The Restoration and the Reclamation

Penned by Sir Rivalen Mothril, Knight, East Empire Company.

I hereby dedicate this work to the Emperor, Titus Mede II, to my brothers who fell in the Great War and to the hero, Saint Martin.

TIMELINE, PROVINCIAL MAPS (AS OF 4E 201) AND CHARACTERS OF BOOK I

Welcome to the Second Book of "Through Eastern Eyes"! Having explored the events of the interregnum and the rise of the Emperor Titus Mede, the work now moves toward the tumultuous history of the earlier Medes. Though the years of Blood and Gold had come to an end, the early Mede era was not all love and peace, but a time of silent political plays and tremendous unrest in the Eastern Provinces, especially in the religious sphere.

The last Chapter, Book I Part III.2 ended with Titus Mede having been acclaimed Emperor by the Moot of Skyrim and having defeated and killed his primary enemy, Eddar Olin, making him Princeps of Cyrodiil. But although his power in Cyrodiil, and in Skyrim was now all but unquestioned, the Imperial Province was not yet reunited.

4E 19-22 – The Prospect, The Return

While the Emperor ensured as best he could that the Old Holds would remain loyal, and made some effort to personally administer justice, it was nonetheless true that Mede unhesitatingly took what he was able to from Skyrim. What troops, money and other resources he could justifiably squeeze, he did. This is not to say he left Skyrim with nought but the skin on its back, as some Nords in our time are wont to suggest. But he did offer land and money to those Nords and Orcs he had collected who were willing to settle and rebuild Cyrodiil. And Cyrodiil needed it.

For ten years, perhaps more, the Imperial Province had been at war with itself. It now had a chance to heal that damage and retake its place of honour in Tamriel. In this endeavour, Mede enjoyed some degree of success. At the outset of 4E 19, the Emperor had left Cyrodiil with five thousand soldiers. Now, half a year later, he returned with more than thirty five thousand. The majority of the Cheydinhal soldiers in Eddar Olin’s forces had gone over to Titus Mede when Farwil Indarys had revealed himself to them. All things considered, he may, in total have had a maximum levy remaining in Colovia, of twenty five thousand men. Nibenay and what it could offer him had not yet been taken account of. He more or less emptied the treasury he had in Skyrim in favour of the legionnaires present in that province. He made attempts to make contact with those forts where the mountain legions had dug themselves in and not abandoned their posts. Some of these forts had sworn themselves to the local princes of Skyrim and some had been overrun by bandits. Those that were still active, mostly in western Skyrim, sent officers bearing messages of fealty and assurances that they would work to stamp out banditry. Then, after sending messengers before him demanding, as Emperor, the fealty of Cyrodiil and its people, he marched back south.

The first to submit was Bruma, whose Countess came before the Emperor and made obeisance, feasting him for three days. Then, in full force, the Emperor’s legions made for Cheydinhal. One of Olin’s siblings still held the great eastern city with a strong garrison and had declared himself king. Mede merely sent messengers ahead, imploring the surrender of the city and the garrison and informing the Cheydinfolk of Olin’s death and the change of allegiance that had helped turn the tide at Darkwater. On hearing that the Indarys family was returning, the folk of Cheydinhal threw open the gates and brought Olin’s family to Mede in chains.

In the square before the Great Chapel of Arkay, in Cheydinhal, Farwil Indarys, by his authority as Prince of Cheydinhal (reunification of Cyrodiil notwithstanding, the Indarys have kept their aggrandized title from the interregnum), carried out the sentence of death he had pronounced upon Olin’s siblings and the traitor, Nevena Ules. Ilmeni Dren sat enthroned on a raised platform, piously located beneath a statue of Arkay, watching her husband methodically remove the heads of the Olins. For Nevena Ules however, the Princess Ilmeni refused to countenance such mercy as a beheading, and had the traitor hung, drawn and quartered by the Knights of the Thorn. Cheydinhal rumour has it that Ules’ skull was sent to a local jeweller, gilded and thereafter kept by the Princess of Cheydinhal as a drinking cup. After this rather gruesome spectacle however, the Prince and Princess of Cheydinhal formally took up office, with the promise of a royal wedding to be performed in the Temple of the One in the Imperial City, when the Emperor himself was properly acclaimed. Titus Mede also publically vowed that he would not receive coronation in the Temple of the One until Cyrodiil was reunified in full.

