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By now, I was sure you'd tire of me babbling on about Kern's constant state of being terrified. Fair enough. Let's talk about Elm, then.

Nowadays, Elm is quite the cramped, busy place, with some dozen races living together in large metropolises filled with manaless and mana-powered conveniences of modern life. Really, if there was suddenly a bit of open space over there, cracked open with spatial magic or bought from some big landlord, it'd be filled before an hour passed. If it hasn't already been filled by the time you notice.

Back then, though, it was much more, shall we say, untouched. Large areas of woodland, the mountains yet uninhabited, the hills at their feet only loosely populated. There was even herding back then, open pastures over there! On the land worth its volume in gold today! And on this land, with much space to spare, was four main races: humans, high goblins, elves, and dwarves. Typical, no?

The largest human kingdom, Sarke, had been a large, prosperous, powerful country a century prior to our story's beginning. Its management was far from corrupt or incompetent, though it was overambitious at times. No other human nations existed on Elm at their peak, so ‘largest human nation’ didn’t mean much really, but perhaps some of the migrants or exiles had found good land elsewhere.

Through a series of various campaigns, wise rulers, and governing cabinets starting half a century before that powerful peak, Sarke had become a powerhouse on its land, forming solid relations with fellow nations as well as looser congregations and civilizations; elves, dwarves, centaurs, reformed goblins, and, before their conquest, other human nations, all had dealings with Sarke.

Of course, golden ages couldn’t last forever. The next two rulers, Jonus and Retrik Salke, were hard pressed to continue the nation’s growth even in the face of technological walls, shortages of currency, increasing population, and increasingly complex logistics.

Their only solution, beyond numerous reforms and partially successful infrastructure projects, was territorial expansion and resource extraction, especially with all the human nations already rolled under Sarke’s banner.

Jonus had it easier, though no historian would say this so lightly, for he could stave off stagnation by assimilating large numbers of the dwarves and establishing closer contact with the high goblin artificers, stimulating the economy and increasing its size in hopes of more stability.

Retrik had no such easy options available to him… faced with gross overexpansion and the elves’ aloof attitude, he could only seize resources forcefully.

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War broke out, and internal strife ensued; the dwarves, and even many of the citizens, had no grudge against the elves. The elves, meanwhile, viewed the invasion as a brutal betrayal of centuries of good relations. But Retrik couldn’t afford to care about such diplomatic matters, for the sake of Sarke’s stability.

For the record, Retrik’s campaign was militarily successful, seizing nearly a third of the elven lands in under a decade. For a few years after, a war boom even ensued, what with the consumption of resources bringing demand and the new, relatively undeveloped land bringing supply. The stagnation of Sarke’s economy was eased, even if only momentarily.

Unfortunately, after those few years, the demons emerged from across the mountains. They weren’t particularly many in number, nor were they so very technologically advanced, nor was their individual strength capable of turning the tides of battle on their own. However, they did have many unique methods and creatures, and more importantly, they were desperate.

Overextended and war-wearied, the Sarke Kingdom’s logistics and populace couldn’t handle a war over such a long front. At the same time, they couldn’t cede too much land, for fear of mass starvation, panic, and unrest. Stuck in such a terrible situation, the army did its utmost to defend, and most of the nobles did in fact do their utmost to hold the line.

It only meant more casualties, more time fighting grueling battles of attrition. As the years passed, the frontlines began running out of supplies, and more and more cities fell. The Sarke Kingdom that had swelled to over six times its original size and five times its population, now began to deflate, quickly being pushed back within its pre-golden-age borders. The kingdom sought help from its neighbors, but they were either unwilling or unable to provide any.

Compared with its peak one hundred years ago, the Sarke kingdom at this point only controlled a fifth of that land. A decently valuable fifth, but a fifth nonetheless. As the kingdom shrunk, more demons made the crossing, maintaining the balance of power against the humans. After several decades, the flow of demons across the range finally stalled, and the warfront settled into a zone full of small scuffles and recon-in-force actions.

In the recent decades leading up to our story here, the demons only stopped advancing for similar issues to the ones humans had; their logistics were falling apart, and they didn’t have the population to fill that space. Even at this point, the demons likely didn't have the chance to fill out their new territory and were instead attacking to prevent the humans from amassing a counteroffensive.

It remained to be seen, then, if the Sarke Kingdom could survive, and it was in this backdrop of steady forced retreat that many of the new army soldiers were born and raised, Kern and Kaerie notwithstanding.

Torn away from home at a young age, torn away from parents, crammed in overpopulated cities. With so much pressure building up at home, the nobles, the bureaucrats, could only wrack their brains in search of an opportunity to attack. Only, attacking first would almost certainly doom the expedition, no matter what, so they had to wait for a regional commander among the demons to show weakness.

But then, the Beastmaster, a powerful regional commander, had made its move, and the human response was being rapidly organized. Everyone back then could see the signs of turning tides, the tides of that long war.

It is here, that we begin our second song. If you'd like, why not sing along?