A long time ago, in one of the conflicts following the Great War�

Twilight was arriving, and like every day, a breeze came from the sea, reaching the docks first, then the whole city. Today, however, no one was really thinking about that�


The city had almost fallen by now, although there was not much prize for the conquerors: it had been destroyed almost completely...The land fortifications had been torn apart by the siege machines during the month-long battle. Today had just been the last assault. It had been very bloody, from both sides, but by sheer numbers, the attackers had pierced the main defence line then moved to exploit their success. The outer and inner wall had been breached. Only pockets of resistance remained. And the survivors of the defenders were looking with awe at the giant forms that were gliding in the skies above them�.


Airships. Full units of them. Those ones were mere troop carriers, however, lightly armed. Still, they were fare more than enough to overpower what was left to oppose them.


A panicked officer on the docks ordered his men to take position, to repel the troops that were about to assault the tower guarding the area. They did not listen-they were too busy trying to figure out ways of leaving the area. This was going to be complex: everything that could float on the sea harbour had been sunk, and everything that could fly in the air docks had been mobilized and/or destroyed. They resigned themselves to fight-maybe they would be able to board one ship, and make a �strategic withdrawal��


One colleague of the officer, with a rather peculiar expression, started to make religious imprecations, talking about the fact that Ajora was going to make them win this war, since they were defending one place most sacred to Him from �the legions of Heretics�


What was �funny� was that the guys on the other side were saying exactly the same thing (the main difference was that Ajora was supposed to help them because they were the real worshippers : they were about to save His holy place from �heathens hordes�)


A benevolent God would have been heart-broke to see people fighting on his Name.
But Ajora was anything but benevolent. He was probably gloating over the events now.
One troop carrier came too close of the ground-some defending soldiers managed to attack it successfully, from the ruins of a warehouse, with short range weaponry.


No one understood really what was making the airships fly (apparently, what was going in the envelopes that most vessels used now was extracted from mere water by a kind of magic device emitting a beam, the beam itself named lektri or something like that�anyway, it did not mattered, it was the business of slaves�.) but whatever this �magic fluid� was, it was quite volatile. And it burned fast.

Accordingly, one of the most efficient weapons against most airships (not against the ones using Relic technology, however) was mere flaming weapons. Like, in the present case, jars filled with naphtha and hurled away, either by a catapult or by human strength. In this situation, the soldiers basically dropped the jars, as the airship was passing below them, trying to avoid the defensive fire coming from the tower. The crews of troop transports was hardly elite�they did not even bothered to check on the rooftops-those warehouses had been emptied a long time ago, and accordingly, they presented rather minimal interest for looting.

One jar burst correctly. Liquid flame spilled, burned away a part of the envelope�and the whole ship exploded. The fact that the explosion had destroyed a whole block (including refugees from the city proper, that had fled to the harbour because this part of the city was more or less intact�compared to the rest of the town, at least) was, of course, not important, except in the optic that it was going to be harder for the officers to convince soldiers to go up close and personal against the airships�.


One airship down ! Only twelve remaining. For this wave. The officers of the tower gave orders frantically to hold on, while the carriers, who had almost reach the tower, began their attack. The pattern was simple. Land enough troops to overwhelm the defence, and burn everything down. As the dwindling garrison continued to fire small projectiles (bolts, fire pots, stones and the like), the airships basically crashed on the tower, while firing their onboard weapons (catapults, mostly fitted with antipersonnel weaponry. It was very crude, like barrels filled with nails and similar metal pieces, but highly �efficient�. Soon, the officers were reduced to make swords strikes against their own soldiers, to push them back to the fight. The main result of this operation was that the said soldiers turned against the officers.

The religious officer became�frantic. He carved himself a path, both among his own troopers and the enemy ones�to go where ? He probably did not know it himself. It was probably that he was trying to take down as many foes with him as possible. And this was going to be a lot, since his position was hard to overwhelm-he was defending the flight of stairs that led to the last level of the tower-an enclosed level, were troop could not be landed to flank the officer.



Among the troopers that were, understandably not very eagerly, climbing the stairs to engage him, many were muttering that this guy, like many other individuals during the siege, had probably took some �stimulants�, like the ones they gave to Battle Beasts-or even worse, Judges. The way the pupils of the guy were dilated was a sign that this hypothesis was not far-fetched.

There was no end in sight for this quite pointless struggle. It did ended, however, when one airship, after bursting a hole in the damaged roof of the last level, dropped at the officer half a dozen fire pots. He became a flaming torch (like the twenty soldiers that were on the staircase with him). Like the whole tower, in fact, whose numerous wooden parts were now flaming. It had been seriously damaged by the siege, by bombardments, and by reckless use of Relic weaponry.



For instance, the large gun, destroyed earlier this day, that had been set upon the top of the tower, had not been conceived to work on the top of a relatively fragile tower (or at least, not without hydraulic devices) : as a results, each time it had fired a shell, it had caused major tremors to the whole structure.

Who, thanks to the recent battle, actually collapsed as the airships were still tethered to it. Blocks of masonry against airships tend to have rather nasty results. The collapse of the one hundred meters tower also had a marked shockwave effect. Some vessels that had managed to disengage were caught in a wave of debris, and brought swiftly to the ground.

When things had settled down a little, the survivors, with the few troops they had managed to pick up, tried to head up to the main battle lines: carriers were very vulnerable targets. It did not amounted to much: only two airships limped away from the site, with less than half of their original troop complement. Not for long. They were soon caught in a bigger battle, as one of the remaining airship from the city was trying to oppose itself to one of the bigger units of the attacking fleet. Both ships were fitted with Relics retrieved from various sites. Weapons that were not known for their precision.

One of salvoes touched the first carrier, tearing the envelope. The craft made a sharp three hundred meters dive before ending his course straight on what had been an avenue
The second carrier was caught in the crossfire between the two huge ships. The crew tried to move out the way, but it was too late. The next salvo (ironically from the ship that was on their side) devastated the hull, killing most of the crew. Undirected, the airship become a sort of flying bomb, and ended it�s course on a monolithic structure that made a sort of artificial hill-the Palace itself was set on the top of this construction.
The Arsenal. The factory that had been cranking out airships for years�for centuries even. The real objective, despite all religious mumbo-jumbo, of the siege. There were countless rewards promised for the ones that would be able to secure it. And there was also the more mundane fact that this place had been able to crank out one airship each two-three days during the siege, which had caused gruelling damaged to the attackers.


The two giant airships that were duelling next to the gates of the Arsenal were easily an hundred meters long, and almost equals in power. Neither commander was in for sophisticated tactics : they basically fired, almost at point blank ranges, volley after volley. The fight would have likely ended by one airship destroyed and the other severely damaged, if the airship from the city had not been recalled to the Palace, thanks to a renewed attack on this bastion. It left the other ship, damaged but still functioning, able to make an attack run on the Arsenal, and maybe even capture it. Short of the Palace itself, the Arsenal was the most heavily defended structure in the city. It had been also the most attacked structure : several defences towers, now marked by ruins, had been established around it.

