Personal System Calendar: Year 00015, Day 1-28, Month VII: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6859, 1st to 28th day of the 7th Month
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The Delegations Journey Home
Their days along the river stretch remained uneventful, though rumors had already begun to travel ahead of them, word that the pirates seemed to be steering clear of these waters entirely. The seamen aboard talked about a particular ship, only a few days prior, that had been ambushed by the cowardly Badjaw Coyotes and, against every expectation, mopped the floor with them instead. An entire fleet group of the Coyotes had reportedly been destroyed, the survivors handed over to the Empire and sent straight to the gallows. A rare piece of good news, the first of its kind in years.
What made it stranger still, according to the stories, was that it had all come down to one devilishly strong opponent, and a handful of others alongside him. It was someone infamous enough on land to already carry a name of legend, the Blurred Devil, apparently hadn't confined his particular brand of justice to solid ground after all. It seemed his reach now extended to the river routes as well. That alone wouldn't scrub the rivers clean of criminals and lowlifes for good, but it meant something all the same: pirates would think twice now before choosing their next target.
The Talon members within earshot of these stories felt more than a little proud, listening to their own exploits get retold secondhand.
It had, after all, been exactly the outcome August had hoped for. Their remaining time on the river passed without a single incident because of it. After roughly ten more days, they arrived at the ports of Kirka Village. It was now the seventh month, summer still in full swing, though noticeably cooler here than it had been in the south. The difference was obvious now that they'd returned further north, as if the forest itself had found some middle ground between two extremes, with summer and winter arriving each year, but never with quite the same brutal edge.
Once they'd landed, they gave themselves a few days to rest before continuing on to the village. Ten days spent on the water had a way of throwing off anyone's sense of balance, and though the river itself had stayed relatively calm throughout, the effect still lingered. They'd felt something similar arriving at Xavior, and having some idea of what to expect this time, they managed to adjust within just two days. That was how long they stayed before setting off again.
Before leaving, they made sure to thank Village Chief Rufus properly, gifts in hand, for the use of Kirka's port throughout the journey.
They departed on the second day, traveling on foot this time, since they'd arrived earlier than expected. Their original estimates, generous as they'd been, still hadn't quite accounted for how long the road itself would actually take. Even with the delays already built into their planning, they ended up running roughly four days over what they'd projected.
Along the way, they fell in with a caravan also heading toward the village, and once the caravan's people spotted the flag they carried, they were waved over and offered a ride. They declined at first, though the caravan insisted enough that a compromise was reached: most of the party would walk alongside as escort, while Chief Red alone rode in the cart. He would have preferred walking with the rest of them, honestly, but refusing further would have started to feel like an insult to people simply trying to help.
For eleven days they traveled, stopping only at night, until they finally reached the village. Exhausted, but having completed everything they'd set out to do without any major incident along the way, they returned to their homes to finally rest. All told, the journey had taken seventy days, with their longest single delay being the wait at Kirka Village earlier on. Their original estimate had been close, off by only about four days in the end, though nothing about the trip had gone entirely according to plan either.
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Coming Home with an Unexpected Surprise
When August finally returned home and stepped into the Finn residence, he was greeted by a familiar face, one he hadn't seen in quite some time.
"Buford." "August." Both men had visibly grown since they'd last stood in the same room. Buford, in particular, looked far removed from the bratty, entitled young noble August remembered. Something steadier stood in his place now, the three years he'd once spent living in the village clearly having left a lasting mark, humbling him in ways that had only continued to shape who he'd become since.
"I see you've grown more dignified since I last saw you here."
"You..." Buford flushed, caught without a proper comeback, though he laughed it off easily enough. He knew exactly who he used to be, and he was quietly grateful he'd insisted on coming to the village all those years ago. Without it, he suspected that old arrogance might never have worn off at all.
August took stock of the room and greeted Buford's wife, Jennifer, seated comfortably alongside Angeline and Adessa. It seemed to be their usual visit to the household, one that hadn't been timed around August's return, since no one had expected him back quite yet.
