You figure Warrick deserves something for all his hard work and loyalty, besides you're still a little hesitant to go flying off into the sky.

"Warrick, I also saw Elam a few days ago too. He told me that by the end of this week, it should be ready for flight as well as combat. Originally I was going to take the first official flight on it, but would you like to do the honors?" you ask.

Warrick looks like he can't believe his ears.

"Are you serious?"
"Completely. I know you're probably bored at times doing this job, trust me I sympathize. The day-to-day task of ruling isn't exactly as exciting as being hip deep in the corpses of your enemies. So I'm giving you this chance to be on the frontlines for a while. I mean I assume you've got someone here that can take over for you while you're gone for a little while right?"
"Sure! I'm got more than few very qualified Eyes that can do the job." Warrick says.
"Okay, well it's settled, you'll report to Elam's factory in Arat in about four days. Just tell him I sent you, I'm sure there won't be any problems."
"Thank you for this opportunity and this position Emperor. I won't let it go to waste. Oh, what's the name of this new vessel?"
"Name? Actually I don't think it has been named yet. Or at least Elam didn't give it one. Hrm…call it the Storm. I mean you'll be floating through the sky raining death down upon your enemies in a spectacular fashion. Plus you're an Eye. I mean Eye of the Storm. Play on words, I dunno, sounds clever to me."
"Heh, sounds good to me too." Warrick agrees.

With Warrick obviously in better spirits, you leave the Eye headquarter and make your own preparations for heading out to the western front. You might not be riding on an airship to do it, but you'll still be engaging in battle in some capacity.

In a couple days you meet up with Ackerson's company in one of the small towns that has recently been converted into army encampment. The new Empire "citizens" don't look very happy about their recent occupation and change to their way of life, but they don't have much choice in the matter and in time they'll either get used to it, or they won't and will have to be put down. No matter to you either way.

General Ackerson himself looks very tired. Like he hasn't been sleeping for days. In fact many of the soldiers have a weary looking appearance. While this is somewhat expected with long drawn out conflicts, you can't imagine that they've had so much trouble that would cause them this much stress. Decena's command has had more conflict activity, but she hasn't given any reports of problems. (Though it's possible that she's not reporting such things, but given her idolization, you doubt if she'd lie, and even if she wasn't telling, you're pretty sure Galen would send you a complaining letter of sub standard conditions.)

"What the hell is wrong with this camp Ackerson? Every man and woman here looks like they're hung over due to partying for weeks on end, or they've been under going months of a siege. I don't see any castles around here, so it better not be the former." you demand.
"I…I don't know my Emperor. Everything was fine until recently. I mean as fine as it could be with groups of sneaking beast people attempting to bushwhack our patrols every so often. Now it's like most of us can't get a restful sleep and a lot of us are just never fully awake anymore. Just a tired feeling even if we haven't been doing much during a particular day. Some have even reported odd or bad dreams."

While you can't be certain of what would cause such a thing, you feel you're pretty safe in assuming one possibility.

