Like water that is at the perfect temperature and pressure to be solid, liquid, and gas all at once, we have three nations in uncertain terms. Will it tip in anyone’s favor? We’re at a triple point in history.
Thorn Selisie, King of Lyrica, sat on the throne, gazing down at the agent in black kneeling before him. They were alone in the room.
“Continue,” he said.
“A medallion with Deramin’s mark was found after the battle.”
Thorn shook his head. “That makes no sense. What do the Analysts say?”
“That it makes no sense, Your Majesty.”
“And Amelia? Arpeggio? What of them after the battle?”
“Her Highness the Princess Knight is recuperating and unharmed. Her Esteemed Self the Sentinel is ordering additional Inquisition assets to Harmony.”
Without Thorn’s knowledge? Well, the woman did whatever she wanted, and he would’ve agreed, anyway.
The agent continued, “She is personally directing the hunt for the culprit, suspecting demonic interference.”
“Demons?” Thorn blurted out. It had been a while since he’d ever heard the word said aloud. “And what do the Analysts say about that?”
“Together with the Royal Detector, they have determined a high likelihood that the Cult of the ###### God is cooperating with them, and are responsible for this incident.”
Thorn nodded. He sighed. He rubbed his head. He slightly lifted his crown and scratched the itch under there, too. “Very well. You are dismissed.”
“At once, Your Majesty.” The agent slid into the shadows.
Thorn rang a bell, and the doors opened, his Attendant walking in. “Bring Lady Milit here,” Thorn said. The Attendant bowed and closed the doors behind her.
Within fifteen minutes, there was a pair of iron boots marching down the hall. Three knocks on the door, and an announcement by the Attendant later—“Lady Karran Milit, enters with your approval!”—and before Thorn stood a head of iron-gray hair and scars of battles untold.
“Your Majesty, I am at your service.” Milit took a knee.
“Rise,” Thorn said. “This is a royal command. Secure the Harmony Region against the Cult. Expect demonic interference. That is all.”
“Yes, my liege.” Lady Milit knocked her breastplate in salute. “Goddesses Below, witness.”
“Goddesses Below, witness,” Thorn echoed. Lady Milit turned right round and left the room, leaving Thorn to wonder just how things had gotten to this point. He sighed, rubbing his head and closing his eyes. “Mana dragons,” he muttered.
***
In the midst of the cricketing Harmony night, Cressian Irulia, RIA spy extraordinaire, climbed up the usual red barn on the outskirts of town. Amid the smell of animals and the prickliness of hay, he found the telegraph equipment safely stowed away, untouched in the corner.
It was disguised as a small beer barrel, and it could actually take some beer. He removed the top plate, and an even smaller beer barrel—the actual beer barrel—before he finally took out the hinged wooden case that contained finely-crafted magitronics.
The animals were stirring at his presence. He tapped away at the telegraph key, nervous that the barn’s owner might notice and come inside.
A319 . PK KILL M DRAGON IN M WALL . ARMY MVMNT SPIKE . DEMON NT SEEN AGAIN .
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That’s it. He packed up and left.
His message first reached the relay station on the Republic’s side of the border, not 30 kilometers from Harmony to the west-northwest. From there, the message propagated through another five relay stations, through hundreds of kilometers, between hidden camps in valleys and ancient towers on mountain peaks, until reaching the smoky capital of the Republic of Icassius-Artemia, Ferrivitum. (Ica.: Ferrivitum; Art.: Ferrastia; Lyr.: Fellentum)
The capital was shrouded in furnace smog. It was noisy, and the people and auto-carriages in the streets ebbed and flowed in their own waves.
A final receiving station—the tallest tower, nothing more than a thin scaffold of metal pipes shooting up hundreds of meters above everything else—conducted the electromagnetic waves down to a receiving room, where a crew of mages of rotated in and out, nothing more than human batteries whose MP was necessary to keep the magitronics alive.
Thumb-wide strips of paper tape were fed into boxy machines, each weighing hundreds of kilograms, yet no larger than a fruit crate. Inside was a needle which punched the paper as it moved underneath, much like a sewing machine. Each time a signal was received, the needle would spin up and rapidly punch the paper; the longer the signal, the longer the trail of holes. It was in this way that Morse code was printed out.
