Enjoy! Muhahahaha...

Deus ex Shattered

Loivissa POV(spring of 642 ADG)
Loivissa walked in the streets of Ilirea, just like any other ordinary person. She had not even changed her appearance, and yet she was still able to freely walk into any city that she wanted to. Even the guards at the gates had only questioned her about where she came from, what her purpose for visiting Ilirea was and how long she intended to stay, before they had let her in just like that.

They were the same questions that were asked to any other person that came to visit any other city with a city gate and guards to guard it. No one took particular notice of her. Not even her elven lineage was cause for anything more than looks of curiosity and wonder.

The only problem with this was that Loivissa was not an ordinary person. She was the daughter of Arya and Eragon Shadeslayer, the rider of Adûn, a Shadeslayer in her own right, the veteran of many battles, both famous and those that were not remembered by anyone anymore, and most importantly, she was the acting leader of the liberation group known as Aiedail, the goal of which was to kill Mercury and free the lands of Alagaësia from his tyrannical grip.

There should have been flyers everywhere, posters that warned the populace of her malcontent and offered huge rewards for her capture…but there were none. There had never been any, not even once during his almost one year long reign.

Not even after their attempted ambush six months ago had any posters been put up, and it bothered Loivissa to no end, because she knew that he had seen her there at the time. He had to have seen her there. There was simply no chance that he had not seen her back then.

Furthermore, she knew that he knew that Earl Karl was a member of Aiedail, though she had not told the earl of this knowledge. It would only cause unnecessary worry within him and make it harder for the man to do his duty.

She had known that he would know of the earl's affiliations ever since they had had to leave Aaron behind six months ago, and yet she had sent the earl into the lion's den anyway, as Garth had so aptly put it. She knew that sacrifices would have to be made if they were to free this continent, and so, she had made hers.

The information that the earl might discover while undercover was simply too valuable for her to give up in exchange for the life of one man, and even if the earl had been killed on sight the very moment that he had stepped foot inside the court room, everyone would have realized what Mercury's true nature was, as they would have watched him butcher a seemingly innocent noble without a fair trial or any evidence of treachery. It had been a win for her cause no matter the outcome.

Even though the act was reprehensible, Loivissa knew that everyone would thank her for it once Alagaësia was free once again, would tell her that she had made the right calls under impossible circumstances.

But Mercury had not devoured the earl when he had first arrived, despite absolutely having to know what the man really thought of him. Instead, he had played with the earl, like a fat cat being content to play with a mouse, safe in the belief that it could not harm him in any way.

Loivissa had realized then that it was because he had swept their entire group under the rug. All of its members and all of their deeds, even their failures, were swept away like they were nothing, like none of them had even existed.

It was strange, as the ability to move freely through the lands should have aided their group's cause, but instead, it had hindered them. No one knew of them, and though they had meant to go underground, it did do them any good when they were unable to get any support from the common people because the common people did not know of them or their cause, thereby limiting the support that they were ready to give without unreasonable long assurances and negotiations.

Mercury had even gone so far as to involve Katrina in his machinations by forcing the girl's father to agree to let her be married off to some foreigner's son if he could not find any reasonable fault with the boy. And the earl had not been able to find any that did not border on treason, as the little brat was apparently not only well-looking and well-mannered, but also somehow managed to find mutual interests between the two of them like they were growing on trees.

Earl Karl had been forced to give the go-ahead, and so, the two had become betrothed, to the surprise of both children, as neither of them had been allowed to learn of the arrangement beforehand; courtesy of Mercury's manipulating hand under the guise of 'getting the two to know each other without the consequences being apparent to either'.

Still, even Katrina had been an acceptable sacrifice if they wanted to stand a chance of winning this war. Of course, Loivissa had not been able to actually tell that to anyone, so she had raged and told the earl that, yes, it was an unforgiveable act to involve even children in the politics between elders.

"My lady, we should leave this place", Vanir advised from beside her.

