War on Empyria [NSFW, Anthro, all species allowed.]

@Cerebrate  
“Oh, as long as it’s about what I was getting under my previous recruiter, I’d certainly be open to it. I’m in.”

@Cerebrate  
Yes of course I am still on abouse those ‘toys’.
 
he leads them forward away from the main encampment so rhey can ready to clear the eay

@EclecticInspiration  
“excellent, glad to have you on board again… and on a personal note, thank you.”
 
by now the preparations were probably finished too.
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
as night falls and sight once more is for the cats only, you meet up with chaser’s other underlings, lynx clawfighters thrived in these surroundings, becoming the shadow of the reaper herself in the night.

@Cerebrate  
“Any time. Especially with those bastards.” He’ll spin his decorated hammer in his hands.  
“Now I’m off to deal with the supply route trouble.” He’ll leave.  
A select couple ‘generals’ will be en route with their troops, though depending on the distance, they’ve probably already made it there, & have set up a defensive ambush

[ 🎶 ]
 
 
_{[ scaffold “canopy” above the airshipyard’s massive construction bay below it. ]}
 
In the time since Indra’s return to the city, a deluge of engineers, supplies, & teslatic legionnaires have gathered within the airshipyards–in particular the hangar containing the half-finished ecclesia vessel mothballed after the assassination attempt.
 
While ambient of active industry within is obvious, the commandeered section of the facility’s windows are all shrouded…
 
From nearly every entrance, unusually-uniformed, masked, & armed legionnaires also make their rounds, standing vigilant & denying entry no matter the sanction, nor even official standing in teslatic hierarchy; at the one & only permitted entrance, engineers, guards, & others allowed in are scrutinized carefully, & through undisclosed means have even managed to screen several disguised Cabal, merely evicting them unharmed back out unto the passing street once discovered, however.
 
Along with Cabal interlopers, most other non-citizens, as well as those that can’t be backtracked through documents confirming their identity–as well as recent history of at least five years–are also forbidden entry; whatever is now becoming of that mothballed airship has been brought under heavy measures by Indra to be kept airtight from disclosure…

@Cerebrate  
Nyanta: Oh my favorite group of people. Nice. he meows out and looks to chaser

@EclecticInspiration  
Matt: “happy hunting.”
 
that was just about a dismissal, Matt was a busy man himself, frowning at a new report… it was clear the engineer leader was less than enthused about leading a war economy to survival… with the way the alliance looked he’d probably defer to a cabalite leader once they become more open about their presence.
 
 
@Coriolanus  
Expedition survivor: “ever since we got back no one has seen a single roughscale of the shark, and now he commandeered that ecclesiarch dreadnought… i mean it’s obvious enough that at some point an airship without equal will be leaving this hangar… but why do you guys think all the secrecy?”
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
Chaser: “i pride myself on keeping standards high with them.”
 
sure enough they move without a sound.
 
Lynx: “by the time they hear the gentle rustling of the cornfields, they are already bleeding out on them.”

@Cerebrate  
“You get anything that needs force- well, just make me a pile for later.” He shakes his head and leaves, finding the situation unfortunate. Could be worse, he supposed.
 
Elsewhere, his force, triple the size of what usually guards these shipments, lies in wait for hostile raiding parties- especially of the Uruk sort.

@Cerebrate  
,,,,, Midnight is this what I sound like?
 
he holds Pearls Paw and meows out softly oh god it is

@NyantaStarhunt  
Pearl: “well, you know what they say.”
 
a large scarecrow hefting a scythe and speaking with Greensprout’s voice.
 
“harvest time.”
 
(the image of a scarecrow coming to life behind you as your comrades just stop answering one at a time.)

@Cerebrate  
“The devil’s in the details,”
 
Said by a canid officer in a rugged jumpsuit sitting out of place at a nearby ritzy table, their backdrop a vista to the teslatic capital’s natural clean-water reservoir. In contrast to their lethal trade, & their collective nightmare of an experience, the expeditioners’ve taken well to the plush surroundings of their days at rest.
 
