Chapter 8: Massive Build Up
In the recent weeks after her return to Kaladia City, Kingdoms that are against Lavant have started ordering Steel wagons by the dozen through Mayor Dalton and because of this I have postponed the production of the newly upgraded Knight Golems with only 10 currently active and helping non stop along with the sentinels with the rapid production of steel wagons, Kaladia’s successful raid behind enemy line and its hit and run tactics impressed the nearby kingdoms so much that other factions has put a little pressure to the City State of Kaladia to sell to them and by extension pressuring Sera Hawke.
Thankfully a compromise has been made. a united front against the Lavant invasion, as the day pass by the borders of Lavant are becoming more and more crowded by Soldiers preparing for an offensive against Kaladia that further encompasses the military might of the Kingdom of Lavant, despite a united front of several Kingdoms Lavant’s forces still outnumber the allied forces 3 to 1 with the only advantage we have is that we have a more steady and secure supply line not to mention having defensive structures is also to our advantage.
With these new found friends and allies it was not as scary to face Lavant now as it did in the past…. however there is troubling rumors spreading not only in the Continental Isle but also in the Western and Eastern Continents as well, the eastern immortals have stirred up while the western beast kin have also been sighted just outside the borders of the Continental Isle.
It didn’t take Sera long to understand that she was missing context on why all that apparently matters, she quickly sent a message to Marianne to have a talk, surprisingly in that evening Marianne did arrive. Sera didn’t even think she would get a reply for at least several days.
“even though I am very busy at the moment. I just have to make time for you Sera Hawke” Marianne said with a beautiful smile as she walked out of her carriage towards the Garden nearby Narud’s mausoleum.
“i didn’t quite expect you to come so soon, but I am thankful and I have questions that need answering and I have nobody to trust” Sera said ash she offered Marianne a seat and some snacks
Slightly surprised “oh a question you say? And what might that be hm?” as she took a bite of a biscuit
She then replied “nothing too complicated. I want to know the details of the war 500 years ago and what the eastern and western continent doing snooping around the continental isle” as they stared each other in the eye as if trying to read each others thoughts
Marianne had a face of surprise “oh? You don’t know? How…… strange” she said. As most children of noble descent would have been drilled in studies, Marianne saw Sera Hawke as an exceptionally smart Lady and this question truly did throw her somewhat off balance.
She continued “well… the first thing you must know is that the war ended 500 years ago but it started 800 years ago, the war lasted 300 years. Now before I continue please do not interrupt me because I don’t want to repeat them” giving an explanation and warning
Sera nodded “sure” as she continued to eat snacks and drink tea
“as far as records go we know for a fact the the Eastern Continent houses the most powerful individuals, groups, factions, sects, kingdoms, empires… etc you get the point, but then like all powerful people they got greedy or tried to spread their GLORY to the world, first was that their so called Immortals ran out of materials for their cultivation and the Western Continent that houses the primitive yet powerful beast kin which became their prime target. as It happened its like killing 2 birds in 1 stone fashion, the beast kin as primitive as they are manage to formulate their own version of cultivation methods”
“the beast kin who already has a natural longevity and strength that rivals that of the Immortals now managed to create their own form of cultivation skill in which basically the only thing that makes the Eastern Immortals as great and powerful as they are, with the Eastern Continent wanting to flex their might and having a cultivation resource shortage the factions in the entire eastern continent formed an alliance with one another and invaded the western continent”
“unfortunately as powerful as the eastern immortals were they are arrogant and thought themselves truly immortals they underestimated the beast kin and their primitive cultivation techniques. that almost led to the annihilation of the entire first wave of eastern invaders”
Marianne took a bite on a biscuit and drank some tea before continuing “the beast kin’s techniques are indeed primitive as they currently were, gave the eastern immortals a huge beating forcing them to take whatever they can get a hold of and retreat, the place they retreated to was the central continent now currently known as the continental isle, once was a full continent now too small to be a continent but also too big to be an island that is now our Continental Isle. Upon the immortals retreat here they are swiftly met with beast kin’s counter offensive, mounting massive flying beasts of the skies and titanic creatures of the ocean, not wanting to get outdone the immortals fought head on shattering a huge chunk of the central continent in the next 100 years of continuous battle.”
