V13: Chapter 9 (Patreon)

V13: Chapter 9

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Interlude: She Who Runs Red With Promise

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By abandoning my pride, I survived and ventured through the wastelands to reach the outermost territories of my people. The end of the expeditionary force, the might of the Ancients, and the strength of those who defended our birthright needed to be conveyed. Though I knew I would return to be censured, to be stripped of my rank, and to be humiliated, I forced myself to crawl through the bodies, to dig through the ground, and to subsist off moisture in the earth and upon vermin to convey the truth to my people.

When I reached my people’s land, however, I found ruin.

Us fated opposition saw our oncoming armies as our declaration that we were ready to be tested, and they marched.

I made haste further into our territories and spoke with the survivors who had hidden and returned to try and eke out a living in the desolate lands.

They spoke of the horrors I witnessed unleashed in full against us.

The night sky became as bright as day, stars were formed and hung low in the sky, and from the skies came ruin. Skittering machines composed of pure-white metal fell from the skies and surged across all barriers and fortifications. A wounded warrior who led a band of survivors described them as living weapons. Their four arms and four skittering legs were all capable of cutting through even iron, and they moved with swiftness and grace that even the most skilled swordsman could not overcome. They dug through walls, killed all whom they found, and guards and shepherds could do nothing against them.

They were only stopped by professional soldiery, those well-versed in flesh fortification and blood quickening could handle them. Steel proved to be more capable than iron against them, even if only against glancing blows. Thus, once the city guard and the garrison were martialed, they were able to hold against the tide in their redoubts and fortifications.

But that only revealed our hand.

From the flying bastions came lances of light that coursed through the city, while the roar of thunder resounded even without storm clouds. Whatever the lances of light touched came apart explosively, while each roar of thunder heralded a speeding projectile that shattered buildings. Our own shamans had tried to defend against them, but their barriers were broken by far greater powers. The warrior spoke of all light, even that of the moon, being swallowed by darkness before a flash signaled the death and destruction of even the finest shaman.

Then, as the city was scoured, the dead began to rise as monsters with unnatural strength.

He knew not more after that, as he left to lead people into the wilderness as an early casualty.

But I was able to piece together more as I traveled down the main road, through destroyed villages and shattered towns.

All bereft of dead bodies.

The survivors were those who hid in the forest. Many were with hunters who knew the lay of the land. The newly mobile undead were more weapons than people. They were capable of tearing trees apart, but only at the cost of their own limbs. The strength they exerted came at grievous cost to their flesh. But they were untiring, needed no food, and could persist as mere bones, if far weaker. The crushing of their head or burning them killed them, but doing so typically had more of their kin coming in search of enemies.

But they were not all that there were.

The survivors whispered of the towering titans clad in armor that I saw at the battlefield. Those terrible creatures who had the grace of mortals but the size and shape of giants. They smashed apart buildings and set villages alight, while more of the skittering machine monstrosities swept through the lands like packs of wolves. They spared nothing in their passing, and so many fled to the regional capital.

I hoped for a time that I would find it under siege, as it had barriers and defenses against the air for Stymphalian attack.

My hopes were dashed as I found it destroyed.

Not one tower was left standing, and the governor’s palace was simply gone. The residential districts held charred skeletons of buildings, while the crafts districts were completely shattered. The fields were covered in ash, while fields were filled with shattered bones of undead who were truly, finally slain. All over the city were immense craters, as if a hammer fell from the sky and spun into it. Shattered remnants of the machines were everywhere, but as I walked through the ruins to find clues, I found other things.

Footprints of shoes of make I never seen before.

Pieces of cylindrical metal that smelled faintly of flame.

Innumerable holes filled the ruins, and inside the holes were shards of metal.

The flying knives I had heard and witnessed at the killing field were here.

A shiver came down my spine as a mystery unveiled itself.

The flying bastions described by the survivors did not just have constructs and terrible magics.

They carried with them battle thralls armed with terrible weapons of the Ancients’ design.

