IMPERIAL SORCERY USED TO CRUSH FRANCOIS PATRIOTIC SPIRIT !
The cruel occupation of Parisee continues, following the Francois Republic's shameful surrender in the front of the Empire's monstrous Wunderwaffen. Every street of the Francois capital echoes with the sound of Imperial boots, and the once-vibrant city has been silenced, its people living in fear of their new overlords.
Yesterday, as a group of Francois patriots protested against the presence of Imperial soldiers in their beloved city, they were unfortunate enough to cross the path of one of the cold-blooded Imperial mages, whose spells and guns took the lives of so many Francois soldiers on the Rhine. Without any hesitation or thought for the civilians surrounding them, the Imperial mage immediately used his computation orb against the protesters, inflicting a number of grievous injuries upon them, before they were immediately dragged away – not to the hospital to tend their wounds, but to one of the prisons the Empire has commandeered for its own use in Parisee.
Such was the shock and horror of the onlookers at the sight, they could do nothing but watch this latest example of Imperial brutality …
Excerpt from the front page of the Londinium Times, June 7th, 1925
BRAVE IMPERIAL SOLDIER SAVES PARISEAN LIVES !
After the wave of violent and reprehensible attacks across Legadonia earlier this week, it is now Parisee that has been plagued by those who refuse to accept the lawful surrender of their government.
Yesterday evening, in the middle of a crowded street, a group of Imperial soldiers were ambushed by partisans, who didn't hesitate to open fire with stolen military equipment, despite being completely untrained in their use. Fortunately, one of the soldiers they targeted was an aerial mage, and he was able to block their ill-aimed shots with a protective barrier before neutralizing them with minimal collateral damage and no civilians being caught in the crossfire.
Unlike the events in Legadonia, this appears to be an isolated incident, as there haven't been other attacks in Parisee. Nevertheless, the Imperial Army representative has reaffirmed the Empire's commitment to ensuring the current occupation of Parisee and the Francois military bases goes on as peacefully as possible. To that end, the captured criminals are being interrogated to find out where they acquired their weapons and whether they still have accomplices at large …
Excerpt from the front page of the Berun Post, June 7th, 1925.
TERRORIST CELL CORNERED AMONG THE PARISEAN DEAD !
Yesterday, in a combined operation with the police forces of Parisee, the Imperial soldiers tasked with ensuring order within Parisee launched a raid on the vast complex of tunnels stretching beneath the Francois capital (for more details on these tunnels' long and fascinating history, check our article on page 7). Units were deployed across the city to block the various entry points to the network, while a strike force was dispatched within the tunnels themselves. This operation was arranged after the investigation into the attack of June 7th revealed that the group responsible operated from within the tunnels, hidden from sight.
The details of this operation are still confidential, but we know that several Francois partisans were killed after refusing to surrender, and that some damage was done to the Parisean catacombs in the process. A Parisean policewoman was reportedly observed exiting the tunnels alongside the Imperial soldiers, one of whom was apparently wounded in the head during the battle.
In a joint press conference, the mayor of Parisee and Imperial commander declared the operation a success, and warned against the temptation of following in the cell's footsteps …
Excerpt from the front page of the Berun Post, June 17th, 1925.
NOT EVEN THE DEAD ARE SAFE FROM THE EMPIRE !
In yet another breathtaking display of Imperial arrogance, the Empire continued its oppression of Parisee. No longer satisfied with their ongoing occupation of the Cathedral of Our Beloved Lady, the Imperial Army has turned its gaze upon the hallowed catacombs stretching under the Francois capital.
The Parisean police was forced to watch as the Republic's enemies ransacked the ancient crypts, unable to intervene lest they incur the ire of their conquerors. The citizens who sought refuge from the Empire's cruelty within the 'Kingdom of the Dead', as the Parisean catacombs are called by Francois poets, were mercilessly slaughtered under the gaze of their ancestors' eyeless skulls. The centuries-old ossuaries were left broken and scattered by the violence that disturbed their rest.
In their pursuit of soulless hyper-rationalism, the Empire has cast aside all restraint and compassion, and turned its Imperial Army into a cold, unfeeling instrument of violence. Nothing is sacred to the Imperial soldiers but conquest, and they'll stop at nothing in its pursuit. This latest outrage must remind us of the importance of our own struggle against the bloodthirsty legions of the Kaiser, for Albion presently stands alone against the Empire's tyrannical ambitions …
Excerpt from the front page of the Londinium Times, June 17th, 1925
June 17th, 1925 – Parisee – Hotel L'Aube Majestueuse
Lieutenant Willibald König, one of the handful of (living) aerial mages assigned to Division Y, sighed in exhaustion as he sank into a comfy armchair. The hotel suite that had been reserved for his team's use was far more luxurious than the quarters he had gotten used to in Castle Schwartzstein : the occupation force was bending over backwards to accommodate them, seeing it as a way to repay the Division's help in breaking the Rhine stalemate in some small way.
