"Mono/Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
Narration
[Message/communication apparatus]
Date: 25th January 1920 NWC or 647 AU.
Location: Fallfiore and its surroundings.
POV: Narrator
There’s a pang of sadness and helpless rage of the Arganean sailors as they were pced at the front of this ‘united’ fleet. Many of them were the repcements of the old sailors who met their end in a glorious battle. Kressel is leading his fleet further towards the Isnd where they will be fighting their own people.
Arganean's newly built carrack was only possible due to the marriage of the Crown and the Empire. This technological transfer and advancement in seamanship and shipbuilding no doubt caused a stir back in Acadion. Regardless, they are now on somewhat clear parity with the Empire until they choose to unveil new engines of war.
The old uniform had been cast away for the crimson and purple-gold, a not-so-subtle reminder that they are now subordinated to the Lion of the West. It is truly a humiliating result for a dragon to be chained to an animal that never tasted the sweet dominion of heaven, but that’s just how it is, maybe. The sailors are armed with Halciadonish arquebuses that are merely one generation behind, the forges of the Protectorates working in ceaseless rhythm for an unknown purpose.
A purpose that left many bewildered. Despite the total domination of the empire and retively minor reproaches from foreign intercontinental powers, the Emperor had not issued an edict to cease operations. It is a good thing for the workers, they are not going to be hungry for a few more months at least, but the drain in the coffers are very real threat to the realm’s stability.
This stability is felt the further away one is from the Empire’s heartnd. Arganea integration and transference from Monarchy to Archduchy is one such problem. Elements in the North remain deluded and lost, clinging to the dead nation that failed them spectacurly. Such a harsh statement might be an exaggeration, but that’s the reality of it.
Reality that was soon reflected on the Arganean fleet made up of fresh blood and greenhorns, and that of veterans and scorned. This duality is a point of concern, but the Empire is seemingly agreeable to offer amnesty, provided they swear fealty to the Dual-Crown and fight for its unification.
“Admiral, I had my doubts about this operation... does the Empire possess a new invention for use? It feels foolhardy otherwise.” He turns to his Vice-Admiral, an old friend who returned from self-exile to help rebuild their fleet. As expected, he too had been scorned by the unthinking masses who saw only the shadow of their humiliation as a nation.
“I understand your misgiving, Gerntz. We are treading a never-tried-before strategy in subduing the isnd...” His voice hardens at the idea of war that shall soon erupt there, of the many deaths and destruction. Gerntz noticed his state and spoke with the flippancy of a man who lost too much to care.
“Why is the Empire so adamant on their heavy-handedness and racial pogrom? It would be more profitable for everyone if they were left alive.” Kressel feels eyes on him, but he, too, is getting tired of dancing in this subject. Perhaps he will die after this campaign, or perhaps he will be exiled. No matter the outcome, he just wishes to be done with it all.
“It is not our pce to question orders, old friend. We are not as mighty as we once were... all we can do is protect who we can. The Queen strains under pressure, and it is up to us to... to... give sembnce of humanity in this indelible war.” His eyes were cast below decks; the sea churns as ice thaws under the breezy spring that brought no warmth to his heart.
“... Waxing poetic won’t provide the dead with deliverance.” Gerntz smiled mirthlessly, one of his hands gripping the saber on his hip hard. “We are fooling ourselves here... this is just the beginning of something bigger than we could understand.”
“That, I am afraid, is not the most fantastical possibility.” He turns his eyes to the Searost belonging to the Imperial Navy. It is a marvel that was created to project aerial control far beyond conventional means. One by one, the wyverns were catapulted into the air, their wings unfurling in a glide motion before gaining momentum through each wing's beating through the air.
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“Raise the banner high! Long live the Crown! Our honor is true!” Raegovan Loyalists raised the Royal Banner in defiance as the makeshift fort that was the town hall was under perilous siege by those the st yesterweek called brothers and sisters. They are outgunned and outnumbered but never outmatched.
A cannonball broke through one section of the window, leaving trails of blood and guts as it smashed bone and flesh that rends them apart. The war, just a dozen leagues away, failed to register in their mind. Desperation and hatred born of betrayal are one hell of a motivator.
