Chapter 5

4001 seasons previously before current times

The last five seasons the land of Pastial had been peaceful and the people and land prospered.

Wolfgang managed to setup various changes in the land. He managed to introduce a few of his inventions further into the populace, like the wheeled plow, piped irrigation for the farm land, water filtration, and he was currently working on various steam powered inventions.

Because of all of those changes the people kept trying to make him the new King but he resisted. He wanted to keep the model where it was so that future generations would have the option of insuring that they had a voice in their fates.

But he did insist that if people just had to call him something they call him "Master" like they would any other tradesman.

The people took to calling him and Beth Master and Mistress exclusively, as there wasn't anyone that didn't to love them or the hard work they put forth to make sure that everyone, no matter who was treated fairly.

Because of the cooperation of everyone, crime in the various villages and town was practically unheard of. And because of the various changes Wolfgang worked on the land was becoming prosperous.

Significant changes were simple ones that Wolfgang swore to keep. He did manage to introduce his zippers to the populace once he found a way to make them without having to have jeweler make them individually all the time. They were a little large, but he was sure they would get smaller with time.

The other was the invention that Beth just loved, once it was explained in better detail to her properly from his earlier prototype when they first met, was his bra idea that he had given her seasons before.

Once she got over her embarrassment, and her and Wolfgang became more intimate and comfortable with each other, he took great pride in instructing her how to use it, and of course in taking it off her. His bras were only simple cloth holders for the breasts, with hooks in the back, but he was sure that with time that would change also.

Beth found it easier to use and far more comfortable than binding her breasts, as she and most women usually did. She was the one who made sure to introduce it to other women as she knew that Wolfgang would shy from that discussion.

During this time of growth Wolfgang also made sure to give away any useful patterns for his inventions to his spies around the land.

He wanted to dissimulate the information as quickly as he could to prevent anyone from trying to get rich off his conveniences that he was providing. The land was financially secure because of their exports of foods and wines as they always had been.

And the few times that some tried to capitalize on his ideas, he quickly had shops opened that gave the items away for free to crush the market. He wanted everyone's life bettered by his inventions.

The only exception was the budding town of Galicia across the ocean.

They had been working on various items similar to his for seasons, but were having issues perfecting them. But once he started trading with them he found they had innovations that he didn't know about as he did for them. It became mutual for them to work together to the benefit of all. He didn't feel it was fair to give away their ideas and he felt that it was up to them to make that determination.

Everything was going so well that Beth and Wolfgang were finally starting to talk about having family. Even thought they were getting started late, Wolfgang wanted to have children with Beth and now seemed like the perfect time to try before his thirtieth birthday.

But like all good things in life, they must eventually come to an end.

His name was Athol.

He was the son of a stone mason and he seemed to be extremely strong for someone who was just twenty three. He almost had the strength of five men it seemed at times.

Growing up he was always envious of all the young boys who didn't have to do dirty work in a hole in the ground cutting stones. He envied the young boys of nobility who were able to get whatever they wanted because of their birth. He also envied the children of the wealthy merchants the same way.

In fact, he envied anyone who wasn't himself.

While he was considered to be a very handsome young man at 6'3 with blonde hair, that was almost sun bleached white, he wanted more out of his life than what he was currently getting. He had a tasted for the finer things in life.

Athol had a few friends who he grew up with who were either learning magic or they had joined the town guard under the baron's banner to also escape from their lives.

Both of those life choices were something, that while they did interested him, seemed to be closed off as there was a dire need for his and his father's skills.

Athol could see where the possibilities lie, if he could only be given a chance, for using either one to grow above his station in life to get everything he felt he deserved. Having his mother die in childbirth and being the only child that worked hard daily with his father was something he despised.

But unknown to anyone Athol had been practicing magic secretly for seasons.

He found out one day while watching his mage friends that by himself he could do what they did as well. And as he watched what few friends and acquaintances he had show him what they learned, secretly Athol was always surprised and thrilled that his power always seemed much greater than theirs.

One of the other benefits was that they needed to learn how to read and write to work with their spells. They were often happy to brag to Athol about their new skills, but Athol quickly learned how to as well because he could see it once, grasp the understanding, and recall all he had seen.

