Eternal

You figure Warrick deserves something for all his hard work and loyalty, besides you’re still a little hesitant to go flying off into the sky.

“Warrick, I also saw Elam a few days ago too. He told me that by the end of this week, it should be ready for flight as well as combat. Originally I was going to take the first official flight on it, but would you like to do the honors?” you ask.

Warrick looks like he can’t believe his ears.

“Are you serious?”
“Completely. I know you’re probably bored at times doing this job, trust me I sympathize. The day-to-day task of ruling isn’t exactly as exciting as being hip deep in the corpses of your enemies. So I’m giving you this chance to be on the frontlines for a while. I mean I assume you’ve got someone here that can take over for you while you’re gone for a little while right?”
“Sure! I’m got more than few very qualified Eyes that can do the job.” Warrick says.
“Okay, well it’s settled, you’ll report to Elam’s factory in Arat in about four days. Just tell him I sent you, I’m sure there won’t be any problems.”
“Thank you for this opportunity and this position Emperor. I won’t let it go to waste. Oh, what’s the name of this new vessel?”
“Name? Actually I don’t think it has been named yet. Or at least Elam didn’t give it one. Hrm…call it the Storm. I mean you’ll be floating through the sky raining death down upon your enemies in a spectacular fashion. Plus you’re an Eye. I mean Eye of the Storm. Play on words, I dunno, sounds clever to me.”
“Heh, sounds good to me too.” Warrick agrees.

With Warrick obviously in better spirits, you leave the Eye headquarter and make your own preparations for heading out to the western front. You might not be riding on an airship to do it, but you’ll still be engaging in battle in some capacity.

In a couple days you meet up with Ackerson’s company in one of the small towns that has recently been converted into army encampment. The new Empire “citizens” don’t look very happy about their recent occupation and change to their way of life, but they don’t have much choice in the matter and in time they’ll either get used to it, or they won’t and will have to be put down. No matter to you either way.

General Ackerson himself looks very tired. Like he hasn’t been sleeping for days. In fact many of the soldiers have a weary looking appearance. While this is somewhat expected with long drawn out conflicts, you can’t imagine that they’ve had so much trouble that would cause them this much stress. Decena’s command has had more conflict activity, but she hasn’t given any reports of problems. (Though it’s possible that she’s not reporting such things, but given her idolization, you doubt if she’d lie, and even if she wasn’t telling, you’re pretty sure Galen would send you a complaining letter of sub standard conditions.)

“What the hell is wrong with this camp Ackerson? Every man and woman here looks like they’re hung over due to partying for weeks on end, or they’ve been under going months of a siege. I don’t see any castles around here, so it better not be the former.” you demand.
“I…I don’t know my Emperor. Everything was fine until recently. I mean as fine as it could be with groups of sneaking beast people attempting to bushwhack our patrols every so often. Now it’s like most of us can’t get a restful sleep and a lot of us are just never fully awake anymore. Just a tired feeling even if we haven’t been doing much during a particular day. Some have even reported odd or bad dreams.”

While you can’t be certain of what would cause such a thing, you feel you’re pretty safe in assuming one possibility.

“Sounds like magic. Or some form of it. Why haven’t you had your mages check it out?” you ask.
“I would have, but they’re all dead my Emperor. If it isn’t the blasted centaurs with their deadly accuracy, it’s the damn satyrs with their own wild magic. It’s like they target our mages even if they lose more than half of their own numbers in the process.”
“That can’t be a coincidence. Seems like it’s the goat wizards doing this to your command. Better double your efforts and hunt them all down within the vicinity.”
“Well, I have since I thought that might be the case, but I don’t think it’s the Torites doing this. Their mages seem to focus on earth based or elemental magic, nothing to do with the mind or similar witchery. I think they’d be more likely to summon a tornado at us, which thankfully they haven’t done yet.” Ackerson explains.
“Perhaps, this is just a taste of their what their mages can also do, still if you don’t believe its them, who else? The people here don’t look happy about the Empire taking charge of this place. You sure there isn’t a hidden mage here?”
“No, don’t think so. The people of this town have also complained about feeling tired also. In fact that’s probably why they’re pissed at us. To them, we brought this curse as they call it to their town.”
“Okay, what about that new kingdom you said you made contact with? What’s the name of it?”
“Oh them. The Broki Kingdom. I’m not even sure they have any mages. The whole place is backwards. Its chaotic nature reminds me of Rask before the Empire enforced order to it. It’s barely even a kingdom and certainly not like the one the Felkans had. A single king runs the kingdom this is true, but he’s not a strong one. The only reason why he hasn’t been overthrown is because the rest of the barons are all too busy scheming against each other.”
“That sounds like a rather inefficient way to run a government.” You say.
“From what I can tell it is. Practically nothing gets accomplished other than minor civil wars over land by the barons. Some of the barons have seen our arrival as an opportunity to make a mighty friend for their own power grab. The king on the other hand has apparently been making speeches warning his subjects that they all need to put up a united front lest they all be swallowed up by the Empire.”
“Hmm. Sounds like this king isn’t an unintelligent fellow despite the fact that it’ll be a futile task to stop us even if he does manage to keep his kingdom united.”
“We haven’t made any major moves against the Broki yet since we’ve been still focusing on the Torites, then this wave of fatigue that’s been plaguing my command and that’s made things more difficult as well.”