He was dressed like her, in a simple green cloak covering his other clothes with its hood pulled down to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Apparently, these days, it was cause for more concern if someone went through the streets of Ilirea with their hoods up than if elves walked through them openly.

Still, it was better not to draw any further attention than they already were, which was why they had agreed to only speak in the human tongue. Looks might be overlooked in passing, especially if the two kept their ears veiled under their hair, but sound carried much further and quickly singled the two out amongst a crowd.

"We cannot, not yet anyway", Loivissa answered him, "not until we learn what we came here for".

"But, my lady, it could be a trap designed to ensnare you", Vanir protested once again, as he had ever since she had decided to go here in person.

It seemed that when he had sworn to follow her lead, he had meant it as in also making sure that no harm would ever come to her. Whenever he was not actively doing her bidding, he would follow her silently wherever she went, no matter the danger.

Still, Loivissa did not mind it overly much, as it was rather nice to have someone devoted to watching your back at all times. He was certainly better suited for the role of her travelling companion than the dwarf Dweyrn was, and it left her mind free to do other things, like finding ways to counter Mercury's machinations.

It only really became annoying when he, like today, insisted that she should not have come personally and instead let him do it in her stead, but she could not allow him to go in her stead, as she had to see for herself what it was that had caused Earl Karl to so fervently say that something was happening in the public square of Ilirea, but that no matter what he tried, he could not find out what it was.

The square had been completely closed off for the last few days now, but posters hanging throughout the city stated that it would be reopened later today, and that though it was not mandatory for the populace to attend, it was recommended, as there would apparently be some kind of important announcement.

"It is unlikely that it is a trap designed for me", Loivissa rebutted, "most of Ilirea's population, more than two hundred thousand people, will be there, so it will be impossible to recognize one from the other".

In truth, Loivissa had already considered the possibility of it being a trap. She really could not know whether Mercury had become so decrepit that he was willing to institute the massacre of Ilirea's entire population just to get to her.

He had already slaughtered one quarter of a million people just in the opening months of his invasion, and a lot more if she was to believe some of the stories of how he had expanded the Alliance to the size that it was today, but still, it seemed off to her for him to do something as blunt and unrefined as that.

However twisted he had become, Loivissa could still recognize large parts of who he had been before in his actions today, and she knew that he would do whatever it took to quell any rebellious thoughts silently and out of the public eye before they grew to an unmanageable size. There was no sense in being ruler if your kingdom was nothing but ashes after all.

So, in the end, she had decided that the likelihood of it being a trap was slim and she had therefore decided to come herself, and she was glad that she had. The streets were teeming with gossip about whatever Mercury had planned, with ideas ranging from Mercury declaring dominion over the night sky as well, and somehow finding a way to actually see it through, to the execution of all of his captured dragon riders.

Others were speculating that the dragon riders would be swearing loyalty to him, but Loivissa did not believe that. Surely no rider or dragon would ever consider allying with him after what he had done.

All of the rumours were unconfirmed, though many claimed to have heard it from a friend that knew a guy that worked with someone and so on, but they were still interesting to Loivissa to listen to. The very nature of rumours was that they reflected the general public opinion of their subject, and it was very useful to know that.

"Should we get something to eat then?", Vanir asked, now fully convinced that she would not budge on the matter.

It had been quite a while since Loivissa had last ate, and who knew when the chance might come next if something happened that caused the two of them to have to escape the city, so she agreed and he went to a nearby vendor and bought them both something.

Practical-minded as always, Vanir bought them each a loaf of sarin, a part of the foreign cuisine that had arrived when the Alliance had. Sarin was an oval loaf of bread made from a variety of many different types of corn, including wheat, rye and many others, and on the outside, it was roasted to a golden crisp on all sides and angles.

Inside of it, there was a thickly flowing substance that tasted sweet and sour at the same time, which made it possible to eat the loaf without adding anything to it. According to the description that many of the foreign vendors gave, a single loaf of sarin would be enough to keep a grown man going for an entire day if he rationed the loaf evenly over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

She did not know about the credibility of the latter, though she had to admit that you quickly felt full when eating one, and then there was the fact that as long as you kept eating at it from only one side, you could cover the hole with the wrapper that was around it and thereby stop the liquid inside from getting out, so that you could continue where you left off at a later time.

