The last war
Welcome to Dark Lord Seduction Plan! In a world torn by a conflict between the Light and the Dark, Dark mage Alina only cares about seducing the Dark Lord and getting him to marry her... Come read about her plans, and the world where she lives!
Introduction to the story | Alina | Runic magic | Novel upcoming
Introduction to the story | Alina | Runic magic | Novel upcoming
Table of Contents
For centuries and even millennia, we have always been at war with our neighbours, Illénie and Rénance. The inhabitants of these two countries are idiots who never learn from their defeats and keep coming back at us with childish hopes of a different outcomes.
The last war we had with them 10 years ago was a bit more bloody than usual, but even so it would not have stood particularly out without it having been the stage of a far more momentous event: the emergence of our Dark Lord.
Start of the war
Causes
Illénie & Rénance had been beaten in previous separate wars and were naturally forced to pay a tribute to Nélannie as reparation. That tribute was very high & damaging for their economy, creating a lot of internal pressure to rebel. The only thing holding them back was the certitude that they would be beaten soundly.Preparation
To stave off imminent civil wars, they had no choice but to look for a solution. In the end, it was Illénie that managed to create a new battle staff with a better handling of a wider range of magic. They immediately approached Rénance to sign a secret alliance and form a joint army equipped with the staff before going on the offensive against Nélannie.Strategy
The new staff was a big progress, but Nélannie has always been superior thanks to its highly-militarised society and love for research & innovations. Staves alone would not be enough. The plan was to use the staves to make the war a lot more violent & deadly for Nélannie, to create a lot of internal conflicts and have the Nélanniens rebel against the conscription. Then a new treaty would be negotiated.Progress of the war and internal conflicts
Conscription
Nélannie didn't managed to immediately crush the rebellion. This forced us to conscript our citizens and call many of them back from abroad. Among them was Lord Enélien Cenlys, owner of many masteries, including one in the now illegal field of rituals. This was bound to cause problems... With the war lasting longer than expected & many people dying, many officers were able to quickly climb through the ranks, and soon Lord Cenlys became a general.Problem
Lord General Cenlys did not intend to let himself be killed as easily as his predecessor. Of course, he had no intention to avoid any powerful forms of magic in his arsenal just because the king would disapprove. His favourites were rituals powered by human sacrifices that moved our soldiers' wounds to our enemies' bodies. This created a lot of tension in the army. His conversion to his "evil ways" of many other high-ranking officers such as Lady General Sandeux did not help.Royal strategy
The king had the cleverness—& self-control—to refrain from immediately arresting & executing the lord general. The king did his best to be able to pretend ignorance about what was going on, preventing overzealous officers from going over the hierarchy to report to him directly—or worse, to spread rumours through the civil society. This allowed him to make use of the lord general's unsavoury strategies & illegal magic without compromising himself in the public's eyes.Conclusion and consequences of the war
Peace
With this strategy, Nélannie was able to minimise its human losses & to crush Illénie and Rénance into submission. They were forced to go back to paying a tribute—this time even higher no matter how outrageous the amount & how this ensures that a new war will break out sooner or later. However, this peace treaty ended up as only a footnote of the war.Real focus
Instead, despite the king's effort at secrecy, everyone at court & in the army was focused on what would happen with the Lord General Cenlys. The king had to make an example of him. This was the perfect occasion to get rid of all Dark mages that the war had made more confident in revealing themselves, as well as to cow the rest of us into abandoning our evil ways.Dark Lord
An elite military group went to arrest Lord General Cenlys. However, when they tried to seize his person, his followers unveiled a flag bearing a terror bird, the symbol of Dark Lords... Lord General Cenlys publicly claimed the title, refusing to submit to the arrest & to flee before them like a mere criminal. Instead, he exposed his full magical power & terrified them into running away.
This was a disastrous ending to the war and did not bode well for the future of Nélannie... For the government, of course! For us, Dark mages, this was the most amazing outcome we had never dared to hope for!
After he was left alone by his enemies, Lord Cenlys came to the capital with his inner circle of faithful and organised a big "secret" gathering of the Dark society.
It was very irregular of him to have claimed the title of Dark Lord without being elected by us all, but everyone recognised that his act had been very classy & spectacular and agreed to excuse him. That and Lord Cenlys was just too powerful & awesome & terrifying to directly oppose.
And so we voted. I was there; it was clear to everyone present that it was really a momentous event, history in the making! Of course he was elected by a crushing majority.
The giddiness hasn't truly left us yet, and all the terror the Dark Lord can inspire even in his own people will never manage to overcome the awe we also feel for him. And so, while since then he has been plotting how to take control of the country & free us from oppression, we have been plotting how to earn his estime & favours...
Read about those event from the POV of the government here:
The rise of the Dark Lord :O I bet the king is regretting turning a blind eye
That bet certainly did not pay XD But opposing the Dark Lord at any time of the war would have ended badly for the king anyway :p The Dark Lord was always too popular and powerful to go away quickly. At least that way he was not able to go join Illénie or Rénance and help them win the war! Thanks for the comment :D