STRANGE LIGHTS WITNESSED IN THE SKIES OF LONDINIUM !
Last night, at around 1:00 AM, those inhabitants of Londinium who were still awake were privy to a grand and worrying spectacle. Though the skies were clear, great arcs of what seemed to be green and blue lightning were seen dancing in the heavens above the south of our fair city. Eyewitnesses report seeing strange sigils appear as well, and the sound of this bizarre cloudless storm awoke many from their slumber.
From start to finish, the strange phenomenon didn't last more than a minute or two, but left all who witnessed it shaken. As of right now, it doesn't appear to have caused any actual damage, and there has been no official statement as to the nature of this event.
With the war against the Empire continuing and rumors about their Wunderwaffen running wild, speculation that this was the result of yet another unholy magic designed by Imperial magical researchers spread promptly. Every week, new reports of Imperial submarines preying on merchant shipping reach our shores, but if these lights were indeed the result of Imperial activity, it would be the first time since the Battle of Arene that the Empire dares to deploy its superweapons within a city …
Excerpt from the front page of the Londinium Times, August 27th, 1925.
August 28th, 1925 – Londinium
By all rights, the mood of the Round Table should have been triumphant, or at least cautiously optimistic. After all, they had just managed to score their first semi-victory in the struggle to catch up to the Empire's Wunderwaffen.
In the hours following the decrypting of the intercepted message which had warned them of the Empire's test of their new Wunderwaffe on Londinium, Merlin had worked feverishly to complete the wards on time. Small stone sculptures had been engraved with Kemetian sigils and placed at key locations across the city, forming a ritual circle expanding all over Londinium. Then, at the center of the circle, Merlin had cast the warding spell, channelling it through the relay stones so as to cover the entire capital of the Allied Kingdom. Building the circle to the specifications of the ancient Kemetian priest who had written the scroll had been expensive, and the Round Table had been forced to requisition several items from private collections in order to meet the deadline.
But they had done it : whatever foulness the Empire had intended for Londinium had been averted. For the first time since Division Y had revealed its superweapons to the world, it had been foiled, and surely that was worth a cheer or two. However, that victory hadn't come without cost, and as they met to discuss their next course of action, the members of the Round Table were faced with one of them.
The Royal Wizard was pale, sweating, and sitting inside a comfortable chair with several blankets piled on him as he clutched a warm cup of medicinal tea. None of the other members of the Round Table could remember a time Merlin had looked so fragile, and they were bitterly reminded that their colleague was at least two decades older than the rest of them.
"Merlin," said Kay with uncharacteristic gentleness, "are you sure you are recovered enough to debrief us ? Shouldn't you be resting still ?"
"I am not dead yet," replied the old man with a weak smile. "And this room is little less comfortable than my own chambers in any case."
"Very well, but we best make this quick. What can you tell us about what happened ?"
"To begin with : your intelligence was on point, Agravain," replied the wizened old man. "I had only raised the wards for a few minutes before the Imperial attack started."
"Can you tell us anything about what the Imperial sorcerers were trying to accomplish ?" asked Mordred. "Propaganda aside, I find it difficult to believe they would actually use a Wunderwaffe on a city. That's the kind of thing that would make them a pariah state in the eyes of the international community, and they've been very careful to avoid that so far."
"I don't think I was struggling against Imperial mages at all," corrected Merlin. "It felt more like a machine. As to the intended goal, I cannot say for certain. The fact that the ward worked at all indicates that they probably tried to summon something, or perhaps even tear open a way for their troops to pass straight from their territory to the capital."
"Do you mean the Imperials could just magically walk through the sea and onto our mainland at any time ?" croaked Kay, not even bothering to attempt concealing the dismay he felt at the prospect.
"That is if my guess is correct. And even then, I felt the damage our struggle did to the Imperial machine. I don't know if they can repair it or build a new one."
"Even so, we have to consider the possibility they will try again at some point," pointed out Mordred. "They don't know anymore about our defences than we know about what they used to test them, but with you in this state, we can't possibly ask you to perform the spell again even if our sources warn us of another attack."
"Don't worry," said Merlin. "I had started teaching the spell to my apprentices when the Imperials attacked. They will be able to finish their studies on their own and should be able to replace me. Perhaps their youth will help them withstand it better than I."
"But we can hardly ask them to keep up the spell at all times in case of an attack … can we ?" asked Kay.
"Maybe we can," mused Merlin. "By itself, the warding spell isn't dangerous : it requires focus, yes, but no more so than any number of spells I have cast in my life. It was the clash with Division Y's attempt at reaching Londinium that drained me so. If we used some kind of rotation, with proper rest periods … But I would need more mages to ensure the capital is covered at all times."
"You will have them," promised Kay. "Even if I have to pull people from the Aerial Corps keeping watch over the Dodobird Strait. There isn't much point guarding the shore if the enemy can just teleport right in our midst."
Frankly, if the Imperials really had that kind of ability at their disposal, then the Allied Kingdom might as well throw in the towel and sue for peace terms as soon as possible. Hopefully Merlin had crippled that particular Wunderwaffe beyond recovery, or it had some kind of limitation. Even just the ability of delivering a handful of agents behind enemy lines was nightmarish enough, but it might be possible to handle it.
