the Thaumantic Circus

[Thaumantica]

Basement of the All-Engwahlian Commons Hall,
Republic of Engwahl within the Thaumantic Communal Order

Almskeeper Aelis Pherson of Nieveland and President Linc Yeovil of Engwahl entered a basement office, more of a bomb shelter, from opposite doors and both sat without shaking hands, speaking, or making any form of eye contact. Their meeting with the Cantignians by Clover WebVision was not for another three minutes and each were buried in responsibilities from their respective communes. When finally the camera and TV and camera clicked on the two continued to type furiously in their smart blocks, ignoring a few throat clears from the Commissioner from the Covenant of Cantignia who finally asked "Bless ye young ones?"

Linc put away his smart block immediately, looked at Aelis, and then at the screen and camera and greeted the Cantiginian with a "Blessings be yours, Cannie, we're in the basement so I am not sure to bid ye good eve or morn?"

"Keep small talking him Lil' Linc, you're good at that aren't you?" Aelis belittled, still buried in her smart block. The Nieves were at loggerheads in Ebria right now, at a loss on how to stop the collapse of another Catholic Kingdom and and ally so soon after Csengia. Abandoning them had cleaved her heart, and not a moment in the last few hours passed without a fellow Nieve making the cross at her and shaking their head.

Yeovil nodded and waived at their counterpart in Cantignia, "I'll start things off for us, and yes Commissioner Bairns I know it's evening time - " Linc said. This Cannie Cantignian was soon to be gone, Linc knew, and he was only being included in this quorum of the Communal Order because law demanded it. They were to discuss military matters and the Catholic strategy board, as it was, but these Cannies hardly cared about what was happening back in the fatherland and the Nieves positively despised the Cannies for absconding that fatherland.

"To begin, yes Commissioner Bairns I see you, I am petitioning my counterparts in the Communal Order to begin mobilizing naval and marine forces in full to respond to the Tarusan threat, and to join the Federation by encircling the pirate state of Gutarike." Linc Yeovil said, "How do ye vote?"

"We must first give President Rygaard a call to . . what pirate state is this I have good golfing friends there, who are these 'lordly' pirates?" the 86 year old Cantiginian replied, mouth open in confusion as to where his colleagues from thirty years ago were, ". . Aelis, where is your Uncle Graham, the Almskeeper?"

"So charmed Bairnie!" Aelis played along, "Uncle Graham is packing his bags for a right game of golf down-Cannie, but he needs a vote in the affirmative from you like this young man says - you need to sign, yes pick up your pen Commissioner, and sign for my Uncle - okay, goodness and bless thee Bairnie, good job!" Aelis coached as President Yeovil sat with cross armed disgust across the table.

"You shouldn't have done that," Linc said once the Cantignian was switched off and gone to spend what all hoped were his last few hours, days, or weeks not being a problem for the rest of the Order. "his quorum knows you take advantage of them by exploiting his dementia and affinity for . ."

"They're exploiting him, Lil' Linc, every day he draws breath they are using his walking corpse and signing hand to maintain that oh so perfect Covenant Cult." Almskeepher Pherson sneered back, "Have you ever been down-Cannie, Yeovil?"

Linc shook his head no, concealing class embarrassment as best he could, "Working communalists do not need holidays or grand excursion, my parents did their part while I studied through each summer."

"All study and no play made. you a prat, Linc, and if you had been to the Covenant any time or ever you would know that time has stood still since he and the Mormons seized control of our dominion in the 80s. He thinks it's the 80s, in a sense, because they all do and believe that anything made new or after the creation of the Grand Covenant is an abomination."

"I know all of this, of course, the Thaumantic Sainthood believes Christ gave them a new Thaumantic Spiritual Vision separate from ours and that someone named Gideon walked with Christ a millennia ago, leaving a book full of bizarre wars and stories, of course yes they are bloody insane down there." Linc replied.

Aelis shook her head, "There was a rural schoolhouse we visited once, I had just finished university in the Rheinbund took a visit with my Uncle down-Cannie, but in this schoolhouse were books from pre-Communalism, they were in tatters from daily use, but each one of this farmhand yokels could recite back to me the events of the wars of Saint Ambrose in Neustria because for the authors they read every day it had just happened. The Gideonite children typically did not know much about communalism or Catholicism at all, instead they seemed to think Christ reigned as King in the Order and that a much younger version of Commissioner Bairns spoke with him daily."

