5. Interlude
When I woke up, everything was blurry, white... For a moment I thought I was finally in the realm of Emroy, but I quickly realised I was alive, in a bed, in a white room. I wasn't wearing my armor, but somekind of blue cloth. I could feel the bandages on my forehead. I looked around me to see if I could identify where I was. I turned my head to the right only to see, through a big window, a river. On the other side of that river, building had the same architecture as the building around the plaza. On a nearby bridge, I saw metal boxes rolling, like nothing happend... I was still on the other side of the Gate, but in some sort of monastery. But why ? Why would they heal an ennemy commander ? My first thought was for torture and interrogation. But none of that came.
I turned my head to the left and I noticed a strange white thing all around my arm. I couldn't move it, and any attempt to break this solid bandage failed.
And I noticed the tube planted into my left arm. The tube was connected to a strange transparent pig bladder. There was a transparent liquid inside. As I tried to reach this tube with my unrestreined arm, a woman with a white coat opened the door, paralysing me in the middle of my movement.
The door still open, she took a step back, said something to someone out of my sight in the corridor, and entered.
A few seconds later, a man in green uniform entered. He wasn't the one I tried to charge, but he was dressed similarely.
I believed he was going to start torturing me, but instead he sat in one corner of the room as the woman started to look at several things around me that I haven't noticed until then and taking notes. When she was done, she started to check my left arm and my forehead. I wanted to resist, but the man in green was staring directly at me, and I didn't wanted to suffer even more, so I let her do.
After this, she put new bandages on my head and turned towards the man in green to say something, maybe to report my situation. The man nodded and grabbed a small black box from his torso and started to talk into it. A strange voice came back and the man put back the box on his torso.
And nothing happend for what felt hours.
I tried to talk to him, but my language, the language of all the Empire, spoken by the grand majority of species all over Falmart, was unknown here.
Does Hardy tricked us ? Why is this world so strange ? Are all the things I can see magic ? How Boses will react when she'll learn that her brother was captured and he is maybe tortured or dead ?
Boses, if one day this diary arrive between your hands, this is why I didn't wanted you to join this Rose Order. I wanted to protect you from the pain and the death that await on the battlefields. As the son of one of the biggest family in the Empire, I had to go. But you weren't obliged to do such a thing. So please stop to fight as I should have stopped long ago.
When a group of three other men in green entered, I knew something was going to happen. One of the three stopped in front of me and said something, still in his language I couldn't understand. But now that they started to talk in the language of the elders, someone explained that I was a prisonner of war under the Geneva Convention. I don't what it is but I'll try to find out.
The men explained with hand gesture, and no without difficulty, that I must go with them. I obeied, fearing the power of those soldiers. I followed them through corridors and stairs to the outside of the building, where one big iron carriage was awaiting. At the back, two men, a goblin, an orc and a pigman were waiting on benches on each side of the inside of the carriage.
Again, I wanted to shout that it wasn't how I should be treated as a noble, but again the stare of the men in green killed that idea in the womb. So with a little pain in my heart I took a place in front of the orc.
One of the man in green sat with us and closed the heavy door.
When the carriage started to move, the loud sound produced by the vehicle injected fear in all of us. But for how much time did we spent in that box, I can't tell.
When the box finally stopped, we weren't in the city anymore, but still next to a grey building with bars on the windows...
A prison...
Now here I am, in a cell with a bed, latrine, a place to write and clothing. I was interrogated, but never tortured. This prison allow prisonner to read and practice. The prisonner have food three times a day.
But when I say prisonner, it's literally all the prisonner.
I, a general, get the same treatment as the infantrymen, who get the same treatment as the monsters.
But why ?
Everyone is treated well, but there is an obvious social gap between me and them... So why ?
I can't find an answer that make sense, but I will search, and I will find.
The first thing I must understand is this language. Like all the nobles, I have basis in the Elder's language, and the one spoke here seems to be related. It look like there is some kind of library in the prison, so this is where I must go to find my answers.
I will not write in this diary until I have my answers.
Extract of Lucius Co Palesti's diary, written in his cell of Fleury-Mérogis, August 24th 2016
-Thanks for joining us on I Télé, we are Saturday, August 20th, it's 10 PM and this are the main title of today's news.
Attack on Paris : the first questions are starting to get ask as the situation around the Champs-Elysées Roundabout is now under control. The first answers will come as a press conference is planned by Francois Molins, the Public Prosecutor of Paris. Who were the people invading ? Where were they coming from ? And more importantly, what is that structure that appeared in the middle of Paris ? Hello Michel Palette, our scientific expert.
-Hello, always glad to be here.
-So what do we know exactly at that time ?