I searched the ruins and found more than three sets of differently designed boot prints. Some left far deeper impressions, suggesting greater size and shape. Others were so light that they barely left imprints at all. The vast majority were the same and moved in formation. Groupings of at least ten roved around the streets. They stopped at corners, fired deluges of the flying knives, and advanced against positions. Positions that showed signs of being blasted apart, even though there was no lingering magic around them, and only sometimes did I find blood spilled from the invader’s number.

Typically, they waged their conflict against us with so much strength that we could do nothing to even slow their steps.

I gathered what I could find from the ruins. Food, clothes, and even some small sums of currency in hopes of finding passage before moving on.

And, so, I walked past the ruined regional capital in hopes of reaching the next of our lands.

Knowing that there was an army aboard those flying vessels informed me that it was unlikely that they could continue for long. As mighty as their magics were, living beings all needed water, food, and replacements for anything that was broken. An army could not simply stay aloft and wage war forever, even if they held so many advantages.

My thoughts were proven wrong as I continued to find town after town destroyed, city after city demolished, and the next regional capital smashed apart.

A terrible realization came upon me as I continued to walk, knowing nothing more than to keep walking to try and deliver my findings.

That last attempt at breaching paradise had not been our first.

We tried to go there with our shepherds and missionaries.

Then, we had tried to enter it with an army before we tried again with the attempt that I had followed.

This was no mere counter-raid, but a scourging that was designed to punish us for our lack of strength.

We failed to place a foothold into paradise; therefore, now we were being forced to carry this burden to validate that we could continue to try.

Or, such was my wish, as I continued to walk to find only death and destruction wherever I walked.

This must be a test.

One we must endure and rise from after it is done.

For why would those who wish for us to inherit our birthright punish us so harshly, if it was not?

…

With Morgan and the others fighting to secure the demonic front for a few years, I was in charge and had the ability to confront the first set of events that came with the crises.

Since I was able to keep my lands secure, I was able to keep things relatively steady at home.

Population was growing, industry was expanding, research was progressing, and we were still churning out troops. Crises tended to come with issues beyond monsters smashing down the doors. Events that decreased everything were possible, and they needed to be dealt with using money or other resources like influence. Some even needed certain technologies researched for the cost to not be prohibitive.

For example, the Ascendant had an event chain called the Defoliant Disease, which targeted forest tiles and reduced the output of farms. With proper investment into farms, the developed tiles could produce ten units of food by the end of the game. Relevant technologies for farms were growing methods, crop cycling methods, better planting and harvesting methods, and fertilizer. Forest tiles could be improved as well to yield more production through researching relevant technologies like tree nurseries, sawmills, sawdust utilization, and more.

Defoliant disease was an event that ruined crops and trees until you researched ways to counter it. The cost of the research was directly tied to how much you’ve developed the improvements for the tithe. If you maxed out their outputs, then the research cost would be relatively low, and the effects of the event would be low. Implementing the fixes would also be relatively low too, just some gold and maybe a dedicated turn or two from a city. The research and final costs are low because your civilization already had plenty of developments in the technology and had the specialists in those fields on hand.

A -3 to units of food made by farms and -3 to production output by forest works is also much easier to endure when those tiles have high yields.

But if you didn’t do the research, you’re fucked.

Tiles that you’re paying upkeep costs for are suddenly not producing any production or food. A basic farm improvement yields only 2 food for the cost of 1 gold a turn. The -3 value of the defoliant event basically makes that farm just a money sink that gives you nothing.  A -3 to a 10 food per turn farm is alarming and needs to be dealt with, but a fat zero with upkeep costs is ruinous, especially since population units need food. It’s easier to delete the improvement, buy food stockpiles, and then build it again later, but that means your city is building a farm again instead of units or other improvements while also using money that could go to other projects. A player that’s focused on military technology and who has a razor-thin economy can be bankrupted in a turn, start losing units to desertion, and once his economy is stable, the game is already lost since the crisis has been attacking militarily as well.

