V5: Chapter 4 (Patreon)

V5: Chapter 4

…

Another day, another increase to my desire to leave this continent and hide in an isolated island in the middle of nowhere to try and die of old age.

Conquest told me too goddamn much.

The Kingslayer Event had popped! The Deliverer was going to give me the chance to take over his Citadel and people while retaining all their infrastructure and armies! The best event in the game, especially when you have a decent Champion specced for single-target damage or something with lifesteal!

If it pops, you can just put the right Champion up against him, then you’re at least 1 Citadel and 1 developed region richer. Not only that, but you don’t have to jump through any hoops to start acquiring Conqueror units. You just get all the ones they unlocked already, there’s no loyalty issues with their Champions, and there’s no maluses to their population’s happiness values!

Literally the best event in the game… and it gets absolutely wrecked by some random garbage that I didn’t see coming.

“I’m depressed, Ayah, can you end my misery?”

“No. There’s work that needs to be done. Here are the remains on my records regarding this foe of my creators.” I grunted and picked my face off my desk. If I could reload a save, I would, even if it meant doing everything again for the last three turns. Had I gotten even a hint of this happening, I would’ve done everything in my—no. No point in wasting time thinking about it. I’m going to expand my spy network, literally give Khanrow all the money he needs, and casting as wide of a net as possible. The game didn’t have a dedicated espionage wonder, but I was going to make it happen anyway. If I can get air freight online, I can most certainly start introducing this world to clandestine, national organizations with no ethics, no morals, and hidden budgets. “Are you ready to work?”

“Yeah, I’m done.” The situation is fucked, but it’ll get even more fucked if I don’t do anything. The best that I can do is make sure I’m prepared to respond and even pre-empt shit like this before it fucks me over. That’s all. Okay, I really am all out of salt now. “Have managed to get information on what happened?”

“I have. Many refugees were scattered in every direction from the capital. I found them through some requisitioned riders in towns hastily fortifying and brought them here, where I questioned them and formed a timeline.” Ayah took a pouch from its hip and placed its contents on its hand. In moments the sphere of Ancient materials turned into pictures and words in its hand composed of strings of the white material weaving through one another and adopting different colors. The Ancient Administrator was using this power to display information. In other words, a slide-based presentation. Even in another life, I couldn’t escape the fact slide presentations were optimal for conveying information. “We have a solid starting time of the onslaught, the primary carrier of the corruption, and a more solid understanding of how many people were left in the Citadel.”

“Lay it on me.”

“The crises began when Crusher returned alone from an expedition in the region between the Children of the Elm’s former Citadel and their own. He was said to be following rumors regarding a powerful weapon in the area.” I got a good look at the Crusher’s mistakes, as he made his way from the capital to the in-between/neutral region between Conqueror lands and where I produced most of my gold. My memory was a bit fuzzy, but along the march in that direction, a lot of events popped up. I’d avoided the bad ones that I heard about for the sake of maintaining as much troops as possible.  “Nothing is known about his expedition, and if the weapon he returned with is the one he searched for, but he returned alone, heavily injured, and was taken in by the guards of the Conquerors at their capital. He did not go to any villages between his destination and the capital.”

“How long was he gone from the capital?”

“A week.”

“That’s not nearly enough time to find an ancient weapon even for the strongest of Conquerors.” The timeline Conqueror had didn’t match the event’s timeline for the Demon Blade. You’re supposed to send a person over there and explore Ancient Ruins, which takes more or less a turn. Even for Champions, it’s suicide to run into Ancient Ruins without caution. “I think that rules out the possibility that they found it on their own… but that raises the question of how he returned.”

Something was fishy about the ‘source’ of the artifact that corrupted Crusher now. Now that I thought about it, that events supposed to corrupt a whole unit of your army including the Crusher, and they’ll be the vectors of corruption that ‘spread’ across your nation. If Crusher found and took the weapon for himself, then he’d have corrupted his soldiers, infected far more people on his way back to the capital, and hit it with a horde.

