After three long days of airship travel we've finally arrived in the state of Ayana. It was quite painful trying to defuse the whole Lilith-Nazuko situation. I had to carefully explain to Lilith why Nazuko kept calling her a succubus without delving too much into my escapade with Ryder.
Apparently the smell was some kind of perfume given to her by Lord Borin as a good luck charm. It was eerily similar to an aphrodisiac, but its purpose was to soothe people's nerves and help develop intimate relationships. Damn, Lord Borin better not be expecting any great grandchildren anytime soon.
After I told Lilith all that she stopped using it, but Nazuko still remains suspicious of her. Either way we manage to make it to Ayana without too much hardship. The only person who got injured was Adam and he's a healer so he can deal with his own injuries. I decide to call everyone to the control room to have a strategy meeting as for what our next move is.
"Okay, guys, what's our first move?" I ask while laying out a map of Ayana.
"Hmm, well, Ayana is basically divided into 4 main sections: North, South, East and West. Since Ayana is the biggest state in the empire we should meet up with the people in charge of fighting the rebellion. The capital of the state is located in the North," Quincy informs us as he points at the capital city on the map.
"Okay, let's head for the capital city then," I suggest.
Since we have about an hour until we get to the capital city I decide to ask Azura if I can fly the airship.
"Hey, can I try my hand at flying? I promise I won't crash it," I plead.
"Are you sure? This is a pretty complex machine. It's not that easy to fly," Azura responds.
Hmm, I need to come up with something to convince Azura of my flying prowess.
'Call her Big Sis, my analysis gives this comment a 100% chance of convincing her.'
"Will that really work? Is it that simple?" I wonder.
'Guaranteed.'
"Well okay then, here goes nothing,"
"Please… Big Sis?" I say persuasively.
This seems to turn on some kind of switch inside Azura as her expression brightens up and she looks really happy.
"On second thought, I suppose I can give you a chance. Your reliable big sis is here after all!" she says with great pleasure.
She is positively glowing right now. I wonder why she likes the older sister role so much. She proceeds to step aside and gives me full control of the airship. There's a steering wheel that looks very much like the kind of wheel you'd see on a pirate ship and the direction/elevation is controlled by a few levers.
There's also a bunch of switches on the dashboard that I'm not quite sure what they do. I manage to fly the airship without too much trouble since we are just going straight. About an hour later and a city starts to come into view. However I see a giant fireball launch out from the city right at our airship.
Suddenly I feel like a spark goes off in my head and I crank the wheel to the right with all my might. The ship ends up doing a barrel roll to avoid the fireball and everyone inside except me ends up tumbling around.
What the heck was that?
'It seems you are being attacked so your instinct ability activated in order to avoid the fireball.'
"Guys, we are being attacked, what do we do!" I yelled as everyone started to recover from the ship doing a barrel roll.
"Fuck these guys lets shoot back!" Nerva yells as her hands start to glow on fire.
"Wait, they must think we are the enemy, we just have to let them know we are from Colonus," Azura suggests.
"And how do we do that?" Remi asks.
"I think I know a way. Will do you have the large flag that we bought during discount season?" Azura asks me.
"This huge thing?" I say as I pull out the large flag from my pocket dimension.
"Yes that, now Ryder, take the flag, go up on the top of the ship, wave it around and fire off a few fireworks with the imperial colors."
"Gotcha," Ryder says while grabbing the flag and his cannon.
Ryder heads up to the top of the ship and fires off a few fireworks and starts to wave the flag around a bunch. A few minutes later it seems that the fireballs have stopped.
"Aww man, I wanted to have a fire fight," Nerva says, all disappointed.
"Don't worry when we land in the city you can burn the guy who launched the fireball at us," Nazuko assures her.
I don't know if it's okay to be promising Nerva she can hurt people, but I'm sure it will turn out okay in the end. Azura proceeds to take control of the airship and we slowly land it in the middle of the city. Now that we are not being shot at I can take a look at my surroundings.
The architecture could be described as a kind of 17th century European style. It's like we are in the older parts of some European countries before the industrial revolution happened. The buildings look like they are mostly made of brick and mortar.
The floors are made of cobblestone. All in all, it feels more similar to the style of Colonus's architecture, but not as advanced as Yrden was. As we step out of the airship we are greeted by a man in military fatigues.
He has a lot of badges which makes him seem commendable, but at the same time he kind of has this villain mustache going where the tips of his stache twirl upwards. There are also soldiers who have bows pointed at us.
"Halt travelers, state your business for coming to Ayana. You better not be from the peasant faction down south or else we'll shoot you all on sight," he threatens.
"Hey, we're not part of the peasant rebellion--we came here on orders from Emperor Marcus and Lord Creon," I tell him.
"Yeah, do you know who you're talking to? This is the restorer of the world," Nazuko adds angrily.
"What!? I didn't know the hero would be arriving so soon. Usually it takes a week to get to Ayana from Colonus by horse carriage, we thought this was an enemy attack," the man says.
"Clearly, we came in a flying horse carriage," I say sarcastically.
"I'm so sorry, please forgive me and my men for attacking so carelessly," he says as he and his men go into a dogeza pose.
