Arilius shook his head sighed, gathering his sobbing granddaughter in his powerful arms. “I am sorry, Ava. More sorry than I can possibly say. It is not ego or pride that motivates me. You know this. I fight for nothing less than the survival of my people. So that you and my great-granddaughter might know a future free of the horror of the Dominion and all they stand for.”
“Grandfather...”
“I have only one question, Ava. Would you take the man before you to be your husband?”
Ava’s eyes pierced Val’s soul. “With all of my heart.”
A powerful hand gave Val’s shoulder a comradely squeeze. “And you, hero. Would you swear to love and protect the woman before you? To cherish and care for her for all your days?”
Val swallowed the lump in his throat, gazing into the eyes of the woman he adored. “Yes I would.”
The powerfully built dwarf grinned, nodding at them both, stepping back.
“Then as father of this house and king of this city, I bid you welcome as grandson. Husband of my Ava, protector of my Avelina. May you both savor all of life’s victories together.”
“But Grandfather, Astmar...”
“Your father is holding council even now. He knows how much your heart has yearned for Valor since the day he left your side. He knows what must be done.”
Arilius locked gazes with Val once more. “Valor Hunter, husband to my Ava, hero of my tribe, human who dares to walk the Path of Kings. Will you accept the allegiance of Falinnborg city? We would fight under your banner in the hopes that we may one day free our world from the Dominion’s grip, rebuild our cities, restore our people, and live freely once more!"
Hidden quest line revealed! Will You Save my People? IV! Arilius Battleborn is desperate to save his clan! He is certain that only by allying his city with the Terran who would dare the throne does he have a chance of bringing his people back from the brink of extinction!
You have already given life to a race once thought lost to time, Val. Will you let them fight under your banner, risking everything in the hopes that they might go forth and multiply, claiming Jordia as their world once more? Y/N
You have chosen YES! Congratulations! You have claimed Falinnborg Province by Rite of Marriage! Cost to claim the hidden city of the dwarves and all adjoining resources is 3 territory points. Falinnborg is a Level 10 greater territory intimately affecting the destiny and potential of near 10,000 souls. You have earned 1 Dominion point. You are 3 Dominion points away from becoming a Rank 7 Overlord.
As a Rank 6 Overlord, you now have an additional 8 territory points (9 total) to spend on upgrading your territory. Your citizens possess Inventive Genius equivalent to Tier (Undefined) in multiple fields of engineering! Falinnborg possesses Tier 10 manufacturing capabilities, Tier 10 mining capabilities, and the equivalent of a Tier 5 agricultural center, thanks to the arboriums you restored. Warning! All automatons are offline. To claim full benefits of mining and manufacturing facilities, automatons must be brought back online.
Hidden quest line: Will You Save My People? IV complete! The fate of Falinnborg is now firmly tied to your own. Should you triumph, the dwarven people might one day reclaim this world as their own. And should you fall, their doom is all but assured. Experience earned!
Val shivered with awe as he became one with the endless possibilities of this magnificent city, all that it could accomplish in the infinite permutations of the multiverse, the brilliant silver-blue experience meter of his soul filling up halfway to the next level.
Ava gasped, Arilius gazing at Val with a strange sort of pride.
“Heaven’s mercy, he’s glowing with it!” Ava whispered.
Yet all Val could do was shake his head in astonishment as the limitless potential of Falinnborg and all its majestic wonders opened itself to him, its fate melding with his own.
“Arilius. I don’t know what to say. Just… thank you. What you’re sharing with me is a priceless gift. Beyond priceless.”
Arilius flashed a hard smile. “What I am sharing with you is all the potential of this city, now alive with the sounds of artificers, craftsmen, and children. All of them embracing sweet existence because of your actions, Valor Hunter. The debt we owe you is one we can never repay. And should you actually manage to claim the crimson board that Jordia has become, it is to you that we will owe the reemergence of our people in all their glory. We will forge a world, and one day an empire, dedicated to our people, so we never need to fear the hoary grip of extinction again!”
