“There’s a big reason why merchants and traders everywhere popularize common as the trade language. It’s just hard to haggle and make deals properly when you can’t even communicate with the other party, you know?” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Dean of the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 677 FP.

“Any luck with the captives we delivered, Friede?” Reinhardt asked when Elfriede returned the next morning. She had gone off to the main defense base with some of her people to drop off the captives taken from the enemy infiltrators the previous night and stayed to check if they could gain any worthwhile intelligence from the captives.

“No luck. Some of them broke down easily enough, but we can’t get shit out of them since nobody speaks their tongue and they don’t even speak common,” said Elfriede as she shook her head. The captives they got were not the only ones, as Nestor’s own people had caught some of the ones who tried to enter through the northern forest. They failed to kill and capture everyone who went there, though, and around half the enemies managed to escape the ambush.

“Huh. Right. Wasn’t thinking of that particular issue. Now that I think of it Ery did mention that they didn’t speak anything the twins understand when they infiltrated,” noted Reinhardt. “I guess learning our languages wouldn’t be a big priority for them either if they’re truly from across the sea, I guess. That’ll make getting info out of them more problematic unless we can get someone who actually speaks our language.”

“They made some progress with gestures and drawings, but a lot of what they could get is far more vague than we’d all like, honestly,” said Elfriede with a shake of her head. “From what we’ve managed to decipher that way, these invaders seemed to be from across the sea. The captives drew their homeland in the shape of a bunch of islands, though we had no real idea on how far away they are from the continent.”

“Islanders from the sea, huh? And here I thought all that exists in those seas are just serpents large enough to swallow ships whole,” muttered Reinhardt. He of all people was well aware that the sea routes regularly plied by the trading ships were only safe when they were close to the continent. There were always risks when they crossed the deeper waters, as those were home to creatures nobody sane would like to come across.

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Incidents in the waters around the continents were rare, but they still happened from time to time. In fact, Reinhardt himself, and likely his birth parents, were victims to one such incident. He was still too young to remember much from that time, but he knew that his adoptive parents had found him stranded atop a piece of drifting wood from a shipwreck.

The old dwarven couple had been on a vacation and took a sea trip at the time, so it was pure luck and coincidence that resulted in their paths crossing. After a failed attempt to search for and rescue other survivors, the ship they were on continued their journey, and by the end of the trip the old dwarven couple had chosen to adopt the orphaned young therian boy as their own, even giving him his name, as back then he was still too young to be able to speak or understand much.

“Did they get anything else out of them?” asked Reinhardt with some curiosity.

“Not that much. They used odd symbols for numbers, so at best we have a guess on what’s probably the captive’s own guess on their total troop count. Most of them seemed to agree that they estimated the invading force at around half a million, though, which lines up with our own estimates,” said Elfriede with a shake of her head. “We might be able to get more information from the ones willing to talk if we can get them to communicate better, but for the time being, we don’t have much. Ery’s scouting mission gave us more information, honestly.”

“Disappointing, but not unexpected, I guess,” nodded Reinhardt. “At least the setback of losing most of their infiltrators should cut that kind of shenanigans short from these enemies,” he added. The battle that day had been another slow one, with the enemy mostly attempting to push through the defensive ramparts using their numerical superiority.

The enemy infantry attempted to attack the ramparts using their siege ramps as before, while their archers provided cover fire, at times firing far too close to their own troops for comfort. He couldn’t see the details too clearly from the aerial vantage point his artifact provided, but he felt that there were likely several cases of friendly fire happening amongst the enemies.

Not that it seemed to affect the enemy morale overmuch. Their soldiers remained motivated, which might be explained by what the captive managed to convey through gestures and drawing, that soldiers who managed worthy feats would be greatly rewarded. Money and land seemed to be the reward dangled before them, and given the high morale, the rewards in question were likely already awarded for those who achieved feats in the earlier battles. Otherwise the others wouldn’t be as motivated as they were.

It was in a way similar to Reinhardt’s people, the act of risking their lives for rewards being a very mercenary thing. It definitely served well and motivated the common soldier to feats of courage and bravery, since many tend to be blinded by the shine of the rewards and as a result forgot that they needed to be alive in order to claim them.

Not even an atypical way to motivate conscripts in Alcidea, to be honest, and with the battle that day remaining a steady grind where the invaders kept getting repelled despite their best efforts, Reinhardt reined in his troops as well. There weren't any good openings to exploit, so he bided his time and waited for them to appear.