are you doing here?”

That was Thales’s first clue. The second, as the cloaked figure entered the room and cast back the hood, was in the eyes, and the shape of the nose.

“Thalia, I presume?”

A blink, and then a wide grin was the response he received. “I heard you’re Uncle Thales,” she said.

“Hardly,” Thales informed her. “Obligators sever all ties with our former Houses when we join the Ministry.”

Thalia Heron shrugged. There was a little of something else in her, Thales thought, something wild and untrammelled, and he thought of the love in Kyrus’s voice as he spoke about her. “Blood is blood,” Thalia said, matter-of-factly. “You can’t cut it out of you, no matter what you say. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m on Ministry business,” he said.

“I know,” Thalia replied, impatiently. “You’re investigating the prelan who died, aren’t you? I saw who did it. I saw everything.”

Hope flared up within him. Sharply, Thales jerked about and said, “And how did you see it?”

“I’m a Tineye,” Thalia said. “I see everything.”

“Right,” Thales muttered. It was rather amusing: the idea that Kyrus had a daughter whose metal was the complement of his own. But that was neither here nor there. “I presume you are claiming you were in the vicinity?”

Thalia nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to be out,” she admitted. “But I was. And I saw him. The prelan. He was trying to follow someone, and he stood out in his robes, so I followed him. He went into the glassworkers’ district. Then they fought; the other man wanted to be paid more for what he was doing. The prelan said no.” She screwed up her face, trying to remember. “He said he wanted the information first, I think. And then the other man didn’t like it. So they fought. Then the other man shouted.” She winced. “Way too loud when you’re burning tin. He said that he would tell the others that the prelan was after them. The prelan didn’t like it. He pulled out a knife. They fought. I ran off to get help, but by the time the city watch got there, he was dead and the other man was nowhere to be seen.”

“Could you recognise him if you saw him again?”

Thalia nodded, again. “Of course,” she said. “I have a good memory.”

Thales jerked his head towards the door. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Glassworkers’ district. I’m guessing the informant regularly meets customers in the area. If we see him, you can point him out to me.”

“And if we don’t?”

“We keep trying. This man has to be found, Thalia. He killed a prelan. There’s much he needs to answer for.”

The answer he received was a solemn nod.

-

Thales returned to consciousness slowly; a drowning man in an ocean.

His head ached. He struggled to remember what had happened; his thoughts moved, sluggishly. Perhaps they hadn’t just knocked him out--they’d drugged him.

The skaa surgeon sat, riding the chair as though it was a horse, one leg on either side. “Well,” he said. “I see you haven’t been hit too hard, Prelan Thales.”

Thales spat to get the bitter taste out of his mouth.

The surgeon shook his head. “If it’s any consolation, Prelan, I didn’t want to do this.”

“Then why do you?”

Carefully, the man leaned forward. Quietly, intensely, so only Thales could hear, he said, “They’ve got my daughter.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

The surgeon’s lips pressed together in a gesture of unhappiness, but then he said, “You must know, surely.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Skaa resistance,” the surgeon mouthed. Words Thales had never wanted to hear; words he had expected to hear, all the same. “Spread out in cells across the Western Dominance.”

Thales did swear, this time. “He stumbled upon them, then.”

The surgeon nodded. “Valin was competent. A bit of a sanctimonious prick, but he was competent. He found them, but his informant wanted more money. He didn’t want to pay him. They fought. He died. They threatened me, afterwards. Wanted me to help stitch up his wounds.” He shook his head, tiredly. “It’s hard being a surgeon, Prelan. There’re too many people who need your help, and you can’t always give it.”

“So,” Thales said. A glance at the side showed Thalia had heard everything. “What now?”

The surgeon looked at him. He said, “They’ve got my daughter.”

Thales breathed. He understood. He looked at Thalia, for the first time since they’d been knocked out and taken captive, saw that same gleam of knowledge in her eyes. No fear; she was fearless, he thought.

“Thalia,” he said, calmly, but his heart was a trapped bird in his rib-cage: he hated pain, hated the mess, hated leaving things undone, but needs must. “Thalia, you must remember this. Warn Kyrus. There’s a skaa rebellion brewing in his city and it must not be allowed to fester for much longer. He must deal with it. Tell him...tell him to write to the Steel Ministry and inform them that Valin was murdered because he uncovered hints of rebellion. He must do it, even if it looks bad on him. Do you understand?”

He had words for the High Prelan too: the man who had given him purpose, who had made him who he was today. Those words would have to remain undelivered.

Thalia said, “I’m not leaving you behind.”

Thales looked at the surgeon. Slowly, deliberately, he said, “It is one thing to kill a prelan. A terrible thing, perhaps. It is another thing to kill a young girl, and the daughter of the Steward, besides. If you died, Thalia, Tremredare would be burnt to the ground in retribution. I can assure you of that.”

The surgeon nodded.

He refocused on her. “You must go. Warn Kyrus--it is of the utmost importance.”

The surgeon stood up, pulling free a knife. He sliced through the bonds binding her feet together. She was crying, Thales saw. Distantly, he said, “Don’t worry about me. You must go. It is imperative my words are delivered.”

Thalia nodded, reluctantly.

The surgeon steered her towards the door, knife a careful distance from her. Only at the door did he slice the ropes that bound her hands, shove her out, and then shut the door again.

“You are related, are you not?”

“My niece,” Thales said. There was no point in denying it any longer; not at the end. Not when that impulse had made him demand her life be spared.

“I’m sorry,” the surgeon said. “My daughter will be killed by the end of this night if I do not show them proof that you are dead.”

He tasted salt. The room blurred. It was his turn, Thales thought.

He drew himself up, as tall and proud as he could. “Make it as painless as you can, if you please, surgeon.”

The surgeon nodded. Stepped closer.

The knife slid home.

Thales closed his eyes.

Edited November 15, 2015 by Kasimir

Curious Anamaximder · November 16, 2015

Action 1:

Naming my unamed child Anatax Orielle. Sorry for the wait.

Curious Anamaximder · November 17, 2015

Action 2:

Anatax Orielle is increasing security and disclipine on campus to prevent further rebellion.

Action 3:

Anatax Orielle is building a building in Luthadel for the Steel Ministry to use, to increase favor of the Lord Ruler.

Wyrmhero · November 17, 2015

Action 1:

Naming my unamed child Anatax Orielle. Sorry for the wait.

