PRIDE OF THE FRANCOIS NAVY SUNK BY ALLIED KINGDOM'S ATTACK !

Since the formal capitulation of our nation in its war against the Empire, the ships of the Republican Navy have sit in the military port of Brest. They had been gathered there in the last weeks of the conflict under the orders of the traitorous De Lugo, who it seems was planning to abandon the mainland and establish himself as military dictator of our colonies abroad should the Army be defeated on the Rhine, before being forced to shameful flight.

In accordance with the terms of surrender negotiated by our President, the ships were emptied of all but the most necessary maintenance crews, until such time as the Imperial Navy could formally take them over, and remained docked, while the sea-facing fortifications were occupied by the Imperial Army.

Then, yesterday at dawn, a fleet of the Allied Kingdom's Royal Navy launched an attack on the port of Brest. Squads of commandos sabotaged the guns of the forts watching over the docks, allowing the Albish ships to attack the docked ships of the Republican Navy with impunity. The Imperial aerial mages garrisoned at Brest immediately deployed in response, but they were too few, and while they put up a valiant effort and damaged several of the Kingdom's vessels severely, they couldn't prevent the near-total destruction of the Kingdom's targets. Dozens of vessels were sunk without firing a single shot in response. Due to the suddenness of the Albish attack, not all of their skeleton crews managed to escape, and over a hundred casualties have already been reported.

In his reaction speech, our President denounced this act, pointing how eager the Royal Navy was to strike at defenceless, Francois-built vessels, compared to their erstwhile timidity and reluctance to engage the Imperial Navy in open, honest battle on the seas they claim to rule …

Excerpt from the front page of La Flamme de Parisee, June 24th, 1925.

June 24th, 1925 – Imperial Capital Berun – Central Headquarters of the Imperial Army

"Well," said Brigadier General Rudersdorf, looking down at the reports spread out on the table before him. "This is a fine mess. I told you we should have moved those ships to our northern ports."

"And I told you that if we tried to do that, the Albish would simply attack and sink them on the way. Besides, we didn't actually lose that much," Zettour pointed out. "The reason these ships were so vulnerable in the first place is that the Imperial Navy didn't have enough sailors to crew them. We've lost the opportunity to use them in the future, yes, but the resentment of the Francois against the Allied Kingdom for this perfidy will make things smoother for us in the Republic. It's not like the Royal Navy came out unscathed either, and aside from their material losses, they'll have a much harder time getting the Republican exiles to work with them now."

In fact, Zettour fully expected some of the Francois vessels that had left Brest for Londinium to depart the Albish capital when the news reached them, even if they had to shoot their way out. They would probably make for the Republican colonies on the Southern Continent, where the military governors continued to only pay lip service to the President in Parisee and more or less reigned as ancient feudal kings. There were plans in the work to bring them in line, but there were plenty of problems with fighting a war across the Inner Sea, and it had been decided it would be best if the Francois President was the one to ask the Empire for aid – something he had yet to do, instead continuing his efforts to bring the colonial generals in line through diplomacy.

They could have pushed the man around, of course, but so far he had been surprisingly cooperative with the occupation, blaming the Republic's defeat on De Lugo to avoid public opinion turning on him (which was actually fair play, given the Francois General had been in charge of the Republic's armies). Thank to this, the Francois had begun to grudgingly accept their present circumstances, if only by virtue of pushing all the blame for starting and losing the war on De Lugo (conveniently forgetting they had overwhelmingly supported the surprise invasion of the Rhine when the Republic had joined the war, but Zettour was willing to let that slide in exchange for peace of mind).

And the Francois President was also already shaken enough by the news that there were still three Eikons at large within his country, and that they seemed to be capable of inspiring fanatical devotion within ordinary citizens if given enough time (after discussing the issue with Degurechaff, Zettour had allowed her team in Parisee to brief the President on some of what they had learned so far). The last thing they needed was for him to die of a heart attack caused by stress, because it was guaranteed they'd get blamed for his death if it happened.

"But without the combined might of our fleet and these captured ships, any plan to land troops on Albion itself becomes so much pie in the sky," continued Rudersdorf.

