September 29, 1084

I have never before seen a dragon come crashing down back to Eden, and I feel priviledged to have seen such a sight.  All it took were a few good men willing to give their lives, and some major explosive power.  We figured that it would be easy to latch on to the dragon with harpoons.  The problem came afterwards: holding on for dear life, climbing up the rope fast enough while the dragon was in air, and doing something about said dragon afterwards.

Actually, I'll let her explain.

(Natalya's Update)

One of my Divan called this Operation: Push Shit In.  A crude, but accurate assessment of what we needed to do.  The dragon liked to make several strafing runs, then land on the center of an army and tear things up before taking flight again.  All we needed were harpoons, several packs of the largest explosive materials we could come up with, and more of Luna's amber in case we couldn't kill it.

We set up a decoy force out in an ideal spot: near the steppes of the mountains on the Stain Desert's southern border.  There are a great deal of small caves and lots of crevices for hiding from an aerial assault.  We also set up numerous ballistae, a weapon used by the former occupants of the land, and armed them with harpoons.  Every man and woman who volunteered to take to the dragon was armed with several pounds of explosive sticks (sidenote by Luna: dynamite) which they would detonate once they were able to board the dragon from the harpoon ropes.

Despite all precautions, we still lost most of our decoy force.  Several hundred good men and women, they will be celebrated.  But we did it.  Three harpoons imbedded and stuck as the dragon took off, and they held on.  The dragon was nearing the horizon when we saw the explosions, and the dragon went down.  We didn't have to send word, as every Horde detachment in the region converged on it fast.  It had some fight in it still, but looked like it would have died regardless of our intervention.  But I was not going to deny them the victory of the kill.  The arrogant piece of shit was barely alive as I approached, and it had some interesting words before I put a spear through its head.

"Your victory is short-lived, we are still coming like a tidal wave, and you cannot stop us.  No matter how hard you fight, this world remains doomed to your kind."

We tore the dragon apart and feasted on its ample meat.  Luna tells me that no one ever managed this in the timeframe she came from.  I reminded her that Paragon Soul could easily do what we did if they were not so obsessed with changing history, but instead living it.  Our enemies are not unstoppable.  They bleed, they die, they fall for many the same things that the rest of us do.  My only concern now is ensuring we hold the line against our enemies to the south.  With the dragon's attacks, we lost nearly twenty-thousand good men and women.  Those numbers will not be easy to replace.

Natalya

November 17, 1088

I finally understand.  There are 9 Aspects of Daimakaicho, not 7.  I hold one of the missing Aspects, the Codex of Arcadia.  It is the physical manifestation of Bahamut the King.  The Codex of Eden is the Aspect Chronepsis, the Aspect of Time.  They are not by themselves gods, otherwise their manifestation on this world would have been something else, and not bound to objects.  The deity is Daimakaicho, the incomplete remaining 7 Aspects, led by Tiamat the Queen.

What has happened in our Timeframe is because without the last two Aspects, there is an imbalance in the deity's nature, slanted towards its evil side.  Bahamut is critical to rebalancing against Tiamat, but without Chronepsis, the balance of 8 would have unintended consequences even the Codex of Arcadia cannot foresee.

This knowledge remains useless without a way to act upon it.  The Codex of Arcadia is by itself powerless; it contains only knowledge, not the independent strength to act upon what it knows.  The Codex of Eden is the key, but it contains not consciousness of its own in its current form.  Without knowledge, the power is useless.  Both are needed to open new paths and break the chains of events that bind us.  The Codex of Eden can create the paths, but only the Codex of Arcadia can walk them.

(Natalya's Update)

My closest friend and First Divan Jocelyn died in battle earlier this year.  We celebrated her passing, but the weight of my years is catching up with me.  I must face the truth that I am not the warrior I once was.  I am not powerless, as I still command the respect of everyone that matters, and they continue to do as I direct.  But if the Horde is to survive the coming years they must have a true leader that can join them in battle, not watch from afar.

My granddaughter, named after me, will succeed me after this year is ended.  She will be the first Verossai.  I have watched her grow up into an incredible young woman, much in part to her father, my son.  She is intelligent, strong, and can hold her own in both debate and battle against more seasoned warriors.  Verossai Natalie will be everything to the Horde that I cannot be any longer.  However, I have no intention of gathering dust.  For too long, Luna has been working alone on her project.  I will help her formulate the strategy of retrieving the artifact she requires from Paragon Soul as well as the Strangers who can see the passage of time as it changes.

May 27, 1094

In 10 years, the plan will go forward.  We have two objectives:

1. Recover the Codex of Eden

2. Rescue the Fringe Team

I know the exact date of their delve, and when they will return from it.  We have also managed to get a friend in Paragon Soul who moderately high up in Fringe Division, and he made an update to the building layout giving us new access points to the Assembly Room.

Unfortunately, this will not be so easy, as tensions between the Horde and Paragon Soul are mounting.  Resentment over the Horde's hold on Feythabolis has sparked numerous incidents, and at times it seems like the only reason we don't go to war with each other is because of our diplomats on both sides; even war with the dragonkin isn't quite enough to keep us as allies.  What this means is that once we commit, we are going all-in on this operation.  Either we escape with all our objectives, or this ends badly and Paragon Soul likely declares war against us.  This assumes that tensions in the next 10 years don't de-escalate.

(Natalya's update)

Verossai Natalie has done well in these past few years.  She had her initial failings, and the transition was painful, but she has learned much.  However, her greatest challenge is not continuing the war, but dealing with Paragon Soul.  Despite the fact that we have a foreverwar with the dragonkin, these particular civilized savages are barely what I consider civilized.  They gave up numerous freedoms, submit to compulsory service, and seem to resemble the Walking Dead more than actual people.  They go through the motions of life, but there is little joy in what they do.  They have forgotten what it means to be Human, Elven, Dwarven, and everyone else.  They all have forsaken their heritage in favor of constant misery.  I pity them.

Luna has explained the plan to me, and shared some insight to the world as it should be.  I have presented the plan to the Verossai and the Divan.  They have agreed.  I wish I could have told them of the Other World, but knowing that the Tribes are not a united Horde would possibly have made them decide otherwise.  Besides, we are on borrowed time as it is.  Borrowed in the sense that we still have years to live, possibly many more decades, but the dragonkin have replaced the numbers they lost at the City of the Standing Dead three times over.  Southern Feythabolis is now a fortress we can not crack open with sheer force.  Deklein is lost to us.  Their replacement rate is far beyond anything we could hope to accomplish.  Even if we could breed that fast, we cannot feed such a massive population.  Dragonkin are ready for battle four years after they are hatched, our warriors only begin actual combat training at nine, and continue on for another seven years before being sent into battle.

In conclusion, we can't win.  Our only hope is to restore the Other World.  If it goes well, Luna says we would never know.  Many of us will not exist in the Other World, but many more that don't exist here would.  I do not think I completely comprehend the magnitude of what that means.  Although I seem to exist there, there is no telling who in my family would, if I ever married the man I called my Husband, if I married someone else, or....

Fuck it.  I'm thinking about this too hard.  I know what needs to be done, and I have no qualms about returning this dying world to its original destiny.