This doesn't take an Action up. Editing the player list to have Anatax as your current House Lord.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Wyrmhero

Kasimir · November 18, 2015

Kyrus Heron #4: The Window on the West

Keep Heron, Kyrus thought, was old. His great-grandfather had not been among those who first set up towering keeps in Luthadel, having sworn their service to the Lord Ruler, but they had climbed to prominence soon after. From a Lesser House, they had become a Great House: not powerful, perhaps, but--or so he liked to think--wise enough to remember their friends, careful enough to make few enemies.

Keep Heron, then, was as old as any of the ancestral keeps and manors within Luthadel and its age showed. The west room was a particular example: luxuriously wood-panelled, it had perhaps meant to be used as a library at some point, or as a record-keeping room, but none of those plans had come to fruition. Instead, the west room had become a storage room, and as Kyrus moved among the crates gathering dust, he shook his head and worked some of them open.

Old, dusty things: things most of them had forgotten and kept away. He sorted through generations of detritus, resolving to himself to find new owners for them, or at least better places for them to be stored. What use was nearly twenty-five different salt-shakers? Another box proved to be where the children’s toys were stored: some of them beyond repair. There was a wooden horse, with a deep crack running down its neck and an eye missing. There was a leather ball, crusted with mould, and Kyrus shook his head as he threw it aside.

It didn’t even bounce well, anymore.

He wanted to do something with this space. He sat on the floor--lined with sanded wooden boards--as he thought. A chapel? But none of the Herons were especially religious. They paid their dues to the Lord Ruler and his obligators, as they were supposed to, for their god had saved them from the Deepness and established an Empire that flourished today.

But a chapel...it didn’t seem suitable for this space; not a space in which generations of casts-offs and memories had once been held.

He unearthed a wooden box, paint flaking, and opened it. He laughed, quietly, to himself, and scooped up a handful of glass marbles. Clear and beautiful, they made a clacking sound as they crashed against each other. He dropped them back into the box and set the box aside.

He glanced up at the window on the western wall. That was a magnificent piece--he couldn’t imagine how much it’d have cost his great-grandfather to get such a smooth and relatively even sheet of glass produced and installed on the wall. He hadn’t done glassblowing, but he’d watch glassblowers at work during his apprenticeship to Master Tormod, and he knew how much effort it took to work their way up to smooth and even sheets of glass. There would always be imperfections, flaws that necessitated the sheet being cut down and smaller pieces sold, whether to mosaicists or to other lesser nobles, or even wealthy skaa who wanted a window, or to back it with silver as a mirror…

If the costs must have been immense, it was well worth it. Light spilled gloriously into the room, highlighting the subtle tones in the smoothened wood, and all Kyrus could think about was that it was such a great pity that some Heron had thought that this room ought to be consigned to becoming a storage room, long-forgotten.

He itched to find the best glass tiles; to set them against that window, to marvel in the radiance of that light, and to work some mosaic of stained glass that would be remembered, at least in a medium-sized, dusty room in west wing of Keep Heron. It did not bother him; the idea that the room might be forgotten. He’d spent a decent amount of time working on public pieces, meant for display, and the idea of pouring his mind and soul out into a work that was for him, that was his on the deepest level--that idea appealed to him.

But what would he make?

He thought about it, as he went through the boxes.

It didn’t just have to be his, he wanted it to be about House Heron. To capture a particular point, a particular feel, a strange sort of mood, like the one that had stolen over him, in this room of forgotten things. It had to be something that stood out: that stood apart, however temporarily, from the unceasing flow of time.

He got up, and strode over to the window, trying to get a sense of the space and the possibilities; trying to make it tactile.

The window was broad and tall; the space meant that he could go for a complete mosaic--perhaps several scenes and panels. Glories faded, Kyrus thought. He’d wrought panels of mosaics in testament to Urbain greatness, and then on request for House Lazcar and House Ostlin: lesser Houses, in the grand scheme of things, but great enough in the Western Dominance, and especially in Tremredare.

For House Jerzy, a simple piece, with vines and wild horses running free; wrought so that if you looked at it in the light of dawn and the fading light of dusk, the horses appeared to be in different positions.

He wanted something like that last; not glories or victories--not a testament to Heron greatness, but, perhaps, to Heron resilience. Something that would claim to the world that Heron had been here, had left its mark, even if Heron were to crumble in the intervening years. There was only so much a man could do, Kyrus thought, against the outrages wrought by the years.

He touched the glass, gently. It was cool against his fingers; alive with possibilities.

Perhaps a heron motif, he thought. It was appropriate: the crimson heron set against a flaming ring of navy blue was the Heron crest. Yes, the mosaic would certainly incorporate herons.

But he was still dissatisfied. A mosaic needed more than herons, or it’d risk becoming the minor piece he had created for House Jerzy: technically satisfying, but artistically lacking.

What spoke to him?

He went up to the window once more, peered through it now, rather than at it. It overlooked the city of Luthadel: foundries, keeps, and streets; wagons and carts and canals with narrowboats, all of them stretching arterially into the distance, carrying the lifeblood of the Final Empire.

Everywhere, there were connections between the past and the present: the cracked box of glass marbles, paint flaking; the broken wooden horse, the mould-encrusted leather ball, the very streets and cobblestones and canals of Luthadel.

He wanted to be a bridge-builder; to build a bridge that would connect the Herons of the past to the Herons of the future. To speak from beyond death; to remind the Herons…

Of what?

He didn’t know. Gently, Kyrus took his hand away from the glass. When he did know, he thought, he would create the masterwork of a lifetime.

Kyrus Heron #5: Durban Skies

Tremredare sprawled out before him. From his precarious perch on the city’s highest point, Kyrus could see everything: the lanes and alleys; where the branch off the Conway emptied out into the docks, the gates, the manors, the glassworkers’ workshops, and the slums.

He had been young, once. When he’d worked with his father to fashion mosaics for the public squares of Tremredare. In the intervening years, Tremredare had grown, only a little. If anything, the city had become more run-down, as he sought to budget all the repairs and upgrades that needed to be made: the improved sewage system, expanding on the marketplace, and most recently, building vocational schools.

The struggle seemed exhaustingly endless; on some days, he wondered if Thales had been correct in accusing Aniketos Heron of impracticality. A training in glass did not help him in governing Tremredare; on the other hand, without his apprenticeship to Master Tormod, House Heron would never have been able to expand as far and fast as it had in the glassworks industry.

