"We have concluded our biological and magical analysis of Major Degurechaff following her use of serum 42-E during the Arene Incident (see document XIAN-9 for her full report as well as collated speculation on the nature and consequences of the 'Eclipsed Liberation' event). For now, it is our belief that the Major remain uncompromised as per the guidelines she laid down after her assumption of command, and suitable to continue operating as the Director of Division Y for the foreseeable future. As an added precaution, Lieutenant Serebryakov will remain at her side and inform the rest of the Division of any further development she notices.
The changes to the Director's biology appear to have stabilized, which implies that they'll be permanent. Despite their new appearance, her eyes remain able to see her surroundings as well if not better than before, with our tests revealing that she can now see light frequencies the human eye is unable to perceive. The mental contamination of her gaze has also been tested on volunteers from the Division's staff and some of the more unwilling subjects we keep in the dungeons : the former appear to be largely unaffected, but the latter have experienced mental breakdowns as a result of exposure, begging for forgiveness and a chance to atone for the crimes that led them to their present circumstances. While there certainly are applications to this, the Director herself has terminated that line of research, citing 'overriding ethical concerns'.
We have commissioned the workshops to build some sunglasses-equivalent that will block the effect without impairing her vision, although finding the correct prescription, so to speak, is expected to take some time. She has elected to continue using a blindfold in the meantime, except in private : the guards assigned to her office have been reminded to not let anyone in without appropriate warning so that she has time to replace the blindfold.
In addition, the production of new doses of serum 42-E, now reclassified as 'Kosmosblut' at the Director's suggestion, has already begun for further testing and use in extremis, although the Director has made it clear that testing on individuals other than herself is forbidden for the time being, until a better understanding of long-term side effects is obtained."
Excerpt from an internal memo at Castle Schwartzstein, May 11th, 1925.
From : Colonel Eric von Lergen
To : Brigadier General Hans von Zettour
Subject : The Rhine Front
Date : May 12th, 1925
Brigadier General,
Preparations continue as planned. Despite my initial fears, Projekte U and W have remained under control in the Major's absence. The consolidation of our existing defensive lines is going well, and the repairs of the Arene railway hub are almost complete, allowing for a suitable stockpiling of the necessary supplies. If nothing goes wrong, we will be able to enact Operation Shock & Awe on the schedule initially proposed.
Though I must repeat my personal doubts on the wisdom of this course of action, I am ready to deploy Projekt V as part of the Operation. We have taken all possible measures to ensure its success. The officers of the Western Army have also been cooperative in laying down the groundwork : I would like to formally commend them and the troops under their command for holding the line that long. There have also been no notable issues in regard to the deployment of the Wunderwaffen in the trenches alongside the soldiers, although I would like to ask again that special attention be given to the psychological care of our veterans once this war is finally over.
War is never kind, of course, but the Rhine Front is especially cruel. Winning the war only to lose the peace would be a poor jest indeed.
For the Fatherland.
From : Major Tanya Degurechaff
To : Colonel Eric von Lergen
Subject : Response to the Eikon threat
Date : May 20th, 1925
Colonel,
Our investigation into the specimens procured at Arene has concluded. While the details are too sensitive to send over telegram, we have determined that, should the Republic prove able to deploy the Eikons in significant numbers, they would pose a grave threat to the Rhine Front. Aerial mages should only engage them if absolutely necessary, with the knowledge that victory is highly unlikely unless they manage to use superior numbers and flawless teamwork to land strikes at maximum power – nothing else will pass through the Eikons' defenses. And while the Eikons showed a poor grasp of tactics during their first deployment, we cannot assume that this will remain the case.
Our calculations have shown that even instances of Projekt U would need superior numbers and to fight at maximum potency to be able to prevail, since the Eikons are likely to be able to detect them despite their stealth capabilities. Therefore, to avoid a severe reverse of the situation on the Rhine Front, I have dispatched a package that should reach you within a few days of this message.
Within that package are the fruits of our latest advancements regarding Projekt U, which should give the instances deployed under your command better odds against the Eikons. Additional instructions and recommendations are included within the package, but I want to emphasize that, unless the situation absolutely demands it, you shouldn't use its contents. I trust you will make the correct decision should the need arise.
