The training yard of Greymoor rang with steel and discipline. Where once Halbrecht's men had swaggered and drank themselves fat, now ranks of soldiers drilled under strict orders.
Kael had established standardized units — squads of ten, companies of fifty, each with a clear chain of command. Armor was refitted, shields repaired, weapons sharpened. No more ragtag levies; these men and women marched in rhythm, drilled in formations borrowed from both antiquity and something more alien — the strategic models Kael remembered from Earth.
Riven prowled among them like a wolf, barking corrections, knocking aside sloppy guards with the flat of his blade, making recruits fight him three-on-one until they learned desperation and teamwork. By dusk, they collapsed in mud, but they rose with harder eyes.
Damian oversaw logistics. Supply chains were charted, armories cataloged, blacksmiths given quotas. Even the peasants were organized into reserve levies, trained to hold pikes and hold walls.
The army of VAC was no longer a rebellion. It was becoming a machine.
Yet VAC knew steel alone would not hold against Houses Hollowmere and Cazwyn. They needed an edge.
Sulfur had been cataloged. Bricks of charcoal were being stored. Saltpeter was still elusive, but Damian had ordered experiments with sulfur in tanning, fumigation, even crude medicine. Kael began sketching devices for watermills, better furnaces, even a prototype for printing simple decrees with carved blocks.
Still, these were small steps. They needed something greater — something only they could bring.
And so Damian gave the order: "We return to the crash site."
At dawn, cloaked and armed, the three CEOs rode with a small escort to the forest clearing where their journey had begun.
The earth still bore scars: blackened soil, charred trees bent like supplicants. The wreck of their craft lay shattered, half-swallowed by moss and vines, broken metal glinting beneath green growth.
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
Riven whistled low. "Hell of a fall."
Kael muttered, "It's a miracle we lived."
Damian only stared at the wreckage. "No. It wasn't a miracle. It was a chance. And now we take from it what we can."
They pried through the twisted remains. The hull was cracked, consoles dead, lights long gone. But deeper within, amid melted wires and shattered panels, Kael unearthed something intact: a black case, sealed against fire and impact.
Inside: a ruggedized tablet, edges scorched but screen intact.
Kael powered it on. The screen flickered, sputtered, then glowed faintly.
Riven leaned over his shoulder. "Holy shit. That's our data core?"
Kael's hands shook. "Not everything. But enough. If the memory banks are intact, we might still have blueprints. Engineering specs. Even…" He swallowed. "…the beginnings of gunpowder weapons, if the formulas survived."
Damian's voice was calm, but his eyes burned. "This is our true weapon. Steel they have. Knights they have. But industry? Knowledge? That belongs to us alone."
They carried the case out like sacred treasure, guarded as if it were a relic of the gods.
Back in Greymoor, they sealed the chamber beneath the keep, where only the three of them and Sir Aldric were permitted. The tablet lay on a stone table, its screen casting pale light on stone walls.
Kael hunched over it, cataloging files. Riven muttered plans for weapons. Damian sketched out factories in miniature, his mind already years ahead.
For the first time since their fall, they felt it: the tether to their old world, alive again in their hands.
The House of Voss Arclight Cross would not merely fight like lords of this world.
They would reshape it.
And when Hollowmere and Cazwyn came, they would not face swords and spears alone. They would face the fire of another age.
The Data Core
Deep in the sealed chamber beneath Greymoor Keep, Kael hunched over the battered tablet, its screen flickering against the stone walls. Dust motes swirled in the glow. Riven leaned on the table, impatient, while Damian stood with arms crossed, eyes sharp. Sir Aldric lingered in the shadows, a knight forced into a world he barely understood.
Then the tablet chimed.
A cascade of directories appeared, text and diagrams half-corrupted, but still legible.
Kael let out a strangled laugh. "It's here. Holy shit, it's all here."
"What's here?" Riven leaned closer.
"Blueprints. Designs. Strategy files. Even—" Kael's voice shook, "—an offline archive of history texts. Weapons schematics. Industrial processes. Fuck, it's like a treasure chest from home."
He tapped one folder. The screen filled with a 3D render of a musket, parts broken down with manufacturing notes. Next, diagrams of watermills, aqueduct systems, crop rotation models. Another file, showing supply chain optimization graphs.
Damian's calm mask cracked into a grin. "Gentlemen… we've just unlocked a century's worth of power."
Kael scrolled furiously, his fingers trembling. "We don't even need all of it. Look—simple cast-iron improvements, basic chemistry formulas. Shit, even sanitation models. We can make this city cleaner, stronger, faster."
Riven slapped the table. "And weapons. Don't you dare skip the weapons. Spears are fine, but look at this—pikes in mass formations, drilled like Napoleonic lines. Siege engines better than their rickety trebuchets. And muskets—hell, even crude ones—if we get saltpeter, we own the battlefield."
Damian leaned over, tapping another folder. "And not just weapons. Political frameworks. Propaganda models. This—" he opened a file showing the Roman concept of bread and circuses, and another with notes on mass psychology, "—is how we don't just win battles. This is how we rule."
Sir Aldric cleared his throat, his armored fingers drumming against the stone wall. "My lords… forgive me, but I understand not a word of what you are saying. What is this… glowing slate? These drawings of fire-weapons and mills?"
The three turned to him, eyes alight like children in a candy store.
Kael grinned. "Think of it as… a library, Aldric. A library that fits in one hand, but holds the knowledge of empires."
Riven barked a laugh. "More like a war god's playbook. It tells us how to crush armies."
Damian's smile was sharper. "And how to build kingdoms after the crushing is done."
Aldric frowned, uneasy. "And you trust this… artifact? This thing of your world?"
Kael clapped him on the shoulder. "Aldric, this is the difference between being another petty lord who holds land until someone stabs him… and building something that no one can ever tear down."
The knight stared at the glowing slate, unease written on his face, but also awe. He bowed stiffly. "Then… I will trust, because I swore to follow. But gods help us all, if this thing is cursed."
The three CEOs leaned back over the tablet, voices tumbling over one another, excitement almost manic.
"We start with farming improvements—" Kael.
"No, training the soldiers in new formations first—" Riven.
"Both. But propaganda comes first. We need the people to believe before we push too far—" Damian.
The stone chamber rang with their arguments, their laughter, their enthusiasm, as if they were back in a corporate war room, not the bowels of a medieval keep.
And above them, Greymoor stirred in the spring light, unaware that beneath their feet, their lords had just found the spark to ignite a revolution of steel, fire, and thought.