"Sounds like magic. Or some form of it. Why haven't you had your mages check it out?" you ask.
"I would have, but they're all dead my Emperor. If it isn't the blasted centaurs with their deadly accuracy, it's the damn satyrs with their own wild magic. It's like they target our mages even if they lose more than half of their own numbers in the process."
"That can't be a coincidence. Seems like it's the goat wizards doing this to your command. Better double your efforts and hunt them all down within the vicinity."
"Well, I have since I thought that might be the case, but I don't think it's the Torites doing this. Their mages seem to focus on earth based or elemental magic, nothing to do with the mind or similar witchery. I think they'd be more likely to summon a tornado at us, which thankfully they haven't done yet." Ackerson explains.
"Perhaps, this is just a taste of their what their mages can also do, still if you don't believe its them, who else? The people here don't look happy about the Empire taking charge of this place. You sure there isn't a hidden mage here?"
"No, don't think so. The people of this town have also complained about feeling tired also. In fact that's probably why they're pissed at us. To them, we brought this curse as they call it to their town."
"Okay, what about that new kingdom you said you made contact with? What's the name of it?"
"Oh them. The Broki Kingdom. I'm not even sure they have any mages. The whole place is backwards. Its chaotic nature reminds me of Rask before the Empire enforced order to it. It's barely even a kingdom and certainly not like the one the Felkans had. A single king runs the kingdom this is true, but he's not a strong one. The only reason why he hasn't been overthrown is because the rest of the barons are all too busy scheming against each other."
"That sounds like a rather inefficient way to run a government." You say.
"From what I can tell it is. Practically nothing gets accomplished other than minor civil wars over land by the barons. Some of the barons have seen our arrival as an opportunity to make a mighty friend for their own power grab. The king on the other hand has apparently been making speeches warning his subjects that they all need to put up a united front lest they all be swallowed up by the Empire."
"Hmm. Sounds like this king isn't an unintelligent fellow despite the fact that it'll be a futile task to stop us even if he does manage to keep his kingdom united."
"We haven't made any major moves against the Broki yet since we've been still focusing on the Torites, then this wave of fatigue that's been plaguing my command and that's made things more difficult as well."

Just as you're about to answer what the next move should be, a messenger who is panting heavily and ragged looking interrupts you.

"(Gasp) Message…(pant) for the Emperor! Very (pant) important…" he says handing you a letter.
"Why are you out of so much breath, boy? Surely you rode a horse here?" Ackerson asks.
"Half way, (pant) horse died. Rode too hard (gasp) Ran rest of the way. Message from Sightmaster Warrick. (pant) Very important."
"Shit, well I guess I better open it then. And someone get this boy some water before he collapses." You say opening the letter.

Emperor,

As always I hate to be the bearer of troubling news, but it is best you know.

While boarding the Storm, I took a little tour of the ship before it took flight. It is quite impressive and I'm sure it will be a mighty weapon in the service of the Empire when it has been inspected again.

I say again, because unfortunately I found one of the crew was a saboteur. It was fairly subtle. He didn't place a bomb on the ship, but instead had rigged the prototype repeater so that it would explode when used. The explosion would've caused much damage and most likely would've resulted in setting part of the ship aflame, which then would've caused an even bigger explosion by proxy and ultimately caused it to crash to the ground.

I had a list of every member who was working under Elam and all of them save for this saboteur had been an Empire citizen from birth. This one apparently just showed up one day and proved he had engineering skills, so Elam hired him. I would've interrogated him, but he committed suicide by slitting his own throat with his dagger as soon as I had discovered the sabotage. Curious that he did not just simply try to quietly sneak off, but I can only assume he did not believe that he was going to get away with it since he was the main one who had last fired the prototype repeater during the weapon testing. Either that or he is working for an unforgiving master who would've killed him anyway for his failure.

I've already questioned Elam and the rest of his staff, but I believe they genuinely didn't know, though I wonder about Elam's judgment skills. I highly recommend that he not screen any further employees he requires, at least not without an Eye present.

I will return to my post as I now have wonder if there is some sort of conspiracy or possibly leaks in our security system. As much as I would've liked to have taken that ride to the western front and kill some Torites, the internal safety of the Empire comes first. I'm sure you would agree.

Long Live the Empire,

Sightmaster Warrick

"Problems, Emperor?" Ackerson asks.
"As always, but Warrick's got it under control for now. In the meantime we still need to solve your problem. I want your most skilled soldiers reporting to me tomorrow. Have you done a thorough check of that large nearby forest area? Don't the goats prefer them over other terrain."
"Somewhat, but its very vast my Emperor."
"Well, I'm going to go over it again. Something is being missed. Maybe I should call in those new kobold commando units too. It's possible the goats are hiding somewhere right underneath us and if there are, the kobolds can tunnel underground faster than any of us can and find out immediately."