Finally, though it may be overstepping my bonds, the package will be accompanied by a bodyguard I have arranged for you personally. Your continued survival will be essential to the successful coordination of Division Y with the rest of the Imperial Army in the Rhine, and the risk of an attempted decapitating strike by Republican forces as well as 'unidentified strike teams' exists. I apologize for the presumption, but to be perfectly frank I'd rather you be angry at me than dead.
For the Fatherland.
"The first and most obvious conclusion we can draw from our study of the Eikon corpses brought from Arene is that the transformation does not revert upon death. That is assuming, of course, that the Eikons were humans at some point, but our investigation quickly confirmed that. Inquiries made to Imperial Intelligence have revealed that 'Severin Vianto' was a known Republican aerial mage, and analysis of his recorded mana signature has shown similarities to the one recorded by the Director's own computing orb, confirming the identity of the lead Eikon involved in the Arene attack. The alterations to this signature were, however, significant, both in how much more powerful it was at Arene than in previous engagements as well as in other, subtler ways.
The mental deterioration mentioned by the Director also seems confirmed by Intelligence's reports that, as a leader of the Republic's Special Operation branch, Vianto was known to be an effective tactician, unlikely to make the mistakes described in document XIAN-9. Given that all specimens exhibit the same deviations from the human norm and acted in total unison during the Eclipsed Liberation, this deterioration does not seem to be accidental but is instead an unavoidable side-effect of the process. Studying the brains of the specimens unveiled obvious changes, though just as for the rest of the Eikon body, there were no sign of any surgery.
On average, Eikons are two hundred and sixty-two point seven centimeters tall and weigh around two hundred kilograms (due to the damaged state of the specimens, getting a more precise number was impossible). The armor they appear to wear is in truth fused to their body, and will not even be dented by anything short of a high-caliber round, or a comparably powerful attack spell, a property that it retains in death.
Tissue analysis has revealed a much higher capacity to channel mana than any human mage, and study of their recovered weapons revealed the absence of any computing orb or equivalent, meaning that they were able to cast the flight and attack spells they displayed without the support of orbal technology. While there exist records of magicians being able to perform such feats before the invention of the computing orb, the existence of an entire group of such individuals in the Francois Republic having gone unnoticed for so long is highly improbable to say the least – and does not account for the other physical alterations. Elder magic, or something equivalent, is thus the most likely answer, although where the Francois got their hands on it is beyond the immediate scope of this report.
Research into a mean to revert an Eikon into their original human state, undoing the effects of the Elder magic that transformed them, is ongoing. While such a thing might seem impossible, anyone who has worked in Division Y long enough will know that what we instinctively think impossible rarely is in actuality : it is simply a matter of finding the correct way to break the boundaries of our knowledge and apply what lies beyond. Still, it is expected to take a considerable amount of time, but to paraphrase the Director, we need to be prepared in case the Eikons turn out to be only the heralds of something much worse.
At the moment, our most promising avenue of research is to use specifically tuned magical devices to cancel out the Elder energies …"
Excerpt from the Eikon dissection report of Division Y, submitted on May 19th, 1925.
May 25th, 1925 – Francois Rhine Front Military Headquarters
Elya, also known as Agent E of the Imperial Military Intelligence Office, walked straight through the side entrance of the fortress from which Francois high command oversaw the Rhine Front. She nodded to the Republican guards on both sides and flashed them her credentials, fast enough that they didn't have the time to really see what was written on it, but long enough not to make it seem suspicious. It was a delicate balancing act, but one she had plenty of experience with, and plenty of assistance selling.
After all, as far as they could tell, she was one of the many aides assigned to the generals presently stationed within the fortress, returning from the nearby village with a box of fresh food and a bottle of wine requisitioned from the markets there, something that happened frequently as the situation on the front lines deteriorated and even the blue-blooded rear officers found it difficult to justify using the Army's logistics for luxury items. Her uniform was completely authentic, and a carefully-wrought illusion spell gave her the look of a Francois male with the kind of good breeding that led to being assigned to the safety of the rear.
"Aren't you coming back a bit late ?" asked one of them, more out of curiosity than suspicion. It was a reasonable question : the sun had set over two hours ago.
"My bicycle broke down halfway back," she said with a long-suffering sigh. There was a pool of the vehicles kept on the base for various purposes, and an errand like the one she was supposedly returning from definitely fit. "I had to walk the rest of the way after I made sure the damn bottles weren't damaged."
