📻 BBN Transmission Log
Date: 990 AC - 998 AC
Location: Empire-Kingdom Border
Civilization: Eastern Empire and Western Kingdom
Event Type: Political/Military
Story Arc: The Age of Paranoia - Part Seven
⬅️ Previous: Returning to Normal
➡️ Next: [Coming Soon (30.10.2025) - Subscribe for Updates]
📚 Series Hub: Complete chapter list and series info
Previously: Crown Princess Lyra awakened from her five-century slumber in 500 AC, appearing as a teenage elf with catastrophic magical power. After her uncontrolled magic inadvertently enriched both civilizations’ soils through accidental monsoons and earthquakes, the Kingdom’s artificers created the Scepter of Controlled Resonance to help her channel her abilities. Emperor Constantine XXIII issued a decree of “provisional tolerance” for the Astral Observers in 510 AC, allowing them to work openly on agricultural matters. By that year, both civilizations had found paths toward stability—the Kingdom through magical-technological harmony and the Empire through scientific agriculture. Trade tentatively resumed between the transformed Kingdom and the recovering Empire, marking the end of five centuries of isolation.
The Seeds of Madness
In the year 990 AC, nearly a millennium after the comet’s impact, the Eastern Empire had achieved something approaching normalcy. The population had stabilized at approximately eight million souls—still below pre-impact levels but growing steadily despite the lingering fertility curse. The agricultural techniques introduced by the Astral Observers had transformed once-barren lands into productive farmland. Cities that had been ruins for centuries now bustled with commerce. The Glass Desert remained a scar upon the landscape, but its radioactive threat had diminished to manageable levels.
Emperor Augustus XVII—four-hundred-and-thirty-second in the unbroken line claiming descent from Marcus the Divine—presided over this recovery from the newly rebuilt Imperial Palace. At forty-three years of age, he had inherited a throne that represented both the Empire’s greatest strength and its deepest vulnerability. The divine mandate claimed by every Emperor since Marcus had sustained Imperial authority through nearly a thousand years of hardship, but it had also created a legacy of sacred responsibility that weighed heavily upon each successive ruler.
Augustus had shown early promise. His coronation at age twenty-five in 972 AC was marked by celebrations throughout the Empire. He commissioned new temples, expanded the Imperial Agricultural Institute, and even cautiously increased the Observers’ freedoms—allowing them to conduct limited astronomical observations if framed as “agricultural timing studies.” Trade with the Western Kingdom flourished under his early reign, with magical crops from the Kingdom feeding Imperial citizens while pre-impact artifacts and technical knowledge flowed westward.
The Emperor’s transformation began subtly in the autumn of 987 AC, following what Imperial physicians described as a “fever of the mind.” Augustus had always been studious, spending hours in the Imperial Archives studying the pre-impact records preserved by generations of scribes. After his illness, this scholarly interest became obsessive. He began spending entire days and nights poring over ancient texts, particularly those relating to the comet impact and the centuries preceding it.
Court observers—not the astronomical kind but palace officials—noted disturbing changes. The Emperor would emerge from the archives wild-eyed and agitated, muttering about “hidden meanings” and “deliberate obscurations.” He dismissed three successive Chief Archivists for “conspiracy” when they could not produce documents he believed existed. His trusted advisers found themselves shut out of meetings, replaced by obscure scholars and fringe historians who reinforced his increasingly paranoid interpretations of history.
By 990 AC, the transformation was complete. Emperor Augustus XVII had become convinced that the official history of the comet impact contained fundamental lies, and that these lies had been perpetuated to hide the Western Kingdom’s culpability in the catastrophe.
The Historical Revisionism
The Emperor’s reinterpretation of history, which he began proclaiming publicly in the spring of 990 AC, represented a radical departure from nearly a millennium of established understanding. During an address to the Imperial Senate—a largely ceremonial body that advised the Emperor on matters of governance—Augustus laid out his theory with the fervor of religious revelation.
According to the Emperor’s new interpretation, the comet that struck Novus on December 26, 1 BC, had not been a natural celestial body but a weapon created by the Academy of Natural Philosophy in the Western Kingdom. The meteor showers of 150 BC had been “tests” of this weapon system. The increasingly frequent appearances of the comet throughout the second and first centuries BC represented the Kingdom’s preparations for “ultimate deployment.” The comet’s final approach and devastating impact were not divine judgment, as the Imperial Church had always taught, but deliberate aggression by the Kingdom against the Empire.