"I've also brought in more scholars to help translate the other Kemetian scrolls in the Royal Wizard's archive, as well as look for signs of other …" Merlin coughed, before continuing : "other instances of Elder Magic across the ages. Wards are useful, but you can't win a war with just a shield."
"If you think that's for the best, then it is your prerogative. We could certainly use new tools against the Wunderwaffen."
"There is something else," said Merlin. "During the struggle, I also sensed something other than the Imperial machine. Far to the south-east of Albion, in the land where that spell came from, lies a … power source of some kind, which the spell drew upon."
"We need to find it, then, if only to keep the Imperials from getting it first," frowned Mordred. "But Kemet is a big place. There's a reason people are constantly finding new ancient treasures, and it isn't just because of the booming forgery market."
"I recorded the magical signature of whatever it was in my staff," offered Merlin. "I believe I can create some kind of compass pointing to it for one of my apprentices to use in order to find it."
"Then do so … as soon as you can without hurting your health further, that is," Agravain added hastily. "Better yet, why don't you see if your apprentices can't do it themselves ? Meanwhile, I will set up an expedition to find out what it is you sensed and whether it can be used in the war effort."
"I will," promised Merlin, before being overcome by a sudden fit of coughing. As he drank deep of his cup, the rest of the Round Table moved on to other, less immediately important but no less vital matters.
Running a war, after all, was a lot of work.
September 25th, 1925 – Kemetian Capital Kheriaha
Professor Henry Carnahan, of His Majesty Royal College's Department of Archaeology, smiled and nodded his thanks to the local merchant as the two of them finished their transaction. The amount of currency he had just handed over was several times the actual worth of the equipment for desert travel he had purchased, but then he had also paid for something far more valuable : information.
He made his way through the bustling streets of Kheriaha and back to the safehouse where his associate was waiting with the rest of their group. The young lady, who looked like she had just stepped out of one of Londinium's most exclusive tea parties, greeted his arrival with a polite nod. She cut quite the striking figure in her travel clothes, and Carnahan had grown to appreciate her wit during the trip from Londinium – her strong magical potential had led her to develop a much more open attitude than most Albish women were permitted to express in public.
A lesser man might have been tempted to try his luck at getting to know her better, so to speak, but Carnahan had been happily married for five years, loved his two sons more than life itself, and didn't intend to do anything so monumentally stupid.
"It's confirmed, Miss Niniane," he told her after putting down his purchases. "On the same night as what happened in Londinium, the folks here saw strange lights in the desert to the west. It was hard to tell how far, but it shouldn't take us more than a few days to reach the area, two weeks at the utmost. After that, your compass should get us where we need to go, assuming it works as you said it does."
"I assure you that it will." She pulled out the device in question and snapped it open : the needle was pointing west instead of north, just like it had since they had arrived in Kheriaha after their boat had docked at the port. The needle was a bit wobbly, however, moving one way or another as if someone was playing with magnets close to it. She noticed him looking at the motion and continued : "Don't worry : the closer we get to our destination, the clearer the direction will become. It's a standard feature of tracking spells. When can you have everything ready for our departure ?"
While Carnahan was under no illusion as to Niniane's position above him in their little expedition's hierarchy (being an apprentice to the Royal Wizard came with its perks, as did carrying the firepower of an artillery battery on your person), he counted his blessings that she was willing to defer to his greater expertise when it came to the more practical aspects of their mission.
"I should have everything ready in time for a departure tomorrow at dawn," he told her confidently. This wasn't his first time mounting such an expedition, and while the war had everyone a bit more nervous than usual, the city had yet to actually suffer for it. "I have to ask : do you know how to ride ?"
"I am familiar with it, yes," she answered.
"Good. Camels aren't quite the same thing as horses, but it's still better than walking."
Renting camels for the two of them plus their four bodyguards and assistants would set him back a pretty penny, but then he was doing his duty to King and Country, and the Royal Wizard's office had promised to cover the costs. Carnahan was as patriotic as the next John Bull, and he could freely admit that being sent on that kind of secret, extremely important mission (or so he'd inferred from the urgency of his summons and the speed at which the whole business had been set up despite the war), was more than a little exciting. In the years he'd spent trotting the globe, archaeology had been a quiet and sedate affair, apart from the few times he had gotten involved with various groups objecting to his claiming ancient relics for the Albish Museum and had needed to run for his life.
He was hoping that this time would end up being on the quieter side.
September 30th, 1925 – Francois Colonial Port of Galberj
General Romel watched with satisfaction as his troops disembarked onto the docks of the Francois colonial port.
The journey had been nerve-racking, with every day at sea spent watching the horizon for the Royal Fleet. Romel had been briefed personally by General Zettour about the near-certainty that the Allied Kingdom had cracked their wireless codes, meaning that the Kingdom would almost definitely know his forces were on the move. And if they had tried to intercept them on the sea, well, the transport fleet had been accompanied by a sizeable escort, of course (nearly every ship that had been patrolling the Inner Sea at the start of hostilities had been pulled together for this operation), but Romel still wouldn't have wanted to bet his life on their ability to keep the Royal Navy at bay.