And to practice his writing he often wrote down everything he saw somewhere secret, and later managed to get one of his friends to secure him a small note book in which he wrote down all the spells he had learned so far, and started theorizing what other spells he could create building on what he had been shown.

But he still practiced this all in secret, never telling anyone of what he could do.

There were other times when he watched them show off to him what new spell they learned under their master, when they called it quits because they were tired, he would later practice the same spell that he saw them do and he found that he could go far longer and his results were far more impressive.

The other thing he found time to work in his hectic schedule was time to spend with the few friends who were learning to be foot soldier and were being trained to use a halberd.

Only the King and knights in his kingdom were allowed to use swords, but even still the Halberd was an interesting weapon to him. And he made himself one to practice with once he returned the first time from the training grounds after watching his friend's practice the few times he could get away.

Most of the time he was forced to practice late at night after his father went to bed, as he always had to get up for an early day of working hard or a late day finishing up.

Another thing he disliked was his father was a drunk. The older he got the more he drank and his father alternated between feeling that Athol should carry on the business and provide him some comfort in his old age or punishing the young man for being the one who took Athol's mother, his wife, away from him.

The man had been abusive to him growing up and it only grew worse the more he drank.

But as always, fate played a role in Athol's life.

On one of the rare days, when his father was barely sober enough to work the quarry, he was down below the ground cutting some stone.

He had been riding Athol all day cruelly, and while listening to his father he was in a deep rage. As Athol looked at the support beam he realized that it wouldn't be all that hard to end all his troubles. He had always hated his father.

A few well placed kicks and Athol was now suddenly an orphan, but he didn't really seem to care. As he thought about this new change, he realized that he no longer had anything to tie him to the area.

And at this point it is unclear what happened after his father's death because the records were sketchy at best, but a few short months later Athol had overthrown the King in his country and seated himself on the formers throne as the new King.

He finally had money, women, and power like he always dreamed he should have. Using the fear of his fantastic abilities he used that to build an army to invade the neighboring kingdom.

As each battle raged on and each new kingdom faced him and fell, Athol had abandoned his halberd in favor of a very large and very heavy two headed axe styled after one he had seen in a battle with one of the former conquered kingdoms.

But in the case of his, he had it made massive enough that a normal man would have a hard time swinging it. And with his great strength it wasn't hard for him to cause a lot of devastation on the field of battle using it.

Soon Athol found that he enjoyed the carnage of the battlefield. He enjoyed the screams of terror or the outcries for mercy that would never come.

Athol changed the title he took from King Athol to Athol the Battlemage. He wanted all to know he was different and a step above all warriors and mages, and that even Kings were beneath him.

As he continued to fight for the sheer joy of it in each battle, he soon found that there was none who could stand above the might of his army or of himself.

His armies became savage and they only wanted what they could carry off. Athol's mantra that his armies followed was if you aren't strong enough to protect it, then you didn't deserve it in the first place.

Along the way Athol started testing out various spells that he could think up. He had long abandoned his small notebook in favor of a larger one with more pages.

He was an active user of green and red, but black spells seemed to be his favorite.

One of his early spells he used was to raise an army of the dead to help him conquer his home kingdom. And he actively threatened his men with killing them himself, then raising them up as undead to fight for him if they failed to follow his orders.

And only have to do it once was enough to cause the men to fear him so as to fight as if they were possessed every time. He still kept that man he raised close by, rotting flesh in all, as a reminder to the men he was serious about their dedication for each and every battle. If they didn't give 110% they would be next.

But one day he heard reports of the land of Pastial and their recent overthrow of the King and how prosperous they were. He heard rumors about how they seemed to have inventions and innovations still unseen by the outside world.

Having his curiosity raised Athol decided to "take a look" at this land and make it his. Even if they didn't have anything interesting they surely had enough wealth and new women to make it worth his while to take from them.

Starting his march, he headed for the land of Pastial.

"Wolfgang we have a problem," said John, one of Wolfgang's information gatherers. He wasted no time coming to see him after dinner.