While you're taking charge of things, you tell Ackerson to go get some rest. You aren't normally used to casting magic for beneficial reasons, quite frankly other than healing magic it wasn't ever really part of your training. Still, you know enough to block out the affects of the Torite spell at least temporarily and it's a welcome relief to your troops who manage to get well rested for once.

You don't waste time and begin your search of forest area immediately. It's not an easy task and you're attacked multiple times by satyrs along with their minotaur muscle. Your first encounter with them is exhilarating. It's probably the first proper bit of personal combat you've had in years.

The goats don't put up that much of challenge for you, but the bulls, now there's a suitable challenge. During your first encounter with Torite forces, a pair of the bovine monsters attack you with huge axes that a human would now doubt have to hold in one two hands, but for them the weapons are swung around easily with one.

As you're dodging their attacks and landing hits when you can, you can't help but think the whole time that you hope you can at least tame some of these beasts somehow as they would make an excellent addition to your forces.

Whether you eventually will or not doesn't matter though, since these two in particular eventually fall to your blade after an extended battle.

"Are you okay my Emperor?" one of your soldiers asks.
"Okay? Are you joking? I missed this shit. This is the best I've felt in a long time!" you exclaim.

You spend another few days searching the forests and have a few more encounters with Torites, some of the groups even contain the goat wizards, but even with their elimination you don't sense that the magic is gone. In fact the whole time you're in the forest you get the feeling of being continually watched the entire time and you get the impression it isn't just the average Torite lurking about.

You aren't the only one who feels that way.

"There's something out there…and it ain't no man." One of your soldiers says to you while you're staring up at the trees.
"Of course it isn't, it's probably something fairly inhuman." You respond.
"Well that too, but I meant literally that it's female."
"Oh, not this elven fairy tale shit again." Another soldier remarks rolling his eyes.

You probably didn't notice due to the helmet and armor and the fact that you didn't inspect every single soldier Ackerson sent with you, but the first soldier who addressed you isn't actually human. He's an elf. This is certainly a rarity since as far as you knew there weren't any elves in the army or at least it isn't a profession most of them choose. Assuming that they're free of course.

"Quiet. I want to hear this. What's your name corporal?" you ask.
"Flevas, Emperor." The elf answers.
"Surprised Ackerson didn't point you out immediately, might've been nice to know I had someone with an affinity to forests and shit in my command."
"The general…let's just say doesn't care for my kind very much and prefers to ignore my potential talents. I suppose even he couldn't ignore my battle prowess though. So I was quietly slipped in. "
"Okay, so what do you know?"
"Honestly? Probably nothing. I don't even know why I spoke. After years of being in an army that barely tolerates my presence I don't normally bother to speak at all."
"Alright, alright, cut the oppressed elven routine, if you've got something important to say then just say it."
"Very well Emperor." Flevas remarks.

"I can't be certain and contrary to popular belief we sveld don't have some magical all encompassing knowledge to nature. If we did, we most likely wouldn't be in the current situation we are now. However, I suppose we do tend to have instinct and we do have lots of old stories. One of these stories is of dryads. They're being that make their homes among the trees or within the trees. The stories aren't really clear if they're flesh and blood beings that tend to remain invisible or they're some sort of spirit. Though from the stories they always appear in female form when they actually appear at all. They also never directly attack and rely on manipulating denizens of the forest and their magic. As I said I think there's one in this forest, maybe even several. I don't really know. What I do know is they do have access to magic that can affect the mind." Flevas explains.
"And you didn't think this was important enough to tell anyone until now?"
"As I said, my opinions are not highly regarded by the general or anyone else for that matter. I did mention it to him long before you arrived and it was dismissed as old elven nonsense."
"Then the general is an idiot for dismissing the possibility given all the wonders in this world that have been seen and yet to be seen. But I'll deal with that later, so in these stories how does one go about killing one of these dryads?"
"Killing? Heh, well in the sveld stories, dryads aren't killed, they're revered as protectors of nature. The only ones actively trying to kill them in stories are the svelk and as you might imagine they always fail in the stories."
"Okay so how did the svelk try to kill them?"
"Oh usually by futilely attempting to destroy an entire forest. This can range from the predictable firestorm magic attempts to hilarious efforts of trying to cut down every tree."
"Fire doesn't work?"
"It works, but not fast enough. I mean even a fire takes time to destroy an entire normal forest assuming it doesn't burn itself out. Dryads as you can imagine are a little more pro-active on saving their homes. Along with their magic, it would seem that the Torites are willing allies which would mean they'd probably help put out any fire we set. Assuming there are more in the forest."
"Hrm, maybe the svelk in those stories just weren't persistent enough." You say.
"I dunno, svelk are pretty tenacious when it comes to killing."

