Falkovnia - Silbervas

[Dread]

[The Jewel of Falkovnia, Silbervas, is liberated! Through the combined efforts of Prince Vladimir Szestylen and his men, the much-maligned kobold resistance group known as the Spawn of the Lizard, and the Dementlieuse mercenary band known as the Company of the Phoenix, the city is taken, though a fair number of the beautiful buildings the town is known for are destroyed by cannon-fire and the actions of cunning kobold sappers. It is said that the Shadow Insurrection, led by the legendary freedom fighter, Gondegal, is leading his own partisans down to reinforce Silbervas and keep it safe from near-certain reprisal from the Falkovnian regime.

The city's sailors and fishermen rant and rave about the return of the colossal leviathan known as the Grey Wyrm, if but for a fleeting moment, claiming that it emerged from the bottomless depths of Lake Kriegvogel to demolish several state-owned river-boats; some dismiss their ramblings as superstitious nonsense or a trick of the light, while others take their tall tales more seriously.

The Prince of Vladantilan makes a grand show of granting manumission to all slaves and non-human chattel within Silbervas, claiming that this is the ushering in of a new, brighter age for the beleaguered and broken Falkovnian people. The innumerable prisoners-of-war and enemy combatants are led inside Silberkopf, now the seat of power for the fledgling prince, and never return.]

"Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away."

- Homer, "The Iliad"

[Dread]

[The august Prince of Vladantilan was rumored to have been viciously assassinated yesterday by Falkovnian agents just as a delegation from Dementlieu had arrived to survey the fledgling country; details about the butchers responsible have been hard to come by, as not a soul in Silberkopf was left alive, save for those belonging to the delegation themselves. The paranoid among the gentry are quick to suggest a fifth column within Dementlieu's own delegation.

It is said that in the dead of night, a female figure wearing a pointy hat made her way northwards from Silbervas, bound for Castle Draccipetri. By the next morning, the people of Silbervas awoke to two massive armies laying waste to the city's walls, one from Aerie and another from Lekar. The din of battle stirred some from their beds; others perished as flaming projectiles from siege weaponry immolated their homes with them inside. Largely leaderless and still reeling from the death of the Prince, the rebels put up only token resistance. Rumors are that armored figures wearing black and gold, the colors of nascent Vladantilan, made their way into the shadows as the battle was joined and were never seen again after.

The city was taken back by Drakov's armies by that afternoon; in reclaiming Silbervas, total war was, in the tyrant-king's mind, the only viable option. When one need not differentiate bystanders from enemy combatants, conquest is made far less of a challenge.

Vlad Drakov himself arrived in time to witness the executions; many hundreds, perhaps thousands, were impaled. Parents were dragged away from crying children; men pulled out from their homes to the accompaniment of wailing women. Those who received "mercy" were instead enslaved and made to march for miles in fetters, towards their new "home" in the Central Prison.

Hope is crushed firmly underfoot beneath an armored boot. Perhaps the only fraction that remains involves Gondegal, for he was not among those captured and executed; nor was the particularly large kobold known as the Basilisk among held fast by the Hawk's talons. In spite of this, the life and spirit that lurked briefly upon Silbervas' streets whilst it was free has been largely snuffed out and extinguished, the feeling of oppression palpable and felt in the air. Just as it was before.]

“People will continue to commit atrocities as long as they believe in absurdities.”

- Voltaire

~ FIN. ~