The Infernal Forge

!Attention! The following document is classified and under official Imperial Protection. Any attempt at gaining insight without receiving the proper clearance first will be seen as a crime against the Rhomeian Empire and will be met with the utmost of force. Any protections due to heritage, rank or relation with the imperial family are null and void. Severe restrictions including full Damnatio Memoriae will be initiated on the entire family for the next five generations.

The following text is an excerpt from the controversial document "Truths about the Eternal Empire", written by Emmerin Egalis, concerning the so-called "Infernal Forge". Possession of this document is a punishable offence within the Rhomeian Empire.
...It should come as a surprise to no one that the Eternal Empire holds many secrets, most of which it guards with a zeal that would make even the most blinded of fanatics look on in wonder. There are many things left-over from the ancient war and many sins that the Empire wishes to keep hidden...Mount Atelus, the "Lighthouse of the Divide", is a well-known sight to most that have ever travelled to the Empire's heart. And those that have seen it will remember a dark shroud of ash and dust covering its southern flank. Behind that veil is the true heart of the mountain...It is a factory! A titanic smithery that fills out nearly half the mountains flank. Molten rock streams down from the crater, eternally fueling this monument of industry...The scale and complexity of some of the machines present there is unimaginable and easily explains the Empire's apparent ability to never run out of material and equipment...It is guarded fiercely, every worker there under strictest control and observation. Not a single word is supposed to get out. Even the shroud that covers it is unnatural, created by several machines to obscure it from any ship that may pass the island...I know that merely mentioning Infernal Forge's existence will doom me to a fate worse than death should the Empire ever get to me. But I have to spread the word. About the ancient power that lies dormant under the Imperial Heartland. About how the Rhomeians are slowly reawakening the ancient war machine and uncover weapons of nightmarish strength. And how even the monumental factory that is Infernal Forge is but one part of a larger system. There are tunnels under the forge. Tunnels under the islands. There is another heart beating under the city of Rhomeia...

I want her dead, drawn and quartered before me, do you understand? Make her pay!

— Vicarian VIII., Rhomeian Empire

Founding Date

Redacted

Type

Factory

Parent Location

Melian Archipelago

Owning Organization

Rhomeian Empire

Fate of a Snitch
Emmerin Egalis, a woman of both Rhomeian and Feran heritage, would gain fame and notoriety in the last years of the 33rd century when she published a manuscript titled "Truths about the Eternal Empire". Within she revealed several state secrets, previously kept under by the Empire, awakening the world to the fact that Rhomeia was not just the decrepit old ruin of a nation many had believed it to be.
Relations with other states cooled as a result and Emmerin was declared an "Enemy of the State". If she managed to escape the Empire's agents is unknown, as is wherever her death in 3301 DA was "natural".

by Marc Simonetti