“Nothing is here, so anything can fill it!”
A guiding rule that sounded only like whimsy becomes what reshapes the Zennia. Important compass directions can see all of it from high above now until mists take the edges of the known world. Unknown mountains, valleys, and plains are bounded by rivers that wash out to far oceans, all floating on a huge map.
(“Upon tiles shall be painted the great stratagems of Kioulau, those truths which will conquer each of the Ten Higher Planes until we shall dwell in the halls of Shai’var.”)
“This plan fits for an army that’s of many races…!”
The first tile, square and made of carved bone, plummets from the sky after too long spent deliberating on its use. It loudly crashes into a forest of alien trees that shed their own colors as light, situated far to the east.
“Don’t tell Boss anything about your [Grand Stratagem], Elf.”
A second clatters to rest at the base of a familiar mountain with a gilded-and-silvered mansion built upon its top. “But it’s useless, useless, because none are as mighty as this one~.”
Two more Grand Stratagems swiftly join without commentary, to drop face down into snow in the north or to land in sand in the south. After a year of this game, every participant acts confident in understanding a game that takes decades to master.
(A very fun game… for me.)
One rule added to many others broke the chaotic flow that began with hitting a kitten-ball. Now, intelligent decisions are required, making for a much better game. After Grand Stratagems at the beginning of a season, the next element of “play” is to announce the attacks of all players in order.
Adris motions to the winner of the [Summer] season. She nods, still gazing at how brown leaves hang lonesomely from the forests she claims.
[Fall] begins.
“Now comes the liberation of…!” Loudly cheering for the conquest to be named, the player that chooses the first city to strike blanks on its name. “Which territory did we decide in [Spring] to take by now?”
After leaning over the edge of the floating leaf she glides on, the strategist receives a helpful hand to point out which tree-canopied paradise is next on her list.
“Durathalel!” The elvish word that reads proudly on the map is old of tongue. “From Shadow shall comrades of all kinds retake what belongs to the Sun!
… How many armies do we commit, again?”
Her male groupies of three-different heights and statures share dual qualities when answering her question: they’re all broad-shouldered in their racially distinct armors that shine white in the sun’s rays, glow green when shielded from it, or hum dull silver to steal light and catch the eye. Worst of all…
(They’re all ideal statue pieces, even the dwarves. More the reason to start the massacre.)
Adris has little time to decide how when Ave then reappears from a huddle to the accompaniment of gongs traveling in a circle around their stage.
Each adviser flexes for her: swarthy with muscles, lean with the tightness of acrobats, or barrel-chested and comically stunted, their muscle-man poses create a stage for their center as the saintess innocently shines. An overpowering radiance that they bask proves how much they love her, though she ignores their poses to count their held up fingers.
“Yes! We, the sworn, commit a full THREE tiles to the victory we foresaw. For Durathalel’s sake!” A copper coin with the number “2” etched into it falls far to land before a city made of towers of white marble almost as tall as the gargantuan trees it’s built within.
“All the east will be free, joining after with the west in the Peace of Many Zennian Peoples (CONFEDERATION)!” After this boast, a snake laughs before calling out across the vast distance from her side of the world. “Hoho! Choose your next folly, oh tyrant, oh [Ruiner of the West], but know your terror ends soon!”
“Who cares about only ‘places’, ‘peoples’, [Elf from East]?” The growl that answers is choked with pride.
A white-furred hand that sparkles with golden rings on every finger lifts up to lazily flick its own first coin out. It lands at territories that rise from wind-swept deserts. Exactly where predicted, the thrust of Kol’s attack aims at a leeward sky island overgrown by edible crops halfway toward the top of the clouds.
“Kol will take everything.”
([Fall] is not the worst season for an offensive, but it has limitations.)
This particular midget sets her greedy eyes past the island that will first be struck at, all the way to the Imperial Bridge that separates heaven from the ugly earth below. Jade and gold are hoarded here.
She briefly consults with grunts and cackling the dozen whispering, but always kowtowing, “aids” surrounding her. They wear little more than armored-cloth padding to hide their nakedness. All her same species but treated as property, this western tyrant clothed in fiery silver mail and glaring robes howls over their mewling mass.
“So, more sneaking at border cities this time too, Scared Bird!?”
But there is no reply to this naked goading from the game’s northern king.
A stalking owl who is encircled by dozens of such birds as herself continues kneeling upon her leaf high up in the air. Clothed in the refurbished splendor of fluffy feathers of green and black that don’t reflect light, an unblinking huntress stares at her true opponent far in the south, instead. One of her owl “advisers” hops forward to toss a coin at the west from its beak.
“Always right about a coward elf, going to fight another useless battle.”
The coin lands beside a three-walled, tiered city facing northward to where west and north meet.
(She’s tying up your ability to invade her lands. If she attacks first, you can’t attack from that city.)
With the minimum of forces to ensure a fight, the provocation earns more hissing from the west’s king when the owl doesn’t respond.
“Kol hates being right.”
Instead, the musical punctuation of ringing gongs continues even higher than these players.
It will soon be time for the next “swing and a rule”.
(Tie up Kol’s access, then renew the assault on Ave! Kainan understands warfare, which is what this game teaches.)
Who goes first decides the flow of the season. Ave’s choices are comical, while Kainan’s are merciless. That Adris goes last opens up interesting options, though.
