BREAKING NEWS! PIRATE'S HAVE BEEN ERADICATED!
Earlier this week a large scale operation was launched to wipe out the various Pirate groups in Holfort. During the recent School Festival Young Viscount Blackmore learned that one of his classmates Stephanie Fou Offrey and her family were directly responsible for managing the various pirate groups throughout the Holfort Kingdom. Blackmore reportedly ran a fowl of the Offrey heiress and as a consequence her pirate army was sent after him and his family. The Pirates ships were captured relatively intact, with most of the pirates on board having been killed! The Offrey's have officially been removed from their noble positions and for his Meritorious deeds the Former Viscount Blackmore has now been Promoted to a full Count!
Excerpt from the Daily Adventurer
Hello Mother and Father,
I hope you receive this letter alongside your weekly delivery of the Daily Adventurer. In it you should find mention about the downfall of the vile woman that you attempted to force onto me, and by now you've likely realised how my breaking off my engagement prevented us from getting caught in the fallout of her poor decision making skills.
Of course in light of the fact that I did wrong Miss Angelica I won't do anything as crass as demand the return of my allowance, I do believe though that I have earned the right to gloat my superior ability to judge the quality of a woman.
Sincerely yours Brad Fou Field
A letter, which arrived at the Field Manor banded to a set of Newspapers
Karen Fia Wore: Damn those Blackmores! The Pirates I sent after him have all been captured!
Zola Fou Banks: Wait, you sent pirates after them too?
Edna Fia Marshall: So did I!
Karen: Everyone raise your hands if you hired Pirates to go after the Blackmore Territory!
*The hands of all of the Forest members in attendance were raised into the air, and then the door leading into the secret Chamber was destroyed with a fire lance*
Excerpt of the final meeting of The Forest of Ladies before it was interrupted by the Redgrave forces
In the days following the defeat of the pirate forces a meeting was called in the royal palace. The King and Queen were in attendance, as were the Duke Redgrave, the Marquiss Frampton, the Director of Intelligence John Fia Marmoria, Pope Alexandria XVI a select group of guards and the Prime Minister of Finance. In the other corner were the Blackmore siblings and their guardian Rodin.
"I, Minister of Finance Bernard Fia Atlee will now begin the meeting..." Even though he said that, the Minister was hesitant, looking down at the scroll in his possession like he was staring at some indescribable monster. "For the Defeat of the Sky Shark Pirates, Cloud Wolf Pirates, Blood Hawk Pirates..." Bernard was actively trying to not clench his hands as he spoke, likely because he would tear apart the scroll he was trying to read. The Bounties placed on the dozen or so pirate groups listed on the scroll were meant to be cashed in over a period of time, when the funds could be recouped via taxes in order to pay off the other bounties, certainly not all at once! "...for the defeat of the aforementioned 14 pirate groups the crown hereby agrees to pay out to the Blackmore family the equivalent of approximately 9000 Platinum coins!"
Bernard looked ready to have a stroke as he read through the report.
1 Platinum coin equalled to 1000 Dia after all, there are people who haven't even seen a single Platinum coin in their entire lives, the payout was equivalent to 9 Billion dia, nine times that of what Leon earned during the duel against the Five Fools. It was worse than that. Previously the Kingdom could charge a generous 30% Tax under the pretence of raising the funds to deal with the pirate attacks, now with the pirates gone they would soon have to cut back on the taxes that had previously went to keeping the Kingdom afloat.
On top of that The Redgraves have just finished an investigation into the reports of numerous underage soldiers in the Kingdom's army having been forcibly recruited, and as a result most of the families under the Marquiss Frampton were now facing charges. Most of the arrested members of the families in question were thankfully limited to the siblings to the current heads of those families, so there wouldn't be anything like a major reshuffling of those ranks. However, those individuals were a massive source of income from the lower ranking nobility of Holfort into the coffers of the Royal Capital, not to mention pawns in their ongoing political reforms that now would be pushed back another decade or so. At this point the Kingdom's once promising budget was now looking like a noose around the Minister's throat.