Then, the Emperor bypassed the Imperial City altogether and forced a crossing of the Niben to approach Bravil from the south. The Orum family, who had purchased the city in the early years of the Fourth Era did not bother to resist, merely sending a vast amount of gold as well assurances of loyalty and more gold to follow. Now, in all of Cyrodiil, only Leyawiin and the Blackwood remained outside of Titus Mede’s rule. But on both a personal and military level, the Emperor, though he never publicly showed it, must have been exhausted. He had been campaigning for almost a decade, and since 4E 13 he had been a king. Now, while he allowed himself and his legions some hard earned rest and respite from campaigning, Titus Mede also set about the establishment of an administration.

This was something that Cyrodiil must have been desperately in need of. Feudal levies needed to be sent home, the populace disarmed, empty fields needed tilling, and finally, trade and safe infrastructure had to be re-established. In short, Cyrodiil needed to become the Imperial Province once again, as opposed to simply the massive battlefield it had been transformed into. Banditry was an especially serious problem, particularly in the north, and across Cyrodiil, the roads were scarcely safe to travel, not to mention in a sad state of disrepair.

In the beginning, much work must have been done out of military camp. Military camps themselves went through thorough reformation; the armies of the city-states and principalities had to be disbanded or integrated into the Imperial Legion. The core of this reformation took place around Mede’s Colovian veterans and his Orc and Nord allies from Skyrim, who were reorganised and reformed on a legion basis. In the early days, Mede held court and dispensed justice himself in what was then known as Talos Plaza District (known today as the Forum of Saint Martin). A general amnesty was proclaimed for those who had fought for rival princes and illegal mercenary armies, and a call went out for those with administrative and bureaucratic talent to come and help reform the Imperial Chancery. A new Elder Council and nobility was formed, and though it ought be admitted that Mede’s own supporters and officers were well represented, the Emperor showed himself willing to appoint on merit.

Cyrodiil’s administration received an extensive reworking. Skingrad was kept in the demesne of the Mede dynasty, under the rule of Andronicus, now styled Viscount Royal, Titus Mede’s own brother. Since the Umbranox line had no heir to inherit, Anvil was given to Mede’s own illegitimate son, Antigonus, of whom we shall later hear more, and whom the emperor had allegedly begotten, in his youth, upon the daughter of an Orc chieftain. Antigonus, though quite young, was an exceptional warrior and was made Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Fleet. Unlike the Septims, who enfeoffed their brood with multiple far flung duchies torn from local populations, the Medes rarely wrested provincial kingdoms from native rulers, but limited themselves to lands in Colovia. This was not simply done out of sympathy for provincial populations, but was a practical matter of retaining the Medes’ supremacy and presence in Cyrodiil. Many Cyrodiilic nobles, but especially Colovians, earnestly believed that the Septims had renounced Cyrodiil; while the Medes have never shied from foreign marriage, Titus Mede firmly resolved never to be judged as having renounced the Imperial Province. Henceforth, the rule of the Gold Coast and the West Weald were given over to the Mede most worthy (or, as some commentators have observed, the most dangerous). Most of the Nibenese lands east of the capital were placed under the authority of Cheydinhal. These lands, exceptionally fertile, were in dire need of farming, and the Indarys family worked vigorously to encourage the resettlement of old homesteads and creation of new farmlands, though around Cheydinhal, banditry was to remain an issue for years to come. A number of new legion settlements were founded around the shores of Lake Rumare, and the towns of Weye and Aleswell were walled and enlarged. Importantly, work began on a vast new causeway which would directly link the road from Bruma and the Imperial City. Anyone who has studied the Great War knows how important this new bridge came to be. The Great Forest was kept free of the rule of any one count and given over to the Bosmer Clans under the direct vassalage of the Emperor himself. His dealings with these clans had shown him beyond all doubt that these Bosmer were an exceptional source of foresters for the legion, and the best choice as custodians for the woodlands.

