Royal Institute of Magery
Prime Scholar Marco Tulip sat back and rubbed at his tired eyes. He was seated in a plush wing-backed chair made from a luxurious dark wood with a crimson cushion and backrest lined in gold. As the official head of the Royal Institute, Marco had his hands full as a regular part of his duties. Being responsible for the entire mage population of a kingdom was troubling, tiring, and often annoying work involving way too much paperwork and not enough research or personal time. Adding in the current conquest of Dather and the discovery of that goblin warren hole only increased the pressures.
These days Marco had very little time for anything else. All the beautiful leather-backed books lining the shelves of his spacious office sat unused since he had no time to peruse them. Since he was officially acknowledge as the strongest mage in the kingdom, he should have been knee deep in his own research into the Sacred Arts. But since it was an open secret that he was actually just the third strongest mage in the kingdom, behind Theresa and Tika, his position amounted to actually running things on a more granular scale than he would have liked.
"They sure had the right idea, avoiding this thankless job," Marco grumbled to himself as he dragged the report from mages embedded in the Pervalian offensive army. It seemed that things were going very well for the invading forces so far, but everyone expected the battles to get much harder after the conquest of Mountainhold. Currently the central offensive army was holding position roughly half-way through the mountain range, and they would soon come into range of another fortress. Already preliminary scouting of both the mundane and magical kind told a story of a stiff magical resistance being erected. Theresa would not be able to utilize another null-beam since they were concentrating their magical forces to match the arch-mage. Current numbers put Dather's enemy mage corps facing the Central Army at around 3 to one. More than enough to effectively nullify Pervalia's magical advantage in the region and bring the two forces more into parity.
King Eddard was considering a second round of drafts on the mundane and magical population in order to reinforce their position and break open the fortress, allowing access into the fertile lands beyond the valley. Marco figured this would just serve to make sure that more people killed, and privately he thought that the Pervalian forces would be permanently stymied in the mountains. The amazing success against Mountainhold Pervalia had enjoyed so far was sure to end abruptly.
Marco pulled the proposal he was drafting towards him. The imperial goal Eddard had set for himself faced two primary issues. The largest issue was the food supply of a largely agrarian country. The second issue was already within their grasp - mainly securing the iron mines on this side of the Dather mountain range, which would allow them to expand their weapon production by a factor of three or four. A new issue would arise in a lack of suitable talent to work the metal. Marco just had to frame Pervalia's conquest so far and show that they need not waste coin or lives taking the fertile valley's of Dather.
"I favor ending the war as well," came a creaky ancient voice from Marco's open office door way. In it stood Julian Falconson, the Prime Minister of Pervalia and one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom of Pervalia. "The issue is one of drainage. The giant swamp that borders Dather's mountain on the Pervalian side is not a great area for farmland," the prime minister entered the room and sat across from Marco with the assistance of a page. At 70 years old, the Minister found it hard to move around even with magical aid's and assistance.
"That is what the heart of my proposal will be. I need your help to make the King see that if we utilize our mage population drain off the swamp, he will have decent farmland in a few years. We can drain most of the water off by creating a channel around the Iron hold mountains and into the kingdom proper. With minimal loss of life and it will cost much less than a full campaign to crack the Mountainhold fortresses..."
"Hmm... It could work. Especially if you offer some assistance with opening mines in the Mountainhold. A couple of Scholar-Miners would go a long way towards producing fruitful iron mines," The minister added thoughtfully.
"I don't even think we will need to do that. There are several mage-merchants who would jump at the opportunity to produce a viable mine in those mountains," Marco added, "but we can ensure several come directly under the King's domain, so the attractiveness of paying less for minerals should sweeten the deal enough for his liking..." Marco drummed his fingers on the desk as he considered all the leverage needed to shift the King from his current course of action.
"I think we could sell it to him. As unrealistic as it is, Eddard dreams of an empire that spans from the Blood Sea to the Emerald Ocean. Dather is but a very small portion of that proposed empire. One that can be cracked at a later date, when Pervalia surrounds it on all sides, with a much larger pool of man and mage to draw from..."
"Alright... Take a look at this for me and lets get to work," Marco's said, passing the report and the proposal over to Julian for a look.
Fortress Gulubard, Mountainhold, Dather
"It's not fucking likely," commented Count Carlos Gol'Gate from across the large table. Gol'Gate hailed from the Duchy of Iron, and was one of the closer advisors to the Duke of Iron. "That fortress spans the length of the mountain pass, has four successive walls each higher and thicker than the last, with four donjons and forty thousand men. They can't be starved, they can't be whittled, and my mages inform me that it will be neigh on impossible to breach the fortress magically with our current mage forces, not when they are reputedly outnumbered three to one," he continued.