The Emperor’s evidence for this extraordinary claim consisted of selective readings of pre-impact documents, misinterpretations of astronomical records, and creative connections between unrelated events. He pointed to Queen Astrid’s funding of astronomical research in 150 BC as proof of “weapons development.” The Academy of Natural Philosophy’s study of meteoric materials became “reverse-engineering of cosmic weapons.” The fact that the Kingdom had transformed rather than died in the impact was cited as evidence of “protective magic” that proved foreknowledge and preparation.
Most damningly in the Emperor’s view, the cosmic crystals that had caused the Kingdom’s transformations were not random fragments scattered by the comet’s explosion but “deliberate contamination agents” designed to weaken and ultimately destroy the Empire. The fact that the Kingdom had gained magical powers while the Empire suffered centuries of hardship was not unfortunate chance but calculated malice.
This interpretation required ignoring vast amounts of contradictory evidence. It overlooked the fact that the Kingdom’s population had suffered tremendous losses from the impact, with widespread deaths and chaos throughout the transformation period. It disregarded the reality that Queen Marina’s assassination had occurred nine months before the impact—in the third month of 1 BC—making coordinated weapon deployment impossible. It ignored centuries of Astral Observer research demonstrating the comet’s natural origin and predictable orbital mechanics.
The Astral Observers, whose provisional tolerance in the Empire had seemed secure just decades earlier, found themselves in an impossible position. Master Observer Helena—great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the legendary Claudius and the current head of the Imperial Agricultural Institute—was summoned before the Emperor in the summer of 990 AC. When she attempted to present astronomical evidence refuting his theories, Augustus accused her of being a Kingdom agent. Only her organization’s deep integration into Imperial agriculture saved her from immediate execution, but the Emperor decreed that all Observer activities would henceforth be “monitored for sedition.”
The Descent into Paranoia
Throughout 991 and 992 AC, Emperor Augustus XVII’s paranoia deepened and spread like poison through the Imperial government. He established what he called the “Historical Integrity Commission,” staffed entirely by scholars who supported his revisionist theories. This Commission was granted extraordinary powers to investigate “historical conspiracy” and “foreign influence” throughout the Empire.
The Commission’s activities quickly exceeded even the Emperor’s initial mandate. Anyone who questioned the new historical narrative faced investigation. Merchants who traded with the Kingdom were accused of espionage. Scholars who cited Astral Observer research were charged with spreading “kingdom propaganda.” The Commission even examined temple records, seeking evidence that Imperial priests had been “compromised by Western influence.”
Dozens of respected historians, scientists, and officials found themselves imprisoned or exiled. Master Observer Helena fled to the Western Kingdom in late 992 AC, taking with her several years of agricultural research and a detailed account of the Emperor’s mental deterioration. Her departure was proclaimed by Augustus as proof that the Observers had always been Kingdom agents, vindicating his suspicions.
The Emperor’s paranoia was not helped by his physical health, which continued to decline. Imperial physicians documented symptoms including severe headaches, visual disturbances, unpredictable mood swings, and what they described as “episodes of disconnection from present reality.” Modern medical understanding would recognize these as symptoms of a progressive neurological condition—perhaps a brain tumor or degenerative disease—but in 992 AC, physicians could only prescribe rest and herbal treatments that proved ineffective.
As Augustus’s condition worsened, his inner circle shrank to a handful of sycophants and true believers. Chief among these was General Marcus Severus, commander of the Imperial Legions and a man whose own paranoid tendencies aligned perfectly with the Emperor’s. Severus had long advocated for military expansion and viewed the peaceful coexistence with the Kingdom as a sign of Imperial weakness. Under his influence, the Emperor’s historical revisionism took on an increasingly militaristic tone.
By the end of 992 AC, the Emperor was no longer content with reinterpreting the past. He had begun speaking openly of “historical justice” and “necessary correction of ancient crimes.” The Kingdom, in his view, owed the Empire reparations for a millennium of suffering—reparations that could only be paid through conquest and submission.
The Population Crisis
The military buildup that Emperor Augustus envisioned required mobilization on a scale unprecedented in Imperial history. Through 991 and 992 AC, military planners worked to determine how many soldiers the Empire could field while maintaining basic societal functions.