"You will hardly find in this world over a group of people more physically, mentally, and spiritually separate from the rest of the world." Almskeeper Pherson finished.

 

[Thaumantica]

While most of the three Thaumantic Order news authorities ran on their own internal orders of propagandistic consistency certain events required clarification from the top. This was always to be done by the Office of the Joint-Communal leader's office for which today's many conflicts fell upon the Nieves. Here was their brief guidance concerning the international conflicts of Summer '23:

Secret Internal Guidelines for
The Breakfast Companion (Nieveland), the Teatime Telegram (Engwahl), and the Supper Sentinel (Cantignia)

TBC Nieveland: Media reports shall focus on the defense of Catholicism in Ebria and begin re-introducing the concept of a renewed alliance with the Neustrian Kingdoms. Any and all casualties or absconding Nieves will not be reported in the daily Brek'. Secret plans from the Tarusan Empire to attack Cantignia first being analyzed by the Guard.

TTS Engwahl: Linc Yeovil's presence at the Valls Pact on behalf of the Communes remains a major story, he will build upon this by traveling to Charleroi to bolster the allied effort. No mention of alleged secret plans.

TSS Cantignia: Continued isolation and fear mongering concerning Tarusa. Cut back on claims that other communes have abandoned the confines, restructure messaging to include casualties by Nievish ships in the north last year, begin tying pirate lairds to the Tarusan Flotilla. Plans confirmed by Covenant of Cantignia intelligence that Tarusa strikes Cantignia first to draw Order into war.

 

[Thaumantica]

Mercy of Saints Medical Centre,
Caitekurke, Nieveland

In a matter of one impossibly long year the life of Almskeeper Aelis Pherson had jumped from the monotony of one of the world's most insular republics to international power plays, the visit of a Tiburan Pope to Nieveland for the first time in centuries, and internal unrest that saw the near fiery destruction of her home cathedral. Before fully processing the death of her late husband two years ago the role of Almskeeper had been hoisted upon her by the will of her Uncle, then Almskeeper, and an Almshall that treated the Alms positions as hereditary not unlike the lordships of old.

Indeed many Alderfolk still fashioned themselves as Lairds or Ladies in person, especially among their clans, and two of these clans had taken in Aelis children for tutelage and marriage arrangements at around this time last year. Her son was 19 and currently deep in Revolutionary War College which denied budding officers contact with the outside world, even for the son of an Almskeeper if he dared try (he wouldn't), and her daughter had been sequestered away the moment she turned 16 by her older husband. Through spying from her office into the young lord's kitchen she found that he too was denying his wife technology and burning handwritten letters before they could be posted. That all of her Clover Social accounts had gone silent the night of their marriage was the first indicator, and that she never wrote nor called as vociferous and expressive as she had been up until that every day made Aelis certain that her husband was silencing her as was his right in Nievish custom among Lairds.

This all was enough for Pherson to develop a certain indigestion which she ignored for a long while before the wars began. Next came the assassination attempts, sometimes twice a day, from Engwahlian Radicals and Cantignian Extremists. A bullet over her shoulder one evening, a stabbing attempt another afternoon, and bombs laid along paths around her residence and places of work. Day after day it felt as if she was rolling the dice to survive, narrowly missing certain death several times by mere seconds or meters of separation. Still, it was not any of this that caused her to finally break and turn in for hospital. At around 2 AM two nights before she was awoken from a slumber by Revolutionary Guard Intelligence demanding a kill order for a "Cannie terror cell operating not two kilometers from here".

"Fine, just make it quiet, wipe the saintly sods out!" she ordered dismissively, trusting in half consciousness that they were as thorough as the Neighbors had been. Instead the Revolutionary Guard, dumb as dogs as they were, knocked in the wrong door and shot dead an entire family of innocent Niomonnach while the Cantignian cell one door over set fire to their flat and rushed out with the rest of the tenement. The entire building went down; the fire engine was out of petrol and the neighboring stations would not risk sending their last run for another district. Finally, once fully awake, she ordered an engine from a neighboring district but water pipes were busted . . . She would have remembered this if she were not so tired, so stressed, so strung out day after day and night after night that this district was on water rations brought in from neighboring districts.