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Duke Thrain considered these points in silence for a moment before nodding his head. "Agreed. As it stands, with our current forces, we can only seek to hold onto the territory conquered so far. Without Archmage Theresa we would probably be suffering under sorcerers fire already. Thankfully Dather has not produced an Archmage in the last few centuries. Order the men to encamp and begin construction of fortifications. I want the mages to begin to quarry stone from the mountain side. Let us see if we can construct our own wall." Thrain ordered, signaling the end of the larger council. Count Murdet and Gerald stood up, exiting the massive tent.
"At least we won't be ordered into a suicidal charge. The duke has to be very pleased with the territory gains thus far," Murdet commented to Gerald.
"An expansion of his total duchy size by twenty, maybe twenty five percent. I would be damned happy in his position. He ordered the engineer's guild to build up the infrastructure required to extract and process metal about a year ago. No matter which way this goes, he stands to make a lot of coin," Gerald responded as they walked towards their horses.
"I guess at this point it depends on what the King orders. The Duke of Iron benefits from further aggressive action into Dather," Murdet said as he mounted his horse, waiting for Gerald to do the same.
"I think the other six dukes will likely pressure King Eddard into ending the aggression into Dather early. They won't want to foot the cost in lives or coin for only the Duke of Iron to gain. Not with the free cities or the cold isles available to grab land from," Gerald spurred his horse into a canter, leading the way as the two friends headed towards the Hexenguard encampment.
"Well, either way there isn't much for us to do but wait," Murder echoed Gerald's thoughts aloud.
The Royal Council Chambers, City of Pervalia, Pervalia
"We are swayed councilor Tulip." Eddard announced to the general council after he had reviewed the proposal. Everyone had received a copy and Julian figured roughly half the council was on their side to begin with. "In the long run we wont need Dather just yet to support Our imperial ambitions, and to end this war now before too much more is lost will please the Dukes," Eddard continued, speaking mostly to himself. "Thrain can't complain too much considering what he stands to gain." Eddard finished.
"Your Majesty, ending the expansion at Mountainhold would also make it seem like Pervalia is only securing it's borders, not seeking to conquer more. Our future conquests might be tricked into believing such a tale, allowing us to prepare for our next conquest in relative peace." added Julian, and Eddard nodded. No one actually believed they would fool anyone, but it was nice to plan for Julian supposed.
"Very well. We hereby order the conquered mountain fortresses to be rebuilt and garrisoned by Thrain.
The Sands
Zerial stood with the other recruits before Knight Commander Roderick as he surveyed them. Over the past few months the recruits had filled out a healthy amount of muscle given the excellent diet and rigorous training they had undertaken. They stood in chain mail armor with steel conical helms clutching full-sized spears in a perfect formation. "Tomorrow begins the next phase of your training recruits," Roderick told them and ignored the expectant inhalation of breath. They would finally move on from slaughtering wooden dummies with various weapons to trying to bash each other's heads in. Roderick had refused to advance the recruits into dueling until he was sure they possessed the discipline necessary not to kill each other.
They had trained with many weapons, starting with spears and rapidly moving on to every other weapon that Roderick could get his hands on - which was basically all of them. They would not do very well in a duel but they had learned the basics of nearly every weapon from a sharp to blunt, ranged and otherwise. Over the next few years each of the boys would be trained to fight effectively with every weapon against opponents big and small, fast and strong. The first year of their training had formed an extremely strong and professional foundation from which Roderick could build. Hexenguard Knight's took much time, effort, and coin to train but the results spoke for themselves every time there was a war or tournament.
"Tomorrow you will begin one on one duels against the other recruits until you master the basics again, but this time with someone swinging back at you. This will repeat for every weapon we have taught you minus the ranged weapons since you can't very well parry a fucking arrow," Roderick chuckled grimly. "At first you will fight using the same weapons, and then as mastery is achieved we will swap it out for things such as dagger versus sword, mace versus spear, and so on and so on until we make a full rotation. For now you are released to be at liberty. Go see quartermaster Howard and he will provide you with a little pay for you to enjoy..." with that Roderick called the small formation to attention and dismissed them.
Greenburg, The Trembling Tavern
"We're doing it gentlemen. We're finally doing it!" cried Sebastian, already half drunk on ale screamed in excitement. Zerial cackled with mad glee. "Tomorrow we take another step further on the path to becoming knights of the realm!" Sebastian finished as he sloshed ale onto the table.
"Aye, we have a long way to go but I have full faith that we will find our way through!" Added John and then proceeded to smash mugs with Sebastian before downing the rest.
"More ale, please!" Sebastian shouted, and with a sigh the long suffering bar-man filled another round.
"Last one kiddo's" he said, smiling in spite of himself. He had served many generations of recruits who were released to Greenburg for their first taste of leave.
"Ay, we aren't children anymore!" Tameral said seriously to Tom, the barman, and met his eye seriously. Tom tried his best to nod seriously and not crack a smile.
"Aye, not children... But not yet squires," he said, reminding them all of the years of hard work that remained before they even began the second part of their journey.
"Oh sodd off tom!" yelled Jack from across the bar, drawing laughter from everyone at the recruits expense.