Fortunately, their counter-intelligence efforts had borne fruit. The cover story, that the Southern Expedition was being dispatched to bring the Francois colonies in line with the Pariseean government after the Francois President had asked for the Empire's assistance, had been bought by the Allied Kingdom. With the looming threat of an Imperial landing on their mainland, the Albish hadn't been willing to spread out their naval assets to hunt his convoy down. They had sailed south from the Imperial Navy base in Fiume until they had passed the Ildoan peninsula to their west, and crossed the Inner Sea without any more trouble than a few cases of sea sickness, before finally landing in Galberj.
The local garrison wasn't exactly happy to see them, of course, even with the Francois President doing his diplomatic best to smooth things over before their arrival. That was fair enough : Romel and his men were part of the army that had crushed theirs and taken their capital, which wasn't something you could expect anyone to enjoy. The General had made sure his men knew to be on their best behavior at all times and not to start anything. Whether that would be enough remained to be seen, but they shouldn't be staying here long enough for it to matter.
Planes were being unloaded from the ships to be transported to the Galberj air base, which under the terms of the Francois surrender the Imperial Army was entitled to use. Tanks rolled out on reinforced gangplanks, along with the rest of the expedition's vehicles. All seemed to be proceeding apace, meaning they ought to be fully disembarked and ready to depart in a few hours at best – and Romel expected nothing less than the best from the troops under his command. Getting two divisions' worth of troops and material offloaded in so short a time was only possible thanks to Galberj's facilities, another reason why he was glad he didn't have to come onto the Southern Continent hot.
His gaze fell upon a boat slightly apart from the rest, having been chosen to carry the more unconventional assets that had been assigned to this little jaunt. The troops that were disembarking were unlike any Romel had ever commanded, and he couldn't help but feel a shiver of mixed apprehension and excitement at the thought of leading them in battle.
Men carrying strange guns escorted people in hooded robes and lab coats, and five coffin-shaped boxes were being very carefully carried outside and toward the trucks waiting for them. Soldiers who didn't carry any weapon other than a few knives and pistol moved with a predatory grace that screamed 'dangerous' to anyone with a lick of sense, looking around as if expecting an ambush at all times.
And a bespectacled man in a Colonel's uniform led the disembarkment of it all, agitatedly speaking with a tall Captain who bore the insignia of the Empire's Aerial Mages Corps. Romel checked one last time his subordinates had everything in hand then, with a smile, walked over him.
"Well, here we are, Colonel !" he called out. "Aren't you happy to be off these fine ships ?"
"General Romel." Colonel Eric von Lergen sighed. "Please remember the decorum of your position. But, yes. I confess I'm glad to have solid ground under my feet again."
Lergen had been one of the worst afflicted by sea sickness, to the point it had been his second-in-command who had reported that all was well to Romel on the way across the Inner Sea.
"The Southern sun will do you good, Colonel !" Romel exclaimed, slapping the man on the back. "You look far too pale. Too much time spent behind a desk or under the smoke of the Rhine !"
"It certainly is sunnier here," Lergen admitted.
"Shame we aren't here as tourist, isn't it ? Damn those Albish for making us come all the way here just to shoot at each other." Romel smiled, knowing the look this gave him. "We'll have to make them pay for that lack of politeness, I reckon. Come to think of it, you've your own score to settle with them, don't you ?"
Lergen pushed his glasses back up his nose. "If you're referring to the attack on the Rhine, General, I feel those fools already paid the price for that in full. But if you're talking about the Kingdom's declaration of war itself, then … yes. I suppose I do."
Romel laughed.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you, Lergen ! Well, don't worry. By the time we're done here, the John Bulls will regret ever messing with the Empire !"
"URGENT STOP
COL LERGEN SIGHTED AT GALBERJ STOP
IMP EXP GOING EAST NOT WEST STOP
DIV Y PRESENCE ON STH CONT CONFIRMED STOP"
Encoded telegram sent by Albish agent, codename 'Mister John', September 30th, 1925.
October 3rd, 1925 – Outskirts of Al-Alamein
Despite the heat of the descending sun, Captain Alfred of the Albish Aerial Mage Forces had to admit that in any other circumstances, he would have enjoyed flying over the Bardad Desert. There was a serene beauty to the sight of the land stretching beneath him, and flying under his own power had never quite lost the sense of wonder it had when he'd first managed it during his training. Unfortunately, he couldn't just relax (well, as much as you could relax while also maintaining the spells that kept you from becoming a bloody stain on the ground below) and enjoy the view : he had a job to do, and inattention could kill him just as easily as gravity, and with far less warning.
The Royal Army troops in Kemet had been told that the Imperial contingent was being sent to bring the Francois colonies into line with the central government, which had surrendered to the Empire. Given that everyone knew the Kingdom was trying to get the Republican colonies to join in the fight against the Empire (a task which, in Alfred's opinion, had probably become a lot harder after the attack on Brest), that had made sense.
Alfred had even heard some of the other officers joke that the Empire had no idea what it was doing, and that the proud Francois colonial commanders would only bristle more at the intrusion, hence why the Allied Kingdom had let the Imperial transport fleet arrive on the continent in the first place. After all, you should never stop your opponent when he is making a mistake.