"Your Majesties I must protest!" Bernard snapped, he had protested this outrageous payment before but to his horror the contents of the scroll had yet to change since that time. "The Kingdom simply does not have the budget to pay for these bounties at this moment!"
"Sure." And to their surprise it was Rodin who spoke up first. "Just pay for the ones you want to have, and we'll keep the rest." He was a business man after all, and negotiations were a key part of business.
The Duke Redgrave produced a scroll, detailing the individuals that had relevant information on the families he had been investigating, unfortunately they were still individuals of significant influence among the pirates, it was a amount that only barely dropped a single digit from the amount.
"What do you intend to do with the ships and the Pirates loot?" The Bounties did specify the capture of the pirates ships and the various ill-gotten gains they accumulated over the years of course. As Nick pointed out before the ship's maintenance was garbage, but each of them still contained precious float stone and Magi-stones that were worth a significant portion of the bounty.
"The ships mana stones have been dusted already." Rodin held out his hand and Nick handed him a scroll in response. "Nick here used shadow magic to suck the ships and armours dry, the ships and armours are being broken down for parts into something actually useful. The Details your Majesty."
Rodin handed over a scroll to Mylene, and in many ways confirmed her worst fears. In many ways a power acting independently of the crown suddenly gaining a hold of a massive quantity of float stone was considered a worst case scenario, a similar event precipitated the separation of the Fanoss principality and the bloody war that surrounded it.
"If you prefer we can simply hand over the float stone, for the agreed upon price listed in the bounties." Bernard remembered that his daughter mentioned in one of her letters that one of the young men before him, Nick, didn't even need float stone to build flying aircraft. "If you prefer though Nick here is a more than capable shipwright. Of course he will be compensated appropriately for his time and resources."
"That won't be necessary." Mylene stated and Bernard nearly had another stroke. "We have our own shipwrights, and I can assure you they are more than capable." The knowledge that they would get back the float stone didn't make Mylene happy at all. What few of the Pirates that they did talk to reported magical ships that appeared out of thin air and demons composed of black slime that swallowed them whole and scythe wielding monsters that cut them down when they tried to resist. Not only did the Blackmores have their own air force, but said air force could appear and disappear at whim, no doubt cut from the same cloth as the ship that appeared above the capital during the duel against her son and his friends.
"Then you will have your float-stone within the week." Rodin stated bluntly. "As for the discussion of the Pirates wealth, we of course intend to return the items that we can identify the owners of to the appropriate parties, for a small fee of course." Somehow Bernard imagined the fee in question would be anything but small. "We of course are still sorting through the items in question but we believe that we have one of significance to the church." As Rodin said that, he produced a Alzeran picture that he had taken of the item in question and held it out for the pope to examine. As Alexandria looked at the photo in question she looked like she would match Bernard's stroke. "Of course we will need to confirm it's the genuine article first. If it's simply a replica we'll simply break it down for materials alongside the rest of the pirates good luck charms and totems."
The Pope almost did have a stroke at that.
"What is it? What do they have?" Roland was growing impatient, the longer the price took to sum up the longer it would take before he could deploy his own brilliant master stroke.
"Y-y-your-" The pope visibly swallowed as she forced herself to calm down. "Your Majesty. It's the Saintess's necklace!"
"Allegedly the Saintess's Necklace." Rodin stated finger raised in the air. "Any item, if its description is well known enough, can be forged." Rodin saw no benefit in giving the woman a stroke. "We'll bring it over to authenticate it later, then we can discuss payment."
"Ahem-!" Bernard made a abrupt cough to cut in on the situation. "How much payment exactly?" The man spoke with a small voice, as if he was deliberately keeping quiet less he was spotted by a blood thirsty predator.
"We'll let the Pope here decide how much the item is worth." Rodin stated bluntly. "There should be an existing bounty for the Necklace's return."
Roland held out both of his hands as if to catch something, and at once one of the guards threw a bounty book at the king who caught and opened it.
"3 Million Dia." Having confirmed this the King closed the book. "Now shall we discuss the rest of the payment plan, if I'm not mistaken we should be cut down to somewhere between 5 and 6 billion Dia?"