Having not had anything to do with that personally, König had felt slightly guilty about reaping the benefits like this at first. Right now, however, after the day he'd had, he really wanted to make use of the room service and get a taste of the delicious Francois wines he'd seen on offer before falling on his four-poster bed and sleep until the war was over. But there was still one last thing he needed to do today, and attempting it drunk would be incredibly dangerous for several reasons.
He checked his watch : he was just on time. Standing up, he clutched his Type D-24 computation orb and poured mana into it, establishing a sound-suppressing field around the room. Then, after a steadying breath, he focused on the device's secondary core, activating one of the spell formulas embedded within it.
Immediately, the temperature in the room plummeted, with frost forming disturbing patterns on the furniture. The light of the electric lamps flickered and took on a sinister hue, and König felt as if hundreds of spiders were crawling all over his skin. He swallowed the urge to scream and forced himself to complete the spell.
The air in front of him began to warp and bend, smalls dots of greenish light appearing from nothing and flowing like sand before stabilizing into the shape of what could generously be called a small humanoid figure that appeared to be sitting on an invisible chair, surrounded by tiny eldritch sigils that flickered in and out of existence seemingly at random. König adverted his gaze before he looked into the figure's eyes, which were the only thing the spell had rendered with perfect clarity.
"Major Degurechaff," he saluted.
"Lieutenant König," the apparition replied.
Through the long-range Elder communication spell, the voice of König's superior sounded like a hundred infants screaming in pain at once, and König knew his own voice wasn't any better on her end. The Division was still trying to work the kinks out of the spell, but it was far too convenient not to make use of it in the meantime.
The spell didn't give off enough mana to be detected by military-grade detection arrays, and as far as they knew there was no way for anyone to intercept the communication – and if there were, then good luck to the poor sod who would have to try to decode it without the spell formula. To top things off, recording devices on either end were unable to pick off anything except wordless screaming while the spell was in effect, so he didn't have to worry about the room being bugged.
There were some limitations, of course, beyond the fact it looked and sounded like König was communing with an infernal spirit. Someone could still spy on the communication by being close enough to hear in person, hence the sound-suppressing field. The two computation orbs also had to be attuned to one another beforehand, and the person on the other end needed to be willing and able to cast the spell in turn for the connection to open. König's orb had been attuned to the Major's before his departure from Castle Schwartzstein, and he had been given a specific hour every day when she would make sure to be available for contact – with a very short window to get in touch before she moved on with her day.
"Is the rest of your team here with you ?" she asked. The spell would only show her König's own nightmarish projection, after all, just like he could only see and hear her.
"No, ma'am They are resting elsewhere in the suite. Everyone is fine, but I do have a lot to report."
And there was no reason to subject everyone else to the spell needlessly, he didn't say. Even veterans of Division Y didn't find that sort of thing pleasant, however useful it might be.
"I have heard as much, yes. And a suite, huh ? I see you are being treated well. Take care not to get soft while you are away, Lieutenant."
König shivered. As a mage and a soldier, he had grown leaps and bounds since joining Division Y, most of it due to the Major's training. Even so, he had no desire to give her an excuse to drag him through that particular hell again. "I assure you that won't happen, ma'am."
"Good. Now give me your report, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am." König took a deep breath, and began his tale. "My team and I arrived in Parisee two days after our departure, on June 3rd, and immediately began our investigation into the origin of the Eikons as per our orders. The Francois sent someone to meet the four of us at the train station : Officer Sophie Jarnac, of the Parisean police force."
"Was there any problem with the local authorities' cooperation ?"
"None to speak of, ma'am. They aren't exactly enthusiastic about the whole situation, of course, but this whole business with the Eikons has them spooked. Imperial propaganda has been playing up how they did more damage to the Republican Army than us in order to play along with the Francois President's narrative, but that leaves the question of where the Eikons came from unanswered."
"I see the Francois President hasn't been slacking in his efforts to pin the whole debacle on De Lugo," the Major mused before changing the subject. "And how did Günther manage being out and about ? This is the first time we deploy an instance of Projekt P outside of Castle Schwartzstein, after all."
"There weren't any issues with that either. He played the part of the gruff, silent soldier well."
Which was the best anyone could hope for. Günther couldn't speak : for now, only one instance of Projekt P had demonstrated that ability and she wasn't going to leave Castle Schwartzstein anytime soon. In his more lucid moments, Professor Gehrman, the chief researcher of the Projekt, was certain the others would learn eventually, but König wasn't holding his breath.
"Good, good. Gehrman will be pleased to hear that. Go on."
