- Joined
- May 9, 2018
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- Points
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Arvosil's winds bite cold, even in April.
At the base of the pit-mines where its workers dredge silver from stone at the tips of their pick-axes, it makes the fingers prickle with pain. The tips of the ears, too, and the skin which pokes from one's clothes around the neck and the wrists. It was one in the morning, the smallest hour, and Vera brought her pick-axe over her shoulder in cycles, striking at the rock, fighting off exhaustion. All nations were represented in the workers around her, but only one common misfortune: to have stopped over on the island of Arvosil, either to or from Daen, and been ensnared in debt labor by its arcane laws.
Every so often, laid against either wall, crude iron lanterns lit the workers' way. Against those comforting silhouettes of gold and red, another pair of them moving behind her would not be missed—at least, not until a large hand settled on her shoulder, and she leapt in fear. As she turned, behind her was the tallest man she had ever seen, with eyes that burned.
He raised a finger to settle over his lips—shush—though by then the four men around her had turned to notice him, and the sword-hilt jutting out from the inside of his cloak. He did not seem like he belonged. "I need to ask you a question, if you have a moment," he said, and the politeness in his tone betrayed that he did not work for the overseers, either. Still, the fear of the moment and of the retribution that anything other than their silence would bring kept them pin-drop quiet, alone in the evening dark. It was one of the younger apprentice miners who stepped forward, wiping the grime from his face. "What do you need, sir?"
The giant waved a palm downward, leaning in. He was quiet, so as for his words not to carry out of the pit by any trick of acoustics. "The mines," he gestured, "surely run back to an extraction point. That extraction point must run back to the city. I need you to point me in the right direction, and I need you to stay out of my way."
More silence followed. This time it was Vera who broke it. Resting the worn haft of her tool against the ground, an elbow leaned across the top, she asked, "Why?" It came out more accusatory than she wanted. She reflexively raised a hand to clap over her mouth. From the many misfortunes that had landed her here, she had learned not to impugn mysterious strangers.
"My name is Augustín Drocco Roca. I have business with the government." His hand pulled the cloak he wore aside to reveal more of his blade in clear implication. "I promise that if you do what I am asking, you will not regret it. But I can only try one time. So do not lie to me." None budged. At least, not until a Tierraveran man with a short, scruffy beard muscled his way through the growing crowd of miners, now up to fifteen and counting. "I fought with you at Luén Ellon, and in Amontaar. What are you doing here of all places, Roca?"
A smile played on the Furyborn's lips, letting his cloak drift back into place. "I changed my mind about Amontaar. Wrong A-country. I like Arvosil better."
The miner frowned, confused, and then he abruptly grinned as a man possessed, looking at those with him like they had all won the lottery of their lifetimes even if they looked back like he was nothing but raving mad. "What do you need to know, Augustín?"
For the next thirty minutes, they traded details over a barely standing table, scrawling pencil-lines on a mosaic of loose papers, tissues, and Roca's handkerchief. The story became clear. After his windfall in Essalonia, the great mercenary had decided to return to his native Daen and make his final move. Only, not to La Ciudad itself, not to Daenshore. He knew he could not win there in one blow.
On the island of Arvosil, sister to the much gentler Solacil, these miners' story is not unique. It is considered a failed state in the Regalian Empire, largely because it is held hostage by its oligarchs. These men ply their immense wealth to keep regulations low but unrest high, pitting the population against itself. Abusing as many legal loopholes as possible to avoid paying taxes to the State proper, they source materials from agrarian Aetosil and mine on rich Arvosil, and then produce components elsewhere before shipping them separately to avoid their pockets being skimmed at any point along the way.
The key to it all, of course, is ensnaring travelers with debt-schemes to impress them into Arvosil's silver mines—a choice which lends them a great deal of labor, but none of it all too fond of them. So, proposed Augustín, this is where he would make his stand, and his home if they will have him. Or, more precisely, if they would help him overthrow the oligarchy in a single night of unfettered murder, before permitting him to take over the island by fait accompli. It took bone-scratching, skin-crawling time, but one gloved hand went up, then another. Nineteen miners of the Arvosil collective rise, willing to help Roca for a chance at escape. They would wager their lives.
Boards of gnarled oak hit the rocks. Soldiers without standards disembarked onto Arvosil's coasts, company leaders taking their men into the fissures. Aslarokh thought it reminded her of her native Osci'ird. She had fought with her liege Innviokh there against the Suvial, then against the Dread Empire. Against the Allorn Elves she'd later been cast, only to lose her home and flee with Innviokh into the care of Regalia. Her lord had died alone in Ruttgher, only two weeks before the rest of them had accepted boats out. Aslarokh, though, did not. She was too angry for that, too full of madness at the world. And for her anger, her new employer Roca had given her a company.