"Greetings, Lady Jennifer," August said, extending the proper courtesy to a noblewoman. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her, exactly, but it was the first time they'd actually greeted one another directly, in a casual manner. He'd attended Buford's wedding once, briefly, offering only a quick greeting to both Buford and Jennifer before duty pulled him away again. He hadn't even stayed a full day at the reception, arriving just long enough to be present before needing to return home immediately after.
This, then, was the first time the two of them had spoken in any kind of comfortable setting.
"Please, sir August, just call me Jennifer. We're not standing on ceremony here, only among friends. My husband speaks of the time you two spent together more fondly than he does of most people."
She smiled warmly, and August excused himself shortly after. He kissed his wife and gathered his daughter into his arms, who'd already raised her own hands the moment she saw him, signaling exactly what she wanted. He held her, if only briefly, before stepping away to bathe and wash off the grime and dust the journey had left on him.
He returned a while later to find their guests still there, settling in more comfortably this time to actually talk. The two men traded stories from the years since they'd last seen each other, and August shared, in turn, an account of their journey to Arwenian territory. The area they'd visited had been spared the worst of the destruction and death compared to other parts of the kingdom, so in a way, it had almost felt ordinary by comparison. Buford shared his own updates as well, everything that had happened since August had personally escorted him back to Millhaven Territory, including the details of his and Jennifer's wedding. Both men, it seemed, had kept themselves plenty busy in the years apart. They shared drinks and a meal together before Buford and Jennifer finally excused themselves to return to where they were staying, with plans to continue the conversation the following day, and likely several more after that.
Buford and his wife had already settled comfortably into their stay. They both understood that purchasing property here was generally off-limits to outsiders, though Buford's standing as a temporary villager and honorary member of the village's military force meant that restriction could reasonably be waived in his case. In fact, August intended to bring the matter to the council himself, without even needing to be asked, so that Millhaven's noble family would always have somewhere to stay whenever they visited, whether for leisure or official business. It was a privilege the village had extended specifically to its closest friends and allies, and Millhaven had been the very first territory to formally acknowledge Maya's existence in the first place.
With that settled, the rest of the evening belonged to August, his wife, and their daughter. That night, the three of them shared the same room and slept deeply, comfortably, together.
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The Cabal's Looming Shadow
The days that followed brought discussions of everything agreed upon during their journey to Xavior's territory. August stayed busy throughout, Buford tagging along most days, along with a few other familiar faces who'd once spent those same three years in the village alongside him. None of them got in the way. They simply followed as August inspected the newly expanded Zone 3, met with the warriors and leaders of the new clans that settled there, and spent the following days working for the territory and running patrols as usual.
He also found himself turning over what Lord Zain had shared with him, information the Empire itself had passed along: the existence of a group responsible for Arwen's collapse, or more precisely, a group that had taken tensions already simmering within the kingdom and deliberately pushed them toward the worst possible outcome. The Empire hadn't been obligated to share this with Zain at all, but they'd done so anyway, and it likely hadn't spread far beyond a small circle even now, kept close as a matter of active secrecy. But it clarified something for August. The timing behind the Empire's recent push for a land lease and additional forces stationed near Maya suddenly made a great deal more sense. Something was moving beneath the surface, something even the Empire itself didn't fully understand yet.
He'd need to prepare the village's security for whatever came next. Whoever this hidden cabal was, their intentions clearly ran deep and dark. What else could explain a plan to destroy an entire kingdom, to cause this many deaths? Even now, recovery crews were still pulling bodies from the wreckage, mostly bones by this point, not even counting those who had died outside the territory and had been eaten by beasts and fellow Arwenians alike. The official tally already stood at close to three million dead, and that number covered only what had been confirmed so far. Estimates for the true cost, once the kingdom finally stabilized, ran anywhere from five to ten million by the time everything was accounted for.
With the region still this disorganized, the deaths hadn't stopped either. Famine had followed close behind the fighting, and people had begun turning on each other over nothing more than scraps of food. Even now, thousands died daily. What they'd witnessed firsthand in Xavior's territory was only a small, relatively fortunate slice of a much larger, much darker picture playing out across the rest of the kingdom's holdings. Given all that, the idea of forcibly reopening Arwen's closed trade routes no longer seemed far-fetched at all. If he had to guess, once the Empire's core military installation inside Maya's borders was finished, imperial forces would likely begin mobilizing shortly after.
