Cent. Calendar 24/12/1639, War Department, Esthirant, Parpaldia, 9:00

Back on the other side of the straits, preparations for a hot conflict in the straits—an event long anticipated and feared by all involved—was underway. Although preparations had already begun long ago, with the Parpaldian military having had a heightened state of readiness for decades following the initial flare-up of tensions with Altaras, there was still a long way to go before they could bring most of the military to the fight. At the War Department, the main building of which is located in the Imperial Palace complex not too far from where the imperial family’s residences are, the highest-ranking officers of the Parpaldian military have convened to discuss war plans. Most of them, anyway.

“Where the hell is the Supreme Commander?!”

A burly man in a crimson-red uniform barked out in irritation. The golden sash adorned with medals that wrapped around his body identified him as the Imperial Army’s chief of staff. His question was directed toward no one in particular, but the other men seated around the long mahogany table took it as an affront to themselves and hurled back at him his sentiment.

“Like hell we’d know!”

“Shouldn’t it be you who’s supposed to be keeping tabs on him?!”

“In case your brawn-for-brains hasn’t comprehended the obvious: I am not his chauffeur!”

Naked, bare insults and stinging remarks flew across the room, the vulgar, coarse tones they were manifested in echoing all throughout the decadent walls of this one single chamber in the War Department. As unprofessional and uncouth as this may seem, this was actually nothing less than an established mutual understanding between all the big men in the room. As the highest ranking members of Parpaldia’s renowned military institution, it goes without saying that the men that occupied this space were some of the most powerful in the entire empire: most present were estate owners; some were grand dukes and princes of incorporated, annexed, and key territories; a select few were members of the imperial family; fewer still were direct allies of Ludius in his faction. Since this highest echelon of military command had in itself both an explicit and implicit rank structure based on a delicate mixture of seniority, ties with the imperial faction in power, and territorial possessions, it was only natural that a cutthroat environment of power plays was in place. However, recently, with the specter of Ludius’s unifying influence over much of the imperial machine bearing over even this powerful group of men—some of which were even on friendly terms with him—they had to play nice, tolerate each other’s presence, and dance with ‘fierce’ loyalty to His Highness’s imperial ambitions in public appearances since the military was front and center in his foreign policy against rival powers in the area. As such, this one meeting place in the War Department where only they were present was the only such place where they could directly air their disdain for the other guy’s existence right in his face.

It was in this moment of unfiltered and unadulterated exchange of death threats that the doors to the meeting chamber were flung open. As each man scrambled to swiftly fix their uniform, correct their posture, and wipe the saliva from their staches, they all watched in passive annoyance as the man of the hour walked into the room. They scrutinized the lackluster grace in his walking posture, his unkempt shoulder pads, the missing button from his right wrist cuff, and the hairline on his scalp that had receded by a few thumb lengths since the last time they saw him. However, all these petty violations in etiquette and dress paled in comparison to what was probably the worst offense...

“Supreme Commander, If I may.”

The Army Chief of Staff, restraining the urge from putting his hand up to his face, looked at the tall, lanky man that was the Supreme Commander with watery eyes.

“Go ahead.”

“With all due respect, we’ve been waiting all morning for you. May I inquire as to the reason why you were not able to join us earlier?”

In an ideal setting, he was in no position to ask such a direct question to one that was superior to him in rank, but the unanimity of the rest of the men present in wanting the answer to that question, made apparent by their collective scrutinizing gaze towards the Supreme Commander, forced the man’s hand.

“That’s none of your business, General.”

Shaking it all off of his consciousness, the Supreme Commander nonchalantly went on his way toward his designated seat. As for the others, they could only hold back the urge to wipe the tears building on the edge of their eyelids. There was an unbelievably strong odor permeating the room that only manifested after the Supreme Commander entered the room. Much to everyone’s irritation both emotional and physical, they knew that this powerful, libido-wrenching smell could only come from one place...

There’s no doubt about it! I can’t fucking believe the Supreme Commander went to the fucking red-light district downtown!

Each and every single officer clenched his fist, closed an eye, or gritted his teeth at the fact that the Supreme Commander, the man appointed by Emperor Ludius himself as the nominal commander in chief of the military, had the gall to have gone down to one of the brothels just before the meeting. While it did make more sense that he likely spent the night before there, it was nonetheless irksome. After all, it didn’t take much for any one of them to conclude that this one incident, along with many others before, reflected how seriously he took his obligations. But their vexation was not out of the man’s lack of merit but rather that each one of them believed that they were better seat warmers for the position of Supreme Commander. What the hell was His Highness thinking in appointing this clown?!