Bernard gave a reluctant nod at that.
"5.4 billion your majesty." Bernard prayed to the Saintess that his King wasn't about to say something stupid.
"Then as for payment: The Offrey's estate and territory should be sufficient." Mylene almost had a stroke, Bernard had to quietly excuse himself from the royal meeting room. "If that is insufficient to all of you, then we will have to settle for a yearly payment plan." Roland stated unaware, or far more likely, uncaring of the condition of his wife and minister.
"That's fine, once we change the territory to our liking we'll be able to get our money back no problem." Rodin stated bluntly as he gestured with his arm. "Is there anything else you want to discuss?" Rodin held he hand up into the air a single finger raised. Minister Atlee soon walked back into the room, politely dabbing himself on the face as if he had just been to the buffet, instead of having stress vomit into a toilet.
"My apologies for that. Shall we move onto the final topic of discussion?" Roland rolled his hand indicating for the Minister to continue. "The Blackmore family has yet to offer tax or tribute appropriate for their rank." A pause. "Ranks." Bernard corrected himself, it wasn't fair to expect barons or viscounts to pay out the equivalent to full counts after all.
"Tax?" Rodin stated in a questioning tone of voice. "What exactly have you done for us that warrants paying taxes?"
"Excuse me...?" Bernard felt like his stroke was going to turn into an aneurysm.
"What service do you or will you provide to us in exchange for paying 'taxes' to you?" Rodin was especially sure that he didn't include the word 'Have' among what he said. "Because you 'haven't' provided us with resources, man power to maintain our infrastructure, healers to tend our wounded nor men to defend us when we were literally attacked just now. Now admittedly my god son is attending your academy and is taking your subpar education, which we have paid for already. But you have yet to do anything which warrants the payment that you have deluded yourselves into thinking that you deserve."
Rodin was a business man. Charity was one thing, demanding money from him for nothing was quite another.
Mylene was taken aback by such a flagrant display. If any other vassal had the gall to say that to them they would respond with sending small fleets out to either bombard them into submission or threaten them to do so. But this wasn't Alzer with it's invincible border, they can't afford to divert their military forces away from the border, especially with the suspected hole in their security that was sitting directly next to the principality of Fanoss. On the other hand this also wasn't Alzer with a literal god looming overhead in the middle of their territory enforcing it's divine will, they cannot afford to look weak in front of what basically amounts to a outsider. The Blackmore's were powerful yes: powerful enough to start a civil war. The need to Tread lightly was unquestionable at this time.
"Your concerns are completely reasonable." Roland however as usual was on a completely different page than anyone else. "Five years to discuss appropriate terms and services between our two forces. After all it's completely unreasonable for us to force things onto you that you neither need nor desire and expect you to pay for them. It will of course require a survey team sent to your territory so that we can decide what we can and cannot provide you with."
Rodin nodded his head and together the three Blackmore siblings walked out of the room. And once the four of them were at a respectable distance.
"Leave us." Mylene stated and at once the Duke, Marquiss and Minister all filed out of the reception chamber. "What the hell are you thinking!" Mylene snapped as another infamous argument between the royal family broke out.
"For starters I'm thinking that we just saved a fortune on the royal budget, patched a hole in our defences the Offrey's have torn open and begun the process of breaking the Blackmore's over our Knee all in one fell swoop." Roland held one finger. "We don't have the budget to pay them what we need to do, so selling off some islands that were being run by a bunch of abusive crooks can be considered cheaper in comparison." A second finger. "We need people who are capable of watching the border with Fanoss, considering that we now know that they're planning to go to war with us, and that we rounded up most of the traitors loyal to them. And the Blackmores just fended off a army on top of that." Which led him to raise a third and final finger. "I expect that the Principality and the Black Knight will prove to be more formidable opponents than a raggedy pirate fleet, as they will prove to be to them. Then once they're done tearing each other apart the Blackmores will have to rely on us for aid and the Principality will be primed to conquer."
