World Of Revelations Part 8 Final: Incoming Calamity
Raigh watched the vial of quintessence he had obtained after the last battle with fascination... but at the same time a bit of fear.
Like any other substance or invention, he understood that it could be used in a mistaken way, carelessly, or simply with intentions completely opposite to what a decent person would want to do and such a situation could result in something dangerous.
And his family had a far from pleasant experience with the substance given what that stupid dark mage with four brain cells had caused.
Nergal was certainly a pest.
All of this made his life very complicated in one very evident detail.
Both Kiran and he would now have a longer lifespan, they were going to live much longer than regular humans... but...
Could he convince his brother and "mother" to utilize this substance?
It was already irritating that there were idiots in the order who sometimes questioned his use of dark magic.
These imbeciles did not understand that this magic was the magic of intelligence, the magic of reason, the magic with the greatest hidden potential that could exist.
They were simply fools afraid of new knowledge.
He shook his head and hit himself on the head with a punch.
His teacher had already told him that pride like that usually blinded the mind.
Nobody was perfect, even he made that mistake... but if one could realize he was making it, Raigh needed to correct himself immediately.
Still...
Was this the reason that described why their world remained so technologically stuck?
Hearing about things like automobiles, airplanes, ships so big they may as well be floating castles, video games... it all made Raigh wish he'd had the chance to experience something like that in his lifetime.
And that was partly why he hadn't hesitated for a second to increase his vitality through quintessence since it was unlikely that any of that would begin to exist in this world if not for a couple of centuries down the road.
He sighed, leaving the vial inside the chest where they usually hid anything he and his teacher didn't want anyone to notice it.
And he sorted through the artifacts he had collected from the castle too.
Technically he hadn't lied at all when he told that blue-haired pegasus knight that he should do some historic preservation, he just hadn't been asked to do that with a lot of artifacts, just enough to add them to a possible future museum.
What he didn't understand was why his teacher had asked him, besides the artifacts, to collect pottery.
Lots and lots of pottery.
Well, that was a mystery to reveal later.
Raigh yawned as he got out of bed, took the holy relic of Askr from inside another chest, and left the room he was using.
Since advancing without securing the ground first was by general military rule a very stupid idea, the Order of Heroes had begun using the Jinya fort as a base of operations.
To commence the day, he had to visit the victims of Embla's curse that were native to this world.
Raigh folded his arms, thinking about how to explain the current situation.
Besides the pineapple-head, whose name was apparently Takumi, the Corrin of this world had identified among the mind-controlled heroes Subaki, Hayato, Setsuna, and Reina.
Corrin was clearly disturbed by the situation, although Camilla's case was not much different.
Obviously, Hinata was there to function as a translator.
"I suppose," she commenced, "after seeing this there's no reason to disbelieve the story we've been told." The princess of Nohr had confronted Reina during the assault on the stronghold, and Corrin had had a rather unpleasant experience when Setsuna attacked him with her bow without there being the slightest evidence that it was the result of her distracted nature as she was wont to be.
Instead of seeing their friends, each with their respective personalities, what they saw was what could be expressed as vessels without souls, without their essence, eyes so lacking in life that it was frightening... the fact that they didn't move made it even more unsettling.
"Robin told us you can help them." Corrin commented, though his tone of voice implied that the intentions behind his words were more akin to a mandate than a simple question.
Raigh shook his head slightly. "I can remove the dark magic by opening the cranium with tools and extracting it with tubes, but I fear that even with the best method I have been able to develop there is damage the curse leaves on the victim that I haven't been able to remedy and I don't even know if it is feasible to fix them, healing staffs can't do all you desire. I'm also not sure if these consequences are the result of being exposed to the hex for so long... without mentioning it's remarkable they didn't die when receiving it in the first place."
"There must be a better way!" Corrin asked, somewhat more aggressive to his regular self... Camilla wasn't used to it, but given that Takumi was a victim of this, it was easy to deduce that Ryoma and especially the poor little girl Sakura were also under the effects of that curse for a while now.
Raigh raised his hands in a defensive position, his face still showing that classic expression of frustration and boredom. "I do magic and science, not miracles." He shook his head. "Something better may exist, but I'm afraid our current technology doesn't allow us to do much more for them." This was especially depressing considering things like the fact that the only vaccines they'd been able to produce were what could be classified as the basic ones, those that didn't require specific preservative ingredients so that the virus or bacteria wouldn't be destroyed before the immune system could properly diagnose it. "If you want a better method, wait at least a century, I'm afraid that's your only option."
