New Civilizations [IC | Closed]

[The Hierophancy]

Some God Forsaken Forest

I recalled, vaguely, some sort of saying back north, something about homes and being away from them making 'em seem better? Maybe I was just thinking of "separation makes the heart grow fonder" or similar bullshit, or making some sort of mental mash up combining said saying and "home is where the heart is", but either way, that vague and easily forgettable snippet of folk knowledge, if it even exists, proved very, very true. Whilst for what felt like countless months I had intermittently complained and whinged about the savage conditions Colote presented me with - although most such whining was done internally - the muddy backwater proved a paradise compared to the various other shades of muddy backwater our troop wandered it's way through. Our "army" was similarly neglected, for although they all possessed their iron-tipped spears, little else about them seemed very standardized - most naught but their loinclothes and mayhaps a mantle or two, a few were equipped with threadbare quilted cotton vests, but other than that their uniforms or lack there of varied widely, although the officers were better equipped in their full suits of itchy, padded cotton. As for weaponry and equipment, most of the roughly 90 warriors possessed a round shield of thick, tightly woven plant matter, although a few had shields of hide or even wood, adorned with simple shapes and a few crude visages of the gods. A good deal of troops too brought with them their family's macuahuitl, although such weapons varied widely in quality, and near all were missing at least a few of their prismatic obsidian blades. Slings, throwing spears and atlatl were common as well, though only a few, the professional hunters among us, were equipped with bows. My own contingent - around 18 troops, those men formerly employed either working my furnaces or tilling my field - were not much better armed, though I had bought for each of them relatively new vests and caps of quilted cotton, along with plain hide shields to accompany their iron hatchets and spears. They accepted these gifts willingly enough back in Colote, but after days of marching from backwater to backwater through this and that sweltering jungle, they seemed less happy with the thick cotton and heavy iron that weighed them down in addition to what rations they had elected to take on the journey. My own hastily acquired (and several sizes too small) cotton suit wasn't much more comfortable, but nevertheless I soldiered onwards with only minimal complaining.

The towns and hamlets which dotted the mountainside path winding down towards the coast seemed little more than speed bumps, and though War Chief Taríacuri assured our band that it was necessary to beseech each and every minor, slightly inbred chief that he too needed to donate men to our expedition, my own mine and I shared doubts that any one of these tiny farming communities possessed men capable of even the most basic military tasks, whether it be due to weakness or the assumed stupidity of isolated bumpkins. Of course, in the end it mattered little whether such men were capable of ousting these marauders, as they and their chiefs were universal in refusing, citing everything from needing the men at home, receiving any variety of portents, indifference, or in some cases directly stating that they were a village of cravens of no use for battle. Thankfully we'd exhausted ourselves of local villages, and Taríacuri finally decided to turn us about and march towards the first major village and potential ally, Tangáxuan's township of "Echeri", a town which, from what my men told me, was near enough the level of Colote, though a good deal filthier and much more focused on fishing than farming. The way there, unfortunately, remained relatively untamed, difficult to traverse and exceedingly boring. At first I filled my time simply drilling and sparring with the handful of troops I could call my own, more for my own benefit than theirs, but after we grew tired of that, I decided to try and teach them some "tactics". I started with a shield wall of sorts, mixed in with a few elements of the phalanx, and although such organization was largely unwelcome among the warriors and a good deal more difficult than I'd hoped in the rough terrain of wherever we decided to make camp, some aid from my first officer Cháalaxa warmed the troops up a bit towards attempting to pull of my rudimentary formations, and after some adjustment I managed to slap together a looser "shield wall" which could better cover rough ground. After a week or two, we'd grown quite good at shuffling into our little ranks and walls, and though the odd movements were more derided than admired by our fellow warriors, my band began to take some pride in our own perceived discipline, though it was just when we were starting to get, if not good, at least passable that we finally reached Echeri.

If Colote was a village, Echeri was a city, and had the smell to prove it. A mass of huts, some mud, some thatch, a few wood and even a handful of stucco slathered adobe structures embraced the nearby river, a lazy, dull grey thing, not much to look at. These huts were close set, with narrow, packed dirt roads weaving their way between and through this and that mound of human habitation, and most concentrated by the shore, where a series of small jetties, some containing rough dug out canoes, were dug and built off of the riverside. It was from these, and the nearby open-air markets, that Echeri's iconic stench was emanating, a mixture of rotting fish and human waste which could be detected a good few moments before you burst through the woods that ringed the town atop the surrounding foothills. Our force, organized into rough lines by Taríacuri once we came into view of the city, made our way down from the high hills and towards the only really notable structure within the city, a "palace" of wood rising up above the surrounding hovels, it's intricately carved and in some areas painted surfaces visible even from afar. The natives took quite a bit of interest in the force of armed warriors marching through their narrow and rowdy alleys, a curiosity returned by many of the Coloteans, most of whom had never been nearly this far away from the comfortable embrace of her clear blue lake. Whilst the locals looked similar to the folk I traveled with, there were a few key differences - the tongue they spoke was difficult to understand, and they seemed mostly devoid of body hair, with a majority of both women and men lacking head hair, facial hair, body hair, and even eyebrows, retaining only their eyelashes. A few, of a generally more impoverished disposition, were of slightly shorter stature than their fellow Echeri'i, and all skin they exposed to the air was near completely covered with tattoos. Even their teeth looked tattooed or dyed. As we passed a gaggle of such inked peoples, one of my men, a forge worker, gave a few murmured prayers and made a sign to ward off evil. Seeing my inquisitive glance, he made a jabbing motion at one of the citizens, whispering to me simply "Otomi".

As one grew closer to the great palace of Echeri, and thus closer to the city center, the stench seemed to grow in proportion to the glory of our intended destination. Despite the smell of neolithic city-life, the great structure of wood really was quite impressive, and though it lacked the great imposing stone and metal architecture I was used to seeing in buildings of importance, what it had was so well carved and crafted that every square inch looked a piece of art worthy of any museum. The outermost stretches of a palace - a building which upon closer inspection was much larger than it previous appeared, near enough to the size of a modern mansion plunked into the center of a stinking and sagging city of mud - were vividly colored and inscribed scenes of court and city life. Abstract and near glowing images of merchants, fishermen, supplicants, even whalers and of course a variety of rulers bombarded the eye, but as one grew closer to the great central entryway into the palatial complex the images grew older, more worn, with chipped paint or no paint at all. The scenes and pictures here were of battle, sacrifice, building, and gods. The gate itself was of rich, hard mahogany, and in it was scratched out the image of what was clearly a king, or conqueror. Through this great door was an open courtyard, surrounded by what I assumed to be the living quarters, kitchens, dining halls and the like, all interlinked and crafted of hard wood. The "throne" set down at the opposite end of the open air hall, despite being surrounded by gloriously clothed and presented nobles and courtiers of all sorts, was in comparison a disappointingly stubby little stool of sorts, also of hard wood but largely unadorned. The man who sat upon it was perhaps the oldest I'd seen over the last few months, a trait no doubt extenuated by the fact that his completely shaved and thoroughly wrinkled body made him look more nut-brown mole rat than man. Our own war chief, too dressed in a splendorous suit of feathers, precious stones and dyed cotton thread, approached the rat-king alone whilst the rest of us, acting under previously given orders, fanned out behind him and formed rough "ranks" a respectable distance away from the lord of Echeri. Taríacuri strode forwards, giving a deep bow which caused his rippling mantle of hummingbird feathers to ripple like a liquid rainbow...

[RNT]

Kandalaksha, Russia

The world slowly came into focus as Kade leaned up. As he looked around he was surrounded by tall trees. This was when he became aware that he was a little cold, at this moment he realized he was butt naked. Kade became quite confused, the last thing he could remember he was at a party drinking with some friends and then he must have passed out. As he looked around he saw to shadowy figures weaving their way through the trees toward him. Kade scrambled to his feet and took off running. He glided across the forest floor, but the others were approaching quickly. He saw a large stick and picked it up. He turned to face these figures. Two men stepped out into the open. Wearing fur coats and wielding spears with sharp rocks on the tips. Kade began to move toward them when he was knocked to the ground from the side. Four more men had approached from the trees behind him. They began to kick and beat him till he passed out.
Kade woke abruptly as a cold pot of water was thrown on him. He was tied to a large X made from wood in a small village of tents. There were 10 men standing in front of him all dressed like the ones from the woods. One stood slightly in front of the others and began to speak.
“Who are you and where do you come from?”
Kade responded, “my name is Kade Steele and I’m from Texas. I have rights you know.”
The man responded, “I know not of this Texas or of these Rights that you speak of. I do know that you are in our hunting grounds.”
Kade answered, “Sir I truly have no idea where I am”
The man said, “You are in the Akkala Kola Tribe of the Sami People”
This was the last words Kade heard before they began to beat him again.


11 Months Later

Soon after Kade’s last beating they concluded that he must have come from a southern tribe, and that he posed no harm. Not too much after that he began to work for the hunters. He discovered that there were niches in the Akkala Kola Tribe. Hunters, the men who hunted wild game such as reindeer, seals, bears, rabbits, foxes, and other game for meat and security. The next was the Warriors, men who were trained to fight they acted as both the police of this tribe and as soldiers. From what Kade had learned there were Four other major tribes in the area, The Southern Pite, Ianri Kemi, Skolt Kildin, and the Akkala Kola and each of these tribes numbered around 20,000 apiece. These tribes were always at high tensions over land disputes. The next was the Farmers the men and women who in the spring and summer would plant and harvest crops and who did all the cooking. The next was the Fishers, men and women who would go out on boats and fish, the most dangerous job of the fishers was whale fishing. The next was the Herders, men and women who raised livestock such as cattle and mountain goats, this was the smallest of the working niches. The highest and smallest was the council, five men who ruled the Tribe.
A couple weeks after being in the tribe he began to craft a bow and rudimentary arrows. This was quite an interesting invention for the Akkala and within six months all the hunters used them and some of the Warriors began practicing with them. Kade Slowly began to work his way up through the hunters. He worked his way all the way up to First Hunter which meant that he was second in command to the Head Hunter. He also showed the Warriors how to craft simple shields out of wood. These shields and bows would give the Warriors an edge over the other tribes at least for the time being. Kade’s help earned him much respect in the tribe and he even began to feel like he was fitting in.
The strangest thing to Kade about these people was there religion. They believed in four “Great Beings” as they called them. They were called Krig (War), Kjærlighet (Love), Havet (Ocean), Skitt (Nature). Kade began to tell the hunters that there was a Fifth God. He explained that God Created these Four Great Beings to rule over his creation Earth. But that God was the Highest of them all and that God encouraged man to be better people. To be better in the way they treat others, he told them that all blessings were truly from God. This new belief spread quickly through the Hunters and in no time, they all were followers of what was called “Kola Christianity”. Over time it even spread to a few members in other niches. However, many still believed in what was known as the “Old Gods”. However, interaction between the Two religions was quite peaceful as neither one directly denounced the other rather where different adaptations of the same thing.

[The New Byzantine II]

Present Day
November 2017
It was on a late afternoon and there was a practice for the field demonstration on school, Renz was one of them, his role was a warrior though. He was appointed as a choreographer and a leader of the first batch of the warriors which he don't like but he accepts it anyways because obviously, grades. It was his first time being a choreographer which surprised his peers, Renz never danced before but he have shown his hidden talents to his peers. He was teaching his fellow dancers the steps of dancing together with his tropa Kyle. Kyle actually help his fellow tropa because he was Renz's substitute. Anyways, the practice went well until the students of the twelfth grade would replace them. He and his fellow dancers would go back to their respective classrooms. Renz was somehow irritated because of the schedule, he looked at Kyle and he would began to speak while walking to their respective classroom.

"This is fucking stupid, pre. Twenty minutes? Seriously?" Renz scratch his head from the irritation.

"I know right! This school sucks like most of the staffs! Except for the teachers of course." Kyle smirked at him.

"Heh, is this even a field demonstration anymore? Last year, it was a whole day practice. I miss the junior days."

"Like what Ma'am Shirley said, true academic excellence, right?" Kyle grins at him.

"Academic excellence my ass, we are not some children of Albert Einstein, pre. The principal should balance the academics and the activities. The era of Sir Jason [Principal] is getting worse." Renz shake his head.

"Yeah, bro."

They would head back to their respective classroom and forty minutes later, it was a dismissal. Renz would head to the court to meet his original barkada or the original squadmates, some were playing basketball and others were just an audience. Renz would do 'broshake' to his squad who are currently an audience, they would talk about the current events on the school and after that he would head to the school bus, he takes a seat. He grabs his earphones and he chose the song titled Ngayong Gabi (in English means "tonight") by Al James; a Filipino rapper. He would close his eyes as he listens to the chill vibes of the song he is currently listening to, he would take a small nap since it would take forty minutes to arrive on his house.

---

Renz Semacio
Vladivostok, Far East Russia
November 2915 B.C. - First Day

He would slowly woke up in a very unfamiliar place, he cracks his neck from left to right. As he is now fully awake, he would see a bonfire and spears, he would also look at his clothes; he is now wearing a fur jacket rather than his school uniform. He can feel the cold breeze running thru his body and he realized that he was in a large hut and also he was naked inside, good thing he was wearing a fur jacket but how? He was really confused, he have never felt this kind of temperature. For him, the cold here is worse than Georgia as he wasn't used in cold climate.

"How the hell did I get here? What the fuck..." Renz murmured as he scratch his head.

He would also realize that his school bag, his school uniform, his iPhone 6s-.. are now gone, Renz started to get worried, he isn't on Doha anymore and clearly he doesn't know where he is but he doesn't know why he is in a cold place which is very odd since Doha isn't this cold..

"Where the fuck are my things? Tang ina!" Renz would facepalm himself, he was shivering from the cold breeze of the true winter. He haven't felt this since he left Georgia last year, it was a great experience for him, he even paraglides in the middle of the winter which he got frostbite! That was a lifetime experience for him and yet here we are, he is really confused. He could even hear the winds of the cold winter. He started to think that he wasn't in his country but in a cold country. Is he in Switzerland? Russia? Georgia? That was what he was thinking right now but it's literally impossible. As would stand up, the family would enter the hut, it was a father, a mother, and a girl which she looks like the same age as Renz. Renz would get shocked and he would back down.

"Ah, you are awake." The father said as he holds his spear calmly.

Renz was confused as he doesn't know what language does the man speak but he understood it. He raised his eyebrows towards to the family.

"Who are you? Why am I here?!" Renz asked, he wasn't comfortable to this people although when he looked at the girl who was beautiful and surely have a great body, he would shake his head as he smirk secretly.

"You are in the middle of the snowhill, kid, plus you are naked, that's why you we decided to save you. Basically, you are in our hut and this land is under the Urdugen tribe." The father said as he puts the spear on the wooden wall.

"Udugen tribe?"

"Yes and we are no threat to you, kid, just relax."

Renz would began to calm down, as usual, he doesn't know why he can speak and understand their language, it is so very unfamiliar to him. He decided to take a sit on the floor, basically the beautiful girl was looking at him from head to toe, she was giggling because the undercut hairstyle was oddly great and unique, he decided to ignore her giggling and he looked at the man.

"You have an odd hair, kid."

"It's undercut hairstyle, sir, if you don't know."

"Undercut hairstyle? Sir? Hmm, that's the first time I'm hearing it."

"Uhh-.. alright but sir means you are an elder, sir."

"Hmm, you're technically not from here aren't you? You don't look a Taz either. By the way, what's your name, kid?"

"I am Renz."

"Renz? What an odd name you have. Anyways my name is Shiyo, this is my wife Yina and this is my girl Yuka."

Renz would say hello to the wife and the girl. The girl was smiling at him, he would smile back. He shift his attention back to the man.

"Anyways, Renz, you look like you aren't from here. You have a different look and your appearance is unique but we have the same skin color so I am thinking you are from a nearby tribe, right?"

"No, sir, umm, I belong to a city called Butuan in the Philippines, have you ever heard of it?"

"Butuan? Philippines? Are those a new tribe?"

Renz would shake his head. "Butuan is a city while the Philippines is a nation."

"I have never heard those locations in my entire life. Well, if you are literally not from here then welcome to the lands of the Uduge tribe. I will meet you to the Chief tomorrow morning because right now outside? It's a snowstorm out there and we can't go to the tribal base directly."

"Huh-.. alright, sir."

"Anyways, you can stay here if you want since you are lost."

"Thank you sir."

The man would pat his shoulder, his wife would smile at Renz and the girl would flirtatiously flip her hair which Renz noticed it. He thinks about having some fun with her but that would be wrong, especially that he is lost in the middle of nowhere. Even though he knows so much in world history, he doesn't know what the Udugen tribe is including the Taz tribe that was mentioned by Shiyo; the man. He would sit down and think, where is he?

Putang ina, this is weird as fuck, I don't even know where I'm at. Is this a dream? I really hope this is a dream, I don't even know how I able to speak and understand their language. I am in some tribal lands and it's so fucking cold. The father and mother was good to me but their daughter? She's a chix, eh, I wanted to fuck her so bad because of her obviously a great body but this is wrong, I must get out of here but I need to stay, I need to know where I'm at. Oh well.

"Renz! You wanted to join us?" The girl named Yuka said as she smiles at him.

"Yeah, sure." Renz smiled at her.

Renz would join to the family's dinner, the food was a cooked Wolf meat although Renz doesn't know what meat is this. He decided to not ask further questions as he was really hungry. After that, the cold night came and he would take a sleep near to the girl, he was really shivering even though he have a big fur covering his body. The girl seemed noticed her shivering and she puts a candle near to him, she smiled at Renz.

"Here, I hope this would make you feel better."

"Thank you so much, Yuka."

Yuka giggled and she would go back to her bed, minutes later she was asleep. Renz would take a sleep too as the father would take him to the Chief of the Udugen tribe, he was curious enough to get to know the chief so that he could get out of here. This was a weird day he had, Renz hoped that this was just a dream.. or is it?

[Labstoska]

John Collins
The port had grown busy in the past few months. It's once ramshackle wooden piers had been torn down and replaced with far sturdier ones and a small market had developed behind the port itself. John new that this was all down to the success of the colonies, one of which had founded upon a large reserve of copper ore and was now providing the Khanate with shiploads of the stuff which was one of the factors that lead to the creation of the marketplace.

It was this very market that John had found himself in early in the morning, as he walked through the market he had no guards accompanying him for there were 7-12 Zealous agents within the crowd. The reason that he had left the isolation of his palace was that he needed to see for himself the success of the colonies, he could no longer trust in the reports presented to him. As John walked through the marketplace he began to notice the class system that had developed with the Zealous and himself at the top l, the officials and scribes who ran the government and finally at the very bottom of the pile were the people who now surrounded him, farmers, miners, all those who fulfilled the everyday chores that needed to be done.