"Once we'd gotten the formalities out of the way, Officer Jarnac brought us straight to the Cathedral of Our Beloved Lady, where the Eikons were observed coming out of. The entire building was already cordoned off by Imperial troops when we arrived, as it has been since the Republic's surrender. They let us through once we showed them our credentials."
König didn't mention how nervous the soldiers had been when they'd realized König's team were from Division Y. Most of these soldiers were veterans of the Rhine Front, and had no doubt heard all manner of wild stories about the Wunderwaffen and the supersoldiers deployed to assist the Imperial Army. By that point, the fact that Division Y was responsible for their creation had inevitably trickled down the ranks, and the dearth of any concrete information about them had given birth to all sorts of rumors. But there was no need to tell the Major this : she'd warned him about it before he'd left Castle Schwartzstein, after all.
"As you know," he went on, "the Archbishop of Parisee vanished at the same time as De Lugo. The cathedral's personnel had already been detained, of course, but because no one was certain where to put them they were kept under guard within the cathedral itself. Officer Jarnac wasn't happy about us all carrying weapons inside a church, but I reminded her that her government had been the one to use the place as a garrison for their supersoldiers in the first place."
Which hadn't made her happy either, but it had stopped her complaints. Also, Günther hadn't burst into flames when they'd crossed the threshold, which König hadn't been one-hundred-per-cent sure wasn't going to happen.
"Did you detect anything untoward within the cathedral ? From a mage's perspective, I mean."
"Yes," he nodded. "There were definitely remnants of the Eikons' presence in the building. I took recordings on my orb for detailed analysis later, but to sum up my own impressions, it was like being near an explosion formula in the instant before it's cast, except diffused and faded."
"That's a good comparison. They are pure forces of destruction forced into a semi-stable shape, after all. Unlike our own supersoldiers, I can't think of any peaceful use for them either."
It was well-known within Division Y that Major Degurechaff always kept an eye on the war's aftermath. Every Projekt involving the permanent alteration of Imperial soldiers, or the creation of sentient beings, had to consider how they would be able to reintegrate society after the war. For some, like the Werwölfe, it was easy; for others, like the instances of Projekte U and P, the question was more delicate.
"We started our interviews of the cathedral's personnel, with Officer Jarnac acting as translator."
"I chose you to lead the investigation because you speak Francois yourself, Lieutenant."
"I know, ma'am. But I wanted to use this opportunity to check that she was playing it straight with us."
"I see. Good initiative. And ?"
"No deliberate mistranslation from what I heard. And the cathedral's staff were definitely more comfortable talking to her than us. According to them, every Sunday since the 3rd of May, the Archbishop ordered the cathedral's nave cleared. Twelve Francois soldiers would come in with him, and then after an hour or so they would go down into the crypts beneath the cathedral and stay there. The servants were made to carry food down there, leave it in front of the door, and come back a few hours later to take the empty plates back up. Everyone was told this was part of a special military project and that they weren't to talk about it to anyone. None of them even saw the Eikons until the day they left : a messenger came from the Ministry and barged into the cathedral in the middle of the night, and the Eikons flew out a few moments later."
"So the Eikons do need to eat, or at least are able to," remarked the Major. "That's one question answered."
"We checked the nave, of course, but apart from the lingering aura of the Eikons there was no sign of any Elder-type ritual taking place – just the ones you'd expect in a religious building of that size and importance. None of the people we talked to appeared to know where the Archbishop had gone, either : Baptiste Beauvais just vanished at some point during the day following the Eikons' departure. Based on when he was last seen, my guess is that he left after the battle of the Rhine was decided, but – and I might be mistaken about this – before the news of the defeat reached Parisee."
"… I see. If he was indeed the one who transformed the aerial mages into Eikons, then he might have some kind of link with them."
"That's what I thought too. With our interrogations complete, we went to inspect the crypts where the Eikons had lived until they were activated by De Lugo. As per our orders, the soldiers who guarded the cathedral hadn't gone down there themselves, just in case. Apart from the lack of dust, there was no sign that forty adult men had lived there for weeks. The mana echoes were crazy, though, so they were definitely there, just … cleaner and tidier than any soldiers I have ever seen."
"Eikons aren't natural beings. The power they wield came at a cost, that is for certain, and from what I saw when I fought them in Arene, part of that cost was their humanity. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they spent the weeks before being called to action simply kneeling in prayer in front of the graves, completely unmoving."
König tried to imagine that, and shivered at the thought. Division Y's supersoldiers had their quirks, yes, but they were still people. They moved, they talked, they laughed, and they got bored, just like normal soldiers. What the Major was describing … it wasn't living. No wonder all reports about the Eikons agreed that they were crazy.
