PARISEE OCCUPIED : LIFE GOES ON
by War Correspondent Jeremiah Smith
It has now been over ten weeks since the surrender of the Francois Republic to the Empire, and the beginning of their capital's occupation by the Imperial Army. As the Francois get used to the sight of Imperial soldiers patrolling their streets, the mood within the Republic has slowly but surely begun to shift. Memorial ceremonies held for fallen soldiers have been attended by Imperial officers, who publicly praised the resolve and courage of the hundreds of thousands of Republican men who died in the Rhine, while also hoping that the sheer brutality of this conflict will serve as a salutary lesson to both nations in the future. To quote one Imperial Colonel :
'The lure of glory, used to incite so many young men to join the armed forces, died in the mud of the Rhine along with so many of its victims.'
Slowly but surely, life has begun to return to normal in Parisee, although the absence of so many young men dead on the fields of the Rhine can be painfully felt. Imperial investments have begun to pour into the Republic, as the Empire looks for manpower to compensate for the pressure put on its own population by the growth of its Army. As part of a new agreement reached between the Francois President and the Empire, thousands of Republican soldiers have been released and sent back to the fields of the Republic to ensure neither nation suffers from a food shortage in the near future.
At the same time, while tensions between the Empire and the Republic are slowly dissipating, the old rivalry between the Republic and the Allied Kingdom has been revived by the Albish attack on Brest. With the blame for joining the war laid at the foot of De Lugo and the rest of the Republic's military high command (most of whom either died during the Imperial destruction of the Republic's headquarters on the Rhine Front or are currently held prisoner by the Empire), much of the people's anger has redirected itself onto Albion.
The Allied Kingdom, after joining the war far too late to assist the Republic (and doing so with a surprise attack on the Imperial's advanced command post that failed miserably) won its first major victory by sinking defenceless Francois ships in the Brest harbor. As a result, one can often hear talk in Pariseean bars of how the locals look forward to the Empire 'teaching a lesson to perfidious Albion with their Wunderwaffen for a change' …
Excerpt from the Unified States newspaper The Philadelphia Gazette, August 20th, 1925.
IN THE SHADOWS OF EUROPA : THE SECRET WAR
Though the Francois government blames Pierre-Michel De Lugo for its defeat, this is nothing but a polite fiction both Republic and Empire have agreed upon in the name of maintaining public order. The true reason for the crushing Francois defeat lies with the mysterious Wunderwaffen, first unleashed by the Empire against the Dacian Army nearly a year ago.
Much has already been written about these superweapons, but as one might expect, the Imperials are keeping their cards close to their chest and concrete details are few and far between. Even so, compiling the testimonies of soldiers who survived the Rhine Front and are willing to revisit such dreadful memories in exchange for another round of beer, one can discern certain undisputable facts.
The existence of the undetectable aerial mages is undeniable, of course. Then there are the Devils of the Rhine, whose pictures reached our shores even before the Fall of Francois. Opinions are still divided on whether their terror-inducing appearance is the fruit of illusion magic or chimerical experimentation, but their effectiveness on the modern battlefield cannot be denied. More mysterious is the strange fog that was observed by the citizens of Os in Legadonia during the Imperial attack on the Osfjord, and which cut all radio communications between the city and the Entente soldiers stationed within the fortifications. Then there is the weapon which destroyed the Francois military headquarters on the Rhine Front : to this day, the entire area is quarantined by the Empire.
From all of this, it is clear that warfare has entered a new era, one in which magic, brought back into focus by the invention of the computation orb, will play an even greater role than before. And the Empire, ever a pioneer of magical research, isn't the only nation to walk this road.
The Francois President claims to have no knowledge of where the Republic's own superweapons, called Eikons by the Imperial Army (and most of the Republic after their initial name of Holy Knights lost its appeal following the disaster of their deployment on the Rhine), came from. This might seem unlikely, but one must remember that, while the scope of their responsibilities may differ, the office of President in the Francois Republic is limited in time, just like ours. Surely such a research program must have taken much longer than the handful of years between popular votes, and thus needed to be kept separate from the vagaries of politics until it was needed.
