Broken Lands

Chapter 381 – Tower Conquerors?

“Your father’s empire.” Ansuz said the three words as if they changed something. “And how did a princess end up in the Broken Lands?”

“Didn’t Tiwaz tell you? Or Othala?” Sophia knew she’d explained it to both facility-minds. 

“Both of them did, but I need to hear the story from you,” Ansuz answered.

Sophia tried to tell a quick version of the story, but Ansuz wouldn’t let her. Every time she thought she’d covered something, Ansuz had questions. Some of them were factual, but a lot of them were questions about why she did something. Why did she fight the bandits? Why did she leave Old Kestii with Arryn? Why did she stop to rescue the villagers on the way to Casterville, then cast a ritual spell to put out the fires? Why did she join the Registry, then agree to look for corpsevines? Why did she bring the phoenix pin back to Registry Master Jessamine?

For someone who kept asking questions, Ansuz was surprisingly easy to talk to. He let Sophia tell the story her way and always sounded like he was genuinely interested in not only what she did but what it meant to her.

Why did she head north to Izel? Why did she try visualizing the “rewards” in that first stable challenge the way she did? Why did she spend so much time working her way through challenges to help Ci’an get the Nightowl Sphere? 

It was surprisingly easy to talk to Ansuz about her theories about the Challenge rewards. She was still confident that they were runic in nature, either with the Intent portion somehow coded in the part of the image that wasn’t actual runes or perhaps some sort of runic structure she wasn’t at all familiar with. Ansuz didn’t know anything about runes, but he was fairly certain that the images in the Challenges were nothing more than Grand Talents made visible for people to copy in part or in whole. It was enough to make Sophia dive back into her own Grand Talent to find out that there were, in fact, runes scattered around it that she hadn’t placed there. 

It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed differences between the Guide and the Voice back home, but it was definitely a confirmation that they were different. Active Abilities back home were essentially spellforms managed by the Voice, while both active and passive Abilities in the Broken Lands were somehow encoded in a really complicated runescript by the Guide. It made her wish she could send the information back to her father; he might be able to figure it out. She certainly couldn’t.

The first thing she actually tried to hide was the theft of the Broken Sword from the Broken Temple in Izel. She didn’t see any reason to hide it from Ansuz, but she still wasn’t quite sure about Arak. The entire time she talked, he sat on a chair he dragged over close to Ansuz and watched her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. 

She wasn’t sure he’d decided yet either. It made her a little nervous. 

It made Dav even more nervous; he stayed between Arak and Sophia and was more likely to be watching Arak than Ansuz when Sophia glanced at him. 

Ansuz didn’t let Sophia get away with skipping over the second reason they left Izel, almost like he knew that heading into the wildlands to meet up with Los’en was only part of the reason they left town. 

The questions didn’t stop there. If anything, they became even more detailed, almost like Ansuz was looking for inconsistencies between what he knew from Othala and Tiwaz and what he heard from Sophia. Despite that, Ansuz never indicated there was a discrepancy; he just kept asking questions. 

When he reached the present, he looped back around and asked Sophia questions about the Unified Realm. Most of them were fairly general, things like the governmental structure and rights and liberties of the people. He seemed surprised when he learned that not only did Serenity not directly rule, he actually had multiple different nations on several of the planets; they were effectively independent as long as they obeyed the few guidelines Serenity imposed. He was even more surprised when he found out that many “challenges” were considered part of the Unified Realm even when they weren’t on planets Serenity controlled directly.

The fact that Serenity was a quasi-religious figure seemed to make complete sense to Ansaz. He didn’t seem to be surprised when Sophia told him that Serenity was immortal, but he asked who Serenity’s heir was and seemed disapproving when Sophia told him that one hadn’t been formally named. 

It was when Sophia offhandedly mentioned that the reason no one messed with the Unified Realm other than Serenity himself was its draconic members that she was reminded how strange it was to be in the Broken Lands. Ansuz didn’t have any idea what a dragon was. Almost every culture on Earth had something like a dragon, something that matched one of the many draconic varieties, yet the Broken Lands didn’t. 

Ansuz’s final question was a surprise. “Do you want to leave permanently?”

Sophia frowned at Ansuz. “I want to be able to leave. We need to make sure Dav’s parents are okay and I’d like to check in with mine, too. It would be nice to be able to come back, but crossing universes isn’t easy; I’m not sure we’ll be able to.”

Ansuz didn’t answer out loud, but the message from the Guide that appeared soon after Sophia’s statement was more than answer enough.

Spoiler

Grand Feat Completed!

For your Grand Feat of conquering the (corrupted text) Tower, you have been granted a reward!

You are the (corrupted text) to conquer this Tower. For this achievement, you may choose from the following rewards:

(corrupted text)

Congratulations! 