"We did find something else in the crypts," he continued. "One of the walls had been knocked down, creating an opening that led into what looked like an old mining shaft."
"Please tell me you didn't go into the Parisean catacombs without preparation."
"Of course not," König replied, before honesty compelled him to add : "Well, we were about to, but Officer Jarnac stopped us and told us of how extensive the underground network of Parisee is. Her actual words were something like 'we could wander down there for weeks, and if we got lost we'd starve to death long before finding a way back'."
Somehow, the hellish projection of König's superior managed to express how unimpressed she was without speaking a word. How the Major knew that a centuries-old mostly unmapped network of old mining tunnels spread out beneath the Francois capital, he had no idea – he certainly hadn't until Sophie had told him – but he wasn't surprised. You got used to the Major knowing stuff despite her age after a while.
"After that, we went to the Ministry of Defense to see what we could learn about the Eikons' creation process, and the circumstances of De Lugo's disappearance. The Francois had already done most of the work there : prior to the surrender, the Francois President had ordered an investigation himself."
Of course, they had double-checked everything, as it was all too plausible that some elements in the Republic would try to obscure the truth for one reason or another. The Francois loved paperwork almost as much as the Imperial bureaucracy, and though trudging through pile after pile of reports wasn't what König had in mind when he'd joined the Imperial Army, he'd done his job without complaints – and anyway, as the team leader, he was the one people complained to.
"What is clear is that, after the Eclipsed Liberation, the surviving Eikons flew straight back to the Ministry of Defense and met with De Lugo directly. The Vice-Minister chased off everyone and spoke with them alone for about an hour, then went to meet the President to explain what had happened in Arene. He didn't tell him where the Eikons had come from, only that they were some kind of secret military project, that they were the Republic's only hope of matching our Wunderwaffen, and made some not-so-subtle implied threats about the fact that they were only obeying him."
Frankly, the thought of a military leader threatening what was effectively the Francois equivalent of the Empire's Chancellor was unthinkable to König as an officer of the Imperial Army. It was possible the President was exaggerating, of course, and De Lugo had simply meant to imply that they didn't know if the Republic would keep control of the Eikons were he to be removed from his office as punishment for the Arene debacle or if the Eikons would go crazy in the middle of the capital. Although considering the Vice-Minister's later actions, any doubts he might have had regarding the reliability of the Eikons clearly hadn't held him back for long.
"We also seized the records of the Francois Army's magical detection arrays," he continued, bracing himself for what he knew was coming. "They clearly show the approach of the surviving Eikons on May 4th, but crucially, the mana signatures disappeared while they were in the Ministry and didn't pop up again until very early on May 26th, the day of Operation Shock & Awe."
"Fuck," the Major swore, immediately seeing what König was leading to. "They can turn back into human form, can't they ? And while in that form, their mana signature is suppressed so that it can't be detected with standard equipment."
"It seems the most plausible explanation, yes," agreed König, feeling even less happy than his commanding officer at the prospect. After all, it was his job to find the unstable Francois supersoldiers. "Nobody in the Ministry saw the Eikons leave in their 'battle-form' after their arrival, and they aren't exactly discreet."
"No they aren't. Damn. That's going to make tracking them a lot more difficult. I assume you didn't tell anyone else ?"
"Of course not," he replied, offended she'd think he was that stupid.
"Good. I'll pass that information to Brigadier General Zettour, but the idea of Eikons moving among the population undetected would not do public order any good. Shit, avoiding that kind of panic is precisely why I want us to keep all our supersoldiers under such tight control – what the hell were the Francois thinking ?!"
"I don't think they actually knew, ma'am," König said cautiously. "From what we discovered, it looks like the President's public claims are true : the entire thing was being run directly out of De Lugo's office. He sent the reassignment orders himself after finding air mage units that could be pulled from the front or called from the reserves without weakening the Republic's position too much, and didn't tell anybody what he was doing with them. The people we talked with who knew the mages were being recalled assumed it was part of a plan to gather a strong force to punch through our lines in the hope of turning the tide of the war."
"I see. You know, that idea actually makes sense. A highly mobile mage unit, moving under the direct command of Central Headquarters, able to be quickly deployed whenever it is needed … I'll have to suggest that concept to General Zettour at some point, see what he thinks of it. It would certainly give Central Headquarters another option between 'send in more troops' and 'send in the Wunderwaffen'."
König had to admit that the idea made sense, although you'd want elite troops to maximize its potential, and pulling mages from their assigned positions would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Aerial mages were just so useful that no commander worthy of the name would be willing to give them up.
"But that's something to consider later. Continue your report, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am. Our next step was to investigate the tunnel leading from the cathedral's crypts. After Officer Jarnac's explanation, though, we couldn't go in there blind. Assembling a semi-reliable map of the tunnels beneath Parisee and find where the opening in the crypt led to took us several days of trudging through ancient archives and tracking down the records of the renovations that were done in the last two centuries to keep the entire city from collapsing on itself."
