Further away, and taking more time to ready themselves, a blonde woman in heavy iron armor over purple, and a small squad like her, are forming up in a square and marching toward the center of the still patch, spears and shields held ready.

A silver-scaled dragon, about thirty-five feet long from nose to tail with an even larger wingspan, awaits them patiently on the ground. There's a faint outline of cabochon sapphires on his brow, gem bracers like unmelting ice around his foreclaws, and bone anklets around his rear claws. Across his chest and along his back are strapped a couple of white leather bags with strange metallic bits. 

(They're actually two different kinds of highly overengineered zippered duffel bag.)

Then the scout will break the silence, standing carefully by a parapet and bowing as he speaks. He's probably thirty with greying hair and tanned skin that used to be pale, obviously a veteran soldier with weather-beaten features and scars to prove it. No weapons visible.

"Hello, Archon Ipaxalon," he says, clearly hesitant about the title, "Are you only looking to parley with the Regents? And on your own behalf, or others? I am Janos, captain of scouts for the Unbroken of the Blade Grave."

"I am unfamiliar with that title. Ipaxalon will suffice, for now." He recognizes that an "Archon" is not a kind of celestial, at least. "At present, I speak on my own behalf." And sometimes on behalf of thousands of friends and allies, a fact which is irrelevant because he will likely never see them again. He desperately hopes his people are safe. 

"I am from a distant land, and know very little of this one. I seek context and understanding. To this end, I intend to speak with the leadership of any faction that will agree to it, and with ordinary citizens of this realm besides. I can offer one-time healing of the sick and wounded in exchange."

Janos is currently the focus of aura sight (passive), arcane sight (passive), a number of redundant or irrelevant senses, and a discern lies from Ipaxalon's circlet (active, DC 20). 

(Those sufficiently skilled at controlling themselves can lie without the usual disturbances in their aura, and thus fool the spell, but unlike most Will-based spells, discern lies does not alert the target even if they succeed.) 

Janos has nothing magical about him except the dust from the storm, which is fading in magic like the dust did inside the Oldwalls. No alignment detected, which given his stated position (which is at least mostly true) probably means he's actually True Neutral.

"Far enough you haven't heard of Archons. Or... of Kyros the Overlord? -I don't have much time, his soldiers will be here soon. There's a camp near the eastern edge of this bubble of calm, visible from the air. We're still fighting to repel Kyros's invasion, and do our best for Stalwart's people, but as long as the First Regent and his son live, Kyros's Edict of Storms will stick around ruining us, and healing would be appreciated but starvation's our killer."

"Correct, I had heard of neither. Thank you, I intend to visit this camp to hear your side of the story. Kyros the Overlord is the mage responsible for this storm?"

(WIZARDS. Phenomenal arcane power, and they just can't keep it in their sleeves.)

"A mage? True enough, I suppose, in the same way this thing is a breeze. No one else can cast Edicts, even Archons can barely even come close. Normal mages can only imitate them. But yes, Kyros did this by magic."

"I see. I do not wish to endanger you, if it is indeed your foes that approach. Is there aught you would want me to urgently know, before I meet with them? Rest assured, I shall not act rashly after hearing only one side."

"If it comes to a fight, nothing short of death will keep them down; I've fought Iron Guard with half their guts split and spilling out. And they charged the walls for the last time less than an hour before the Edict hit. While they knew it was coming, and when. Either their 'great general' Graven Ashe, Archon of War, is a much bigger and dumber bastard than our spy reports ever gave him credit for, or they're fanatics to the point of suicide. And they're definitely zealots."

He glances to the side, where a drawbridge is being lowered.

"Best I depart. Just because Rumalan knows I'm around doesn't make it safe for her to know when. Until another time, Sir Ipaxalon."

"Heavens lift your soul, Janos of the Unbroken." 

He salutes and disappears behind the crenelations, sneaking off away from the approaching squad.

There are six of them, with the leader, the blonde woman, in the middle of the front row, and the only one without a helmet; she's also in more decorated armor, which is moderately enchanted and has purple smoke gently wafting from her shoulders like they're magical braziers, and has a greatsword instead of spear and shield. All of their armor is matching in appearance and similar in construction, mostly bare steel with dark blue and purple sheen on some pieces, and faceplates that appear skull-like. The shields are full-length, almost big enough to be pavises, and all decorated uniformly in rich purple with a black design that has been deliberately, identically defaced as if claws ripped through it. The shields, though not anything else, are faintly enchanted.

"Hail!", says the leader, "I am Iron Guard Rumalan, representative of General Graven Ashe, Archon of War, Kyros's instrument in the Blade Grave. Do I address Ipaxalon, and the architect of the storm's abatement here?"

"Hail and well met, Iron Guard Rumalan. I am he. I have indeed diminished the storm for a time, to better facilitate communication. I am newly come to these lands; I presently seek to orient to an unfamiliar context and to understand what has transpired here. I offer healing of the sick and wounded in exchange for non-secret information, shared without deceit."

