Æ. 1701, Far Western calendar; 528 of the preceding Central calendar. The final week—thus practically the next year. Such was when the Great Tyrant who wore the Maddened Crown, the Demon-King themself, had suddenly emerged from the bowels of the world beneath at the head of a spontaneous legion, to once again wreak fire and carnage upon the 'innocent' and 'righteous' Thousand Realms of Man.

For as the Cycle foretold, the Tyrant's arrival would usher the birth of the Hero whose destiny—the inevitable conclusion—had been to slay the King of Fiends and contain the Fallen Crown, after which they would ascend to join the Gods—or whatever other interpretations of the aftermath.

Yet the Hero's Discovery, a tale as old as fable and time, would only occur in tragedy to invoke a journey's awakening; at a time of able, prime, and youthful age. The Thousand Realms had to endure sixteen years of horror, and only then would the Hero emerge; only after three more or longer years of 'Heroic Progress' and (character) development would the Tyrant finally be slayed in an ultimate decisive battle of presumably epic proportions indeed.

Such was the tale; such had been the Cycle which had repeated over and over and over since the Fall of Smiles' Crown. Yet on that day, the Demon-King had doubtless emerged in a world estranged to what it had been six-hundred years prior hitherto and even a thousand years even more prior.

The Great Tyrant's armies of infernal heavy cavalry, land beasts, gremlins, wicked demons, and conscripted red-tainted goblins and orcs had initially faced the same…predictable resistance they had always faced; easily slaughtered and, as per Demonic tradition, violated—holistically and indiscriminately… Only for them, by mid Æ. 1702, to be abruptly beset by stranger tactics, as if the realms of man had…adapted—changed.

The realms' meagre armies had begun to wield sticks of blasting fire enforced by walls of pikes, bombards, and worst of all…

Wagons.

Indeed. The Demonic armies had ended up held at bay—utterly stalled—and for longer than both man and demon alike could have possibly predicted, all from an improvised formation of interlocked wagons reinforced by sharpened steel, handgunns, and old howitzers. Somehow someway, this ridiculous concoction was the perfect counter—to the Tyrant's bemusement.

Ultimately a minor setback if there ever had been one, however; for as the Cycle required, the Demonic armies eventually did crush through them; they crushed through the Southern and Center Realms, and carved a path of blood, terror, and horrid fire into the mid-edges of Huckleberry, even if casualties were far greater than even the Pantheon Gods had predicted, and from there…

The Western Coast.

And it was therein, it was said, that the Demon-King had discovered the culprits behind this greater resistance—this greater frustration—by the pathetic, pitiful, and millennia-spanning incompetent nightmarish-feudal realms of man…

Aliens from across the Great Ocean—aliens who adorned themselves with fancy hats, fancy attire, and quite the attitude.

For, indeed, as it had turned out…the so-called 'trade companies' of the so-called 'Far West' had a vested commercial interest in the Tyrant's Cyclic-ordained right-to-pillage lands; they had been supporting the local realms in this spontaneous war, providing weapons, mercenaries, logistics, and intelligence at what they called a 'fair' and 'reasonable' 'discount'.

It was unknown if whether the Demon-King—being what they were—had always known that there existed aliens across the greater world or if this had been their first encounter—first contact. Regardless, however, such would change little as for the decision the Tyrant had made.

The Demonic armies halted in their advance and studied these strange aliens; utilizing the stolen shipyards of occupied coastal realms and enlisting the mass enslaved labor of whomever had survived the initial conquest, slaughter, and rape, they constructed something that no Demonic army had ever bothered to construct: a navy.

A flotilla of hastily constructed ships said to have been, according to local accounts, made from the wood of a hundred forests and imbued with Demonic magics that reddened and hardened; it was also said that a legion of so-called 'leviathans' had also been ostensibly 'summoned'.

Then came that autumn day in Æ. 1705; the day in which—as they would later say—all of history's song had changed; the day in which the Cycle would condemn its own end. For the Tyrant King, frustrated by these meddlesome aliens, would make an example out of them—to thoroughly demonstrate what their continued presence would entail.

On that autumn day, the constructed Demonic Armada—a gargantuan fleet—was unleashed; ransacking, enslaving, and violating their way through the Western Coast, targeting both local realms and, especially, the trading outposts and ports of practically every major or minor Far Western enterprise—liquidated, despoiled, and massacred in utter full. The Demonic Armada would spend more than a week on their pillaging rampage, until they finally reached…

A major trade center of a port town occupying a sizeable island off the coast of the Rainbow Kingdom, owned and governed by the Elkland Central Company: New Wellington—named after the hometown of the then Kingdom of Elkland's first venturer to the Central Continent.

