Further Beyond: Ascension

Lunesday, 6th of Maia, 470th Year of the Fifth Era

Gregory had awakened in the corner of his original tent groggy from the late discussions held up to the early hours of morning. The discussions were mostly the Hallack prying for all sorts of information out of him. He had described the details of how he and his brother were exiled from the republic as well as how they had come up with the idea to establish a new settlement and 'kingdom' within the Hallacklands.

At first the Hallack leaders were quite incensed by what they saw as the sheer audacity of some bandits in trying to establish their own 'kingdom'. Some of them even called for the surrendered bandits' outright execution because of that. Gregory's life the entire meeting was hanging upon the kindness of his Hallack lover. Lasta had spent most of the night advocating on his behalf.

He had thought that Lasta was making up a story about being pregnant at first to protect him but when he had privately asked her about it, she had instead confirmed it. His lover had been meaning to tell him for the longest time after noticing her coming of month had been delayed far longer than usual but due to concerns about his brother's reaction, she had hesitated.

Finding out that Lasta was related to the king of the Northern Hallack kingdom was the next biggest shock. Lasta's birth mother was the sister to the king while her father was a prominent warrior who died shortly before her birth. Had the bandits known that earlier, they'd have perhaps worked to either hold her to ransom or utilise her more for their purposes in pacifying the local Hallacks. But then again, that could've greatly backfired against the bandits as she could become a symbol of added resentment against the bandits.

While Lasta's uncle wanted nothing more than to strangle the life out of him, the other Hallack leaders had shown a very shrewd outlook regarding the current situation. Lord Parulian - the son of the most prominent King of the Hallack whom even Gregory had heard of - had chosen to recognise a sense of lordship from Gregory as a 'noble of Palmerton'.

King Tagam had seen it as an affront against the sovereignty of his kingdom, but Lord Parulian had explained how Palmerton could act as a prominent power base for his own purposes. Lasta had given her uncle a detailed description of the growing village-town of Palmerton, its defensive palisades, watchtowers, and structures designed by captured foreigners from the bandits' various raids. Its strategic location upon a chokehold area acting as an entrypoint to the Newlander Colonial Republic was also a great boon to control as taxing for tariffs and merchants would prove lucrative.

To this end, the Hallack lords had asked Gregory what the mood was among the bandit 'vassals' of his brother George and how their loyalties to him would stack up when faced with serious pressure. At this point, the Hallack were most interested in finding a way to pacify Palmerton completely with the most minimal amount of damage and loss. It would be far more useful for the king were he able to take over Palmerton with both its infrastructure and its manpower relatively intact.

Gregory had gathered that there was a sort of power struggle going on between the king and some of his noble elders. And it was within this internal strife that Palmerton was in fact being used as a sort of leveraged pawn by the Hallack elders to stir trouble for the king.

Gregory could only shake his head at his reassessment of the situation as the political landscape within the Hallacklands was far more complicated than he had first thought. It made the ambitions of his brother feel ever the more foolish to him. A measly four-star warrior leading a group of bandits who were on average barely even in their second star of aura, thinking they'd be able to contend with the ferocity of the native warriors.

However, that was where the meeting was left at yesterday night as all that discussion had lasted for hours. Lord Parulian had determined for the conclusive discussions to be held in the morning after a night's rest.

Gregory was allowed to stay and sleep in the former main tent of his encampment yet Lasta was moved out of it and given her own tent away from him. In her stead, Lord Parulian had placed a number of his younger warriors to occupy the tent with him as well as to stand guard over him as a sort of prisoner.

That being said, though, the young warriors were friendly and cordial enough to him and they had even introduced themselves to him. All of them had fairly westernised christian names and so Gregory had little trouble in getting acquainted with them and distinguishing them from one another. What surprised Gregory the most about these young warriors was the fact that none of them were even twenty years of age yet many of them were third star aura users.

"Rise and shine, princess! Hahahaha!" One of the young warriors teased Gregory who had just woken up and was rubbing his eyes with his wrist while yawning. Compared to all the other Hallack he had known - including Lasta - for some reason this young warrior had the ability to speak Archioric that he wasn't even capable of detecting a native Banuan accent. Perhaps an accent that sounded more Germanic if anything.