As he managed to exit the crowded marketplace he saw the longship that was to carry him up the Yangtze. It was nothing particularly special all John required was speed, he abhorred long waits. The captain of the ship as he entered despite being informed that he would be transporting the heavenly Khan himself was still shocked when John boarded the boat. John could of sworn that he was about to faint but instead the captain contained his nerves by groveling. The journey down the Yangtze was silent, John had grown weary of conversation ever since he assumed control of the Khanate and he doubted wether the captain of this boat would talk in fear of what would be done to him if he did insult the most heavenly Khan.

As the boat traveled agonisingly slow down the Yangtze John noticed shapes darting throughout the trees, blending with the shadows of the forest. John was concerned by these shadowy figures so he called out to the captain.

"Captain those shapes on the side of the river, what are they?"

"The shadows my lord, why they must be the local savages, you always see them on the side of the river, you see the Free company has never bothered to clear then out cause all travel between the colonies is on the river."

The journey continued onwards for what must of been an hour however the savages still followed them, John was now begining to become quite fearful, these savages clearly had some kind of malicious intent and indeed a few minutes later his fears were confirmed as a large wave of spears came soaring out of the forest towards the ship. The captain went down immediately so did most of the crew however John was fortunate for he was shielded by one of the crew. Another wave of spears sailed towards the longship however this time they were alight with flames.

The longship quickly began to burn so John quickly ran to one side of the ship and jumped. He managed to swim towards the the shore of the river opposite to the savages and for a short while the savages on the other side of the river simply stared at him. After a few minutes they ran off and a passing vessel managed to pick John up and return him to Newholm but this experience had made John realise that he did not have as much power as he previously thought.

In order to make sure that this incident never occurred again John ordered for the creation of the Khanate's navy which was to at first consist of 3 longship and would patrol the river protecting trade between the colonies and Newholm itself. Then it was ordered that a military campaign against the savages was to take place. They would see that if they threatened the life of the heavenly Khan then they would suffer.

[Pasong Tirad]

Arsenio Lacson, or Arsenios Thalassos
Half a day's march north of Athínai
Fourteen weeks since his arrival

The Dekélaíoi

It was most definitely getting close to winter now. Arsenio was wearing very heavy furs, and he guessed that, around this time, he had already probably turned 26. He spent the morning of their departure feeding and playing with Manila and the pups, as well as introducing the pups to Kleomaki and Lysistrate, the latter being the one who's going to take care of them while they're away. Kleomaki still hasn't decided which pup he's going to get, though ("They're the same, Arsenios").

On their own, Athínai had ninety warriors ready and willing to fight the Dekélaíoi. Kleomaki said, however, that if they couldn't be armed in time and if they didn't have an actual weapon even in their home, then they can't join the actual fighting. They could come with the warriors, because around a dozen or so other people (mostly women) who were going to act as a baggage train decided to tag along. Elder Thespis himself was sending over one of his medical apprentices to help care for the wounded after the battle ("apprentice" was one way of putting it, most people called the young man the Elder's lover).

Over the past few days, groups of men have been pouring into Athínai. The men from Elefsís came first, bringing a dozen men, all armed in a motley fashion, mostly farming implements like sickles - one guy brought a stick with a sharpened rock at the tip. Kleomaki got so mad that he sent him home. All they could spare, apparently, since a lot of the men were either busy preparing their own defenses for a possible attack or were off fishing, getting as large a catch as they can before winter. However, they did bring with them a doctor who, in their words, studied somewhere in southern Greece in a village Arsenio didn't catch the name of.

The next day, fifteen men from Salamís came and, to Kleomaki's delight, ten of those men were toxotai. Bowmen, armed with some shortbows that, according to Kleomaki, they probably got from Krḗtē. Since neither Athínai nor Elefsís had bowmen of their own (just javelins and slings), the range that's afforded to them by the toxotai is a blessing.

But the largest contingent of all came the next day from the Peraíoi. Thirty-six men, with more than half of them carrying at least one harpoon, answered the call. The head of the contingent, Nikasios, said that all of those who volunteered were their fishermen, since most of their traders were employing the "warriors" that they did have as security for their trading boats or trading caravans. Kleomaki was so delighted by this that he made sure Nikasios went with him everywhere while he was preparing the army, pretty much turning Nikasios into his right hand man.

They were to march off in two days. Since this was such a hurried effort, not all of the Athínaíoi were equipped. A dozen men were either left behind or reassigned to support roles because the smiths weren't able to make enough weapons in time, which left the actual fighting strength of this ragged alliance at around one hundred and forty men. Arsenio himself did the counting for Kleomaki and Nikasios, since he was able to read and write. Of those one hundred and forty men, ten had bows, twenty had slings, thirty had javelins, ten were rich enough to have swords (including Kleomaki, Nikasios, and the leaders of the contingents from Salamís and Elefsís), twenty-five had spears (including Arsenios), and the rest were armed with a random assortment of weapons - hatchets, daggers, clubs, and sickles, along with some random weird weapon here and there.

For those two days that most of the contingent spent at Athínai, they trained. Arsenios himself was able to help, because he spent a whole day working on a device that could help them throw their javelins. Kleomaki was so pleased that he had everybody with a javelin make one of their own. Arsenio then spent some time learning how to use it himself. He was good enough at throwing javelins, which was why that was all he did when everybody was "training." He spent a whole day doing nothing but throwing a practice javelin (he didn't want to ruin the bronze and copper tips of his two javelins) at the dirt, that the next day his arm was so sore. Since his arm was too sore to keep practicing, he decided that he had to work more on his endurance, and so he wore everything he was supposed to wear and he brought everything he was supposed to bring - leather greaves, one leather bracer for his left arm, a thin, round wooden shield covered in boar hide, his two javelins, and his spear. He also brought along with him a messenger bag-like sack made of boar hide filled with rocks (to substitute for his food and waterskin). People were looking at him funny and laughing at him as he ran around Athínai with all that heavy gear, but for one of the few times in his life, Arsenios didn't care what everybody else thought. He was going into battle, and he had to be ready. While everybody else spent that day training by fighting, Arsenio worked on his endurance. He would need it.

On the next day, they set off right before dawn. The whole village woke up at that time, too, to say their farewells and their prayers. The women who were going to stay behind (Lysistrate included) gave their brothers, fathets, sons and husbands food for the road. Lysistrate, in her boundless kindness, gave Arsenio some salted pork which, according to her, should still be good to eat after a week. Coupled with Arsenio's bundle of barley bread and rabbit meat, Arsenio should have enough food for the campaign. Should. However, Arsenio was carrying a lot more than he thought he would. He didn't take into account the fact that he would be wearing such heavy furs. He had to wear a thicker coat because Arsenio's from the tropics, and his body still hasn't fully acclimated to Greek weather.

They walked north for half a day. Arsenio had never walked so much in his life. He was tired out of his wits, but at least he was able to walk this far. Those jogs around Athínai were worth it. They encamped on the southern bank of a river several hours before dusk, in a forested area that they believed would be safe enough. Kleomaki sent out scouts in all directions to try and figure out which path the Dekélaíoi would take. Kleomaki wanted to meet the Dekélaíoi out in the open before they went south to raid to avoid a very costly siege. Arsenio worried about a prolonged encampment here, and he was always worried about getting ambushed.

They didn't have to worry, though, because one of the scouts came back a few hours into the night, after they had encamped, and informed them that the Dekélaíoi were no more than 20 stadia to the north of their encampment (around two or three hours away) at a small, open plain flanked by rocky hills to the west, east, and south. Kleomaki called it a perfect battleground, praising the gods for granting their company opportune conditions to fight. The scout, however, wasn't finished. He reported the numbers of the Dekélaíoi as being equal to theirs, and quite possibly larger as well. The culture of Dekéleia was vary martial and warlike, and the scout believes that almost every man who could fight has left Dekéleia to raid. This dampened some spirits, but Kleomaki and Nikasios were having none of it. They went on and on about how this was a noble campaign, and that the gods are on their side (a notion which the men from Elefsís, who were Christians, were comfortable with, surprisingly enough).

While the Attikoi had little knowledge of fighting as a unit, Kleomaki's plans were simple enough to follow: their company would camp on the banks of the southern hill, the toxotai and slingers, led by the captain from Salamís, would hold a higher point on the hill, behind the main company, where they would have a clear view of the enemy. The javelins, led by Arsenio himself, would first be at the very front, in front of the spear and swordsmen, where they can throw their javelins once the Dekélaioi came close and would disperse once their enemy came too near. Behind them would be the main warriors, led by Kleomaki and Nikasios, which comprised of everybody else - spearmen, swordsmen, as well as those who couldn't afford to get a spear or a sword.

It was crude, and Arsenio knew that what little amount of discipline they did have wouldn't be enough to defeat the Dekélaíoi, but he was confident enough that he slept, for the most part, soundly that night. He needed all the strength he had for the next day.

[Tulgur Khanate]

Chapter I : Part 1
Men with Unkempt Hair and Ragged Clothing
November, 2915 B.C
Dadal, Mongolia


A searing headache and a dry mouth. Dry not because of the nose being blocked or some cold, I had a cold maybe last or two weeks ago but not as of late. As I began to close my mouth and lick my lips, it would become almost powdery, then came a taste. I immediately began to get up and open my eyes rubbing them so as to get a better view of what exactly was in my mouth, simultaneously spitting out what had been resting in my mouth for who knows long. I began to search for my glasses, trying to stand up and take them from my bedside table, to realize there was no table to be found Discovering that I was in-fact on the ground. I soon felt the hot metal of my glasses after feeling around and began to attempt at cleaning the lenses, to realize I had no shirt or any other clothing on. This couldn’t be possible, I began to feel for clothing, shirt, pants.. Maybe I just went to sleep naked last night.. But I struggled to open my eyes, but to what? Was there some bright light being shined in my eyes? No.. it was too warm for it to simply be a bright light, even trying to open my eyes gave me a reminder of the headache I had.

As my eyes slowly began to adjust I was able to slowly realize what that light was through the blurriness in my vision, it was the sun, and as I began to look around, above, what would be revealed to me was the vast blue sky, not a cloud in sight. And just below that, vast spaces of emptiness, just grass and patches of dirt around the ground among some hills and other distant views. It still hurt to look around, as my eyes still slowly adjusted to this abnormal setting. As drool came down from my lips from the saliva I had spit out before, suddenly neglected as I began to collect myself. I attempted to get on one knee so as to prop myself to a standing position but the headache that plagued me was suddenly amplified as I tried. Struggling, as I was brought back onto my hands and knees, I would attempt again, this time being thrown to the ground, with my glasses falling off to the ground in the process. It was when I realized that struggling wasn’t going to get me anywhere, I closed my eyes and thought of home. Resting right now would be my best option, and then perhaps when I woke I would be able to find some help.

As my eyes began to open once again to the heat of the sun, and the blue sky above, I heard a thundering in the distance. What was that sound, how long had I slept? I struggled for my glasses and hurried to put them on from where they had fallen. I brought a hand to face to shield my eyes as I searched around. It was then I saw some figures in the distance, and clouds of dust as they slowly came slowly towards me. I struggled once more to get on my knees, to meet these figures. This time I was more stable, I could partially stand, however only barely. As I began to strain my eyes to see clearer, I saw that the men and thundering that I had seen and heard, were horsemen. I immediately began to signal for help, raising both hands in the air and yelling for help. As they slowly began to approach, I would inspect them further, discovering that they were rather dirty and roughened up. They wore peculiar and ragged clothing, with strange and unkempt hairstyles, most however seemed to have asian like facial features. There were around six of them, they were all on horseback, and as they slowly drew closer and closer, I began to realize that they were not slowing, and two had taken out what seemed to be clubs. They weren’t coming to help me, they were coming in to bludgeon me! I began to turn and limp to nowhere in search of some protection, yelling for help, finding anyway to avoid getting hit in the back of the head.

“Whatever it is you want I don’t have it!-”

However this useless effort to struggle and negotiate for what I had hoped was aid, was soon put to disappointment as I fell to darkness in confusion of what had just occurred.

I could begin to hear murmuring among a group of men, it was dark out, as the men trotted to who knows where with their horses. I simply listened in and hoped to find some sort of information that could help me. I closed my eyes, and attempted to focus on the voices. There was a man with a rather deep voice, compared to the others and the rest varied, some were indistinguishable but I tried to focus harder. It was almost as if I had waken to an argument between the men as I listened closer.

“What shall we do with this one once we get back hm?”

“Do you propose that we simply drop him off here? Why waste such an opportunity to pick up some livestock?”

The voices seemed to be between an older and rougher voice, and then a deeper and much more aggressive one.
“Have you even considered the fact that this livestock you so prize may be a Chinese who simply wandered too far in the wrong direction?”

“Hah! Too far north he says.. And why would a Chinese come here, to do what, die?”

“We shall see.. Besides we’re almost back at the camp.”

“We shall see.”

[G-Tech Corporation]

Part 12, Chapter 5: A Heritage Drowned

November 22nd, 85 AG

I swung down out of the saddle of Amaskas happily, the blood returning to my legs most agreeably as the rest of my escort similarly dismounted. We were not particularly far upon into the Carpathians here, at Nemosos, but that still meant a journey by horseback rather than a more amenable carriage or rail-car. A skill I tried to keep in practice, but truth be told I had grown immodestly fond of the clean industry of rail as compared to the noisome passage atop a beast, and my old dislike for the creatures had begun to return in force.

At any rate, Amaskas was a conveyance, little more. One of the better Volgans that had come out of that spat with the Scythians, stock kept for my use and that of officials from the White Palace, but a horse nonetheless. A means of getting to this backwater, to Nemosos in the vale Scarith, where the petitioners had been gathered by watchful eyes to exercise their right of redress. Already towards the center of the small primitive village my eyes picked out the tents of temporary inhabitants, and I glanced back at Gunderian where his black-coated form strode toward me in the cool mist of the hours before noon.

My words were unnecessary, more for myself than the burly figures of swaddled midnight that closed about me, but I gave them voice nonetheless.

"Keep your eyes open, but your hands away from your guns. I don't want an affray here, not if we can avoid it."

The leader of my guard nodded solemnly, eyes perhaps betraying a flicker of amusement at the reminder of what he already knew, but the other shadowy figures merely accepted the words of their factor as gospel truth- as they should, such stolid products of the Schola. I did not wish for bloodshed today, but if the necessity presented itself, I was confident it would appropriately not include my own exsanguination or that of the grim warriors with me.

I brushed invisible tangles of hair and sweat from my greatcoat, and straightened. Showtime.

Our entourage entered the village with little pomp and circumstance, despite my status, for I had no desire to appear as an outside overwhelming force to these people. At its core, their concern was entirely understandable, and though at times it was tempting to rule by fiat even where unnecessary, I warred daily to keep my feet from the path of the tyrant. Oh, I walked it, certainly, but there were tyrants and then there were tyrants, and every year I struggled to make a figure that history would remember as an Augustus, not a Mugabe. Curious eyes, some filled with suspicion, greeted the arrival of such a large party of obviously armed men. Mothers called children to them, men moved towards wives, but I kept my face open and without fear or malice, and those men whose eyes I met soon softened. Though I had the hard look of a soldier to me after so many years of death and destruction, it was still possible, if I made the effort, to recall to my face a part of the boyhood charm that had won me easy smiles and friends in former years. They did not smile, those I gazed at, but neither did they go for their weapons. And that was good enough, really.

The common building of Nemosos was easy enough to pick out, amid the drab dwellings washed gray by the fog that enfolded the valley. It was twice the height of most of the houses and humble workshops, one of the few to boast a second floor, and its brick construction was close-set and mortared, unlike the rough-hewn stone or planks which graced most of the walls of the village. Nemosos was well to do, all things considered, if it had been left alone, but this far away from the heartland of the Imperium even the effects of generations of prosperity had taken their time to propagate. Nevertheless, it was a solid fir door, well polished and loved obviously, that I pushed open to enter the meeting hall.

There were benches covered in men all throughout the dwelling, and as the door opened a cacophony of sound roiled out into the bare clapboard streets, making me grimace for a moment. There was nothing quite like politicians in debate to sour the peace of a morning of cool weather, but it could scarce be avoided. That was the purpose of my visit, after all- to put an end to the debate. My eyes quickly took in a quartet of men wearing marginally finer tunics toward the front of the meeting hall in the gloom provided by the torches and braziers, and then I noticed that the room was growing distinctly more silent precipitously rapidly.

Ah, the effect of the Blackguards. Even if men did not know their names, the hooded and cloaked figures of silent menace could still the most talkative tongues, lubricated by swill or sober.

To work, then.

I strode forward down the middle of the benches, legs eating up the meters as the final few conversations perished ignominiously, and upon reaching the front of the hall I nodded to the four Firstmen, who dispersed promptly at glares from my protectors. Then I turned to face the crowd. They were a motley assortment of men, some fully bearded, some scarcely capable of growing facial hair, some greybeards, some men with snowcapped mountains for heads, some with hair of flaxen gold. Rich clothes, poor clothes, workmen's clothes. All the prominent or respected men of several villages, come to petition, as they thought, the Citylord of Scarith, to bring an end to the Gray Wall project which had seen many of their properties and neighbors bought out by the state and relocated.

"Gentlemen, thank you for hearing me today. I am not Alexander Ulsan, who you have been expecting- my name is Viktor. Viktor Nemtsov."

At those words many men simply goggled. A mythic figure, but moreover, a figure with far more power than the humble citylord of the backwater mining town that was Scarith. The most learned would have reached their own conclusions upon observing the Blackguards, who stood watch over only the Imperial lineage, but not every man here could even have heard of such warriors, let alone put two and two together upon my entrance. But that name- my name- was enough to send men shrinking down into their benches in respect, some in fear, others in amazement.

No words? No words from the audience. Ah well. I had mostly meant to monologue anyway. I doubted they had ought to add to the discourse of note save ungrounded objections.

"As you all know, the Grey Wall project, and the power it will bring to Scarith and her environs, is one which your governor has watched with particular interest. Now you know that men higher even than he watch it with interest- the Imperial eye is upon the completion of the dam at Ceran Gebir. Your Citylord, in his wisdom, brought word of your concerns to my ear."

It was a lie, but only a little one. Alexander had done his level best to resolve the problem himself and keep it away from the Governor-General's attention; after all, the inability to deal with the desires of a few farmers and herders hardly bespoke competence in the man who could not fulfill the needs of the project. But the Outlookers had heard of the grumbling, the pitchforks gathered, and this was a proving ground, in many ways. My attention had come to the topic, and so here I stood.

I held up a hand, placation perhaps, forestalling speech, perhaps.

"Your concerns I do not dismiss, good sons of the Imperium. Family farms are not of little worth. The bones of your fathers, and their fathers, not simply stumbling blocks in the way of progress. No, I do not see such things as obstacles to the needs of the many. You have been offered compensation, land, pastures, homes. Green country will be yours if you take the offer of those who serve both the Imperial Will, and my own."

"But you are here today because that is not enough. I have heard what you have been presented with, and I agree. Thus today I increase the amount of compensation offered per acre to twelve pieces of copper, and the allotment for each head of a family will now be five parcels if he signs the Writ of Requisition this afternoon, four if you wait until spring to make your decision on where your parcels shall be located."

