Eternal
Decena might be a good general, but without the extra resources from Nyttrus, your war machine efforts are not going to run as smoothly. You need her to keep on top of things there.
Which means you’ll be leading the new Eternals into battle and that’s fine by you.
You don’t waste any time getting the rest of your plans underway. You figure a four-pronged attack will work suitably for the initial assault.
You have your fleet attack south Nakol from the sea and land troops there. You have the rest of your airships fly over the mountain range and bombard northern Nakol. Your kobold forces can dig under the large mountain range as usual. Finally you have the majority of your forces march through the mountain passes. You’ll hold back your Eternals until the passes are completely under your control and no longer contested. It would probably be best to “test” the Nakol defenses located in the pass choke points anyway.
This is going to be a bit different from the conflicts in the past, your armies aren’t going to be relying on any magic support at all. What few mages you have left are either overseeing the next Eternal tanks or are part of the Eyes now (Aside from the ones that Mortimer killed recently). You don’t know just exactly how powerful Mortimer’s own magic is, but you do know he’s the only wizard in his kingdom so you’re not anticipating any problems, if technology has proven anything its that the lowliest unskilled peasant can figure it out and use it with great efficiency. A sign of the times you suppose.
In any case you have no doubt that when the time comes, it’ll probably be up to you personally to take down Mortimer in a magic showdown and if Semra is in your way then you’ll deal with her as well.
A few months pass and just as you figured, Mortimer does have other tricks up his sleeve to make the invasion go a lot more difficult. You don’t know if he always had an agreement with them or perhaps they’re just siding with him out of spite, but the satyr and harpy clan survivors that fled to the Nakol mountains after the Tor War rear their ugly head again. This mainly involves their usual ambush tactics in the various mountain passes, but apparently there are still enough of the harpies to mount full assaults on your airships.
Apparently Mortimer doesn’t have a problem with their mages either since they still have a few left and they’re using their elemental magic to a great degree causing rockslides in the mountain passes, strong damaging winds against your airships and even violent tidal waves against your fleet. You don’t remember them having quite that much magical strength before so you imagine Mortimer must be enhancing their abilities with his own.
There are also reports of svelk mercenaries among the normal Nakol army. You knew that not ALL of them threw in their lot with Eldolith. These must be the ones that followed Semra. Well you can finish that job too.
All of this might not be a problem if you weren’t suddenly experiencing a problem that you thought you wouldn’t be experiencing. There’s been a slow down in the shipments of resources from Nyttrus, meaning they’ve stopped completely. You also haven’t received any letters from Decena either. No ships have come back from Nyttrus at all and you don’t know why. The only answer you can come to the conclusion to though is that the Iznac have completely overrun your forces on Nyttrus, or have at least destroyed all your ships sent there.
It’s a worrying enough thought that you think that maybe you’ll need to go there yourself to handle it, but that’s problematic due to your conflict with the Nakol Kingdom and you feel like victory will be close at hand.
The alternative of course is to send someone else to Nyttrus who you really feel will get the job done. The only who comes to mind is Warrick and he’ll have to take his own contingent of Eyes with him. That of course means less of them overseeing the Empire, but that might be what has to be done because you’re in the middle of putting an end to a potentially dangerous foe on your own continent and you can’t drop that to go do something else.
You do however; take a temporary leave from the field to speak with Warrick who is more than happy to help.
“I was wondering when we were going to look into that. Do you think Decena has been killed?”
“It’s a very real possibility and it would indeed be a loss, but I can’t imagine that the Iznac could’ve just wiped out all of our forces there. I mean the last letter I got from Decena was a fairly positive one. Said we had just destroyed another Iznac town and the kobolds were already in the process of digging their way into another one. I mean its possible the Iznac had their own tricks we didn’t know about, it seems very strange and concerning that we’ve heard nothing at all and even the couple of ships that were sent a few months ago have not returned. Somebody is deliberately making sure nobody leaves Nyttrus.”
“Can’t we send an airship?” Warrick asks.
“Still don’t have the long range capabilities to travel to Nyttrus, though the gnomes and Elam are still working on that. So we’re still using boats for now. What I want from you though is to find out what exactly the hell is going on over there. Solve the problem if necessary, but if it really looks bad, then don’t risk it and return home as soon as possible. No good in losing you as well.”