Gregory couldn't help but roll his eyes at the teasing. He had recognised the warrior who had greeted him as the young Lord Josias, Lord Parulian's son. Compared to the rest of the warriors in the tent who were still relatively guarded towards him, Gregory found Josias to be the most cordial and jovial of the bunch.

It was insane how Josias was barely eighteen years of age and already a third star aura warrior. Back during his time in the Army of the Republic, Gregory was already considered a genius for achieving three stars in his early twenties. Most warriors were considered lucky to even be able to achieve such a level in their entire lives - maybe four stars if they were even more fortunate. But here he was, in a tent where aura warriors walked around like they were a dime in the dozen.

Perhaps it was also due to his status as Lord Parulian's son, but Josias appeared to be somewhat of a leader among the younger warriors. However, despite his relatively unassuming stature - being of average height compared to the other warriors and even standing about a few inches shorter than Gregory - he could feel that Josias was the most fearsome of them all. Perhaps it was his prowess that afforded him the leisure to act in a seemingly more carefree manner.

Besides Josias, two other young warriors there - Johannes and Mateus - were also of the third star in terms of aura. The other two warriors there - Sadrach and Hesekiel - were still only on their second star but for some reason he didn't think it would be a very good idea to trifle with them despite that fact. Although Gregory didn't much like the overly handsome Sadrach especially when he caught Lasta giving the young man a few glances. He couldn't quite blame her as Sadrach was indeed quite the exotic-looking warrior when compared to the rest of the Hallack, but he still didn't appreciate the mother of his unborn child ogling other men like that even if it wasn't on purpose.

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"I think I could use at least another hour of sleep, young master…" Gregory scratched the back of his head as he got up from the bed roll on the ground "It was a tiresome night being interrogated by your father and his friends…"

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. You should've seen him when he caught me trying to sneak out of the house at night to go fishing." Josias waved his hand nonchalantly.

"You fish at night?"

"Pfft. Of course not. I was twelve and I wanted to go on a night stroll with my friend to see the stars. Well, maybe some form of fishing could've been involved."

Gregory couldn't help but shake his head and chuckle at the young Lord's attitude. Josias had continued with his story while Gregory grabbed a water basin to wash his face and freshen up for the continuation of last night's meeting.

"Don't believe him when he says that." One of the larger warriors - Johannes - said as he cut off Josias "He was trying to pick some tuberoses to give his then girlfriend."

"Oy, what do you mean 'then girlfriend'? I'm still with Serena happily until now!"

"Yea, but she's your fiancee now, not your girlfriend."

"You make a good point!"

"It still amazes me how good all of you are in speaking Archioric. It's the last thing I expected to find especially out here in these savage- I'm sorry… more rural lands…" Gregory felt like his heart had dropped into his stomach when he slipped up due to his more comfortable state when talking to the younger warriors. He had looked in fear that he'd anger his current captors but luckily, besides a few raised eyebrows, Josias had taken the comment far more charitably than he'd expected.

"It's fine, we understand. Our homes and villages may indeed be savage in your eyes. I've never personally been to the cities of you foreigners, but if the stories told by the missionaries are anything to go buy, nothing in the Halaklands could hope to compare to the western civilisations." Josias shrugged with a laugh "Maybe someday, when Godwilling I ascend to my grandfather's throne as king, I'd make Goria into a city rivalling that of even the Imperial Capital of Loweria or the Grand Old City of Sanctum where the so-called Antichrist-Pope resides…"

Gregory could only laugh before Josias continued.

"Also, my fiance is half-German so she's a great help in learning the language. Her father, the archbishop, is the one responsible for educating my family." Josias said "Also, the Archbishop has told me that he has family living in Feldonia that serves as our point of contact with that Kingdom so it was imperative for him to teach us Archioric at the very least for diplomacy's sake."

"That still doesn't explain how you're so good at speaking it despite never having left the Halaklands." Gregory said again.

"Well, I don't know what else to say. I'm just that much of a genius, I guess." Josias outstretched his arms and shrugged his shoulders.