“By keeping it under a tight lid, all the newfangled bells & whistles to the soon-to-be-skipper’s ship’ll stay in-house, & off other vessels attempting to emulate… Personally, I think he’s putting together a ‘hunter-killer’ of sorts: along with it’s capabilities, he doesn’t want the vessel’s distinctive signatures becoming familiar knowledge to airship acousticians, uruk or otherwise, at least not before the big debut…”
 
 
“I’ve heard he’s cobbling something out of those atmotic torpedoes he’d been toting,”
 
heard below the balcony they’re both upon, by a kobold kicking his clawfeet off the reservoir’s dockside. In the tiny lizard’s hands are the inner-workings of a fishing-rod’s reel.
 
“Something bigger though, & rebuilt to seek toward the particular hums of uruk airship engines; I think it’s true, considering some of the odd knick-knacks they’re bringing in, like gramophone parts. Those shipments stick out like a sore thumb… Should probably work on concealing the contents of those deliveries in the future, I’ll bring it up when I see him again.”
 
 
“I keep thinking what if he may’ve gotten ahold of more of that ‘virescent ash’, that stuff Koldo used…” Whispered beside by a seated feline sergeant leaning over to the canid officer & survivor. “Paired with a missile-armed airship, who knows what he’ll d-”
 
 
“He later admonished Koldo for that too, you know.” The canid officer cuts in. “No demotion, since both understood they had to use that horrid stuff if we were to escape, but the skipper’s made clear that nothing like that ever happens again without his explicit say-so. Trust me, he’s of sound mind for the command he’s trusted with.”

@Coriolanus  
“except against the cult it absolutely WILL happen again, of course.”

@Cerebrate  
Officer: “Well, it comes down to circumstance.”
 
“The old capital, that was exceptional. The fall of it was before my time, but after seeing that place in person, festering since the collapse, clear as day of what the ‘cult’ has intended for the world… I’ll just say, it makes the Uruk look practically philanthropic for coming to Empyria, which, makes me wonder if they’ve ever used that as a bargaining angle… That also has me worried wondering if ‘transients’ unaligned with any houses may side with the Uruk, just to get away from all the internecine chaos.”
 
“…The tangent of realpolitik aside, with the Uruk, inglorious as it may be, it comes down to a matter of strongly differing principles, but no one’s vouching to firebomb them into oblivion, even if they’re just a bunch of ancient savages, who claim people like chattel… The way I see it, they’re at least possible to hold parlay with, and so purely out of kindness and civility, for their sake, that we’re abiding by those official bans on alchemical weaponry…”
 
“With the Cult, we’re stopping a plague, before it kills everyone and everything.”
 
 
The fishing kobold below: “I hope Matt’ll lift that official ban though, just to purge the cult with no holds barred, cuz if I already never see disgruntled gralloch coming at me again, it’ll be too late.”
 
 
Officer: “Well, if you need catharsis, hearsay has it that the commander’s developed a recent fondness under the table for portable flame projection. Sounds gratuitous when we could just hire drakes, but alchemical, liquid-fueled flames… More thorough, I say. Burns hotter, too… Don’t even have to be in the flame to get burnt by the heat and light. Non-user friendly, dangerous, right up your alley, kobold.”
 
 
Kobold: “…More importantly, I get to shoot flames, like a… like a-” _{^@__@}
 
 
Officer: “Like a dragon, Specialist Voss. Like a dragon, but even better…”
 
 
Feline Sergeant: “Newfangled airships, flamespouting devices… Next thing you know, we’ll redevelop the old autogy—”
 
_{^{[ 🎶 ]}}  
Drowned out suddenly by an intense mechanical roar rattling everyone down to the bone,  
the group witness something large soar past by and extremely closely, driven by rear propeller…
 
Sergeant: “…speak of the devil.”

@Coriolanus  
“looks a bit archaic compared to Matt’s Twinblade lifters…”

@Cerebrate  
Canid Officer: “I think in this case, simple is just what we need.” He says, while observing the craft break in momentum, rising high to the skies above the reservoir, before listing off to the side, turning and banking back toward the airshipyards.
 
“…Something like that, with cables, one could launch a few off a moving airship’s deck as the winds alone would drive the top propeller to get’em behaving like a kite, and best of all, the airship itself needn’t be built solely as a gyrodyne carrier.”
 
 
Voss: “Ehm… I’ve also seen alotta silk getting brought in, lately… and that must explain that there;” The kobold points, as while the autogyro flies, it stalls for a moment above the reservoir, above a boat sitting out there, before someone suddenly leaps out the aircraft’s side, plummeting fast for a brief moment before a crescent-sheet of cloth billows out above him, slowing his descent down to the waters and boat below.
 