The airship fired one last salvo to destroy the rather makeshift gates (attacked and destroyed several time during the siege), and began it�s descent. The term �gate� was misleading. It was rather a sort of cargo door, where built airships left, and raw materials were brought. The Arsenal itself was now a rather haphazard structure. The construction hall itself was a twisting, corkscrewing alley, leading to the workshops, far, far below, where some Relics were still working. Most of the actual warship construction those days rather occurred in levels closers to the surface: it was not unlike a naval construction yard, with some salvaged Relics providing the more �sophisticated� gear.


The place was Dante-like. The cavernous hall was quite dark must of the time-slaves don�t needed light, after all. Right now, it was ablaze by thousand of fires-fuelled by the ropes, hemp, wood, tar�used for airship construction. And as most of the Relic machines were in metal, and quite sturdy , flaming weapons were really a good thing to use : it killed slaves, slowing down the construction, while keeping the precious infrastructure intact. A whole flight of flying fireships, filled to the brim with inflammable matters, especially naphtha, had been smuggled into the Arsenal earlier today, as the gates were opened for letting out a new warship. The result of the operation had been hard to figure out-the guys manning the fireships had been rather eager to get away. Right now, it�s looked like this operation had been a complete success.


The airship continued to descend, firing some salvoes when someone spot some movements-apparently, some slaves were still alive in this hell. The heat was getting unbearable, but if they reached the lower zones and grabbed some precious loot.
The only problem was that this peculiar ship was fitted with some Relic-type propulsion systems in addition to his envelope, giving it added speed. There was slight problems, however, at using technology that you did not understand. Especially, the �technicians� that had fitted this �aydjhi� device on the hull of a conventional airship did not knew at all the concept of cooling. They did learned it when the device malfunctioned, thanks to the suffocating heat. This was bad, as this was slowing considerably the airship. What was worse was when the horrified crew realized that the envelope was tearing itself apart (as thermal dilatation was not in the Holy Books of the Church, this concept was missing in the rather crude formation that was given to the airship crews. Screams about sabotage by heathens and infidels, and/or sorcery was a not an adequate answer, as well as the numerous threats of executions made by the commander of the vessel).


Finally, the envelope began to give way, as the airship had almost reached the Gates�.As the envelope was quickly emptying itself, the crew tried frantically to reach safety, by leaving as they could the Arsenal, and returning their ship to surface.
But the firestorm had yet grown in intensity, because of the attacks of the airship. The hull of the vessel was covered by metal, which prevented it to burn outright. It had also the side effect of making of the vessel a real flying grill. Much of the crew was half dead within minutes. And the machinery was not in a better shape. Still, the crew continued to work, knowing that their lives were in balance. They threw away anything that was not required for keeping the ship in flight, including the precious Relics weapons.


They succeeded at lightening their vessel: the airship reached somehow the surface, in the middle of an ocean of flames. The air capacity of the vessel was quite reduced: with the reduced volume of the envelope, the best the vessel could go was float a few meters above ground. And this was going to be problematic, since they needed forward propulsion t o leave the position. They were not going very fast, but they did moved�The officers began to think about how they would explain this failure�.
Just before the engines, badly damaged by their stay in the flames, finally gave up. The airship floated, for a good minute, unmoving, in the middle of the flames that mounted from the gates. After that time, the breach in the envelope burst wider and the airship slowly descended to it�s death, the hot air moving upward reducing it�s downward speed.
Many soldiers died with the impression that they would awoke on a similar situation�.


Five hundred meters lower in the shaft, the hydrogen remaining in the envelope exploded, finally putting an hand to the agony of the crew. Guided by the shaft, the explosion ended in an impressive fireball, clearly visible from the main group of airships, about to launch the final assault on the Palace. One rather na�ve junior officer was promptly sent from the observation deck to the command deck, to warn the Warlord about this disaster.


This command airship, carefully maintained out of range of the defences of the city was an rarity. A ship salvaged, more or less completely, for a relic site, and augmented with various technology. Including a huge gun, took from an Ark, that packed astonishing power. The vessel was quite large, dwarfing all others airships, It took to the officer a good five minutes to reach the command deck : the interior of the ship was filled with machinery, whose functions were at best badly understood, and walkways that looked quite primitive had been settled up everywhere, to allow faster access and maintenance. The said maintenance was incredibly crude : basically, the rule was to react only when something stopped (usually in a explosion, or in a small fire) to work, and then try to fix it. Some mechanics had managed, by luck and experience, to learn how to make small genuine repairs, but they were rare, and not especially eager to share their knowledge.

Finally, the junior officer arrived at the command deck, a spacious room located deep within the ship. This was maybe a little cowardly, but it was actually a very rational decision : on the other ships, the bridge/command deck was located in obvious place (like the �castle� on the rear of the vessel), and this attracted enemy fire in remarkable way.

The Warlord listened to the report without saying anything�And then made a slight gesture. He had a policy for similar things. Basically, it was �shoot the messenger��


As the person he was referring too did not move, or even reacted, he repeated his command, in a much harsher tone. A quite gorgeous female was the one the Warlord was talking to. And she did not look to care much about this command.


The third Human male in the place was calling himself an Archmage-and he was nervous.
Of course, the qualifications of the Archmage and Warlords for their titles were a little dubious, since there was no training schools for this. For the Archmage, he was basically someone that have been lucky enough to gain impressive experience, especially in the darker types of Magic. And the Warlord was someone that have been brutal and merciless enough to raise in the ranks. He was part of those numberless petty warchiefs that turned �King� or �Emperor� when he salvaged some technology from the past, usually from some ruins complex...Or even from a destroyed Ark.. This had been the case of this man, and he was currently one of the most powerful figure on this continent.
This warlord had met some success earlier in his career, and was really on his way to carving up a real empire...or be murdered by one his lieutenant. Or getting blown up because he did not understood at all how really the technology behind his power was working...

Anyway, his chances of dying of old age, already low, shrank very significantly when he tried to get for his protection something very, very impressive. Her.
It was a necessity, however. Without a praetorian guard like her, plots and conspiracies would have ended the life of the Warlord much earlier. It was a good deal. Especially considering that the Warlord thought himself smarter than her-which was certainly not the case. He was not dumb, but not terribly bright too.



For instance, his plans relied much more on brute force than strategic finesse, this despite the frequent and numerous comments of the Archmage praising the �astounding subtlety� of his boss (which, in addition to the standard advantage of flattery, also allowed him a good part of the actual political power in the various zones under the Warlord rule : unlike the Archmage, the Warlord did not understood much about book-keeping, for instance�)




The nervousness of the Archmage increased when the warlord began shouting at the female, finding that she was reacting too slowly. The Archmage saw this outburst with dread. He was sure that he controlled her, but he preferred to follow an obvious rule: don�t try to upset her for relatively menial things. Control or not, it was preferable to not do things that would assure him a painful death if this �lady�, who was only Human in appearance, found a way to bypass his control. And verbal abuse like what was just a provocation, that risked to anger her-the Warlord was often quite scorning with her.


Fortunately, he had managed to convince the Warlord to NOT push on some of his ideas concerning her, including an quite�close�relation with her. It did not took an expert to realize that she was so disgusted about the Warlord that this was insanely risky.




That said, the reaction of the Warlord concerning his praetorian guard was quite understandable, since the female was quite�troubling, to say the least. Mesmerizing, even. It was hard to find a better example for the expression �pretty to be damned for�.�




Since this was, in a sense, true. Since she was no Human, but Demon. A Succubus.
She did not exactly looked like Succubus were supposed to look, according to lore (and for an rather obvious reason, barrack talk or similar type of conversations)




After all, Succubus did not actually seduced Humans by appearing half-naked in front of them, since this would have been a quite crude (but probably working) approach.




