Simultaneously, inside the Governor's Estate.
The grand conference room where they had arrested the upper-spire elites earlier that morning had now been fully converted into a temporary command center.
Nearly a hundred players were completely crammed into the room. Sitting in front of every single person were massive, teetering mountains of physical parchment files, cracked data-slates, and actively scrolling holographic projectors.
The air was suffocatingly thick with pure anxiety and... absolute psychological collapse.
"I can't fucking take this anymore!!" [I Speak for the Emperor's Dick] slammed a heavy data-slate down onto his desk with a deafening crack. "What the hell even is this garbage?! The filtration membranes at Water Purification Plant Nine are degrading, and they need a budget approval to replace them... Why the hell does the Governor's Office need to personally authorize this?!"
Beside him, [Execute War Criminal Old Man] weakly lifted his head, the dark bags under his eyes practically sagging to his chin. "Count your blessings... I just finished explicitly authorizing a deployment request for a sanitation crew to unclog a public latrine in Sector C of the Lower Hive..."
He rubbed his face aggressively, his expression completely devoid of the will to live. "I genuinely want to know... A toilet gets clogged, and they have to escalate it directly to the Lord Governor?! Is the entire administrative framework of this Hive City made of wet toilet paper?! Why does every single pathetic little issue get punted straight to the top?!"
"Because Adela spent the last two decades hoarding every single ounce of administrative authority," Schrödinger Bro said, not even looking up from his massive stack of ledgers. "According to the financial archives, over the past twenty-five years, the autonomous approval jurisdictions of every single mid-level and low-level official in the Kent Hive were systematically stripped away. It eventually reached the point where they literally needed the Governor's personal wax seal just to requisition a new damn pen."
He seamlessly projected a complex bureaucratic flow-chart into the air. "Adela did this for two distinct reasons. First, to centralize his power to facilitate mass embezzlement. If every single imperial coin had to pass directly through his hands, he could skim off the top of everything. Second, it was a brutal control mechanism to prevent subordinate officials from cultivating their own independent power bases. The more absolutely centralized the authority, the more unshakeable his personal rule became."
[I'm Not the Regent I'm Just Passing By Guilliman] was completely paralyzed in his chair, his eyes hollow and dead. "So now... absolute karma is biting us directly in the ass. Every single piece of administrative garbage is being dumped right onto our heads."
He pointed a trembling finger at the Everest-sized mountain of files burying his desk. "It's only been half a day, and I've already processed over three hundred individual reports. Everything from factory workers actively protesting diluted nutrient paste rations, to some obscure Noble Lady throwing a hysterical fit over..." He buried his face in his hands. "I want to pilot a massive mech! I want to engage in high-speed vehicular combat! I want to butcher mutants with a chainsword... I don't want to deal with this bureaucratic nightmare!!"
A collective wail of pure agony echoed throughout the command center.
Right at that exact moment, the heavy double doors pushed open, and Paul and Cogboy strode into the room.
Seeing the sheer, unmitigated despair unfolding before him, Paul paused, genuinely taken aback. "What the hell happened in here?"
[I Speak for the Emperor's Dick] slowly raised his head, his eyes screaming absolute defeat. "Paul... we were so catastrophically wrong. We honestly thought that managing a Hive City just meant arresting the corrupt elites, swapping in our own guys, handing out some free food to buy loyalty, and calling it a day..."
He gestured desperately at the suffocating piles of paperwork. "Now we realize the horrifying truth... Actively managing a Hive City of ninety-eight million people means forcefully processing tens of thousands of absolutely mind-numbing, trivial bullshit reports every single day! It means drowning in an endless, suffocating ocean of requisitions, incident reports, civilian complaints, and petty disputes! It means having to carefully prioritize whether to suppress a labor strike in a manufactorum or deploy an engineering detail to fix a highly explosive sewage leak!"
He tore at his own hair. "This is honestly infinitely more exhausting than fighting a war against the Ruinous Powers! Seriously! At least war is straightforward! You aim, you pull the trigger, and it's over! This bureaucratic hell... is like being slowly executed with a blunt butter knife!"
Paul remained silent for several seconds before slowly walking to the front of the command center. He swept his gaze over the utterly exhausted faces of the players and finally spoke. "Brothers... This is reality. Tearing down a rotting, corrupt system is easy. Constructing a brand new order—one built on genuine equality, freedom, and prosperity—is infinitely harder. If we chose to manage this Hive City the exact same way Adela did, if we chose to exploit and ignore the populace, then yes... our jobs would be incredibly easy."
He casually picked up a file from the nearest stack. The header read: Orphanage in Lower Hive Sector D experiencing severe ration shortage. Thirty-seven children facing imminent starvation.
"Look at this," Paul said, holding up the file. "During Adela's reign, a report like this would have been instantly thrown into the incinerator. Because an orphanage possesses zero exploitable profit margins, absolutely no one in the upper spires gave a single damn whether those children lived or died. But today... this report was placed directly on our desks."