Her symptoms now intolerable: unable to wake without vomiting, unable to eat without pain in her stomach, and unable to sleep without throwing back like a Guards' General on pension she succumbed to visiting the hospital where within she witnessed burn victims still in bed and beside her. No one was special in a Nievish hospital, not even an Almskeeper, so when the doctor on duty ordered her Revolutionary Guard away they abided and left her with the brother of the mother who had been shot down in error in that tenement two nights prior.

Dr. Mullcolney had entirely ignored the name, it had never mattered in all of these years, and simply glanced at the gender, age, and symptoms as he lumbered towards this fresh patient guarded by two olive drab adorned idiots. "No family, no friends, only staff and patients!" he ordered, still not looking at the Almskeeper, but the voice was familiar when she agreed "I am nobody here, do as the doctor says dogs."

With the fools out of his way he then saw her, no make-up or uniform, just a pale woman hunched over as if a sickly caricature of Almskeeper Pherson. He looked down at the name on his clipboard and yes, Aelis Margaret Pherson - 51 F.

"God blesses you, and yes, tis I." she groaned, holding her stomach then throat and then head.

The Dr. took a deep breath and nodded, rage racing through his head, "Tis . . Yes, well, may these blessings be yours . ." he stammered for a moment before composing himself in the greeting custom, "I could put you through every medical test in the Rheinbund right now and have you visit every office in Neustria and they would each treat this differently as if your body were different communes. In Nieveland we treat the whole body and soul as one being . . You know this."

"Headaches, stomach pain and indigestion, vomiting . . heart pain, difficulty sleeping, difficulty waking . . your pulse is low, your blood pressure is low, and you're breathing like as if you are saving your last." Mullcolney reviewed.

Aelis simply stared at a burn victim from across the sick bay and said nothing, there was nothing to say when all of this was laid out loud for the first time by anyone besides herself. "I'm through, I canno', I won', it's . ." she whimpered, then finding her mask too after some labored breaths, "It's fine . . and we keep our prayers . . we then, what do we do, we count our beads . . "

"Do ye take rest on Sunday?" Dr. Mullcolney asked, knowing the answer already; everyone in the communes worked six days a week and was afforded one day of churchgoing and rest, but mothers and women like Pherson never rested as fathers or lairds did, they labored along until dropping dead as she might a decade or so from now from ulcers and cancers.

"Of course not, no, I take my kneels at St. Brigg's and return to keeping the alms entrusted . ." Pherson replied.

Mullcolney nodded as he thought over the last hundred mothers and working women who could not afford a simple day or week of rest. "File for sanatorium: it is the right of every communalist once a year to take a week on the alms to spend at leisure, in healing springs and steams, and to have every muscle massaged, every organ listened to and monitored . . but you also know few have the time . . adult send their children to sanatorium, their old folk to get them out for a spell, never themselves."

Aelis nodded, Nievelands sanatoriums were quite split between daycares and hospices despite the service being available to all.

"Your doctor orders you" Mullcolney began, "a bland diet of oats and grains, vegetables potted, and no liquids possessing any color. You will follow up, we also know you can afford to send CloverMD messages, when you have not vomited two days hence. You will then return to be tested again, in two days as ordered, to be tested and assessed again. We will then know that it is not your diet. What do you think it is?"

Aelis frowned and shrugged, ". . the matter of me heart, a matter of the soul."

The doctor scribbled down his orders on a sheet and her mark beside his own signature that she would follow the orders of a Revolutionary Republic Medical Officer. Once signed he ripped off a copy for her and kept one of the next two underneath with markers of the agreement then stormed away as if another duty desperately called him. While he stomped off Aelis sunk into her bed and stared at the ceiling where at least no Nievish eye met hers.

"Back to your post, dogs!" Mullcolney spat outside at the Guardsmen, sinking down on the wall and to the floor himself for a moment while nurses and other doctors raced past rather unimpressed by a meltdown. "FUCK!" he shouted, throwing his clipboard across the hallway - narrowly missing the heels of a patient who crutched faster rather than stopping to complain.

"I'll avenge ye Karie, your husband Thom, your wee ones Paul and Mary . . " Dr. Mullcolney said loud enough for anyone to hear, but none cared to in their busy shuffles, "my feud is in blood, and I will find Thom's kin to join me . . mark this Karie, mark this Thom, and God do hear me . . I will kill Aelis Pherson, I will kill her two bairns, and with justice known I will . ."