There was a frenetic beauty, to Tremredare, if you knew how to look: beyond the cobbled streets and dirty alleys and stained glass mosaics glittering in the light of the setting sun; beyond the gleaming trash-studded waters of the canal, beyond the thin, desperate skaa in the packed buildings of the slums, beyond the last call of the tea-seller at sunset, as the street-hawkers began to sell the last of their fried tubers cheaply, rather than lose the rest of their stock overnight.

Ash packed the streets and canals; Kyrus made a note to himself to look into how the cleanliness of the city was being managed. Among the many things that he already had on his plate.

Tremredare, he felt, was more than the sum of its parts: the nobles’ manors, in the parts of the city reserved for the wealthy, the dockworker’s district, where canalworkers and dockworkers trudged home after a long day spent unloading and loading goods from trading boats down the Conway past Tremredare, the glassworker’s sector, where the glassworkers blew molten glass in their furnaces all day; some of which would eventually be cut into small, sharp pieces and packed into crates and sent to the workshops of the artisans and mosaicists of Tremredare. She, too, was more than the inns and taverns, where the weary skaa labourers and craftsmen congregated and shared drinks; more than the bakeries peddling cheap baywraps to workers.

Tremredare was all this and more; she was the steady pump of the glassblower’s bellows, the music of the oars against the water, the soft lapping of the water against her docks. She was the moan of the ill and wounded skaa; she was the quiet contemplation of the mosaicist; the sharp, translucent quality of the sunlight through glass. Perched as he was on the highest point of the city, in the silence, away from the din and cacophony of the city, the buildings, the activities, the landmarks and the people fell away; in that moment, Kyrus began to perceive Tremredare, buried beneath it all.

How did you speak of a city as being something distinct from its parts? How did you look at a city and, in that quiet stillness as the sun kissed the distant horizon, felt the city look back at you--peer into the very depths of your being?

It was something he never spoke of, as a Steward. Perhaps it was the artist in him; the mosaicist, who perceived Tremredare as a living thing; with the glittering necklace of the Conway and the music of the bellows and the clatter and the clamour of commerce and the cries of the tea-seller echoing into the dusk; and now the flares of a thousand lanterns as skaa tried to make their way home in the gathering gloom.

Sofia did not see this: the beauty in the city beneath them. Sofia looked, if anything, to the heavens, and the shrouded forms of the distant stars. On clear nights, you could see everything: on hazy nights, when the mists swallowed everything and turned even the most distant and reassuring forms to shadows, perhaps not. But then, Sofia saw more clearly than most.

It was difficult expressing this to Jocasta. So Kyrus simply didn’t bother. Jocasta, he thought, was perhaps most like Thales: she spoke of improvements, concrete things that had to be done to Tremredare; perhaps of tearing down the slums to build a series of factories for watchmakers.

“And where are the skaa going to live?” Kyrus had asked, then.

Jocasta simply shrugged. “They’ll find somewhere,” she said, superbly unconcerned. “Or they’ll die. Either way, that’s no issue of mine.”

And there was Thalia: Thalia who did think of Tremredare as he did; who saw the life beneath, beyond the network of activities that took place in the city. Wild Thalia, who often snuck out of their manor here to wander the streets of the city, or who went down to the docks to gaze wide-eyed at the dockworkers unloading all sorts of goods from the passing trading boats and loading Tremredare produce back on these.

How did you show someone the world through your eyes? That was what art did. You took a specific perspective, shaped it, gave it material life.

To him, Tremredare was alive and she was beautiful, for all her grime, for all her dirt and danger, despite all the repairs and improvements he had yet to make, were still budgeting for. As dusk fell across the city, Kyrus Heron looked out, across the distance; saw Tremredare, and saw Tremredare looking back at him.

It was, he thought absently, a beautiful sunset, all things considered.

Kyrus Heron #6: Brimstone

From east to west, Tremredare burned.

Kyrus bore the weight of his armour with a decent amount of patience, for all that he was no swordsman. He’d trained to defend himself, as most Heron children did; as he and Thales had, in their shared childhood, but neither of them had been fighters. Thales’s talents tended--had tended; the correction occurred to him with all the pain of a wound breaking afresh--towards administration and efficiency. His lay, for all the good it did, in artistry; in glass.

Still, he’d swallowed a fistful of pewter beads. He didn’t carry more with him on his person; Jocasta did. “They may have Mistings,” Jocasta said, firmly. He’d given in to her on this; any pewter bead that wasn’t in his stomach was a weapon that could just as easily be used against him.

He still remembered the boxing that had ended the Prelan’s life. The boxing that had drawn his brother here--that had set off the chain of events that threatened to consume them now. The boxing that had led to Thales ending his life in a forsaken corner of Tremredare, to save his niece.

A niece he had never before laid eyes on.

How did you quantify such a deed? How did you make sense of it? Thales had never been a hero. He’d been a bureaucrat, a snappish man, given to perfectionism; insistent on separating himself from his family.

And at the end, he hadn’t run away from his family. He’d chosen to save Thalia with his death. He hadn’t needed words; hadn’t needed to ask Thalia if his brother had had any final words for him. Thales wasn’t a man of words; with Thales, you had to look at what he did.

His eyes stung, and it wasn’t from the smoke.

Some lords didn’t like to lead their men. They sat and watched, from a safe distance. Kyrus might have done that, once. Now, he felt as though he had to be here, to see with his own eyes. Entire sections of Tremredare were aflame. Shop windows had been smashed with loose cobblestones; roofs were missing tiles. Thatch burned, easily, sending smoke mingling with the prevalent mists.

“Aren’t they afraid of the mists?” one of his men muttered. Someone else elbowed him, and he shut up at once.

“There’s nothing to fear from the mists,” Kyrus said, firmly. “Our first priority is to put down the rebel cells before the Lord Ruler sees fit to send more Inquisitors or more forces down to Tremredare.”

He knew who had heard him; they exchanged uneasy glances, or simply stared at their feet, or muttered sullenly. Everyone had heard the screams coming out of the surgeon’s morgue, as Inquisitor Vitus plied his trade and extracted answers from the skaa responsible.

Kyrus had broken the skaa’s neck after, and considered it a mercy. There was no man left, in that quivering mass of bleeding, flayed collection of muscle. No, he thought. He had done as his brother had requested and sent word to Luthadel, but he would consider himself lucky if they could quash the embers of rebellion before events fanned them into a wildfire: and if they could do so before more of his god’s brutes arrived.

