Characters:
Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster
Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Orb Hunters
Edelina and the other Burners made to part the clouds with the power of the sun, eliminating the cover where the Flesh Orb was hiding, but to no success. With no magisters of the Moon or Animals, they had no way to track it, and Hans Hessen resorted to splitting their forces to watch for its return. After having his torso untwisted by the magisters of Change accompanying Tauschun, Granmarg discovered that his entire 60-man retinue had perished during the short battle with the orb. He requisitioned carts and wished the others luck in their pursuit before beginning the long march back to the Highland Forests to lay his fellows to rest
Little happened until he arrived in Bedrock, at which point Mielikki leapt into action. He invited Lady Shrub to the palace of the triumvirate, and they walked by the courtyard where the dead were being unloaded while he tried to convey that yet another outsider had arrived and killed more of them. Who was to say Terra wouldn't do the same? Later that day, news arrived that Carmenta was headed west to deal with the orb, while Terra was apparently staying in northern Baronde to continue her work in moulding the land to yield more food.
This all reminded them that one of Carmena's titles was the "Lady of Harmonious Change", and while her domains were (allegedly) Life and Healing, that was certainly suspect. So too was the eclipse that followed soon after. In a discussion over how to deal with the eclipses (Granmarg: "What, you want me to punch the moon?"), they debated what it meant for cities to "turn into mazes" as was described in the Wrostish prophecy. Pomegranite mentioned that the god associated with the Moon was Consus, the Blue Lord of Victory, whose other domain was Secrets. Perhaps it would have something to do with that Path? For now, Mielikki arranged to have bells installed on the watchtowers that ringed the city.
They came to no conclusion before being interrupted by the arrival of the elven Herders sent by Emperor Uthemar. One had a magic fife that bewitched animals into following him, while the other could simply summon them to her location. The triumvirate decided to attempt to limit the reintroduction of animals in the Highland Forests to the narrow strip along the Sunstone River and small pockets around Bedrock; hopefully that would be enough to please Terra without attracting too many of the vile creatures. The elves claimed this was well within their abilities and left to start their work.
Pomegranite reached out to the College and learned that while Eva's team had succeeded at making a portal last for multiple hours, they now had to discover how to make it large enough to march more than one or two people through at a time. It would likely take another several years. In early summer, they received some rare good news: the Flesh Orb had been slain after being ambushed in north-east Tauschun by the combined armies under Hans Hessen, with Hugo credited with landing the killing blow.
One night, while walking home from a council, Mielikki thought that he found a new intersection that hadn't been there before. He was getting nervous (and definitely not just paranoid), so he went to the greatest terramorpher he knew, Thicket, to ask what he made of the eclipses. The moon was obviously a former part of Terra, so Thicket assured him that he had come to the right person, then did some math and concluded that each eclipse was coming after half as long an interval as the prior one. The time until the next eclipse should be three days, then one and a half, three quarters, and in a few hours after that they'd have hit thirteen.
This did little to calm Mielikki. He suggested they come up with some excuse to move everyone to the countryside, away from the maze-city that was sure to be created on the last eclipse, and settled on a horse racing festival to "celebrate" the return of animals to the Highland Forests. Granmarg was still convinced nothing was happening, but Thicket and Pomegranite had noticed similar alleys they'd never seen before and backed Mielikki's festival. Pomegranite did note that mazes might contain magical artifacts (perhaps that's how the ones in the Segretan Labyrinth got there?), and therefore might actually be a good thing in the long run.
To prepare, Pomegranite turned his spy network to mapping the new streets so they could navigate the coming maze, though by the time he had two more eclipses had passed and they had only two days to do so. Mielikki took this time to flee Bedrock to his summer home in the woods, not telling anyone. Thicket debated whether he should spend time with Cliffside, then discovered his nephew had returned to his manor in the north and decided "screw that guy". Granmarg thought about "what a sad and lonely life [he'd] lived", then ordered the town's knights to prepare for a melee with live steel at the festival. Some were reluctant, but they were swayed by the Boulderstruck's reassurances.
The End Times?
The morning of the thirteenth eclipse, a good number of the people of Bedrock came to attend the horse racing festival. The triumvirate were worried, as they could not find Mielikki, but that ceased to matter when the eclipse started, and the sun didn't reappear. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, in pure darkness. Granmarg rallied the crowd to prevent a panic, and then finally, after thirty minutes, the moon passed and the sun returned in its usual dull red.
Now, though, there was a ten-foot wall of blue stone surrounding Bedrock. Thicket approached the wall, attempted to lower it with his terramorphing and... it descended into the ground, as normal earth would. At Pomegranite's request, Thicket and some other terramorphers raised a hill at the festival grounds to get a better view over the wall. There were some shouts of confusion and alarm; a pair of fires had broken out, and many buildings in Bedrock had been torn apart by the eruption of the maze, but there was no greater calamity.
Thicket began terrmorphing a path to the nearer fire, while Pomegranite dispatched Sigillaria to go retrieve Mielikki (surprising noone, the Spymaster knew where he was). Once the flaming buildings had been reached, the people of Bedrock grabbed buckets and began fetching water from the river at Granmarg's direction. Terramorphers followed Pomegranite's directions to "shortcuts" through the maze to the second fire, but got lost instead. By the time they arrived, five earthlings had perished in the flames.