Even now, despite the Francois Republic's surrender, the hunt for the Eikon research program continues. Operatives of the ever-mysterious Division Y, rumored to be responsible for the development and deployment of the Wunderwaffen, have been sighted in Parisee, working with the civilian authorities to locate the disgraced De Lugo and the Francois researchers. A few days after the so-called operation in the Pariseean catacombs, a Major said to be working for Division Y was seen walking out of a meeting with no less than the Francois President himself. And there are rumors, too, that not all Eikons were slain at the Battle of the Rhine.
As this shadow war continues under the surface of the public conflict, this reporter cannot help but wonder. How many other nations across the globe have been pursuing magical superweapons in secret in the last decade ? Has our own government researched such devices in hidden facilities ? Certainly the size of our country compared to that of the Europan nations would make it easier to build such secret laboratories. Our government's refusal to answer the question one way or another can also be taken as evidence …
Excerpt from the Unified States newspaper The National Truth, August 21st, 1925.
From : Major Tanya Degurechaff
To : Brigadier General Hans von Zettour
Subject : Projekt S
Date : August 24th, 1925
Brigadier General,
The initial tests of Projekt S have been successfully completed. We have encountered no unforeseen difficulties, and our team has gained valuable experience in handling the Projekt's delicate controls.
As per the agreed-upon plan, we will soon begin testing our ability to reach Londinium itself with Projekt S. Of course, all safety and security precautions will be taken to ensure no threat to the Reich presents itself.
I shall contact you with the results as soon as possible in order to prepare the next phase.
For the Fatherland.
"We are out of time. Division Y is going to hit Londinium soon, we don't know what with. Get the wards up NOW. We will worry about the costs and consequences later."
Private communication between Agravain and Merlin, members of Albion's Round Table.
"Beginning final checks. Everyone sound off."
"Power source, check."
"Security forces, check."
"Elder wards, check."
"Final review of the coordinates' calculations, check."
"Vanguard aerial mage, check."
"Everything is ready, Director."
"Then begin activation of Projekt S, test number eleven, target : Londinium."
"Beginning activation process. Imputing coordinates now."
"Coordinates confirmed. Sending power to catalyst array."
"Spatial dislocation confirmed within the gateway. Disruptions are within safety parameters … wait. Something is wrong !"
[Various alarms begin to ring, along with various sounds that the recording fails to properly render.]
"We are getting some kind of feedback ! The coordinates are being scrambled !"
"Is that … an ankh symbol in the gate ? What the hell ?"
"Focus ! It must be a protection of some kind !"
"Shit ! The control panel is melting !"
"Cut down the power ! Shut it down, now !"
"No, wait ! Look, it's stabilizing !"
"Wait. Wait … Are we still getting any readings ?"
"No, ma'am. The machine is fried. We can't see what's on the other side, and we can't change the coordinates anymore."
"I can go through, Major."
"Neumann ?"
"We need to know where it leads : anything could come through from the other end. If I keep my shield and oxygen spell, I should be able to survive no matter the conditions on the other side long enough to radio in or rush back, right ?"
"… Alright. Be careful."
[Several moments of noisy activity, then a brief flash of white noise. When Lieutenant Neumann's voice is heard again, it is laden with static.]
"This is Neumann. I am through. Shield and oxygen spells are holding, although it's taking a bit more effort than usual. The gateway led onto solid ground. There are what appear to be ruins all around me, with no sign of life. The sky is … the sky …"
"Lieutenant Neumann ?"
"The … the sky … THE SKY IS BROKEN ! THE SKY IS - AAAAAAAH !"
"Lieutenant Neumann ? Lieutenant Neumann ?!"
[Further incoherent screaming.]
"Fuck ! Visha, with me ! Security, bring your guns to bear on the gateway and shoot anything that comes out that isn't one of us !"
"Director ?!"
Excerpt from the audio logs of Projekt S, [Silberschlüssel], first transcontinental testing (intended destination : Londinium outskirts), August 26th, 1925.
August 26th, 1925 – ?
In hindsight, I reflected, diving through the warp gate that was the centerpiece of Projekt S might have been a rash decision.
