Annetan had made her way into Aurorasaki with few problems. There was the usual crowd of people and some very angry peasants, but that was too be expected, as the nation's coffers were being dumped into the city to try and make it less of a hellhole. At the moment, Aurorasaki was less of a city and more of an orgy of sewage, beggars, twisted structures, and streets of dubious quality. Annetan herself knew that it was a total eyesore, and now, a few hours into her visit, she was seeing that everything was going alright. The city had been originally laid out as a wheel, with districts sprouting from the enormous fortress in the middle of the "wheel" like spokes. Of course, sprawl had ruined all of that. Aurorastan had exploded during the rule of King Tinnham, when Aurorasaki, with her thirty five foot walls, had declared her independence as a city-state. She held out for several years, and even the final stand of the city had laid waste to Tinnham's forces, and many claim it was the beginning to the end of his fall.

Now, however... the city regularly suffered massive firestorms, and plagues, and the place stank to the heavens with all of the loose sewage. Annetan bit her lip in distaste and did her best to calm Rubania as she stepped through puddles that were of a suspicious color and stench. The mare was very upset with how soiled her hoof-feathering was getting. Still, she kept more or less calm enough. Annetan was watching the first of the long list of improvements being made... the roads were being systematically torn up and sewers dug into the Earth beneath them, and then them being re-laid. Many structures had to be ripped out. It required a lot of pack animals, men, and a lot of soldiers to police the crowds. They would all be compensated, of course, but they still were mighty angry at having their livelihoods suspended. Annetan's guards pressed close as she watched the teams smash the cobblestones and then another team work behind them to dig up the Earth, and finally a third team to lay the pipe and slather the terracotta sections with adhesive. The adhesive itself could melt a man if he was not careful. The glue team had to wear huge suits to protect themselves, and even these suits had to be replaced regularly.

It was astounding to see how fast they worked. Of course, this was going to leave Stoludi short of many things for a long time, but Annetan was just happy to finally see her biggest city catching up a little to the rest of the country. Whatever the consequences, this overhaul needed to be done, and it was finally happening. Annetan tugs on the reins and pulls the mare around. She smiles at the Mayor of Aurorasaki, who was mounted atop a paint horse stallion that was actually extremely docile, even around the three mares of Annetan and her guards. Annetan gives a nod and says, "Wonderful job, Zitturn. It is progressing ahead of schedule. And how many casualties did you say?" Zitturn, the Governor of Aurorasaki, flashed her a toothy grin and proudly proclaimed, "Only ten, your Grace. They will recover, and we have compensated them." Annetan smiles and nods to him, "Very good, Zitturn. I want to see this continue." Zitturn replies with eagerly burbled affirmatives, to which Annetan just smirks and tells him how good of a governor he was. After they also supervised the brand new firefighting equipment that was being tested, she and her three guards rode out of town, going to Buxiang to witness similar improvements. They weren't going so well there, unfortunately. Two men had died and three gluemen had been horribly disfigured due to accidents.

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Elsewhere, in Hixistan, a small town to the South of Katiraka, a young dreamer by the name of Uhu Biliria was hard at work at her desk by the light of a gas lamp. She huddles over the desk, scribbling at a piece of parchment, ignoring the hoofsteps and yelling outside in the small fishing village. On her desk was an outrageous design-a floating ship, powered either by special wing-like oars, or by a sort of waterwheel for the air. It was a regular shaped boat hull, suspended underneath a bladder of Jester's Breath by a series of wires. This sort of outlandish thinking had struck her after word of the new, strange gas had reached her and many others in the Northern Isles above mainland Stoludi. Uhu was one of those weird folk, the kind who are constantly dreaming and thinking of new ways to kill and save people. This was both of those. She had small but rapidly firing cannon to rain down shells on those below, and hatches to drop explosives directly beneath her. Perhaps this flying boat was just a dream but... there was a small sailing boat for sale nearby, and Uhu knew a blacksmith, a tanner, and a person who could secure her large quantities of the Jester's Breath. Perhaps this was soon to be more than a dream, at least to a degree.

