The Raven's men now had surged into town and the city was his. The rest of the day they spent... sort of cleaning up his new city and looting. A bunch of people were killed, some roads were cleared, women and money was divvied up, and he had a suitably amusing fight a knightly straggler who tried to issue him a challenge. The poor fool didn't understand how energy shields worked, spending minutes flailing at the shield before The Raven put the tired man out of his misery... it was a nice afternoon! Two major wins in a week!

Still, he hadn't taken the bridge intact. Those fellow cheaters had... well, actually they showed up at the exact right time for him, when he had a new weapon that totally neutralized them. Even so, he had sifted through reports and could pin the numbers facing him yesterday at five people maximum.

Between that and his sky knights, he had the little wrinkle under control. He could do the level math there. Anyone crass enough to use an assault rifle but high enough level they they wouldn't actually need it? He'd have heard of them. That left some sort of new blood, and given they didn't just hold the bridge they either were limited on ammo or were expecting another ray of god from him. The Raven knew a thing or two about what you could run without industry to support it, and they were likely not running a bullet making operation on this world with blacksmiths. More so, even with careful hit and run tactics they were limited by the size of their hover-chariots or using local methods of transport. Ones the size he saw flying away needed fusion reactors to get enough lift or to get enough current to generate an A-Grav field, which meant little room for impulse. They could go fast, but not turn or lift or drop without a catastrophic crash.

Granted, they didn't eat meat or shit the foulest goop everywhere, which was a point in their favor over Sky-Reavers, but Sky-Kights had their fear-glands removed from both rider and host and anyone using a gun likely didn't enjoy getting up close and personal. So, the two or four riders were dead, and he had his elite assassins no doubt using sneaky methods to cross the river.

The next day, he received news that soured his day. Well, good news first! They had found a way past the river. There were mountain passes that only had token resistance that lead to a bridge in the highlands. As well, one of the bridges made of wood had not been properly destroyed before some of his agents took out the task force, and could likely be repaired in a few days. He would have his routes into the northern empire! Even better, some enterprising souls in his army had managed to get the wood bridge up by the time he reached it. Oh, he was pleased with them! Extra spoils all around!

His good mood turned sour when on the other side his men found the Sky-Knights he had sent, corpses still tethered by umbilicus to their dead mounts, their bodies telling the story of the how the fight went over a broad arc to the south of his new town.

The Raven spoke for the sake of a hung-over Rupert as well as his grim faced general, One of the remaining Sky-Knights, the assassin leader who had accepted his commission from The Dark Camp, and the dreamy eye'd whore who was showing off her bite-marked shoulders. The last had no real tactical value but she had a real talent for great reactions, and her feigned horror at the bodies was a pleasing counter-act to how everything else made her pretend to be horny. For ease all the followers aside from the Sky-Knight were given horses to follow him as he floated along. He had once known someone who loved to listen to lectures, and in listening to a few he had found he liked giving them. A few snaps of his fingers and one [Understand Languages] later, he started explaining what they had found.

“So! The first four were gunned down. As expected, you cannot attack a gunman and expect to not get a few bullets! That's why we have a million bandits, and our good luck that it's not a half a million from testing the wall!” He smiled, and the assassin leader gave him a blank stare, the general forced a grin, and the fanatical whore was breathing heavily, as if he had sung her a sweet love song. She was a real ego booster! She might actually come back to Tripic with him next time he had to deal with 'the real world'.

“One of the riders is a water mage, as this...” He floated over to the fifth corpse as he spoke, causally moving it with his toe and causing it to gush a pink mix of water and blood all over the brown grass. “This Sky-Knight drowned after something filled him with water. I use the term loosely, as it's already congealing.”

Tapping it caused some of the monster and rider to both melt, creating a puddle of slushy gore. The general looked pale, and the assassin made a warding sign. It looked gross but the monster was no different from any of the bodies that had been neatly killed.

“That was more or less what I expected, but this is where things get sad. At this point they should have swarmed the craft and torn them to shreds, given what my tests about how well you can shoot down the riders and how fast they can close with their target. Even with advanced radar you need to see to aim! Somehow, three more were shot down before they reached melee. Not great odds then, ten to two. Still, more than enough.”

