The arrival of The Wagon was a cause for celebration in The Camp. The reason was obvious... behind it came the Road of the Silver Queen.
Starsister Hazé had wrought a road where none was before. A Dawnstopped Widened Shaping Stone, cast out of a V Valence. The Archtheurge of Sylune had walked from the end of the imperial road in Ogredown, and up the whole eastern length of the Sidhete, over a thousand miles.
From the edge of the Badlands, she had split her attention. The great caravans of hyn and humans who had followed her stayed with her as she veered to the west, and the hyn kingdom of Shadowvale rising there, so named because it stood in the shadows of Klintskun and the Sidhete.
For eight hours she would walk, and behind her a road forty feet wide of white stone rose from the ground.
Bridges rose from waters, fluted and carved of white stone. Hills sank down, or were simply bored right through, receding from her path. Ditches fell to either side as stone was brought up from beneath them, or drawn forwards and away from mounts and hills passed before, extending the Road of the Silver Queen further and further.
For eight hours, and then she would return to where the Road branched, and she entered the Corridor to the Badlands, and extended the Road there.
Progress there was quick, for the Rockborn had been laying a road, mile by mile, with heartstone from the depths of the mountains, extending the earthpower out into the Badlands to defy the Warpstorms that rolled across them.
She sucked away their stone from the wagons it was being transported it on, merged it into the Road, and walked on past the hundreds of Rockborn at work as they watched, and the Road followed behind her.
Behind her, the incoming wagons came up to the Branch, and offloaded their wagons there, watching the heartstone flow down into the Road in awe at the power on display here, and the Corridor solidified around its strength.
It proceeded along the Silver Worm through the Dichromatic Plains, arriving at The Camp eight hours after reaching the heart of Shadowvale.
Thousands of warriors of many races were there to see her arrive, her Wagon drifting along behind her, her trio of acolytes waving atop it. With her came supply wagons, reinforcements, reserves, relief forces, adventurers, mercenaries, and more, walking along the wide, smooth road that cut through the wild lands and leagues to Yle Tyorm.
There was no doubt whatsoever that everyone knew Starsister Hazé's name now.
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I didn't go out to greet her, of course.
I knew she was coming for nearly two months, naturally enough. The Marked couldn't shut up about her and the Road she was making. The sheer volume of traffic that was coming North, and how speedily it was moving, was almost certainly due to the Road that she had strong-armed past forest and hill, Shaping Stone on a truly colossal scale.
Hazé the Star Mage was here.
She certainly could have gotten here much faster if she wanted to, but based on the timing, she was probably one of the people the Divine warned, and had chosen to make a significant contribution. In one fell swoop she had driven the spear of civilization deep into untamed lands, connecting realms that had been far apart since the Fall of Yle Tyorm.
A river of people was moving along that Road now. It was changing the fate of multiple nations by doing so.
There had already been some people who tried to set up a strongpoint at the Branch, to control the traffic on the road, and they had been unceremoniously shanked. Elf, Rockborn, Gnome, and Hyn, along with the representatives of gods and knightly Orders, had come together and agreed unanimously that traffic on the Road of the Silver Queen could not be impeded or controlled, a great affront to the goddess in her aspect as the Patron of Travel.
That there would be something rising at the branching of the Road was a given. The priesthood of Harse, advised by the native races, was given the job of planning out the city that was going to grow there, and with the numbers of people arriving every day, the planning started going into effect immediately.
The fact that said Priest was Marked and I was helping them design the civil engineering in Markspace was something nobody much bothered about. What Branch would turn into someday was beyond my knowledge, but given the number of covetous eyes being fixed upon it as a trade city in a very key location, I didn't think it impossible to become Pretty Damn Important.
Which meant I wasn't going to let it slip away from me. I wasn't an idiot, and I had some Ironblood who were very, very eager to take up some reins in that area.
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The procession to the last mile of the Camp was done, the Road had ended at the Hospice in the middle of the Camp. That didn't mean Hazé stopped Shaping... but the stone that began to rise up was earth colors, mixed with the obsidian hues of the ground inside the Ring, giving the Camp paved streets and drains as she strolled around the place, turning the dirt and dust streets into something more permanent.
Sylune wasn't a goddess of cities or towns, but some health issues could be easily taken care of this way.
Her doing so also gave the Wagon time to trundle over to where I was Opening Chakras for some soldiers, with extra Marks going in for those who were Forsaken.
The girls looked a little pensive as they pulled up off to the side, waved into the space by a friendly smith. Their eyes fell on me, and all three of them stiffened, the bigger two on the seat in front, the little one riding up high with her legs hanging down.
