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What a waste .
Years of planning, up in smoke, in one single moment. All it’d taken was a well-aimed bolt of fire from a thaumaturge and an overdose of blind heroics, and fifteen years worth of careful scheming, of the right word in the right ear, a suggestion here and there, an opportune discovery placed seemingly by coincidence in the right place… ruined.
Mayhap that’s what I get for investing all my efforts in one man
, the phantom looming over the lifeless corpse of the tribunus mused to itself. The phantom knew well not to put all its eggs in one basket, to have a multitude of contingency plans for the pawns it selected in its schemes, but this particular scheme had hinged pretty solidly on the Galvus boy’s “discovery” of refined ceruleum, and proving its usefulness in war.
A brilliant mind, with a good eye for strategy as well as science, who had worked his way up the ranks in only five years, with brilliant inventions that were slowly but surely giving Garleans the edge in their skirmishes with their neighbors. The clockwork war machina, modified from an old Allagan blueprint that he’d ‘discovered’ (with some mysterious, serendipitous help from his ever invisible friend), had performed rather well in its field test, launching mortars with ease and providing far better mobility and security to its pilot than expected. Surely the Legatus would be impressed.
And then the mages had shown up, and the old grudges had borne out, and what was a field test turned into a battle. And this
utter fool
had, in some idiotic notion of brotherhood and camaraderie, lunged in front of a fire spell aimed at one of the men under his command, while piloting several tons of steel and highly-volatile and very flammable refined ceruleum.
That his body was still mostly intact after the explosion- aside from the jagged piece of steel in his chest - was surprising, or perhaps a testament to the shielding installed in the device. The phantom expected at least a
little
dismemberment after an explosion like
that
.
Ah well. Time to come up with plan B. It’d have to find a new pawn, one that was either jealous of the Galvus boy or a wholehearted supporter of his work. One eager to please and eager to prove. One who had the same heart for the Garlean people, the same ethic of uplifting them through science, and would be amiable to a disembodied voice offering suggestions from time to time. One who would listen and wander into old ruins beneath the snow to find the treasure troves Allag had left behind to repurpose and rebuild.
One who, after he or she reached the rank of Legatus, would be amenable to… expansion. Who dreamed of greatness and glory for Garlemald. Or, at least, someone who could be coaxed into such a view.
The phantom frowned - as much as a disembodied soul
can
frown, bereft of a physical face - at the corpse before it. There was another option, even if it wasn’t its first choice. The body
was
mostly intact.
But ugh, possession meant getting its hands dirty. How tiresome. Still, perhaps this was for the best. The last time it had tried to manipulate a headstrong emperor, it hadn’t gone entirely to plan. And if you want something done right, might as well do it yourself, no?
In the howling blizzard, the heavy sigh could have just been the wind. The jagged metal dissipating into naught but aether, a trick of the light. The rattling gasp of a cold corpse returning to life, merely a misunderstanding. You see all sorts of strange things in a blizzard.
When Solus Galvus trudged back into camp - on the verge of hypothermia, bleeding heavily from a chest wound, panting, exhausted, but miraculously
alive
- the Legatus proclaimed it a miracle. Fate, even, as much as any Garlean believed in such a thing. Solus was meant for greatness.
The hoplomachus he’d heroically saved reacted like he was seeing a ghost, and shortly thereafter vanished.
Many who knew him would say that Solus was ever changed by his lonely time in the blizzard. Easy grins had given way to pensive frowns, enthusiastic explanations of his inventions had turned frosty and impatient. “He survived, aye, but the ice remained inside him,” his own mother once said with concern, before shaking her head and asking for a cup of tea. Yet over the years, history forgot the warmer man he’d been in his youth. By that time, Garlemald was thriving, so what did it matter?
He was given a medal of honor for his bravery. Within a year, he was given his own Legion. With a battalion of the refined machina, and some convincing of the Senate, he turned his army southward - for glory, for Garlemald.The rest is history.
But in far-away Stonesthrow, in Thanalan, a disgraced former Imperial would weave his tale for anyone willing to listen. “I watched old Solus die, out there in the snow,” he’d rasp, clutching his tankard and jumping at the slightest noise. “That bugger of a machine exploded and launched two tonzes of steel straight through his chest. Saved my life, and lost his own. And right after I’d given the report, in he walks, bold as brass. But that wasn’t the worst part.”
At this, he’d lean closer, his eyes haunted. “The worst was… in the light of the fire, where even a mouse's shadow seems the size of an oliphant… He didn’t have any shadow at all.”