Chapter 135: Divine Wrath
The heavenly music twisted into angry noise as divine fury echoed across dimensions. The gods witnessed mortal defiance of their ultimate gift. They swore vengeance upon the one who dared spurn godhood itself.
Gale remained unmoved by their rage. He raised his middle finger toward the heavens, a gesture that needed no translation across any culture or plane.
"I believe mortals shall one day achieve greatness that will shame even the gods themselves," he declared.
The divine realms flickered and dissolved as thunderclouds gathered overhead, heavy with supernatural wrath. Across Toril, faithful servants of various deities heard the angry voices of their patrons speaking directly into their minds. A mortal had rejected godhood itself, then mocked them.
Such an insult demanded cosmic punishment.
"Madness," Elminster whispered. He opened a portal with shaking hands. "Complete madness."
The archmage fled through his dimensional gateway. He abandoned any attempt to reason with these outsiders. The Emperor was clearly insane, and his influence had corrupted everyone around him.
To challenge the gods so openly, did he not understand the forces they had provoked?
"Wisdom guided your choice, Gale," Malcador approached the transformed wizard with approval.
"Had you accepted their offer, my Lord's wrath might have claimed you before you reached the heavenly throne."
"This was... a test?" Gale asked, understanding dawning in his enhanced eyes.
"Worth must be proven," the Sigillite replied. He moistened his finger and traced a rune upon Gale's robes. "Symbols carry meaning beyond mere decoration. Do not forget what you have chosen to become."
"I understand," Gale nodded.
Myrkul's destruction and the elder brain's death collapsed the Absolute's power structure entirely. Orin the Red and Ketheric Thorm lay permanently dead, while Enver Gortash sat in chains. The cult's remaining followers faced execution or prison as the Emperor's forces dismantled their organisation.
Moonrise Tower now flew Imperial banners.
During their search of the fortress, the Emperor's forces made an unexpected discovery. In the tower's deepest foundation, where reality touched the Shadowfell itself, they found a prison containing Dame Aylin, the Nightsong, daughter of Selûne the Moonmaiden.
The heavenly being's relationship with Isobel had become clear through interrogation and observation. Yet when the Emperor offered her a place in His forces, she declined with quiet dignity.
Her refusal earned neither rage nor force. After binding her divine abilities to prevent interference, the Emperor released her without further constraint. So long as none opposed His grand design, He remained generous in victory.
Following a brief rest and resupply at Moonrise Tower, the Imperial advance continued toward its final objective: Baldur's Gate.
The Gate stood as the Sword Coast's greatest city-state, a trade hub whose influence stretched across Faerûn's western shores. Its governing Council of Four maintained loose allegiance to the Lords' Alliance, making it both a prize and a political flashpoint.
The Emperor's intentions went beyond mere conquest. Complete control of the Sword Coast would provide the resources needed for Toril's unification, followed by systematic conquest of neighbouring planes.
This represented more than establishing a fantasy realm within His growing empire; it offered the chance to reshape fate itself while claiming the second volume of the Netherese Scrolls.
"The Steel Watch awaits your command, my lord," Enver Gortash declared with the enthusiasm of the thoroughly defeated. His spineless capitulation had delivered Baldur's Gate's most potent military asset directly into Imperial hands.
The city's defences crumbled before the assault began. Internal betrayal had cost them half their strength before the first shot was fired.
Gortash's cooperation ensured Baldur's Gate fell with minimal bloodshed for those wise enough to surrender immediately. Scattered resistance from die-hard loyalists met swift suppression.
"Your rule ends here," The Emperor announced to the assembled Council of Four as He strode into their chamber.
Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard, supreme commander of the Flaming Fist mercenary company and the council's leader, met His gaze without flinching. "This city will not be easy to hold. Countless powers monitor our affairs. Do you truly believe conquest grants you security?"
The Emperor's smile held no warmth. "They shall soon redirect their attention toward the moment when my blade will find their throats."
A gesture dismissed the former rulers from their seats of power. Martial law descended upon Baldur's Gate as Imperial forces swept through every district, quarter, and hidden enclave.
The Thieves' Guild, Assassins' Guild, and every other organisation that thrived in the shadows found themselves declared enemies of the new order. The Emperor launched systematic extermination campaigns against the criminal syndicates that had festered in the city's depths.
Perturabo assumed responsibility for this purification with his usual thoroughness.
Some fools tested the Emperor's resolve through acts of defiance. The Iron Lord ensured they understood the fatal cost of such presumption.
Blood painted the Lower City's cobblestones as decades of gang warfare yielded to something far more terrible, Imperial justice. Perturabo offered no speeches, no warnings, no negotiations. His forces simply killed.
The heads of resistance leaders decorated street corners as grim warnings. Even those gangs that raised surrender banners found no mercy in capitulation.
The Iron Lord implemented decimation among surrendering criminals, for every ten members, one drew the death lot while his nine companions beat him to death with bare hands.
