I. The Deployment of Ghosts
The war did not begin with a trumpet blast; it began with the rustle of rough-spun cloth.
From the gates of Obsidios Lithos and Obsidios Iubeo, they emerged at twilight. They were not the armored giants of the Raven Legion; they were the Artos. Dressed in tattered black rags that mimicked the decay of the Union's peasantry, they moved with a silence that belonged to the grave.
Each agent carried a burden that would have crushed a normal man—massive, reinforced sacks hidden beneath their cloaks, filled to bursting with the Dark Harvest.
They did not march in formation. They scattered like seeds on the wind. Guided by the Black Flock overhead, they bypassed the Union's checkpoints, slipping through the gaps in patrols and disappearing into the vast, starving landscape of the Trazarch Union. Their mission was simple: Feed the body to claim the soul.
II. The Northern Hills: The Bread of Warmth
Artos Kael, a former miner liberated from The Crucible, traveled North. The terrain here was rugged, the hills dotted with mining towns that fed the Union's industry. The air was cold, but it was the cold of neglect, not the structured chill of the Obsidian Ordo.
He entered the town of Oakhaven after dusk. The streets were mud. The miners here were free men in name only; their wages were garnished to pay for tools, their food rationed by the Company Store. They huddled around weak fires, their skin grey with coal dust and malnutrition.
Kael moved into the center of the shantytown. He did not announce himself. He simply sat by a dying fire and opened his sack.
He pulled out a loaf. It was heavy, dark as peat, with a crust that shimmered with a faint violet-metallic sheen. Even in the freezing air, the bread radiated a subtle, magical warmth—the captured heat of the Obsidian Ordo.
A child, belly distended from hunger, approached. Kael broke a chunk off. The sound was not a dry crack, but a rich tear of dense sustenance.
"Eat," Kael whispered.
The child ate. The reaction was visceral. Color flooded the boy's cheeks. The shivering stopped. The Obsidian-infused grain hit his blood like a stimulant, knitting together fraying cells.
Within minutes, the Artos was surrounded. He passed out loaf after loaf. It was a communion. Men and women took the bread with trembling hands, weeping as they ate. They didn't just taste food; they tasted care. They tasted a power that could grow abundance in a wasteland.
A Union overseer, fat on skimmed profits, waddled into the light, baton raised. "Disperse! Unauthorized gathering! You there, beggar, give me that sack!"
Kael did not flinch. He stood, the rags shifting to reveal the hard line of his shoulder. The overseer swung.
Kael moved with the fluid, unnatural speed of the Raven Brand. He sidestepped the blow effortlessly, a shadow dancing around a clumsy ox. He tapped the overseer's knee with a precise, low kick, sending the man sprawling into the mud. Before the overseer could rise, Kael had vanished into the alleyways, guided by a raven's caw, leaving behind a crowd that looked at the fallen authority figure not with fear, but with sudden, dangerous contempt.
III. The Southern Plains: The Bread of Iron
Artos Elara traveled South, deep into the agricultural belt. The irony here was bitter: these people grew the wheat, but they were forbidden to keep it. The Union convoys stripped the silos bare, leaving the farmers to survive on husk-gruel.
Elara found a village decimated by tax collectors. The people were broken, sitting in the dust of their empty barns.
She revealed the Dark Harvest. Here, the bread served a different purpose. It was not just food; it was strength.
She broke bread with the village elders. "The Union takes your harvest," she said, her voice carrying the absolute certainty of the Imperium. "The Raven Lord shares his."
As they ate, the farmers felt the Obsidian essence harden their resolve. The fatigue of years lifted. The bread made them feel heavy, grounded, and strong. It was the food of soldiers, not slaves.
When a patrol of City Guard rode through, demanding a "protection tax," the Artos did not fight them. She simply melted into the tall grass, her camouflage absolute. But the villagers did not cower this time. Fed on the bread of the Imperium, they stood in silence, staring down the riders until the unnerved guards rode away. The seed of rebellion had been planted in the soil of their stomachs.
IV. Aurum: The Sacrament in the Rot
The deepest infiltration fell to Artos Jorin. He entered Aurum, the gilded capital. The city was festering. The Malum's rot was visible on the stones of the Red Lantern District, and the smell of sickness hung heavy in the humid air.
Jorin moved through the Low Districts, where the shadows of the gold-capped towers plunged the poor into eternal twilight. He went to the walls of The Pens—the residential slave quarters.
He found a ventilation grate, the same kind Rhett Levin had looked through. Jorin knelt. He broke the loaves into small, dense pieces and dropped them through the iron bars.
Below, in the dark, hands reached up.
"Take it," Jorin whispered, his voice projected by the Brand so that every soul in the dark could hear. "This is the body of the new world. It is the promise that your chains are brittle."
The slaves ate. In the dark, the bread glowed faintly with violet light, illuminating their faces. The sickness of the damp cellars receded from their lungs. The Obsidian magic began to work on them, clearing the fog of starvation, sharpening their minds, preparing them for the day the gates would open.
The Evasion: A squad of Gold-Cloaks, on high alert after Levin's return, turned the corner. "You! By the grate! Halt!"
Jorin stood. He was surrounded by high walls and five armored men.
He didn't run. He looked up. A single raven dived from the rooftops, letting out a piercing cry. Jorin tapped into the Flock-Link. He saw the path—a loose sewer grate three feet to his left, hidden by refuse.
As the Gold-Cloaks charged, weapons drawn, Jorin seemed to dissolve. He dropped through the opening with the grace of water, pulling the grate back into place an instant before the boots arrived. By the time they pried it open, he was three streets away, emerging into a crowded market, just another beggar in the throng.
The Gold-Cloaks were left chasing ghosts, terrified by an enemy they could not catch, while beneath their feet, the slave population grew stronger with every meal.
V. The Return of the Spirit
Across the Union, the Artos completed their rounds. They emptied their sacks and filled the hearts of the oppressed.
They did not need to fire an arrow. They had delivered a weapon far more dangerous than steel. They had proven that the Trazarch Union could not feed its people, and it could not stop the Raven Lord from doing so.
In the taverns, in the slave pens, and in the mud-brick huts, the people whispered a new prayer. They did not pray to the gods of commerce. They whispered of the Black Keep. They whispered of the Obsidian Ordo.
And they waited for the signal to rise.