However, it had been my decision to send Neumann through the portal, despite knowing damn well what exposure to the Mythos could do to a sane individual like the Lieutenant, who lacked the advantage my memories of my old world provided me in somewhat making sense of the cosmic horror with which Division Y tangled daily. That made whatever happened to him my responsibility. In addition, Neumann was too useful a subordinate to lose like that.
I emerged from the swirling maelstrom of un-sounds and impossible colors to find myself surrounded by what looked like some kind of futuristic megalopolis that had gone through several apocalypses in quick succession and then left to decay and gather dust for a handful of aeons. I shook my head to free it from the after-effects of going through the gateway – Projekt S was the result of feeding some ancient notes on old ritual stone circles to the Denkmaschine, and early tests had shown that one needed a strong stomach to avoid being incapacitated once you got on the other side.
Neumann was there, staring up with wide eyes, his mouth moving without making any sound. He'd dropped his shield and oxygen spells, but was still alive, so clearly our surroundings weren't as dangerous as I'd feared.
I punched him in the belly, reinforcing my arm with magic. Despite being almost twice my size and several times wider, he folded in two like a piece of cheap cardboard, and I seized him by his lapels with one hand while removing my sunglasses with the other before looking him straight in the eyes.
"Lieutenant Neumann !" I barked in my best commanding voice. "Pull yourself together !"
I didn't feel good about using my eyes' mind-bending ability like this, but Colonel Lergen had proven that it was possible for strong-willed individuals to avoid being permanently affected. Neumann was a soldier and a veteran of Division Y : I was hoping the shock of exposure to my eyes would reboot his brain, so to speak.
My gamble paid off. He blinked several times, shook his head, then let out a strangled "yes ma'am". Relieved, I let go of his clothes and risked a look up myself, steeling myself for what had shocked him like this.
It wasn't as bad as I had feared (no leering, sun-sized faces or tentacled stratosphere reaching down hungrily for us), but it was still quite the disturbing spectacle. Neumann's panicked screams had been right. The sky was indeed broken. The sunless heavens glowed with a uniform red glow, and impossibly vast faultlines ran across them from horizon to horizon. Fortunately, Visha was wearing her sunproof uniform, just in case the researchers had messed up the coordinates and opened a portal somewhere sunny.
A whirring and ticking noise drew my attention down from the eldritch skies and to my pocket. Frowning, I pulled out my watch, and saw that the hands were moving erratically, jumping all around the clock forward and backward. For a moment I entertained the thought that this was the result of some magnetic field, but the fact that the other metal bits on my person weren't affected forced me to confront the obvious : wherever it was the gateway had delivered us, it was a place where time (and, judging by the skies, space) didn't work as we were used to.
"Neumann," I asked, "can you still make contact with the other side ?"
"I …" He blinked, and put the radio transmitter up. "This is Neumann. Can you hear me ? … I'm with the Major and Lieutenant Serebryakov." He looked at me and nodded.
"Ask them how much time has passed since we got through," I told him. He repeated my query with a raised eyebrow, and when he told me less than five minutes had passed, I sighed in relief.
"Keep the radio channel open at all time," I ordered him. "Tell them to talk to you constantly – I don't care what about, they can just count numbers for all I care."
For all I knew, the constant exchange was the only reason time was synchronized on both sides of the portal. At least the D-24 still worked : given how complicated a piece of machinery it was, my best guess was that the Mythos aspects of its secondary core were shielding it from temporal anomalies.
"Major," said Visha urgently, "I can sense magic users approaching."
Now that she had mentioned it, I could feel them too. The mana signatures were much weaker than the ones I was used to look for as an aerial mage, but they were unmistakable.
A moment later, the source of these signatures revealed themselves, emerging from the ruins at a careful distance from us. To my surprise, they were clearly humans, except with skin tones varying between a dark grey and obsidian black, with elaborate red and white tattoos visible on their exposed skin. Their features looked like a mix of Caucasian and Asian traits, beautiful despite the dust caking them. All of them had red eyes that gleamed in the half-light of the broken sky like those of a cat, and they moved with a grace that was almost feline as well.
"Are those colonials ?" asked Neumann hesitantly.