They rather did that with promises of raw power. And this girl, who was, according to the Archmage, one of the most powerful of her kind, was certainly offering that.




Without her, the Warlord would have been killed by one of his lieutenant countless times�Her mere presence was far enough to stop conspirators right in their track. The almost daily executions she made for the Warlord were often enough gruesome to convince people to do not even think about trying to kill their �lord and master�




It also have the nice side effect of assuring that the Warlord would not try to execute the Archmage, since he would lose his praetorian guard very fast if he did that�




She was currently absorbed into playing-against herself-a chess game. She had accepted a couple time to play against some people, and she was surprisingly good at this game. However, she was also playing for the showcase effect. The fact that she obviously planned her moves a long time ahead was a not too-subtle indication that she was doing the same thing concerning the Warlord and the Archmage. She had hinted that to them more than a couple of time. The Archmage, for instance, had realized that the officers executed by her were often chosen because she had designated them, in some way�like by looking at them curiously when they were talking with the Warlord. The Warlord had thought that this was meaning more or less �If this idiot can kill the Warlord, I will be free�, but the Archmage was sure that she was too subtle for that. It was probable that she had pinpointed the competent officers. And this was just a basic strategy.

The Archmage was conscious that she was feeding his fear of her, to prevent him to think clearly�.
She was dressed relatively conservatively, one more time according to most imageries of Succubus, who apparently valued �clothes� that left very little to imagination.


For mere morphological reasons, she was clothed mostly like one of the Blade Dancers of the kingdom of Muria-this still showed a lot of skin, but was quite decent.. The fact that Blade Dancers were sometimes almost as feared as Succubus was a nice bonus.

On this point, she seemed to have a puzzling reluctances to fight against Murianeses. Both the Warlord and the Archmage, who were not very pious, had nonetheless thought that this was because the �witches� from Muria had made pact with the Demons, like the Galbados Church was saying. (That said, even if, obviously, necromancy and deals with Demons were seen quite badly by the Church of Ajora, many thought that this was a tool like another to use in the fight against the Heathens or Heretics. She had personally played on this dangerous illusion, using this argument-with her charms-to convince the Warlord chaplain to drop his token protests about her presence and her use�)


When she moved her head slightly, both the Warlord and the Archmage saw the only thing that marked her as a Succubus-at least, when she was on this form (short of her black lips, that did not systematically raised suspicion. Despite the fact that the only kiss that was seen as badly as the infamous Germonik�s kiss-was the kiss of the Succubus�)


Below her golden hair, there were clear shades of red. And this was of course unrelated to dye. Usually, for a reason that was beyond the Archmage, she tried to hide it. It was quite silly, since everyone knew about her status, but apparently, she really enjoyed (in her case, using this word was at best problematic, but still, she was giving this impression) passing up as Human, even as an assassin Human�At the suggestion of the Archmage, the Warlord had wisely chosen to not press on her this very delicate question.


The Warlord, clearly out of patience, repeated his command. The Archmage had no choice-he had to order her to obey him. He was sure that this was intentional : this was to be sure that the Warlord knew that she was obeying (more or less) the Archmage, not him.


And knowing the Warlord, this kind of information was bad for the Archmage health�


Without flinching, but looking utterly bored, she came next to the messenger, and just watched him in the eyes, without doing anything, but playing in her hands with an device that no one, especially the fear-crazed messenger, could see. The results of this little operation were impressive : a minute later, the messenger had slashed himself his throat with his sword rather than face the horrible device that she was about to use on him.


When the body stopped to twitch, the female returned to her chessboard, and placed back the tower piece she had in her hands on the board, resuming her game. (that said, both Humans in the room had few doubts about her capacities to kill with this piece�)


She had not bothered to watch the Warlord a single time, and looked quite unconcerned.


The Warlord had mixed feelings about this praetorian. Sure, she was deadly (and lovely too, which make her useful for adding class to his ceremonies�well, until they degenerated into binge drinking�) but she had never hide the total contempt she had for him, his troops, his goals, despite all his (crude) attempts to awe her with his power.

Because, this was again manipulation. She had realized that the Warlord had a marked taste for killing anyone that did not praise him. Being placed in a situation which he could hardly to this (first point, it was quite hard to actually �kill� a Succubus, second point, if he attempted this, he was likely to be the one that would end up dead, and third point, without her, he would have some trouble with his �human resources��.) was irritating him. As she was completely immune to threats, he had been, over the years, more and more outraged by this. How could someone dare to mock him like this ?

She had not pushed the Warlord to try to impress her-he was not dumb at that point. But she did manage to make him lose his temper more than a couple of times�and sometimes to undermine the respect the Warlord had with his underlings.

Her goal was really obvious : if the Warlord did something foolish because he was angered, the consequences were going to be a lot more dramatic for him than for her.

Right now, the Warlord tried to cool down. The situation was helping him. Despite the loss of this elite airship, they were clearly willing. They just needed the final push�


�The Palace will soon fall�, he said at the intention of the Archmage. �With the Arsenal and the Gift of Ajora I will retrieve�I will rule all this land�and then��


This was of course clear megalomania. The Warlord was at best a regional power in Ivalice. His power had grew too fast : he had a fleet, but not economical base to support him, since his conception of economy was mostly �raid and loot�. After he took this holy city, it was likely that all Ivalice would side against him, probably with support from Muria and Valencia. Surviving to this, with the lost her supported, was going to be difficult if he kept this kind of streak. The Archmage, who knew this very well, gulped at the idea that he was the one that had been insisting on this point�on the suggestion of the Succubus, who has also played with him, saying that pride was the weak point of the Warlord, and a most excellent way of keeping in tow. He had the clear impression that the �master� in this game was not the official one�Especially considering that long range plans are always the best. And that a Succubus had all the time she wanted to plan.


Anyway, she merely looked at the Warlord after he ended his remark, with a smirk that would have been quite appropriate for a mother hearing her five years old child claiming that the mud on his clothes was due to dragons. Meaning, she was clearly amused.


She was intrigued too, however. By the mention �gift of Ajora� :What this could be ?


Anyway, her reaction was not the thing that decided the Warlord, but it did played a role in his decision of finishing the fight in person. If only for awing it�s own fleet with a display of the power carried by his flagship�and also to be the first one on place when the looting would start. Especially for securing the most precious stuff�


Moreover, as most of the defences had been reduced�risk was really minimal, now.


The Palace, a relatively recent construction, was an quite ugly mix of styles : it was a local custom that each ruler add a wing to the construction, to mark his reign.

Building costs were of course reduced by using slave work force. That did not helped for architectural continuity, however. That said, the Palace, dubious from an architectural point of view, was quite sturdy from a military point of view, an more important thing.


But most of the emplacements for defensive weaponry had been destroyed, and a good portion of the outer defences taken out :ground troops dropped by airships had made a lost of devastation already, destroying everything they could before being counter-attacked (and often realizing that their promised �lifts� were gone: airships were a lot more valuable than troops) :To this was added the bombardment of airships-and also a lot of airships crashes from both sides, that were often devastating. To the point that the Warlord had sacrificed some of his worse airships to act as kamikaze units.