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Still elsewhere, a Child of the Thunder landed on the shores of the RNI. She was dressed as a slave, a slave destined to be sold for sex. In truth, she had simply applied a very good disguise, and had a very good connection here. Now in Seasailier, her "slavedriver" tugs her forward on some chains to a tavern named "The Torn Sail". This shady place, this den of sin, was a popular place for Naval captains and their crews on leave. She knew she would have to sacrifice a lot, but the Child was intelligent, and most importantly beautiful and exotic. She takes on a false name, and is a nearly instant sell to the tavern owner. She is put to work almost immediately. Her first drunken customer comes soon after. In exchange for some very odd roleplay, he spilled some info about some old frigate that no one really cared about. She had a cracked keel, bad rigging, a faulty tiller... Not much, but it was a start. Maybe she would come to enjoy this after all. He did have more information, she was sure, but he had to know her before she got to the really good stuff.

There were about six Children in the RNI now, and three in the Irodien Empire. There was another two keeping an eye on Drakun, and one was keeping a loose check on Sawl. They had mostly been sent there to watch the governments and warn of any incoming diplomatic actions that might affect or hurt the Kingdom. Nothing too alarming yet... although there were some worrying signs. Hence why this Child had been sent on this mission to uncover any important secrets about the RNI's navy in case the worst really did come to be. The hope was that the Children could some day leave without ever having to send the signal that the time had come for Stoludi to prove her worth. Each one of them regularly sent encrypted messages over boats and even in the stomachs of seabirds, and each one made sure to make good friends and few enemies.

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In Haltien, a new sloop-of-war slid off of her mounts and splashed into the sea, wetting her deck (called "deflowering" by the men and women who crewed her) and thus cementing her as a creature of the sea. The crew raise their voices in a triumphant shout and declare the Moonlight Tide a woman of war and a goddess of the seas. Even before she stops rocking in the water, the crew start to haul in supplies from longboats and skiffs. It seemed like Moonlight Tide had an uneventful launching. In her belly, however, someone was setting a rather clever little trap. A tiny hole had been bored and was filling a crate with water. In a few hours, when that crate filled, a wire under tension with a water soluble link would snap. When that broke, Moonlight Tide would have her back broken and holes blown in her hull by a detonation in her magazines, caused by a small detonating charge connected to the wire. It was meant to look like an accident, but a young sailor had wandered down to the dark areas of the cargo hold to find a tool that had been lost there. When he saw the strange man boring a hole in the thick armor of the ship, he raised a cry for help. He was quickly silenced by a dagger to the throat, but then that man was tackled and subdued by two huge tiller maids that would easily intimidate most men. He sank a knife into one of the maids to little effect and tried to silence himself with a third knife, but he was pinned. He was dragged off the ship for interrogation, battered and bruised, but intact. Moonlight Tide survived her first encounter with an enemy, after the charge was safely disarmed. Word of this attempted attack was dispatched quickly to the Royal Palace.

=Fort Abbus northern border of the Irodien empire=

"Out of the assignments I could get it had to be here," Falx Valgus said to him self as he pulled his jacket tighter as he tried to warm up near a bonfire. He carefully unfolded the envelope that he was told to open once he was at fort Abbus. "Agent Nine you are to join with one of the merchant caravans and head north to Drakun to begin spy operations. Additional instruction will come later. Destroy after reading this message. Taking time to read over the message before he chucked it into the bonfire turning it to ash. Falx walked away from the warmth of the bonfire to were the merchant caravans gathered before the set out. The imperial agent soon made it over to the caravan he would be traveling with. Making sure he sign in with the caravan. The next day they were off heading to Drakun with Falx traveling with them.

Imperial public announcement

Later in the day when flax set out to Drakun an important announcement was sent out. In a effort to reverse the empire's stagnated technological progress a competition was set up. The composition is to create invention in the fields of industry, military, and daily life. The people who wished to entered would have to have a working prototype at the end of next month in order to be enter in the finals to be held in the imperial capitol. The winner will receive 10,000 imperial marks cash prize money.