Corrin looked at him with partial anger... before simply sighing and lowering his hands in dismay.
His sister then let him know that those responsible for this would pay hard for inducing this harm to their friends and loved ones.
Raigh then folded his arms once more, his face denoting a bit more empathy this time around. "So... shall I start the operation?"
Alfonse had spent much of his childhood reading the universal history books that the castle library had in reference to all the legendary heroes that preceded him.
They were certainly mythical stories, and these were fantastic people worthy of respect and admiration.
This meant that having to spend time with them in the war room generated a rather strong "pressure" on him.
Luckily, his sister was always by his side to make him feel more relaxed.
Who knows what he would be capable of doing if anything bad ever happened to her?
So there he was, in the war room.
Everyone was once again seated in order to debate the next course of action.
Corrin placed a map on the table, one more focused on displaying Hoshidan territory.
Again, Hinata was by his side.
"Trying to take Shirasagi Castle won't be an easy task... or so I would have said a few days ago, but with our new parachute technology it should be a piece of cake." Corrin had a tiny smile as he expressed that.
The prince, future king, heroic nodded. "Honestly, I didn't expect the plan to take possession of this fortification to turn out so well. It's something that will definitely go down in history."
Ephraim scratched his chin as he considered more opportunities with such an invention. "With these parachutes, we could even give supplies to troops trapped inside an ambush to buy them more time so we could rescue them."
Robin nodded. "It seems our scientist Miriel's work has paid off marvelously and she is certainly very happy about it, but at the moment the most we can do with this castle is to infiltrate it during the night... taking it is still tricky." She pointed her finger around the castle on the mountain. "And that's because, unlike this fortress in an open field, the Shirasagi palace is surrounded by a town. The defenses will be concentrated primarily on it, they won't let us just march on it since we would block their access to supplies and they don't have our parachutes to supply themselves from outside. The strategy just won't be the same... and we haven't developed something like the bombardment yet to weaken their defenses..." Robin gritted her teeth, her eyes showing concern.
"Bombardment? What's that?" Chrom, who was sitting next to her, asked.
"The concept sounds somewhat familiar..." Alfonse commented.
Robin saw that everyone was looking at her expectantly, and then she sighed. "Do you remember that the scientist Miriel and the scientist and tactician Kiran were together designing something called dynamite?" Unbelievably, it was Sharena who decided to speak at that moment. "Oh! If I remember correctly. It was a compo... compo... eeeh..." "
A chemical compound." Alfonse said the concept that her sister had on the tip of her tongue but she was unable to communicate.
"Yes! That! Seemingly, it was a power capable of destroying large amounts of rock to create caves in mountains and demolishing buildings very quickly!" Sharena's excitement at the idea, however, quickly died as she pondered about what it would be like to use an artifact like that for military purposes. "Wait..."
Robin scratched her hair in dread. "Yes... I'm afraid that apparently in the Terran Metal World, after bombs and... metal "pegasus" were invented, a common tactic during wartime was to make dynamite fall on enemy towns."
Imagination did its job and the different hero leaders tried to manifest in their minds an image of what it would be like to have it raining down from the sky not drops of water or arrows, but pure destructive "magic"... and this greatly disturbed them, even if most of them were unable to imagine the scales at which such a military strategy was executed according to what Robin had learned in that history class.
Ike, who hadn't felt the need to add to the conversation thus far, went ahead to give his opinion. "Our goal is to take control of the town and free the civilians, not obliterate them and their homes."
Robin nodded. "The most useful bombings are the ones that specifically target areas where enemy military might, aka resources weapons and everything, is most significant, but even with that we still don't have dynamite in a state that's stable enough to be safe to handle. Not to mention that our Pegasus Knights are not trained to accurately drop things. The wind could work against us, plus the normal pegasi are not as "muscular" as metal ones to carry enough dynamite to launch such an assault."
"In short, we need a different plan." Alfonse, who seemed somewhat calmer commented.
"The prominent evident plan is to besiege the town," Robin placed the pieces representing the army of the Order of Heroes around the "town." Alfonse then suggested something "And we could try to destroy their supplies like we did in Elibe." he did this remembering how Embla's troops were forced out of Caelin's castle if they didn't want to starve.
"The problem we have is that waiting much longer is not exactly possible anymore." Robin sighed, scratching her forehead with her two index and middle fingers.
"What are you talking about?" Corrin crossed his arms.