"DR. MULLCOLNEY, DR. MULLCONLEY TO THE CREMATORY, DR. MULLCOLNEY TO THE CREMATORY FOR A MARK!" a crass Engwahlian voice interrupted through the loudspeaker.

"Cunts!" he cried.

 

[Thaumantica]

Mercy of Saints Medical Centre,
Caitekurke, Nieveland

The first sleep was over around 0100 at MoSMC for patients from the countryside who eschewed or could not afford electricity. Dr. Mullcolney corralled them into the chapel hall for prayers or woke neighboring patients capable to say prayers for them if they were tied down from nightly wander. These rounds began in emergency and melted down to non-emergency where, still curled up in a pathetic ball, Almskeeper Aelis Pherson laid oblivious to the quiet songs and recitations occurring around her.

Most importantly, Mullcolney noticed, the Revolutionary Guard soldiers had buggered off somewhere and the murderer of his sister and her children was lain before him helpless for his wrath. "I thank thee Lord," Dr. Mullcolney, "guide thy hands, guide them true, I pray to ye now as before and forever after!"

The rogue doctor approached the Almskeeper's bed and gripped down his hands over her neck and squeezed. She woke immediately and flailed for awhile before choking on air unable to enter or escape, her arms settling to the side. Mullcolney held on tight, tighter even, knowing the spirit within her might escape with another attempt at air.

Mullcolney was about to let go, his satisfaction reached, when he was tackled from behind by a Guardsmen who splayed over the Almskeeper's lifeless body with the doctor as scramble of a fight set on. The second was there too, stupefied and unmoving for a spell, but after he watched both of them wrestle to the tile he pulled out his pistol and whipped Dr. Mullcolney with its butt and then his partner's chest as they wriggled.

"SISTERS!" the one who had done most of the fighting screamed, squirming out from under the doctor's body, "WE NEED A FECKIN' NURSE!" he continued before reaching up for an emergency latch near the bed.

In rained several sister nurses and a doctor who fawned first over their doctor before being shoed away and pointed towards the purple faced Almskeeper.

"STRANGLED! SAVE HER" the Guardsmen shouted as he pulled his own pistol, "LISTEN: She feckin' breathes again or none of us leave this bloody room; O'Keefe? Give me that feckin' pistol and rouse the dogs!" he ordered, placing his body and the two pistols pointed at the staff as they dropped Dr. Mullcolney and realized they needed to intubate a new airway for Aelis.

After a hole was opened her throat air was being pumped into the Almskeeper by hand and a nurse marched over to the pistol wielding guard, "out of my way boy, this lass needs a machine" she ordered, pushing him aside to fetch a breathing machine from the emergency halls.

Mullcolney was stirring then his head rising up before the rest of him before slamming back down on the ground. The dogs of the Revolutionary Guard were back before the nurse who pushed past all of them with prayers and the wheels of her breathing machine.

The Almskeeper, intubated, was slaved to the breathing machine while her to be determined murderer was hogtied and kicked every time he moved or whimpered a noise. Both guardsmen who had been absent during the attack too were arrested thereafter voluntarily while they whispered their own prayers for the Almskeeper.

the Thaumantic Communes & Far Beyond

It was the witching hour and Almskeeper Aelis Pherson, Commisar of the Thaumantic Communal Order, was on a breathing machine.

"The Engwahlian President is in the Federal War room . . " General Krispwater declared to the small council of Nievish Officials charged with dispensing the Almskeeper's duties, "the Cantignian Commissioner, god bless him, is disabled - Pherson filed written order not to dispense to him . . ."

"So it falls to me?" the Senior Aldermen of the Almshall of Nieveland asked, primping his hair for his moment of glory.

"Not a reckon' chance MacDuggin . . to the Almskeeper's spiritual advisor . . " Krispwater replied, "who is, well yes, quite incapacitated as well and in transit to the Vatican."

MacDuggin nodded, "so there it is then: an Aldermen rises this morn, bright and burly . . "

"No sir, the Revolutionary Guard assumes the Nievish Spiritual Vision per the protocols. We will be recalling General Hely from Ebria and the White Helms, an interim spiritual advisor, to assume the position."

