Eternal
Whatever defenses the Torites are going to muster within the time you come back with the Storm as far as you’re concerned aren’t going to be enough to save them. Better you should come back prepared and your soliders better rested as well.
“I think it’s time to leave. In fact I think it’ll be best if the entire army moves away from this area.” You say.
“We’re retreating?” Flevas asks.
“Call it a tactical withdraw. I’m not done with this place though. Not done with you either, your input on this was very useful.”
“Um, thank you Emperor.” Flevas says unsure of how to take the fact that he’s called attention to himself to the ruler of the Empire.
When you return, you give Ackerson an earful of his failure to use his resources wisely and not even informing you of the potential of certain soldiers who could come in useful. You also explain that the only reason why he isn’t being demoted is that he had the intelligence to at least see Flevas’ combat abilities and send him with you in the first place.
You have the army relocate to one of the towns closer to the Empire for resupplying and reinforcements. There is a bit of downtime, but there is also some routine patrolling which allows you to engage in battle against a group of those centaur creatures. Tedious foes. Constantly galloping away while firing their arrows. You appreciated the bull creatures’ attempts at caving your skull in with their axes a lot more.
Eventually you get the message you’ve been waiting for and that’s when you make your way back to the vicinity of the forest. When you arrive, you and the back up mages begin to prepare for your assault on the entire forest.
You call Flevas over, who you see nearby.
“So what do you think to this plan? Be honest.”
“Well Emperor, as I said the svelk in the stories attempted something like this as well and while I know that you certainly have powerful magic at your command, I’m not certain that the rest of your mages having your same abilities.”
“I see. So you don’t believe Empire mages are up to the challenge of setting one measly forest on fire and completely burning it to the ground.”
“I didn’t say that…”
“Oh, well you must’ve also implied that even if our mages fail that I would not have the capacity to pick up their slack.”
“I definitely did not mean…”
You start laughing.
“Relax elf, I’m fucking with you. Beside this isn’t the entire plan, the rest of it is over there in the near distance.” You say and point over at the airship slowing making its way towards your position. Most of the army is looking in that direction too.
“I heard the rumors, but is that the ship that can fly?” Flevas asks.
“That is indeed the Empire’s new pride in the skies. The Storm. And that’s exactly what it’s going to do over that forest. Those dryads might be expecting us to attempt a magic firestorm, but I guarantee they’re not going to be expecting one that involves a lot of explosions.”
The Storm is indeed an impressive sight and you can imagine how it will terrify your future enemies. For right now though, you’re content on it just killing them.
Along with the airship and your magic, you also have a row of catapults continually barrage the forest with flaming material. You and the army periodically move and keep on the outskirts of forest while the Storm works its assault within the center of the forest. Between the two, the decimation of the forest is certain even if it does take a few days.
Forest creatures, but more importantly Torites eventually come running out of the forests, some manage to get away, others attempt to fight your army in an attempt to kill you and the other mages, but they naturally fail.
You actually do lose a few of the weaker mages who can’t keep up their energy and collapse completely drained of life. Hardly matters since you accomplish your task with vicious efficiency. Eventually the forest goes from being an inferno to a blacked wasteland with only burnt tree husks and stumps left. Whatever is still alive, is going to be easy to find.
You order a search and participate in it yourself, as you are eager to see if there might be some sort of evidence of this mysterious dryad or dryads. It might be that you just burned down an entire forest for no reason, but then it is one less area for the Torites to hide in.
You do sense a faint bit of magic though. Very weak, but there none the less. You immediately follow the trail until it leads you to your goal.
And there you see a naked, heavily burned female creature. Its limbs are slightly longer and thinner than even the average elf. It has a very delicate appearance and might even be considered pretty looking if it wasn’t covered in burns and struggling for life.
It pathetically lays on the ground semi-curled up near a stump that is nearly completely burnt. It looks at you with its big eyes and then over nearby at some other bodies you didn’t even notice. They look like more dryads though, all dead.
The dryad shakes and clutches tighter to the stump as you approach. It even begins making a few sounds, which causes you to immediately raise a force shield, expecting some sort of last attack.