Alfred wasn't so sure about that. The Empire had proven itself to be led by great strategists as well as tacticians : the terms it had offered to the Entente and Republic after their defeat proved it.
Of course, they had still strengthened their position in the east of Kemet, just in case. New recruits were beginning to arrive from the Eastern colonies as the mobilization there progressed, and most of them had to pass through the Suan Canal. The coastal fortress of Arigzandria was being used as a mustering point, meaning they had plenty of troops to call upon in the defense of His Majesty's interests. The Albish Majesty, that was, not the puppet king who sat on the Kemetian throne.
The engineer corps had been busy, and the small railway station had been converted into a veritable fortress, with more men coming in as fast as the trains and trucks could carry them. By now, they had four divisions stationed at Al-Alamein : one dispatched from the mainland and three freshly arrived from the colonies, all of them ready to meet the foe.
Which, by the look of it, would happen very soon.
"General Corbyn," Alfred called over his radio set. "I have eyes on the Imperial vanguard. At the speed they are moving, they will reach our positions before sunset."
"Already ? I was hoping the savages would delay them a bit longer."
Alfred swallowed the reply he wanted to make at his superior's name for their local allies. He was spared from having to say anything when another voice cut in :
"Actually, sir, they stopped their hit-and-run attacks on the Imperial forces four days ago."
The new voice belonged to a man who was simply known as Mister John. He had shown up at Al-Alamein two days ago, having just travelled from Galberj ahead of the Imperial Army. One of the many spooks scattered across the Southern Continent as part of the Great Game the Europan powers played against each other in the region, he had also been the one who had negotiated with the desert tribes of the Francois territories to harass the enemy as they advanced.
Personally, Alfred thought that handing weapons to the notoriously independent-minded tribesmen probably wasn't going to endear the Kingdom to the Republic. But no one had asked his opinion on the subject, so all he could do was keep quiet and carry on.
"What ?! What do they think we gave them these guns for ?! And why wasn't I informed earlier ?"
"We didn't know about it. They only told me when I went to meet them this morning. Apparently, one night, a strange, foul-smelling mist appeared all around their camp without warning. Then an Imperial officer walked in, his uniform completely devoid of sand, introduced himself as Captain von Uger, and politely told them that they could either stop their raids and tell the other tribes to do the same, or next time he and his friends visited they would be much less polite. Since our deal with them didn't include fighting desert demons, the chieftain decided to accept the offer. He did tell me we were welcome to take the guns back if we wanted, though."
"General," said Alfred, "this is evidence the Imperials brought their Wunderwaffen with them. I recommend we reconsider the deployment of our troops."
What he really wanted to say was 'We need to withdraw back to Arigzandria and pray God for a miracle', but you just couldn't say that to your commanding officer.
"We outnumber them two to one, and we've the advantage of a defensive position. These monsters might have been enough to break the will of the Francois on the Rhine, but they were supported by the entire might of the Imperial Army. Here, all they have are a couple divisions led by some blue-horn I have never heard of."
"Our intelligence does suggest that Colonel Lergen is with them," Mister John pointed out. "And he was the one who orchestrated Division Y's participation in the Francois debacle. The good Captain might have a point, although I'm afraid it's much too late for retreat by now."
"Enough defeatism ! This is His Majesty's land," said Corbyn pompously, completely disregarding the fact that Kemet had been technically given its own sovereignty years ago and was ruled by its own monarch. "We will not let the Imperial dogs just waltz through it unpunished !"
"Yes, sir," Alfred answered mechanically, trying to ignore the cold sensation in his stomach.
He was not looking forward to this, not one bit. But the General had given his orders, and Mister John had a point too : trying to escape Al-Alamein now would only result in the Imperials' vanguard catching them from behind without the benefit of fortifications to cover them.
October 4th, 1925 – Castle Schwartzstein
Sitting at my desk within my office, holding Visha's cup of morning coffee in one hand and my walking stick in the other, I listened to the report of Captain Johann-Mattäus Weiss' magically projected image.
"All in all, the battle went as well as it possibly could have. At sunset, General Romel deployed the Untoten ahead of our main force to pick up the enemy mages, then we sent the Spectres to walk through the walls of their bunkers and pillboxes and take out the heavy guns. Their planes were a bit more of an issue, but with Galberj's airbase to launch ours from, we achieved air superiority early in the fight."
"After that, the Untoten were withdrawn after dealing with the mages to avoid draining our blood reserves. The aerial mages and myself bombarded the defenders from above while the Specters went after the commanders and the rest of the Werwölfe spearheaded the infantry's advance."
"How did our new friends perform ?"
"Everyone followed their training without problem. The Mirages' illusion abilities more than made up for their slower regeneration compared to the Phantoms. They couldn't heal as fast, but they didn't get hit as much. With the Specters having disabled the enemy heavy guns, it was a slaughter. I don't think the Kingdom commander had told his troops what to expect, so the sight of the 'Devils of the Rhine' was quite the psychological shock."
