Rifles and Rapiers: An expansion of America Stranded

Over the next few days, weeks, months, Jürgen drifted in and out of consciousness. Frequently he would end up being put back to sleep by the elves as one problem or another arose with his condition. He didn’t have any idea what these problems were, but he knew that they hurt.

One time, however, when he woke up, nothing hurt. Much of the bandages on his arms had disappeared, revealing fresh, pink skin underneath, like a newborn. His breath came out easy and unimpeded, no blood from a simple nosebleed was causing him to choke this time.

He took this moment of respite from the constant pain to observe his surroundings. He hadn’t ever managed to catch much of a glimpse before the elves would come in and put him back to sleep.

The room was long, maybe 40 feet either way, and fairly dark. Multiple other beds were placed inside with him, none were occupied as far as he could tell. One had a humanoid shape covered by a blanket, which made Jürgen’s breath catch in his throat.

He looked to his right. There was a desk with various objects on it, mainly jars filled with strangely colored liquids. He realized that if he hadn’t accidentally broken the jars on his fall, back when he had first woken up, there was a good chance that he would’ve died, choking on his blood.

The roof was covered in… leaves. He wasn’t that surprised to see it, though. Elves were known for that kind of thing, weren’t they? He wouldn’t know.

He sat himself upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. While he felt far from well-rested, he no longer felt as if he had been wrung out by a wind twister, either.

“Hello?” He called out. “Is anyone there?”

He stretched out his arms. There were some twinges of protest from his arm muscles, but nothing painful. Most likely just from disuse of his muscles. He was about to swing the blanket off of himself when a head with elongated ears peeked out from beyond the double doors. The eyes widened in surprise, then drew back. Jürgen stood still, unsure how to react.

A moment later, the doors opened, and three elves walked in. One of them wore armor and walked protectively next to a much more well-dressed one, a long purple gown trailing on the floor behind her. She looked like royalty, and if Jürgen didn’t know better, he would think she was a princess. The elves didn’t have that sort of hierarchy though, as far as he was aware.

She spoke to the other elf, also a woman, who quickly reached in her pocket and stepped ahead of the two others, handing Jürgen a small, slightly glowing ring. He slipped it on.

“Hello, Jürgen,” The well dressed elf said. “That is your name, correct?”

Jürgen shifted awkwardly. “Erm, yes. That’s me. Jürgen. Nice to meet you, miss.”

Jürgen had no idea how to react. He was a small town farmer that barely brushed by with his meager sales, used with wheat that was harvested from a tiny plot of land, in soil that was far too rocky to even be reliably used. By comparison, this lady looked like she ate golden coated food as a light snack.

“Nice to meet you too, Jürgen,” the elf said. At least she had manners. “I am Elitia Światło, and I am in charge of everything to do with strange, or mysterious incidents.”

“Unusual Incidents Unit?” Jürgen blurted out. He wasn’t sure what had made him say it.

Elitia frowned. “I… guess you could call it that.” Her expression turned thoughtful for a moment. “That’s not a bad name, actually.” She then resumed her calming smile. “Not important. What is important is what happened to you, Jürgen.”

She gestured at the armored elf, who promptly pulled out a large, scorched metal object out of his backpack. Jürgen blinked several times. It was the head of one of the metal birds that had destroyed his village.

Jürgen felt himself begin to panic as the images came back to him. The charred, dismembered bodies. The screaming. The shrieking of the metal birds as they flew above at impossible speeds.

“Jürgen? Are you alright?” Elitia’s voice sounded as if she were underwater. Jürgen heard more chatter as she motioned for her aide. Suddenly, a hand thrust a small vial full of some blue liquid.

“Drink it,” Jürgen barely managed to understand those words through his trance-like state. He obliged, and gulped down the liquid. It tasted bitter, and he almost spat it out. But, as he swallowed it, he felt his panic begin to subside, replaced with a cool, emotionless feeling.