"I'm not convinced launching an invasion of the Kingdom's mainland would be in the interests of the Reich in any case, my friend," replied Zettour. "Logistical issues aside – and let me tell you, keeping an army supplied across the channel would be a nightmare in itself – it might just be enough to convince the Unified States to come to their cousins' aid."

And that would be a disaster. For now, popular opinion in the States was divided, with the vast majority not feeling inclined to send their sons and husbands to die in what they saw as a strictly Europan matter. That might change if they felt the homes of their relatives in Albion were directly threatened, and then the full industrial might of a country bigger than the entire Old Continent put together would aim itself at the Empire.

Even then, they might still win, but that would require deploying the Wunderwaffen on an unprecedented scale in order to force the other side to the negotiating table. Apart from the human cost of such a course of action, it would also tar the Empire's international image, perhaps irremediably so. Therefore, the best strategy for the Empire was to force an Albish surrender before the Unified States found themselves dragged into the war whether they wanted to or not. After all, Zettour didn't doubt for a moment that the Foreign Office of the Allied Kingdom was working feverishly to convince the Americans to throw their full support behind Albion's cause in the war.

"Then how are we supposed to deal with the Albish and end the war ?" asked Rudersdorf.

"Diplomacy ?" Zettour suggested drily. "Unlike what happened with the Entente and the Republic, neither of us have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to each other's guns yet. So long as the Kingdom apologizes for striking the first blow on the Rhine and makes appropriate reparations, there shouldn't be too much public discontent over ending hostilities before they escalate."

"That's all very good in theory, Zettour, but you might as well as for the Crown Jewels while you are at it. You know damn well the Kingdom will never admit fault. Have you seen the sort of nonsense their propaganda is claiming these days ? As far as the average rube in Londinium is concerned, we are evil, mustache-twirling villains hell-bent on crushing the entire world under our heels."

Zettour knew that his colleague was smart enough to understand that a certain degree of hypocrisy was inevitable when it came to nations pursuing their interests, but he could also understand why Rudersdorf wanted to grumble about it. The Empire had its own propaganda, of course, but it wasn't anywhere near as obvious and bald-faced as the Allied Kingdom's.

Then again, Zettour had to admit, so far the Empire was winning. If the tides of the war were to turn against them, he had no doubt the Imperial propagandists wouldn't take long to descend to the same level as their Albish counterparts.

"We can hold against the Kingdom more or less indefinitely," continued Rudersdorf. "Their blockade is hurting our industry, but we have conquered enough territories that we can keep it supplied, and the Francois farmlands will help avoid a famine so long as we are careful with rationing, and maybe put the Francois POWs to work; God knows there are plenty of conscripted peasants among them. But just holding the line isn't good enough, Zettour. They can draw on their colonial empire for resources and manpower, and if we actively try to cut them off we'll end up sinking an American ship at some point, no matter how careful our captains are. We need something else, something to convince the Albish that fighting us isn't in their best interests and giving up is the best option."

He gave Zettour a pointed look, and the other man sighed.

"It has barely been a month since the Republic surrendered," he bemoaned. "Are we really that pitiful that we need to call on Division Y for help already ?"

"We have other options," admitted Rudersdorf. "We could stir trouble in the Albish colonies, for a start. They have never been kind rulers, and we did just get our hands on a whole lot of Republican military equipment. But our analysts tell me that sort of things could escalate out of control quickly, and might cement the Allied Kingdom's determination to beat us no matter what. We could try to cut them off their Eastern holdings by making a play for the Canal. Or we can wait while our Navy builds up its strength using the shipyards of the Entente and the Republic along with ours and make a push for Albion then, or focus on aerial bombardment of their industrial capacity to cripple them. But the more I look at this, Zettour, the more I think that using the Wunderwaffen may be the quickest and surest solution to this problem, and as an officer of the Empire, that means I have to consider it, even if it means swallowing my pride and asking for the help of a little girl and her pet monsters."

Rudersdorf expression sobered. "You saw the casualty counts of the Rhine and Northern fronts, my friend. If there is a way to avoid a repeat by knocking the Kingdom out quickly, then we owe it to the soldiers under our command to take it. They fought and died because they trusted us to do what was best for the Reich."