Although their arrival was no longer surprise, the Demonic Armada through sheer mass smashed through whatever defenses laid in way; they raped and butchered every single soul that happened to breathe—every. single. one. The Sacking of New Wellington. The Demonic Armada would continue on to sack and despoil the Central Continent from coast to coast, destroying—eradicating—whatever remaining Far Western commercial hubs remained.

Such, it was said, was the first sin the Tyrant had committed.

The Demon-King's attacks had hardly ever allowed for survivors. Demonic ships and 'leviathans'—if such were present—destroyed whatever ships they had; whatever ships tried to flee; beyond those strategically allowed to send their message home: 'aliens stay out or we shall come thereto for your homes as well'.

The horror, the terror, the shrieks… Such were merely the point. The Thousand Realms had always quivered in their own urine, shaking as they awaited their precious Hero. The Tyrant assumed that such would be so for these aliens too; that the unequivocal horror would make them cower and retreat.

Except, the Far West was not the Thousand Realms. They had 'pride', and most of all, an addiction to an abstraction dubbed 'prestige'.

In the following months, when word reached the Far Western mainland of what had befallen—the rapes, the massacres, New Wellington's Sacking—indeed a terror had spread throughout, yet from which ultimately begot was not cower but ignited fury. Fury from the trade companies whose more than a century of commercial investments had been wiped; from the masses horrified by the threat of an attack on their shores; to the very monarchs themselves embarrassed and spiteful, unable to control the spreading whispers.

Such would be made worse by a Demonic raid on Os Novum—an insular mid-oceanic colonial settlement far off from the Central Continent's coasts—which showed that the Tyrant King was capable of following through on his words.

Unable to allow this affront to slide, the then Five Great Powers of the Far West: Elkland, Royume, Valeria, Raiche, and Groussergdom put aside their petty differences and united their navies and armies; joined further by then secondary powers with vested interests in the Centralish lands, such as Provencia, Serena, Bombardy, Pikeland, Gothia, and even the fallen giant of Los Dû Rejimos whose forces had already been engaging the Demonic tide. Lesser or minor powers such as Frankivra, Sassona, and Goidelle also joined, with even the ostracized Diarchy of Elivencia and her heretical Venticile church providing clandestine support.

Indeed. Assembled was a coalition that would ultimately encompass almost every power of the Far Western Continent. A grand coalition for a 'Grand Intervention'—the largest multipower combination of armies and navies their world had ever seen in known history.

The Far Western entry into the Demonic War was announced not by message but fire—the mass arrival of merely the first of their combined fleets. Demonic leviathans—if such were present—were 'purged' by ships specialized solely in eradicating sea monstrosities, according to self-reports, of course. The great Demonic Armada was abolished and left in ruin by hundred-cannon ships-of-war—the mightiest of the time, they would say.

By late Æ. 1707 to early Æ. 1708, almost the entire Central Continent had become encircled by virtually every navy from the Far West.

With the oceans cleansed, the Far Western powers took immediate control over the Centralish coastline and peripheral interior, swiping command over the so-called 'native' armies—disarming whoever and whatever did not cooperate or 'consent'—and placed the realms-at-be under effective occupation.

For the next remaining years, the Grand Intervention in conjunction with native feudal forces—under their control—waged a costly and brutal war of pacification, growing their occupation as liberation spread, dealing with all manners of logistical issues and native…insubordination.

Nevertheless, the Demon-King's frustrated attempt to deprive the Thousand Realms of bombards and handcannons had only invited an even grander presence of more advanced—contemporary—artillery and firearms, augmented or 'enchanted' by alien sorcery.

Indeed. Overwhelming Firepower.

Yet whatever fury had initiated the Far Western Intervention already began to fade as the war dragged on, as costs rose with increasing exhaustion; more souls conscripted, more taxes levied, more powers feeling ever uneased by their lack of homeland defense.

In Æ. 1710, scenting the fresh smell of vulnerability, the Demon-King made a desperate gambit to demoralize the Far Western armies—to strike at their spiritual hearts. The Demonic tide, battered but undefeated, set its sight upon the Centralish Patriarchate: the division of the greater Trinitarian Church responsible for managing the followers of Trinity in the Central Continent.