The autogyro meanwhile continues its return to the smokestacked airshipyards in the distance, landing unto an opened section of rooftop where a landing pad is exposed, before getting pulled into a hangar as the overhead roof closes back up.
 
Officer: “They call those parachutes… How much silk did you see, Voss?”
 
 
Voss: “Lots. Lots and lots of, just, bales and bales of silk, all naturally made and recently traded in from the Floranim.”
 
 
Officer: “Well… I guess we’ll all be learning to jump out of aircrafts and airships in the coming days.”

@Coriolanus  
“that could be a great addition, our avian friends already had the suggestion but being unable to land heavy duty arms or support it was dismissed as too risky. sure a hit squad could be formed but now we have a proper air to ground operation with that.”

@Cerebrate  
Sergeant: “Only learning, though. Until Indra’s pet project is flying, we’ll probably only be getting acquainted with procedures, and likely that flashy new equipment those guards’ve been toting… Seen those bomb lances of theirs? Nasty business.”
 
Voss: “And those storm-drums, or those masks concealing their identities… Who do you think those guards are?”

(slurp)

@Cerebrate  
Nyanta: oh my god it’s how I sound. he meows out and gets ready to move out with them all

@EclecticInspiration  
as they watch the road they find the carts moving up along it, only the normal guard complement… the next moment however lightning strikes come down, Noblian units were attacking the convoy.
 
 
@Coriolanus  
(what’s a storm drum link is borked.)
 
“probably some handpicked force working for Indra directly, he doesn’t like it when soldiers have any higher loyalties, like to chief Matt.”
 
 
@NyantaStarhunt  
the night had blanketed the fields, and was only broken up by the lanterns and campfires of the uruk guards.

@Cerebrate  
A young deer raises a staff and her many archers ready.  
Lun, a bit older, nearing his prime, crosses his polearm in front of his troops, signaling to ready but remain still.  
A bird atop the trees raises a wing to halt- it would not yet be safe to fly. Not in this lightning.  
…  
…  
…  
Upon sight of the Noblians, the deer shall lower her staff, her undisturbed archers shall release a volley. She raises it again- they ready- she lowers it again- the loose another lethal volley.
 

 
On the Noblian side of things, they’ll witness a rain of of arrows in waves- a lethal distraction to the charging mercenaries from the treeline. The front is headed by several quicker species- big cats and horses, for instance.  
Before contact, the equivalent of the Noblian frontline(since ambushes may have a lot of “front” and not a lot of “line”) will hear a terrifying whistling sound before being pelted with stones moving fast-enough to kill a horse(IRL, non-qnthro horse)

@Cerebrate  
_{( theeees )}
 
Canid officer: “That’s just the way command hierarchy goes. No one wants their lead subverted, not even for the best of reasons. As for who they exactly are, alot of expeditioners’ve called in earlier than the end of their allowed absence. Guess they’re determined after all of what they’ve been hearing about the other houses, and what they’ve seen in person.”
 
Voss: “…Maybe we should as well?”
 
Canid officer: Sighing, he looks and rolls the last dregs puddled at the bottom of a wine bottle. “Maybe… What about you Blanche?”
 
The feline sergeant, Blanche: “Sure, better than sittin’ around all day gettin’ chonky.”
 
Voss, to the survivor: “What about you? Ready to practice falling out of the sky right into the Cult’s ravenous maws?”

@Cerebrate  
Nyanta: he gathers all his friends up and readies them alright move quick and silent.
 
We have to make sure we get everyone. Heh, good luck my little squad of death he gives them a thumb up and a smile try to move in small teams

@EclecticInspiration
the noblians lacked numbers, and technology, but their royal guard were renownedly disciplined.

@Coriolanus
“oh hell no, literally, i am quite fine falling only my own height, i’ve asked to be assigned to the agri-guard, we retake the great plains with the help of the cabal and control the food of empyria again.”

@NyantaStarhunt
pearl and chaser form up with you again, as you delve into the tall standing fields.

CHaser: “so… the flowerhead prince is using vines to control that scarecrow, ingenius, and terrifying.”

(I kinda just wanna eat people, like in that sunhammer thread. That was fun.