"Princess Henrietta!" called Agnes as she rode towards where the princess sat atop her horse at the front of the Tristanian army.
"What did you find, Agnes? Is it related to that storm and loud noise we heard earlier?" Henrietta asked as she looked to the dark purple clouds that were slowly dissipating.
"Yes, you'll see at the top of this hill…. Take a look." Agnes said as Henrietta and her generals, along with a substantial part of the army came over the hill and saw what was before them.
Beside the town of Tarbes was a massive smoking crater, covered in sickly green smoke and dust. Weapons and pieces of armour littered the crater and pieces of wood and metal that looked to be pieces of an airship were smoldering beside it. The crater was completely silent and no signs of life were present from it.
"Wha-, what happened here, Agnes?"
"I do not know. Our scouts barely saw anything before they were knocked back by what they tell me was an explosion."
"This big?"
"Yes, Princess. The only other thing they saw was that the entire Albion army was almost right in the middle of it. They also say the storm that appeared before destroyed the Albion airships as well."
"By Brimir's name, spread out the troops to look for survivors or the ones who caused this!"
"At your command, your majesty. I shall search as well."
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In the following hours almost nothing had been found by anyone, save for a few odd reports from citizens of Tarbes, none of which helped her.
Agnes sighed to herself. "Something is wrong with this whole situation."
"Indeed there is," came a familiar and old voice causing Agnes to spin around to see old Osmond standing between two damaged trees.
"Osmond, what are you doing here?"
"Speaking to you obviously. I know who caused this."
"Then tell me!"
"The youngest of the Vallière's."
"What? How? That can't be possible, this much devastation?"
"Remember what I told you in that letter. The young Vallière is a void mage, and now we know something else. She has access to death crystals."
"What! How?"
"We do not know how she obtained them but her familiar has them growing out of it and they had two large crates of them. That is how they caused the crater."
"I must tell this to Her Highness!" Agnes stated before turning around to leave.
"That is not wise, Agnes."
Agnes stopped in her tracks and turned back around to face Osmond. "Why is that?
"Think for a moment, Agnes. How would the young princess react being told that her oldest friend destroyed an entire army. She would be happy that the battle was stopped but-"
"But she would be horrified with how it had been done."
"Precisely. Also, only a few people know of the existence of the death crystals. You only know because you are our compatriot."
"Then what do you expect me to tell her?" Agnes demanded.
"Why not tell her that you believe it was the work of a rogue mage, or several even. You could even say void mages as the young princess does not know her friend is one, though her mother does."
"I suppose that would work. Why were you here anyway?" Agnes asked before realizing Osmond had disappeared. "aaarrrggghhhh, that man infuriates me!" Agnes screamed as she stomped off to inform the princess the altered truth about the matter.
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"So you told her?" Karin asked as old Osmond walked into a small shed on the far side of Tarbes to find her sitting on a small bundle of hay.
Old Osmond closed the door behind him and leaned against it. "Yes, the secret and its dangers are safe for now, but for how long I do not know. How did your search go?
"Pretty good, I even found the leader of Reconquista."
"And you did not bring him here?"
"Oh, but I did," Karin stated as she pointed to a bloody sack on the floor.
"That's his head, isn't it?"
"Yes. I found it near a pile of ash a little bit behind the Albion forces, or what was left of them."
"What do you mean?"
"The entire honour guard was slaughtered, burnt alive by the looks of it". Pity."
"What do you think we should do then? The only lead we have is my daughter and I'd like to keep her unaware for as long as possible so we can find out how she obtained death crystals without her knowledge of us doing such."
"Hmm, with Reconquista's leadership broken Albion has no ruler. It is likely the country will be in too much turmoil to be a problem, especially with such a massive loss. We shall call a meeting; spread the word that it will be in a week in the usual place."
"All right, but what will you do until then?" asked Karin as Osmond opened the sheds door.
"Is it not obvious? With the war over so soon after it had started classes must resume, and as headmaster it is my duty to make sure the academy runs smoothly, though the fall break is also coming up." Osmond said as he left, leaving Karin behind to deal with Cromwell's head.
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"Dammit Tiffa, wake up!" screamed Saito as he shook Tiffania out of her deep un-restful sleep.
"Wha-, I, oh Saito. I'm sorry I was having a nightmare." Tiffania said groggily as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.
"The whole city is having a nightmare, take a look." Saito said as he opened the wooden window in their bedroom. As he did the sounds of fire and chaos entered the room, loud as a dragon and frightful as the demons themselves.
"Wha, what's happening?"
"I don't know, there are fires around the cities and chaos in the streets, there's also a large plume of smoke coming from the temple!"
"What! I have to go help!" Tiffania exclaimed as she jumped out of the bed, throwing off her nightgown and putting on her priestess garb without a second thought.
"I figured you would, that's why I woke you. I'll go into the city and help stop the fires and all the chaos if I can," Saito said as he threw on his blue leather jacket and grabbed his empty scabbard, slinging it around his waist.
"All right just, be careful. Okay ,Saito?" Tiffania pleaded as she finished putting on her priestess robe and tightened its waistband.
"I should say the same to you!" Saito said with a grin as he jumped out of the window and down into the streets of the city as Tiffania hurried down the stairs and out the front door, catching a glimpse of Saito running toward the chaos.
It only took Tiffania a few minutes to get to the temple, and a few more to climb the always annoyingly tall stairs up to it. When she reached the top of the steps though the sight terrified her. The temple was full of chaos, many of the priestesses were wounded and those that were not were either tending to the wounded or putting out the fires destroying the gardens. As Tiffania ran down into the temple she was greeted by Myral who, despite being covered in dirt, blood, scrapes and pieces of God knows what, looked rather calm about the whole situation.
