After I received the dreadful message us of the Kalipaonin Regiment continued our eastward campaign. The commander and Nestyne had delayed us as long as they possibly could in hopes our reinforcements would arrive, but the tides of war are such that they can only be swayed to a certain extent for any force lesser than the whole. Despite our best efforts, Nestyne and myself could not recover fully Carinon’s sound mind, and although she was in better health she was in little state for the complex and dangerous magicks of war.
For this,-and the delayed nature of our reinforcements-, we continued our campaign at greater risk to the regiment and ourselves.
Nature had struggled to recover from the extended winter, and at times the season of spring seemed to forego its presence. Lengthy portions of the Junumianian planes seemed as if trapped within summer, or winter, or autumn, as if a gridded board to play games of warfare. These sections, however, never lengthy to make a delay of progress to better fit our attire worth the time. The smallest of these were less than a mile, and the most expansive might take slightly over a day’s march. This corruption of Nature and all things natural was a mere inconvenience to the dangers posed by the Junumianian mages.
As we trod long days to stay at pace with the other Moringian regiments,-much longer than previous-, we were at far greater risk of ambush. Having seemingly intimate knowledge of Carinon’s health and our harsher conditions, the Junumianian mages took healthy advantage of this. Early into our campaign the fire mage, riding upon the back of a newly created gargoyle, positioned far above us into the gaze of the sun and set fires upon the plains deep below his flight. Unnoticed until it was too late to prevent the plains being alight I was able (with some ill effect to myself) to set the blaze further away from the regiment. Our progress for the day was halted, our magickal capabilities were temporarily more limited, and our morale was damaged. If one enemy mage could cause such delay and damage, it did not bode well for the long march eastward to our first destination: the city of Nuracimens.
In the evening merely days after the fire mage’s first assault (and not long enough to have recovered fully from my counter magicks), my regiment found ourselves set upon by relentless golems; similar to the one previously constructed by Nestyne, yet fourfold they appeared seemingly from nowhere, for there was no forest for them to hide for miles. Quatimonian, exerting himself, was able to successfully dispose of the golems with a spell of rolling tides, and found himself unbalanced with a case of sea legs for several days. The common soldiers of the regiment went into the next day without much rest, for the intrusion had been late into the night and had taken nearly an hour to eliminate. Our nightly guard was soon increased, and one mage was required to be awake at all times. Nestye and Carinon were exempted of these duties for both could not safely use countermagicks, leaving four hours of each watch to Quatimonian and myself.
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These small harassments occurred regularly over the course of several weeks, and soon the effect on capabilities of Quatimonian and myself began to be noticeable. Words would slip our tongues, our spells crafted in more haste, and we could retain less magicks for we did not have the restful mind by which to memorize complex spellcraft. The tactics of the Junumianian forces were taking their toll, and we had yet to reach our first destination.
The tactics of our enemies were not just a matter of taxing our magicks, however, but a matter of taxing our morale. Consistently in meetings of strategy we found ourselves asking why our enemy had switched tactics. Why had the matter of warfare and battles been so greatly altered by the winter? How could they maintain their guerilla tactics at such a rate without concern for their men’s safety in battle against four mages? And quickly these questions spread as a plague among our own men. With the state of our mages would we be able to hold against these tactics when treachery loomed over our heads hungry for men and their woe? The sun could no longer be trusted for warmth, only wrath. The dirt could no longer be trusted to hold men, but to drag them beneath and suffocate with cold mud.
What we did not realize then was that it was Extirpation’s war. A war of greed and power, and it is precisely for this reason that the Junumianian’s became more aggressive. In part they were tempted by glory and greed to recklessness, but in part they were given the opportunity because we were the aggressors.
In the waters of the islands far to the south there lives a fish with a bulb of light upon its head, and with this bulb it leads other fish into mazes of caves wherein the water is so brackish and terrible that it chokes all fish but this fish. This fish,-brutal, cunning, massy-, does not draw only fish. It often draws men and children out to sea and into darkness, imagining riches as they are drawn within its cavernous maw. Junumianis was this fish. Before us lay a bright bulb; hope that the war soon may end. Yet, the waters slowly began to choke, and we wandered aimless into our foe’s forest of teeth. One of these teeth was the spy within Moringia, who was a cur and a scoundrel. The other was the necromancer who had sided with Junumianis for wealth, a poisonous fang of foul magicks and distaste for goodness.
The necromancer struck in Nuracimens, and we were lucky the whims of Borrinean found us within the dark forest of Extirpation’s war. You are lucky the whims of Borrineanf found us, for I was the only one fit to drink of the first yew.