Was a war room strictly necessary for the purposes of the WSU?

Not really.

Did it stop them from putting one together anyway?

Not either.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have the resources and equipment. Quite the contrary. With several thousands of containers left abandoned in the Maasvlakte, plus a multitude of warehouses, stockpiles, and whatever salvage they could obtain from Rotterdam, resources were hardly an issue. Logistics, yes. Manpower absolutely. But not resources.

Hence, what had initially been a fairly large meeting room within the harbor control building that the Captains used to discuss their organization’s activities and their future course of action ; had slowly but surely filled up with ever more electronics that connected it to the expansive digital framework that coursed through the building.

Hanging on a wall opposite the wide window that showed off the landscape of the port facilities, was a positively gigantic screen displaying a world map. On the sides, smaller though no less important, half-a-dozen screens relayed various pieces of information like a map of the Maasvlakte with everything the port’s sensors could show. On the adjoining walls, a few cork boards overflowing with reports had been hung alongside paper charts of some notable colonies, such as Belfast and Havana.

Along with that, a couple computer desks and a long oval table had been set up so every occupant would be able to keep an eye on the main screen.

Overall, not a bad setup. It was mostly Angelo’s work, the minotaur sort-of copying design aspects of the war room he had seen at the derelict HPI facility in France. It was easily among the most high-tech bit of equipment the WSU had in their arsenal.

Although...It did leave the room feeling no small bit cluttered, compounding into a somewhat oppressive feeling from the limited light that streamed in from the tinted window, the constant beeping and the hum of ventilation fans running constantly. Reportedly, it was extremely nerve-grating for any species with fine hearing.

In Dilip’s opinion, the issue was more that his keen canine sense of smell turned the faint smell of bleach in the room into the fastest way one could get a headache. The Diamond Dog raised his one paw and rubbed a digit against the side of his head.

“So how’s that exploration been going so far?” Dilip spoke up, looking down at the laptop he had set on one edge of the oval table.

The image shifted, showing two individuals against the backdrop of a city’s roofs which he quickly recognized as Antwerp. One was a gargoyle, Pavlos, a fairly stoutly built male with black fur and a gray mane wearing a woolen aviator’s cap tailored to fit his curly antlers, along with some thick fur-lined clothes under a military chest rig. The other, standing behind the gargoyle, was Mikhail, a very large quadruped dragon with bright purple scales and bronze-hued spikes and fins all over his form. He wore a saddle that was filled to the brim with various packs and bags held together by netting on his underside.

The dragon rider duo.

“Pretty much everything we expected.” Pavlos replied with a shrug after a second’s pause, the sat phone’s connection was far from perfect, and the latency nerve-grating. “Still quite a few art pieces worth recovering which could be sold off to the HPI. Monster presence is on the low side, which we think is owed to all the escaped zoo animals.” He told, taking a drag of his cigarette before staring directly into the webcam.

Dilip did not like it when he did that. Upon bonding his soul to Mikhail’s, the gargoyle had gained a large boost to his magic which seemed to radiate out from his blue eyes.

Unnerving really.

“They survived? The lions I sort-of expected, but the rest?”

“Predators seem to prefer picking off wild dogs than attacking large herbivores, so all the herds are generally intact. Magic’s made plants grow so fast food can still be found in winter, and even though they’re not really suited for cold weather, the city must provide enough in the way of shelter to let them survive.” Mikhail noted, the dragon’s voice a deep rumble. “Most monsters we’ve seen around here are the solitary kind, like chimeras, so they wouldn’t try attacking those animals. We found a couple wolves among the dogs, tho’.”

“So they did make their way into these parts of Europe.” Dilip frowned.

Mikhail shifted in place, moving his wings in a shrug.

“’twas only a matter of time I reckon. Probably came in from Germany. Mankind left a big power vacuum when we disappeared, and the addition of monsters and magic threw entire ecosystems off-balance. Things will keep shifting for a good while before the dust settles.”

“And we’ll make sure to keep an eye on it then.” Dilip replied after jotting down a few notes. He paused. “Say… I’ve been asked… have you two experienced anything unusual?”

“Care to clarify, sir?” Pavlos crossed his arms. “Did that come from the HPI? Because if it’s about the nuclear plant, we took the radiation readings. Containment in the cooling ponds is fine, no leakage.”

