Reverberation

They say the smallest of decisions can change the course of a world. What many won't take in account is that none of those decisions change anything on its own. They cause, or stop, or work along with each other.
A culture that doesn't know war won't defeat an army in the battlefield. A powerless woman won't bring down a powerful empire. A trickster can't play games without someone who falls for them. A world doesn't fall apart because of the rage of a harmless person.
When bad things happen, is when you give a great destruction tool—one that backfires more often than not—to a furious person that isn't used to be the most powerful in the room, let alone in the world.
And that's how things used to work back then, I suppose. That's why so many people used to believe that the granters were evil, and this one... I have the feeling that he actually was.

The Conflict

Prelude

When the strangers arrived, the bidaddous were nothing but curious.
What came after was a conquest like no other in their world. They didn’t complain when their lands and treasure were taken away, nor did he tried to hide their knowledge, since they didn’t really care about owning anything. They didn’t mind “helping” the new neighbors to gather the resources they wanted, because they were used to collaboration. They did mention, at some point, that these people were lazy and weren't collaborating much, but they didn’t know how to deal with that other than letting them know that they need to help more. When the newcomers tried to teach them their ways, they were happy to learn but failed to understand that they were supposed to adopt them until the first of them were beaten or executed for breaking the strangers’ rules.
Their curiosity and tolerance finally turned into fear, and they tried to do what they always did when they found any dangerous creature in the forest: flee. Imagine their despair when they find out that they would be executed for that too. During the next couple of decades, the bidaddous evolved. Some became used to slavery, others turned resentful. All of them learnt to hide secrets and move in the dark to preserve their customs even if they were against the law… Well, either they learnt, or died trying.
Which takes us to Katerina’s parents and older sister. There was a friend, or a friend of a relative, who made a small mistake. I can’t quite tell you what he did, because my source didn’t know. Does it really matter? Someone said the wrong thing, or didn’t make sure that there were no witnesses before entering their secret temple, and less than a day after, a lot of people were dead and 42 orphans were taken to a care facility to be taught nothing but the law and how to extract white fire from a dangerous cave.
Katerina was too old to forget the old ways of her people, even if she struggled to remember the names and, eventually, forgot most of her mother tongue.
Yet, she was too young to not learn the ways of the enemy.
Enemy. That was a word her people didn’t have. But it was important for her. That, and Revenge. That’s the word she said when a Granter asked her what she wanted the most.

Deployment

The granter of that time gave Katerina a little bottle. She only had to let if fall in one of the opening that lead to the deposits of white fire.
But that happened away from the city that had grown around the mines, and she had to both get back inside unnoticed, and go back to work as if nothing had happened. The only thing on her favor was that, it wasn't so difficult to smuggle something into the mines; in other colonies, slaves where inspected before entering any work area, to prevent sabotage and revolts, but the bidaddous never caused trouble and the revision only took place when somebody looked suspicious. If she managed to enter the city and keep a straight face, she would be able to kill the people that had ruined so many lives including hers.
She was terrified that she would be caught and executed, but that wouldn't stop her from trying. She ran back to the only home she remembered, and found a way in that wasn't too close to the path she had used to get out two days before.

Battlefield

Bidaddous City was built around the mines of white fire, a material that existed in the core of the world and could only be extracted safely from this cavities where the surplus accumulated close to the surface before taking gaseous state and become part of the atmosphere.
It showed the architecture and art of the racionala, and took advantage from all of its technology, both to instruct and care for all the inhabitants, and to keep the native inside and surveilled. While the mines weren't carefully guarded, there were cameras everywhere and the city borders would be patrolled constantly. Walls and fences had been placed wherever possible. But they were a bit short of guards, because they were hunting a group that had just escaped.

The Engagement

Katerina scaled a wall and sprained her left ankle when she jumped into the city. Once there, it was all a game of pretending. First, to pretend that she had been inside the wall all the time, that she wasn't hurt. Then, pretend to sprain her ankle in a non suspicious circumstance. Eventually, pretend to go to work as usual, with not a single worry other than the news about some fugitives that included one of her closest friends.
It was a good thing that the average bidaddous' main skill was to put an act on to their conquerors, and she excelled at it. She swallow her fear just as she had done when she was planning to escape the city and every day before that as she visited the gambling house, prayed before eating, or smuggled candies into the mines.
She carried the bottled revenge as she would have carried those candies, worked without enthusiasm like she always did, and got herself caught for rushing to pour the contents of the bottle into the white fire deposits.
It didn't matter, it was done. She may be about to be executed, but they were much more terrified.