They followed him as he bobbed, sometimes stopping to see reluctant villagers trying to plead with one of his followers not to burn their house. It was sort of silly to burn them, as had their own farmers and beggars who could farm when given an unburt farm to farm from! What a loveable bunch of firebugs he had! Anyway, his army killed the men, burned the houses anyway, and took care of the women and children in the normal ways armies take care of such things. There was something about the natural smell of burning wood and thatch homes that was just so much more quaint then the metalic smell of plasma burning through a spaceships's hull. Partially because the later meant that one was soon to be ejected from a gap in said hull.

Neivibleing started thinking of an ever hungry hole in the world, and he pulled his second backup brush from his belt, a dab of toothpaste and his shaking hand started cleaning and after spitting froth out The Raven replaced his tools and adjusted his gloves, wiping a bit of toothpaste that had

Well, back to the bodies. He crouched by a few of them and used a gloved finger to play with an entrance wound on the armor over his Sky-Knights's umbilicus. Looked past his companions who looked horrified, he floated to the next body where there was another wound at the same spot. Perhaps someone who got lucky, but possibly the cheaters assumed that the link between rider and beast would turn them on themselves. A third hole spoke of some absurd level of control over their arms. Did one person do this? Or were both riders that trained?

“Here, we have evidence that our Sky-Knights fought something that killed them with pinpoint mounted charges. Not one or two charges either, but constant darting attacks. The kind I'd expect a knight at his peak of ability to do on a horse, but not cheaters.”

The glassy-eyed whore-priestess hissed. “Cheaters! They need... punishment.” She writhed, and The Raven smiled. Whatever Goddess it was that this woman followed, please bless this erotic idiot.

In a better mood, he pointed at the bodies. “So, they swarmed and died to heavy frontal attacks. So there were gunners, and either they trained as pilots, or you had lancers driving and doing advanced air combat maneuvers while winning a melee fight... Hmm. Well, that's what The Plan is for! We can shoot them down from the ground if they try to fly-by us. I'll issue some special magic items for my loyal-” He felt Rupert's spell floundering.

The general coughed. “Royal, sir.”

The Raven beamed and floated over to clap his shoulder. “Royal guard! My general, since we took the town, did you want any spoils?”

His general rubbed his ear while looking around, then cleared his throat. “Keep a few... keep a few of the local lads and lasses from the next village or two. Keep em alive and well. Ones who know the area. Have the boys crew up with pillagers or the core soldiers, but away from where they live, girls with our Valkyries and servers. Keep em away from the pillagers, get it?”

The Raven paused. “Mercy?”

“A little, your highness, because we need to know where the hunting is, where in those mountains we can expect resistance, and to know where the food stores are. It's a drain on our own resources to push in early spring. Also, a few of us are still professional soldiers. The... levies... you've found are poor for keeping peace once we really own an area. You want your wolves hunting, and your dogs guarding your sheep. Sir.”

The Raven thought on it, taking a single floss pick to his teeth and not bothering to finish before speaking. “Oh, you don'fh ffahy?”

The General swallowed. “We run out of money and food, your dark highness, and you can't go find new fun places to take over. We also need tradesmen. Tinkers, Fletchers, Smiths, Butchers. Even regular whores for men who have...”

The priestess laughed throatily. “Swolen cocks?”

The assassin sneered. “Or morals. Take your pick.”

“Either way, we could use local talent. Some of ours was blown up.”

The Raven nodded. “Fine, spare a few villages. I mostly stent... se.. sent forces in a line to the bridges and here, recruit from the moth... noth... north! North urn plains.” It didn't sound right, but he shrugged. Never stopped them from getting it before. “Do you have coins to hire?”

The General stood straight, looking more proud than he had for weeks. “My sniffer found a carriage with two gold bricks and a chest of silver! We'll have new coins for our new hands.”

The Raven wondered if the man understood at all that the point of pillaging was the MAKE money not SPEND it. For all his talents in tactics and organization he could be daft sometimes.

The assassin, on the other hand, looked a little jealous of his general but shrugged before saying in his usual mild tone, “Anything else besides showing me a dead dragon?”