Another matter was the creation of a truly first rate Imperial secret intelligence service, to replace the collapsing Blades, who, in a rather controversial move, staunchly refused to return to public life or to have anything more to do with the Empire. Mede poured vast financial and military resources and his best and most loyal men into this project. The result was the creation of a new branch of the bureaucracy, staffed by the finest legion foresters, battlemages, defected members of the Blades and reformed Dark Brotherhood and Morag Tong exiles. This office, which has come to be known as the “Penitus Oculatus” was dedicated, above all, to safeguarding the security and safety of the empire as a whole; unlike the Blades, its stated mission was not a religious veneration of the royal bloodline, but the protection and safeguarding of the state. The seat of the emperor, not its occupant, was the highest priority for this department. For reasons never made clear, the Vigil of Stendarr has never been cordial with this office. The Vigil publicly denounced it after 4E 42, which was around the time the office became officially and openly acknowledged, as a den of “loathsome heretics”. The public defence of the Imperial Family was taken up by the “Argyraspidoi Agema” (Colovian: “Silver Shield Chosen”), often simply called the “Agema”. These are the finest knights of the Order of the Dragon, Tiber Septim’s aged chivalric order, which had earned great prestige as the last known affiliates of the Hero of Kvatch.

One of the new arms by which Titus Mede was to re-establish trade and increase his capital was the East Empire Trading Company (EEC); this monopolist venture had been founded by the Septims, principally to monopolize the Ebony trade from the Eastern Provinces and ensure the Empire possessed a controlling share of the flow of other valuable commodities. It had fallen from direct Imperial Control into the hands of any number of ambitious Nibenese merchant princes, but still all but controlled a vast commercial network stretching around the eastern end of Tamriel. The EEC also had a huge commercial flotilla, which transported tremendous volumes of goods.

Titus Mede felt it necessary to reassert government control of the EEC. Rather boldly, the Emperor personally led his legions in a series of lightning strikes across Cyrodiil, and so far as he was able, seized the properties of this entity, which was still functioning, from those Nibenese lordlings that ran it. Then, in the manner of Pelagius II, Titus Mede allowed only those parties who could pay his fee (and who met his approval) to regain their properties and share of EEC control. It was heavy handed and represented the lowest incarnation of government becoming business, but it worked surprisingly well. Mistress Brara Morvayn of Raven Rock, said of the lightning seizure of the EEC that it

“…Struck such terror into the heart of the merchant classes that anyone with a good nose for business might smell the fear…”

The seizing of the EEC was a massive risk to take; indeed, more than one plot to kill the emperor emerged in the wake of this cash-grab, but it made the Emperor staggering sums of money. Moreover, in some areas, like Solstheim, which had heavy EEC presence, it ensured that deeply invested individuals like Brara Morvayn, while far removed from the Imperial City and the Imperial Legions, instantaneously became, more or less, partisans of the Mede Dynasty and left them with the enduring knowledge that though these individuals might control mythic amounts of wealth, they henceforth owed the continuation of this wealth entirely to the Emperor.

“Being held up at knifepoint certainly wasn’t a conventional means to endear Titus Mede to us”, said Lleril Morvayn, Brara’s son, when he discussed this matter with me, a wry smile on his face. “But that was an entirely irrelevant consideration to the Emperor. Mother certainly knew who was at the helm of the EEC after that day, and she had gained a more than healthy respect for him”.

Indeed, Mistress Morvayn’s respect for the emperor was such that she was noted, on her plethora of subsequent trips to the Imperial City, to have spent a great deal of time alone in the Imperial presence.

Within two years, the resources of both Nibenay and Colovia had been fully taken stock of, and preparations began for an assault on Leyawiin. The emperor had transformed his Colovian legions, Cheydinhal men and those levies that wished to continue serving into a standing force of about seventy thousand men. Many Orc migrants had been brought in from Skyrim to the more hospitable climate of Cyrodiil, although their Nord neighbours who also moved were less enthused about this. Another matter that inspired irritation from the Nords was the growing migration from the Summerset Isle. Though Nibenay and Colovia had always played host to Altmer wanting more freedom, something was happening there- though at the time the government did not know what- that was causing a mass increase in migration.