Hungrily, Loivissa tore into her loaf, breaking the crispy shell to get into the soft inner parts. The first bite was always the best in her opinion, as it somehow felt special to know that THIS was the very first bite that was taken of the loaf, and the crunchy sweet-tasting bread did nothing to lessen that feeling.

She was chewing on her sixth bite, already feeling full by then, when the square was reopened and people were allowed in. Loivissa and Vanir did not need to do anything other to get in there than follow the stream of people going there.

The crowd moved slowly, but Loivissa was not overly concerned whether they would be too late to get in, as she knew from experience that the giant public square that they were going towards was more than big enough for the entirety of Ilirea's population to stand there, at least now that a large chunk of said population no longer lived.

On the way, there was pushing, there was shoving and there were many people that bumped into her, and though Vanir initially forcefully made sure that those that did so would not do so again, she eventually got him to stop it, as it was drawing too much attention. She could survive being bumped into every once in a while.

Finally, they reached one of the entrances into the square, of which there were several spread out on all four sides of the large square.

"Finally", Loivissa grumbled as she came closer to getting in, only to then realize that on each side of the entrance, there were two pairs of dökkálfar guards standing at attention.

They were fully armed with spears in one hand, large tower shields in the other, a sword hanging from their belts and they were all fully armoured in the customary plate armour reserved for members of Mercury's Varangian Guard.

"Barzûl", Loivissa cursed as she quickly lowered her head as much as she possible could without seeming to actually hide from the guards.

The city guards and local Alliance forces might not know of her, but there was no chance in all of Alagaësia that he had not told his own Guard of her, showed them a picture of her and subsequently told them to capture her on sight.

Beside her, Vanir uttered a string of his favourite elven curses as he too discovered her cause of concern, and like her, he lowered his head as much as he could without seeming like he tried to hide. They were lucky that they had incidentally been placed at the centre of the column marching in, as they would have no doubt been spotted if they had been on either side.

"Should we raise our hoods to conceal our identities?", Vanir whispered into her ear so low that no one could have overheard it.

"No, two strangers with their faces covered will look more suspicious and be more likely to catch their attention", Loivissa whispered back as she minutely shook her head, "our best bet will be to blend in and hope that they do not search people before letting them in".

Luckily, no one was searched and people simply had to walk past the guards, who joked and laughed amongst themselves, though Loivissa noted that their eyes were deadly serious at all times, even in the midst of laughing.

The minute that it took to get past them was one that Loivissa could have sworn lasted an hour at the very least. Her heart was beating rapidly the entire time and she constantly had to stop herself from looking to either side to check whether one of the guards recognized her and was on his way to grab her.

Vanir seemed to be worse than her in that regard, and though he tried to hide it, she could feel how his eyes constantly shifted to her, then straight ahead, then back to her, then as far to either side as was allowed when facing straight ahead, and then back to looking straight ahead again.

Only after they had passed the guards and were well on their way did Loivissa breath out a sigh of relief, before she and Vanir took up places near a crowd of people in the left foremost section of the square, which faced towards a wooden stage.

The large wooden stage that took up a large part of one of the square's sides was definitely new, and so were the 35 to 40 balconies that had been set up on each of the barren walls of the houses facing in on the edges of the square.

Each of these balconies had a large ballistae mounted on it, with spare shots resting against the wall, and they were manned by five people each, which all wore the armour of the Varangian Guard. Two of the men on each balcony looked to be there to man and operate the large ballistae, while the other three each had a large crossbow in their hands, and all had swords in their belts.

A few metres in front of and on the sides of the wooden stage, facing outwards towards the audience, there were three rows of guards clad and armed identically to the ones that had been guarding the entrances. The guards there stood stiffly shoulder to shoulder with their shields held at rest on the ground in front of them and the spears held upwards in perfect unison.