I could imagine that all too easily. The bulk of the Albish troops the Southern Expedition had faced were freshly-raised colonials, meaning their first real taste of combat would've been the sight of a bunch of seemingly invulnerable monsters charging at them, right after their mages had been torn from the skies and their heaviest guns had been taken out. And regardless of what their Europan officers might think, I doubted they had been too happy about being sent to fight on another continent in the first place.
As the Battle of the Rhine had shown, conventional armies without supersoldiers of their own couldn't hope to stand up to Projekte U and W. I was surprised the Albish had even tried, but maybe their commander hadn't known about Division Y's involvement, in which case the decision to fortify Al-Alamein would have made much more sense. Or maybe he was just an idiot who irrationally believed the Allied Kingdom's army to be inherently superior to that of the Republic.
"I will have a more detailed report on the battle when I return, but in the end we crippled the Kingdom troops' heavy fire, took a lot of them prisoner, including one General Robert Corbyn, and forced the rest to flee back to Arigzandria. We are processing them now : the General is thinking on converting the base into a prison camp while we regroup and prepare to continue onto our objective."
"My congratulations to General Romel," I said. "Having the Wunderwaffen is one thing; making good tactical use of them is another."
"Yes, ma'am. The Untoten also managed to take some enemy mages prisoner : I think they wanted to prove they could be relied on not to give in to their impulses after what happened on the Rhine."
"Really ?" I sighed. "I mean, I'm glad they did, don't get me wrong, but they were under the influence of the Endlose Nacht back then. A drug that we created and told them to take. They didn't have to prove anything. Still, give them my congratulations."
The final battle of the Rhine had been the first time the Untoten had succumbed to their bloodthirst and feasted upon living foes. The five we had sent to the Southern Continent had completely recovered from the side-effects of the Eikon blood (they wouldn't have been cleared for deployment otherwise), even if their permanent weakness to running water meant they had to spend the trip in torpor within their coffins.
"And how is Captain Uger adapting to his new command ?"
When then-Colonel Uger had joined the ranks of Projekt W, his rank had been something of a conundrum. He had earned it, no question about that, and being mortally wounded in battle was the sort of thing that got you promoted on paper, not demoted. But I, the overall commander of Division Y, was only a Major. So Uger had been shuffled back to Captain, with his file marking it as due to him recovering from his injuries and not being able to take on his old responsibilities. He had taken it remarkably well, joking that he would gladly have spent the rest of his military career as a private scrubbing pots and digging latrines if it meant he could hold his daughter again.
Really, granting miraculous healing to employees made managing them so much easier. Then again, Division Y didn't exactly follow the standards of the Imperial Army when it came to rank, not unlike the Aerial Mage Corps. I was still only a Major, for instance, despite my accomplishments and the fact that I effectively commanded an entire new branch of the military. From what General Zettour had implied, Central Headquarters had decided to hold off on promoting me further so long as it didn't impede my ability to command so as to maintain operational secrecy : there had already been too many signs that the enemy knew more than we were comfortable with about Division Y's operations.
The same logic applied to medals, though not to the ones I had asked for the Untoten who had died against the Eikons. For propaganda reasons, decorations were all made public within the Empire, meaning the Kingdom's spies could potentially use them to, say, track down Captain Uger's family and use them as hostages to force his compliance.
I was fine with it : the lower my profile, the more likely it was I would manage to fade into the background and avoid being put on trial for war crimes after the war was over. Though a pay increase would've been nice, with all the overtime I was putting in.
"He's doing well. Having him as scout was very useful in finding the tribesmen that were harassing us."
"Good. What about the occultists ? Any problem with them ?"
"Nothing major," he told me in a tone of voice that, even through the spell's distortion, managed to convey that I didn't want to ask how a bunch of third-son nobles and academics were adapting to life in the desert. For all its many dangers, Castle Schwartzstein was almost sinfully comfortable to live in, something I justified as our personnel deserving the best living conditions given the importance of their work.
"Very well. Good work, Captain. Continue following General Romel and Colonel Lergen's lead until you reach the Canal."
After that, the nominal operational goals of the Southern Expedition would be fulfilled, and it would be time for him and the rest of Division Y to go after their own objectives. I wasn't sure if General Romel had been briefed on those, though I hoped Colonel Lergen had been.
"Yes ma'am," he replied with a crisp salute, then cut off the spell.
I stretched my limbs and thought back on all that he had told me. The Southern Expedition was in good hands, but then I'd expected as much. Colonel Lergen had shown he could lead the supersoldiers of Division Y before, and if General Romel was anything like the one I vaguely remembered from the history books of my previous world, there were few strategists more suited to this particular theatre of war.
Of course, when General Zettour had presented his plan to me through Neumann (who I had sent to Berun with orders to essentially serve as a communication relay after pounding into his skull what I would do to him if any of the state secrets he would have to repeat through the D-24's communication spell leaked), I had offered to join the Southern Expedition myself. Much as I very much didn't want to go fight in a desert war, not offering would have made me look bad. Fortunately, General Zettour had refused, saying that he had another idea.
While he had claimed to have his own reasons to want to send Colonel Lergen, I was also pretty sure he didn't want to send me out so soon after my second use of Kosmosblut. The thought made me look down at my arm before I could stop myself.
