Throne of Steel

Chapter 12 -The True Ascalon

The Commander and the three Charr descended even further underground - without a single word spoken. The stone walls made way for plates of solid metal. The stairs ended in a wide hall, reinforced with steel, with many pillars segmenting the different parts of the area. Crystal lamps that shone as brightly now as they did when they were first created, lined the walls and portraits and banners hung between them.

Racks of weapons and armor filled an entire wing. Shelves and cupboards presented everything one could need from what must have been ingredients for making food to writing utensils, to old literature. And in the center lay an enormous table. A map was sculpted and painted onto its surface, with mountains and hills jutting out of the table as though it were a miniature version of the actual land itself.

The Commander was the first to approach it and give it a good look. Its shape was completely unfamiliar, the borders drawn by coloured lines made no sense to him, but the alignment of mountain ranges and certain landmarks made it very clear that this was Ascalon. The Charr were very hesitant to approach it, even Varrock was. But the moment they actually laid eyes on it from up close, they couldn't stop staring at it.

The Commander tried to read their expressions, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going through their heads. So he simply asked them. "Rox, what is going on?"

Rox reached out with one hand and drew along Ascalon's northern border with her finger, touching the mountains here and there. "It's….it's weird. This feels really familiar. But I've never seen these borders like this. But that's definitely Grothmar up there. It feels like this is what it should be. Like I should be up there." Ascalon's borders were much further north than what he had known, and the wasteland to the east of today was replaced with forests and grassland, as lush and full of life as Kryta was. "It's like this…this is what it should be. Imagining it still was, somehow…"

"It calms you, doesn't it?" Varrock asked. "It soothes you, makes you relax in a way you never have."

She nodded. "Yeah, it kinda does."

In a sudden bout of fury, Rytlock smashed the edge of the table with his fist, causing a dent in it. "It can't, " he shouted. "I KNOW IT DOES, BUT IT MUSTN'T! This can't be happening! We can't just throw away everything we know! This goes against everything we were taught!"

Varrock faced him and raised his voice to where it could contend with Rytlock's. "See the writing on the wall, Brimstone! Everything we were taught is a lie! A house of cards that's only one trip down these catacombs away from crumbling!"

"BUT IT CAN'T!" Rytlock drew his burning sword again and raised it. When the others saw that he was about to make a grave mistake, all three including the Commander grabbed hold of Rytlock and his sword arm, keeping him from striking at the table. "Let go of me! I know it's true but it can't be! I've lost friends to the war! I've lost my sire to Flame Legion! We've sacrificed so much fighting over Ascalon!"

The Commander tried to reason with him. "Think about this, Rytlock! If you really feel the way Varrock says, then maybe it really is true! Maybe Ascalon and Grothmar looked like they do on this map! But destroying the map won't change that! The past will still be what it is, even if you destroy records of it!"

"What do you know? You didn't spend your whole life fighting over this patch of land! You didn't spend your childhood being told to be proud that you are above the worship of gods, only for Pyre Fierceshot of all people to come along and tell you otherwise! That our whole existence, all our struggles are meaningless! And this map is a testament to that! They can never know, we need to destroy it!"

Varrock gave talking sense into him a try. "Our struggles may be meaningless now, but that doesn't mean they need to stay that way. If a battle is pointless, we can choose not to fight it. If you destroy the map and cover up the truth, all you do is doom the Charr to more meaningless fighting. More lives wasted for a cause that never had a stake to begin with!"

"Then what am I supposed to do? Just live with this? Live knowing that all we do is based on a lie?"

"It's still a lie, no matter what you do going forward, " the Commander said. "But you can accept it for what it is and move on. It wasn't your fault, you were lied to. But if you try to cover this up, you are spreading that same lie, by choice. You'll be as much to blame for lying to others as the people that lied to you."

At last, Rytlock eased up, no longer intent to bang his sword against the table. "Fine! So how am I supposed to move forward from here?"