Alignment of those present? Discern lies will be focused on Rumalan, on general principles rather than any particular suspicion. 

Lawful Evil for Rumalan and the two flanking her (she a bit more strongly), the ones behind them don't seem to be visible.

"There are no lands we know of that are not under Kyros's rule," (True, assuming you don't count that fort right there as enough to be a 'land,' which she mostly doesn't, or places that have been rendered uninhabitable by Kyros as outside Kyros's rule, which she definitely doesn't.) "though the School of Tides fled hoping to find another continent rather than fight for their homelands. Nor have I ever heard of such a large creature as yourself with intelligence. Or a beastman with half the manners." (Straightforwardly true.) "How did you come to be here in the Blade Grave? Or perhaps I should say, on Terratus?"

"By an accident of magical planar travel which, alas, I do not expect to recur in the near future. The kind of creature that I am is a silver dragon, though I am not particularly surprised that you have not encountered my like before; I might be the only one of my kind on the planet. 

"I have met humans before. I know little of Kyros, Terratus, beastmen, or the School of Tides. I would like to learn. I seek knowledge of the geography and history of Terratus, of its peoples and governance, and of the nature and origin of present conflicts, among other topics."

"Rufus, you're better read, tell him about the things everyone in the Tiers would know."

"Of course, commander," the man to her left says, pushing back his faceplate to reveal a black-haired, pug-nosed man, "Kyros the Overlord began his empire in the east of the continent," (true), "starting in what's now Year Zero," (false), "432 years ago now. Sometimes by diplomacy, sometimes by conquest, sometimes by attempting one or both, being betrayed, and levying an Edict against the oathbreakers." (true) "All known Archons in the world, except Occulted Jade if she's still alive, bow to Kyros and administer a region, army, organization, or more than one of the three; Kyros has few immutable laws, but the most important are the ones for delegating power, when sentence can or can't be passed, regulating magic and knowledge, and the promise that food and goods will be moved to where they are needed and no loyal subject shall starve. Terratus can be either the continent or the planet; the big moon is Terratus Grave. No sea expedition to find any other land has ever succeeded, and just about everyone considered Occulted Jade summoning her school and all its Tidecasters to go look for one to be a fool's errand, trying to save face by dying out of sight instead of standing with their neighbors and families in defense of the Tiers." (All true.) "Shall I clarify anything, or move on to other questions?"

"I have a few followup questions, yes. Has Kyros written or spoken about his motives for conquest? Where might I find a collection of his laws? Is it known how or when the Archons came to be?" 

"Archons come to be occasionally, most of them were probably ordinary men and women before, and they generally consider it an attack for anyone else to attempt to determine the specifics. Parts of the Great General's history are widely spoken of but he won't answer questions from even his legion about the details and so we don't ask." The implication 'and he absolutely would not lie to them, but they therefore don't know if they're true,' is probably not hard to pick up. It seems very sincere, and is all true as he knows it.

"All the histories are clear that the continent before Kyros, especially in the east, was ruled by cruel warlords, some of them near-Archons, and near-constant war; the Northern Kingdom where Graven Ashe's line and ours lived was well-ruled, but an exception, and still often at war with its neighbors. Rebellion against Kyros is rare and war between Archons likewise, either quickly finished or quickly crushed. And the law of sharing does its job. What's the words from the law of peace, um, 'Loyalty is freedom from hunger, hostility, and hopelessness,' I think that's right. And he's done it. If he had some other goal, well, he doesn't talk to his Archons much, let alone anyone else." (All true as far as he believes. At least in those exact words.)

History is littered with the failures of those who thought 'Conquer everything' was a workable solution to the problem of there being wars. He can't fault the motive, exactly, it's just that things rarely work out so neatly. And if this is what happens when a province rebels...

"Can you say more about Edicts and how they function? Are there well-known examples?"

"Oh, there's plenty. These days the Overlord writes one and delegates it to the Archon of Law, who hands it to one of his Fatebinders to deliver - though I think in the Bastard City he delivered one himself during the Conquest. Or he might just be able to crack half the city into ruin as a judgment on their profiteering on his own. Not counting that, there were four during the Conquest, I think? The Edict of Storms - I forget the wording - but it's something like 'Let the prideful who refuse to bow be ground down with their land and the so-called Unbroken be broken by the storm of our rage, until the last blade is broken or the line of the Regents ends.' Hit as bad as the stormwall across the whole of Stalwart for half an hour before it died down to - well, that," Rufus says, gesturing over at the stormy sky. "Setting-Sun, one of the cities along the coast, refused to join the Empire, and there was an Edict of Waves - the bedrock tilted to sea and a massive wave wiped the city off the map. The other three surrendered pretty quick after that. The Sages wouldn't bend to the Law of Forbidden Knowledge, so the Edict of Fire called a volcano up into their citadel and turned it into the Burning Library, and won't stop until... there was some specific forbidden archive Kyros demanded be removed."

