Katolis Castle, Armory.

"Hey Saphielle, is my armor ready yet?" Rayla arrived at the armory and found Janai taking to Saphielle.

"Hey Rayla, come on in"

"Ah, Rayla I take it the raid with my nephews was a success," she giggled

"We came, we raided, we escaped," Rayla replied as she was lead to a back room where she was shown her equipment.

"Before we start I got to ask you something your highness," Saphielle's eyes were sparkling,

"What is it?" Rayla felt worried for some reason

"How'd it go? I mean spending a night with a prince?"

"eh...WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Rayla felt her face heating up and covered it with her hands,

"C'mon a lot of us saw you leaving the dining hall with him yesterday." Saphielle put her hands on her hips and leaned towards Rayla trying to peek at her face,

"Wait what?" Janai didn't expect this at all, it was faster than she had anticipated

"We were just talking and I went back to my room!" she now realized going together was bound to cause some misunderstanding.

"With my nephew?" Janai asked,

"We went our separate ways!" Rayla was reaching her limit, I'm gonna kill these two!

"Really? nothing scandalous happened?" Saphielle looked puzzled "And here I was expecting to hear that Katolis would get an elven princess,"

Saphielle sighed "hmmmm lets get you combat ready then," gesturing towards the equipment next to them, she noticed there were two sets. One was a full armor like the ones she saw when they arrived at the castle, the other one was less impressive and made up of smaller armor plates that overall reminded her of her own light armor she wore back home.

"why are there two?"

"You were curious so I got both ready, we'll try the militia armor first before the knights"

Half an hour later Rayla had finished the standard militia armor and started equipping the knights armor each armor piece and turned out wasn't as easy as she thought it would be, she found the whole set which should be very heavy to be weightless.

"First the armor plates are enchanted and have with a bullet-resistant fabric in between, and some padding at the back" Saphielle tapped the plates as she explained.

"Why two plates?"

"The idea is that if a shot managed to punch through the first plate which should lower its power so the fabric will try to catch it and second plate can more easily stop it."

"Is it that good?"

"Oh yes, regular rifle ammo wouldn't even dent it. This piece of armor is as close to bullet-proof as humanity could get, well as long as no one busts out an AMR. The only problem is that it's a bloody nightmare to even make a single one, it took me a whole month to make the pieces your wearing."

"so its indestructible?" Rayla didn't understand what a AMR was but the armor sounded like something from a fantasy.

"There is no such thing," Janai explained "you could just use bombs, poison, cannons, or really anything with high enough caliber,"

"Now for your standard-issue weapon," She took out a combat knife and a rifle "this comes with a bayonet, 30 round mag, effective firing range 600 meters with iron sights 1.3km with scopes, and an under-barrel grenade launcher..."

"Saphielle, she barely understands the technical jargon," Janai sighed "So what kind of weapons did you use back in Xadia?"

"Butterfly knives," Ryla said

"get me a Balisong" Janai ordered as she went to set up a target,

Saphielle quickly brought one and gave it to Janai who flipped it to a blade and pointed it towards the target,

Rayla noticed something else at the handguard and wondered if Janai was going to throw it. "Whaaa!"
The blade fired glowing bolts at the target leaving scorch marks.

"It's only good for 80-90 meters though, a millimeter further and it's useless, you can ask Sephielle to adjust the gun portion," Janai handed it to Rayla "Come with me, I'll explain how it works, Oh and starting tomorrow your training starts to make sure to show up at the practice field for drills,"


Frenoria, Erdus Dukedom

"Open up you idiot!, we have a serious problem to deal with!." Richard was banging the door to the archduke's office.

Ernest rushed over and opened the door to let his friend in, he looked around before quietly closing the door, "alright whats going on?"

Richard just shoved a file into Ernest's face as they both took a seat before Richard explain, "The morons are planning something big,"

"Of course they are, their moron, its what they do," Ernest said as he began reading the documents titled 'Operation Jestor', he wondered what this was all about, with each page he read his expression became grimmer, "this is unbelievable, how'd you find out about this?"