Although, the Tyrant hitherto had avoided these religious sites of an alien god, the Demonic legions proceeded to rape and pillage its way to that great and self-described 'magnificent' Patriarchate Church, wherein they proceeded to despoil both the building and, as locally reported, the 'asses of every priest and nun'—in addition to the refugees who sought sanctuary.

The second sin the Demon-King had committed.

For this 'Patriarchal Massacre' invoked the condemnation of the Patriarch Supreme headed in the so-creatively named 'Trinitopolis', who proceeded to officially sanction the Far Western endeavor as a 'Holy Crusade'—a move the Church had not done in centuries. Such brutalization against its patroned temple, mortal clergy, and faithful followers, likewise, invoked the ire of Heaven itself which sent Angels in retaliation to both menace the Demonic armies and to safeguard Trinity's consecrated sites.

Naturally, this bolstered the Intervention with newfound religious motivations as zealots, holymen, and nascently formed 'crusader' mercenary orders volunteered to support.

The Demon-King's armies found themselves in a perpetual retreat, before, in mid Æ. 1712 everything had all coalesced into a final decisive battle, wherein the Tyrant's head, as it went, was blown off by a single stray cannonball; the Demon-King had been slain, some six years before the Hero would have come of age—the Lost Hero never to be found. The Tyrant's armies shattered and scattered with the winds, remnants chased into their graves.

And so had ended the Last of all the Demon Wars. The Cycle had been broken.

The Far Western powers were celebrated by Centralish locals as liberators and defenders. Their troops marched through cities and towns as welcome triumphant heroes, and many proceeded to settle with local women—making this land their home.

Lords, feudals, and sovereigns anticipated the coming return to normalcy—the return to their titular powers, authorities, and an end to the Far Western Occupation.

Yet by the first year of the new Central calendar, the Occupation had not ended; these 'liberators' were outstaying their welcome.

For whilst the Last Demon War had ended, beginning were…the 'negotiations'—the 'talks'. The intervening Far Western powers returned to their natural ways: constant and irredeemable bickering. 'The Fate of the Central Continent' laid in their table's hand, and they could not decide what to do with this troublesome land.

Much of the continent had effectively been taken over, the locals celebrating their presence—for now. Indeed—a lucrative opportunity if there ever was one, ripe for exploitation by those with vested interests and those hoping to claim their own slice of this continental cake. For the Central Continent was a land rich with lucrative resources and materials—practically every imaginable.

Indeed. Occupation zones were drawn, yet none could decide whom would be provided which slice; none were willing to withdraw whilst their rivals remained; none could withdraw. However, back at home, the Occupation was expensive as both aristocrats and the—said with ever the disdain—people wanted a return to normalcy, ignorant to the potential returns a perpetual presence could provide.

Entered then a gentleman by the name of 'Blueman G. Sparklechop'—a multigenerational hybrid of a colonial-native and the newly made head of the Elkland Central Company after the last several heads had become headless. Yet his tongue was sharp, his wits unmatched, and his ability to convince terrifyingly persuasive.

His idea was simple, truly: instead of having a direct and costly presence with overlapping spheres of influence and conflicts of interest, the major intervening powers should in fact leave the Central Continent and instead leave behind a permanent unified entity to serve as their intermediate; a joint enterprise in which each interested power would have a stake, unique privileges, commercial access, and a guaranteed market from which they might extract ever-lucrative resources and in which they might sell their own products.

A single unified enterprise made from the remnant scraps of the vanquished companies that had once existed, now ashen piles.

Through his intoxicating words and sweatless efforts, Blueman managed to convince every vested power that this was the way to go—the best possible option—even while including the myriad of caveats, such as this enterprise's independence, a vow of non-aggression by the signatories against the Central Continent—hidden anti-colonial clauses—, and private military allowances; that this enterprise would be the one and only collective representative of the Far Western powers.

By Æ. 1715, three years after the Demon-King's defeat and thus Year 3 of the new Central calendar, Blueman had secured the promised signatures of Provencia, Elkland, Serena, Bombardy, Raiche, Pikeland, and Gothia with recognition by Valeria, Royume, Groussergdom, and the other intervening powers—with begrudging acceptance by Rejimos. This culminated in the Establishment Declaration of 1715, which called for a Union of Trade Companies—the skeleton of which would, naturally, be the Elkland Central Company—and initialized the end of the Occupation.