"We got a letter." Robin pulled said letter out of her coat. "It seems that Embla's high command is preparing a very large offensive back on the Zenith world according to what has been leaked by a spy infiltrated deep within, we are requested to finish the mission as quickly as possible... or abort it and return to reinforce Askr's ranks."
Both the princess and the prince of Askr were partially outraged. "When did this letter arrive?" Sharena seemed somewhat more concerned.
Her brother, on the other hand, did look annoyed. "And why weren't we informed!"
Robin held up her right hand to ask them to calm down for a moment. "The letter arrived yesterday during the night, and since we had this strategy meeting today I didn't feel much of a rush to deliver the message."
"From what I can see, we have a big problem." Ike hadn't been around long, but even he understood what a problem it would be if Embla recovered ground.
"The last time we went through a portal and took too long to return, Embla tried to close the portal and leave us trapped on the other side." Alfonse still remembered how they had very barely made it in time.
This immediately put Marth on alert. "If that happens, I would lose access to my world too."
"What about us?" Ephraim felt the need to ask. Ike, who had the same feeling of uncertainty, simply said. "Good point."
Alfonse gave them a simple nod so they could relax. "We have the Breidablik on this side of the gate, anyone who was summoned by it will be sent back to their world, you would still have a possible way out of here."
Epharim nodded, then he simply replied. "Given what I see, our goal then is to take the castle as quickly as possible... which transforms the ideas of us waiting for them to start running out of supplies or another new moon to use paratroopers for another surprise attack pretty much something we cannot afford to do... and I doubt they will be as stupid to do not hide better their food after our tactic of burning it, so finding it won't be as easy this time."
"And the dynamite is not yet ready to be capable of blowing up the wall protecting the town." Robin squeezed the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
They all folded their arms, trying to think about the possibility that they would need to seize the town by force the old-fashioned way.
They all knew perfectly well that it wasn't ideal, the high casualties tended to be on both sides, as their experience in those types of battles certified.
And that's when something crossed Corrin's mind. "Why are we talking as if going into battle is the only solution we have?"
Once everyone received the translation of his words, several stared at him.
Corrin took a sip of tea before continuing. "If we think about it, the Emblians surrendered pretty quickly after our parachute trick. Some managed to escape and it's likely that those in the capital have already learned of our presence. And besides, they are facing a rather delicate situation. They are cut off from their world with no possibility of reinforcements... and we are technically about four to six armies against one... we could negotiate."
Once everyone received the translation of his proposal, several heroes held their hands on different parts of their faces as they thought about it.
"Ask them to surrender..." Chrom commented.
"That would be quicker and fewer resources, both human lives and materials, would be lost if such a thing could be accomplished..." Ephraim moved his face slightly to the right.
"We have plenty of resources and enough reasons to order them to surrender... but in my experience, empires don't tend to yield until you take the throne room." Marth sighed.
"We have Ike." Alfonse quickly pointed out. "Most armies in the world of Zenith would rather deal with the wrath of the elements than take on the mightiest hero."
Ike raised an eyebrow at these words, was he considered that strong?
"I don't see why we couldn't at least try." Robin nodded. "But of course, we'd still have to make an assault plan in case they decide not to accept our terms."
If there was something that always made any human feel nervous but at the same time created such a big feeling of excitement it was that moment in life when you start earning the money to bring food back home. That's the moment when it was time to stop being a kid and begin working hard to "win the right of the tomorrow"
Erwin was making sure to sharpen his two swords properly for the occasion.
These weapons, which had been a gift for him years ago, had rarely been stained with blood in combat. He was usually only sent to fight against small-time bandits who were little more than trash with no real power or skill and had only served to put what he had learned into practice in a safe manner.
And he was sick of that.
But this time, he would finally face real enemies of his beloved nation and bring home the glory he had always sought.
To make his nation, the empire that would last ten thousand years, the greatest across the multiverse!
And he was not the only one.
Nilsa appeared to be much more excited than him considering the way she was using her spear, spinning it around and throwing occasional thrusts with a smile.
"Careful with that, you're gonna break something." Erwin shook his head at her extreme enthusiasm, not that he considered it wrong but playing with a spear like that inside a room with things like vases wasn't a good idea at all.
"Relax, you know my control over this beauty is the best in the world." Nilsa smiled at him, her eyes partially narrowed as she looked at him.
"If you say so." He rolled his eyes, receiving a punch on the shoulder from his partner to which they both laughed lightly.
"You know," she stopped playing for a moment to look happily at her new "first class" soldier's uniform through the mirror "I'm so looking forward to meeting the princess of Askr."