Upon taking his seat next to a big flat board obscured by a curtain on one end of the room, the Supreme Commander commenced the meeting.

“Now that I’m here, let’s get this meeting started.”

At his orders, an aide came to unravel the curtains by activating a rope mechanism, revealing a gigantic, monochromatic map of the region. Several points on the map were lit in bright green, corresponding to major Parpaldian cities and bases, and other points an ominous bright red, corresponding to major Altaran cities and military bases. A couple more aides then moved towards the map and hovered their hands in certain places as their lips moved to hushed incantations. Moments later, the places on the map underneath their hands started glowing in distinct colors of either white, orange, red, purple, and so on. Repeating this process over and over and on specific parts of the map, the aides produced a collage of arrows, symbols corresponding to specific military units, numbers indicating a sequence of events, and others in brightly lit colors coded in a specified manner. While an enthusiast of magic would focus more on the use of mana-sensitive materials to create an editable panel of lights for use in depicting military operations on a map, to the Parpaldians, the sight represented a summarized version of one of their extensive war plans.

However, the eagle-eyed men of Parpaldia’s military command immediately noticed that certain specific details, such as the deployment, movement, and disposition of some units, were either changed or missing. With the aides finished in their work, and stepping aside, the supreme commander stepped in to explain what they were seeing.

“With the opening of hostilities with the kingdom of Altaras, our war plan for the invasion of Altaras, codenamed ‘Redoubtable,’ should have been put into implementation, but as of 1635, a new war plan was drafted to take into account changes in Altaran military capability, the Holy Mirishial Empire’s change in its approach to its relationship with them, and changes in our own objectives.”

He stood up and got closer to the map.

“This new war plan, only finished and approved by His Highness this year, codenamed ‘Intrépide,’ will have at its primary objective the capture of the Altaran capital, Le Brias.”

He motioned his right index finger to point towards Le Brias, depicted on the map as a kaleidoscope of white, red, and blue colors.

“It will consist of three primary stages. The first stage will see the Navy and the wyvern corps front and center.”

He grabbed a collapsible pointer from his person, extended it, and used it to circle a symbol drawn onto the Altaras Strait, used to signify the Royal Altaran Navy.

“The Navy and the wyvern corps will cooperate to see to the destruction or the crippling of the Royal Altaran Navy’s capital task force, which will see its capability to contest for command of the seas eliminated and thus allowing the empire to have it. Taking into account the Altaran doctrine of forcing decisive battles with their superior capital ships, we will either force their hand through resource attrition or lure them into a decisive engagement with as many elements in our favor as possible.”

He then motioned his pointer down towards the island of Altaras.

“Once we’ve secured command of the seas, the second phase will commence. The Navy, supported by the wyvern corps, will concentrate outside the port of Le Brias and commence bombardment of the city’s harbor defenses while small detachments will sweep the northern coastline for stragglers. While Altaran strategic focus, which will likely fear a landing on Le Brias itself, will move there thanks to this diversion, our Naval Infantry will land at these points, which we will dub ‘Margaux’ and ‘Jeanne.’”

Focusing on the northern peninsula, he identified a point of interest on each respective side of the peninsula corresponding to roughly the peninsula’s ‘base’; Margaux is on the peninsula’s west side, while Jeanne is the one on the east.

“Near points Margaux and Jeanne are minor towns, Kan Garasi and Astaran, respectively, which the Naval Infantry will have to secure as soon as they land. Once these towns are secured and a perimeter projecting several leagues from the town proper established, the rest of the Army will follow and land. Engineers will then set up a base of operations for attack formations of the wyvern corps, which will come all the way from the mainland. As soon as these first attack wyverns are ready, the main elements coming from both Margaux and Jeanne will converge here.”

He highlighted a major city in the middle of the peninsula, along which a great river, the Sa’arak, ran north, meandering into the heart of the capital of Le Brias before emptying into the peninsula’s northeastern side, which housed the great port that made Altaras so economically important. The major city contained a crossing, one of the first of many along the Sa’arak River, that the Parpaldians would have to control.

“This city, Kagis, along with its vital crossing of the Sa’arak, will have to be taken to complete the second phase.”

As the discussion moved towards the third and final phase, the high-ranking officers in the room braced themselves. They breathed in deeply, put their hands together, and leaned in forward as their stomachs, having long digested their breakfasts, started to twist and churn once more. As far as they could tell, this aspect of War Plan Intrépide remained unchanged from Redoubtable, which meant that the fact that it was the hardest and most challenging part of the plan still held true.

