The Dune Sea
(Background)
The Dune Sea describes a large territory in the portion of the NS-Hyperworld commonly referred to as Bworld. It is located on the Kerkrienian Continent, to the south of the once mighty Exilvanian Empire, a formerly warmongering wasteland now broken and defeated. To the south of the Dune Sea on the other hand, separated from it by the wild and untamed waters of the Shining Sea, lie the Coral Atolls which are part of the Solar Empire, an advanced civilisation that has fallen from grace due to past conflicts.
The Dune Sea is a large territory, famed for its namesake dunes that stretch over many leagues, dominating a large swath of the territory with their sand deserts. Few Oases exist there and the rivers coming from the north are tainted and poisoned so they contribute little to the deserts' vegetation. Towards the coasts the sand deserts actually largely disappear, being replaced by canyons and plateaus of the Al-Hadrumut region. Inside the steep valleys of these rock formations, there exist lush areas often used for farming and other agriculture, having sustained the population of the Dune Sea region long ago. Due to this most settlements were founded along the coast, where a population could be sustained and the cities could engage in overseas trade with each other and more nations.
Historically speaking the Dune Sea region gave rise to some of the first advanced civilisations in the Bworld. With favourable conditions in the Al-Hadrumut region, they were bound to rise. Thus the original 4 city states of Al-Kraid, A-wuit, Tahr-zan and Righdadi were created which saw a lengthy period of peace and prosperity between them as they quickly expanded their trade over the continent. Of course nothing lasts forever and in this case the lengthy period of peace was broken by the rise of the Hamdu, a dynasty of visionary nobles in Tahr-zan who sought to unite the people of the Dune Sea. With offerings of peace and negotiation they attempted to coerce their neighbours into this union...yet were turned down and had to resort to more violent measures. War would ravage the coast of the Dune Sea for many years to come.
Yet eventually victory was within reach for the Hamdu, Tahr-zanian armies laying siege to the final free city of Righdadi, eventually overcoming its mighty walls and planting the Tahr-zanian flag upon the Emir's palace. The war for the Unification of the Dune Sea was over and the Hamdu declared the foundation of the State of Al-Dundus which would continue to prosper once more for many centuries untill greed and decadence took a hold within the people and they sought to expand their rule and bring new riches into their realm. The Hamdu's built a grand armada of war ships and began sailing the Shining Sea with less peaceful intentions than they used to. Their target? The Solar Empire. Three times did they attempt to invade. The first armada reached the shores of the Coral Atoll and overwhelmed the shore defenders yet a great storm came over the fleet and destroyed it, leaving the landed troops to fend for themselves untill they were subjugated by the fierce Solar defenders. The second time their fleet was sunk by a storm before they even reached the Coral Atoll. And the third time they were engaged by the Solar Empire's fleet, leading to the battle of Lei-Panting as it is referred to in Solar Empire history books. There the might of the Al-Dundus was finally broken for many years to come.
Centuries later Al-Dundus would be one of the first nations to be beset by a terrible threat that sought to overwhelm the entirety of Bworld. Issuing forth from the wastes of Exilvania to the north came the troops of the Iron Legion. Al-Dundus had long been undeterred by them, their impassable desert protecting them from those attacks from the north and the old exilvanian raiders. But the Iron Legion was an entirely different threat and it showed as its troops crossed the deserts and brought destruction over the Al-Hadrumut region. The Iron Legion ruined the 4 great cities and brought the entire region under their heel, enslaving all they could find. Al-Dundus was only the first nation to fall, with many more falling before the Iron Legion like wheat before a scythe.
Untill the Lightning Wars. The Solar Empire, with the goal to reign in and destroy the Iron Legion, invaded the Exilvanian Heartlands and brought the fight to the heart of the Iron Legion. It was a lost campaign from the very beginning as the Iron Lord, Lord Ferrok, quickly recalled the troops of the Iron Legion from all over the Bworld to crush the Solar Empire Expeditionary Forces while his air fleets, their bombers darkening the sky, bombarded the Solar Empire's home isles with the intent to wipe them off the face of the earth for their insolence. This of course also meant that the occupation of Al-Dundus became bearable again as the Legion's remaining troops could barely keep order in the region. And when the Legion's main forces and Lord Ferrok himself were wiped out at the Battle of the Iron Tower in the great Kataklysm, even the last remainders of the Legion retreated.