"And why is that?" Erwin folded his arms, stopping for a moment to pay attention to his comrade.
"I hear she's into spear fighting too, what better way to show off my skills and crown myself a warrior than by defeating that blonde silly bitch." Nilsa was still wearing that snarky smile, but this time she decided to sit in a chair nearby.
"Meh," Erwin smiled back at her in amusement. "You simply want a prey to entertain yourself with. If you really wanted to combat someone interesting you would aspire to defeat a member of the order of heroes worth your time. the princes of Askr are nothing but foolish children playing and pretending to be heroes."
"Am I to assume then that you aspire to defeat someone important?" Nilsa waved her right hand to indicate to him to keep talking, that she wanted to hear an explanation.
"Any of those blue-haired princes with legendary weapons would be an interesting opponent, Marth, Ephraim, any of those."
She looked at him as if he had gone mad. "Do you remember that the prince of Askr also fits that description?"
He shook his head, laughing as if that was a bad joke. "Please, he's more talk than skill. He's not even worthy of wielding one of Askr's three sacred weapons." he tapped his chin with his index finger several times as an idea popped into his mind. "Although come to think of it, it would be hilariously entertaining to steal the holy sword, humiliate him, and kill him with it."
"Uh, I like your idea. See, I knew you had it in you as well!" She began rubbing her hands against each other as if she was about to eat something very delicious. "Maybe I can grab that big spear of them for myself."
At that moment, one of their other companions, who was a male green-haired mage, entered the room. "Be careful regarding how you word that, Nilsa."
"Shut your mouth, Henver." She threw a book to his face.
The mage didn't even flinch, allowing the book to touch the floor, he simply kicked it aside so it wouldn't get in his way. "I've got all my spell books ready, they won't know what hit them."
Erwin yawned. "Just watch my back and I won't complain about what you want to unleash on the battlefield."
Henver gave him a nod. "Nothing to worry about." After all, he did also have a sword and he was good enough with it to make anyone who became his enemy reduced to little less than nothing. "Altrecia's ready too, her pegasus finally relaxed." It was quite annoying when that animal would start whinnying until its rider appeared. Yes, it was true that she had saved it when the animal was just a foal, but that extreme dependence was disgusting.
"Maybe I should try taming a wyvern." The thought crossed Erwin's mind, it wouldn't be complicated at all. Nothing escaped his greatness.
"Maybe, anyway. It's time to leave." Nilsa commented, watching the sun from the horizon and guessing the hour.
As the three left the room, someone from the other side of the wall was still taking notes.
Askr's legendary weapons had to be protected.
The camp around the space-time gate to Askr had been set up for several days by then, all his troops and several of his friends he had recruited after making a trip all over the continent were there with him almost ready to cross to the other side.
"Hey, Chad,"
"Mmmh?" the now ninja looked at his leader at the sound of his name, ready to take orders.
A translation of their conversation would be something like this.
"Are you sure there's nothing else to report?" he asked, looking at the sheets explaining the situation. "I want everything to be perfectly in order when we leave."
His wife gave him a small tap on the shoulder, her tone somewhat playful. "You worry too much."
He smiled very warmly at her. Being away from her for so long and having to interact with a "twin" had not done his mental health any good so they had been making up for the lost time.
All this caused... that now he was worried that she may be pregnant.
"I'll say it one more time, your majesty." Chad kept his gaze serious. "The only thing that appears to be a problem is the shortage of healing staves that Clarine complained about, but it's nothing we can't replenish by buying from Askr, or we may simply have access to more than enough once we join the Order Of Heroes."
"I see, it's just that since we had to spend some money hiring several mercenaries again I thought we might be in more financial trouble." Roy shrugged as he rose from his chair.
Unfortunately, finding all of his old companions had proven to be an impossible task, both because of how little he knew about where they had gone and the possibility that some of them were now being enslaved by Embla and forced to fight for them.
At the moment, Larum, Echidna, Elffin, Thea, Juno, Noah, Melday, Clarine, and Klein were the only ones he had successfully located.
Besides Lugh and Raigh, he wasn't sure who else was in the world of Zenith at the moment.
Lilina put a hand on his shoulder. "You can't keep Commander Anna waiting any longer, sweetheart."
Roy nodded. "Well, I guess you're right." He looked at Chad seriously. "Spread the word, we're leaving in thirty minutes."
"Yes, King Roy."
Once the ninja had retreated, Roy scratched the back of his head. "I just hope nothing bad happens while I'm gone again."
