Rote

[Gryphon the Pure]

Moguo had nothing. No army, no plan, no opportunity. His visit was marked only by the advent of exams at the academy, and he was desperate for an excuse to escape them. Stiltzkin berated him for his childishness and sent him back with the promise that when his time came, he would have the support of a fine army. Moguo took this conversely to mean that if he could raise an army, that would be his time. He wordlessly stormed out from his meeting with this new goal set in his mind, and spent the next several days away from school gathering the finest moogle warriors in the land.Stiltzkin returned to his own studies unaware of his pupil's actions. The recent return of the Emir of Raspur had drawn Stiltzkin's attention toward the lasting effects of the Ardashirian Holocaust. Tensions had been high throughout Shireroth over this act, second in controversy only to the Mog Rebellion some thousand years past. It was not unlikely that the recent re-acceptance of the Emir to Elwynn and revival of the Order of the Dead Stagg would be the straw to break the camel's back, especially with such elvish activists as Umbarcotumo and Russell in elevated seats of feudal power. It seemed also that if war were to break out among the states that it would be the first instance of concrete anti-Babkhan sentiment within Shireroth, which had been an ongoing topic of Stiltzkin's studies since some time after the original decree of the Mango-Camel pact.Here and there he had maps marked with reports of uprisings, rebellions, battles, vigils, and all sorts of actions related to the Holocaust and other Ardashirian atrocities, including the assault on Amity and Mirioth and the hijacking and destruction of Solaria. He had military rosters and postings for various militia about the nation and its borders, with updates flown in weekly in peacetime. He had witnessed many battles himself, predicting from his own information the likely times and locations. He was not always correct, but with as many years of study as he had taken, he had developed methods and intuition for this.It had been a week since Moguo had demanded the Halberd when Stiltzkin began to receive more frequent updates. Militia were mobilizing all across Shireroth to converge upon Brookshire. Stiltzkin recognized Halluci dragons on the horizon from his home in the Dalmacijan archipelago. There were others as well: the Burning Claw were readying, and it was noted that the Naudia'Divan Hunters were now scarce around their usual grounds, and to put the icing on the cake, the Apollonian Paladins were now on the move North from Kildare, with alliance to Yardistan, their usual sworn enemy.It would take a night for this to sink in, so Stiltzkin set his pen aside when he had finished reading the reports and retired to bed.