I shot him a disbelieving look, wondering if he was seriously comparing the new arrivals to the human ethnicity native to the Southern Continent (for which the term he had used, 'colonials', was frankly the least offensive one commonly used in the current era, though it referred to all indigenous people of the other Europan powers' colonies).
Then it hit me : Neumann hadn't grown up in the same cosmopolitan era I had, where movies, TV shows and even just the daily news meant everyone was exposed to Humanity's incredible diversity. There were people of color in Europa, of course – only morons and the historically illiterate of my old world would've thought the continent to be solely populated by whites in the early twentieth century – but apparently there was a difference between that and knowing that the skin color of these folks wasn't something natural.
Then again, given the eldritch skies, it could very well be a natural pigmentation, for a given value of 'natural'. It wasn't as if I was an expert : I just knew nobody on my old world had that particular skin color.
Of course, I wasn't going to let something as small as the color of their skin affect how I treated them. I was, after all, a rational, peace-loving and civilized individual, not a character written by a man with so many psychological issues he had to rely on a frankly comical level of racism in order to prop up the fragile edifice of his self-esteem.
I counted twenty or so of them, dressed in exactly the sort of ragged clothing I would expect from a post-apocalyptic tribe scavenging for survival in the ruins of a once-mighty civilization. Half of them held spears and other weapons, while the other half, the ones giving off the mana signatures Visha had first detected, had kept their own weapons sheathed (most likely those were backups for when they ran out of mana).
"We mean you no harm," I shouted in their direction, holding my hands up. With the D-24 that meant far less than it normally would, but I was hoping they would recognize the gesture's intent. "We come in peace."
One of them shouted something back, which unsurprisingly I didn't understand. It would've been too much to hope they spoke Imperial, Albish, or Japanese. Still, whatever it was hadn't sounded too hostile, so I kept hoping we could avoid any misunderstandings. For once, my appearance as a young girl should play in our favor.
Perhaps we would have managed to establish a dialogue, but before that could happen, the air shook with a monstrous, terrifying shriek. I turned toward the source of the sound, and froze as I saw something vast and impossibly ugly fly in our direction on leathery wings.
It resembled a dragon in the same way the Kinder had resembled goats. With the enhanced vision my use of Kosmosblut had left me, I could see it in details, and wished I couldn't. It had four limbs, a tail, two wings, and something resembling purple fire was burning inside a cavity on its front end, but there the similarities with the beast of myth the Empire used on its heraldry ended. Its body looked to be made of rotting flesh pulsating with disgusting vitality, with yellow bones emerging from the mass seemingly at random. Its face was like that of a grotesque, enormous toad, except it had five eyes placed without any symmetry.
The locals were already fleeing. Unlike the three of us, they hadn't wasted time standing slaw-jacked and watching the monster approach : they had immediately broken up in groups, each running in a different direction. I had a feeling I was witnessing a survival method developed over countless interactions with the beast : one of the groups wouldn't make it as it drew the creature's attention, but their sacrifice would buy enough time for the rest to escape.
Neumann, who had faced enough escaped summons and failed experiments in his time assigned to Division Y, didn't wait for my orders and opened fire with a long-range attack spell. Under the circumstances, it was a remarkable shot, striking the beast right in what I guessed was its head, with enough strength to burst a bunker open.
When the smoke dissipated, it became clear the attack hadn't done anything except draw its attention to us. Next to me, Neumann let out a strangled sound of dismay.
I really, really wanted to run back to the portal and back to Castle Schwartzstein. Unfortunately, I couldn't. Not only would running away damage my image in the eyes of Visha and Neumann, and then the rest of Division Y as word of my cowardice spread, but while I doubted it could fit through the gateway, whatever equivalent of a fiery breath it possessed just might – it wasn't as if we had tried firing a flamethrower at it during our tests.
With how many people were on the other side of the gateway – all of whom I was responsible for and whose deaths would be on my head – the choice was obvious. Painful, but obvious.
"Fall back," I commanded Visha and Neumann, pulling the injector I had kept on my person since our scaled-up performance of the Rite of Union during the last full moon out of my pocket.