Right now, the only serious opposition was coming from the remnants of the defence fleet. With the strategy used by the Warlord, however, his own fleet was also in a state that was quite close to the �remnant� category. Only a handful of airships from both sides were still in the air, trading blow without caring about the devastation their weapons brought to the city below them, while the remains of the huge ballista force used by the defenders still fired occasionally. A single projectile, especially if it was enhanced (by Magic or mere fire) could be devastating if it touched the envelope of an airship.

�If�� was the key word, since most of the time, airships were well out of range and could move, while the batteries were immobile. Still, despite the systematic destruction of all batteries, there was always some that survived and managed to get lucky shots. As the flagship was making his descent for the final assault, another elite airship was hit, and exploded.


This siege was going to be costly...The �art� of making airships was being slowly lost. This city had still the Arsenal, and was able to produce new airships�But the place had been quite devastated-and moreover, no one knew exactly in those days the laws that make ships fly. The envelopes were a crude way to replace the devices that made things weightless-as those devices were quite crude compared to the mythical Arks. And yet, this technology was on the verge on being lost too: the death of the workforce in the Arsenal, the destruction of machinery, would only accelerate the processes.


This �waste� was nothing, however, compared to the loss of Human lives.


This day, there was, maybe several thousands of Humans that died per hour, and neither side had cared much about those casualties. For the military ones, well, this was a necessity. For the civilians, this was either the cost of being defeated, or the price to paid to avoid being defeated-which was not exactly a consolation to the ones being killed..


The gates of the Palace were besieged�by refuges from the city, pursued by ground troops. The said doors, unsurprisingly, remained close (to be honest, this was a sort of no-win situation : if the door had been opened, the enemy would have entered in the Palace).


The crow dispersed immediately, probably with screams of panic, as they saw the flagship approaching. The Warlord, who enjoyed a safe view of the situation thanks to a large-size periscope, was quite pleased by this sight. His vessel had often this effect.


And yet, this airship was a toy compared to the Leviathan of the Great War. And the Leviathan itself was less than a toy when compared to the Ark where the main weapon of this vessel had been retrieved. And, thought the Succubus, this was even worse when seeing a real Ark in action. Like herself, a long time, when she was still�.


She frowned at the thought�she disliked, she hated how her memories were fading, despite her desperate efforts to keep them. For instance, this memory of the Arks�she knew she had it once, she knew this was important�.but she did not recall anything else.


This almost made her miss the event she had been working for during years�


The Warlord turned white, and let out a gulp of surprise when he saw some towers collapsing on the Palace. Those towers had been recently erected-just before the siege-and were in wood, probably for preventing airships to land troops directly on the roof of the Palace proper. This was rather a cover for a last ditch defence, especially made for the final assault. Knowing well the tactics of the Warlord, the ruler had massed there before the siege around an half-hundred of ballista : a fake roof had been built on them, this covered by the construction of the defence towers. At this was in wood, it only took some minutes to destroy it, and uncover the ballista force. Basically, the ruler just hoped that he would be able to take down with him his foe and his flagship, when he would come to gloat over the downfall. This honourable end (according to him), would pass in history, and would maybe help to forgot some less glorious aspects of his life. The fact that this number of ballista, with the best crew (completely unused during the siege, despite the needs) would have been much more useful in the city proper was of course not considered: the ruler�s honour was much more important than the lives of commoners.


Despite the frantic orders to fire at will on this force, the ballista unleashed one full concentrated volley at the airship, aiming specifically at the various �aydjhi� devices propelling it. In some cases, the hull hold�but in others, it was pierced by the mithril tipped bolts. It made explode the devices. And it also caused secondary explosions.


Such explosions rocked the airships, making debris fall from everywhere. Including in the command room. A sizable piece of the roof collapsed on the Archmage, seriously wounding him. He did had the time, however, before dying, to see �his� Succubus watch him, smiling in a terrifying manner, as she was making a �check-mate� on her game.


As soon as the Archmage was dead, the Succubus stretched herself like she had slept a long time, yawning even, all this while being in a far better mood than all those years.


This rather incongruous reaction turned the attention of the Warlord toward her. He was already pale from the shock of the attack. He had grew even paler thanks to the fact that his ship, the core of his power, was probably doomed. This was nothing compared to the colour his face took when he realized than the Archmage was dead�
She was going recall for a long time the look the Warlord had when he realized that the controlling spell was no more, and that she was free. Of killing him, of course.


Physically, the Warlord was not a coward. In a situation that he could handle (�straight� one on one fights) he feared nothing. He knew that his chances against her were hopeless. But he also knew that flight was impossible, and that crawling at her feet would just make her laugh. He tried to fight. Tried. With the same grace and deadly skill she had showcased against assassins and conspirators, she disarmed him quite easily.
It was only when she pinned him on the floor, that he tried to plead for pity�


�Gee, I really don�t know�You did pretty mean things to me, during those years. Like the time you said, remember, that for the price you paid the Archmage for me, you could at least use me �like you wished ? I must say that it made me quite, quite angry��


She actually licked her lips while saying this. This would have already be a bad sign concerning an Human in this situation, but with a Succubus, this was very, very bad�


And she was angry, even for a Demon : she showed it quite clearly in the next minutes, reducing the Warlord to a broken shell quickly. The only thing lacking was the finish.


�Now, I�m going to give you a nice goodbye kiss, Warlord�.�


The last thing the Warlord saw, while screaming, was the black lips of the Succubus�.


This thing done, the Succubus was a little disappointed. Too quick. Especially for the Archmage�That said, the vessel was going down. The life of the Warlord life could hardly have lasted more than an quarter hour, as the airship would have crash or exploded at this point. So, concretely, she only shortened it by a mere five minutes. Not much, unfortunately. But those ten minutes were certainly very painful for the Warlord�


It also disturbed a part of her, a small part, that she cared a lot about, to think that she had�liked�so much to torture him, even if he was a monster. This thought just made her even more hostile about the others Humans she was about to encounter�


At least, she made sure that he actually realized how much it was dangerous to deal with her kind. The Warlord would probably remember this lesson for some centuries in Pandemonium. And, well, the Archmage would certainly pay for this too�
She took the next few minutes to kill some crew members of the airship, before the vessel crashed, and thus deprived her of her fun. Most of them, when they saw her, preferred to jump to their deaths rather than face her-annoying. It�s only when the flagship was about to crash itself on the roof of the Palace that she left the doomed craft.

An Human being could have survived without trouble the twenty meters fall. But not the explosion that followed when the flagship hit and destroyed the ballista force, a few seconds later. It did not even caused her scratches. Using as landing points the various stones blocks jutting of the palace walls thanks to the recent destruction, she began jumping down toward the street, thinking both about what had happened and what she would do now�
The Archmage had managed to get a hold on her something like ten, twelve years ago, she was not sure. It was nothing more than an eye blink for her, and well, she found that, in a sense, it had somehow worth it. But her train of thought was interrupted.


Another airship crashed next to the Palace, seriously damaging it�s already weakened structure, and starting a major fire. She hoped that the local tyrant had not been killed on the spot...if he was trapped, she would be able to pay him a nice visit. He would probably like the others. Humans were always the same : she had seen them for so much time.


