The man had a bump on his head and was as limp as a sack of beans where he was laying on the ground. His morningstar and the Armor he’d been wearing under his dark robes had already been removed, as had anything else magical about him, and he was basically unconscious and tied up in his underwear right now, awaiting proper questioning.
“Called himself Martionell, claimed he and the dead twat of a wingless mage over there are representatives of the Empress of Delpha,” Narnonyx, a trim and brutally protective dwarven Daisho Main Axe, stated to Briggs after throwing the human onto the bed.
Briggs dismissed the words out of hand. He had read Empress Cleossa’s file, and she was famously disdainful of necromancy. This kind of stunt was utterly beneath her.
The pegataurs certainly weren’t doing it at the Empress’s command. They were both being paid extremely well, and their kinfolk were under threat of the allies of this Archmage and Archpriest.
Not Grand Archies, or even High or True Archies. Not even Twenty-Fives: impressive here in the west, but literally errand-runners in Delpha. Given their age, they were either being severely repressed and kept busy doing irrelevant stuff, or were singularly unambitious order-takers.
“Anything on the dead mage?” The corpse was cooling in the hold. It didn’t look like it had soulburned him, but Edge would find out soon enough.
“Some paperwork and letters, but they were unsigned. In Delphan, but…” Narnoynx’s Daisho partner, a silver-haired elfin named Sealuviell, looked a bit pensive, “the calligraphy was… odd.”
Leave it to an elf to notice subtle artistic variances, he thought, amused. “References?” he inquired firmly.
She shook her head, braids of platinum hair bouncing, but pleased to see he hadn’t dismissed what she’d seen. “I’d have to see multiple new styles of rendering the language. I’ve read a half-dozen contemporary references in Delphan, including the official government style, and this was definitely not that, nor the standard style used in correspondence among the educated and wealthy.”
He nodded. “Good catch. Shuffle them off to the Lore teams and bring it to their attention.” He lifted up the holy symbol of the Cleric, handing it to her as well. “Verify the Immortal this is bound to. I am presuming Delphax, which gives us a very good idea of where to go to address this problem.”
Delphax’s main site of servants/worshipers probably had its own writing style, based on the very, very old original Delphan style. Probably even called it ‘True Imperial Style’, or somesuch nonsense. One of Edge’s Sims could take it and compare it to what they had in the Twilight Libraries, and likely find a confirming match.
The holy symbol of a black sun could belong to anyone from Nyx to Rathaseid, didn’t even have to be Entropics… but the fuckers had been shuffling undead troops from somewhere and into Twinlakes Vale, with the Castle itself being held up by the power of a Nightwalker powering the Throne that kept it aloft.
Said Nightwalker now painting the ‘engine room’ nicely white now, of course.
They could probably sell the Castle off to any Church who could get a Titan dispatched to move it along. It was able to carry far heavier loads than an airship, and was technically better fortified, but it was also much slower and really, really retro in design and origin, especially the skull motif of the keep.
They were probably better off rendering it down for goldweight and getting rid of it, honestly. The reverse-artificing crews would happily tear apart every stone for goldweight and to learn how it worked, then mock the shit out of the poor design.
Yeah. Back of the thumb calculations, this thing probably had a minimum of two thousand goldweight plowed into it, and that was with a sucky, Nightwalker-dependant propulsion system. Just, ugh. What a colossal waste of goldweight!

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The corpse of the bone knight made out of the late and unlamented Baron Nearu was Burning nicely. As for the blue dragon Wyrm he’d been riding, Garishna had moved VERY quickly after the dragon died and first Itemized it down in size, turned the carcass to paper, and then shrank it again to stow it away in a Masspack, all before the radiating energies from that unclean thing in the middle of the cavern here could make it rise as a dracolich or something, which Grimbol was absolutely sure it would have.
A plume of incredibly foul smoke was jetting up and out of the cavern, raging up to spread out and form the Deathcloud hanging above the whole Barony. Just looking at it made his eyes feel unclean, like the slime from a thousand graves was coating the back of them. The radiating death energy of the stuff was sparking regularly over their skin, making the vivus on their Weapons flare up in regular surges.
The source of the effect was a Rune-covered boulder over there. It was oily black, the Symbols daubed on it an eye-watering pus-green, and it had soaked up half a dozen spells without any reaction whatsoever. When he’d used the Baron’s magic Sword on it, the Enchanted steel had shattered like glass and fallen to blackened splinters from the blow. Nobody felt like risking their personal Weapons against it, and holding a Vivic Weapon close to it, they actually could see the vivus being forced away by the death energies this thing was constantly emitting.
They cleaned up the vivisizing remains of the Baron. Now that his undead version was dead, he could be Resurrected… but that was King Taravon’s call, and this idiot’s refusal to get into the communication link with the rest of the dominions and go his own proud way didn’t speak well for his chances. He probably still would have died, but likely they could have arrived fast enough to prevent this Deathstone thing from being put in place.
-Commander Briggs, bit of a problem here,- the doughty dwarf /messaged him, signaling everyone to pull back after they rapidly took possession of the dragon’s hoard over in the side of the large chamber. It only took a few minutes to Tapestry the lot of it, and everyone hurried out, grinning at their haul and already thinking of what they were going to Infuse with the goldweight.