Adris closes his eyes once more, only glancing away with a bored expression on his stony face. Accepting this as its cue, the droning, faceless sycophant to his left ceases his supplications. Toward the edge of the imperial gilded leaf this one shuffles to bow three times, then lets slip a coin that blows toward the east.
(I’ll need to cut off Ave.)
Now that two coins have fallen beside the elvish settlement nestled at two rivers on the gentle, sloping meeting of north, east, and south of Zennia’s continent ruled by men, the very holy site that Ave’s mixed army of Zennian savages longs to liberate is where three players will clash.
For, an owl’s standard raises high over “Durathalel” to mock them both.
“As expected, he wants to rule over elves once more!” Ave moans this with equal trepidation and expectation at their destined battle.
(Next year, we’ll decide who wins the game, Miss Kainan.)
After the first coins are thrown, the next thing to do is to wait forever for Ave to pick her second engagement. There will be as many as there are armies massed and ready to conquer, making sure to reinforce the front lines according to the rules governing city movements.
A game of tiles as complicated, but as simple, as this one is made to be played in [Four Seasons]. One of many dreamed up for using the tiles of Xin which hold the wisdom of Ascension, this one challenges the strategist and the gambler both.
– Four directions fight over cities. –
– Four seasons are lived through. –
– Spring brings the raising of armies, born from the bosom of cities that hoard grain. –
– Summer demands the rise of new [generals] of various capabilities, a noble commander native to one city each and sufficing to last the whole year in service. –
– Fall hopes for a fat harvest, to feed the armies until spring. –
– Winter howls, demanding its tribute from the logistics of men. –
(This is a proper game. With set rules, odds, and goals.)
Each season sees bids for conquest, even in winter should you dare; but, there are lessons to be learned for the daring, and the teachers will be the carved tiny figures of men gathered at each city within its walls that are this game’s pawns. They represent the lifeblood of war.
The official prize of the game?
Absolute dominion over the many cities of… apparently Zennia, since the major strongholds all bear the names appropriate for their strange languages excepting for Adris’ foreign territories.
(Brilliance, luck, and audacity are what let you survive by gambling during long winter seasons.)
At least, it’s mostly the same game as what he played on Xin within tea houses that could afford aura-motivated game boards. Adris’ joy at seeing his favorite game turns sourer with each strange alteration. That Adris balances on a floating leaf up in the sky lest he fall off is purely the invention of a very special elf.
That, and the endless gonging as something large circles their arena and closes closer on Ave.
“… Now, get ready, Boss!”
The last bid is finally slammed down. In keeping with naked aggression, the Ruiner of the West will drive south alone. Adris’ last minute gambits at her flank are totally ignored, letting him tie up alternate fronts.
“Cities with only little food Boss wants, when Kol will take every island that floats at once!? Kakakaka, disappointing!”
Upon piled treasures of gold, silver, and meat sits a kobold “knight” who would be the envy of any fat, drunken aristocrat. Swarmed by her species as their god-queen, every task is for them to carry out as she speaks for them.
“Kol, thought better of Boss! ‘Tactics’! Always bragging about these!”
(You’ll find out shortly, my idiot disciple, that there are different kinds of tactics.)
Silence is a sharper dagger than his usual wit here, for Adris privately enjoys when the kobold kicks one of her attendants in frustration at being ignored.
(Strange, these “advisers”.)
“A game that has riddles called ‘grand strategies’!? Let’s bring in more ideas from the fairies, to make them even grander!”
Halfway through the first year, this boisterous rule summoned forth “the kings’ helpers” from the same place paddles were called from by Ave’s wish.
Every movement draws the attention of Adris’ own sycophants. Barely capable of moving in their long deel robes with sleeves that drag on the leaf platform, they sing the droning chants that revere Adris. Never once have they dared to offer the “tactical advice” that the others receive, only staring longingly from behind their white face coverings that deny them eyes or a mouth. Even the silent owl has her rare hoots from her “friends” before committing a conquest bid.
(Because they’ve been mutilated… forced to sing “my” name forever, they are capable of nothing more…)
He can taste their carved, dried flesh on his tongue, for they stink of fanaticism scented by the rarest incenses burnt by them for Adris’ pleasure all around.
It’s the strangest realization to him when he touches his face to find a smile there at that reality.
(A smile kind of fits my position.)
“I think that… we’re still missing something.” Before the Fall season can kick off into all out war, Ave rears up on her tail and winds back a swing with a quick flip of her paddle.
She stares down the huge white ball of fur flipping end-over-end. Burning eyes of hate, huge claws extending to swipe her!
She ducks at the last moment to miss its claw, then swings upward.
“[Without the sights and sounds, how do you feel what those who fight it do…!?]”
A gigantic white tiger that could eat Adris whole in one bite rockets skyward again to bounce off of hanging cages that ring with tinkling sounds. Each shriller tone marks a new bounce and addition to the elf’s score.
“[… not as a map or a board, but becoming the very firmament of Zennia, let’s have a war we can witness! The mortal struggle! THE BRAVERY OF THOSE FACING THE END TOGETHER!]
… I think I might actually like cherries less than strawberries…?”
(Yes, please add another huge change right as I was going to win.)
Keeping a kitten airborne should’ve stopped being necessary after having a proper game to play, but it’s just one chaotic lingering component of the restive abomination Adris is stuck in.
Stay on the leaf and don’t teeter off it!