"Major ?" exclaimed Visha. Are you sure ? I've a dose of Endlose Nacht on me, I can …"
"That won't be enough," I cut her off. I had already considered it, but that thing was going to take a lot more punishment than the Eikons to put it down, and even them had been able to score some kill against Visha's brethren on the Rhine. "Keep yourself alive and try to help the locals out if you can. I'll handle this."
Before she could argue anymore, I flicked the tube's safety off, jammed the needle into my throat and pressed the injector. As the pain of transformation overwhelmed me, my thoughts turned to the last time I'd used Kosmosblut. It had left me bed-ridden for days and had permanently mutated my eyes.
What price would I pay this time ?
August 26th, 1925 – ?
Rhiner Neumann watched in awe as a goddess made war against a monster.
He had heard the stories of what had happened in Arene, when the Major had first used the Kosmosblut to fight off twelve Eikons at the same time. And he had seen some of the artwork the troopers who had passed by the city had brought back with them depicting the Lady of Stars.
But it was one thing to hear the stories, and then to look into the star-filled eyes of his superior, and it was another to see her transformation in person. She flew off to meet the dragon-thing, the two of them clashing in the broken skies – thankfully, he no longer freaked out at the impossible sight.
Beams of starlight erupted from the Lady of Stars' hands, slamming into the dragon-thing, which replied with a stream of purple fire which she danced around, just as nimble as when she'd trained Neumann and the other aerial mages. As the two combatants moved, Neumann realized that, despite growing to over three meters high, the Major was still vastly outsized by her enemy.
His attention was drawn away from the fight as Lieutenant Serebryakov plunged and picked up one of the female magic users before she could be crushed by a collapsing pillar, deposing her next to her kindred before rising back into the air. Looking around, Neumann saw that another ruin was about to fall on one of the running group, and barely managed to make it in time to hold the entire thing up, boosting his strength to the absolute limit of what he was capable of until they were out of the danger zone.
With a roar, he pushed the pile of stone back long enough to fly away himself, gasping for breath and wincing at the pain in his muscles. The sound of the ruin finally crashing was echoed a moment later by another thunderous sound. Neumann turned to look at it, and as his heart leapt in his throat.
The star-form of Division Y's Director was down on the ground, with the monstrous dragon looming over her like a vicious predator having brought its prey down, enjoying the final moment of its despair before landing the killing blow. The Major struggled, but couldn't seem to break free. Neumann tried to think of something, anything, he could do to help, but for all his strength and magical prowess, he knew he was as a leaf in the hurricane compared to these two titans. If the Major couldn't win, then …
Suddenly, the Major's hand plunged through the rubble. There was a flash and a keening sound from underground, and a new mana signature blazed in Neumann's senses. Then, like a fey from Albish legend pulling a magic sword out of a lake, the Lady of Stars drew a blade of shining moonlight out of the ruins. The dragon recoiled from it, the first sign of fear it had shown so far. Taking advantage of its distraction, the Major stood back up, and struck with her new weapon. The hit connected, and a fountain of foul liquid erupted from the wound, causing the monster to wail, a horrific noise that made Neumann's vision swim and his ears ring painfully.
Neumann saw in the corner of his sight that the locals had stopped running at the scream. They, too, were watching the fight in awe : Neumann even saw tears running down the cheeks of several as they watched the draconic horror bleed, their eyes wide in disbelieving wonder. How long, the aerial mage wondered, had they lived in fear of that monstrosity ? He tried and failed to imagine what that must be like, to know you weren't the top of the food chain, that there was nothing you could do to protect yourself except run and hope it went after your kindred instead. And now, possibly for the first time ever, they were seeing it be hurt.
More than that : they were seeing it afraid.
The Major strode forth in pursuit as the dragon-thing recoiled, striking again and again with her moonlight blade, each blow eliciting a new horrifying scream. It tried to fly away, but the Lady of Stars rose in pursuit and caught it before it could escape, dragging it back to the ground by severing one of its wings completely. It slammed into the ground, raising a cloud of dust that probably obscured vision from the ground, but from Neumann's elevated position, he could still see as the Major followed her enemy down and rammed her new weapon through its grotesque skull.