A soldier jogged up to them, wearing a scarlet armband that marked him as one of runners moving between the detached squads that had been sent out. “They’ve put up barricades at the intersection between the glassworker’s and the marketplace, my lord,” he reported.

Kyrus looked at Jocasta, but his daughter said, calm and collected, “I’m on it.”

“They’re dangerous,” he reminded her. “Glassworkers likely have bullets.”

Jocasta nodded. “Acknowledged,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out.” She dropped a clip on the pavement and pushed off it, springing into the air.

He watched her leave, helpless, aware of the weight of the sword that hung at his hips. He would’ve fought, he thought, would’ve ordered her back, except that he was well aware that one day, Tremredare would be her responsibility: that one day, it would be her decision: to build, to create, to protect, and, to execute and burn to the ashes, because it was her duty to her god, and because there was no other option.

There was a point, Kyrus thought, sick to his stomach, when a father could no longer protect; when it was nothing but a disservice to insist on doing so: when all he could do was to pace and wait, with folded arms.

And a hand to his sword-hilt. He was not a swordsman, and for this reason, kept himself out of the heavy fighting. Burning pewter, he was unstoppable and a match for any man, but the moment his pewter ran out, he was a dead man.

Overextension, his tutors called it. Many a Thug had triumphantly charged on, not wanting to lose the momentum of their attacks, only to drop dead when their pewter ran out.

He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not today.

A second figure in the dark. But this was no messenger, Kyrus thought. He held up a hand--just as a coin shot towards him. It ground against his steel wrist-guards, lodging in there. Kyrus burned pewter; stopping the coin short as it tried to cut through the toughened steel and into his skin. All of a sudden, the figure slammed backwards, flying through the air.

Kyrus snorted. Coinshots, he thought. They always forgot that a clever opponent could prevent the coin from digging in deeper, forcing them to go flying instead. He glanced at his wrist-guard. The coin had dug a deep gash in the steel. It could have gone straight through his forearm, if it wasn’t for his pewter.

He strode forward, letting go of his pewter. He had plenty, but pewter burned quickly, and it wasn’t good to use it up all at once.

More figures appeared behind the Coinshot: armed skaa, some of whom carried knives and improvised weapons, such as iron cudgels. The anger he felt surprised him; these, Kyrus thought, distantly, were the people who had murdered his brother. Who had kidnapped the surgeon’s daughter, and forced a good man to kill.

His sword slipped out of its sheath, light as thought.

He could not have possibly described what had happened that night, later on.

He advanced on the group of skaa; ahead of the line he was meant to be defending, ahead of the men who were meant to be protecting him. A shower of coins flew at him; Kyrus burned pewter and batted some of them aside with his sword. He broke out into a run and then he was among them, hacking and thrusting away, using the point of his sword just as much as the edge.

He remembered--

--scooping up a wooden board; flicking it into the air with the tip of his sword, and catching it, slowly, languidly, as if he had all the time in the world,

--holding out the board to catch the coins arcing towards him, meant to bite through the weak points in his armour,

--the momentary stutter as his sword bit through bone and muscle and skin, beheading the skaa who opposed him,

--driving his sword through the throat of a skaa who lay on the ground, moaning, holding in his guts with his hands,

--killing, killing, and killing, with a brutal, ruthless efficiency, until he ran out of opponents, because it felt as though he had all the time in the world, as though his pewter was infinite; as though the mists were welcoming him, protecting him,

--throwing aside the board when it became useless, dodging coins he shouldn’t have known were coming and smashing the flat of his sword into the Coinshot’s kneecap.

Ending the man’s life with a final sword-stroke.

The world came back to him; along with aches and cuts and scrapes he hadn’t known were there. Blood ran down his face from a cut above his eyebrow, painting half the world red. He wiped at it, and then grimaced as he discovered his hand, too, was caked in drying blood and steel. Not much better.

His sword was notched; the edge was blunt, now.

He looked down; at the torn bodies underfoot.

Disgusted, repulsed, Kyrus threw away his sword. Behind him, the skaa--his soldiers--gaped; none of them had come to his defense. Perhaps they hadn’t the time to.

He inhaled.

The night seemed to come alive with the stench of smoke and ash; brimstone and sulphur.

Unodus · November 18, 2015

Ok, so when I applied for the position for "Steward of Skaa Relations", TLR interpreted that as "Person in Charge of Purging Rebels"- which wasn't exactly what I was aiming for, but fine by me. So, commanding the largest army in the empire, I'm assuming some houses would appreciate my support if their own forces are being spread thin. If your house has a lot of rebels to deal with, send me a PM and I'll distribute some soldiers for you.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Unodus

Curious Anamaximder · November 19, 2015

This doesn't take an Action up. Editing the player list to have Anatax as your current House Lord.

Okay.

Action 1b:

Event: The Ultimate Ball!

With all the skaa rebellions and feuds between houses, wouldn't it be nice to have a massive ball? House Orielle is hosting the Ultimate Ball, a massive gathering of nobility. Food and drinks will be provided, and Houses can bring goods to show off.

Fun is called Orielle.

If you wanna come, PM me. If you want to bring goods to sell and demonstrate, please tell me in the PM.

Kasimir · November 19, 2015

Okay.

Action 1b:

Event: The Ultimate Ball!

With all the skaa rebellions and feuds between houses, wouldn't it be nice to have a massive ball? House Orielle is hosting the Ultimate Ball, a massive gathering of nobility. Food and drinks will be provided, and Houses can bring goods to show off.

Fun is called Orielle.

If you wanna come, PM me. If you want to bring goods to sell and demonstrate, please tell me in the PM.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, I see.

Kyrus Heron #7: Light on the Water

He found Thalia at the docks, at sunrise, watching as the skaa dockworkers trudged off to the task of unloading the incoming goods from the branch off the Conway.

“Hi,” Kyrus said, moving quietly.

It was hard to take a Tineye by surprise. “Hi,” Thalia replied. Although the docks hadn’t been one of the trouble-spots, Kyrus had taken the precaution of asking for a doubled guard there, in any case. The last thing he needed was some visiting personage being assassinated by some still-disgruntled skaa.

They watched, in silence, as crates, filled with ornamental glass bowls, were loaded onto a trading boat and carefully lashed there by the dockworkers, using thick ropes and deft knots.

