We found the Sun King waiting for us, as expected. So was Erend, also as expected.
Now, the meeting was ready to begin.
"Ah, Aloy of the Nora, the One who sees the Unseen. Welcome. It would seem that you and your companions have done me a great service."
Though I was unsure whether it was necessary, I kneeled before the Sun King, as did Viv. The rest of our entourage performed more muted gestures of respect, whilst Aloy just stared, unused to this level of deference.
Avad was surprsied by the deference, but he recovered surprisingly fast. "Ah, and I suppose that you are the leader of those that fell from the sky?"
"More or less," replied Vivian. "I am on equal footing with this man, and the Witcher owes loyalty to none but his code."
"I see. Perhaps we will have time to discuss this later, but for now, we have more pressing matters to attend to. Erend, tell them what you found."
After that the conversation progressed much like it did with the game, for none of us saw any reason to interrupt - after all, the uninitiated among us needed to learn what was at stake here. Our hosts seem to catch onto this, as they never attempted to question why we were silent.
"...I can't send the army to the border without provoking the Oseram. But I could send a few vanguard..and perhaps an exceptionally skilled Nora and several...surprising foreigners as well?"
Avad looked at us when he said that, and a moment later, he dismissed Marad and Erend. This was a personal matter, after all.
"I hate to impose further after all that you have done. But this is a matter of great importance to me."
Aloy was the first to respond. "It sounds like Ersa means a lot to you."
"Without her Vanguard, I would never have been able to liberate Meridian and end my father's brutal reign. Since then, tension's have been high, but Ersa's had a way with making her people see reason."
Ally pressed him a bit further on information about the Carja, Dervahl, and so on, things that the game allowed you to ask about.
Viv did have a word or two for the Sun King, though.
"...But we must be patient. Change won't come in a single sunrise."
"...You're a wise king."
Avad turned his attention to my former ROB. "I take it that is not a compliment you give lightly."
"As it comes from the tongue of a former princess, no, it is not something I give freely."
That certainly surprised everyone, seeing how there was a lot of gasping and many stunned expressions at Vivian's comment.
Avad was the first to compose himself. "You are a princess?"
"Once. I willing stepped out of the line of succession for personal reasons. I would prefer not to be treated as royalty, or as nobility."
"...Of course. Forgive me, it is just that I have never had the fortune to meet any of royal blood that were not part of my family."
"Fair enough."
"Now then, if any of you wish to back out, I will not hold it against you."
Once again, Aloy spoke first. "I owe this to Erend, so I'm not backing out."
"Not a fan of those who hunt innocents," intoned Geralt. "I'm in."
"We don't exactly have a way home, so we're with you," added Zoe. "Though we're just against the machines, okay?"
Viv stole a glance at me, and received a nod in response.
"I don't particularly like those who pass the sins of the fathers onto their sons. I'll help."
"Same here," added Vivian.
"Thank you. I know Sun Kings aren't supposed to beg, but please, help me find Ersa."
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With the conversation finished, we made our way to Pitchcliff - Marad had an operative there to assist in locating Ersa. He was already dead, of course, seeing how I didn't even know his name and had no way for my machines to save him, but his corpse could still help us find Erend's sister. Most of my followers who had journeyed to Meridian had joined us, barring a skink and several Ostron who had discussed the possibility, however unlikely and temporary, of trading with the Carja. Even with my unlikeliness to stay in this universe once I had dealt with HADES, fostering better relations with the natives was always a good idea.
As expected, Marad's agent had expired, but he had left a crude map made from his blood that led us to Dervahl's camp. The place was fairly primitive, like most settlements in this world, but it was well defended, with added protection in the form of chained up machines. Of course, the camp had one problem - it was designed to defend against maybe a handful of warriors. An group of Saurus, backed up by Tenno, Skinks, a Seeker, a Brave, a Monster Hunter, Vivian, and myself?
That just wasn't fair to the defenders.
It wasn't long before we found Ezra. As expected, she was badly beaten and tortured, though not so badly as to be condemned to death. More fortuantely, it appeared that Dervahl had ordered his men to leave her unspoiled - I doubted the Oseram warlord had any interest in her, but you never know.
Zoe actually proved to be the most helpful here - as soon as Dervahl's champion was out, she immediately worked to coax a potion down Ersa's throat. Whilst it wasn't the best of healing elixirs, it was enough to allow her body to mend her wounds, though it would still take time to heal the worst of them. She would live, in spite of her wounds.
Ersa did not have much to say, though - the torture's wrought upon her had taken much of her strength, and if she wished to recover fully, she needed to rest. Still, she divulged the information we needed - Dervahl had invited her to negotiate, clearly hoping to use the opportunity to ambush her. Seeing through the obvious trap, Ersa had brought the best of the Vanguard with her, only for all of htem to be paralyzed by a sonic machine that Dervahl had manufactured for his plans. With her out of the picture, the Oseram warlord was now planning to launch an assault upon Meridian, as retribution for Avad's father sacrificing Dervahl's wife and child in the Sun Ring (basically gladiator matches with robots in place of animals). You know, usual revenge things.
Surprisngly, Zoe proved again to be more than walking monster bait when she found a crucial piece of evidence in determining Dervahl's plan - a receipt for a large shipment of blaze - highly flammable biofuel. Coeus provided me and Vivian with the specifics of the material whilst Aloy and Erend pondered what Dervahl planned to use it for . Of course, Vivian and myself were already aware of what Dervahl wanted to use the fluid for - bombs.
Whilst the rest of our compatriots didn't make the connection, they did decide to return to Meridian to inform Avad and Marad - after making sure Ersa was treated, of course.
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Once we returned and informed the King and his advisor of what Dervahl had planned, Marad in turn offered us the location of a large shipment of blaze that had recently been recently purchased by an Oseram. The lead ended up taking us to a warehouse where, surprise surprise, there were multiple blaze-based bombs.
Given the number of bombs and how close they were to detonating, disarming them wasn't an option, so we settled for Aloy's plan - push the ones on the upper stories out of the windows to minimize the damage. I did disable one of the bombs, though, so that Avad would have more evidence to examine when he inevitably tried Dervahl.
Speaking of which, the Oseram Warlord was at Avad's palace, forcing the Sun King to cower and whimper using another of the Sonic Devices. His plan was to force Avad to watch as Meridian was scorched by the bombs, which led to some rather amusing reactions when it turned out the bomb had been neutralized. Confused, he took his men to try and figure out what had happened, only to end up having to deal with us.
Honestly, that fight wasn't really that noteworthy. Dervahl wasn't a poor fighter by any means, but he was dealing with people who could take out whole armies. Even his backup plan of sumoning a hoard of glinthawks went up in smoke when Theseus and Geralt took aim at the skies. That didn't stop me from staring up for a minute to see if Dervahl had any other tricks up his sleeves. I half expected a stormbird to show up, but none ever did.
Once Dervahl was captured, our group took a moment to decide on what to do next. In particular, I took a moment to look at the glinthawks, trying to see if I could find anything valuable from them.
Then Coeus decided to call.
"Yes, Coeus?"
"We have a new development. There's strange signals coming from a Carja outpost."
"ONe of the magnetic anomalies?"
"No, sir. Actually, these signals match up with the ones we get from...well, from those strange Progenitor artifacts we keep finding all over the multiverse."
...Oh.
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AN: And thus concludes the ifrst main part of the Horizon: Zero Dawn arc!
Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!