act33side

Regardless, the safest business for the Scar Market is with Your Highnesses. It would keep business flowing for at least the next fifty years or so.

Is that not so, Your Highnesses?

You're clever. Prophecy doesn't bring victory, but we can. Bring your mercenaries. We're moving out.

The crowd stirs.

The Sarkaz procession leaving the city is quiet, except for the occasional clang of weapons and equipment.

Their silence is rooted in the knowledge of the fate that awaited them beyond the city’s gates.

They wrap banners, torn from the walls, around their waists, or clutch Originium spikes, chopped from the streets, as makeshift weapons...

Each has their own ritual to remember the city that they may never return to.

Mom... Dad, where are you?

Dad! Mom!

Hmph... people really need to watch their kids. They can’t be allowed to run wild.

Ouch...

Careful.

Th-Thank you.

Where did you come from? Why are you also leaving the city? You'll fall if you’re not careful.

I'm looking for my mom and dad. Are you going out, too?

Yes... I'm going to the battlefield.

Are you looking for your mom and dad there, too? Can I come with you?

No... I'm by myself.

Why are you going out, then?

Because I don't want to hide in the city. I want to fight the people who are doing bad things to us. That's what my parents told me before they... they left.

I... I want to fight, too, but Mom and Dad won't let me go. I tried to sneak out and got a beating when they found out. But I don't want to be away from Mom and Dad.

We'll go together then, and find your mom and dad. But there'll be a lot of bad people out there. Are you scared?

You're not scared. Mom and Dad aren't scared. I'm not scared either!

The disheveled child pumps his fists to show courage, but his trembling betrays him.

The older child knows that the young boy does not fully understand what is happening outside the city.

But the young boy knows something simple but true.

Bad guys should be chased away. Families should stay together. So he takes the boy's hand, and joins the procession.

How do we find your parents when we're out there?

They work for Babel. They have a picture of a tower on their clothes.

Babel. I know that place.

Are you from Babel too?

No, I grew up in a Military Commission institution. I guess I'm from the Military Commission.

Military Commission? What's that?

A place that protects people, just like Babel.

What's your dad's name? Let's squeeze our way to the front. Maybe they're up ahead.

Goodluck!

Good luck?

Yes, he's Goodluck... why are you laughing?

Nothing... let's shout his name. Maybe he'll hear you!

Two children squeeze forward in the procession, holding each other's hand, calling out 'Goodluck' with their tiny voices.

A few heads turn, and sigh when they see the young and naive faces.

<i>Good luck</i>.

It is what they all need.

On an evening in the autumn of 1068, the music playing in the Kurfürst of Wasserland's study was interrupted by the sound of frantic knocking on the door.

The fleet that was pursuing the nomadic city of Kazdel had broken off its pursuit.

'Those crazy devils charged straight into a Catastrophe. It's only by sheer good luck that they got away.'

Years later, the Kurfürst of Wasserland still recounted the reason for his failure with palpable disdain.