They were completely docile for now, with the exception of making sure that there was roughly 2 metres between them and the front of the crowd, which just so happened to coincide with the length of their spears when held at the ready.

As Loivissa let her eyes roam over the other entrances, she noticed that the amount of guards at each varied with the width of the entrance. It was then that she realized that the number of guards always seemed to fit with roughly having two rows of guards placed similarly to those in front of the stage.

The wooden stage itself had no guards on it, but there were twelve wooden pedestals spread out evenly in front of the crowd. They were all empty and were clearly too tall to use if someone wanted to use them to execute anyone other than urgals, so despite the quite severe and quite unnerving level of security in place, Loivissa did not actually expect any executions to occur. At least not on the stage.

She was beginning to doubt whether it might not have been a trap after all. The numbers and placements of his Varangian Guard certainly seemed to indicate that it was, but she had not thought that he would actually go through with such a scheme. It would not suit everything that he had done for the last year to do something like this now, not when the population of the Empire, now labelled Albion, was finally beginning to accept the changes that had been enforced until now.

"My lady…", Vanir said concerned.

"There is nothing that we can do now but watch and wait", Loivissa answered his unspoken question, "trying to leave now would equal being discovered".

"…I understand", he said with gritted teeth.

And so, they waited, waited for the square to fill and for the show to begin, because if there was one thing that Loivissa was sure of, then it was that this was simply one big show to Mercury. She still knew him well enough to know that he liked doing things behind closed doors, where matters could be done efficiently and quietly.

Even all of the beneficial things, such as his giant road-project, that he had done until now had been agreed upon and carried out with nothing more than notices on the walls to inform the populace of the changes, so in order for him to prepare a stage like this one, he had to have written a script that would tell exactly how things were to play out.

When the square finally seemed to be filled with people, the sound of trumpets broke through the chatter and quickly quieted everyone down. They were playing a melody, almost like a marching melody, and before Loivissa had time to ponder any further on the subject, twelve hooded human men that were each carrying a large two-handed battle-axe walked up from somewhere below the stage.

The twelve men all marched in tandem as they each went to stand in front of one of the pedestals, where they set down their battle-axes to rest on the wooden floor with the blade facing outwards.

Perhaps I was wrong in this being an execution, Loivissa mused, but are there even enough urgal prisoners for them to warrant having to use twelve executioners at the same time?

It was then that Mercury appeared from the same spot that the twelve hooded men had arisen from. He was clad in the silvery full-plate armour with his insignia engraved on the chest that he had first toured the city in, a dark purple cape hung down from his shoulders and in his belt, the ebony and ivory encrusted sheath with the sword that had a wolf's head crossguard hung at his left side, and on the right side, a large scroll was secured.

Loivissa had to admit that as he stood there at the centre of the stage, with his back straight, one hand resting on the hilt of the sword and the other dangling down his side, with the fingers slightly moving like he was playing an instrument, he looked quite impressive and fearsome.

His very appearance seemed to scream that this was a lord that you had to either fear, respect or both, and his silvery dragon-like eyes spoke volumes of how he was in a world that was so completely his own, and so alien to everyone else's, that he might as well have been taken directly out of a fairy tale.

A dark twisted fairy tale, where good's only chance of beating evil was by becoming evil in the name of doing good.

Loivissa watched as he let his gaze travel slowly over the crowd, like a hawk seeking prey, and whatever small chatter there might have been left was instantly silenced as this being moved his gaze over them. When he reached the area where Loivissa stood, she averted her face to avoid recognition, as did Vanir, but because she could not completely quench the curiosity to look upon him once again, to meet his gaze and let him know that she was not cowed by him, she turned it back at the very last moment.

Their gazes met, or perhaps they did not, she was one set of eyes amongst a large crowd of them after all, but she could have sworn that for a fraction of a second before he moved on, his eyes darted towards hers and pierced her iron-willed gaze like it was a spear going through flesh.