"Or you, having put one group that is unreasonably hostile to us next to another group that is unreasonably hostile to us, will have to deal with them teaming up against us." Mylene snapped glaring angrily at her husband. At the most generous, Roland has bought them five years to deal with the Blackmores in such a way that they don't have to worry about them starting a war between them. In the least generous, they'll feel inclined to join the Principality in their attack increasing the number of enemies they have to deal with.
"... is how I expect the conversation to go." Angelica knew both the King and Queen very well it would seem, at the very least she claimed to know how the conversation between the King and Queen would go after the Blackmores left.
"Well, we'll just have to get Offrey's place fortified now don't we?" Even though Leon said that, he knew that 'we' didn't include him.
"Who exactly do you think will be doing that hellish work?" Nick grabbed Leon by his neck and noogied him.
"You should also keep in mind that the Principality will be swinging by in a few days, either to attack or to try and re-establish a good relationship with their neighbours." Angelica stated impassively watching Nick bullying his brother.
"By good relationship you mean?" Jenna already didn't like the direction this was going.
"They'll want you to help them attack Holfort proper." Angelica held the opinion that being honest with the Blackmores was the best way to go. "Will you?"
"I don't intend to start a war because I'm not an asshole." The way that Nick looked at Leon as he wrestled out of his grasp implied he disagreed with his statement. "But if someone is hostile to us, then what other choice are we going to be left with?"
Somehow Angelica didn't think Leon was talking about the Principality being hostile to them.
"What about you?" Jenna asked looking suspicious. "Isn't talking with people from neighbouring nations over cheese and fondue something that you fancy high ranking nobles do all the time? What do you know about them?"
"I haven't spoken to the Fanoss sisters since I was knee high." Angelica paused as she remembered the people she was talking to. "My knees. I sincerely doubt that you'll be dealing with the same small children I knew when I was young." The siblings nodded their heads to Angelica's words. "I will offer some advice though. The Anniversary of their parents deaths are in a couple of weeks. I would imagine that offering to pay your respects to their grave with them may be one way to generate good will, or failing that a gift might accomplish the same thing."
"We'll turn custody of the prisoners that your father wanted over to his forces before we leave." Now no longer in the presence of royalty Rodin got out a cigar to smoke. "It would appear that Nick is going to be quite busy in the mean time." Nick just breathed a sigh of exasperation.
Fortress building? Aye that's a tricky beast.
Most of the old Human fortresses you see are surrounded by big beefy slanted walls. If they get a direct hit then they're at an angle that the shot'll just bounce right off. Now don't get me wrong it's good for fending off your own people when they run riot, but if you wanna defend from real invaders, then offence is the best defence.
Now walls are important cause they'll keep the buildings you do care about from being sniped from a distance, but they can't do anything to stop a ship from parking above your island to deposit troops, so you gotta put anti-aircraft weapons inside and on top of those walls to shoot them down before they can get close or make the idea of doing so very unpleasant. You could try putting a roof over the walls, but we don't have a metal that's both light enough to use for roofing and strong enough to stop a shot from an air ship.
If they do get past your walls and your weapons then they'll either bombard you from a distance or deploy troops and armour onto the territory to take yah by foot. Now if the first happens yah screwed, if the latter happens there are preparations you can make for it. The inside of your island should be filled with houses, because yah want people to actually live there, but those houses should have windows facing the streets and the people living in those houses should be armed with rifles and guns so that they can shoot the invaders as they land. On the subject of the streets you want a middle ground between being organised enough that people can actually use them and disorganised enough that invaders can't navigate them easily.
I won't go as far to suggest traps, because people actually have to live there, but I wouldn't be opposed to a few manually operated buckets to dump burning pitch and tar on the invaders heads. People can be down right nasty, especially when you have them cornered.
Excerpt from an interview with Chezare Fia Stone, Fortress architect from the Holfort Kingdom
Stephanie didn't even need to be chased down to be apprehended. By dint of her own attempt to break into Angelica's/Olivia's room and deface it she had been captured before the trip had started, and instead of being released to resume her schooling she was instead turned over to the royal family.