My right forearm was covered in a black glove that concealed the fact that my skin up to my elbow had become the same kind of star-filled night sky that my entire body became when I used the Kosmosblut, with my normal skin appearing to crack and flake off at the junction. The fabric around my hand had to be especially thick to obscure the galaxy-shaped light shining from my palm where I had first touched the Nazzadi arcane device that had allowed me to kill the dragon-thing. My sense of touch with that limb had also gone strange, though the covering helped and I could still handle day-to-day activity without issue.
As prices for using the Kosmosblut went, it could have been much worse, even if the knowledge I was looking more and more like a chuunibyou was painful to bear. Far better my body pay the cost than my mind, however. Perhaps my cavalier attitude was due to my reincarnation and me still regarding my old body as my 'true' one, it wasn't as if I could talk with a professional psychologist about it.
More worrying was the speed with which I had decided to resort to the Kosmosblut. My reasoning for doing so still held up even with the benefits of hindsight, but I was still worried that, for all that I considered myself a rational individual, the temptation of that much power might have warped my judgment. I had thought the sheer agony of transformation, which made the mercifully brief last moments of my previous life pale in comparison, would have been enough to keep me from developing a dependency to the serum, but I had to consider the possibility. I hadn't even tried to fight the dragon-thing without it, instead turning to its use the moment I'd seen Neumann's attack spells failing to do any damage.
Again, that had been the correct tactical decision. It was just the thought process by which I had reached it that was suspect.
I rested my walking stick against the side of my desk. At the moment, it looked like a silver stick topped with a computation orb : a bit unusual to be sure, but nothing spectacular. However, since Doctor Iosefka had cleared me for strenuous activity, I had taken it for a spin in the air above Castle Schwartzstein.
The changes had been undeniable, both in casting speed and amount of mana the orb could process at the same time. I could fly faster and make tighter turns, and I was pretty sure that if I had really pushed myself I could have reached the lower edges of space, so far above even the best aircraft of the era it wasn't even funny. The D-24, for all its many advantages, wasn't a true Mythos-based computation orb, merely a step toward that goal. My walking stick, on the other hand, very much was what we'd theorized the final product of that avenue of research might be.
The Nazzadi had no idea what the stick had been before I fused it with my D-24. They seemed to be making up all kind of wild stories about it and my fight against the dragon-thing, which they had called Akhar-Zegog, the Devourer of Hope (or possibly time or the future, we were still working on the lexicon). A grandiose name, yes, but then that creature had plagued them since the collapse of their civilization, as far as we could tell.
Interrogating the Nazzadi about their past had revealed something that continued to puzzle our researchers. Judging by the tales of those we had rescued, some living Nazzadi had had grandparents who remembered the collapse of their civilization, having passed on the fantastical tales of their lost glory to their children, and them to their own children. But in other tribes, so many generations had passed that the very notion of a pre-fall Nazzadi civilization was completely unknown. There were several possible explanations, but I felt the more likely one was related to how timekeeping devices had all, without fail, failed once brought across the gateway. Whatever had happened that had killed Nazza-Duhni and ended the Nazzadi civilization, it had damaged the passage of time itself on that benighted world.
Of course, the only reason I could imagine that possibility was because of the science-fiction I had read in my previous life. To the rest of Division Y, who hadn't been taught Einstein's theory of relativity, time was a constant that always passed at the same rate, except in fairy tales. As a whole, though, they were far more interested in the Nazzadi themselves, as well as the artefacts brought back from their world, than in what most of them dismissed as the result of stories being passed down in certain tribes and being forgotten in others.
In total, we had rescued two hundred and thirty-six Nazzadi from Nazza-Duhni (which was what they had called their homeland, meaning 'Home of the People'). They were, as far as we could tell, the last survivors on their entire people, living in the one area of the whole dead planet that could still somewhat sustain life, despite the constant threat of Akhar-Zegog. Further exploration by the Untoten and aerial mages of Division Y had revealed that the rest of the planet was covered in constant, violent dust storms filled with eldritch lightning, and those had been getting closer and closer every day following our arrival. Whether Akhar-Zegog had held the storms at bay to preserve its food source, or the weapon I had used to kill it had, or it was a completely unrelated coincidence (unlikely, but stranger things had happened), it didn't really matter.
Even the last habitable region of Nazza-Duhni had been a death sentence to the Nazzadi. They had managed to feed themselves using magic to purify water and help cultivate gross, disgusting mushrooms which complemented their diet of insects, but there hadn't been enough food, and less and less as time passed. The only question was whether Akhar-Zegog or starvation would have killed them off first if we hadn't arrived.
Of the Nazzadi we had rescued, a disproportionate high number were mages. Rather than being innately more gifted, I suspected this was the result of brutal survival selection pressure : the Nazzadi able to use magic had been better suited to survive on their dead world than those who weren't. They were also very enthusiastic about learning how to fly as they had seen Neumann, Visha and I do, but their lack of mathematical education meant it would still be some time before the first Nazzadi took to the skies as an Imperial aerial mage.