-Well not that much. There hasn't been any oficial declaration yet, but a lot circulated on social media. Those are still rumors, so I might be wrong, but the estimated number of victims is at least 130. According to witnesses, the structure that started to get called ''the Gate'' appeared around 10 PM and a few minutes later tens of thousands of men in roman-like armor appeared. Those men were equipped, according to the videos that are circulating on the internet, with swords, spears and horses. Plus a lot of images show flying lizards and other kind of beasts you'll normaly find in heroic-fantasy. According to those same witnesses, the response time of police and soldiers was really short, noteably because of the emergency state. But all of this is coming from social media, so we have to wait for the press conference to have official answers.
-Does theories exist to explain how such a ''Gate'' can appear, and how can fantasy creatures come out of it ?
-It's kind of obvious to say that the area is tightly controlled by the army, and thus nobody can really know what it is. Some people theoryse that this is a kind of worm hole leading to another part of the universe, other talk about a portal to a parallel dimension or universe, but yet again nobody can really know what it is.
-Thank you Michel. We're now live with our correspondant on the Champs-Elysées, Myriam Gerbeau. Myriam, what is the current situation in this part of the capital ?
-We are in front of the security perimeter that extent 500m around the Roundabout. This all area has been evacuated almost immiedatly after the start of the attack. Since then a lot of military personnel and vehicles were transferred here. Every now and then we could hear a few shots that were coming, according to a soldier that was guarding the perimeter, from soldiers ''cleaning'' the area. But for the last few hours nothing could be heard, so it's safe to say that now the invading forces were pushed back. The Metro stations Roosevelt and Clemenceau are closed, but the lines that go through are not stopped. Now we can see people, parisians or tourists regrouping here, and a little self-made memorial started to appear with flowers and candles. We can even see a french flag pinned on a window here with the mention ''Fluctuat nec mergitur'', ''Tossed but not sunk'', the motto of the city of Paris. Now it's a time of mourning that awaits us.
-Thank you Myriam. Now before the start of the awaited press conference, take a look at those images from around the world, were people of all nationalities show their support towards Paris and France.
Extract of I Télé's 10 PM news report, August 20th 2016
I promised a moon ago that I'll try to gather the most information about the strange land I am in. Now I have my answers.
A few weeks ago I was brought into the interrogation room, but in front of me wasn't the man that usually ask me questions, but instead it was a woman by the name of Julie De Priest. She asked me if I can help her learning our language. Since that date, everyday after the midday meal I had to meet with this woman and work with her to make a translation between our languages.
Now, three weeks later, I have a basic understanding of the language used here and the guards can finally talk to all prisonners with basic words. With this new knowledge, I was finally able to go to the library.
A library was the last thing I thought I'll found in a prison, but it allowed me to find a great amount of information.
The Gate appeared in the city of Paris, the capital of a nation called France. This country is one of the most powerful country in this world, out of around 200 nations.
But out of all this nations, only one is empire and only a few are kingdoms. The rest are republics, countries were the people choose their leaders. From our perspective it doesn't make sense because peasants don't know how politics or diplomacy work, but here almost everybody is educated and thus know how to read and how to count.
From what I learnt so far, after almost four days passed only at the library, the most surprising thing is that they don't know anything about magic. The only books I found about magic were just about tricks to do in front of kids with coins or cards.
It can only mean one thing : the wands that summon thunder or the moving boxes are weapons and machines. But even the dwarves can't make a heavy minecart move more than a few meters with the force of burning coal.
It terrifies me. From what I heard, our attack only made 170 victims on their side, mainly unarmed bystanders trying to flee, while tens of thousands of Imperial soldiers died, and we were facing a few hundred men that, if I understood it well, were equipped with the lightest of these weapons.
I can already see those men in green clothes walking in the middle of the burning streets of our cities.
The whole army will be destroyed.
Including Princess Pina's knights.
Including Boses.
I'm scared of what will append to me in this prison, and I'm scared of what will append to her on the battlefields.
Extract of Lucius Co Palesti's diary, written in his cell of Fleury-Mérogis, Septembre 25th 2016
Ok I know that some of you are disappointed because this "chapter" isn't a continuation of the story. But as I said last week, the last exam of my finals were on Wednesday and I literally had only 3 days to think about something. It might be rushed, but at least it's something I give you to wait for next week's real chapter 4. And in the anime/manga, the PoV of the prisoners in our world is never shown, so it allowed me to get my own ideas onto paper.
Now onto the reviews
kevinkocher1 - From what I understood in your review, you're saying that my fic is realistic but the meeting with Coda's chief seemed short. First I try to make my story the most realistic possible even if I don't have any military experience. I spend a lot of time researching the right equipment for each soldiers, the right vehicle, etc... and for dialogue and communication, I look at stories like HWGA written by people who knows how things works.
Major Simi and systemman - I often watch documentaries about a massacre that happened 20 km of where I live during WWII and in those documentaries, when survivors where still alive, they interviewed them and asked them what happend that day. I tried to repliclate that with Coda's chief being interviewed on how he met the "men in green". (Look at Oradour-sur-Glane massacre on Wikipedia)