Paul's voice was incredibly calm, yet it commanded absolute silence from everyone in the room. "If we choose to simply ignore this... then absolutely nothing will have changed. Everything will remain exactly as rotten as it was before. Therefore, we absolutely must intervene. We must show the citizens of this Hive exactly how the dawn differs from the darkness that ruled them before."
He gently placed the report back onto the desk. "Yes. These tasks are incredibly tedious. They are mind-numbingly frustrating. But it is precisely these trivial, frustrating details that form the absolute foundation of life for ninety-eight million human beings. If the water purification plant fails, they die of dehydration. If the sanitation grid collapses, horrific plagues will spread. If the orphanage runs out of food, those children will absolutely starve to death."
Paul paused, his intense gaze locking onto every single face in the room. "Why exactly did we come to the Kent Hive? Was it solely to expand our territory? Was it purely to secure massive logistical resources? Yes, those strategic objectives are vital, and we absolutely need them. But more importantly... we came here to unequivocally prove a point. We came here to prove that even in the suffocating darkness of the grimdark Warhammer universe, humanity can actually live with genuine dignity. They do not have to spend their entire lives desperately clinging to survival under the crushing weight of absolute oppression and systemic corruption. And that dignity... fundamentally starts with these exact, frustratingly trivial details. It has been long enough. Even the most oblivious players among us should have realized the undeniable truth by now. We must remember this explicitly: we are not dealing with lines of mindless NPC code. These are people. Every single one of them is a living, breathing human being."
"...I am incredibly sorry."
Paul's visor hissed open. He slowly bowed toward the assembled players, executing a deep, solemn salute of genuine respect, his voice dropping into a quiet murmur. "I know full well that forcing all of these crushing responsibilities onto your shoulders is fundamentally unfair to you. You could easily treat this entire universe as nothing more than a sandbox game. You could completely ignore the lore, act with absolute impunity, and do whatever the hell you want! You could experience every single extreme taboo you wouldn't dare commit in reality. Even if this entire world burns to ash... what does it truly matter to you? It wouldn't affect your real lives in the slightest. But I want to ask you this... this universe is already fundamentally broken and rotting to its core. Do we really want to actively carve even more agonizing scars into this already dying world?"
The conference room fell into a dead silence.
After a long moment, [Execute War Criminal Old Man] let out a heavy sigh and picked his data-slate back up. "Alright, Paul, since you put it that way... I'll keep processing them. You make a solid point. Honestly, this work is kind of interesting anyway; it's basically fulfilling my real-world dream of becoming a civil servant."
He continued to aggressively tap at his virtual keyboard, muttering under his breath, "But Paul, we seriously need to recruit some massive manpower... Relying solely on our few hundred to process the administrative affairs of an entire Hive City is completely impossible. We'll literally drop dead from exhaustion before we even make a dent."
"We are already actively recruiting," Cogboy said, projecting a holographic display detailing the Hive City's administrative academies. "There are three primary academies in the upper spires of the Kent Hive, graduating thousands annually, and over twenty academies in the mid-hive producing tens of thousands of graduates every year. However, during Adela's reign, these highly educated graduates were either entirely monopolized by the Merchant Guild, or they were completely blacklisted for actively refusing to engage in their corruption, forcing them to take up grueling factory labor or other menial physical jobs just to survive. I have already dispatched personnel to officially contact the academy directors. We initiate massive public recruitment starting tomorrow."
Schrödinger Bro added, "Furthermore, the highly classified archives we seized from Adela's estate reveal that over the past two decades, more than a thousand mid-to-low-level administrative officials were systematically marginalized or completely dismissed for actively refusing to cooperate with his embezzlement. A significant portion of these individuals possess genuine administrative talent. I have already compiled a comprehensive manifest. I will personally summon them and conduct one-on-one interviews to gradually reintegrate them back into our governance framework, directly relieving the players of their bureaucratic torment."
Paul gave a firm nod, looking around the room at his exhausted troops. "So, just hold out a little longer. The absolute second our own administrative framework is completely established, you will be entirely liberated from this." He paused, a faint, genuinely warm smile finally curling his lips. "Of course, before that happens... I have some excellent news to share with everyone."
Every single player snapped their heads up.
"We just received a sitrep from Tax Bro. The operation is proceeding flawlessly. As of exactly one hour ago, they have seized control of over seventy percent of the Hysman Merchant Guild's industrial nodes in the upper spires. And..." Paul's smile grew profoundly subtle. "...while actively purging the Guild's primary headquarters, they discovered a highly concealed secret vault."
"Holy shit?! How much cash are we talking?!"
"Gold bars? Jewelry? Rare mineral ores?"
"Paul, stop keeping us in suspense!"
Paul slowly held up a single finger. "The exact figures are still being actively tallied, but preliminary conservative estimates... place the total value at no less than five hundred million Imperial Coins."
Hssss!
A collective, deafening gasp of inhaled air echoed throughout the entire room.
