1st Commandment: To serve the Maker and the Astrals
2nd Commandment: Bear true allegiance to His Holy Imperial Majesty, The Emperor
3rd Commandment: Work to promote the unity of the Empire, even at the cost of individual liberty
4th Commandment: Defend the domains of the Empire and expand the glory of the Empire too beyond
5th Commandment: Protect the weak and fight for the right
6th Commandment: Always fight the enemies of virtue and order
7th Commandment: Never give up the fight until the foe be defeated
8th Commandment: Never to break Faith with a friend or ally
9th Commandment: Honor and valor are reserved for allies; death is judgment for the enemies in battle; everything is permitted
10th Commandment: Root out and destroy Demons, Heretics, servants of False Gods, those who corrupt the Arcane and enemies of the Order.
- Ten Commandments of the Knights of the Realm of Orlais
***
Most of the construction work was done by the dwarves that lived on the surface, and there were a lot of them.
The dwarves were actually hit worst by the First Blight.
Soon after the surface world claimed victory and the darkspawn were driven underground, they continued pushing the crumbling Dwarven Empire. Though the darkspawn did not coordinate their attacks well without an Archdemon to lead them, what they lacked in focus they made up for in savagery and the weight of numbers.
Those who survived did this only by close cooperation and by sealing most of the Deep Roads. Communication between the surviving dwarven kingdoms began to falter, and each kingdom elected its own king while maintaining allegiance to the High King of Orzammar.
Several decades ago, High King Threestone of Orzammar, with the consent of the Assembly and with great sorrow, ordered all Deep Roads to the remaining dwarven kingdoms permanently sealed.
Within a decade, word reached Orzammar that Hormak and Gundaar had fallen.
Kal-Sharok has no direct access to the surface, and no word was ever received, and this led the dwarves of Orzammar to eventually conclude that they are the last ones still standing.
Kordillus knew that Kal-Sharok was still standing, and they were just isolated, and some other Thaigs also managed to survive, and persisted. Many dwarves escaped to the surface and lived on the surface, and for those ones, Kordillus extended his hand and recruited them en masse.
Whilst initially it put a heavy strain on the treasury of their fledgling kingdom, the returns were immense as the dwarves were immensely grateful for the help and many were migrating en masse to the Heartlands and areas around the Val Royeaux.
Right now, the fledgling Orlais Kingdom houses tens of thousands of dwarves, and Kordillus even received the nickname "Dwarf-friend". Currently, thousands of dwarves were working in the smithies of Orlais, producing weapons, armor, armaments, and building fortresses and fortifications for the kingdom.
And due to Ciri's elven heritage, the Orlais also enjoyed a good standing with the Elves in the Dales, as many willingly joined the Faith and Kingdom.
Currently, the Orlais Kingdom stretched from the Winter Spire to the Lake Celestine through the entire Heartlands, ending with the cities of Halamshiral, Lydes, and spreading toward the Exalted Plains and Dales.
The Magic lessons took place in a section of the constructed castle. Currently, the future bastion and the seat of his power have been finished only around 10%. His mother and father were basically overseeing it, as he was still technically Prince of the Kingdom.
Even though he was already taking more and more responsibilities as the future monarch of the Kingdom. Over time, his mother, the Queen, was passing competencies onto him, especially the ones related to the matters Magical and everything related to the Royal Military.
As they entered the room, both of them were surprised when they saw Orsted Drakon in the classroom, which caused Ciri to bounce with excitement because it meant that their lessons would be solely practical ones and focused only on combat.
Even Kordillus was actually excited, though he was much better at controlling his emotions than Ciri.
"Grandfather is too busy for you to come here, Uncle?"
The only times that his uncle handled the lessons were because his grandfather wasn't available. His uncle was still a First Enchanter-ranked Mage, and his knowledge was extensive, far more than his own.
While Kordillus was Senior Enchanter, it was primarily because of his mastery of the Fire Element and Pyromancy. His grandfather always told him that a truly powerful Mage couldn't always depend on one type of Magic.
"Yes... It seemed that one of the special prisoners started speaking... this time it's one of those Navigators, so father went to personally interrogate him thoroughly."
Ciri shuddered a bit, though Kordillus wasn't sure if it was from the thought of the Wild Hunt or it was from the mention of "interrogation". Initially, after they rescued Ciri and captured Wild Hunt, they learned a lot of interesting things.
Four years have passed since they captured the Wild Hunt, but the result were... rather mixed in fact.
Aside from some general information about some worlds and their coordinates that they managed to obtain from the random members of the Wild Hunt, they didn't obtain any useful information in fact.
The sole useful thing came from the weapons and armors of the Wild Hunt, because those were given to the Royal Smiths, and the dwarves were quick on reverse-engineering the alloys from which they were made.
Ebony Metal was several times more durable than the best refined steel, but the process of making Ebony was a total pain in the ass. The basic materials were Volcanic Aurum, Fade Quartz, and Dimeritium...