But that horde would’ve been detected early, the Conquerors could’ve attacked it from afar, and rumors spread fast enough that I’d have heard of Crusher going crazy and mustering a crazy army.

This was more like his guards and people disappeared, and he suddenly re-appeared in the Conqueror’s capital in a timeframe that no one could respond to.

“…It is an early guess, but Crusher’s corrupted form could’ve been transported by air.” Ayah spoke, and the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. That’s right. There wasn’t anything stopping anyone else from copying the transport network I made for themselves. Wonders didn’t just turn into piles of gold and broken dreams if someone built it before you did. Not only that, but everyone else could focus on more specialized, quality craft while I’d focused on sheer airlift capacity. “We should ask Conquest if they have such projects online.”

“Make a note of that. Let’s see a projection.” I agreed and stared as Ayah manipulated the ancient material with an air-based transport in mind. The distance between the event location and the Conqueror’s capital became practically meaningless. It would just take hours. “Okay. They could’ve had a camp there taking it on in secret, with Crusher coming in to finish everything off.”

In-game, armies were stuck to the Ancient Ruin until they were completed, but there was no reason that should be true in reality. The Champions and Units could go to and fro, send out wounded, bring in fresh supplies, and the Champions could go elsewhere for a moment before going back for harder fights their troops couldn’t handle. Under the assumption that was happening, Crusher could’ve started the expedition a few months ago, went to finish it, and came back corrupted and fucked over.

However…

“That still doesn’t explain how returning didn’t result in him corrupting a village on the way back. There’s no way that he could’ve flown back, and anyone touching that thing would’ve gone crazy.” Crusher with the weapon in hand would’ve been too crazy to be transported via air. Storing the weapon didn’t work. That’s one of the options that pop up if you trigger the event with the Demon Weapon. It doesn’t work. It takes over the army storing it anyway. It’s a lose-lose scenario the moment you see it, unless you just flat out ignore the rumor and don’t head over there. “We would’ve been warned. The Conquerors would’ve smashed that corrupted army apart with sheer numbers.”

I tried to bridge the gap between what had happened and how it had happened, while Ayah helped with a furrowed brow.

While I was drawing up blanks, Ayah spoke.

“The Conquerors couldn’t have transported the blade and the corrupted Champion, but the Demons and their ilk could have.” Ayah stated, and I felt my stomach drop. The Ancient introduced a third party in the schematics. A party that jumped on Crusher and his men as they were excavating, then commandeered their transportation, and dropped Crusher off as a living WMD at the front of the capital that couldn’t hit any ablative settlements. “I believe that this is a greater possibility. If Conquest found the artifact and retrieved it, he would’ve attacked from the Ancient Ruins and created a path of corruption and destruction."

“Right. If there’s a third party present that can handle the source of corruption, that changes everything. They can hold onto it after incapacitating Crusher, then they’ll be able to put him right on the capital’s doorstep avoiding detection until it’s too late.”

My decision to start heavily investing into espionage was looking more and more sound the more I considered this situation.

This was rapidly turning into a shitshow of epic proportions, and I didn’t want this happening again.

But that was for later.

“Keep that in mind for our upcoming investigation. Send people over to the villages between that ruin and the capital of the conquerors. The Conquerors have an air defense system, right?” My information network was lacking, but I had the manpower and the money necessary to conduct investigations. Then, I had my own brain and several others that could pick through the conversation with a fine-toothed comb. “Question them and find any flights from there to here and compare them to our records.”

“It will be done, Jack.” Ayah gave me a bow, before turning to her notes and putting aside the malleable matter that she’d been using. When Morgan returned from her assignment, Ayah would start on that new project, and we’ll return here with insight on what the fuck happened. For now, though, we were going to conduct a rescue operation. “I shall see you when you return.”

Right.

Time to conduct this era’s first aerial rescue operation.