He didn’t know how to broach the topic. At the same time, he knew that if he didn’t, he wasn’t doing Thalia a favour. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, at last.

Thalia shook her head.

“Holding it in probably isn’t doing you any favours.”

Thalia shrugged. “I’ll manage,” she said.

What did he say to that? Did he deny it? Did he claim to know her better than she did herself? Would he, a part of Kyrus wondered, have treated a son in that way? He settled for saying, “If you need to talk, Thalia--”

“I will,” she said. “But I don’t need to talk about it.” She turned her face towards the waters; the way they glittered in the dawn light, the swaying of the boats as the goods were loaded. “I’ll have to deal with it, sooner or later. I understand that. If I need to talk about it, I will.”

“You know yourself best,” he said.

“Thanks.”

He was turning to leave her in peace when she asked him, all of a sudden.

“Did it hurt?”

“His death?”

Thalia shook her head. “The first time you killed a man.”

He gave the question the serious consideration it deserved. He hadn’t killed, as a boy. In truth, Kyrus thought, he quite doubted that most of the nobles in the Final Empire had ever drawn a blade in anger or in self-defense. That, after all, was what guardsmen and skaa were for.

“Every time,” he said, at last.

Thalia frowned. “Jocasta says it’s easy,” she confessed. “You just have to want to do so.”

Kyrus was careful not to hide his distaste. “I don’t think it’s a weakness,” he said, at last. “If you think each life is valuable, then the decision to take a life cannot be taken lightly. And when you do kill, you realise that killing...is a highly destructive act. It takes away potential. When you kill a man, Thalia, you’re not just killing him: you’re killing everything he might have been and will never be. The children he might have had, the daughters he might have loved, the deed he might have done...the lives he might have saved…”

He thought of the skaa surgeon, executed, now.

The blood was on his hands, just as much as they were on the surgeon’s hands. He wasn’t sure what he felt about that decision.

“Or taken,” Thalia said.

Kyrus shrugged. “Hard to tell, isn’t it? If anything, I regret the loss of that potential. But it doesn’t stop me from doing what has to be done.”

“Then why feel it? Regret, I mean.”

Another helpless shrug. “I really don’t know, Thalia,” he admitted. “If anything, maybe it’s because we’re alive. And to be alive is to feel, with all the richness and deepness it deserves. To be alive is to be passionate. Why else do we create? Why else do we make art; all these soft and fine things? Because of passion.” He drew her into a spontaneous hug, one driven by impulse. “And if anything, my impetuous one, that’s you.”

She was, he thought, nearing the age when such displays of affection would become embarrassment. But for now, Thalia allowed the gesture, and hugged him back, fiercely.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because I knew you would be here,” Kyrus said, honestly. “And because I was this close to punching Inquisitor Vitus through a wall.” He made a face. “He’s been making all sorts of demands, recently. If I accede to all of them, as he so badly wants, Tremredare would explode in my face. We’ve put out the rebels now, Thalia, but we’re still standing on top of dry tinder. A single spark and it could all go up in flames again. It all depends on how we handle them.”

“I don’t like Vitus,” Thalia said, seriously. “I heard the screams.”

“I know, dear heart, I know. We all did.” Except that he hadn’t; he’d only imagined the surgeon’s cries, through the thick stone walls of the cellar that Vitus had commandeered. But if anyone could’ve heard the cries, it would’ve been a Tineye. Of course, she could’ve been referring to Vitus’s interrogation of the captured skaa. That was another matter, entirely; it had been done somewhere public enough, that even his soldiers had heard of it. “However, he is correct that he is a servant of the Lord Ruler, and that his authority far exceeds my own.”

“Does that mean he can just tell you what to do?”

“Within reason. As long as he acts in the interests of the Lord Ruler.”

“And you don’t?”

Kyrus thought about it. Finally, he allowed, “We may have different ideas of what advances the Lord Ruler’s interests.”

“But then you said you have to listen to him.”

“Within reason,” Kyrus said, and sighed. He glanced about him, making sure no one could overhear, and then lowered his voice, and gestured. He could not tell if Thalia was burning tin, but even if she wasn’t, she would start doing so, when she couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Something to keep in mind: the Steel Ministry is a powerful ally. Never underestimate the power of inter-Canton conflict, Thalia. If the Steel Ministry wants to protect something, it’ll stay protected.”

Thalia nodded, frowning. “How’re you doing that?”

“I’ve written a letter to Thales’s High Prelan, advising him of the situation. I’ve informed Vitus that until the High Prelan dispatches someone else to handle the situation, I am at his disposal but cannot act without the High Prelan’s authorisation.” Kyrus smiled, grim. “He did not like that. But then, I don’t like what he wants to do to my city.”

He watched the sunlight; splintering into a thousand shimmering fragments on the rippling surface of the waters of the Conway.

It was hard, sometimes, to be decent. To want to be decent, when you received your brother’s dead body.

But it mattered. Perhaps that was when it mattered the most.

Kyrus Heron #8: Silver Glass

The waters of the Conway, normally streaked with ash, had been dredged by the skaa crew the night before. The haze, today, had cleared from the sullen skies: as the wind whipped his coat about, Kyrus thought that it could almost have been a beautiful day.

Thales could not have asked for a better farewell.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, removing the wooden box containing the handful of ash. They had fought; he and the Steel Ministry, over what should be done with Thales’s remains. “He was no longer a member of House Heron,” claimed the prelan who had been sent to replace Thales and Valin, thin-lipped with disapproval.

“You can’t send a narrowboat for the body in time,” Kyrus retorted. “It’ll putrefy. I’ve taken precautions--” and it felt wrong, speaking of the body like that, but he buried the thought; just as he had the skaa surgeon quietly interred and the daughter taken in under the housekeeper. The mother, they could find no trace of. “--but there’s no possibility of something more extensive.”

In the end, they’d settled on this compromise. He’d had Thales committed to the flames, as their father and their father’s father before; an unbroken chain of Heron Lords and Ladies stretching back as far as they could remember, as far as there had been a Heron to honour the dead. In return, he took the ashes with him, now, to the Conway, where they would be conveyed back to Luthadel by narrowboat, for the Ministry to do with it, whatever they wished.

He hadn’t said anything, but he’d pocketed a pinch of the ashes. There was no way for the prelan to discover that.