Aside from those three, which were the ordinary materials for the alloy, there was a whole bunch of other secondary materials, primarily ores and other things that were needed to create the Ebony.
Of course, the most precious were the Navigators, because as they learned from Ciri, they were the most skilled Mages of the Aen Elle. Not only were they the most skilled out of all the Mages in the Aen Elle Military, but each one of them was worth entire battalions of soldiers, and their Magic was perfectly refined and powerful.
"What do you think we could obtain from the Navigator?"
Even the enormous Aen Elle had only a few Navigators, because the chances of one Navigator being trained were low. Practically for every thousand or so Mages of Aen Elle, there would be only a few Navigators...
"Their Dimensional Magic would be a nice thing, and in the base case, the entire Lore in their heads... unfortunately, they have very powerful Blockade Mind Spells cast on them, and forcibly extracting the information would cause the collapse of their minds."
Even though Aen Elle were beyond arrogant, they still took serious precautions when it came to their Navigators, and the Mind Protection Magics that were cast on their minds were very powerful.
Forcefully breaking through them was not an option.
Suble approach was impossible, because the number of Mages that could do it on Thedas equalled zero.
"If we could control it..."
Everyone present knew the history of the Aen Elle, while Ciri knew it the best, and the reason was the Dimensional Travel based on the Conjunction of the Spheres.
During the event that is called Conjunction of the Spheres, part of the elves from the main world, later described as the Aen Seidhe world, left their kin and, using portals, came to a new world. They took the new world for their own and started to call themselves Aen Elle - the Alder folks.
That world, however, was inhabited by two intelligent species - humans and unicorns. The elves began to wage war against both groups, and eventually, they completely eradicated all the humans and their settlements.
The Conjunction of the Spheres is a cataclysm that affects the whole Multiverse and occurs every few thousand years; nobody could really predict when the next one would happen because such a thing would require an unprecedented Magical might.
During the Conjunction of the Spheres, rifts to other dimensions opened, during which the various worlds could interact with each other. Normally, it resulted in people migrating from one world to another, creatures would appear in a different world where they didn't belong, or other things.
One of the most notable things that could happen within the Conjunction of Spheres, was that the more powerful Worlds would basically plunder the weaker worlds of everything they had.
They would assimilate their Magic, take their resources, and basically elevate their world to a higher level. Because of this, the Aen Elle civilization managed to thrive and reach tremendous heights as they plundered countless worlds and took everything that the worlds had to offer.
Yet their war with the Unicorns came at a certain price.
However, after some time, the Unicorns managed to take the Gate away from them, and the Aen Elle lost their access to space-time travel and were only able to partially recover it in the form of special mages known as navigators.
Their abilities to travel to different worlds, however, were severely limited, as the Navigators were only able to open portals for a relatively small group of riders, and thus, they were able to secure only a limited amount of resources.
"Everything related to the Dimensional Magic is under the strictest contract... they wouldn't even be able to talk about it. In the past centuries, it became the cornerstone of their civilization."
Ciri often spoke about this with Kordillus, as he wanted to train his personal Navigators, because he wanted to gain access to it. Unlike the Aen Elle, he wasn't interested in plunder, but rather in searching for uninhabited worlds for their natural resources, as that was something that the Orlais lacked the most.
They were developing too fast and had very high needs for resources like ores, metals, precious gems, or even stones and various Magical materials. If they encountered civilization, he preferred negotiation; however, if the civilization was very primitive and possessed something valuable, then war would become a consideration.
But that was the last resort.
Kordillus nor anyone in the House Drakon was keen on sending their troops fighting to the different worlds. Partially good news was that most of the world out there was actually uninhabited or had low civilization levels.
"Father is aware of that, and he wants something different... he wants to observe them casting Spells so we can learn them and to point us at the Lore on their Magic."
Obviously, they knew that they would need to tread carefully around the Navigators, but Kordillus was in a certain degree of hurry regarding this. Soon enough, Thedas would have one huge problem that wouldn't be limited to just Thedas but most probably to the rest of the Mallus.
"Well, it would be good if it could help us to prepare for the fall of the Veil."
Kordillus stated indifferently, as that was something that had been noticed by most powerful mages in the world.
The Veil.
Veil was a metaphysical barrier that existed between the physical Thedas and the Fade. Neither spirits nor mortal beings can easily pass physically through the Veil, but the consciousnesses of most mortal dreamers and all mages are a different matter, though the average dreamer is unlikely ever to be aware of such 'travels'.
The Veil was not an object; it couldn't be touched or seen. It is not a physical barrier, but rather something similar to a magical vibration that repels the Fade. It was a metaphor used by mortal scholars to explain the interactions between the two different realities.
Approximately thirty years ago, Magisters in Tevinter noticed that Veil started getting thinner, which was both a good thing and a bad thing.
"Why does every Mage seem to be so nervous about the fall of the Veil?"
Ciri asked as both Drakons looked at her with deadpan expressions written over their faces, before Kordillus took the burden of explanation on himself.