She was seeing all of this destruction with...philosophy. She had seen civilizations collapsing at least...hmm, two times or three time ? It was getting confusing, since it always involved pretty much the same thing (general wars, false religions, plagues) Humanity had managed to avoid falling in chaos during the Great War...An impressive feat, she had to admit. But, as she had thought, it had not lasted. Now, Humans were killing themselves all in the name of Ajora. A rather amusing turn of events.


Oh, they would rebuild their civilization...one more time. And then lose it again, at the next conflict.. Each one was deadlier than the precedent. Each one knocked down the technological level another notch down. And there was always enough technology retrieved to be used as weapons of war, to kill more Humans. Also, religion was such a neat thing for erasing the past�Despite the sincere efforts of the Church to keep knowledge, much writings had already being destroyed as being the works of Heretics.


This chaotic situation guaranteed that she would always find interesting work�


In those years in the service of the Archmage, she had unfortunately to kill some innocent humans, but she had also the chance of killing countess rivals of the Archmage or of the Warlord. Individuals that she really enjoyed killing, who certainly deserved this.
�Some� was however a highly subjective term. What she considered as some could have been found by many as countless. But she was not much troubled by this. She had lost the count of her kills, and for her, all Humans were pretty much the same in the end.

For the time being, she amused herself by dispatching soldiers she found on the wrecked streets of the city, not caring about the sides. On this point, she was somewhat right, as neither side was really better than the other, even from the Human point of view.


Her presence was noticed rather quickly by the soldiers, as well as the ease she was killing her foes. Accordingly, an assault party unleashed something to deal with her.


She looked with some curiosity as it was approaching...Not fearing it at all.


This creature was a sort of battle beast...More exactly, this �beast� had once been an Banga, a sentient being mostly known by the name �lizard-man�...What remained of his people had been enslaved by magic spells, and transformed by an even more powerful force (probably coming from one of the Craddles) it was now a very different thing, deprived of sentience...Instead of a mostly humanoid-shaped being (with impressive strength compared to an Human) the living weapon was now an hulking creature, towering at five meters above the streets levels, carrying a sort of crude double flail. It was barely controllable in battle, but this point was not important for his handlers.


Smiling, she revealed herself, for the fear effect.. With a mix of surprise and terror, the soldiers saw two black wings �grew� from her back. If this encounter proved difficult, which was unlikely, she had also access to other possibilities...She did prefer, however, to stick to Human like appearance, which was after all her true appearance.
Because, when she was in a...clearly not Human-like form, it made her memories fade even faster. She had so few remaining...she had no desire to lose them.


To the great unease of the soldiers, she dispatched in two minutes the creature, who did not managed to even wound her...She did more than dispose of the living war machine�She turned it against it�s handlers. (Piece of cake for her�The creature was more afraid of her than his handlers, despite all the pain they inflicted to him�)


Results concerning the handlers were both unsurprising and gruesome�. The beast turned to rampage, attacking everything in sight. She saw it with a certain amusement.


After all, both sides were real monsters (psychologically, not physically), even when compared to her, just caring about looting, pillage, torture...And far worse.


She had a very clear sign of it with a scene she saw near the devastated Gates of the Arsenal. There was girl, clearly below ten, crying, pleading a drunken soldier (judging by the uniform, he was technically on the side supposed to protect the civilian. This alone said a lot about the morality of the various armies...) to let her alone, or to just kill her.


What had happened to her did not require much explanation, judging by her state, the conditions of her clothes, the comments the guard was making�.And, to add to the horror�this was likely not the...first time. There were two others soldiers nearby. They were also drunk and they were laughing in a sick manner at the efforts of the girl.
The three soldiers were startled by the arrival of the newcomer. They realized at once who she was...That for that kind of enemy, no mercy or pity was possible�Still, they all dropped to their knees, imploring her mercy. She really took her time to kill them. What a misfortune that they were drunk ; this probably soaked some of the pain.


When the last one had fallen, she kneeled near the human girl, who was now sitting in a corner of the ruined house were those events had just occurred, in deep shock, and done something that was really out of place with her appearance: blood covered, not mentioning her wings, that was making as clear as possible that she was not Human...


As kindly as possible, she helped the girl to rose, and did her best to tend her numerous wounds. Of course, the worst one could never been healed, as it was something much more than just physical...Those bastards had really get out of this mess too fast.


In fact, even if she had took a day to kill each of them, that would still not have been enough ...Like all the ones of her kind, she did not cared much for Humans males, more or less hating all of them. But it was not true for female Humans.


After all, she had been herself an Human girl, long ago. And despite her dwindling memories, this past was precious to her. How could she let one of her Human �sisters� (or a Vieran sister, for that matter), especially an so young child, be harmed ?


�Hey�, she said after a moment. �You will be all right. They are all dead...�


Of course, this well-meaning comment was not terribly helpful for the poor girl. She was too shocked (the fact of being saved by an Succubus, despite her kindness was certainly not helping) It�s only after a while that she asked feebly �why you helped me�?�


Before the other could thought about a answer that could be adequate, the girl saw that no answer was coming, and decided to give up this question, who was not critical. What really mattered was, after all, that this �lady� had helped her, despite�her nature.
�Ah, I don�t care why you helped me...(Pause)You came with the airships ?�


The other female answered yes, while excusing herself for it (she was not sincere on this point, of course. She just thought that some excuses would help the situation)

�It�s not that I really care, you know, about that...You could have burned the whole city, and it would have hardly mattered for me. This...is not my town...I was a slave...they were working me to the death into one of their airships component plants...�


The other one was saying nothing, recalling something from a very blurred past...One Human female, around seven years old, with the same haunted look that than the girl (for different reasons, but...with the same desperation, feeling of being powerless) It was her, partly reflected through some kind of window. What was beyond the window...it was silly, but she was no longer recalling the images. She just recalled three words, that were explaining everything she had saw, so long time ago: Daymio...Home...Destroyed...


The...change...had happened years later, years of cold, hunger, and raw desperation, but it was this day that she had decided from the depths of her soul that the ones that helped that to happen, and their eventual future followers, should really, really, be punished for what they had dared to do, whatever the price...This similarity was very dangerous.


�Miss...Could I follow you, please ? I have really nowhere to go...I will help you...�


�Follow...me ? I...don�t think you realize exactly what this involve-What�s your name ?�


�Lede. My name is Lede, miss. Please...I want...to go with you, miss. I beg you.�


�And you can call me Celia. Look, Lede, you can come with me...out of this town. I�m sure that you will find some family ready to take care of you...

(Lede looked not convinced) If not, I...I will explain some things to you about me, and you will see...that you should do others things than

��following�� my steps in the broad sense of the word.�


Celia knew what she should have done, for the sake of Lede.To slap her, for looking odious to her. Do something. Anything...would be better for Lede than follow her steps, into darkness. But...Lede really needed some help, for the time being. Saving her from an immediate danger, and then letting her down, would have been very useless. She was more or less aware that all of this was nothing more than a justification...


Celia had been so alone, so...frightened...when she had...had died...Maybe if Lede wanted to follow this path, it�s would be easier, less painful for her, with Celia�s support...