"I received a communication from Prince Callum," Was all Richard said

Ernest's jaw was hanging open after hearing that, "How'd you..."

"Word of advice, the shadows operate under different rules," Richard's tone made it clear he wasn't going to answer, "He managed to gather enough information on its general outline from whatever allies the morons have in Katolis but that's it, "

"Damn, how could we let this happen," Ernest slammed his fist into the desk so hard the wood splintered, "I should've pushed through for a treaty years ago, we could've avoided all this needless bloodshed!"

"Based on the fact that they're even telling us this means Katolis also seeks coexistence and not war," Richard knew the prince had his men infiltrate the dukedom but he could never find out if they wanted peace or war, now he had his answer.

"You're right we need to do everything on our end and hope Katolis pulls out a win then we can easily pursue an alliance with them and the warhawks will lose whatever political power they have as a result," Ernest knew he couldn't intervene directly if he handled this poorly then it would make things worse. "Do you know how their doing all this?"

Richard shook his head, "They are using a method that's foreign to us, so my men can't do anything until they first find out what it even is." He spent countless sleepless nights going through the archives and intelligence reports looking for any hint as to how Vanderbilt was doing this without leaving a trace, he could find nothing no matter where he looked and what's more baffling was that Vanderbilt was never this capable.

"Damn imperialists, can't they see we'll go the same route as the empire if we try to rebuild it," Ernest couldn't understand why they were even trying.

"Their drunk on delusions on what was 800 years ago and not on the problems of making it work," Richard added, "I'm gonna need several bottles to sleep this through,"

"I have plenty in my cellar so help yourself to it,"

They spent the remaining hour coming up with an outline to do what they could without appearing to know what was going on.


Katolis Castle, Conference Room

Outside the room were over a dozen guards with security quadrupled everywhere as this particular area was made off-limits. Inside the room was a large table with a sealed package placed in front of each person.

Those present are the King himself, High Mage Viren, High Cleric Opeli, General Amaya and her aide de camp Lt Gren, Air Marshal Albert Grant, Fleet Admiral Dylan Foster, the General staff, the current Lord Margrave Callum and sitting next to him was Martin Fletcher who was his retainer put in charge in intelligence gathering.

King Harrow began the meeting and gestured for Callum to start.

"First, I'd like to thank everyone for being able to come on such short notice. You may now open the sealed package in front of you all."

They all turned the package around and saw that it had C-13 printed on one side, short for Classified Level 13. Outside of state-level secrets, it's rare for anything to be given that designation. Inside was a report that contained several hundred pages.

Outside of Callum, Vaeril, and a few others, no one even knew what was in it, even King Harrow and High cleric Opeli were given only the barest of details till now. The index contained only a few items, but one particular caught their attention.

It was titled 'Current Weapons Development and Production with the Dukedom.'. They all quickly turned to its page and saw details on several projects undertaken by the Dukedom.

"Aircraft?" the Air Marshal asked, "Was there a spy?"

Callum gestured to Martin, who began to summarize the contents

"There is no leak of any kind as simply copying our designs would've been more effective, the dukedom merely arrived at this design on their own. The top speeds, and flight ceiling are slightly below ours but with a far lower production cost. However, the engines are less powerful, so they placed armor only in key section to reduce weight and added variable-lift plates to compensate though the maintenance cost is higher as a result. Additionally they are also building a variant that runs on oil likely intending to sell the designs to Neolandia and Evenere despite its lower operational range."

They all went through it page by page detailing everything from singled engine monoplanes to biplanes along with twin-engine bombers and transport craft along with their armaments.

"Are there no four-engine crafts?" One of the General Staff asked,

"None, they seem to be prioritizing everything based on cost, and they think their the only ones building them hence these are their designs. they currently have 7,400 single engine aircrafts and 2,100 twin engine crafts stored, they have only begun recruiting pilots and it's done in secret so currently they can field less 2% of them right now."