“Jürgen? How do you feel?” Elitia asked.

“… fine. What was in that vial?” Jürgen replied.

“A special concoction that we give to soldiers who have had traumatic experiences. While you aren’t a soldier, far from it, you seem to need it.” Elitia gave him a pitying look, which Jürgen wasn’t all that fond of.

“Now that you’ve calmed down, I assume that this is a piece of one of the things that attacked the village of Besofenhaven?” She inquired. She spoke with a clinical, detached tone. It contrasted greatly with her welcoming smile.

“Uhm, yes. Yes it is. How did you get it?” Jürgen felt focused now.

“Simple. We found it.” Elitia walked over to the right side of his bed. “Due to the efforts of a brave… human mage, several of the foul beasts were slain.”

Jürgen frowned. Mage… like the one that had helped him and John defend Besofenhaven?

“What happened to the mage? Did he make it?” Jürgen asked, suddenly concerned.

“Unfortunately, no. He did not survive. We found him in a… unrecoverable state.” She answered.

Jürgen remembered how the small rod that the metal bird had ejected had landed right on top of the mage.

“Oh,” he simply said. “Well, it wasn’t just him who helped, miss.”

“Oh?”

“I also helped, me and my friend. John, that was his name,” Jürgen briefly reminisced, able to think clearly now because of the potion. “He had a strange device. It was able to take out the metal birds when they dived at us.”

Elitia narrowed her eyes. “Dived, you say?”

Jürgen bobbed his head. “Yeah, dived.” He began to use his hands to mimic the gestures of the battle. “They would dive at us, or whatever their target was, drop a little rod looking object, then fly away.” He recounted the other details of the battle. Elitia nodded along, glancing back at her companions every so often. They would respond with a quick nod.

“... and that’s when another one of the things came at us, dropped this little rod, and we blew up. I woke up here.” Jürgen finished retelling the traumatic experience.

“... I see. Skolian, Yirana, leave us.” Elitia harshly dismissed her two underlings. The female one complied immediately with a polite nod, while the armored male one hesitated. Elitia fixed him with a stare, and he seized, as if frozen, before walking away robotically. The door slammed shut with an unnatural jerk of the soldier’s arm to close it. Jürgen was very unsettled.

“Now, Jürgen, I need you to tell me if you saw any form of insignia, any crests, any symbols that might inform us and my… compatriots of how to best deal with the villains who caused the destruction of your village.” Elitia said with a suddenly curt and demanding tone.

“Uh, sure, I guess. Let me think.” Jürgen was taken aback by her change in demeanor, but he dispelled the thoughts. “I… I’m sorry. I don’t remember any.”

“Oh come on, Jürgen,” Elitia shuffled closer. “You must remember something.”

Jürgen felt uncomfortable, but he ignored it. He thought back to the exact moment where John and the unnamed mage blew up. He remembered looking up at the sky as he passed out, and…

Jürgen landed flat on his back, strangely numb. He looked up at the dark black sky, obscured heavily by gray smoke, but a few stars twinkled hopefully through.

Jürgen knew he needed to focus, so he fought through the haze of cloudy gray memories and…

He could actually see some now, twinkling through a strangely bird shaped cloud of smoke. A large white one, with a stripe in the middle cutting through it. It was beautiful.

“I remember it. A white star, with red and blue colors.” Jürgen blinked and opened his eyes.

“Yes, yes. Good job, Jürgen.” Elitia nodded. “Well, I don’t want to pressure you any further. You have done a very good job today. I will approach you tomorrow and we'll talk some more. Goodbye now, Jürgen.” With that, she got up and walked to the double doors.

“You’re just gonna leave me here?” Jürgen asked. “Can’t I get up and leave?”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Elitia ignored his questions and waved a hand. Small sparks spat out from the tips of her hands and zipped to Jürgen, where they disappeared in his chest. Immediately, Jürgen felt as if he had gone a thousand moons without a single rest, and a moment later, he fell asleep.