With a population of eight million, the Empire faced difficult calculations. Historical records suggested that sustainable military mobilization rarely exceeded ten percent of total population for extended periods. Imperial census data indicated approximately 1.8 million adult males of military age (sixteen to forty-five years). Conscripting even half of these would devastate agriculture, manufacturing, and essential services.
Yet Emperor Augustus, driven by his delusions and supported by General Severus’s ambitions, demanded the largest possible army. The compromise reached by 993 AC called for mobilizing eight hundred thousand men—ten percent of the total population. Of these, approximately six hundred thousand would serve as combat troops, with the remaining two hundred thousand in support roles: logistics, supply, medical services, and administrative functions.
This mobilization represented approximately forty-four percent of the Empire’s military-age male population—a staggering proportion that would leave entire communities without young men, farms without workers, and workshops without craftsmen. The economic consequences were predicted to be severe, but the Emperor dismissed such concerns as defeatist thinking that betrayed insufficient commitment to “historical justice.”
The Breaking of Bonds
On the first day of 994 AC, Emperor Augustus XVII issued what became known as the Decree of Severance. The document, presented to the Imperial Senate without opportunity for debate or modification, represented the complete rupture of nearly five centuries of gradually rebuilding relations between Empire and Kingdom.
The Decree contained twenty-seven articles, each more severe than the last. All trade with the Kingdom was immediately prohibited, with violators facing execution as traitors. All Kingdom citizens currently in the Empire were given thirty days to depart or face arrest as enemy agents. All correspondence with Kingdom contacts was forbidden. All goods of Kingdom origin were to be surrendered to Imperial authorities. All magical items or knowledge derived from Kingdom sources were declared “contraband of enemy power.”
Most controversially, the Decree formally declared the Western Kingdom to be “the ancestral enemy of the Empire and perpetrator of the Thousand-Year Crime”—making war with the Kingdom not merely permissible but a sacred duty of the Empire. While the Decree stopped short of an immediate declaration of war, its language made such a declaration seem inevitable.
The economic consequences were immediate and severe. The Empire’s agricultural sector, which had come to depend on Kingdom seed stocks that produced higher yields, faced a sudden supply crisis. Markets that specialized in Kingdom goods collapsed overnight. Border towns that had thrived on cross-border trade found their economies devastated. Estimates suggest that the Decree cost the Empire approximately fifteen percent of its agricultural output and twenty percent of its commercial trade within the first year.
Social consequences were equally profound. Over two thousand Kingdom citizens—primarily merchants, scholars, and diplomatic personnel—fled the Empire in the thirty-day grace period, often abandoning property and possessions in their haste. Mixed families—rare but not unknown after five centuries of contact—were torn apart as spouses and children with Kingdom connections faced persecution. The few Kingdom-born individuals who had fully integrated into Imperial society found themselves suddenly suspect, facing investigation by the Historical Integrity Commission.
The Astral Observers’ position became untenable. Though technically Imperial citizens, their long history of cooperation with Kingdom scholars and their use of “Kingdom-derived magical contamination” (actually scientific methodology) made them targets. Master Observer Marcus Aurelius—seventh in the line descended from Claudius and Helena’s successor at the Imperial Agricultural Institute—was arrested in the spring of 994 AC on charges of “facilitating foreign influence.” His trial became a show proceeding where his scientific work was recast as espionage and his astronomical observations described as “signaling to Kingdom agents.”
Aurelius’s execution in the summer of 994 AC marked the end of the Astral Observers’ open presence in the Empire. The remaining Observers went underground once more, hiding their identities and activities just as their ancestors had done a millennium earlier. The Imperial Agricultural Institute was closed and its facilities given to the Historical Integrity Commission. Nearly five hundred years of patient work toward scientific acceptance vanished in a season.
The Kingdom’s Response
News of the Decree of Severance reached the Western Kingdom in early 994 AC, carried by refugees fleeing Imperial persecution. The Kingdom’s response, coordinated by Crown Princess Lyra—now appearing to be in her mid-twenties though nearly a thousand years old—was measured and defensive rather than aggressive.
Princess Lyra convened an emergency session of the Royal Council, a body that had evolved over the centuries to include representatives from all major transformed races and magical disciplines. The debate lasted three days, with voices ranging from those advocating immediate military mobilization to others counseling peaceful overtures and diplomatic resolution.
