The sun was already climbing towards its zenith when the village finally came into view. Another day, another world, Aexl thought, the rhythm of their horse a jarring contrast to the smooth, powerful gait of his cuckoo. Half of Lyeona's army rode with them, a column of clattering hooves and weary soldiers. Would've been back hours ago on Kentucky, he mused, glancing over at Lyeona. She'd been peppering him with questions the whole way, her disbelief at his tales of taming the "crazy birds" a constant source of amusement.
Her amusement had vanished the moment they entered the Forest of Overgrowth.
The sight of the spiked orcs, their grotesque forms a permanent, rotting fixture on the trail, had silenced her completely. Her hand had flown to her sword hilt, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and tactical alarm. He could almost hear her thoughts: Am I being led into a trap? What kind of bizarre creature does this? It was a soldier's reaction, one he understood all too well.
Then they had cleared the treeline, and Lyeona's professional shock had morphed into pure, unadulterated disbelief.
There, in the open fields, was Armenia's unit. Wolf-eared women, their allure a sharp, dangerous counterpoint to the raw, bloodthirsty aura that clung to them like a shroud. They moved with a predatory grace, riding cuckoos as if born to the saddle. "Formation!" Lyeona had screamed, her voice cracking, her soldiers instinctively drawing steel. He'd had to calm them, to explain that this terrifyingly beautiful cavalry was his. "So much has changed in just a few days," she had whispered, her eyes wide.
You have no idea, Aexl thought, his own gaze fixed not on the soldiers, but on the village itself. The broken, hastily patched walls were gone. The splintered wooden gate was a memory. In their place stood sturdy, well-made fortifications, the raw, new-cut timber a stark promise of defiance. Vauban had been busy.
As they passed through the new gate, a cry went up. Lyssa, a blur of motion on her own cuckoo, galloped towards them. She practically threw herself from the saddle, crashing into her sister's arms in a storm of tears and choked sobs. Lyeona, the stoic commander, melted away, replaced by a gentle older sister, stroking Lyssa's hair and murmuring reassurances. The soldiers, dismissed by a silent command, broke ranks, melting into the crowd to find their own loved ones.
The return. Aexl felt a familiar pang, a ghost of a feeling from a lifetime ago. The dust of a desert nation, the roar of a transport plane, the weight of his rifle… and the desperate, clinging embrace of his wife, her tears soaking the front of his fatigues. He had been on both sides of this scene a hundred times. A soldier's homecoming was always the same, no matter the world.
"General?" A familiar voice, soft and melodic, broke through his reverie. It was Selene.
He dismounted from Kentucky, the cuckoo letting out a low, rumbling coo. "How are you?" he asked, a genuine warmth in his voice.
Selene pouted, her arms crossed. "I thought you'd run away."
"Why would I do that?" he replied, leaning in close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that was for her ears alone. "I'm still looking forward to my prize."
A furious blush spread across her cheeks, a delightful sight that was immediately followed by a seductive wave from Meria nearby. He turned, his smile broadening. "I would love to taste your cooking again tonight."
"You are welcome to come whenever you like," Meria purred.
"I'm sure I will," Aexl said, taking her hand and brushing a light, respectful kiss across her knuckles, though his eyes promised something far less chaste.
He turned back to Selene, the commander returning. "Have you seen Vauban?"
"Vauban?" she asked, the blush still lingering. "Your unit with the golden hair?"
"That's the one," Aexl confirmed. "I need to talk to her."
"I can take you. They're at the old fortress."
Aexl glanced over at the sisters, still lost in their reunion. Lyeona caught his eye and gave a slight, understanding nod. "Go," she mouthed. "We'll talk later."
He swung back onto Kentucky's saddle in one fluid motion, then reached down, his hand extended. "Let's go, Selene." He pulled her up behind him, her soft body pressing against his back, and urged his mount forward. There was work to be done.
****
The air in the old fortress was thick with the dust of ages and the sharp scent of ozone. Celestine Vauban was practically vibrating with frustration, her hands covered in grime as she gestured at the gaping, empty space before them.
"There's nothing here except walls! Even cobwebs and dust are missing!" she exclaimed, her voice echoing in the cavernous, stone-walled chamber. Rina, the Valkyrie captain, stood beside her, looking equally dismayed. "I swear, this was the armory. It should have been filled with weapons, armor, arrows and javelins…"
From the doorframe leaning, Armenia yawned, lazily inspecting her nails. "He probably took it," she said, her voice dripping with a bored certainty. She didn't even need to look. "Who else could just make an entire armory's worth of steel vanish?"
"But what for? Why take everything" Rina asked, perplexed.
"That's only for the master to explain" Celestine muttered, her mind already racing with calculations and possibilities as he senses Aexl coming. "He can do the explaining."
As if summoned by her words, the rhythmic thump-thump of cuckoo footsteps approached. Aexl and Selene appeared in the crumbling archway, dismounting from Kentucky. Without preamble, Aexl's voice, crisp and commanding, cut through the dusty air.