. . .

Elitia waltzed out of the human’s room and shut the door behind her. With any luck, he would forget the conversation they had had, but luck seemingly hasn’t favored her as of late. She nearly walked into Skolian and Yirana, who were both waiting outside of the door.

“Yirana, summon the Council for a meeting.” She waved a hand at Yirana.

“Yes, my Elfmonger.” Yirana bowed and scurried off.

Elitia sighed and turned to Skolian. “You. You’ve been pestering me about whatever you want me to do for… a while at this point. What errand does Piriaki have you on this time around?”

“The North Elfmonger has not sent me, Lower Elfmonger.” The guard, who had introduced himself as Skolian when she had prompted said. She grinded her teeth at the mention of her… official rank.

She drew herself up in mock surprise. “Oh? Then what is so important that you’ve been badgering me about it all day?”

Skolian stared stoically ahead. “Elven intelligence assets, owing their allegiance to you, Lower Elfmonger, have reported a large presence of the soldiers clad in green camouflage that have also been spotted all around the realm.”

Elitia blinked. “Oh. I see.” She focused, then resumed walking. “Where was this large company spotted?”

The soldier walked beside her. “The Plusieurs Kingdom, Lower Elfmonger.”

“Get rid of the lower that you keep calling me. Leaves a bad taste in my ears.”

The soldier continued on. “At the residence of Princess Christina in Rudoulf City, numerous soldiers were reported to make camp at the gates of the city and demand supplies. They possessed a myriad of, to say the least, unorthodox siege equipment.”

“Did they stay for long?”

“No. They asked for… oil. Alcohol, cooking oil, things such as that.”

“That’s… strange. Emblems, flags, coats of arms? Anything to signify who they belonged to?”

“None, Elfmonger. However, according to the report, they were asked where they hailed from, but the agent was unable to overhear the response.”

Elitia suddenly stopped walking. Internally, she was calculating her next move.

The business of intelligence gathering was complex. One had to be efficient in their use of agents, and also had to know the best targets. The richest and most powerful empires were prime targets, obviously, but rich and powerful usually came with effective counter-intelligence. So, she was often forced to locate the few assets she placed in those empires in minor roles, ones not carefully inspected. Which usually meant that she did not gain effective intelligence from those areas.

Her predicament now was whether to pile as many spies as she could into the empires now, in a desperate bid to gain any sort of info on these mysterious green clad soldiers, or to withdraw all the spies, in preparation for a dangerous foe. For if all these soldiers wore was a green camouflage uniform, then some logic would lead to the conclusion that they were mere scouts. And scouts, in these numbers, didn’t mean a good thing. If this was but a forward scouting mission, and already more of them had been spotted than the population of most cities…

That was ridiculous. The whole point of scouts was to have them unnoticeable. No matter the amount of men any army had, they wouldn’t send that many scouts. So, Elitia opted to neither withdraw her spies nor pile more.

“Guard.” She spoke blandly and curtly to get his attention.

“Yes, Elfmonger?” Skolian turned towards her and stood at attention.

Elitia quickly pulled out a quill, and snapped her fingers. A piece of parchment and a stoppered ink bottle floated out of a small bag she kept on her, and she let the quill rise out of her hands as well. It dipped itself in the ink bottle and began to scribble out a quick, encoded message on the parchment. She resumed walking. Skolian and the floating quill and parchment followed her.

“Deliver this message to the servant with an eagle's crest on his shoulder. He will be found either in the South Elfmonger’s quarters or on the second floor, sitting on a windowsill.” The message finished writing, and plopped itself in Skolian’s waiting hands. He dutifully nodded, and began to walk away. But, Elitia called out to him.

“Guard?”

He turned back around. “Yes, Elfmonger?”

“If you tell a soul about this conversation, then you will be dead before dinner.”

He paused, then resumed walking.

Elitia turned a corner and walked down the sunny, warm corridor. She had a meeting to attend.