The Princess herself argued for a middle path, expressing it in words that would be recorded by Kingdom chroniclers: “The Emperor’s mind has been touched by darkness, but the Empire’s people remain our distant cousins, separated by catastrophe but not by choice. We will not strike first, but neither will we allow aggression to go unanswered. Let us prepare our defenses while leaving the door open for sanity’s return.”
The Council ultimately adopted Princess Lyra’s recommendation, issuing what became known as the Declaration of Defensive Readiness. This document acknowledged the Decree of Severance, expressed regret at the rupture of relations, firmly rejected the Emperor’s historical accusations, and declared that the Kingdom would defend its borders against any aggression but would not initiate hostilities.
Practically, the Declaration authorized several significant measures. The Kingdom’s modest standing army—which numbered approximately fifty thousand troops, mostly ceremonial given five centuries of peace—was expanded through volunteer recruitment to one hundred and fifty thousand within six months. Magical defenses along the eastern border were strengthened, with earth mages raising fortifications and water shapers redirecting rivers to create natural barriers. Air mages established an early-warning network that could detect approaching forces from hundreds of miles away.
Most significantly, Princess Lyra herself began what she called “protective preparations.” Using the Scepter of Controlled Resonance, she spent months of 994 and 995 AC carefully laying magical wards along the entire Kingdom-Empire border. These wards were designed to be purely defensive—they would not harm anyone who approached peacefully but would create formidable barriers against invasion. The Princess’s power, so catastrophically dangerous when uncontrolled, now served to protect rather than destroy.
The Kingdom’s magical military capabilities represented a stark contrast to the Empire’s purely conventional forces. While the Empire maintained legions trained in traditional combat, the Kingdom could field mages capable of manipulating weather, terrain, and even the elements themselves. Fire mages could create walls of flame. Water shapers could flood entire valleys. Earth movers could trigger avalanches or open sinkholes. Air weavers could generate winds strong enough to ground any aerial assault.
Yet the Kingdom’s leadership, particularly Princess Lyra, remained deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of using these powers in war. The Princess’s own experience with uncontrolled magic—the deaths caused by her accidental tsunamis and volcanic eruptions in the early 500s AC—had instilled in her a profound reluctance to use magical force. The Kingdom’s magical military doctrine emphasized defense and deterrence rather than offensive capability.
The Military Buildup
Throughout 995 and 996 AC, both civilizations engaged in increasingly ominous military preparations, though the Empire’s buildup was far more aggressive and extensive than the Kingdom’s defensive measures.
Emperor Augustus XVII, whose mental state continued to deteriorate, became personally involved in military planning. He oversaw the expansion of the Imperial Legions from their peacetime strength of one hundred thousand to six hundred thousand combat troops, with an additional two hundred thousand in support roles—a total mobilization of eight hundred thousand. This expansion required implementing a draft that hadn’t been used since the immediate aftermath of the comet impact. Young men—and some women, as the Empire’s gender restrictions had loosened during centuries of population crisis—found themselves conscripted regardless of occupation or circumstance.
The economic strain of this mobilization was severe. Farmers were pulled from fields at critical growing seasons. Artisans were taken from workshops. Teachers abandoned schools. The Imperial Agricultural Institute’s closure had already damaged crop yields; now the draft removed the labor force needed to work even reduced harvests. Food shortages began appearing in Imperial cities by late 995 AC, requiring the government to institute rationing.
General Severus, who had effectively become the Emperor’s co-ruler as Augustus’s condition worsened, relocated the Empire’s military headquarters to the border region. Through 996 AC, he oversaw the construction of massive forward bases—fortified complexes capable of housing tens of thousands of troops and storing supplies for extended campaigns. Roads were built or improved to facilitate rapid troop movement. Bridges were constructed across rivers that had served as natural barriers. Strategic forests were cleared to deny enemies cover.
The General’s plans, which he presented to the increasingly erratic Emperor as “necessary preparations for historical correction,” called for a three-pronged invasion of the Kingdom. The northern force would strike through mountain passes that the Kingdom had long considered impassable for large armies. The central force would launch a direct assault across the main border, overwhelming Kingdom defenses through sheer numbers. The southern force would sweep through the coastal regions, potentially cutting off Kingdom access to the sea.
Intelligence reports—smuggled to the Kingdom by sympathetic Imperial citizens and the underground Astral Observers—gave Princess Lyra’s advisers detailed knowledge of these plans. The Kingdom used this intelligence to position its forces strategically, concentrating magical defenses at the most likely invasion points while maintaining mobile reserves that could respond to unexpected attacks.