Flevas has given you something to think about and it all involves destroying the forest. The fastest way would be to start building a few more catapults to fling flaming debris, and send for a few more mages to assist you in creating a larger firestorm. You have to believe that it would be more than enough to incinerate the forest within a matter of days.

Of course the better way to ignite that forest is a way the svelk didn't have, namely an airship that can drop firebombs from the sky. Of course given recent events, the Storm is going through yet another safety inspection then it has to get here, all of which is going to take time. Time which might cause the Torites to increase their defenses and who knows what else.

You attack with the Storm

Whatever defenses the Torites are going to muster within the time you come back with the Storm as far as you're concerned aren't going to be enough to save them. Better you should come back prepared and your soliders better rested as well.

"I think it's time to leave. In fact I think it'll be best if the entire army moves away from this area." You say.
"We're retreating?" Flevas asks.
"Call it a tactical withdraw. I'm not done with this place though. Not done with you either, your input on this was very useful."
"Um, thank you Emperor." Flevas says unsure of how to take the fact that he's called attention to himself to the ruler of the Empire.

When you return, you give Ackerson an earful of his failure to use his resources wisely and not even informing you of the potential of certain soldiers who could come in useful. You also explain that the only reason why he isn't being demoted is that he had the intelligence to at least see Flevas' combat abilities and send him with you in the first place.

You have the army relocate to one of the towns closer to the Empire for resupplying and reinforcements. There is a bit of downtime, but there is also some routine patrolling which allows you to engage in battle against a group of those centaur creatures. Tedious foes. Constantly galloping away while firing their arrows. You appreciated the bull creatures' attempts at caving your skull in with their axes a lot more.

Eventually you get the message you've been waiting for and that's when you make your way back to the vicinity of the forest. When you arrive, you and the back up mages begin to prepare for your assault on the entire forest.

You call Flevas over, who you see nearby.

"So what do you think to this plan? Be honest."
"Well Emperor, as I said the svelk in the stories attempted something like this as well and while I know that you certainly have powerful magic at your command, I'm not certain that the rest of your mages having your same abilities."
"I see. So you don't believe Empire mages are up to the challenge of setting one measly forest on fire and completely burning it to the ground."
"I didn't say that…"
"Oh, well you must've also implied that even if our mages fail that I would not have the capacity to pick up their slack."
"I definitely did not mean…"

You start laughing.

"Relax elf, I'm fucking with you. Beside this isn't the entire plan, the rest of it is over there in the near distance." You say and point over at the airship slowing making its way towards your position. Most of the army is looking in that direction too.

"I heard the rumors, but is that the ship that can fly?" Flevas asks.
"That is indeed the Empire's new pride in the skies. The Storm. And that's exactly what it's going to do over that forest. Those dryads might be expecting us to attempt a magic firestorm, but I guarantee they're not going to be expecting one that involves a lot of explosions."

The Storm is indeed an impressive sight and you can imagine how it will terrify your future enemies. For right now though, you're content on it just killing them.