It was more generous, certainly. More than I would have offered if this were a standardized process, but this was a testbed, an acclimatization. It would be a worthwhile investment. Men stirred where they sat, and some had eyes that were calculating. One of the Firstmen had the presence of mind to plop down at one of the low tables in the hall, and produce the papers he was sent months ago for the landowners to sign. A slow queue formed, but I did not yet smile. More than half of the number of those assembled still sat, their faces unsatisfied, obviously unwilling to part with homes and lands for such a sum.

I nodded.

"Those of you who do not wish to give up your land at all, or think that it is worth more- reconsider. The world turns onward whatever a man wishes. I understand your connections to your patrimony, to those places you know and cherish. But thousands will benefit from the power the Grey Wall Project will bring to the lands beyond this valley, and it is folly to think that I, or any man of merit, will set the sentiment of dozens over the prosperity of so many times their numbers. Sell, and you will be rewarded, and your sons will have fine lands to raise their children upon. Stay, and you will learn, in time, why God promised never again to send a great flood upon the Earth."

It was not a direct threat, nor did I mean it to be, though the eyes of those who gazed upon me hardened or broke, as was the will of their wielders. Next to me I could feel Gunderian picking out those men who scowled the frowns of men who would do something about such an imposition. It was a business that would have to be taken care of, and that was precisely why the local Outlookers had been summoned to Nemosos in force. I was very serious when I said I would not place the selfish wishes of some farmers and yokels above the progress of the nation.

All of the reticent farmers had signed the Writ by the time I departed Nemosos for more civilized climes. Some bore black eyes and nursed bruised bones, but they signed nonetheless. Persuasion by force was crude, and ineffective by my standards, but would have to serve where reason and logic had no sway. Perhaps some would cling to their farms despite the Writ, despite my warnings. They would soon find it difficult to farm under fifty meters of swirling water. But that was their problem, not mine.

The Dawn Treader, Delaware River, North America
June 9th, 85 AG

Through the spyglass Captain Terovingian frowned at the columns of smoke rising from the north-east, his face weathered and chapped. It was what the crow's nest had reported yesterday evening- many fires, too separated to be a blaze in the forests that graced this hither shore. Civilization, likely, or something to that direction. His orders were clear; make contact with the locals, if practicable, in a peaceful manner. So far the dour Austrian had been unimpressed with the trade goods the simple people of the North American coastline and bywaters had offered, but it had at least been a good way to reprovision without taking the time to send out forage parties. A few trinkets of little worth to the Imperial sailors and soldiers, and an entire shipload of good food, though strange, could be purchased, along with other... desirable things. Terogvingian hadn't been screwing his way through the locals like some of the sailors, but that was because he was still young, a young married man who knew he was headed home soon.

At any rate, these were more fires near the great river that the Treader sailed with her sister ship the Carolean, and thus orders had to be followed.

[Ulls]

Tu Thancha,
Land of Ego

Unshuk was looking over the final preparations of the defenses and weapons that are covered by their choke points. Loyalists support came in but the number was purposely low thanks to the Skulk running counterintelligence to only count the support. Unshuk and his Knights were the only elites in the groups of professional soldiers of the Skulk. Loyalists were conscripts pulled from provinces like those from the Battle of the Capital. However, the veterans from both sides will be tested and the Skulk were ready to go for the most part.

For the walls, while the defensive weaponry was poor, the catapults could support Summersoul but there was only a handful of the siege weapons to be of use. Still, the engineers wanted to see if the alchemical weapon could do the damage that they said it could do. The engineers however were very interested to see how the heavy crossbows and repeating crossbows had been able to make their first debut. The heavy crossbows were more use for defense against siege and assault as they were tuned up to have more range than normal crossbows and bows and can pierce any armor that either side had made and even shields.

The repeating crossbow came in two variants, ones that were placed in choke points and strong points around the wall and the ones that were in the hands of the Skulk. While the warriors had more crossbows at the ready thanks to the Skulk letting them share the tech, the Skulk needed to keep their hands on this one. For both variants, the rate of fire was higher, much higher than normal but they were weaker. To compensate for this, the bolts were dipped in poison that can kill them even with injuries.

Unshulk was still worried though, despite the innovation he heard that the Skulk do, it didn't mean that the Battle could go in their favor. The Thanchan warriors would try to run, the wall was weak and wouldn't withstand much punishment. Everything was truly riding on advance weaponry, alchemical Summersoul, and the Loyalists who were the only known forces against the traitors in the province. He prayed to the Fox that the plan could work as intended to some degree and what they have can win this fight, at least the people were evacuated.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Pongeif, Germany, The Imperium
December, 2915 BCE

It was several day after Bob and his associates had arrived in the milltown before the Lawkeepers from Karlsburg caught up to them. Or, rather, caught up to some of them. It wasn't exactly a brilliant piece of detective work to put two and two together, servants emigrating, a valuable object of a reputable family gone missing. The Uhalna's had told Sergeant Jorvik to keep the crime hush-hush, but all of Karlsburg was talking in whispers about the heist- there had been thefts in the past, but crime was something that didn't trouble people of means and industry much, unlike in the case of the missing Staff.

The woman had just rounded the corner, by all accounts just coming back from looking for families of means to work for, when Jorvik stepped forward from the alleyway with a companionable smile on his face. Her blue eyes started upwards at the man blocking her path, confusion filling them momentarily, fear flickering for a moment as she took in the badge of the Lawkeepers sewn over the breast of his padded cloth jerkin. The sergeant recognized her from the sketch the businessman had given them; Katherine.

"Excuse me, Miss Katherine? This way please."

She half-turned, perhaps thinking to flee, but a hard-faced woman stood in the alley behind her, obviously not in a mood for any nonsense. Jorvik's gloved hand moved forward to grip her upper arm, not cruelly, but firmly. The servant-girl pursed her lips, and then seemed to crumple internally. She sighed, and the Lawkeepers led her away, towards the local precinct. A good easy arrest, mused the gruff German officer of the watch, and the key to hunting down these thieves. One more at large? Two more at large? They would be run down, in time, and this Katherine's words would be invaluable in bringing the sons of disorder to heel.

[Ralnis]

Chapter 3, part 3: The Watch Job,
Pongrief, Germany, The Imperium,
December 85 AG/2915 BC/BCE

It had been sometime that Bob got to reflect on his current standing in this world. It had only been three months since he had came to the strange land and started his path to thievery. He honestly didn't expect his skills be of some use cracking into a vault or stealing a high-valued relic. The local news spread from Karlburg about the Thieves, the people didn't know much of the details but he knew that such a thief was already making waves in the underworld.

Finding honest work was hard to do as the milltown was fairly full in jobs but he was able to start some negotiations between getting a job as a technician for cheaper pay than he had before. It was better than nothing and he can learn more about Imperial technology. Bittertooth just told Bob that" it wasn't worth it" and just wait for a little while longer before finding a job. Bob just shook his head, hoping to at least put the thief work behind him for a bit.

He started to draw up new designs for Gaslight and Ironsides, mostly to try and bring back what sense of peace in his newly chaotic life. His mind drew him back in his workshop as the Jukebox played acid jazz that he downloaded from the computer. It was something to bring him back to the modern day, the past, the home he left. The idea of Gaslight and Ironsides were only characters of a steampunk story but here they were real life.

His hand with the charcoal and color pencils would allow him to draw several new outfits, steampunk gadgets, and even had an idea to bring the two servant girls as part of this growing crew but he knew that would probably be a hassle but they were useful in using their charm to get them in the vault.

When the two were in the local tavern where Bittertooth and Bob were drinking but were interrupted by Katherine's sister. She was breathing heavy after running when she saw the two going into the local watering hole. Bittertooth ushered her into a seat while Bob got the waiter to bring some water. After a while of calming down she was starting to tear up.

" Katherine has been taking by the Lawkeepers, they believe that she has information on the heist in Karlburg."

Bob's eyes grew big for a second as he realized his mistake. While the Lawkeepers didn't know out right about the thieves, the servants were a loose end he thought that they would leave as they were talking about getting away from Karlburg, just didn't expect them to be in the same town.

" I'm sure you guys didn't have anything to do with in but I'm not sure what we can do to help." Bob saying with a façade as he mentally kicked himself.

The sister nods," I know but I don't know who to go and they won't let her go."

Bittertooth and Bob get another round as the bandit asked," how long has she been in custody?"

The girl gave that it was yesterday that she had been notified from the Lawkeepers that she was put under custody for accusations of conspiring of theft. Bob just reassured her that he sure that they haven't done anything wrong and it was a misunderstanding probably. They both manage to reassure the young woman and offered to pay for her lodgings to give her some peace. She agreed, claiming the men as good and got some things for her to sleep with.

Bob and Bittertooth knew that this was trouble. While she didn't know much of the thieves, Bob did talk to her prior and got information about the estate and that can lead to him. Bittertooth didn't like the idea of doing a third heist right after a major one, especially as this was equally dangerous for their experience. Bob weighed in the factor that if Katherine were to talk then the Lawkeepers will search for them and his alien registration was here.

Bittertooth then said that they would have to go off-grid with the girls in order to not get caught. Bob just shrugged and asked him he knows anything around the regions. Bittertooth said that they could get lucky with smuggling holes or a desolate shack but he needed to start thinking of making a friend in another region once they get the former servant out. Bob then said that they might as well recruit them and train them to be thieves so they can pull their weight.

Bittertooth was very, very hesitant about that but knowing what was going to happen then he agreed with the idea, knowing that the "mastermind" also needed training in actually fighting if they were going to still be successful in their heists. Then it was decided, the third heist was named the Watch Job. Bob and Bittertooth started to do their usual casing of the watch and saw what they had to deal with. Patrols were disciplined in tight during the day. Lawkeepers were armed with the standard steel and medieval weaponry that Bob had gotten use to and know not be at the end of a spear.

While going inside, Bob got the look of where the guards have the garrisons and the prison cells were on a higher floor, which means that he would have to climb up to get her out. When they left, Bob bought a bronze grappling hook, some bedrolls, and a blackjack from the black market for the heist. He prayed to God that he can do this right as him and Bittertooth donned on their costumes as Gaslight and Ironsides.

The Job started at night while the patrols were half as tight and numbered. It still didn't mean that the heist was any less dangerous. They moved silently through the shadows as the navy blue clothing absorbed the darkness and made them blend in. They got close to the side wall where there was a window carved out of stone and glass. Bob got the grappling hook and managed to get up hooked on the ledge after the third try.

He pulled it to make sure it can hold their weight and began the climb up. Bittertooth had to push him up a few times as Bob was starting to get scared put they managed to open the window and slip into the cells having a couple of guards watching the cells. One of the guards tried to go for the door but Bob tackled him and managed to close the door to muffle the combat a bit. Bittertooth used his blackjack with a smile underneath as he dodged and grabbed the spear with his hand and hit the man with the blunt weapon, knocking him out.

Bob was struggling with the other guard but Bittertooth came behind and wrestle the Lawkeeper to the ground and knocked him out. Bob had bruises and some bleeding injuries but the prisoners were all pleading for the two to get them out. Katherine saw the whole thing and was surprise to see them. She asked if they were here to get her out and Bittertooth nod as Bob picked the key to the door and locked as he heard footsteps coming up the stairway.

Bob quickly open the cell and got the servant out. She was thankful but the banging at the door had got Bob to grab her and get her on his back as he said to " Hang on tightly, and don't scream" as they got to the grabbling hook and started to rappel down. She was starting to get scared and make the rope swing but Bob remind her that they'll fall and die if she kept doing that. As they land, the grappling hook came down but the sound of smashing the door open and rushing boots came to the window and one of the guards spotted the trio.

" Prisoner escape! Get them!"

That sound alone got the rest of the guards on them but the trio manage to give them a slip around the towns alleyways and on the roof using the grappling hook. Still, it didn't mean that streets were safe. They manage to hide among the rooftops until they reached the inn where Katherine's sister was staying at and they were reunited, but Bob had said that they'll have to come with them out of town and region because there's going to probably be two region's worth of Lawkeeper's pursuing them if they don't go off-grid.

The two girls didn't like the sound of that but Bob ensured that he had a plan for the two of them and that he has a way out of this for everyone. They trusted him as they didn't want to be debt-slaves and were already accomplices to two grand heists in two different towns. Katherine and her sister got their bags and came with them as they snuck out of town and out of region in a few days.

A Hidden Encampment,
Germany, the Imperium,
A Few Days Later

The moon was high as the four had managed to get away from the law so far. Katherine saw that her two saviors were the men from Karlburg and the train who they met. Her sister then put two-and-two together and figured out that they were behind the series of heists around the town and broke her sister out. She then gave numerous thank yous to both of them but Bob told them that he did it mostly because he feared Katherine would say something and the Lawkeepers would be able to get him.

However he did say that without their help then they would've been able to steal the Staff in the first place. It was then Bittertooth said that they would like for them to join their crew because of what's happened. The two sisters looked at them with awe as they both said they weren't thieves. Bob did say that their skills in charming the vault guards and managing to at least hold their tongue for at least a few days could be useful in heist that require getting into prisons.

The girls agreed if they only got to have some sort of a normal life and Bob said "that's something we're all looking for". It was decided that they joined the crew and Bob was happy that he won't be the only one training and they can take on heist better. When the two girls were asleep, Bittertooth notice something about Bob. The wounds that were inflicted on him by the Lawkeeper's spear were gone for the most part, it was strange as most men who would've taken blows like that would be slowed down by their wounds and get infection.

Bob didn't see it at first as he was sowing the costumes but now that Bittertooth mention it. It was something he never thought was possible, he wasn't that hardy for his size and frame but being able to stave off wound infection and not being slowed down by them did make him become afraid. It was just then that he had notice this adds on to him being able to speak Imperial quickly like it naturally flowed to him.

Another question rang loudly in his mind that he couldn't sleep easily;

What is happening to me?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Part 13, Chapter 5: Growing Pains

December 23rd, 85 AG

It was good to be back in the capital. The interior of the Map Room was pleasantly warm, heated by unseen furnaces that forced the embracing comfort throughout the White Palace, unlike the chill winds that lashed against the walls and guardhouses of the sprawling government buildings of Mara. A respite, at least, from the truth of our position here in the foothills of the Erzgebirge, and that position's attendant weather. Warm enough of a respite for me to wear a light jacket today instead of the thick greatcoat that was necessary to drive off the cold of winter when I ventured outdoors. Behind the sealed glass of the Palace, away from the exterior shutters that let in light and air in better seasons, one could almost forget the savage world that still teemed beyond the light of civilization and its attendant primitiveness.

Forget, that is, except for the constant reminders that littered the Map Room like a constellation of distant stars. There were shelves, dozens of them, hundreds of them, filled with detailed drawings of Explorators, merchants, surveyors, geologists, the accumulated wisdom of generations. Some of the earliest were little better than a child's scrawling, all sense of scale and projection obviously unheeded by an unlearned people, who, though earnest in their recitations of the lay of the land, knew little better than the most aboriginal of tribesmen when it came to recording the world around them. Newer pieces, though, made even me smile as I gazed upon them; the compass and the astrolabe, as well as accurate charts of the movements of the sun and the moon and the stars, had allowed more recent generations to mark down their absolute position in the cosmos with a degree of precision and detail which I am sure foreign rulers would pay princely sums to access. Knowledge was power, and the Imperium hoarded both with a jealous pragmatism I had cultivated most deliberately.

A single man in a sable coat stood at the center of the Map Room, where the floor changed from polished stone to carefully glazed and maintained glass. I strode toward him, for the Emperor had asked me to meet him here, and under my supple mud-brown boots gray granite and mottled mortar gave way to the oceans and vistas of the world, graven in malleable brass and bronze. There lay the Middle Sea, the Mediterranean, with Ysrael growing in carefully delineated lines of silver. There lay Asia Minor, with the intertwining silver of Antoch buttressed against the inlaid black of Helios. In cunningly cut runes and letters did the cities of the Imperium each lay in their proper positions, as established by the Administratum, the floor broken only by occasional near-invisible gridlines which demarcated the giant floor's true purpose, here beneath a dome of expensive wrought so that, sunlight or starlight, the lands of the Imperium of Man were always illuminated.

Mikhael looked up at my approach, and waved a callused hand toward the western segments of the map.

"We shall have to do more work on this soon, grandfather. The charts from America are fascinating in their differences from the outlines we have here, but also amazing in their similarity."

I nodded.

"As they should be. I would hardly venture to say I have a perfect memory, but it was fresh when I laid down those maps, the shape of the world. Not for naught does the Explorator Guild hold the Annals of the Ages as their primary study material ere they dispatch their sons and daughters abroad."

"Indeed. Sometimes I find myself needing to refer to them, even in my everyday life, for our society changes under my feet as the shifting sand of the seashore. That was a part of why I asked you here today."

Before my great-grandson a segment of the map had been raised, one of the primary functions of the main tableau; using system of levers, weights, gears, and pulleys, individual sections of the highly detailed rendition of the world could be inspected here in Mara, allowing those men of the Rose Council who took the time to refer to it when planning the actions of their jurisdictions; the Map Room and her myriad references held perhaps the most accurate summaries of the terrain and locations in all of existence, and accuracy could turn a dubious military effort into a smashing success.

"I have read of the dangers of banking in the Annals, but I would rather here it from the source. You are aware of the gold returning from Virginia?"

I was. It was a point of small concern to me, really, for the ability of the indigenous to extract the valuable metal from the ground was small, but still, it was a source of income for the crown which could not be discounted.

"There are those in the western regions of Francia and Iberia who wish to fund private expeditions to the New World. Some are encouraged by the reports of few natives and many verdant resources, others in the know, retired Governors and the like, recall the mineral wealth of silver, gold, copper, and iron which can be easily extracted from places such as the 'Cierra de Petosi' and 'Mexico'."

Ah, now that was interesting. True, many ships available to private men and women, if they banded together and pooled their funds, were theoretically capable of reaching such places. I stood in thought for a few moments, turning the idea over in my mind as Mikhael let me consider the ramifications. The influx of gold and silver from the conquest of the New World had proven disastrous for the merchantile economy of the Old World, slowly poisoning the system that had been built up at the time with crashing prices for precious metals. That much I recalled, and had written of, which I had no doubt was Mikhael's concern.

But our world was not there world. Four thousand years and more of development for the natives could not be ignored, and so my mind was more at ease than I had expected upon first considering the topic.

"Yes, there is danger there- I see your hesitation. But I would not worry overmuch; remember, though we flourish, much of the world still labors in ignorance, like would have been the case for mankind ere my coming. The Spanish and Portuguese faced that danger because the civilizations of the New World had also prized gold and silver, amassing vast hoards which the conquistadors plundered to finance their campaigns. I strongly doubt any such hoards exist in our world, our timeline, and so any precious metals returned to civilized climes will come in a slow trickle, not a mighty flood."