However, even as the Grand Intervention's troops finally began their awfully slow withdrawal, final ratification would not happen for another two years, no thanks in part to the signatories' own bickering and Rejimos derailing the negotiations by demanding an explicitly set boundary between their holdouts and this new enterprise—a condition that would, indeed, enter treaty.

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After further extensive and exhaustive negotiations, in Æ. 1717 the Treaty of New Wellington was finally ratified and signed by the seven signatory powers, with immediate recognition by the non-signatory Great Powers, lesser benefactors, other essentially the rest of the Far West. The United Central Trade Company had officially come into existence, combining with and replacing all other major trade companies whom had preceded it, headed of course in New Wellington.

Blueman—utilizing his free time—had already secured treaties and blood-agreements with native realms, such as Rainbow, Sealight, Oceanfield, and the then up-and-start city-county of Coastfield. And almost immediately after the United Central Company was born, he entered into talks with the remaining local and major power outside of Rejimos's promised exclusion zones.

One of these realms was the self-proclaimed 'Great' Dutchy of Huckleberry, the position of which made it an important intermediate and middleman.

By the time the final soldier of the Occupation had departed the Central Continent, handing over his gun and responsibilities to New Wellington's own allowed troops, the United Central Company had cemented itself as the sole and exclusive Far Western power in West, North, Center, East, and Southeast of the Central Continent, with the Southwest and other pockets left as Rejimos's sphere of influence.

'A hundred years ahead of mutual prosperity' was the promise made in the announcement ceremony held in Coastfield; from inception, the purported strategy was respectful cooperation with the locals. And for nearly fifty-to-sixty years onwards, the United Central Trade Company had held an uncontested and unchallenged monopoly, backed by the might of its signatories and benefiting Far Western powers.

Indeed. There was not a single realm or petty fief—a single merchant or lord—who did not know the Company's flag. It was the Far Western power in the Central Continent—having become synonymous in Centralish eyes.

Yet the Occupation's shadow had left a scar—one that the Company barely filled as much as assumed representation thereof, utilizing the same 'zones' now 'regional districts'; the same forts and the same infrastructure. As the celebratory fervor faded, many realms realized not only the humiliation but the absolute horror of what had truly happened—the reality of the Intervention; that their whole continent had been, so swiftly and decisively, disarmed, subjugated, and occupied by not even Demons but men from alien lands… All the while their bickering and inefficient realms were unable to resist.

Resentment slowly grew and fostered even as the mask of cooperation—of treaties, agreements, and 'voluntary' consent—continued to hang by an ever-thinning thread. All that was needed was for at least one realm to realize what the Demon-King themself had realized—that their world had changed, and that they needed to change with it or be blown away by the escalating winds…

And that realm was the then insignificant Pegasus County—a lush evergreen realm once the renowned domain of the exotic pegasi…hunted to extinction by foreign commercial demands.

Pegasus learned from the Company; she learned from the Occupation—the warning that it was. For as the 1720s-1760s Æ. dragged on, unleashed upon the world was an unprecedented age of colonial expansionism by the Far Western powers, themselves perhaps applying what they had learned from the Grand Intervention and the Occupation—ever-refined strategies of continental conquest.

The United Central Company had tried to keep the Central Continent blind to the greater world, though Pegasus kept her eyes open. The Company had initially seen opportunity in this upstart's rise; by the time New Wellington realized the true threat, it was already too late.

For the Occupation's scars had not merely afflicted the Central Continent, but had also cut as far as the mainland itself.

Valeria. A mighty kingdom of industry and firepower—the strongest on land—sister to the lesser Provencia, both having been born from Royume's ancient womb. Even prior to the Last Demon War, the Valerian Crown had been…struggling—perceptually decadent, coffers having a habit of emptying too fast. Material contradictions indeed had already been accumulating—forces preexisting.

The Grand Intervention had made Valerian might expensively but elegantly displayed to all her rivals' eyes; the subsequent Occupation, however, had made a crisis inevitable even several decades onwards due to chronic poor management and…questionable-at-best decisions. The Crown of Valeria had been left nearly bankrupt and ultimately extracted little in return other than grand esteem and extravagant prestige—abstractions of little material value.

Promised luxuries left forsaken to her contributing armies would foster a decades-spanning—multigenerational—institutionalized resentment in her powerful military, all the while the Valerian Crown felt progressively compelled to tax the worst off the most to recover the increasingly irrecoverable and pay off long overdue debts, backstepping every attempt to do the same to anyone of higher birth due to archaic privileges.