He knows!, Loivissa screamed inside her head, already reaching for the concealed blade on her person and getting ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

…And nothing else happened. He did not signal the guards to arrest her and take her into custody, did not even return to her general area when he let his gaze sweep back across the crowd. Perhaps he had not recognized her after all, but she had been so sure that he had that it was almost impossible for her to even conceive that he might not have.

It was then that she realized that she had been too caught up in staring at him that she had not noticed that the twelve pedestals were no longer empty. Each of them now held a gemstone of a different colour and size to the other; an eldunarí.

"Citizens of Albion, people from all across the continent of Alagaësia and the rest of the world", Mercury's powerful voice broke her out of her trance and made her focus solely on him, hoping against hope that he would not do what she feared that he was planning on, "many of you will no doubt be confused as to why I have presented these…gemstones…to you in such a way, and to all but a few, that is what these things are; mere gemstones.

That is however not their true nature", at this he paused for a bit before he continued, "the dragon riders of old did not want you to know of this, to know how the mad king Galbatorix was able to destroy their old order and conquer most of Alagaësia with only a handful of followers".

No, he would not! He could not reveal the dragon riders' most revered secret to everyone like this! It was wrong!

"These", he said as he pointed at the one in front of him, a white one that Loivissa recognized as Umaroth-elda's, "are what allowed one man to overthrow governments and defeat any opposing force, no matter how large. By possessing hundreds of these, he was nigh on unstoppable. That is, until another that likewise possessed hundreds of these challenged him.

Yes, the truth behind the story of that day is that it never even mattered what result the battle outside of the throne-room held, because whoever emerged victorious from there would be unstoppable by any force that could be mustered.

On that day, two piles of hundreds of eldunarya became one, and with such power behind him, Eragon Shadeslayer could have conquered every country in the entire world by himself, but he chose not to misuse the power given to him, but to instead guard it precariously".

Loivissa knew that Mercury was playing the audience like an instrument, deliberately using their instilled hatred for a mad king that had long since passed, and avoiding to conflict with their views of who the heroes of history were. Doing the latter would have severely crippled whatever he might have said next, but keeping to tradition was a sure way to let them know that he 'agreed' with them on who was evil and who was good, thereby making them more malleable.

"It was a brave and noble decision to make, but ultimately, it was the wrong decision", he continued, "for 642 years now, that pile of gemstones, or eldunarya, as the elves and riders would call them, has been growing.

How, you may ask, how are these eldunarya made that could make any one person capable of going against any foe and win? I will tell you this secret as well; they are the undead souls of dragons whose mortal coils have died.

Inside of each of these eldunarya, there rests the undead spirit of a dragon that has long since died, and which is now forever trapped within the confines of its eldunarya. They are incapable of breeding, incapable of growing, incapable of ever ending their own existence on their own if they should ever want to, and ultimately, incapable of defending their own eldunarí from outside forces, thereby making them easy to capture and subdue".

He then fiddled with the scroll in his belt, before he managed to free it and unfold it before the crowd, "because no person should ever again be allowed to wield such power without the consent of the people, and to remove these undead souls from their eternal cages, I hereby issue this declaration:

Following the ratification of Special Order 66, the existence of eldunarya is hereby banished throughout all provinces of the Silver Wave Alliance. All eldunarya found are to be destroyed on sight. Obstructing the destruction of or harbouring an eldunarí will result in the penalty of death. So says Mercury of House Iridium, Lord Commander of the Silver Wave Alliance, archduke of The Northern Wastes, acting archduke of Albion and the last king of Damocles".

You just want to remove any threat to your own tyrannical rule!, Loivissa screamed inside her head, but only fumed on the outside.

The eldunarya were one of the objects that she had been hoping to get news of these last six months. She had hoped that perhaps, the cache had not been discovered when Estildirin had fallen, and that if she could simply get her hands on it, then she could overthrow Mercury, free Alagaësia and stop all of the armies and navies that the Alliance might send in the future, but that would no longer be possible if he carried his threat through.

