The sound of screaming had woken everyone up. While the closest were able to rush inside and hold down the recovering soldier, anyone who couldn't fit into the tiny room waited outside. As Keiren exited the tiny chamber, he came face to face with Trace, Keith, and Barret, who were silent, but clearly had heard every word. "He'll be fine, physically speaking. As for his mental health, I can only guess. Battle changes people, war changes people, but what he saw was a slaughter, a massacre."

"I don't blame him for being afraid." Trace commented. "I would be too. I've been there. We all have."

"A thousand." Barret stared at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. "Over a thousand Sentinels. We wouldn't be able to hold that back. Even those new weapons the Basitins have would do nothing against their outer armor, and even if it did, we've seen them keep going with parts missing. The first one we saw was missing it's tail, remember?"

"I do remember." Keith said, not sure if he should look back on that moment fondly or with a new sense of fear. "These… things can fight without growing tired, without knowing pain, without becoming exhausted. They don't bleed, they don't grow weary. They aren't alive, but they move and think like they are. They can fight forever, wearing down anyone who stands in their path."

"We can't fight them and the Templars at the same time." Keiren frowned and led the collection of people away from Fennel to let him rest. "The Wolf clans have backed off, but if they decide to fight against us again, we can't hold them back. We're outnumbered, outmatched, and outflanked.." For a long time, they stood there, just out of view of the soldier, unsure what else to say. Though questions swirled through their minds, there were still no answers. Trace's eyes traced the floor as they walked, his mind clearly hard at work, and eyes were drawn to him as he seemed to be formulating a plan.

"What… what if… what if we made allies?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Barret seemed appalled at the idea. "Make allies? You want to fight Sentinels with other Sentinels?"

"No! Not like that!" Trace quickly answered him, putting down that fear. He sighed as he sat down in the front room, everyone taking their place around the table. Barret wandered to the side, sitting away from the group, but still able to listen. "We need more allies, so let's find people who we can be allies with. The Templars just received a heavy blow to their forces, the Wolves have been placated, and the Tiger clans are growing restless. It might be time to change things. With how vulnerable they suddenly are, peace might be an actual option for the first time in almost a year."

"It might not be a bad idea." Eyes were drawn as Fennel walked out, leaning heavily on one of the Basitin doctors. "I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, so why bother trying? Anyways, it might be time to put aside the war. It's happened before, why not again?"

"What's happened before?" Fennel flinched as Barret spoke, clearly not having seen the Ishtaer when he walked out.

He was clearly unnerved by the shape of Barret, being so similar to that of a Sentinel, but he pushed through his discomfort as he took a place at the table in the main room. "I… I grew up under the shadow of Mount Tanji, I grew up hearing the stories, I grew up knowing the legends. I know that history from before the fall is… unreliable at best, but after the fall, there are plenty of books and stories. Once the city fell, the Nemurnalian influence began to shrink, and with a growing fear of the lizards, the human tribes that had once fought for generations united against a common enemy." He was so engrossed in telling his story, he didn't even notice Barret scowl at being called a lizard, and pressed on. "In only a few weeks, the weak and scattered humans became the most powerful and most feared force in the world, and we've been able to keep that power ever since by putting down any who would dare challenge us. The Templars might be a continuation of that power, but their origins are so closely guarded now that no one really knows. If we can convince people that there's a common enemy again, then they might rally to you."

"Why are you helping us?" Keith asked, scratching his head. "You're a Templar, aren't you?"

Fennel folded his arm and turned away, ashamed. "Look, I may wear the armor, but I followed their wallets. I was practically a mercenary. I don't care about their ideals or anything, I just wanted to get away from my home. I wanted to get away from Tanji. They offered both money and freedom, so of course I joined them. Can you really blame me?"

"Knowing what I know about the Sentinels and Mount Tanji? No." Trace was firm in his words, but remained stoic, keeping what he was feeling buried deep within him. "No, I can't. If I never see another Sentinel again, it would be too soon, but all I have to do is look beyond the walls. But I can confidently say that I would never turn back to the Templars. There are other solutions besides them."

Fennel raised an eyebrow as he looked at Trace. "I thought I recognized you. Trace Legacy. You've cause quite an uproar, especially since the wedding."

Trace pressed back against the chair, shocked. "How did you know about that? It was meant to be private!"

"I'm afraid that not much you do is private to the Templars. Ever since you got back from the Basidian Isles, Brahn has been trying to keep watch on you and your house, looking for opportunities and ways in, to little success."

"How do you know all this?" Keith's hand clenched into a fist, his tail twitching.

"I wasn't a high ranking Templar, if that's what you're asking. I just listen far better than most other people do, and hear things that I probably shouldn't have. When I was at the academy, some of my teachers and professors were rather careless with the information they talked about. Surprising, given the reputation of a few of them, but everyone makes mistakes." Fennel glanced at the window. The sun was going to rise soon. "Look, I know you don't trust me, and I don't trust you either. But I won't work against you. I joined the Templars to get out of Uian. I'll help you if it means staying away."

"If you really want to help," a voice said from outside the main door. Heads turned to see Telk and a white fox in a heavy smithing suit walk in holding a strange tool. "then you can tell us what this is." Telk walked over to the table and set on it a large device. The bottom looked like a crossbow, but there was some box attached to the top, with several gears and pulleys with a large lever on top. It was the thing Keith had picked up from the carnage of battle, having given it to their engineers to study.

