Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Minister Bata began to hum a tune to himself, as he worked away at the sheets before him. From where Simon was standing, he appeared to be drawing some kind of map, but it wasn't a location that he was familiar with.

Simon crept closer, holding the guard's dagger ready. He wanted to stir as much confusion as possible within the Kalun ranks, and a possible traitor would only add to that.

Bata hummed away, even as Simon stood right behind, ready to take his life. Only a muffled yelp escaped from his lips, as Simon covered his mouth while he quietly dispatched his target.

Simon tipped the chair back, careful not to let Bata's blood stain any of the documents, any one of them might be the key to defeating Kalun. As he looked through them, Simon became increasingly confused.

All of the documents were in some illegible scrawl that matched no code or cipher that he was aware of. There appeared to be no discernible pattern to any of the papers, and the maps were even worse, Simon was impressed by how thorough Bata was in establishing his codes.

Countless twangs sounded out from around the Minister's tent, Simon leapt high up into the air, as the space below him became a storm of death. Countless crossbow bolts flew through the tent, reducing the fine furniture within to splinters, and tearing everything else to shreds.

With a series of dull thunks, a few stray bolts lodged into Simon, in his calf, back and shoulder. Though none of them were reinforced, they would be an annoyance, especially if he had to fight his way out of the Kalun encampment. They had known he was coming.

"Come on Simon! You would murder an imbecile in cold blood!" A shrill voice called out from outside the tent. Simon only crouched silently within the tent, casting a cloaking spell and hoping none of the warriors outside were mana sensitive enough to pin him down.

"I know you're still alive in there, there's no way a trap like that could've taken you out. I've kept a long list of your many achievements. This doesn't have to be so difficult, Simon, just come on out and let us clap these manacles on you." The shrill voice continued to screech out, as alarm bells rang out throughout the camp.

Simon resigned himself to his fate, if the whole camp was looking for him, it was unlikely he would make it out alive. Furious, at his own carelessness and the Kalun's deception, Simon grit his teeth and drew his blade, leaping out from the doorway of the tent, straight at the soldiers surrounding him.

"He's making a break for it." The shrill voice screamed, and a portly man with a remarkable resemblance to the man who had been within the tent, leapt through the air, twirling a massive halberd. The man swung, screeching even as he did so, aiming for where he could feel Simon's mana fluctuations.

Not only did the resulting attack cleave the dirt, it killed or incapaciated many of the soldiers that had been guarding the tent.

"You thought you could kill me!" The real Bata screamed, absolutely furious, he had lost any semblance of rationality.

Simon ignored Bata's screams and darted through the maze of the encampment, ducking through tents and under wagons, to avoid the groups of soldiers running about in search of the intruder.

Bata's was like a banshee, as he wailed and screeched in pursuit of Simon, destroying entire tents and ignoring the pleas of the soldiers all around him.

"Bata! Enough!" A loud voice boomed across the encampment. An orange meteor rushed through the air, exploding to a stop in front of Bata.

An enormous man stepped out of the small crater he had left behind, clad in a burning orange aura, the man unsheathed the massive greatsword from his back, blocking Bata from continuing his rampage.

"Get out of my way, Rulaad!" Bata screamed at the bronze skinned man who towered over him.

"Bata. You're of no use to anyone when you work yourself into a rage. Stand down." Rulaad said firmly. His face was scarred and his nose was crooked, he had the face of a street brawler.

"He tried to kill me. I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" Bata screamed again and again. Rulaad dismissed the surrounding soldiers with a wave of his hand. Talking quietly to Bata in an attempt to calm him from his rage. THe pair of them stood amongst a pile of wreckage, a massive glowing giant of a man comforting a small round man clutching a halberd like it was a teddy bear. It was an odd sight, to say the least.

Meanwhile, Simon had made it a fair distance from the Kalun, and limped through the barren ground of the borderlands. The bolts hadn't penetrated very deep, but Bata had covered them in some sort of numbing agent, and if Simon hadn't been the seasoned thief that he was, the bolts would have left him twitching on the ground within the Kalun encampment.

Simon snuck through the Ursten soldiers camp, the camp was aa hive of activity, all the soldiers were rushing to and fro, it almost mirrored the scene at the Kalun camp.

A sinking feeling in his stomach, Simon rushed towards the town hall that had served as the Ursten army's headquarters.

"Tam! What's happened?" Tam stood within the room, a grim look on his face, Ophil, Leynish and a few other nobles joined him, with the same solemn look on their faces.

"Balmin, they got Balmin?" Simon noticed the battlemage wasn't present, and realised what had happened.

"Our forces are stretched too thin, a few people noticed the mana fluctuations, but they didn't realise what they meant until it was far too late." Tam explained, sitting Simon down.

Simon sat down, speechless, burying his head in his hands. Not only had he failed hi own mission, if he had been back at the camp, he might've been able to prevent the attack.

"We caught the assassin, but he had used a poisoned dagger, the poison was quite potent, it was enough to take out Balmin." Tam said quietly, his voice filled with quiet anger.

"I take it your mission didn't go as planned either?" Tam asked, noticing the damp spots of on Simon's clothing, and the blood that had stained his hand as he guided Simon into the chair.

"No. They knew I was coming. I took out a target, but it was nothing more than a decoy. It was a colossal waste of time." Simon said, frustrated.

"The most damage done was by one of their own, that ******* Bata, he flew into a rage when he failed to kill me, and near destroyed half of their camp." Simon grimaced as he remembered the feeling of danger as Bata chased him, cleaving everything in his path.

"He'll be a terror to face on the battlefield, that's for sure. I haven't got a good feeling about this Tam." Simon looked absolutely despondent.

"We must fight, Simon, this isn't a skirmish on some remote outpost. We cannot fall back." Tam said with a finality, giving everyone gathered in the room a serious stare.

As Kothar's family and countrymen struggled with the loss of one of their most important captains, Kothar himself had made his way to the outskirts of the Duchy of Newport.

Newport was a small state, most of the population lived in the city which gave the country its name. Both the Phintus federation and Newport had once been part of Ursten, when the nation had seen brighter days. The Phintus Federation was originally a group of merchants who had grown tired of paying the hefty taxes that each noble levied on them as they sent their goods throughout the city.

Hiring themselves a small army, they had ousted one of the frontier lords, claiming his territory by right of conquest, and declaring themselves an independent state. At the time, Ursten had been in an extended war with the Southern Tribes, so the merchants had ample time to establish themselves, and soon developed ties with many kingdoms nearby, sheltering them from retribution.

Newport had a longer history, while it had also been part of Ursten once, it had not been lost through conquest or any sort of conflict. Rather, the Duke of Newport had been an exceptional general, and fearing that his brother would usurp his throne, the King of Ursten at the time had decided to 'gift' his brother independence and a region of remote, sparsely populated land.

The Duke and his descendants after him had flourished, building a thriving port city, and to this day retained their title as the Duke of Newport, perhaps to remember their link with Ursten, or perhaps in memory of how the King of Ursten had effectively banished their forefather.

In only a few hours, Kothar saw the thick dense cloud of smog rising from the distant city that Ophil had warned him of, and gradually the sprawling city came into sight.

It was massive, far larger than any city that Kothar had seen so far, and sprawled across the coast. Ships sailed to and from the city in the distance, and Kothar watched as a massive airship slowly rose up out of the cloud of smog that shrouded the city.