"So it's to our advantage right now," The Air Marshal began to look at the specifications for each craft and noticed that they were less maneuverable which could easily be exploited. The biplanes had a total of 16 High-Velocity rockets on their wings and one machine gun on its front making it clear it was intended to fight airships as opposed to the monoplanes which had 1 light machine gun in the front with 2 heavy machine guns on its wings which made it suitable for fighting flight mages and could be configured to carry either eight rockets or 3 bombs. Though both designs did contain parchment sections which presented a problem as this report had no details on the spells used. The twin-engine bomber's only armament was their payloads with no defenses meaning they needed to be escorted by mages or other aircraft.

General Amaya began to sign to Viren as Gren interpreted for everyone,
"Whats the status of the proximity fuses?"

"Production of the shells is running smoothly and stockpiles are sufficient, I've run the numbers through the General Staff," Viren said as the general staff confirmed it,

One of the General staff asked, "I'd like to know the current status of the Vigil Class Carriers along with the two new classes of airships."

"All 6 Carriers are sea worthy and merely await their aircraft complements to be delivered," Viren said,

"What about the airships?," Harrow asked,

"The reactors have been fully stabilized and all airships are currently undergoing their final trials and will be ready within 4 days."

"Good make sure their existence is kept a secret."

"Speaking of which, I see no details on any carriers?" The Grand Admiral spoke up

"As of right now they've converted 8 large battleships into carriers and are docked in the far north to be hidden but so far we haven't been able to get anything else on them." Callum answered the admiral,

Callum had waited for the discussions on everything to be over so he could move to the main event, "Now there is one item in this that's not mentioned in index, please turn to page 566, It contains the general outline for Operation: Jester and everything we currently know about it."

They all did so and the room was enveloped by silence as they read the contents, they all turned to look at Callum disbelievingly. Callum merely nodded to confirm the contents were genuine and began to speak, "Phase One will begin 3 weeks before Founding Day, Phase Two will begin almost on the date itself, as for Phase Three I trust I don't need to elaborate."

"Damn them, on that date again!" General Amaya signed as Gren interpreted

They all began to go over the document carefully asking Callum for clarifications on even the slightest of matters regarding this report.

"This is probably the worst case scenario, if we don't handle this properly," One of the general staff said,

"The offer of alliance has been sent, all we can do now is wait for the other side to respond," Harrow said,

Everyone knew that there is a big implicit IF even if the King didn't verbalize it.

The meeting continued till it was 9:14 PM, they all left with their priorities set, failure meant certain defeat for Katolis and that wasn't an option for any of them.


Polmauren, Erdus Dukedom

Lord Vanderbilt had gathered his closest allies to discuss certain matters, everyone except him wore masks. He found it pointless because they all knew who everyone here was but he tolerated it.

"My friends, I have called you here to tell you that Operation Jester will proceed as scheduled."

"Has either the Archduke and Prime Minister caught wind of this yet?" Duchess Kiera asked,

"No, and if they did they can't stop it now," Vanderbilt was confident in that,

"Very well then, what's the status of that" she turned to Duke Collins,

"they've been placed and merely await a signal, it will work as long as the potions do their job," he replied

"The potions will work, it is our win," Vanderbilt assured them, It took him many years but he finally succeeded in removing the spells placed on the books written by an elven archmage named Aaravos, its contents were truly remarkable and he finally had the means to achieve his goal. He only needs these people to vote for him, "If this is successful can I expect your support for my ascension?"

"As long as you honor the prior commitments to you've made to us then you have our support," One of them said and the other all nodded in agreement,

"Yes I shall share with you the knowledge I have acquired," He then raised a toast "Long Live the empire!" His goal of finally restoring their nation to greatness was finally within his grasp, he knew he couldn't afford any mistakes right now.

"Long Live the Empire!" everyone else cheered though only a fourth of them truly sought to recreate the old Erdus Empire, the rest of them all knew that it would be beneficial for them to ensure it does happen even if their reasons were different.