"I've been trying to figure it out for a while now, and can't make heads or tails of it." the fox said. Even as he spoke, his hands reached for the gears, his fingers itching to keep working. "Perhaps you could shed some light for us?"

Fennel hesitated, clearly still wary about doing anything, but he reached for the machine. "It's a weapon. You really want to give me a weapon?"

Keiren rolled his eyes. "There's one of you against six of us in a confined space. On top of that, we have magic, and if that doesn't scare you, Telk certainly should. He's been here for several months, and I've never seen him lose a bout of sparring. You are right: I don't trust you much, but I do trust my people to watch my back and protect me should you try anything."

"Fair enough." Fennel picked up the weapon, holding it close as he inspected it. "It's a lever action repeating crossbow. We called it a Repeater*for short. You hold it like a normal crossbow, but you aim down the side of the chamber rather than over the top, and you rarely even want to aim beyond the first shot. After you fire, pull back on here and it drops the next bolt into place while it winds back the drawstring. Push it forward again and it's ready to fire. Simple, yet very effective."

"Fascinating!" The fox looked all over the mechanism as Fennel talked, his eyes wide and taking in every detail. "How do you put more bolts in? There's not a place to do that."

With a grunt, Fennel pulled the entire box backwards, and then lifted it off the crossbow. "You have to load them in the bottom, but that takes a while. Putting each one in would be far to taxing in the middle of battle, so we had a cart nearby with clips ready to go already. Put an empty one on the cart, grab a full one, and less than a minute later you have ten bolts ready to fire."

"Ten? You can fire ten times before reloading?" Keiren stared in disbelief. "How fast can you fire?"

"Most people can get a shot off every ten or so seconds, but my teacher managed to drain a whole clip in a minute."

"That would explain how you were able to keep up the assault so well after the first volley." Telk scratched his chin, his tactical mind hard at work.

"Sure, it's faster, but so many moving parts, surely there are drawbacks?"

Fennel frowned, very confused. "Who are you? Some sort of inventor?"

"Oh! Where are my manners? I'm Ptolmek, one of the Basidian scientists who has been studying this… repeater."

"Right… it does have drawbacks, you are right. For starters, it's range is much lower than a normal crossbow. The drawstring doesn't move as far back, sacrificing power for speed. It's also not as accurate and it's much harder to actually aim."

"But if we made these and loaded them onto all our crossbows, range wouldn't matter as much. We have the high ground on the walls." Keiren smiled, but Fennel shook his head.

"In theory, yes, but this isn't a normal crossbow either. It has to have these grooves here along the side to make sure the bolt slides into place properly, and the stock is much wider too. Even the bolts are a bit different: more… square than round. It helps them fit in the clip more easily and stops them from rolling around."

"Most interesting. I had not considered looking at the bolts being used." Ptolmek was still poking and prodding the repeater, pulling at the lever and gears gently. "This has been most helpful!"

"What about the weapons you used?" Fennel asked as he handed the weapon to the fox. "I heard that you used some sort of weapon that shot fire and smoke, but was Basidian make."

Silence fell across the room, and eyes darted between Keiren and Telk. It was eventually Telk who spoke. "They are weapons that use a chemical found naturally on our island. We have needed to make up for our lack of magic on the battlefield somehow, and we have used our minds to do so. Much like your repeater here, our rifles will change the way battles will be shaped. That, however, is all you need to know for now. Anything else is beyond even the ears of Trace, and will remain closely guarded until the time is right."

Smirking, Fennel leaned back in his seat. "That's fair. I figured I'd ask, and that's more than I actually expected you to tell me. Maybe once the war is done I'll be able to learn more."

"If there was a time to convince the Templars to end the fighting, it would be now." Trace said grimly. "I would expect Brahn to be far more open after such a loss." Fennel turned away, ashamed, but Trace continued "Don't feel like you have to be associated with them. You're not part of the Templars any more than I am. Besides, this was a loss for both sides. We don't revel in death and slaughter. Defend ourselves? Yes. But mercilessly slaughter fleeing assailants? That's wrong on so many levels."

"I still don't understand why the Sentinels were out here anyways." Barret said suddenly, causing everyone to jump. He had been silent as he listened from the corner, and they forgot he was even there. "Sorry. Why were they here? I know they wander all over the world, but there's never been any rhyme or reason to it. Why were they out here?"

"I don't know." Fennel frowned. "I've never known them to be out in numbers like that. Normally people report seeing one, maybe two at a time wandering around. Sometimes they go to the mountain to scavenge the ruins, but there's plenty that hide in the stone and rubble on the plains. You get ambushed and are practically already dead. Very few people return from the mountain, and no one wants to talk about it. But why they were here? I can't even guess."

Barret hunched over, pondering, when suddenly he was blinded by the sun streaming through the window. Laughing at his expense, Keith shook his head. "I'm going to go take a nap. Thank you for telling us all of this."

...

*Based on the Chinese weapon "Chu-Ko-Nu" or repeating crossbows, these weapons traded firepower for speed, and were generally better at short to medium range, and against larger targets such as cavalry or formations of soldiers.