Dilip nodded slightly, though that wasn’t actually what sat on his mind. Out of the corner of his eye, the canine turned his notes to the page that held information on his latest teleconference with the HPI.

“It’s good news then, you should have the location of other such plants if you think you can take their readings… but that is not what I was referring to. Mind you, you’re correct. The requestdid come from the HPI. They say their orbital thaumic sensors have been spotting… err… anomalies in their readings, as they put it. Near cities known to have large museums.”

“Ah, then you want us to check it out?” Mikhail guessed.

“Correct. It’s hard to pinpoint, but given the finds we made in that small museum in Coatzacoalcos back in Mexico, archaeological museums should be the cause of those anomalies.” Dilip then frowned. “London and Paris, Rome even, have been showing rather extreme signs of such.” Dilip leaned closer to the webcam, a serious frown on the D-Dog’s muzzle.“Do. Not. Attempt to venture there as of now. These are highly dense clusters of suddenly-reactivated relics and artifacts, none of which you two are suited to tackle.”

“Implying you have a set goal for us, and it’s nearby.”

“Correct again. If you head south from Antwerp towards Brussels, there is the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Once you’re done in Antwerp, get over there and give us a report on what happens when you have so many magical items in close proximity to each other. That should give us the heads up for when we send expeditions to larger museums, okay?”

“We’ll get it done.” Pavlos nodded. “Can’t say how fast just yet with all our recon still on the table. How high priority is this?”

“Don’t lose sleep over it, but make sure not to botch the report. HPI’s paying for it. Handsomely.”

“Understood. Will that be all, Captain?” Pavlos asked, the gargoyle straightening up.

“Yes. Best of luck, don’t hesitate to fly back when the supplies run low.” Dilip concluded before cutting off the feed.

Well… that was one thing done. Five hundred more to go. The Diamond Dog had to bite back a frustrated growl after pulling out his agenda. No matter what he was doing, tasks just seemed to pile on and on, faster than he could tackle them. They had the HPI on one side, their colonies on the other, the HQ here in Rotterdam to take care of, along with all the prospects and possibilities they needed to fulfill if they wanted to keep to their charter and broaden the network of colonies and trade routes.

Simply put? Too much to do and not enough folks to get it done.

Always the same damn problem.

Always.

The graveyard’s gates parted with a loud creak of rusted metal, bits of snow and ice falling before being carried off in the breeze. Sri watched the glow of Bart’s telekinetic grip fade from the gates… but the unicorn didn’t move, just looking into the graveyard with a forlorn look in his gray eyes, not daring to cross the little bridge that led to the gates.

Sri squeezed the wing she kept draped over his back.

“It’s alright. I’m with you.” She comforted him.

Bart didn’t say anything at first, then he glanced up at her with a small smile.

“Thank you.” He said, planting a quick kiss on the underside of the hippogriff’s beak before he put his first hoof forward.

The graveyard was quiet, the sound of the brook by the gates dulled by the walls, leaving only the soft breeze and snow creaking under their steps as they slowly made their entrance. The first tombs by the gates were old and worn, dedicated to people that had died over a hundred years prior, some had even crumbled away, with a few iron crosses tilted in the soil.

Further in, past a few rows that had been filled over the years, more recent and better-tended tombs appeared, though time since the Event meant pictures had been bleached white by the sun, and plants had long rotted or frozen in their vases.

The one exception, one of the last and most recent tombs, was the tomb Bart went for. The odd blotch of color in a sea of gray and white, plastic flowers strewn about the grave by a gust of wind. Bart quickly gathered them in his magic and put them back in place while Sri glanced at the engravings on the tombstone.

Elke De Mesmaeker

Jan 12 2001 – Sep 22 2013

And below was a phrase in dutch she didn’t understand, enshrined by a little daisy flower and a fairy near a faded picture under some glass. Sri heard Bart sniff, before the unicorn lay down in front of the grave, heedless of the snow.

“She was the joy in my life, you know?” Bart finally started after three minutes of complete silence. “My little Ellie… I remember when I first held her. We… we had been trying for years, and she was so small when she came out. But she was the bravest girl I ever laid my eyes on.” He sniffed fondly. “Always wanting to go on some adventure, to be strong like papa.”

“Guess a girl like her would have loved seeing you now.” Sri attempted. “Papa-pony, eh?” She squeezed her companion with her wing, laying close to him.

