Herald of Steel

In Tibian folklore, there were quite a few songs describing Thesalie.

Of course, they were embellished to the point the city was almost turned into one of tall, mythical tales, flaunting it to excess.

For example, in some instances, Thesalie was described as a great infallible city with walls kilometers high, literally reaching into the clouds, with them thick enough for chariot races to be held atop them and manned by a million men and a million angels.

That the soldiers there were undead, their numbers never depleting and the hills around it were treacherous and full of ghosts and spirits who would attack any invader.

It was such ridiculous claims that made the city seem more like something belonging inside a fairy tale, and the ordinary folk found it hard to relate to it.

So these kinds of overly dramatic descriptions simply failed to form any connection to the ordinary peasants and the fall of Thesalie was

As such, since the vast majority of the people did not interact with the city, why would they bother knowing about it or empathizing with its fate?

What did its fall or rise have to do with them planting grains in their field, milking their cows, feeding medicine their sick children needed, or a hundred different worries that occupied their minds at a time?

They were already busy enough, they could not care less about such a distant, ethereal thing.

So in their minds, Thesalie was too distant a dream to care and most simply brushed aside the information with the following words.'That's the lords' concern.' 

It was only the cleverer citizens, who learned a bit of writing and reading, who knew a bit more such as the city's name and a bit of its importance, though even then it was only limited to that, 

But even using this limited information, these men were clever enough to sense the impending storm that might come as the loss of the city meant the gateway to their country was now wide open.

There men worried that the horrors of those three years might repeat themselves, and tried to think of a way, any way to prepare.

But found, much to their dismay, try as they might, largely powerless in the face of it.

Alexander's army was not so weak that a few clever peasants' actions could noticeably affect it. 

Hence they had little recourse other than to run or brace and endure.

As for the ones that were able to do something, once the scouts really confirmed what the crown prince and Lord Theony had claimed, well to use the proverbial phrase- 'Shit truly hit the fan!'

A second round of panic, curses, and finger pointing commenced, this time the scale was perhaps even greater than the first time.

After all, initially, nothing was yet confirmed. 

Hence many, even Perseus himself, had held out hope, no matter how ephemeral that Thesalie would stand.

But now that the facts were in, they knew they would have to prepare for the subsequent consequences.

Alexander was surely going to drive his army forward and capture vast swathes of their land.

And to counter this, first and foremost, what did the nobles do?

They then sought out a culprit for this failure! A scapegoat!

Yes! Such was politics.

Even when facing a dire, almost existential threat the Tibian nobles were more interested in playing the great game of the court rather than concentrating their efforts on trying to stop Alexander.

Were they stupid?

Perhaps.

But not necessarily so.

Because at times like this it was, this type of infighting and power struggle was common.

And it was even not as if this type of thing was only rooted to this time period.

It persisted even through modern times.

The best example would be how during World War two, even when the Allies were about to close in on Berlin from both sides, the German planners still had the time to argue and engage in interdepartmental rivalry.

The army, the SS, the volunteer corps, the various local political wings, all sought to try and snatch power from one and another, even though the power they sought had already become diminutive, the Reich by that point already having turned into a husk of its former self.

Never mind all of them were about to be indiscriminately crushed by either army anyway.

But even then the human nature of politicians could not change- the ever present desire for the accumulation of ever greater power.

And in that endeavor, to root out incompetence before the showdown with Alexander, the court decided to first and foremost carry out a cleaning up. 

In particular, Mithriditus's faction sought to lay the blame for the loss of Thesalie on Lord Theony, claiming he did not properly support Lord Ponticus during the battle outside the city, resulting in his death,

Initially, they had been very envious of Lord Theony getting that honor, but now that things turned out like this, they were more than happy to pick on him.

They claimed that in the battle Lord Theony failed to show adequate generalship and also accused him of leaving the city prematurely and neglecting the duty given by the king.

They argued that after the loss outside the city, he should have stayed behind to organize the wall defenders and mount a solid defense.

To emphasize this point they pointed to Petrino, Lord Ponticus's son, who had stayed behind and 'fought' till the death of him and his family. 

The man was put on a pedestal of excellence and cloaked in a garb of magnificence, forming a perfect contrast with the man who had chosen to abandon the city and run like a coward with tails tucked behind his tail.

This was a blatant violation of Perseus's direct command and they claimed Lord Theony should be punished.

All of this of course was horseshit.

Everyone very clearly knew what had happened back there, but the leader of the city, Lord Ponticus was a royal, a highly decorated military veteran, and perhaps most importantly a martyr.

The loss of the city could not be put on him.

It would be too scandalous.

And unfortunately, the next high level noble after Lord Ponticus that was present in Thesalie was Lord Theony.

So the man unluckily got his wastewater dumped on him through little fault of his,

It also did not help that Mithriditus's brother was married to one of Lord Ponticus's daughters.

And through him, the woman urged Mithriditus to punish the man for her death's death.

While Perseus and Philips simply closed their eyes at this dirty move and let it play out.

Since Lord Theony had been lost someone had to be held responsible to placate the nobles and Lord Theony happened to be the scapegoat, being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The noble lord did try to argue his case, saying there was no way to hold the city after losing 40,000 men.

But the court decided to pin the blame on him regardless.

He was of course not executed, that would have been too extreme.

But he was dismissed, or given an undetermined time of leave from court to spend more time with his family as they put it.

Only after taking care of this did the nobles start their discussion regarding Alexander and they largely came to the same solution- sue for peace with Alexander at almost any cost, while at the same time trying to raise as big an army as possible to replenish their numbers.

The latter endeavor was to be headed by Mithriditus, and though the man enjoyed the power that came with it, it also caused him to bear a lot of the pressure.

"Mithriditus! How fast can you do it?" 

Once Mithriditus was nominated, this was the first question he was asked, and almost every noble had turned to place their sight on the older man, the combined gazes being so intense that even this veteran of the court felt a bit overwhelmed.

Mithriditus could tell that these impatient men wanted an army standing outside the city yesterday if possible.

'What am I, a magician?' He lampooned.

The difficulties in achieving this should be known to them all.

"Spring." He gave a single word of reassurance, something which the court silently nodded to.

Mithriditus wanted to say the more realistic 'closer to summer', but refrained from knowing the impatient bunch.

"We should also try to gain support from abroad. What about Thesos? Or even the Kaiser family?"

And Tibias's efforts to save itself were not only restricted to its interior.

Like any other country with foreign diplomatic access, they quickly dispaced emissaries requesting aid from its various allied city states, as well as that ducal family from Sybarsis.

While lastly, they chose to try and negotiate with Alexander, and the envoy for that was surprisingly chosen to be Lord Theony.

No, Lord Theony was not chosen, he asked to be given the chance.

"It was my fault that we lost Thesalie. Let me go and try to mitigate this." 

The man seemed to have at last surrendered to the court's rhetoric and urged the king to give him this chance to redeem himself.

And Perseus knowing how the man had been played, relented.

Though he missed the crafty glint in the nobleman's eyes.

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