 

[Thaumantica]

General Heley, acting Almskeeper of the Revolutionary Republic, kneeled at the bedside of Aelis Pherson who had been transported alongside her breathing apparatus and a vetted staff back to the Almsfortress. "How long may she dwell here?" he asked the medical staff, "Why does not God grant her wings or weigh her down to sink to hell?"

"Pardon?" the head doctor, one Dr. Shanahan replied with a muffled cough, "She's in coma. And if ye can't beckon a serious query we will be begging leave Mister Heley.

"Fine then," General Hely brushed with his hand, leaving just other military and elected almsfolk in the room. "I've not had time to consult the marks of constitution, the revolutionary decrees, what if she dies? . . What if she lives on like this in perpetuity?"

An Aldermen from Gunnwahlia offered up his hand and stepped forward, "Well yes, in a sense she is the Keeper of Alms so long as her heart does beat or until ousted in a democratic revival of the revolutionary will!" he chirped most excitedly, "we must duly assume Lady Alms has turned into a cabbage, a boiled head at that, and offers no more to the Communal Order even should she wake from this stupor."

The men of Nieveland nodded while one Alderwoman asserted herself sideways with a stomp of her boot, "We know not the will of God, we know not if Lady Alms will rest in Christ's arms for an hour or a fortnight, and yet we do know if she returns that she will possess the touch of him . . Visions from beyond and ordainment."

Heley nodded alone to this knowing that the moment this narrative took hold in Nieveland it would elevate his bedridden vegetable of a rival to saint like status. "Quite right Alderwoman Cheallighe, quite right, we know not."

Throughout the rest of the afternoon rituals were beset by Old Believing clergy and Oaths & Marks asked by Alderfolk for General Heley who snuck away between each set to make calls with Engwahlian President Yeovil and Cantignian power couple named the Cassady's. Yeovil was disposed in the Westernesse Federation and clearly did not know what had befell his Nievish superior, and the Cannies could not help but sell Heley on investments Down-Cannie while he held his newfound power close to the vest. Through this he learned that he could work with both, that both were working with each other already, and that they believed Yeovil would seize the Thaumantic Order come spring or after the next democratic revival election season.

Haley then consorted with the remnants of Nàbaidhean, the Neighbors, that Almskeeper Pherson had destroyed. In exchange for legal grace and restoration from Heley they promised his safety, a covert death for the Almskeeper, and fresh jackets of of intelligence against his domestic and wider Thaumantic rivals. This deal was went unmarked in the Engwahlian way, instead in the Old Nievish, by watering seedlings with blood cut hands and assigning servants to take care of the new lives as Lairds and Nievish Kings once did. The death of these plants, tree seedlings in this case, would at one time imply schism ordered by the gods; in later Christian eras the ritual merely permitted two Lairds to communicate in a common place or through representatives.

 

[Thaumantica]

3 Days into the Almskeeping Regime of General Heley

"I remember ye as a folksy and fair," Corporal Maguire complained, "but the continent did turn thou's heart green with envy then hot with desire for power, did it not?"

Heley pursed his lips and tried to waive the accusation away, but he could not meet the old corporal's eyes nor the gaze of the once puppy and now adult Nievish Terrier that had accompanied him on the first White Helm mission on the continent. Rubbing shoulders with the Radilans had changed him, navigating the nonsense of the European Forum had altered him, and finally operating in the oddities of Nieveland's response to the Tarusan Civil War had made him fully cynical and prone to cunning.

There in the office of the Almskeeper: Aelis Pherson breathing machine rhythmically rasped life along their silent cursed toward each other. Maguire stepped towards it but was stopped by Revolutionary Guards who would not let anyone within her vicinity without arms and legs cuffed tightly and tethered out of reach.

"This is a fair offer, Maguire, the tome is ghostwritten and all that is required from you is your mark." Heley said, pushing out a contract for a book under the corporal's name. The story inflated Heley's role in peacekeeping the Pherson Railway Riots, the first White Helm Mission, and then his role as a Catholic organizer for Csengian Patriots and an asset of unity for the Thaumantic Communal Order.

Maguire shook his head in the negative, "I canna, and willna, little-laird Heley, for these are the fancied falsehoods of he that lost his faith, one who wants, thee who no longer serves the spirits or spiritual vision."