Such brutal efficiency broke the spine of organised crime within days. Terror achieved what years of conventional law enforcement had failed to accomplish.
With the Lower City pacified, the Emperor turned His attention to the merchant princes and noble houses whose wealth would fund His grand design.
"Taxation" proved remarkably efficient when accompanied by the threat of Perturabo's methods. The aristocracy discovered sudden enthusiasm for voluntary contribution, emptying their treasuries with remarkable speed.
Controlling a single city posed trivial challenges for one who was unifying the galaxy itself. With Malcador's genius and three Primarchs enforcing His will, transformation came swiftly.
The Emperor invested centuries of hoarded wealth in massive industrial expansion. Foundries erupted across the city like steel flowers, their towering smokestacks painting the sky with productive pollution.
Assembly lines churned day and night, producing weapons, armour, and the thousand mundane items required by a growing war machine.
Magical research accelerated as scholars found themselves lavishly funded to explore productivity enhancement and military applications of arcane science. With mythallars providing cheap magical energy, previously expensive enchanted items became mass-produced commodities.
Young citizens entered mandatory military service enhanced by magical augmentation, transforming ordinary children into seasoned professionals within months rather than years. Those unsuitable for combat found themselves assigned to factory work, becoming vital components in humanity's expansion.
Baldur's Gate's rapid militarisation sent tremors of concern throughout Faerûn's political landscape.
The Lords' Alliance responded first. Baldur's Gate had been their member city, making the Emperor's conquest a direct challenge to their authority.
Led by the Silverhand family, Silverymoon's ruling dynasty of legendary arcanists, the Alliance issued a formal declaration of war.
Silverymoon, Neverwinter, Waterdeep, and the Dwarven Kingdoms marshalled their forces for a unified campaign to restore legitimate governance.
The four exiled dukes and fleeing nobles rallied to their banners, swearing to reclaim their birthright through blood and steel.
Yet as mortal armies prepared for conventional warfare, far greater threats stirred in response to the Emperor's defiance of destiny itself.
Perhaps divine wrath sought to humble these upstart mortals through catastrophe. Possibly altering the course of fate triggered unforeseen consequences. Regardless of cause, disaster struck when an adventuring party accidentally released Tiamat herself into the Material Plane.
Their intentions had been noble, rescuing a cursed child from the Cult of the Dragon and bringing him to Aurenmere, an ancient gold dragon renowned for his wisdom and compassion. The noble wyrm had eagerly accepted the challenge of breaking what seemed a simple curse.
Too late did he realise the trap's true nature. As Aurenmere absorbed the boy's affliction, Tiamat's consciousness erupted from within the curse itself, seizing the gold dragon's body and twisting it to her will.
The Dragon Queen, deity of chaos, mother of chromatic wyrms, embodiment of draconic evil, had returned to walk among mortals once more. Her first act was summoning every chromatic dragon across Faerûn to her banner while her cult emerged from hiding to serve their reborn goddess.
Yet Tiamat's emergence marked only the beginning of Toril's troubles.
Mind flayer nautiloids traversed the Astral Plane in organised fleets, their destination clear: the world where their elder brain had perished. Githyanki war-barges followed close behind, drawn by rumours that Orpheus, son of their first queen, remained imprisoned somewhere on the planet.
From the Underdark's deepest reaches, drow houses prepared surface raids while spider-cultists and worse things stirred in lightless caverns. The dark elves saw opportunity in the chaos above, a chance to expand their domains and claim new slaves.
Most ominously, the Nine Hells themselves began opening permanent gateways to the Material Plane. Archdevils sensed weakness in the cosmic order, preparing massive infernal invasions to claim mortal souls en masse.
Toril trembled on the precipice of apocalypse, a convergence of threats that would test even The Emperor's limitless ambition.
The war began with a horn blast that echoed across the Sword Coast.
The Emperor deployed His rapidly expanding military might: ranks of magical constructs, the entirety of Gortash's Steel Watch, and floating warships that defied conventional understanding of naval warfare.
Mass-produced mythallars had revolutionised Imperial logistics, transforming expensive magical weapons into standard equipment.
Only the incomplete state of His floating cities prevented the Emperor from simply crushing the Alliance beneath aerial supremacy.
These primitive opponents would learn what actual magical warfare entailed.
The conflict proved utterly one-sided. The Lords' Alliance fought as they always had, professional adventurers supporting conventional armies in a fantasy approximation of medieval combat.
The Emperor had moved beyond such limitations entirely. His forces attacked from land, sea, and sky simultaneously, wielding technologies that belonged to different ages entirely.
Fifty-meter-tall magical constructs strode across battlefields like moving fortresses, their mage operators conjuring devastating energy barrages that carved trenches through enemy formations.
The Steel Watch advanced in perfect synchronization, their runic armor deflecting sword and spell alike while their heavy weapons pulverized anything within reach.
The Lords' Alliance had brought swords to fight against the future itself.
[End of Chapter]
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