“With the capture of Kagis, we can expect our zone of control to have effectively cut off the peninsula of Le Brias from the rest of the island, turning the city and its surroundings into essentially an island. If current intelligence on Altaran command tendencies and war plans still holds true, this would mean that we have trapped the bulk of the Altaran Army in that peninsula.”

Analysis of King Taara XIV’s administrative overhaul of the Altaran Army’s command structure, military deployment, and distribution of military funding over the years show a clear bias in concentrating the army’s capabilities in the peninsula, particularly in and around the greater Le Brias metropolitan area, resulting in an overly centralized force disposition. For example, the next major city in the area beside Le Brias and Kagis, Hajjisler, which lay far to the southeast of the capital, only had a single infantry battalion as its permanent garrison. While this overly paranoid concentration of forces is a strategic handicap for Altaras, it also meant that the capital itself was a nigh impregnable fortress—a tough nut for any invasion force to crack.

“Something that remains unchanged from Redoubtable is the fact that Le Brias hosts one of the most complex systems of fortifications and defenses we’ve ever faced. That, coupled with the confirmed existence of surplus Muish and Mirishial artillery, aircraft, and elite Altaran Army formations, including the Royal Guard, make the campaign in taking the city perhaps the bloodiest we will ever fight.”

A gradual advance into the heart of the city, where the royal government and the palaces lie, will be, without a doubt, the most difficult part of the campaign to fulfill. Everyone involved, whether it be the Navy, the Wyvern Corps, or even military intelligence, could expect to suffer a degree of loss in materiel and men, but none of them will be worse for the wear than the Army. Making things worse for them was that King Taara has never given off the impression that he will sit down and negotiate even when the worst has come, meaning that they might have to pry free the lock and key to the innermost sanctum of the royal palace from his cold, dead hands before Le Brias would truly fall. That much goes without saying, especially for the accomplished military commanders present.

“The details for the offensive into Le Brias remain the same as in Redoubtable, so I trust that you can see to it yourselves.”

The commanders eyed one another, confirming with the rest that the mild annoyance they felt over the supreme commander’s lack of urgency and shallow explanations wasn’t limited to themselves. They never did have to see eye to eye if this was just the meeting as it was; a simple message sent over official channels would have sufficed. Of course, a war as big as this one does mean that their plate will start to receive more and more content than usual, necessitating a common command structure where all of them could tackle their individual challenges together, similar to the more sophisticated unified military command structures of the powers out west, but the best they got was this desultory, superficial “meeting” with their “supreme” commander. Unless things get out of hand in an unforeseen development, they might never have to see each other again after this.

“Ah, I almost forgot!” Said the supreme commander, as he stopped midway through making a break for the doors. Some of the commanders couldn’t help but subtly roll their eyes in disdain at their superior’s lack of tact for their time.

“Both Redoubtable and Intrépide have an overall casualty estimation—taking into account every possible engagement and other such factors—of 300,000 in the conservative range, including deaths, wounded, and missing in action from all services.”

They looked back at the surface of the table, hoping to evoke the image of being ‘busy’ in front of the supreme commander—in truth, they were livid. Absolutely livid. On top of aforementioned grievances, both personal and professional, he had the gall to ‘forget’ to mention the casualty estimate. Seriously, Your Highness, what the fuck were you thinking in appointing this buffoon?!

“I could’ve done better!” or so thought everyone in their own minds, seemingly free from the backlash of the others knowing that that was their intention.

None of them, however, appeared to be bothered by the 300,000 casualty estimate as if they’ve been far-removed from the emotions associated with such appalling bloodshed. The military and the Parpaldian public are no strangers to casualties that range in the hundred thousandths, a hallmark of their culture that prides on imperialist exceptionalism. But with advancements in political consciousness, aided by the gradual permeation of such surreal concepts such as “liberty” and “universal rights” from the First and Second Civilized Regions, the political problem posed by high casualty estimates only grew bigger as public tolerance or the standard for what counts as “egregiously high” got lower. But if His Highness, after being briefed on War Plan Intrépide, had approved of it, then he—a better calculator of political decisions than they were—must have deemed the 300,000 estimate to be within reason. That much was to be expected.

“Well, then...”

The supreme commander, as if not having just dropped something of importance, simply put his hands behind him and made way for the exit. As soon as the doors closed behind him, the commanders, who were left in the room, collectively breathed out a sigh of exasperation. As much as they hated having to deal with each other’s insufferable presence, the empire was once again at war, and thus their priorities now lay with fulfilling the objectives necessary to bring Parpaldia victory. Each man went their separate ways to convene with their subordinates in their own departments exclusive of the other to get the war moving.