“Understood, I’ll take mage support and I’ll have my second, Kristopher, fully prepared to take care of things while I’m gone. And once again I’m honored you’ve chosen me for this task.” Warrick says.
In a few days Warrick is on his way to Nyttrus and you’re already anxious to hear what is going on over there. Lacking anything else to do, you return to your war with the Nakol Kingdom.
A few more months pass and you finally receive news and it’s definitely not the good kind.
Warrick manages to return in a small rowboat, half dead from dehydration and malnutrition, but also from whatever his experience on Nyttrus was, fortunately he’s not so far gone that he isn’t able to tell you after he’s taken care of a bit.
Later you speak with Warrick privately and in a relaxed setting.
He tells you that the situation is worse than you thought. It isn’t the Iznac that are the problem, or at least they aren’t the major problem anymore. It’s Decena. She’s gone rogue. Warrick says he doesn’t know all the details of how this came to be, but he believes that the Iznac had something to do with it, possibly with magic, but it sort of backfired on them.
Decena’s turned herself into a “queen” over there and has not only the remaining orc and kobold forces still under her command, but even has some of the Glip and Iznac following her as well. She’s actually still fighting the “loyalist” Iznac hold outs that aren’t accepting her leadership. In any case, she’s not acting under the orders of the Empire any more and has declared herself independent.
He then goes on to say how they were attacked nearly immediately after they disembarked from the ship. He says that probably should’ve turned back when it was realized that the Empire had lost complete control of Nyttrus to the point that it no longer even had a friendly harbor, but he wanted to do some more investigating.
He mentions he only managed to escape after weeks of ongoing torture. The scars (and a couple of missing fingers) prove that.
“Looks like I didn’t get to solve the problem, Emperor.” Warrick says.
“I’m just glad you made it back to explain what the problem was exactly. We can take of it later…(Sigh) Shit… I guess I shouldn’t have sent Decena there after all. She didn’t really want to go in the first place, she only wanted to be close to home. Honestly she probably would’ve been a lot more useful here as well. I just didn’t think that…tell me Warrick, you have seen here correct? Is she truly gone?”
“I have seen her. But I do not think this entirely due to magic. I mean perhaps the Iznac magic caused a change in her, but whenever I was in her presence, it felt like…well more was in play.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her attitude was all her own. Her actions were all here own. Her curses about you and the Empire were all her own. I mean keeping the orcs under her command after splitting from the Empire? That doesn’t surprise me, the greenskins will take any opportunity to split away. Keeping the kobolds under her command? Now that probably took some doing. We both know how loyal the little scalies are when they respect a strong leader greatly. It’s just unfortunate for the Empire that she managed to convince them somehow that she was greater than you. I can only guess the fact that they fought side by side with her for so long helped. Well that and the fact that I didn’t see Snilkez’ka around. She probably killed her long ago to prove a point.”
Warrick continues.
“The orcs and even the kobolds are not surprising, but the Glip and especially some of the Iznac themselves? Now that is what surprised me. Neither group were even willing to work with us before, yet Decena managed to recruit entire villages into helping her. I doubt if whatever Iznac magic was cast on her was supposed to make her into a ruler of their own people. This is all her. She has a confidence now that exceeds what she had before.”
“She has an arrogance now you mean, if she believes she can take me on. After I’m done with putting the Nakol Kingdom out its misery, I’ll be paying a visit to Decena and she’ll regret her decision to become a traitor.” You say.
“I don’t think she will. Despite her curses at you, I believe deep down she still can’t face you.”
“Well she isn’t going to have a choice if I personally get a hold of her, but what do you mean?” you ask.
“Well isn’t it obvious?” Warrick asks.
At first you don’t understand his question, but then comes the split moment you understand all too well…
But you don’t react in time since your guard was entirely down in the company of an old comrade in arms who has shown nothing but loyalty up until this point. Perhaps the same Iznac magic is in play here, but it hardly matters.
Warrick suddenly pulls his pistol and shoots you in the chest twice, before you can react. You aren’t dead yet, but you’re down and struggling to breath. You try to hit Warrick with a flame bolt, but he’s still quick enough to dodge as he runs over to you.
“She still loves you…that’s why she sent me! Long live the new regime!” Warrick yells and shoots you again in the head.
You’re already dead when the rest of your soldiers come running and find Warrick cackling about Decena will be coming soon to wipe away the rest of the corrupt Empire.
Which means you’ll be leading the new Eternals into battle and that’s fine by you.
You don’t waste any time getting the rest of your plans underway. You figure a four-pronged attack will work suitably for the initial assault.
You have your fleet attack south Nakol from the sea and land troops there. You have the rest of your airships fly over the mountain range and bombard northern Nakol. Your kobold forces can dig under the large mountain range as usual. Finally you have the majority of your forces march through the mountain passes. You’ll hold back your Eternals until the passes are completely under your control and no longer contested. It would probably be best to “test” the Nakol defenses located in the pass choke points anyway.
This is going to be a bit different from the conflicts in the past, your armies aren’t going to be relying on any magic support at all. What few mages you have left are either overseeing the next Eternal tanks or are part of the Eyes now (Aside from the ones that Mortimer killed recently). You don’t know just exactly how powerful Mortimer’s own magic is, but you do know he’s the only wizard in his kingdom so you’re not anticipating any problems, if technology has proven anything its that the lowliest unskilled peasant can figure it out and use it with great efficiency. A sign of the times you suppose.
In any case you have no doubt that when the time comes, it’ll probably be up to you personally to take down Mortimer in a magic showdown and if Semra is in your way then you’ll deal with her as well.
A few months pass and just as you figured, Mortimer does have other tricks up his sleeve to make the invasion go a lot more difficult. You don’t know if he always had an agreement with them or perhaps they’re just siding with him out of spite, but the satyr and harpy clan survivors that fled to the Nakol mountains after the Tor War rear their ugly head again. This mainly involves their usual ambush tactics in the various mountain passes, but apparently there are still enough of the harpies to mount full assaults on your airships.
Apparently Mortimer doesn’t have a problem with their mages either since they still have a few left and they’re using their elemental magic to a great degree causing rockslides in the mountain passes, strong damaging winds against your airships and even violent tidal waves against your fleet. You don’t remember them having quite that much magical strength before so you imagine Mortimer must be enhancing their abilities with his own.
There are also reports of svelk mercenaries among the normal Nakol army. You knew that not ALL of them threw in their lot with Eldolith. These must be the ones that followed Semra. Well you can finish that job too.
All of this might not be a problem if you weren’t suddenly experiencing a problem that you thought you wouldn’t be experiencing. There’s been a slow down in the shipments of resources from Nyttrus, meaning they’ve stopped completely. You also haven’t received any letters from Decena either. No ships have come back from Nyttrus at all and you don’t know why. The only answer you can come to the conclusion to though is that the Iznac have completely overrun your forces on Nyttrus, or have at least destroyed all your ships sent there.
It’s a worrying enough thought that you think that maybe you’ll need to go there yourself to handle it, but that’s problematic due to your conflict with the Nakol Kingdom and you feel like victory will be close at hand.
The alternative of course is to send someone else to Nyttrus who you really feel will get the job done. The only who comes to mind is Warrick and he’ll have to take his own contingent of Eyes with him. That of course means less of them overseeing the Empire, but that might be what has to be done because you’re in the middle of putting an end to a potentially dangerous foe on your own continent and you can’t drop that to go do something else.
You do however; take a temporary leave from the field to speak with Warrick who is more than happy to help.
“I was wondering when we were going to look into that. Do you think Decena has been killed?”
“It’s a very real possibility and it would indeed be a loss, but I can’t imagine that the Iznac could’ve just wiped out all of our forces there. I mean the last letter I got from Decena was a fairly positive one. Said we had just destroyed another Iznac town and the kobolds were already in the process of digging their way into another one. I mean its possible the Iznac had their own tricks we didn’t know about, it seems very strange and concerning that we’ve heard nothing at all and even the couple of ships that were sent a few months ago have not returned. Somebody is deliberately making sure nobody leaves Nyttrus.”
“Can’t we send an airship?” Warrick asks.
“Still don’t have the long range capabilities to travel to Nyttrus, though the gnomes and Elam are still working on that. So we’re still using boats for now. What I want from you though is to find out what exactly the hell is going on over there. Solve the problem if necessary, but if it really looks bad, then don’t risk it and return home as soon as possible. No good in losing you as well.”
