The Fortress is a failure of imagination and design. The concepts being tried in the Great War are evidence that the Age of the Fortress has come to a close. Although personally, I would not even say that, the Age of the Fortress never truly existed, it was simply a mass delusion driven on by the sheer laziness of humanity.

There is no Fortress on this world that is self-sufficient. The most obvious case in this is the need for food and fresh water. There is a reason that the only time there is some huge siege which pushes on for months, then it is because of the defender being on a river or some port-town or having access to tunnels which can be used to fight off against humanity’s strongest opponent: hunger. Even then, there are cases where hunger is defeated. I have just given examples but I also say that Iniri effectively makes castles impossible to siege down. We call Neneria a pocket-army but a similar term can be applied to Iniri: pocket-plantation.

Yet it is a sign of the White Pantheon’s failings that they decide to waste the Goddess of Nature in such a way. Iniri is made to sit around and gossip with Lords and Ladies all day when she could instead be used offensively against us. She effectively removes any need for a supply line bearing food. As long as an army has a handful of magicians to re-shape metal for armour and blades and Iniri to feed the troops, then that army can forever serve as a forward vanguard. Add Kavaa or her Clerics into the mix and a force entirely self-sufficient is created.

And it is due to this that the Fortress fails. A war is won when an enemy’s resolve to continue the fight is broken. This is not done through sitting behind castle walls as the countryside is left to be pillaged. This is done through breaking the enemy’s spirit and defeating them mentally. The cost of combat has to be too great to continue.

Defensive Doctrine is fundamentally misunderstood by strategists. The protection of a location is merely a means to an end. If humanity reproduced at the same level as ants or bees, then walls would not be built because we would simply position an army around every city. However humanity does not create spawn like insects so every army, no matter how technologically advanced, eventually becomes limited by manpower. A wall is built around a city because a wall needs a tenth of the men required to hold an area as an open field. This is meaningless still. It is only once we consider that the other nine-tenths of the original garrison can be used in other operations that we finally understand that the true purpose of defences is to project power. To build a wall for the sake of building a wall is equally banal, why waste the man-hours and resources?

Defending for the sake of defending is how one gets encircled and attritioned into oblivion. Most doctrines centred around defence fail in this regard, for they confuse projection of power with passivity.

– Excerpt from “The Philosophy of War”, written by Goddess Kassandora, of War.

“Aye Aye Sir. Opening cargo doors.” Captain Douglas’ voice came over the speakers. Raptor One had been specifically stolen from the film crews for a half-day in order to serve as transport for the God of Pride. They had barely managed to clear the inside out and obviously work had been done inside the rear cargo pod too. Ropes and strings and ribbons were hanging from the walls, an Imperial red-white-black tricolour was on the wall. It was clean too, Arascus had never seen this place be brushed to practically shining.

The cargo bay doors in the rear of the plane began to slide down. They revealed a sliver of light-blue sky and let in the terrible howling wind. Arascus felt the freezingly cold air rush past him, one hand tightened around the handle of his suitcase, with the other he had to hold onto one of the steel pipes that went up from the floor to the ceiling of the compartment as the air inside the bay rushed out. His cape whipped forward, then rushed back, and then finally started whipping about in all directions.

“Over the location in…” Douglas said over the speaker. His voice was barely audible against the thunderous wind. Arascus looked down at the land of Gracya from above. The mountains looked as if they had been cooked by this land’s terrible sun. From above, the trees looked as if they were dieting whereas the forests were starving. Some cattle grazed in the distance.

“Three.” Two planes painted in white and gold suddenly shot up into the sky and came into view. On their wings, they had the square marking of Fortia’s newly-created Air-Force. They were old White Pantheon planes, the same that had been used in Kirinyaa and in Epa, but re-painted and re-marked. No longer the mixture of pure-white and light-gold but rather deep-bronze and dark-gold: Fortia’s colours.

“Two.” Below, an entire encampment came into view as Raptor One sped away from those planes. It wasn’t even that they were underequipped. Apart from the lack of guns, White Pantheon planes fared no worse than the modern planes built in Rancais. Rather, it was the Raptor itself that was so tremendously overengineered that other machines simply could not catch up.