The Dune Sea was slow to recover from the damages wrought upon it. It had suffered Legion occupation the longest and was thus in the worst shape of all the free nations of the Bworld. So it came as a great relief when an independent expedition from the Anglo-Isles, assessing damages and potentials after the great war against the Iron Legion, found rich oil deposits in the Dune Sea, not too far from the Coast. Oil had become an ever more important ressource in the world as nations and militaries modernised following their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Legion. Investments and Trade helped the Dune Sea very much in slowly catching up with the rest of the world. Alas, holding a highly important ressource is not always to one's advantage.
In the power struggle between the Western Frontier and the Tundran Territories, many nations became the playground for proxy wars or other signs of the powerstruggle. The Dune Sea, as a region rich in oil deposits, quickly found itself caught up between the fronts as both sides demanded it to prioritize them and their allies over their enemy. Not wishing to appease one and piss off the other, Al-Dundus attempted to steer clear and neutral yet when Tsar Gorgi declared war on the Western Frontier over alleged claims of weapons of mass destruction being produced by the Frontier, Tundran forces also invaded the Dune Sea to pre-emptively secure the oil deposits and refineries for their own and deny them to the Frontier. The Frontier, having been surprised by the attack, was surprisingly quick to react to that specific event leading to the assumption that they too had planned to pre-emptively occupy the Dune Sea in the case of invasion. Now that specific war was over quickly when Frontier forces under the command of General Herman managed to capture Tsar Gorgi, forcing him to retreat his troops from Frontier territory and sign a peace treaty.
Yet the troops never left. Both the Tundrans and the Frontier agreed that they couldn't leave the Dune Sea. Afterall, what if the other would strike against it pre-emptively once again and succeed in bringing the entire region under their control? And so the people of the Dune Sea suffered occupation once again for many, many years. The Tundran and Frontier authorities never really gave a cent about the plight of the people, focusing on developing the oil extraction and refining infrastructure so they could fuel their warmachines in the arms race between their respective nations. There was very little money left to let the people of the Dune Sea develop schools, adequate medical facilities and the like. Clamours for freedom were harshly suppressed and both the Frontier and the Tundrans tried to eliminate the ethical identity of the people of the Dune Sea to bring them closer to their own countries and lessen the risk of popular uprisings. For instance they renamed the 4 cities, turning Tahr-zan into Dusty Springs, Al-Kraid into Pessoksburg, A-wuit into Beckintown and Righdadi into Oilwell.
It was of course all counterproductive as that merely increased the hatred of the locals against the occupiers. Terrorism became a fairly common thing already back then. Then, 30 years after the first war between the Western Frontier and the Tundran Territories, the 1st Battalion Wars broke out between the two, leading to heavy fighting on the Emerian Continent. The two giants also clashed in the Dune Sea, though only in a limited fashion since neither wanted to risk damaging each other's oil infrastructure. Now, the 1st Battalion Wars quickly expanded again as the Exilvanians entered the war, beginning bombing raids over Emeria as well as attempting to invade the Dune Sea and launching an invasion on the Solar Empire's Coral Atoll. Many of the Dunepeople aided the Exilvanians in their war effort, believing the Kaiser's Intelligence Commander's promises of freedom and independence, helping the Exilvanians gain a landing ground, find and build their Nerocite Extraction and Refinery Facilities and just generally aided them with great intel, leading to large swaths of the region being occupied by Exilvanian Forces.
Alas, the 1st Battalion Wars went badly for the Xers as the Alliance of Nations was formed between the Western Frontier, the Tundran Territories and the Solar Empire. In a series of successful campaigns, the Exilvanians were driven out of the Dune Sea, the Coral Atoll and back into the depths of Exilvania where their armies were defeated and the Kaiser forced to go into hiding. The 2nd Battalion Wars barely touched the Dune Sea, with it having apparently vanished off the Exilvanian military's radar so the country did not get liberated at all and all hope for it was lost. Still, they performed sabotage against their occupiers' oil extraction and refinery infrastructure in the service of the Exilvanian ZZ.