Cent. Calendar 25/12/1639, Embassy of the Holy Mirishial Empire in Le Brias, Altaras, 16:20

“Quick!”

A young-looking elven woman in a formal getup of all white egged on a male coworker in clothing of similar monotony as they crouched near the bottommost shelf of a bookcase, which was the only shelf that still remained occupied with documents, books, ledgers, and other papers of various assortment. Restricted as they were by the tight seams of their apparel and the fact that they only had two arms, they grabbed as many documents as they could. They then brought those to a nearby machine that was as big as a table yet was half the height of one. Each of the two then relaxed their arms, letting go of the documents into the sandbox-like clearing in the middle of the machine without a care for their contents or any protocol demanding strict delicate handling of such. Just as they hurriedly turned back to grab more from the bookshelf, the documents that landed inside the empty clearing promptly combusted into flames from invisible embers, their mana-sensitive material lined fibers reacting from the combustion spell the machine was automated to cast. Moments later, the papers, their face coverings, and so on had completely disappeared, leaving only a vague memory of their presence and a waff of burnt paper. Just as the two elves were about to dump a new batch of documents into the incinerating machine, an unfamiliar figure in a dirt-ridden uniform mottled with an intriguing pattern of overlapping sharp, polygonal shapes came through the open doorway of the room.

“Hey, you! Are you Ryllae’s secretary?”

The soldier, with both hands holding up his iridescent, cerulean battle rifle, cried out to the woman carrying a box’s worth of documents in her arms in a hoarse voice.

“Yes! Yes, I am!”

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She responded with haste as she continued with her incineration of documents.

“Can you go get her already?! We will miss our scheduled departure at the port if we don’t leave soon!”

The soldier gestured to the wristwatch on his left wrist, indicating the urgency with which they had to move. The woman, finally realizing that the departure time set by the ministry back in Runepolis was already at hand, bowed her head in acknowledgement. As soon as she threw the documents she was carrying into the incinerating machine, she dashed for the open doorway through which the soldier left.

“Finish the remaining documents for me, Gen! I’ll be back!”

Before she could stay to hear her coworker grumble about the work she had left him, she ran through the hallways of the embassy. Despite the countless boxes marked with “fragile” and “for transport” and the dozens of embassy staff hurriedly packing all sorts of equipment and documents into such boxes clogging the hallway, she expertly navigated through such obstacles, managing to reach a certain set of mahogany doors at the other wing of the embassy in a short amount of time. Before she twisted the doorknobs, she could hear the loud wailing of someone else in the room, almost as if they were begging for dear life. When she opened the doors, she found a very peculiar yet unsurprising sight.

“Ah, my dear secretary. Is it already time yet?”

Ryllae, the Mirishial ambassador to Altaras, nonchalantly reacted to her presence as she sat on the velvet cushion couch with an unmoving demeanor to what appeared to be a man in Altaran ministerial dress prostrating on the carpeted floor before her. It didn’t take long for the woman to read the mood of the room, as would anyone as soon as they heard the sniffling of the prostrated man.

“Please! I beg of you! His Majesty demands—respectfully—that you honor your prior commitments to the kingdom in providing aid!”

The man was so close to crying a river of tears, knowing that salvation from utter demise was mere inches from him. Ryllae rolled her eyes, having grown sick of hearing the same plea for what might have been the hundredth time.

“As I have already mentioned previously with utmost candidness, Mr. Balcan: the Holy Mirishial Empire, under the terms of those said commitments, have deemed them void following the kingdom’s grave violation of the aforementioned in its actions in Sios.”

She stood up, crossed her arms, and leaned in close to the Altaran minister.

“I’m afraid there is nothing more we can do for you. That much is final.”

As soon as the final, definitive, official words of Mirishial indifference to their plight reached his ears, the man began whimpering, his tears and snot soiling the expensive, velvet purple carpeting. While it can’t be said that she herself isn’t moved by the notion that the city she was in—together with its several hundred thousand inhabitants—was about to be burned in wyvern hellfire, the foreign affairs ministry back in Runepolis has already taken its side. There really was nothing more she could do.

Fixing her bangs and donning her white blazer, she turned away from the weeping, still-prostrated man on the floor and made way for her secretary, who was waiting by the doorway. Before she left the room, she took a silver box—a set of cigars produced and manufactured in Hajjisler by an Altaran company, her favorite brand—from her purse and gently placed it on one of the empty bookshelves next to the door as if to say her final and subtly forlorn farewell to her post.