Just as you’re about to answer what the next move should be, a messenger who is panting heavily and ragged looking interrupts you.

“(Gasp) Message…(pant) for the Emperor! Very (pant) important…” he says handing you a letter.
“Why are you out of so much breath, boy? Surely you rode a horse here?” Ackerson asks.
“Half way, (pant) horse died. Rode too hard (gasp) Ran rest of the way. Message from Sightmaster Warrick. (pant) Very important.”
“Shit, well I guess I better open it then. And someone get this boy some water before he collapses.” You say opening the letter.

Emperor,

As always I hate to be the bearer of troubling news, but it is best you know.

While boarding the Storm, I took a little tour of the ship before it took flight. It is quite impressive and I’m sure it will be a mighty weapon in the service of the Empire when it has been inspected again.

I say again, because unfortunately I found one of the crew was a saboteur. It was fairly subtle. He didn’t place a bomb on the ship, but instead had rigged the prototype repeater so that it would explode when used. The explosion would’ve caused much damage and most likely would’ve resulted in setting part of the ship aflame, which then would’ve caused an even bigger explosion by proxy and ultimately caused it to crash to the ground.

I had a list of every member who was working under Elam and all of them save for this saboteur had been an Empire citizen from birth. This one apparently just showed up one day and proved he had engineering skills, so Elam hired him. I would’ve interrogated him, but he committed suicide by slitting his own throat with his dagger as soon as I had discovered the sabotage. Curious that he did not just simply try to quietly sneak off, but I can only assume he did not believe that he was going to get away with it since he was the main one who had last fired the prototype repeater during the weapon testing. Either that or he is working for an unforgiving master who would’ve killed him anyway for his failure.

I’ve already questioned Elam and the rest of his staff, but I believe they genuinely didn’t know, though I wonder about Elam’s judgment skills. I highly recommend that he not screen any further employees he requires, at least not without an Eye present.

I will return to my post as I now have wonder if there is some sort of conspiracy or possibly leaks in our security system. As much as I would’ve liked to have taken that ride to the western front and kill some Torites, the internal safety of the Empire comes first. I’m sure you would agree.

Long Live the Empire,

Sightmaster Warrick

“Problems, Emperor?” Ackerson asks.
“As always, but Warrick’s got it under control for now. In the meantime we still need to solve your problem. I want your most skilled soldiers reporting to me tomorrow. Have you done a thorough check of that large nearby forest area? Don’t the goats prefer them over other terrain.”
“Somewhat, but its very vast my Emperor.”
“Well, I’m going to go over it again. Something is being missed. Maybe I should call in those new kobold commando units too. It’s possible the goats are hiding somewhere right underneath us and if there are, the kobolds can tunnel underground faster than any of us can and find out immediately.”

While you’re taking charge of things, you tell Ackerson to go get some rest. You aren’t normally used to casting magic for beneficial reasons, quite frankly other than healing magic it wasn’t ever really part of your training. Still, you know enough to block out the affects of the Torite spell at least temporarily and it’s a welcome relief to your troops who manage to get well rested for once.

You don’t waste time and begin your search of forest area immediately. It’s not an easy task and you’re attacked multiple times by satyrs along with their minotaur muscle. Your first encounter with them is exhilarating. It’s probably the first proper bit of personal combat you’ve had in years.

The goats don’t put up that much of challenge for you, but the bulls, now there’s a suitable challenge. During your first encounter with Torite forces, a pair of the bovine monsters attack you with huge axes that a human would now doubt have to hold in one two hands, but for them the weapons are swung around easily with one.

As you’re dodging their attacks and landing hits when you can, you can’t help but think the whole time that you hope you can at least tame some of these beasts somehow as they would make an excellent addition to your forces.

