The air over the northern mountains was a scene of controlled chaos. The Imperial Griffon Knights had executed their mission with chilling precision. The Heretic Armada was in shambles—disabled, crippled, and forced to make emergency landings (read: crash-landings) all over the rugged peaks. It was a complete rout.
High Priest Vorlagos's ship, the Divine Fury, was one of the last to go down. He stood on the tilting deck, screaming impotent curses at the sky as the smuggler captain wrestled with the controls, managing to bring the ship down in a long, grinding crash that ended in a splintering of wood and a final, shuddering groan.
His holy war was over. His army was scattered, terrified, and in need of a good hiking map. He had failed.
But the universe, in its infinite and ironic wisdom, had other plans.
One airship, the smallest and most pathetic of the fleet—a tiny, single-person scout skiff named the Pious Gnat—had been overlooked in the initial surgical strike. It was piloted by a young, spectacularly incompetent zealot named Brother Tepin. Tepin was a true believer of the highest order, but also a man whose sense of direction was so legendarily bad he could get lost in a closet.
During the initial attack, Tepin had panicked. He had pulled the wrong lever, twisted the wrong throttle, and instead of trying to flee, had accidentally sent his tiny skiff into a nosedive, plunging straight down into a thick bank of clouds. The Griffon Knights, assuming it had crashed, had marked it as neutralized and moved on.
But the Pious Gnat hadn't crashed. It had simply fallen, tumbling end over end, until Tepin, through another feat of blind, flailing luck, had managed to restart the sputtering engine just a few hundred feet above the treetops.
His navigation crystal was smashed. His compass was spinning uselessly. He was lost. Frightened and alone, he did the only thing a true zealot could do: he let go of the controls, clasped his hands together, and prayed to the Unblinking Eye to guide him to his god.
He then closed his eyes.
The Pious Gnat, now completely uncontrolled, was caught by a peculiar updraft—a localized thermal anomaly created by the very atmospheric shielding the Arch-Mages were using to protect Oakhaven. The tiny skiff was lifted, silently and gently, over the last mountain peak. It drifted, like a dandelion seed on the breeze, directly over the Imperial quarantine line. The sentinels on the ground registered a small, unpowered, non-hostile object floating on the wind. They classified it as a weather balloon or a large bird and ignored it.
The skiff floated over Oakhaven and, its energy finally spent, began its final, gentle descent. It was headed directly for the town square. Directly for the rubble pile left by the Grokk.
Inside the "Tome and Trinket," it was a quiet afternoon. Lyno was attempting to read a book, though his focus kept being broken by the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen where Ren was experimenting with a "Serene Soufflé."
Suddenly, Seraphina looked up from polishing the Crystal Turnip. "Movement," she whispered. "From the sky."
Everyone froze. Lyno's heart did a familiar lurch into his throat. Not again, he pleaded with the universe.
They all crowded the window. They saw the tiny, crippled air-skiff drifting down from the heavens like a drunken leaf. It was a bizarre, almost comical sight.
"One of the heretics," Aurelia gasped, recognizing the crude design from the reports she had been receiving. "How did it get through the Interceptors?"
"It does not matter how," Valerius mused, his eyes alight with analytical fire. "What matters is why. Why would our unseen enemies—the ones who sent the 'Baker' and the 'Grokk'—allow a single, pathetic vessel to reach the Master? It is not an attack. It is too weak. Therefore..."
"It's a message," Seraphina finished, her logic clicking perfectly with his. "A supplicant. A lone survivor, sent to beg for mercy or deliver a term of surrender."
The Pious Gnat finally crash-landed. It hit the top of the rubble pile with a soft CRUNCH, bounced once, and then settled at a precarious angle. The canopy popped open.
Brother Tepin stumbled out. He was dizzy, bruised, and covered in what looked like motor oil. He looked around at the peaceful town. He saw the bookstore, the focal point from all the legends. He had made it. His faith had delivered him. He was the only one.
He fell to his knees, his face streaked with tears and grime. He raised his arms to the heavens, and to the window where he could just make out the figures watching him.
"MASTER!" he cried, his voice a raw, ecstatic wail of pure, unadulterated devotion. "I AM HERE! THE SOLE SURVIVOR OF YOUR FLOCK, COME TO GAZE UPON YOUR GLORY! MY BROTHERS FELL IN THE TRIALS OF THE SKY, BUT MY FAITH HAS GUIDED ME TO YOUR FEET! ACCEPT THIS, YOUR HUMBLEST AND ONLY TRUE SERVANT!"
His words echoed across the quiet square.
Lyno stared, his mind struggling to process the scene. A man had just fallen out of the sky in a broken flying machine, was now kneeling on a pile of monster-rocks, and was screaming at him about being a sole survivor.
This poor, unfortunate man was clearly the victim of a terrible accident. He was confused, probably concussed. He thought Lyno was someone else. The humane, decent thing to do was to help him.
"He's delusional," Lyno said to his followers, a statement of stunning and profound accuracy. "He's probably hurt. We should... we should help him. Get him some water. Maybe a blanket."
He spoke with genuine, simple compassion.
But his followers did not hear compassion. They heard policy. They heard divine decree.
Their minds, primed by their conclusion that this was a supplicant from a defeated enemy, interpreted Lyno's simple kindness as a political masterstroke of epic proportions.
Valerius's eyes widened. He is not destroying the messenger, he realized. He is not mocking him. He is showing him... mercy. After the utter, crushing defeat of his enemies' aerial assault, his first act is one of compassion. It's a message to his rivals! A statement that says, "I have annihilated your forces, but I am not a tyrant. Surrender to me, and you will be met not with destruction, but with succor. Resistance is futile, but submission will be rewarded." It's an act of psychological warfare disguised as simple kindness! Unfathomable genius!
Aurelia saw it in a similar light. This is his policy on prisoners of war. Total victory, followed by magnanimous clemency. It is a brilliant way to inspire loyalty in the conquered. He is teaching me how an emperor should truly rule.
Seraphina's interpretation was simpler and more direct. The Master accepts his surrender. This... survivor... now belongs to him. Another asset acquired.
Without another word, Seraphina was in motion. She vanished from the bookstore. A moment later, she appeared in the town square, a blur of silver and black. She appeared before the still-kneeling, still-weeping Brother Tepin.
Tepin looked up and saw the angel of death standing before him. He was about to be granted an audience with his god.
"The Master has acknowledged your arrival," Seraphina's cold voice washed over him. "He decrees that you shall be... 'helped.' You will be given water. You will be given a blanket. You will come with me."
The command was simple, but for Tepin, it was the culmination of his life's dream. He had been accepted. His god was a kind and merciful one!
He sobbed with joy and stumbled to his feet, following the assassin like a lost lamb.
In the Command Bunker, the Sentinel Commander watched this on his scrying screen, his face pale. His perfect interception had a survivor. A single hostile agent had successfully infiltrated the sanctum. And worse, he hadn't been attacked or repelled.
He had been... welcomed.
A horrifying new conclusion bloomed in the Commander's mind, a perfect echo of Inquisitor Caelia's cold logic.
"He let one through," the Commander whispered to his analyst. "He let one single agent through, on purpose. To send us a message."
"What message, sir?"
The Commander pointed a shaking finger at the screen, where Seraphina was leading the pathetic Tepin towards the bookstore.
"The message is," the Commander said, his voice grim, "'Your quarantine is meaningless. I can bring anyone I want here, anytime I want. Your cage cannot hold me. This man is here because I allowed it.' He is showing us that he is in control. Always."
The Sole Survivor had not just become a new, if utterly useless, follower. He had become a living symbol of the Empire's own terrifying incompetence.