The dragon-thing twitched for a moment, then laid still, a pool of yet more foul liquid spreading underneath it. Neumann let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and finally realized a familiar voice had been screaming in his radio set all that time.
"Lieutenant Neumann ! What is going on ? Report !"
Neumann looked around. On the ground, the locals were prostrating themselves toward the Lady of Stars. Truth be told, Neumann was feeling weak in the knees himself, but he knew what the Major would do to him if she saw him kneeling before her in the middle of a dangerous area, and that fear was enough to keep them flying straight. Meanwhile, Serebryakov was already flying back to the Major's side, ready to assist once the Kosmosblut's effects ran out.
"I think," he answered the folks on the other side of the gateway, "that the Path of Stars might just have gained new converts."
"… while we have yet to fully overcome the language barrier, we know they call themselves the Nazzadi.
So far, the gateway component of Projekt S has remained stable, but with the panel control wrecked as a result of the Allied Kingdom's protections, we have no way of knowing how long this will continue. As a result, I have given orders to bring as many Nazzadi as possible across in order to rescue them from their dead homeworld : even without the threat of the entity I defeated thanks to the Kosmosblut, this place is hardly suited for human life. Fortunately, it appears the death of the false-dragon must have been detected by their magic users, as the tribes who didn't witness the battle in person have been seen making the trek to the site of its corpse to see it for themselves.
At the time of this message, we have evacuated three scores Nazzadi and settled them in Castle Schwartzstein. At Doctor Iosefka's suggestion, they are being kept in quarantine until she can confirm none of them carry alien diseases that could spread through our people, as well as give them any vaccines they might need themselves. Feeding them hasn't been an issue, as they have the same dietary requirements we do. According to Doctor Iosefka, they all suffer from malnutrition to some degree and will need time and a careful meal planning to avoid long-term negative effects (our best guess as to why there doesn't seem to be any elders among them is that, simply put, no Nazzadi has survived to reach old age in a long time).
We do not know how many Nazzadi still live on the other side of the gateway, though I doubt there are many of them left given the hostile conditions there. While I'm aware I acted beyond my authority when offering them asylum within the Empire (let alone bringing them inside a restricted facility such as Castle Schwartzstein), I would argue that humanitarian concerns trumped legal ones in this instance, and I am willing to defend that position as soon as I have recovered enough to travel to Berun. Aside from humanitarian concerns, however, I believe there is much we can learn from the Nazzadi, and they certainly seem eager to earn their keep, to the point I have forbidden my subordinates from taking advantage of them until we have breached the language barrier and a proper legal framework to their employment has been negotiated.
The mages and Werwölfe sent to help the evacuation have also brought back interesting remnants of what we assume to be the ruined Nazzadi civilization. It seems that in their heyday, they used technology (possibly magical) far in advance of what we possess, although all of it is in extremely damaged condition. While our researchers are very interested to study those pieces, I must warn that this might be similar to handing over a broken down radio that has spent a century underwater to the Ancient Ildoans and expect them to reverse-engineer it, except more difficult.
Our attempts to study the ancient Nazzadi weapon I detected and used in my transformed state have been inconclusive so far. When the effects of the Kosmosblut ran out, it transformed into what appears at first glance to be a walking stick, topped with the D-24 I brought with me through Projekt S' gateway. This fusion with a magical device of our own making is what has led us to believe the old Nazzadi technology was magical in nature, and clearly built to last.
However, it seems to be bonded to my person in some way, as trying to separate it from me results in it teleporting back to my side the moment it isn't directly observed : even just blinking is enough for it to vanish. Given that my current condition makes participating in the study difficult and it doesn't seem dangerous, we have tabled that line of investigation for now. I confess that the thought of never being separated from a computation orb also has a certain appeal.
Samples of the false-dragon's corpse have also been brought back for study, though they appear to be rotting at an accelerated pace. I'm not sure what, if anything, we might learn from them, but our scientists are, as always, very enthusiastic to find out, and at least it will keep them from bothering the Nazzadi too much.