Mikhael visibly relaxed a fraction, and I knew my words had put him at ease. His tone was pensive as he spoke again, hand tracing the outline of the North American coast near Canada.

"These traders from Ego made me think it might be otherwise, but you are likely right, grandfather. Though our economy, backed as it is with precious metals, might have been vulnerable, you make good sense; four millenia of mining and extraction are not something we, or I, should readily discount."

Ego, a curious case. I hesitated, then poured a touch of cold water on that optimism.

"Of course, the presence of deceivers in the Americas does throw a bit of a wrench into my suppositions. We have encountered no major civilizations save the barbarous moon-worshipers of Ego so far, but Vladimir's last missive from Virginia spoke of a man there he suspects may also be an immortal, and it would be folly to assume that such men are confined mostly to Europe, with few exceptions. We shall have to be vigilant; though the commonfolk think banks a useful tool, the capital and loans they move through the sinews of commerce of the lands of Men are fracture points, strings of tenuous strength that, if severed, can do much harm, like a culverin whose barrel fails."

Together we gazed down on the map of the American seaboard, lost in thought.

[The Olog-Hai]

Abraham Meyer
Franklin, New Jersey
June 9th, 2915 B.C.E.

Another day, another boiler. And on it went. Same old, nothing all that new to do. Though Abraham was working on a plan for a new city... New York, he was going to call it, since it was going to be in modern Manhattan. He was planning on it to be the main port city of Franklin, for easier trade with Ego, and if anyone was in Europe. Of course, building the Erie Canal would be an important part of trading with Ego, too.

Abraham's thoughts were interrupted by a tribesman running into his shop, not even knocking, something only done in dire circumstances. "Abraham, come quick!" he shouted. "There are men! Lighter men! Like you! In a great thing, on the river!"

Men... like me. Therefore, white men. Europeans, likely. Men means plural, Outworlders weren't likely common enough to denote that kind of plural. Not from what he'd seen. This meant that there were others, though. Outworlders in Europe. At least one, maybe more.

"Take me to them!" he shouted. This was exciting. The sort of technology needed to cross the Atlantic...

[G-Tech Corporation]

The Delaware River, North America
June 9th, 85 AG

From the gunwales of the Treader Terovingian appraised the sprawling settlement that graced the water's edge. Smokestacks rose here and there, the chimneys of a simple people, but they were curious in and of themselves; the natives of this hither shore had been, so far, universally primitive, barely better than pagan savages. Here though was one of the few villages that Brother Jerome ventured to catalog as a city, her population much greater than that which they had seen to date here in America. It was a puzzlement, but only a minor one. Terovingian did not realize, perhaps because he was too generous with the world, that this city hailed from an era much different than the simple kindreds and clans that the expedition north had encountered so far.

Still, this realization was not a major issue. Of far more importance was the song and dance of communicating with the natives. The captain hadn't bothered to descend with some of his men to the creaking docks that made up the few edifices the locals had erected on the water's edge; he was a military man, first and foremost, and command was best exerted from a position of information and protection. If the indigenous proved hostile, mingling with them like some of the sailors and soldiers were doing would have been ill-advised, and his orders were firm.

Not that that appeared to be a problem. It took a chain of seven different translators to speak to the locals, a litany of babbling tongues that Jerome had patiently amassed in the journey north, Orothe speaking to Namica, Namica speaking to Powhatan, Powhatan speaking to some godforsaken tribe he couldn't even pronounce, and so on, but the lines of communication were open. Already the curious swarthy natives had happily traded much meat and vegetables for curiosities like polished amber and mottled pottery, goods prepared for just such a purpose when the Armada left Brittany months before. It was a productive trade which filled the holds of the two ships with what they needed to continue their journey mapping this strange and beautiful land, and Terovingian thanked the foresight of the Explorators that had provisioned the former Emperor's fleet for its vision.

A commotion down on the docks drew the captain's gaze away from the wispy clouds over the city, and from his position atop the gunwales of the carrack he noted a small swarm of the indigenous moving through the assembled crowd with speed, coming from the direction of the settlement. He nodded, a sight presenting itself that had grown familiar enough; a leader, a chief maybe, come to see the strange sight of the foreigners and their great water-walking buildings. Brother Jerome hopefully would be able to communicate with him, to learn of this savage country and trade for more valuable goods than what the private citizens of the tribe could offer, if such goods were able to be had.

[Pasong Tirad]

Arsenio Lacson, or Arsenios Thalassos
Kleomaki's "Perfect Battleground," south of Dekéleia
Fourteen weeks since his arrival

The General of the Attikoi

We awoke, just as we've always done, right before dawn. My shoulder was aching a bit due to leaning on it all night - but it was either my shoulder or the rocky ground. That's just what I don't like about this place. Too rocky. Farming is hard, raising animals is hard, the earth itself is hard. It's like Mother Nature herself was telling the Greeks that they weren't supposed to be here in the first place. Maybe that's also making the people who do make a life for themselves here very tough, though, so that's a pretty cool thought. Greek civilization springing up as a big "fuck you" to Mother Nature.

It was a pretty big day. Kleomaki and Nikasios entrusted me with the command of thirty men, all armed with javelins, and all I could think about was all those times I loved playing with (or as) the skirmishers in war games, the valuable support role that, while not the "main player" of the fights, was too important to ignore. That was good. It was better than good, it was the perfect role for me. A leader, yes, but not the leader. Then again, I never really thought I'd be in a position of leadership. I always thought I'd be fighting next to Kleomaki as a spearman since, well, I have a spear. But no, since Kleomaki was very pleased about the spear-thrower I was able to make, he decided to make me captain of the javelins. For a thin piece of wood that helps us throw pointy sticks farther and faster. Thinking about it like that really does put things in perspective for me.

We ate our meals communally, as we have always done, and then gave our belongings to the camp followers that came along with us. I gave mine to the young wife of Nikasios, who was happy enough to take another bag with her. I gave her my sincerest apologies for having to burden her with another bag, but she just smiled and said "This is my duty, Captain. We all do our part." The camp followers (the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of the men) would carry any equipment that we didn't need until we reach the battlefield. My shoulder was fine by this point, thank God, because I did not really want to fight in the first place, let alone fight with an aching shoulder. We walked north, past the river we encamped by, past the many forests and rocky hillsides of Greece (a common sight now), up to Kleomaki's "perfect battleground," and it really did look perfect. From our vantage point on a hill to the south of this chosen battleground, it seemed perfect enough. The rocky hills to the west and east blocked any chance of them flanking around to our back and attacking us or our camp followers, and their only way to southern Attika was forward. Kleomaki, by choosing this place, gave the Dekélaíoi a choice: leave in peace, or face us. Guess what they chose?

We reached our destination, Kleomaki's perfect battleground, mid-morning. The howling winter winds were dying down. The sun was out, and its warmth, coupled with the cold, gave us the perfect weather for that morning. Our camp followers stayed at the very top of the hill, where they would also act as our observers, our eyes and ears for the battle. We, however, took our places at the foot of the hill. My javelinmen and I weren't even on the hill anymore. We were on the field itself. I could tell because we were stepping more on the earth now as opposed to the very rocky hill. The toxotai and slingers arrayed themselves above Kleomaki's main battle line, sitting down on rocks jutting out from the earth, waiting to be called up to fight. It was like waiting for the curtains to open on opening night. Some were just sitting down, some were getting some rest, some were having a nice chat with their friends. But, everybody was deathly quiet. There were no loud noises anywhere. Unlike opening night, however, people actually die here.

It felt like forever. I was just sitting down on the soft, dewey earth either letting my mind wander or trying to send one last prayer to God. It actually did feel like forever, but it was probably no more than an hour. We heard them coming before we even saw them. We heard their distant voices and laughter first. It got louder and louder until it just stopped. One of the toxotai at the foot of the hill shouted: "A scout!" and everybody was suddenly on alert. It was starting. I didn't see the scout myself, but I did hear dozens upon dozens of feet shuffling about. People standing up, people getting their weapons, making last minute prayers to their god of choice. It was starting, and we could see the Dekélaíoi begin to come out from the wooded area separating this valley-like flat plain from the rest of northern Attika.

They were chanting. That made things ten times worse. They were chanting in a language I didn't understand, a kind of war cry to increase their morale - and decrease ours. And then some of their men - captains or sergeants, I'm assuming - went to the front of their forces to stop the men from pushing forward and redraw their lines. Our lines were already drawn. Now, we just had to fight. We had the advantage: we weren't here to go raiding, we didn't need to push anymore north of this. They had to come to us. If they left the field and returned to their homes, that itself would already be a victory for the Attikoi.

They seemed a lot more barbarian than us - I know that's a loaded term to use, but it's the closest term I can think of. They were all wearing thick, heavy furs for armor save for several contingents I can see at their flanks carrying what looks like slings, javelins and bows, same as us. Their skirmishers were wearing plain tunics. Their leaders are also standing out because of their helmets that look like they were made from ivory. Although I don't know how that could be true, seeing as - as far as I know - elephants weren't in the Mediterranean. I saw five people wearing those helmets. One of them must be the general, and the rest were probably his captains. To compare, we had two generals, Kleomaki and Nikasios, and two captains, myself and the man from Salamís whose name I couldn't remember. We had one hundred and forty men and, if the scouts are to be believed, the Dekélaíoi have at least that number and probably more.

Our men were deathly quiet still, while theirs were roaring. Screaming, hurling insults in Greek, and chanting - they continued their terrible war chant. A string of sounds that I couldn't understand even though, for some reason, I understood Greek. They stood their ground opposite us, maybe a couple hundred feet away. Definitely too far away for our javelins or bows. They went on chanting for several minutes until, finally, they charged. Roaring their war cries and thumping their clubs and sickles and hatchets and swords and spears against their shields. The men were definitely shaken - hell, I swear I felt like I was about to empty my bladder right there if I had drank anything that morning. Thank God I didn't. I was something like a captain now, I had to act like it. I couldn't screw this up - because, you know, I don't just lose my job, I lose my fucking life.

Follow the plan. I kept thinking that. It was rolling around in my head a thousand times. Follow the plan, follow the plan. I was screaming my head off for my men to stay calm and stay steady. They were no older than I was, and a a lot of them were really young, definitely younger than I was. Maybe not even eighteen. Thankfully, I had three sergeants with me who were helping me keep the men calm, one for every ten men. I think I suggested that, although I don't think it matters anymore. "Ready javelins!" I screamed. They heard me well enough. They raised their throwing arms, gripped their spear-throwers hard and placed their javelins into the rounded cup at the end, holding it in place. It was less than thirty seconds since the Dekélaíoi charged. "Throw exactly one when they're close enough, and then we go to the back of the lines! Don't throw more than one, we can't waste our javelins! That's all we need to do, men! It's easy!" My sergeants repeated my orders, but I knew it wasn't really easy. It wasn't even close to easy. Forty seconds, maybe fifty seconds, and they were coming real close. Some of my men started throwing their javelins already and were starting to run back. They were afraid. It was a good call, I have to admit. A lot of them were missing entirely, but most were hitting their marks. Skilled hunters make for excellent javelinmen, after all. My sergeants, seeing the early shooters, just gave the order for the javelins to be thrown, and I followed suit. "FIRE!" I threw one of my javelins and saw it hit its mark - it pierced the shield of some poor Dekélaíoi. I saw the blood splatter from his shield-arm all across his body. It was gruesome and it made me sick, but I had a job to do. "Fall back! Fall back and reorganize! Reorganize behind the main line!" And we ran. I could see their charge falter because of our javelins. That was probably the original intention. The Dekélaíoi stopped because somebody in front of them had been hit, because one of their friends started bleeding out and screaming in agony, or because they had to shield themselves from the thirty javelins raining down on them.

It all happened so fast, but I was pretty sure I vomited a little as I was running back, stumbling as I did. I could see sharp stones and javelins landing all around me. Their slingers and javelinmen were retaliating. The man running right next to me got hit on his shoulder - his throwing shoulder. He screamed in agony as I urged him to ignore the pain and keep going. We were only a couple of feet from our front - our Attikoi shields and swords and all - when a javelin hit him square in the back. I had to let him go as I was pushed in through the back of my line by men rushing to reform. I swear I could still hear him screaming as I regrouped with my men at the back.

We had only a minute to rest, really. Some of the camp followers offered us some water to drink. Nikasios' wife, lovely woman, really, offered me my own waterskin, which I gladly accepted. Afterwards, I told my sergeants to count how many men we still had as we reformed at the very back of the line. The toxotai and slingers were several feet above us, perched on the rocky outcroppings of the southern hill, where they were firing their bows and slings from safety behind the main line. They weren't concerned about friendly fire, funnily enough, but then again, I could scarcely tell what was happening in the front line. There was so much screaming everywhere, and the stench was starting to become very hideous - the blood and the filth of the dead and dying was overpowering, but I knew I had to power through. I just shot at a man with a javelin. It pierced his shield and got him right on the arm. He might lose that arm. He might even die - but right now, I couldn't think about it. The Attikoi and Dekélaíoi were pushing shields against each other as they tried to stab or slash at the enemy. One of the men from the main battle line pushed his way to the back to yell at me: "The General wants you to take your javelins to the right! They're trying to attack us from the sides!" He said this loudly and clearly enough that he didn't have to repeat himself as he went to climb the hill, presumably to bark some similar orders to the head of the other skirmishers.

"Alright men, come on! To the right! We have to defend our right!" I kept barking at them. I gave the waterskin back to Nikasios' wife (I have to thank her after the battle - and remember her name). Now, I was very glad of all those long days and hours spent in the theater. I knew how to project my voice, and it was still very strong despite having been screaming for several minutes now. One of my sergeants informed me that we had twenty-one men left. Around four men are too wounded to keep moving, while the remaining five were either separated from us by the main battle line or dead. Twenty-one men out of thirty. That wasn't good. And would it be enough to stop their skirmishing force? Well, I didn't know. I just did what I was told - like a good soldier, I guess. I was assuming that their skirmishing force was larger than ours. That terrified me - but, military discipline and all that, I had to press forward.

When we got to our flank, right near the foothills of the eastern hill, their skirmishers were already in full attack mode (weird way to put it, but I hope you get what I mean). Our main body held their shields on their left hands, and so they either got hit or had to swing to the right, which exposed them from the enemy attacking them from the front. Slings, arrows, and javelins were being thrown along with something that looked like a heavy arrow. I saw a man wielding an unfamiliar weapon in their ranks, a weapon I knew in my gut couldn't possibly exist at this time. "Is that a crossbow?!"

A large crossbow bolt flew past us and into our main line. I could make out somebody's raised right arm being hit, somebody familiar.

It was Kleomaki. He was wounded. The crossbow bolt hit him square on the forearm, which made him drop his sword. Luckily, the men were able to get him to the back of the lines before the enemy got to him - but the lines began wavering as a result. They were pushing our men back to the foot of the southern hill, closer and closer to where our skirmishers used to be positioned. They were stuck - and I was the only one who could save them. Shit, I kept thinking. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

"Those bastards!" I screamed. "They shot him! They shot Kleomaki! Those motherfuckers! Kill them all! Fucking kill them all!" It was the only thing I could think of saying - assuming I was thinking, that is. While the main line was crumbling and their morale was wavering, with a split-second string of words I was able to instead use that terrible moment to help us out and make us angry at the Dekélaíoi. Nikasios can hold the line. Kleomaki trusts him, and therefore, so do I. "Attika!" I screamed, and my men followed suit as we all threw the last of our javelins when we were in range. I was definitely sure I killed somebody that time, because my javelin hit a slinger right on the chest, making him hit the ground hard. I took my spear into my thrusting hand, held it out along with my shield on my left hand, and charged with the rest of my men. Their bows, slings, and javelins began to turn towards us, and were able to unleash a volley upon us before our lines clashed. The crossbowman, who was directly in front of me, saw me charging for him and fired at me. I was able to deflect it with my shield, but the top of my thin wooden shield was shattered as a result. I felt the searing pain as a splinter the size of my little finger embedded itself on my palm. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. Instead, I used the blinding pain to push me forward. All I was thinking at the time was Let me get that man before I go down. I kept my spear held out and charged into the crossbowman.

I could hear his flesh tear apart and the bones on his chest break as my spear brought itself down onto the left part of his chest, right into the man's lung, if my biology was correct. As I hit him, I let go of my spear and rolled onto the ground in pain. I could hear the sounds of both pain and anger intermingling all around me. One of my sergeants came to me and got me onto my feet to see what was happening: the enemy skirmishers were fleeing. A lot of them dropped their weapons as they fled the field. That was good. We did it. We accomplished our goal. I was hoping then and there that that would be it, that that meant we won the battle. But no, things weren't that easy.

"Captain! The line is about to break! They're wavering!" said one of my other sergeants. I don't even remember their names anymore, but all three of my sergeants were Peraíoi, Nikasios' men. I looked at my hand to see the splinter still right on my palm. I couldn't close my hand, which meant that I couldn't grip my spear while carrying a javelin. But I still had to lead my men, so I went over to the now-dead crossbowman, took my spear out of his chest, and gave it to one of my sergeants to bring.

"Tell the men to grab as many javelins as they can carry," I told my sergeants, grabbing the crossbow of the dead Dekélaíos. "Slings or bows if the want. I don't care. We're going to attack the enemy from behind." Lucky for me, the crossbow's string was already ready and all I had to do was grab one of his bolts. I grabbed two for good measure. I didn't have time to notice it back then, but the bolts were made of iron - strong, cast iron, something that we rarely ever saw. The Dekélaíos must have gotten the crossbow from somewhere more technologically advanced. I loaded the bolt onto the crossbow, and led my men to the center of the field. There were a lot fewer of us now. Noticeably so, but I had to push on. We had to win this. For Manila, was all I was thinking. We still had to get back to the present, and keeping Athínai was the way to do that. "Alright boys, you know what to do! Come on! One last charge! Attika!"

"Attika!" they all screamed. I charged forward, and when we were close enough, my men started hurling the javelins they got. Some of them even picked up slings from the enemy skirmishers. On the other hand, all I could do was shoot the heavy crossbow, which I had to balance with my left forearm, and then watch my men as they expended their ammunition. I hit my target, though. One heavy man got hit at the back of his neck (pierced, more like). Using the one other bolt I had, I used the stirrup on the crossbow and my one good hand to pull back the string as the butt of the crossbow pushed on my gut. Loading the one bolt, I fired into the mass of men who still haven't turned around, hitting a man square in the back.