Crises are full-spectrum threats with their own events, which is why facing all of them at once is so difficult. Being hit with all their economy-targeting events at once outright kills unprepared economies, cripples those with modest investments, and hampers the best. While I could’ve gone harder in military research, I made sure to maintain a steady pace of incremental improvements to all my industries, while also stockpiling whatever I could in massive quantities just in case the crisis events were worse in ‘reality’ than they were in game.

So, while everyone else was off buying us time to win, I was working towards making sure that the nation would remain strong enough to secure our victory.

Then, right on cue, the first crisis event popped.

The Stymphalian Sickness.

The first reports were straight out of the game’s textbox. Reports of a strange new fever coursing through the lands, which left people weak and incapable of working. The first thing it decreased was production output. Overall, it was a minor demerit that could just be overcome with some monetary incentives, stimulant cocktails, or antibiotic shots. The last was the best option, as it cured the population and prevented the spread.

I had plenty of them ready and stocked up, and my population was living on food heavily fortified with vitamins, and preventatives were administered to my population routinely.

For me, that was the end of the event.

I did the right thing and had the population growth and sustain technologies needed to cut the event off at the knees.

The event was done for me at that point.

But what if I didn’t finish it off there?

Then, the next report that would’ve come was that the flu was causing the death of those who were older, which decreased research output. It took away mentors, specialists, scholars, and more. Universities would need to shut down for a time, maybe even entire education districts, as they need to find replacements who won’t be as good as those who were lost.

Then, the sickness would start culling the weak as the Stymphalians desired. Children on the weaker side would start dropping dead, their bodies boiling from the inside and breaking down, until they perished in agony. Adults that were on the more fragile side would suffer the same fate while the rest of the elderly population would get wiped out. The Stymphalians used the sickness to cull their prey of weakness, and while their lands had populations who weathered the disease, the continent didn’t, and many would perish even if they were healthy.

If you had no answer to the Stymphalian Sickness event, then your empire’s population will be cut down by a quarter, population growth will be halved, and that’s atop the production and research decreases.

Thankfully, I was ready to address it. I had plenty of hospitals and antibiotics developed, and I filled basic foods with vitamins and supplements. Once the first signs of the sickness arose, I deployed the medicine and required everyone to take it. It cost money and influence, but the sickness was treated, it didn’t spread, and I avoided the rest of the problems that the sickness would’ve given me.

The problem was that the Guardians of the Moon couldn’t do the same.

And, it was unlikely that they were ready for the rest of the crisis events, too.

The AI has always been good at handling fights, but events have always fucked them over.

I wanted to go over to the Guardians of the Moon and started offering aid, but in the end… I stayed my hand.

They were still a threat, after all.

Celia had been unable to keep the enemy out of her side of the continent, and she was dealing with recently absorbed populations and Citadels… but she still had a powerful Wonder of the Ancients and the Divine Engine of War. That’s atop a production economy composed of Undead, as well as the assets of the Forgers, Wardens, and the Merchants. She had the tools at her disposal to survive, and even had the ability to thrive with the right moves.

And, if her people survived and thrived, they could get stupid ideas.

Stupid ideas like deciding to backstab me while my attention is held by the crises, to secure the continent’s future.

Maybe, if I knew they were losing for sure, I’d go ahead and offer medical aid and support.

As of now, though?

The Guardians of the Moon are on their own, because I wanted to be sure that they couldn’t even think about stabbing me in the back. A lot of innocent people were probably going to die because of this decision, but in the end, Celia’s responsible for her people while I’m responsible for mine. I didn’t even know if the Stymphalians could deploy their bioweapon again, which would require my stockpiles of medicine to be expended to cure my people again.

Something which I can’t do if I save Celia’s people instead.

Yeah, it sucks, but if Celia starts to lose, I could strike hard and fast to take her Citadels and hold the line.

If she holds, then our deal goes through and the winner takes all.

If she starts to win, then things get a lot more complicated, especially if she has strength to send my way.

So, she’ll need to put her money where her mouth is and guide her nation without my support.

That’s all there is to it.