Following the conclusion of the 2nd Battalion Wars, the world started to move towards peace once again. With the lack of great enemies, funding could finally be diverted towards economic and social programs to improve upon territories such as the Dune Sea. The martial law that had been in place ever since the first occupation of the Dune Sea was lifted and limited civil and political freedoms were given to the Dunepeople. It was a great way to combat violent extremism and terrorism like it had been propagated by the Hamdu dynasty, which had gone into hiding ever since the Legion invaded. Alas, loosen the leash once and suddenly they will think they have a chance at getting rid of it completely. A large, more measured, public movement for the independence of the Dune Sea was founded and has been gaining traction ever since. The Al-Hamdu Ila, propagating for the independence of the Dune Sea and the return of the Hamdu Dynasty to the Crown.
Al-Hamdu Ila Riots
The protests had started barely a week ago and they were already out of control. At first, it had simply been peaceful protests in every major city, with tens of thousands of protesters gathering in the streets, waving flags of Al-Dundus or bearing the coat of arms of the Hamdu dynasty. Authorities had received warnings about these protests taking place long in advance so that one could've said that the organisers of the protests had quite literally applied for protesting. And as such they had started of rather peacefully. Tensions had of course existed considering the authorities' history of brutally suppressing the movement for independence or the movement for indepence's history of terrorism but at first everything had gone well.
That was untill the fateful 5th day of the demonstrations. The Melissa Incident, named after its supposed first victim. Nobody knows exactly what happened anymore and there was a lot of confusion back then about what was happening. Officially, as claimed by the authorities, a foreign reporter had come under attack by the crowd and in an effort to protect her, they had to step in and use force yet were too late as she had already been killed by angry protesters. The Al-Hamdu Ila on the other hand claimed that the reporter never existed and that she is merely a figment of the authorities' imagination, created to have a reason to disperse the protesters and bury the dream of Dunepeople freedom. It doesn't matter anymore who started it but rather what it resulted in. Stones and Molotov Cocktails were traded with tear gas grenades and strong water cannons. The violence escalated from its one battlefield in A-wuit all over the city and quickly spreading to the other cities, leading to violent riots all over, with government installations and foreign holdings coming under siege by rioters chanting:
"Out with the foreigners! The Dune Sea to the Dunepeople! Exploit yourself!"
Embassies and most governmental buildings were of course usually provided a fairly stable fence and gate and the threat of deadly force had so far still dissuaded protesters from actually storming any of the buildings. But the situation was growing more desperate, with hatred brewing outside those fences an attack was merely a matter of time.
An undisclosed location in Dusty Springs
It was an abandoned factory hall in the outskirts of Dusty Springs. Kept in a demotivating grey, large and empty and depressing with moonlight filtering in from outside. An old attempt at domestic industrialisation...falling flat due to foreign imports offering the same wares cheaper since they had to pay no tariffs at all...afterall, this was an occupied territory and the occupiers did not intend to bar the path of their own economy. The business had gone bankrupt, the employees been laid off, the factory closed down, all machinery sold. The owner still kept the property though. And being sympathetic to the cause after he lost so much to the foreigners, he gladly gave it to the Al-Hamdu Front as a base of operations. One of many in the city but this one clearly being the largest.
Now, the Al-Hamdu Front was separate from the Al-Hamdu Ila. Where the Al-Hamdu Ila were officially only lightly affiliated with the Hamdu and generally peaceful, the Al-Hamdu Front was serving the Hamdu directly and was responsible for many of the terror attacks of the past. Their ranks had shrunk since the rise of the Al-Hamdu Ila yet they had become no less dangerous, with middlemen inside the Al-Hamdu Ila allowing them to influence the much larger and more peaceful organisation to the completion of their own goals. To rid the Dune Sea of all foreigners and re-establish Al-Dundus under the rule of the Hamdus.
Which made it all the more interesting just how much the Al-Hamdu Front was open to foreign aid and just how much they were willing to do for it.
