3rd person POV

Outside of the secluded forest changes had started to come to the world. The soldiers that had destroyed Kat’s village continued to advance through her homeland, killing all civilians they encountered in order to keep their advance as secret as they could. Their destination? The capital of the Empire.

The Empire is the center of new technological developments in weaponry and has always used these new weapons to dominate other kingdoms. The Empire was known as a threat to all kingdoms on the continent and they tried many times to form an alliance. But sadly those kingdoms could never come to a proper agreement on how much resources each kingdom should invest in a war to defeat the Empire. Mass panic and war had engulfed the continent for the past few decades and there was no sign of it going away anytime soon.

 Some of the panicked kingdoms started warring with each other after being called out on how they wished to contribute the least in order to profit the most if the Empire were defeated. Some smaller kingdoms were scared of being crushed by the Empire if the alliance were to resist the Empire and so they refused to participate in any discussions while they instead tried to gain the Empire’s favor in hopes of being spared. Some kingdoms refused to cooperate because of religious or cultural differences. There were many reasons why they could never create a properly unified alliance but all their wasted attempts at trying to create an alliance just allowed the Empire to grow stronger as they continued to conquer new territory.

However one kingdom that was soon to be conquered because of its rich mineral deposits managed to fend off the Empire with superior tactics using the mountainous lands they were used to. Enraged by their first major wartime failure in the Empire’s history they once again started to amass soldiers and weapons in order to ensure complete destruction of anyone who continued to resist. The Empire decided to freely use their resources because once they conquered the stubborn kingdom they would have many more minerals to use as they wished.

Threatened by the renewed war efforts of the Empire the kingdom made a treaty with a species hidden deep within their mountains. The kingdom had this species develop experimental weapons in exchange for large supplies of food that was hard to find in the mountain. The King and his close subordinates informed of the plan started to grow confident in their chances of ending the war.

The kingdom then secretly gathered an elite team of soldiers that were ordered to sneak into the Empire’s territory and use the experimental weapons to kill their royal family. With the royal family gone they hoped that the Empire would collapse on itself as rebellious people in recently conquered territories saw their chance to rise up. If the Empire was filled with internal strife it would be no threat to the continent anymore. 

This brings us back to the soldiers that were part of the secretly formed elite squad that was sent to end the war. In order to advance on the castle they took a route through a dangerous forest that covered a large part of the Empire and had few villages hidden within. Their morale started high when they departed as they donned armour adorned with lizard markings that the Empire wore once they got to the forest. While they planned to evade all civilians they wore the armour in case anyone spotted them so that they would only think they were a scouting party sent by the Empire and avoid asking questions.

However, their morale quickly plummeted as they had soon realized that they underestimated how dangerous the creatures inside the forest were. During the first few nights they had lost a lot of soldiers as they struggled to fight against the beasts hidden in the dark. Their morale had plummeted further when a pack of wolves had managed to eat through most of their supplies and escaped before they could be hunted for food.

In order to make the mission a success the Commander of the squad came up with a plan to pillage a nearby village for supplies. After sneaking into the village and taking everything they could, the soldiers were ordered to burn all the buildings with the people inside them so that if any passerby visited the village before they finished their mission it would only seem like a freak fire killed everyone.

While the soldiers were preparing to burn the bodies of people that were stabbed a wrench was thrown into their plan. They had heard wolves howling. Remembering their recent problems with wolves the Commander ordered an immediate retreat and hoped the wolves would eat the bodies of the people that hadn’t burned.

After a few more days of traveling the squad had managed to arrive at the edge of the forest with no more casualties after they had raided the village. When they got to the capital around noon they realized it was easier to get in then they would have thought because the Empire is currently gathering as many soldiers as they can near the capital. The soldiers rested at an inn in the capital until nighttime when they decided to start their assault on the capital’s castle. 

Pulling out the experimental weapons the soldiers remembered what they were told about them. Supposedly it was a mixture of technology and magicraft but only a few of them understood how it actually functioned. They were told it was like a bow and arrow but it was instead called a gun and bullets. They loaded it by putting a black looking powder into the end of a tube and then putting a metal projectile inside it afterwards. The soldiers who couldn’t understand how it worked decided to just diligently follow their orders and as long as it killed their enemies the soldiers figured it didn’t matter how it worked.

The soldiers were vastly outnumbered but confident they had superior weapons they started the assault. They split into four groups with two of them tasked with drawing attention while the other two advanced on the Empire’s royal family. The Commander led one of the assault teams which was comprised of people who knew the true goal of this mission.

The groups tasked with distracting encountered soldiers first and upon pulling the trigger various outcomes occurred. Some soldiers had their guns blow up and the explosion instantly killed them. Some guns refused to shoot at all. But the few guns that did fire successfully had a devastating effect with the bullets piercing through multiple armored soldiers before exploding killing even more.

The Empire’s soldiers all rushed towards the unknown loud sounds caused by the distraction teams only to be met with their demise. With most of the Empire’s soldiers out of the castle the assault team led by the Commander reached their destination, the Audience Chamber. 

With a sigh the Commander pulled out a device shaped like a brick. He took a second to ponder about how such a tiny thing was supposed to be so destructive but he quickly shook the thought out of his mind. It was another experimental weapon made by the cooperation between one of the kingdom’s most talented mages and the most skilled blacksmith from the species hidden in the mountain. The commander stopped hesitating as he finally activated the device and in a few seconds the entire castle was destroyed along with everyone inside and nearby it. 

The war between the Empire and the Kingdom had ended before it even started. With the king of the war-hungry Empire dead and no one left to inherit, the continent was finally at peace and it entered an age of rebirth.

Topgun1908

World building Yay. As you might have noticed I plan to have the setting of my story be a fantasy world that is starting to go through  the Renaissance. Also I am bad with names so I would appreciate if you guys gave me suggestions on what to name the Empire and Kingdom. If no suggestions are given I'll just take names from video games I've played. This is the last chapter of the prologue so I am going to slow down releases so that I can have a backlog of chapters ready in case I get sick or something and have to temporarily stop writing my story.