“One.” Arascus let go of the steel pole and stepped off the black tread plate that had recently been polished to gleaming. Raptor One shot off into the sky like a bullet as the God fell through the sky and towards the ground. Fortia’s two planes flew past him and another pair left a small runway on the ground. It was obvious that there was panic about in the camp below. An alarm loud enough for even Arascus to hear it this high in the air, and above the terribly screeching wind, was blaring in the camp.

Arascus used his own Divine power to dampen the fall although not stop it entirely. He wasn’t even in the realms of human magicians when it came to speed in the air. Falling was simply faster than a controlled descent. One of the planes flew past him, the other peeled away. Both left behind a gust of wind that tried to drag him forwards like the rushing water of a wave.

Finally, someone must have given a command or the forces down below realised that they weren’t under attack. The blaring alarm stopped and the pathways between those tents which had been slithering snakes with the flow of people settled down. They did not empty but rather men stopped rushing to their armouries or to positions and simply stood up to watch was happening.

It wasn’t a singular camp, it was two instead. Both on each side of a fortress. Quaint, that castle was, and almost small. It was half-built into a hill, with several layers of walls. No towers though. Maybe a tourist would not give it half a glance but Arascus but it was obviously a stronghold. There was only one winding path up to the first gate, and then one would have to cross almost the entire length of the fortress before getting to the next home. Maybe it wasn’t a massive structure, but it was obvious that the design had been done by architects who had fought in the Great War or by Fortia herself.

Arascus decided to skip the gatehouse and finally began to add some momentum onto his descent. His eyes picked out a helicopter landing platform. Two men stood there, looking up at him, both in gold-bronze armour and with a spear and shield. Another small team had taken to the walls. These had rifles, they raced to the palisades, crouched behind them and took aim at the God of Pride.

It wasn’t the first time Arascus had seen weapons pointed at him and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Without asking for question or permission and without giving a word of warning, he slowly descended to that helicopter landing platform. Down on the ground, the biting wind gave way to a gentle breeze that…

Arascus smiled. He tried picking out the whispers in the wind of nervous soldiers but realised there wasn’t any. The area wasn’t silent, there were footsteps and orders to stand down being shouted about. There was the crashing of steel, the turning of doors, there were engines being started but there wasn’t a single word said. Truly men trained by Maisara and Fortia.

Arascus’ black boot touched the stone landing pad. The two Guardians here straightened their backs as they looked up at the God of Pride. He more than twice their height. The tips of their long spears only reached their elbow. There was no reason to wait for introductions nor for some messenger or butler to greet him. “Take me to Fortia and Maisara.” He declared in a booming voice that echoed off the stone walls and then again off the mountain.

The two men froze and Arascus took a step forward. Mortals usually handled themselves well when they could prepare for a God’s arrival, but mortals were prone to panic too. Fortia should train her guardians better frankly. “Then I will go myself.” He had no clue where he was walking, but he wasn’t about to stand here and wait on a landing pad like some guest.

Arascus took a step forward with so much confidence this may as well have been his castle and the current seat of Fortia’s Orders. The castle here did look far larger from the ground than from the air. And up-close, details only a trained would spot revealed themselves. The roads were clear and keep free of obstacles. Then, at each end, were arrow slits to shoot at any invaders who may have cleared the walls. There were small ridges in the ground to carry away rainwater, or to use for hot oil. The battlements were only on the outside of the wall too, from the inside, the defenders got no cover. It was an excellently designed fortress. Mortals would have to expend thousands of lives for hundreds of defenders.

But then, that was all it was.

What could a castle do against a Divine? The greatest threat here was no the walls or the two armies camping around the fortress, it was the two Divines that called it their home. Arascus walked towards the only door that would contain him. There were three more, but those were human sized. The door was heavy steel, the inside was all stone. At least the floor tiles were sandstone which broke up the monotony of grey. Truly a utilitarian fortress.

