[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/PpfqLku.png[/img][hr][hr][h3][i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdPhKXfbPSk][color=dcdcdc][u]Sound[/u][/color][/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAQr_G_xOmo&list=PLPJny5xpzQqQYQFkrsntsCt1Kqghs88LB&index=14][color=dcdcdc][u]and[/u][/color][/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPjr8DRgYZU&list=PLPJny5xpzQqQYQFkrsntsCt1Kqghs88LB&index=13][color=dcdcdc][u]Fury[/u][/color][/url][/i][/h3][/center][hr][hr][color=C0C0C0][center][h1][color=808080]Encounter One: Ypti[/color][/h1][/center][hr][hr][h3]Zytan sil Cascal'uumii'anthan, Jath'ismax sil Tantiac[/h3][b][i]by the hand of Enrdii'altan'toira, correspondent to the Emperor[/i][/b]

Dear Prince-Regent,

I write to you once again, previous to my earlier correspondence, in the hope that we may yet have a fruitful discussion. As has already been made substantially clear in our previous communications, and those of our predecessors, the land which you currently claim as Ai Medda, a vassal state to the Empire of Retan is, has historically been, and shall evermore remain a corporeal part of the continent of Tarlon and, by right of all the laws of men and gods, subject to the suzerainty of the yasoi, the natural-born people of this land. 

We repeat, in good faith and hope of renewed dialogue, that steps may be taken on your part to remedy this continued occupation. There is a place for your people within the greater body of Tarlonese society, for exchange of ideas and trade. However, should your administration continue in its refusal to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the people whose longstanding territory it now illegally occupies, we will be left with little recourse but to assume an indefinite state of bad faith and to take measures to protect ourselves accordingly from such.

We urge you, in the spirit of fair negotiation, brotherhood, and shared love of this land, to meet with us and discuss alternatives to the current arrangement from which all may benefit. We eagerly await your response.

In Goodwill,

Cascal'uumii'anthan, Emperor of Tantiac and defender of the people of Tarlon

[hr][hr][center][h1][color=808080]Encounter Two: Shuun[/color][/h1][/center][hr][hr]
It had become a regular occurrence, Ahmet considered: those strange ships. He had first caught sight of one some twenty-one months earlier, sheltering in a cove along this remote stretch of coast as the Asperic Ocean had lived up to its name. They had started appearing more frequently in the intervening months, first in pairs and trios and then in small squadrons and flotillas. He had thought them some sort of merchantmen from a distant land at first, until he had heard them, early last Somnes, firing their guns in exercise. 

Now, there were dozens: a great war fleet, here, off the coast of northern Malabash. As his station demanded, he had reported all of his observations, dutifully, to the messengers who visited his lonely outpost of Fort Asimbdal biweekly. That those messages had reached someone of importance, he could only assume, though they may just as well have ended their journey on the desk of some clerical captain, close to retirement, or even been creatively misplaced. Certainly, there had been no orders to come down his way, save the usual: continue to observe and report. Malabash is not a nation of alarmists or sabre-rattlers. 

The frigid morning surf thrashed and churned against the dour cliffs and the ragged rocks at their feet that stunk of seaweed. The sun lay low behind a shroud of grey fog. It was within this miasma that their darkened outlines moved. He counted three dozen, though there may have been more. He noted the time of day, the windspeed, and the direction. 

Taking out his spyglass, the young sergeant peered into the clinging mist and there he could see - faintly - figures moving about on deck and climbing among the rigging. The sea was not calm today, but the strange ships were large and sturdily built, as if for a long voyage. As usual, none flew any flag, but he was certain, as he watched their coordinated maneuvers, that these were no pirates. They came from up north, he knew, and - as usual - they were heading south. 

[hr][hr][center][h1][color=808080]Encounter Three: Exiran[/color][/h1][/center][hr][hr]
It was in the cold of an early Somnes morning that Wan Hao waited, rifle in hand, breath rising in crisp white puffs over the hastily-dug trenches of the Tantian frontier. Birds chirped and chittered in the near-barren trees and glistening hoarfrost decorated the muddy green grass. A squirrel bounded across his field of view, cheeks loaded with acorns for the coming hundri. 