Their miner guide was another Kathar, a Sollerian who had been caught up in a falsified customs law while trying to visit family in Ithania. They crept through the narrow spaces between the rocks, past discarded equipment where brown standards showing the roc stitched in gold thread were being unpacked. One in the morning had become three-thirty. Aslarokh's company and many others sifted through the narrow ravines, creeping by rope-bridges that made the heart pound with every sway and creak of dilapidated wood.
The capital Arvost, itself coastal, sits on a raised hill, and though it is walled, the mines' entry shafts creep right up to its lower side. It made for an easy approach, all things considered, though Aslarokh supposed that the gluttony of oligarchs didn't beget intellect.
Roca awaited at the front, with a detachment of sappers from Perrion. Their tell-tale blackpowder barrels littered the head of the column, some of them propped haphazardly against the ground. "Sir," she greets, hushed. Arvost's walls loom overhead in the dead of night. Its bricks and mortar had seen better days, the top unmanned. "Your orders?" Roca's hand points upward towards a squat gate, its lowest stones half-sunken into the mud at its base. "We make a diversion, there. Draw their garrison out. You and I and your people," he jabbed a finger into the map on his leg, "take the catacombs into the Governor's Palace."
There were many companies far more veteran than hers, those who had gained far more accolades under Roca's leadership and proven themselves worthier of that honor. She voiced her surprise, pale eyebrows raising as a gritty finger rubbed at the Draconist tattoos that sat under her left eye. "You have First Company, and Fourth. Why trust a group so untested with a task so delicate?"
He dismissed her with a chuckle. "Nothing delicate about it." More somberly, he reached to put a hand on her shoulder, leaning in. "I need the people to see you—I need them to associate my victory with you. I don't want them to deny your part, or bother you over your land."
He patted her cheek twice, and then leaned back against the rocks. Her land? He kept speaking, not allowing her to finish that thought. "In five minutes, it begins. We need to be done here by seven in the morning. At seven in the morning, the docks start waking up properly. Someone will run the news of what's happened out of here. If it isn't our version, we're dead. Or worse, traitors to the Empire. Get your people ready." Aslarokh turned around, hissing orders to the other Kathar, who checked swords, spears, and lanterns. Roca's word was precise. Sweat beaded on even his stern brow as the hands of his watch ticked to the fateful moment.
The descent into the catacombs was single-file. A man so large as Roca had to squeeze very carefully through the contours, with Aslarokh right behind him reading from the map to make sure they kept on target and the thirty Oscithar following chained hand to hand so as not to lose each other. Around fifteen minutes into their trepidatious shuffling over stale, dead water, the distant —BOOM— of blackpowder through layers of shuddering dirt reached the sharper ears among them. The battle at the gate had begun. So too did they reach the main sewer system, Roca punching a hole in the wall and navigating those far more open yet far more fetid halls.
Allorn Elves had built these sewers. They were surprisingly magisterial for the purpose they served, and they mapped a reflection of the roads above, conveying them quickly to the space under the Governor's Mansion. It had been practically converted into a hostel for Arvosil's overly influential elite, though Roca was not under the illusion that he would be able to net the entirety of them in one night. Still, if he got the most important in one swoop, he hoped, the people would take care of the rest for him before they could escape the island.
Several hundred paces later, iron grates creaked, and stones crumbled, melting at the touch of Magic or fist. They emerged in a wine cellar, pulling each other out, man by man.
Every ten minutes that followed, a scream ripped through the night, soon to be silenced.
The dockworkers in Arvosil's many ports awoke to a new reality: A madman had breached the palace and eliminated the five most important Barons on the island. Over the next twenty-four hours, he would see the rest of them eliminated, dragged out of their villas by the miners and the sharecroppers, a few imprisoned in the dungeons that had formerly held their enemies. A formidable fleet, for a mercenary's possession at the least, disembarked several thousand men who began to quickly take over from the established garrison force in its surrender. People's militias would sort out the rest.
In the Capital, from its highest courts to lowest slums of Crookback, in the Isldar towers and the gardens where Montagsmesse was to be held, news-boards contained a humble notice of accession from 'Governor' Augustín Roca, signifying his intent to govern the island of Arvosil in the name of State and Emperor until new elections could be held in five years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the payment of taxes under his name addressed to the State coffers, no one seemed to quite object.
OOC:
As Augustín Roca has 'succeeded' in the State Sanction Plotline & that Plotline has ended before he has been interacted with in the Cold Rebellion Plotline, any quests tendered by him with regards to that Plotline should now be considered 'expired', since he put his actions into play before Regalians could redirect him into Daenshore.
Augustín is not completely done as an NPC, but he is not a 'moving part' anymore. He will settle down on Arvosil, which will become a Mercenary State run by him.