“Ah!” Bart laughed hollowly. “She did have her horse phase, ja. There were pictures all over her bedroom… even made me study horse breeds by heart. Calmed down a bit with the horses after that, but it stuck with her. We didn’t really have the means to buy and feed a horse, but I used to take her to a ranch nearby, on weekends.”

Sri saw him close his eyes for a second, as though he was reliving those memories for a mere instant.

From an outside view, the two went silent for a minute more, the only sign of life coming from them being their fogged breaths.

“Can I ask...” Sri tried, trailing off pointedly.

The muscles of her equine friend’s jaw tightened visibly.

“Sri… Ik- sorry, I… I don’t know how it usually goes in Indonesia, but in these parts of Belgium, we really like our bikes.”

“Like the Dutch?”

“Pretty much.” Bart nodded, his features gaining a look of mixed pain and anger as the memories flooded back. “So it’s very common for kids to simply bike to school. Ellie had been doing that since she was four. Never any issue. No accidents. Until...”

Sri’s eyes widened in realization.

“She was twelve. Kept insisting she was all grown-up and she didn’t need me or her mother to accompany her to school.” He gulped. “Left in the morning. Wasn’t until ten that school called. Eleven when she was found. Too late by then. Way too late.” Bart’s eyes shone with the telltale glint of repressed tears, though his features looked furious rather than sad. “Twelve years old, and she spent over three hours lying in a ditch by the side of the road with forty fractured bones screaming for help. Tore up her vocal chords trying, the docs said when they took a look at her.” He shook his head before swearing something under his breath. “She never woke up. After three days in the ICU, it was over. And you know the worst thing? It was only then that they got around to telling me. Because I was in godver- Kunduz at the time! Three. Fucking. Days. Before the dommekut that used to be my superior went ahead and told me my daughter was dying and ‘oh, excuseer eerst-caporal-chef, news came, she’s dead now’. Prick. Deserved the stitches I gave him.”

Sri tightened the wing she kept draped over his back, noticing the angry sparks the unicorn was starting to release from his horn.

“And you know what’s worse? Worse than the fact the hit-and-run driver was never found? Worse than them...” He practically spat the word. “...thinking it’s fine to wait three days before telling a father his child is in the ICU?” He deflated abruptly. “She thought I’d be there to protect her. And there she was, screaming for three hours, and dad never came. I’d heard her brag to her friends that her dad was a soldier. That I’d be there to protect her. Protect your kid, that’s the most basic task of a parent… and I failed. I went all over the place, all over the world, and what killed her was a moron behind a wheel instead of a bullet. I could have been there if I hadn’t gone. I could have warned her-”

“You couldn’t.” Sri cut him off.

Bart opened his mouth to retort.

“It’s not your fault Bart.” She kept going, lifting up a claw to start stroking Bart’s back for comfort. The unicorn was tense. “You said it yourself: Elke thought she was old enough to go by herself. Even if you had been there, you’d either have let her go on her own, or you’d have insisted, and she’d have hated you for it. The school would still have given the warning too late, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.” The hippogriff reasoned calmly. “You didn’t fail to protect your child. In fact I’m positive you are an excellent father.”

He didn’t seem to notice her inflection in the last sentence, but she felt her companion relax, somewhat. Idly, Sri wrapped her talons around one of his hooves.

“I’m sorry for your loss Bart. Truly. And I want you to know… if you’re worried and feel talking about it would hel-”

Sri was interrupted when the unicorn raised his head to plant a quick kiss on her beak. She caught herself blushing, ears going flat against her head.

“It does help, thank you.” Bart gave a small smile, still looking sorrowful… but better. Then he turned towards his daughter’s tomb, his horn flashing once.

A whirlwind of magic rose up around the tomb, instantly sweeping away snow and accumulated grime while gathering the plastic flowers and gently depositing them in vases around the headstone. With another flash of magic, the faded picture of Elke regained its lost colors. Bart stood up quietly.

“Tot ziens Ellie, papa komt je later bezoeken.” He concluded in his native tongue before turning away, back towards the gates.

The evening that followed was spent at a nearby farm which, although long vacated by both inhabitants and cattle, still had sturdy shutters and enough firewood for the night. They set up in front of the fireplace in the large living room before scrounging around for some leftover cans and dry food they ate so as not to dig too deep into their own supplies. By the time they finished their makeshift dinner and Aleksei was done giving a status report over the radio, the sun had set and what little light streamed out the window and into the farm’s courtyard showed snow falling quietly.