The wind stormed outside ripping trees out of the ground. The rain fell so thick one could barely see their own hand, if they were to go outside. There was no joy in watching the city from the overlooking window in the Emperors residence. Robert sat in his armchair and played around with a small glass tube filled with the SES Gas. It was a scorcrew shaped figure that looped back to itself. He silently rotated it around and concentrated on it with all of his focus. His eyes soon got tired and he poured himself a cup of Vodka and enjoyed it silently. The room fell silent aside from the gentle cracking of the fireplace and the storm raging outside. He emptied his bottle with small gulps and tasted the elusive liquid with expertise. He picked up a few letters from the table next to his chair and opened them up.

The first one was from his researchers. The three twins surprised him again. With the plans of the new engineer who arrived just before this hellish weather hit, they started to make plans about reinforcing already existing ships, and outfitting them with steampowered engines that could propel them. The main surprise was the plans for the magnificent. A gigantic triangle shaped Flagship fitted with rotating cannons on both sides, its hull reinforced with steel and brass plates, and powered by multiple steam engines and gargantuan sails. It was outfited with a new invention of the second twin, George. He has been working on a new way to fire bullets at higher speeds and accuracy, without losing time on reaload. In fact his methos proved to be better than the plans, as not only making the initial bullet parameters better, it could raise the reaload time AND the range of any weapon. It was a cartridge that contained both the gunpowder and the bullet inside a small brass tube,that could be easely produced and used by soldiers. Eldron already cooked up a new gun using this new type of bullet. It was the DS-1, a very cheap to make and simplistic rifle that overhelmed any previous gun in effectiveness. But this was not the only thing Geroge thought up. Using his cartridges he made plans for a new artillery gun that could renew the old fashioned Domestian artillery. It would be loaded from the back with a bigger variant of the new cratridge, increasing every parameter above any previous guns. However this methos is still new as experiments showed, and many other cannons that Drakun used were immensely more powerful that this. Anyways it was still better than they had, and could be modified and tweaked to be better.

Robert sighed and drank another cup of alcohol. He opened the last letter from the twins. It was from Holzer, the most ambitious of all. He drew plans of a flying ship. It would be powered by steam engines and would use the cannons his brother invented, but it had a huge flaw. It would require loads of SES Gas to make it fly, as the ballon would be filled with the stuff. So for now it existed in plans. But he was about to change it. He put the letter away and took a new paper in his hand that he would send to the Stoludian queen.

"Dear Annetan,

I am sad to learn about the recent terrorist activities in your country. I know that you are troubled to find agents from the RNi in your country, but rest assured we keep track of your agents as well. As a matter of fact next time teach your agents not to flirt with my admirals in a bar about my ships. As for the destruction of your stronghold I hold no responsibility. I would like to keep the connection betwen our countries a tight as it was before, and if you need any help with rebuilding I will see to sending it your way. Recently I have learned about an interesting material tha6t you found within your borders. You call it Jesper's breath if I am not mistaken. I am sure you understand that my agents only tried to serve their country by sending a tiny dose, so decapitating their hand is not the best response. I would love to see my agent home as soon as the storms clean if that is possible. In exchange we will overlook on your agents activities. For now. And now for what I write this letter for. As I have said the new exotic material you found is of great value to our researchers. So I offer a deal. Men from the RNI could set up extractors to mine this precious gas in your country in exchange for helping your economy. The mines would create workplaces for your farmers and could boost your industry. We would help set up basic manufactures to further help your economy. It would be mutually benefical to both of us. With that I leave the decision for you.

Until we meet in person, Robert Williams, The First"

Talk of bad weather had reached the ears of Arch-chancellor Cyk for quite the while now, but today it was the bad weather itself that reached him. From the rough waters of Port Heseln in western Drakun to the renewed harbours of Connolly in the Northern Ocean, the entire width and breadth of Drakun fell beneath the storm, floods and blizzards ravaging even the holy city of Saint Drolem. There had been worse storms in the past, if only a few. Those Irodien traders already in Drakun would effectively be trapped within the border, short a well prepared caravan or a particularly brave ship captain no one was getting in or out. It was ironically poetic in a way, the land itself forcing isolation just as the people began to open up again. As bitterly humorous as the situation was the Mountains' Dance hadn't managed to make it back to harbor, it was trapped on the frothing ocean waves, and that was something Arch-chancellor Cyk couldn't accept, his nation needed that ship. At least Commander Randelrick had managed to secure the Blacksmiths Shot before the weather could ruin them, with blizzards blanketing the northern cities there wouldn't be enough available oil to make another batch.
___

Meanwhile, many miles away from the grieving arch-chancellor and his foiled machinations his lesser works continue to unfold. A factory owner is confronted by his state appointed replacement, their perspectives clash, and a fool is escorted into the street where his objections are met for the last time.