I felt their eyes on me, how could I not? My blood was singing to me that I had sisters nearby. I finished up the last of the soldiers, ignoring his screams and whimpers as his Chakras were Opened, and his buddies helped him walk away, cursing with every step he took on his protesting feet and Soul.
I met their eyes, and they all flinched. Not unreasonable, they could read me better than anyone.
What a strong sisterhood link, I thought, this naturally being the first time I'd met fellow hagchildren.
"Come along," I said, waving and pointing as I turned, and they tumbled off their floating Wagon, forgetting to tie it down, and rushed after me. I sent a nod to one of my men nearby, and he just chuckled and moved to anchor it, with their Horse watching him in some surprise.
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My Tent didn't actually have much, mostly because I carried around my belongings, and Meditated on Haul. Forge was always being used, naturally enough, and my Cabinets were standing off to one side of the work area. But there was a blanket on the ground big enough for all of us to sit on, and I pointed to it silently.
They sat down quickly, and so did I... floating two inches above it.
"Well, little sisters?" I asked calmly. I naturally knew all their names, easy to find out with the Marked.
My admission of the fact seemed to relax them all greatly. They all let out breaths they didn't know they were holding, pouted on seeing me floating there above the blanket, and excitement flowed across their faces.
"Annis?" Veis piped up for them directly. I nodded and let my Mask fall. They gawked at the blue-black remnant of the Curse still there on my face, down the side of my neck and shoulder.
"Why...why do you still have the Curse?" Amber whispered in awe, staring at it, not knowing if she should be frightened or not.
"I never went through the Ritual. I took the long way around," I said simply. All their eyes popped.
"What happened?" Verd asked. The Ritual of the Silver Queen was the defining moment in their lives, both scarring and empowering them far beyond any normal folks.
"You know that you and your identities, who you are, are formed from the Curse, right?" Shivering, all of them nodded. "The Ritual impressed who you are onto your souls, instead of allowing the Curse to do so after maturing and warping you.
"I was sentient since the moment I was born. The Curse started trying to suppress me and wipe me away, as it did the children your souls came from, as soon as it consumed me. I resisted, fought it for many long years in Nightmare, and when I was strong enough, I broke the Curse and reclaimed my life and body."
All three of them swallowed. I could tell they understand intimately what I meant. It had required a goddess to break the Curse for them.
I had done it on my own!
They all reached out at the same time. I extended my hand, and let them touch me.
Mmm. They were all Forsaken Nulls, of course, in the area of 20-some. Had Vajras, too, in the range of 14-16. Not bad, but not great... but then, they hadn't had nine years of Karmic slaughter in Nightmare, or Greater Warp Demons in the present, to help them along.
Of course, my Diamond Vajra was rocking a 55+ by now, and my Null was in the same area. Their Nulls felt like marshmallows rubbing up against a steel wall.
They all swallowed together. Imagine that.
"Sylune!" murmured Verd, her green eyes wide. The other two nodded along as they all withdrew their hands. "How... how strong-?..." she trailed off.
I reached over my back into the slim strip of my Masspack, and drew out the Assay Slate there. I poked my finger with the black nail of my thumb, and a point of crimson welled up as I spun around and backed up into Veis' face. She stood up and leaned right onto my back and shoulder without hesitation, face next to my ear as she put her weight on me, which I barely noticed. Verd and Amber leaned in from the sides.
Crimson wiped across it, the Slate shimmered, and the writing came up.
Various strangling sounds and whimpers arose as my Stats came up. They looked at me, I just sat there impassively as I scrolled it up, and up, and up...
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By the time I reached the bottom, they were utterly and totally subdued. Verd and Amber had an easy power-sharing of authority going on, Veis clearly secondary as the youngest, the little sister.
They were very, very obviously all little sisters to me.
"Can... can we get all that?" Amber asked, her tone sliding into differential respect without even noticing.
"Can? Yes. But it will take some time... and colossal amounts of Karma, of course. I am a Deep Ten, and you're all just Fives at this point... which is not a bad thing, given your ages." I flicked the Slate and it wiped as they sighed. "Now, I want to see yours."
In turn, they dropped blood on it, and we all looked at their Stats. They teased one another about what they were best in, who had more Levels or better numbers here and there, but they definitely didn't boast in front of me.
"Hazé has given you some direction, but not enough, and you've had some Karma limitations," I summarized after I went through them all. "That's not a bad thing. You're Nulls, and she's Powered. She's not familiar with all that we can grow into, because it has nothing to do with being Powered." I pushed away from Veis, spun around to face them all again as the littlest sister sat back down.
"Well, she's not a Hagchild, either," Verd spoke up, glancing at the rest of us meaningfully. It wasn't something to hold against her, it was just the truth.