Aleksei watched the flakes land on the hood of the Defender for a minute before closing the shutters. She wasn’t too worried anything would bother them during the night. For one, the cleric had made sure her wards were set up around the farm… And for second, the region seemed mostly desert. Monsters and intelligent creatures could be sneaky, but they always left traces. Timberwolves tore up vegetation. Quarray eels would leave holes. Even returnees were easy to notice provided you paid attention to loot markers.

None of those in the region. Hence: a quiet night. She could already see the snuggled forms of Sri and the smaller Bart, both holding each other close under sheets, snoozing quietly with their bedding laid down near the hearth, the remaining embers still giving out a faint crackle.

With a yawn, the cleric waved her talons and watched the air shimmer before her, confirming her wards were locked shut and tight. Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she turned away from the window and finally headed for her own sleeping bag she’d set down on a dusty couch. She slid in neatly after shedding off her clerical robes and travel attire.

What greeted her soon after closing her eyes however, wasn’t the reprieve of dreams, but the now-familiar sight of a grassy plateau filled with equines under eldritch skies.

Epona’s realm in the Otherworld. And like most of her visits there, Aleksei appeared in a translucent projection of herself… which was unfortunately clad – un-clad rather- in her sleeping attire. Biting back that signature mix of equine neigh and avian trill hippogriffs made when annoyed, she decided to ignore that last detail and made a beeline through the tall grass in the general direction she knew Epona’s scrying pond was situated.

Although… she did take note that the realm seemed to be expanding, both in its population and detail. There were notably more creatures frolicking about the plateau, and more than just the horses she’d seen on her first visit there. Ponies – the Equestrian types that is- of various tribes, a couple hippogriffs and seaponies like herself, most cluttered around a small lake on the outer edge, even a couple centaurs too. That same outer edge of the plateau also bore the first buildings Aleksei had ever laid eyes in the realm. Crude log cottages with grass on their roofs, but a definite first on the grassy plateau.

In a way it shouldn’t have surprised her. After all, wasn’t it logical that an equine goddess would gain power that fast, given most returnee species had equine traits? The civilizing too, wasn’t much of a surprise, given Epona went from a patron of ‘mere’ horses (though they were still noble animals) to several sentient races.

What did surprise her when she actually reached her deity’s scrying pond, was what Epona looked like.

In fact she was so surprised she did a double-take at the sight and almost forgot to kneel before Epona in the usual fashion. Not that her vowed deity minded, but…

“Apologies for my rudeness, milady…” Aleksei stammered quickly. “I was just taken away by your looks. To what honor do I owe your summoning me tonight?” She inquired, sneaking a glance at the Goddess.

It seemed Epona had opted for the same logic of being relatable to her followers that some of her children – like Morvarc’h- had already been doing for a while. No longer was she a mere horse, however exceptional she may have been as one, but instead before Aleksei, perched on a dais that overlooked her pond, stood an alicorn version of her sworn deity. She still was a chestnut mare with white blotches covering her fetlocks and snout, except now the markings of three horses chasing each other in a circle of Celtic curls had moved to her hindquarters like a Cutie Mark. Her pearly white mane and tail which previously had been carefully braided, now floated behind her as though set in motion by an invisible wind.

And that divine aura was still wrapped around her, strands of golden magic floating about while her eyes glowed with gold, looking right at her.

Aleksei averted her gaze.

“Rise my child.” Epona spoke up after a second, once again surprising the hippogriff by speaking instead of conveying her meaning through telepathy. “There is no urgency in my summons tonight, only the need to ensure my clergy stays informed of the tides of this world. You in particular should take heed. The Fates are winding themselves around the Black Forest. I fear more awaits you there than your own quest, and that which would have far more sway than you do.”

“I’m but a cleric, milady. Such shouldn’t surprise me.”

“That ‘but’ would be an error in judgment, Lady Klavins. You are a cleric, true, but you’re my First and most powerful priestess in this Age. You have my trust that you will abide by your vows and carry out my will. Do not think lightly of it. You may not be the biggest fish in the pond, but you are by no means negligible either. Remember that. I have bestowed many boons upon you, in body and in magic.”

“And I shall use them wisely.” Aleksei promised.

Epona threw Aleksei a look the hippogriff didn’t know whether to read as sympathetic or knowing.