"It was during that period that the attack happened, wasn't it ?"
"Yes, ma'am. On the third day of our research in the archives, when we left in the evening to get back to our hotel, a group of partisans laid in ambush waiting for us. They were using rifles from the Francois Army – we still aren't sure how they acquired them. Because of the potential fallout of using the M-912s in the city, let alone Günther cutting loose, I made the snap decision of using my D-24 to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and cast the Grasp of a Hundred Dark Hands."
König mentally congratulated himself for managing to say the spell's name with a straight face. It was the official name, given to the spell by the Denkmaschine when it had reconstructed it, but it was a bit too dramatic for his tastes, and those of the other aerial mages he'd trained with.
"Why did you decide using an Elder spell in the middle of a public street was the correct course of action ?"
"It was the one best suited to the situation," König answered. "The attackers were spread all across the street, and there were far too many civilians around to use standard attack spells. Furthermore, they weren't very good shots : the longer this went on, the higher the odds they'd hit a bystander."
And the spell, despite its name, was excellent for targeted crowd control. After marking the position of each attacker, König had cast it : shadowy tendrils had erupted from beneath the feet of the partisans, coiling around them with enough strength to break bone. He had dispelled the casting immediately, before the tendrils could completely crush the attackers – they'd needed prisoners to interrogate, and the sight of pulped corpses wouldn't have exactly helped with maintaining public order either.
"Fine. You were the one on the ground, so I won't blame you for making the decision. What did you learn from the attackers ?"
"None of them were willing to talk aside from hurling insults at us, saying we were all damned in the eyes of God and that the Empire would 'burn in the fires of divine retribution' for our unforgivable sin of fighting back against the Republic's invasion," König said in a sardonic tone. "But we did find out that one of them worked as a guardian of the Parisean catacombs. That meant there might be more of them hiding in the tunnels and using them as a base of operation."
"It would make for a great base, I have to give these lunatics that. These tunnels reach out across a good portion of the city, and have plenty of entrances, don't they ?"
"Yes. Most entrances are sealed to avoid accidents, but someone in that partisan's position could've obtained the access keys easily enough – and when we checked, we found out that was indeed the case. The problem was, back when we'd inspected the crypts under the cathedral, I'd sensed mana traces belonging to at least on Eikon entering the tunnel."
"So sending ordinary soldiers could've resulted in a massacre if there was still an Eikon down there."
"Exactly. I coordinated with the occupation forces and the city police so that they'd guard all entrances into the underground that we knew off. I made sure the locals weren't left to guard any entrance on their own, of course, in case there were sympathizers among the force. It didn't seem likely, but I didn't want to take the risk."
"You were right to do so. Annoying them too much would make the occupation difficult, but they still lost the war and should deal with it."
"Thank you, ma'am. It took several more days to finish the investigation, set up the blockade, and prepare the map. Finally, on June 15th, my team and Officer Jarnac returned to the crypts and entered the tunnels."
"Wait a moment. You knew the risks of that expedition. Why did you bring her along with you ?"
"She was the only one who could read the map well enough," said König, shrugging. "The Imperial Army's cartography training focused on surface maps using Imperial standards, not those of underground mazes cobbled together from centuries-old documents. But Officer Jarnac has a knack for it, apparently, and none of us fancied being lost and having to blast our way out with magic."
They could've done it, too. Between the M-912s, his computation orb and Günther's whole deal, they could have dug their way out by just going up and blasting everything in their way until they reached the surface. With magic shields, they could have survived collapses, and the same oxygen generation spells that allowed mages to operate at high altitudes would've helped them avoid suffocation. But the damage would've been significant, and certainly wouldn't have helped maintaining order in Parisee.
"Alright," said the Major, clearly coming to the same conclusion. "Given the circumstances, that was probably the best choice you had."
"Thank you. Once we left, I used the D-24's tracking spell to follow the lingering aura of the Eikons, while Officer Jarnac worked as our navigator, Günther held the rear, and Privates Seidel and Kuhn served covered me. Due to the possibility of an ambush, we advanced slowly, and took a break after several hours to rest. By that point, we had left the mining tunnels and reached the catacombs."
