For the two souls on Ager who regularly reincarnate, the two have strikingly different views on what the experience between lives is like. One is convinced that there is simply no experience to be had; that there is no consciousness of mind or memory in the between. The other though thinks that there is a consciousness of mind, but that there are no memories that could be formed, and so at most there is perhaps a small taste of that experience that flavors the first few moments of life.
Once their souls bind to their new bodies, while the birthing process can often be traumatic, both would agree that the pre-birth period is a time of peace. Wrapped up protectively in their mother or mother-equivalent. Feeding and growing. A nexus of potential in their half-conscious state.
Until they got stabbed.
<…Status says I’m an [Oni].>
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The [Oni] are one of the more interesting Sapients to inhabit the Eurial continent. A (very rare) Race, they number only twenty or thirty thousand individuals, clustered in villages no larger than five hundred across a few hundred kilometers of heavily forested area in the central part of the continent. Herbivorous. Bipedal. General humanoid form, though with a single curved horn arising from the skull: on the left side for a male, and the right side for a female. (Notably, the Race is known for certain idioms and jokes based upon sex-confusion due to the individual in question facing the wrong way).
Those gender labels though are mostly for convenience in conversing with other Races as the [Oni] have an unusual reproductive cycle: the newborn is grown in a plant-like structure—sometimes simply called an egg—in rich soil with plenty of sunlight. Moreover, when the [Oni] egg hatches the newborn is fully grown (though not necessarily mature), rising up to 3 meters in height, and ready to Class, albeit with only a basic semblance of locomotion and language, and little in the way of personality.
Natural caretakers of forests, the [Oni] are notable for never having engaged in an offensive war in known history.
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“Die [Oni] dogs!” a [Goblin]—no, a [Gobberton]—cried out as it swung its sword at Ilea, who just escaped her egg and had fallen to her knees. Though she knew she had previously been stabbed while immobile, she was so surprised that a—Ding! [Gobberton] (L32) [Swordsman] (L32)—would even try to attack her of all beings.
And, to the [Gobberton’s] surprise, having now been born and her HP finally having been recalculated in support of her Skills, his blade glanced off her with but a minor scratch and the faintest line of blood.
After a pregnant pause, Ilea effortless broke all four of his limbs and hoisted him up by the neck as she rose to her full three meter height in her birthday suit.
Ahem. His birthday suit.
Taking a look around, Ilea found himself within a wide field of [Oni] eggs, most sporting a serious blade wound that told her the “infant” inside was dead. The faint smell of sulphur and smoke hung in the air, and the sounds of battle came from the north where, if the tracks on the ground indicated anything, was the direction where the [Gobbertons] had gone.
“Ah, there you are,” a male voice called from behind in a language that he knew, but seemed unfamiliar with.
Ilea turned around after a pause as the other approached. “Neil,” he acknowledged, taking a gander at his package as well. “What are we speaking?” he asked, rolling the foreign words around in his tongue.
“[North Oni Tongue]. Seems to come with the Race… or maybe the eggs? Being born fully mature is… an unusual aspect for any of the sapient Races.”
“Hmm. Don’t need adults babbling,” Ilea added absently as his brow furrowed deeply, taking in the view of the damaged infrastructure. “What do you think is happening here? Unless we’re terribly out of the loop, I can’t think of any plausible scenario where [Gobbertons] would attack the [Onis]. Or, at least, none that aren’t outright terrible.”
“Is that why you have a prisoner trying to choke himself on his own tongue?”
“Huh?” Ilea glanced at Neil, then down at the prisoner. “Oh,” she said then swatted the [Gobberton] and switched to speaking [Ravornia]. “Stop that. Answer some of our questions and we’ll give you a quick, painless death.”
Ilea watched the [Gobberton’s] rage-filled face closely as [Depose and Say] and [Perfect Negotiation] washed over him. His face relaxed into grim understanding and he grunted. “You speak the tongue well. Yet, you can hardly expect me to betray my people.”
“We don’t want any secrets. Just public knowledge. Why are the [Gobbertons] at war with the [Oni]?”
Befuddlement crossed the tiny man’s face. “You don’t know?”
The two [Oni] glanced at each other. “We were just born. Out of the eggs you’ve been stabbing…We’re out of the loop of knowledge.”
The soldier’s eyes shifted to the cracked open egg Ilea had emerged from, before looking back into his eyes. “It’s our sacred war,” he said with a hint of pain and pride.
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“Against the [Goblins]?”
“[Gob-] what?”
“[Gob-lins].”
“I don’t know what those are.”
As the two pondered that tidbit, a squad of [Oni] clad in armor and armed with weapons moved within shouting range. The squad leader muttered under his breath that he was damn glad that at least some of the newborns had survived, but even at that distance, the pair heard him just fine. “What in damnation are you doing with that Gobber?!” he yelled at them in [North Oni Tongue] as he approached, the spittle practically flying.
Ilea raised an eyebrow at that. “Interrogation.”
“And what could you possibly learn from a Gobber?”
“Why they attacked this…” Neil waved a hand searching for the word, “nursery.”
“Cause we’re at war, sweetheart. Ain’t nothing complicated about that,” he brushed past the two as the soldiers continued to move forward methodically. Calling out behind him, “Now get the kill and follow behind the squad while we move through the rest of this field. Don’t do anything stupid.”