My men did the job, though. The enemy was frightened beyond belief, and almost all of our javelins and sling-bullets hit their targets. Terrifying men draped in heavy furs and wielding fearsome weapons fell to us, a bunch of farmers and fishermen with pointy throwing sticks and sharp rocks. If I were watching a movie about this, this was the part where I'd be going "Shit, that was good." But it wasn't a movie, and the terrified Dekélaíoi ran towards us, apparently in an attempt to escape. A mass of frightened, bearded and heavy men ran at our disorganized skirmishing line. "To the sides! To the sides! Get out of their way!" I screamed, trying to get my men out of the way of the oncoming Dekélaíoi stampede. I couldn't see if my men made it out because the retreating enemy made its way to me. A club hit me square on the head and then-

---

Blackout. Arsenio got hit square on the back of the head. Thankfully enough, while the hit was strong enough to knock him out, it wasn't strong enough to do any lasting damage. The club wasn't swung to kill, it was swung by a frightened Dekélaíoi wanting to retreat from a fight, and while Arsenio was a trampled upon by several retreating men, he was alive. Bruised and injured, but still alive. And, probably more importantly, so too were most of his men.

The Attikoi had set up in a portion of the field without any dead bodies. Tents and fires had sprung up, men were being treated by their wives and mothers and, eventually, the two doctors that followed the contingent. Arsenio, being a captain, was afforded the luxury of a tent for himself. He woke up several hours after the battle with a bandage on his head, and with Nikasios entering his tent.

"Arsenios," Nikasios said, getting a chair and sitting next to Arsenio's bed.

"General," Arsenio responded. "Did we win?"

"We did. We most certainly did, and it's all thanks to you. You and your men frightened the Dekélaíoi, and they retreated. It also helped that one of their captains was killed by our line, but your flanking attack pushed them over the edge. They're running back to Dekéleia. The general wants us to push forward in the morning."

"The General? Kleomaki! How is he?"

"He can't use his sword-arm, but he is otherwise healthy. He can walk, and the doctor says his wound shouldn't get infected. He'll be marching with us in the morning. I suggest you stay in your bed for the night. Get your strength back up. You're lucky, most of the men are going to be sleeping on the dirt. The doctors brought soap if you'd like to shower-"

"Oh God, yes." Nikasios laughed. Arsenio's fondness for bathing was, apparently, well-known.

"By the way, the general has shown his gratitude. The weapon you got from the Dekélaíoi? It's over there, as well as all the ammunition we could get. It can't use regular arrows, weirdly enough, so make your shots count. And, lest I forget, your sergeants told me how you performed in battle. You did very good. You kept our composure, your orders were clear, and you cared about your men. I know your sergeants, they're my neighbors and they spoke very highly of you. They recovered your spear, got you a new shield from the enemy and some more javelins. Hopefully, your hand can heal fully tomorrow and you can actually carry all of that."

"You did good, Arsenios. You did really good. Peraios and Athínai have spilled blood together this day. We are united in blood now. Whenever Athínai will call, Peraios will answer, and I hope your city will do the same for us. I'll send my sister here to tend to your wounds a little more. Your bandage might need to be replaced. She's a good healer."

"Sister?! Oh, thank God. I thought she was your wife." Nikasios just laughed. None of this seemed amusing to Arsenio, though, he thought he'd have to make her cheat on her husband.

"Anyway, did you get anything from the battle?" Arsenio asked.

"Didn't you see?" Nikasios swung up an axe, only it looked a lot more modern than the other axes Arsenio has seen. For one, it wasn't copper or bronze - it was iron. It didn't look rough, but it was smooth cast iron with a polished handle. It obviously wasn't an axe meant for battle, so Arsenio thinks it was probably stolen in one of the raids of the Dekéleia. "The men got a lot of these weird, stronger weapons here. Shields, spears and hatchets, mostly, but some stronger bows, too. That shield of yours is half your length and is heavier than most of our shields."

And with that, Nikasios then left the tent, only to return a second later, sticking his head back into the tent in an almost comical fashion. "I almost forgot, you've been promoted. You're going to lead all of the skirmishers now, General." And then he left.

It took Arsenio a few seconds before he finally digested what Nikasios said. He sat upright on his bed and shouted: "I'm a what?"

[Yatzatz]

Asago, Yekrenia
Two guards were patrolling the outskirts of the city. The civil war had mostly left out Asago, but that didn't mean that there weren't many who wanted to destroy the city. To the contrary, almost every anti-government faction wanted the city burned to the ground, as while the city itself was neutral, the official government, which was definitely not neutral, was headquartered in the city.
Which, in turn, meant that the outskirts were constantly being patrolled. Which, in turn, meant that the messengers from Yamatzon were about to run in to the guards.
One of the guards saw ten men approaching. "Halt!" he shouted. "Who goes there?"
Mosos, the leader of the Yamatzon expedition, replied "We are simply messengers, here to see the leaders of this broken country."
The guard looked at him skeptically. "Where are you from? What do you have to discuss? And how do we know you will not turn on us from inside?"
Mosos smiled. "I will answer your questions in order. Firstly, we are from Yamatzon."
The guard gasped. He'd heard the stories of the fierce raiders who had exploded in power 10 years ago. They had become legendary for ferocity and drive. They were the bane of the border region they resided.
Mosos smiled again at the look on the guard's face. "Secondly, under certain conditions, we will be willing to support the current government."
The guard's eyes bugged open, and his jaw dropped. Mosos' smile grew wider. Then it vanished. The next part wouldn't be fun.
"And third, we will give in our weapons."
The guard shook his head and regained his composure. He took the weapons the ten were carrying, and patted them down. He could find no weapons hidden on them.
"Well then, I will show you to the remainder of the rightful government."
As they walked, Mosos' smile returned. It was truly fortunate the the two men from the elite corps were extremely well trained in hiding weapons on themselves. The negotiations would now begin. He offered a prayer to Mat for success, and began walking, with his men, towards the building the guard was walking to.
Mat would help him.

[The Olog-Hai]

The Delaware River, North America
June 9th, 85 AG

From the gunwales of the Treader Terovingian appraised the sprawling settlement that graced the water's edge. Smokestacks rose here and there, the chimneys of a simple people, but they were curious in and of themselves; the natives of this hither shore had been, so far, universally primitive, barely better than pagan savages. Here though was one of the few villages that Brother Jerome ventured to catalog as a city, her population much greater than that which they had seen to date here in America. It was a puzzlement, but only a minor one. Terovingian did not realize, perhaps because he was too generous with the world, that this city hailed from an era much different than the simple kindreds and clans that the expedition north had encountered so far.

Still, this realization was not a major issue. Of far more importance was the song and dance of communicating with the natives. The captain hadn't bothered to descend with some of his men to the creaking docks that made up the few edifices the locals had erected on the water's edge; he was a military man, first and foremost, and command was best exerted from a position of information and protection. If the indigenous proved hostile, mingling with them like some of the sailors and soldiers were doing would have been ill-advised, and his orders were firm.

Not that that appeared to be a problem. It took a chain of seven different translators to speak to the locals, a litany of babbling tongues that Jerome had patiently amassed in the journey north, Orothe speaking to Namica, Namica speaking to Powhatan, Powhatan speaking to some godforsaken tribe he couldn't even pronounce, and so on, but the lines of communication were open. Already the curious swarthy natives had happily traded much meat and vegetables for curiosities like polished amber and mottled pottery, goods prepared for just such a purpose when the Armada left Brittany months before. It was a productive trade which filled the holds of the two ships with what they needed to continue their journey mapping this strange and beautiful land, and Terovingian thanked the foresight of the Explorators that had provisioned the former Emperor's fleet for its vision.

A commotion down on the docks drew the captain's gaze away from the wispy clouds over the city, and from his position atop the gunwales of the carrack he noted a small swarm of the indigenous moving through the assembled crowd with speed, coming from the direction of the settlement. He nodded, a sight presenting itself that had grown familiar enough; a leader, a chief maybe, come to see the strange sight of the foreigners and their great water-walking buildings. Brother Jerome hopefully would be able to communicate with him, to learn of this savage country and trade for more valuable goods than what the private citizens of the tribe could offer, if such goods were able to be had.

Abraham Meyer,
The Banks of the Delaware, Franklin, New Jersey
June 9th, 2915 B.C.E.

This was exciting! Actual, full size sailing ships! Definitely another Outworlder, and by a closer look at these people, definitely Europeans. Quite a distinct cut of the population of Europe, too, as people from different areas did look slightly different, and Abraham could see Eastern Europeans, people from around the Mediterranean, and more. Whoever the Outworlder is who sent them here, he definitely controlled land all throughout Europe. Perhaps he was even with this group, though Abraham found that unlikely, mainly because if he controlled that much land, and had to look after its people, he would constantly be present so he could do his job, and he assumed that this Outworlder was rational, mainly because the other he has met, and heard of, have been mostly rational.

Abraham turned to one of the men surrounding him, and told him to run off with a few others and retrieve the finest food in the village, so that Abraham and a few others could eat with the leader of this expedition, and learn more of him and where he comes from. As a few villagers headed off, reluctantly as they wondered on these magnificent floating creations, Abraham approached the ships, stepping onto the crude piers of Franklin, gesturing for the tribesmen to stay back. Abraham was hopeful that these men came in peace, because otherwise they'd find more in Franklin than they'd bargained for.

Speaking in the tongue of the tribesmen of Franklin, though it was unlikely these people would understand him, he preferred for it not to be obvious he was not of this world, or at least time, he said "Greetings, foreigners! Welcome to the peaceful tribe of Franklin. From where do you hail?"

[G-Tech Corporation]

Part 14, Chapter 5: Quaint Jocularity

February 2nd, 86 AG

Down the mews the figure in gilded steel rumbled, scarlet pennant waving in the slight winter breeze that still touched the air. From the crowd that packed the arena came a roar as his opponent lowered his own lance, their couched shields adjusting minutely as the two figures hurtled together at a speed which made me wince. A crash- splinters filled the air, the scarlet knight breaking his lance on his opponent's shield. A fine hit, and a point for the scoreboard. In front of the stand where I sat overseeing the festivities an arena official in brilliantly colorful attire hefty a white stone up on the side of the red pennant flapping on the left side of the jousting track, and from the side of the arena where Sepaspian Thermial's supporters had gathered a roar of approval rose.

The cantering of the steeds slowed, and the gilded figure took a new lance from an attendant that stood waiting at the far end of the mews. I leaned forward, not expecting this affray to last much longer; even with padded jousting saddles and specially prepared shields to absorb the impact of their steeds, practice lances to cushion the blows, there were not many men that could stomach more than a strike or two from a lance borne by a Roshmallin horse at full tilt. My ribs still ached from where the shield I had carried at the start of the tournament had been rammed back into my plate; even through rigid steel the impact was not to be dismissed lightly. Tanya had laughed at me after I was eliminated by Rostrar of Illanovo on the Dnieper, but I had never really expected to have gotten as far as I did. Jousting was a more recently developed activity between the classes who could afford the cost of the new heaviest breeds out of Poland, and though I made a tolerable horseman, I was only that: tolerable.

Anon the rush came again, each man kicking their mounts up to the prescribed canter, lances lowered and aimed for eachother's shields again. The restrictions were heavy on how one could engage in this contest of skill and nerve for very good reasons. Even a blow from a padded lance, deflected up to the helmet at speed, could leave a man with a ringing concussion for days. The large blocky helmets the warriors carried and their reinforced neck-guards had been designed to displace that force in case of need for precisely such a reason. No blows to the body, no blows to the head, points were only awarded for strikes upon the shield or unhorsing an opponent.

It was an archaic activity, really, but one which I had been all too happy to hear had been introduced by some ambitious young lancers of the Seventh. These days battles were decided more by push of pike and massed firepower than a glorious cavalry charge, but the lancers still filled a useful niche in crushing unprepared tribal elements and the odd Sami warband. Plus it was a way to keep men sharp in the times of relative peace that the Imperium frequently enjoyed, and a way for me to gleefully embrace my ancient fantasies of being a lord of a decidedly medieval realm.

The Blackguards had very nearly bundled me up in a cart and driven me bodily home when I had declared my intent to join in the tournament, in the joust and the melee. As men dedicated to making sure my scrawny carcass didn't end up deprived of the life it had clung to for so many decades they were less than amused by me putting myself in harm's way, but I couldn't live my life in fear of losing it. The exercise and fresh air, the clash of steel on steel and the use of reflexes that I trained regularly but so seldom got to employ in combat- ah, those brief minutes of the melee had been well worthwhile for the scolding I would get when word reached the commander of the contingent detailed for this week.

My reverie was interrupted as the combatants met again, and this time it was Sepaspian who was thrown from the saddle, a clever last-minute flick of the lance from the Dacian having sent him off balance. Wild cheers rose from a different section of the stands as Thermial rose from the dirt, wearily pulling up his visor as an attendant grabbed the reins of his now-riderless horse. The mustachioed brave turned, a wan smile upon his face, and spoke to the reviewing stand where myself and the Master of Ceremonies sat watching.

"My lords, I concede. I am unhorsed, and in this matter Geralt is my better- it is he who should advance to the next round, not I."

It was graciously done, though also tactful. To be unhorsed would count heavily against the Ukrainian's score, and to come back from such a deficit would be difficult indeed. To concede, in this instance, was just to realize the reality of one's situation. But it played better to the crowd, and would look better in the newsheets. I nodded when the white-haired Master glanced in my direction, and the portly old man raised his hand, acknowledging the end of the bout.

The Delaware River, North America
June 9th, 85 AG

A man of obvious importance approached the pier, his gestures sending the initial inquisitive locals fleeing, and forcing them aside so he could address the Brother. He spoke several words in what the clean-shaven brother assumed was the local tongue, though his mien appeared foreign, and the cloaked traveler waited patiently as the translators argued for a few moments in their accumulated languages before passing on what they thought the chief had said.

Franklin? An odd name for a native village. Jerome knew of a town in upper Germany with an identical moniker, a passage taken from the Annals of the Ages referring to a great inventor and scientist. Still, the butchering of the language through a half dozen mouths might have turned the true meaning of the word into something else. The chief sounded like he had said 'Franklin', but that was the mystery of linguistics, a mystery the Brother of the Transliterary Order had studied long. He bowed slightly at the waist, more a dip of the head than anything, and motioned for the few sailors and soldiers that had disembarked from the Treader to stand aside.

Then he spoke in halting Powhattan to the translators, allowing them time to conduct their dance once more and relay his words to the chief.

"Greetings, esteemed elder. I am Brother Jerome Huriskun, elevated of the Transliterary Order. We are humble explorers from the Imperium of Man, a land far beyond the great Sundering Sea, now seeking trade and supplies in this wild country that we have happened upon. It is good to see men of civilization here, where we did not look for it."

Such a complicated response would probably be garbled and mangled by the translators, but the intent Jerome hoped would come across well enough. It was a curious thing; this leader was unlike his people in appearance. Perhaps the folk of this part of the world were ruled over by some larger power or ethnic group, a nation unlike their own which set up rulers and princes over them in its wisdom.

[Yatzatz]

I stood on the hill. It had been one month since the messengers had left. If they hadn't been captured or killed, they would be back any day now. I watched yet another defensive wall being built. Then, 12 figures appeared over the horizon. It should be the messengers, but why were there twelve?
I guessed I'd figure out. I went in to arrange an arrival ceremony.

An Hour Later
The messengers entered the main hall. The meal was ready for them. Then I noticed that only eight of the twelve were the original messengers. As the celeebration started, I pulled Mosos, their leader, aside. "What's going on?" I asked.
"We left two there as hostages, and we have two hostages from them. The other two want to get a message from you to bring back."
Suddenly, an idea popped into my mind. I tried to kick it out, but it stayed. I gave in. This would be fun.
I stood up to talk. I rapped on the table for silence. The room quieted down.
"Thanks to our messengers, we have now begun official relations." Applause erupted from those assembled. "In this, I have realized something. The only name we have is Yamatzon. This is the name of our belief, not of our nation. So, we must name our nation." I paused, for a last desperate struggle with both the idea, and keeping a straight face. "We are attempting to create a place of learning. A pan," I said, coining the word for school. "Our school is for God. As such, our nation will be named Yapan, God's school." I paused. "Long live Mat, Yamatzon, and Yapan!"
Applause erupted from the crowd, and I finally let a huge smile cross my face. I'd just named a country with a pun. How could life get any better?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Battle of Tu Thancha
Opening Engagement

The refugees had been streaming into the city for most of the day, fleeing the approaching army of Turner and the Blue Lagoon in their hundreds and thousands. A commander watched the gate, where men he did not know worked to sort through the arrivals, but the people fleeing to the safety of Tu Thancha's walls were impatient and numerous- whether all of the arrivals got checked and processed properly in this fledgling bureaucracy was ultimately not his concern. The weapons were ready, his soldiers in place, and all that now remained was to make the attackers pay a butcher's bill if they came for the city.

In the distance, towards noon, the enemy army was first spotted; scouting reports had come back a few hours earlier indicating the army of Turner was making its final approach. They blackened the horizon, and hearts sank on the walls of the city as the defenders soon realized that the assailants were in far greater numbers than their own. It was rare that men had fought from the defensive emplacements of the low stone wall that surrounded the new city in Wisconsin, and perhaps they did not fully appreciate the advantage it gave them- still, the commander rallied his officers, and the gates were closed and barred, the garrison called up to stand ready for battle.

But the battle did not begin in the way that the men of Ego expected; the enemy host approached, but then wheeled, marching toward a point along the wall the defenders had not anticipated. Almost as if... too late the defenders realized that the enemy must have intelligence of their own, spies and scouts that had noted the hidden emplacements of the Summersoul catapults and skorpion ballistae they had meant to use to bombard the attacking army. The conscripts tasked with its defense bravely tried to buy time as the defenders watched in horror, the army of the Blue Lagoon deploying in force and assaulting the emplacements in strength; in a matter of an hour, barely enough time for some of the Skulk engineers and lucky conscripts to flee into the city through a postern gate, the position was overrun, and much of the equipment captured that the engineers had not been able to destroy.

Desultory fire from the nearby walls, of course, took its toll of casualties from the forces of the Archenemy, but soon enough the forces of Turner withdrew back out of range of the weapons, taking the siege equipment with them. Then they began placing stakes about their camp and assembling their own siege equipment, preparing to either batter the walls down or take them by storm, the defenders knew not which. It was a formidable force that had been arrayed against Tu Thancha, a force which the defenders hoped had left Turner's borders weak elsewhere, but that was but hollow comfort in the face of the disastrous initial skirmish.

Ego:
45 Skulk and Knights, 200 Regulars, 1200 Conscripts, 300 Allied Garrison

Turner:
200 Elites, 400 Regulars, 3000 Conscripts

Ego Siege Weapon Emplacement destroyed or captured.
Ego losses: 80 Conscripts, 20 Skulk
Turner losses: 30 Conscripts

[Labstoska]

John Collins
Everyday the Yangtze grew busier with more and more ships being purchased by aspiring merchants who heard tales of the wealth to gain in the colonies of the Khanate. The city of Newholm was slowly emptying out as more and more people began to move to the new colonial frontier which had become romanticised after the Free company had completed their campaign of extermination against the natives. The social classes of the Divine Khanate were now also beginning to change now that the Khanate had begun to expand for were the ruling class had once comprised of priests and high ranking officials within the Fee company and the Zealous however now with the rising power of merchants a new breed had emerged calling themselves the merchant princes, news came to John in his palace that these merchant princes were forging their own private kingdoms out in the wilderness, it was said that the strongest of them had even had his own military force at his beck and call. Of course all these men swore loyalty towards the Khan however it was not as if their loyalty was sincere, each one of them were out for themselves.