For a moment, Zettour saw it in his old friend's eyes : the same look of overwhelming grief and horror that he saw in his own reflection sometimes, when the hour was late and the weight of his responsibilities became almost too much to bear. And he understood where Rudersdorf was coming from, he truly did, but the other General didn't know as much as him about the Projekte still slumbering within Castle Schwartzstein. Zettour had no desire for the Empire to win the Great War, only to find itself master of a world of ruins and corpses.

And yet, at the same time, war was plenty horrible without the Wunderwaffen already. It all came down to a grotesque calculus of human suffering, and Zettour could feel it grinding away at his soul every time he made a decision one way or the other.

"I will send a request for information on potential uses of the Projekte to break the deadlock," he eventually gave in. "I'm sure the Major has already been working on that problem, so we'll see what she proposes."

"That's all I ask," said Rudersdorf with a smile. "She was in Legadonia when all that unpleasantness with the partisans went down, wasn't she ?"

In the days since that first wave of attacks, Legadonia had remained tense, waiting for the next one. There had been a handful of isolated incidents, but nothing like the coordinated wave that had targeted all symbols of the Imperial presence in the defeated Entente's territory.

"She was," Zettour confirmed. "She even got involved in one of the attacks on the mage POWs : ended up saving the victim's life, if you can believe it. She asked for permission to bring them back to the mainland for safety, and I authorized it."

"It feels strange to hear that she cared that much about an enemy prisoner," mused Rudersdorf. "She seemed as cold-blooded as any veteran when we were planning the Osfjord operation."

"Major Degurechaff is a complicated human being, that much I know for certain," replied Zettour. "She may a genius mage and manager, but there's still a child's heart in there somewhere, I reckon."

After all, she'd been the one to reach out to him, asking for permission to expand the numbers of Projekt W and for the corresponding increase in resources. Oh, she had couched her proposal in terms of 'making the best use of the Empire's human resources', but it was telling that she'd been willing to make the extra effort just to give the Imperial soldiers crippled in the war a shot at salvation. Zettour had accepted, of course : apart from the humanitarian concerns, the campaign of the Rhine had more than adequately demonstrated how useful the Werwölfe could be.

Come to think of it … Hmm. He would have to spend some time considering the possibility of a squadron of submarines delivering a contingent of Werwölfe to Albion to act as commandos. Bringing them in would be dangerous, and they would effectively be trapped afterwards, but they could accomplish objectives far beyond what the same number of even the most elite unaugmented soldiers could ever hope to achieve.

If nothing else, seeing how Albion's propaganda handled having the Devils of the Rhine loose in its own backyard would make for entertaining reading. It was certainly something to think about.

"Today, the agents of Division Y finally left the hospital. They took with them fourteen of our worst cases, soldiers who survived the Rhine Front by nothing less than miracles, but whose days are still numbered despite our best efforts.

For the last week, they moved in the hospital like grim-faced choosers of the slain, reading the patients' medical files and having quiet conversations with those still capable of speech. I have heard from friends in other hospitals that the same thing has happened there : in total, dozens of crippled and dying soldiers have been discreetly taken from their resting places and carried off.

Where are they taking them ? Everyone I asked was either unwilling or unable to answer my questions, and I find this unacceptable. These men bled and suffered for the Reich. We owe them whatever care we can provide, and if we cannot heal them then we owe them as dignified and painless a death as possible. All I have been told is that they have been selected to undergo some kind of new, confidential magical healing procedure. If that is true, then great, but why all the secrecy then ? There must be something more going on.

I know the importance of the work Division Y has done for the Empire, of course. I saw for myself how the flow of wounded lessened when they were deployed on the Rhine Front and their Wunderwaffen took the vanguard, even if I cannot help but think of the unfortunate Francois soldiers who faced them in the trenches. But I swore an oath to care for all my patients, and all this cloak-and-dagger business sits ill with me."

From the journal of an Imperial Army doctor, June 1925.

He is blind, and he is dying.

A piece of shrapnel took his eyes, at the same time another lodged itself in his spine. He cannot feel anything below the waist, and he knows from the whispers of the nurses and the stench of his own rotting flesh that this is a mercy. What he can still feel is filled with pain, but that is nothing compared to the knowledge that he will never see his daughter again; that she will grow up without a father, with only a few photographs and her mother's stories about him.