A few hours later, both female had find a place to rest a little, as dusk was settling on the city. They had a rather scenic view�according to Celia, at least. Lede was still too shocked to think about this. If in normal times, the view would have indeed quite impressive, right now, it was rather an endless sea of devastation :fighting had died down throughout the city, after the destruction of the flagship. Most of the attackers had stopped to attack, mostly to determine what to do, and most defenders had exploited the confusion to begin a major withdrawal, abandoning the city altogether.


Lede and Celia were currently in one of the most luxurious bathing rooms of the Palace (the �scenic view� was mostly due to a gaping hole on the eastern wall�) The complex itself was littered with wrecks of airships and various ground weaponry, but this room had been remarkably untouched. There was also bodies littered everywhere, thanks to a struggle that had broken out in the Royal Guard. Apparently, the king had tried to flee after a revolt had broke out. The remnants of his forces had battles each other for various new puppet rulers, and tried to secure the treasure vaults, which were underground. There was just stragglers left in the Palace-and those who were still in the hallways, looters or others, met premature ends, thanks to Celia. Or they just fled, spreading tales about legions of Demons lurking in the Palace, which had the same results :empty the place.


But why Celia had head back to the Palace ? It was mostly because it was the only more or less intact building in the whole town. Celia was honestly quite lost about what to do with Lede (help her, yes, but how ? She could hardly take her at her own �home�). It was probably better to gain some breathing space to think about it carefully. Accordingly, find a relatively safe place for Lede. As Celia had capacities to make any building very empty, very fast, unless faced by groups of top level opponents (which was the case now), she could afford to chose virtually any place of her liking�.She had figured that Lede would maybe like more something luxuous than slave quarters�


On this point, judging by some of ramblings he uttered, she and Lede had crossed the path of the king-or someone pretending he was the king. Anyway, someone had broken his legs with a mace, and let him die there, abandoned by everyone.

Celia had found this idea quite interesting, and had carefully ignored all the pleas of the individual to at least finish him. As Celia had returned to her wingless appearance, he probably did not know who she was. But he did spot the infamous red scar on Lede right cheek (a slave mark, made on purpose) and could not, even in this situation, bring himself to not scream in outrage about what a slave was doing here, on the Palace-much worse than the surface.


According to most legends, Celia and her kind were temptation incarnated. Well, this was true, but she had to fight this herself, to not kill this tyrant on the spot. She �simply� broke his wrists too, and left him screaming. (Celia actually wondered for a while about why Lede had become so pale, before realizing, with genuine horror, that despite all her efforts to keep a Human behaviour, there were things she had trouble with�.)


Anyway, they have found this room soon after, and there was no other incidents.


Seriously, Celia thought that she was handling the situation rather well. She had defined the right priorities. Find a shelter, a bath, new clothes, and then food.


All of this was for Lede, of course, as Celia did not require similar things: accordingly, those very basic needs were somewhat alien to her-for instance, she did eat Human food-if only for the sake of trying to act as Human, but she did not required it to��live�.
Well, for the bathing part, it was not sure that it was just for Lede, as this was a treat for her too. She preferred to maintain a neat appearance-both for impress her enemies, and because Human girls are not usually blood covered. (A small thing again�.)
As for Lede�well, this was an absolute necessity for her, with what had happened to her.


Understandably, it had taken a lot of persuasion to Celia to convince Lede to let down the tattered remnants of her clothes-she was holding them like her life depended on it. It�s only when Celia had done it for herself, sliding in the hot water and saying to Lede that she would like it, that this was a delight, that the girl had accepted to do it.

(A more direct way would have been to threaten Lede, but Celia�could not do that. She was willing to hep this girl, not to push her back into the submissive model..)

The fact that Celia was very, very obviously female visibly calmed down her a little.


Wisely, Celia had not said a word for a good while, to try to put Lede a little more to her ease (if she was aware that Lede had just survived an horribly traumatizing experience, she had not realized that, frankly, seeing corpse after corpse-and often killings-was not exactly soothing too. On the other hand, Lede was pleased, in a way, to be with her)


�By the way, I did not even know how this place named�.Do you know ?�


(Celia did know, very well, thanks to numerous briefings of the Warlord�She was saying this to say something, to start a conversation. And also, try to make Lede a little more talkative, -she did realize the girl was afraid, with reason. She had noticed it while working with Humans: nothing make someone talk more than the possibility of displaying his knowledge�Lede hesitated, then decided to answer)


�It�s the Holy City of Murond, miss�.They say it�s the birth place of Ajora��


Celia, as she had planned, decided to use this as a starting point for something�.


�Ajora, ah�.You ever heard of the expression �the kiss of Germonik?�


��.It�s the time when Germonik tried to kill Ajora. She kissed him, and tried to stab-�


�Exactly. As this is close to the perception of what we do, it�s had been implied that Germonik was either one of us, or became one of us after �her treacherous deed�.�


This was very unlikely, since, if Celia recalled correctly, it was extremely improbable that Germonik, the poor girl, (her name had been completely massacred, moreover) had ended up at�.�home�. Mostly because what she was doing was the right thing, after all.


Not what she was doing�.what she had succeeded to do, even indirectly.


And there was also the issue about the possibility for Germonik to be damned firsthand, since it was not sure that she met, how to say, some of the conditions required for�.

What the heck, Germonik have died as a Human. She was certainly Human in a way!

Celia had not met Germonik herself-she regretted it, Humans doing things like her were�.were the sort of model she had hoped to attain when she was herself Human.

It was fortunate, however, that she had not met her. Since she have been summoned, as well as many of her kind, by Ajora, to kill Germonik by whatever means available.

Apparently, Ajora had kinda made a fixation on Germonik. The classic love hate thing. That probably worsened with his death. He blamed solely Germonik for it, claiming her mysterious powers (let�s rather call it her brain and writing skills�). Celia had a pretty good idea, how (sarcastically), this self explanation could look like

I have not been defeated by a mere girl (who humanity, physically, speaking, is somewhat questionable, but certainly not on a more philosophical point of view) who I betrayed, used, tried to kill and who paid me back, by outsmarting me completely
I have been defeated by a divinely assisted being (which is at odds a little with my conceptions but�)! Only HER could defeat me ! I�m in fact invincible !

What was the next step? That only the ones blessed by Germonik could defeat him? (In fact, it was likely that Ajora would point out anyone able to hurt him as �blessed�, �gifted�, or even �born from� Germonik, thanks to his insanity�)

Anyway, short of those pseudo-theological reflections, she had something to settle�

�As you might guess, I�m not raising this�like this, for fun, Lede�

Celia saw with sorrow that this made Lede very nervous: she did not know what to except. Celia made a mental note to try to find a way to talk more directly, frankly.

�Don�t be afraid�, she continued, as she swam/walked closer to the point where Lede was-they were previously sat on opposite ends of the basin. Lede did not move, but it was rather thanks to pure fear than because of the dubious social skills of Celia.

She picked in her hands Lede�s head, and moved until her head was very close of Lede�

�What I wanted to say was that�well, you know, �Germonik�s Kiss� and �kiss of the Succubus� are rather equivalent expression, right ? But it�s not always what you thought�.

Celia had tried to not surprise Lede-and to her credit, she succeeded. Lede knew what to except. She was not really surprised when Celia gently kissed her on the cheek�

But Lede was astonished when she did not ended up death after this. She understood even less when a smiling Celia made her move her own hand to touch her right cheek.