Unfortunately, the motivator could only do so much.
“Kill them! Kill them all! Raise the Imperial Banners! We could still make it to the grace of His Imperial Majesty! Raise the banner!” Banners of crimson lions were raised from rags drenched in blood, as it is abundant. Many more were stitched from cloaks and cloth from fallen enemies.
Breakdown of order engulfs pces that were once considered safe. Many began falling back into their own community, often after killing those who weren’t part of theirs. Exiling them won’t work as paranoia rules logic; these hasty decisions only infme the rage that goes out of control.
Both sides get their hands on whatever they can, even pitchforks and cleaver as the battlefield turns into chaos. This confusion gave rise to thievery and criminal acts from opportunists and civilians who take no sides. Smaller settlements and rural areas that have little in the way of natural defenses are prime targets for raids and looting. Worse still, many are unprepared as information that is a matter of life and death failed to reach them first.
One such crime occurs in a vilge near a river. Thatched roofs on fire, granary and livestock pens looted to the very scraps of grain, the roads littered with bodies as these poorly armed vilgers, despite most having demi-human blood, are being overrun and overpowered by either number or skill. Those who can fight could take respite in a brief suffering, those who could not had just started to glimpse into hell.
“Wait! Please! Not my child- Agh!” A man was kicked in the gut, with an axe soon felling his neck, as his daughter was pinned on the ground with his son. The two are screaming for help that will never come; their mother gagged as dozens took their turn in vioting her. These true beasts and dregs of war satiate their appetites with lust for pleasure and greed for whatever valuables could be gathered.
In the street is more of such chaos, with a battle devolving onto three way combat with little regards to colteral damage. Archers and crossbowmen trading shots between buildings in a macabre dispy of guerril warfare, men and women trading blows or even brawling in a narrow room.
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“The whole isnd is up in arms, expedite the process. We must flee this accursed hell.” As the one uttering such a command pace around the room with magical objects and communication in hand, his surroundings are a scenery of controlled chaos. Papers, once so rare is now ubiquitous enough that they were cast into fme, the smoke curling up was blown away and dispersed by magic.
We receive reports of the fleet; they will soon arrive at the invasion point. Our Wyverns are winning against their dispersed foes.” Another reported that they worked on a contraption reminiscent of a telegraph machine, decoding encoded messages at a speed that would impress even early modern forces. “Wonderful, keep up the good work.” It is pin to see that this group belongs to the Empire, a sleeper cell that was activated with perfect timing.
As they continued to rapidly evacuate, one of them, perhaps due to exhaustion and the rapidly changing environment, tripped on the stairs. The box she held in her hands spills its contents once it slips from her hands. “You fool! Handle them properly!” Her supervisor hissed contemptuously as he knelt and helped her father with the spilt content, consisting of magical gems.
“M-My apologies, Milord, I-I was clumsy and exhausted.” She hastily grabs what she can, peering inside the clear blue crystal, searching for cracks. Her superior sighed as he snatched it off her hand, peered closely, and neatly pced the gems back into its cradle.
“If you have time for an apology, then work faster! You were outrageously lucky those lunatics remembered their heretical invention properly!” As they worked on the accident, a separate group was unloading weapons and armor from the hidden armory. Swords, handguns, and even a prototype naphtha were id on the table nearby. Imperial agents who are not in charge of logistics arm up quickly. Their training is bearing fruit as it only takes a minute for a whole dozen soldiers to be kitted up properly.
There’s the st group huddling over a map, crossing through marked positions with charcoal. Telepathic mage listen on the updates, the high-ranking officers rey or bey orders as necessary, and the war seems to be as good as won.
As they focus on evacuation, a small tube rolled through one of the openings, a sight caught by a few. It rolled harmlessly enough. Unfortunately, that harmless roll was not without a BANG! Which blinded those in contact with it.
“Agh! My eyes!”
“Aggghhhh! H-Healer!”
“W-What had happened!?”
“Are we under attack?!” As confusion spread, the door was barged open by heavily armored soldiers. The process was smooth as the immediate area is filled with blinded and disoriented personnel.