Additionally, for those unaware, Arvosil is here.
At the base of the pit-mines where its workers dredge silver from stone at the tips of their pick-axes, it makes the fingers prickle with pain. The tips of the ears, too, and the skin which pokes from one's clothes around the neck and the wrists. It was one in the morning, the smallest hour, and Vera brought her pick-axe over her shoulder in cycles, striking at the rock, fighting off exhaustion. All nations were represented in the workers around her, but only one common misfortune: to have stopped over on the island of Arvosil, either to or from Daen, and been ensnared in debt labor by its arcane laws.
Every so often, laid against either wall, crude iron lanterns lit the workers' way. Against those comforting silhouettes of gold and red, another pair of them moving behind her would not be missed—at least, not until a large hand settled on her shoulder, and she leapt in fear. As she turned, behind her was the tallest man she had ever seen, with eyes that burned.
He raised a finger to settle over his lips—shush—though by then the four men around her had turned to notice him, and the sword-hilt jutting out from the inside of his cloak. He did not seem like he belonged. "I need to ask you a question, if you have a moment," he said, and the politeness in his tone betrayed that he did not work for the overseers, either. Still, the fear of the moment and of the retribution that anything other than their silence would bring kept them pin-drop quiet, alone in the evening dark. It was one of the younger apprentice miners who stepped forward, wiping the grime from his face. "What do you need, sir?"
The giant waved a palm downward, leaning in. He was quiet, so as for his words not to carry out of the pit by any trick of acoustics. "The mines," he gestured, "surely run back to an extraction point. That extraction point must run back to the city. I need you to point me in the right direction, and I need you to stay out of my way."
More silence followed. This time it was Vera who broke it. Resting the worn haft of her tool against the ground, an elbow leaned across the top, she asked, "Why?" It came out more accusatory than she wanted. She reflexively raised a hand to clap over her mouth. From the many misfortunes that had landed her here, she had learned not to impugn mysterious strangers.
"My name is Augustín Drocco Roca. I have business with the government." His hand pulled the cloak he wore aside to reveal more of his blade in clear implication. "I promise that if you do what I am asking, you will not regret it. But I can only try one time. So do not lie to me." None budged. At least, not until a Tierraveran man with a short, scruffy beard muscled his way through the growing crowd of miners, now up to fifteen and counting. "I fought with you at Luén Ellon, and in Amontaar. What are you doing here of all places, Roca?"
A smile played on the Furyborn's lips, letting his cloak drift back into place. "I changed my mind about Amontaar. Wrong A-country. I like Arvosil better."
The miner frowned, confused, and then he abruptly grinned as a man possessed, looking at those with him like they had all won the lottery of their lifetimes even if they looked back like he was nothing but raving mad. "What do you need to know, Augustín?"
For the next thirty minutes, they traded details over a barely standing table, scrawling pencil-lines on a mosaic of loose papers, tissues, and Roca's handkerchief. The story became clear. After his windfall in Essalonia, the great mercenary had decided to return to his native Daen and make his final move. Only, not to La Ciudad itself, not to Daenshore. He knew he could not win there in one blow.
On the island of Arvosil, sister to the much gentler Solacil, these miners' story is not unique. It is considered a failed state in the Regalian Empire, largely because it is held hostage by its oligarchs. These men ply their immense wealth to keep regulations low but unrest high, pitting the population against itself. Abusing as many legal loopholes as possible to avoid paying taxes to the State proper, they source materials from agrarian Aetosil and mine on rich Arvosil, and then produce components elsewhere before shipping them separately to avoid their pockets being skimmed at any point along the way.
The key to it all, of course, is ensnaring travelers with debt-schemes to impress them into Arvosil's silver mines—a choice which lends them a great deal of labor, but none of it all too fond of them. So, proposed Augustín, this is where he would make his stand, and his home if they will have him. Or, more precisely, if they would help him overthrow the oligarchy in a single night of unfettered murder, before permitting him to take over the island by fait accompli. It took bone-scratching, skin-crawling time, but one gloved hand went up, then another. Nineteen miners of the Arvosil collective rise, willing to help Roca for a chance at escape. They would wager their lives.
Boards of gnarled oak hit the rocks. Soldiers without standards disembarked onto Arvosil's coasts, company leaders taking their men into the fissures. Aslarokh thought it reminded her of her native Osci'ird. She had fought with her liege Innviokh there against the Suvial, then against the Dread Empire. Against the Allorn Elves she'd later been cast, only to lose her home and flee with Innviokh into the care of Regalia. Her lord had died alone in Ruttgher, only two weeks before the rest of them had accepted boats out. Aslarokh, though, did not. She was too angry for that, too full of madness at the world. And for her anger, her new employer Roca had given her a company.