“Let’s go.”

Cent. Calendar 11/01/1640, town of Kan Garasi, ~80km southwest of Le Brias, Altaras, 6:00

The sound of singing sea birds making passes over the cream-colored sandy beaches of this quaint Altaran coastal town of just over a thousand people resonated well with the sloshing of waves crashing against the sand to create a sense of unfettered tranquility. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the major cities several kilometers inland, the peaceful atmosphere that hung over the early morning of this town of Kan Garasi could easily be mistaken by city folk as ‘nothingness’ or even ‘sleepiness.’ They were not at fault in making such an assumption, however, as most shops and small-scale artisan industries in the town are yet to open for business this early. Of course, there were exceptions; one such example was a small, two-storey cafe close to the beach.

Despite the sign on its unassuming glass door saying “we’re open!” in a creative, cheerful font, one would be forgiven to think that the cafe was still closed after seeing its deserted seats and untouched milk and sugar containers. Nonetheless, it was still open, and the shop could pride itself over having earned a regular customer, who always seems to take the veranda table facing the ocean on the second floor—a known favorite spot for vacationers on regular days. Sadly, with Parpaldian gunboats threatening to appear over the horizon under the banner of war, those regular days were probably long gone.

Dressed in a black dress of modest skirt length, Nilay, the cafe owner and the only permanent worker of the establishment, climbed up the stairs with a tray in one hand, negotiating the steep steps with speed and ease only someone with enough repetitive familiarity could do. Moving through the patron-less seats and tables, she emerged past the open doors to the veranda before arriving at the one table that did have a patron. The customer, who had become a regular since the months before, was a man with a moderately muscular build, evident even through the loose shirt and overalls he wore, whose face creases were only starting to form; he was probably a worker from the nearby mill in his early thirties. He always got here as soon as she flipped the open sign on her door, would always take the veranda table, and would stare at the ocean with a dazed expression, almost as if he was longing for something that was far from his reach.

“Your espresso.”

Taking the piping hot espresso and its saucer from the tray, Nilay gently placed it on the table, right next to the man’s left hand, which was placed next to an open sketchpad.

“Thanks.”

The man replied with his usual appreciative tone, yet just like always, he didn’t take his sight away from the beach. Nilay, curious about so many things regarding the man, wanted to strike up a conversation, but the man exuded an unapproachable aura around him, almost as if he wouldn’t appreciate any attempt at doing so. Still, the months she’s spent giving him his espresso made from the coffee beans she’s sourced weekly from the Qua-Toynian merchant at Le Brias has built within her an expectation of familiarity; she has spent almost half a year with him and yet she knows next to nothing about him. She wracked her head for conversation starters: the reason for his being here every day, why her cafe of all places, maybe his personal circumstances?

Just then, a gust of wind coming from out to sea blew against the veranda and then later her curly brunette hair, the salty waff of ocean blue caressing against her elongated, pointed ears. She instinctively placed her tray down on her skirt to prevent it from being blown upwards, but just as her sight went downwards, she caught a glimpse of the contents of the sketchpad underneath the man’s hand. The winding, sharp turns and single strokes of lead wove together a fascinating rendition of the beach that intrigued her, but above all else, she finally found her conversation starter.

“My, that’s a wonderful sketch of the beach there, mister.”

The words came out of her mouth in a natural manner, but now that her consciousness had caught up with the moment, she twisted her lips in a vain attempt at taking those words back. Fortunately for her and her shy tendencies, the god of socialization had seemingly decided to reward her.

“Ah! Why, thank you.”

The man replied with enough modesty to fill a woman’s heart. His subtle attempt at covering the sketchpad and the slight jerk of his head off to the side also told her of a cuter side to him.

“But yeah... My master would always tell me that my hands are better used for grinding wheat and grain than producing ‘art that no one will ever see.’”

He chuckled in a vague attempt at masking his awkwardness.

“Well, your master got that last bit awfully wrong.”

Nilay placed her arm on her other sleeve, worried her shy attempt at praising the man will be taken the wrong way.

“Heh! He’s not the type to take kindly to consensus on him being in the wrong, lady!”

The man barked in amusement. He turned to face her, finally breaking away from what she could only have seen to be a month-long staring contest with the ocean, revealing the state of his right arm: completely cast in white bandaging and medical mana stones used for temperature control.