Keep a tiger bouncing off the cages until it can’t go any higher!
Recite your favorite foods in reverse!
This and dozens of other useless rules he must keep up with haunt his every action!
“Kol’s armies!?” The western king howls when the great map they hover over ripples and then rips upward into greater physicality. In an instant the terrain is made fairy-real, if miniaturized, and Adris burns the sight of the entire geography of the human-colonized continent of Zennia into his mind.
Darkness as mist fills the northern snowy forests obscuring its armies. Only seemingly dead cities lie shrouded by it in eternal slumber.
The east has hosts of proud souls of the many races that make up Ave’s advisers: men who wield long spears and walk in rank side-by-side with heavily-armored midgets wielding axes. They serve as a break wall to protect limber archers clad in green behind them that lift up horned bows.
Both silent misty darkness and the motley alliance stare down across the central plains of Zennia at a tide of black extending from the mountains of Castile.
“Kol has very big armies!”
Black furred brigands gather as thickly together as swarming locusts. They hang from every rooftop off the various cities they’ve occupied. Cackling madly and slobbering themselves with the thirst to claim more, their advances all trail back to the Castillo’s very front doors that are wrecked and opened wide.
Before this once mighty entrance?
The one whose giant statue mocks them with a frozen laugh: Kol, Castillo Conqueror hoisting an axe larger than her body, she who bathes the human lands in the reek of warring kobolds!
“Nice! Elf, this is very good! … But, those arrogant foreigners strangely… familiar.”
Everyone’s enthusiasm drops when leering at the south.
(What’s wrong with my armies?)
Waves of copper shine with a hint of rainbow in the dying light of Zennia’s sun. That is the proof of a true warrior, the copper sheen.
(They look perfectly normal, actually.)
Long ago before it was explained, how this rare copper could also be rainbow was such a mystery that Adris struggled to contain his racing heart each time it tricked his eyes.
Every time he donned his own armor as a neophyte, he’d felt he’d become something more. Had the potential to be…!
(After all, I… am a warrior, like them!)
He drinks deeply of the comfort that being among hardened men renews.
The enemy may gather in numbers enough to drown the land, but Adris’ own are far fewer. For every few hundred kobolds, there is but one sworn sword brother to exceed that.
As a cadre bound by shared lives they move: [one shall wield it without mercy; another’s banner will be the sword’s tassel they unite under; the rest shall be the hungry blade which cleaves weak from strong].
Xin’reh stand apart from the conquered human properties that grovel before them. They eye the native opposition from the round circles of huts they’ve taken that count as “cities in the desert”, and also looking down from up high on the sky islands that have crossed the void between worlds. It is the privilege of foreigners like kobolds and elves to behold what is silent, unyielding, and utterly ruthless.
Thinking ONLY of riches to be gained.
Conservative when risking, but outrageous when the reward outweighs the odds!
(Efficient and obedient. What any good soldier should be.)
Above the continent that trembles before a false god’s arrived forces, the hand that shadows these quivering victims when stretched forth also catches their fright.
Draws it to the palm, letting their fear swirl as succor for Adris.
(Just kidding…! A little showmanship always helps dissuade attacks.)
Adris refrains from chuckling when the elvish magic that changed the world seems to favor his theatrics more than the elves’ own by granting him black clouds that billow around his lands.
That Kainan who has long studied him through the nearly two “years”, or rounds, of this game they’ve played finally breaks her silence at this.
“Every ‘Squealer’ (WALKING PIG) arrives with the same hungry look.” It’s the most disgusted whine Adris has yet heard from this man-hating forest child, yet it gets even pithier when the complaint turns to kin.
“To join with them denies us.”
“… No! It affirms what mortals can achieve if they’re with us! We kin are their elders, teachers! Not their butchers!”
“We are what cruelty sung anew, the song of their own oblivion echoing now.”
A heated past disagreement turns red hot again, with Ave’s rare anger flushing her cheeks. “Kin aren’t meant to be apart from others! The ‘soul of life’ is our one commonality! Our breaths must mingle to deny the End, becoming One again!”
“Allowing them to pillage past the First Age was our End.” After spitting this out, Kainan turns her head to tilt it at Adris. Just like an owl would gaze at something without announcing if it is hungry or just curious, Adris’ true enemy surprises him finally.
“But, to understand so well the true nature of man’s cruelty is rare.” Her pupils grow pointed to match the curling smile. At her waist, Adris catches sight of a serrated peasant’s saw now resting in her scabbard. Roughly made, it’s what a woodsman would carry for taking off branches.
“Maybe you can appreciate our… joke about it.”
This chilling request coincides with the marching of feet. The armies of the alliance of the east march on an elvish city shrouded by darkness with the intensity of a propaganda poster. Squared jaws prove they are up to their task, ranks of pristine soldiers uplifting in how the light shines on them just right as they pass through the forest.
“Commit to battle.” Kainan declares her intentions, throwing out one of the tiles that floats before her.
“I also choose one [general]!” Ave motions for an attendant to choose a tile, then watches it fall with a hint of regret on her face.
When both tiles crash to Zennia, two more raise from the breaking earth beside Ave’s, while one raises within the targeted city to join Kainan’s.
(Ave has two times Kainan’s numbers, so it’s 2 defensive tiles to 3 offensive ones.)
A larger army has a higher chance of winning, even if it takes losses, because the goal is to have the majority of winning tiles in an assault.
