Chapter 16: Imminent Fall
Personal System Calendar: Year 00014, Day 1-28, Month IX: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6858, 1st to 28th day of the 9th Month
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Arwen's Downfall
Arwen wasn't going to last much longer. More than half the kingdom had already capitulated, town by town, region by region, while the capital held on with whatever it had left. The food situation alone had already decided the outcome. They were holding the line, technically, but the enemy had turned this into a protracted siege rather than a quick conquest, and a protracted siege favored whoever could outlast the other side's supplies. Arwen's supplies were running out.
How long King Justavous Arwen the Fiftieth could keep this up was an open question, and whether reinforcements existed anywhere for him to wait for was an even more open one. His forces were already exhausted from fighting the rebellion alone. Two more organized, well-armed belligerents on top of that had pushed things past any reasonable hope of recovery. By all accounts the king had lost whatever grip on reason he'd started with. He refused to allow surrender in any form, declaring he would go down inside his own kingdom before he accepted anything less.
No heir had ever been formally appointed. Justavous had fathered children with numerous women over the decades, but whether any of them were even still alive, or had been quietly raised somewhere with succession in mind, nobody in his court actually knew. If he died here, the Arwenian royal line would likely die with him, and the Sovereignty of Arwen along with it.
Except for one detail nobody in that court was aware of.
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Ruth and Shawn
Thirty years ago, a minister serving the old king before Justavous, a woman named Ruth, had quietly ensured one of the king's bastard sons survived.
His name was Shawn. His mother, a maid in the palace and likely one of the many women across Justavous's reign who'd been used and discarded without compensation or protection, had left the infant on Ruth's doorstep with nothing more than the truth of his father's identity. Ruth, who by then had already seen enough of the court's cruelty to recognize a child in real danger when she found one, made the only choice her conscience would allow. She kept him. Raised him. Never told him more than he needed to know until he was old enough to carry it.
Thirty years had passed since that morning. Shawn had grown up entirely under Ruth's guidance, in the kind of quiet isolation that came from Ruth's own exile years earlier to the furthest frontier of the kingdom, a posting deliberately chosen to keep them both as far from court attention as possible. News rarely reached that far out, which meant the rebellion had caught them as off guard as it caught everyone else. By the time they understood what was happening, escape had already become a desperate scramble rather than a planned departure. They lost most of what they owned in the process. Several of Ruth's longtime servants died protecting them on the road north.
It took them weeks of obstacles and wrong turns before they finally reached the Outland Waycamp the previous month, down to two remaining servants and three guards, Ruth and Shawn making seven in total.
They hadn't pushed further north into Ogind territory, not out of any particular fondness for staying close to the border, but out of fear of how an Arwenian noble household, however displaced, might be received there given the history between the two kingdoms. Adjusting from the life they'd known to whatever waited for them as nobodies in someone else's territory was hard enough without adding that complication. But they both understood the Waycamp was never going to be more than a temporary stop. They needed somewhere that wasn't Ogind. Going further into Ogind properly was effectively impossible anyway, not with who they actually were. Maya Village, by process of elimination as much as anything else, became the obvious answer.
They'd only heard about the place recently, word filtering in slowly even to the wastelands they'd been exiled to. The rumors painted an odd picture. A settlement that felt entirely new to outsiders, yet supposedly carried two to three centuries of history behind it. It seemed like an impossible combination for a frontier settlement to claim. And yet here it clearly was, proven simply by the steady stream of merchants disappearing into the tree line every single day, escorted in and out by Imperial soldiers stationed at what people were now calling Sector One of the Outland Waycamp.
The forest entrance itself had tightened considerably. Refugees were no longer being accepted. Travelers, traders, and Imperial personnel still moved freely. It was widely known by now that the village itself had been the one to establish the Waycamp in the first place, back during the worst of winter, and that it still stood today largely because a handful of merchants had successfully argued against tearing the bunkers down once the initial emergency passed. What had started as a temporary shelter had grown into something considerably larger than anyone, including the village that built it, had probably expected.
"Shawn, I think it's best we try our luck inside that village," Ruth said one evening. "We can't live off aid forever. Eventually it runs out. We need to act now, before we lose the chance entirely."
Ruth was a hundred and seventy years old, which was considerable age for someone without a trace of magic to extend it the way mana-touched nobility sometimes managed. What had kept her going this long wasn't power. It was sheer practicality, and a kind of hard-earned wisdom that came from outliving most of the people who'd once underestimated her. Shawn had absorbed most of what she'd taught him over the years, though applying it himself was still something he was working on. Between them they had two Imperial orichalcum coins worth of currency, which sounded like more than it actually was once you accounted for how long it needed to last.
This was a village, at least. Settling somewhere with that kind of structure felt more survivable than staying indefinitely as guests of a refugee camp. They'd need work though. From what passing travelers said, this place was unusual enough that some were already speculating it could become a proper city within a few decades, an almost unbelievable growth rate given the location and the danger surrounding it.
"Can't we go to Ogind instead, mother? Wouldn't that be easier?" Shawn asked. He called her mother because she was, in every way that had ever mattered to him. His birth mother had left him at Ruth's door when he was barely two or three, too young to remember anything about her at all.
"It would be true, in a sense," Ruth said. "But I'm still part of Arwenian nobility, however quietly. Our history with Ogind runs deep, and eventually, no matter how carefully we hide who we are, the truth tends to surface. I don't think we'd be received kindly once it did."
"But wouldn't they understand, given everything we've been through?"
"Ha. You're old enough now, boy, but still far too green about how this world actually works. No one is entirely good, no matter what face they show you. Even people who genuinely mean well end up in positions where that goodness gets tested, sometimes broken, because the people around them aren't always good in return. There will come a moment when that happens. So for now, let's simply see what this place has to offer instead."
That gave Shawn real pause. He understood, somewhere underneath the words, that he still wasn't experienced enough to read the hidden currents in other people's kindness, the quiet reasons someone might help you that had nothing to do with actually caring. The war had taught him a little of that already, watching neighbors who'd once seemed decent get forced into choices that revealed exactly what kind of people they really were underneath. He was still slow to fully grasp it. But he trusted Ruth's read on people more than his own.
"Alright," he said. "Let's go to that place."
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The Forest Entrance
After their meal, the group moved toward the forest entrance, their faces and clothing deliberately unremarkable enough to blend into the general flow of people that were coming and going.
The guards stopped them at the checkpoint, just as they stopped everyone.
"Good day. What business do you have inside the forest?"
"We're hoping to enter the village and find work there," Ruth said.
The guard studied them for a moment. "Before I answer that, tell me first. Did you come from the camp?"
"We did."
"We aren't accepting refugees at the moment. But you said you are looking for work specifically?"
"Yes. We don't want to simply be refugees living off what's given to us. We're hoping the village might have actual work for us instead."
The guard considered this. He was young, low-ranking, clearly out of his depth on a question this specific. "Wait here for a moment. I'll get my superior. He'll handle this better than I can."
Captain Alphonse arrived within minutes.
"Good day. My man tells me you're looking for work rather than asylum. Let me explain our position first. The first wave of refugees has overwhelmed our housing capacity, eleven hundred people currently living inside the village. Closing the gates wasn't an easy call, and we've only recently started letting travelers and merchants back through. That said, I won't pretend the village refuses workers outright. But I need honesty from you. If you came from the refugee camp, say so plainly. We run thorough background checks, and there's a list that would confirm it regardless of what you told us. The reason for the honesty requirement isn't punishment. We want any arrangement here to actually be fair to both sides, not something either of us gets pushed into. As for worker status specifically, I think I can let you through, assuming that's genuinely what you're after. So. Do you all still want to go in?"
"Yes," Ruth said. "We'd rather take our chances here than sit at the camp doing nothing. That place exists for humanitarian aid, and eventually it won't exist at all. We're freeloading there right now, plainly put. We need jobs to actually stand on our own again."
"Understood. I'll have my men escort you along with a merchant group currently waiting for more travelers. We group people together for efficiency on the road. I'd suggest you wait with them."
They nodded and moved to the waiting area, minds already racing with everything they were about to walk into. It occurred to more than one of them, somewhere in that waiting period, that they were about to enter one of the legendary forests, the kind riddled with beasts that ordinary people simply didn't survive encountering.
Before departure, a guard briefed the group on basic forest conduct. What to avoid, how to behave, and a clear reminder that this forest held creatures that even the village's own soldiers couldn't always stop if something powerful enough decided to take an interest. Then a new arriving group joined them, and together they set out for the four-day journey to the village proper.
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The Journey
They had to ask for food along the way, which stung more than either of them expected. The merchant group traveling with them turned out to be generous about it without being arrogant about the charity. Fifteen guards escorted the combined group the entire route.
Four days passed slowly for Ruth and Shawn, every sound in the forest setting their nerves on edge in a way it clearly didn't for the seasoned travelers around them, several of whom mentioned this being their fifth trip through already. Those travelers traded stories along the way, near-misses with beasts that had ended without anyone getting hurt thanks entirely to the escort. The most circulated story belonged to a noble from Millhaven, retold with enough relish that Shawn suspected it had grown taller with each telling. The guards reminded everyone constantly never to wander from the group and to follow instructions immediately and without argument. Most of the genuinely dangerous incidents on this road, they said, traced back to someone simply not listening.