[Targets confirmed, commencing capture and purge.] A synthesized, garbled voice that was so alien provokes terror and fear. These Imperials had their share of staring down monsters, but they never dealt with one so foreign and alien. As if they came from a different world entirely.
Gunfire rings true, spraying blood and guts on the floor as the reaper arrives. Those who remembered their training hoist their gunpowder weapon, trying hard to trace muscle memory in reloading the muzzle. A wonderful showcase of their training and discipline as staccato of handguns were pointed at the source of unceasing gunfire, shame they are seeing too much light at the moment.
Some preloaded their arquebuses beforehand, and they are firing blindly. Scores of them ended up hitting their fellows who happen to be running around in terrified blindness, others are most affected and writhing on the ground, cwing their eyes. Not all was catastrophic friendly fire, but this magically propelled lead was impotent in penetrating modern body armor.
Even with their enhanced velocity, it failed to properly penetrate due to its spherical construct. Unlike the sharp pointed tip of a modern bullet.
Worse still, that made them an even bigger target. Counter fire follows a beat ter, the raiding soldiers possess an almost preternatural sense as they pivot from systematic dismantlement into lethal force when necessary, without fgging each other.
There’s only a fireteam worth of these bck-cd soldiers, but they are more than enough. Carbines in confined space is not a good match-up against muzzle loaded museum piece. Those who were caught standing were shot dead, those writhing on the ground, or appears to be high ranking, were subdued with a sharp punch to the face, a kick to the gut, or batted with a rifle.
As the first area was compromised, those occupation nearby room hastened to weather a sudden raid. “W-Who are they?! How did they know we are here!?” Shouted an agent as he desperately reloaded his handgun, others already taking potshots at those juggernauts.
“What were the sentries doing?! Don’t they have their own telepath?!” A shriek that was filled with both accusation and arm. It doesn’t make sense how quickly they got breached, especially when the communication was fine… five minutes ago.
“I need help over here! Please! We got too many wounded!” The healer is being overworked as they are falling back from room to room. The relentless advance boggles their mind as they tried in restoring the vision of those who lost it.
“My eyes… I-I can see… It’s too bright! Please stop…!” Puzzlingly, and hurriedly so, the healing seems to have done little. The agents weren’t harmed physically; that blinding light was something else the healing failed to reverse, although none understand what that was other than a very advanced form of naphtha if nothing else.
“Never surrender! For His Imperial Majesty! Charge!” Perhaps due to fear slowly curdling into rage, a few brandish their swords and charge. Hoping to overpower the intruders with sheer number. Pity, they can’t even get close before their bodies are riddled with holes.
Their horror grows as these fours continues, wiping the floor with them. Let alone wounds, these monsters from a different realm weren’t staggered as their rifles fired tens or hundreds of times faster than the Imperial. Tables were overturned, but they failed to stop the rain of sharpened bullets from piercing and killing those hiding behind them.
Of course, some of the agents hastened the destruction of sensitive intelligence documents, rattled but remaining somewhat disciplined to do their duty. These people are in for a nasty surprise when the wall beside them is breached with an explosive. More soldiers pour in on them, tackling and subduing them with the ease of adults taking toys away from children.
This underground haven was not safe at all. It will only be a matter of time before they are captured, so a bold pn was hatched. “Imbue the gems!” That command was voiced by the highest-ranking agent present as he lobs a naphtha at an approaching juggernaut, engulfing them in fme.
“Hah! Serves you right, devil- ack!” An armored fist, cd in fme, smashed him in the face. The man writhes on the floor, his face charred and badly bruised. Apparently, as he tried to pick up more of this primitive firebomb, the one he thought killed charged forth through their pain. Subduing him, too, as they calmly extinguish the fme with the help of other soldiers.
Situations continue to deteriorate, but one of the magical gems was finally imbued. It was thrown beneath the feet of several soldiers in the middle of the capture. The one who threw it was the woman who made a clumsy mistake, her face set in manic glee and fear as it started to activate.
