SESSION RECAP: THROUGH THE BROKER’S LENS
Recorded by: Isabella, Broker of Secrets and Unsavory Truths
Subject: The Fall of Stehlenwald & The Sovereign’s Cage
"I’ve sold secrets in blood-soaked taverns, whispered lies into the ears of dying generals, and watched empires burn for a handful of silver... but tonight in Stehlenwald? Tonight, the ledger wasn't written in ink. It was written in cold, blinding starlight and broken flesh.
It started in that grand, shattered quartz ballroom. The air tasted like copper and ozone. There she was—Empress Bianca—floating in a sickening halo of violet-crimson light. She wasn't a girl anymore; she was a vessel holding the soul of a dead judge and the cosmic madness of Ulmyr’s Eye. Every time someone so much as whispered a spell, cosmic beams tore through the ceiling like divine lightning, turning centuries of imperial marble into lethal shrapnel.
Professor Alarica was panicking, wrenching a heavy brass canister of raw, unrefined coolant fluid from the dying Aetheric Engine. She screamed over the roar that if she could get the fluid to her workshop—The Den of Disasters down in the Artisan Tier—she could refine a Twilight Stasis Formula to put the god back to sleep. 'Move,' she yelled, 'or we burn where we stand!'
Then came TheScout. Gods below... I’ve seen men sell their souls for power, but I’ve never seen a man tear his own world apart to stop a calamity. He threw himself straight into the divine storm. He gave up his sight, his blood, his very life—treading into the field, breaking Bianca’s forcefield with sheer, horrific willpower, and forcefully prying Ulmyr’s Eye straight out of the girl’s skull... before plunging it into his own socket. The sight of it made my blood run cold.
We hit the Lord Tier, where the noble scum were jamming the narrow cobblestone streets with their gold-leaf carriages, screaming like pigs as the cold began to bite. Out of nowhere, Jackson—juiced up on fiendish corruption—drop-assassinated from a rooftop right for Alarica's throat. He would have slaughtered her if Gideon hadn't stepped into the path of the blade. Gideon caught the blow, locked eyes with the hound, and barked: 'I know what's inside that wooden chest, Jackson! I know the leash she put on you! Go! Get Alarica to the lower foundry! I'll tear this hound's limbs off myself!' Gideon tackled him through a stained-glass window into a burning estate, and we kept running.
By the time we plunged into the Home Tier, the heat grid had completely collapsed. The temperature plummeted into absolute sub-zero hell. The streets erupted into terrifying riots over coal and bread. And standing at the iron stairwell like demons of the pit were Rufhausen and Grimtide—an undead berserker born directly from our own reckless use of the Beast Die. Vesper didn't hesitate. She and our allies drew their steel and stepped into the chokepoint. 'This undead monstrosity was born of our own desperate magic!' she roared. 'Go! Get Alarica to her workshop! We will hold this archway or die in the frost!'
We made it to the bottom—the Artisan Tier. We reached the heavy iron doors of The Den of Disasters. Alarica was trembling, fumbling with the complex locks to get us inside to safety... and that's when Werck stepped up from behind her.
I didn't even have time to call out. Werck plunged his hand deep into Alarica’s back, his fingers ripping through flesh and bone, and plucked her beating heart straight out of her chest. He squeezed. Blood hissed against the cold copper pipes as he crushed it to pulp, leaning down to whisper into her dying ear: 'You’ll never control me. Ever. Again.'
No time to process the murder. Bianca—dormant but still bleeding cosmic horror—reached the workshop doors. We fought like cornered beasts in the snow and grease outside the Den of Disasters, desperate, bleeding, and broken, before finally dragging the vessel inside and slamming the heavy doors shut.
And then... the iron boots started marching.
Dozens of them. 4th Division storm-troopers poured into the workshop perimeter. But they weren't wearing the rags of disgraced rogues. They were clad in pristine, silver-inlaid Säullan steel. And stepping out of the shadows, dabbing a pristine silk handkerchief against his aristocratic nose... was him.
Graf Valerian von Falkenhayn.
Gods, just looking at his smug, manicured face made my stomach turn into knots. That arrogant, manipulative Säullan snake. The man who treats human lives like numbers on an imperial balance sheet. He looked at us covered in grease and gore, and smiled that cold, sickeningly polite smile.
Ach... what a chaotic, unrefined little hovel,' he purred, his eyes sliding over us until they landed on Cuscata. 'But I suppose true genius is rarely tidy, isn't it, Cuscata?'
He rested his silver-headed cane against the floorboards and began his little performance.
'Look at you all. Bleeding, exhausted, clutching a dormant god in the grease of a foundry basement. Lower your weapons, my brave friends. If I wanted you dead, I would have brought heavy siege artillery, not a velvet-lined carriage.
I am Graf Valerian von Falkenhayn, High Emissary of the Säullan Council and Minister of Internal Security. I do not take orders from the Hearthkeepers, nor do I bow to religious zealots who pray to dead gods. The Säullan Council is the true, secular heart of this nation.
I am collecting the Empire’s most valuable assets: Project B.I.A.N.C.A., Professor Alarica's research, and... you. You see, the 'shame' of S.T.A.R.S. was the finest propaganda piece Councilwoman Yule and I ever authored. To harvest soul-cores and build a divine vessel outside church doctrine, a rogue division can do what a government legally cannot. We created the monster so we could harvest the cure.
I am a businessman, not a butcher. You just restrained a divine awakening and survived a gauntlet that would have broken an imperial legion. If we fight in this room, half my men die, half of you die, Captain Hanz dies, and this city burns before I can stabilize it. That is terrible policy.
Do not fret over your companions holding the upper thoroughfares. My men have already been dispatched to apprehend the remaining mutated Judges and secure your allies. Provided everyone lowers their steel, your friends will be waiting for you at the Provincial Manor, fully tended to by my surgeons.
Stehlenwald's heating grid is dead, and rioters are breaking into the bakeries. Securing this metropolis will take me exactly three days.
For those three days, you, Professor Alarica, Captain Hanz, and the surviving Outrider will be my guests at the Provincial Manor in the Lord Tier. You will be given hot baths, silk sheets, roast meat, and the finest wine in the province. My personal physicians will mend your flesh.
In the manor library, I have placed customized dossiers on each of you : documents, missing forge records, suppression wards, and official Gray Letters of Exemption signed by the Säullan Council.
In three days' time, I will return for your answer. You can sign those documents, accept Imperial Pardons, and become the Council's covert Vanguard... or you can walk out into the freeze as hunted fugitives across all four provinces.
Wrap yourselves in woolen cloaks, travelers. My carriages are waiting outside. Rest well... you’ve earned it.'
He had us. He knew it, and I hated him for it. His guards shoved forward a bruised, bound Captain Hanz and a surviving Outrider. They brought out a velvet-lined carriage and wrapped us in heavy woolen cloaks.
Now, we sit in the gilded cage of the Provincial Manor in the Lord Tier. We have three days. Three days of hot baths, roast meat, and black dossiers sitting on a library table. Falkenhayn thinks he’s bought us. He thinks he’s holding the leash.
He doesn't realize that a cornered monster in a velvet cage... is still… a monster."