“I much prefer the sound of a bar or lounge myself,” Galahad chimed in, as the others discussed what they should do after the war went and finished. It was an entertaining thought, the idea of the war ending- and provided they won, neither of which sounded very plausible in the near future. Galahad wondered how many of them would actually return from the war. Gideon surely, the man was a survivor, and even if he didn’t want it, Rassvet would spend a large amount of resources to rescue him if he ever was captured or lost. Lee too would likely survive. A bit of a wallflower, the ones that fade into the background always make it back- that or die in an unmarked grave. But Setzer? The man was strong no doubt, but he had the tact of a wall. Galahad himself was a bit of a target, son of a general and all, and Zimmy was an infiltrator, and often ran the highest risk of them all. The list went on.

“I could see myself behind a bar,” Galahad continued, forcing the darker thoughts into a different part of his brain and compartmentalizing it, locking it away to deal with later. “Cocktail recipes can’t be any harder to memorize than spell formulae.” he added with a snap of his fingers, a small magical spark popping at the tip of his fingers- popping the cap off a bottle of beer in his hand to emphasize his point.

“And on the thought of gambling,” Galahad continued, nodding towards Zimmy, “I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of us winning- the house always wins after all.”

The conversation died down a bit as they saw the Marshalls. They’d all notice them appear, though Galahad chose not to give them a vague passing glance. Galahad and Gideon stood up at the same time, though Galahad relented and allowed Gideon to step up as he waved the rest of them down. Galahad contented himself to watch them with mild disinterest, sipping from his beer with feigned indifference. They weren’t doing anything illegal- well aside from Zimmy anyway, and he doubted the Marshalls cared enough to shut down their little party. Worse comes to worse, they’d just go into one of the rooms and tune out the sounds like they always did.  

It was about when the Marshalls had finished their check up did Galahad notice the fireball peeking out of the clouds above. It wasn’t too hard to miss, there was a dull roar from the sound of the fire moving through the sky- and it was pretty fucking big. 

It was also rather close too.

As the fireball fell out of the clouds above, the members of Barghast squad could clearly see that it was not a magical fireball or meteor, but rather an airship falling out of the sky. The airship was huge- bigger than any Rassvet warship. The colors of the ship were hard to make out- as everything was painted orange and grey by its trailing fire and smoke, but it certainly seemed like a civilian liner rather than a warship, if its smooth shapes and angles, and large, probably white balloon was any indication. That being said, it was rather hard to see the entire silhouette of the ship, as its sides appeared to have been peppered with holes- likely of the cannon variety- and belched fire and smoke. 

Passing overhead, Galahad craned his neck as he watched the massive airship continue its fiery arc across the sky, pieces of wreckage, debris, and even a few parachutes broke away from it. Galahad winced internally as he saw a few of said parachutes collapse- as shrapnel and debris punched holes in them or crushed them. The airship was rapidly losing altitude and continued to shed large chunks of itself before it smashed into the badlands several miles from them. 

They could still see the glow of the fire and smoke from behind the craggy rocks and hills- which glowed brighter for a moment before the ground rumbled and a explosion erupted from the location of the wreckage, sending more wreckage flying as the ship’s Mist Reactor went critical and failed.

“That doesn’t look like one of ours.” Galahad commented as he pulled out his phone, his brow furrowing as he noticed that there was no signal- not even emergency lines. The radiating mist from the explosion was probably fucking with their signal- that, or something particularly sinister was afoot.