"If it hadn't been for a dedicated commitment to technological advancement the Drakun Republic would still be locked in civil war, that was the entire damn point."

"Yes, I understand that but we have some of the greatest cannoneers and blacksmiths in the world! Hell the Thunder Men alone could raze any city in the world to rubble. I shouldn't have to change my foundry ever month to try and achieve the impossible for our spoiled lords mad whims."

"Except that the Thunder Men aren't our shock troops, they primarily work as support and defense. To raze a city they would have to get within cannon range and they can't do that if their position is picked to pieces by long range fire as they are setting up. If you spent more time listening to the Arch-chancellor instead of questioning his choice of funding you might still have a foundry."

"I'll get another-"

"No, no you wont. Even without the Arch-chancellors dedication you and your cheap productions would rapidly find yourself without any place in this world, technology is constant pushing forward, you either move with it or get left behind. Now if you will excuse me I have to see if I can find a scrap dealer who will take the antique garbage you insist on calling a workshop."

"I have worked loyally and have had a higher output than any other factory on this half of Drakun!"

"Forge a thousand swords that can be broken easily, you will be beaten by a single blade made to its fullest. Or do you doubt the words of Saint Drolem?"

Annetan felt weight settling in on her shoulders as she rode North, towards the city of Buxiang. At the moment, Buxiang was undergoing much the same renovations as Aurorasaki. Somehow, she was much, much worse than the largest city in Stoludi. That city had decayed into a den of sin and utter barbarity. Rape, murder, plague, firestorms... it all happened in Buxiang and sometimes at the same time. The new and recently damaged sea fort and accompanying port just South-East of it was one of the best around, but the city just South-East was one of the worst. It was utterly bizarre, and Annetan wanted to put an end to it. To get to this cancerous growth of a city, however, she had to cross through the nearly lawless Tinnham Forest. It was thickly wooded and beautiful, and home to a few hermits but the Ranger had vanished a few weeks ago and his apprentices were terrified of what lied in wait in the deep, dark boughs of the Tinnham Forest. Aleit had sought a replacement but... that had been slow going. She kept her eyes on the thick leaves overhead as the four guards on her four corners watched the twilit woods like hawks. Speaking of which, hawks could not pierce the canopy. She and her guards were alone out here.

There were incidents, of course. One incident was particularly scary when a loud crack and a sharp ding off of the back of her armor made Annetan whip around and draw her scattergun. The arquebus was pointed roughly at the spot where the shot had come from and then set off. With her poor stance and hasty draw, the arquebus slammed back into her shoulder and dented the armor there, while a shower of blood and gore rained from the shredded canopy. A body thumped to the ground minus a chunk of its head, and it's brains fell next to it with a rather sickening squish. Upon further inspection, Aleit decided it had been a male. She scoffs softly and turns to canter on, reloading the arquebus in the meantime. The rear guards throw a few last glances to the body before they move on as well. They knew that the wolves would clean up the assassin, a worthy fate for such a man. Then another incident where Annetan had to cut a man in half with her curved longsword when again someone tried to assassinate her, this time with a rusty scythe. As she rides past this body, with it's innards spilled upon the ground, she shakes her head, "I never expected it to be this bad... what are they all afraid of?" Rubania carefully stepped over the guts and threw back a throaty chuff, as if in reply.