In and out. Hao breathed. He could see them moving across the way and he swallowed, a bitterness building inside of his chest and sitting high and uncomfortable upon his stomach. Ever since word had come down from command that ReTan - the mother country - would not defend them, he and the hundred-seventy-four other soldiers of the 105th had been on high alert. It had been sleeping in shifts, tea instead of bed, watch instead of drills. 

The yasoi - enemies of his people - were up to something. He could feel it. It lay thick in the air: murderous intent, a sense of entitled superiority, a genocidal desire to drive them into the sea and all of the way back to ReTan, where they had come from.

...Only, they hadn't. Hao, his father, and his father's father had been born and raised on Tarlon, in the nation of Ai Medda. As a girl, his mother had lived, briefly, among the non-humans. As a boy, he had crossed the border once. He scowled and adjusted his grip on the rifle. It had been easier in those days. Tensions had already been escalating, but it was not hostile. Why did it have to be hostile!?

There was movement on the enemy front line. Not technically the enemy, he reminded himself, swallowing once more and thinking of risking a sip from his flask, but none of us are stupid. They will be soon. A cool gust of wind rippled the grass and it all smacked of finality. Maybe this would be it - this would be the hour, the day they finally attacked and all of this infernal waiting would be over with. Hao did not want to fight but he could live with this uncertainty even less. We cannot win, though, he knew. I will die fighting here, in this cold field, as the pumpkins lie ready for harvest. 

The squirrel had disappeared and now he could smell the smoke from the yasoi cooking fires. There were hundreds now and he prayed those numbers were a deception. Elsax. They were cooking Elsax, and he had eaten it before. The humans and the yasoi of Tarlon shared many of the same dishes, the same words, the same holidays. It was madness that they were going to fight each other! How had this happened?

Boots moved behind Hao and whistles were blown. Five minutes until the changing of shifts. Good. He was finished staring at the same blades of grass and distant opposing headwear. He imagined that his counterparts on the other side were as well. Let them be distracted and he might put a bullet through some boy's head if it came down to it. He took notice as Captain Hu's crisp strides slapped through the mud behind him. He turned about and looked and then he saw and heard it at the same time.

They were like giant flies, or like pebbles, thrown by some bratty child, slapping the muddy trench wall behind him, but the sound was jolting, even though he had heard it hundreds of times already. Bits of wood splintered. People ducked and covered. The captain's head let out a spray of thin red blood and he tumbled to the side.

Hao ducked and covered. Mortal terror pounding in his temples, pushing through his arteries, he gripped his rifle and steadied himself. He could hear their war cries. Above him flew bolts of magic across a nascent battlefield as his mages tried desperately to hold off the yasoi mages. He poked his head up, morbidly unafraid of losing it, and they were rushing forward. His rifle already loaded, Hao snapped off an ineffectual shot. The birds had all taken flight and were gone and, for the longest, most painful moment, he envied them.

[hr][hr][center][h1][color=808080]Encounter Four: Oirase[/color][/h1][/center][hr][hr]
It was a cool grey afternoon. Banners of different colours flapped and strained in a stiff wind and the sea was green and choppy. Two men sat at a table on an island. It was barely more than a rock with some scrub and a handful of small, scraggly trees. 

"Surely, you must understand our concerns," said the human, Admiral Altan Uzun of the Virangish Imperial Navy, "when a foreign war fleet appears mere miles from one of our greatest cities, trying to force passage of the Bin Ada." He was a great stout man, dark hair flecked with grey, shoulders like an ox, upper lip adorned with a magnificent curling mustache. His eyes flicked uneasily to the hundreds of great grey warships anchored about. Levied against them, his own fleet - what he'd been able to scramble on two-days' notice - was at a disadvantage, and he knew it.

