The Lost Scions (event)
Character: Duke Iros of Legio VII 'Parataros'
Some twenty years ago, Legon Aethon sent half of the legion from our forts in southern Kalathipsomi into the south to help return order to the anarchy-stricken Etepezeans, who had followed their great overthrowing of the hated pretender Aeschraes with lawlessness and clear signs of deep inhumanity. I was but a boy, a fresh initiate into our legion, when I was sent with the others as part of Aethon's grand coalition, our scion of Parataros marching alongside four other northern Legions to throw our weight behind Aautokratir Isacon in the southeast. Of course, Isacon died before we'd even arrived, and for twenty years we've done naught besides fail, fail, and fail...
I'd proven myself against the Riccarat slave rebels, slaughtering them to a man, and before I'd even wiped the blood from my eyes I had received promotion and orders from Aethon himself. With my mind still echoing with the screams of the children, the cruelty that I had discovered in myself and my fellow legionnaires... I was told to march, and so we did. To the ports, to ships bought by looted slave coin, and to the sea.
This was to be our greatest campaign. Kalathipsomi, I had been told, was dying. Barbarians were at the gates, they'd secured the region's food stores, and soon they'd be in the south. Aethon would lead the Legion in glorious battle to put down these northern insurgents. Meanwhile, we'd capture a beachhead upon the Imperial Isle, and he'd return south with a host of allies to aid us in retaking the island and securing some part of Aversaria in the legion's name.
It has been two years since we were to hear word of this great victory. The Pass has seen the last of the legions destroyed and thrown aside, and now the barbarians march south... I do not think our reinforcements are coming, and I do not think that Legon Aethon has survived his final scheme. As the last of Legio VII it falls to me, do I follow through on this mad plan to reconquer this island from the arrogant blue-bloods who, rightfully, rule it? Or... or is any of this right? The screams of those slaves echo through my mind, my arms and legs feel weary, and the thought of crossing back over the sea to the mainland makes me feel even more sick. Perhaps it would be better for the legion to die with Aethon, and for us to find some form of peace here... is my duty to my legion? To my dead empire? Or to my battered men, who have never known a home to rest within?
Where to even begin...