Annetan had fully expected the opening of Stoludi to be a massive problem. She had mostly expected strife from foreigners, as Stoludi was a strange place indeed. The people were, for the most part, good people. There were a lot of things that might scare foreigners, though. Stoludi just looked weird... the people had looks like no other, and they spoke with an accent like no other language on the planet. Their alphabet was odd, and their customs were odd, and their dress was odd. Stoludians speak in a strange, singsong accent with a lot of lisp and throat movement, and their alphabet is a series of pictograms that can have their meanings morphed in all kinds of ways. It was very hard for one to learn Stoludian, and the same applied for the opposite. They dress in bright colors and loose clothes like they are all ready for bed. This is how they dressed, however. Even shoes were rare as most Stoludians still went barefoot. That is before you even go into their culture... Stoludians are often at least somewhat hedonistic. Love is love to a Stoludian, even if that love (or just simple lust) is for the same sex or even for a beast. Stoludi had one religion, and it was a polytheistic affair involving five gods, mostly ones involving nature and war. The government is matriarchal, with the female as the first and preferred heir. Males only ever inherited power if there were no females available. The King had power, of course, but not as much as his wife. He was mostly the lead justice of the land and advisor to the Queen. Aleit Annetan had expected some resistance from foreigners due to her land's strange and often controversial ways, but she had never expected this much internal strife. She believed in open borders, but all of this was starting to scare her a little.

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Thankfully, her life was no longer in danger as she approached Buxiang and broke out of the Tinnham Forest. Now some new problems began. Even from here Buxiang looked terrible. The walls were dirty and smeared with all sorts of things, and they had several chunks that were either cracked or missing altogether. The cannons on the walls did not gleam as they should, and some of them looked as if they were no longer mounted properly. Annetan pauses for a moment to heave a sigh, and then begins down the hill and towards Buxiang, having Illiat, the lead guard, raise her banner high. Normally a city would open its gates immediately but in this case, Annetan rode up to the thirty-foot walls and then waited. She waited a few moments more, and then yelled a challenge. Finally, the gates began to creak open, slowly. The Queen taps her fingers on her arms, sighing, watching the wooden doors swing inwards. They stuttered and finally stopped at an awkward angle without having opened fully, but just enough so she and her envoy could get through.

Her inspection of the place went very poorly. The gatehouse was just as bad as she had predicted with its incredibly slow operating time. It was a square structure set above the gate with two squat towers on either side that framed the one-meter thick gate. Inside, after the gates managed to close, she dismounted, left Rubania and two of her guards to guard the three horses, and began what she knew would be a most unpleasant errand. The door to the left tower was unlocked, which in itself was a huge problem. Then she began to climb up to the main gatehouse, hardly even noticing her armor's weight. Inside the cramped room she found that the gears were cracked and had teeth missing in some places, a few chains badly needed replacing, the shafts needed lubing... Annetan already knew this would be unpleasant. The single man operating the whole mess was a young, fat teen who was sleepier than any cat Aleit had ever encountered. On top of all of this, the windows had no shutters on them, and there were few primed torches in the room. She noted all of this down in her head after giving the young man an earful and then she rode off to inspect the town guards. The garrison of the city guards was based in the fortress in the center. This fortress was run down and a few of the towers looked almost ready to fall. The roof of the main keep was not much better, and within she found broken, outdated equipment, unprepared, under-trained soldiers, and a commander passed out drunk at a table. Things came to a head when she found a group of them in the stables, raping a stablehand. Annetan had not yelled that long in a while, and if that didn't convince them, the thunderous boom of a blank arquebus load sure did. If they still were not sure, the banishing of them all to the deepest parts of the dungeon should do the trick. The girl was given to a couple of Annetan's guards to be taken to the Royal Palace, where she would be installed as a stablehand there and treated much better.

The Commander was yelled at until the Queen's throat hurt and he looked like a kicked puppy. He was then demoted and his command given to a new Commander from elsewhere. Her inspection did not go any better once she had finished ripping apart the garrison. The reconstruction work was a mess. People were constantly stealing from the work sites, and even worse, there was evidence of embezzlement by some of the foremen. The city never really had a layout. The walls themselves formed an oval around the city, and in the center there was the decrepit fortress, but between those? It was just a mess of whatever people wanted to do with it. Fires regularly razed entire neighborhoods, but they just came back a few days later. The whole place stank with an odor that made Annetan cringe, and even Rubania was acting like she really did not want to be here. Even while she watched the work being done out on a side street between a couple of rickety whorehouses, one man fell into a tub of improperly stored glue and was melted before her eyes. There wasn't anything anyone could do, of course, except for slaying him to end his misery as he turned into a crimson sludge. Aleit herself hopped off of her horse and lopped off the sizzling man's head with her sword. Afterwards, she turns and stares at the city in disgust. The pipe wasn't laid properly and now a man and been melted into nothing. Sometimes, she did wonder why she did not just burn this place down.