Along with the airship and your magic, you also have a row of catapults continually barrage the forest with flaming material. You and the army periodically move and keep on the outskirts of forest while the Storm works its assault within the center of the forest. Between the two, the decimation of the forest is certain even if it does take a few days.

Forest creatures, but more importantly Torites eventually come running out of the forests, some manage to get away, others attempt to fight your army in an attempt to kill you and the other mages, but they naturally fail.

You actually do lose a few of the weaker mages who can't keep up their energy and collapse completely drained of life. Hardly matters since you accomplish your task with vicious efficiency. Eventually the forest goes from being an inferno to a blacked wasteland with only burnt tree husks and stumps left. Whatever is still alive, is going to be easy to find.

You order a search and participate in it yourself, as you are eager to see if there might be some sort of evidence of this mysterious dryad or dryads. It might be that you just burned down an entire forest for no reason, but then it is one less area for the Torites to hide in.

You do sense a faint bit of magic though. Very weak, but there none the less. You immediately follow the trail until it leads you to your goal.

And there you see a naked, heavily burned female creature. Its limbs are slightly longer and thinner than even the average elf. It has a very delicate appearance and might even be considered pretty looking if it wasn't covered in burns and struggling for life.

It pathetically lays on the ground semi-curled up near a stump that is nearly completely burnt. It looks at you with its big eyes and then over nearby at some other bodies you didn't even notice. They look like more dryads though, all dead.

The dryad shakes and clutches tighter to the stump as you approach. It even begins making a few sounds, which causes you to immediately raise a force shield, expecting some sort of last attack.

"She isn't casting a spell Emperor. She's whispering some sort of prayer. I think." Flevas remarks.
"About what and how do you know what she's saying?"
"I…don't know! It's like she's in my head all of a sudden and I can understand some of her language. Something about…back to earth…child of nature…unnatural force of death…she's very sad."
"I would imagine so." You reply.
"Yeah, but it's not for herself, it's for me." Flevas says.

Flevas at this point walks past you and over to the dying dryad. She looks up at him sorrowfully and stops whatever it was that she speaking about. He kneels down beside her and for a brief moment he looks at her sadly as well, but then his face then turns to one of anger and he ends her suffering with a knife to her neck. She gurgles a bit and then dies.

"Another victory for the Empire." Flevas says and walks past you.

You stare at the dead dryad for a moment and survey the surrounding desolation.

"Well, I guess we know they're flesh and blood creatures now." You remark and tell the rest of nearby soldiers to start heading back to the camp.

When you get back, General Ackerson tells you that they're holding a courier from the Broki Kingdom. The courier works for one of the opportunistic barons. Baron Divilak

Apparently this Baron Divilak has heard much about the Empire and sees no reason to resist your inevitable annexation. He claims that he can make things simpler for you by giving out information of major strong points, security secrets, that sort of thing as well as providing his own military support. Of course he wants to meet in person before all this so that you may hammer out any other stipulations and agreements, but basically what he asks in return is to govern over the new Empire province and that he get to execute King Tiklov himself.

It certainly would be easier with inside help and you were originally toying with the idea of taking advantage of the disorganized nature of the Broki Kingdom by having one or two of the barons side with you in the first place. Of course you never know with those scheming types after all if they're willing to sell out everything for their own personal gain now, what's stopping them from doing something similar to the Empire in the future? At the very least, the amount of corruption might tend to be higher than what is acceptable.

With the recent display of power by the Storm, you're wondering if you shouldn't just make a gross display of force and cow them all into submission and dispense with any pretense of a "friendly" take over. Of course the problem with this plan, is you might actually unite the kingdom due to your brutality and it might take longer to conquer the place.

You deal with the baron

The whole point of conquest is to not completely destroy the land you're attempting to take over. Why decimate perfectly good territory when a better way presents itself? Besides its probably best to use a weapon like the Storm sparingly. The threat of it should be enough.

