Inside a grand tent to the west of the dwarven citadel, the acting king Alexander was surrounded by royal knights questioning him of the attack that was supposed to allow Arcadia to attack the citadel directly.

“Enough!” He yelled whilst slamming his hand on top of the wooden table in front of him which knocked a few pieces off the map laid out on top of it. “Where is Kaeli and her diplomatic envoy?! I was told she would arrive at any moment now!”

“Sir!” One tired soldier holding a halberd shouted by the entrance of the tent. “Commander Kaeli is back!”

“Bring her here, now!”

“My king, please reconsider this plan.” Phoebe’s father was attempting to dissuade Alexander from the attack. “Without the dwarves to fight against the death angels, how are we supposed to defend both Arcadia and Akrapocalis at the same time?”

“Hawk I believe you are no longer commander of the royal army, yet you still try to defy my orders.”

“I’m simply stating the truth, the more fronts we have to fight the more we’ll need to stretch out our army. My king, while I applaud your gracious presence to rally more men to our cause, there is a limit to how much we can do alone, if the dwarven city were to fall now-”

“Silence! I care not what happens to the dwarves, we just need them out of the picture and we’ll have full access to the mines.”

“But the death angels-”

Hawk was interrupted by the loud noise coming from the entrance of the tent, Kaeli was being escorted by two royal knights in full plate armor each of them were holding a halberd and the high elf arch mage was between them with a somewhat serious expression.

“Kaeli.” Alexander turned around and stomped his way towards her, holding his urge to grab her by the collar of her clothing. “Care to explain to me what just happened?! I told you to take care of her if you ever came across that damnable princess!”

“My king with all due respect, even mages of my caliber would have a hard time hitting a target so high in the sky. Not to account that we were attacked mid-flight by an archer on board that flying contraption that managed to kill one of my mages.”

“An archer managed to kill a mage?”

“Impossible right?”

“I never heard of such a thing before.”

Murmurs started to gather around the entrance of the tent as each of the knights and soldiers started to talk amongst themselves. The situation was tense, not only they lost in the first attempt to advance into the capital but also thanks to Leona’s timely arrival, the Arcadian army’s morale was thoroughly shaken.

“ENOUGH!” Alexander shouted in anger. “Bring me the slimes!”

Upon mentioning the creatures all heat seemed to be sucked out of the tent as the knights glanced at each other without being able to hide their nervousness.

“My king, with all due respect-” Kaeli began to speak with a cautious tone. “-if anything, they are still flawed creations, if they were to roam free with these many soldiers in the frontline-”

“I said, BRING ME THE SLIMES, NOW!”

The high elf recoiled from his shouting as her ears twitched from discomfort. She took a deep breath and sighed discreetly before answering.

“Very well my lord.” With an unsettling expression on her face, Kaeli made her way out of the tent and used wind magic to propel herself upwards then towards Arcadia. “This will end up in more bloodshed…”

A few kilometers away from Akrapocalis, the flying ship was cruising through the plains while already approaching the east mountain range that divided the dwarven kingdom with the coastal side of the continent. The mountain range was considerably lower than what they found in Londria, being easily crossed by flying over it and contrary to Leona’s belief, the high elf simply made sure to go in a straight line to shorten the distance considerably. However…

“Weather’s not looking great!” Leona shouted as she noticed darkened clouds covering the sky in the direction they were heading towards. “Should we land?!”

“Not yet!” Phoebe shouted back. “We can still push a bit further, besides the city shouldn’t be too far away now!”

While the two of them were preoccupied by the weather condition, Krieg was sitting against the railing of the ship with his head hanging low. Unbeknownst to either of them, the knight had a fatal flaw which was motion sickness, simply looking at the scenery as the ship moved was enough to get him dizzy and now with hours of traveling the ever so slight movement of the ship made him nauseous.

“Goddess why…” He muttered to himself. “Of all the things to be weak to, it had to be this-”

Without being able to hold it, he quickly turned around and vomited over the railing. Seeing the knight do that prompted Leona to approach him.

“What happened?!”

“Not feeling well, I-”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence before having once again turned his insides out. As her mind was racing to find a way to help him she felt something cold hit her forehead. At first she thought it was some sort of leaf that flew from the trees below until her face and body began to be pelted by droplets of cold water.

“Gah!” The soft rain quickly became a violent storm that was pelting away at the crew on board. Leona helped Krieg stumble inside the engine room and rushed over to Phoebe who was also struggling to stand still since her prosthetic legs weren’t made with slippery surfaces in mind. “Phoebe head down to the engine room! I’ll try to land safely!”

“Alright! Be careful you hear?!”

As the high elf was heading down a strong gust of wind shook the ship to the right as it was going down which made the whole thing shake violently.

“Nngh!”

Leona managed to catch herself before she could be flung to the left but Phoebe wasn’t so lucky as her legs slipped and the left side of her waist hit the wooden railing.

“Argh! Woah!” She tried to grab onto the railing but her hand slipped and her body was already over the railing. “Aaaaaaah!”

“PHOEBE!” Leona held the urge to jump down the helm and instead she quickly descended the ship in the middle of the forest without much care about breaking the treetops and branches on the way down. “PHOEBE! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

She shouted from the top of her lungs while jumping off the still ship.

“Princess wait…!” Krieg walked out of the engine room and walked over the railing where he heard Leona’s voice from. “Don’t go off on your own-”

As she turned around to answer the knight he was staring at her with an empty gaze and a few seconds later he hunched over the railing and stopped moving.

“Krieg? Krieg! What happened?!”

As she was about to run towards her she felt a prickling numbing sensation on the right side of her lower back, as she reached to her back with her right hand she felt something protruding out of her clothing. As her fingers pulled out to inspect whatever hit her, she noticed it was a small dart-like needle coated with some sort of liquid.

‘This is-!’ The moment she noticed what it was, the first and last thing that came to mind was ‘poison’, but at that point her consciousness was already starting to fade. ‘I can’t… in a place like this…!’

Her body was becoming heavier by the second and her eyelids began to close until she completely passed out on the damp grass.