In 4E 22, this disaster finally became evident, as a previously unknown group calling themselves, “the Thalmor” finally emerged from the shadows into the open. They scathingly attacked the extant nobility of the Isles, captured the capital, Alinor, and burned half of that city to the ground in their relentless purge. The work of many other scholars of the early history of the Aldmeri Dominion is well known, and is likely a better source for specifics than here. What is most relevant here about the Thalmor takeover of Alinor is the effect it had on the Cyrodiil, especially the East. Within days, hundreds of ships were forcing their way into Anvil harbour, full to the gunwales with refugee Altmer. From here, they spread across Colovia, giving the Imperial Government the task of finding lands, position and titles for nobles and for the rest, the basic necessities they required. Within weeks, more refugee boats arrived in the Topal Bay and began to unload into the verdant Blackwood, as yet the only area outside Imperial control. More serious was the matter of the flotilla of Altmeri Warships appearing, for the first time since the end of the Second Era, in the Topal Bay, raiding the territory of the Archon of Leyawiin, the shorelines of the bay and burning half the Archon’s fleet as it lay at anchor in the mouth of the Niben. Though they withdrew quickly, it was evident that the new Altmeri lords meant business.

The messenger that came from Leyawiin in Sun’s Dusk 4E, offering the obeisance of Leyawiin was warmly received. The jewel of the Topal Bay was allowed, in the end, to keep its status of Archonate, so long as nought was spared in the construction of a new fleet, which was to commence post-haste.

And now, ironically thanks to Thalmor aggression, all of Cyrodiil and Skyrim had acknowledged the rule of Titus Mede. In Sun’s Dusk, 4E 22, as we shall later hear more of, after a full Colovian military tattoo, Titus Mede I was formally crowned Emperor in the Temple of the One. The stage had been set for the great struggle of the Fourth Era, as the eyes of the Thalmor and the Empire were now firmly affixed upon one another. But in the Eastern Provinces, not all eyes were able to turn to the looming clash of titans.

4E 15-25 – The Twilight Struggle

For as Mede had been unifying Colovia and eventually facing off with his nemesis, Eddar Olin, many in Morrowind had had their eyes affixed on struggles occurring within Resdayn’s borders. Though House Indoril, and other like-minded conservative elements on the Grand Council, would have dearly liked to march to the Darkwater and not only crush Titus Mede, but bring Eddar Olin’s own nascent Imperial ambitions to heel, they could not, for the Indoril and the Grand Council as a whole, were becoming involved in an escalating internal doctrinal struggle, one that was to grow from a conflict over the doctrines of what was then called the Tribunal Temple (often simply called ‘the Temple’), and over the course of the Fourth Era, expand into a series of bloody religious wars for the soul of Morrowind.

The first was the formation of two overriding factions within the politics of Morrowind. These were known as the Resdaynii and the Farseers, or as the less poetic viewed the situation, the Independence and Armistice factions. The division was quite a simple one, between those who favored a complete reunion and those who opposed it, but now that the Third Empire was re-coalescing, it was an issue that was becoming extremely heated.

Among the followers of the divines and among almost all of those who were of mercantile dispositions, the Farseers enjoyed great popularity. The Farseers naturally found considerable support amongst the ebony magnates, such as Mistress Morvayn, who were all, of course, attached to the EEC. The Sadras, staunch supporters of the Divines, were a natural ally, though they tempered this with an equally staunch belief that House Hlaalu could not return as Morrowind’s rulers. Surprisingly, the Telvanni, who had made some of the strongest efforts to draw their outliers and survivors back to Morrowind, were also in this camp, largely as a result of much of the house’s political power falling into the hands of the only Telvanni who was both concerned about the state of the realm and a progressive. This was Master Aryon Telvanni, who had been extremely vigorous in both the Oblivion Crisis and the Accession War and who was a founding member of the Armistice faction.

The Resdaynii, or isolationists, on the other hand, were supported most strongly by House Indoril, the rural and agrarian population and Great House Dres. They enjoyed a certain degree of support from a healthy portion of the footsoldiers of the Redoran Guard, Redoran however, was far too internally divided between its knights, warriors and the rising wealthy and middle classes of the house, and others to take an effective stance one way or another about the Empire, and the first house officially retained the centrist, neutral stance it has retained to this day. Though the Buoyant Armigers were neutral toward the Empire- many an Armiger remained in chivalric correspondence with Imperial legionnaires and knights they had befriended- the Indoril lead Temple was naturally a hotbed of anti-Imperial feeling. Today, it is sometimes considered that to join the anti-Imperial faction in Morrowind and Indoril association are one and the same.