"I pray you exercise prudence, Admiral," came the yasoi's reply. Commodore Caltas'rithar'narop was an imposing figure: near seven feet tall, lean and silver-haired, with a great seafarer's beard, twin swords worn at each hip, and six pistols strapped across his chest. His wide-brimmed hat was placed on the table between them in consideration of the wind. "We have come only to treat with our brethren to the south of you. The thousand islands is a narrow channel and we must pass by your land. Virang need not fear us."

And yet, Admiral Uzun knew, there was much to be wary of, for Virang - along with its neighbour Malabash - lay directly between Tarlon and the lands of the Constantian yasoi. A good many years ago, it had conquered what later became the breakaway state of Paggon, now a human enclave within yasoi lands. What was currently happening to that other human enclave in yasoi lands - Ai Medda - was not lost upon him. If he stood and fought, he would likely perish, along with much of his fleet. Virang would be weakened, but it now stood as humanity's shield: an unenviable position. Reinforcements would take days yet to trickle in. He would need to stall, but his counterpart would be a fool not to be wise to the gambit. "It is not Virang that I am concerned about," he replied leadingly.

The Commodore regarded him steadily, the gold of his epaulettes shining faintly under a brief break of sun. Waves crashed ashore some twenty yards distant. Gulls bleated and wheeled overhead. "Our first concern is internal yasoi matters," he promised, scowling. "After that, I follow the directives of my emperor. Be reasonable, Admiral, and we might avoid so much unnecessary bloodshed. That is not my desire here."

"But you will not hesitate," concluded the Admiral.  He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It appears to me that you are in faintly a better position than I." He rubbed at his nose and leaned back from the map between them. "Certainly, based on numbers alone, you would appear to have the advantage, but even a victory - should Fashdal ordain it - would cost you dearly." He shook his head. "Why do you not sail the Asperic and spare us both this confrontation?"

Caltas took up his hat from the table, revealing the remainder of the map, and set it atop his head once more. "It is a matter of free navigation, I'm afraid." He shook his head. "Nobody owns the sea, Admiral." Left unspoken was the uniquely yasoi assertion that nobody should own, in perpetuity, the land, either. "I pray you pull back your ships and guard your ports if you believe it necessary. Guard the ports of Paggon if that sovereign nation will accede to it, but let us pass, or we shall have a war of it, and I do not want that."

"The other human nations will not take kindly to this incursion," Altan tried, playing one of the few cards he had left. He had resolved that he would not sacrifice the lives of his men in vain here.

His counterpart nodded, rising to his feet. "No, I imagine not," he agreed. "Then perhaps we shall fight it out later, on more equal terms. For now, pull back your ships or a great many people shall die here for nothing." 

He would not be dissuaded, then. The Virangishman let out a sigh and grabbed his map, rolling it up and standing. "So be it." He nodded tightly. "Until we meet again, Commodore." They shook hands. "Until we meet again, Admiral."

[hr][hr][center][h1][color=808080]Encounter Five: Damy[/color][/h1][/center][hr][hr]
It was a foggy morning and Ansol was by the seashore. The air was grey and heavy and the waves washed in and out with a forlorn sort of echo. Above him loomed the grey-dun cliffs and circling flights of seabirds. The shore was a thick, crunchy sort of gravel, strewn with rounded cherry-sized rocks, seaweed, and bits of old detritus. 

Sarsiigo Bay was the only major bay in Tanso not home to a sizable town. Perhaps the ground was too rugged or the tides too extreme. Maybe there was something just too... wild about this place. It was, even under the glow of the sun, almost preternaturally bleak. 

Yet, today, it should have been busy. The five moon tides were rolling in even now, and the vast bounty that the sea did not want would soon be deposited here. Already, he could see the great carcass of a recently-deceased sandbar thresher rolling in the distant waves, and he left some space between it and himself. It would stain the sea red with blood and draw dozens of scavengers, each greater than a twelve-year-old boy with one arm could hope to contend with.

