War! War had once again come to Darksol, but this time the war was not started by Darksol but was instead thrust upon it by an outside and foreign power. This was different from the Second Great War against the Luminas Confederacy, as this new foe was not so culturally and religiously opposed in the same sort of way. Both nations, Darksol and Arbiana, were cultural melting pots. Both of them had near-complete freedom of religion and both viewed men and women as essentially equal.

Why, then, was this war started when both nations could have worked together to make themselves better? This question, posed by the media, was answered both by the obviously bigoted, racist, and theistic nature of the document Alexis had taken back with her (and circulated widely to add further legitimacy to Darksol’s war effort) and by the fact that Alexis herself had been the target of an assassination attempt. Certainly, it would have been bad enough if the Arbiana Sultanate had, say, happened to send spies and agents across the border while refusing to open any diplomatic channels or if they had sent agents into Darksol with the intent to ferment riot and revolt (both of which they did), but attempting to assassinate their Empress? That was a step too far.

Now, however, they had crossed the line and even gone a few tens of steps beyond it. Alistaira may have been a recluse, but damn it if she wasn’t partially responsible for many of the creature comforts people now had at their disposal. As for trying to take a ‘diplomatic’ ship and attempting to kill the crew? Well, that was just another grudge that would need to be settled.

Thankfully, the big black sailing ship made of magically enhanced wood arrived back in a safe harbor only a few days after Alexis had come back and had announced the new war, so people were quite happy to see that the living embodiment of an unusual mix of the Tarot Cards ‘The Hermit’ and ‘The Magician’ had managed to make it back. Well, all except for a bunch of Vampires, who secretly wished that she (Alistaira) had died over there and been forgotten about.

Given that the Second Great War had only just been finished less than 10 years ago, there were still a decent number of people who were tired of war, but this would be partially alleviated due to the fact that Darksol’s main military might came from its near-infinite legions of undead who seemingly arose from nowhere at all. If there was one thing that Darksol’s citizenry was grateful for, it was that the law regarding ‘service after death’ had been relaxed somewhat and was only applicable if Darksol itself was severely on the backfoot. Many thanked their slumbering ruler again for his wise foresight in making so many avenues for undead soldiers to be gathered from without relying on the corpses of his own citizenry.

So, as the Sultanate mustered its troops and prepared for war, the necromancers and military commanders in the Greater Darksol Empire simply began to spam the copy button and brought forth over a hundred thousand undead, including zombies, skeletons, dire wolves, fel bats, and occasionally their more advanced counterparts. This was, of course, all in order to allow for the more ‘veteran’ undead to stay behind and guard the entire Empire in the event of the Sultanate pulling a fast one and attempting a naval invasion.

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The Naga who had been haunting the Atlantic Ocean were also given a green light to essentially do almost anything they wanted to the coastline of the Arbiana Sultanate as well. They ended up being the ones who first saw action in the war, mostly by striking at mercantile shipping, military fleets, and by raiding the coastline, but anything to push the war along and keep it in Darksol’s favor was acceptable.

And, of course, the Greater Darksol Empire had another ally to add to the mix. It was one that they were not expecting, but it would be a welcome one regardless. And what was that ally, you ask? Well, as anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge about how nations are built, reinforced, maintained and how they can eventually crumble will tell you, trying to stamp out one of the most basic freedoms of a nation by a tyrannical, overly zealous, and often downright cruel 'new' government is a recipe for disaster. This is especially so when it is trying to crush and eliminate all other religions that were, for generations, not only tolerated but fully accepted.

Sure, the main faith was the main faith, but even among those who worshipped Solinaye, the golden sun himself, there were not an insubstantial number who viewed the eradication of freedom of religion to be… morally dubious at best. So, when the army of the Sultanate, which was supposed to be preparing for the big war that hey had been going on and on about, came to town and started either killing, torturing, and/ or forcibly converting people to their overly dogmatic version of the Golden Path, there was no small amount of distress and rioting.

Ultimately, Darksol’s ally was one that it did not expect; the Sultanate itself. Arcail IV’s fears were coming true; Darksol didn’t need to invade as it could simply sit back and watch as riots and protests turned into mass revolt and insurrection and finally to all-out civil war. Whether you would call it fortunate or unfortunate, the Sultanate still managed to control all of what those from our Modern-Day Earth would call Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, just to name a few places that it had near-complete dominion over.

However, while the Sultanate’s armies were indeed quite large, they had been gutted of all but a handful of their officers and now were being restructured to match the insanely dogmatic views of the new Sultan and the Hawks. To name a few of the rather bizarre changes to the army alone, all ‘armies’ had to be a total of 3,000 men (and purely men, no beasts) strong, divided into 10 battalions of 300 soldiers each; all battalions were formed into specific roles that are to never be deviated from. Every three hours on the hour there had to be a mandatory rest period where one had to stop doing whatever it was they were doing at that point and take a thirty-minute break to pray and/or eat and that they also had to follow a strict code of conduct handed down from the fanatical elements of the Solinaye Church known as the Codex Solinaye.

With all that said, it was plain to see that things should have been a cakewalk for Darksol. But, as so often is the case even in real life, no plan survives contact with the enemy.