Captain Octlut David was steering his ship out of the Muddenburg port with ease.

Well, not literally. His ship had originally served in the war under the command of his father. Serving as a supply ship and troop carrier for most of the conflict. It had only been several years before the conflict ended that he was shot in the head by a sniper during one routine supply run.

Octlut had taken over afterward, he hadn't vowed to take the life of the sniper who ended his father's life. That had already been taken care of, the Romans had their own snipers too, you know?

No, he had seen what the Isles had come to during the war, and currently, he had contact with some enormous suppliers. So he would regularly go out and deliver supplies to the Isles. And in return?

Well, plenty of soldiers had died there, and the government couldn't be asked to spend the resources to retake the numerous weapons and other high-grade military tech left beside the barest of efforts.

Octlut pushed one button on his command deck, causing the numerous machinery to switch and slowly speed up the boat. Octlut turned on the ship and internal clock and had it put to several minutes.

He needed to be careful while using his fuel. The Isle's had rich oil fields that had connected to it over the years. Making the islands much more valuable, Italian forces had then set up bases and operations to extract the resource. The island had been doing well till the discovery of artificially produced oil was made.

That scientist Goldfire had done it in Britain, and suddenly everyone was in a race to acquire an unlimited source of energy.

Now, most oil fields had been abandoned save for a few near the capital in the Isles. And the island's denizens refused to create any of the artificial oil that had ruined their island's chances at a prosperous future.

In fact, they were ready to outright attack any ship that used the oil. Though only when it was revealed, and only when they could get away with it.

So Octlut had to be careful when using his fuel source, as they didn't have a chance at resupplying at the Isles or anywhere near the area.

As his ship sailed through the ocean like a knife through hot metal. One of his men said something strange, "Hey Captain!" She yelled, "We got ourselves a dead body, should we recover it?" The woman asked.

Octlut's stomach sank, there were plenty of bodies out there. But most were at the very bottom of the ocean or had already been recovered. Either through teams or the remainder of the ship's hull washing up on some beach.

If a body was out here? That could mean any number of things. None of them pleasant, raiders could be out. Lurking just ahead of them, or war could have started up again. Or maybe the Isles had revolted. They sure had a reason to.

"Recover it, everyone else, be ready to fight! We don't know if this guy died a hundred years ago or a day ago! So be ready to fight!" Octlut shouted as pressed a button. Dozens of guns were quickly turned on, with men pouring out of the ship like ants to man them. And be ready to man them in case anyone died.

Several men and women came out of the ship a minute later, clad in underwater breathing suits. They quickly jumped off the boat in a dive, all attached to the ship with ropes.

The first diver, a man. Quickly recovered the body and had himself be lifted back on the ship. The rest continued swimming in search of others. They found none and were almost ready to turn back when they caught a body lying on their back on some random rocks.

They quickly acquired him and went back to the ship.

Quickly, the ship's doctors took the bodies and went into the medical bay. Several minutes later he was told both men were still alive, though the one closest to them had to have his leg amputated and replaced with an artificially grown one.

Octlut and his crew waited for hours upon hours on end. Fulfilling their regular duties, but always keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity.

They didn't know if the attackers of the ship the men were on, we're still itching for a fight or if that had been their only target. Plus, most bandits usually had an informant on the inside. Ready to signal when the attack should begin.

Some bandit opted for the head-on assaults, but they only worked if your target wasn't ready for something like. Or if you significantly outnumbered and outgunned the ship you were attacking.

Otherwise, it usually ended in either both ships going down or the bandits dying.

He sent out his divers severely more time during the hours. Ordering them to search for any ship or aquatic vehicle that the survivors they had found could use for transportation or escape.

They found nothing the first two times, but on the third, they found some mangled piece of turd shaped metal.

His engineers had quickly examined it. It took them another find, that of a mechanical horse to figure out what sort of transportation the survivors had.

"They made it all the way here on some motherfucking, land-dwelling, horse shitting carriage?!"

Octlut shouted to the high heavens at that. How in the hell did they manage that? Even his engineers were baffled on why they would use a carriage of all things.

But they had quickly spouted the theory that they must've been taken by the carriage against their will. With them managing to escape being dragged to the ocean's depth, that and the currents the ocean usually drifted on.

They had ended up here. But they wouldn't know for sure unless the men actually told them what happened.

Octlut sighed, he quickly ordered his men to stand down but still be alert, and shut off the guns.

"You were created to serve us! Like a blade serve's its owners. You're kind were made by us! If a sheet of metal was to take human form and act the way a human would, would you call it human? No! It is a piece of metal! It doesn't have the soul we do, we were built by the gods and should be at the top, you were made by us, and so should be lower. You're people don't hold the divine spark that we do! We are the masters, and you are the slaves! If not, then why didn't our lord smite our kind down the moment we sent millions of you to die in the war! Cause it was the proper way of things that he himself had envisioned!"

- Speech in support of the True Birthed movement, delivered at Paris.