Four relay teams were in place in the Vale now, keeping watch over the towns and the baronial castle. Line of sight relays from Marked and Oathrings linked up and got them outside and under the Deathstone’s cloud, keeping communication active, with radios also working over short ranges.
-Go ahead, Grimbol,- the Commander /replied.
-Bin got us a boulder-sized Runestone as the source o’ the cloud, Briggs,- Grimbol /informed him, giving him a hasty view of the thing. -Nobody recognizes the Runes, and none o’ them want to, either,- he /added for good measure. -Seems impervious to weapons und magic, shrugged both off, und totally destroyed a +III that touched it.- 18k of goldweight, gone! Oh, the dwarvenity! He gripped Forge reassuringly, still glad he hadn’t tried hitting it with his own Hammer, although he was pretty sure the thing wouldn’t have destroyed it, at the least.
-Consulting Lady Edge. Edge, we’ve got a Runestone problem.-
The coming of the Elfin Magos was like the nightsky appearing in Markspace, and even the fritzing interference of the Deathcloud’s emanations steadied and vanished. -Commander?- she /asked calmly.
-Grimbol, one last look at the thing,- Briggs /directed him.
Grimbol steadied himself, took a deep breath, and then moved his gaze onto the Stone.
The oily black thing’s surface looked more like grasping, writhing skin, with the energies pulsing and throbbing underneath it in some unholy rhythm, bulging and bursting out of those Runes burning with the fires from decaying souls, coating his eyes with filth and the screams of the damned and-
“Blagh!” he shouted, turning away and clamping his eyes shut, trying to wash them off with willpower alone.
-Immortal-grade Runestone, but not a permanent one. It’s capping an internal Portal to the Sphere of Death, the cloud is literally a byproduct of the planar interaction taking place. Expect any corpses under it to Animate at midnight or something,- Lady Edge /said crisply. -But such easy power and benefits come with great vulnerabilities. How damage resistant is it?- she /inquired.
-Impervious to magic und Weapons,- he /replied succinctly.
He could feel her mental /nod. -Its weaknesses have been displaced into an item that is in the rough vicinity, randomly placed by Immortal fiat. You are looking for a ‘Hammer of Life’, likely separated into head and haft, and probably secured in the hoards or on the being of some monstrous creature located close by, say within five miles. Ask the locals if there are any dangerous beasts known to be nearby, and investigate those first, I recommend. Otherwise you are looking for a Dungeon that sprang out of nowhere and has the Hammer as the prize at the bottom of it.-
That latter actually sounded rather interesting, but learning just how deadly Dungeons could be was part of their training, both at Castle Darkmoor on the Other Shore and the new Castle Firerose in the old Archlands. Immortals and magical one-track AI’s loved them some deathtraps and fell creatures, they did.
-On it. How do we use the thing?-
She just /sniffed. -It’s a HAMMER.-
Grimbol grinned in understanding. -Got it, thanks for the guidance. We’ll wrap this up as quick as we can!- he /promised firmly.
He was /nodded off by both of them, trusted to do what needed to be done and lead his juniors to resolve this problem.
They’d crossed the lake surrounding this isolated island without issue, Lohanas the Dawn-priest Water-Walking the whole way, while the rest of them followed on Disks. They’d return the same way to the fishing village whose population they had rescued from a force of undead attackers, and be seeing where the Immortals might have dropped this little toy that could destroy the Deathstone…

-The Dark Nova is one of the symbols used exclusively among the Delphan followers of Delphax, representing the explosive death of suns and the ultimate power of Fire to destroy everything. It’s really a petty defiance of the Windstorm that destroyed Delpha in their home plane, since the Followers of the Flame were unable to arrange anything of the sort among themselves, of course,- I /sniffed in the Markspace as the Clerical symbol floated before us. -The Cleric has been helpfully plied with false memories incriminating the Empress, and actually does believe she ordered this tactic as a warning to her son’s willful ways. The dead Wizard likely knew more, but he’s been soul-locked, and I could get nothing from him without using Immortal Power, and I didn’t want to attract attention by yoinking a soul of some strength out of Delphax’s realm directly for questioning so coincidentally.-
-So, That Twat is taking a personal interest here,- Sama /purred, considering the symbol. -Are we to take this a precursor of something more direct?-
-Ninety percent chance plus,- I /agreed. -He wants Delpha to get involved in something dangerous and arrange for its destruction to appease His own towering ego and failures. Starting a fight over Eislas is entirely appropriate, and Venya will probably be happy to go along with it.-
-If Thaum is revealed to be the source of the Day of No Magic, that will light a tinder keg we are rolling and filling up right now,- Briggs /judged. -Venya is liable to prod Thincol to move for merely mortal ambitions, but he’s wisely held off, both because he’s been facing us, and doesn’t know what else he’s dealing with. But the Immortals of Delpha will prod everyone to action for the threat to magic, and there won’t be much anyone can do to stop it.-
-Well, then, we’re just going to have to take some steps to prevent all that from happening, aren’t we?- Sama /said lightly. -Briggs, I know you are planning to bring all the pegataurs over from Delpha as your newest project, so Edge, what’s up your sleeve?-
-Forcing the hand of an Immortal.-