Five hundred million! What kind of absurd concept was that? Previously, when the players had desperately risked their lives to raid the industrial zones, their total gross profit was barely over 1.5 million. Later, after five grueling days of continuous, back-breaking mining, they had only scraped together a little over ten million. Five hundred million—even though they weren't exactly sure how the conversion rate translated into the System's unique currency... it was undeniably an astronomically massive fortune.
"Of course, we absolutely cannot dump this entire fortune into our own pockets," Paul warned, immediately throwing a bucket of ice water over their raging excitement. "Rebuilding the Hive City requires massive funding. Drastically improving the citizens' quality of life requires funding. Equipping and strictly training our newly established PDF regiments requires heavy funding."
He turned his gaze to Cogboy. "Cogboy, you and Schrödinger Bro need to sit down and draft a comprehensive allocation framework. The fundamental principle is this: one-third will be immediately injected into the Hive's infrastructural reconstruction and restoring the heavy mineral manufactorums to full operational capacity. One-third will be strictly reserved as the Chapter's long-term development fund. And the final third... will be fairly distributed among all the players of Crimson Dawn based entirely on their individual contribution metrics."
"Understood," Cogboy replied, the blue light of his cybernetic eye already rapidly flashing as he began running complex logistical calculations.
Paul gave the room one final, sweeping look. "Alright, let's get back to work. We started out with absolutely nothing, captured and used as literal lab rats by the Aru Group. But the absolute darkest, most grueling days are already behind us. Moving forward... the grand gears of Crimson Dawn are only going to spin faster and smoother. Someone once boldly claimed we would fight our way straight to Holy Terra itself... well, for Crimson Dawn, that is absolutely not an impossibility. As long as we are willing to put in the grueling effort, the citizens of the Imperium will absolutely live to see their dawn. We are going to demonstrate to every single soul in this grimdark universe exactly how true steel is forged! And when that day finally arrives, I absolutely believe that every single one of your names will echo across the entire cosmos. You will be draped in the glorious laurels of the Dawn. You are not the personal champions of some distant master; you are the true champions of the Imperial citizens. I eagerly await, and firmly believe in, the day when every single one of you ascends to a level of power rivaling that of the Imperial Primarchs."
He turned and strode out of the command center, with Cogboy closely following right behind him.
Inside the conference room, under the invisible, highly uplifting influence of Paul subtly deploying fractions of his Hope and Pioneering traits, the hundred-plus players—who had just been crying out for their mothers in absolute despair—were now overflowing with burning, unyielding morale.
Out in the quiet corridor, Paul suddenly stopped in his tracks, lowering his voice. "The Underhive... has there been any noticeable movement down there?"
Cogboy effortlessly pulled up a highly classified surveillance report. "Exactly three hours ago, several massive storage vaults in the Ninth Industrial Sector of the Lower Hive were raided by an Underhive gang. The total estimated value of the plundered assets sits at roughly three million, predominantly consisting of synthetic rations and raw mineral ore."
Paul's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who did it?"
"Based on the forensic evidence left at the scene, it was the Poison Scorpion Syndicate, one of the most massive and deeply entrenched factions in the Underhive," Cogboy reported.
"However, the anomaly is... their raiding methodology was incredibly restrained. They strictly looted the designated supplies. They didn't slaughter any civilians, and they didn't sabotage any surrounding factory infrastructure. Furthermore, their extraction route was flawlessly concealed. They funneled directly back into the Underhive through an abandoned subterranean mining shaft. The Lower Hive Enforcers pursued them straight to the entrance but immediately aborted the chase. Their official report claimed that the Underhive's topography is far too chaotic, and aggressively breaching it posed a catastrophic tactical risk."
Paul remained silent for several seconds. "Is this one of Adela's hidden contingencies?"
"Highly probable." Cogboy instantly projected a secondary intelligence dossier. "Deep Sea recently transmitted an encrypted brief from Aru City stating that the Hysman Merchant Guild possesses a highly specific tradition. Every single Hive Lord placed in charge of a critical Hive City will always covertly sponsor a major Underhive gang to serve as a disposable tool for manufacturing absolute chaos whenever tactically necessary. The Poison Scorpion Syndicate is almost certainly their designated proxy here in the Kent Hive."
Paul nodded, his gaze turning absolutely frigid. "Let them loot. Those supplies were entirely embezzled by Adela to begin with; they were completely dirty money anyway. Once the public execution concludes in three days and the entire Hive undeniably realizes that Adela is utterly finished, these parasitic gangs will naturally lose all their backing and amount to absolutely nothing."
He paused, shifting his gaze out the armaglass window.
"However... the second we free up our logistical bandwidth, we are absolutely settling the score with the Underhive." Paul's voice was incredibly soft, yet it carried an unyielding, ironclad resolve. "The light of our Dawn will pierce through every single stratum of this Hive City, completely purging all the rotting filth and corruption that hides within."
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Goal = 750 Powerstones.
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