Fierce blue eyes softened to gentle awe as powerful fingertips gently stroked the brow of little Avelina. “And it is your children, Valor, kin to two shoots of the same great tree, who will lead us on our path to greatness.”
Val solemnly bowed his head, still awestruck by all that had occurred, feeling the fierce, protective instincts of fathers everywhere. “I will do everything in my power to claim the throne, so the monsters above can never hurt your people or my child, ever again.”
Arilius nodded. “I have no doubt of that. Now come. My son has news he wishes to share with both of us.” He smiled at Val’s expression. “You already know how in tune our people are with one another. Astmar has long accepted you as Ava’s chosen, and sensing the opportunity our goddess has laid before us, we knew better than to waste a minute of it. Of course we moved with efficiency while you were bonding with your wife. If fortune favors us, another heir to the Battleborn clan will be forged even as you risk your very soul trying to save us all.”
Ava flushed at those words, but she couldn’t hide the hopeful smile upon her features. “If the fates are kind,” she whispered.
Val locked gazes with the powerful dwarf. “I think I can already be of use to all your efforts.” Even as he said the words, ecstatic voices could be heard from the open windows overlooking the vast city of golden bronze towers and endless marvels below.
Val couldn’t help smiling as Arilius’s too-knowing gaze became suddenly awestruck. Arilius could understand his city, even if he lacked the power to weave the threads of destiny into any pattern of salvation. So when past and present simultaneously blossomed into something miraculous, the old dwarven king felt it as well.
Halcyon Restoration in effect! 4 territory points spent (5 remaining). 8 Tiers worth of wonders have been wrenched free of Oblivion’s grasp! You have pulled the strings of destiny as hundreds of automatons once entrusted with running the city entire and the priceless Valorium mines so vital to all Arilius’s plans come to life once more! What had once been erroneously attributed to faulty design had merely been the result of antagonistic reverberations, thanks to a poorly synchronized suspension matrix! With the central matrix now offline, every automaton is once more in pristine working order after a simple reboot!
Ava turned to gaze with awe out the window. “Father, our people rejoice! What’s happening?”
Arilius’s voice was one of awe. “It can’t be. The Valorium mines we had lost resonance with after a thousand years, fearing we would never find them out of all the infinite overlapping planes we adjoin. My child, they are linked with us once more! The automatons… by Phoebe, they are requesting permission to enter!”
Ava gasped. “Father, the peril!” Before gazing into Val’s eyes, too stunned to speak.
Val flashed a self-conscious smile. “It’s okay. It turns out that it was the suspension matrix causing all that negative feedback. With the automatons completely shut down for the last two years and the matrix offline, it served as the perfect, well, reboot. And once the engineers fix a few faulty wires in the matrix, or just keep it shut off, you should have no problems with the automatons ever again.”
But Ava wasn’t having any of it, her light gray features paling even further. “It was you. This was your doing, husband.” A trembling palm reached out to touch Val’s cheek. “You’re bending the cords of causality itself, warping reality to suit your whim. No mortal can do what you just did.” She frowned, rubbing her forehead. “But it was al
ways this way. I know that. Yet, but a heartbeat ago...” She shuddered. “Child of Phoebe indeed.”
Arilius chuckled softly, clapping Val’s shoulder. “Come, king of kings. There are things we must see to.”
With a final kiss to cooing infant and awestruck wife, Val left Ava’s quarters and proceeded past grand clockwork buildings and dozens of brass and bronze colored automaton dashing about on treads, spider legs, torsos that were in fact massive wheels, or giant human-looking feet. Val’s heart lurched whenever a new one popped up around a corner before sensing their docile state, and the intimate connection he had to all of the mechanical marvels flooding past him. The odd crystalline intelligence he sensed from the larger ones was strangely serene, free of the brittle madness that had infected this city in a time that perhaps now never was.