"As the instigator of Special Order 66, I, Mercury of House Iridium, Lord Commander of the Silver Wave Alliance, archduke of The Northern Wastes, acting archduke of Albion and the last king of Damocles, will be the one to carry out the first deed", the treasonous murderous backstabbing tyrannical psychopath said as he was handed one of the large battle-axes, which he seemed to easily lift with only his right hand.

Loivissa wanted to stop him, to charge forward and stop him from going through with this madness, but her rationality told her that she would not even make it to the first row of guards before her attempt would be stopped by the guards posted on the balconies.

She thought about crying out instead, but the angry jeers and exclamations from the ordinary people beside her, where all of them were yelling "do it!" or "destroy them!", stopped her from doing so. He had won over the crowd with his speech, where he had twisted the truth to get people to agree with his views.

None of them understood what was really going on here, so Loivissa could not blame them for acting like this when they had only heard one twisted version of the story, but that did not stop her from being slightly angry at them all, despite knowing that she should not be.

Instead of crying out or rushing to stop Mercury, she focused her energy on holding back Vanir, who would have already stormed ahead and been shot if she had not held on to him.

The battle-axe was raised in the air, and to spare him the sight of what was to happen, despite Vanir actually being older than her, Loivissa made a hard tug on his sleeve and kicked the back of his knee, which forced him to his knees, before she turned him around and kept him steady and under control.

Mercury had reached the highest point of the swing by then, and he seemed to hesitate for no longer than a fraction of a second, before he forced down the blade of the battle-axe with an incredible speed and strength behind it.

Everything after that occurred almost as if time had decided to only run at a fifth of the speed that it usually did. The front tip of the blade connected with the white shell of Umaroth-elda's eldunarí and stopped there for a fraction of a fraction of a second, before it cut into the eldunarí.

Just as the blade pierced the eldunarí, Loivissa felt a ripple going through the very earth and air, and a powerful all-consuming light emanated from where the eldunarí had been. When it finally resided, there were only shattered fragments of the white eldunarí left on the pedestal.

By then, Mercury quickly handed the battle-axe back to its original owner, but with his left hand instead of his right one this time. The right hand was meanwhile tugged away inside the folds of the dark purple cape.

"Carry on", he ordered in a brisk tone as he turned to walk down below the stage, but as he turned, his cape flared because of a gust of wind, and for a brief moment, Loivissa saw that from his hand and up to a bit below the elbow, there seemed to have formed…cracks…in it, which glowed an angry red from within, but the next moment, the hand was safely tugged away inside the folds of the cape again.

It had been too fast for anyone that did not have elven senses to see, but Loivissa was sure that she had seen them nonetheless. That was why, as the remaining eleven eldunarya were being shattered in a similar fashion, with ripples going through the very air and earth yet again, she looked closely to spot whether any of the other executioners would gain the same marks, but none of them did.

A new batch of twelve eldunarya was carried up from where Mercury had disappeared down, and once again, they were shattered in the same fashion that the last eleven had been. Loivissa kept holding Vanir down as the third batch was carried up, in which she recognized Glaedr-elda's golden eldunarí, before it too was shattered.

The ripples kept going through the air and earth each time an eldunarí was shattered, but no one but Loivissa and Vanir seemed to be able to feel them, and none of the executioners ever received the same red cracks that Loivissa had seen on Mercury's right arm.

Eventually, the fragments became so many that several people with brooms were brought up to sweep them down in the space between the guards and the stage, before the executions continued once again. Loivissa kept a close count of how many eldunarya that were destroyed, and when the final batch had been destroyed, she was certain that all of the eldunarya from the dragon rider stash in Estildirin now lay amongst the hill-sized pile of broken fragments that had been created.

The hill would have been beautiful, with its thousand colours glinting in the sun, if not for the fact that she knew that each of those colours was the remains of a once proud dragon.

Later, after she had gotten out of Ilirea with Vanir, Loivissa learned that each of the fragments were to be used in a giant mosaic that would form the new floor underneath the very public square where they had all been destroyed.

I feel like playing The Master again.