By the time the walls of Maya Village came into view on the fourth day, neither Ruth nor Shawn could have quite prepared themselves for what they actually saw.
These weren't village walls. Most settlements they'd passed through in their old life had simple log palisades, some with no walls at all. This was something else entirely, town-scale fortification with the unmistakable bearing of real military strength behind it, stretching far further than either of them expected, backed by a mountain that loomed over the whole scene like something ancient that was watching over the village. Overhead, shapes passed that were larger than houses. Not metaphorically. Genuinely larger than most houses they'd lived in.
Then a cavalry formation rode past the gate, riders mounted on wolves that towered over any horse either of them had ever seen, accompanied by several six-legged horses moving alongside them, perhaps ten in total, with eight Grimfang wolves rounding out the group. It was the village's cavalry division, likely heading out on patrol. Word among the travelers was that this unit was being expanded significantly, up toward seventy riders eventually, blending Grimfang mounts with the six-legged horses since not every wolf in the pack carried the temperament for cavalry work. Only Rexy's direct bloodline had proven reliably suited to it so far.
Rexy's pack had grown considerably since its founding years. Her own direct line, children and now grandchildren, numbered fifty-five, with litters averaging six to eight pups at a time. The wider pack she presided over, beyond just her direct descendants, had swelled to nearly four hundred, the strongest the pack had ever been since Rexy first took it over following the battle against seven Grimfang beast lords that had once threatened Maya Village during the earliest days of the Beast Dominion Wars. Between the wolves and the eagles, the territory was thoroughly under control now, secure enough that if the choice were theirs alone, the pack would likely have pushed to expand its range further still. The Dragon King's decree put a stop to that ambition for at least the next two to three centuries. No wars between neighboring forest territories were allowed; it was a complete stop.
Whatever frustration that restriction caused the pack, it didn't show in their condition. The wolves looked healthy, well-fed, thriving in a territory abundant with prey, almost certainly a quiet side effect of August's own passive buffs working their way through the land itself.
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Settling In
The guards escorting the new arrivals brought them directly to the immigration office, currently operating out of a temporary space near the Elder Council in Zone One, since Zone Four's dedicated administrative building hadn't been completed yet.
Their interview revealed something that shifted how they'd be classified. They were technically refugees, yes, but with actual coin to their name, which placed them in a different category entirely: migrant workers rather than refugees proper. They were issued a standard work contract. New applications for temporary resident status remained suspended, as they had been for some time now, with that pause expected to lift sometime in the spring next year.
They accepted the terms and were assigned housing in one of Zone Four's new apartment complexes built specifically for contracted workers.
Their story, by the time they told it to the immigration officer, sat somewhere between fact and convenient omission. Ruth and Shawn presented as mother and adopted son, which technically wasn't a lie, simply incomplete in the way that mattered most. The others traveling with them became former neighbors and household staff, which was, again, close enough to true that nobody had to actually lie outright. Ruth had formally released her remaining servants from any obligation to her well before reaching Maya, yet all of them had chosen to stay with her and Shawn regardless. None of them had family left to return to. Somewhere along the way, it seemed, Ruth had become the kind of person that people without anyone else left simply gravitated toward.
Their new life in the village began that same week, and they were likely among the first refugees from this particular crisis to think of their situation this way: not as something to mourn indefinitely, but as a door, however unexpected, into something that could still be rebuilt little by little.
The shock of arrival hadn't fully worn off yet. From the moment they passed through the gate they'd been surrounded by military infrastructure on both the village's side and the Empire's, followed quickly by working farmland, then proper industrial buildings, commercial districts, housing developments stretching further than they'd expected. There was simply too much to take in at once. For now, settling into the apartment was enough. It turned out to be a real home in its own right, modest separate rooms, comfortable furnishings already in place, exactly the kind of space suited to a single person or a couple starting fresh.
Since they'd already been processed for work, the immigration officers walked them through their options, asking about prior experience and existing skills to find the right fit rather than simply assigning something arbitrary.
Shawn chose farm work, something entirely new to him. He'd never had reason to get his hands dirty back in the wastelands, but something about starting fresh with honest physical labor appealed to him more than he expected. He didn't know it yet whether he'd actually be any good at it. He intended to try regardless.
Ruth, given her age, settled into something gentler: assisting in the village's growing textile work, knitting and mending in whatever hours suited her before the evening light gave out. Whether her hands still had the steadiness for it after a hundred and seventy years remained to be seen, though her spirit certainly hadn't dulled with age, mana or no mana behind it.
The rest of their small group found their own places. General labor mostly, work suited to people who'd spent years as household staff and guards and had little trouble adjusting their hands to whatever the village needed doing.