When combined with crown inheritance by a young inexperienced heir now king, multiple bad harvests and a bread crisis, by the mid-to-late 1750s Æ. Valeria had entered a death spiral, and in that year Æ. 1764, the Valerian Crown had completely collapsed.

A revolution.

For the next thirteen years, the entire Far West would be embroiled in—devoured by—a colossal total war of continental proportions with even engagements—spillovers—overseas, as the so-called 'ancient order' sought to contain the rapidly spreading fire that was the revolutionary Valerian Republic.

The United Central Company had done its best to ensure that word of the Far West's chaos did not spread into the Central Continent, such was ultimately a rather 'open secret' amongst the Central elites. The Company was left unsupported by its own signatories—some of whom had found themselves courteously 'adopted' into Valeria's ever-growing 'family' or 'sisterhood'. Its navy was constantly preoccupied dealing with revolutionary privateers, opportunistic interlopers, defending crucial sea-lanes, and attempting to prevent a spillover of the greater continental war into Centralish sphere.

And, perhaps a mere coincidence, it happened to be whilst the Far West was horribly distracted—the Company in state of alert yet also vulnerable by distraction—that the already growing threat of Pegasus, now the self-proclaimed 'Empire of Pegasus' headed by a modernizing state and commanding a developing army, would aggressively consolidate itself, initiating a crisis the Company was not prepared for.

In order to contain the threat of the Empire and her nationalist—Centralish unification—ambitions, the once-mighty Kingdom of Rainbow, with direct support from the Company, organized a 'Coalition of Sovereigns' to preserve the ancient feudal order and deny further expansion. The paralleling irony of Central's situation and that of the mainland was not lost on New Wellington.

However, in Æ. 1771, total and open war would break out between the Rainbow-led and Company-backed Sovereign Coalition and the Empire of Pegasus. For the next six years this war would devastate the Central Continent in a manner almost reflective of the old Demon Wars, except inflicted by the hands of man.

In Æ. 1777, the Valerian Republic was finally subdued, the Revolution stomped and crumbled; more than two million estimated lives were ultimately claimed by the end of the Valerian War—if not counting civilians. Shortly thereafter, as if as soon as the word had reached Centralish lands of that war's end, in yet another coincidence the Empire and Coalition too reached a ceasefire by that same year's end, which did not conclude as much as inconclusively pause the so-called 'Imperial War'.

The Central Continent had been split in half—two almost alien worlds—, the Company's presence in the south—now Imperial sphere—wiped out. The death toll remained an open question, but the continent was unmistakably devastated, entire realms such as Graillight erased from the map. Yet comparatively, it was the Far West that had been left arguably more torn and in need of sorting.

The Far Western Great Powers organized in the perpetually neutral city of Aprodisa a congress to discuss not only the fate of the occupied Valeria, but to establish a permanent body—a new continental system—to settle disputes, mutually handle radicalist containment, and to, ultimately, prevent another catastrophic war from breaking out again.

Valeria had nearly dominated the Far Western continent, entire orders and states demolished and remade; and whilst the war had ended, Valeria had done more damage to everyone else than they to her. As a result, the Congress of Aprodisa decreed the erasure of Valeria herself; she was stripped nude and prostituted—partitioned—amongst the vindictive hungry… A great power had ceased to exist, new ones arising to fill the vacuum.

Yet such was the easiest problem for the Aprodisan Congress.

For the Revolution had attracted expats from other powers, such as officers and disillusioned citizens from the Folkwealth of Elkland; worse yet, it had attracted 'enlightened' and 'radical-oriented' renegades of the nobility and aristocracy. This created several issues for the Congress; Elkland did not want her citizens executed outside of homeland trial—the Congress did not trust Elkland to punish appropriately—, and the Far Western nobility itself were so mutually intermingled that relatives could be found in effectively every house.

Entered then New Wellington yet again, whose representatives—self-invited—proposed a simple solution: instead of executing the revolutionaries, the Congress should exile them to the Central Continent—far from any ears or eyes, never to be their problem again.

After additional years of prolonged talks and a temporary pause to put down a Valerian insurrection, the Congress of Aprodisa elected in Æ. 1779 to follow this plan. Revolutionaries and sympathizers thereto of noble birth, high-esteem, and—ultimately—anyone whomever they could not be bothered to execute were exiled to the Central Continent—the problem outsourced, in a manner of a way.