Which had been quite the experience. How the Pariseans could sleep knowing a place like that was under them, he'd no idea. Oh, he knew the history of the place : centuries ago, the graveyards of Parisee had been full, so they'd been emptied, the bones moved to the mining tunnels. Which made sense – you didn't want dead bodies piling up in the middle of your capital. But what had possessed the Francois of the time to arrange the remains of their long-dead compatriots into such morbid arrangements, he had no idea. They had passed walls covered in skulls, pillars made of one specific bone taken from hundreds of skeletons, strange sculptures of impossible anatomies …
And of course, the tracking spell hadn't helped the ambiance at all. Like the Grasp of a Hundred Dark Hands, it was an Elder spell, and came with its lot of disturbing side-effects. Jarnac hadn't said anything, but her unease at the sight of the moaning, ghostly faces floating in the air ahead of König as they followed the Eikons' spoor had been evident.
"It was there that we eventually found our quarry. Half an hour after the end of our break, we started hearing chanting voices. We kept advancing with redoubled caution, and eventually we found the rest of the partisan cell – except they looked more like fanatical zealots than insurgents. They had made a temple among the bones. There were seven people here, kneeling in front of … well, it's difficult to put into words. The best way I can describe it is that it looked like an angel sculpture made of human bones, I think. They were praying to it, begging it to 'deliver Francois from evil'."
It had been disturbing to look at to say the least, and König had seen a lot of disturbing things since he'd been assigned to Division Y.
"We moved in and managed to neutralize them, and even took most of them alive. Unfortunately," König took a deep breath, "that's when the Eikon showed up."
"So there really was one of them down there ?"
"Yes, ma'am. He burst from behind the bone angel – there was a passage hidden behind it too small for his bulk, so he must have been in human form, which is also why I didn't detect his mana signature – and engaged us immediately. I raised a shield around us just in time to block his first attack, but I could only get it up around our group – the partisans died immediately in a wave of golden fire."
The Eikon had been fast, but König had trained by playing tag with vampires in the night sky above Castle Schwartzstein. His reflexes had been honed to a razor's edge, because nothing motivated you to get better at your job like the knowledge your 'training partner' considered your blood to be an exquisite delicacy. Yes, there had never been a single training accident where the Untoten had succumbed to their hunting impulses, but all that meant was that the aerial mages were quick enough.
"Privates Seidel and Kuhn opened fire with their M-912s, but the Eikon moved too fast to hit. He attacked again, hitting my barrier spell with his spear, and it started to break under the strain despite my best efforts." He blinked, trying to banish the terrifying image of that winged golden warrior howling in self-righteous fury as he tried to reach him. "At that point, Günther charged to engage the enemy in melee."
There was a pause as the Major digested what he'd just told her.
"Did you order him to do that ?" she eventually asked.
"No, ma'am. I was, huh, too busy focusing on keeping the shield up so the Eikon couldn't cut us to pieces or burn us to ash. He did it of his own initiative."
"Interesting", she whispered, or at least that was how König interpreted the way the distantly screaming voices suddenly became fearful as well as pained. "How did it go ?"
"The Eikon immediately focused his attention on Günther, but wasn't fast enough to keep him from crossing the distance and start grappling. The two of them looked to be evenly matched in strength, and for a moment I worried they were going to shake the entire tunnel down on us. In the end, however, the Eikon managed to strike at Günther's left temple with enough strength to shatter his skin over a good portion of his skull. After that, well. The fight ended quickly."
The sight of what had happened next would follow König to the grave, he was sure of it. Before leaving Castle Schwartzstein, he'd been briefed on the details of Projekt P, of course – the Major would never have let him take command of Günther otherwise. But it was one thing to know the human appearance of the Projekt's instances was the fruit of careful workmanship reinforced through mundane and magical methods, and another to see with his own eyes what lurked beneath that shell, moving it like a man might move a suit of armor or a big paper construct at a festival.
"I managed to obscure Officer Jarnac's sight before she saw anything," he continued, shaking his head to focus on the present. "The Eikon perished through cranial penetration, and Günther retreated to the other side of the room, cradling his wound until Seidel covered it up. After that, we searched the partisans' bodies and the rest of the area. We found a few more weapons and a lot of religious paraphernalia, all of which we confiscated in case there was something interesting inside. Then we walked back, with Günther carrying the Eikon's corpse. By the time we reached the surface, it was a little past midnight today. We spent the rest of the day smuggling the Eikon's corpse to a secure location and spinning what had happened in a form that was palatable to the media."
"That's one of the four Eikons who escaped the Rhine dealt with. Good work, Lieutenant. However, there are still three of them left. And the Archbishop may be capable of creating more, even without access to his cathedral."
"We didn't find anything related to the actual creation process of the Eikons, but it was clear there were a lot of documents missing from his office. Even so, he'd need aerial mages," said König. "And those don't exactly grow on trees."
The Empire's policy of conscripting every individual with enough mana to qualify had given it the most numerous aerial mage corps in Europa, and even they only had a very limited number of mages to call upon. Before the horrendous attrition of the Great War, Francois had only recruited adult men, and there had been a definite pressure to only recruit 'proper' Francois into the ranks of the most powerful soldiers of the Republic. By the time of their surrender, they'd only just started testing and drafting women out of sheer desperation, but none of them had finished training before the fall of Parisee.