The Icassians called them aculoqium. The Artemians called them acuhabia. Neither could agree on what to call a teleprinter, but the RIA—the Republican Intelligence Agency—simply called it a “talking box.”
There were two rows of the machines, twenty in all, receiving messages from ambassadors, commanders, and spies from all over Terithia. Their operators were also the agents’ handlers—selected, vetted under strict criteria, and paid handsomely, the RIA did everything in their power to ensure their loyalty and integrity.
One teleprinter’s operator steadily pulled out the paper tape containing Cresh’s message.
[ A319 . PK KILL M DRAGON IN M WALL . ARMY MVMNT SPIKE . DEMON NT SEEN AGAIN . ]
She glanced left and right before cutting out a part of the message.
[ A319 . PK KILL M DRAGON IN M WALL . ARMY MVMNT SPIKE . ⋮
...before delivering it to her superiors.
This simple message from Agent 319 threw the tobacco-stained intelligence chiefs into an uproar. They argued under an incandescent lamp that swung ever so slightly from the air they huffed from clamoring over what to do.
“It’s a mana dragon! Of course it’s Deramin!” a balding ex-colonel said with a smack of the table. His tattoos showed around his wrist, where his sleeves had pulled back.
“It makes no sense. Deramin and Lyrica have stayed out of each other’s way for thousands of years. Why now?” a shrewder man with whiter hair said.
“They could be...conspiring.” A younger man in a suit leaned in. “Deramin feigns an attack on Lyrica, and Lyrica uses it as an excuse to station its regiments near the Lumberwar-Harmony border.”
“But for what use?” the shrewder man asked.
“A statement, of course!” The ex-colonel threw his hands up. “Our agents have been entering Lyrica by way of Lumberwar-Harmony for years, now! I don’t believe there is a man in this room who doesn’t respect the adeptness of their Inquisition at this shadow game, is there?” He scanned the room. The other chiefs, quiet until now, bemoaned such a difficult fact. He continued, “It’s obvious. They must know by now, or else they wouldn’t have made such a drastic move!”
“The only drastic move they’ll ever need is to assassinate all our agents at once,” the shrewder man said. “They can do that, can’t they?”
The ex-colonel scoffed and shook his head, but he knew he was right.
“Be that as it may,” the younger man cut in, “we still have no eyes nor ears near the Throne, nor beyond the Monster Wall. We need to consider that we have known nothing about Deramin-Lyrica relations for the past 100 years. Something must have changed.”
The shrewd man and ex-colonel nodded at the young man’s analysis.
A recommendation was soon passed to the President to station an infantry division near Lumberwar, a full corps of 10,000 professional soldiers, cavalry, and logistical troops.
All this, because the Cult had been diligent to corrode the RIA’s chain-of-information for many years. The RIA chiefs had never even heard of any demons anywhere near Harmony.
***
Suffice to say, the Council of Deramin was very confused. They didn’t remember summoning a mana dragon at any point. One of their rangers had reported sighting a flying human with a sword in one hand, and a medallion in the other. True to their fears, one of the Council’s medallions was missing from their treasury.
They had never held contempt for Lyrica. It was one of the few human nations who had stuck to the old ways, faithful to those above and below, and in times of world crises, it was the only human nation that the elves could turn to as allies co-signatory to the old treaties—who even remembered the old treaties.
They held great faith that Lyrica would not mistake this random mana dragon attack as one of their own ... but it helped to be certain rather than blindly trusting, especially after not speaking to them at all for so long.
Other ranger battalions have also reported border movements of the now-allied human kingdoms of Icasius and Artemia. Their armies were receding, and where armies receded, they would surely resurface somewhere else. No one needed to think too hard that their point of resurgence would be near the site of the mana dragon attack, close to an ancient Lyrican settlement, once called Before-The-Elven-Gate: Anteportum-dryadis.
That place had its own history of conflict between Lyrica, Artemia, and Deramin. Where humans exist, the wiser of the Council bemused, history repeated.