It�s at this time that she realized that the slave mark was gone�Disappeared.



Celia really hoped that her explanation, which was accurate, would cover up nicely for the fact that Lede had been helped by Demoniac Magic of great power. And especially that Lede would not talk about it. She was in for major troubles with Humans if they ever learned it. How could someone believe that a girl below ten managed to convince a Demon to use such a powerful regeneration spell-basically akin to eternal youth-when people doing in the Dark Arts could spend years pleading, dealing, without ever getting results ?(Celia recalled that an old geezer, finally dying off, at the delight of his subjects, had promised her all the gold she wanted, the lives of anyone on his land, that kind of stupid stuff, if she gave him one more year. She basically made him go desperate, then told him that he could sc� himself up) She had given this to Lede. There would be no pact, no consequence for her-this was just for help her start a new life�


But she really felt somewhat heartbroken when Lede began to cry-for the first time since Celia had killed the soldiers. This was really too much for the poor girl.


Lede, however, was very, very grateful for Celia-without this mark, no one could treat her like an animal, like all those years�They had always told her that whatever she did, even if she escaped, people would know, just by looking at her, that she was just a slave, that nothing would remove this mark.. And that even after she died, her soul would still be marked, and Ajora would know and scorn her too. And that she was not humble (traduction: submissive�) enough, she would rot in Hell for all eternity.


On this point, the Church, which was surprisingly sincere in her efforts to promote a more humane, just, righteous, civilization was however adamant. Slavery was a mortal sin for the slavers: all Humans were the same in His eyes (this was an admirable view, both from a theological viewpoint and a secular one, and certainly a view to be promoted. But this was not coming from Ajora, not from an false god�) But not surprisingly, the rich and powerful kept of the teachings of the Galbados Church what they considered useful. Still, slavery was in recession, and the Church still worked on her social agenda.
It would have been an outright lie to say that this Church was an �evil� organization�


�Thank you, miss� finally managed to say Lede. �I knew they were lying, about Ajora�


Celia realized she had made a major mistake by talking about Ajora�Being an Heretic on this wretched world was an extremely bad thing. She tried to switch subjects as fast as possible, to remove the thought from Lede�s mind. But Celia was troubled too.


Just because Lede was showing gratitude toward her. This was unusual. But pleasant.


�You know�, said Celia a little uneasy, you could kill me otherwise than �miss��.


Miss� was certainly a vast improvement over the names she had been called over the years (bi�, wh�, demon, and often the three mixed together) but Celia was nicer.


�Now�, continued Celia as Lede was nodding, �there is the issue of the clothes�.�


She motioned at Lede a pile of clothes of her size, that she had �liberated� earlier in the Palace-Celia did realized that their was others children then Lede in this city�but it was only Lede that she had met. Correction. Lede was the only child she found alive.


�Dry yourself, and pick anything you like. Something comfortable-we will stay here for the night, then move for a more�civilized�era. To find you something��


�Celia�I want to stay with you. It�s possible You were Human. I could become-�


�Lede, I would love that. But I think you don�t understand that to be with me, you..�


�Of course I know that. I need to be dead�.�, said Lede, with a tense voice, but not showing much fear. She even smiled a little, as she was choosing her clothes�


Celia did not pushed the conversation, really hoping that this was meaning that Lede did not knew exactly the difference between life and death�.while knowing very well, deep down, that she did, and that she had been serious. Better try to chase such ideas�like for instance, making to Lede a gift. A real gift. Not something stolen or liberated.
And as many things could happen, it was preferable to give her an useful gift too�


After she had put her own clothes backs, Celia saw that Lede had picked relatively plain clothes, that were still vastly superior to the rags she had been given all her life�


�You look very pretty into this�, said sincerely Celia. �And now, I have the crowning piece��. As she was saying this, Celia moved her hands over her head, and pulled out from her hair an sumptuous hairpin-she had two of those. She put it into Lede�s hair.
Celia had gave this to her as a�precaution. It could help Lede a lot if things turned out badly-those were very dangerous time, and she could not protect her forever�


By herself, this hairpin would have tremendous value: exquisite artwork, not to mention certain abilities of protection, that would be handy to anyone in those dark times.


It had also the advantage of being a very clear sign : anyone from Celia�s �side� seeing Lede with this hairpin would know that she was an �off limit� target. There was power struggles, back �home�, but even for her kind, there was certain things that could not be done. Things like killing girls that received such �gifts�. Sure Lede did not presented the�typical profile�of such girls, but there had been others in her case, over the time.


The restriction also worked for, how to say�the other side too.


Lede had no ideas of her value. She just thought it was a neat gift. If she had not just lived such horrors, she would have probably giggled about it. She just smiled-a somewhat normal smile, for one time. Celia found that this far enough. After carefully arranging Lede�s hair (that was unfortunately rather short, thanks to her previous life), Celia led her back in the hallways, toward the kitchen, for find her something to eat.


The King was still there, and still not death. He moaned something incoherent as Celia was passing by. She glanced at him, and he promptly shut up�.
The kitchens were not far, and where well-supplied. Lede had never saw so much food in all her life, and it was not hard to convince her to �take something�. Celia took an orange for herself, eating token parts of it-just for the sake of pretending to be eating with Lede.


Why the heck she had picked up an orange, of all things ? Maybe she had enjoyed it when she was Human, but there was something else, she was sure of it. Bah.


If she had thought about food, it was mostly because of herself. Dying of hunger was a terrible experience : she knew it very well. And Lede was so thin that she had been obviously very close of dying. Celia did not know about the conditions of the slaves in Murond, but they were likely awful, since, with Murond power, slaves were not in short supply. And major supplies means that �losses� were very easy to replace.


For instance, what had happened to Lede, after she had managed to crawl out, half-dead, from the Arsenal, and hide in town�it was very likely that she would have been killed as soon as the guards would have finished with her. No one bothered to make enquiries about dead slaves: it was just a waste of money, as it was cheaper to get new ones.


�You told me that you were a slave. Just one question�how you ended like that?


�I�they sold me. I think I was five or six�(She looked distressed�more distressed than usually) I think it was for ten copper pieces. I saw them paying. Ten tiny pieces�


The reason she was distressed was obvious. According to this, the silver fork she was using worth far more than her. Lede had always saw herself (not, of course, just because of this) as a pretty worthless thing: her dreadful life to this point was not helping.


�Okay, but who sold you ? A slaver? (This was for�visiting�the fellow�a day)


��It was my own parents, said after a long pause Lede, who closed her eyes�


Celia made a mental note to ask later to Lede where she was born exactly. It would be nice to pay to those folks a little visit, and let them know that their daughter was not judged worthless by everyone. If they had not been already killed. In this case, maybe she could ask someone at�home�to give them, how to see, VIP treatment ?


�And they say that I am a monster�� was the only reply of Celia�.


Celia did tried to chat a little with Lede, but the array of possible conversations was very limited. Neither Celia and Lede had much experience with social interaction in general.


After a while of such kind of conversation, Celia began to hear a sort of rumbling noise. Another attack starting? Did they really want to die at her hands?