Having spies everywhere required someone to compile all the reports and give them to him to keep track up. He needed the help of a few different gatherers.

John managed to catch Wolfgang in his workshop. Having the manor home redesigned with many different innovations was a project that he was still working on.

Wolfgang had piped distilled water coming into his home. He had figured out how to use cast iron to heat water to get steam using a fire, but he wanted something more efficient as it burned a lot of wood.

And his house always had rigged switches by the wall that raised or lowered the shutters for the candlestone lanterns so that they could put them up high so that they could illuminate more of the surrounding room.

But Wolfgang was careful to keep these inventions only in his and Beth's house, as there was still some danger before he worked out all the bugs.

"What's the issue John?" asked Wolfgang wiping off his hands.

He was in good spirits today ever since Beth and he agreed to try for children. Everything seemed to be coming up rosy.

"It's Athol. I know you remember my report on him last month. Well the spy we placed in his army has reported he's planning on coming here soon. He will conquer the mainland kingdom across from us and then our home is next," said John

With John having his complete attention Wolfgang asked "How long do we have before he gets here?"

"If his army stays true to form, and the Weshden kingdom doesn't just roll over and surrender so as to keep from having the King and his family wiped out, about a month. If the King quickly surrenders and steps down, they will be here in as little as a week and a half," said John

"What do we know about him again? Just the high points please," said Wolfgang.

"No one is sure where he came from, but we think the first kingdom he conquered was his home one of Kesdiar. There were unsubstantiated rumors of an army of the dead conquering it in one night. It is claimed everyone that was killed that night he raised to fight on his side. He heavily favors black spells.

"He is merciless and appears to be quite intelligent. He has often created spells on the fly that no one has ever seen before. They say that he is a genius with magic.

"But the stickler is the fact that he is big and strong. He is also a monster on the battlefield because no warrior has ever been able to stand up to him. He enjoys killing with his own hand and carries a large two headed axe that he sometimes secures to his back. He seems to learn with every battle or new encounter. He's a good tactician and seemed to always make large gambles that seem to pay off," finished John.

"Wow. He does magic and is able to fight warriors to a standstill? Is that an accurate report? I've never heard of anyone able to do that," said Wolfgang.

"I cross checked it both with the spy in the army as well as the various conquered towns. It's accurate. They all say the same thing," replied John

"Then we have a problem. Because if it was one or the other I could exploit that, but I can't see at present how to manage both," said Wolfgang.

"Well we better come up with something quick or it will all be moot shortly," said John looking meaningfully at Wolfgang.

But Wolfgang didn't hear him as he was lost in thought.

It took a few days, but Wolfgang pulled together most of the men from earlier when they conquered their home, and the nine people who were the area representatives, and told everyone what was going on.

They all had heard various reports of Athol from time to time, but they all discounted it. None of them could believe stories of a powerful warrior who was also a powerful mage. It seemed to far fetched to be true.

After calling to order the meeting Wolfgang presented what he knew.

"That's impossible," said Paul. "No one can use both like that."

"Paul, you of anyone knows that Davy is more likely to downplay something rather than build it up. It was from him that the original report came from," said Wolfgang

Davy and Paul grew up together as a member of the original twenty four. Davy had wanted more adventure now that they had a home and set out to help gather information in his travels. Currently he was keeping an eye on the army of Athol for Wolfgang.

Suppressing his next comment, he realized that that statement was true. Davy wasn't one to exaggerate anything.

"So what do we do?" asked Beth.

"The only thing we can do. This is still basically an island. According to reports, even though this is Athol he is still a front door type of fighter. He's used to over powering his opponents. We have some different weapons to use that will slow him down.

"I've been working on the repeat arrow firing device as well as perfecting that dayamite that I remember from when I was in my twenties. Both of those should be enough, but if not then we'll have other problems.

"But really we just need to contain him at the shore and then we should be able to push him back. We just have to prove to him that this fight isn't worth his while," said Wolfgang.

"I hope your right," said Steven. He was one of the area reps.

"I do as well, but we don't have enough real information on him to fight him adequately. He keeps what he knows to himself and only uses what he needs as the time comes," said Wolfgang.