Men started following Arascus, both Paladins in silver armour and with huge pikes or greatswords, and Guardians in their gold-bronze with shield and spear and sword. They had to maintain a jog to keep up with Arascus’ huge steps. Some had donned their helms, others were bare-headed but it was obvious from just the nervous expressions and quick glances between themselves that this was an unprecedented situation.

Arascus supposed it would be. How many times had a foreign God turned up uninvited? And how many times was that God one they had actually engaged in conflict with. Arascus turned to a grand hall. The windows here were so narrow and had steel bars running through the glass. There was a throne, there were statues, there were guards. There was a Divine.

Not the Divine Arascus had come looking for. The man was just slightly taller than a normal mortal, he barely managed to reach half of Arascus. His armour was gold-bronze, standard Guardian set but upscaled. A circular shield in one hand, a buckler in another. Arascus stared at this deity as he thought of what it would be. It was obvious actually. “Spirit of this fortress, take me to Fortia.”

The spirit stared at Arascus for a few moments. It must have heard the alarm and prepared, but those eyes, as grey and dark as the stone around them, were a mixture between confusion and nervousness. This was a new fortress, it hadn’t lived through the Great War. Then this reaction should have been expected. “I have a duty to protect this fortress Arascus.” The spirit said and picked up its sword.

“You will save me the trouble of finding her and I will save you the trouble of dying or you will die and I will waste time looking for her.” Arascus said loudly. He had no intention of killing this minor deity because that would annoy Fortia. But the reasoning and justification ended began and ended at that, this spirit did not matter in the slightest.

The spirit took a step back. Its sword hand shook. Arascus took a step forwards and looked around. “Which way is to her office?” Arascus demanded again.

“It is-“ The spirit began and was cut off by a deep voice.

“Why do you come Arascus?” Fortia interrupted everything. Arascus turned to a corridor where the Goddess the had emerged from, not just Fortia, Maisara too. Both Goddesses came fully dressed in their ancient armour. Fortia in her bronze, with her long spear, Maisara in her silver, with her executioner’s axe. Both in the light armour fashioned to for combat against beasts greater than Divines, with light skirts and chest plates that were a mere formality against shrapnel.

“There are things to discuss.” Arascus said and held up the suitcase. Neither Maisara nor Fortia looked particularly happy with that answer, but neither of them would send him away. Arascus hoped so at least.

“There is a formality to this.” Maisara said immediately as if to prove him wrong. Arascus quickly thought of a reply, it was Maisara at the end of the day. She would become moody if he told her that there was a formality to dying and Death probably did not appreciate her returning to this world.

“It is sudden and it is urgent.” Arascus said, he lifted up his suitcase. “I have not come to fight, bicker, demand, parley or even to negotiate. I have come in the hopes you will know what we have found.” There. That got their attention, why wouldn’t it after all? Both Goddesses changed their tunes immediately. Fortia dropped that obvious annoyance, Maisara got rid of her anger.

“Why did you not ring?” Fortia asked. Why? It was simple why. He had come because he wanted to force a meeting rather than make himself behold to Fortia’s schedule.

“This meeting needs to take place face to face.” Arascus said and Fortia sighed. She looked to Maisara. The Goddess of Order shrugged. The Goddess of Peace turned back and faced the crowd of her own men.

“Stand down. Stand down.” She forced the words out, obviously unhappy at the fact she was saying them. “Stand down. Ignore him. Send a message to the troops to stand down.” That spear pointed to Arascus, the God of Pride did not even glance at the blade. “Do you have a plane?”

“I got dropped off.” Arascus said and Fortia rolled her golden eyes.

“I meant does your plane need a parking spot?”

“It will land somewhere else. Don’t worry about that.” Arascus said.

“Well if it needs to land then it is welcome to land at my airfield.” Fortia said and turned to her men. “You heard me, send word Arascus’ plane is welcome to land.” And she looked to Arascus as she turned around. “Come. We will not discuss here.” Arascus quickly caught up to the two Goddesses. They were both shorter than him although still tall. Their Divine weapons disappeared and Fortia led Arascus down a short corridor in silence. Guards stood every few steps, they watched silently as the party of Divines got a huge stone door Fortia opened.

