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A few days before The Battle of Flamekeep, Blade returned with the
Creation Forge to where the Lord of Blades resided in the Mournland, he
was told that there was something wrong with the Lord of Blades and to
come immediately. He found the lying on top of a workbench badly wounded
and near death. Blade went to heal his master but the Lord of Blades was
infected with some strange kind of poison that not even Blades paladin
abilities could cure. The Lord of Blades told Blade that he knew he was
going to die but that he wanted Blade to carry on his true legacy.
The Lord of Blades told Blade that long ago he was once known as Bulwark
and was the personal bodyguard of King Boranel of Breland. He said that
near the end of The Last War, a dragon had come to him and told him that
according to The Draconic Prophecy the world would be destroyed unless
he formed the greatest army of warforged ever. The dragon told Bulwark
that time was of the essence and would need to build the army to be as
large as possible, as quickly as possible. He then left King Boranel,
renamed himself The Lord of Blades and began traveling Khorvaire for
warforged to join his growing army. He found that while he didn't
believe in it personally, that preaching warforged supremacy worked
better at getting new warforged to join him then anything else which is
why he did so. This of course was unpopular with the other races who
began to fight against his movement, but The Lord of Blades didn't care
so long as he fulfilled his part of the Draconic Prophecy to save the
world. He then taught Blade everything he knew about using a creation
forge to create warforged.
After the Day of Mourning he took his small force into the Mournland to
make a home away from the persecution of the fleshborn. He discovered a
partially working creation forge and learned it's secrets so that he
could create new warforged as part of his growing army. He also send
'scouts' out of the Mournland to find warforged willing to join The Lord
of Blades' army. The Lord of Blades does not know when the army will be
needed or exactly who they will have to fight against but with his
imminent death he needed a successor and there he knew of no better
choice then Blade himself to lead the warforged army after he was gone.
The Lord of Blades made Blade promise to continue growing and preparing
the warforged army as quickly as possible so that they will be available
to fight when needed and prevent the end of the world. Blade promised he
would continue The Lord of Blades' legacy and use the creation forge he
had brought to swell the warforged army's ranks. With that the Lord of
Blades passed away.
After personally destroying the cathedral, Bel Shalor made himself grow
to an immense size and destroyed the rest of the city and Moriarty's
fleet. As he dis so all the dragons of Argonesson appeared and
immediately attacked him. Bel Shalor easily swatted them aside and
decimated their forces. He then ran across the continent to Ashtakala.
He could have teleported himself but by running at a massive size he was
able to destroy everything in his path and spread terror across the
continent. Being directly in his path Fairhaven, the capital of Aundair,
was destroyed paralyzing Aundair.
News of a massive demon appearing in Flamekeep and destroying everything
spread quickly across Khorvaire. Moriarty contacted Zergiot and agreed
to send arms and supplies to help fight against this new threat. Aerenal
had closed their borders to everyone, even other elves, since the
conflict in Khorvaire started and still refused all contact despite the
threat the demons represented. The ambassadors from Riedra agreed the
demon threat was too great a threat to leave alone and agreed to provide
some military forces, though it would probably take too long to arrive,
but could provide new psionic based technologies that could be built
right now to increase the power of Zergiots workers and soldiers.
Zergiot said he would accept all help that he could. The Riedran's then
began ordering the construction of strange large monoliths. All
Kalashtar immediately left the Dhakaani Empire as quickly as they could.
Zergiot met with King Kaius III personally to work out a mutual defense
treaty against the demons. Zergiot offered Kaius "The Nine" and told him
he would need to wear all nine of them and that doing so would increase
his power enough to be able to fight against the demons. Zergiot also
told him that if Kaius didn't agree then there would be no treaty as he
would give the rings to someone else willing to have the strength to
stand up to the demons.
Kaius knew it was a trap but recognized that like his previous agreement
with the Blood of Vol he had little choice if he wanted to save his
kingdom. Kaius figured that as a vampire he could afford to play the
long game by saving his people now and then taking the time to undo
whatever curse the rings would inflict on him. Grudgingly he put on all
9 rings and fell under Zergiots direct control. Kaius then realized that
Zergiot was also immortal so this would never end.
The combined forces of Zergiot, Kaius, and Moriarty began marching
towards The Demon Wastes to fight the demons. Blade, thinking that maybe
this is what the warforged army was for, sent what troops he had but
they weren't even noticeable amongst the rest of the forces.
Dave, now larger then the tallest mountain on Khorvaire, happened to
notice the large amount of troops moving and got up to see what was
going on. Zergiot then noticed him and using magic to communicate
convinced Dave to fight the demons. The forest of the Eldeen reaches
were devastated by Dave as he ran through them. As he reached Ashtakala,
Bel Shalor saw him coming, grew to the size of Dave and attacked. No one
close enough to the battle to witness it survived but afterwards where
Ashtakala once stood was a massive stone mountain that, assumed to be
Dave's corpse, was named Mt. Dave. There was no sign of any demons alive
anywhere in the wastes.
Zergiot was now the uncontested ruler of the entire continent of
Khorvaire which all soon fell under the flag of the Dhakaani Empire. The
Riedran monoliths had no effect on Zergiot himself and made his subjects
more pliant so he encouraged the Riedrans to build them throughout his
empire in exchange for promising military support against Adar.
The Skyway of Sharn was soon spotted flying over what used to be
Zilargo. Recognizing that this would be the last habitable part of the
ancient goblin city of Ja'Shaarat he immediately sent all his air force
with the goal of taking it intact. The Skyway wasn't expecting an
invasion then and was overrun with only minimal damage. Zergiot renamed
it Ja'Shaarat and made it his capital. He wasn't able to increase it's
speed at all though.