And so, when the man asks him if he is willing to risk what little remains of his life for a chance at healing, he accepts without hesitation. He has heard the rumors, after all : soldiers whispering that they recognize the mage-hunters of Division Y from Imperial mages who died on the Rhine, or the Werwölfe from cripples sent to the rear. Nothing substantiated, of course, but enough for him to desperately cling to hope.

There is training, and preparation. Days and days of waiting, being made to exercise what little muscle he has left, eating food that tastes awful but is supposed to strengthen him for what is to come. He can sense the tension in the air. Whatever they are going to do, it is dangerous and they all know it.

Then the time comes, and he is taken off his medication and brought outside. The stench of his lower body is almost unbearable. He can feel his heart weakening with every beat as his flesh struggles valiantly to endure despite the certainty of his demise.

He should already be dead. It is a testament to the strength of his caretakers' will that he has survived this long.

He hears chanting, and then there is pain. He sees without eyes, feels with his rotten limbs. He sees what lies beyond, in all its horrific glory.

It is too much. Too much. He cannot bear it. He wants to turn away, even if he knows that it will mean his death –

No.

No.

He will not die here.

This is the trial he was warned about, and he will not fail it. Even as the cosmic immensity of what he beholds threatens to unmake him, he focuses on the mental image of what truly matters : the sight of his wife, laying in bed and handing him their daughter, the most beautiful baby in the world.

The pain doesn't matter. The horror, the shock, the impossible things he is experiencing, none of them matter. He refuses to give up.

He will see his daughter again.

HE WILL SEE HIS DAUGHTER AGAIN.

The pain bursts into a star of white-hot agony, and still he refuses to give in. Something vast pushes around and inside him, but he does not break, does not relent. He is who he is what he is – a soldier, a husband, a father – and he will not let this break him.

And then the pain stops, replaced by a feeling of strength and acceptance. He knows, in that moment, that he will never be as he was before, but that he is still himself in all the ways that matter.

He stands, finding that he can do so now. He can move. He can walk. He doesn't hurt anymore.

And he can see again. Oh, but he can see. The light of the full moon and the stars is revealed to him in colors he didn't know existed, and he watches, mesmerized, the beauty of the night sky unfold before his new eyes.

He feels four wings stretch from his back, buzzing gently in the breeze. Wings ? The Werwölfe don't have wings, do they ?

"Well, well, well. What do we have here ?"

He looks down from the heavens, and sees a child standing before him. She looks so small, far too small to be wearing her custom-made military uniform. But before he can wonder why she is here, he sees through the sunglasses she wears despite it being night, his new vision piercing right through them, and he sees the swirling sea of stars that shines within her eyes, no less beautiful than the ones above.

The part of him that wasn't there before recognizes those eyes. He feels … not fear, no. Not affection either. The closest he can come to describing it is the respect he had for those higher than him in the chain of command, except this child is just a Major according to her insignia.

"You are a new one," she says thoughtfully. "We knew it was possible for the Rite of Union to result in something else, but this … Go back to your human form so we can check nothing went wrong."

He instinctively obeys before he can think he doesn't know how to do that, and stumbles on the ground, feeling the cold night air against his skin. He looks at his hands, at his lower body. He is naked but for the symbols painted on his skin, but there is no trace of the wounds that doomed him to a slow, lingering death.

He has done it, he thinks dumbly. He is alive. He is healed.

Maximilian Johann von Uger falls to his knees before the star-eyed girl, and weeps in joy and relief.

August 12th, 1925 – Castle Schwartzstein

Sitting at my desk, I looked upon the final reports of our three-nights operation and its aftermath, and sighed. One hundred and forty-seven candidates, and we had only managed to get fifty successes. I had hoped our occultists would get better with practice, but I supposed there had to be a limit to how well we could do with candidates who were either crippled, dying beyond the ability of Imperial medicine to save, or both.