Fancied falsehoods concerning Pherson were already popular in the public mind by now: her coma somehow afforded her special audience with Christ, the Saints, and ancestors of the Nievish . . . Any day now, the commoner believed, Aelis would rise with shine from her visit and vision of Nievish spirituality beyond the physical.

"This tale serves the Order, not I" Heley replied, "if not you, so sure your righteous convictions, another will be found to weave a yarn or another way to rally Nieveland in these trying times. Sign or face the Neighbors, Maguire, I am too busy for your spiritual shines and childish convictions."

"Mark me Laird Heley," Maguire said as he took up the offered fountain pen, "he who does not know himself will not be known in heaven," Maguire continued as his signatory mark pressed into the contract, "we will meet in hell someday for projecting this false vision together and I will deny thee honor or titles that I must serve to you now in this life."

Maguire placed the pen down, ordered his terrier to raise a paw in salute, and then offered his own which Heley returned.

"I mark you, keep our little terrier well fed and safe dear Maguire!"

 

[Thaumantica]

The Almsfortress at Saint Padraig's Castle, 5 Days into the Heley Regime

Engwahl's President Linc Yeovil entered the Almskeeper's office where Aelis Pherson laid breathing, now without the aid of a machine, yet currently being fed through a feeding tube while Revolutionary Guardsmen held firearms trained on the nursing staff. Yeovil stood there for awhile studying the great woman who had made the last year of his life hell with constant orders and criticisms both privately and publicly, a true Nievish terror, scratching at his thick black hair with wonder at how brave the Nievishman must have been to make this happen.

"Here to finish her off, eh Lil' Linc?" the jocular voice of army General Heley, the interim Almskeeper, flashed from behind like a grenade that made Yeovil flinch. Heley slapped a meaty paw on the President of Engwahl's shoulder, smiling still, "sit down and regale me of your venture to Westernesse; what fancies and luxuries did you enjoy?"

The two sat with each other beside a fireplace, unlit of course, across the hall from Aelis who carried on in coma. A CloverNet camera was on, though blue to indicate no one was on the other side yet, while they waited for the new Commissioner of Cantignia to patch in. They would, in due time, select an interim Premier together to lead the Thaumantic Order in Pherson's stead.

"the down-Cannie Commissioner has finally retired, how many years was it he did serve?" Heley asked, unsure himself.

"Forty years and two, General Heley. Good afternoon from the Grand Covenant!" a voice interrupted from a CloverTV, the voice of the new Grand Commissioner Dale Emerick offered. Neither Yeovil nor Heley smiled or responded immediately, each quite disappointed that the different quorum members in Cantignia they had respectively politicked and bribed was not broadcasting from bloody crimson Vesper.

"Yes, tis I gentlemen, you did forget me and preyed upon my rivals did ye not?" Emerick inquired with a sly knowing smile, "well that makes me kingmaker now does it not? A Thaumantic Premier requires unanimous decision and you all were hoping your man in Vesper would give it to Engwahl or Nieveland easy, is that right?"

Yeovil cringed at the Cannie's shrill accent while Heley sighed and balled his murdering hands into fists. Elsewhere in the world the pettiness of the Thaumantic political circus was about to become irrelevant while aircraft of the Tarusan Empire and Westernesse Federation did battle. Within the minute a security advisor came bursting through the doors, causing guard rifles to raise and the man's arms to fly up but he continued walking shouting "WAR IS ON, BLOOD IN THE WATER!"

From Vesper Emerick made the sign of the cross over his chest while Heley and Yeovil shot to their feet to take the report in the advisor's flailing hands. Yeovil made it there first and put a hand out to stop Heley from stealing it from, while faraway Emerick voiced his unwanted opinion that "the Order must immediately leave the Gothic Sea and live to fight another day!"

"Unplug that arse - shut him up!" General Hely beckoned of one of the revolutionary guardsman who rushed to unplug, also not knowing the device was battery operated.

"HEY I HEARD THAT! I AM A COMMISSIONER OF THE COVENANT AND I WILL BE HEARD!" Emerick cried out from the other side of the Thaumantic. Confused and annoyed the guardsman chucked the Clover device into the ground as hard as he could but it only bounced back up and closer to the other two leaders who were actively reading the report.