"What?" Stephanie stared ahead eye twitching as her jaw dropped in horror.
"It's exactly as I just described." At least one of the Guard's had chosen to take pity on the girl. "Your blatant attempt to betray your country has been found out, and you have been stripped of your noble status."
"Just because of one-" Stephanie was interrupted by a cold voice. "When we found out about your family managing the pirates, we tore your home apart and found your connections to Fanoss, we even found out you sold them the console for training our countries knight forces that we installed in your territory." Offrey let out an audible gulp at that.
"You're taking the word of rift raft and criminals over ours!?" Stephanie couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"All of the Criminals and rift raft combined, not to mention Wayne who has gathered evidence of your involvement specifically." The Guard corrected with an uncompromising tone of voice. "If you understand what your family has done then you will cooperate with us fully and completely." The Guard wasn't doing this as a courtesy. Stephanie was a hostage with status less than a commoner, and if she values her life then she will cooperate with them completely.
"What will happen to me?" Stephanie had a defeated look on her features as she looked downcast.
"There shouldn't be too many differences in your lifestyle from before." Stephanie looked at the man confused as he clarified. "From what I heard you like being held down and gang banged one sidedly." The Guard put a bag on Stephanie's bed. "Leave your clothes in that, an official will be by later to inspect your body and determine how much work they'll have to do before they put you into the brothel."
For the Time being, the Blackmore's compound was moved to the Former Offrey territory. Under normal Circumstances the compound was already built like a fortress. Now though? Draw bridges built along one side of the island compound disconnected, the train tracks that made up the outer most parts of the island rings rerouted themselves to the island below them. The entire compound rerouted itself to act as a massive wall against the Fanoss principality for the territory, at this point in time it wouldn't do much if the principality was able to circle around to strike from behind, but other than that it was fortified. Aside from that, Avalon forest that was previously in the middle of the compound was parked on the far side from the wall itself. There was a small adventurer's guild in the Offrey territory, mostly set up to deal with stray monsters as there was no existing dungeon in the area, so the Forest was officially open to the public. Of course learning the secrets to delve into the forest safely would require that people fork over the Dia for it, but that was normal with any dungeon.
Aside from that a familiar cantankerous construction worker in a magicians garb took to the field. The Offrey manor was dismantled with several waves of Abracadabra, before having it's foundation modified and the entire area rebuilt into a singularly massive apartment complex, with all the appliance fixings to negate the need for maids and house staff. Once everyone was moved into the new apartment demolition and rebuilding could continue. As Angelica had pointed out, the Blackmores were getting enough attention that various commoner families were on their way to join Leon's territory, so additional apartment complexes would also be necessary. If this was to become the frontline against the Principality one day then a proper military fortress was needed, one that would not rely on the ultimately temporary presence of the Blackmore's compound. So a sizeable fortress had been built for Patton troops to supplement the existing Blackmore Demon Army, with a newly expanded dockyard to accommodate more warships.
The Newly expanded farm lands on the other hand had a massive fortress like a stadium built around it, a retractable roof built into it made out of thinly sliced wood from Avalon Forest. Strong as steel light as normal wood, it would be enough to fend off normal attacks during a siege, and was even fire proof too. Attacking the local food supply would be a prime demoralisation tactic after-all. Aside from that utility and sewage systems that been installed that would process the sewage of the people living in the city into manure that would be fed to the farms to supply the nutrients for the accelerated plant growth that the area would be experiencing as Umbran trainees use it as a place to train their magic control. The sewage plant also acted as a entry point for water that would be entering the territory from the ocean through a combination of magic and water pressure bringing with it fresh sea food, extra fertiliser from the sea and various dissolved metals in the water for Nick to extract for his own use. That left the subject of ships to fill the dockyard that needed to be addressed.
"So you're using more of your fake Float Stone?" Jillian of course was helping to over see the military installation. "What are you powering it with?"