The problem was that the beach was nearly empty. Perhaps two or three other figures, swaddled in thin layers of sheets and rags, picked their way along the seawall, but that was it. The boy was old enough to understand now that he lived in a broken place, that the great towers of Eracluun and Samsoiya, festooned with moss and creepers and smelling faintly, indelibly of mildew, were remnants of some greater former society that had existed there. That he fed himself, his mother, and his sisters off of the sea's unwanted remnants was a poignant reminder. Still, he was far from the only one who did so. When the gangs were not roving about or some pirate crew stopped here to clean their ship's hull, he was one of many.

It was eerily empty, and the waves moaned and sighed and the fog rolled... and Ansol could not help but feel as if he was not alone, as if the eyes of something great and terrible lurked just beyond the veil. He stretched out with his senses, warily, looking for perhaps some great thresher, dragon, or halassa as had once taken his arm, but there were none.

He was just bending down. He'd just found a nice tin pail at the edge of the waves and fished it out. The boy straightened in the surf to drop it into the basket strapped across his back. He straightened, and then he saw them: Black Giants in the Mist.

Vast black shapes materialized within the near depths of the veil, and they were moving for shore. The pail never made it into his basket. Instead, it fell at his feet and Ansol began backing away, caught between curiosity and terror. They were more of them and they were huge, looming over him and - now - piercing the fog. 

Ships! They were ships, but like none he'd ever seen. They were immense and lumbering and painted deep grey, with great towering forecastles and ramps drawn up a hundred feet or more in the air, like an elephant's trunk poised to strike!

Fear won out, eventually, and he took off down the beach, for the small gap in the cliffs where it was easy to climb back up, though it was never easy for him. Climbing was never easy. The sand and the gravel sucked at his energy, but he found more, glancing back as a dozen of the titans arrived. There were people on them, leaping off now. Ropes whisked through the air and landed in the surf and the gravel.

He scrambled through the gap and up the incline, the few items he'd collected thumping about in his basket, the rough rocks biting against his skin. Great clanks and groans issued from the grey ships and now he could see, from his higher vantage point, that there were dozens more in the distance, and more beyond them. A frigid wave raced through his body and he watched one of those colossal trunks - the ramps - descend, two great steel spikes on its underside reminding him of a snake's fangs. 

Then a second, a third, a fifth. He reached the top and turned. Up and down the beach, all of those... Elephant Ships were releasing their 'trunks'. These crashed down with a muted thunder that echoed through the damp air, and they were not so very far from him, in truth. He could see the figures descending. He could make out their rifles and their tall hats and  the way their brass buttons caught the faint light and gleamed. But then he saw the one with the great hat and saw the feathers within it and he realized that these newcomers were not short and fat like huusoi. They were his own people.

Ansol was already turning to run again, but he stopped and squirmed into a small thicket. There were hundreds, now, marching down the trunks of the Elephant Ships, carrying all manner of things. Dragons took off from their decks and began circling overhead. Wagons full of supplies rumbled across, and there were hundreds more ships behind them. To his amazement, some of them did not stop. Instead, as they approached the Elephant Ships, their bows began to... unthread themselves. Planks wove apart to form great, stretching, tentacle-ringed mouths. These Kraken Ships rose and reared up and he could see, now, how low and flat the sterns of the Elephant Ships were. He watched in wonder as they latched on, as the ships joined!

They were soldiers, who came out, of course: yasoi soldiers, and he knew they must not be from here, for Tanso could barely muster an army. His jath'nan assured him it had not always been so, but the disease of the darkmen had ravaged all the lands of the yasoi - all except for distant Tarlon. These, then, must be Tarlonsoi. What on Oirase's green turf were they doing here!? They were spreading out now: forming parties, setting up barricades and tents and disappearing in little streams into the leading edge of the forest. 

Other great ships approached. They were strange, misshapen, lopsided things, but then he saw how they, too, opened. One side of each split as they approached the Elephant and Kraken ships and their soldiers disembarked in perfect order. It was like watching some great device of many parts operate for the very first time. The thick shells of these Mussel Ships formed walls as they affixed themselves to the others and dug themselves into the ground, reaching a hundred feet in the air to protect the rest of their allies. Still they came: this endless Grey Fleet, and they were here now, in Tanso, in Constantia.[/color]

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