Whether you eventually will or not doesn’t matter though, since these two in particular eventually fall to your blade after an extended battle.

“Are you okay my Emperor?” one of your soldiers asks.
“Okay? Are you joking? I missed this shit. This is the best I’ve felt in a long time!” you exclaim.

You spend another few days searching the forests and have a few more encounters with Torites, some of the groups even contain the goat wizards, but even with their elimination you don’t sense that the magic is gone. In fact the whole time you’re in the forest you get the feeling of being continually watched the entire time and you get the impression it isn’t just the average Torite lurking about.

You aren’t the only one who feels that way.

“There’s something out there…and it ain’t no man.” One of your soldiers says to you while you’re staring up at the trees.
“Of course it isn’t, it’s probably something fairly inhuman.” You respond.
“Well that too, but I meant literally that it’s female.”
“Oh, not this elven fairy tale shit again.” Another soldier remarks rolling his eyes.

You probably didn’t notice due to the helmet and armor and the fact that you didn’t inspect every single soldier Ackerson sent with you, but the first soldier who addressed you isn’t actually human. He’s an elf. This is certainly a rarity since as far as you knew there weren’t any elves in the army or at least it isn’t a profession most of them choose. Assuming that they’re free of course.

“Quiet. I want to hear this. What’s your name corporal?” you ask.
“Flevas, Emperor.” The elf answers.
“Surprised Ackerson didn’t point you out immediately, might’ve been nice to know I had someone with an affinity to forests and shit in my command.”
“The general…let’s just say doesn’t care for my kind very much and prefers to ignore my potential talents. I suppose even he couldn’t ignore my battle prowess though. So I was quietly slipped in. ”
“Okay, so what do you know?”
“Honestly? Probably nothing. I don’t even know why I spoke. After years of being in an army that barely tolerates my presence I don’t normally bother to speak at all.”
“Alright, alright, cut the oppressed elven routine, if you’ve got something important to say then just say it.”
“Very well Emperor.” Flevas remarks.

“I can’t be certain and contrary to popular belief we sveld don’t have some magical all encompassing knowledge to nature. If we did, we most likely wouldn’t be in the current situation we are now. However, I suppose we do tend to have instinct and we do have lots of old stories. One of these stories is of dryads. They’re being that make their homes among the trees or within the trees. The stories aren’t really clear if they’re flesh and blood beings that tend to remain invisible or they’re some sort of spirit. Though from the stories they always appear in female form when they actually appear at all. They also never directly attack and rely on manipulating denizens of the forest and their magic. As I said I think there’s one in this forest, maybe even several. I don’t really know. What I do know is they do have access to magic that can affect the mind.” Flevas explains.
“And you didn’t think this was important enough to tell anyone until now?”
“As I said, my opinions are not highly regarded by the general or anyone else for that matter. I did mention it to him long before you arrived and it was dismissed as old elven nonsense.”
“Then the general is an idiot for dismissing the possibility given all the wonders in this world that have been seen and yet to be seen. But I’ll deal with that later, so in these stories how does one go about killing one of these dryads?”
“Killing? Heh, well in the sveld stories, dryads aren’t killed, they’re revered as protectors of nature. The only ones actively trying to kill them in stories are the svelk and as you might imagine they always fail in the stories.”
“Okay so how did the svelk try to kill them?”
“Oh usually by futilely attempting to destroy an entire forest. This can range from the predictable firestorm magic attempts to hilarious efforts of trying to cut down every tree.”
“Fire doesn’t work?”
“It works, but not fast enough. I mean even a fire takes time to destroy an entire normal forest assuming it doesn’t burn itself out. Dryads as you can imagine are a little more pro-active on saving their homes. Along with their magic, it would seem that the Torites are willing allies which would mean they’d probably help put out any fire we set. Assuming there are more in the forest.”
“Hrm, maybe the svelk in those stories just weren’t persistent enough.” You say.
“I dunno, svelk are pretty tenacious when it comes to killing.”

Flevas has given you something to think about and it all involves destroying the forest. The fastest way would be to start building a few more catapults to fling flaming debris, and send for a few more mages to assist you in creating a larger firestorm. You have to believe that it would be more than enough to incinerate the forest within a matter of days.

Of course the better way to ignite that forest is a way the svelk didn’t have, namely an airship that can drop firebombs from the sky. Of course given recent events, the Storm is going through yet another safety inspection then it has to get here, all of which is going to take time. Time which might cause the Torites to increase their defenses and who knows what else.