[Daylight Savings] Butchered Lobsters

[Viraj Dobrial 321]

Butchered Lobsters

A depiction of Mother Mercatore, who blesses her children in and out of battle.

Shabby, homemade posters would be plastered around Province. They all read as follows:

ATTENTION, TO THE CITIZENS OF PROVINCE AND THE DENIZENS OF GREATER ORENIA:

LET IT BE KNOWN that on the 18th of the Amber Cold, Year 28 of the second age, a dispatched scouting patrol of TWO (2) ISA gentry, one a Lieutenant and one a member of the Royal Guard, were easily brought down on the roads by a self-trained militia of highwaymen, including an agent of the MRA. These were not privates nor cadets, but some of the ISA's most revered, proficiently trained men. Let it also be known that the aforementioned Lieutenant received adequate punishment for their participation in the suppression of the Mercatorii people. Branded with the Lorraine of GODAN and carved down from his chest to his leg, he was taught an important lesson that will be broadcast among those seedless, barren minds that plague Province and Greater Orenia:

 

The Mercatorii Revolutionary Army is not a group to be trifled with. Your highest officers have and will be continued to be disgraced by us, if not outright slaughtered. We never asked for the end of this ceasefire; Oren, in its pompous desire to maintain its 'legitimacy' as an Empire, seeks the dissolution of "undesirable" peoples and cultures, to be melted down into their identity. The Mercatore will not fall to this parasitism.

 

 

VIVA LA MERCATORII! ERLOJUAK MESDE EGITEN DIGU, MERCATORE!

There is no signature.

 

[AnonymousAlexa 3890]

"I wonder who those highway men were!" remarked a certain renowned mercenary.

[Malta 2811]

"They must be suicidal, or worse." The now awake and mobile Simon muttered beneath puffs of bitter smoke and hacking coughs, his body rocking back and forth as the thoughts swirled in his head.

There had been a time when the, now considerably older man, had considered the ISA a threat to his brothers and sisters, their greatest enemy. Now his comrades were telling him it was nothing but a farce, that the helmeted goons that had terrorized their kin and brought their blades to heel had now become nothing but a thunderous joke. An army of smoke and mirrors built entirely upon a foundation of sand.

Choking on his own ideas the Mercatore struggled with such a thing, reminiscing of his brief time serving within their ranks, hadn't his brothers once come here to serve this empire? What had caused them to seek their destruction so, events predating this newfound hatred foggy in his battered mind.

"Come ye faithful, today we raise the sword." He began to lazily hum to himself, regarding his comrade's words as nothing but their usual rumors and hazy misgivings about the ISA and their pride. But he could not shake the eerie feeling welling within his body, the feeling that war would once more tear all he held dear away with him. It had taken Aleksey, Helvetia, whom next would it claim.

And as he laid back in his chair, setting the report down against the table before him, he began to wonder of the men they had captured, and began to ponder if they had ever felt the same.
 

[NouveauChateau 248]

The man would once more reside at his desk as his door was opened, and a missive was slipped onto his desk.  He would push aside the maps and unorganized pages aside, opening the missive to read it to himself.  His steadily shaking hands grasped the parchment ans held it near the lantern on his desk.  His eyes would read over this, slowly taking it all into account.  This was not planned by him.

"So.. We defeated some Orenian lackies with highwaymen?  That's what we've resorted to?  Representing ourselves with highway banditos?  This just shalln't do, my men will not be piled into this mass of idiots.  My brothers shall not be compared nor comparable to these children.  For we have a reason, We have a purpose.. These men have not a reason except for greed!  Words are to be had, Men shall be counseled, My reputation is at stake.. Not as a terrorist, as a respectable man."

Moskau would finish speaking, crumpling up the missive and throwing it beside his desk.  He would call for a bird.  Something was to be done, something needed to change.  Whether his leadership had failed, Or his men's discipline intertwined with their greed, he was going to figure it out.  One way or another, his men, under his leadership, would not falter as the Ministry's had.

Viva Mercatore.