If Athol was flashier or bragged to others it might be different, but the limited information was frustrating, thought Wolfgang.

Watching from the shore line in the late dusk, Wolfgang's men could see the boats in the far distances as they prepared to set sail.

The king of Weshden quickly capitulated to Athol, and true to his word Athol didn't have the royal family executed. But he did force the seventeen season old virgin crown princess to spend two nights with him before he moved on.

She was so devastated by what she was forced to do with, and for him during that time, that nothing her sisters said helped her get past it. She soon took her own life after he was gone from the castle.

By the time he made his move their direction Wolfgang was ready for him. The reports of what he was capable of didn't surprise him in the slightest or alter his plans for him.

Before they reached the port city of Lake's End they had set many traps for Athol's forces. They had created small pockets of resistances in the forest on the mainland, only once his men entered they attacked with a new thing Wolfgang created called dayamite.

It packed a punch and since none of Athol forces knew what it was, it did more damage as it fell among the troops than a single spell could have that they might have seen before. And since anyone could use it, Athol's forces often had no idea where it was coming from.

Athol was forced to withdraw from the forest to go around it.

He thought about burning it down, but he realized that could get out hand quickly and he wanted all the innovations of the land and didn't want to destroy any before he saw them in case the people of the close town had a few as well.

Another time some of the mages from the island set about creating illusions of fighting men so that when the army caught sight of the illusions, and charged after them, they used the illusions too flee over hidden deep pits with sharpened spikes in them.

The front line men often fell to their deaths before they could stop as they were pushed by the men in back who couldn't see why they stopped. It took Athol a while to slow his men down to start checking the terrain as they advanced and to stop chasing after the ghost men.

Wolfgang's men were doing a great job of slowing them down to allow Wolfgang to get the island defenses in order. They were constantly whittling down his army using various different distraction techniques.

But tonight, as they readied their attack, Wolfgang reminded the men to stay hidden until the call went out to attack. He also went up and down the lines reminding the men if they lit the dayamite, even if it didn't look as if anything had happened, to throw it still. He would rather pick up a dud later then have to replace any men. He also warned the men many times not to get it wet.

Wolfgang was surprised at the number of men who turned out to defend their homes. He thought he would be forced to impress some to help, but far more than he had thought possible came.

As they watched the ships approach Wolfgang appeared calm and the words of his father came back to him, but as he thought about it he realized he couldn't be any more prepared than he was now for any trouble.

Soon the ships reached the shore and the army started to slowly spill out of them.

From his hiding spot Wolfgang looked around until he saw a very large man wearing a black chest plate and black greaves over his boots step out of a boat. He had a large black two headed axe on his back, that was wider than his massive back, and he seemed to looking around barking orders at the men.

As they started up the shore Wolfgang gave the signal and the men opened up on them.

It was chaos as everyone seemed to be trying for cover that didn't exist or trying to seek cover under water.

Caught off guard and in growing darkness Athol seemed to be the target of many shots, but he managed to get some shelter back into the boats before he was hit.

Screaming something at the men, they all appeared to be looking back fearful at where he was before they then started manically heading up the shore line trying to breach Wolfgang's defenses.

They appeared unsuccessful at first, but then suddenly Wolfgang realized that one of the men still trying to approach now had an arrow in his chest and one in his head but he was still attacking!

Athol had started raising the dead to fight for him!

Telling the men to try to sever the limbs of the dead men, Wolfgang had begun to run up and down the line checking on his men. While making sure that Beth was back a way's and safely hidden in the tree line firing away, Wolfgang made the worst decision he could have made.

Once he was sure that they weren't going to be cut off and surrounded he went back to look for Athol. The plan was to have the men concentrate on him. If they could kill him then the dead would stop fighting.

But as he got back to the center it erupted as a fireball came from out of no where to be followed by what looked to be sleet.

Getting his bearing Wolfgang looked around and realized that most of the men near him had taken the brunt of that attack and they now were mostly dead. Just as he got to his feet he could see Athol striding up towards him swinging his axe killing both his men and Wolfgang's as he headed straight for him.