“Understood, I’ll take mage support and I’ll have my second, Kristopher, fully prepared to take care of things while I’m gone. And once again I’m honored you’ve chosen me for this task.” Warrick says.
In a few days Warrick is on his way to Nyttrus and you’re already anxious to hear what is going on over there. Lacking anything else to do, you return to your war with the Nakol Kingdom.
A few more months pass and you finally receive news and it’s definitely not the good kind.
Warrick manages to return in a small rowboat, half dead from dehydration and malnutrition, but also from whatever his experience on Nyttrus was, fortunately he’s not so far gone that he isn’t able to tell you after he’s taken care of a bit.
Later you speak with Warrick privately and in a relaxed setting.
He tells you that the situation is worse than you thought. It isn’t the Iznac that are the problem, or at least they aren’t the major problem anymore. It’s Decena. She’s gone rogue. Warrick says he doesn’t know all the details of how this came to be, but he believes that the Iznac had something to do with it, possibly with magic, but it sort of backfired on them.
Decena’s turned herself into a “queen” over there and has not only the remaining orc and kobold forces still under her command, but even has some of the Glip and Iznac following her as well. She’s actually still fighting the “loyalist” Iznac hold outs that aren’t accepting her leadership. In any case, she’s not acting under the orders of the Empire any more and has declared herself independent.
He then goes on to say how they were attacked nearly immediately after they disembarked from the ship. He says that probably should’ve turned back when it was realized that the Empire had lost complete control of Nyttrus to the point that it no longer even had a friendly harbor, but he wanted to do some more investigating.
He mentions he only managed to escape after weeks of ongoing torture. The scars (and a couple of missing fingers) prove that.
“Looks like I didn’t get to solve the problem, Emperor.” Warrick says.
“I’m just glad you made it back to explain what the problem was exactly. We can take of it later…(Sigh) Shit… I guess I shouldn’t have sent Decena there after all. She didn’t really want to go in the first place, she only wanted to be close to home. Honestly she probably would’ve been a lot more useful here as well. I just didn’t think that…tell me Warrick, you have seen here correct? Is she truly gone?”
“I have seen her. But I do not think this entirely due to magic. I mean perhaps the Iznac magic caused a change in her, but whenever I was in her presence, it felt like…well more was in play.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her attitude was all her own. Her actions were all here own. Her curses about you and the Empire were all her own. I mean keeping the orcs under her command after splitting from the Empire? That doesn’t surprise me, the greenskins will take any opportunity to split away. Keeping the kobolds under her command? Now that probably took some doing. We both know how loyal the little scalies are when they respect a strong leader greatly. It’s just unfortunate for the Empire that she managed to convince them somehow that she was greater than you. I can only guess the fact that they fought side by side with her for so long helped. Well that and the fact that I didn’t see Snilkez’ka around. She probably killed her long ago to prove a point.”
Warrick continues.
“The orcs and even the kobolds are not surprising, but the Glip and especially some of the Iznac themselves? Now that is what surprised me. Neither group were even willing to work with us before, yet Decena managed to recruit entire villages into helping her. I doubt if whatever Iznac magic was cast on her was supposed to make her into a ruler of their own people. This is all her. She has a confidence now that exceeds what she had before.”
“She has an arrogance now you mean, if she believes she can take me on. After I’m done with putting the Nakol Kingdom out its misery, I’ll be paying a visit to Decena and she’ll regret her decision to become a traitor.” You say.
“I don’t think she will. Despite her curses at you, I believe deep down she still can’t face you.”
“Well she isn’t going to have a choice if I personally get a hold of her, but what do you mean?” you ask.
“Well isn’t it obvious?” Warrick asks.
At first you don’t understand his question, but then comes the split moment you understand all too well…
But you don’t react in time since your guard was entirely down in the company of an old comrade in arms who has shown nothing but loyalty up until this point. Perhaps the same Iznac magic is in play here, but it hardly matters.
Warrick suddenly pulls his pistol and shoots you in the chest twice, before you can react. You aren’t dead yet, but you’re down and struggling to breath. You try to hit Warrick with a flame bolt, but he’s still quick enough to dodge as he runs over to you.
“She still loves you…that’s why she sent me! Long live the new regime!” Warrick yells and shoots you again in the head.
You’re already dead when the rest of your soldiers come running and find Warrick cackling about Decena will be coming soon to wipe away the rest of the corrupt Empire.