Varrock let go of him like the others and leaned against the nearest pillar. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself. I took all this as badly as you did. The first thing I did was run, run far away from Ascalon, but once you know the truth, you can't just ignore it. It just doesn't let you go. So I took Fierceshot's advice to heart and went to Kryta to seek out the Separatists, you know the rest from there. When Flame Legion and the Citadel are busy butting heads, I'm rallying my Separatists and Renegades and founding my own legion. Storm Legion, drawing on both Charr and humans to fill its ranks."

"You have no loyalty to Flame Legion either, do you?"

Varrock shrugged. "Flame Legion is a means to an end. And once they're no longer useful, a target like any other. The legions will grind themselves to death when they clash in earnest. And my Storm Legion will scoop up everything that's left. Once I've united all of Ascalon under my banner, we'll make our move north - back home - and claim Grothmar for ourselves."

"So you seriously want to take on all four legions and crown yourself Khan-Ur?"

"I didn't even think of it this way, but now that you say it out loud, yes. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do. Maybe by the end of it I'll even move troops east of Ascalon, to Adelbern's Scar and storm the Citadel of Ash."

"So when faced with the choice between running away or standing and fighting, you choose madness."

Varrock shrugged again. "Guilty as charged. If you want to go places, you need to ramp up those ambitions."

"Like we'll let any of that happen!"

"You will make it possible, and you will no matter what I say. I have no idea how you will pull it off, but your human friend here…" Varrock pointed at the Commander "...me and a few acquaintances have been observing his exploits. Any fight or battle he's involved in, if it involves someone trying to kill him, his side always wins. So if you go to the Citadel with him, I know for sure that you will somehow prop them up to where they can mount a defense equal to the Flame Legion's forces. So both sides will grind each other to nothingness, and pave the way for Storm Legion to claim all of it for ourselves."

Rytlock, now already with his mind off the map and its implications, bore his teeth at Varrock. "What are you talking about?"

The Separatist leader shrugged. "Think about it, can you think of one fight where the Commander actually fell?"

The Commander gave the most obvious answer: "You captured us! After you destroyed the legions' army."

Varrock lowered his head, raised one finger and wagged it in a dismissive manner, a very put-on gesture that he recognized from Lord Aldryn. "We never tried to kill you, that's the difference. It's the intent that matters. We captured you, but you didn't die, did you? Neither you nor any of the Charr you were hiding with. If you stretch it, you can call it a 'fight lost', but seeing as you still stand here, I'd say you walked out of it just fine."

The Commander had to stop for a moment. What Varrock said was true technically. To his knowledge, none of the survivors from the devastating bombardment came to any harm even after being taken prisoner. He mentally walked through every fight and every battle he had had prior to it. The battles between the Separatists, Seraph and Shining Blade were unanimous victories every step of the way. The last time he was overwhelmed was before the Seraph broke from the Shining Blade. "What about the Shaemoor massacre? I attacked Grell Nightblade and then the guards at the city gates came to arrest me!"

"Did the guards try to kill you?"

"No."

"Did you attack the guards?"

"No."

"Did you mount any resistance against the guards?"

"No…"

"Sounds more like they showed intent to arrest you and you surrendered willingly."

When he thought about it that way, it was true. The Commander never actually had a fight to the death with the Seraph. Next example. "All right…the Ascalon settlement…Jennah died."

"But you didn't. Neither did anyone else within the settlement. And again, who tried to kill you?"

"Claw Island! The Risen overwhelmed us!"

"Correction: You retreated. You didn't stand and fight for it to the death, you abandoned it willingly. In fact, you gave up on it when the battle had hardly begun. Unless you do the same with the Citadel, it will not fall. And you and I both know full well you won't abandon it, not now that you're in a position to decide that for yourself. You will help them to the very last, your human nature compels you to it. Come on, we're done here." He turned around and made his way to the spiral staircase.

"Not so fast, Siegeblast!" Rytlock shouted. "You can't just say something like that and then not explain it!"

"If there was something to explain, I would have. As of right now, nobody knows how it works, we only know that it does. Maybe it's similar to Shortfuse and her luck-thing. I don't know. Either way, there's nothing new and major that you could find down here. I wanted you to know the truth about Ascalon and now you know. And don't even think about stealing any of the books or armors, the ghosts are very possessive."

