- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
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The Dragon situation that had gripped Regalia for several days now was advancing by the hour. All over the city, people were seemingly at random possessed by a sudden and inexplicable urge to serve the Dragon now known as Rikkira. The Vigilant Shield Bastion has been occupied by Dragon worshipers, and guard organizations were found attacking each other in the streets, members unsure whether they had been turned or not. In many cases, it was even unclear if the people who claimed they had turned to worship the dragon had indeed done so, adding to the mounting paranoia across the city as brother turned on brother, child on parent and teacher on student. There was no way to tell whether anyone had fallen under the spell of the Dragon Song, and before long, it seemed as if central guard authority in the city was breaking down.
Yet, the Dragon did not seem to wish to utterly destroy the law enforcement. Many castles like the Safeguard Keep and the Black Tower remained standing, and the Dragon showed very little if no interest in actually attacking them. It left the city authorities baffled, though many speculated that the Dragon's intention was to sow fear and paranoia, not to kill half the city in an attempt to take it over. The paralyzed attitude of the government also made progress difficult. It had become unclear whether the Imperial Steward had actually seized emergency authority in the city. The Assembly refused to convene in fear of a Dragon attack, and the consuls remained quiet on the ongoings. Nobody was stepping up to the mounting chaos in the city, and the Emperor had seemed absent. The assault on the Imperial Palace, where Dragon cultists had temporarily seized the Imperial Quarters, had left much of the Palace damaged and the Emperor supposedly wounded, though liberated and recovering. The situation in the city was thus unclear, but it was about to get a whole lot more confusing.
As with many of the Dragon sightings, the Dragon flew above the city's rooftops growling and tossing out the occasional Dragon Cry to scare the citizens from above. Yet, when passing the Emperor's road on the way to the Black Tower, a number of Regalian Guards mounted a small ballista on the top of the Heron Geronimo temple, opening fire on the Dragon. Sure enough, the Dragon altered course, but just as it was about to crash into the tower which had the Regalian Guards in it, a second Feathered Dragon dove out of the clouds and into the first Dragon. The first Dragon was definitely Rikkira, the horns on her head were unmistakable, but the second Dragon had a completely unique and unrecognizable set of horns. Furthermore, this second Dragon looked different, it was stockier, bulkier, flew as if it was a small songbird that had only just left the nest, and strangest of all, held a Regalian banner clutched in its left front paw, violently dancing in the wind as the Dragon charged down.
When the Dragons made contact with one another, each one claw at the other's face, yet they disengaged as crowds started forming below, pointing at the two Dragons in the sky. The Dragon Rikkira snarled at the other, glancing at the tower of Heron Geronimo Temple, before rapidly flying off to the eastern part of the city. The other Dragon meanwhile peered down at the people below, raising its paw holding the Regalian banner to wave it gently in the wind, before flying up and above into the cover of clouds, in the same awkward and almost drunkenly flying manner as it had done before coming down. The people were now dumbfounded. There seemed to be two Dragons, and better yet, the second one didn't seem to like the first one at all. The people became unsure of what to make of this, especially looking to both the Assembly and the Synod for answers in their enduring silence.
Further in the west, the war between the Avanthar and the Regalian Empire had now formally began as the Avanthar horde marched on Lusits as well, occupying the countryside. The capital of Lusits and the various bastion ports remained free of occupation, but placed extra strain on the Empire as a whole to send in adequate grain shipments to the besieged cities. Luckily, the work the Safeguard had performed in Anglia ensured that the Anglian granaries were dry and safe, thus securing food supplies. The Bureaucrats had speculated that if the Safeguard had not bought the bread bonds, there would have been imminent famine in Lusits as a result of the sieges. When occupying all this land however, the Shendar marched on the Avanthar causing a three way tug. From the east, the Regalians fought against the Avanthar, while from the west the Shendar marched on them also.
Yet all was not as bad as it had seemed. Entirely unexpected and much welcomed, local Regalian authorities and the Emperor's Army were pleasantly surprised when 20,000 Drow soldiers landed in the l'Elvellen Principality and immediately marched on the Shendar. The Drow, led by the Hold General Vilein Th'ära refused to coordinate with the Human resistance and Imperial troops, but the Regalian authorities figured it was best to leave them up to their own business and worry about ejecting them later. For now, they seemed hellbent on stopping any Shendar power gain in the continent, and mysteriously enough, seemed to have several Isldar envoys in tow as well who gave up little as to their motivations for their presence.
In the south, Qadir and Allar had formed a most peculiar expeditionary force called the Clockwork Alchemicar, a small expeditionary force of roughly 3000 Allar who moved around on airships against Precaëlle, the Elven Principality on the eastern coast of Hadaria. The Qadir had devised some sort of clockwork charging gliders which when manned by nimble and small Allar, was ejected from the sides of their airships and sent with great speed through the air, while the Allar inside the gliders tossed down vials of unstable alchemical substances. When completing their task, the gliders would return to the airships, their springs recharged through clockwork engines only to be sent out later again. While their impact on the war was minimal at best, the Elves would soon call them "The Pestilence Hornets" as the airships often avoided direct fire from the Elves and dropped diseased substances onto Elven population centers in support of the war.
Finally, the capture of an Elven fort had revealed some curious information. Fort Tond had appeared to be a major hub for the Magic covenant's subterfuge activities, housing vast underground catacombs filled with Regalian abductees and prisoners of war and peace time, some which had been in this prison for many years and had long been assumed dead. The Elven spies that operated from this castle used Magics and other trickery to either fake deaths or fool local authorities into declaring individuals for dead, only to abduct them for their own nefarious plotting and torture to divulge state secrets. Numerous prisoners quickly made it back to Regalia, ferried to safety. Perhaps the most curious of all of them, was the ginger man that claimed to be the first husband of Emperor Cedromar I, Percival Ravenstad. While the story could not be confirmed on the spot in Daendroc, he and many others like him were sent to Regalia to be processed by the Bureaucracy to verify the truth of their claims, especially since many of the prisoners were declared dead and witnessed to die by their relatives and friends back home.