Over the full moon nights of August 3rd, 4th and 5th, we had been able to perform the scaled-up version of the Rite of Union the Denkmaschine had designed seven times each night, with each casting involving seven candidates and thrice that number of occultists performing the ritual. I had been on watch the entire time, with my D-24 in hand and a new dose of Kosmosblut in my pocket, just in case something else that the symbionts that fused with the candidates to create new Werwölfe showed up. I hadn't needed to use that particular contingency, but I still had been forced to put down several nameless horrors that had arisen from the ruined corpses of those who'd failed the Rite most gravely.

I consoled myself with the thought that none of the men who had undergone the Rite of Union would have lived long anyway, but there was still a difference between dying in your hospital bed from war injuries and being torn to pieces by failing to survive the process that made new instances of Projekt W.

Of the fifty successes, twenty-four had been of the same type we'd gotten before, now nicknamed 'Phantom'. These would be the easiest to train, as we already knew a lot about their capabilities and had more experienced ones available to show them the ropes. For the rest, however, we had spent the last week exploring the supernatural abilities of their new forms.

The next largest group was nineteen members of what we were calling the 'Mirage' type, due to their ability to constantly appear to be just a meter or so away from where they looked to be. A pair of razor-tipped retractable tentacles emerged from their shoulder blades, they could fire beams of light that resembled the standard attack optic spells of an aerial mage, and in a pinch, they could conjure illusory copies of themselves and 'shuffle' their own position among them, perfect to escape or to regain the advantage in a difficult battle. They had silver-blue, gleaming skin, and two pairs of small eyes stared from a neckless head set deep between their broad, spiked shoulders.

The Phantoms and Mirages had been tentatively classified as 'Multi-purpose Battle Werwolf' : we could deploy them on their own against pretty much any land-bound foe, or in support of the Imperial Army as we'd done on the Rhine, and expect great results. The remaining three categories, however, were very different.

Five candidates had survived to become 'Spectres', and their abilities were seemingly designed for black ops work. They looked like edgy dark knights, except their armor was alive and part of them. Their touch was imbued with a supernatural freezing effect and they could summon a cloud of withering gas at will, against which gas masks and protective suits were no defence and which blocked vision for everyone but themselves and their kindred. That much was already terrifying, but the kicker was their ability to phase through solid matter like, well, specters. They could only do it for a few minutes before needing to recover, it didn't protect them from fast-moving objects like, say, bullets, and they were instinctively certain that trying to rematerialize inside a solid object would be a very, very bad idea unless they went in prepared to rend the object (or person) in question to shreds from within. Still, the possibilities for wet work were endless.

And then there were the unique cases, of which there were two. Colonel Uger, the highest-ranking soldier selected to join the Projekt, was one of them, having become a Whisper-type Werwolf (so named because of the soft sound of his wings in motion), and the only one capable of unaided flight, albeit far slower than an aerial mage (only slightly above 90 kilometers per hour). His powers were incredibly suited for reconnaissance. Not only did he have thermal and x-ray vision, he could hear a mouse running in a field and even pick up radio signals. His transformed form had four arms, a pair of truly massive ones that could generate fleshy whips, and a pair of smaller ones ending in three-fingered hands that could carry things even as he flew. He could generate the mystical equivalent of a flashbang grenade from his torso on demand (which did nothing to his own senses), and could overload his wings to perform what I could only describe as a flying drill attack that shredded anything in its path.

The last remaining category was the Echo, named after his ability to use echolocation like a dolphin's sonar. The best way I could describe the one Echo we now had in our ranks was as a nightmarish cross between a crocodile and a white shark standing up on two legs. We had taken him to the lake, and he had demonstrated that, even if he was perfectly capable of violence on land thanks to his powerful arms and even more powerful bite, it was in the water that his full potential resided. He could swim at incredible speed, breathe underwater without problem, and the beams of greenish energy he could fire at will passed through water unimpeded. I could already see the Imperial Admirals salivating, although with just one of them, the best option was probably to keep him in reserve or assign him to mixed groups with a variety of skills.

All in all, the tactical possibilities presented by the new types of Werwolf were mind-boggling, and I had no doubt we would come up with many use for them in the coming days, although I had a hard time imagining we'd achieve the same kind of strategic advantage Projekt W had given the Empire on the Rhine Front again. Still, having more Werwölfe opened new options just by itself, even without the added bells and whistles.