Outcome

The white fire poured into every area inhabited by citizens of the Racionala Kingdom and their allies, hurting not only them but everybody in that region and those who depended of its resources.
It also destroyed Bidaddous city and the places where the few fugitives from that place were hiding, because they had never fought the invaders or tried to defend their neighbors when they were punished or executed for breaking the law.

Aftermath

Katerina was already horrified with the immediate results, but it wasn't over.
The missing fire in the core of the planet caused it's decay until it wasn't capable of sustain life. Currently it's just a rock floating somewhere.
The process must have taken a year or so, but the humans fell victim of disease or the extreme weather during the first month.
Only a few or the inhabitants of this world lived long enough to start to process their loss in time to find this world. A couple stayed here. The rest came back home, some to die, some to try and use a wish that was supposed to save someone (I suppose those wishes technically worked, but it didn't matter since their world was doomed).

Revenge.
They turned our home into a prison, forced us to abandon our farms and our ways so we could focus on getting them their precious white fire and now I want them to drown in it. Not just the rulers and guards in the mines city, but all of them, every single person that allowed this to happen to us.
Can you really make it true?

— Katerina's first wish.

Conflict Type

Covert Operation

Battlefield Type

Urban

Conflict Result

Extinction

Involved parties

The bidaddous

A pacifist culture that never learnt the ways of war or commerce, focusing on medicine, agriculture and the study of the stars. That knowledge saved plenty of lives once the Racionala exported it to the rest of the world.
They never fought the invaders, they just tried to adjust, but the only thing they wanted to keep was too much according to the conquerors, so they were often hurt and murdered.

Katerina

One of many victims of the invaders, a good child until the age of ten or so. Then all her family was slaughtered and she spent the next 18 years learning the ways of the enemy, and hating them for killing her parents.
When she had the chance, she murdered as many of them as possible.

The voice in the void

Did a granter hide in a small cave under the cliff? Did he use magic to hear and be heard from that place? Who knows. Katerina and her friends only heard the deep, slightly raspy voice saying that they could have anything they wanted.

The Racionala

A flourishing culture, very respectful of nature and the laws their rulers formulated to grant that every citizen had equal opportunities as well as respect for each other and the ecosystem they lived in. They were scientifically advanced, which allowed them to travel great distances by air and sea in a world where everybody else was struggling to build good roads. As they explored the world, they shared their knowledge and customs with everyone. They had found the secret to prosperity and peace, after all.
Most of their citizens and neighbors didn’t know that those ways were imposed by violence and cruelty to those who “didn’t appreciate” their benefits.

Everybody else in that world

At this point, most of them had been found by the racionala and, whether they hated or loved them, they used what they had to offer and paid the demanded price one way or another.

Historical Significance

The few witnesses of these events that didn’t die with their world, can now be found in the company premises.A couple of them aren't employees, so they don't start the day in an assigned room but in any place they were when the cycle started. Nevertheless, they are welcomed in the village whenever they want to come and for as long as they want to stay.
Half of them don't like to talk about the past, and those who do prefer to avoid this particular event. Yet they all have described it sometime, as a warning for somebody else.

"I don't think we were really bad people, you know? Just... They say the greater goals require the greater sacrifices, and we sacrificed other people's beliefs. I know it sounds sick when you say it without context, but those beliefs were awful.
The bidaddous, for instance, would let their elder to rot and their children to starve or climb and fell from trees. They didn't even respect each other's belongings. And when somebody tried to make them stop, they released an unspeakable, unstoppable power that killed everyone and everything in our world.
I know, now, that the rulers of that city did some bad things, but I also know that they were right to try all they could to change them and I'm only sorry that they failed.

—A "survivor" from the white fire catastrophe.

Can I bring your attention to the fact that she was robed her childhood, misguided by monsters, and tricked by a granter? It was him who destroyed it all.

—The ghost of Katerina's childhood.