Val shook his head, still in a daze as he and Arilius came before a grand building of pristine golden bronze that looked every inch the Parthenon as visualized by artistic geniuses in ancient Athens, many thousands of years ago. Not for the first time, Val found himself wondering just how much artistic inspiration from one world had its origins in another.
10
When they entered the massive structure, an impressed Val gazed at the vaulted ceiling, catching sight of numerous windows of finest Altersian crystal casting a gentle light on the assembled dwarves below. Twelve elders wearing robes of finest silk or burnished Elementium plates were gazing raptly at Val and Arilius both as they entered, and it was Astmar himself who bowed his head upon Val’s arrival.
“If I had ever doubted, I doubt no longer,” said Ava’s father, hard eyes gazing into Val’s own before nodding at last and stepping back.
Looking the spitting image of his father save for younger features and darker hair, Astmar gestured to the table after exchanging a single glance with his sire.
Val bowed his head in turn, taking Arilius’s lead and sitting beside his grandfather before a table of solid Altersian crystal, golden goblets filled with honeyed wine quickly poured from a pitcher by their side.
Val took a sip of wine, savoring the tart sweetness, fragrant with notes of blackberry and honeysuckle. He couldn’t help but be amazed at the exquisite drink or how the dwarves had managed to produce such a remarkable wine with their limited resources and time, and was awed anew by the power of those arboriums he had brought back from the brink of utter ruin.
His cheeks flushed at the twelve pairs of ice-blue eyes gazing at him so intently, forcing himself to stand upright, to gaze at them as an equal. This land was now part of his domain. And though he would never dream of exercising the smallest iota of his power to manipulate these people that he admired, even loved, he knew they expected him to be as strong and bold as any dwarven king.
Val smiled and spoke. “It lightens my heart to see light where there was darkness, to hear the sounds of children at play, men at work, where only sorrow and silence had reigned before.”
More than one dwarf raised his goblet in toast, all of them drinking deep.
Hard craggy features softened into smiles. “Rescued by a hero with the heart of a dwarf, for all that he wears the guise of a man,” declared the largest among them, his robe covered with shimmering plates of Elementium. It was as much a plated hauberk as anything else. “Garilius Firstblood, leader of what was once our automaton division, eleven centuries ago. Before the night of terror that destroyed our people, and of our once great empire blazing bright and glorious, only the faintest embers remain.”
Val bowed his head, clenching his fists at the thought of this final bastion of dwarven brilliance and ingenuity being burned from the face of Jordia. He swore with every fiber of his being that no matter what transpired from this day forward, he would never let this city fall.
His daughter would be safe and free, no matter how much blood he had to spill to achieve that end.
Garilius caught his eye when Val had composed himself once more, giving an approving nod. “You are one of us now, Valor Hunter. Your blood mingling with our own, the future of your own tribe in sync with our people.”
Val swallowed and nodded, knowing no words needed to be said.
“It is good that you understand this. For we have deemed you worthy of learning our deepest secrets. A prize safely kept out of the hands of our enemies for countless years. A prize the time has come to finally reveal.”
Val glanced Arilius’s way. The dwarven king favored Val with a fatherly smile. “You won over our final reservations when a thousand automatons woke up from madness and perpetual slumber, as serene and stable as the day they were forged, our most valuable treasure suddenly within reach once more. If any had doubted the path you walk, I promise you, boy, none do now.”
Twelve solemn nods at those words as Garilius brought forth a glowing cube that fit in the palm of his hand. Val flinched and pulled his eyes away as the incredibly complex 3-D learning matrix within that he didn’t have a hope of understanding suddenly manifested.
Bemused laughter caused Val to flush and he sheepishly raised up his head.
“Fear not, boy. We know your limits, even as we are awed by your strengths. This is not the matrix itself. Rather it is the prize this matrix instructs master engineers how to build. Look, and be amazed!”
And Val did force himself to look straight on at the image displayed, fearing the hammering headaches far less than losing the respect of the dwarves within this chamber.