“She isn’t casting a spell Emperor. She’s whispering some sort of prayer. I think.” Flevas remarks.
“About what and how do you know what she’s saying?”
“I…don’t know! It’s like she’s in my head all of a sudden and I can understand some of her language. Something about…back to earth…child of nature…unnatural force of death…she’s very sad.”
“I would imagine so.” You reply.
“Yeah, but it’s not for herself, it’s for me.” Flevas says.
Flevas at this point walks past you and over to the dying dryad. She looks up at him sorrowfully and stops whatever it was that she speaking about. He kneels down beside her and for a brief moment he looks at her sadly as well, but then his face then turns to one of anger and he ends her suffering with a knife to her neck. She gurgles a bit and then dies.
“Another victory for the Empire.” Flevas says and walks past you.
You stare at the dead dryad for a moment and survey the surrounding desolation.
“Well, I guess we know they’re flesh and blood creatures now.” You remark and tell the rest of nearby soldiers to start heading back to the camp.
When you get back, General Ackerson tells you that they’re holding a courier from the Broki Kingdom. The courier works for one of the opportunistic barons. Baron Divilak
Apparently this Baron Divilak has heard much about the Empire and sees no reason to resist your inevitable annexation. He claims that he can make things simpler for you by giving out information of major strong points, security secrets, that sort of thing as well as providing his own military support. Of course he wants to meet in person before all this so that you may hammer out any other stipulations and agreements, but basically what he asks in return is to govern over the new Empire province and that he get to execute King Tiklov himself.
It certainly would be easier with inside help and you were originally toying with the idea of taking advantage of the disorganized nature of the Broki Kingdom by having one or two of the barons side with you in the first place. Of course you never know with those scheming types after all if they’re willing to sell out everything for their own personal gain now, what’s stopping them from doing something similar to the Empire in the future? At the very least, the amount of corruption might tend to be higher than what is acceptable.
With the recent display of power by the Storm, you’re wondering if you shouldn’t just make a gross display of force and cow them all into submission and dispense with any pretense of a “friendly” take over. Of course the problem with this plan, is you might actually unite the kingdom due to your brutality and it might take longer to conquer the place.
“I think it’s time to leave. In fact I think it’ll be best if the entire army moves away from this area.” You say.
“We’re retreating?” Flevas asks.
“Call it a tactical withdraw. I’m not done with this place though. Not done with you either, your input on this was very useful.”
“Um, thank you Emperor.” Flevas says unsure of how to take the fact that he’s called attention to himself to the ruler of the Empire.
When you return, you give Ackerson an earful of his failure to use his resources wisely and not even informing you of the potential of certain soldiers who could come in useful. You also explain that the only reason why he isn’t being demoted is that he had the intelligence to at least see Flevas’ combat abilities and send him with you in the first place.
You have the army relocate to one of the towns closer to the Empire for resupplying and reinforcements. There is a bit of downtime, but there is also some routine patrolling which allows you to engage in battle against a group of those centaur creatures. Tedious foes. Constantly galloping away while firing their arrows. You appreciated the bull creatures’ attempts at caving your skull in with their axes a lot more.
Eventually you get the message you’ve been waiting for and that’s when you make your way back to the vicinity of the forest. When you arrive, you and the back up mages begin to prepare for your assault on the entire forest.
You call Flevas over, who you see nearby.
“So what do you think to this plan? Be honest.”
“Well Emperor, as I said the svelk in the stories attempted something like this as well and while I know that you certainly have powerful magic at your command, I’m not certain that the rest of your mages having your same abilities.”
“I see. So you don’t believe Empire mages are up to the challenge of setting one measly forest on fire and completely burning it to the ground.”
“I didn’t say that…”
“Oh, well you must’ve also implied that even if our mages fail that I would not have the capacity to pick up their slack.”
“I definitely did not mean…”
You start laughing.
“Relax elf, I’m fucking with you. Beside this isn’t the entire plan, the rest of it is over there in the near distance.” You say and point over at the airship slowing making its way towards your position. Most of the army is looking in that direction too.
“I heard the rumors, but is that the ship that can fly?” Flevas asks.