"Celestine. Report. What have you found in the village resources?"
Celestine's frustration melted away, replaced by the focused energy of a master engineer. "The stores are adequate, Master. But we'll need materials for what you're planning. More importantly, we'll need someone with the expertise to forge them."
"And what am I planning?" Aexl asked, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Cannons," Celestine stated, her golden eyes gleaming. "Matchlocks. And explosives."
Aexl's smile widened. "How did you know?"
Celestine and Armenia exchanged a look, a spark of shared understanding passing between them. "We are in sync with you, Master," they said in near-unison, a fact that was still unsettling to Aexl.
He cut them off before they could elaborate. "Right. So, you both understand the necessity. Celestine, with your engineering skills, can you handle the making of this beast?"
Celestine's voice, sharp and precise as a caliper, cut him off. "Master, my expertise lies in defense, in building walls that defy even the strongest siege engines. To forge powder weapons of this caliber... it is beyond my current skill set. The theory, I grasp, but the practice of such intricate weaponry is a world away from the practice of stone and mortar."
She stepped forward, the dusty air of the makeshift forge swirling around her. The scent of cold stone and old ashes filled the space. "We can try making cannons by melting metals, yes, but they would be crude iron tubes. The local forges lack the ability to create true steel alloys. The pressure from a proper charge would turn them into shrapnel, killing our own gun crews. They would be as dangerous to us as to the enemy."
She wasn't finished. "Matchlocks are the same. We can fashion the barrels and the stocks, but the firing mechanism is the true challenge. The springs, the sear, the precise lockwork—it all requires hardened spring steel and tiny, machined components that our forges simply cannot create. The results would be unreliable, prone to misfire. A liability in the field."
Aexl was deep in thought, his plans crumbling despite his knowledge of science. Without proper equipment, his ideas were still out of reach. No cannons, no matchlocks, so no explosives either, he mused, a frown creasing his brow. Celestine, however, cut through his thoughts, a spark igniting in her eyes. "That," she said, her voice dropping with intensity as she spoke of explosives, a rare flash of triumphant discovery replacing her usual engineering calm, "For the explosive there is where I may have a solution."
From a leather pouch at her belt, she carefully produced a chunk of shimmering, crystalline rock. It pulsed with a faint internal light, illuminating the room like a bulb and fracturing the light into a thousand tiny rainbows. The air around it seemed to hum with a low energy.
"The locals call it Ignis Pyrite," she explained, holding it out on her palm. "They treat it as a light during the night, it captures the energy from the sun creating this illumination, but villagers chipping off small pieces for fireworks or festival lights. In its solid form, it burns with a steady, brilliant light." She leaned closer, her voice barely a whisper. "But I experimented. I ground it into a fine dust. Throw it in a flame it created something entirely its volatile, with more testing and experimenting we may find some potential for it
A beat of silence passed, the potential of her words hanging in the dusty air. Then, she tempered the discovery with a dose of reality. "I'll be honest with you General,. Ignis Pyrite... Its potential for explosive force is undeniable. However, my expertise lies in the physical world of fortification and siege. While I understand the theory, the intricate dance of physics and chemistry required to harness this safely and effectively is not my forte. With my current skill set, it will take considerable time before I can make anything truly viable from this discovery."
Time. The one resource he never had enough of. another nail in the coffin of his plan for a swift, decisive victory. Cannons that would kill his own men, muskets that wouldn't fire, and an explosive compound that was as likely to blow up in their faces as it was the enemy's gate. His strategy was collapsing into a series of dangerous, time-consuming research projects.
A grimace tightened his features. He turned away from the concerned faces of his engineer, the weight of their primitive world pressing down on him. He pulled out the Ephone, its smooth, cold surface a stark contrast to the rough-hewn world around him. If he couldn't build his solutions, he would have to buy them.
His finger jabbed at the screen, navigating to the Tavern & Marketplace function. He'd ignored it until now, assuming it was for hiring mercenaries or buying rations. A list of available 'weapons' populated the screen, and his hopes sank with every item he read.
[Frostbitten Cleaver]: A two-handed axe, crusted with hoarfrost. Rumored to freeze a man's—well, you know.
Price: 15,000 Gold.
[Sunblade]: A longsword that glows with the light of a captured sunbeam. Very intimidating. Mostly just ruins your night vision.
Price: 22,000 Gold.
[Whispering Dagger]: Tell you secrets. Mostly lies. An excellent conversationalist for the lonely assassin.
Price: 12,500 Gold.
He scrolled, a pit forming in his stomach. Overpriced axes that could freeze balls, swords that glowed, blades that did a hundred other fantastical, useless things. There were no assault rifles, no C4, no artillery shells. Just a collection of enchanted trinkets for a storybook hero.
Aexl let out a humorless laugh, the sound echoing flatly in the dead air of the forge. He snapped the Ephone shut.
What would you expect from a medieval world and a Horny Dominion app…