By early 997 AC, nearly six hundred thousand Imperial combat troops were positioned along the border or in forward staging areas, with support personnel maintaining the complex logistics required to sustain such a force. The situation along the border had become dangerously tense. Imperial and Kingdom patrols faced each other across fortified lines. Small incidents—a wandering soldier shot by nervous guards, a reconnaissance party ambushed, supplies stolen in border raids—occurred with increasing frequency. Each incident was portrayed by Emperor Augustus as evidence of Kingdom aggression, further justifying his military buildup in the eyes of Imperial citizens.
The Gathering Storm
In the spring of 997 AC, Emperor Augustus XVII made his intentions explicit. During a speech to assembled Legion commanders at the forward military headquarters, the Emperor declared: “For a thousand years, we have suffered for the Kingdom’s crime. Our children are few. Our lands remain scarred. Our cities were reduced to ruins. All this because the Western sorcerers chose to rain cosmic fire upon us. The time has come for justice. The time has come for the Empire to take what we are owed.”
General Severus presented the detailed invasion plans to the Legion commanders that same day. The assault would begin in the autumn of 998 AC, after the harvest season when maximum forces could be mobilized. The goal was not merely to defeat Kingdom military forces but to occupy Kingdom territory, extract “reparations” in the form of magical knowledge and resources, and ultimately force the Kingdom to accept Imperial authority.
Throughout 997 AC, the Empire mobilized its entire society for war. Blacksmiths worked day and night producing weapons and armor. Engineers constructed siege equipment designed to overcome Kingdom fortifications. Quartermasters stockpiled food and supplies for a campaign expected to last years. The propaganda apparatus, controlled by the Historical Integrity Commission, saturated Imperial society with messages about the Kingdom’s supposed historical crime and the sacred duty of “corrective justice.”
The human cost of this mobilization was staggering. By the end of 997 AC, approximately forty-four percent of the Empire’s military-age male population was serving in the military or supporting military production. Agricultural output fell by twenty-five percent as farmland was left untended. Essential infrastructure deteriorated as maintenance workers were conscripted. The standard of living for ordinary Imperial citizens declined sharply, though this was portrayed as “temporary sacrifice for historical justice.”
The Kingdom watched this buildup with growing alarm. Princess Lyra spent the year strengthening her magical defenses, creating wards that would make invasion extraordinarily costly even if not impossible. The Royal Council debated whether to launch a preemptive strike—using overwhelming magical force to disable the Empire’s military capabilities before they could be brought to bear. Such a strike was technically feasible; Princess Lyra alone could have generated earthquakes or storms that would devastate the forward bases.
Yet the Princess consistently refused to authorize offensive action. In a private council session in the autumn of 997 AC, she explained her reasoning: “If we strike first, we become the aggressors the mad Emperor claims we are. If we prove ourselves capable of the destruction he imagines, we validate his paranoia. We have the power to end this before it begins, but we would do so at the cost of thousands of lives—lives of people who have been misled but are not themselves evil. I will not become the monster Augustus believes me to be.”
Instead, the Kingdom continued diplomatic efforts, sending emissaries through neutral intermediaries to plead for peaceful resolution. These efforts were uniformly unsuccessful. Emissaries were turned away at the border, their messages undelivered. Letters sent through underground Astral Observer networks reached sympathetic Imperial officials but were suppressed before reaching the Emperor. The few high-ranking Imperials who attempted to counsel restraint found themselves dismissed or arrested.
By the winter of 997-998 AC, war appeared inevitable. The only question was when and how it would begin.
The Final Preparations
The winter of 997-998 AC was marked by frantic preparations on both sides of the border. In the Empire, General Severus finalized his invasion plans, drilling troops in coordination maneuvers and testing supply lines under winter conditions. The forward bases swelled with soldiers—by early 998 AC, nearly six hundred thousand Imperial combat troops were positioned along the Kingdom border or in staging areas, the largest military concentration in Novus’s history.
Emperor Augustus XVII, whose condition had deteriorated to the point where he rarely appeared in public, spent the winter in his private chambers, obsessing over historical texts and speaking to advisers who existed only in his fragmented mind. Court officials, led by General Severus, effectively governed in the Emperor’s name, using his increasingly incoherent orders to justify policies they had already decided upon.