She also began to hear screams, coming from the ruins of the harbour, where most airships had docked, to make repairs. Scream of fear. Panic. Like the ones of the civilians earlier. A little worried, she lifted from her chair, and bolted to the next available viewpoint, Lede following her closely. Both the Human and the Succubus were shocked by what the saw. In front of them, a hill was blocking the view. Pretty normal.


Except that this hill was not here ten minutes ago! And that it was moving! It was not a wave�it was a wall of water! That would do even more damage than the siege�


From their commanding viewpoint, thanks to the fires, they saw in details what was happening. Especially a scene that could have been depicted as �the destruction of the remnants of the Warlord fleet�. Caught on ground, the ships were doomed�
The tidal wave advanced like a wall of destruction. One quick-minded captain had managed to put his ship almost on the air before the water swept him away. He almost got away. Almost. The hull was neatly cut up in two, like the airship had been a toy. Celia and Lede thought they heard the scream of the crew, but this probably a kind of illusion. What was not in illusion was that the wave would be there in minutes!


�The dykes�.the stragglers from the defensive army have destroyed the dykes�.�


Lede muttered that, now sure that (finally?) she was going to die. She was right about her interpretation : officer had indeed decided to deny Murond to it�s conquerors�


Indeed, Murond was located close to the sea. Much too close.


The original city had been built on a hilltop, commanding one of the finest harbours in Ivalice, but like most Human cities, it had been hit pretty hard during the Dark Ages-to the point that the carefully planned and maintained dams keeping away a nearby river were destroyed. In addition to the floods, the water ate away in a couple of centuries the hill herself. Slow destruction, that left time. The site was too good for trade. The place was rebuilt slightly away from the original site�on low lands. Quite careless planning, especially considering that the whole peninsula on which Murond was located was almost cleaned up of trees for this rebuilding (the new style was massive stone, for sure, but wood was requiring for construction anyway). The unsurprising result was massive erosion, that was opposed by the building of dykes, raised each century�as, meanwhile, the city was sinking slowly, the sheer weight of it being too much for the weakened ground�Whole parts of the city were sealed off as they were built on. The dreaded slave quarters, where Lede had been most of her �life�. As the Warlord had the �brilliant� idea of attempting an assault using this underground �hell� (for an obvious reason, Celia had smiled when hearing that�) there had been airships battles there, in the Old Murond, that had been extremely costly: both Muronds were now covered with airships wrecks�


Since there was two Muronds : the new, holy city�and what was below. The ruins of the old city. Moreover, no one managed to guess that there was several others �Murond� in this world, as the root of the name was not Human, but VIERAN . Perfect translation of the original word was delicate, as Vierans concepts were not Humans ones, but this could be summed up as �Place of the Exiled�-or mores simply, �City�. Vierans were quite puzzled by the Human tendency to live in huge agglomerations : originally, they did not even had a WORD for �city�. Anyway, the name, or rather the core/root of it had survived in many places, usually with some deformations (like the independent kingdom of Muria, or the Miriam Ruins, of sinister Great War fame�)


For returning to the present situation, it was only thanks to it�s status as an holy city (and the arsenal) that Murond was still inhabited. Well. Had been inhabited was more accurate.


There was no time to lose. Taking Lede by the hand, Celia raced for the roof of the palace. On her way, she crossed one last time the king. She hoped he would ask for water, which would have allowed her to deliver a snappy and appropriate answer, but, alas, he was delirious. She and Lede arrived on the roof when the wave began to hit it�


The Palace was not directly drowned by the tidal wave, but the water carried numerous debris, that acted like hundreds of rams. It would collapse very soon��


�Lede !� said Celia. �Hold me very, very tight, and don�t look. DON�T LOOK.�


�You are going to kill me, right ?� replied after a while Lede


Celia was so hurt by the accusation that she did not know what to answer first�


��No�I was thinking more about vertigo, and the like��


A puzzled Lede, who had however closed her eyes, heard a noise similar like a cape deploying, and�and did not know what to do after that, since things happened rather fast. She felt being carried away quite quickly, wind swirling next to her�


Celia had waited really to the last minute : the Palace collapsed under her�


Celia, Lede tucked in her arms, hoping that the Human girl was actually not looking (the poor Celia, not unlike many well-meaning Human females with no experience concerning children, was painfully unaware that saying to a kid, even one with a very messed life, to don�t look was the best way to be sure that she would indeed look) was not overly worried concerning herself. Water could not kill her. However, she was maybe not Human, but there was limit to what she could do. For instance, she could not fly extensively while carrying weight, even if Lede was terribly thin. Accordingly, she was rather close to the �ground� that was turning more and more liquid. The numerous survivors-rather, current survivors had a nice vision of things to come for them�


After gliding from the palace, Celia landed, foot first, on an airship that had become a�ship, at least for the time being. It was sinking rapidly, pierced in dozens of place. Amazingly, a couple of soldiers thought to attack Celia-an extremely foolish action. She put Lede on the deck, and looked at them, stretching casually her shoulders-which had the effect to deploy her wings to their full size-a very neat trick to impress Humans�.


Short of muttering �Daemons�., there was not much they could do about it. There was of course the possibility of asking for a....higher�intervention, but this was unlikely.


Those individuals had destroyed, burned, looted, killed. What kind of actual higher power could approve such actions ? Although, well, that was probably not out of character for Ajora (who was however not very helpful AND was not an actual God�.)


The Human soldiers, anyway, had frozen in place while she smiled at them. She exploited the occasion. She viciously kicked one of them in the raging sea, and slapped the other with such strength that he was knocked back several meters. This gave a clear indication to the others to don�t interfere. The prow of the airship was steadily sliding into water-as a result, the rear section of the craft was rising right now. Celia planned to use this for the next step of her�flight, indeed, from Murond. It�s also gave her a rather interesting look at Human nature as it�s lowest. Officers drowning because of the loot they carried�.soldiers fighting each other for a place on a plank�.


Charming society�She was less and less sure that she would be able to find a safe place for Lede.

(Well, not until things settled down a little. In times of relative peace, Human societies were quite decent places-Celia actually cried when she recalled her own youth)


The deck of the airship was already clearly inclined when Celia had landed on it. It was now on the process of switching to a vertical position. Slightly annoyed at the idea that she would not be able to deal with the soldiers on board, she made a run for it, using it to gain an height advantage. She proceeded that way, using as �stepping stones� buildings more or less in one piece, until she finally reached solid ground, more than ten kilometres away from Murond.. It did not take much persuasion, this time, to convince a rather shaken Lede, who had of course kept her eyes wide open, to take some rest�.


Celia remained awake, watching, for foes, toward the ruins of Murond�


A few hours later, Celia felt some tugging in her back. She looked over her shoulder-and saw that Lede, sleeping, was trying to pull toward her one of her wings�.


For an obvious reason: she was freezing, and it was the middle of the night. She was taking the wings as bed sheets! Sighing, Celia, who was finding this infinitely cute, put her wings in a �cupola� position : the tips pointing in front of her, bending over her shoulders, putting her face to face with Lede, who apparently found that �bed� quite decent. This vision put Celia back with her responsibilities�

I want to help her, but if she attach herself too much to me, this is going to be�

C'mon, check this, it's an attempt to bridge the gap between FFXII and FFT

I hate Final Fantasy.

Why I never get reviews....

Check your other thread.

Oh, yeah, thanks for the comment you made...