She was subdued a beat ter, but she ughed. “Hahahaha! You will all die! All of you will die cwing at each other like those beast blood!” Her body vibrates in perverse enjoyment, eager to see them tear into one another. Even if it kills her and affects her people…
One beat…
Two beats… Three beats…
Nothing happen. Worse than nothing, the soldiers
Her foes weren’t affected, while her people started to go berserk in their hold. She watched in horror as the berserking agent was knocked unconscious. “Why are you not going mad?! Who are you?! Are you with the First King- Agh!” She was kicked in the stomach and knocked out cold; none of the soldiers seemed to care as they methodically cleaned the underground safe house.
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“We have done all we can… this should end our suffering.” A gathering of Arganean inside a decrepit building on the northeasternmost tip of the isle is filled with grim resolve. These are men and women who were, at one point, recognized as having no recourse but a fight to the death. To honor their King Zelos and his children, they fight on.
Yet at this very moment, with gaunt faces and unkempt appearance, they stood in silence around a circur table. The ale had long since gone stale, but they gulped them all down even as their sophisticated pates recoiled from its taste.
“… We have done no different than the kins-… no…” One of them, a human man in his early twenty that had all but lost his boyish charm, slumps forward. The sword he had revered as a family heirloom feels heavy in his scabbard; he wonders if his ancestors are disgusted or understand his plight. “We are the kinsyer now. We are worse than her, in retrospect.”
“Aye… but we do what we must for what’s left of Arganea… I just hope the Emperor’s mercy holds. I cared no one whit on what shall befell me… but my son… I cannot go on. This war is lost the moment the wall was wrenched free from our hands.” A former noblewoman whose silken hands had hardened with calluses of combat mented as her eyes pierced into a nd by yonder.
“Raegova… curse us for our treachery…” Uttered by one whose face is buried in his hands, his frame shook from the weight of what they had done. “Curse us if you must… but you must understand, there’s no King. There’s no way for us to make all this suffering mean something if there’s no one on the horizon…”
“… We shouldn’t be menting that Devil.” Hissed the leader of this gathering, but he, too, was unable to lift his face from the floor. “We shouldn’t have been listening to a Devil’s whisper; we should have just… let go of the more impure beast bloods for the Inquisition.” He pulls out a neckce with a pocket watch from another continent away, and inside slips a photograph of a woman with elongated ears. His deceased wife and his two children are sequestered far away.
Other members understand his conflict, but he is pragmatic. Too pragmatic that one could question his loyalty.
“We mustn’t tarry, if we did… this will be twice the betrayal.” A female knight crossed her arms over her breastpte, her expression severe and resolute. “We must begin our march south. The… Queen’s letters are getting more frequent. She promised that our sentences will not befall our children.”
“Indeed.” The leader rose from his chaise, with his fellow traitors following suit. He put his hand over his sword, and they too mimicked them perfectly. “For the Queen! Long Live Ionie! Long Live the Empire!” He unsheathes the sword and raises it high; others have theirs crossed with his. “For the Queen! Long Live Ionie! Long Live the Empire!”
A somber moment for men and women who abandoned their kingdom, for there is no recourse.
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Then, they hear cpping sounds as someone is walking down the stairs. The more magically attuned were armed because there was not even a single wisp of mana emanating from this personage. They take their position around the entrance just as a scarred woman, smiling and amused, walked down the stairs.
She wears cloth of unknown origin. Armor that is dark in color, perfect for ambush or war, that never relies on ostentatious dispy, which many Arganean had grown to regret due to the invention of gunpowder.
“Quite the vow. The gathering was touching.” Her Arganean was stilted, with a foreign accent none of them had ever known. She can see their confusion, and her smile only grows. With a brazen ease, she leans over the doorway, one hand checking her nails.
“I must say, all of you know how to make a theatrical py. Oh, the honor and self-sacrifice for the greater good… man up and admit you’re wrong, will you not?” Her careless comments made them bristle. A sword was jabbed an inch away from the stranger’s clothing.