In the Kingdom, Princess Lyra made her own final preparations. Throughout the winter, she worked with the Scepter of Controlled Resonance to refine her defensive wards, making them more selective and less likely to cause collateral damage. She also trained extensively with Kingdom military commanders, learning to coordinate her vast magical abilities with conventional forces. The goal was to create a defense that could repel the Imperial invasion without causing the kind of catastrophic destruction that had marked her early magical accidents.
The Kingdom’s defensive strategy relied on several key elements. The magical wards Princess Lyra had established would serve as the first line of defense, slowing and disrupting Imperial advances. Behind these wards, conventional Kingdom forces—supported by combat mages of various specialties—would engage Imperial troops in carefully prepared defensive positions. If these lines were breached, mobile reserves could be rapidly deployed to contain any breakthrough.
Most importantly, the strategy was designed to minimize casualties on both sides. Kingdom commanders were instructed to use non-lethal magic whenever possible—winds to scatter formations, water to create obstacles, earth barriers to divide forces. Lethal force would be authorized only as a last resort. The Kingdom’s leadership, particularly Princess Lyra, remained convinced that many Imperial soldiers were victims of their Emperor’s madness rather than willing aggressors.
The Astral Observers, working underground in both civilizations, played a crucial role during this period. In the Empire, they maintained a network that smuggled information about Imperial military movements to Kingdom intelligence services. In the Kingdom, they provided technical and logistical support to the defense preparations, their scientific knowledge proving invaluable for calculating optimal defensive positions and supply management. Master Observer Helena, who had fled the Empire in 992 AC, served as a senior adviser to Princess Lyra, providing insights into Imperial military doctrine and the Emperor’s likely decision-making process.
The Standoff of 998
By the spring of 998 AC, both sides were as prepared as they would ever be. The Empire had assembled six hundred thousand combat troops—the largest military force in history—positioned to strike across multiple fronts. The Kingdom had created magical and conventional defenses designed to make any invasion prohibitively costly. What remained was the final decision to begin hostilities.
That decision came in the early summer of 998 AC when Emperor Augustus XVII, in one of his increasingly rare moments of lucidity, signed the formal Declaration of Corrective War. The document, drafted by General Severus and presented to the Emperor as the culmination of years of preparation, officially declared the Kingdom to be “the ancestral enemy whose crime demands correction” and authorized military action “to obtain justice for a millennium of suffering.”
The declaration reached the Kingdom through Observer intelligence networks within hours of its signing. Princess Lyra convened an emergency session of the Royal Council, where the reality of imminent invasion was finally accepted by even the most optimistic councillors. The Kingdom had exhausted diplomatic options and military deterrence. War was no longer a possibility but a certainty.
The Princess issued the Final Defense Order on the eighteenth day of the sixth month, 998 AC. This order placed all Kingdom military forces on highest alert, activated the emergency conscription system to bring the Kingdom’s army to its full wartime strength of two hundred thousand troops, and authorized Princess Lyra to use her full magical capabilities in defense of Kingdom territory. The order was careful to specify that the Kingdom would not strike first but would respond to any Imperial aggression with overwhelming force.
Throughout the summer of 998 AC, both sides maneuvered along the border, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Imperial forward patrols tested Kingdom defenses, probing for weaknesses and measuring the strength of Princess Lyra’s magical wards. Kingdom scouts monitored Imperial positions, tracking troop movements and supply buildup. Several times during the summer, minor skirmishes erupted when patrols encountered each other, resulting in dozens of casualties but no major engagement.
The tension became unbearable as autumn approached—the season when General Severus had originally planned to launch his invasion. Imperial troops were positioned and ready. Supply lines were established. Yet the invasion did not come. Within the Imperial high command, a crucial problem had emerged: the terrain.
The Delay
General Severus’s three-pronged invasion strategy required crossing the Great River that formed much of the natural border between Empire and Kingdom. This river, fed by mountain snowmelt and running swift and deep through most of the year, represented a formidable natural barrier. The Kingdom had destroyed or fortified every bridge along its length during their defensive preparations.
The General’s original autumn invasion plan had assumed his engineers could construct pontoon bridges under combat conditions. Field tests in the tenth month proved this assumption catastrophically wrong. Kingdom water mages could generate currents strong enough to sweep away any bridge construction. Air weavers could create winds that prevented engineers from working. Earth movers could cause banks to collapse, destroying anchor points.