“That is indeed the Empire’s new pride in the skies. The Storm. And that’s exactly what it’s going to do over that forest. Those dryads might be expecting us to attempt a magic firestorm, but I guarantee they’re not going to be expecting one that involves a lot of explosions.”
The Storm is indeed an impressive sight and you can imagine how it will terrify your future enemies. For right now though, you’re content on it just killing them.
Along with the airship and your magic, you also have a row of catapults continually barrage the forest with flaming material. You and the army periodically move and keep on the outskirts of forest while the Storm works its assault within the center of the forest. Between the two, the decimation of the forest is certain even if it does take a few days.
Forest creatures, but more importantly Torites eventually come running out of the forests, some manage to get away, others attempt to fight your army in an attempt to kill you and the other mages, but they naturally fail.
You actually do lose a few of the weaker mages who can’t keep up their energy and collapse completely drained of life. Hardly matters since you accomplish your task with vicious efficiency. Eventually the forest goes from being an inferno to a blacked wasteland with only burnt tree husks and stumps left. Whatever is still alive, is going to be easy to find.
You order a search and participate in it yourself, as you are eager to see if there might be some sort of evidence of this mysterious dryad or dryads. It might be that you just burned down an entire forest for no reason, but then it is one less area for the Torites to hide in.
You do sense a faint bit of magic though. Very weak, but there none the less. You immediately follow the trail until it leads you to your goal.
And there you see a naked, heavily burned female creature. Its limbs are slightly longer and thinner than even the average elf. It has a very delicate appearance and might even be considered pretty looking if it wasn’t covered in burns and struggling for life.
It pathetically lays on the ground semi-curled up near a stump that is nearly completely burnt. It looks at you with its big eyes and then over nearby at some other bodies you didn’t even notice. They look like more dryads though, all dead.
The dryad shakes and clutches tighter to the stump as you approach. It even begins making a few sounds, which causes you to immediately raise a force shield, expecting some sort of last attack.
“She isn’t casting a spell Emperor. She’s whispering some sort of prayer. I think.” Flevas remarks.
“About what and how do you know what she’s saying?”
“I…don’t know! It’s like she’s in my head all of a sudden and I can understand some of her language. Something about…back to earth…child of nature…unnatural force of death…she’s very sad.”
“I would imagine so.” You reply.
“Yeah, but it’s not for herself, it’s for me.” Flevas says.
Flevas at this point walks past you and over to the dying dryad. She looks up at him sorrowfully and stops whatever it was that she speaking about. He kneels down beside her and for a brief moment he looks at her sadly as well, but then his face then turns to one of anger and he ends her suffering with a knife to her neck. She gurgles a bit and then dies.
“Another victory for the Empire.” Flevas says and walks past you.
You stare at the dead dryad for a moment and survey the surrounding desolation.
“Well, I guess we know they’re flesh and blood creatures now.” You remark and tell the rest of nearby soldiers to start heading back to the camp.
When you get back, General Ackerson tells you that they’re holding a courier from the Broki Kingdom. The courier works for one of the opportunistic barons. Baron Divilak
Apparently this Baron Divilak has heard much about the Empire and sees no reason to resist your inevitable annexation. He claims that he can make things simpler for you by giving out information of major strong points, security secrets, that sort of thing as well as providing his own military support. Of course he wants to meet in person before all this so that you may hammer out any other stipulations and agreements, but basically what he asks in return is to govern over the new Empire province and that he get to execute King Tiklov himself.
It certainly would be easier with inside help and you were originally toying with the idea of taking advantage of the disorganized nature of the Broki Kingdom by having one or two of the barons side with you in the first place. Of course you never know with those scheming types after all if they’re willing to sell out everything for their own personal gain now, what’s stopping them from doing something similar to the Empire in the future? At the very least, the amount of corruption might tend to be higher than what is acceptable.
With the recent display of power by the Storm, you’re wondering if you shouldn’t just make a gross display of force and cow them all into submission and dispense with any pretense of a “friendly” take over. Of course the problem with this plan, is you might actually unite the kingdom due to your brutality and it might take longer to conquer the place.