"That is true, but not all Francois aerial mages are accounted for. Some of them disobeyed the surrender orders and vanished into the wild, or went with the ships that left Brest for the Allied Kingdom or the Francois colonies."
"Do you think they would agree to become Eikons, though ? After what happened on the Rhine Front ?" asked König doubtfully. "I can't think anyone would volunteer to become an overpowered lunatic with no good tactical sense and a tendency to shoot his own side."
"Not if their mind was intact, no. But from what you said of the way the partisans behaved, it seems the Eikons might be capable of influencing minds given enough time. If that's the case, we were lucky the soldiers of the Rhine were only briefly exposed to their presence."
True, that. If that hypothetical mental corruption had been enough to drive the Francois to fight to the death, the last battle of the Rhine would have been a bloodbath. The Empire's victory would still have been inevitable, the presence of the Untoten with the Endlose Nacht serum guaranteed that. But the death toll would have been immense, and the vampires rampaging against the Republican soldiers wouldn't have done the Empire's image abroad any good.
"Of course, there's also the possibility they'd dismiss the stories of the battle entirely and think them fabrications on our part," the Major sighed. "Completely ridiculous, of course, but I've recently been forced to confront how illogical people can be when they think the pride of their country is at stake. In any case, there is a chance that De Lugo and Beauvais will reach out to the remaining Francois mages at some point. I'll pass that intel along to Central Headquarters. Anything else ?"
"Günther will need to be sent back to Castle Schwartzstein for repairs. Right now, we are using a bandage to conceal the damage to his face under the excuse that he got hurt in the fighting" – which wasn't even a lie – "but all it would take is one slip-up for someone to see what's under the surface, and that would be difficult to explain."
Not impossible : the words 'classified information' said in a threatening tone had a magic all their own. But certainly awkward, depending on the time and place.
"Send Günther along with the Eikon corpse and a copy of the documents you found in the partisan base. I will make sure Professor Gehrman is informed and ready for his arrival," said the Major. "Now, about Officer Jarnac …"
König tensed, hoping he wasn't about to be ordered to 'silence' the policewoman for seeing too much before leaving Parisee. He felt the weight of his superior's gaze, all the way from wherever she was at the moment. He wished he could be certain it was just his nerves, but between the communication spell and the Major's own … quirks, for all he knew a balance might actually have registered it.
"You will debrief her yourself," Major Degurechaff said at last. "Make sure she understands how important it is that she sticks to the cover story. The people of Parisee don't need to know there was an Eikon under their feet, and nobody needs to know what's hidden under Günther's skin. In addition, lean on her superiors to see if she can be assigned to your team while you're in Francois territory. From your description, she sounds like a useful asset, and you'll need all the help you can get."
"I will impress on her the importance of secrecy, Major," replied König, relieved.
"See that you do. And just so you know, König, I wouldn't ask you to kill her. I'm not a bloody barbarian."
"Of course not, Major," König lied through his teeth. "I never thought you were implying anything else."
"Cut it with the cheek, Lieutenant. As I said, this is a good start to your investigation, but it's only a start. Continue your work to track down De Lugo, Beauvais, and the remaining Eikons. Focus on the Archbishop : see if he'd any contacts that could have helped their flight through Francois. The smear campaign against De Lugo means he's less likely to call on his own contacts for help."
"Yes, ma'am. We are searching through Beauvais' correspondence tomorrow to see if there's anyone in particular he might have called upon for assistance."
"Stay in Parisee for now. I'll send you backup to replace Günther once I'm back to Castle Schwartzstein – you'll need muscle capable of taking down an Eikon, just in case. Now that we know the Puppen can go toe-to-toe with De Lugo's pet monsters, I'll ask Gehrman if he thinks one of the others is ready for deployment. If not, I'll think of something."
"Thank you, Major. We were lucky this time : the confined space kept the Eikon from flying off. I don't know how I'd have done alone against it in the air, even with the D-24."
"When I faced their leader in Arene, I could have taken him down with my own D-24, and he was the strongest we've seen yet," the Major waved off. "I'm sure you'd have figured something out. Still, there's no such thing as overkill or being overly prepared."
König chuckled nervously. He'd no doubt the Major could take on an Eikon with only the D-24. But there was only one Tanya Degurechaff in the Empire, and he wasn't arrogant enough to think himself her equal.
"I will endeavour to be worthy of your high opinion of me, ma'am."
"See that you do. Well, that's all from me. Contact me if anything else comes up. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, ma'am."