John had visited one of these merchant princes once in the colonial settlement of Shine khil, one of the first settlements to be colonised and the influence that this merchant prince had was evident. The flags of the merchant princes family were as numerous in Shine khil as they were in Newholm. The police force of this settlement was also under the thumb of the merchant princes and at any moment this police force could be mobilised into a military force. The Zealous were an option in dealing with the merchant princes, it would be quite simply to have them all rounded up and killed however if the princes got word that they were being rounded up they would quickly use their influence to stat an uprising that would topple John's power.

At the moment there was only two things binding the Khanate which were the united hatred of the man known as Jadespear who seemed to loom over the Khanate threatening to destroy it at any moment and the belief that John himself ruled by Divine right. If either of these two factors stopped influencing the public then the Khanate would surely crumble. There were already signs of it in the colonies ,where the light of the priesthood did not always reach, with people begging to question the legitimacy of John's prophecies. Something had to be done and fast before one of the merchant princes got a bit uppity so a message was sent out to each of the merchant princes inviting them to meeting to discuss the future of Khanate politics. Only time would tell wether John's plan would shatter the Khanate or ensure it's continued prosperity.

[The Olog-Hai]

Abraham Meyer,
Franklin, New Jersey
June 9th 2915 B.C.E.

As soon as Abraham had finished speaking, a group of men began speaking among themselves. From what he could hear, they were attempting to translate what he had said. It was quite funny, truly. It did also give Abraham insight, though, into the way language translation was really one large game of Telephone. In the end, though, a relatively solid translation came out, and upon receiving it, one of the men stepped forward, inclining his head slightly, likely as a sign of respect, and waved some men aside. Then he spoke in one of the languages, unsteadily, though Abraham could not name it since he had no contact with its people, that was for sure.

The language made it's way back through the group that had to be translators, an amazing game of Telephone once more. Though Abraham could tell the message was a little garbled, "esteemed elder" coming out as "wise old one," effectively the same meaning, and "explorer" came out as "land and sea looker," but the meanings were effectively the same. This man had assembled a damn good cabal of translators. Even so, Abraham decided to use the translation that whatever odd power he had gave him, directly from this man. Brother Jerome... a very Anglicized name. So, like him, the Outworlder who must have come from Europe, across the Atlantic, or "Sundering Sea," must be using relatively Anglicized names, though the last name, Huriskun sounded rather Germanic or Russian. And the "Imperium of Man." That sounds like something out of the little Abraham knew of Warhammer 40k. Jeez has it been a while.

"It is good to see others who are civilized, too," Abraham replied to the translator who seemed to be able to speak the language of a tribe that had some interactions with Franklin. "Not many around this area are such. Indeed, the only who we have met who could be considered civilized are those known as Ego, with whom we have had a small amount of contact."

"Abraham!" shouted one of the tribesfolk he had sent off for food. "I have the food!"

Abraham sighed, and turned around. "Bring it here, I will take it from you" The tribesman proceeded to do so.

"I have here some of the finest meats of Franklin, freshly hunted this morning. Will you eat with us as we discuss trade?" Abraham asked Jerome.

[Achidyemay]

11.9.39
The City on the Bay ~ Mouth of the Chao Phraya River

Overhead a seagull cried out, sharp and needy. It would be cliche if things like that existed. Swooping on the warm air currents over the fishing boats of the bay and vanishing into the distance. Closer to the water, indeed on the water, Everett walked across the sun bleached wooden planks. The bridge boards between the floating sections rang out in hollow thuds. Everett always felt a sense of pride, visiting this place. The great Floating city, or City on the Water, translation pending: A series of floating buildings and docks between them. Only one of the buildings was actually meant to be, the others were all lashed together ships of varying sizes and builds, re-purposed with roofs and occasionally walls into the massive Franken-building. The timber was still bright on even the oldest parts and new ships are constantly manufactured from the inside in the port's two dry-docks. Which were a feat in and of themselves when they were built three and five years ago, respectively. The building's consumption of timber, floated downstream from the actual city of Three Rivers, was voracious and unprecedented. Everett had taken as many pages from Ford's book as he could remember and with his set of standards, they were producing ships at a pace of two a year.
The pace of the shipbuilding nor the pride he felt were not the things on Everett's mind as he walked the ironwood planks. Today was the crowning of a new ship, the first to use a new interlocking plank shell on the outside as a means to reduce drag and lined in a woven, spun glass mesh for waterproofing. It had been stressful to produce and the potential health hazards had been so high that he had refused to allow any of his glass team to work on it aside from him. Particularly after the spinner had been loaded unevenly and come off the wheel, lashing out with glowing silica. His arm was still scarred deeply despite it being nearly a year since.
Hopefully all of this would prove worth it. He had been watching the ship sail around the bay all morning with the help of a spyglass; it had stayed close to the Floating City during its first time out, which made the viewing convenient. Everett's telescope wasn't very telescopic, a notched leather frame containing lenses. Everett thinks its funny that glass making and optics have improved by miles and leagues and yet reliable metalworking is still so far off that the body of the telescope is made of leather. It's portable, he supposes, but having to wrap the hide every time is super annoying.
The ship had faced several setbacks and Everett had been here for nearly two weeks trying to get the ship seaworthy before the festival. Now the ship is finally done and after the original set of tests, the sailors could return with results.
Everett arrives within the dock just in time for the crew to disembark. Hand picked, the 15 of them have become the most experienced sailors in the navy, which isn't saying much considering there are only twenty total, but Everett trusts the advice of the captain.
"How'd it go?" Everett shouts out to Hai the second he is across the threshold.
"She's faster alright." He replies. Everett isn't sure if he started the custom of referring to ships as female or if it's just some deep-seated thing that happens, but it caught on like wildfire.
"And she turns sharper, if she turns at all." Captain Hai continues. The man has really grown into his position, becoming more serious and experienced with age. If Hai looked younger than Everett when they first met, then that certainly wasn't true now.
"It's the new prop design. It's not long enough and the water probably eddies around it." Everett suggested.
"I don't think that's it," came the reply, "It's probably more to do with the hard back shape, she just takes more muscle to turn is all."
"Okay, I'll think about the mechanisms involved in a steering wheel, that might be the answer to our problems."
"Steering wheel?" Hai asked. Everett ignored the question.
"How do you feel about two mainsails?" He continued, this ship had been the third in the line to use a large square mainsail.
"We would need to build a bigger boat."
"How do you feel about building a bigger boat?"
"We'll need to build a bigger construction house, this one is hugging this ship as is."
"How long do you think building the larger site will take?"
"A year, maybe two if it's the sole focus. Three or four if you want to make any other ships in the meantime."
"I want to try out one of my son's ideas for a river ship we could probably punch out in three or four shortcycles, but other than that, the crew is yours. Are you heading to the festival?"
"I'll head back tomorrow, when the last bit of fish is loaded and sent upstream and then I'll take the last river boat North."

They chat idly for a few mins and then Everett asks for a more vivid reenactment. Then the ship was lifted out of the water on the crisscrossing grid of Pyinkado beams and a plank was laid so that Everett could make his way to inspect the rest of the boat. The new siding and keel type had held together admirably and Everett made a few notes, deciding that this was probably the best thing to make the bow from. The water-resistant varnish seemed to be holding up. It had been a sad day when Everett had discovered that Lacquer wasn't the solution to everything.

With the inspection completed, there would only be one more test involving crashing the ship into a rocky set of shoals. These sacrificial tests are what maintained the standard fleet size of seven, but hopefully the ship survives. This would have to happen another time however. With the inspection done and the sun setting, Everett joined a poler up to Three Rivers. The kid is young and had arrived as an even younger child from further up North. Three River's position as The-Most-Southern-Town-That's-Still-a-Town, had essentially guaranteed that the huge wave of South moving settlers ended up there. The veritable utopia that Everett had turned it into guaranteed they stayed. Everett was terrible with names, however, and only barely recognized this youngster. Which was ridiculously unprecedented considering the town was only a decade old.

The sun had set when they finally arrived at the docks in Three Rivers. Only two long piers jut out into the water leading into the city center. Further up the smallest of the three river's the town sits on and is named after is the logging camp and when Everett gets out of the boat and tosses the kid a small green bead, which he deftly catches, the kid poles along. It's likely he is paddling upstream to get his father who works there clearing trees.
The piers lead almost directly into the heart of town and if Everett kept going he would arrive in the city center and the park. Instead he jives further North, cutting his way around houses to his own home. Despite his status and fame throughout the community, the house is a fairly standard affair, an elevated building with wooden porch and siding and a steep gabled roof covered in fired clay shingles. Quietly as possible, Everett slides the door aside and mellow candle light flickers its way inside. Sneaking into the two room building, Everett is immediately met with a scene that makes him smile. The second room is dominated by a large bed area and Huệ is curled up with two bundles on either side. Everett crawls quietly into bed.
"I didn't expect you to be so late," Huệ Whispers to Everett.
"I love you too," Everett says, falling asleep.
"Jiang wanted to see you before he went to sleep."
Everett didn't reply, but he was glad that he was home.


11.10.1
Three Rivers ~ Near Modern Day Wat Choenglen Bang Sai

Everett was not the first person awake that morning, and his face was smashed in repeatedly by tiny hands. Roaring at the child, Everett wakes up, snatching the giggling infant by the wrists as he rises into a sitting position. In one fluid motion, Everett tosses Jiang up into the air and his high, shrill laugh wakes up his brother and mother. Everett catches the kid and cradles him in his lap, tussling his red hair. He had been away at the Floating City for too long. While Huệ definitely understands and has proven herself more than capable of raising the kids while Everett is away, that’s a trial he doesn’t want to put her through and he was glad to be home.
“Are you excited for the festival?” Everett asks, excitedly.
“Yeah!” Jiang says, jumping up and down a little. The amount of energy packed into the tiny four year old’s body never failed to surprise Everett.
“Let’s go get some eggs and cook breakfast for your brother and mom.” Everett suggested, pulling Jiang up with him. The grand convenience of using a small child’s arms as handles had not escaped him.
“Could you put some kindling in the stove please, Jiang?”
Everett grabbed some tinder from a shelf above the rest of the firewood and the coal box then went outside to the front porch. Outside, a small candle burned from inside a red glass lantern. The convenience of always having a fire nearby had made candles a huge market success. Everett had initially planned to have a candle on every block that could be used communally, especially early on when the supply was low. Unfortunately, Everett couldn't handle the demand from giving candles away freely and had started to charge people for them. This eventually made having the fire sticks on your doorstep a status symbol that you could provide for your neighbors. Now, as Everett looked down the line of houses that made up his street, he saw a multicolored line of lanterns against a dark morning sky.
Everett lit the tinder and brought it back inside to light the kindling in the stove. It had been arranged into a neat pyramid and Jiang was adding more and more pieces to it.
“That should be enough there, buddy.” Everett said, kneeling down on the jute rug to light the kindling. When the fire caught, Everett carefully began to add more sticks onto the pile. Everett got up slightly, shifting into a more prone stance, leaning over his son and across the room to pick up the copper wok. One of seven in the entire village, the ultimate destination of most of the mined copper had been these cooking appliances. The only copper source that had been found to date had been the original one Everett had found years back. The copper, however, didn’t have many purposes in the society and Everett was unfamiliar with minerals such that he couldn’t find tin for mining. The brass age had yet to dawn on Three Rivers.
“Ready to go get the eggs, little guy?” Everett asked. Jiang just sort of sat there. After a rooster had attacked him half a year ago, Jiang had become less eager about the birds.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Don’t forget the basket!” Huệ yelled from the other room. Everett crossed the room quickly and snatched up the basket.
The chicken coop was essentially a miniature house in its own right, stilted about a half length off the ground and butting off the side of the house. A steep, barrel-shingled roof with a large overhang had become the perch of a rooster in a very cliched style. There was some fencing around the property, but the chickens had made it clear from the beginning that they didn’t really care. Everett had been surprised how domesticated they seemed the first time he saw them. Sure they were flighty unless you happened to have food, but their prolific egg laying was already present. Everett held Jiang’s hand, the kid fidgeting nervously, carefully picking his way forward, eyes glued to the rooster on the roof. It was a different rooster (aggressive or fearful chickens had a tendency to be eaten), but Jiang didn’t care. Everett let go of Jiangs hand and stooped his way into the coop. Inside was even darker than outside and Everett was bit as he reached around. Everett mumbled a surprised expletive and the purpetrator jumped down from her roost and rushed outside, causing Jiang to scream and run and trip and fall and cry. Everett quickly gathered the eggs that had been under the nippy chicken and went outside to scoop up his son.
“Your brave warriors have returned triumphant from battle.” Everett announced as they reentered the building. Huệ got up from her place beside the stove to grab Jiang away from Everett. Everett moved to take her place, cracking the eggs over the simmering vegetables Huệ must’ve added. Soth was sitting there, half asleep. Everett’s dad sense was tingling and he scooted the sleepy boy further away from the stove and open flames. Jiang had been born with all of the energy, Soth was lucky to be awake. It was immediately evident that they were brother’s however, their flaming red hair and considerably lighter skin projected to the whole world that they were Everett’s sons. Everett wasn’t surprised, he looked like his father when he was his age and his younger brothers looked like him too. Dominant genes ran in the family.
Everett stirred the eggs and vegetables into an omelette, a feat with chopsticks that he would not have been able to do when he had first arrived. Some fruit would complete the meal. Afterwards, they walked down the street to the showers. Even now, during festival, the showers were hardly in use. Small wooden buildings, Everett ensured there was one at the end of every street and they reminded him of portapotties at a music concert. He had originally attempted to provide free soap with the showers, but back in the day he was still trying to find a reliable source of sodium carbonate and his production of soap was nowhere near where it needed to be. Beyond that, soap proved to be a hit, and Everett found that a lot of people were just taking jars of it home with them. These days, Everett just sells the stuff at Mama Zhao's.
Scrubbing the infant down, Everett swayed back and forth on the platform. The rocking pumped the water, a mechanism Everett was extremely proud of, and when everyone was clean they put on clothes. Everett was once again reminded how much he missed cotton and he made a mental note to find sil worms which had so far evaded him. He’ll have to do that much later, however, as the troop leaves for Uncle Bảo’s.
Bảo lives essentially in the center of town and has the largest house, considering it’s the megahut that they first built when they were settling. Although multiple additions have been made and the roof has the same orange shingles as the rest of the buildings now. The large hut also faces the town center, a large clearing in the center of town, and it’s extremely evident that Bảo has outdone himself this year. Everett recognized the carved wooden lanterns from years past, but there was many more of them now, suspended from ropes and cords over the lawn and piled over every surface and on the Thời Gian Tower as well. The long table was especially long, but Everett figured that it still wasn’t long enough. Large rocks had been brought into one section of the field, as well as archery targets, hoops, darts, torches, benches, and many color-coded vases of alcohol. Typically, Everett and Bảo dropped their entire stores of alcohol on this event, freely providing the good stuff to anyone who wanted it.
Everett’s attention was pulled back to Bảo’s hut as one of his wives and two of his children appeared at the doorway. Hồng had been married to Bảo for nearly 7 years now and their children were a bit older than Jiang and Soth. Chun had married Bảo 4 years ago when she had arrived with her friends and family. Everett had originally believed it to be a political marriage, because she was high up and theirs was a particularly large group of settlers, but they did seem very fond of eachother. As the self-proclaimed chief of the village and lord of the fields, Bảo could definitely afford the mouths to feed, and Everett had trouble keeping track of his 5 kids.
“Jiang, look after your brother, stay close!” Huệ shouted at them as all of the kids ran off towards the fields. Soth was too young to keep up, but hobbled in their direction. Hồng went with them, following behind, and Everett and Huệ entered Bảo’s house. While large, it wasn’t considerably large in the grand scheme of things and still consisted of only two rooms. Bảo noticed immediately when the couple entered and embraced them both.
“This feast is going to be one to remember!” He said, clearly very pleased with himself. “The table can sit 500 people, I’m sure, and I’ve set it up so we don’t run out of booze later in the week.”
Everett seriously doubted this, they had never been able to meet the demand and he knew that Bảo’s plan was likely just to ration it out over the week, like they planned every year, but invariably Bảo would break that rationing, ordering an extra jug here and there. The extra day of celebration wouldn’t be helping in this matter. But they always ran out, out of seating, out of food, out of booze, the people understood.
“The table gets larger every year.” Everett replied.
“I never thought our village would get bigger than Pahsahk.” Bảo expressed, excitedly. Everett remembered visiting Bảo’s home town long ago and while Everett would occasionally send couriers up that way and settlers would come down this way, he had yet to go back there again.
“Me neither, but it’s great having so many people helping each other out.” Everett replied. The village had definitely started to drift away from its communal roots, but the population pyramid was so incredibly bottom heavy that everyone helped out when it came to taking care of each other’s children.
“Speaking of, shall we see how everything is going outside?” Everett asked.
“Absolutely,” Bảo agreed.

They made their way outside, making idle chit chat. The kids were playing with the hoops and blocks on the far side of the field beneath Hồng’s watchful eye. Things for the kids to play with ended up being a very important aspect of the festival as time had gone on. It was less like a college kegger now and more like a carnival. Still, a large portion field had been cleared for the main event. Currently, the border was being chalked out by a young woman named Bulan. She was one of Everett’s employees who usually worked lacquering products, but had agreed to paint the field. The large oval pitch was flanked on either end by three hoops of varying heights and inspired a lot happiness in Everett. Of all the sports to introduce to the tribe, he was happy that it had been quidditch. Of course, the game had taken on a lot of modifications as Everett had introduced it and now it was closer to something like full contact basketball with a goalie. It was still a lot of fun. Since Everett and Bảo each had separate teams and the two teams were typically the best, it had become tradition that the loser dines the winner. Other teams would compete against each other in a tournament beforehand as well. And there were dozens of other tournaments besides that. The winners tended to get preferential seating at the banquet for them and their family.
“Bulan,” Everett called out as they drew near, “draw the goalie line closer to the goals on this side, that way Bảo might have a chance of scoring!”
“And paint the lines on thick!” Bảo added, glancing at Everett, “so that Everett knows to keep inside the boundary!”
Nearby there was a dull thud as Somboon set up the drums.