The newcomers were also understandably fascinated by the sky. It was frequent for them to spend hours of their free time on the walls of the castle just looking up, and we had needed to treat several cases of eye damage after staring at the sun for too long before they had learned their lesson. During the night, you could even hear them sing as they stargazed; and while their songs were beautiful, they were also haunting and mournful, as the only time the Nazzadi had been able to sing without fearing to draw Akhar-Zegog's attention was when it had just devoured another of their kinsmen. Several members of Division Y were determined to teach the Nazzadi happier songs.
Once our efforts to establish dialogue with the Nazzadi were well underway, I had toyed with the idea of offering them jobs as code talkers for the Empire. With our wireless communications compromised, adding another layer of encoding by having the Nazzadi translate messages into their native language would have been a powerful security measure. The issue was, the Nazzadi language had suffered badly from the apocalypse. Only a fraction of their vocabulary had survived across all tribes, which meant we would need to develop an entire set of code words : not exactly the best for flexibility. Also, it would still be some time before I felt confident sending the Nazzadi beyond the immediate surroundings of Castle Schwartzstein. The trips to the forest Doctor Iosefka had requested for the children were already stressing me out enough, even if I understood the physical and mental health benefits.
One day, maybe, once we had more time to work with the Nazzadi with a shorter lineage to their people's past and they were less susceptible of going googly-eyed at the sight of a functioning civilization.
We had evacuated the last Nazzadi a few hours before Projekt S had finally shut down and the gateway had collapsed. The technicians had given us enough warning that nobody had been stuck on the other side. Even if we restored the Silberschlüssel, the coordinates of Nazza-Duhni were lost : we would never go back there again. After all, it was already a miracle we'd gotten there at all in the first place, and I was very suspicious of that kind of things. I couldn't think of why Being X would want us to rescue the Nazzadi – well, they had been very effusive in their gratitude to us, so maybe he wanted them to pray in thanks for their deliverance, but that seemed unlikely.
I still wasn't sure what his game was in all this. The Eikons were clearly his doing, but they'd had a chance to kill me back in Arene and hadn't taken it, instead wasting time preaching at me. Did the bastard want me to break and beg for his mercy ? Or was he playing a longer game, wanting me to become a figure of worship myself, something I was bitterly aware had already started in Arene and among the Nazzadi, despite my best efforts to quash that sort of thing ?
My best theory was that he was using me and Division Y as the Great Evil against which his chosen dupes could struggle in a heroic fight for the fate of the world, all in order to drum up faith and prayers. It was part of the reason why I was so determined to keep the Empire from using the Wunderwaffen for committing war crimes that would set the entire world against us, and had risked telling General Rudersdorf that generous peace terms for the Entente were in everyone's best interests. After all, the Empire's strategic goals in the Great War were to secure its borders from the threat of the hostile countries surrounding us : given that outright conquest was a pie in the sky, making these countries indebted to us through our generosity was the only realistic way this could be achieved.
To be fair to the Empire's diplomats, they had planned for relatively generous peace terms all along, not wanting to have to fight the same war again in a few decades. And of course, that lofty goal of setting up the Empire as a continental hegemon through diplomatic and economical ties would only be achieved if we won the Great War and didn't destroy Europa or the world in the process.
I wasn't afraid to admit that the sight of Nazza-Duhni's desolation had shaken me. As cautionary tales on the dangers of meddling with the Mythos went, gazing upon the ruin of an entire world spreading under a broken sky was pretty difficult to top. Unfortunately, it seemed the Allied Kingdom was looking for the means to counter the Wunderwaffen, and while they probably weren't going to build their own Denkmaschine (although they had been the ones to build a massive proto-computer to help their war effort in my old world), they had clearly found something.
Strangely, I had found myself hoping whatever the Albish had found in Kemet that had countered Projekt S came from Being X, just like the Eikons. On the one hand, the thought of that bastard being behind the old pantheon that had once been worshipped there sickened me, but on the other, I would much rather avoid the John Bulls messing around with the Mythos. The Eikons had proven that Being X's gifts were as dangerous to their wielder as to their enemies, but so far they didn't appear to be capable of ending life on the planet as we knew it.
The thought of signing a de-escalation treaty with Being X briefly flickered in my mind. The worst part of it was, if I had a way of contacting him, I might genuinely have considered it. Him toying with this world's people for the purposes of messing with me and harvesting their faith was bad, but everyone dying horribly in a Mythos apocalypse would be far worse. However, since I hadn't heard from him since he'd reincarnated me, that option was off the table and it was up to me to impress upon Imperial High Command how important this was.
Which also involved providing other, less destructive options to my superiors so that the Empire didn't end up cornered to the point where they began to consider unleashing the full arsenal of horrors locked in the castle's vaults. If I never saw the Kinder again, it would be too soon. Our last round of recruitment for Projekt W had come and gone with about the same survival rate as the last : this time, fifty-one candidates had survived.
By the time the last ritual came and went, we had gotten fourteen Phantoms, twenty-seven Mirages, two Echoes, two Spectres, three Whispers and four representatives of a new breed that we were calling 'Shadows'.