Granmarg finished bringing a large trough of water to the first fire, then judged that the others had things under control and decided to investigate. The maze wasn't running through buildings, but rather they had been cut and pushed apart from each other in perfect lines with the new walls filling in the gaps. After a bit of digging around in a burning heap he found an oil lantern that had been split cleanly in half, presumably what had started the blaze. He wondered if it would even be possible to punch magic as strong as this, then took a nibble of the blue mazestone and found that it tasted bad.
Meanwhile, to the north, Sigillaria arrived at Mielikki's cottage and was greeted by a modest staff of servants. Inside, the Grand Marshal was gorging himself on rockflower of fine vintage. On hearing that the end times hadn't started, he then agreed to join her and return to Bedrock to aid (and more importantly, be seen aiding) in the rescue and reconstruction efforts. By the time he got there, things were well in hand, so he got to questioning those who had witnessed the appearance of the maze. This was complicated by the fact that, somehow, nobody had been looking at it when it had formed. Thicket said with authority that the pale blue mazestone was made of "moon rocks" and that it would take a month or so to finish removing the maze's walls.
Later in the day, Pomegranite dispatched the Imperial Messengers to the other provinces to hear if they were in more trouble. After all, the earthlings had only managed things so well because of their abundance of terramorphers. Soon, news came from Granitehearth and Sappington, the other two major cities in the Highland Forest, that they had suffered greater damage. Without military terramorphers, they were making due with their local priesthood and their earthsong.
They heard back from Archbishop Eremon of Lumene first. Edelina had not returned with the army yet, and his missive stated that they had experienced the same appearance of mazes but had it under control. This was followed soon after by a letter signed by King Peter of Tauschun but clearly written by Ulrich. He was a bit more candid, and stated that they were having difficulties. He had discerned that the magic used had something to do with the Path of Secrets, of which he was a magister, but little more.
Lastly, they received a message from Dimitri of Wrost after a month, and at that point the absence of word from the College became too suspicious to ignore. Even worse, they had an entire contingent of terramorphers there, which meant they should have been able to be rid of the mazes within a short while. Pomegranite, as a College magister and not technically a member of the triumvirate, was dispatched along with his advisors to learn what had happened.
The College
All seemed normal on the road until they approached a small village close to the College, when Pomegranite's asked some peasants if anything odd had happened recently. They told him that "Queen Baelynna" had done a great job rallying everyone to deal with the crisis. Really, they all loved how things had been since she took over. Not only had he never heard of a "Queen Baelynna", but Halberst hadn't even had a queen since the failed rebellion over a century ago. Further questioning revealed that she was a self-proclaimed goddess as well as Queen of Halberst, and that the way these farmers were acting was... strange. Almost as though they were being puppetted.
Now substantially more nervous, Pomegranite continued on to the College, though he did send a note back to Granmarg with Bird, hoping this time the trained bird would make it to the proper destination. Pomegranite and his advisors arrived at the College's white stone walls and passed through into the New City without any issues. Once inside they located the waystation of the Imperial Messengers, and within he found the messengers they had dispatched for not only Halberst, but also Baronde, the Segretan League, and the Elven Forests.
They were chatting, playing dice, and generally making merry. On seeing him they apologized for not completing their tasks, but you see, Queen Baelynna had ordered a celebration on her ascension to the throne, and they were not permitted to do work until it was over. They would never want to offend her, she really seemed like quite a lovely woman and a great ruler after all. Pomegranite nodded along and pretended to listen to their excuses while covertly using the Path of the Moon to discover that they were under some sort of enchantment. He wasn't familiar with whatever it was, but if it was the Path of Thought, as he suspected, he wouldn't be.
Wary that he may be walking to his death (or worse), Pomegranite continued to the College grounds in the Old City. It was almost as though there had never been a maze here, though the odd flagstone out of position gave it away to one who had spent long years there in adepthood. After he had surveyed the grounds for a time, an adept approached and asked if he was Pomegranite the Treefallen, of the Highland Forests. Upon his confirmation, the adept bade him follow them to the great hall where the Queen was waiting.
The former dining hall had been converted into a throne room, and with its long rows of trestle tables and benches removed felt eerily empty. Its single inhabitant sat on a throne on a newly-raised dais. Even seated it was clear she would tower over him, her skin a bright red and hair made of swords, twelve arms resting in her lap. Queen Baelynna smiled widely at Pomegranite and said she had been dying to speak to someone from the Highland Forests.
Notes:
Turns out I came up with colloquial names for the different types of magisters a long time ago and then just never used them. "Burner" is the colloquial designation for a user of the Path of the Sun who isn't College-trained, though the Burner in question may not recognize it as such. Lumene has quite a few of these who are trained through the Church of Astraeus. Notably both Edelina and Eremon are Burners, with neither having attended the College.
Granmarg rolled a die to see how many of his troops died and got a 6, which I interpreted as "all of them".
Mielikki, on the void portal currently being too small for an army to pass through: "Well what if we spaghettified everyone then sent them through?"
Thicket suggested that the reason for the existence of the Segretan
Labyrinth was an earlier civilization being destroyed by these mazes and then buried.
Assuming it's the goddess he thinks it is, the woman on the throne is Bellona, Goddess of Bloodlust and Thought.
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