The prelan accepted the wooden box. “I will inform the Ministry that the situation in Tremredare has been resolved to my liking,” the prelan said, with the air of a man who thought he was doing Kyrus a favour too many. “Rest assured, however, that we will be keeping a close eye on your governance of the city in the years to come.”

“I would not expect anything less of the Steel Ministry,” Kyrus said. He enjoyed the expression on the prelan’s face. He paused a heartbeat before continuing. “I take it, then, that the Inquisitor is out of my city?”

“It does not behoove a noble to comment on the servants of the Lord Ruler,” the prelan said.

“So be it. Well, then. Your boat is here. I wish you calm waters and clear skies on the way back to Luthadel.”

Apparently unconcerned, Kyrus turned, as if to leave.

Finally, reluctantly, the prelan said, “Inquisitor Vitus has been recalled to Luthadel.”

“I trust,” Kyrus said, “That my complaints will have reached the right ears. I have expressed concerns about his behaviour, and I expect that this will not repeat itself again.”

The prelan eyed him, sourly. “In that, Lord Heron, we are agreed, I assure you.”

He boarded the swaying narrowboat deftly; for a moment, Kyrus almost found himself wishing that the man would trip. The prelan had been an arrogant, sanctimonious man who seemed to consider this recent assignment to be beneath him, and truth to be told, Kyrus was more than happy to see the last of him.

But no such mishap happened; as the prelan settled himself beneath the canopy and the rest of his entourage boarded the narrowboat in turn, the skaa crew began to cast off, pulling loose the moorings that bound the narrowboat to the dock.

Slowly, surely, they began to pole their way down the still waters of the Conway, in the direction of Luthadel, beating the clear waters of the canal into a silver froth.

Kyrus watched, until they were a distant, receding figure; until the waters, once again, had stilled; had become silver glass. He pulled out the pinch of ashes, and emptied the contents of the pouch into the Conway.

The wind off the Conway was chilly today; he felt the cold in his bones.

As the ashes sank into the Conway and dispersed, Kyrus turned about and began the long, lonely walk back to his residence in Tremredare.

Mailliw73 · November 19, 2015

Action 2: Build more housing for my skaa.

I will accept House Orielle's ball invitation and show off House Zerrung's IronBows.

Curious Anamaximder · November 19, 2015

Okay!

Here is the list:

Winter (5 MP)

Malliw (IronBows)

Kasimir · November 20, 2015

I really shouldn't do this, but I have to commit to the RP, I suppose, so...

Kyrus Heron #9: Even the Rain

Rain fell, in a steady, drumming rhythm, dislodging the hardened, compacted ash from the roofs of buildings, running down the sides in grey-black streaks of sooty water.

A steaming cup of tea in hand, Kyrus listened to the rain as it fell. It was soothing, he thought, to let go of his worries and cares; to lose himself in the sound of the rain. The mosaic in the library shimmered in the light: a pattern of reds and oranges he’d set himself, meant to appear warm, comforting to the eye. They were set in abstract pattern, depicting nothing, though he’d had fallen embers in mind when he set each piece of glass in place.

These are all the things I will leave behind, he thought to himself, bemused. Three daughters, and many, many mosaics, all over Heron properties and Luthadel and Tremredare.

What would they say of his chapter in the history of House Heron?

Eventually, the person he was waiting for appeared. Wyren Heron strode into the library with a nod of acknowledgement to Kyrus, his hair rumpled. He went over, immediately, to the teapot, acquired an empty cup, and deftly poured himself some tea.

Neither of them spoke.

It was a lazy afternoon; the sort that made Kyrus want to lie in for a while longer. Instead, he’d tackled some of the outstanding papers on his desk, and headed down to his workshop again for two more hours of work at setting his latest mosaic. It was already beginning to take shape, he thought, and now it was a race between himself and time to see which of them would be the victor.

He was getting long in the tooth.

“Good tea,” Wyren said, approvingly. He was a third nephew, as the records went: somewhat distanced from the lines of succession, but ambitious and eager to prove himself. And Kyrus had no qualms about using him. “Could stand to be brewed thicker, though.”

Kyrus raised an eyebrow. “Do it yourself, then,” he said, allowing a mildly reproving note to enter his voice. As far as he was concerned, if Wyren preferred stronger tea, he could brew his own batch.

“Don’t want to,” Wyren said, the words almost muffled by a yawn. “It’s still tea, even if you’ve used so little it’s practically water.”

“Have you read the Orielle invitation?” Kyrus asked, changing the subject. This, he thought, was the starkest difference between Wyren and Jocasta: Jocasta never had the patience for the pleasantries. Wyren, on the other hand, could go on about the merits of this year’s tea harvest from the Fennix plantations as opposed to the first flush of the Royin harvest, and on almost any topic of small talk that appealed to him. Sofia, on the other hand, was more reticent, and Thalia…

He sighed.

It was the sort of day to think about that kind of thing: one daughter preparing to be House Lady, another marrying into House Zerrung, and a third gone to the sea; with little to remember her by, except those scattered odds-and-ends, the brief letters, a chunk of ambergris in a blown glass bottle, and a transaction of wealth with the brief note that she’d met a man out at sea and gotten married.

He’d kept the wealth, but never used it. Reading between the lines, there was only one answer to what his youngest daughter was doing out at sea.

She’d turned to piracy.

What did you do with that knowledge, Kyrus wondered. The laws of the Lord Ruler were not his to enforce on the coast. Yet he knew that most of the pirates and raiders were skaa; that Thalia must surely be working with a skaa crew, that if anything, she had likely married a skaa.

And then what? What would become of any grandchildren? He knew what the Canton of Orthodoxy said; knew that the Inquisition would come for them. It was the open secret of being a noble: dally with skaa women, as you wished--but no offspring were to ever come out of such a dalliance. The consequences were steep; both to the children and to the noble in question.

Don’t worry, Thalia had written.

But he did, of course, with the fierce, unassuaged worry of a father. He told himself that Thalia was cleverer than that; that there were lines even she knew better than to cross, that it was not, in any way, compatible with a life at sea. And still he read and re-folded the letters and worried, helpless.

He realised he’d missed Wyren’s response.

“Repeat that, please,” Kyrus said, with a slightly abashed smile. “I was woolgathering.”

Wyren said, with just the slightest touch of acid, “So I gathered, Uncle. Yes, I’ve read the invitation in question. Not the wisest of ideas, I must say: holding a series of war games.”