The Raven shook his head, then looked to the south where his enemies would be. “No. Go have fun killing. Well, I should say good luck bu-”

He paused as turning around, the Dark Camp leader was gone. “Gah! Batman bullshit!”

Day three, and he was already filling what was left of the city with troops and repairing the rest to make a camp along his new road. Mideval military campaigns, like the ones he undertook in VR games before he learned about 'play-worlds', were based on momentum. That's why part of his forces were surging ahead to open lands on horses. They'd field ahead and destroy and pillage and the usual, and start spreading out to pepper the cities near the high plains with raiding and force the remaining Empire on defense across a broad area. He wanted them reacting until he had everything but their capital boxed up. He might not do it with this million troops, as he had no idea what kind of numbers they had in reserves or what they could pull from a draft, but his own expansive kingdom was not by any means lacking for more rough and disgruntled men to point at their rich southern neighbor.

Thus begins a 4x and empire management adventure! That, and sorting through loot given to him as tribune. Most of the magical arms were rather bad, stuff that wasn't worth using over his smart-link guns or compressed carbon blades. So most of what he took were things for novelty or utility, like wicked looking sacrificial daggers, a red-metal meat cleaver, and a pair of bells that forced other people who heard them to freeze, but only if they were under level 2. Fun for terrorizing citizens, and reminded him of the kinds of things he got to do on Tripic before... well... the rumors came out and Goule had asked him to take some time off.

Anyway! Day three saw his plans were moving along. He had horses and scamps running out to infest the scrublands of the Northern empire, his assassins were sniffing around for the would-be snipers, and he had a small kingdom to play around with. He would have some fun, both with local newly single ladies and his new cultist sexpot, then get his men working on the real goals, which was the bridge that would grant him access to the empire and getting the stragglers behind him to keep building the road from Gron-Land so he could get the territory making him money, goods, more troops, and so on and pushing them forward.

The villages up in the mountains had shown some backbone with some of his scouts missing already, but it just made the rest of his men more determined. There was a group of mountain men from his own territory that were hungry for wives or bears to make wives or whatever they did in the wilds while covered in furs, and quite a few of them had started slipping into the hills, no doubt playing the most dangerous game. Every so often one of his officers would come over and happily report to have found a body that rolled down one of the longer slopes from the highlands, signs his crazed hill-folk were doing their jobs.

The other good news came that someone had found a half-elf maiden, and while The Raven was sure that she probably was no longer really a maiden, she was certainly going to be coming back to Tripic with him! He would hardly need to force it, given the easy choice of working for him as a servant or taking her chances with his followers. She was already in his tent, fear turning to anger as she had been lashed to the central post. Ah! It was going to be fun to make her watch him ply his trade! She looked lovely angry and The Raven, despite his own pledge to only bed women who were willing, had to consider bending his own rules for an elf... but relented. He wouldn't REALLY sample the girl either, not until he had a magical healer. Maybe the sexpot knew one?

Either way, he had stones, and manpower, and a crossing. That evening men were still drinking from pilfered wine, and only a few barrels had been poisoned by fleeing citizens! Not the worst kind of poison, just a little brown-water special. The Raven had a pretty nice set of nano-filters in his stomach that could catch cunning and vicious poisons these backwards goofballs couldn't even conceive of, so it was always a treat to take tainted wine and gulp it down, suffering only to be as drunk as he liked, then watch someone else get terribly ill.

He returned to his tent smelling of wine and the tied up half-elf started glaring and swearing, thinking she knew the plot. She was too precious to waste assaulting. No, he wanted her to understand horror. Horror was not torture, but the fear, the anticipation of a fate worse than death. He would savor that too. Fear of him. He might be like a common man's idea of evil... for he was certainly not a being of good. He had desires, and he fulfilled them. If he really desired her, he could take her.

Tch! A lesser man might indulge in such boring games, but he was a true apex predator wearing the skin of a man. The half elf girl had no idea what kind of prey she was. The anticipation of revealing that to her, showing her the secret of his perfect pearly smile... he had to leave the tent, lest he break his future bliss for short term satiation. The thought of making a girl wide eyed in terror made him jog in the dark, doing a little jig as he rushed to the pink cultists tent and her no doubt warm bed. It was GOOD to be king!