"He wishes for us to retake this 'City of Gold'?
"Anor Ligrisia. It is one of the two main contact points for the ritual."
"The City of Shadow, the City of Gold, and the City of Light... all three must be occupied by a single faction..." Eshent murmured, his hand hovering over the black booklet that rested in his interior pocket. He wore a black-dyed long-sleeved leather vest adorned with belts, with the classical yellow robes draped over his shoulders.
Even if it weren't enough to stave off the cold, of which it certainly was, Eshent didn't feel much warmth anymore, cold neither. In the end, it didn't really matter what he wore, as long as it was enough to protect him from the point of a blade with malicious intent.
"It's a trap..."
Granos nodded his head. "It's all for a singular purpose."
"As soon as we manage to take back Anor Ligrisia?"
"Indeed."
Eshent raised his hand towards the glimmering light in the distance. It was Anor Ligrisia, a blinding city of brilliant golden light that shone through the endless haze of Shadowhaunt. Between the city and the thousand yellow-cloaked Priests that had gathered was a large field filled with the murmurs of Scarlet, those Reapers that the Priests so disdained.
"How shall we approach the battle? If we rely solely on a single clash, we might find ourselves outclassed. In both weaponry and power, don't they outdo us?"
Granos nodded his head once more. "Their Lord's bestowment allows them to renew themselves quite easily. If any of us fall, they will consume us, renewing their flesh in order to continue fighting. It is essential that we diminish potential losses, no matter what form that takes."
"We have no weaponry, do we?"
"The Spire is filled with weaponry. There's an entire armoury in its depths, and many of us come from diverse backgrounds. Among us, there are blacksmiths, artisans, and armorsmiths. What worries me most is the bestowment our Lord will entitle us to."
"And what is that? A blessed Fate?"
The Fated King, as His name declared, was a Lord of Fate itself. Perhaps one of many, or the greatest of them all, but one who commanded its flow, certainly. He was a master of plotting, of manipulating the elements of events in order to reach a certain outcome. As He had shown Eshent an inevitability, the outcome of his entire plan, he was sure that the Lord would make it succeed. But that was built on the idea that Eshent would find the right path in each majour event, which meant he needed to carefully weigh each option they had.
"He will certainly endow us with a better outcome in each individual fight. Each believer will find that their sword strikes truer than the enemy's. The mud will cling to their boots and hold them still, but not ours. We will glide across the field as quick and as assured as the wind. Their swords will chip and shatter, but ours shall remain sharp. At an given moment where one could experience misfortune, it is certain that we will be dealt the better hand."
"It seems quite unbalanced, the battle is certainly in our favour when you speak of it like this."
"Yes, but our Lord is just one individual. How many of these instances will occur during this long battle? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions? When it is your responsibility to activate and measure each instance of Fate and Luck as applied to thousands of your followers, how could you manage? For how long? Against Soldiers of another Deific Lord who can constantly regenerate the damage dealt to them, doesn't this become a battle of attrition? Who will fall first? The one who must attend to a thousand, or the one who must attend to a million?"
It was interesting to Eshent how Granos would apply some sort of respect towards the Scarlet Reaper's Lord. This was another Deity that he had learned of when reading through the black booklet, the Fated King's Symposium. He thought it was funny that the fanatical Priest would call August Lunastre a False King, but it was no matter to him to refer to a True Deity in an honourific manner.
"I suppose that means it really is up to us to come up with some underhanded tactic to deny them of this... and what of their Lord? The one who blesses them with renewment..."
"'He' is referred to as 'The Red Prince'. He is the only one who has managed to, in some semblance, descend to the mortal realm despite His Deific standard. This is something our Lord hasn't yet managed to accomplish, and so the effect that their Lord can have on this battle may weigh heavier than what He can..."
"You sound uncertain in our Lord's skill. Did we read the same book?" Eshent teased.
Eshent looked back towards the soldiers that had gathered in the field, sheltered in make-shift tents atop a hill.
"If it's too easy for this Red Prince to bestow His soldiers with His ability, then why not make it harder for Him?"
"In what way?" Granos's eyebrow raised.