They waved her in with a chuckle and resumed their watch. Really, she didn't need to put in that degree of effort : she was just a perfectionist. Well, that, and when you knew your life depended on your work, you tended to be willing to put in the extra effort, just to be sure.
In this case, however, the moment the sun had set over the horizon, everyone's attention had focused on the sky, not the ground. The Francois generals lived in terror of a nocturnal raid by the stealth mages who had brought Legadonia down and were tearing through the Republic's mage corps with wild abandon since their arrival to the Rhine Front. They had kept their activities to the frontline so far, yes, but then the Entente commanders had thought the Osfjord was safe too – until it wasn't.
From what Elya had been able to determine, there were two entire mage wings stationed at the fortress, and great projectors had been set up, their beams of light searching the skies. Fortunately, they hadn't moved the mana detectors, the frontline officers having successfully argued that the expensive pieces of equipment were desperately needed in the trenches, and that they'd be useless against the stealth mages anyway. Such devices were designed to detect the high-powered mana emissions of flight mages rather than the more subtle spells Elya was using, but it was better to be sure.
She wasn't sure what good the Francois generals thought the mages would do in the event of a raid such as the one they feared, but she suspected the decision had been motivated by paranoia more than good tactical sense. And besides, pulling the mages from the frontlines at least kept them from falling victim to the hunters, so she supposed they were unlikely to complain. No aerial mage who fought on the Rhine was a coward, but it was one thing to risk your life against an enemy you could see and fight back against, and another to know there were hunters out there you couldn't detect and which would kill you the moment they sensed your presence, which they apparently could even if you didn't use magic in the first place.
In any case, these additional precautions had made it much easier for her to identify which of the several fortresses in the area served as the Republican headquarters.
Now past the fortress' walls, Elya carried the box she'd been given into the food stores, which were located inside what had been the wine cellar of the old castle the rest of the fortress had been built around in the decades since the last Republic-Imperial war. A few desultory words exchanged with the quartermaster complaining about their mutual superiors sending aides to get alcohol instead of doing their jobs, and she was allowed inside with only a perfunctory glance at her papers and the writing down of her assumed identity in the entry register.
Left alone by the tired watch officer, Elya swiftly moved past the piled up foodstuffs and laid down the box on the ground somewhere it would be seen by anyone just walking in, then knelt next to it and carefully – very carefully – opened its top panel, revealing its contents.
She couldn't suppress a shiver of unease, despite what she could see of the device being not that different from the control panels of the various devices she'd familiarized herself with during her time with the Army and Intelligence. There were several knobs and buttons, and a pair of clocks – one circle in green, the other in red. She had seen much more intimidating examples of Imperial ingenuity, yet there was something about this one that made her skin crawl.
She knew exactly how to activate the device : the detailed instructions had been sent to her along with the coordinates for the rendezvous, and the stealth mage had refused to hand over the package until she had repeated them to him three times in a row without any mistakes. They weren't difficult, though : for all that the device looked incredibly complex, its actual use had clearly been designed by someone who knew it was meant for front-line deployment and needed to be as easy and intuitive as possible.
A few buttons pressed in the correct order, and the device began to whine softly. Elya moved to the last part of the setup, turning one set of knobs until the green timepiece was counting down from one hour, as her orders had indicated she should. The clock would count the time until the device activated, and the red would count the time after that, until it triggered the small explosive charge inside the device. It wasn't strong enough to do any damage to the building, but it would destroy the device thoroughly enough that nobody would be able to learn anything from its remains – at least that was the theory.
The device's construction allowed the user to set the first timer, but not the second : once the device activated, it would remain operational for exactly ninety-one minutes. She'd no idea why such an arbitrary number had been selected, but she imagined the engineers who had assembled it had their reasons.
She closed the box, cutting off the device's quiet sound with the isolated padding that also doubled as a shock-absorber, and pushed it as far into the pile of other boxes as she could. When she finally let go, she couldn't stop herself from sighing in relief. Now all that she'd left to do was get out of the fortress and make it back to the rendezvous point. And she absolutely had to do it before the first timer ran out – her instructions had been excessively insistent on that point :
'Should it become clear that you won't be able to get out of the weapon's effective range in time, it is our recommendation that you use any means necessary to terminate your own life.'