“and finally the factions of Central Continent could no longer afford to be neutral banded together to expel the invaders who thought our lands are their battle arena, the Dwarves unleashed their weapons upon the beast kin from the skies with their airship armada while the Elves have proven themselves quite a match for these so called immortals and the humans despite our fragility contributed with our flying fortresses and countless golem soldiers. It was a gruesome battle of attrition one side simply refused to back off, until of course after 200 years of war eventually they just got tired of fighting and finally backed off”
“and I believe that kind of knowledge is known to most children Sera Hawke… what are you playing at here?” she then said after finishing her history lesson
“no plays, no games… let’s just say these type of so called knowledge did not reach me in my growing years…. thank you for the story by the way, somehow it all makes sense now”
Marianne narrowed her eyes inspecting Sera’s expression “hmm…. that is strange indeed, would that be all Lady Sera? If there’s no more I have a lot to do..” but before Marianne could finish talking
“i have also finished 30 steel wagons you can get them as soon as you’re able, and yes that would be all thank you” said Sera as she stood up and walked Marianne to her carriage
When Marianne was no longer within sight Sera thought to herself “great… now I have to worry about a war that started 800 years ago having a comeback, at least now I wont be the target this time I better focus of Lavant’s massing army on the borders first”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Followed by Banshee like a shadow Sera went straight back to work in her newly built underground laboratory sneaking 1 Knight Golem after every 10 steel wagon she finished she simply cant let her own defense become stagnant now that she knows about certain powers are about to clash again. “heh I wonder if Continental Isle would become just a literal island after this” she thought to herself.
In the following days Sera was contemplating heavily on whether making massive wooden golems again just to bolster her numbers but ultimately decided against it she thought “the control crystals would better be used on efficient fighters instead of cannon fodders”
In the abandoned mines she managed to obtain several tens of thousands of low quality mana stones and several thousands of control crystals, but soon she would have to stop wasting these resources on vehicles and start investing on an actual formidable fighting force. As Sera thought deeper as she worked “ if I am reading this correctly Lavant’s aggression in the Continental Isle is most likely planned by either the Beast Kin or the Immortals, otherwise the timing of their appearance could now be explained while the Continental Isle is fighting amongst themselves the East and West could then continue their war on the Continental Isle unimpeded”
Continental Isle
Elven Glades
A figure suddenly opened his eyes after using Scry a special spell that allow someone to look on distant places as if it is in front of you “They have moved and they are not even bothering to hide anymore” a tall man with sharp facial features milky white skin many would mistake him as female despite his muscle tone body
The man is sitting on a throne like tree as if carved. In his front are also Elven warriors standing straight lined up and awaiting orders his words sent a shiver to the Elves inside the throne room which is made entirely out of a carved enchanted tree.
The man sitting on the throne then said “one of our scouts in the mortal lands have returned with her reports, the recent events have shown that the Kingdom of Lavant maybe getting help from the Immortals of Eastern Continent…”
Before finishing his sentence the crowd broke in deep gasps of surprise, alarm and bloodlust some could not even hold themselves and talk in front of the Elven King.
One particularly old Elf has voiced his resentment “war is about to hit our territories… again, many of our sacred glades burned to ashes on their arrival, they even managed to steal a young yggdrasil tree and a handful of seeds… this cannot go unpunished!!”
The old elf then continued “I was there 800 years ago when they invaded my glades caught unprepared my own kingdom gone overnight! You will help us get our revenge… right!? King Adun?”
King Adun simply nodded and said “worry not old one we have been preparing for their unfortunate but eventual return for 500 years the Templars are ready and waiting for war” he then raised his hand and hypogriph messengers flew towards other Elven glades human Kingdoms and Mountain strongholds of the Dwarves.
Continental Isle
Dwarven Underground Halls
In just several hours after the Elves sent their hypogriph messengers Dwarven Lords mustered their royal guards to gather at their ancient Underground Halls back when the Central Continent was still whole, before the end of the day airships descended from the skies each marked by different coat of arms.
Due to the hasty and seemingly urgent summons many Dwarf Lords came even without completely knowing the entire reason, for the Elves to use such a creature for a message delivery was only used during times of war to ensure the message was not intercepted.
The Dwarven Lords despite their differences minded their own territories after the death of the Dwarf King 600 years ago but despite their differing ideologies they always stood united against all potential enemies, after reading the contents of the Letter from the King of Elves Adun, the ancestral halls were filled with fear of war and blood lust for vengance at the same time.
Obviously nobody wants to die but the anger they feel the destruction of Central Continent, the countless death of their kin. During the war many heroes rose to prominence and also died tragically in the flames of war, but now centuries of preparation drilled to them by their elders had brought the current Dwarven Council ready and waiting for war at any given moment since decades ago. It is only now that in their lifetime that they would finally see whether their preparations would make a difference.. unlike in the past.