“I know you will. But heed my warnings. Do not take the Fey lightly, nor underestimate the Magics of the Wilds. Much awaits you still. Provided you make the right choices, greater heights may welcome you.” Epona warned, before her features turned more cheerful. “Aside from your own ventures however, our faith grows. Two more clerics have joined my fold this month, and believers all across the Celtic Nations and further flock towards our faith, many of them thanks to yourself. There is even word of the Hound returning and taking an apprentice to train into the Otherworld.”

“The Cù has returned?!” Aleksei’s eyes widened.

“Aye, by King Lugh’s decision, his son will now personally ensure Eire always has a protector. Both to keep the peace from without, as from within.” Epona nodded sagely before noticing something that made a smile appear on her muzzle. “I also needed to keep you up to date on the state of Brittany, but I do believe my own son is better suited for that than myself.” She said, the alicorn unfolding a wing and nudging Aleksei to turn the opposite direction, in time to see Morvarc’h emerge from the tall grass.

Aleksei’s heart fluttered at the sight of the stallion. Nostrils filling with his scent as he approached her and planted a kiss on her forehead. Her wings sprang open.

When she roused from her dreamwalk later in the night, Aleksei made sure to slip away to go clean her sleeping bag.

“I’m sorry, a what?”

“A floating city, you heard me.” Aleksei repeated to Sri, steering the Defender onto the side of the road to avoid a fallen power line. “It’s the City of Ys. Morv’ said he used to serve as the King’s stallion there before it sank for whatever reason.”

“Yeah like Atlantis.” Bart piped in from the back of the truck.

“I mean… kinda? I told you he didn’t go into details on the sinking, only that he’s planning to refloat it, and that now he’s actually managed to find the first ruins.”

“Wait, for real?” Sri tore her eyes away from the GPS and looked at Aleksei in disbelief. “Your boyfriend actually found French Atlantis? Damn...” She whistled, genuinely impressed. “Talk about luck. Over a thousand years buried under the sea, and he finds it in a few months’ time.”

“He’s no- No. Nevermind.” Aleksei shook her head. “Not biting that bait. But yeah, very lucky, ‘xcept now he’s got to find a way to actually, you know, repair and refloat a city.” She shrugged with her wings. “I figure anything that’s been under there for that long, can’t be easy to bring back up, magic or no magic. And there’s a bunch of stuff he’d need to scrap completely and replace with modern tech.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, which do you find more obvious? To avoid letting the city sink again or because you do need modern amenities?” Aleksei pointed out.

“I’m calling bull on that last one, we all know there are some communities that shun tech. Ask Fugro’s crew, they'll be happy to tell ya’.” Sri countered. “You can convince colonists to join without chucking plasma TV’s at them ya know.”

“Yeah I guess that’s fair...” Aleksei trailed off. “It’s just I had these thoughts on Ys. Stuff that could be useful to keep a city afloat. I mean, I’m an engineer, ain’t that supposed to be what I’m all about?”

“What, so now you want to move in with your big hunk of a stallion?” Sri laughed.

“Aw, shaddap.” The cleric gave her fellow hippogriff a mock punch in the shoulder before setting her focus back on the road as the terrain got progressively rougher.

It had barely been twenty minutes since they left the farm behind, and already the expanding mass of the Ardennes was rearing its ugly head with its effects on the landscape, compounding with the snowfall from the previous night which had laid a thick blanket over anything in view.

Which in itself meant Aleksei had to be twice as careful – and twice as slow- as she would otherwise have been lest she hit an obstacle or sent their truck skidding off the side of the road.

They weren’t even in the foothills yet, and the effects of the magic forest were already dawning on them. First it was the electronics: the GPS lost reception, Sandra’s voice from the day’s broadcast turned into the crackle of static on the radio, and their own personal satellite phones shut down, their batteries emptied.

Meaning if they ever stopped the engine while in there, restarting would be a pain in the ass.

Then they started seeing the signs. The anti-tech decay. Road cracked and falling apart. Power lines fallen to the ground and with their insulator layer seemingly decomposing not a year after the Event. Buildings with their roofs caved in and falling apart, with only winter halting the spread of vegetation as it crawled up the ruins.