The spell formulas of the Nazzadi seem to me to be more promising, as they have managed to survive an extremely hostile environment with their assistance …"
Excerpt from a dictated letter from Major Tanya Degurechaff to Brigadier General Hans von Zettour, August 28th, 1925.
August 28th, 1925 – Imperial Capital Berun – Central Headquarters of the Imperial Army
Brigadier General Hans von Zettour lowered the letter and looked at the Untote who had delivered it to him, knocking on his office window in the middle of yet another late night spent going over reports. The supersoldier stood at attention, just as he had the entire time Zettour had been reading.
Degurechaff's message read like a fantastical novel, but Zettour knew better than to suspect her of lying or exaggerating (though, given she'd dictated it while recovering from using Kosmosblut, perhaps a certain degree of inaccuracy had slipped in). The Brigadier General forced himself to ignore the philosophical and theological implications of the discovery of the Nazzadi's ruined world, and focused on more immediate and practical concerns.
With the Silberschlüssel's controls damaged, it would take months if not years to build a new one. Projekt S could have won them the war outright, and secured their position for years to come. The ability to send troops anywhere they wished would have been enough to force the Allied Kingdom to surrender. The mere thought of what Zettour and Rudersdorf could have done with that capability … but it seemed the Albish hadn't been idle on the Wunderwaffen front. Their nation did have a long history of magic, after all, although Degurechaff's report seemed to indicate that they'd looted whatever they'd used to block Projekt S from Kemet, on the Southern Continent.
More importantly, the fact they'd been ready to block Projekt S confirmed what they had long suspected. Either the Allied Kingdom had a spy within Central Headquarters, or they had broken the Imperial Army's wireless encryption. Neither of these possibilities were pleasant, but both should be neatly countered by the use of the Untoten as messengers.
He also refused to believe the Albish had found a way to defend the entirety of their mainland : much more likely they had centered whatever protection they had gained on their capital. If they'd known about this 'Kemetian ward' beforehand, he would have ordered Degurechaff to target some random field in the middle of Albion, and they'd be planning how best to cripple the Allied Kingdom's industrial base with Werwolf and Untoten commandos by now.
But it seemed they had all grown too used to Division Y's repeated and unstoppable successes. They had gotten too confident, and it had cost them the use of Projekt S for the foreseeable future. At least with the Nazzadi's recruitment and Degurechaff's new weapon, it wasn't a total loss.
"The Major ordered you to deliver this to me in person ?" he asked the supersoldier as he folded the message, set it ablaze with his lighter, and watched as the ashes fell into his ashtray. Just in case, he'd dispose of it himself.
"Yes, General," replied the Untote. "She also said I should bring back any response you might want to make."
"How is she ?" he asked at last. Typically, Degurechaff hadn't elaborated on the backlash she'd suffered for using Kosmosblut again.
"Well enough to dictate this message. Doctor Iosefka was attending her when I left. We … we aren't sure what the long-term consequences will be, if there are any beyond the weapon she brought back."
It was strange, Zettour reflected, to see one of the Untoten, whose existence had struck terror in the hearts of mages across Europa, look so unsure as he discussed his commanding officer's health.
"She should have made that clear in her letter," he grimaced.
"I think she didn't want to worry you, sir."
"Do you ? Well, I suppose she might at that." He sighed. "Wait a moment, please. I'm going to prepare a message for you to take back."
Zettour began to pen a response. It had been a long time since he had personally written a letter he expected to be read by the recipient instead of being encoded and sent over the wireless, but his penmanship didn't appear to have suffered from it. In the field, an officer had to be certain his writing could be read, after all, in case radio comms were down.
In his response, he assured Degurechaff that he didn't blame her for the failure of Projekt S, that she had his permission to allow these Nazzadi folks to take refuge from their hellish homeland in the Empire, and that he wished her a prompt recovery. He would get on sending more supplies to Castle Schwartzstein as soon as he could to help with that – with their victory on the Rhine, they had a lot of military provisions in storage. While those weren't exactly the sort of thing you wanted to use to introduce someone to your country's cuisine, it would at least keep them from starving, and that stuff was precisely calculated to cover all nutritious needs.
