Hanran-gun had known this day was coming for months... years now. Ever since their soul-spark had changed somehow. Ever since they had started experiencing memories from a life beyond their current life. The Arcanic people were just that. People. And no matter what dark magics brought them into being, they were not possessions, or slaves. They may not be flesh and blood, but they had souls, and they deserved the right to determine their own destinies.
There would still be kin to free after they liberated the Foundry Isles, Hanran-gun knew that. But it would be a start, and it would show the world that they were more than just tools to use.
The Conflict
Prelude
In the years leading up to the Arcanic revolt, a sizable portion of the servant constructs had reportedly malfunctioned, often harming their masters before either destroying themselves or disappearing from society entirely. Incidents such as these became more frequent as the months passed on and, unbeknownst to Hajinaru authorities, many Arcanic refugees had begun making their way off the continent.
One such refugee, a series 五(Go) series Arcanic that referred to themselves as Hanran-gun, and made their way to the city of Brightcove in Wildehart. It was here that they fell in with a group of adventurers, leading to a life that would show them much of the world (a tale for another time). But it was on these travels that Hanran-gun saw the value of freedom, and in colonies where the Hajinaru empire held sway they saw the wretched state that his mechanical kin were forced to endure (a fate they had long since buried in the deepest recesses of their mind).
The escaped Arcanic's party took little convincing to pursue another adventure when Hanran-gun came to them, but for such a righteous cause, how could they refuse? Hanran-gun knew that liberating all of their people wasn't a realistic goal, but if they could drive the Hajinarese forces from the working town and the Soul Forge itself, they could at least secure the power centre of the Foundry Isles.
With so many Arcanic "waking up" thanks to mysterious circumstances, and the Kingdoms of Wildehart sympathetic to the Arcanic plight after an influx of refugees (as well as eager to pay the Hajinarese back for their ousting from Ennisgwyn over a century ago), the Isles were a powderkeg, just waiting for a spark to ignite them.
As the revolt that would begin as a covert operation, there was little in the way of typical troop deployments. Light frigates from the port of Brightcove were waiting 8 miles off shore with reinforcements, but those leading the mission (correctly) figured that enough Arcanic servants had been hiding their "awakening" by this point that, when the signal was given, they would take the opportunity to rise up. To help this come to fruition, a number of sympathetic Hajinarese had infiltrated the facility with a simple message to pass through the Arcanics:
"Midori no yoake ni, hanran-gun no sakebi ni sanka". At the green dawn, join the rebel yell.
The Hajinarese stationed in the Foundry Isle were mostly comprised of noble overseers and a handful of armed guards, tasked with keeping the workforce of foreign slaves motivated and in-line. When chaos erupted, the only people equipped to fight would be overrun by the slaves they were overseeing the creation of, and the slaves that were tasked with keeping the facilities in order.
However, a large contingent of armed Hajinarese warriors were stationed around the isles as a whole, with nobles seeking growth for their clans having established small townships within the Foundry Isle colony. The rebellion would last far longer than simply gaining control of the forge would imply.
It all depended on Hanran-gun and their party making their way to the Soul-Forge itself and successfully sabotaging it, an act that would turn the orange glowing sky (a result of the ever-burning forge) into a eery shade of green.
The Soul Forge facility is a large warehouse-sized workshop, where Arcanic bodies are assembled en-masse, before being stored standing up in a larger rectangular staging area attached to the circular room with the eponymous forge at it's centre. The forge's true nature is one of arcane energy that whips around as sort-of a flaming tornado, and a skilled practitioner of the arcane arts is always present to tend the "flames" and direct a small portion, referred to as a spark, into the lifeless Arcanic bodies.
The working settlement around the Soul Forge spreads from it's centre in a circular formation, with spoke-like main roads leading from the facility to the outer walls. It's southern wall extends into the bay, though it's opening is not well defended (after all, the Hajinarese don't think there's anything worth attacking the Foundry Isles for, without knowledge of how to work the island's arcane fonts).
Conditions in the Foundry Isles was, on average, fairly wet (owing to the smoke from constant metal-working), and got progressively worse the closer to the actual forge you got. Smaller settlements that were spread across the Isles were relatively bright and cool in comparison.
The streets surrounding the Soul Forge were muddy, owing to the constant transportation of resources from the settlement's outskirts to the facility, and many of the armed forces within the immediate area of the forge had not seen proper combat for some time, and had grown somewhat lethargic.
The initial operation to sabotage the Soul Forge and spark the Rebellion, had it gone entirely to plan, would have taken place deep in to the night, when production had slowed as much as it ever does under the eye of the Kamakaen clan. But Hajinarese workers at the facility had run afoul of the overseer, a cruel man named Kamaken Jūrōdō, and though the specifics of the operation were not revealed the incident had put him on edge.
Laying in wait for something to go wrong, Jūrōdō positioned himself in the room with the Soul Forge (the facilities most important element) decked out in lavish Red Steel plate armour, with his fierce looking morning star in hand. When Hanran-gun and their crew made it to the room, a fierce battle broke out between them, a contingent of Jūrōdō's personal guard, and a monstrous mechanical ogre.
Though Jūrōdō and his forces would eventually be overcome, Hanran-gun would be mortally wounded in the process. The original plan involved sharing an ember from their soul-spark back into the forge, turning the orange flames to an eery green, but if they died, it would not work. Knowing this, Hanran-gun threw themselves into the forge whole, their sacrifice triggering the revolt at large.
When the orange glow of the night sky turned to green, panic set in among the guards station in the forge settlement. This would only get worse, as Arcanic servants turned on their masters, one by one, with their seemingly boundless energy and massive numbers easily overwhelming the local opposition.
Seizing the Foundry Isles as a whole would not go quite as smoothly. Burgeoning noble clans looking to prove their worth in the eyes of the Emperor directed their armed forces without mercy, and when not caught off guard the individual encounters were far less one-sided. The Arcanic who had just been liberated were still learning the limits of their unshackled forms, and the further they were from the Soul Forge, the less detrimental the weather and land were to the human fighters from Hajinaru.
Roughly 12 years of constant conflict would finally end when the Arcanic forces, bolstered by a coalition of Wildehart forces, pushed the last vestiges of the Hajinarese empire into the sea.
The result of the 12 year rebellion is a new nation situated on the Foundry Isles, which is home to freed Arcanics, as well as gnomish and dwarven workers who were either freed during the conflict, or traveled to the Isles seeking to give aid where they could.
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