Aquatic Nightmare

The incident report at site states that unit <REDACTED> went missing at <REDACTED>. There is no indication as to where they could have gone, as there were not spotted leaving the base. The camera footage in the room gives us more of a hint as to what happened considering the camera shut off for thirty seconds before running again. In that span of time the men that were previously playing cards disappeared, and while there would be a suspicion of foul play the door did not log anyone leaving.

-Russian interior defense report on incident 284-B, at site <REDACTED>

POV S-3
Name:<REDACTED>
Division:<REDACTED>
Status: <DATA EXPUNGED>
Designation: Spetsnaz-3

In my line of work, bright flashes of light tend to be a bad thing. Getting spotted during a night raid, getting checked to see if you are pretending to be unconscious or getting hit by a flashbang. Today is no different as me and four of my squad are currently surrounded by a bunch of cosplayers in a dark room with rock overhead.

"The summoning was a success!" a girl in a dress yells.

"Please calm down princess, it is too soon to get our hopes up". Princess? There is too much going on here for the situation to be sane.

"Squad stay combat ready but no sudden moves, we need information". It seems S-1 is relatively calm all things considered, if anyone will find out what's going on he would be it and if he doesn't no one will.

"Well, what more do you need to prove it was a success?" The girl claimed to be a princess certainly got the look and attitude to match one. "They are dressed in odd clothes and look like they are extremely wary of us, so they certainly seem otherworldly to me".

S-1 gestures for us to look to all sides of the room and back him up. "What the hell is going on here!?" The sergeant finally spoke up out loud except that it didn't sound russian or even english, hell it didn't even seem like any language I know at all.

"Well that at least confirms the language part of the summoning spell working, it seems that the goddess is watching us today". An old man continues mumbling away like one of the engineers lost in calculation.

"S-3 initiate communication with unknown contacts, get us information and try to seem non-threatening, we have your back". I holster my gun and approach the overly (or appropriately?) excited princess. As I approach, I see some men in armor appear from thin air like they had always been there and point halberds at me. If they believe that those glorified pointy sticks would prevent me from harming the girl they clearly have no idea what they are messing with.

"Can you tell us what's going on here?" It is my job as the radio operator to handle most encounters of a diplomatic nature, even if it isn't part of our regular MO.

"We summoned you to help with the demon lord of course! We need your help to defeat it, or else humanity is doomed". The princess is clearly still extremely excited and some of the other oddly clothed people from the encirclement look relieved, and I get the feeling that the evenly spaced piles of gold and gems with some odd asymmetrical gaps in the piles are what makes me believe this was a rather expensive venture on their side.

"And why would we help?" The room tenses, the guards tighten their grip around their halberds the princess is actually a little shook and baffled at my statement and all the robed men look with disapproving mild horror.

"But you are humans, aren't you?"

I'll have to recover this somehow, can't afford conflict with unknown contacts while surrounded, even if by what is clearly not tactically favorable for them. "Yes, but where we come from soldiers don't tend to help out other nations for free, until then we serve Russia". I say all this while giving an obvious look at the piles of gold and gems as if we could be bought with those, my trick seems to work and the air in the room gets a lot lighter.

"Why of course you will be compensated appropriately for your service to the kingdom of Dalka, please state your desire men of Rossya".

Excellent, I can buy important time with this tactic, "Could I request some time to discuss this payment with my fellows? This whole summoning business is rather disorienting, and would like to get a little more known with the nature of the job and who we are exactly working for here". The girl gives another smile, except this time it doesn't reach her eyes.

"That is fine I will have a few rooms assigned to you for the duration of your stay, my father will want to talk to you eventually, so please have your answer ready by then". She snaps her fingers and some servants come walking down the stairs into the basement and gesture us to follow.

"Fucking hell S-3 that was nuts, you really pulled it back there". S-4 said it in russian, so I'm assuming they figured out that we haven't been compromised if we can still talk russian. He was always very jovial and expressive, but I get the feeling he plays the fool a lot more often than he is the fool, he is also our team gunner.

"They were always intending to stick us in rooms for a while, they had those servants ready" S-2 observant and mostly paranoid as always is still watching the guards as he says this, our scout is clearly seeing something he doesn't like. "Those guards were invisible and there the entire time, I saw a shimmer that was shaped like them on the locations where they appeared from before they appeared".

"What are you guys talking about?" the princess interjects, having regained some of her previous excitement.

"We were discussing sleeping arrangements and would like to request a singular room with 5 beds to be assigned to us". The problems S-4 had with the quartermaster made him a smooth liar.

The princess deflates the smallest bit before returning to a slightly jovial tone. "I heard men in the army were really bored, but I didn't know that attitude crossed worlds". It would have been a rather funny statement if it wasn't for the part where it seemed like the princess was fishing for information too flawlessly, and someone that wasn't fishing for information wouldn't be able to say that with such a straight face in a situation like this.

