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The Emperor's pulling us boys out and returning us home, I'm sure most of the country hadn't heard of the Battle of Dun-Mongith and the surrender of the Hasthian Kings. It's been nearly a decade since this war began, and the last two years of it have been a living hell. The land of one thousand kingdoms, the old country has been completely decimated and littered with craters. Ancient shrines, temples, everything ya' read about as a kid, all of it was real...
Well it was, but nothing really remains, those engineered tanks and metal dragons destroyed the remnants of that fantasy, and left it the land of a thousand burning kingdoms if you ask me. The whole war was pointless if you ask me, fighting to aid petty kings and complex alliances, killing boys from villages and countries I ain't ever hear of, it's not really the talk of patriotism that the Empire was trying to inform us about--it all just felt so senseless, but who am I to say--I'm just some kid from Upper Altum.
I'm coming a bit earlier than a lot of the main troops, but I got taken out from a spare bomb my some dragon, took out my eye and burned my face, but the dock said I'm lucky just to be alive. I'm sure Ma ain't gonna be too happy about it, hell Juliana probably would have hated it, but she moved on. I don't really know what I'm gonna do, maybe find a job in the factories with pa...We'll see, I just hope Ma' doesn't bring over every aunt and auntess from this side of Vekeria.
-Quinn
The large cruiser that had set sail three weeks prior had finally made it to one of the many docks that lined the sprawling metropolis city of New Bramos, one of the greatest symbols of the New Empire, which had stood for nearly three hundred years. Unlike the rest of the world, the Empire accepted anyone regardless of their ethnicity or their background, sounds good right--so everyone thinks.
What they don't tell you is that the whole thing is a chance to get rich if you already were or if you happened to be born into the right family. This whole place was built on hypocrisy and the dividing of people into groups. Men he fought with, half tel and orcs, they'd pretty much get barred by institutional tape, and the police in the Empire wouldn't bother to help them if they needed help. They say crime had started to rise in these crawling cities and that the richest factory owners had begun to move out into the countryside as a sign of their extreme wealth--leaving the rest of the dregs to crowd together like rats.
That wasn't to say that the whole city was some dump, there was plenty to do and jobs, though it wasn't always the best work, but it paid. There was opportunity and for many, some racism was better than the slavery they had been forced to live under in the sprawling old countries. It was a city that never slept, and one that was always moving and talking, if you knew where to look.
But, for Quinn and many of the veterans returning home from the Imperial Wars, it was a symbol of a world that had slowly moved on without them. There was fancy new technology that wasn't there when they left, people grew older, streets changed, businesses shut down and a lot of friends didn't return home from the war. How these men moved on, no one really knew.
Quinn peered out towards the twinkling lights of the city, as snow swept across the port, it was time to return home, to see his family once more and look for work. But, the young soldier was still stuck in the fronts of the old war, his mind racing to think of the friends he had lost, and it left him in a sour mood. How about a drink? He thought to himself, but finding one would be easier said than done, the Empire had begun to crack down on drinking as a way of promoting spirituality within their people--really all it did was give the fledgling criminal gangsters the powder keg needed to begin their rise. Yeah let's get a drink, he told himself as he fixed his pack against his back and pulled his campaign hat down over his ears.
tag: @Killa Ree