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After that long day, Annetan rode into the Keep of the Gods, tired and weary from the day out. No further problems had occurred on the ride home, thankfully. She still had a few things to attend to as she was undressed and redressed in more casual attire, consisting of a loose green silk robe and no shoes. Now with all of that out of the way, Annetan began to check her castle. Princess Zuzoya was in the kennels, having always loved dogs, her two sons were out practicing with the Huntmaster, and her King was settling some dispute between a couple of farmers. The garrison was either training, rightfully resting, or maintaining cannons and small arms. The craftsmen were inspecting the walls. The kennel keeper was training a pup, the stablemaster was orientating the girl from Buxiang, and the Hakwer was busy up in her tower. As Annetan was wandering towards her chambers in one of the better armored towers, the Hawker stopped her. She bows quickly and then hands her a couple of letters, before walking off elsewhere. Annetan reads them as she walks and begins to frown more and more as she reads it. By the time she reaches her solar, she is positively scowling. The Queen takes the first letter from the RNI out onto the balcony of the tower, reading it in the sunlight. Then she snaps the scroll shut and clenches it in her fist, biting her lip as she leans on the railing and looks down on her daughter playing with a couple of the castle's wolf-dogs. Some men were messing about with a cannon, presumably doing some maintenance on it, and a couple of hawks were flying about. Aleit closes her eyes and rests her head on her arms. She was just a woman of 31. This was a lot for her. The word of attempted sinking of Moonlight Tide was concering but... it was probably just a disgruntled countryman. That could be looked into later. This letter from Robert, however... Time passes. After a few minutes, she wanders inside and begins to write. This letter was an atrocity. That bastard of a man in charge of the RNI had all but threatened her country and decried her actions, despite the clear danger her men were in from that man.

To the Great Leader of the RNI, Robert Williams, the First:

I do hope this letter finds you in good health. I apologize if some Stoludians have been prodding into matters that should not concern them, but I am afraid that I have no idea who you are referencing and I must also say that she has no connection to my council or me. We have no concerns about your Navy and would never risk an agent's health by having her commit sexual intercourse with one of your Naval officers.
Now, as for your own agents, the evidence is quite damning that you are, in fact, responsible for the death of five enlisted men and two officers, not to mention the serious wounds eight others took from shrapnel and shockwaves. We are treating your man well, but my own men's actions were justified. As I understand it from the evidence we have gathered, this agent first planted an explosive in the magazine at the seaport of Buxiang, and then escaped before the device detonated. After it had exploded we found him transporting the substance without our permission to your country, with letters worded directly to the heads of your government. One of my guards tried to apprehend him, but your agent was releasing a bladder filled with Jester's Breath. The guard had no clue what was in this strange contraption, and so I believe it was right what he did. We have not permitted any trade of Jester's Breath beyond what was sent out on our recalled convoy.
Again, this evidence is damning to say the least. It is all too clear to me that your claim of innocence is an outrageous lie. We will treat your man well and return him in due time, but rest assured that I will not forget this heinous act. You should be grateful that I am turning a blind eye to the fact that this is an act of war. I will not allow you to start mining operations on my land after what you have done, and especially after you threaten my country. I can read, Robert, and I will not have my country treated like a child. If I see another of your men stealing any of my resources, take my word that he will not meet so kind a fate as a crippled hand. Perhaps I will forgive one day, but rest assured that I will not forget. It is regrettable that I must do this but that convoy will not be sent out again and I will be putting all trade on hold pending further review. Perhaps one day we will meet in person, but that day is not in the near future.

Best Regards, Aleit Annetan, Queen of the Proud Lands of Stoludi

Annetan sat back and read over the letter a few times. With a heavy heart, she seals the letter with wax. It feels as if she is walking to the gallows as she walks down the long hallways to the chambers of the Hawker, She hands the letters to Hyiet, wishes her a good day, and then retreats to her solar once again. She sets her eyes on the darkening skies, brewing and bubbling with a building storm. The first drops of rain begin to fall as Annetan questions the fate of her country and its denizens.