When she had read that line in her orders, she had thought it was a joke, although one in poor taste. But the mage who had given her the box had insisted that she take that order seriously. With the kind of stare Elya'd seen far too much of on the Rhine Front, he had told her that he'd taken part in the weapon's testing, and a quick death by mage blade would definitely be a mercy.
Fortunately, she'd planned her exfiltration well. Within moments, she'd changed faces, assuming the identity of another aide, whom she knew was currently sleeping in his bunk – because she'd drugged his drink to make sure he didn't stay up past his shift. Claiming she'd an urgent message to carry in person, she took another bicycle and left the fortress through another gate than the one she'd come back through – just in case. Ordinarily, such a simple trick would have been found out soon, but in this case it wouldn't matter.
She rode as fast as she could in the darkness, using a spell to enhance her night vision so she didn't break her neck. Just less than an hour after the device's activation, she finally reached the rendezvous point, deep in the woods to the south-west of the fortress. The stealth mage was still there, and he greeted her arrival with a nod.
"You are alive," he said, his voice muffled by the gas mask he wore. "Good. Lieutenant Serebryakov would have been sorry if you had died."
Elya did a double take, then hissed : "What did you just said ?"
He was sounding amused, she was sure of it even through the gas mask.
"The Lieutenant was transferred to Division Y some time ago," he explained. "When she saw your name in the plans, she told me to do everything I could to help you get out alive."
Visha ?! Good-hearted, naive, precious little Visha, was involved in the work of Division Y, which had created the Wunderwaffen that had pushed back all of the Empire's enemies ?! And she was a Lieutenant too ?!
And she hadn't told her ?!
What the hell ?!
Of course, Elya couldn't really blame her friend for her secrecy, since as far as Visha knew she was working as an artillery spotter instead of as one of Imperial Intelligence's select cadre of mage spies. But still ! In the last letters they'd exchanged, Visha had told her that her duties nowadays mainly consisted of preparing coffee and helping her superior deal with paperwork, not assist in the construction of magical superweapons !
"Why are you even telling me this ?" she asked warily. She didn't think this was where she was disposed of for knowing too much, but you never knew in Intelligence.
"You are already involved in Division Y's work," he answered, and for a moment she thought her worst fears were about to become true after all. "After what you've done tonight, there's no going back to Intelligence for you : the Director has asked for you to be sent to us if you could pull it off, and you did. There is no more need for her to conceal what she's doing from you."
He bowed his head slightly. "Welcome to the family, Agent E. Now let's go home."
Before Elya could react to being suddenly told her career path had been changed without her knowledge or consent, he had picked her up and was flying away. As a former artillery spotter, she was used to flying under own power, but until they were back in friendly territory, using her own, detectable magic to fly would be incredibly stupid, so she had to be carried all the way back, and because she couldn't use her magic to protect herself from the elements either, he had to keep to a moderate speed.
It was going to be uncomfortable, but she could endure it. The soldiers in the trenches dealt with far worse every day the war continued, after all –
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of distant screaming, audible even over the wind rushing around her. She swallowed, her mouth dry.
"Is that … ?"
"Yes," nodded the stealth mage. For the first time since they'd met, Elya fancied she heard a hint of unease in his voice. "That is Projekt V at work. Congratulations, Agent E. You may just have won us the war."
Somehow, as she was carried back to the Fatherland she served with what sounded like the screams of all of Hell's damned rising into the air behind her, Elya didn't find that very comforting.
May 26th, 1925 – Imperial Central Command Bunker on the Rhine Front
"Colonel Lergen," the specialist bent over the radio called out. "We have gotten word from Agent E. They have returned from their mission, and report that Projekt V was deployed with success."
In the command bunker, Lergen nodded gravely, knowing what those last six words meant for everyone who had been in the Francois headquarters when the device had gone off. He had read the detailed explanation the Major had included with the device, just like he had told her he would; and his sleep had suffered for it, just like she had told him it would.