11.10.4
Three Rivers ~ Near Modern Day Wat Choenglen Bang Sai

Most of the torches had burned out, casting the porch into a dull red glow with long shadows. It was late and Everett wouldn’t be remembering this conversation in the morning. Bảo’s team had won that night after a hard sack had dislocated the shoulder of one of Everett’s better teammates putting them at a disadvantage. Injuries were always common during the festival season, but Everett lacked the knowledge to fix them, so people stayed injured. Even so, there was a lot of glory to be won, and that made playing all the more worth it.
If Everett was tipsy, however, Bảo was totally sloshed. It was a forgone conclusion that they would not be leaving their chairs for the night, not that either of the two men minded. Close to the horizon, the moon laid full, casting the rest of the night into a wispy silver. Distantly, someone was playing the drums, but they were either drunk or a child or both, because the beats fell irregularly. It was the moon however, that held Bảo’s attention.
“It looks so close, ya know?”
“Ya.” Everett says, realizing rather slowly that Bảo was talking.
“Like if it would just get a little lower, I could run over to it, climb a palm tree and it would be there.”
“Ya.”
“I wonder what it’d be like, do you think it’d be warm or cold there.”
“Cold, very cold, there’s not… there’s no… umm… atmosphere there, so there’s nothing to trap the heat, so even when it’s the sunrise, it’s like negative 200 degrees.” Everett had still failed to come up with a good system for telling temperatures, but there was so little variation in the temperature at this latitude, it seemed kind of pointless.
“How do you know?” Bảo asked, his voice taking on a bit of an accusatory tone.
“Been there, well not me, the astronauts. Umm… they were sorta… like.. space… people. Yeah, they were people who went to space.” Everett fumbled around for a good translation, but with a bunch of hand gestures he hoped that he got his point across to the ancient tribal leader.
He must have, because Bảo just nodded a bit and then asked, “How?”
“Oh shiiiit…” Everett said, realizing that he was about to try to explain literal rocket science to a man in hide and barkcloth clothing while drunk. “So the Earth is round, right, I proved that with the Thời Gian Tower. And, uhh… well, there’s air, right, we can feel that blowing, but you know how water sits in a river but won’t overflow it’s banks? It’s sort of like that, the gravity of the Earth, the stuff pulling you back down when you jump, also pulls the atmosphere down and keeps the air around the planet, like a blanket. But the moon is further away, it’s super far away, further than there’s air. It looks like it’s not that far, but that’s just because it’s so big, so, like it’s pretty far away. So know you want to get to the moon, which is also a sphere, like the Earth, which means you need to overcome two things, well three actually because the sun is a deadly laser without the ozone layer, but we won’t worry about that for now. So you need to overcome the gravity which is trapping everything on Earth and then you need to bring air with you into space so that you can breath. We do this with a ship.”
“Like your ships? Have you been building these ships to try to get back to the moon?” Bảo interjects. Everett comes to the realization that he’s not been careful with his word choice and has accidentally confused the poor native. But he needs to press on.
“No, these ships are made of metal.”
“Like the copper?”
“Yes, but a different metal, and I’m not from the moon, I’m from America. Although we’re the only people to be able to land people on the moon. That was the Apollo 11 mission, I want to say, uh- we took 3 people up to the moon in a spaceship, and they walked around some, the moon is so much smaller than the Earth that you can sort of jump around and you weigh a 16th as much, so you can go really high, which is why the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, because there isn’t enough atmosphere, which makes getting back to Earth easy, because you can just sort of come back without burning to much fuel. OH my goodness, I’m all over the place here, I haven’t even explained rockets yet!”
“Rock-etts” Bảo repeated slowly, turning the harsh word over in his mouth. Everett hadn’t bothered to make a new word to describe it and so had just introduced more English to the tribe.
“Yeah, so, uh, rockets, they’re metal ships with these big columns full of fuel, which burns like coal to produce thrust which is like umm..” Leaning over Everett pushes Bảo in his seat and says “thrust”. “Like a push, thrust, so they can push off the ground, except they’re not burning coal, they’re burning hydrogen and oxygen to form water which makes a lot of thrust and is really a reaction I wish we could do.”
Bảo raised his brow a bit at the concept of burning water, but Everett had long sinse proven his chemistry chops to the village.
“Anyway, you just sort of point the rockets away from the Earth and they push off, but you have to be careful to push in just the right way so as to not flip around and crash and burn, because that’s what happens when you’re loaded with fuel like that.”
“Crash and burn.” Bảo parrots, deciding he likes this new saying. ‘We should build a rockets.” Bảo says with a dreamy sort of tone.
Everett laughs, a sharp cry of delight that devolves into a more natural laugh. “Sure buddy,” he says. “Sure.”

11.10.5
Three Rivers ~ Near Modern Day Wat Choenglen Bang Sai

At some point last night, after their drunken tirade of a conversation, Everett and Bảo had participated in a late night pick up game in which Everett promptly passed out on the field. The call of several roosters roused him from his stupor. Someone had covered him in the chalking paint last night and his skin was painted in interesting patterns, with a mix of profanity from those who knew how to write it and a penis directly in the center of his back. It’s nice to know we had so much in common with our ancient ancestors.
Shuffling off the field slowly, Everett picked his way toward the center of town, carefully plodding along. Several of the lanterns were in need of repair by now, and by the end of the festival tonight, Everett would not be surprised to find most of them broken, either by the tribe or the weather. The early morning sun was alone in the pale blue sky. Everett never particularly felt hungover, he attributed this to his strong German/Irish heritage, but this morning there was a bit of a sluggishness in his body.
After much shuffling, Everett pulled himself into a shower and rocks it on. The sweetly sour scent of river water fills his nostrils as he begins to wash away the paint. It comes off easily, and Everett takes a moment to notice how dark his skin has become against the white paint and how much more physically fit he is now. And more scarred. Sighing deeply, Everett left the shower, letting the water evaporate naturally off his bare skin. There was a woman and two younger children that Everett recognized vaguely from the farms waiting outside, and when he left, they entered. It took him a moment to adjust to the brightness of the outdoors and Everett wondered what time it was. With bit more vigor now after the shower, Everett walked in the direction of Thời Gian Tower and nearly made it to the tower (Which informed him it was already 3:95), when the flapping of wings on the tower captured his attention. The moth’s large brown wings striped with eye spots were unlike anything he had ever seen. Deciding that he didn’t really have anything better to do, and channeling his inner curiosity, he followed the moth for a ways until it entered the forest to the far east of the town. Not wanting to enter the jungle, he decided to return home, spinning quickly on his foot and immediately seeing another of these moths, the large wings alighting on the breeze like an indecisive hawk. Wondering if this was one of those things where you never notice something and the when you do, it’s suddenly everywhere, Everett continues home, seeing three more of the strange moths. It’s a good sign for the new year Everett decides.
Also along his way home, Everett runs into Hai. They wave at each other, a mannerism Everett has been promoting since he got there.
“One more day.” Everett says to Hai.
“I concur, the short cycle went quickly.”
“I know, even with the extra day this year.”
“I’m more worried about your plans for the new ship, though. You’re really pushing the men.”
“It’ll get easier.”
“That’s what you always say, but then you get new ideas.” Hai is putting it mildly, and his tone is good humored, but there is an edge that can’t be ignored.
“Let’s go to Mama Zhao’s,” Everett said, putting his arm around the large man. He’s aged so much faster than Everett, and the amount of time he spends on the ocean has weathered his face prematurely.
“We can sketch out designs tomorrow, for now let’s party a bit.” Everett says. As if to respond, someone starts drumming distantly on wood blocks, a sound not unlike a marimba drifts through the air and is joined seconds later by someone a few houses down strumming on some guitar. They are playing in time with one another, an interesting 5/4 beat that seemed to be common in the village, but they are not playing the same melody, each doing their own thing. It sounded vaguely jazzy. Someone is clapping along to the beat.
They arrive at Mama Zhao’s and are greeted by the titular woman herself from her position in the kitchen. She’s not much older than either of the men, but as the only cook in the village, she’s taken on a very maternal role. Everett orders them two bandreks rich in coconut milk and coconut rice with fish. Across the room there is a couple passionately holding hands, foreheads resting against each other, whispering and giggling and nearer Hai and Everett is one of the men who works on Everett’s glass team. Everett walks over and says hi and they chat for a bit about family matters before Everett rejoins Hai.
“Somchai’s baby came this shortcycle.” Everett said, referring to the glassworker.
“Congratulations,” Hai grunted. “That’s a rare thing.”
“Truly.” Everett agrees, they talk about Hai’s family for awhile, after many tries, his wife was finally able to give them a son nearly a year ago now. When their food came, Everett chatted with Zhao for a while. The business was doing really well this holiday season and as an afterthought, she brought out Everett’s cut of the earnings, minus the cost of the meal, of course.


12.1.3
Somewhere on the Chao Phraya River

The sun is blazing angrily and glittering sharply off of the water as Everett is poled down the river. He is chatting contentedly with the young poler, a teen boy who was very excited to talk about his sexual exploits over the previous week. They are drifting alongside a group of log drivers, keeping far to the side and passing them slowly. Two days ago, immediately after the celebration, Everett and Hai had announced the expansion of the floating city, not only the new dock, but also a series of shelters so that families can move in. It’ll take an unprecedented amount of lumber and for now the amount of fishing ships has hit a point of diminishing returns, but Everett believes that they’ll be fine financially. Besides, this won’t be a fishing ship, if it turns out as Everett intends, then he’ll finally have a ship that can leave the bay.
After what feels like forever on the river, the poling boat finally drifts out of the river and into the bay; the kid switching to a paddling motion. Very distantly over the glittering waves is the outline of the City on the Water. As they approach, the interlocking buildings take on the appearance of the bleached bones of some giant leviathan. Everett notices two smaller outrunner ships gearing up at one of the ports, getting ready to meet the flotilla of timber coming down the river behind them. The smaller ships cast off and then race towards them, expertly using the slight breeze coming up the bay to gain speed. Everett assembles his spyglass and looks out towards the boats. He notices Eka is driving one. An islander who emigrated from the south, Eka is a talented sailor, and also a huge prankster. Everett frowns slightly as the prow of Eka’s ship points toward their own. He covers the distance quickly and Everett tells his amateur boatswain to maintain the canoes heading. The waves lap gently against the canoe, time slows down and Everett narrows his eyes. He’s not about to lose this game of chicken, even if Eka’s boat is twice the size of his own. The islander bears down on them, getting close enough that Everett could see the playful smile and intense eyes, he could also notice the way that Eka was holding the ropes and rudder and predict what was happening just moments before it happened.
“Get down!” Everett shouts to the standing teen and he does so, just as Eka pulls into a hard port, the wind pulling the sail over and tipping the boat dangerously, outrigger leaving the water and sailing above Everett’s head, soaking himself and the poleman. Mumbling Everett cursed Eka out, his hand firm on the rocking canoe. As the outriggers sailed away, Everett finally made it to the floating city, the thin boat docking at the proper port, the teen cranking on the lift, pulling the whole boat from the water and flush with the dock. They both got off and Everett left him to his devices, making his way to the second level offices. Hai was already there, he had left that morning while Everett had stayed behind with his family for a bit longer. But now it was time to work. Everett opened the door to the office on a busy scene, Hai and several other boatswain were sketching out the new boat, but also coming up with new building designs. It would be another half shortcycle before the plans were even finished.

25.5.3
Lông lũng Sanctuary ~ Modern day Vũng Tàu

It was still too early in the morning for the sun to have burned away the fog, and air held a certain chill that was uncommon for the area. Standing on the aftcastle of the mighty carrack, Everett felt a little bit like a pirate. It was hard not to, the ship, the sailors, the port city not even a decade old, and, of course, the tricorner hat that Everett had insisted upon having made. There was also the growing feeling that he had been sent to the past, which coupled beautifully with the apparent ageless quality Everett had taken on to convince him that he was in a coma. The lightning strike over 20 years ago now, if time even means anything, must’ve put him in a coma. A very fun coma, Everett thought as he looked across the bay.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of hammers pounding. Construction never stops, Everett thought. Just last year he had announced that he’d like to start building ships from this dock too, which was met with mixed feelings from the locals. But Chief What’shisface hadn’t said anything yet, and after Everett laid down the groundwork for the new town, replete with irrigated fields, more proper building styles, and boardwalks, the chief's opinion didn’t matter anymore. It was hard not to feel a little bit like a pirate.

Later today they were supposed to meet the flagship of the new fleet and Everett would trade off with Commander Hai and take the new ship south. Everett had heard only good things, and the new ship had moved through production with half the usual hiccups that usually came with a new ship class. At least, that’s what he had heard. Maybe it was terrible and everyone had lied to Everett. Maybe he was overthinking things and nervous. Everett nodded a bit to himself and then turned around to sit at the small, yet gracefully constructed wooden table. A pot of tea was sitting there from the furthest Northern port. Tea was amongst the many precious cargos in this ships hull at the moment. Everett had been careful not to bring seeds back with him however. For the moment it benefited him that there was only one source of tea in the world, and much like the ancient Chinese with silk, Everett would keep a close grip on the supply. It was sweetened with honey from Three Rivers though, and Everett’s thoughts turned to his wife. It had not been lost on her that Everett wasn’t aging. It had not been lost on him that she was. Everett frowned into his teacup, then set it down and stood.
Walking down the gangplank, onto the freshly built dock, Everett unclipped the maquahuitl from his hip and gave it a few easy swings. Hard labors early in his camp life had given way to a relatively easier life now, and Everett had to be careful to keep his form. Facing off against an invisible foe, Everett attacked and parried, feeling and looking a little bit childish. It wasn’t a great weapon, but without metal, Everett had done his best and the clubsword shredded its way through most hide armors. Everett quickly grew bored of the swordplay, however, and reattached it to his side, walking into town. The plank boardwalk didn’t stop when it reached land and carved its way through the town like a grey-brown snake. As Everett walked the dirty, yet freshly cut timber walkway, he glanced around at the construction. People building houses, weaving baskets, carving tridents and trinkets. Here and there a figure still slept in the early morning dew, a number of which Everett recognized as his sailors, suspended as they were in hammocks between trees. A large building that would serve as a hotel was in the process of being constructed, but there had been considerable logistical challenges, not to mention the softness of the soil, that had set back the building by years. Even now, a collapsed section of the frame taunted him from across the narrow bay. A different tavern that had been built further inland on a hill was doing fine and Everett had commissioned expansion of the sleeping quarters there, hoping that it would be better off. It was this tavern that Everett made his way towards. He entered the squat yet expansive building and took a table nearby a musician who was busking. Everett recognized the instrument as one of Somboon’s, a finely carved string instrument with some sort of slide over the strings. Everett had long since advanced the banner of musical instrumentation, but Somboon, and now his children, had prolifically produced instruments and Everett had kept musicians in high demand. Everett received a drink, some weak alcoholic beverage not unlike fruit punch, and he paid the waitress, handing her a few extra glass pieces and telling her to tell the musician to play something fast. She did as she was told and the musician gave a nod in Everett’s direction, placed the instrument on his lap and played a song that had a lot of runs in it in the same delightful, fast 5/4 time and implicitly strange musical scale that was common of the nonprimitive music that Everett had heard since becoming comatose.

Many hors later, Everett was alerted to the arrival of Hai. He had been playing dice against a few of his crew and had been winning nicely, so he was sad that he had to be pulled away. Stepping outside, the sun had worked its way across the sky and the shadows were starting to get long. Everett met up with the crew member that had alerted him, standing ready at a portion of the boardwalk that overlooked the bay. When Everett got closer, he was handed a spyglass which he used to see the large ship as it sailed into the port. Everett nodded to the sailor, handing him back his spyglass and then walking with him towards the docks. They arrived at the same time as the gangplank was lowered and Everett embraced the scruffy looking teen that disembarked.
“How was the trip? How have you been?” Everett said, holding his son at arms length to appraise him more fully. He had not seen his family since he had sailed East over 2 years ago. He had asked Hai to send his family with him and together they could all head South. Jiang was old enough to lead a colony by now, Everett figured, and he was excited to have his family with him on an expedition.
Jiang didn’t get a chance to respond, however, or if he did, Everett didn’t hear him, as Huệ walked down the gangplank with Soth right behind her and Hai behind Soth. Everett left Jiang and walked up to embrace his wife as she stepped off the boat. Everett spun her in a circle, before kissing her. As he did this, the age difference re-entered Everett’s mind. The laugh lines around the eyes and the small, perpetual wrinkles and the beginnings of silver hair hit Everett like a brick and worry flashed briefly in his eyes. Huệ must not have noticed, because she shown with a radiant delight. Soth stepped up, and Everett gave the shorter son a hug and then he also embraced Hai, thanking him for the safe delivery of his family. Sailors shouted and there was the audible sound of thumping as cargo and necessities were traded between the two ships, and Everett and his family walked back up the boardwalk to the tavern. They had much to talk about and the evening passed pleasantly.

25.5.4
Lông lũng Sanctuary ~ Modern day Vũng Tàu

By noon the following day, the triple decker ship and her crew and the many families of settlers aboard were finally ready to cast off. The ship Everett had been sailing had also been readied for launch and had left an hor and a half ago. Now it was Everett’s turn to call for the lines to be dropped and the poles to be set and the sails to be unfurled and the anchor weighed.
The sun reflected brilliantly off the water as they sailed directly towards it. The wind was good, the sea was calm, there was a nearly audible electricity in the air as the passengers wondered what their new life to the South was going to be like. Everett smiled and bellowed a sea shanty, one that anyone who had ever visited the Floating City knew.
“What do you do with a drunken sailor?!”

[G-Tech Corporation]

The Delaware River, North America
June 9th, 85 AG

The tall friar nodded at length to the words of this tribal elder- called Abraham?- as he offered meat and drink as a meal to keep the talkers from flagging where much speech was to be had. Jerome turned slightly, speaking to one of the soldiers that stood nearby.

"Inform Captain Terovingian that the natives are open to trade, and would offer a meal, if he joins us." The Brother didn't possess any formal ability to negotiate on behalf of the Imperium as a whole, of course. Neither did Captain Terovingian, for that matter, but he could make provisional agreements that would likely be acceded to by the Emperor Emeritus if the terms were not entirely illogical.

It had been scarce moments after the soldier left before Terovingian descended the ramp from the Hind. He nodded to Jerome familiarly.

"I though the arrival of food portended extended talks. Anything of interest from this tribe?"

"Aye, indeed so. They are men of Ego, the sailors from above Norsca?"

The captain's face clouded for a moment in uncertainty, before a smile graced his face once more. Ah, that made everything much clearer- the advancement of the village, the strange complexion of the leader of the tribe, their friendliness towards traders and relative acceptance of advanced technology. Up and down the eastern seaboard tribes had either been terrified or awed by the tall sailing ships of his impromptu flotilla, and yet these men of Franklin treated the ships as impressive, but not divine or demonic. That explained much.

Brother Jerome turned back to the tribal representative, the man Abraham, and spoke, trusting the translators to crunch through his words.

"My captain is honored by your offer of food while we speak. We are interested to hear that you serve the lady of Ego- this is far east indeed for her influence to extend, for we had heard her capitol sits on the shores of the Great Lakes. But it explains much we had not anticipated about your people. At any rate, we may talk more at length about this over food; drink and meat make merry the hearts of the talkers, so all may be said in earnest and without contention."

