Legends of Amacia The Awakening

In the throne room of the Black Fortress, the Emperor sat seething upon his throne, fuming about the lack of success in dispatching Hanna and her traitorous friends. As he sat there, Zeus entered the throne room, moving by the workers who busily replaced the destroyed doors. The Emperor noticed Zeus’ arrival and focused on him as he approached. A scowl crossed the Emperor’s face as he stood up, bellowing, “Everyone except Lord Zeus get out of my sight, now!” The workers immediately fled the throne room, fearful of the Emperor’s wrath. “This better be good, Zeus, or I’ll have your soul,” he growled as Zeus stopped at the base of the dais, bowing.

“It is, your highness,” Zeus asked, remaining bowed with his face to the floor. “I have some progress to report on locating the Beowulf.”

The Emperor’s countenance rose slightly as did his eyebrow. “Rise and report, Zeus,” he ordered sitting down on his skull throne.

Zeus mounted the dais and stood before the Emperor, saying, “I did a little checking on Ahriaman’s dealings with the cat and discovered something that you may find disturbing, but it helps us.”

The Emperor wasn’t happy with this as he growled, “What is it?”

“Well, I found out from Ahriaman’s closest aids that when you let him try and break the cat, he infected her with a seventh gen shebat,” Zeus reported carefully.

“What?” the Emperor roared furiously. “I explicitly told him not to use those things on her!”

“Your majesty, you told him initially to break her to make her your queen when you first let him deal with her. You told him nothing about how to accomplish it. At least that is what I was told,” he told the Emperor stoically in very careful, measured words. The Emperor glared at him with growing fury, and Zeus quickly added, “It wasn’t till after he nearly beat her to death that you forbade such things. By then it was too late. He had already introduced it. But he had, as I was told, planned to remove it before it reached Phase 3. He had planned to use it to convince her to be your queen. But as we all know, things have not gone according to plan. Beowulf raided the tower and took her before Ahriaman could do what he wanted with the shebat.”

The Emperor’s eyes glowed as he seethed with hellish fury. “Not gone according to plan? Is that what you call it?” he roared at Zeus, jumping to his feet. Zeus backed away quickly, keeping out of reach as the Emperor glared at him with murder in his eyes. Before Zeus could react, the Emperor’s hand came up and Zeus flew violently to the hand. The Emperor’s hand clamped down around Zeus’ throat and picked him up off the floor. Zeus struggled against the iron grip of the Emperor as he began to squeeze.

“I don’t think it’s me you want to kill,” Zeus choked as the Emperor squeezed. “There’s good news in this if you will spare my life for a few moments.”

The Emperor glared at him, slamming him to the floor. Zeus cringed in pain as he looked up at the Emperor. “You have ten seconds to convince me,” the Emperor hissed evilly. “Otherwise, you’ll meet the same fate as Kronos.”

“We were able to track the shebat he put in her,” Zeus wheezed. “But we weren’t able to get a lock in it. However, we know approximately where she is.”

“Where is she?” the Emperor roared.

“Somewhere in the Sea of Calui, nearly a hundred and fifty leagues from Kartoom. When we tried to lock in on the signal in the sea of Calui, we encountered heavy electrical interference roughly fifty leagues into the sea. The interference was so strong that we couldn’t penetrate it. But we were getting a signal from a point somewhere beyond that. There’s a bubble of interference out there that’s nearly thirty leagues across inside which our tech cannot see.”

The Emperor’s demeanor changed dramatically. The murder in his eyes turned from Zeus. “That’s where they are!” he bellowed. “Unleash the Rakshasar! Send them west! Prepare the war machines! I will deal with these rebel upstarts myself! Now go! Have the Rakshasar ascertain their whereabouts! Ready the army. I want every Zarukar, Xenian, and droid battalion ready for war! And prepare to release the Azhidakar. Open the Kartoom gateway! The Old Ones will feast! Go!” The Emperor’s finger went forth in the command, his voice full of rage and deadly seriousness. “They will drown in seas of blood! I will make them suffer for what they did to me! That mutated bitch will rue the day she was even born! The Lynxian is mine! I will have her back. Go!”

Zeus bowed, saying, “As you command, your majesty.” At that, he fled from the Emperor, putting in motion a course of events that none would be able to stop, events that would shake the world to its very foundations.