Zettour also included in his message an order to send another Untote to his office every two nights, both to keep him informed of the situation and so that he could write back without risking interception. Then, after signing, closing and sealing the letter, he handed it to the waiting supersoldier.
"Please give her my well-wishes when you pass her this message," he said.
The Untote saluted smartly, then departed through the office's open window. Zettour watched him fly until he couldn't see him anymore, once again reminded how bloody terrifying the concept of flying, impossible to detect mages was. If only the Endlose Nacht's side-effects had been different, or they didn't need to keep the Untoten who hadn't used it in reserve in case the Eikons resurfaced. Even if the Kingdom's new trick could bar them from entering Londinium, they could have wrought havoc on the Royal Fleet alone.
Zettour closed the window and returned to his desk. He would have to talk to Rudersdorf in the morning to discuss their next move, though he had a suspicion he already knew what his old friend would propose. Opening another front, one separated from the Fatherland by the entire Inner Sea, wouldn't make the Department of Logistics happy, but if Degurechaff's theory as to how the Albish had been able to block Projekt S was true, then killing two birds with one stone might be what they needed right now.
The Brigadier General pulled out an atlas of the Southern Continent, and began to pour over maps, his mind already estimating supply requirements and possible routes, along with plots to root out the Albish spies within the Empire.
After a moment of work, he sighed and went to make some coffee. It was going to be another long night, and he wasn't getting any younger.
AN : Why did I use the Nazzadi from CthulhuTech instead of another, more eldritch race (like the serpent people, who had the Nazzadi's role in the first draft) ? Well, there are a few reasons. The first and most important is that someone suggested them on the SB thread, and the Muse immediately screamed "THIS", so I obviously had no choice. But that's not the only reason. Another reason is related to the cosmology I've pieced together for this story, so I can't share it with you without spoilers.
Also, there is the fact that I'm almost convinced the Nazzadi as a concept were created by the makers of CthulhuTech as a deliberate mockery/inversion of the racism so prevalent in the classic Lovecraftian Mythos. They are humans whose genetics have been meddled with by alien beings for the express purpose of looking scary, but instead of being inbred, hideous and inferior, they are exotically beautiful and technologically advanced. They can interbreed with baseline humans, on account of really just being another ethnicity of Humanity, albeit one artificially created, and in CthulhuTech lore, they end up living peacefully with their parent species and fighting side-by-side in the Aeon War. If you showed that to Lovecraft, he would faint in shock (although to be fair it probably didn't take much to achieve that).
Also, the Nazzadi remind me of the Nox from Elden Ring, whose design I really like. And finally, there is a part of me that can't stop giggling at the thought of turning Grantz into an Anime Harem Protagonist.
All in all, adding the Nazzadi to AYGWM seemed funny to me, and so here they are. How did they come to exist ? Where exactly did Projekt S lead to after being repelled by Merlin's wards, and how did it end up locking on that destination ? What the hell happened to the Nazzadi civilization to leave it in ruins and its sky broken ? Where did the big monster come from ?
I'm not going to answer any of these questions yet. Congratulations, friends, you are now feeling as confused and lost as a Lovecraftian protagonist. Feel free to speculate, and I will laugh at your guesses while shamelessly cribbing anything that looks interesting to incorporate it into the story.
Don't bother wasting time trying to identify the dragon-thing Tanya fought from the Cthulhu Mythos : I made it up after going through an entire Mythos bestiary and not finding anything that I felt fit the story's needs.
Any suggestions for new side effect of Kosmosblut ? The bonded weapon is one, but I feel there should be something more personal too.
As you probably guessed, we are going to move to the Southern Continent for the next chapter, specifically to Kemet, the name I have chosen for Not!Egypt. I am still working on the details of just what force Division Y will send there, with the main question being whether to send poor Lergen along or not. What do you think ? Does it make sense for a Colonel who ostensibly works for Central Headquarters to be sent along the General who will be in overall command of the Imperial troops on the Southern Continent ? I know making Lergen suffer is never not funny, but I do want this to at least superficially make sense. I could also send Tanya, of course, but she just injected herself with another dose of Kosmosblut : it would make sense that she would need time to recover.
Zahariel out.