Michael and his friend's departure from Halkeginia have permanently altered the fate of the world. Not that anyone was aware of it yet, as far as most denizens of it know, the World War that was happening was the direst thing to address.
Albion is soon conquered by Germania, King Wales is killed in battle while defending the capital from Germania's army. Germania also declares war on Tristain for Loutiel and Matilda's invasion of their lands... Not that it matters.
Tristania gets sieged by Gallia, the bigger Empire relatively easily conquering it, and forcing Princess Henrietta to flee to Valliere lands like she had done when King Gramont rebelled against her... Only this time, Tristain's military was completely exhausted.
Karin de la Valliere is well aware that Tristain has lost, and decides to side with her family instead of her former country. This leads to Princess Henrietta getting captured, and sent to Gallia in chains... Unfortunately, Princess Henrietta decides that with the death of her lover, King Wales, living in chains isn't living at all, and throws herself off of a wall and to her doom, her head splitting like a ripe watermelon as it hits the hard ground below.
With the Princess's death, Gallia easily takes over the rest of Tristain, the nobles lowering their heads to their new overlords in hopes of gaining ranks similar to what they held under Tristain. Though, this is often not the case.
A year passes, and the war between Gallia and Germania continued to escalate... Despite Germania's larger military, Joseph de Gallia's intelligence and Void abilities allowed him to slowly whittle away at Germania's land.
He first took Albion and stationed a large portion of his air forces on the floating continent and used it to perform raids when the continent gets close to Germania's territory.
A quarter of Germania's territory is subjugated when King Joseph de Gallia turns his attention to other ventures... Specifically, taking back the holy land. Surprisingly, Romalia gives Gallia their full support in this venture, providing priests and other forces to assist in the invasion.
Louise Valliere is furious that her new country is assisting Gallia, who was responsible for the death of Princess Henrietta, who despite their disagreements, was still her best friend, even while separated.
She doesn't act however, knowing that she'd only perish under the might of Gallia if she did... During her stay with the Pope, she attempts to resummon a Familiar since Michael had not been heard of for so long, only for said summoning to fail, showing that Michael was still alive somewhere out there.
With Germania on the defensive, Gallia's war against the elves goes on unabated, but none were surprised when the first army was utterly annihilated by traps set up between their land and Gallia's. Trees pull themselves out of the ground and charge the infantry.
The earth rises and transforms into huge moving snake statues that throw themselves against Gallia's fortifications, easily destroying them. The rain above the soldier's heads turns to acid, melting their armour, weapons, and even their bodies if exposed long enough.
The acidic rain actually falls in concentrated amounts, creating makeshift moats of acid between the holy land and Gallia. Any boats laid down in it disintegrate, and any foolish enough to try and swim across it never make it to the end, meeting an agonizing demise as they dissolve completely.
To combat this, the Pope personally intervenes, casting magic that nulls any other magic in the area, turning the acid moat back to water, turning the tree ents back into wood, and turning the giant snakes back into stone.
With the war between humanity and the elves continuing, most don't even notice the wandering green-haired woman who searches for unique kinds of magic... Indeed, none even notice when she enters Romalia, seeking the assistance of a certain Pink-haired girl who'd been publically outed as a Void Mage.
All in all, Halkeginia had been brought low into constant war, with the peasants suffering from their noble overlords. All of this harm could be directly or indirectly blamed on Michael, as his intervention in the world was not for the better... Indeed, the world would have faired better if anyone else had been sent in his place.
Unbeknownst to anyone, an ancient slumbering dragon begins to awaken, though, how long that would take is anyone guess... The blood staining the soils of the land is but one catalyst that hastens the process...
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Anyway, back to Michael and friends...
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Michael and everyone else locked in his arms screams in utter terror as they flip, tumble, fall, and cascade through the almost doctor who-looking portal. Around them was a churning cyclone of smoke and mist that'd occasionally light up and explode with colour, multicoloured electricity striking in front, behind, at their side... Generally just everywhere!
It's a good thing Michael had the idea to lock arms with his companions, otherwise they'd have all spun apart and been separated by whatever the fuck was happening. Is this how Alice felt when she fell down the rabid hole? Or that boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!?
Michael of course isn't able to focalize any of this, as the only thing that exits his mouth is a continuous scream that is matched by the others. He wasn't even sure if he could breath right now, nor how he had been screaming so long. Maybe they should have allowed Tiffania to practise the spell a little more?... Regardless, nothing they could do about it now.
Now, where was he? Ah yes, *Ahem*, "AOOOOOOOOOHAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! ARHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSMORGENAHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
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JayJonnaJamison
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Faruk Ereng
Within a frozen, frostbitten yet still somehow green clearing, a group of larger than average deer were gracefully lapping up water from a stream. Each occasionally lifting its head and flicking its ears to watch for predators.
Out of nowhere, all of the deer raise their heads with alert looks in their eyes, heads tilting as they rapidly look around, a foreboding feeling overcoming them all.
*SCKKEEWWWWWWW!*
Out of nowhere, a huge portal opens up above them, the swirling electrified clouds circling it looking ominously similar to the portals used when Coldharbour had last invaded... Not that many denizens from that time are alive to make such a comparison.