“But I have his tendency to be in the wrong to thank for; if he didn’t give me the wrong instructions, I wouldn’t have broken my arm, and I’d be sent off to the war.”

She looked in shock at the man’s plight, having never once seen it despite the months she’s spent serving him his usual espresso, probably because she’s gotten used to his presence that she never paid heed to him going in and out of the cafe. Her face reddened in embarrassment for the possibly wounding words she’s said, but the man was quick to assure her.

“Ah! You don’t have to worry! It’s because of the refuge this cafe brings me that I’m able to numb away the pain...”

His gaze returned to the beach. While it did seem that this man had more of a story to tell than she’d previously thought, she knew that she was never going to be more than just the server of his espresso. Her heart skipped a beat as what may have been a cacophony of emotions—some of which she’s never even consciously realized—disappeared altogether. As long as both of them wore their respective uniforms, his dirtied in sweat and ground wheat and hers in spilled coffee and sugar, she felt that this was going to be the limits of their interaction. Nevertheless, there was something to be thankful for today, especially as soon as it became clear to her that a part of that distance was negotiated and that he played a part in it. She turned back to head towards the kiosk, convinced of where her place was in his heart.

“As a token of thanks for talking to me on this lonely day, I’ll give you another espresso. This one’s on the house.”

The man, who was taking a sip out of the cup she had given him, almost spat it all out in surprise.

“Ah, wait! You don’t have to—”

But before he could talk to her again, she had already disappeared past the doorway. Hearing the clacking of her heels on the wooden staircase leading to the first floor, he retreated back to his seat in defeat.

“My goodness...”

He placed his palm over his face as he sunk further in his seat, appearing to be dejected by how things with the endearing cafe lady had gone. Make no mistake, he was but a lowly apprentice to the mill man; the difference between the lone unmarried owner of a cafe—third-rate as the place and ambiance may be—and a glorified serf in a mill was almost like that of this world and the next. There was only so much of that future he could dream of, but no matter what he did, it would only remain a dream. Disheartened as he was by his prospects, however, that was not the reason why he appeared to be frowning underneath his palm.

“Damn it... That was too close!”

His mind immediately went to the sketchpad underneath his left hand. On the surface, the frontmost page had on it a sketch of the graceful waves of the sea crashing against the beach, but just underneath it, on the other side of the same page, lay something more important than anything else—even more so than his own life.

Thank goodness I was working on the sketch instead of the report...!

Written in detail just below the unassuming beach sketch was a sketch of one of the coastal defense batteries around a league or so down the coastal road and the seat he was on had a clear, unobstructed view of the top of its walls, its singular artillery piece, the patrol patterns of its soldiers, and the comings and goings of officers, supply trucks, and so on. Today, he had written along with his sketch the confirmation of routines made during this particular day of the week, contributing to the establishment of an almost complete picture of how the defense battery operated. Even the sketches of the beaches he had done were later commissioned as bonafide intelligence thanks to their noting of specific landing spots and other particulars along the beach such as ditches, rocks, and so on.

He took another bitter sip of espresso from the cup, savoring the salivating refuge it offered from the guilt of having to deceive the cafe lady and the rest of the town—and then later, contributing to possibly dozens of casualties once the enemy sets foot on its peaceful coast.

“No... It’s too late to be guilty...”

The more he entertained such feelings, the more they proved harder to stamp out. In order to make it easier to do so, he recalled the memories of the Parpaldian scumbags that approached him all those months ago. He recalled vague feelings of pointed stones on his knees, sweat covering every inch of his body, and the presence of two men whose faces he could never remember standing over him.

“Look, the moment you took a sketch of that battery, your life has been forfeit...”

“But I never intended it that way!”

He recalled the pungent smell of plum alcohol overpowering his sense of smell and the pain of some sort of agent that made his eyes all irritated. He remembers being powerless to even satisfy the endless itching as his hands were bound by some sort of cloth.

“Intended or not, the authorities aren’t going to see it that way. How naive of you to assume otherwise.”

He recalled the frustration of not being able to land a fist on what he imagined to be the smug grin on the man’s face as he said that. But nothing prevented him from barking at them.

“But they’ll believe me! They’ll know what you’ve done to me!”

“Oh? With what evidence, hmm? Who are you, a lowly mill worker who’s destined to grind wheat sold to the highest bidder for barely a ducat a gram for the rest of his, for His Majesty’s men to believe? Who are you to dare to disturb the peace of this town by calling out innocent men, who are contributors to His Majesty’s coffers, as traitors to Land and King?”