The continuing internal strife between the Dissident Priests and the existing hierarchy of the Temple was the other division that was causing chaos beneath Morrowind’s surface. For years since the Red Year, the pre-existing hierarchy of the temple had been growing steadily weaker, as more and more questioned the official line of Tribunal doctrine, especially the divinity of the tribunes. House Indoril’s withdrawal from Mournhold ‘ere its siege by the An-Xileel had grievously damaged the credibility of Indoril and the Ordinators. Questioning of the Tribunal’s status of gods had been on the increase since the fall of Baar Dau. Once the Accession War ended and the Grand Council began to rebuild, the divisions began. Early on after the Accession War, the Armigers had distanced themselves from these internal doctrinal struggles, pledging themselves solely to the defence of Morrowind’s people. When the Temple had resolved its divisions, the Armigers proclaimed, it would find these paladins ready to be the Temple’s chivalric paragons. This was not entirely surprising; the Armigers were a Redoran led body and Redoran cares little for the individual’s ideology, merely their dedication to the stability of the state.

Alone, the loss of the Armiger’s support might not have caused such an upheaval, and given time, the Ordinators might have been able to suppress the Dissident Priests and restore unity to the faith. But it was not to be. For thirteen years since the Accession War ended, the various dissident monasteries (many of which had miraculously survived or had their members evacuated by Ashlander tribes) had been uniting, secretly communicating with each other, and planning their return and scheming their plan of attack, along with their newfound tribal allies, who it might be remembered, had been the most consistent group to return to Morrowind. It seems in hindsight, that the Ashlanders had been returning for precisely the purpose of the overthrow of the Temple.

Each dissident priest and most of the Ashlanders that came back from Solstheim, Skyrim and Cyrodiil, immediately set to work. For the reformers, who dubbed themselves “The Reclaimers” turning the people fully against the Tribunal Temple was a slow and often extremely dangerous process. The Ordinators, it might be remembered, had spearheaded the Grand Council’s efforts against Hlaalu. As such, they had access to some exceptional intelligence and were often three steps ahead of the religious dissidents. However, for all its superiority in resources, the Tribunal Temple had lost much of the allegiance it had once received from the people. The cities and townships that were slowly rebuilding often sheltered the reformers from the relentless Ordinators. The dissidents made themselves not merely champions of doctrinal reform, but of the poor; they always conducted themselves with great integrity, paying the commoners in coin or kind for any food and supplies taken and at every step making their cause righteous in the people’s eyes. And when, inevitably, the Ordinators made to take extreme actions, the Temple often found that Redoran and the Grand Council stymied them, unwilling to allow Indoril witch-hunting to tear apart the precarious restoration efforts that were proving vital to the resuscitation of the realm.

Despite the attempts by the Grand Council to rein in Indoril, the Third House’s actions often devolved into violence, and though refugees had begun returning, it was not uncommon for the persecuted to cross the border to Cyrodiil or Skyrim with horrifying tales of, what one Cheydinhal refugee called “…Golden-faced butchers crucifying the enemies of the faith…”. This process also fuelled the religious tension between the Imperial Cult and the Tribunal Temple, as House Sadras and the Faith of the Divines were not averse to accepting and defending those who sought to save themselves by converting to the seemingly more stable Divines. This in turn infuriated the Temple and Indoril against their religious rivals and on several occasions in Blacklight, Narsis, Ald’Ruhn, Raven Rock and Ebonheart, the hidden war erupted into horrendous street violence. This, in turn, fanned the flames of the division between the Armistice Party and the Isolationists. The Farseers made the not unreasonable argument that the Imperial Legion ought be called in to end the escalating troubles and help return prosperity, whilst the Resdaynii in turn argued that the root causes of the entire debacle were the desecrations of foreign faith and foreign emperors.

By the time Titus Mede I had been crowned emperor in 4E 22, the Tribunal Temple (and Morrowind as a whole) was beginning to resemble an unstable flame rune, well and truly ready to explode. The orthodox faction of the Temple now wanted blood; the Ordinators always want it. In the end, the spark that lit the blaze was not from Indoril, but the outliers of the Grand Council, Great House Dres. Landless and devastated at the end of the Accession War, House Dres had clung to their Great House status by their vital role in the dissolution of the Hlaalu and by agreeing to spearhead the resettlement of Vvardenfell, which had heretofore been painstakingly slow and largely unproductive. Dres had returned from their refuge in Cyrodiil, having gathered what volunteers they could and settled en masse upon the previously unaligned and relatively untouched – but fertile – island of Sheogorad. It was on this land that Dres began their rebuilding. Among Dres, Daedric worship had always remained a strong tradition, although the house had come to be staunch supporters of the Tribunal Temple as well.