Of course, I thought ruefully and with a self-deprecating smile at my own greed, if we had gotten more Echoes, then the latest request from Central Headquarters would have been much easier to answer. I had hoped we'd have more time before the Army came to us for help, and yet, here we were : with another letter from General Zettour requesting Division Y's help in breaking the current deadlock between the Empire and the Allied Kingdom. At least he was only asking for proposals for now, but I knew that, despite the letter's polite tone, the pressure would swiftly increase if I didn't send him back something soon.

Fortunately, I hadn't twiddled my thumbs since returning from Legadonia. Preparing the scaled-up Rite of Union and procuring the candidates had only occupied a fraction of my time, though making the whole thing work for the three nights of the full moon had required nearly every occultist on payroll to chip in.

"Visha," I told my faithful assistant, "please inform the researchers of Projekt S that their request for testing has been approved. We'll begin small-scale operation as soon as they are ready, with a view to deploy the Projekt tactically."

"Yes, ma'am. Is this about General Zettour's letter ?"

"Exactly."

Projekt S was our best option to break the Albish deadlock. It had the most strategic use (seriously, if we could get it to work reliably, it would change the face of warfare all on its own) and possibly the least potential to go horribly wrong (although a good propagandist could certainly use it to stoke fear of the Empire, if not in quite the same way as the Projekte we'd already deployed).

It would still take some time before we knew if it would work. And until then, I planned to do some of the work that would be needed if the supersoldiers of Division Y (and myself as their commanding officer) were to have any hope of ever reintegrating civilian society.

August 19th, 1925 – Imperial Capital Berun – Central Headquarters of the Imperial Army

Colonel Eric von Lergen felt a familiar pain in his stomach as he looked at the proposal laying on his desk. It had been sent by Major Degurechaff herself, and it wasn't what he'd expected to come from Castle Schwartzstein.

It was a series of two-sided posters, with the left one showing a photograph of a wounded soldier (nothing too horrifying was visible, of course, thanks to some carefully arranged blankets and bandages), and the right one showing that same soldier completely recovered, reuniting with his family or enjoying some of the more pleasurable activities of life. Under the pictures was the slogan 'Division Y : Pushing the boundaries of magical healing for the good of the common soldier'.

The rest of the proposal detailed a plan to plaster copies of these posters in Imperial and occupied territory. Lergen didn't have a problem with the proposal itself. He knew from personal experience that, while the Werwölfe were utterly terrifying and capable of rending a man limb from limb in the blink of an eye, they were still Imperial soldiers, and really, not that much more dangerous than an aerial mage with a computation orb if you thought about it.

He still seriously doubted the Projekt would ever be used for purely medical purposes : there was just no way any society would feel comfortable about giving civilians the power to turn into terrifying beings capable of destroying tanks just to heal their injuries. But anything to make the supersoldiers of Division Y seem less like living Wunderwaffen and more like people could only be a good thing.

For one thing, it diminished the chances of panicked mobs rushing into Central Headquarters to kill everyone inside as apostles of Hell. Which was unlikely, yes, but not impossible if the people started to believe the wrong things.

But why had the proposal been sent to him for consideration in the first place ? Shouldn't General Zettour, as the patron of Division Y among the Imperial Army's top brass, be the one to decide whether to approve this for publication or not ?

A nasty suspicion began to form in his mind. He'd told Zettour about his confrontation with the Albish colonel in details upon his return from the Rhine front, including Sergeant Barchet's speculations as to how the Allied Kingdom might interpret it. Given the mounting evidence that the Kingdom had breached the Empire's security and was furiously investigating Division Y and the Wunderwaffen, was General Zettour playing on their misconceptions as to Lergen's own role with Degurechaff's organization in order to throw the Albish spies off-track ?

On the one hand, he didn't appreciate being used as bait. On the other hand, anything that kept the Allied Kingdom from learning the secrets of Division Y was an objectively good thing for the Empire, and perhaps the entire world. On the other other hand, he really, really didn't want to get involved with Division Y and Degurechaff's kind of genius insanity if he could help it.