Rytlock and the Commander exchanged a glance to gauge what they thought, but they were both at a loss, so the Commander shrugged. Rox had gotten distracted and was slowly reaching for a piece of parchment on one of the tables, but as soon as she got too close, five Charr ghosts phased into the room through the wall and stared her down, startling her into retracting her hand and joining the Commander at the stairs.

When they returned to the library, all the ghosts were already gone. And they ascended the obstructive spiral staircases with an uncomfortable silence. It was only when they reached the top floor and could walk side by side again, that the Commander saw fit to bring up what Varrock had just said. "So…just so I understand this right, you think I win every battle I fight?"

"If it's a matter of life and death for you, yes.""

"Then why are you telling me this? If you were right, I could just attack and kill you right now and you couldn't stop it."

Varrock didn't even bother looking at him. The prospects of the Commander posing a deadly danger to him didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. "Are you attacking me right now?"

"No…But you didn't give me a choice! The Priory…"

"Even if I didn't use the scholars as leverage, you still wouldn't just kill me unprovoked. I know you humans better than you know yourselves. Different races think and act in different ways. Once you acknowledge that, people become very predictable. I know you wouldn't just murder me like that. Not unless you thought you had to. It's just not in your nature."

"Then why threaten to kill the scholars?"

"Because I can't say the same about Brimstone over there, or Shortfuse for that matter. Brimstone would do it in a heartbeat."

"You're right, " Rytlock said.

They wandered up the stairs outside the library, careful to not look down into the pits or lose balance. "So what happens now?" the Commander asked.

"Young Baelfire has orders to let you go. You can march with Flame Legion, but they won't keep you if you want to leave."

Rytlock couldn't quite believe this. "Really? Just like that?"

"Baelfire doesn't know about the Commander's little streak of luck. If you want to move over to fight with the Citadel, he will let you. Obviously, if you attack Flame Legion while in the middle of them, they will defend themselves. And if you're still with them when they reach the Citadel, you will be expected to pick a side."

"And we're supposed to buy this whole 'streak of luck' nonsense?" the Tribune retorted.

"Believe whatever you want. But me and my friends have moved from loss after loss to a flawless series of successes, and all we had to do was never pick an all-out fight with the Commander."

More vagaries, which prompted the Commander to ask: "So who are those friends of yours?"

"I made a promise that I wouldn't let your investigation reach a dead end. You'll have enough information for me to keep that promise. No more, no less. Let's see to the battle of the Black Citadel playing out first." Nothing more was said during their ascent. When they reached the Foefire's Heart, the stairs retracted themselves the moment the last of them was safely on the upper platform. The path back was quiet. When they reached the Priory's camp, Varrock announced to the scholars: "Good news! They played nice, so you get to live another day!"

Detha tried to rebuke him for his attitude. "You've got some nerve trotting up here like you own the place! What reason do we have to believe a word you said?"

Varrock now addressed her much more boldly and with new confidence. "And you've got some nerve giving lip to someone who could snap his fingers and have you dismembered. I don't work for you anymore, I don't owe you any deference."

He didn't even stop, like she appeared to want him to, he simply wandered past her, with the Commander and the others in tow.

"Hey!" Detha shouted. "I was talking to you!"

"You'll know I was honest when you see Flame Legion withdraw. I saved your life, you're welcome. Don't squander it."

"Varrock!"

He stopped briefly, only to turn around and give her a plain "Goodbye." before he left.

Once outside, Varrock waved at a messenger from the surrounding army and made an affirming gesture before he turned to the others. "This is where we part ways. You'll be allowed to travel alongside the Imperator, at least for until you get to the Citadel. I'd say 'see you on the battlefield', but you know…"

Rytlock finished his sentence, audibly annoyed at that. "...but you won't show up at all, will you?"

"Once again, you have me dead to rights. When next you see me, I'll be an Imperator. Hopefully with all of Ascalon under my belt."

"Why are you so confident that everything will play out in your favor?"

He turned to the Commander and answered plainly: "We've played you like a fiddle so far, nothing I can do will change that at this point."

With that, he simply wandered off. Leaving the Commander, Rytlock and Rox still confused and with questions on their minds. Even after everything they had heard on this day.