Battle of Tu Thancha
The Siege Begins

As the warriors of Turner's alliance retired back to their camp to prepare their siege weapons, night slowly draped its cloak over the city of Tu Thancha, the bonfires of the attackers littering the ground before the city's walls like constellations of lurid stars. Over the camp the three great siege towers, large enough to carry a hundred men each, loomed; they had been dragged all the way from Blue Lagoon by the Deceiver's men, a liability in a field engagement, but now crucial to the assailant's plan to seize the fortified city. Sentries patrolled here and here along the lines of the light wooden stakes thrown down as a hasty defense of the attacking army's bivouac... and under the cover of night they failed to notice several guards not responding, and black figures flitting in the gloom.

It was a sally, but not a sally aimed at driving away the attacking force. Not yet, at any rate. In the gloom suddenly fires began, fires near some of the captured siege equipment and one of the massive siege towers. In the darkness small objects flew from shrouded figures, and where they landed they kindled into sudden flame, obdurate flame that licked greedily at the clothing of men who struggled to douse it, searing skin and hungrily devouring the weapons it landed upon. The cracking of pottery could be heard, and then a massive detonation shook the still night air as the men in the besiegeing camp cried out in alarm; some of the shadowy figures must have found a part of the captured stockpile of Summersoul, and set it ablaze. Flying pieces of guttering flame splattered on tents and men sleeping out under the stars, kindling other parts of the camp quickly, and sending sufferers whimpering in pain to find water or dirt to douse the flames.

A small attack, but somewhat devastating in its effects. Fires burned here and there throughout the camp for hours, and swiftly one of the siege towers became a blazing inferno, a husk of its former self with no value in an assault. Silhouetted by the fire, the warriors of Turner worked until after midnight to control the flames, eventually the camp returning to quiescence only a few brief hours before dawn.

That, of course, was when the hand guiding the attack on Tu Thancha made its move. Though deprived of sleep by the chaos, and somewhat shaken by the strange weapons the defenders had employed, the attackers rallied for a night assault. In their serried masses they approached the city, hundreds of warriors torn from families and friends driven forward by their officers; as the defenders became aware of the assault, and the element of surprise was lost, the siege machines of Turner's forces began firing, hurling chunks of masonry and the captured Summersoul high into the air to batter against the ramparts of the city. Where the Summersoul touched the wooden hoarding it caught and began to burn merrily, and soon the cries of the defenders filled the air, some burning, some crushed by the bombardment. And behind the shadowy masses rolled the two remaining siege towers, unopposed, for Tu Thancha now possessed no weapons capable of bringing down such reinforced edifices.

As the defenders rushed to their weapons, taken from slumber by barked commands, men in civilian clothing moved toward the main gatehouse of the city. In the confusion of the assault swords flashed, guards cut down in moments by the infiltrating Elites who had entered the city with refugees. Up the stairways to the gatehouse they stormed, cutting down those who opposed them, but as the two dozen men burst into the citadel they were faced by many times their number, defenders and Skulk alike rallied to defend the strategically vital position. It was a bloody melee at close range, knives as much use as swords, but before long the Elites lay dead or dying, their ferocity and skill no match for superior numbers who had not stood down for the night due to the need to hold the gate to allow the contingent that sallied forth egress back into the city.

On the ground before the gate a man in black in a black mask watched the gate, and sighed as it remained stubbornly closed. A wave of his arm sent a part of the host assembled with him scrambling for ladders, ladders they raised against the wall with their kinsmen as battle was properly joined.

Shot and quarrels cascaded down on the attacking hordes like rain; some men fell sprawling, lifeblood pumping from their veins as a massive bolt from one of the emplaced heavy crossbows shattered their fragile bodies through shield and armor, others caught out by more humble weapons like the sling and javelin as they advanced. Most of those going up against the wall were conscripts, barely armored, barely trained, and as the dreadful cost of storming a fortified position became clear their faces became increasingly white and fearful. Only a part of the defenders had yet reached the walls from their barracks, and yet as men raised ladders to scale the walls they were often cast down, or those who raised them slain by stones cast from above. Still, the cost in lives littering the field, their officers drove them onwards, and at many points along the wall the conscripts began to climb their siege ladders, numbers making do where individual skill could little prevail.

Above the chaos of the main assault rolled the siege towers, each bearing a hundred regular soldiers of the Blue Lagoon, men trained for war in a way the conscripts were not. At the head of the southern tower stood General An Hai, his gleaming armor reflecting dimly in the fire of the burning ramparts. Many men fell, pushing the siege engines forward in the face of enemy fire, but they moved still, and after all, the pushers were only conscripts. At long last down came the ramps, and out rushed the regulars, shields catching enemy arrows, some men pitching down into the blackness below of death as legs crumpled hit by lucky arrows, or their trajectory in the darkness caused them to misjudge their step.

It was chaos on the walls, chaos hungry for lives. Fires burned in many places, and some parts of the wooden upper ramparts had already been battered down by the blind shots of the catapults in the dark. Skulk and Ego regulars fought tooth and nail with those conscripts that had managed to gain the ascent, and near the siege towers the clash of sword and shield came desperate as the disciplined formations of the regulars fought to gain purchase on the defensive emplacements. And still, from those parts of the wall unharassed by climbers in the assault, shot and arrows fell in the masses of men waiting to climb to grips with the foe, slaying many...

Ego: 25 Skulk and Knights, 200 Regulars, 1120 Conscripts, 300 Garrison Troops

Turner: 200 Elites, 400 Regulars, 2970 Conscripts

Night Sally Casualties:
2 Skulk
80 Conscripts, 20 Regulars

Night Assault Casualties:
40 Regulars, 200 Conscripts, 10 Skulk
20 Elites, 50 Regulars, 650 Conscripts

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Army command headquarters
Outside Aswan
Upper Egypt

Eleven men sat around the round stone table, set in the middle of the main hall of the command building. It was specially constructed to allow for debate, without any man clearly sitting at the head. Bruno had taken cues from Arthurian legend; there could be a primus inter pares, even if all men were treated equally. These ten men would be his own knights. At least, they would do his bidding. They would be a start.

All of them had been elected by their respective battalions, after much deliberation. Some men had had an easy election, already having founded themselves as capable leaders before the Councillor came along. Others had had tough times, having to campaign relentlessly to get just enough votes. All sides had their merits. Scribes had written down all the proceedings in detail, and Bruno was reading through the reports one by one.

The new officers were a bit uneasy. They had seen little of this Councillor outside of his mealtime speeches, when he had arrested the old, corrupt order. Even now, having been seated at this table for fifteen minutes already, the man had not spoken a word. He was flipping through pages of documents, not even paying the smallest attention to the table around him.

“Mister Councillor-General, Sir…” one of the officers tried, but he was cut short by a single movement of the Councillor’s hand, who held up two fingers in a gesture of silence.

“You will speak when spoken to, captain” Bruno answered. He certainly didn’t want to be harsh. He wanted these men to like him. He wanted everyone to like him, which was probably one of his biggest flaws. However, leading an army required a stern respect for order and discipline. He immediately went back to reading. These men had to get a sense that they were nothing more than his secretaries. Another ten minutes passed before Bruno finally began to speak.

“So, gentlemen” he started at least, looking around the room.

“Let me explain why you are here. Under normal circumstances I would allow you all to question everything I say, but time is of the essence. In the future, I will reinstate that right, but for now, all you do is listen and follow orders, is that understood?”

The captains looked at one another questioningly, but then started to nod one by one.

“Good. And in the future, you will answer all my questions and orders with ‘yes, general’. Is that understood as well?”

There was a moment of silence, but the captains quickly caught on to the intention of their new general.

“Yes, general” they said, somewhat out of order, but still rather quickly. Bruno looked at his generals one by one, and then nodded.

Bruno was somewhere on the verge of amusement and disgust. He didn’t like blind loyalty. He liked to talk to people, to explain things. It was his way of controlling himself. In truth, Bruno never trusted his own judgement, and to make him infallible was a sure way of making mistakes. At least, he would keep that in the back of his mind. If people didn’t question him, he could normally assume to be right. Now, however, he would assume to be wrong, which was a terrible state of being for someone who wanted to be right.

“Good” he said, lying through his teeth. He liked acting, but he felt like a true asshole now. What was the difference between being an asshole and acting like an asshole? Only the contents of one’s mind, and those didn’t matter on a case-by-case basis.

“Gentlemen, a fighting force is like a warrior, and a warrior fights best when he is in harmony with himself. Is this true?”

“Yes, general” was the immediate response. Bruno understood why these men had won their respective elections: they understood what was expected of them. Bruno suddenly felt a power in his own voice, bubbling up his throat like a cesspool. He knew that feeling: whenever he felt powerful, he would use that power. Already, he felt that his body had relaxed in his seat. He sat back upright.

“Captain Djekhy: what did I just say?” Bruno asked one of the captains. He felt like a school teachers berating his pupils.

“An army is like a warrior, and a warrior fights best when he is in harmony with himself”

Bruno nodded.

“Good, captain. You paid attention. Now, if we want to fight as one, are our soldiers better left disciplined or not?”

A silence fell over the men. They looked at him with stone-cold eyes. Bruno thought back and noticed his mistake: he had given them two equal options. Even though one was the better option, they didn’t dare contradict him. This was the result of discipline.

“Let me rephrase that: it is better for soldiers to be disciplined than not. Is this true?”

“Yes, general!” the captains answered. It was beginning to sound unitary, as one. These were clever men, after all.

“Good. Now, this is what I want: You, you, you, you and you will become my personal staff. One in charge of transport, one in charge of food, one in charge of weapons and munitions, one in charge of maps and one in charge of communications. We will discuss the details later. Is that understood?”

The five chosen captains resounded positively. “Yes, general!”

“Good. And you, you, you, you and you will command the battalions personally. You may pick your own subordinates, as long as they follow my officer template”

“Yes, general!”

“Good. Now, every battalion will sport scouts. Battalion 1 will be a cavalry battalion, charged with manning the chariots. Battalion 2 and 3 will be heavy infantry, armed with the long pike. More on that later. Battalion 4 and 5 will be a mixture of light infantry and skirmishers. Again, I will talk more about that later.”

“Yes, general!” the men said once more. Bruno felt sick to his stomach.

“Alright. Battalion commanders, you can go and pick your officers from among the men. I will keep my staff here to go over some details”

Without even posing another question, five of the men stood up and left the room, not even speaking a word with one another. Clearly they had been impressed. Perhaps it was only because their predecessors were captive in his dungeons. Bruno looked down at his notes. He had written down everything he was going to ‘mention later’, and it was quite a list. He sighed. There was so much to explain, so much to go into. There were at the bottom of the tech tree, and he tried to create an iron age army overnight. Without enough iron, too. It would have to make do, however. The more powerful his army was, the less casualties would fall, and that was of the utmost importance. He remembered the teachings of Sun Tzu: the best general is he who can win without bloodshed. He just hoped he was a good general.

“Now, gentlemen, what I say here is of the utmost importance, and you may not utter it to anyone else, is that understood?”

The reply was predictable beyond my need to write it down.

“To cut to the chase, we are currently being robbed of our good assets by the military administration. Before you can begin your work in earnest, there are some wrongs that need righting…”

[Ralnis]

Chapter 4, part 1:Thieves of Many Flavors,
Walnous, Rhone, The Imperium,
February, 86AG/ 2914BC/BCE

It has been two months of hard living for Bob and his crew. Bittertooth was the only one accustomed to this sort of living but teaching the rest was still worth it. Bob had never handled a blade or a bow but the bandit was able to teach the Mastermind a thing or two while telling stories of his raids, mostly they were about running from the law but he did have a few good raids under his belt and with good kills. Still, it showed that Bittertooth didn't know about being a thief in the way Bob knew from the modern world.

Bob asked how did thieves in the Imperium work but Bittertooth just told him about simple thievery and banditry. Bob was curious that thievery and crime was only a few generations old but he also had a sense of pride about their heists, and how the sisters were progressing. Going from region to region made them get a few arms in the black market, but they herd of the criminals of Rhone who were bringing in goods from the Sami or Norscans.

It seemed like a stretch to walk there but they have a better chance to make a friend and get a clean life again. Over the time, he saw that the sisters were picking up the ways of being a thief. Both Bob and Bittertooth were teaching them what they both know on how to be better criminals if their going to join in the crew's escapades.

When they reached the border of Germany to the former Kingdom of Rhone, Bob had started to think that if the people where he started at was more of a Germanic dialect, then they were in Denmark, yet it was the same old sailing ships and factories. However, when they saw the Nordic architecture, he saw that it was Viking in nature.

It was amazing to see what the Immortal leaders could do with their nations, but it also reminded him about the Hegemon and the Imperium, who he believed would kill him as Bob believed himself that he is an Immortal and Deceiver. If he was found about by the Imperium then he would be killed since he was not just a thief, but an inventor and could understand their knowledge. It was this thinking that made start of making long-term plans and one of the things that had to change was how they did work.

It was a plan that had to be put on hold as they smuggled themselves on a freighter to the town of Walnous, which sat on a small island and was a trading harbor for the Imperium to the Balken States and to Nom Sampai. It wasn't a factory town but Bob started to draw things like gadgets, steamships and airships with some version of realism that probably would be awesome to ride on. There were other drawings and writings, questions about himself and the Immortals that led nations like the Hegemon but he had to close the journal as they got to the island and he started to explore the town.

Bob had came to understand that their reputation had perceived them as the Gaslight and Ironsides were being known as the Sons of Disorder, on top of the sisters. The drawings weren't bad, but Bob thought they could do better with the brass goggles at best. Still, they had to leave the city and made their camp in the wilderness in order to make sure that they aren't spotted by the local Lawkeepers.

Bob had started to tell the crew that in order for them to get their lives back then they couldn't be just thieves. The crew looked at him and wondered what he was going with. Bob said that thieves don't have to just steal valuable items, they can be spies in their own right. If they just stole valuable objects, then they could never truly see the potential that they can do. Besides, it would be better for a crime boss to have an intelligence arm in exchange for them to cover their tracks.

The crew started to sneak around the town, stealing clothes and getting information in the local underworld as Bob started to make the sisters with costumes that can work with their steampunk theme. Of course they looked more Victorian than Imperial, but they were as practical as the other costumes.

The sisters were still wondering why they need to wear things like pants and Bob just said," no body wants to see what color's your underwear and it's hard to fight in a skirt anyway."

Katherine raised her eye if Bob was talking from experience but the Mastermind just shook his head. The clothing itself was form fitting and was made to help sneak around. The sisters wondered why Bob used navy blue instead of black and he told them of the idea of camouflage and how just they being clothed in black can get you spotted easier. It's one of the techniques that has helped them with the heists that they did.

Her sister embraced the idea of the clothing, thinking that it was an adventure in a way but Bob just thought of it being a job.

March

With March they found what they've been looking for. The town of Walnous was some hot bed of gangs fighting against each other. Bob had found the perfect ground to try the new idea of being spies and working with the underworld. They don on their costumes and assumed their alter egos and get to the task at hand.

Among the crime bosses they scouted out, a Nord by the name of Foxbeard was desperate for allies as he was loosing influence against bandits and pirates attacking his smuggling routes. The rumors suspect of foul play and the other gangs were looking on preying on the weak. Bob suspected if Foxbeard had some help from Gaslight and crew then he will help them get a clean life.

The crew believed that he would be desperate enough to betray them once he gets big enough. Bob also said that they will get info on Foxbeard when their working for him in case he doesn't go through with his word. The crew agree yet they still worried about being spies instead of thieves.

They armed themselves with some weapons, Bob wished that he had a better weapon then a concealed stiletto but it worked for what they needed to do. They followed one of Foxbeard's lieutenants and ambushed him. He was knocked out and brought to a cave as he was tied up. The lieutenant was afraid and spewing curses but it didn't phase the crew.

Gaslight introduce him and his crew and the lieutenant knew that they were the Thieves of Karlburg. It was then they wondered what they wanted with him. Gaslight said that he wanted to meet with his boss because they wanted to strike a deal with him. He said that he doesn't need any thieves but Bittertooth picked him up and enforce the Mastermind's command.

The lieutenant rapidly shook his head up-and-down and they let him go by following him in secret. They didn't think he would keep his word so they had to make sure. When the rat did let them towards the hideout of Foxbeard, they used the grappling hook to infiltrate the hideout and got around his gang to meet the man himself.

Foxbeard was surprised at the sight of the Thieves as he just heard they wanted to talk to him. Bob said not to call his gang because he would be gone before they reached him. Foxbeard believed he meant that the crew would kill him but he still sat down, not wanting to see if the Thief was bluffing.

Gaslight had said that they had been looking for a friend in need in order for them to get the Lawkeepers off their backs.

Foxbeard just laughed, saying that," I admit, you and your gang is good at sneaking, but I'm not looking for wanted thieves."

" Were not offering our services as thieves, but spies." Gaslight said.

Foxbeard's face went from laughter, to interest as he did think about the idea. Gaslight went on to say that they know the way the city works, the gangs that have been looking to eat him, that there's foul play and that he may know people that have been looking to take him out for years.

Gaslight knew that Foxbeard was desperate and the Thief also knew that someone equally desperate could work toegther. It was then Foxbeard said that he does need an ally and if they can help being spies. Foxbeard believe that if he will have free help, then he should test the "spies".

He gave them the task of trying to take down a Sami pirate by the name Engarshield. He and his ally was a crime lord that had been picking his smuggling ships and sank 2 of them already. The Nord wanted them to go as far as the traitorous kingdom to bring him the pirate or the gang leader. If he can bring either or both then he can at least know that their more than just glorified pickpockets.

Gaslight agreed that he needs a new change of location and weather. Before he left, Foxbeard was warned that if he didn't held up his agreement when he gets powerful, they make sure that his gang goes down underneath his own lies. Foxbeard turned white instead of red as he wondered how much did the mask man knew but they were gone, gone from his home and his gang didn't know that the crew managed to inflitrate the headquaters.

Bob and his crew went back to their campsite and started to talk about going to Nom Sampai. Bob said that he never been out of the cold air and that this lead to the pirate could get them a business when it comes to having a ship. Bittertooth raised his eyebrow as he thought that he was only going to try and deliver the enemy. Bob thought that thieves need to be different, that they can't just be one thing if you have the skills to do it.

Bittertooth said that the ambitious of men need to be checked, but its good to have a buisness and to try and become something bigger than just a thief and working for other people. The sisters went with them but told them that they didn't know anyone in the Sami nation. Bob started to think back on the past when he first came to this alternate timeline that he managed to pick up on a language that he never heard of before. He started to say that he will know how to get around Nom Sampai but, because of the power of the Imperium, that they need to keep their heads down as there could be Imperial spies and those that want to watch the progression of the people as much as they want to watch the other nations underneath their sphere of influence.

The next couple days, the crew smuggled themselves into a smuggling ship that took them to the young Sami kingdom. Bob hopes that this adventure for him will be profitable and maybe learn more about the other branches of the Imperium as he tries to understand about himself and the powers of an Immortal can do.