She held it open for Maisara and then nodded for Arascus to come in. He acknowledged the politeness with a nod. This was a simple meeting room. There was a huge, Divine-sized rectangular table in the middle. A fireplace. A cabinet. Chairs. And grey stone. The walls were undecorated, there wasn’t even a banner about. “I have whiskey.” Fortia said as she went to a cabinet and brought back a bottle and three glasses.

“Thank you.” Arascus said as he sat down and put the suitcase on the table. Maisara sat down opposite. Fortia next to her. The two Goddesses stared unimpressed at Arascus. His own curiosity was getting at him, she was obviously doing fine, but he still wanted to know if the resurrection had worked as well as Neneria said it should. “How are you feeling Maisara?”

The last time he had seen the Goddess of Order, she had been a crying mess. Now? She had returned back to the same attitude he always associated with her. “Fine. Get to it Arascus.”

“Polite as always.”

“We’re not friends.” Maisara said and tapped the table. “Get to it, what is this thing you want to discuss?” Maisara was truly a piece of work. Arascus had known troublesome, he had known rude, he had known argumentative, but Maisara he would describe as simply vicious.

“This.” Arascus brought out the same series of photos he had given to Elassa. It was pictures of the moon, that white orb in the night sky, then with other photos taken off the projection the spyglass put out. And more, some of squares which obviously had to be buildings. Other which where lines. There was a hole which had to be an excavation. Arascus did not look at the images, he watched the reactions of the two Goddesses. A reaction could give a lot away, and neither of this pair were particularly good at subterfuge.

Arascus saw pupils get wider. Lips tremor and slightly open. Eyebrows furrow in consternation. Both of them leaned forwards. Both of them looked… Somehow, it was worse that they were so honestly surprised that even Malam would not be able to fake such genuine emotion. “So neither of you know anything.” Arascus said.

“This is the moon?” Fortia asked. She looked up at the ceiling, realised what she was doing and blushed slightly. “This is Arda’s moon I mean? Not some other thing?”

“Would that make a difference?” Arascus asked.

“I mean…” Fortia trailed off. She looked to Maisara.

“It would be less urgent.” Maisara said. “Why is there something or someone on the moon?”

“You tell me.” Arascus said heavily. “This is why I came to you like this. Helenna and Elassa don’t know anything either. None of my daughters do obviously.”

“If Helenna doesn’t know then who will?” Fortia asked dryly.

“Allasaria probably.” Maisara said.

“And Allasaria has gone off.” Arascus said. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I’ve unofficially quit the White Pantheon.” Fortia said.

“I died so my vow is over.” Maisara added.

“So neither of you know?” Frankly, Fortia had quit the moment she took her Orders off Olympiada. The Goddess of Peace, everyone now knew, was just collecting the strength to say she quit. Maisara had not even visited the Divine Mountain after dying.

“I don’t.” Fortia said and Maisara repeated a phrase of the similar effect. Fortia spoke up the moment Maisara finished. “Who knows about this?”

“Not a lot of people. It shouldn’t leak.” He said.

“Shouldn’t is not won’t.”

“It should not.” Arascus repeated himself. “If it will then it will, but it should not.” Fortia looked over the images again.

“I have nothing to give you.” She said. “But thank you for showing us this, whatever it is.” Classic. Of course they knew nothing. Of course! It was the White Pantheon elites! Why would they know anything?!

Arascus ceased his annoyance and moved on. If they didn’t know then they didn’t know and no amount of whining would get them to know. “Then I will inform of the Imperial plan of action.” Arascus said, it cost him nothing to reveal it with how things were going, and he wouldn’t be able to keep the situation secret anyway so the best course of action was to see if he could build up any trust. “We’re going to adapt a rocket built to used satellites into a rocket that can travel to the moon. And we’re going to see what it is.”

And when he said the words, both Fortia and Maisara looked at each other in shock. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s not a problem per say.” Fortia said.

“We tried this some fifty years back.” Maisara said. “It was actually Theosius, Alkom, Zerus and Sceo who made the project. Not us.” She looked to Fortia. “I’ll tell it, right?”

Fortia shrugged and shook her head. “Go ahead.”