Lilina gave him a slightly angrier look. "I told you, you worry too much." Immediately, she was now smiling beautifully again. "I have faith that everything will be all right."
He definitely was happy to have her by his side again.
Aaaay wey (hooooly shit)
Who knew that trying to finish this thing would consume all the neurons I have in my head?
And that's because after rereading the previous chapter I realized that there wasn't much reason why the Order Of Heroes couldn't just repeat the previous chapter's strategy and take control of the Hoshidan Castle in the blink of an eye... and this brought another problem, while I could come up with a more or less decent justification for why it couldn't go the same way, my brain really wasn't up to writing a minimally decent battle after having inserted all the imaginative fuel to the one I wrote for Shanna vs Takumi... so yes, Ryoma will be without his epic duel.
So I decided, considering that the whole point of the Revelations game was to find a "peaceful" way to resolve conflicts, that it would make much more sense to write that the Order of Heroes would prefer to negotiate a surrender.
But it was then that I remembered several of the plot points that I had left a bit forgotten: Roy, who went to get reinforcements, those "heroes" from Embla that I added to the story, Bruno playing the spy in Embla, the strong assault that happens to Askr when Veronica uses Ike against the Order Of Heroes (And yes, most probably there will be two Ike) and the fact that I wanted to rewrite about our protagonist given that his two chapters to then return to Askr are already planned since about 2 years ago. In fact, when I was having trouble writing this chapter, I basically decided to start writing the next one to at least feel like I wasn't wasting time... and let's just say that after going to see Accros The Spiderverse I'm going to have to change some things so that it doesn't look like I'm literally copying aspects of the plot of that movie... and that reminds me that I will also most likely have to change or remove entirely a certain aspect of the plot that I thought a long time ago which is connected to the RMS Titanic (yes, the ship) since... well, you understand why.
The point is that I said: what if he left some of those things ambiguous about what happens to them to cause intrigue? Who will get to the battlefield first? Roy? The Order of Heroes? Embla? Or maybe the protagonist himself?
And yes, in the next chapter we'll already have him back... in a rather long chapter, probably as long as the two chapters in which Luis and Duncan faced each other. In these chapters, I plan to add quite a few things that my friend Scientist has shared with me to enrich the world-building. That, and I will soon add another important character.
Anyway, let's talk about other things.
Sadly there was no Fire Emblem 4 remake in the Nintendo Direct... although I don't really feel that bad about it. I still replay FE Engage. Attention deficit syndrome... I mean! Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom still steals time out of my life, I'm saving up to buy Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and will probably order 3 for my birthday, my brother has confirmed he has pre-orders for Super Mario Bros Wonder and Mario RPG Remake so I'm not running out of things to play, I mean I'm also yet to play Resident Evil 4 Remake (if this PC can take it lol) and I'm still waiting for the date of the new Mario Kart tracks, Nintendo! Speaking of games, I've continued with Ike's first game (I hadn't continued after ch 10), and truth be told... is anyone else bad used to being able to skip the enemy turn with a button? Now waiting for the red units to move gets to feel eternal lol.
What is depressing though is the situation with Metroid Prime 4. For the love of all that is holy in video games Nintendo! You announced that game when the Switch had just been born and now it's already close to "dying" and you still haven't shown more than the fucking logo XD At least Zelda BOTW had occasional trailers!. I knew something was wrong since they showed just the fucking intro screen with the name of the game, but this is already a miserable joke that isn't even funny really.
The Mario movie was a wonderful experience, fun in the extreme levels.
It looks like the Switch 2 will indeed be backward compatible with Switch 1 games... which is great, it felt bad that Switch didn't have this feature with Wii U... although considering they had to resell the games to recoup the money lost with that failed console I can understand why they didn't give us the possibility.
I've tried to take some inspiration from Dr. Stone in order to improve the scientific research aspect of the story a bit although don't expect this story to suddenly speed up with inventions, if there's one thing I find unrealistic about that manga/anime is that just how much scientific knowledge of so many branches of science Senku has. If there were at least 3 characters with different specialities I would be more able to believe it. I don't doubt that what they do is possible, it's just extremely difficult for one person to know all that. And well in general advancing to a civilization with our current technology would be something that would require at least two centuries.
And... uuuh... ah yeah, FE 7 for Nintendo Switch Online! not bad but honestly the games I think would benefit the most from this service are Four Swords and Kirby The Amazing Mirror.
Yeah... I guess that's all I have to say for now.
Gonna work hard on the next chapter and see ya guys next time.