The Shadows were red, brown and spiky, with double-jointed, powerful legs that let them jump incredible distances. Elya had been very enthusiastic about them, all but demanding they be assigned to her efforts to build a counter-espionage group within Division Y. It was easy to see why : each Shadow had the ability to turn not just invisible, but also completely silent as well as undetectable through thermal detection spells, at will. They also had sharp thorns on their bulky arms, and the beard-like needles growing out of their chin could be fired and were coated in a paralytic poison. And then, of course, there was their special ability (every sub-type seemed to have one, though we hadn't discovered the Echo's yet) to teleport up to a hundred meters next to a target they could see in a flurry of attacks. They were much less tough than the Phantom sub-type, and their regeneration was also much slower. We had classified them as a 'Stealth Combat Werwolf' type : they looked pretty much designed for espionage, kidnapping and assassination, and I had approved Elya's request for her to start training them in spycraft as soon as they had passed basic training.
As General Romel and Colonel Lergen had demonstrated on the Southern Continent, more Werwölfe opened new tactical possibilities, but what we needed was another strategic tool. Projekt S would have been perfect, but it would take months to build a new one, and that was if we could find all the components required, some of which were incredibly rare and valuable.
I had an idea, several in fact. But a lot would depend on what we, and the Kingdom, found in the sands of Kemet in the near future.
October 4th, 1925 – Bardad Desert
The journey had been long, but at last, they were in sight of their destination – and what a sight it was. Carnahan could feel his blood boil with excitement (as well as the heat of the desert sun) as he took in the structure emerging from the sands at the foot of the dune his camel was currently atop of.
A vast square expanse of flat stone stretched between the dunes, with a row of pillars delimitating it on each side and a handful of buildings built atop it. Even from this distance, Carnahan could see that each pillar was covered in engravings that had miraculously survived the passage of time.
"How the hell did nobody find this place before ?" he asked out loud, bewildered.
He hadn't expected an answer, but Niniane gave him one anyway :
"I can feel the remnants of a concealment and protection spell woven around it. I think it was damaged when my master fought back the Empire's attack on Londinium."
"Leading to the strange lights the locals saw in the process," Carnahan finished. "Makes sense to me." Then he frowned as something else occurred to him. "That means this whole place is exposed to the elements now. We have to make sure to record as much as we can …"
"While I understand your professional enthusiasm, Mister Carnahan," said Niniane with a wry smile, "remember that our main priority is finding if there is anything that can be used in our struggle against the Empire's superweapons."
"I know, I know. It's just …" he sighed. "This is an incredible academic discovery, Miss. I just wish we had found it in better times."
An intact structure from Ancient Kemet, with who knew what still inside, completely untouched by time or greed ? It would have been the talk of the entire archaeological community if not the country, and would've made his career. Now, he somehow doubted the government would let him publish whatever findings he made during this journey.
"As do I, Mister Carnahan," said Niniane wistfully. "As do I. But we have a duty to King and Country, and we'll do it without complaint."
AN : As far as I know, Lergen getting seasick isn't canon. I just thought it was funny.
Oh, and I'm sure nothing bad will happen to Mister Carnahan and Miss Niniane. I don't know why you would possibly think otherwise.
This chapter has a lot of alternative names for countries and cities that exist IRL. Some of them were collected from various canon sources, others I made up. Here is a list of the names I found in the LN and the manga (although the latter is a fan translation, so take that list with a grain of salt) :
Tripoli : Politoli.
Tunis : Turus.
Alexandria : Arigzandria.
Benghazi : Galberj.
El-Alamein : Al-Alamein.
El-Kantaoui : Amphidable.
Algeria : Malgeria.
Sahara Desert : Barbad Desert.
Mediterranean Sea : Inner Sea.
Now, onto the names I made up. The name of Not!Egypt is Kemet, the Black Land, so called after the fertile areas around the Nile. As mentioned by one reader (owrtho) on SB, the fact that the area is known by its own name rather than one placed upon it by the Greeks implies they were somewhat more powerful/influential on the international scene (in this story, hinting at the powerful magics they once possessed), even though that wasn't enough to keep them from being subjugated by the Allied Kingdom. The name of Kheriaha for Cairo as capital of Kemet was found by me wandering on the wikipedia page and finding it as a name for the Babylon Fortress, located in IRL Cairo. I chose it because it sounded cool. The Suan Canal is an alternative name for Suez suggested by MyGameMyWay2Play on SpaceBattles. Fiume is the city of Rijeka, a port city in IRL Croatia. After checking the maps in the LN, I found out that the Empire has a coastline to the Inner Sea where Crotia is IRL, which forced me to rewrite part of Romel's POV as I redesigned the entire first phase of the Southern Expedition as a result.
Once again, this chapter ended up written much faster than I thought it would, even if far more of that time was spent researching geography and history than I had planned. I hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to what comes next : reviews, comments and suggestions are a big part of what keeps up this story's frenetic writing pace. Right now, I am looking for suggestions for Mythos Projekte Tanya could use to solve the issue of the Royal Navy (since she mentions it in her POV, I don't think it's a spoiler). Of course, the new Echoes she got from the gacha (which once again was completely randomized, with the same rules as last time) will have to be involved somehow, but I'm looking for more.
By the way, this story has a TV Tropes page now. Please check it out and fill it up !
Zahariel out.