Even armies is usually a wash.
Double the army, add another tile, though.
Triple the army, add two instead of one to almost guarantee victory.
Have less than your opponent and it’s nearly hopeless, because the defender with a higher force invokes penalties on the attacker.
(Grand Stratagems alone reshape the calculations. I love them, because the public loves betting on them…!)
The gloomy woods that had spare chirps and calls of animals go deathly quiet.
Hoots sound out, mocking and hungry.
A cacophony of owl calls mutates into a shrieking like a cat’s, but still musically plays like a bird’s. It drowns out every others sound, echoing inside your head!
At the base of the seemingly empty walls that men, dwarves, and noble elves seek to conquer, the nervous scouts edge forward against this shrieking.
(Hoh!?)
The vanguard members of the force explode into sprays of Vigor without explanation, then yank off of their horses and fly from the ground while screaming. Adris’ wide eyes catch a familiar glint of bluish-silver poking out of their backs before vanishing into the dark forrest.
Blood-curdling and childlike in their terror, their screams spill out from all around!
Then, they’re silent… so that the monstrous shrieks can renew.
“Kainan… the stalkers of the dark.” Ave whispers in awe, then for some reason barks an order. “They come from the trees, not the walls! Form abreast! Face the night and steel yourselves in the rightness of the task!”
Bright stars like in the sky run through the black forest in response. Arrows whistle when loosed at them. Volleys of thunder fire out from the massed spearmen’s sides, too, levied at the darting stars.
Arcing and level fire should mean instant death when converging; but, the shot that cuts down the trees doesn’t strike down owls, and even the curving arrows that seek to puncture the starry heavens pass through nothingness instead.
(The stars flew out from them!)
The curious lights are moving distractions that appear real to Adris’ own superior senses even after knowing they’re a ploy, forcing the elvish archers to adjust their aim and then volley once more at barely visible dark silhouettes that veered away from their starlights!
The soaring whistles aiming for them pin only a couple of the black shapes to the trees. The rest continue to dance somehow with a non-existence matching the stars that distract.
(Where are they then, if they’re neither the starry shapes or the dark silhouettes!?)
Hooks that must be mithril-tipped zip out of the forest again. Men cry out with rage at being pulled in… then, the screaming renews.
What flies out from the dark next is even more terrifying.
Pink, clothed, flopping “sticks” soaked in reddish-white impact on raised shields. The soldiers’ eyes beneath their closed helmets shake with terror at the visceral gifts that fall to their feet, spasming in isolation as remnant Vigor spurts out of arteries.
(Hah, so that’s what your saw is for, crazy elf.)
“Gods, where are they attacking from!?”
The viciousness sets a near route. The miniature soldiers, surprisingly as alive in action as Adris would be, scream and break ranks when the shadows looming over them seem to fall upon them from everywhere.
Dwarven guns pepper the shadows, yet no enemy reports harm. “We cannae hit what we ain’t seein’! Take it to ‘em, mighty shield racks!”
“This thicket will blind humans, master dwarf!”
(At Ing’seac against the southern barbarians, our cadre leader did this to prove his point about “surrendering quickly”.)
Adris watches with fascination as the now broken up muscle-man soldiers get picked off by flying hooks that have no lines wrapped around them. These weapons dance like living chains of wind guide them with snaking, undodgeable precision.
“That’s… that’s cruel!” Ave screams louder than the suffering soldiers as the gambled tiles start to lift to reveal the fate of her attack. “How can we kin do such things!?”
“It’s not our cruelty. We return what they used on us first.” Kainan almost purrs, even if her eyes stay creepily wide and betray no emotion.
(That’s war.)
“Don’t… don’t falter…!” Ave urges them on from way up high, but the soldiers can’t hear her.
(You can’t change the odds once the tiles are chosen.)
[0]-[9], a tile’s strength is something that no protests will alter the odds of.
A higher number beats a lower, excepting a [0] vs. a [7]-[9], which overturns the mightier aggression with a cunning trap.
(Your “general” is the middle tile from your hand, your only real input. But, I think this will be another case of what I hate…)
“To end all wars, we fight a war for that purpose!” As the killing intensifies and the forest dew burns off when fires spread from sparking dwarven guns, Ave foolishly yells reassurance to soldiers that represent a fixed gamble.
“Don’t surrender to your fear! You are the Alliance of the Will!”
(Useless. Gamblers who scream at their tiles to turn out well on the lift are truly ret—
THAT’S RETARDED!)
Adris swore he saw a [1] and a [2] on the side lifts for Ave’s tiles, but instead they’re revealed as a gleaming [8], [4], and [9], with the [4] being the trash Ave spent out of her own hand.
Kainan also jolts when her own are a [7] and a [1], for her second tile is one away from the rarer [0] needed to beat both an [8] and [9].
With the odds revealed to be an ass-pull win from sheer luck, one of the few officers that survives the the endless assault of flying hooks pulls free a glowing sword. Its palpable, living determination marks it as an ancient sword’s spirit to Adris.
“WE ARE THE [WILL] MADE MANIFEST!”
Beams shooting from the blade rip the night out of the innards of the misted forest, stunning the feather-cloaked killers in their tracks and banishing the fake stars that dance around pretending to be where they are!
“LIGHT LORDS OR GREED’S EVIL, WE OPPOSE BOTH!”