And there was the vegetation too. As the foothills turned into the Ardennes proper, they first saw entire fields of young trees, most already three meters tall, that had sprouted and grown in a matter of months all over the place. Ruins so thickly covered in vines you could barely see the bricks underneath, some of them so thick their growth had ground the stone to dust until the plant was a trunk on its own, lifting up rusty girders that used to be a factory’s roof.

It was a testimony to how badly the land was warped, that Bart, a career soldier very much used to navigating his way around his own country’s rural areas, could barely steer them the correct way as they headed south as quickly as they could. Even the larger towns, some of which had been industrial hot spots in their own time, were ever so surely being swallowed by the enchanted forest, ground back to their base components.

The cities were in ruins. The towns were swamped down by vines and creeping vegetation. The villages were already young forest and heathlands.

And the forest itself…

Aleksei could feel a chill of foreboding creep up her spine as she stared at them. Oaks and pines, most as wide as a truck and winding their branches into one another’s for support, their bark twisted and gnarly from the insanely fast growth rate. Little in the way of light managed to carve its way through the canopy, and what did was only illuminating the cold fog that spread out between their trunks.

Oh, there were breaks in the forestry alright. A bit of an icy swamp there. Some heathland there. A snowy meadow that used to be a four-lane road.

But that still didn’t help the unease Aleksei felt whenever she looked at the expanse. Whatever entity had decided the Ardennes would turn that way… wasn’t a welcoming one. She’d seen a couple standing stones planted here and there in the ground, adorned with runes and sigils, celtic in their origin, but badly twisted. And those same sigils, they saw them on the odd ancient oak and animal they crossed paths with, each and every single one of them glowing with a faint silvery light that sent sparks flying in the breeze.

“This place…” Bart mumbled something in Flemish. “Wat duivel… It’s not right. This feels wrong.” The pony said.

“Damn right it does.” Aleksei nodded curtly, her eyes going back and forth between the road ahead of them and the truck’s gauges to make sure she didn’t stall the engine. There would be no second start if they did. “Last time I only flew over the region. From the ground… it’s much worse actually. As soon as we’re out of this place, I’m calling the fleet to tell them to put a big red warning label over the area. I know there’s supposed to be a goddess in the celtic pantheon that has this forest as her domain… but she hasn’t shown signs of life since the Event, which has many divinities in the pantheon concerned.”

“Can gods even die?” Sri piped in.

Aleksei frowned, unsure.

“Are they even alive to begin with?” She started her reply, her status as cleric making her doubly careful of her choice of words. “They’re beings of magic, manifested by the will of many. I don’t think death equates to the same thing to them as it does to us, except maybe when… if they take a corporeal form. The concerns mostly stem from the fact Arduinna was a regional goddess with a domain on the outer borders of the Celtic Nations. Past that, it’s Germanic territory.” The cleric tried her best to explain without overstepping the limits of her status.

“So they think she might have switched allegiances?” Bart guessed.

Aleksei nodded.

“Germanic or Roman, could be either, though I’ve also overheard some gods with multiple ties were treating pantheons like pubs during a bar crawl. Not Epona for sure, though she’s got an ear over what’s going on in the Roman pantheon.”

And that one was really the worst offender as shifty divine allegiances went. Part of why the WSU wasn’t in too much of a hurry to explore the Mediterranean too: let them sort out their allegiances first, then come actually do some work once the dust had settled. A few months’ wait would be more than enough, mid-2016 would be about the right time to sort that out.

In the meantime, the hours came and went as their truck continued its progress, sometimes forced to backtrack when faced with a particularly dense thicket, other times slowed down to a crawl by thick powdery snow, but the Defender kept going nonetheless, winding its way down narrow sinewy roads and ruined valleys. A pack of wolves (regular ones, not the car-sized dire wolves of the Black Forest) tried its luck against them around noon… and failed miserably, turning tail after the first few tracers landed in the snow ahead of them.

Packing 7.62 instead of the usual 5.56 was a good idea.

The highlight of the day came soon after that particular event, near the midway point in their traversal of the forest. It was after Aleksei drove the Defender down the slopes of a river valley and was nearing a fordable spot, that they actually met… someone? It was hard to discern at first, the dense vegetation and fog making it incredibly hard to see very far, but they saw a shape through the haze. Large. Dark. Awaiting on the other edge of the river.

Bart’s horn instinctively came alight, the glow of the unicorn’s magic wrapping around his rifle and chambering a round.