“Who are you!? And you dare to insult our resolve, cur! We detect not a single crest on you. Even like this, we have the right to flog and-”
“Torture to make an example. Yadida yada yada… You primitives are so predictable it’s boring.” She held her gaze with the serene confidence of a woman who has all the cards. “Then, what resolve? All I see are a bunch of cowards who groveled at the sight of the end.” Having enough, the sword was pulled back and swung in a cutting motion. The swing was precise, and it will only take a heartbeat to kill this insolent-
“Garian.” A word left her lips, simple as that. The one wielding the sword froze and paled immediately. She noticed the expression, and there was a glint of sadistic satisfaction. “Or should I say Aul’verel instead?” His sword trembled before cttering on the floor. “The one child you cannot afford to lose. You see… I know he is being hidden in one of Imperial’s own cities.” His face is paler than a sheet as other members recognize the pattern it is going into.
“It was admirable that you cut his elongated ears so he can blend in better… shame… does this boy look familiar?” She procured a photograph of Garian, or Aul’verel, being gathered around several other children who were supposedly safe. There are all the loved ones gathered in one neat, nondescript room, and each member can see someone they recognize in a picture so clear it reeks of sorcery.
“You wouldn’t dare… the Empire will make you rue the day you’re born.” One of them steeled their heart, if nothing else, to keep themselves from reaching out. Others follow suit, a unified front to cow the singur woman. Yet she keeps on smiling.
“Garian has a cough, you see? So are the other children… we merely keep them alive.” The hatred and desperation are as palpable as hands grip bdes tight. Those capable of greater arcane crackles with energy from an older world. “You can kill me, you have the bde, and I am but a strange woman with even stranger garb… was I not?”
“… You won’t bother showing such brazenness bereft of reason… name your price…” The noblewoman spat with fear and fury; she wanted to cut this abomination in human skin onto ribbons, but she couldn’t. She’s trapped. The monster in question beams at all their disdainful expression. “Now we are talking my lingo… wouldn’t it been so much easier if you opened with that? Oh, name’s Olga by the by… and about that price? Already paid.” Before they could reply, Olga donned her gasmask and the room was filled with gas.
“*Cough!*… I-I can’t…” One slumped down, still breathing. The process is a bit more painful, however. Others soon follow; their body refuses to cooperate, their minds go bnk from the pain, and the arcane energy some had wield dissipates quickly.
“Oh, so it worked… the Thaumaturg Division is a real deal after all.” She mused aloud, sitting down on a chair and pying with her knife. She turns her vision on the one who tried to attack her, bloodshot gre meeting an amused, pitying gaze.
She relished the expression on the face of this person who pointed a bde at her. She is reminded of the war, how a few of her enemies could do nothing but gre at her back, even as their consciousness fades. Contrasting them, she is vibrating with the haughty energy of a puppeteer.
“Let’s watch a King’s glorious return, shall we not?” A soldier simirly garbed as the woman steps out of the shadow before pcing a bulky tube of some sort on the table. More and more equipment was pced on the table as soldiers and technician turns this small gathering room into an advanced listening post for what was to come.
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As the fleet sails through the sea to put an end to this war, the 128 Wyverns forms onto formation straight towards Fallfiore. They move ahead to provide ‘support’ for the ongoing rebellion. Of course, none will care about ‘colteral’ should it come down to it.
The Imperial Knights are eager to win glory and honor, confidence born from successive reports of Raegova’s aerial power being chipped away piece by piece. Many of these bright-eyed recruits never seen war themselves, only that the Emperor promises nds, titles, and rights to own sves.
Amidst this rabble of war hounds with wings are two intelligentsia. [He is not like what I used to remember. Or am I losing my edge finally, Pex?] He spoke quietly inside his mind, the receiver is a friend capable of a very short-range telepathic link. [That is true, something must have been shaking his belief... the Emperor is no fool, unless he has no other choices.]
These two are the weird pair who never spoke about spoils, and at times got singled out with hazing. Unfortunately, their bespectacled appearance hides competence for self-defense and pure skill. Which is why they could join the Air Corps, where many would kill for less.
[... The Beast Bloods... they shouldn’t die like that. There’s a better way for them to continue other than ceasing to exist. The whole war feels wrong, Ythan. Nothing is right so far. From the hasty breaking of retions, and a lightning speed invasion that cost us hundreds of thousands these st years.]