What he saw took his breath away.
Garilius spoke true. It was no intricate web of mathematically linked and proofed system of knowledge that he saw, but rather an exquisitely rendered 3-D holograph of what could only be a spacefaring vessel.
A dwarven battleship, in all its glory.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked an awed Val.
Garilius chuckled. “It is indeed, boy. It is indeed. Our prototype battleship which 3 cities had spent the entirety of their resources and dedication forging together, a perfect specimen of everything a ship of war could be.”
Val swallowed. “What happened?” he whispered.
A powerful fist slammed the table. “It was destroyed! Along with every city we once called home on the surface of Jordia, the night before its maiden voyage. A night of treachery, betrayal, and death. A night which can never be forgotten, never forgiven! A night for which the only rebuttal can be the blood of our enemies with which we will baptize our vessel. For what was built once, can be built again!”
Solemnly, Arilius pressed several buttons that blended perfectly into the table, an exquisite 3-D rendering of Jordia suddenly manifesting before them. Val noted how the map zoomed with a clarity and attention to detail unlike anything Dominion tech allowed for, coming very close to a monochrome version of the very best 3-D rendering. But what truly took Val’s breath away wasn’t the incredible technological savvy of the dwarves, but rather the bird’s-eye view swooping over the entrance to the edifice that had once held his inert form in a casket of Silbion, the view now panning out to the west before slowly lessening in speed and attitude, showing what were clearly farming communities and scrublands with a single fortified manor in the heart of the territory he surveyed. Then they sped away along a winding road up a nearby hill, slowing to a stop before what looked to be an excavation site, workers busily chipping at dirt, grit, and sandstone, revealing massive doors of Altersian alloy underneath.
It awed Val to realize they were looking at things in real time. The sheer technological genius displayed by this single observational feat quite took Val's breath away. It was almost easier to believe it magic than the work of physics, tricky as remote sensor usage seemed to be in this reality.
“That ancient dwarven tomb serves as the gateway to the greatest of all prizes. Stridborg herself. Most prized of all the cities devoted to our ship's construction, it is where the shipyard and the girl herself were built.” Arilius gave a sad sigh, eyes burdened by ancient memories Val couldn't hope to fathom. “So close to completion. Then our mos
t hated foes struck, and a desperate people embraced untried technology, attempting to synergize our potential with the infinite multiverse.”
“Yet instead of our territories fusing with all the potency of a thousand cities, they stretched and warped under infinity’s caress. Our people forever scattered, and Phoebe only knows if any of our brethren managed to escape that horror and start tribes anew, or if each and every one was scattered a thousand worlds apart, doomed to die alone.” This from one ancient dwarf giving a sad shake of his head, and Val noted the slight green tinge to his robe.
Arilius nodded. “The greatest of tragedies, Natturan. It is fortunate indeed that Falinnborg had the means to embrace a different path.”
“Which still came heartbeats away from spelling our doom,” Astmar noted, “were it not for the hero within our midst.”
As one, the entire ancient council solemnly bowed their heads before a suddenly embarrassed Val, hiding his face with a sip of wine.
Arilius chuckled softly. “Even now, wielding powers of legend with an entire city feting him with honors, he is as humble as a boy before his heart’s desire.”
“Who just happens to be your granddaughter,” noted another council member, favoring a blushing Val with a bemused smile. “Fitting, for the hero of our city. How many dwarves had sought her heart, only to lose before the wonders of alchemy?”
“Alchemy and engineering both, which kept our final arborium alive until our Valor's fateful arrival,” their king noted. “Phoebe’s favored arts embraced, and Phoebe’s champion before her. I think my Ava chose as well as any lass could.”
All the dwarves nodded solemnly at that, and Val swore his cheeks were going to catch fire.
Arilius pinned Val with his gaze. “I know what I ask is no small thing. But if we are to have a hope of rising from the ashes of our fall… I must.”
Val swallowed. “Ask. Whatever it is, you know the answer is yes.”
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