= The town of Barcov, Galicia provance=

SCARO! Get your lazy ass down here at once! We have important work to be doing!" an aged inventor shouted from the bottom of the stairs. After a few minutes a young man came down the stairs "What is so important Doc Renatus?" Scaro ask as he walked down the stairs. Renatus reach into his coat and pulled out a paper. "Look here our Emperor wishes to show the world what the best minds in the empire. On top of that there is a 10,000 mark prize for the most revolutionary invention," the old inventor said stowing the paper back into coat. Gestering to Scaro to fallow him into the workshop in the basement. "Mark my words boy this will make me famous," Renatus begin to dig around in a drawer before he pulled up a schematic "Here we are we must work quick. We don't have the time we need." As the aged inventor looked over the schematics before looking back at his apprentice "Fire up the foundry Scaro. We have a long month ahead of us."

It was the first day he saw in the morning. The letter from the Stoludian queen. He frowned and threw the letter into the fire after reading it. He gestured to Jay to come closer. It was no small thing he had to do. Stoludi decided to tell them to suck it. There is only so much a man can accept. He tried to openly negotiate about the espionage, but he failed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, they say. He looked into the eyes of Jay. "I want you to initiate a search for all Stoludian spies in the Republic. I want them in prison by tomorrow. However don't treat them badly. They shall "enjoy" their stay till we get our captive back. After that you can execute them." He turned away, and looked out the window.
Jay looked at him surprised. "But sir! That would be bad for the 2 nation's relationship. Are you sure you..." Robert turned around with a deadly look of a man that lost his mind. "None tells me to stand back. None tells me to suck it. None plays with me!" He picked up his uniform he wears for important occasions and drank a final bottle of Vodka. "I don't want any more objections! Also dispatch a message to our spies. I want all in Stoludi home in 2 week's time. All must bring home SES gas or data about it. They are all moved to counter espionage in the home country. That's it. You are dispatched." He looked at Jay over his shoulders, who quickly disappeared in the shadows, before closing the door behind him.

It was a hot and sunny day in Seasailer. Robert overlooked the construction of the DRS Magnificent. It was the new ship designed by the Triad. As soon as he saw the plans he gave his immediate permission to start building the ship. On his right stood the three brothers, hooded whispering something between themselves. They were an odd sight. Pointing at things and constantly muttering to themselves. He was sure they could already see the fully built ship in front of themselves, every nail in place. He knew them since his childhood. He respected them for their talent, but he also despised them for how anti social they were. Althought a man could never ask for a better ally, he still felt odd fro standing with them on the same podium. On his right side however there were his admirals and military advisors who all praised the young engineer from Drakun, who was talking with them. Once the ship finishes building, it will be the fastest Galleon in the NIN's arsenal, and the biggest ship to ever roam the seas of Mawei. However he had one more appointment, so as much as he would have loved to watch the building of this ship, he had to move on.

It was already dawn by the time he got back to Domestia. But instead of going straight back to the palace he had to visit the barracks in the royal district of the town. As he approached the gates the soldiers saluted to him and he entered the main yard. As he neared the main gate two Domestian Guards saluted opened the door for him and his company. He always admired the moral of the army. It was kept in a tidy and well maintained order. No other empire could stand up to even the Milita, not to mention the NIFF or the Domestian Guards. He entered the main room, and he was greeted by Sir Lucian, his military advisor. "Welcome to our humble home Roberts. I hope it is to your liking." Sir Lucian technically acted as his father when he was a small kid. They shook hands and began to chatter. He was no fan of small talks, but there were always those few who he could easily talk with. After a few minuted they entered a small room with a small desk and 2 chairs. "I have all the papers ready Robert. You just need to sign it, and the fighting force that revolutionizes war as we know, is going to be born." Robert sighed and read the papers bottom. "By the power granted to me by me imperial bloodline, I hereby grant access to the forming of the Domestian Main Fighting Force or the DFF for short." He signed the paper and shaked Lucian's hands. He smiled but he wasn't sure how this would turn out. He left the building soon after, and headed back to the palace in haste.