[Most are still alive.] Ythan interrupts him with an agonized chuckle. [... not whole, yes, but alive. They are doing well in the back line, I was told... Pex didn’t buy it, and for a moment, he takes a gander at his fellow riders. Many of them showcase unsavory expressions, both towards Arganean in the isnd, and those on their sides.
[Look at them... mired by the propaganda. We are Intellectuals, Pex, we are better than this. I started the training believing that propaganda, but now that I look at it, we could be the monsters ourselves. The whole thing feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy; the gods love this kind of upset.
[I understand your point, so let me reframe it this way... those Demi-humans, take the Satyr for example, they are faster than humans. Give them an arquebus, and we found ourselves some nightmarish foes whose clopping hoof shall be swallowed by the forest. Then what about the kobold? Their reproduction is closer to ours, and they excel in colder climates while we shiver in our boots. They are the first to go during that war...] He pauses, and that same agony surfaces. Shame, anger, hopelessness, and duty get him through the worst of war. He perseveres because in this state of mind, there’s only them; no one will reprimand their seditious thoughts.
[Next is the elven people, they can pick off an average human from three times the range. If we take in more and more differences... they are simply better than us. An ordinary elven people would make us look no different from shambling orcs. Those Arganean, their culture and blood, had been intertwined with theirs. Acadion had always been the odd one out for our rule of keeping no blood diluted.]
[Arganea is stronger for it.]
[And stunted technologically, with the average peasants remaining under the feudalistic system. General Raegova, as much as I respect the man, is a genuine abomination that never even tried to hide his birth. It was pushing what was appropriate and what was not. Imagine if more like him came out? What would that make our descendants and us?]
[I suppose... You are right... But isn’t it cruel?]
[No doubt. However, if you ask me if I will spare scores of vengeful satyr children and endanger even one human, I will not spare them. I will hunt them down myself if I need to. The seeds of hatred had been too deep; if we lose this and they gain technological parity, the Acadionish people will be the ones getting erased.]
[...] His friend could not answer, and he turned his gaze forward. The questions and answers were not wrong, and it bothers him how the logic is acceptable. There’s no perfect reasoning if one were to look deep, after all. The telepathic link was cut off, and Pex looks above the clear sky, wondering if a god is watching.
“Heaven... is this the right path? Are we not courting death and destruction? I don’t know what the Emperor’s thinking is; I could never hope to, but... isn’t this a prelude to self-fulfilling prophecy?” He turns to Ythan as he keeps his eyes on the isnd ahead, his knuckle clenched the reins tight while his standard issue arquebus hums with magic.
“History taught us that one can’t simply cut a tree and hope for the best... what if that tree was the reason that we aren’t flooded, what if that tree is the foundation on which we are made?” His gaze turns to the Captain speaking about loot, honor, and glory. It pains him how their upliftment from serfdom is followed by the svery of other people. Essentially, nothing has changed but one more stratum on the pyramid.
“What if... what if we made one horrendous mistake?” His soft words lost to the gale of winds, for it is at this moment... he feels truly shaken. ‘Mother... father... I fear... your son will not return from this war... may the gods be kind to our people...’ His soliloquy went nowhere as a fellow dragon knight shouted and pointed to the far sea.
There, through the morning fog that recedes in the early days of spring… sprang forth a beast of steel. A floating castle, but to them it is a monster straight out of a nightmare.
“What in His Imperial Majesty’s Name is that?!” Ythan and Pex turn their gaze to the far sunset… a vessel of steel breaches through the foggy morning to their northeast. It is a vessel that turns carracks and galleons into a skiff by comparison.
All eyes are focused on the triple turrets, housing cannons that made theirs comparable to a child’s wooden toy. Even as they kept their formation, their nerves and minds are jumbled form of chaos.
“How did our mage fail to detect that! Its arcane signature should have been enormous!”
“Oh Gods above… a-are they enemies? Are they with the Arganean!?”
[Stay Calm, you Louts!] The commander shouted into their communication radio, bulky but nothing the wyvern could not handle. [Forget about that vessel! Our mission is clear: we will destroy those savages with our noble steeds! Let our fleet deal with it, even those Arganean could be more than enough as decoys when it comes to the worst possibility.]