"Just take him outside, man!" Heley demanded, but Yeovil was already folding and pocketing the intel from across the Nievish Sea and in the Gothic while Heley and the Nieves sorted out their Cannie problem.

"The Valls Pact bears my mark as a Thaumantican, General Heley, heed my orders and abandon your . ." Yeovil began, but Heley was ready to capitulate and offered the Engwahlian President a salute.

"Aye! I do endorse ye as Premier of the Thaumantics, so help me Lord and Saints of Nievishkind, may our mark stay true . . ."

 

[Thaumantica]

Media Room in the All-Engwahlian Commons Hall

Presenting himself as the new Commissar of the Thaumantic Communal Order, the first Engwahlian or non-Nieve atop the Thaumantic power scheme since the time of kings, Linc Yeovil made a scene of shaking hands deeply and hugging Almskeeper Heley of Nieveland and accepting a fist bump from the Cantignian Commissioner Dale Emerick whose grin at being here beamed inappropriately.

"Before discussing anything else we wish to recognize a moment of silence for the Westermen and women from the Federation who, just as they did a short time ago in service of counter-mining operations in the Gothic Sea, have once again given up the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for our safety against marauders in the Gothic . . ." Yeovil, Heley, and Emerick came together to hold hands and pray for a short time while cameras from their respective media hearths and perhaps some international sources allowed in the freest republic among the Thaumantics flashed brightly and snapped away despite his call for silence.

"Not long ago an unarmed contingent of Nievish support vessels came under assault from Tarusan air raiders. Nievish forces have been operating in and around the Gothic Sea for some time now to augment first a counter-mining operation, and second to support the Westernesse Federation's anti-piracy policing operation that until moments ago we believed was the will of sane and civilized nations everywhere. Lawless marauders have been reaving unarmed vessels for nearly a year now and international groups such as the European forum, time after time condemned them and called for action, yet when our Federal partners from across the pond finally began exacting the justice all had ordered they were condemned . . . worse, now attacked without warning by the Empire of Tarusa."

"Nievish seamen are alive today because their Federal allies were armed and ready to defense from Tarusan aggression. The Thaumantic Order will not be caught flat footed again, and that is why we are here today announcing that we are an Order at war with the Gutnish Pirate Regime! Our presence, substantiated by the Nievish navy and their forces alone, will support with arms and manpower the ongoing operation against the marauders. My orders today are clear: secure the Nievish Sea wholly to contain the pirate contingency and its comrades. We will not advance, at this time, again into the Gothic Sea until the Tarusan Empire has made its allegiances clear for our partners and allies the world over to see."

"Our adversaries need to come to the negotiating table before this flash point burns all of humanity all the world over." Yeovil finished, then turning things over to Almskeeper Heley who still wore his army fatigues in contrast to Yeovil's business attire.

"The Catholic Revolutionary flotilla has painted a thin red line, a barrier at the mouth that joins the Nievish and Gothic seas. This is where we will gather and muster our meddle before bringing the fight deep into the Gutnish Pirate's Lair! This is what we live for! This is why we're here! We will avenge the dead civilians, we will avenge the interdiction teams dead at sea! . . . And Ivan? Don't get in our way!"

Next came Commissioner Dale Emerick, a newcomer to politics who had rode a wave of internal Cantigian right wing radio based extremism. Emerick wore a dress shirt, jeans, boots, and a Westernesse style baseball hat with the Cantignian flag on it which he removed to reveal a mostly balding head.

"We are marshaling our forces down-Cannie for the final defense! We are the last beacon of the Thaumantic Order, the communal universe, and I have seen the leaked battle plans of our enemies that point a spear at the heart of Vesper, Cantignia. We will be ready, we will be praying, and when judgement day and end times come the Covenant will be strong, resplendent with the armor of god and arrows quivered.

Our enemy communes with Satan, his name is Ivan and he is a minor general of Tarusa's true Tsar: Lucifer! You wouldn't believe the things that go on in Kremylov and pass as 'Orthodox Christian', it's a stinkin' pedophile cult up there and I am sick of being told I can't call these sickos out! They feed on the innocence of children and stop the rape of neighbors only to make civil war as they hoard their own children."

Yeovil was moving in on him now, patting the Cantignian on the shoulder and pushing him out with a point towards the door that the three of them would leave out in retreat from that mess of an entry of Emerick to the world stage.