level_main_13-03_end

I've never felt my blood flowing so clearly through my own veins.

It surges about like crazy, shooting out through my limbs, then finally converging on my heart again.

At Rhodes Island, when the Medic operators were examining me, they wanted to inject me with... what was it called? I forget.

I sure gave them hell about that. I've got the Originium—I didn't want more random junk around in my body.

Well, fine. I get the message. We need all this blood to live.

It carries oxygen and yadda-yadda, whatever, Hoederer told me once.

But right now, I'm sick of it.

You're my blood, you little shit, so listen to me.

And if not, you can get the hell out of my body.

I feel for the dagger on my waist.

*sighhhh*—

W, what the hell is wrong with you?!

Nothing. Just some bloodletting.

*sigh*...

Hoederer scrunches his brow. That Lich is giving her hat a death grip.

The racket finally dies down. No, actually, I guess we hardy bunch just got used to it.

Ines, are you alright?

Absolutely nothing's wrong with me. YOU guys explain.

I get it! These rocks don't work on chilly old hags. I bet Kal'tsit could dance a whole jig here.

I'd believe it. I'd also suggest you bandage that wound.

I cut surgical. Avoided the arteries.

So, this is an anti-Sarkaz installation? Something to do with the blood?

Sarkaz. Blood. Heh, there's a difficult guess.

This witchcraft device... hasn't properly activated yet.

Hm... I drew past this area on the uneasy feeling I had. Here lies the main offender.

Little wonder the tutors are always so cautious with matters of Londinium.

So what if it <i>does</i> activate for real? All Sarkaz explode and die? And then the Sanguinarch throws our blood all over the Victorians?

No vehicle tracks in the vicinity... No signs it was transported.

They took these giant crystals, crossed all these miles, and then set them down here directly?

Somehow... this wouldn't be the first time I've heard of something like that.

Lady Ermengarde... I'm guessing you have nothing to do with this either.

Naturally. Liches can't accomplish this sort of thing. The 'space' we research isn't this one.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, you recognized me just now?

Hoederer, was it...? I've had an eye on your books before. Some of your manuscripts are even in circulation among Leithanien's Sarkaz.

Do you have any leads for us?

Why should I be helping you? You just blew up my little cube.

Hrmph. The bitch just shot me a glance.

Hey, you don't know how much I'm holding back from stuffing a bomb in that chest cavity of yours.

Mm-hm. Are all Sarkaz mercenaries so eager to die these days?

If she says one more word, I'm seriously gonna do it.

Forget it.

Let's talk about that illusion just now.

That was a vestige... a spatial one, a temporal one.

Were you looking for vehicle tracks just now? That illusion was it. Some kind of special Arts is affecting this place.

But that wasn't Originium Arts, and it wasn't Sarkaz witchcraft.

These Arts Circles <i>are</i> related to the Vampires, and the illusion was definitely related to the Arts Circles, but there's no direct line connecting them.

Perhaps... these are leads you can use?

What position are the Liches taking?

The same as ever: we've made no promises.

But we have an informant telling us, Kazdel has... had Liches showing up too. You usually never make appearances in Kazdel.

...Oh?

You left Babel, joined an Infected organization, then ended up in Londinium, and you've still kept an intelligence net up in Kazdel?

Are you really just a mercenary? I feel like with your competences, you could get hooked up as a Gesatzswächter in Leithanien, relatively speaking. Oh, except your Arts is a little mediocre.

Personal habits.

Mm-hm... 'Personal habits.'

In a battlefield this extensive, how do you think you'd stop me if I <i>did</i> want to leave without a whisper?

You were... looking for us too?

Technically. I'm a little interested in you. Specifically you.

Do you Sarkaz always have to talk in riddles?

Score one interruption from Ines. She's getting impatient, nice.

Let her draw everyone's attention while I kill this son-of-a-Lich dead.

Given you get news from Kazdel, that naturally means our siblings act's just been feigning ignorance.

We need, mm, to give Theresis some... flex room. We're taking control of Kazdel right now. Everyone's come to Victoria, so someone's got to look after the place.

What flex room? Are you gonna hold a celebratory feast?

Yes, that's the first part of the plan. Then we declare national foundation day, and so on.

Haha, no more jokes now—

—That <i>is</i> just the first part of the plan.

Theresis and Theresa have no plans for evacuation at all. It seems they really do want Londinium to be the battlefield for a face-off against all the lands.