“So they wanted to go up to the moon to see if it was possible. Alkom wanted to start a program up there which would eventually be expanded to go to other worlds.” Maisara retold the story in a quick tone. “It was all going well, they even got through the design phase of making a rocket and were about finding a site to build it and then Allasaria came along.”

“That was one of the big arguments.” Fortia interjected. “Argument of the century in fact. Allasaria was adamant we cannot go to space.”

“I was very much for it.” Maisara said, then her tow dropped to a low rumble. “Granted it was because of the fact she was for it but there’s no real reason as to why we shouldn’t have a space program save for cost and money is the one thing the Pantheon doesn’t lack.”

“We left it at that but then the Epan Community and the UNN started their own programs. Allasaria enforced a worldwide ban.” Fortia said.

“Supposedly it broke Pantheon Peace.” Maisara interjected. “Logic wise was that anything larger up there could just be dropped anywhere in the world and cause devastation.”

“Satellites can do that too.” Arascus said.

“We know.” Maisara said. “But Allasaria was adamant. Plans were killed off just like that and a ban was instituted. Allasaria said it would be until the world had united under one flag and was ready to leave this world together.”

“That was another reason.” Fortia said. “Because if each country started its own colony up there, we could potentially see conflict and Divines wouldn’t be there to manage it.”

“That reason is better.” Arascus said. It made sense to some degree, especially if it was made by someone like Allasaria who needed to have everything under her watchful eye.

“Honestly I thought it was paranoia.” Fortia said. She stared at the photo. “Then we had the Space Telescope Affair.” The moment Fortia said that, Maisara’s eyes bulged as she stared at the photos.

“You don’t mean…” Maisara half-said, half-asked.

“It was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw these photos.”

“But then…”

“Mmh.” Fortia said. “But then it would explain everything though.”

“What are we talking about with this Space Telescope Affair?” Arascus asked. This was the sort of knowledge he simply did not have time to read about. But then these Goddesses had lived it.

Fortia began to retell the tale. “The UNN wanted to put a telescope into space. The Epan Community threw their lot in and made it a team effort. Guguo said they would assist in the construction. It was a team effort through and through. It was to only be used for scientific research and mapping out our solar system, there were even plans, scientists would be sent up from various nations on rotation and it would always be at least three different countries operating the telescope. No one had any objections.”

Maisara interrupted. “No one but Allasaria.”

Fortia nodded and continued. “No one but Allasaria. She vetoed the telescope. There was no real reason, arguments just fell flat. It was dangerous and expensive and so on, the space telescope didn’t have the fears of colonies running rampant because it fundamentally was a different thing. The UNN accepted the veto but Epa took it as a personal slight and gross White Pantheon overreach.”

“It was.” Maisara said flatly. “I’m not judging, I had no opinion on it to be honest. But it was by definition overreach. There was no way we could really defend it.”

“Helenna worked overtime to fix Allasaria’s mess because she didn’t do it too diplomatically either.” Fortia said. “The world came to us multiple times to negotiate and Allasaria simply refused each and every time. At the end, there wasn’t even reasons given. She just said no.”

“There was no real reasoning we could work out either.” Maisara said. She looked down at the photos. “But…”

“But indeed.”

Arascus got what they were talking about. He tapped the photo. “Allasaria knows what we are looking at here.”

“I can only assume she does.” Fortia said. “And that she wants to keep it a secret.”

“It checks out.” Maisara leaned back and crossed her arms across her steel breastplate. Steel hit steel and the Goddess of Order made a cacophony of noise. “It explains why the Space Telescope Affair happened.”

“And why she was against space exploration.” Fortia said.

“You said Theosius’ plan was fifty years ago.” Arascus said. Fortia nodded, then her face twisted in shock. Her eyes went wide. She looked to Maisara. The other Goddess looked shocked too as Arascus continued. “So she knew about this back then.”

Fortia slowly turned her head back to Arascus and shook. “No. No Arascus.”

“What no?” Arascus asked. “You just said that.”

“She ordered a destruction of all dwarf spyglass installations a thousand years ago.”

Oh.

Then…

How long has there been things on the moon?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep