The Red Hand was not exactly a government of really smart people. What I mean by that is that they had been in charge for so long, an actual rebellion seemed insane (where as Ronerawth seemed to squash a rebellion every other week, neither government was all that welcoming, but Ronerawth was actually in practice with killing rebels with efficiency) which meant they thought very little of the rebels and figured enough fire and death and they'd go away. What they did not expect was newly machined lever action rifles and artillery suddenly blowing up their base of operations and murdering judges with impunity.
Toneron was excited. His weapons were not only proving to be useful (which he seemed to enjoy a little too much when I met him, like he had updated numbers on how many people were dead, which seemed weird since I don't think the Red Hand even had those, more proof Toneron was not of this world), but sales were up in Ronerawth as the war raged on. Apparently Ronerawth was afraid the rebellion wouldn't be happy with just taking out the Red Hand and would strike down south (ridiculous considering we had been helping them under the radar, for some reason I was under the impression even though its pretty much impossible should the rebels attempt to turn on us Toneron would destroy their weapons in one fell swoop).
The news started to talk about how the Rebellion would now totally win the war soon and the Red Hand were a shattered people, just in time for the Red Hand to unleash ungodly amounts of magical power that tore through their lands like wildfire. They had turned the battle from one of man against man, to man against creatures from gods forsaken places. This once again turned the tide in their favor (to an extent, the lands now became a mess of monsters and creatures that didn't even have names yet, not since the days of my aunt had so many ugly creatures been present in our world, sadly the effects of this policy persist today such is the problem with reckless power), and the war raged on. Toneron kept on being "robbed" without much of an impact on his bottom line, and Ronerawth's government and corporate powers started getting worried about the war spilling over, as they had already had to start dealing with the unleashed creatures attacking the Divide and they feared the loser from the conflict might just want to flee that way as well (new artillery was stationed in anticipation of that kind of attack, specifically to annhilate up to a mile from the wall itself, all courtesy of the Hanlon corporation).
So everyone was getting worried, the war was in a deadlock, and of course Toneron wanted to talk to me again. I hadn't spoken with him for about a year (a little after we had done our first robery delivery), and I had kind of hoped I could slink back to being a forgotten diplomatic aid to an aging prince and his petulant prince son (one of them, he had TEN! The most annoying was his youngest). Alas part of being a conspiritor toward a war you helped keep going is that your co conspirtor evil god person, tends to think you will continue to help him. I KNOW! What a dick!
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