Projekt Verhüllung was not as horrifyingly devastating as Projekt K had been. Nor was it as game-changing as Projekt U, which had completely overturned the paradigms of aerial mage combat, or as convenient as Projekt W, which was incredibly suited for trench warfare. Deploying it somewhere it would actually be useful had been, to put it frankly, a massive pain in the backside. Having the entire operation depend on the actions of a single spy embedded in Republican territory had been nerve-wracking : they had contingencies to carry on even if that step had failed (because of course they did, they weren't amateurs gambling the fate of the entire war on a single point of failure), but the Operation would've been much more costly in that case.
And yet, despite all these limitations, Projekt V was as terrifying as anything that had come out of Division Y's labs. According to the research notes he'd read, Projekt Verhüllung was a device that 'thinned the barriers between the different levels of reality, allowing the human senses to perceive things usually beyond their abilities, and allowing the senses of the creatures inhabiting this Beyond to perceive the humans in turn'. Whatever that meant, they had no idea what the creatures in question were, only that they seemed to react aggressively to the intrusion caused by the Projekt, killing everyone in the affected area until the device shut down.
Lergen had no idea how they had even tested this thing in order to refine the area of effect without accidentally killing themselves, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. For God's sake, the device didn't even leave bodies behind, only clothes, so if not for the blood sprays the researchers had found afterwards they wouldn't even know the victims were actually dead, and not dragged back to … No, he had to stop thinking about that. Now was hardly the time for him to go stark raving mad.
In any case, Lergen understood much better now why Degurechaff had so vehemently opposed deploying the Wunderwaffen of mass destruction liberally to win the Great War, as opposed to the supersoldiers. There was something distinctly unsettling, distinctly wrong, about being able to cause so much death with something so small as the box he'd been handed over in the Kalerian Cathedral. In a way, it was the epitome of Imperial efficiency, but the Colonel was terrified by the thought of what war would become if it were to be waged entirely with such weapons as a matter of course.
He checked his watch. They were still on schedule, even if the Untote carrying Agent E back had cut it a bit close. As the commanding officer of Division Y's forces on the theatre, it fell to him to give the order to begin the next phase of the operation.
Suddenly, he felt the weight of his responsibilities, of History itself, weigh down upon him. Hundreds of thousands of lives would be affected by his next words, and the very course of the continent itself would be altered, possibly forever. He almost hesitated, but then he remembered what he had seen in Degurechaff's stellar eyes. How small they all were, and how, in the end, it changed nothing.
His duty was clear.
"Begin phase three of Operation Shock & Awe," he declared, his voice sounding surprisingly calm to his own ears, and his order was immediately relayed along the entire frontline.
They had been preparing for weeks, and the Imperial Army moved like a well-oiled machine. In the northern half of the Rhine, the Imperial forces dug in their trenches, while in the south, the Werwölfe and Untoten charged as the spearhead of an unprecedented Imperial advance, their coming heralded by artillery and flights of bombers.
With the Francois high command eliminated, the Republican Army wouldn't be able to respond correctly. In the panic, the Empire would tear through their lines and force them to run or die, before turning north to capture the rest of the Republic's forces between them and the Imperial trenches in the northern section of the front. This was Operation Shock & Awe, a strategic encirclement of unprecedented scale made possible by the tactical application of the Wunderwaffen.
They had to advance as fast possible, both to avoid giving the enemy time to reorganize and because they only had a handful of hours of night left due to it being May. The Untoten could, technically, be deployed during daylight, but they were exceedingly vulnerable while the sun was out, and Lergen didn't want to be the one to tell Major Degurechaff that he'd lost one of her pet vampires by forcing them to take unnecessary risks. So far, Division Y had been incredibly lucky in that not a single one of its supersoldiers had died in the line of duty, and the Colonel didn't want to find out how its Director would react when that changed, especially now that it looked like she was growing a conscience. By their calculations, they had only a couple of hours left before the Untoten had to withdraw from the front.
The Werwölfe, however, would keep fighting as long as they could, which was a very long time indeed. According to Lieutenant Grantz (who was out there with the rest of his kindred, slaughtering Republican soldiers by the dozen), their type of supersoldier could fight for hours on end without getting tired, which was the kind of endurance drill sergeants throughout History had only dreamt of forcing into their trainees.
Sitting in the bunker, Lergen listened as reports filtered back in over the radio. Unit commanders reported in clip, professional tones, sometimes asking for support, much more often confirming that the attack had taken the Republic completely by surprise after the lull since the attack on Arene, and that the enemy was completely disorganised.