"Cease the unnecessary chatter and eyes front, do not embarrass us in front of royalty". Looks like S-1 noticed what she was trying and shut her down before she could get anywhere, although I am a bit worried he may have outed himself as our CO. The princess makes some more attempts and jabs at conversation, but we keep moving steadily and silent as we make our way to our assigned room. At some point the princess leaves us while pouting a bit and the surprisingly unnerved servants open the door to our room.

"Please notify a servant if you require anything, we will come get you for breakfast lunch and dinner". The servant bows and leaves us to our room.

"Sweep" the moment the word leaves the mouth of S-1 we all get to work checking the room thoroughly for anything out of place.

"Found something, it looks like the scribbles covering the floor back at the summoning area" S-4 found the scribbles hidden under a false ceiling in a drawer.

"If it wasn't meant to be found it can't be anything good for us, we should destroy it" S-2 looks relieved at this information "I would be more worried if they didn't try even with the language barrier protecting us for now".

"We will talk about classified stuff over radio but keep pretending that the language is our main way of preventing information leaks, considering the technology of the locals I believe they don't have radios".

"I would recommend seeing the locals as a good source of information regardless of their obvious intentions" S-1 gives me a pondering look as I say it.

"Why do you think that S-3?"

"Because while the locals don't seem to know what we are capable of, they do fear us, and probably any reprisals that could happen if we were to find out that they have been lying to us".

S-1 thinks for a bit and comes to a conclusion. "We should get to figuring out this payment stuff, we need much more information and there is some decent time left to get shit done before we are summoned by their king, S-4 and S-5 are to investigate the library".

I hadn't even noticed S-5 since the start of this debacle, as our team sniper he puts great importance on silence and not being noticed.

"S-3 I want you to try and get some information from the locals and S-2 you are with me, we are going to take a nice stroll around this place and see what we can find".
____________________________________________

POV second princess Alicia of the kingdom of Dalka

I make my way from the otherworlders to the throne room. No doubt my father has already heard most of what happened and will be testing me on my knowledge of intrigue.

"I would like to speak to my father".

While normally coming to the throne room with the king there and without appointment is seen as a major faux pas, my father has also taught me that family always comes first and that needs to be shown as well.

"Alicia! Is that you? It is good to see you on this fine day!" my father seems to be in one of his good moods, which makes sense considering the summoning finally yielding some success.

"Yes your majesty I have come to report on the success of the summoning" My father quickly adopts a slightly sour look before going back to his good mood.

"I told you none of that your majesty crap when it's just us I'm your father first and king second, now tell me of these men of rossya". At those last words, I can hear the scheming he's doing coming out from his words.

"They aren't what I imagined them to be in both a good and bad way, good in that they seem like professional soldiers, bad in that they are professional soldiers. They asked for payment for dealing with the demon lord, but clearly hold loyalty to a different kingdom".

My father ponders for a bit before asking, "what are the chances of being able to tie them to our kingdom? If we have otherworldly heroes on our side, the other nations would think twice and the theocracy thrice before trying to attack us, even with this demon lord issue on our border". As expected, my father doesn't hesitate to fear the potential threats more than the current threat.

"Not good, they are already incredibly wary of us and don't hesitate to show their suspicion towards us". My father ponders some more with a sour look on his face before mother quietly enters.

"Well from what the reports say dear Rufus they are still very much human men, they can be paranoid enough to rip out the listening enchantment as much as they want but finding out what they want tends to be more of a matter of time rather than one of certainty".

They found the listening enchantment? That was state-of-the-art enchantment work and should leave nearly no trace of mana for mana detection spells.

"Well we didn't get much from it but roughly 5 minutes before it went dead there was a single word said before it seems they found it, but it was all in their odd language".

"And what are they doing now?"

My mother's expression finally grows sour. "That's why I'm here now, it seems as our guests have decided to make themselves comfortable rather quickly, two are walking around the training ground two more are holed up in the library and one is currently asking the servants and guards some odd questions".

My father manages to look mildly annoyed before turning to me. "Marie dearest, can you have someone lead Alicia to where the man talking to the servants is and find out anything? As of now we don't even know which one of them is in charge, and with paranoid men like these it's best not to make assumptions".

My mother, having clearly expected this whole turn of events, snaps her fingers and the head maid enters. "Jennifer, lead princess Alicia here to the otherworlder currently talking to your staff so she can make sure everything is alright". The head maid bows and respectfully gestures for me to follow.

As I approach where the man is talking, I overhear some of the things being said.

"So this demon lord turns people into half-monsters using corrupted magic?"