“ “ “ “ “ “ “For the Saintess!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
Before the Owls can bolster their dark mists against the invaders…!
“Against the End! CHAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!”
Elf, dwarf, and man all cast away their fear of vivisection and rush without defense straight into the domain of their nemesis, even when lines of them are cut down by razor-sharp winds and crucified to trees by snaking hooks. Those warped crucifixion trees create a slideshow of shadow butchery as the much less numerous Owls of Kainan are hunted like fleeing foxes by the cracking flashes of dwarven shot.
Elves madly engage in death dances against purported “kin”, causing Ave to shiver with disgust when watching this.
“Kin would… could not…!”
After the chaos becomes a brief slaughter and retreat, the bloody red-green flag of the Owls lowers over the city of Durathalel.
Instead, a flag of a white globe cradled by a hand set against a black background rises to claim it.
It makes Adris want to cry bloody tears that Ave can commit to such ridiculous hand tiles at such an important moment and draw nothing but high tiles on the accompaniment.
Two of Ave’s tiles defeat all of Kainan’s, with the third losing to the one Kainan placed. Because Kainan’s tile was a general, it defeats its own rank despite losing the overall battle, and then withdraws in retreat.
Ave loses a third of her forces, while Kainan loses half. Numerically almost even in general losses, the act of winning a city guarantees both a harvest at the end of [Fall] and recruitment equal to its harvest in [Spring].
[Four Seasons] is, after all, primarily a game of sacrificial mathematics, so Ave’s victory is sound.
“… That… that isn’t… our very BEING forbids…” In the glory of victory, Avenalliah Aurmaris wipes her cheek. What might’ve been a tear explains the conflicted survey of the red-soaked forest that she just won.
“Fortune spoke well.” Kainan recovers from her shock to say this, then audibly “tsks” when reading Ave’s reaction. “War is not a song, nor a story.”
Ave stays silent, yet dumbfounded, when Kainan’s feather cloak fluffs up and the intense elf whips her arm around to send her “advisers” flapping away.
“It is a punishment! Why should it be ours!?” Kainan settles down, then kneels once more so that her owls can return to join her.
“Make it theirs.”
(Admirable! I didn’t think I’d meet an elf that I’d understand, but bless you, you showed up!)
Adris refrains from cheering, for that’s neither what a false god would do nor what a boy should. Both gamblers and soldiers alike (being the same thing) innately comprehend Kainan’s truth.
(War gives meaning to the word “hell”, which is lacking an appropriate definition without experiencing war firsthand.)
“We fight so we don’t have to fight.” Ave challenges back with this, though her voice is unenthusiastic. Whatever ideal motivates her, Ave can’t sound certain while watching the scene of carnage fade from sight with the game moving to the next conquest.
“No mortal fights not to fight. They long to steal! To burn. To slap chains upon beings that existed before they invented the word called ‘slave’.” Kainan again chides Ave, staring at Adris while declaring these verbs. “All of the horrors of ‘war’, along with the very name of that revolting idea, are what they forced us to comprehend.”
Yet this Kainan fails to understand an essential part of war by blaming others for its creation.
Hypocrisy drips from the corner of the elf’s lips. Before Adris can think of a rebuttal worded innocuously enough to satisfy his prestige, a disciple snaps at the opportunity!
“Kol, doesn’t fight for those reasons, so it seems elves aren’t knowing of everything.”
“Kobolds aren’t intelligent enough to have reasons for acting, much less comprehending.”
“Hooooooh!? Hoooh, hoooooooh!?”
Kol hops up from her treasure throne to march to her leaf’s edge while hooting to mock Kainan. It precariously tilts with the weight off balanced, leaving her minions screaming for a shift in balancing it while the tyrant western king starts to mouth off.
“Kol doesn’t need ‘big brains’ to smell just how much an elf likes seeing ‘Vigor’.”
When Kainan only stares in disbelief, then of hatred, Kol crosses her arms and speaks the beliefs of a child.
“Kol goes to war because there are things that only it can solve!”
(There’s no impetus for any war that couldn’t be resolved by just finding the person you truly hate and knifing them, instead.)
This principle is why, after all, Adris ultimately quit his cadre.
It’s better to be your own boss than to live fighting another’s wars.
Adris sighs, which earns a sidelong glare from his disciple. “Kol’s friend wants to fight because fighting will make fighting stop? Kol, understands, even agrees, but that’s not enough.”
Kol slaps one of her attendants upside the head, then holds the poor stunned fool in a headlock after to leave him gasping for air.
“After war that you win, you have to choke the evil out of bad people!”
Kol flings her hostage free, then returns to her throne.
“If elves are really smart, instead of hiding in forest and ambushing, they’d go to where humans live! Make them understand, that kob—! No.” Kol grunts loudly, rolls her eyes, then changes the word she was speaking. “… All kinds of living smart beings should be listened to, no matter who they are! If humans will still try to hurt us, then we’ll conquer them completely!”
“No! We can join together by choice, freeing people from tyrants that make them do bad things!” Now Ave joins in, bickering with Kol now. “They have no choice except to live as ignorance teaches them!”
(Freedom from tyranny? Enforcing equality through conquest? Maiming those who attack you to dissuade reprisal?)
If Adris can summarize, it seems that these are the three positions represented by Ave, Kol, and Kainan. Though all are effective as motivations for the types of downtrodden they appeal to, he intimately feels the weight of a superior understanding.