“They’re splurging,” Kyrus said, not bothering to dress the fact up. “It’s meant to be quite a big event. But I’ve not heard from any of the Houses in months, and I’ve no idea if they plan to attend.”

“And this has to do with us, why…?”

“I’m unwilling to send good men to their war games,” Kyrus said, simply. “I’m certain that if you think about it, you’ll know why.”

Wyren frowned, leaning forward slightly in his arm chair. Kyrus saw, the moment understanding dawned; Wyren’s eyes narrowed and he sucked in a quick breath. “Yes,” he said, at last. “I believe I do.”

“So,” Kyrus said. “I believe I will not be attending the Orielle games. All the same, it looks badly on House Heron if we do not at least send a representative…”

Wyren laughed. “You mean to insult them, Uncle. Don’t you?”

“Rather,” Kyrus said, carefully, “There’s no one else I can quite trust to send in my stead.” He invited comment; Wyren made none. “Sofia will be marrying into House Zerrung, and now that the betrothal contract’s been signed, she’s not a good candidate any longer. She is legally a member of House Zerrung now; the rest is just formalities. Jocasta...well, you know what Jocasta will be tied up with.”

He said nothing about Thalia.

“All right,” Wyren said. “So, I show up, make some sounds of interest. I assume I’ll be permitted to leave before the games are through?”

At Kyrus’s quizzical expression, he said, “If you want me to finish going through the Lekal-Hasting contract before next week..”

He’d forgotten. Another slip.

Aloud, Kyrus said, “Yes. That would be best.”

Outside, the rain dripped in runnels down stone walls in the bleak city.

He wondered if it was raining at sea.

Kyrus Heron #10: The Last Mosaic

Balanced on the ladder, Kyrus studied the mosaic tiles with his failing vision. It was getting harder to make the colours exactly as he saw them, perfect, in his head. He’d ended up enlisting Sofia to be his eyes, out of necessity.

The smaller limelight cast the fierce, steady glow over his work, allowing him a better grasp of the tiles he was putting together. As he picked up a tile, he accidentally gashed his hand on it; the pain surprised him, and he dropped the blood-slicked tile onto the wooden floorboards. It shattered.

“Lord Ruler,” he cursed, in spite of himself. He hadn’t cut himself working with tiles in years. He was slipping, in more ways than one.

“Are you all right, Father?” Sofia asked.

He nodded, more for her sake than his. “Yes, of course.” He fumbled in his vest pocket for a handkerchief, applied some pressure to stop the bleeding. The slice hadn’t been deep, at least. It’d frustrated him and offended his pride, more than anything.

He turned back to the mosaic, studying it.

It had been the hard labour of years; time taken out from managing the Heron finances, from governing Tremredare, from a thousand little personal projects and duties and burdens, all to fuel one final task that had become a consuming personal obsession.

He would not, Kyrus thought, make another mosaic again. It was clear that his body was slowly failing him. This would be his last. He only hoped he would complete it before time ran out, entirely.

The overarching mosaic displayed a night sky, with the faint glimmer of the distant stars. He’d worked closely with Sofia for that, as she mapped out the stars, one by one, from her favourite vantage point, at the top of the old tower. Just as meticulously, Kyrus had added them to the mosaic; the dark blanket of night, without the slightest suggestion of haze; the bright pinpoints of stars and the patterns they formed. Those, he had fashioned of silver-backed glass, like mirrors.

Set beneath the night sky were a series of panels. In the first was his father and Thales. Aniketos Heron, in the few times Kyrus had known his father to appear visibly content. Here, he was without the cane he had begun to rely on in the final years of his life; instead, Kyrus had selected a pose that conveyed strength and vigour. This, he thought, was how he wanted to remember his father. And then there was Thales. He had struggled with himself, over the question of how to depict his brother. Truth to be told, Thales wore a customary scowl. But was that how he wanted Thales to be memorialised? And what about Thales’s own wishes?

Art, he could imagine his brother scoffing. What does it matter? Only patterns are real; numbers represent real quantities, you know.

In the end, Kyrus had settled for a sombre-looking Thales, in a nobleman’s waistcoat, but with the tattoos of the Steel Ministry around his eyes, carefully faded-in. The Steel Ministry had been a larger part of his life than House Heron, and it only seemed fair to acknowledge that. In his hand; slightly-obscured, but still discernable was a battered pocket watch.

They’d found the pocket watch in Thales’s personal belongings, after his death. It was another thing Kyrus had secreted away instead of turning over to the Ministry. It had mattered to Thales, he told himself. And the Ministry would only destroy it.

He, too, had a matching watch: with a pewter cover, rather than brass, and engraved with the Allomantic symbol for his metal. It was in far better condition than Thales’s, though no less worn. Kyrus had studied Thales’s watch, too, to be able to incorporate it into the mosaic.

In the background, as a faint suggestion, was the Conway: the familiar canal that ran by Tremredare. His father had done that, Kyrus thought. He’d tied House Heron to Tremredare, and a part of Thales would forever rest in the Conway, and so it was appropriate that the panel depicting the past of House Heron include the outskirts of Tremredare, and the Conway.

The middle panel was different. He had depicted an aging nobleman, with the careful hands of the mosaicist, careful never to meet the gaze of the audience. (Too much directness, Master Tormod had said, so long ago, destroyed the value of the work. The mosaicist was as much flower-seller as artist; he had to be artfully coy, to lure, to seduce.)

In the background, he had set Tremredare, as he saw it: not on that night, burning (sulphur and brimstone; acrid in his memory), but the city flourishing; for all its shabbiness, the life within the stones and streets and alleys and waterways.

The last panel was the most hopeful; the most tentative.

He frowned at the sea and carefully set another green tile into place, while the panel was still ready for work on it. Soon, the seal would dry off, and then changing the panel would become difficult.

He’d travelled down to Lansing to see the ocean, for the purpose of this mosaic. That trip had begun to pay off: the ocean glittered with subtle variations of blue and green, laced with the white of foam breaking on the waves. In the distance, a ship: only described, never seen with his own eyes. (He wondered if he would ever see Thalia again, before the inevitable end. The time came for parting, he thought. No father expected their children to remain with them for all their lives.)

Sofia, he’d presented as gazing upwards, towards the glimmer of the hanging stars, overhead, a book in her hands. On the other half of the panel; opposing that sense of movement was Jocasta, gaze downwards, a glass sword held prominently in one hand, the other open. He had debated with himself, over how appropriate this was. But in the end, the balance of the mosaic could not be denied; the two figures anchored that panel, gave it a sense of stability.