The sheer size of those guns quieted down the chatter of conquest and boasts of power, leaving behind a tense aura of fear that the commander tried and failed to corral. 128 wyvern riders cowed into silence as they beheld this leviathan, a true monster from the sea. There’s just one… and its massive guns were angled upwards.
[Pex! Evade!] Ythan screamed through their links. They are abandoning their formation. [Where are you going, cowards! Get back here!] Their commander screamed while brandishing his nce wreathed with thunder.
He doesn’t get a chance to do anything as nine massive roaring guns rippled through the air. It happens so quickly, so suddenly, as it kicks up massive plumes of fmes. Confusion shows up on many of their faces; it is common knowledge that ship cannons will have a hard time hitting flying targets.
“What are they doing?”
“H-Hah! They must have been scared and fired prematurely to intimidate us!”
“Perhaps they are doing some kind of ritual-”
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Three explosion rocks the middle of their formations, screams were cut short as the living became charred and mangled flesh. The proximity fuse of 16” cannons rips their formation into shreds. 17 died alongside their wyverns, and dozens more were wounded.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Before they may even process it, another set of explosions struck merely one or two seconds ter. More and more wyverns and their riders were torn to pieces by anti-air shells. Unknown to them, the Regalian ships are using Victorian-made shells, meant to be used against aircraft (with noticeably disappointing, yet enigmatic results, most of the time) because the Victorians are lunatics like that when it comes to battleships.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* Three more plumes of red gre blossom. Pex and Ythan whom evaded early watch with horrors as their numbers were reduced to less than half. The pair could not even recognize the Commander’s screaming of some righteous fury and other such bogus cims. To them, the battle is already lost, and they turn their wyverns back to the fleet. No doubt the fleet would have been notified, but insurance is still necessary because of how spotty it can get when radio is concerned.
Their choice was the correct one, for they witnessed several insects, birds, or perhaps metal wyverns diving from the heavens. “Gods…” Ythan spoke with horror as their comrades were being eviscerated by fast-firing cannons. These wyverns weren’t nd wyverns with thicker scales, but they doubt that would make much of a difference, seeing how easy they are being torn apart.
The situation only turns for the worse because of the difference in speed, perhaps one and a half or twice as fast. It is useless to chase them; it is useless to evade, and these unknown enemies emitted such a small mana signature. ‘Are the riders of those metal beasts mages then? Are these also scientific war machines?’ Ythan gulps as he recalls how small the mana signature of a peasant armed with an arquebus was. Those are yet another weapon that will render mages, wyverns, and most arcane edge obsolete.
“Ythan! They’re killing them!” His screams were filled with both terror and rage. Despite his reservations, those young men still spend time.
“I know Pex! We must return to the fleet! I am sorry to say this, but we won’t make a difference! Never in hell we will-!” *BOOM! BOOM!* Both wyverns were enveloped in explosions, their riders not being able to say a final goodbye as the grim reaper scythes fell onto them. No st farewell, not even a recognition as the lights were snuffed out of their eyes. Only more bodies to the sughter.
High above, masked by clouds and gales, their hunter was loitering zily before dispatching them with such contemptuous ease. [This is Condor Two. Spshed two bandits. Continuing with CAP.] The Old Jet returns to the formation of loitering air superiority above. Watching over the Arganean’ pilots, racking up kills to hunt for any would-be stragglers.
[END OF CHAPTER]
Author’s Note:
Yo there, this is me, myself, and I, the author who wants to be taking a break… but can’t. Oh well, there will be an update ter.
Oh yeah, these are some of the Grasdivis and Spesdecs’ weaponry.
In order are: AS-640G, (FWCS) RM1, (FWCS) RM1C
Man, we finally entered the opening phase of the war. No doubt many of you question why Regalia lets it all happen, the rebellions and shit, but again… they’re stretched thin. They are not here to touch Zorphal’s domestic madies; that’s his problem.
Is it cruel? Why yes, but I dare wager a lot of country lets many thing slides to advance their strategic agenda. I am not making Regalian Autarchy into a goody-two-shoes here, if you need a reminder.
Update as… uh… yeah
Ciao