"Devil Arms." Nick replied without looking away from his drawing desk. He would 'like' to be using the Rusalka for this. With their ability to produce hydrogen gas they can fill a huge blimp full of lighter than air gas to make it fly, or freeze super conductors so that they can act in the same capacity as float stone, but somebody already made off with the entire tribe. Instead he was stuck rooting around for the various demons native to the circle of Cocoytus, which considering it was the circle of 'freezer burned traitors' there were some understandable reluctance to rely on the bastards.
"You can power a ship with a Devil Arm?" Objectively Jillian knows that Umbra was both the name of a ship and the name of the Demon that was possessing the ship, from here some logical deductions can be made.
"You have to deal with the demon possessing the ship if you do, but yes." Nick explained bluntly even as he kept drawing up designs for the ship he was going to be building in the near future. That wasn't such a bad deal, for the Blackmores that is, they after all are the ones who contracts with the demons after all, so if anyone can build the ships and make the bastards obey them it was them. All of this was progressing at the pace one would expect from someone who had rebuilt a town in a single day. "If the whole 'Warlock' or 'Engineer' thing doesn't work out you have a promising career as a construction worker."
"I'd sooner feed myself to my demons." Nick stated both his opinion of that line of work and the work he was doing right now in one go.
However Holfort was not the only ones to notice a change in the winds as it were, as made clearly evident by the small fleet of ships that were rapidly approaching them from the wrong side of the border which meant one thing.
The Principality of Fanoss is officially classified as an offshoot of the Holfort Kingdom, though this isn't by choice of either the Principality or the Kingdom.
About fifty years prior to the first game Fanoss basically called the Royal Families bluff on their ace weapon, the Royal Airship Weiss. The then Fanoss Duchy proceeded on a literal tear through the Kingdom, destroying several flying islands to harvest their float stone for their airships, the Kingdom responded in kind and a especially bloody conflict ensued led by the Redgrave house hold were able to force the newly declared Principality back.
The Principality thus assumes the role of the first game's main antagonists. The Principality is far from a united front, make no mistake about that. Ostentatiously at the head we have the Princesses of Fanoss Hertrude and Hertraude, seeking vengeance for the deaths of their parents, the various nobles led by Earl Edgar Fia Garret seek to expand upon their personal power the easiest way to do that is to take over the relatively weak country of Holfort, though there is little doubt that the Earl's ambitions is limited to 'easy.' On the contrary it is fair to say that his reach exceeds his grasp.
The same Cannot be said of Vandal Him Zenden, whose only ambition for quite several decades has been the complete and utter destruction of the country of Holfort if he has to cut down each and every man woman and child himself. Luckily he dies midway through the events of the game, his declining health reducing his status from 'completely invincible on the field of battle' to a mere 'theoretically beatable with enough skill but most people go for the P2W item anyway.'
Excerpt from Diary 1
While the Blackmore's dealt with their civil engineering situation Angelica was helping them to manage the political situation in the capital. If the royal family cannot be relied upon then they must instead strengthen their relationship with their existing allies. Then Leon dropped a bombshell.
"So this is a bad time to mention setting up half the school with demons during the Coffee break then?" Leon explained as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
Angelica twitched.
"What kind of demons?" Angie spoke in her 'what stupid thing have you done now' voice that she normally reserves for Julius.
"Oh... Rusalka." Leon stated as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"Jealous, Insane, Unstable, Fire and Ice breathing, Hydrokinetic demons!?" Angie listed off the characteristics of the creatures that she remembered reading about and she observed first hand as she was hunting them. "Those Rusalka!?"
Raymond's scream of terror echoed out of the courtyard.
"Yeah pretty much." Angie looked ready to tear Leon's head off. "Now before you say anything: they totalled the hallway outside of my room and then made me clean it up."
"Tell me next time you set up somebody with a demon!" Angie snapped looking like she wasn't going to broke room for arguement on this one. "Right now we have to go out and do some damage control! Immediately!"
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Go do what Garret? I'm am either already doing that or am doing it for a future plot point.
RedRat8: I sincerely doubt the Principality ever really stopped their blatant hostility to Holfort, and we already know that the Forest is staffed by a horde of traitors. This is completely something that they would do.