The servant replies somewhat shakily. "Y-yes, I believe it was called the transmogrification spell, and it also corrupts the mind quickly turning those hit into puppets of the demon lord".

I make my way to enter quickly, and the otherworlder seems to mutter something under his breath before making a short bow and greeting. "Greeting princess Alicia, is there anything I can help you with?"

This was one of the two men that spoke at the summoning ritual, I don't recognize any of them as they are always wearing black masks covering everything except the eyes, so they sent out the one most capable of talking to gather information from the servants?

"Greetings hero, I heard you went around asking questions from the servants and I wanted to make sure you weren't making them too uncomfortable, if you have any questions you can always ask me". The masked man thinks for a bit before answering.

"I believe I never properly introduced myself, I'm S-3, and I was asking some questions about our target and its nature, can you tell me a little about those who serve it?"

Now that he mentions it I don't recall giving my name, so he clearly has been asking about a bit more than simply the demon lord.

"Why of course Esstrey, the demons come in many forms but all of them hold loyalty to the demon lord and hold a disdain for all humans, many are capable in the demon army of casting the dreaded transmogrification spell, but the demon lord is of course the one most capable of it".

The man narrows his eyes a bit before asking, "how is humanity still holding on?"

I'm a bit shocked at this question and remember the prophecy again. About how those of another world would be the ones to save humanity. I had always believed that it would be a hero in shining armor that would ride in and spearhead humanity to a brighter future and even when I was rather disappointed that the heroes that came were anything but clothed in shining armor, but they were still heroes.

"The royal army has its own tricks and might still left, we are no pushovers and some wayward magical experiment from an insane mage like the demon lord isn't going to just take our beautiful kingdom without a fight!"

I actually get a little winded by the end of the small speech. Esstrey gives a nod before adopting a determined look. "In that case I'm looking forward to working with you all, someone capable of brainwashing is a danger to us all, my fellows are currently researching more about the target as we speak". As much as I want to believe that he means those words, I can tell that it's hollow platitudes. These men still hold great distrust for us, no matter how much they know about the world.

I promptly excuse myself and head back to my room to send some letters to my brothers and sister, and hopefully keep my younger sister out of all this. I get the feeling that the summoning is us playing with fire more and more while my father and mother are blinded by opportunity. A donation to the local church would probably also be nice, if we are playing with fire, I just hope that the goddess will watch over us.
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POV S-3

Having talked to the ball of energy known as the second princess Alicia of the kingdom of Dalka, I make my way back to the room. As we all slowly arrive and share the information we gathered, we come to several conclusions based on evidence collected. Magic is real, so are enchantments elves, dwarves, vampires, demons, dragons, monster and a whole heap of other stuff normally found in what would usually be found in fantasy books except that somehow some of Lovecraft's works are also mixed in considering the many books about beings from the stars.

"So we have giant flying fire breathing tanks, beings from mythology and carnivorous caves but worst of all somehow humanity hasn't been crushed like bugs despite not even having invented gunpowder yet". S-1 gives one of those pondering looks he makes when we are assigned a mission with unrealistic expectations from command again. "And they want us to kill what is an ancient being made by a mad scientist thousands of years ago in an attempt at making the perfect being, simply because God is real, and she said so". As S-1 continues, irritation comes more and more into his voice, S-4 gives a pained look before speaking up.

"From what I found with S-5 the whole summoning thing is much easier to do than sending something far away as we could be considered lucky if we end up in the sun".

We all grumble at that and ponder our options a bit before S-2 gives a grin through his mask he only gives when he spots weakness. "Except that that ancient thing has never faced gunpowder before or any powerful mana-less weapons, there may have never been a recorded case of someone surviving an encounter with the demon lord among humans but that all leads me to believe together with what the soldiers said about demons that they all have enhanced senses".

S-1 gives a serious look at S-2 before commanding. "Explain".

The grin on S-2 grows even wider as I can tell from his eyes that he's enjoying the moment thoroughly. "Enhanced eyesight? Flashbangs will hit them harder than their worst moments, Enhanced hearing? We use some loud fucking guns, enhanced smell? The only smell they will get to smell is the smell of our guns. The enemy has never been this unprepared for us, but we are running out of time, no doubt does a being as ancient as this has spies in the palace, it's what I would do".

I decide to make this the moment to speak up. "We should still think of a reward, we still serve Russia before all else".

Now it seems it's the turn of S-1 to make a grin that would haunt children at night. "How about we ask for land, specifically most of the land of the demon lord, we could build towards making travel back to Russia more viable from there, and we will have something to give to the motherland when we re-establish contact with command if we could make it permanent".

"We should ask the king to move quick then, our advantages won't last long".

Everyone pauses for a moment and take wonder at the fact S-5 just talked, and we collectively decide to hand a message for the king to one of the servants and handle the rest tomorrow morning.