"I'm willing to forgive such a transgression as long as you tell me which one of your men had launched that attack," I demand.
"That would be the commander of the artillery force. Little Timmy come forth at once, you are in for a severe punishment later," the general says.
"Oh no need for that, Nerva you're up," Quincy says.
"Ah fuck yeah, I'm going to tear this guy a new asshole," she replies as she charges at him.
"I-I'm glad I'm not the victim of Nerva's rage this time," Adam whimpers.
We all proceed to watch as Nerva punches the guy in the balls with a flaming fist. That is quite the angry child, I'm glad she's a part of Quincy's party and not mine.
"Okay now that's settled let's get right down to it. What's the situation on the peasant rebellion?" I ask.
"Follow me and I'll inform you. It's better we have this meeting inside, there still might be a few peasant spies around," he says.
We follow the guy inside a castle then to a room that looks like a military meeting room. There are chairs surrounding a large table that has a 3d landscape of the map of Ayana.
"Before we begin, let me introduce myself. I am General Zachary, Lord Creon's appointed military leader. From the reports you must be the hero Will, correct?" the military man says.
"That's me," I say with confidence.
"And the black one over there must be Quincy," he continues.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't refer to me solely as black," Quincy exasperates.
"My apologies, second hero, I will do my best to adhere to that," General Zachary responds.
"Now that we are all acquainted with one another, let's begin. The peasant rebellion is at its strongest in the south, with the east and west factions slowly gaining precedence. The North remains dominated by those still loyal to Ayana. As you've experienced we have been expecting an enemy attack soon so we are starting to fortify our defenses," he informs as he makes several gestures referring to key points on the map.
"So why are people rebelling in the first place? Does it have to do with the prophecy? Are there more demons starting to invade Ayana?" I prod.
"While that's part of the reason, it's not the full story. You see this rebellion has been going on even before your arrival to Westphalia. There's famine running rampant throughout the state despite all of our resources. It's been rather hard on all the people for the last two years. Some people believe that if the government were to be uprooted then people would do a better job on distributing resources throughout the state. It's all a bunch of rubbish; Lord Creon's been working his hardest to satisfy the people but it's not enough," Zachary complains.
"I see, well, how can we help? Should we start attacking the main force in the southern part of the state?" I suggest.
"No, doing that would be unwise even considering your power. There's simply too many people that make up the main force in the south. I would like for the both of you to help bolster the eastern front. Once we take back the east and west sides, we'll come up with a strategy to deal with the southern front," he notifies.
As soon as General Zachary brings us all up to speed on the situation we hear an alarm go off throughout the city. Suddenly one soldier runs into the room to make a report to the general.
"Sir, it's an enemy attack! Our scouts have reported hundreds of peasants outside the gates!" the soldier yells.
"Arm the castle walls with archers! Shut the gate! Do not let anyone inside the city!" Zachary commands.
He then turns to face us.
"Heroes, I require your assistance, while today's attack is only a minor attack force we cannot afford to lose even a single knight."
"I understand. You can count on us! Come on guys let's head for the city gates," I announce.
Both our groups are led to the direction of the city gates and from the top we can see archers on both sides exchanging arrow fire. There's a large volley of arrows heading our way so I open up a gigantic portal to catch them all and another in the direction of the peasants. Before all the arrows strike the small force of peasants a few magicians on their side erect a large magical barrier.
"Ryder, it's time for some of those less deadly explosions you've been talking about," I say as I keep summoning portals to protect us from the arrows.
"Alright I got this!" Ryder says as he starts chanting a spell.
It turns out it's the same spell he used against me in our fight when I summoned that tornado. About 25 bombs materialize in the air and start to bombard all of the peasants. The magic barrier stops a few of the bombs, but it's not enough to protect all of them from getting blasted as peasants start to get sent flying in every direction.
"That was awesome! Let me try blowing these guys up," Nerva says as she starts shooting fireballs.
About four to five minutes of constant explosions and fire wipe the peasants out. Hopefully these two didn't go overboard and they are not all dead.
"Go team explosions and fire," Ryder cheers as he high fives Nerva, but Nerva's too short so it turns into a low five instead.
"I think Team Dynamite is a better team name," I tell them as I look upon the burning landscape before me.
I hope all of our encounters with the peasants fall to Team Dynamite this easily. The knights start to round up the fallen peasants taking them captive. General Zachary then comes up to us and speaks.
"Ah, thank you, heroes. While that attack may have been more destructive than I was expecting, that's exactly the kind of power necessary to help end this rebellion."
"No problem, even though it was mostly just those two," I tell him.
"I'm sure the chance will come for the rest of you to shine, our knights are starting to become fatigued dealing with the rebellion so even a few more people makes a big difference. I would suggest that your groups head out while there's still sun out. I will send word to the eastern front to expect your airship so no one will shoot at you," he assures me.
"That better be the case, or else your soldiers may become unable to foster children in the future," I warn him.
Everyone proceeds to reboard the airship and we set off in the direction of the eastern front. Today has been an eventful day, our group already had its first fight with the peasants. I hope all of our future encounters will go this smoothly, but knowing my luck it probably won't.