…

Interlude: Conquest

…

Once my father had spoken to me of the true ability of the King of Wisdom’s flying corps. My fellows, including Triumph, scoffed when I relayed his words. Very few had believed that the flying transport was anything more than poorly disguised military transports, ones that we were foolish enough to prepare landing sites for at our capital.  Amongst my generation, nearly everyone believed in the idea that we were being threatened every day with their presence, and some entertained the notion of bringing one low and kidnapping its rider to find the information that we sought.

They were all silent, as we looked upon that ‘military force’ ready to right the wrongs that we committed.

Overnight a whole field outside of Tradestown had been cleared of grass and trees. Soil had been levelled and pressed down with large stones pulled by draft animals. Now, large prefabricated structures were being erected, ranging from stables to a control center, and finally large tents for the coming refugees. However, our eyes were not upon those, but instead all the flights diverted for the sake of our people.

We knew that the King of Wisdom had spent as much on this aerial network as we did our grand Colosseum, if not more We had mocked the idea, especially as we knew that we were set to receive our own wyverns that would contest the skies. Not only that, but we built towers and defenses that would protect our cities and skies from attack with strong archers and crossbows and ballistae.

We were proven wrong when the King of Wisdom used his flying force to make an impossible march possible.

Now, again, we were proven wrong.

“There’s enough here to evacuate the whole Citadel in days.” Triumph looked upon the field. There were over sixty transports with their flying steeds being watered and cared for by people hired from the town. I knew that each one could carry a five tons of cargo each from their work with us in the famine and so did Triumph. “He can truly send an army anywhere he wishes, can’t he?”

I shook my head at those words, brushing away my own concerns, as the King of Wisdom and his two Champions approached.

The dire look on his features formed a ball of worry in my stomach.

“We’ve found something from our search. There’s another force involved in this tragedy. No. This is a deliberate attack on your people, Conquest.” I was familiar with Ayah, but the other Champion beside him seemed like a clerk or a scribe, especially as she wrote diligently in a journal and fixed her glasses constantly. Since he was speaking with such candidness, however, I paid the other little heed. “Long ago, as we travelled to bring the Children of the Elm low, we passed through lands north of your own. There, we heard rumors of a powerful weapon once wielded by an ancient god to great effect. Due to time, we elected to ignore it… then, as we investigated, we found information that your father was traveling to the location of those ruins we suspected.”

I listened and waited for more, while filing away the fact that even the king of Wisdom’s was sometimes constrained by time.

“You gave a description of the weapon as an axe in your father’s hands… did it look like flesh and bone? Did it have an eye that met with yours in your father’s hands?” My teeth grit and I nodded at his words. The King of the Descendants nodded gravely with a furrowed brow and no mirth in his eyes. “I suspect that this weapon is a leftover from the Ancient’s demonic foes, those who corrupt flesh and enslave minds… but your father was not corrupted by his own doing. It was by another’s hand, because otherwise he would’ve raged from that ruin to your Citadel and left a path of destruction in his wake with all his guards and men.”

I nodded at the deduction and took note of the new Champion at his side furiously writing notes and nodding at his words. Was she supposed to be an administrator? My men had told me she spoke to them as a warrior.

But, I refocused as Jack spoke once more… every word he said putting what we faced into greater and more terrible clarity.

“So, we continued our investigation and spoke with your sky watchers. I determined that the towns between your capital and the sight would only be spared if your corrupted father was ferried from above. This was a report from last week, to be sent to the capital as priority.” Ayah produced a log book. One that had the markings of a sky watch guard and his superior. It described a craft. A boxy, black construction with small, unmoving wings and a head composed of glass. No mention of wyverns or flying horses. A flying Ancient construct. My heart began to pound. The enemy that he had mentioned earlier! “Yes. Someone had access to an Ancient relic of immense power and delivered your father to your capital’s gates as a weapon. It could be the Scholars, but other than them, there’s only one force that comes to mind with experience with this technology… whose upper echelons and brightest were never found.”

I felt the hide of my palms break against my nails, as a growl left my lips.

The enslavers of my people still lived.

“The Academy.”

“Yes. Most likely.”