I. The Embers Beneath
Silvershade was not a city.
It was a symbol.
A proud bastion of artisan tradition, nestled in the hills east of Emberhold. Its forges were said to sing with the oldest flame in the kingdom. Every noble house worth its salt had armor or stained glass from Silvershade.
They called it "the Cradle of Craft."
But to Magnus?
It was obsolete.
The Silvershade Guild had declared him a thief, a tyrant, a madman. They had tried to kill him. They had rejected the future.
So he would show them the cost of defiance.
II. The March of Iron
Magnus did not march with knights.
He marched with machines.
The world had never seen anything like it:
Steam chariots belching smoke, wheels grinding stone.
Eight-legged automata carrying crates of dynamite.
Infantry wearing gear-wrought exosuits, their strength quadrupled.
And at the center of it all, Magnus, standing atop a mobile command platform, black coat flaring like a banner of doom.
They left Emberhold at dawn.
Silvershade stood fifty miles away.
By dusk, the city would kneel.
III. A City Unprepared
Silvershade's defenses were proud, but antiquated.
Crossbowmen manned the walls.
Boiling pitch lay in vats.
But their tactics had been written in an era of steel and wood—not steam and iron.
When the first of Magnus's cannons unfurled from its folding housing and fired a pressurized bolt that shattered a stone parapet, the defenders faltered.
And when the Ashlung Flamethrowers hissed and spat arcs of liquified fire across the palisades, they broke.
One captain screamed to signal retreat.
Another simply dropped his sword.
IV. No Quarter for Obsolescence
Magnus gave a single order: "No deaths. No mercy."
His army advanced with precision. Stun lances. Smoke pellets. Sonic detonators.
Within two hours, the Guild's forges were occupied.
Within four, the last master craftsman had been dragged from the Grand Hall and brought before him.
Guildmaster Loren—silver-haired, trembling, still wearing his apron.
"Please," the man muttered. "You're a craftsman too. You understand legacy—"
"I understand progress," Magnus interrupted, voice flat. "And you stood in its way."
He raised his gauntlet. The engineers behind him activated a mobile projection device—a marvel that displayed glowing schematics into the air.
"This is your last design," Magnus said. "A plow gear from twenty years ago."
Then he held up a spherical rune-etched orb—his own design.
"This is mine. It fits in a pocket and can lift a cart."
He dropped the orb.
It hit the ground—and hovered.
"Craftsmanship is not tradition," Magnus said coldly. "It is evolution."
He turned away as the Iron Vanguard branded the guildmark from Loren's hand.
V. The Funeral of Fire
Magnus did not sack Silvershade.
Instead, he transformed it.
The Guild Hall became a research lab.
The master smithies were retrofitted with automated bellows and mechanical hammers.
He kept the artisans—those who adapted—and expelled those who clung to the past.
But one structure he did destroy: the Tower of Reverence, a monument to the "Holy Flame of Origin."
He ordered it pulled down piece by piece and melted.
In its place, a new statue rose: a metallic man gripping a gear and torch, striding forward.
At its base, a plaque read:
"The Old Gods Burn. The New World Builds."
VI. Echoes in the Capital
When word of Silvershade's fall reached King Alric, the royal court panicked.
"That's two cities now," the chancellor hissed. "And without a drop of noble blood spilled."
"Which," the king growled, "makes him more dangerous than any warlord."
Alric turned to Marshal Derion. "Ready the Fourth Legion. March on Emberhold. Bring me this... industrialist."
But the spymaster, Lady Vell, interrupted.
"We've found something more damning, Your Majesty."
She dropped a dossier onto the table.
Magnus's machines. His engineers. His plans.
"Look closely, sire," she whispered. "He's not building weapons for war."
She flipped the final page—a schematic of a train line that crossed every duchy.
"He's building a kingdom."
VII. A Toast to Smoke
Back in Emberhold, Magnus stood on a balcony with Tobias and the Silver Engineers.
The lights of Silvershade now shimmered with an electric hue.
He raised a goblet of black wine.
"To the ashes of tradition," he said, voice sharp as steel.
The others echoed him:
"To the new age."
And in the forges below, the gears turned faster.
Because the next invention was ready.
One that would not just conquer cities...
…but rewrite the very economy of the realm.