Ghosts of the past, present, and the tentative future.

Kyrus gazed at the sky of stars, and thought, for a moment, about a half-forgotten conversation with his father.

The dead never leave us, he thought, and for all the Ministry taught about the Lord Ruler’s church, he knew then that neither his father nor his younger self had been right. They carried the dead with them: preserved in art, wrought in sculpture, stone, obsidian; or in his case, with his chosen tools of glass and light.

He and Thales had not been close, in the way some were. He did not feel guilt; nor did he, any longer, feel grief. And yet he carried the weight of his brother’s passing in a way he could not articulate. Perhaps it was the responsibility of the artist, he thought. To remember, when even human memory failed.

Only time would tell if he succeeded.

The last tile set, Kyrus descended the ladder: away from the stillness, the mosaicist’s solitude, for the last time, and towards the earth.

“How is it?” he asked Sofia.

“It’s beautiful,” Sofia said. “It’s perfect.”

Action Three:

•Who? - Jocasta Heron, in her capacity as Lady Heron

•What? - Jocasta is attempting to recruit 4 MP of soldiers.

•Where? - In Tremredare, naturally.

•When? - This is my third action for the Turn.

•Why? - To increase security/law and order given these turbulent times; presumably, these would serve as stabilising influences within Tremredare/Heron properties.

House Heron will be appearing at the Orielle ball and showing off Heron pocket watches.

Edit: Ah, rust. Just occurred to me--guys. Is anyone defending TFE this round? Unodus: can your 1337 Commander of the Armies powers do anything special on that front?

Edited November 20, 2015 by Kasimir

Sogaple · November 20, 2015

Public Action:

Who: Lord Cade Malroux

What: Order the construction of another farm

Where: On one of the Malroux scorched lands

When: Action 1

Why: To increase profit

Unodus · November 20, 2015

As far as I can tell, being commander just gives me a huge MP boost. I was thinking of sending some reinforcements to House Wair and Izenry since that's where the rebellion started (so that's probably where the rebellion will be the strongest), and setting up a defensive perimeter around The Central Dominance. If everyone defends their properties, etc- the rebellion should lose momentum and I'll send out the army to stamp out the remnants. That sound ok, Kasimir? :B

phattemer · November 21, 2015

Action 3: Buying as much atium as I can from the canton of resource.

Mailliw73 · November 21, 2015

Oh, in case the rollover happens before I get an answer, I'm only sending IronBows to the ball if it doesn't require an action.

Araris Valerian · November 21, 2015

Well, I've got some actions:

Action 1:

Who: Hadrian

What: Arming the guards of Fellise with Dueling Canes

Why: To provide greater stability and to increase the overall influence of House Penrod

Where: Fellise

When: First Action

Action 2:

Who: Hadrian

What: Sending a shipment of high quality paper to the Ministry

Why: To boost my reputation with them and also to solidify House Penrod in the imperial bureacracy

Where: Fellise Ministry building

When: Second Action

Action 3:

Trying for an heir

Names: Araris for male, Alena for female

When: Third Action

Oh yeah, some of my paper is going to be presented at the ball

Edited November 21, 2015 by Araris Valerian

Unodus · November 21, 2015

Rosalina slid the ornate sword back into it's sheath. Ever since she was given control of the Lord Rulers Armies, she'd started to carry a sword with her at all times. Somehow, being responsible for cleansing the Heretics seemed to make them more intimidating, like there was no one she could rely on to save her should she fail. The sword was more a reminder than a tool.
"Ah, Rosalina- I've been meaning to talk to you..." a man in strict Utilitarian Uniform called before she could walk off.
"Rosa, I've been thinking about some of the orders you've been issuing, and I've been wondering..."
"Don't call me Rosa, Tipel." Rosalina snapped, "If you won't address me as your House Lord, I do not care for whatever you say."
Tipel was one of House Uethorns Noble Mistborn, one of the best. He was also the figurehead for the campaign against Gaudium, her father, just before he died. Since then, Tipel had questioned her authority at almost every step.
"I just wanted to confirm my suspicions" Tipel grunted arrogantly, motioning to the army The Lord Ruler had provided the house. From the balcony, it was possible to see the expansive legion standing in ranks in the courtyard awaiting orders.
"Quite a twist on your Fathers mentality- going to war, I mean. Guadiums probably spinning in his grave."
"I'm not my father." Rosalina said stiffly, "This is what must be done, for the Empire as a whole to survive."
Tipel simply shrugged,
"I don't know, seems a little insecure to me- changing tact like that on a whim. We both know when you were given the Stewardship you expecting to be able to end the rebellion a diplomatic way." he pressed. Rosalina sniffed indifferently.

"Rebels are rebels, but refugees are still refugees. We would never negotiate with radicalists, but that doesn't mean all Skaa need to die. The laws my father tried to impose were designed to save the innocent we're supposed to be protecting. I should have you executed like the rebel you are for leading the scandal that overruled him."

"But you won't.", Tipel grinned smugly, "Uethorns bloodline has been weakening enough as it is. You need me, not only for the battles ahead- but for the future generations. Your father got what he deserved, he always was a Skaa Sympathizer." Tipel narrowed his eyes "Lets hope the same won't happen again."

Rosalina gritted her teeth in anger,
"I only do what is right, if people disapprove of my methods- so be it. I don't require anyone's favor in order to lead my own house. Now, if you'll excuse me- I have a speech to deliver."

Rosalina pushed past, her other hand clenched tightly on the ornate sword hilt.

Action 3

Who? Relmolina in her capacity as House Lord

What? Establishing a council of house advisers

When? Third action

Why? This action really is just to try earn the respect of my House. I'm also be interested to hear if my house has any suggestions on actions they want taken- a council of trusted of advisers gives them a medium to contact me if they want an action rethought.

Aonar · November 21, 2015

I'm going to be boring again today, sorry. No RP, and my action is just trying for an Heir. (Male, Alden, female, Lucca.)

**little wilson** · November 21, 2015

My action is also trying for an heir. For action 3. Male: Tarek, Female: Elesha

**Orlok Tsubodai** · November 21, 2015

What: Joining Wilson's marriage scheme

Where: Keep Tekiel

When: G5T2A1

Who: Lord Tekiel

Why: To facilitate the ease of marriages such a scheme entails

Heirs to the Final Empire: Roleplaying Thread

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