Yet as part of this arrangement, the United Central Trade Company's charter—by consent of its signatories, themselves now Congressional members—was transferred to the direct oversight of the Congress of Aprodisa in order to ensure the management of this expulsion and the exile's…resettlement.

A necessary consequence, New Wellington had calculated, for what the Company most certainly needed was the Valerian mind of might.

For entering the 1780s Æ., the post-revolution world order was tumultuous, and throughout the new decade challenges and challengers had arisen in almost every direction.

In the New World, the West New World Trade Company had subjugated the Far Eastern free colonies of the colossal continent's western seaboard and had humbled an ancient elven kingdom, establishing itself as a trade empire with strings penetrating deep into Elkland's pockets and eyes set on Central. In the eastern New World, the Royalist Colonies of New Elkland were rapidly developing as a global power…and a major threat after the king had become sickly, leaving New Elkland under the total whims of a so-called 'mad' prince bent on global abolition.

Meanwhile in the Central Continent, the frozen standoff between the Coalition and Empire brought opportunity but also extreme risk.

The Empire of Pegasus remained a hostile threat, now supported by Royume who—under new regime—had broken from her obligatory promises, supporting Pegasus and her growing modernization efforts as to strike her own say in this lucrative continent. The Empire was looking for any opportunity to prove herself as a legitimate and equal power.

Rejimos, the oldest competitor to the preceding companies, had become militantly re-ambitious—violating treaty and custom with aggressive actions and violent disputes with the natives, culminating in the horrific 'Annihilation of Tinkleberry' in the Huckleberry Dutchy over the purported theft of a unicorn—a rare New World commodity. Tinkleberry's destruction would destabilize Huckleberry, and the Company's response had come swift and decisive…behind closed doors, armed with sharpest pens and most aggressive words.

The first scent, indeed.

The worst issue was ultimately the native realms themselves, who had become angsty and irritated. Once cooperative partners and local subordinates were becoming unreliable—a reality that was solidified by the then Free Barony of Endless Sea, who had so 'borrowed' the Company's mercantile ambitions and 'competitive instincts'. Unifying with several other coastal baronies, the emergence of the so-called 'Oned Baronies of Boundless Sea' would go on to chew away at the Company's west-coastal influence.

Boundless sea and related native ilk challenged the Company's once uncontested monopoly, ignorant—in New Wellington's eyes—that it and it alone was the only reason that the growing gluttonous powers overseas had not devoured Centralish lands.

Even the Kingdom of Rainbow had become a defiant partner, despite the Company's attempts to ensure the King in Pleasant Smile fed only from its hand. The rise of Pegasus was a pressure that the Coalition could not match with the Company's…fair and equal treaties.

In the Far West itself, although the Congressional order held strong, the competition of the Great Powers had merely become outsourced overseas—proxy wars, 'great games', and colonial conflicts. Once supporting powers were looking for any opportunity to claw their own direct hands into Centralish lands and Company influence, the signatories themselves becoming skeptical of the Company's…necessity due to downward spirally profits and declining returns.

Indeed. A few notables were waiting for any excuse to revoke the charter and take their owed slices themselves.

By the end of the 1780s Æ., the Company had become militarized—its fangs stretching wide. Against the Congress's expectations and against perhaps more reasonable judgement, the Company had absorbed the Valerian Exiles—incorporating their generation of talents and expertise, both in military, engineering, and industrial matters. Though unsanctioned, the Company had allowed the exiles to organize their so-called 'Exiled Legions'—mercenaries who would effectively become the face of the Company's private armies, even if the Valerian revolutionaries were questionably loyal at best.

The Company, as its accusers would claim, had sold its soul to radicals opposed to its very principles in order to remain competitive; in order to remain dominant; to restore its monopoly or at the very least survive into the coming century…

In order to not appear weak.

In relying on them, however, Elkland—the mother to the very bones from which the Company had birthed itself—had become suspicious of New Wellington's activities. In Æ. 1790, the Folkwealth officially withdrew from the charter and adopted an openly antagonistic posture, fueled perhaps by conservative governance or corporate backing by the West New World Company. The loss of Elkland signaled to some the beginning of the end.

Vultures, both native and alien, were beginning to circle with monitoring eyes, sniffing out the changing scent in the air for any opportunity to bite.

