#Lore24 – Entry #351 – Sci-Fi Month IV #16 – The War Against the Imperium Begins
Transcribed From the Personal Recording Implant of Andra Ganim, Chronicler of the Codex Infinitum
RV: “Well…perhaps not save his life, rather, save his soul.”
AG: “Save his soul? Forgive, Miss Volcari, but I don’t follow.”
RV: “Of course you don’t, so let me explain. My plan for revenge required that I be exceptionally close to Emperor Halaxaes, for he had taken great pains to ensure that no scrying could touch him, had insured that his magical protections were second to none, and that he had grown suitably paranoid of more mundane methods of spying, so it would be no simple matter. There was but one he would trust, and that was his dear, sweet son. So, I had to make use of the boy, as he was Halaxaes’ one true weakness.
Auralus at the time was, at the time, a peaceful world, primarily used by the elite of the Imperium, those high within the Great Houses, as a secluded resort from which they could grow fat from the resources they siphoned off the rest of the Imperium, filled with themselves and their servants, and, in the areas accessible to those outside the Imperium’s upper crust, plenty of vices for their lesser to be distracted by. Quite decadent. It was here that I would see the first blow struck against Halaxaes, in particular, against Ruvaen. Through no small amount of preparation and secret communication amongst no less than a dozen rebel groups, I engineered the factors that would allow the assembled strike team through the defensive network and to the surface of the world. In short order, chaos had taken Auralus, and Ruvaen’s forcers were on the defensive, unable to reach the forces garrisoned upon the space citadel in orbit thanks to my interference with the communications network. Oh, I had secreted myself aboard the citadel by this time, in the guise of a lowly novice arcanist, studying, and rather unsuccessfully, on a way to create the ultimate soldier through artifice. I played the part perhaps too well, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, through the course of the battle for Ruvaen’s stronghold, I slipped away from the citadel and, in the chaos that had started up, saw myself through the magical defenses that had been in place so that I could attain the primary component I needed. Using some rather advanced illusions to draw the attention of the rearguard, I infiltrated Ruvaen’s bunker and decimated it from within, the boy’s arcane talents, while impressive, were quite pathetic in the face of my own. I made certain to keep the boy alive, if not entirely intact, and made sure that his body would not survive the encounter.
It was then that my planned disruption of communications ceased, and the Imperium’s forces swept down upon the rebels. With Ruvaen’s condition suitably stabilized, if only for the moment, I once again donned by guise of the lowly researcher and returned to the citadel. In short order, I found myself aboard the cruiser that housed Ruvaen’s broken body, which was slowly being consumed by the curse I’d laid upon it that prevented proper healing. As the evacuation of the boy commenced, the next wave of rebels came in with the ships they had managed to secure through my generous donations, hampering the escape.
As Ruvaen’s condition worsened, it was up to the lowly arcanist to save his life, though not in a way any would suspect. It was then that my golem, more accurately, my special golem armor, was brought into play, though none would suspect it was indeed an armor. It was made with life-sustaining magics from the ground up, so it seemed as likely a method as any to save the boy’s life, as desperate as the surgeons were at the time. A shame those rebels managed to break through the outer defense perimeter during a peculiarly ill-timed systems glitch and just happened to know the exact ship their target was upon.
The first phase of my plan was ultimately a success; the destruction of the ship would not affect my golem armor in the slightest, its life support functions making certain that I would survive for quite some time within. Ruvaen’s body, impossible to save by the point the ship was destroyed, was to be sacrificed as my golem armor absorbed his very soul into itself, just before the ship’s shields failed and it was shot down. Of course, all hands, including that unfortunate researcher and all her data, were lost, aside from the newly reborn Ruvaen, and the passenger the armor was actually intended to protect all along.”
Note: I am experiencing an unusual level of unease at the tone of Rivalle’s voice and the rather wistful smile upon her face, as though she were recalling a most pleasant memory, yet she has just spoken of an absolutely terrible series of events and the use of horrendously foul magics.
AG: “That passenger being you, of course. What exactly was your plan with this…golem armor?”
RV: “It was the best method I could devise to get myself close to Emperor Halaxaes in a way that would allow me to have my revenge. He would be quite furious once news reached him of the assault, then very nearly broken at the word of his son’s apparent death. I could not know all that had passed between the two, of course, so I needed Ruvaen to fill in the blanks for me, to prove to Halaxaes that his sone did indeed still live, however strangely. Though Ruvaen’s soul was firmly in my control, I would allow him some leeway in certain matters, to act as he normally would, and over the course of some weeks, he would again regain his father’s trust and prove that he was indeed his son, however altered and miserable within the golem’s shell. His soul would mask my own presence, and with some minor influence from Ruvaen, the emperor’s arcanists would not be allowed to study the armor closely, for fear of doing something that could endanger the son trapped within. Scans and magical probes would reveal a living body inside, if they were of sufficient power and duration, but this was simply taken as his broken body being sustained from within.”
AG: “So…with that raid…the Imperium War began…with you right there beside Emperor Halaxaes all along.”
RV: “Indeed. I, with Ruvaen’s soul riding along with me, would prove quite the fearsome opponent for the officially announced rebellion, calling themselves the Free Peoples’ Compact. Halaxaes’ revenge was foremost of course, and those rebels who were captured at Auralus were duly executed in public, though this would do nothing but enhance the anger against the Emperor throughout the systems he controlled. Ruvaen would lead the assaults on the worlds that were confirmed to be allied with the FPC, or who hid their operatives. Quite the bloody affair.”
AG: “Were you responsible for turning the Emperor’s baleful glare upon the various arcanist orders, and the Chroniclers?”
RV: “No, I did no such thing, though I could not exactly step in as Ruvaen to speak against it. He knew that arcanists of no small talent were involved in the raid upon Auralus and would see to it that all such institutions were either made absolutely loyal to the Imperium or were eradicated as rebel sympathizers. It was certainly a great loss for the galaxy; magical studies have truly still not recovered following his decimation.
I believe your Order, the Chroniclers, while insisting upon a neutral stance throughout, had drawn his ire because he had gotten it in his head that they were holding back vital knowledge that would see Ruvaen restored to a proper body. Cloning technology was severely limited in that time, and the old methods of creating magical clones were lost to all but a handful of arcanists throughout the galaxy, though historically speaking, most clones created through arcane methods tended to grow unstable quickly and usually tried to kill the original if awakened early. He wanted to see his son restored, and when he could not find the knowledge he sought in the order’s archives, he assumed the worst and went to war against them, instead.
It was during this period that I would first come in conflict with Lila Darius, well, one of her reincarnations, in fact, and would be but the first of many vexations she would bring me in the centuries to follow. It’s rather fortunate I remained on the sidelines during the Age of Legends, for if I’d met her then, history may have turned out quite different indeed.”