The Coming Of Virtue

[Fate]

The Coming of Virtue, Year 1

Spring

We are the ones who waited. We survived - subsisted rather - while our lands blew away around us, like so much dust. Despair had latched itself into our minds, sorrow had long ago devoured our hearts, and strength was known no more to our limbs. And then She came to us, a bright burning light. She is beautiful and mighty, fearsome and strong. She is all we have, and all we need.

She is Qaphsiel, the Watcher of the Gallows, Warrior against the Sun, Princess of the Fishermen, Guide of Souls, the Lady at the Crossroads, and She is our salvation.

I am Yehoyakim the Pious. I was there when she came to us. It was hot, the kind of heat falls like dust over everyone. I stood on the dusty cobble stones and squinted into the sky at the small Dark Cloud that did not evaporate. But it did not rain. Instead, the cloud condensed and opened and She came out of it. At first I confess, I was a little afraid of her. But she is so beautiful.

Not all find her comforting. Ever since she arrived people have been periodically fleeing. Every month there is tell of hundreds or thousands of families running away from Avengel.

She was a little disappointed. We used to be a great empire, but now the lazy workers do nothing, the tax collectors don't pay their taxes, the sun is ever hot, and nothing grows. Even the minor lords that used to be our vassals have rebelled. She asked to be led to our laboratory. There she showed us things we have never known before.

She was only here a brief time before She left. She spent most that time in the laboratory reading. Then she left to bring back the Vassal States. She walked right into the Ironhanded Hills, a place no one in Avengel has seen for generations. She spoke a word of good fortune before flying into their ranks, and none of them could touch her. In the same way she took the Gates of Underhulm.