“Fight to win! Win to rule! Rule to enforce!”
“ “ “ “KOBOLDS WILL BE EQUAL OR BETTER THAN YOU!” ” ” ”
The mass of slavish attendants also howl when Kol states her war demands, joining in as if the entire kobold species exists to overthrow anything taller than it.
“Deluded slaves of humans. Flickering lights, snuffed fast.” Kainan says only this before laughing with an abrasive cadence.
“[Emperor of the Southern Sky]!?” Ave screams out in frustration, then calms when Adris turns to face this distant king. She pulls her attendants closer together, so that the sight of elves, dwarves, and men working together is the impression.
“Isn’t peace between all… isn’t that what a mighty emperor would want?”
(No, no, they’re working together because they believe in YOU, not because of benevolent reasons.)
It’s all a farce, Adris thinks as he becomes the focus of all three. Having said nothing so far, it seems like this elvish game created by strange magic is
— making them have thoughts far too big for their pretty heads to hold.
(You’re missing the point. Wars aren’t fought for ideals or even ideas!)
“Mukukuku…!”
As though they’ve struck some deep part of him that he’s rarely picked at, the entire farce sends him into a deep diaphragm laugh.
“Boss!? Laughing at Kol!? When Kol is just about to attack, huh…?” It’s the western king that shrilly accosts him, then demands while grabbing the tile to begin her conquest of his lands. “Stupid elves say stupid things! So, Kol will ask the smartest one here too:
Why fight in war, then!? Who, to fight for!? What!?”
(It’s not for me to answer.)
A mood comes over Adris that feels both light and heavy, for he chooses to recline against his servitors and let their hands dipping catch him, and carry him up.
Staring out over the desert south of Castile that he’s conquered so that he can lay a trap for the west while preparing the east, Adris finds it interesting that he’s staring at the backs of those sworn to serve his grand ambitions. They took these lands not just for him, but for another reason.
It is only ever forward that his silent, loyal Xin’reh stare.
(The enemy that a soldier looks out toward is always anyone that is not himself.)
The First Sworn, leader of all cadres in service to a living god, swivels his head abruptly when he feels the weight of the Emperor’s eyes upon him. Entrusted with the defenses of the city and province of Langzufoel which is closest to the Imperial Court, it is he most of all who must comprehend the plan Adris has concocted to win by it.
This battle-born titan shrouded by the trappings of dead aura beasts, a monster that stands two feet taller and a barrel wider than even his own adjutants, quakes in Adris’ aura sight. The moment they make actual eye contact…
“… Bar-barians.”
Adris growls this, half humored and half disappointed, before chuckling.
This powerful aura user, Adris’ TOY, turns away so that he will not bother his Emperor any longer. For even the second-most isn’t worthy to behold the Pinnacle after instructions have been conveyed.
“Xin’reh (EMPEROR’S BROTHERS)… who do we fight for!?” A bellicose roar rolls out from this humanoid mass murderer, the question he asks meant for all who have ever called themselves by this title in their souls.
There is naught a moment of hesitation with the reply.
“ “ “ “ “ “ “FOR OURSELVES!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
“What do we fight for!?”
“ “ “ “ “ “ “TO LIVE!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
“What do we live for!?”
Every Xin’reh thrusts their pride (AURA ALLOY WEAPON) toward the heavens, shaking the sky!
“ “ “ “ “ “ “TO ASCEND!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
Disparate as they are in armor style and ostentation of dress, lacking even a single uniting theme between aura schools, it is their weapons that prove their common truth!
“How do we ascend!?”
“ “ “ “ “ “ “THROUGH POWER!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
“Who holds the power we seek!?”
“ “ “ “ “ “ “HE WHO BRINGS PEACE!” ” ” ” ” ” ”
After this declaration, the youngest cadres speak first, moving to the oldest ones. With some stretching back to the first days of Xin’s conquests, they loudly swear an ancient oath.
“THE EMPEROR BRINGS PEACE!
PEACE PROVES POWER!
POWER BRINGS ASCENSION!
THROUGH HIM, WE ASCEND!”
Over and over, the mightiest warriors in all of creation shout this. Vilified as “mercenaries” by the ignorant, it’s only on the battlefield that they earn the true coin of life in service to their first and only master.
(Themselves!)
“Nah…!? NAH!?” Unable to constrain herself, an unworthy pretender leaps from her throne to claw at the air against this chant.
“This!? Really the reason Boss fights!? Only to be strongest, nothing else!?”
(Are you frustrated? At not understanding such men?)
While war is hell, there is a mistake that the “innocent” make about it.
That is must always be “unwanted” because it’s hell.
(If it is hell, then we merely need to become demons to enjoy it.)
Adris’ refusal to respond to one who thought herself his equal sends Kol into a hissing frenzy that is strikingly berserk for his disciple.
“Ghhhck!? Destroy everyone who isn’t us!” The tyrant’s true nature peeks out, and her followers happily howl!
“ “ “ “ “BREAK THE HUMANS!” ” ” ” ”
Two tiles are plucked from the air before Kol to cast at the first of Adris’ cities on the path to his capital, that desert where the food consists of green-furred, fat beasts that hide their lower bodies beneath the sand during the day and then roam the night searching for moisture.
“Kol knows how to win in this game, now!”
“Foolish tyrant!”