"If the main contention of this ability's activation is that His soldiers are dealt significant wounds, then aren't we foolish to look at it as a matter of us inflicting said damage? For instance, if one of these Priests were to stab a soldier, then that's an instance of our Lord applying 'good luck' to a Priest to inflict the damage, and their Lord applying 'renewment' to save his soldier's life."
"I'm not sure I'm following. I get what you're saying as applies to the instance, but what could we do otherwise?"
Eshent began explaining further. "In this instance, it's typically 1:1. Both Lords will exercise their abilities in a sort of trade, expending energy and time to do so at an equal value. But for our Lord, who must also anticipate other instances of luck expenditure, such as Priests getting caught in the mud, tripping and falling, swords chipping or shattering, He will quickly run himself dry of energy, right?"
Granos nodded his head. "Yes, this is the case, as we discussed before. What is your point, young Visionary? Have you foreseen something?"
"No, this is just a case of simple thinking. In order to compensate for these excess measurements of our Lord, we will have to make sure that He has opportunities to cut corners. For instance, the trade between the Priest and the soldier, where the Priest has to inflict the damage themselves, what if we were to remove that trade from the equation entirely?"
Granos's eyes widened. "Certainly, if our Lord didn't have to attend to every sword strike to entertain the certainty that each one would inflict assured damage, He would be able to focus on other things! But how can we deal damage to the Red Prince's soldiers without doing so ourselves?"
"Have we confirmed that the soldiers of the Red Prince are immune to our Lord's pacification?"
This referred to the sign that was present on the black banners hung from the towers of the Nocturne Spire, the three-armed jagged triskelion coloured yellow. It was also present on the first page of every black booklet, to ensure that each reader was met with the Lord's grace. This was something that didn't directly influence Eshent. It wasn't necessary, considering he had given himself up to the Lord of his own will. At least, he was sure that it was his own will...
"Yes, that's been confirmed on several occasions as the believers of our Lord have traveled throughout Shadowhaunt to manifest His will unto all manner of creatures. In the instances where they have tried to expose these Scarlet Reapers to the sign, they've been killed." Granos sighed. "Some Heretics just can't understand the beauty of our Lord's grace..."
Certainly, if it was the case that they could be pacified, a battle wouldn't have been necessary. They could have simply drawn his symbol on several banners, flying them on high-peaked posts until the Scarlet Reapers had dropped their weapons in order to bow and praise Him.
"Do you remember our Lord's tale of the battle over a certain Deity's mantle?"
In the tales told by the Fated King through his symposium, Eshent had learnt much of this 'surface world' beyond the Blackbaast, which sat inside of a cavern underneath the bountiful world. There had always been so much beyond what he had known, what they had all known. He was sure that the false King, August Lunastre had known of this world, that his predecessors had never bothered to inform them of such a significant detail.
It made Eshent furious.
"Yes, He 'tied' the Fates of many figures to a 'death' at the bottom of a large hole, which unconsciously drew them towards the inevitability of falling into that hole and perishing." Granos confirmed. "But can our Lord influence so many soldiers with a single move?"
"There is a restriction here, isn't there? The more believers that a Deity has, the more influence they can draw towards a compartmentalised space like Shadowhaunt. But soldiers aren't necessarily believers like Priests are. This means that our Lord has the upper hand in comparison to the Red Prince, despite His descension into the mortal world, which has no direct connection to this space."
Eshent's attention was drawn to the torch that illuminated the planning table in front of them, grinning. "Instead of a hole, what if it were a flame? A constant source of agony, constantly wounding them, begging the need for death and renewment, which our Lord will deny by influencing the good fortune of His believers.
Granos's expression become exuberant and crazed as he came to this same expression as well.
"Our Lord can 'tie' the Fates of all soldiers to a single flame, and declare them burned."
Eshent raised his hands towards the field before them as if declaring to a large audience, smiling warmly.
"And they shall all burn..."
Eshent looked over at Anor Ligrisia in the distance once more. This City of Gold wasn't the outcome of their Lord's plot, it was only a flag that would activate a key condition. Once they managed to take this City, a necessary figure would soon arrive in the Blackbaast...
A figure would descend from the surface world.