"Tell your baron that I'll meet him, but it's going to have be at some sort of neutral ground and I'm not coming by myself. If he thinks I'm going to go walking into his land by myself he better just forget this meeting entirely and prepare his armies." You tell the courier.
"Ah, yes I believe the Baron did expect that you'd say something like that, so he is fully prepared to make arrangements to meet you halfway at an abandoned inn by a crossroads a few miles south from here rather than having to go to him." The courier replies.
"Hrm. Sounds like he really wants my help. Fine, but if I see an army marching with him, well you can guess what's going to happen."
"Oh no, that won't happen mighty Emperor. He might arrive with some personal servants, but nothing more than that I assure you."
"He better not. Alright then, off with you." You say and wave away the courier who bows and takes his leave.

With the courier gone you turn back to Ackerson.

"I want you and the rest of the army to stay here until I get back. The troops could probably use the rest after this whole ordeal with the dryads. Obviously if I don't get back within a day then I want you to annihilate the Broki Kingdom." You say.
"My Emperor, aren't you going to take some people with you? Surely you'll want back up just in case."
"Well of course, that's why Flevas is going with me."
"While I now see the error of not recognizing his potential sooner, I must insist that you take a few more. Not all the troops are so tired that they can't help their Emperor!"
"Well I can honestly say I'm not particularly worried about anything this baron can throw at me even if it is a trap, I suppose it never hurts to have more people. Fine then, pick out ten for me and I'll get going."

After the ten are picked, you all make your way south. Really you're sort of wondering where the hell a road is even located, because all you've seen is mostly wilderness and long untamed grassy fields. Eventually though Flevas' tracking skills come in handy and he locates the very faint remnants of one.

The "road" hasn't been upkept in years, probably decades. Only portions of stone in a semi straight line are evidence that one even existed. Still, it at least proves you're going in the right direction and eventually a dilapidated building stands before you in the distance.

"Must be the inn. Don't see any signs of the baron or an army yet." You say.
"Maybe they're inside." Flevas says.
"Well maybe the baron is, but I doubt if even he could fit an army in there."
"Maybe not an army, but it only takes a few assassins to kill a man."
"Glad to see you're so suspicious Flevas, were you volunteering to scout out the place first?"
"If that is what you wish Emperor."
"If you're going to scout it out then don't go alone, take some people with you….sheesh I sound like Ackerson."

Flevas and three of your other troops ride away towards the inn and you wait. Twenty minutes pass and you see one of your soldiers riding back towards you.

"Well?"
"He's dead my Emperor."
"What?! Who?!"
"The baron. I mean at least we think its him, never having seen him before and all. He's dressed pretty fancy. Doesn't look like anyone else is around, but whether it's the baron or not there's still a dead man in there. Flevas is still doing some checking, he said he'd prefer it if you were there to see this for yourself."
"(Sigh) Why can't anything be simple? I knew I should've just used the Storm…" you say exasperated as you all ride off towards the inn.

When you arrive you enter the inn and see your other two soldiers and on the floor you don't see the baron or an unknown dead man, what you see is Flevas and before you can react, you feel a couple crossbow bolts hit you in the face. One just below one of your eyes and another into your cheek. A couple more hit you in your right arm and leg. You crumple to the floor on one knee groaning in pain.

"SHIT, I missed his brain! Somebody get him quick before he starts casting magic!" you hear a voice say and several people tackle you forward to the ground. You attempt to get up, but several people are putting their entire weight on your back making it impossible. You attempt to cast a spell, but someone quickly gets the bright idea to repeatedly stomp on one of your hands with their foot while someone else just chops off the other one with an axe blow.

"Hey asshole! You nearly hit me!" a soldier shouts.
"Fuck…ing traitors, I'll kill all…" you start to utter and then a boot kicks you in the face sinking the bolt under your eye deeper. You begin to feel disoriented and unable to see properly.

"Stop playing with the fool, just kill him! Like this!" you hear a familiar voice shout.

Is that Eldolith?

You'll never know for sure as a well-placed bolt pierces your skull.