“Hnn!?” Adris’ insult brings Kol to search him for a reason for speaking.
“Commit, you do, to what lies beyond the first of your conquests?”
“Kakaka! All the way, without stopping!” She must now obey one of Four Seasons’ rules governing additional conquests after winning one, pleasing Adris immensely.
(Good, good!)
The exuberant beast girl reaches down with her intent and hoists up the grand stratagem she laid for this season.
“[Total War]!”
Adris relaxes once he recognizes the expected tile with the image of an aura kaiser beast over thirty-feet-tall stomping flat an army of men. “All that’s higher than [5] is a [9] if this shows when attacking!”
“That tile exists!? I’m glad Neesiette taught Kol proper numbers…!” Ave cries out like it’s the coolest thing in the world.
Tiles drawn can only be kept if under the number of grand cities owned, destined to be used or discarded to draw more next year for better ones.
But, it is often advantageous to hoard some like Kol has. Saved from the first [Summer] when she drew it with stars in her eyes upon recognizing its worth, the grotesque beast’s painted lines catch on fire.
One of the strongest tiles in Four Seasons vomits forth a sea of burning red lines that stretch out toward Adris’ capital.
(Time to lose.)
Two tiles plucked from the air as “generals” for her challenge are then thrown at the first city in her path.
Adris simply laughs at this, leaving the challenge unmet, entrusting to pure chance his struggle against invasion.
“Black Tide — TAKE EVERYTHING WE WANT!”
The cadre at the meager stone defenses of the desert village stand ready.
Erected by aura technique in the shape of a star fort, the lacking resources underground prevent an adequate double or triple redundancy of fortifications to fall back to.
Which is quite the shame when the black mirage wavering on the horizon firms up.
The blood-curdling howls are not of terror, but of angst and envy!
“KAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKA!!!!!!”
They appear from nowhere and flood in across the dunes on short legs.
Even when the first aura techniques lash out with spears of crystal from deep within the earth to probe their tactics, the fact that hundreds are wiped out without deviating their charge states there’s .only one warfare kobolds understand.
“CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!”
When the sentry Xin’reh exhaust their blistering long-range Techniques by culling a five hundred kobolds to bleach in the sands, the rest of the black legion proves that sheer numbers are a proper winning condition.
Stunned cadre veterans call upon their most powerful Techniques to stem the spear-thrusts of bodies, a storm of images and forms that prey for blood!
Neophytes jump the walls to skirmish with tools designed to inflict mass casualties!
A vision of rainbow hell perfected in Xin erupts upon this black tide, ripping through it such that it’s a wonder that those not hit can continue on without vomiting at the sight of the carnage alone!
They almost reach the walls. A final victim screams, then drops to its knees when a lightning-fast thrown spear impales it. It crashes in silence when the spear pulls free to fly back to the tall wall.
Down to the very last kobold the attack perishes.
For a moment it’s quiet when the ten thousand mongrels are left in a river of Vigor lapping at the base of the walls.
The few Xin’reh left standing in the haze of adrenaline after, as most have sat down after exhausting themselves, gasp when what screams next is even louder!
(By the Emperor…)
Dunes that were yellow turn black, then the dark sea crashes upon the walls once more when Kol’s tiles lift to reveal a predicted contest.
[4], [9], [9], [9] is Kol’s reveal with three times the army size, fighting against Adris’ [6] and [3] drawn randomly.
“KAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
MAIM! BURN! RAPE!”
Ten-thousand-ten-thousand strong this time, there is no escape.
It’s only stunning to Adris that the strategy dreamed up and made real by the thick elvish trickery surrounding them is simply a hu—kobold death wave that no aura Technique can stymie.
Those kobolds hitting the walls first suffocate when crushed by the wave behind them, so that others can achieve the dignity of climbing them. How Adris’ fearless Xin’reh are butchered is hidden from view, for they’re crushed beneath the cackling killers spilling over the walls. The horde then blobs into the village to throw liquid fire upon the huts and consumes the innocent civilians that have nowhere to flee to.
Everything is ablaze by the time the Emperor’s pennant joins in.
“That’ll teach them! Kakakaka!” Curiously, the great herds of buried beasts seem missing from the area after it’s taken, but the western tyrant doesn’t notice or comment on this.
“…
… Kol… is… uniquely unique.” Ave’s horrified pronouncement is for Kainan’s sake, for the blood-hungry elf’s expression when revealed by tilting her head is dumbstruck. After nodding in comprehension at this, Kainan prepares to resolve her attacks.
(But, that victory isn’t going to be as sweet as Ave’s later.)
After Kol finishes laughing her head off, there’s a swiftness to the order of resolving the next conquests.
“STUPID PLUCKED ELF! STOP ATTACKING KOL’S CITIES!”
Armies too small to defeat Kol’s garrison roll single numbers like [5], [7], and [2], three cities being attacked in succession on Kainan’s bids against the western tyrant.
Shadows shaped like owls rampage in the fields of the cities, hunted by kobolds that can never catch up to them. Not bothering to lay true siege, their assaults only wreak havoc among the defenders without causing any troop losses on Kol’s side since she has the benefit for reducing losses when defending against lesser armies.
“Can’t win with only small troops! Why bother!?”
The cities lie on her borders, making easy targets for a special tactic that Kol hasn’t caught onto yet.
“Join with us! Kin should never harm kin, ever!? What is this fundamental wrong!?”