In Æ. 1791, the Company's old partner, the Huckleberry Dutchy, erupted into civil war between the Duke in Grandberry and his loyalist vassals and the so-called 'Elderberry Alliance', the latter utilizing the distractions caused by a bizarre, likely divine, skirmish known as 'the Battle Between Sky and Earth' to initiate rebellion. Yet the duke's increasingly 'erratic' and 'inconsistent' behaviors even beforehand had caused New Wellington to question Grandberry's reliability.

Officially as a precaution, the Company relocated its regional district headquarters to Strawberry in Huckleberry's so-called 'Eastern Bulge', a region renowned for purportedly 'a thousand years' of separatist angst. Grandberry was immediately suspicious, though the Company continued supporting—and profiting from—its military's professionalization efforts.

In summer Æ. 1792, however, suddenly and abruptly, under the mask of night and native festive, the County of Coastfield was catastrophically bombarded by a secret-deployed detachment of the Royal New Elklander Navy, which had sailed all the way from the New World as if to prove a point. The reasons had been kept publicly opaque, though it was likely a dispute over Coastfield-complicit privateering and the slave trade.

Nevertheless, the entire sovereign line of the county was killed, much of the city left destroyed by a mysterious explosion and a 'fire-tide', spawning a crisis of succession and dispute over inheritance—to which the Company responded with decisive speed and force, taking direct control over the city.

For the first time since the Occupation, a Far Western power had occupied a Centralish city. And much like the Occupation, the Company was beset with sheer cost of managing both reconstruction and the diplomatic backlash by both Empire and Coalition realms alike, never mind the aggressive posturing of realms who dynastically claimed the occupied county, such as the Kingdom of Sunflower and the Grand County of Warmful Smile.

Yet while its intelligence regiments in cooperation with the native so-called 'Adventurers' Guild'—a circumstantial clandestine 'friend'—, located the bastard heir to enthrone and legitimize the Company's control, another crisis abruptly emerged. As reports noted, a giant 'bronze golem' had massacred a dozen Company soldiers 'unprovoked', an embarrassment the culprits of which were an obscure collection of elves, hobgoblins, orcs, and general under-dwellers dubbed 'the Fallen'.

Soliciting assistance from Grandberry and the Loyalist Realms of Huckleberry, the Company initiated a retaliatory campaign against the Fallen—to 'avenge the massacred twelve'. Company troops were allowed to establish a forward assembly camp deep within Huckleberrien land to wage their retaliation.

Yet in the background, more crises were emerging.

In Strawberry, a food shortage was loading an explosive barrel waiting to detonate, and the Company's relations with Grandberry were—behind closed doors—souring. In order to address the Strawberrien food crisis, the Company—graciously and with most humble intentions—made an arrangement with the County of Humbleberry, a Loyalist realm, to prepurchase the surplus of the coming harvest.

Yet in an act of treachery, Grandberry, accusing of probably true insurrection, raided Humbleberry and destroyed many of the promised crops—in direct defiance to New Wellington's forewarning of their deal.

New Wellington's response was immediate; in late Æ. 1792, a Company riverine fleet seized control over the Big Dividing River which separated Huckleberry from the Eastern Bulge. Company troops entered both the Bulge and Humbleberry proper in order to 'salvage' what they could, though in reality were preparing their true response.

However, consequently, so too were Grandberry and the Loyalist Realms despite still being 'allies' on paper. The Duke in Grandberry was readying himself to unveil the accumulation of his modernization efforts, and what better a demonstration target—in his mind—than the corporate limp that kept walking.

All the while, looming overhead was an impending session of the Congress of Aprodisa, hastily called to early assembly in order to both discuss a growing crisis in the New World and, from Elkland's pressures, discuss the very issue that was the Valerian exiles…and the Company's future.

Weakness. Such had always been the pattern with Far Westerners. They detested looking weak; they detested looking pathetic and disgraceful. They had to show power and force, always.

Despite all its attempts to the contrary, the Company looked weak—in the eyes of the natives, in the eyes of its signatories, and especially in the eyes of rising powers waiting to fill in the coming vacuum. All that would be required to usher forth a feeding frenzy was a simple demonstration of whether or not this appearance was true; that it was, indeed, weak—unworthy of continued support or backing.

And two eyes were set on being the ones to strike that final stake into its heart: the Fallen and the Huckleberry Dutchy.

A war was looming ahead. The era of the Company was, according to some selective interpretations of Fate and Fortune, nearing its end; in the eyes of a certain duke and perhaps, even, a scheming Watcher.

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