Yet, the Dragon did not seem to wish to utterly destroy the law enforcement. Many castles like the Safeguard Keep and the Black Tower remained standing, and the Dragon showed very little if no interest in actually attacking them. It left the city authorities baffled, though many speculated that the Dragon's intention was to sow fear and paranoia, not to kill half the city in an attempt to take it over. The paralyzed attitude of the government also made progress difficult. It had become unclear whether the Imperial Steward had actually seized emergency authority in the city. The Assembly refused to convene in fear of a Dragon attack, and the consuls remained quiet on the ongoings. Nobody was stepping up to the mounting chaos in the city, and the Emperor had seemed absent. The assault on the Imperial Palace, where Dragon cultists had temporarily seized the Imperial Quarters, had left much of the Palace damaged and the Emperor supposedly wounded, though liberated and recovering. The situation in the city was thus unclear, but it was about to get a whole lot more confusing.
As with many of the Dragon sightings, the Dragon flew above the city's rooftops growling and tossing out the occasional Dragon Cry to scare the citizens from above. Yet, when passing the Emperor's road on the way to the Black Tower, a number of Regalian Guards mounted a small ballista on the top of the Heron Geronimo temple, opening fire on the Dragon. Sure enough, the Dragon altered course, but just as it was about to crash into the tower which had the Regalian Guards in it, a second Feathered Dragon dove out of the clouds and into the first Dragon. The first Dragon was definitely Rikkira, the horns on her head were unmistakable, but the second Dragon had a completely unique and unrecognizable set of horns. Furthermore, this second Dragon looked different, it was stockier, bulkier, flew as if it was a small songbird that had only just left the nest, and strangest of all, held a Regalian banner clutched in its left front paw, violently dancing in the wind as the Dragon charged down.
When the Dragons made contact with one another, each one claw at the other's face, yet they disengaged as crowds started forming below, pointing at the two Dragons in the sky. The Dragon Rikkira snarled at the other, glancing at the tower of Heron Geronimo Temple, before rapidly flying off to the eastern part of the city. The other Dragon meanwhile peered down at the people below, raising its paw holding the Regalian banner to wave it gently in the wind, before flying up and above into the cover of clouds, in the same awkward and almost drunkenly flying manner as it had done before coming down. The people were now dumbfounded. There seemed to be two Dragons, and better yet, the second one didn't seem to like the first one at all. The people became unsure of what to make of this, especially looking to both the Assembly and the Synod for answers in their enduring silence.
Further in the west, the war between the Avanthar and the Regalian Empire had now formally began as the Avanthar horde marched on Lusits as well, occupying the countryside. The capital of Lusits and the various bastion ports remained free of occupation, but placed extra strain on the Empire as a whole to send in adequate grain shipments to the besieged cities. Luckily, the work the Safeguard had performed in Anglia ensured that the Anglian granaries were dry and safe, thus securing food supplies. The Bureaucrats had speculated that if the Safeguard had not bought the bread bonds, there would have been imminent famine in Lusits as a result of the sieges. When occupying all this land however, the Shendar marched on the Avanthar causing a three way tug. From the east, the Regalians fought against the Avanthar, while from the west the Shendar marched on them also.
Yet all was not as bad as it had seemed. Entirely unexpected and much welcomed, local Regalian authorities and the Emperor's Army were pleasantly surprised when 20,000 Drow soldiers landed in the l'Elvellen Principality and immediately marched on the Shendar. The Drow, led by the Hold General Vilein Th'ära refused to coordinate with the Human resistance and Imperial troops, but the Regalian authorities figured it was best to leave them up to their own business and worry about ejecting them later. For now, they seemed hellbent on stopping any Shendar power gain in the continent, and mysteriously enough, seemed to have several Isldar envoys in tow as well who gave up little as to their motivations for their presence.
In the south, Qadir and Allar had formed a most peculiar expeditionary force called the Clockwork Alchemicar, a small expeditionary force of roughly 3000 Allar who moved around on airships against Precaëlle, the Elven Principality on the eastern coast of Hadaria. The Qadir had devised some sort of clockwork charging gliders which when manned by nimble and small Allar, was ejected from the sides of their airships and sent with great speed through the air, while the Allar inside the gliders tossed down vials of unstable alchemical substances. When completing their task, the gliders would return to the airships, their springs recharged through clockwork engines only to be sent out later again. While their impact on the war was minimal at best, the Elves would soon call them "The Pestilence Hornets" as the airships often avoided direct fire from the Elves and dropped diseased substances onto Elven population centers in support of the war.
Finally, the capture of an Elven fort had revealed some curious information. Fort Tond had appeared to be a major hub for the Magic covenant's subterfuge activities, housing vast underground catacombs filled with Regalian abductees and prisoners of war and peace time, some which had been in this prison for many years and had long been assumed dead. The Elven spies that operated from this castle used Magics and other trickery to either fake deaths or fool local authorities into declaring individuals for dead, only to abduct them for their own nefarious plotting and torture to divulge state secrets. Numerous prisoners quickly made it back to Regalia, ferried to safety. Perhaps the most curious of all of them, was the ginger man that claimed to be the first husband of Emperor Cedromar I, Percival Ravenstad. While the story could not be confirmed on the spot in Daendroc, he and many others like him were sent to Regalia to be processed by the Bureaucracy to verify the truth of their claims, especially since many of the prisoners were declared dead and witnessed to die by their relatives and friends back home.