They were advancing apace, tearing through the Republic trenches. Some units were holding their ground, while others were retreating northwards, and others still were just breaking and running, their morale finally shattered by the sight of the Werwölfe charging ahead of the Imperial Army. As they'd planned, a modern army was utterly unable to function without its commanders coordinating its many elements. In this new age of warfare, individual acts of bravery and martial prowess counted for little next to the brutal arithmetics of carnage – unless they were performed by Division Y, Lergen supposed.
We are going to do it, Lergen thought as he looked at the map and saw the lines move in his mind's eye. He hadn't dared to hope, but now that victory was on the horizon, he couldn't help himself.
We are going to win, and end this damnable war.
May 26th, 1925 – Parisee – Ministry of Defense
Being woken up in the middle of the night was not something De Lugo enjoyed in the slightest. In the present circumstances, however, he could hardly blame the pale-faced servant who had shaken him awake and told him there was an urgent message from the Ministry. He'd dragged himself out of his bed, which he'd moved right next to the building since the war had started, and sat, blank-faced, as he was delivered news worse than he could've ever imagined.
For a moment, he had thought the news that the front headquarters had been attacked and lost were a nightmare conjured by his own feverish imagination, but he'd shaken himself from that foolish hope quickly and gotten to work. The fact that he'd received the news so soon was a miracle in itself, for which he gave thanks and praise to the Lord. It meant that there was still time for him to do something to react and try to salvage what he could from that disaster.
The brave soldiers who had been sent from the trenches to investigate the cause of the headquarters' sudden silence had managed to send word over the radio that the entire fortress was empty, with traces of fierce, desperate battle everywhere – but no corpses. Only scattered uniforms, torn and bloody, with no traces of the soldiers who'd worn them. Every electrical machine in the entire fortress seemed to be fried as well, and a handful of fires had started, which they'd done their best to quell before they reached the ammunition depots and blew the whole place sky high.
They had also reported a distinct feeling of unease as soon as they'd approached the area, as if something was watching them from the corner of their sight, only to disappear whenever they tried to focus on it. Ordinarily, De Lugo would have dismissed it as nerves, quite understandable under the circumstances, but now that he was aware of the fell bargain the Empire had struck in exchange for its detestable Wunderwaffen, it was clear the entire area would have to be cleansed of the infernal taint.
That was a concern for later, though. Right now, he had to find a way to save the Republic, and with it the only hope for God's servants to prevail against the horrors the Empire had unleashed. Thankfully, the Lord's guidance provided him with an answer worthier of the Republic than the contingency plans he'd drafted to evacuate the mainland and continue the fight in the colonies, which was what he'd have been forced to do without the blessings bestowed upon his fatherland.
The ritual to create more Holy Knights could only be performed once every week on Sunday, and only twelve mages could go through it at the same time. That meant that, since the battle of Arene, they'd been blessed with thirty-six Holy Knights to bolster their forces. Combined with the survivors of Vianto's squadron, they had just over forty of God's blessed warriors to deploy
If possible, De Lugo would've wanted to put all suitable candidates among Francois' mage corps through the process before revealing them to the Empire in an overwhelming flow of righteous fury. But there was no time for that now. If the Republican Army was to be saved from its current crisis, then they needed to move out immediately, and pray that the Holy Knights would be able to turn the tide. The situation on the frontlines was a confusing mess, and he wasn't foolish enough to think he could possibly lead it from so far away.
It was time for one last throw of the dice. Along with the Holy Knights, De Lugo had painstakingly gathered the last scraps of military power the Republic had left to spare over the last few weeks, assembling a reserve force near Parisee. If the Holy Knights could just manage to stabilize the front, keep the Republican Army from collapsing long enough, and deal with the horrors Division Y had brought to the battlefield, then that force could serve as their counter-attack.
It was a risky tactic, and one De Lugo should definitely have submitted to the rest of the Ministry's officials for approval. But there was no time for that. He would just have to trust that God would see the Francois Republic victorious.
He gave the orders, and messages were sent to the reserves and the Holy Knights, who had been quartered within the Cathedral of Our Beloved Lady, soaking in its blessed atmosphere while they awaited the time to let loose their righteous fury upon the unholy.