"Myral, what's happening?" Tiffania asked running up to her as she surveyed the damage around them.
"Oh, Tiffania. Good I was wondering what kept you. Follow me and I'll show you, and don't worry, everything is finally under control here." Myral stated as Tiffania followed her down the main hall of the temple. "Did Saito head out to help in the city?"
"Yes, he woke me up actually." Tiffania said as she sped up her pace to walk beside Myral.
"Good, he and the rest of the warrior caste will be invaluable at stopping the chaos in the city. Why did you not wake up?"
"Nightmare. The same one as before only even more vivid and violent than before, far more vivid."
"That explains it then." Myral stated as the two of them turned and climbed the stairs to the demon orb. As they got to the top Tiffania saw what she meant. The demon orb was glowing a deep gold and pulsing rapidly and energetically. The entire pedestal it stood on was burned and cracked and the columns around were in just as bad of shape, if not worse.
"What happened?"
"As near as we can tell the demon orb released a mass surge of energy, mainly of those demonic black discs from legends. It's the cause for all the damage in the temple and the city. It's actually calmed down compare to when it sent out the blast and the disks."
"What will we do then?"
"Your dream showed the human lands correct?"
"Yes."
"Then we have no choice. Once the city is calmed down and everything dealt with, we will send some scouts to the human lands to see if anything is going on."
"I meant what will do now, actually," Tiffania said meekly.
"Oh sorry, the temple has calmed down substantially and I feel the warrior and architect classes will have calmed down and stopped any more damage to the city soon. We do need to tend to the wounded in the city once we've dealt with the temples, so let's get to it," Myral stated as she rolled up the sleeves of her robe.
"Right!"
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"You three make sure the fires are out over there. You, make sure the architect caste has the manpower they need. You, get the water pump's magic's turned off, now!" Saito screamed as he barked orders to various people around the main city square. From the sounds of what he was told an explosion happened at the temple and odd black disks of energy, oddly similar to the demon disks from his old home, fell down onto the city. Fires were everywhere and three of the nine major aqueducts had been broken causing flooding in some sections of the city.
"Major Hiraga!"
Saito turned to see the large, impressive and powerful form of General Tandria approaching him with two of his seconds at his side." Sir!" Saito replied as he jumped down from on top of the square's fountain that he was standing on and landed in front of the general.
"Report!"
"Sir. I came and found this situation. I've ordered fires to be put out and aqueducts three, four and seven are being turned off to stop flooding so the architects can clear away rubble from the streets and so that any required rescue operations can be done."
"Good." General Tandria's face seemed to soften as he smiled at Saito. "This was the last section to check of the city and I'm glad you handled this as well as you did, it appears Myral was right about you!"
"Um, why?"
"One of those black disks collided with the barracks so a significant number of the lieutenants and officers that stay there are wounded. Simply put, we're a little low on manpower, and it looks like you handled this perfectly." Tandria stated proudly as he wiped sweat of his bald head.
"Thank you sir. Um, about what the high priestess said?"
"You don't need to worry, it was good. She would never lie to me."
"Um, I meant to say that I heard she never leaves the temple, so how did you talk with her?"
"I visited her, oh right you don't know do you. She's my younger sister, boy, nothing stops me from visiting my family!"
"Oh."
"Indeed. Now I want you to keep taking care of things here, help if you can. Once everything is settled down I'd like you to come by my office to give your full report. All right, major?"
"Yes sir," Saito replied as Tandria left to check the rest of the city. Saito looked over and saw a small group of warriors and merchants run over to him.
"Major Hiraga, these merchant caste say they and their families are fine, but an area in the third corridor was badly hit and many building have partially collapsed." a soldier said quickly.
"All right. You men ,stay here and make sure everything gets done as per my instruction, the rest of you follow me, we need to make sure no one is under those buildings!"
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-Translated from native Scrin-
"Oppressor Foreman 141. Ichor vibration burst has been detected on Planet 3 of Sector 21 at global position of 23:98:45."
"Impossible. Planet 3 of Sector 21's base atmosphere inhibits ichor growth regardless of action taken to mitigate inhibition.
"Vibration scans do not inform incorrectly. Suggest actions be taken to discover the cause."
"Contact and inform Traveler Foreman 270, I wish words with him on this interesting subject."
"Confirmed, reply vibration incoming."
"141, what is this about?"
"An interesting thing, 270. You recall Planet 3 of Sector 21, correct?"
"Of course, that was a rather annoying seeding attempt. Why?"
"There has been an ichor vibration burst located at global position of 23:98:45."
"… impossible."
"What I said as well, but vibration scans do not lie."
"What do you make of it?"
"Not sure, I was thinking of checking it out and was wondering if you would lend your assistance in the matter."
"I suppose I could do that. The local fauna of the planet I'm on have been controlled or decimated, little remains to be done here and the threshold will be done within a quarter of a millicycle. Where shall we meet to plan?"
"How does Planet 1 of Sector 21 sound to you?"
"Acceptable, I shall be there in a millicycle."
"Thank you; I shall await your arrival, Traveler Foreman 270."
"Very well, I shall see you then, Oppressor Foreman 141."
Author's notes: so yeah another chapter up all because I'm snowed in and cannot leave the small hamlet in the middle of nowhere I live in, yippee! Tis is also the reason why the updates over these last few day have been so plentiful, I'm stuck in my house!
In question to the chapter I would like to point out one thing though about the oppressor faction of the Scrin. Oppressor is a science group that specializes in torture and the like and will only be having a minor presence. If you want a crap-load of Scrin centric information and ideas then vote for betrayer of the void on my poll that is, as always on my profile page.