"And very much full of himself at the same time." Mateus shook his head finally barging into the conversation "Anyways, our fathers and King Tagam are expecting us outside. We still have much to discuss regarding our strategy going forward…"

Gregory nodded as he followed Mateus and the other warriors outside of the tent. Walking outside, many of the soldiers and warriors were already in the process of pulling down the tents and packing up the encampment, including the palisade walls and loading most of the cargo, supplies and equipment onto the baggage trains. The efficiency with which the operation was carried out was impressive.

At the center of the encampment, a makeshift table had been set with some empty crates and barrels acting as chairs. Most of the Halak leaders were already present as they were paying full attention to Ambrose who was in the middle of explaining something to them while drawing on a large blank paper.

After approaching closer, Gregory had caught on to the fact that Ambrose was detailing the layout of Palmerton and its surrounding areas as well as the manpower composition of George's army. Noticing him approaching, Ambrose stopped his presentation for a moment to give Gregory a salute before continuing with his explanation. Gregory smiled and returned the salute as he was also greeted by Lord Parulian before being shown to one of the barrels where he could sit.

"In essence, from what Captain George had last instructed us to make, there are about three platforms around the two levels of Palmerton where he had set up the cannons given to us by the Povorian merchants." Ambrose had marked the positions on the map with a charcoal marker. "Though we have yet to properly train a devoted team to operate the cannons, we can still manage to get them to shoot at an effective range of about five hundred yards which could prove a significant obstacle to laying a direct assault on Palmerton if our goal is to minimize casualties."

Lord Parulian nodded his head at Ambrose's explanation before King Tagam had slammed the table in frustration. "Damned Catholic Povorians! First the bandits and now them! Are they not content with interfering in matters with those Southern floozies that they must stick their beaks into matters this far north?"

"The Povorians are cunning indeed." another Halak Lord said "The soft power they're exerting over the southerners and their trade lanes make their ambitions all the more obvious."

"If they're confident enough to give such weapons to a group of bandits, I can only imagine how much they've armed the southern Kingdoms." Another lord gave his opinion before Lord Parulian raised his hand slightly.

"Regardless of such an obvious provocation and attempt to sow discord among the kingdoms the foreigners deem as nuisances, the fact of the matter is that besides the firepower provided by our mages, we didn't bring any artillery pieces with us to counteract the bandits' advantage in range." Lord Parulian said "And even if we did bring such weapons and while our mages are indeed capable of obliterating Palmerton, we don't want to risk any unnecessary damage to the structure of Palmerton from any of our bombardments."

As Lord Parulian was speaking, he finally focused his attention on Gregory before asking, "Which is why I ask once more to Sir Gregory here. What is the mood among the bandits in regards to their fealty to your brother?"

The question was an obvious one in terms of where it was headed. Though it was expected, it hit Gregory far heavier than he wanted to. Engaging with the Hallack like he was doing right now was basically a clear statement from him that he would be betraying and acting in opposition towards his brother.

It was bittersweet. While he knew his brother was never a saint and for all intents and purposes falling lower and lower into the pit of becoming a monster, it didn't change the fact that all of this started for him because he stayed loyal to his brother at the start. Thoughts were running across his mind thinking of how things would've been different if he had stayed loyal to the republic instead. Would he have lived any happier had he turned on his brother then? Well that could have at least prevented all the wanton destruction his little bandit group had caused.

Regardless, there was no turning back now. Gregory had to deal with the reality that at the end of this, his brother would most probably be ending up dead. It wasn't a very comforting feeling to be sure.

As he was hesitating to answer Lord Parulian, Gregory had caught sight of Lasta walking out the tent guiding an old woman out while laughing. Lasta's joyous face was but a fleeting thing at the corner of his vision, but it worked voluminously in having him make up his mind. He was no longer living for himself now, and most certainly no longer going to live within his brother's shadow. He had a new family to think of, a new future. And with that in mind, Gregory had answered.

"There is no honour among thieves, my lord, regardless of how much they want to pretend." Gregory began "But, among those thieves, as I hope you can see in me and my colleague Ambrose here, I'd like to think there are still those with the hearts of true warriors and patriots…"

With that being said, Gregory would propose a strategy and an approach that could only be completed with his help. Some would call it audacious, but others would appreciate the ingenuity of it.