You have been named the Empress of the Kestii Empire by acclamation. A new Hub page has been added to your Status. This Hub will be active for as long as you are the Empress but some options may require returning to the Imperial Hall or completing the associated Tower.

(feather)

Your Patron greets you!

I can only repeat what the Guide already said: congratulations. You have achieved something I didn't believe was still possible.

Unfortunately, you have also caught the attention of the Broken Lord, or what remains of him. After your fight, I can say that his physical remains are long gone; they became the echo you fought to enter the Hall. I cannot say the same of his power or his mind, but that is a fight you can now win - indeed, if you can meet the conditions it will not be much of a fight at all. You have the authority of the Empire behind you now, which means that the Guide will support you against his remnant spirit. Your Domain should be strong enough for the rest.

You must choose your symbol of rule, the new symbol of the Empire, before you begin. Include something that symbolizes yourself, like a feather.

You need a container. Glass would be best, as it partakes of properties of both solid and liquid and can be both broken and melted, but any container you can break would be sufficient so long as it can be sealed against the escape of a gas. Place it on top of Ysalix's remains then call upon the Broken Lord to hear your judgement as Empress. You should be able to tell when he is present. Force him into the container. It will not be easy, but you can make it easier by surrounding him with the icon you used for yourself in the new Imperial Sigil; the Guide will prohibit him from passing it while he stands defiant.  Once he is within the container, wrap it in the icon or sigil, then melt it. Breaking it will also work so long as you keep him well confined, but melting it is better. Declare your judgement that his actions merit only death and impose it upon the container with your aura as it melts.

With him laid to rest, we will be able to speak more freely. Either way, I will speak to you if you choose to use a Gateway.

--The Wanderer

[collapse]

“We’re supposed to choose from a list with only one thing on it and that one thing is broken?” Dav sounded interested rather than annoyed. “We saw errors like this back in the Library of Monsters, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Sophia answered. “I assume that’s the message the rest of you see, a Grand Feat with three errors?”

“Yes,” Arak answered. “Do you have something else?”

Sophia glanced at the man who guided them to the Broken Lord’s door. She couldn’t read him at all. Despite that, she couldn’t see any reason not to reveal the rest of what she had. Well, maybe she shouldn’t admit where she got the ritual to lay the Broken Lord’s spirit to rest; Arak might not be an ardent follower of the Broken Lord, but she had no idea how he felt about other Patrons. “I think the message was displayed because it didn’t register until Ansuz appointed me Empress. That might be why the rewards are broken, too; I bet the Empress position is one of them and it’s not open.”

“And you’re the only one who qualified for that because anyone other than you would have to be at the fourth upgrade,” Arak muttered, then sighed and spoke louder. “This is not how I expected this to go. I guess it still works. I didn’t think the Broken Lord would be here or that he’d be so easy to kill, though.”

“Um, that wasn’t the Broken Lord, at least not entirely.” Sophia bit her lip and glanced up at the screen, then turned towards Ansuz. “Were all of the Emperors Patrons or was that something Ysalix did on his own?”

“Patrons?” Ansuz sounded surprised. “Patron ascension was one of the possible rewards for the first team to complete a Tower, but the First Emperor chose to take control of the Tower instead.”

“Then where did the Broken Lord come from, and how were there Hallowed of the Broken Lord immediately after the Tower fell? Why were all of the other Hallowed knocked out for longer than the Broken Lord’s Hallowed? Wouldn’t that be the other way around?” Dav glanced from Arak towards where Ysalix Kestii fell, then back at Arak as if the other man had the answers. “Unless that’s exactly the point. Is there some way to cut off Hallowed from their Patrons?”

“I don’t know.” Ansuz seemed to assume that Dav was asking him, even though Dav hadn’t looked at him. “None of the Emperors spoke about their options when they climbed the Tower, but they each did climb the Tower at some point in their reign. All except for the fourth Emperor; while he tried to climb the Tower, he was killed before he reached the top. The fifth Empress’s reign started with a Tower climb. I do not know what she did there, but it must have been important because it happened almost immediately after she received the sword.”

Sophia glanced around the group. No one had a better answer than Ansuz’s “I don’t know.”

She didn’t wait for long. She didn’t have an answer either, but she did have something they needed to deal with as quickly as possible. “The Broken Lord isn’t gone. He was Ysalix Kestii, at least it looks like he was, but we still need to disperse his mind and send him to the River of Souls.”

Death would be happy to receive him. She probably wasn’t terribly happy that he delayed, but she probably also wasn’t too upset. She got unhappy when people got lost or some necromancer stole their soul to use for their own benefit. You were allowed to choose what happened to your own soul but no one else was allowed to choose for you as far as she was concerned.