After losing three hundred soldiers and significant equipment in failed crossing attempts during the tenth and early eleventh months, Severus made a brutal calculation: the invasion could not proceed until winter froze the river solid enough to bear the weight of an army. Intelligence reports from Observer networks indicated that the river typically froze by the twentieth day of the eleventh month in severe winters. The year 998 AC was shaping up to be particularly cold.
On the tenth day of the eleventh month, Severus issued revised orders. The invasion would wait for the ice. Weather divination from Imperial priests suggested the river would be crossable by the twenty-second day of the eleventh month—just over a month before Comet Day, the Kingdom’s most sacred holiday on the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth month. Striking during their period of remembrance would be both tactically advantageous and symbolically powerful.
The Frozen Crossing
As the eleventh month progressed, temperatures plummeted. Ice began forming along the Great River’s edges, slowly spreading toward the center. Kingdom scouts reported the ice’s progress daily, calculating when it would bear the weight of soldiers, then horses, then siege equipment.
By the twentieth day of the eleventh month, the river had frozen solid. Kingdom earth mages reported ice thickness of over two feet at the most likely crossing points—sufficient to support even heavy siege equipment. Princess Lyra convened an emergency council meeting.
The Princess faced a terrible choice. Her defensive wards protected Kingdom territory but could not prevent the Empire from crossing the frozen river into the neutral zone. Once Imperial troops were on the ice, they would be vulnerable—exposed on an open surface with nowhere to hide. A coordinated magical strike could shatter the ice beneath them, drowning thousands in freezing water.
It would be devastatingly effective. It would also be the preemptive massacre Princess Lyra had spent years refusing to authorize.
“They will cross tomorrow,” Lady Regent Cordelia reported on the evening of the twenty-first day. “Observer intelligence confirms Severus has given final orders. Six hundred thousand soldiers will advance at dawn.”
Princess Lyra stood at the window of her tower, looking out over the frozen river that glowed silver in the moonlight. The Scepter of Controlled Resonance hummed in her hand, ready to channel power that could turn the river into a mass grave. She could feel the ice, could sense its molecular structure, could calculate exactly where to strike to achieve maximum casualties.
“We will not strike first,” she said finally. “Let them cross. Let them advance into our territory. Only when they attack Kingdom citizens will we respond. I will not become the monster their mad Emperor believes me to be.”
Some council members protested. The Princess’s decision might cost Kingdom lives. But Lyra remained firm: “If we slaughter them on the ice, we prove Augustus’s delusions true. We become the aggressors he claims we have always been. No. They will learn what it means to invade a land defended by magic—but only after they strike first.”
Conclusion: The Eve of Battle
As the twenty-first day of the eleventh month, 998 AC drew to a close, both civilizations stood at the brink of the first major war in over a millennium. Nearly a thousand years had passed since the comet impact had divided the world into magical and mundane, transformed and traditional. Five centuries had passed since Princess Lyra had awakened to find herself in a world radically different from the one she had known as a child. Decades had passed since the brief period of peace and cooperation that had seemed to promise a unified future.
All of that potential for peace had been destroyed by the paranoid delusions of a single mentally compromised ruler and the ambitious generals who exploited his condition. Emperor Augustus XVII, whose reign had begun with such promise, had become the architect of a conflict that threatened to engulf both civilizations in devastation. The irony was not lost on Kingdom observers: the Emperor who obsessed over ancient injustices was about to create a new historical catastrophe.
The military balance appeared to favor the Empire numerically—six hundred thousand Imperial soldiers against two hundred thousand Kingdom defenders, with the advantage of offensive initiative. Yet this conventional analysis failed to account for the Princess Lyra factor. A single being whose accidental sneezes had once caused earthquakes, whose practice sessions had generated continent-spanning storms, now stood ready to use her power in defense of her people. The Empire’s conventional forces would be advancing against defenses that included the most powerful magical being in known history.
General Severus, in his final briefing to Legion commanders on the twentieth day of the eleventh month, acknowledged this challenge: “The Princess is powerful, yes. But she is one being. We are six hundred thousand. She can strike at one point; we will strike at three. She can defend one line; we will attack across hundreds of miles. Even her vast power must have limits. We will find those limits and exploit them.”