*Snap*
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An hour later and the group had made their way to the only structure nearby, a stone fortress notionally guarding the planted [Oni] nurseries. While most of the nurseries survived, many of the individual eggs had been punctured and the “fetus” killed. Only Neil ◐ and Ilea ◮ had survived and, as they were premature from the expected birthdate—or, in non-[Oni] languages, harvest date—the pair received much more attention from the resident soldiers and trainees than they would have had they awakened together with forty of their brethren.
First though was names. Maxime ◐ and Theodore ◮.
With the losses, the next birthdate wouldn’t be for another four weeks, and even then, it would only be 18 more individuals. While enough for a large squad, it was still half the size of the typical birthings. Nonetheless, impressed by their survival, the local officer supervising had an inkling that the two might be decent leadership material and intended to whip them into shape before their squad was born.
Thus the training began. Six hours of physical or arcana training from early morning to noon. Lunch. Then four hours of classroom instruction. The latter consisted in large part of various matters that go into training and running an army, or at least an army squad. Though there was enough of the local geopolitical construct that the pair managed to piece together some of what was happening.
The [Gobbertons] had apparently been at peace with nearby political powers, as they had been throughout remembered history. Hardworking, industrious, if a bit odd from the outsider’s perspective (what with the no-sleeping and unitary sex), the [Gobbertons] were admired and gawked at.
Then over two decades ago, they surprise invaded several of the nearby very small political states. The war was swift and decisive. The nearby powers grumbled, but few were willing to declare war unilaterally to punish the [Gobberton] nation, the Aerie Republic. Diplomatic messages were sent, military budgets were expanded, and the border guarded more closely, but little else occurred.
Four years later, and history repeated itself. Again, several nearby small political powers were gobbled up by the [Gobberton] nation and incorporated therein. One allied state declared war, but after their main forces were routed in a single battle, they quickly sued for peace. By now, the Aerie Republic had quadrupled in size. Now perhaps only considered a medium-size country—at least in this corner of the world—but not necessarily a huge concern. Still, the response by the neighboring powers was limited. At least though, there were initial discussions about a defensive alliance to be formed.
Then, seven years ago, the [Gobberton] armies moved again. Two small kingdom quickly fell, but seeing a pattern now, a handful of nearby countries declared a just war and sent troops to help the remaining three countries which were under siege.
The first year of the Third Gob War was brutal as the professional soldiers on both sides killed each other. Half the troops on both sides were dead or permanently disabled within nine months. The GDA—the Grand Defensive Alliance—waited, expecting the Republic to sue for peace any month now as the war entered its second year.
Then the reinforcements arrived. Though low-leveled, they were fresh and, given [Gobberton’s] growth cycle, far more powerful than the typical conscripted recruits that other Races could outfit when wars dragged on too long. The Republic’s veterans fell by another 75%, but the GDA’s veterans were nearly wiped out to the one as they were pushed back and another nation fell.
Faced with this new development, several neighboring states that had stayed out of the war realized something terrible about [Gobberton] reproduction and aging rates and the nature of warfare. With that in mind, they quickly joined the GDA, which by now had expanded into a truly grand alliance of [Humans], [Gnomes], [Elves], [Centaur], [Garuda], and [Wolfkin]. Even the [Oni], who had never fought an offensive war in their history, joined.
While the newly joined member-states brought much needed new professional armies to the fore, it was not to last. Scarcely two years later (four years before present), and the professional armies of the GDA had been worn down by 90%. The GDA was fighting a retreating action as the conscripted armies of the oldest members of the GDA—who had lost their professional armies in the first year—fought to hold the line.
Desperate, the GDA members expanded their drafts significantly, even beginning to use growth magic to age teenage [Humans] and other Races’ pre-adult equivalents up to Classing. While limited at first, by three years before present, this program had expanded significantly and for each year of the war that passed, the conscription age for the growth program was expanded (today, they were conscripting and magically inducing growth into nine-year-old [Humans]). While the governments had begun encouraging larger families in the earliest days of the war, the population collapse had been so terrible that civil rights of females in several member-states had been stripped in order that they might birth more soldiers to the cause. Nonetheless, the population boom meant only that there were an excess of children three years of age and younger.
Indeed, even among the civilian male population in those states, and all civilians in the states that hadn’t fallen so low, civil rights were being eroded. While the usual suspects—speech and travel—had faced tightening restrictions, the most notable loss was of Freedom of Status, with both centralized Class control by the nations and required annual Status disclosures in most members of the GDA (or at least attempts thereby, as no method of accessing another’s Status had ever been found, with enforcement relegated to [Identify] and various truth-verifying Skills).
By and large, the [Oni] had avoided some of these excesses, but only because of their unique physiology, namely, their ability to “grow” new members of their own Race who were immediately mature and ready to Class and the lack of any significant distinguishing characteristic between their two sexes. That said, the [Oni] were going through their own population boom as they planted extraordinarily large nurseries and encouraged their people to reproduce often. Indeed, though most of the newly born were immediately inducted into the [Oni] army—the GDA hadn’t integrated their armies, though they were well coordinated—those soldiers were strongly encouraged to reproduce several times before their training concluded and they were sent to the front lines. And, given that new [Oni] were mature, Classable, and relatively easy to train, the [Oni] army had become of vital importance to opposing the [Gobberton] armies.
And yet, despite this all, Maxime ◐ and Theodore ◮ were unable to figure out perhaps the most pressing question: Why were the [Gobbertons] waging total war?
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