The factory's main hall was filled with foreigners from Nachfolgia. They had been smuggled into the country through the Al-Hamdu Front's vast smuggling network, created under the occupation to smuggle people who had search warrants on them or forbidden goods to their many cells within the country. Most of the Al-Hamdu Front's members didn't even know who these foreigners were, where they actually came from or why they were here and yet they had smuggling them in with the help of and at someone else's beck and call. Now the smuggling hadn't always been very comfortable, at times they had to give up parts of their equipment and go without it or be separated but in the end they were all reunited with all their equipment in this factory hall where they were now waiting for the briefing for the mission they had been sent here to accomplish.
They did not have to wait too long. A commotion started under the Al-Hamdu guards who were with them in the compound, signalling that something was happening. A few of the Al-Hamdu men left the Nachfolgians to their own devices, hurrying out of the hall into a sidebuilding after they had been informed of something through hushed whispers.
Just a few minutes later a pair of people, most likely women, completely shrouded in traditional black robes with little more than their eyes looking out, entered the hall, three locals hoding stacks of dossiers following behind them. The women walked in front of the Nachfolgians, looking the tall people over before looking at each other and nodding. Yes, these were indeed the people they were supposed to expect. In a single motion both of them pulled the black robes off themselves, revealing that they were not local at all and instead very much foreigners like the Nachfolgians. The two women both had fairly pale skin more akin to the Nachfolgians or Emerian Foreigners in the Dune Sea than the Dunepeople's tan. A pair of red eyes and a pair of green eyes tracked every single movement made by the Nachfolgians and wicked smiles adorned their beautiful faces which were framed by extravagent hairstyles. Not to mention the rather extravagant choice of clothing. One of the two motioned for the locals to go ahead, the men then walking forward to the Nachfolgians and handing out the dossier, one for each. Meanwhile the other raised her voice so it could be heard in the entire hall, speaking in perfect Nachfolgian:
"Welcome to the Dune Sea! I hope the journey was most comfortable? Yes? That's great because your mission is about to start. If you need anything like food, drink or just a visit to the restroom, you've got a two minute window and will miss out on the briefing. Pray that your comrades are going to inform you about its contents. Now as for the contents..."
The other woman now spoke up, continuing where her counterpart had left off:
"Please open the dossiers handed out to you. They contain important information on the mission environment and the objectives. Now as for the mission itself...well, once this briefing is finished, you are to form atleast three groups. Each of your groups will be assigned a local guide, who will help with getting through the current riots and give you pointers on good positions for the execution of the mission. These men are expendable. Maps are provided in your dossier and if you believe in your ability to circumvent the rioters on your own then you are free to do so."
The men had handed out the last dossiers and returned to the side of the two women, the first of which was now the one to continue talking again:
"Your targets are the embassies of MInroz, Monfrox and Sonitusia. All of them are currently under siege by rioters and cut off from the authorities. Authorities will need a lot more time before they can reach any of these embassies unless they start using deadly force against the rioters so we have plenty of time to move against them. Within each of these embassies are individuals which are considered valuable to current operations. Your mission is to extract these individuals from there by force and bring them back here. The exact way of achieving this objective is up to your expertise."
Now the second woman spoke again, her smile devilish as she eyed the Nachfolgians with her green eyes, looking for a reaction:
"To keep authorities in the dark for as long as possible, you are to ensure that nobody notices your presence and stays alife to tell about it. No witnesses. It's irrelevant wether these witnesses are embassy staff, authorities, Al-Hamdu Ila or even other Nachfolgians who are not part of this mission. I am sure you will enjoy slaughtering those Minrozians, hehehehe.
Oh, by the way, there's a substantial risk that the authorities will be deploying transport helicopters in an attempt to evacuate the embassies. Needless to say that these choppers should not leave the premises ever again?"
The first woman picked up again now:
"After you have left the premises, the Al-Hamdu Front will take care of the rest. You just ensure that you make it back here unscathed and undetected. Speaking of which...you can find traditional cloaks much like the ones we wore in that chest over there. They are surprisingly effective. Though considering your...unusual physical build, I'd ask you to walk a bit hunched over. You're far too tall otherwise. And keep your mouths shut as long as there are others around who could hear you.
Now with that I believe we've covered everything. Waidmannsheil to you!"