"And the Edict of Stone," he says, scowling fiercely, "Was when that traitorous fuck Cairn, Archon of Stone, defected from the legion mid-Conquest, not even to Azure, but to the bloody savages who attacked them as much as us. Soil turned to stone and stone turned to tremors, and the land cracked open into canyons and turned him from a stone giant of a man to a massive near-living sculpture, and it won't let up until the Archon is properly dead. Anyway, they're always to a place, with a sentence, and a duration. Sometimes it's 'right now,' but usually it's until the problem is dealt with. There's some where it never is, there's a city in the east where everything falls apart and anything you try fails far too often, and no one's tried to resettle it in three centuries. Edict of Misfortune, I think. Some scholar would know details, probably."

Of all the trigger-happy petulant needlessly destructive wizard shit

On the plus side he gets to fight an evil empire 

Maybe routinely obliterating cities saves lives in expectation

It looks like Ipaxalon will be very busy for a while.

"What knowledge is considered forbidden? And can you say more about the Conquest?" 

Rufus looks at his commander, who shrugs. "The Conquest of the Tiers is the most recent, and probably the last, since there's nowhere else left - the Northern Empire, where the General killed the last Archon of War and then surrendered and became the new one, were the one before that, a century ago. This one's been complete for about a year, took about three years from when we knocked in the door of the Bastard Tier until everything either surrendered or had to be hit with an Edict. Unfortunately, the Overlord didn't see fit to let the Disfavored take care of it; he also sent the Adjudicator and his Fatebinders, which was entirely sensible, and the Scarlet Chorus, which is an abomination against discipline and all good sense just to exist, though at least their mad hordelings slowed down the Tiersmen with the sheer weight of their corpses. Why they recruit locals, and not even the soldiers, only Kyros knows, and only that madman the Voices of Nerat understands. 428, we took the trading city of the Bastard Tier, which wiped out the mercenary companies, most of whom the best that could be said is they usually stayed bought and had more discipline than the Chorus. Spread from there into northern Haven, there's a big town under the Sunset Spire and its waterfall that - was helpful. 429 hit southern Haven - they had no leadership to speak of - and most of the Free Cities, two got crushed by Edict and Archon and the rest surrendered. And Apex, who fought well, but surrendered as their casualties mounted up and ours didn't. Well, the Chorus's did, but unlike the Queen's Royal Army they didn't care. 430, we were all here in Stalwart, maybe half the legion, and it was a slow grind of a war, slowly pushing the Unbroken back. If they had anything half as good as the General's protection they'd have had a chance. But we got - pretty nearly here, at the gates of their capital, and besieged them, and it stalled until the Stormcaller got sent with the Edict. The Sages was mostly a Chorus operation, but I heard it was mostly a matter of spies, trying to catch out the Sages betraying the oaths of loyalty to Kyros they all pretty much knew were false from the start. And Azure turned a mess, but didn't start that way, or so I hear - breadbasket of the Tiers, ordinary enough campaign, making steady progress and little resistance from the local farmers except when the Chorus ran wild. But then Cairn showed his true bastard face, and it was a three-way war against savages who won't even stand and fight, and the farmland was getting torn up badly even before the Overlord decided on the Edict he wanted to punish the oathbreaker and his followers."

"I don't know too much about what's forbidden. Talk of gods is the one that comes up enough we need to watch out for it, I'm told that's true everywhere new to the Empire for a few generations. Anything out of the Oldwalls. I'm sure there's plenty else I don't hear about."

"Thank you. I'd like to summarize to make sure I understand. The Disfavored serve under General Graven Ashe, the Scarlet Chorus under the Voices of Nerat - also an Archon? - and the Fatebinders under the Adjudicator. They and some number of additional Archons, including Cairn, were sent to conquer the Tiers, and did so. During this Conquest, Kyros wrote several Edicts which were delivered verbally by Fatebinders to crush resistance or punish lawbreakers; one also condemned Cairn when he changed sides. The last holdouts here in Stalwart are - the Unbroken? - and those who serve the Regent and occupy yonder fortress, and the Disfavored here maintain the siege?"

War is always an Abyssal ordeal, but what an unholy mess this is.

"Nerat is the Archon of Secrets," he confirms, "And Tunon the Adjudicator is Archon of Law. The Archon of Song was involved as well, serving under Nerat. 'Delivered verbally' doesn't really do justice to it but it's not incorrect. Both the forces inside Sentinel Stand and the ones outside it are Unbroken, but they're sharply divided; the ones inside are too loyal to kill their master Herodin, and the ones outside hate Herodin more with every passing span for not taking his own life to spare his people. The rest is correct."

"Hypothetically, what do you expect would transpire if the Stormwall fell and Herodin lived?"