Ancient war machines came back to life, after the first human wizard made his golem spell model public the Dwarves secretly studied and improved the spell model. It was only out of respect that they did not presented the world their more powerful and improved golem spell model, the current Dwarven golem spell model can move independently without constant control like a puppet as it only needs to be given orders like a normal person but sadly some flaws still remain the intelligence of these improved golem spell models are similar to a 12 year old child making them impossible to do complicated commands.
The airship armada remains the same almost stagnating in development, but they at least managed to make a flying fortress by incorporating their airship design to small but solid landmass. As the Dwarfs weapons of war rolled out of their shelves the entire Dwarven race was ordered by the council to procreate as the war inches forward by the second they will need new generations of Dwarfs to continue their legacy. They knew full well that the Eastern Immortals have very long life spans almost rivaling that of the Elves they now have tried to mimic the humans advantage.. numbers
Kaladia City State
After two months Sera Hawke has told everybody that she would stop producing steel wagons in order to focus on her own project after gaining 30,000 gold coins she became one of the wealthiest individuals in Kaladia 3rd only to the merchants and noble houses.
These days Sera was more preoccupied by building her own army of Knight Golems. She also has begun designing a giant plane like fortress that would make the skies her own domain the real and literal aircraft carrier filled with flying Knight Golems keeping her safe, out of reach and always on the move.
The current design of the plane fortress is more similar to an AC - 130 gunship but bigger, shoots omnidirectional and better defended but instead of heavy plating magic barrier spells allover the ship, with 30 turrets of 100mm railguns.
“But unfortunately in the current state of Kaladia I would not be able to get my hands on enough metals to build that project, which would mean I have to participate in the war actively and harvest as much metals I can from enemies” Sera thought to herself
Every time Sera would stretch her legs walking around the city or even by just relaxing in her garden she would be met by people of noble status making proposals to her both business and marriage alike.
Back at the underground laboratory there are currently 50 Knight Golems lined up but ever since she discovered the potential intercontinental war in the near future she decided to create something like canon fodders. Sera intended to recreate fodder units but wooden golems require a lot of trees to be harvested from the forests a time consuming project with meager returns.
After some thought the nearby mines on the other hand had some Granite, after thinking it through Granite is a lot stronger than Quartz. The spell model for the Granite golems are quite strange the only spell model she has from Narud’s Library is a skeleton type Golem for Granite.
Sera in the past tried the spell model for Steel Golem in a Mud Golem… regardless to say the spell is ineffective, there is just something about the properties that are spell specific something Sera Hawke cannot understand, as a matter of fact Sera don’t know magic in even the most basic sense if it was not for her modern Knowledge of the table of elements and physics, Sera would not be even able to do anything with Narud’s Library.
Therefore she was forced to just follow the recipe for a Granite Golem, due to its sturdy material and lackluster spell model it somewhat became an ideal canon fodder unit that just fits her needs currently, after several hours of coding the control crystal the first Granite Skeleton Golem came to life.
Skeleton Granite Golem - 3 meters - 100 Kilos
Light Armour - because of its skeletal design it is extremely lightweight making an ideal assassin like unit it has the control crystal in its skull while the eye sockets have low quality mana stones, due it its light weight it can almost outrun and outmaneuver the Cavalry making it ideal to attack the softer back lines of the enemy army while using dual daggers.
Granite is considered one of the strongest natural object in the world… at least back on earth but regardless of its actual strength here as long as it is abundant and useful it will be used. The Granite mines usually gets its orders from constructing castle walls or important structures like military bases, so it makes a strange sight that the rumored Sera Hawe was interested in the material and have ordered en masse even after her remodeling was finished.
“i can feel the tension in the air the entire city is prepared for battle other Kingdoms have sent their forces to garrison the outer city. Dozens of stone towers are rising from its construction as the days go by and information about Lavant’s army have stopped, indicating that even spies can no longer gather information without being caught, killed or chased away. Now its estimated to be only a matter of weeks before the first official clash of this war begins”
Luckily for Sera she managed to think about planting backyard vegetables like potatoes and tomatoes in her garden, she even created a scaffolding like structure that looked like a secondary wall months ago, now she should be able to support her entire employees and their families even if the war gets prolonged, in which it definitely be a prolonged war based on the previous records despite their eagerness for war there involves a lot of prodding after all nobody wants to die first, until it escalates in a full frontal assault, with luck this war should at least last only a few decades now that people are smarter that to fight a prolonged Inter Continental War… “yeah right…. this Continent or whatever that is left of it will sink to the depths of the abyss if the Locals don’t do this right” Sera thought to herself
Soon after reminding herself to remove distractions and focus on her work for whatever little time she has left before madness envelopes the City of Kaladia.