He sighed. He really could use a stiff drink right now, even if it was still early in the day. Unfortunately, his doctor had strongly but respectfully (in that way military doctors were very good at when talking to someone as high-ranked as Lergen) recommanded him to cut down on his alcoholic consumption until his stomach ulcer had time to heal.

He marked the forms with an approval stamp, signed them, and prepared them for shipping to the Office of Propaganda. With any luck, he was just being paranoid and General Zettour was just too busy with his many other duties to handle that seemingly minor request from Degurechaff.

… and if he told himself that enough times, maybe he would believe it, too.

AN : A bit of a shorter chapter, but you got it in two days, so complainers will be sacrificed to the Muse.

Also, if you want to know what the new Werwolf types look like, google "Cthulhu Tech Tager lineup", or hop over on SpaceBattles, where I have put images inside this chapter's equivalent. Now onto the story.

Yes, I gave Uger a bonus on his roll to survive the Rite of Union thanks to the Power of Love. Based on the original CthuluTech lore for the Tagers, I am pretty sure it would work (although characters in that game START play as Tagers, and I don't think there are rules for becoming one later during the campaign). Also, I kept being haunted by the thought that without Tanya to send him to a nice, safe posting in logistics, he would most definitely end up on the frontlines, where his character would not be best suited to his survival. And his character is a walking ball of decency and competence in the LN, so there : one small miracle amidst the horrors of total war, paid for in magic, mystical reagants and blood.

For those interested, here are the summoning rates for Tager creation, from the source material Ancient Enemies :

Common (Mirage, Phantom) : 80%

Specialist (Echo, Shadow, Spectre, Whisper) : 17%

Exceptional (Nightmare, Vampire) : 2%

Rare (Efreet, Widow) : 1%

So basically, Tanya rolled the gacha 50 times and didn't get any rare or exceptionnal pulls. Out of story, of course, the reason is that I don't want to introduce such powerful Werwolf sub-types into the story yet. In-story, well, with 3% odds of getting one of the two upper categories for every successful transformation, my quick-and-dirty math tells me that is rather unlikely ((97/100)^50, giving 21% odds of not getting a single one, which isn't impossible, but still), so I am going to say that the above percentages were fudged by the fact every subject was in less-than-optimal physical condition, which might be required to survive union with the more powerful symbionts. Essentially, the rare pulls ended up killing the host instead. Or maybe those symbionts are a bit too alien and/or brutal for the mind of an early XXth-century soldier to willingly fuse with, as opposed to someone living through the Aeon War.

Or maybe Tanya just has terrible gacha luck. That's certainly also an option.

As for the fifty who made it through, I decided to delegate that to a dice simulator (D100, 40% Phantom, 40% Mirage, and 5% each for Echo, Shadow, Spectre and Whisper). I was lucky to end up with just one Whisper, which was the type I wanted Uger to be. No Shadow at all, but 5 Spectres isn't bad.

The 1/3 survival rate is based on the only solid figure I could find in the source material. When the Rite of Union was used for the first time, 2 out of 6 participants survived. Of course, that's far too small a sample to get any reliable data out of, and they refined the selection and training process afterwards but I'm also assuming using crippled soldiers who have only gone through a month of preparations while mostly being drugged out of their minds on painkillers isn't exactly good for their success chances. Whether making them the offer is a good, humane and/or ethical thing to do knowing they'll either completely recover (including the eldritch equivalent of a miracle cure for PTSD, as the eldritch symbiont alters the mind of the host enough that they are no longer traumatized by what happened to them) or be horribly eaten alive by something from beyond, I leave as an exercise to the reader.

In Uger's position, knowing it was the strength of your will that would determine the outcome, what would you have chosen ?

Also, I hadn't planned on König and his team visiting the Francois President to tell him about the Eikons' mind-warping ability, but it slipped into the text and now I really want someone to write an Omake of König at the not!Palais de l'Elysée terrifying the Francois President with his casual attitude as he describes the horrific possibilities lurking in Francois' future.

Finally, does anyone have a suggestion for a name I could use for Not!Egypt ? So far it has only been referred to by Merlin as The Land of the Pyramids, but somehow I doubt I could justify having that written on a map. And yes, this question does mean the action will move to the Southern Continent pretty soon.

Alright, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to your reactions and suggestions.

Zahariel out.