However, this support for the Temple, which had once been so steadfast as to seriously threaten Imperial interests within Morrowind for more than three centuries, gradually eroded, as Great House Dres began building a stable, working relationship with the Ashlander tribes who had begun to return to their old lands on the northern shores of Vvardenfell. The Dres, who persistently retained certain aspects of Ashlander culture, such as a degree of reverence for Daedric powers and matriarchal spiritual leaders, in their clan-based agrarian society, were given an offer they could not refuse by the Ashlanders. In return for shelter in Sheogorad from the worst of the ashfalls, the nomads offered their labors as seasonal farmhands; planting crops, harvesting and caring for livestock. The Dres, who were always seeking to improve their pool of strong backs, took the deal with little hesitation. This cozying with the Ashkhans, unfortunately reached the ears of House Indoril, who immediately (and to their own misfortune) confronted the Dres leaders in Blacklight. But although the house was relatively weak, perhaps out of genuine affection for the Ashlanders or simply out of a desire to outwardly exercise power to visible effect, Great House Dres did not back down before the Temple’s threats. The councillors of House Dres stormed out of Blacklight, declaring all Dres to be done with Indoril and the Temple; henceforth, the Dres claimed that they would “find solace in Azura and her ilk”.

Here, it seems that the Indoril had finally overreached themselves. Where before, they had persecuted and bullied into submission mere dissident rabble and “barbaric” Ashlanders, one of the Great Houses had openly declared themselves in breach with the house. Redoran had chosen, as First House, to stand apart from the doctrinal struggles of the Temple, letting the other houses sort out matters of doctrine the warrior-lords had no interest in. It is also very likely Redoran had wildly divergent views on the correctness of Temple doctrine among their number, and taking a side would weaken them more than help. On the other hand, while Telvanni outwardly adhered to the teachings of the Temple, it was universally known that Telvanni rarely interacted in religious affairs at all, and Great House Sadras were apostates who were staunch followers of the Nine Divines. Now, suddenly, Indoril stood alone in its fight for the orthodox worship of the Tribunal, and this had a powerful effect. Though some level headed priests called for a more measured response, the hardliners that had come to dominate Indoril councils, perhaps in conjunction with dissident infiltrators, demanded a show of force.

In the early weeks of 4E 25, with a strange, yet powerful and also very apt mix of reluctance and determination, the armies of House Indoril marched north from Mournhold to attack House Dres, on the Island of Sheogorad. This breach, though characteristic of Indoril bluster and understandably harmful to the Temple as a whole, was precisely what the Dissident Priests and Ashlander saboteurs had been awaiting. Wasting no time, the enemies of the old Temple orthodoxy struck.

4E 25 – Chapter Conclusion, The Reclamation

The campaign that followed Indoril’s ludicrous declaration of war neither elegant nor particularly notable, nor was it a long affair. House Dres and its Ashlander allies conducted a steady campaign of harassment against the Indoril, who were, ostensibly, merely headed to Dagon Fel to ‘negotiate’ with Dres. This was precisely what the dissidents who disagreed with the continuing worship of the tribunal had awaited. As House Dres and the Ashlanders slowed the Ordinator-led army to a halt, a mixed force of mercenaries, dissidents, common rabble and Ashlanders swept down from the Valus and Velothi mountains and stormed eastward toward Mournhold. As the dissident army approached and surrounded the city, even before a siege perimeter could be established, the gates of the ancient capital were broken from within by both infiltrators, and the Indoril nobles who remained in the city. With the staunchest defenders of orthodoxy stuck in the desolate Vvardenfell wilderness, those who remained could easily see the way the wind was blowing; perhaps they had all along, and only fear had kept them in check. Thus did Mournhold and Indoril, the heart of Morrowind, rise up to greet the “liberators”. The sacred mother temple of Almalexia was sacked and long awaited vengeance was visited on the remaining orthodox who refused to recant the old faith. When news reached the “Army of Indoril”, the soldiers who had already begun to doubt rose up and began withdrawing back to Mournhold. Finally, the Ordinators themselves rose up, and butchered those Archcanons who refused to recant the old ways.

By the end of the first month of 4E 25, the old leadership of the Temple had all converted, fled or had been killed. The Reclamation had finally arrived.