Salvage Union: Floodplain Part Six

The history books talk clearly about what happened next after the Scourging of Roden.

The Emperor was survived by his mother, Lady Belhaine, his bastard teen son, Volkan of Wrought, and his adopted cousin Firhardt of Tessalan. The members of the Inner Council had their own surviving heirs as well who laid claim to their seats (or, if they were bold enough, laid claim to the destroyed throne).

Thus began the Succession Wars, where Belhaine and Firhardt tried to control Volkan for his strongest claim while also putting down the uprisings fomented by the Council's heirs.

Abroad, the war to occupy Djartola ground to a standstill. Cut off from commands and logistics, the field commanders had to make their own calls. The smart ones held to the mission with aplomb or went rogue and were not punished for it. The majority of them reveled in loot and slaughter, sweeping across the roads of Djartola to feed the beast as Djartolan resistance bled them for every inch traveled.

The Succession Wars had a third player as well. There were rumors that at night, across the countryside, a woman and young girl could be found stealing into the strongholds of successors and would-be heirs alike, leaving no survivors. They would flicker in and out, ghostlike, without distinct reason beyond taking one more piece off the table.

In time, Roden began to fear the Daughter of Moonlight and her merciless hand.

And in time, Paraleux and Svatkopt saw the weakness of Roden and Djartola alike.

This was how the whole of the continent came to war and the real slaughter began. Twenty years of marching boots, barked commands, scrabbling in the mud over long-ruined farmlands, the "Continental Look" of haunted eyes and sunken cheeks, families stitched together from scraps and clutched close.

Her goddess left two years into the conflict.

Officially, her husband needed her elsewhere.

Unofficially, she had run out of ideas for how to stop the war without killing even more.

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