The projection faded from existence, and the atmosphere in the room returned to normal. König looked at the water dripping from the furniture as the frost melted and winced. He'd have to give a generous tip to the cleaning staff tomorrow, but even that wouldn't stop them from talking.
Oh well. It would just be another rumor circulating about Division Y. For now, it was time for a warm bath, hot food, a good drink, and a comfy bed. After all, Major Degurechaff's training had empathized the importance of seizing every opportunity for some rest and relaxation.
"The D-24 computation orb is the result of combining the early work of Division Y on Projekt D, [Denkmaschine], with the notes on orbal research that were sent to us following the tragic destruction of Elenium Labs. After months of research, several iterations of the design, and extensive testing, we finally assembled a finished product at the end of June.
Unlike every computation orb currently in use within the Empire (and, to the best of our knowledge, everywhere else in the world), the D-24 employs not one but two cores, using the miniaturization techniques developed by our dearly departed colleagues at Elenium Labs. The first of these cores is loaded with the standard arsenal of spells used by an aerial mage : flight, shield, body and mental enhancements, optic and explosion formulas, illusions, etc.
It is within the second core, however, that the true potential of the D-24 resides. Constructed and attuned according to the principles that created the Denkmaschine, this core is loaded with reconstructed Elder spells, selected for their usefulness in the field. A full list of those spells and their effects can be found in report D-24-584, although while every D-24 computation orb is loaded with the complete list, not all mages carrying one are capable of casting all of them.
Aside from these unique spells, the two cores also allow the computation orb to process double the mana at the same time, which lets the mage use spells at a much higher output than a single-core design, or to cast more spells at the same time. Dual-casting, the practice of running a spell's formula using two cores at once, is also possible. Due to the adjustments done on the Elder core even standard spells tend to have unique cosmetic alterations when cast in this manner, though their practical effects remain unchanged.
While the notes of Elenium Labs suggest that with enough core, mana fixation might become possible, the D-24 is not capable of such, meaning the mage is still restricted to their innate reserves of mana instead of being able to store more within the device itself for later use.
Through the Director's training, all mages with the required mana capacity assigned to Division Y have learned to use the D-24 computation orb, although none but the Director herself can claim to have mastered its full potential. The intensity of this training (more details on the training of Division Y's aerial mages can be found in report D-24-601) was enough for all available mages to reach the Director's standards of performance. Even a casual observation of that training, however, makes it clear that applying it to the rest of the aerial mage flight corps is impractical and unrealistic, unless the Director withdraws from her duties at Division Y and dedicates herself to becoming an instructor completely."
Excerpt from an internal memo at Castle Schwartzstein, August 4th, 1924.
AN : And the streak of chapters being written far quicker than should be possible continues. This chapter is a little different from the previous ones, because the muse decided I should have a group of people wander in the Parisean catacombs, and so here we are. I'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same.
I don't know if there actually is a passage from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame to the Parisian catacombs IRL, or even if the catacombs extend beneath it (probably not, if my quick wiki walk is to be believed). But this is the YS-verse, so if I want it to be the case, then it is. Because come on, how could I not have König's team investigate occult matters in Parisee and not explore the labyrinth of ancient bones stretching beneath the city's surface ?
According to the YS wiki, Wilibald Koenig is the full name according of one of the 203rd sub-commanders, which gives Willibald König once adjusted for correct German spelling. Do I regret having to add the umlaut every time I type his name ? Yes ! But I don't want my middle-school German teacher to be disappointed in me, so it's here to stay.
I trapped myself with the timeline, since I had already written the date of the investigation team's departure in an earlier chapter and Tanya had already left Castle Schwartzstein without (presumably) receiving their report. As a result, König had to pay the price of my mistake by spending several days drudging through hundreds of pages of ancient paperwork, the poor bastard. Although after going through Tanya's training, he probably considered it a welcome break. She might not have access to artillery for training mages purposes in this story, but she does have access to vampires.
Oh, and no, I didn't forget the complete overview of what Projekt P actually is in this chapter. Both König and Tanya know exactly what it is, of course, but you'll have to be satisfied with the cues I've scattered through the chapter for now. As for the D-24 dual core computation orb, a big thank you to the readers on SpaceBattles who gave me an overview of how orbal magic works in YS and just why dual-core technology is such a big advantage in canon.
I'm still considering where the story will go on the geopolitical scene from here, now that the Allied Kingdom is the only nation still at war with the Empire. I have several really cool "set pieces" I want to do, but I need to figure out a way to get there, and I'd rather avoid following exactly the same steps as in canon, especially since the story is already off the rails with De Lugo on the run without the Brest evacuation and the declaration of the Free Francois Republic in the colonies. If you have suggestions as to how the war could progress, please tell me in the comments ! You never know what random suggestion the muse will seize upon.
Zahariel out.