Aleksei wrinkled her nose as a strong scent suddenly filled the air, unmistakable. Boars. Lots of them.

As they drew closer to the ford, the dark shape made itself clearer, it too coming to cross.

It was a bulky wagon assembled together from logs which had been intricately carved before being smeared in a mix of tar, resin and pigment. It looked rough, but cozy, with a small chimney trailing smoke poking through a roof of wooden shingles. Tools, packs and knick-knacks had been hung off its sides, along with some feed-baskets, low to the ground. Idly, the group of three noted that whatever metal could be seen to be very crude at best. Pig iron.

Drawing the wagon was the cause of the smell. A large herd of some two-dozen wild boars led by four males each sporting impressive tusks which had been decorated with pigment. They all wore harnesses and walked in neat order, dutifully pulling the wagon. Sometimes, one of them would un-hitch itself and go grab a bite off the feed bags hanging off the wagon. In passing, and Bart only noticed them then, they would check on the piglets which were following shortly behind, guarded by a pair of sows.

The wagon had an owner obviously… one that made them blink.

It was a large figure, about as bulky as a minotaur albeit in a shorter stature with broader shoulders, clad in several layers of wolf fur and leather, sitting nearly motionless at the wagon’s reins. He was some sort of giant boar with bristly, dark brown fur. He looked at them unconcerned through a pair of shining, silvery eyes as they crossed paths, slowly taking puffs from the carved pipe he held in his maw.

The boar man just gave the trio a curt nod as their Defender emerged on the other side of the ford before he tugged the reins of his wagon and led his own boars across, muttering a greeting in a tongue Aleksei didn’t recognize before he starting humming a song in that same language.

Bart would later identify that language as Walloon, a dialect native to the region.

She did however quickly pull out a notepad and made a quick sketch of a few symbols she saw on his wagon. Maybe Lady Epona could figure out where the creature’s allegiances lay…

Not a minute later, the creature was gone, his silhouette swallowed up by fog and vegetation.

“What was that?” Sri finally asked after a minute of complete silence, Aleksei only then realizing she had left the truck idling, staring off towards where the creature had disappeared.

“I have no idea.” She shook her head. “It’s not a returnee species for certain… but some gods do modify their followers upon joining. Like Xolotl did to Los Lobos when he created wolf-dogs and jaguar warriors, so he could have been a returnee? I think?”

“So he could have been something else?” Sri inquired.

“If it’s not a returnee… not a demonic follower, definitely not...” Aleksei hesitated. “Could it have been a magical creature? But I’ve never heard of anything like it… No clue, sorry. No clue.” She concluded with a shrug of her wings before turning her eyes back on the road. “We’ll send a report about him. Maybe that’ll turn up something. Probably not.”

The rest of their journey that day was less eventful and… a bit boring even. Since they couldn’t really stop the truck lest it didn’t start up again, they decided to cross all the Ardennes in one go, taking turns at the wheel over the course of several hours of offroading, backtracking, and intermittently letting one of the two hippogriffs out to fly up and figure out where they were exactly.

At least river beds had changed little, and the decay had yet to fully deconstruct high voltage lines, so they could rely on the pylons to steer themselves the right way.

Nevertheless, it was already near dusk when they finally saw the influence of the Ardennes ebb and finally cease as they crossed what used to be the border of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, forestry finally making space for meadows and abandoned villages and towns which had sadly become the norm in this brave new world.

With yawns interrupting her sentences at increasingly more frequent intervals, Aleksei made her reports to the admiralty over the sat phone before the group found an old motel and elected to set up camp and turn in for the night.

Author's Note

At long last I've managed to put enough time aside to finish one more chapter. I swear it never was this hard for tome 1, but I guess you gotta make do with what you have.

And what I have... is not much free time unfortunately.

Nevertheless, I do hope this was enough to sate your curiosity and add some neat elements to the worldbuilding of the tidalverse. I try to pair advancing the story with small-and-large scale bits of worldbuilding, hopefully it works out.

As for why I chose to have the Ardennes that way... I would have to look deep to find the quote, but I think it was the French poet Appolinaire that said of the Ardennes (and translation may twist my words) that: [...] Of Men it makes Beasts, and of Beasts it makes Monsters [...]. So there you have why I made it that way.

Hope you liked the read, I'll be working on the next chapter for a good while. Depending on my schedule, could be... next chapter in three to four weeks?