He had no answers, no rebuttals, and no hope of resistance. He was shamed into accepting their terms, but it was not without some accursed gift they left behind.

“You know, we are not ‘barbarians,’ and in order to prove that your worth and service are not without merit: on my word, we promise you land, position, and wealth—if your contributions have proven to be a boon to our success, that is.”

In exchange for his continued gathering of intelligence—in essence, contributing to countless deaths of innocent people like the cafe lady—they would give him a place of luxury and comfort in the new society that they would build on top of the ashes. If he refused to carry out his part of the arrangement, they would label him as a spy and traitor to the authorities. Not only were the consequences of his refusal utterly horrible, the enticing rewards the enemy had put on offer—a guaranteed escape from an eternity of slave-like servitude—were too good for someone like him to pass on. But accepting the deal meant that he made his choice in the war between home and the enemy and he will forever have to live with the consequences of it. It was indeed a deal made with the devil.

“Goddammit it all...”

He murmured in defeat as the bittersweet aftertaste of the espresso he drank changed to that of an unpalatable sourness.

Cent. Calendar 17/01/1640, Palmerie Air Base, northeast of Esthirant, Parpaldia, 6:30

As the sun had made its way well above the horizon far to the east, shining onto a grateful Asherah its life-giving rays of warmth and clarity, a new day awaited the men and women down on the planet’s surface as they rushed to begin anew petty scuffles over petty reasons for petty differences. But what does the sun care for the wars the races of this planet fight for? It has neither stake nor investment in this world: it has only served and will serve to give to the world and has never taken and will never take from it. So prayed one man as he kneeled on the flattened dirt, hoping that the sun would continue to serve as the distant arbiter to the fight he was fighting in.

“Oi, Reckmeyer! You’re getting dirt on your damn suit again!”

The angry shout of one of his trusted maintenance crew members assailed his ears, pulling him out of his daily meditation and back into the fray of war. He stood up from the dirt, slightly damp from this morning’s higher-than-usual humidity, which caused it to stick in clumps to the delicate fabric of his rudimentary flight suit.

“Oh, shut it, will you?” He retorted with a teasing grin back to the even more irritated crew.

“Nothing a good patting down can brush off.”

The crew member approached him, extending to Reckmeyer a clipbook opened to a page with detailed instructions for that day’s flight.

“You’re not the one being dressed down if those expensive things fail to be patched up, you dumbass! The supply system for parts from the Mirishials is all over the place because of the war! Instead of the usual where the command is sourcing those stuff and providing them for us, the supply hasn’t kept up with demand at all so there’s a shortage—and that has been the case since before the new year! Now I have to pay for the stuff outta my own pocket from dubious sources, and they’re not even as good—”

Using the pencil that came with the clipbook, Reckmeyer filled up what needed to be filled, but not before putting the manacomm set on his ears so that he doesn’t have to listen as much to the crew member’s rambling.

“Uhuh, okay... Yeah, that sure is bad...”

Reckmeyer replied in a fashion that made it obvious to the crew member he wasn’t going to listen. Mildly annoyed, the crew member, seeing that he had just about finished with the paperwork, took the clipbook from him and walked away.

“You know what? I don’t care anymore if you don’t come back today. I’ll have you flagged as a deserter as soon as you fail to chime in on the timed checks.”

Reckmeyer, still having his manacomm set over his ears, didn’t hear what the crew member just said. Frankly, he didn’t care either, so he just took it as business as usual and went over to his wyvern lord to begin pre-flight checks.

“Yeah, I’ll see you later, you dick!”

He sent him his usual reply before running off to the apron, failing to see the extremely rude, offensive gesture the crew member gave him upon hearing his reply. Arriving at the apron where a dozen wyvern lords, some of which are the finest examples of monster combat aviation history has ever seen, are lined up. Some of them were being groomed by their designated crew members; some were being fed their usual carbohydrate-rich diet for recon missions, which require endurance; some of the crews were scrambling to clean up after the wyvern had defecated; and some, like his, which was already groomed, fed, had its equipment readied, and beaming with confidence for the day, was being cleared for takeoff. He approached the beastly wyvern lord, towering over the apron at twice his height, with open arms.

“Buddy!!!”

He called out to his longtime friend with a wide smile on his face. The beast of war turned to look at him upon hearing the familiar voice of its rider; at once, its lizard-like eyes, capable of glaring down a herd of demons into subservience and striking fear into the hearts of grown men, turned into adorable, puppy-like irises.

Ruuuu...!!!