Blade realized his warforged army hadn't changed anything in the battle
with the demons, it was almost completely fought by Dave, so that battle
couldn't have been the prophesied end of the world the army was supposed
to prevent. Knowing this he took all his warforged back to Mournland and
became the new Lord of Blades. He sent scouts out to recruit warforged
and used the creation forge he had brought back to create warforged as
quickly as he could. With a fully functional creation forge there were
no aberrations and production moved relatively quickly.
Zergiot fulfilled his promise and sent troops and airships to Sarlona to
assist the Riedran forces in their assault on Adar. Adar couldn't stand
against the combined might of both forces and was soon wiped out. All
the Kalashtar in Adar were killed and Dreaming Dark agents in Khorvaire
began a purge of all Kalashtar there. Soon the only Kalashtar remaining
were in Xen'drik
Having heard that the gnomes were trying to resurrect the giant empire
in Xen'drik, Zergiot flew Ja'Shaarat to Xen'drik in a campaign to
conquer that continent. He first conquered Stormreach, which fought
against him. He then truned his attention on the gnomes. The gnomes had
only limited success in making an alliance with the giants. Weakened by
the Zilocaust and without external support the gnomes were completely
wiped out and made extinct. Although Zergiot did not target them, the
Dreaming Dark used the war to kill the last remaining Kalashtar and make
them extinct as well. Zergiot then fought against the various giant and
drow tribes, subjucating some and wiping out others. Zergiot also sent
teams to scout Argonesson. They found large dragon-sized cities but they
were all abandoned. Many dragonshards were collected and brought back
which helped fuel Zergiots growing empire.
Lii had left Stormreach before Zergiot invaded and feeling uncomfortable
in the outside world after being trapped for so long, returned back to
the Cannith facility in the Mournland and lived there alone with Kitty
and some more rats he befriended for a few years before dying of
semi-natural causes.
Loopa caught Shrooma in Stormreach and turned her in however the
monastery that placed the bounty on Shrooma was gone and there was no
one to pay the bounty. Loopa let Shrooma go and both were eventually
killed when Zergiot invaded.
100 years later, Khorvaire was covered in Inspired monoliths which kept
the populace content under Zergiots control through the The One.
Relations were good with Riedra which had completely conquered the whole
of Sarlona. Xen'drick was mostly under Zergiots control though still
uncivilized with pockets of giant and drow rebels. Moriarty had made a
fortune continuing to sell arms and supplies to Zergiot and eventually
died of old age. Blade had continued swelling the ranks of his army
undisturbed in the Mournland and had even learned how to convert other
races into warforged which was faster then creating them from scratch.
It was around this time that Zergiots psychics and mages warned him that
they were detecting something happening underneath Mt. Dave and
suspected the demons had only been trapped underneath and were trying to
escape.
Zergiot marshalled all his forces together to march on Mt. Dave. Blade
learned about this from his recruiting forces and decided the time for
his warforged army had come. He led his forces out of the Mournland and
made contact with Zergiot saying he wanted to join under Zergiot command
to fight against the demons. Zergiot accepted and was surprised at the
massive amount of warforged that joined the battle. The demons had
already escaped by the time Zergiots forces arrived but the combined
might of the entire continents of Khorvaire and Xen'drick was able to
overwhelm the demons and eventually fought all the way down to the
Khyber and wiped out in a war that took 5 years. The price was high
though as Zergiots military forces were in tatters afterwards.
Seeing an opportunity the Inspired decided to move against Zergiot, kill
him, and try to take over. Zergiot survived their assassination attempt
and although afterwards his control over the populace through the
monoliths seemed secure, he didn't trust the monoliths anymore since
they were given to him by the Inspired. On the other hand he knew
without some sort of mind control he'd be having to deal with rebellions
all the time like what was happening in Xen'drick. Blade however had a
solution for him.
Blade wasn't completely certain the battle with the demons was what the
'end of the world' the warforged army was supposed to protect against.
While his warforged army was still a formidable force, he had lost many
and it would take time to rebuild new warforged using the creation
forge. However converting the other races to warforged was much faster
then creating new warforged and so Blade suggested that Zergiot convert
all of his soldiers and citizens into warforged. Zergiot was concerned
that controlling a large force of warforged would be harder then the
current populace. Blade, knowing that obeying the wishes of his master
was greater then any sacrifice, showed Zergiot how Warforged could be
modified to be completely subservient to "The One" and demonstrated on
himself. Realizing Blade had told the truth and was completely under
Zergiots control he began converting everyone else into warforged under
his control.
Since almost everyone in Khorvaire followed Zergiots commands through
the power of the monoliths already this process went fairly quickly and
in just a few years the entire continent was converted to warforged
under Zergiots control. Zergiot then continued making more warforged and
moving into Xen'drick. Everyone in Xen'drick was soon converted as well
and the continents resources used to create weapons and more warforged.
Zergiot then attacked Sarlona however the Quori had been weakend by the
fact a significant portion of the world no longer dreamed. That combined
with the vast resources at Zergiots disposal resulted in everyone in
Sarlona getting killed or converted in less then a year. He then turned
his attention on the elves of Aerenal who had continued to remain
isolated this entire time. They too were quickly converted into
warforged under Zergiots control.
It only took about 10 years from the extermination of the demons before
the whole of Eberron was populated only by warforged under Zergiots
control. Zergiots control over them was so complete they no longer had
minds of their own and were a part of Zergiots mind.
Before they were forcibly converted, the last few non-warforged
survivors on Eberron tried pleading with the warforged and the only
response they ever got was:
"We are the Zergiot, you will be assimilated..."