“Traitors leave the forest to lead armies back.”
An ongoing elficide continues along the snowy forests of the north when resolving Ave’s bids, with Ave’s assaults earning two cities due to sheer, dumb luck on her accompanying draws of tiles.
The folly is that the cities Ave chooses to attack are out of the way, not on the path to Kainan’s crumbling capital city buried by snow and darkness, and produce the lowest amount of harvest and troops per year.
(Ave, how can you have the luck of the gods but waste it so greedily?)
“Emperor of Black! Even if we can be friends, first you must surrender your mad ambitions!”
(Bite me, Snake Charm!)
Against Adris’ cities and when Adris attempts to take the fortress Ave just claimed, Adris’ predictions collapse instantly. Xin’reh divide into teams when volleys of arrows assail them, then trap the sluggish armies of the eastern alliance between flanking maneuvers.
Zennia meets Xin for the first time as driving rains batter the lands.
Brassy dwarven shot tears through chests protected by lamellar plate and mighty Techniques. Dozens of once-swift Xin’reh drop to the mud to never rise again! The shock of Adris’ troops at being maimed by inferior, barbarian firearms turns to fury. Superior soldiers possessed of aura skills crash through static lines with guile and speed that cannot be fended off by mere mortals, no matter if their meager Zennian Talents boost them!
Horrified warriors from the east fill the muck next when their heads sail away! Hacking aura weapons explode through their magically enchanted plate armor with great conflagrations of colors, revealing naked flesh to reave!
Not all is balanced, though, for billows of poison sweeping in over doomed men that breathe them suddenly spiral toward the sky with the whistles of elvish tongues. The hidden tool assassins that called forth these vapors find themselves discovered by fierce grass-covered hound creatures rising from the underbrush, then forced into death battles when cornered by the packs of howling abominations.
(There’s no capitalizing on this chaos for either of us!?)
Worst of all are the “first greetings” between power users of dissimilar worlds.
When a hooded and chanting old man whips a silver-shod cane at a cadre, the cadre’s oldest member who bears the holy jade trim of a master also swings his rainbow mace.
A wave of frost strikes the stomping aura remnant of a titanic scaled giant that tears out from the mace’s head, then both attacks explode into an impossible kaleidoscope of mystical manifestations!
The Xin’reh warlord and Zennian mage scream when their opposing powers feed back into their Inner Worlds, shredding them in a grotesque spray of viscera and Vigor that releases the restrictions on the tumult of what they called forth. Whatever advantage Adris might have hoped for over Zennians if he had kept his aura would be worthless if the dreamlike game he plays in is truthful; for, aura and “magic” when set against each other become an uncontrolled natural disaster both sides desperately hope to survive.
Then, the apocalypse ends with both sides routing without even bothering to recover any bodies left behind when the woods continue to self-destruct.
(We’re dynamically opposed? But aura was supposed to be “darkness”, which magic loves?)
“His house warriors are so mighty!? Was our defense lacking…?” Ave’s disappointment and astonishment draws Adris from the carnage.
“Hah, it was an unpredictable battle that I’ve rarely witnessed even on Xin. Don’t concern yourself with how you will lose from now on.”
“It’s amazing how different armies can be.” Ave ignores his taunt to look both horrified and impressed, a now common expression.
(What’s really amazing is that I used three generals and got stumped on all of them by her blind draws!)
The tiles are tear-worthy given Adris’ overcommitment, for hers are just one higher than the fat [7]s he saved for beating her in this follow-up fight after she took losses against Kainan.
(I should be able to trounce a garrison that settled in during the season!)
Because he has the advantage of a larger army she is forced to take losses as well, but his entire eastern campaign is now drowned in the latrine by his entire army being devastated.
(Fuck her luck! Also: why is it when we draw tiles, we draw them from our sleeves before letting them float in front of us…!?)
Adris stews in frustration over his luck turning to shit against a living icon of fortune, but is more annoyed at being prevented from cheating by having his hand closer to his actual hands. “Hiding a tile up your sleeves” is a misunderstanding in the modern age of Xin. Instead, it’s only part of another trick to use your sleeves.
(Argh! Tiles work best when I have the living inks hiding on my skin that can exchange values with the tile!)
If he made it a rule it would work, but the magic rule-making tiger is taking an inordinately long time to return from its gonging orbit around the arena after a superhuman elf smashed it last.
“Now you will burn, Boss.”
“How will you reach the heavens, barbarian?”
From the fires of war spreading out of the west, a host of great catapults with wide, scooped heads wheel across the desert that displays not a speck of sand now.
Infinite kobolds jockey for position as catapults are winched into locked position.
“Just like Kol learned to, kobolds will fly!” A hundred brave (or retarded) kobolds per catapult ready to become stars in the sky.
(My disciple’s tactics are as insane as she is! Hahaha!)
The sky island lowest to the desert bustles with activity, horns blaring to call even the peasant militia to stations. Metal shutters set in high, beaten walls close. Not against the dust storms or the Torchlike sun, but against non-native invaders for the first time in centuries.
The black sky groans with the storm that is growing, its children chanting litanies of battle while clapping their weapons against their chests.
Pride, or perhaps respect, has the horde below mimic this salute with cackling instead of oaths.
Kol throws out two tiles, meeting one from Adris in reply.
(Why bother with the melodrama of forest children when real warriors are going to fight?)