The aftermath of the civil war, and the conflicts with two other kingdoms that had followed it, had turned out to be far worse than the war itself. Arwen's road back to any kind of stability stretched out long and uncertain. Perhaps, with the Empire's direct involvement, that timeline could be shortened by a few years. But that kind of help would likely come at the cost of further regional conflict first, and Count Zain, it seemed, understood that just as clearly. Whatever came next would be costly, and it would be deadly.
Now August understood, more fully than before, exactly what this new friendship with the Xavior Bloc actually meant, and what it might eventually demand of them. All he could really hope for was that the bloodshed stayed contained, if and when a war for reunification finally broke out. The refugee crisis that had already begun showing up on Maya's own doorstep hadn't even ended yet.
He sighed at the thought, then let his mind keep turning it over anyway. Something else came to him as he did: he'd heard that similar signs were emerging just north of Ogind as well, within the Federation of El, still mostly rumor for now, but rumor that felt increasingly familiar. He'd also caught word, while still aboard the GMV, of something comparable stirring in the eastern half of the central continent, in the Kingdom of Rolin. He'd only learned of that place because someone from there was currently living in Maya, the same woman who'd proposed a land lease for outsiders wanting to conduct business within the village. He tried to place her name for a moment before his Personal System quietly filled in the gap for him.
[PS: Veera Richmond, daughter of the Richmond merchant house, Kingdom of Rolin. Currently residing in Maya Village.]
Ah. Her. He filed the reminder away and returned to his thoughts.
That worried him more than anything else. Maybe this had been the cabal's goal from the very start, not simply the fall of one kingdom, but the deliberate deaths of countless people across several. But why? That question sat with him, unanswered. What could anyone possibly hope to gain from so much death, spread this wide?
It was a question worth sitting with. He'd need to prepare the village's forces regardless, just in case. There was clearly more here than what showed on the surface. The cabal, whoever they were, seemed to be steering the entire central continent toward its own destruction, and Maya sat right in the middle of it. He looked over the current map of the central subcontinent and its territories and found their own position marked almost exactly at its center. For now, this remained mere speculation, nothing more. But the possibility alone was enough to take seriously, and if the pattern held, the destruction of a kingdom might only be the surface excuse. The deaths themselves, the sheer scale of them, that was the part that genuinely puzzled him.
He called for Juan Tamad shortly after and asked for his read on the current state of the central continent, on the strange, unusually swift collapse of Arwen's civil war, one that had ended far too quickly given the scale of destruction and loss of life left behind.
Juan considered the question carefully. He'd been keeping an ear to the ground within the village for a while now, usually the first to catch wind of anything worth worrying about, and he'd already begun forming his own theory on the matter.
"Sir, maybe, and this is only a maybe, but what if this is a wide-scale ritualistic sacrifice, dressed up to look like rebellion and civil unrest? I've read a bit about such things. It's the way demonic cults arrange offerings for their rituals, only scaled up to something this size. It's not entirely unfounded either, if you look at the map. Where the current conflicts are sitting, it forms something close to a four-point pattern. If that holds, I'd guess the next flashpoint lands somewhere northof Rolin, above whatever's already brewing now."
Juan walked over to the map and laid out his reasoning as he saw it, though none of it amounted to anything concrete. Speculation, still, nothing more.
August pushed back on one point. "But why not Ogind, if that's the case? Ogind shares a direct border with Arwen. Wouldn't that make it the more obvious next target, before something as far out as the Federation of El?"
Juan didn't have a clean answer for that either, though both of them suspected there was some truth buried in the theory regardless. They agreed to bring in every military leader in the village for a proper discussion later, General Spinneweb included, as the Empire's representative. For now, they'd frame it strictly as theoretical, since neither of them could prove any of it outright.
A massive, continent-spanning ritual sacrifice, dressed up as war. It was a difficult thought to sit with, and an even harder one to shake.