Re: A Tale of Fire and Blood
Peace.
Quiet, uneventful, blessed peace.
In his quarters, the majordomo was relaxing, sipping some of the “wine” the Mictlan troops had liberated from Man. Nobody seemed to know how it was made, but it certainly was better than the cactus alcohol that passed for a national beverage in Teotihuacan.
The Most Exalted God, may all his enemies crumble beneath his Paws, was touring the Empire, looking for magic sites. And having great success too, clearly all those elaborate preparations and carefully forged items were paying off (4+ in every magic skill except the priestly ones).
Mictlipoctli, the King of Legends, was North, celebrating his victory over Vanheim and raising a new army.
Quetzalcoatl was South, on Mount Chaining, (40% blood discount), experimenting with ever more powerful rituals with a few of the best priests of the Empire. At Last reports, he had summoned a Fallen Angel, a second Arch-Devil (not as powerful as the first one, but still nothing to sneer at), two Succubus, and his cross-breeding experiments had yielded about 200 assorted foul things, including a basilisk, a chimera, and two big bad things without names. The basilisk and the chimera were put in storage, to use against Ulm (ranged, area-of-effect, armor-negating attacks should work nicely against the tin men).
Many unique artifacts had been forged. The Hammer of the Forge Lord had been given to the Fallen Angel, who was busy forging Soul Contracts. With the Forge of the Ancient spell, those were very cheap, and already 5 devils were joining the armies each turn.
Blood slaves were found in great number. Nobody had a clue what to do with the mounting piles of gems – Nature was already over 300, with income of 25 by turn. The God had vaguely spoken of “higher summons” and “Gift of Reason”, perhaps that would help.
Gold production was still weak, at about 800 gold pieces, half of which went to pay the armies, but gold was rather irrelevant. A particularly obnoxious young priest had been given the task of finding “where all that money went” - the majordomo suspected it went mostly to the priests -, but truth to tell gold was not important.
Research was doing well, 200 spell pages a turn and climbing.
And the Empire was at peace. Well, not technically. Technically, it was still at war with Jotunheim, Man, and probably half a dozen others which it had never met. But apart from the occasional spiteful Arch-Angel from Man (and one Arch-Devil had made short work of the Last one), no battle was happening. The God had left explicit instructions during his journeys : “Pounce on the first one that so much as looks crossly at us”, but so far nobody was looking. Still, better schedule a Horror, or perhaps a Horde from Hell, to answer Man’s provocations, before the God came back. Just to be on the safe side.
And finally there was an opportunity to retrain the palace staff. Experienced servants had become few over the years – but now the new ones were being trained to acceptable standard. The majordomo opened one eye. “More wine !”, he told the slave girl he was personally training at the moment. Yes, they were coming up nicely, although there was still room for improvement. “I shouldn’t have to ask !” he scolded her…
Peace was good.
And it would not Last forever. Now was the time to enjoy it.
“Come here”, he ordered the slave girl…
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