Princess Lyra, in her own address to Kingdom defenders on the evening of the twenty-first day, reflected a different understanding: “Tomorrow they come, driven by the madness of their leader and the lies they have been told. They believe we destroyed their civilization, cursed their people, engineered their suffering. They believe they fight for justice. We know the truth—that the comet was a natural disaster, that our transformations were not our choice, that we have tried to help rather than harm. But truth matters little on the battlefield. What matters is that we protect our people, our home, our hard-won peace. And we shall.”
As darkness fell on the twenty-first day of the eleventh month, 998 AC, soldiers on both sides of the border prepared for what they knew would come with dawn. On the Kingdom side, two hundred thousand defenders waited behind magical wards and fortified positions. On the Empire side, six hundred thousand soldiers prepared to cross the frozen Great River—a crossing that would take most of the day given the army’s size.
The Empire’s forward camps were alive with final equipment checks, prayers to Marcus the Divine, and the nervous energy of troops about to enter combat. The Kingdom’s defensive positions were similarly active, with mages reinforcing wards, conventional soldiers checking weapons, and healers preparing field hospitals for the casualties that would inevitably come.
Between the two armies, the frozen Great River stretched like a silver highway toward war. The ice groaned and cracked in the extreme cold, but it would hold. Kingdom scouts had confirmed its thickness one final time as dusk fell.
The last day of peace, after centuries of gradual reconciliation, came to an end. The Age of Paranoia, which had begun with Emperor Augustus’s descent into madness in 987 AC, reached its terrible culmination.
The war that would reshape both civilizations waited only for sunrise on the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, 998 AC. The Empire would cross the ice at dawn. The Kingdom would meet them on the far shore. And Princess Lyra, who had once accidentally created hurricanes from sneezes, would finally unleash her carefully controlled power in defense of her people.
The Age of Paranoia was ending. The Age of War was about to begin.
Historical Note: The period from 990 to 998 AC represents one of history’s clearest examples of how mental illness in a single leader can lead an entire civilization toward catastrophe. Modern medical analysis of surviving accounts of Emperor Augustus XVII’s symptoms suggests a progressive neurological disorder, possibly a brain tumor or early-onset dementia. Had the Emperor received proper medical care—or been removed from power when his condition became apparent—the conflict might have been avoided entirely. Instead, his paranoid delusions, amplified by opportunistic advisers and legitimized by the divine authority claimed by Imperial rulers, led directly to a war that neither side truly wanted. The Kingdom’s reluctance to use its overwhelming magical superiority offensively, while admirable from a moral standpoint, meant that the Emperor’s madness could proceed unchecked until military confrontation became inevitable.
The failure of institutional checks on Imperial power proved catastrophic. The Senate was too weak to constrain the Emperor. The military, led by an ambitious general who saw opportunity in the Emperor’s paranoia, enabled rather than prevented the descent toward war. The Historical Integrity Commission, rather than serving as an independent arbiter of truth, became an instrument of the Emperor’s delusions. This breakdown of institutional safeguards would inspire significant reforms in both civilizations in the centuries that followed.
The Astral Observers’ return to underground existence represented a tragic reversal after centuries of progress toward scientific acceptance. Yet their maintenance of intelligence networks that provided the Kingdom with crucial military information may have prevented an even more catastrophic outcome. Without their warnings, the Kingdom might have been caught unprepared by the invasion, leading to potential occupation and the horrors that would have followed.
Princess Lyra’s decision not to launch a preemptive strike, while criticized by some Kingdom military leaders, reflected a moral restraint that would define her centuries-long reign. Her understanding that offensive use of her catastrophic power would validate the Emperor’s paranoid claims showed wisdom beyond her apparent years. The question of whether a preemptive magical strike might have saved lives in the long run remains debated by historians, but the Princess’s commitment to defensive warfare shaped Kingdom military doctrine for generations.
The delay caused by the need to wait for the Great River to freeze proved fortuitous for the Kingdom, giving them additional time to perfect their defenses and coordinate magical and conventional forces. Had the invasion proceeded as originally planned in the tenth month, the Kingdom might have faced a more difficult defensive situation.
📡 End of Historical Transmission
Oliver here - Fascinating period in this world’s development! Our historical frequency archives are picking up significant resonance from these events. The ripple effects of what you just read will influence countless future chronicles. What aspects of this era do you find most intriguing? Fellow dimensional historians in the comments are already debating the implications...