The moment the last of his aides had left his office, De Lugo collapsed in his chair, exhausted and trembling. He'd done all he could : now it was in the hands of the brave men of the Republic, and God Himself, of course.
All he could do now was pray.
"They are coming out of the walls !"
"That light ! What's that light ?!"
"WE ARE BEHELD !"
"Fire everything you've got !"
"It's no use ! Our spells aren't doing anything !"
"Then fly out of here and warn AAAAAARGH !"
"Hell ! We're in Hell !"
"Where the fuck are our reinforcements ?!"
"They got fucking EATEN !"
"The eyes ! The eyes the eyes the eyes THE EYES THE EYES THE EYES -"
"THEY ARE EVERYWHERE ! EVERYWHERE !"
"What the … NO ! GET AWAY ! GET A-"
"Oh God in Heaven, protect Thy wayward servant …"
"We've to get out ! We've to -"
Excerpts from the transcript of an audio recording extracted from a half-melted computation orb recovered in the former Francois Rhine Front Military Headquarters by a flight of Republican aerial mages dispatched to investigate the silence of the headquarters following the activation of Projekt V. The record was heavily corrupted, far beyond what the damage to the orb explained : the visual feed was all but useless, and even the audio had to be heavily analysed to get anything recognizable out.
AN : Here we are, at the end of the sixth chapter. As you probably guessed, this is not where the story ends : my initial plans got thrown out the window early on. Maybe when this story is finished and there is no need to worry about spoilers, I will tell you what I had originally planned.
Projekt V is based on the short story From Beyond, by HP Lovecraft, which you can find on Wikisource if you want to read it (it is VERY short and, rarity of rarities, devoid of racism as far as I could tell, if not anti-science, so it's worth checking out). Obviously, the device deployed here is much more effective than the one depicted in the story, on account of incorporating Imperial magitek and, you know, not being built by one crazy guy in his attic.
Elya is Visha's friend from Cadet School, before she was sent to the Rhine Front (and then, in this story, died, before her body was shipped off to Division Y and she became one of the Untoten). In the manga, she is an operative for Imperial Intelligence who, at the end of the raid on the Republic's headquarters by the 203rd using Schugel's rockets, shows up magically disguised as a Republican soldier and finishes off a spy of the Allied Kingdom who managed to get the mana signature of the Devil of the Rhine and the other members of the 203rd.
She doesn't have that role in the anime and certainly not in the LN, where I think she's just the artillery spotter she claims to be to Visha. But here is the thing : a couple of weeks ago, after I asked for suggestions on the Mythos equivalent of a tactical nuke the Empire could use to replicate what's achieved in canon with mage-guided missiles, I realized I still had to figure out how to bring the nuke in question to its destination.
And then I remembered that bit of the manga, and I started laughing like a deranged lunatic. When the pieces fit together like that, you don't question the muse, you just go alone with it and praise her generosity. Just like I did with the fact that the ritual to create Holy Knights can only take place on Sunday. I was looking for a way to keep De Lugo from running the Republic's entire mage corps through the process (which wasn't something lame like "logistics" or "internal politics") and thought of limiting it to Sunday ... and then, when I checked, I found out that the 2nd of May, 1925, which was the day I'd written Vianto and his squadron were transformed, was a Sunday according to our own calendar.
It's not that much of a coincidence (a one in seven chance is far from impossible), but I still wasn't going to ignore that.
Concerning the bodyguard that Tanya sent to Lergen (and isn't that nice of her ?), there are two options, and I have decided to leave the decision in your hand :
- The first is that Tanya sent a squad of Division Y troopers, armed with the weird guns Lergen saw in Arene.
- The second is that Tanya sent an instance of another Projekt, in this case Projekt P.
Regardless of what I end up going with, both will eventually be shown in the story, but the one chosen will get its chance to shine sooner. So tell me which one you are most interested in ! I can't promise I'll follow the will of the people, because this story is very clearly a Musocracy, not a Democracy, but I'll take it into account.
Next chapter will be the final battle of Francois, and the end of the current "arc", so to speak. As always, I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions.
Also, the cover art for this story was created by Zach Zachary over on Spacebattles. You can find a higher-resolution version of the artwork on the thread, under the "Media" threadmark. It includes versions with a blindfold and one with the eyes exposed.
Zahariel out.