We have no idea what's giving them so much confidence, but if it's their plan, brother and sister, then they must have some means in place already.

So, if they do succeed—then that means we'll have to rebuild Kazdel, rebuild the Sarkaz's haven.

...And if they fail?

If the Sarkaz fail here, then we'll lose an entire generation of youth, and maybe every youth that was to come.

After the expedition of two hundred years ago, most nations had no clue about the present state of Kazdel. They weren't even interested.

Until all this, a lot of Victorian worthies believed Kazdel was just a pile of ruins.

But before the civil war, with Her Highness Theresa's establishment, Kazdel had a nascent nomadic city.

Until Theresis messed the whole thing up. Now Kazdel's just this supergiant witchcraft tractor, the kind that's got bolts and parts popping off it while it trundles along.

Kazdel wouldn't stand up to anything you could call a war, but the Regent just so happens to be starting one.

Once it begins, every spy will have made contact with Kazdel. How will those nations sitting on the fence... regard the Sarkaz within the territory?

Alright, you're a pessimist. Good, so am I.

So, part two of the plan—the Liches hanging back in Kazdel have formulated the plans to break the place up.

If Theresis fails, Kazdel will immediately be split into pieces, maybe a dozen or more...

Taking their affiliated residents, as per the apportioned, er, 'clan' units, off to hide deep in the barrens.

Route-planning, balanced production, and ensuring Kazdel becomes a nomadic city isn't without meaning. To the Sarkaz, the enmity of the rest of mankind is a Catastrophe.

Kazdel will greet another age of exile.

Again with the exile.

What kind of crap is this? As if we're not exiles already? Did I miss some nomadic city where we all live happy lives sipping afternoon tea, watching the Catastrophe clouds roll by?

The Sarkaz are strongly united at this point. Not at all the way I hoped... but purely in terms of endpoint, Theresis has done it.

But unity could mean more than just another vengeful massacre.

Despite that unity being founded on hatred and war? That's no easy ask, Hoederer, my brother.

Kazdel is more than a city. It's every person who calls it home.

In the original plan, Kazdel didn't need that many inhabitants... and they wouldn't let us take that many away, anyway.

We have to end this war in Victoria. The sooner, the better.

If we can't take back hate, then the least we can do is turn it to fuel, to cast the supports of Kazdel.

And every life, to the Kazdel of the future, may well be vital.

Easily said for you—

We just touched on a method for moving supplies and people over long distances. That might be what we've been after this whole time—what serves as the Military Commission's 'lifeline' in Londinium.

I'll find it, and seize it. It was able to bring us to Londinium, so... it can take us home too.

Before everyone's buried six feet under.

...Mm.

I...

You aren't certain to succeed. You're just a mercenary.

'A place to call home: somewhere you can always return to.'

Theresa.

All this time, I've been trying to keep that name separate from this war.

Her Highness...

How can a war just like before let anyone rest in peace?

Haha, I bet it's just some diversion by that Theresis bastard. He killed Her Highness, and he's still blaspheming her.

I'll make him beg forgiveness on his hands and knees.

And once he's done, <i>then</i> I'll turn his skull into fireworks.

Finding you was the right choice. I'll take your plans as the stance of... Babel's survivors, and inform the Liches.

Thank you.

But you blew up my cube! How do you want me to get back, on foot?

Eight kilometers northwest, there's a Sarkaz transport camp. Go and steal their car.

Need us to help?

Forget it.

I don't want her catching me again and finding out I've been making deals with you on the sly.

So, good luck to you, and may you... still be alive to make good on your promise after meeting her.

'Her'?

Hold on.

Are you guys getting this... familiar feeling?

What are you talking about?

What AM I talking about? I have no idea.

Dammit, Hoederer should be the one saying moody crap like this.

But still, what's bugging me?

Not far off, there's someone sitting on a mountain peak. Just on the edge of where that original illusion vanished.

She's just sitting there, like she doesn't have a care in her heart.

Her long pink hair draped over her shoulders, as it always was.

And that look in her eyes, that... sorrowful...

I look away.

How is this happening?

How, how, how...?

No, that's no illusion...

The moment I saw her, I knew it wasn't.

That's her.

...Your Highness?

She's gone.

I want to reach out to—

No, forget it.

Maybe I should save it for next time.

Besides... she couldn't have been real anyway.

She just... really, really looked like her. An indistinguishable forgery. Able to fool almost any pair of screwy, messed-up eyeballs.