Of all the resources unique to the City of First Light, the Ordennan Impetus was most taken by the ancient city’s network of trains. The once-island nation was already familiar with the value of heavy logistics, and though the steam-powered trains of this new island were on tracks, it was not as if their own ships did not have to contend with the more organic rails of weather, wind, and current. As important, they knew first hand how disruptive it would be for a culture to lose control of its transportation system. Which is why they stormed the trains early in their invasion, and grew their occupation through railway terminals.

And this is how Fela Malle found his way to the ancient home of Samothes. The same volcanic palace to which Adaire, Hadrian, Hella, Hadrian, and Throndir now enter, under stormswell skies..

This week on Spring in Hieron: Ingenuity and Love



When those few who know it tell our story, they tell it wrong. They say that we squabbled for years because He told me that there was no solution for the Heat and the Dark. But my love knew me better than to put it in terms so brusque.

He took my hands that afternoon, called me by the name Samol had given me, and shared his hopelessness in the only way he knew would not drive me from him immediately, with the technical mendacity of an engineer or a priest. “Samot, our stumbling block is not in finding a solution, it’s in determining the right problem to begin with. We’ve been trying to brighten the night when we should’ve been trying to find comfort in the dark.” Bad poetry for dressing His cowardice up as practical thinking. I hated it, and soon enough I hated you Him too.

But years later, with my Wizard reduced to mere memory and the paladin’s heart clouded, I admit that I fell to despair much like my love’s. He was right. All of these scenarios, all of this effort, all of this anxiety spent on cures, when I should have been focused on convalescence.

An excerpt from the journals of Samot, the Unbroken Lord in Exile and Repose

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