Their miner guide was another Kathar, a Sollerian who had been caught up in a falsified customs law while trying to visit family in Ithania. They crept through the narrow spaces between the rocks, past discarded equipment where brown standards showing the roc stitched in gold thread were being unpacked. One in the morning had become three-thirty. Aslarokh's company and many others sifted through the narrow ravines, creeping by rope-bridges that made the heart pound with every sway and creak of dilapidated wood.
The capital Arvost, itself coastal, sits on a raised hill, and though it is walled, the mines' entry shafts creep right up to its lower side. It made for an easy approach, all things considered, though Aslarokh supposed that the gluttony of oligarchs didn't beget intellect.
Roca awaited at the front, with a detachment of sappers from Perrion. Their tell-tale blackpowder barrels littered the head of the column, some of them propped haphazardly against the ground. "Sir," she greets, hushed. Arvost's walls loom overhead in the dead of night. Its bricks and mortar had seen better days, the top unmanned. "Your orders?" Roca's hand points upward towards a squat gate, its lowest stones half-sunken into the mud at its base. "We make a diversion, there. Draw their garrison out. You and I and your people," he jabbed a finger into the map on his leg, "take the catacombs into the Governor's Palace."
There were many companies far more veteran than hers, those who had gained far more accolades under Roca's leadership and proven themselves worthier of that honor. She voiced her surprise, pale eyebrows raising as a gritty finger rubbed at the Draconist tattoos that sat under her left eye. "You have First Company, and Fourth. Why trust a group so untested with a task so delicate?"
He dismissed her with a chuckle. "Nothing delicate about it." More somberly, he reached to put a hand on her shoulder, leaning in. "I need the people to see you—I need them to associate my victory with you. I don't want them to deny your part, or bother you over your land."
He patted her cheek twice, and then leaned back against the rocks. Her land? He kept speaking, not allowing her to finish that thought. "In five minutes, it begins. We need to be done here by seven in the morning. At seven in the morning, the docks start waking up properly. Someone will run the news of what's happened out of here. If it isn't our version, we're dead. Or worse, traitors to the Empire. Get your people ready." Aslarokh turned around, hissing orders to the other Kathar, who checked swords, spears, and lanterns. Roca's word was precise. Sweat beaded on even his stern brow as the hands of his watch ticked to the fateful moment.
The descent into the catacombs was single-file. A man so large as Roca had to squeeze very carefully through the contours, with Aslarokh right behind him reading from the map to make sure they kept on target and the thirty Oscithar following chained hand to hand so as not to lose each other. Around fifteen minutes into their trepidatious shuffling over stale, dead water, the distant —BOOM— of blackpowder through layers of shuddering dirt reached the sharper ears among them. The battle at the gate had begun. So too did they reach the main sewer system, Roca punching a hole in the wall and navigating those far more open yet far more fetid halls.
Allorn Elves had built these sewers. They were surprisingly magisterial for the purpose they served, and they mapped a reflection of the roads above, conveying them quickly to the space under the Governor's Mansion. It had been practically converted into a hostel for Arvosil's overly influential elite, though Roca was not under the illusion that he would be able to net the entirety of them in one night. Still, if he got the most important in one swoop, he hoped, the people would take care of the rest for him before they could escape the island.
Several hundred paces later, iron grates creaked, and stones crumbled, melting at the touch of Magic or fist. They emerged in a wine cellar, pulling each other out, man by man.
Every ten minutes that followed, a scream ripped through the night, soon to be silenced.
The dockworkers in Arvosil's many ports awoke to a new reality: A madman had breached the palace and eliminated the five most important Barons on the island. Over the next twenty-four hours, he would see the rest of them eliminated, dragged out of their villas by the miners and the sharecroppers, a few imprisoned in the dungeons that had formerly held their enemies. A formidable fleet, for a mercenary's possession at the least, disembarked several thousand men who began to quickly take over from the established garrison force in its surrender. People's militias would sort out the rest.
In the Capital, from its highest courts to lowest slums of Crookback, in the Isldar towers and the gardens where Montagsmesse was to be held, news-boards contained a humble notice of accession from 'Governor' Augustín Roca, signifying his intent to govern the island of Arvosil in the name of State and Emperor until new elections could be held in five years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the payment of taxes under his name addressed to the State coffers, no one seemed to quite object.
OOC:
As Augustín Roca has 'succeeded' in the State Sanction Plotline & that Plotline has ended before he has been interacted with in the Cold Rebellion Plotline, any quests tendered by him with regards to that Plotline should now be considered 'expired', since he put his actions into play before Regalians could redirect him into Daenshore.
Augustín is not completely done as an NPC, but he is not a 'moving part' anymore. He will settle down on Arvosil, which will become a Mercenary State run by him.
Additionally, for those unaware, Arvosil is here.