*SWOOOO!*
The deer attempt to run at the sudden stimuli, but find themselves lifted clear from the ground and sucked into the portal. Which, after a couple more seconds, has a peculiar sound coming from it.
*uuhhhhhhhhh*
...
*ahhooohooooooouuuu!*
...
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRGH!"
*Thud!*
The portal spits out a group of strangely-dressed people, their bodies uplifting a cloud of dirt and dust as they land, each looking ragged and worse for wear... Whether that be from their hard landing or the journey to get there.
"Ooooooh... Shit..." Michael mutters as he pulls himself from the ground and sits up, his head and ears ringing as if he'd had a speaker blaring next to him. "Everyone alright?" he asks aloud while glancing at his comrades.
"H-here." Charlotte's voice trails out first, the girl stumbling to her feet while resting her weight on her staff... That was looking slightly crooked... Did she land on it?
"Me too." Illococoo says, the girl wincing as she puts weight on her leg. Seems as if she'd landed on it wrong. Hopefully the damage wouldn't transfer to her dragon form, otherwise, they were out of any transport for however long they were out here.
A soft, almost manic whimpering lets itself known, Charlotte's mother burying her face into the frost-bitten grass as she clutches the doll in her arms. When she turns, Michael realises that the doll was missing an arm, leaving the woman in complete distress. He ignores it for now however, letting Charlotte try and calm her.
"Tiff? You good?" he asks, having not gotten an answer yet.
...
He scrunched his brows, forcing himself to his feet and walking over to the downed Half-Elf. Tiffania didn't look injured, but her skin was pale, as beads of sweat were running down her face. He was worried, but didn't try to shake her awake, as he'd seen this before. "Magical Exhaustion." he mutters in confusion. "But she wasn't like this when she summoned the World Gate... Did the spell sap more mana when stepping through it?" he wonders aloud, but is drawn from his thoughts when Charlotte steps over to him with her mother leaning on her shoulder, her height making it look almost comical...
"Where are we?" she asks, causing Michael's eyes to widen as he too examines the surroundings. Yeah, he probably should have made sure they hadn't landed in a zombie pit or something before anything else.
"I'm not sure... It's almost as cold as Albion was in the winter though." he says, wondering just where they had landed. Hopefully it wasn't somewhere like Frostpunk, otherwise they were well and truly fucked... At least, if they couldn't escape before shit hit the fan.
He shakes his head and picks Tiffania up in a Princess carry, "Let's look for any signs of civilisation, I'd rather not see how cold this place'll get in the night. Plus, we have no idea what threats might be out there." he states and Charlotte nods, the girl gesturing her head towards Illococoo who was limping with a pained expression. "Help Illococoo."
Michael nods, walking next to the dragon girl and allowing her to rest her weight on him as he carries Tiffania. "How bad is your leg?"
"I don't know..."
Michael leans over to get a closer look and frowns at the red swollen flesh around the girl's knee. Could she have dislocated it? Fractured bone?... He wasn't a doctor, so hopefully they'd landed somewhere with modern medicine, otherwise, Illococoo was in for a bad time. "Just stick by me and we'll get that fixed up, alright?"
The dragon girl beams at him through her obvious pain, "Okay, Big Bro!"
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With that, the group gets moving after Michael passes out thick cloaks to everyone to make sure they don't get hypothermia or something. The last thing they needed was someone to get frostbite.
They come across a couple animals as they walk, some curious deer that bolt as they approach, a beaver of some sort, and lastly, a huge brown bear, larger than any animal Michael had seen in Halkeginia.
It lumbers through the foliage with its nose constantly on the move, most likely following their scents. Its size was truly surprising, if it stood on its hind legs it would've been ten to eleven feet tall! Not that he was worried or anything, he was sure he'd be able to deal with it if it attacked. Fortunately, he wasn't forced to kill it as Illococoo dealt with it in her own way.
When the bear got close enough she locked eyes with it and growled, the low rumble surprising most of the group aside from Charlotte who'd probably seen this before. the bear almost fell backwards as it quickly backed away, fleeing in the opposite direction.
"You know, I was thinking we coulda killed it for its meat and pelt, but... Whatever." Michael shrugs. Hopefully that bear was unique, as he wasn't looking forward to dealing with gigantic predators... Though, those deer from earlier were larger than usual...
"It's always killing with you, isn't it Partner?" Derflinger remarks from his hip having long recovered from his coma at the hands of Loutiel.
"To be fair, if we do come across people we'll need something to trade with. We don't have a lot of gold, and I doubt any advanced civilisation will be interested in our medieval gold coins, what few we have. A big ass bear pelt though, that's worth a good amount, if only for its rarity." he says while shifting Tiffania's weight in his arms.
Charlotte nods at this as currency was imperative, especially since they were foreigners to this world. Not to mention her goal to find a cure for her mother, she doubted it would be cheap if such a thing existed...
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to : https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
ShinAmazake
Kingsprovince
JayJonnaJamison
Jack Allen
Faruk Ereng
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