It lowered its head down to the height Reckmeyer could reach it and asked for the usual pats and hugs. This monster, which with its powerful fireballs could set on fire an entire city block, purred and rolled onto the dirt like a loyal dog that had not seen its master for months.

“Hahaha! Why, of course!”

Pleased at the sight of his longtime friend warming up to him this morning, much like the countless mornings before, he threw himself on the wyvern lord’s head, scratching the rear of its long ears and rubbing the underside of its huge mouth. The tough scales of the wyvern, sturdy enough to withstand a crossbow bolt at point blank range, were incredibly rough to the touch for Reckmeyer and any dragon knight, but familiarity and the adoring, loveable reactions of his wyvern at his show of affection were more than enough to overcome such difficulties.

“Guess that means you’re ready, aren’t you?”

He asked his wyvern friend, to which it responded with a confident affirmative, almost as if it could understand his speech.

“Alright! Let’s get going, then!”

Reckmeyer then climbed up on the saddle, rigorously strapped onto the wyvern’s lower body just after its arms, which doubled as its wings. The saddle had ample back support, and adequate comfort for long-duration missions, in addition to a robust seatbelt, which he then secured on himself. As soon as he put his boots down on the fixed stirrups attached to the saddle, which also had the added function of communicating to the wyvern specific moves or maneuvers dependent on stirrup rotation, he began checking the onboard equipment.

“Navigations, check. Flight instruments... comms, check—”

Once every single system on the checklist had been checked to be in working order, he waved to one of his crew members standing off to the side in an affirmative gesture, to which they responded with acknowledgement. Things were now in order to begin the mission. Motioning his wyvern to move forward using control mechanisms on both his hands, they emerged onto one of the designated spaces for vertical takeoff. The base did have a runway for dedicated aircraft and is used by wyvern individuals that had difficulty taking off vertically; it is primarily used for “hot landings,” which occur when circumstances, whether due to the wyvern, weather or others, don’t allow for vertical landing and the wyvern must thus land at speed. For him and his wyvern, which could take off vertically without any problems, he only needed to use the vertical takeoff space.

He tuned in to the frequency used for communication with the base’s flight control center, which was perched on a nearby hill to the northeast, and tapped on the push-to-talk button near the control mechanism on his right hand.

“Palmerie Tower, this is Galeas-4, ready for takeoff from Pad 15.”

Moments later, he received a grainy reply from the tower.

“Galeas-4, Palmerie Tower. You are cleared for takeoff from Pad 15.”

And just like that, Reckmeyer jerked all of his limbs backward, translated by the control mechanisms and the stirrups into familiar, mechanical movements on certain touch-sensitive scales that his wyvern lord had been taught to mean one thing: take off. In the span of a few seconds, the beast fully extended its wings, raised them as high as it could, and sent them back onto the ground with a force powerful enough to send its lightweight body up into the air. Before he could even process it, he and his wyvern lord were airborne, the countless training sessions and missions having hardened his body for the powerful forces acting on his body at such speeds. His hands and feet moved on their own as if they had been pre-programmed to act in a specific manner, sending commands to the wyvern to level its wings and glide straight into the wind. In the minute since taking off, they were well on their way to their mission.

He then tuned in to the frequency used in times of missions such as this.

“Rapace, this is Galeas-4...”

His mission today, not unlike the previous days and not unlike the other dragon knights like him, was of reconnaissance: to scour the wide expanse of the Altaras Strait for the whereabouts of the Royal Altaran Navy, most especially its powerful capital task force, and provide as much real-time data back to their navy. In the absence of beyond-visual-range detector contraptions, the wyvern corps of either Altaras and Parpaldia play a vital—if not central—role in gathering battlefield information. And since aircraft carriers dedicated to wyverns, a concept that was tried once but never fully realized due to how unfeasible it was, were basically non-existent, both countries’ wyvern corps had to take off from their respective mainlands, meaning that the continued, uninterrupted, flow of battlefield information depended on not only the number of wyverns being deployed but also on the endurance of both wyvern and dragon knight. In this case, the Parpaldians, with their larger wyvern corps and their wyvern lord and wyvern overlord breeds possessing better endurance, have the upper hand. But with the Altaran capital ships proving difficult to find, let alone track down, the war has slowed down to a tense stalemate in the past month.

“We’re gonna get them today, buddy, and we’re going to have our well-earned time off. Mark my words.”

Reckmeyer mumbled to himself.

As the stillness of the wide open blue skies devoid of clouds set the tone for the rest of the day, he, along with so many other Parpaldian wyverns from other air bases, flew south, entering the battlefield that was the Altaras Strait.