[Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2]

It seemed that the Glimmerite War Machines were not necessarily invincible.

Given that Brekock threw in with Glimmer, he was unsure how he felt about this.

They’d been fighting for nearly seven years. “Fighting” was an overstatement – their progress had been quite leisurely. For a while, they simply built up in the holdings that they’d had already on the peninsula: Tirania, Lushnii, and Fiyer. Glimmerite ships came and went, and took bananas, amber, chocolate, crabs, and iron. The Glimmerites were using the divine black rocks to make a metal stronger than iron.

Brekock could only assume that they were imbuing the iron with the divinity. But these Glimmerites…

The Glimmerites had failed, at last. They’d push forth, and tried to hit Shkodriana. The city of two fortresses.

The Glimmerites had been repelled, though there were only a few hundred with rifles, and an ironclad or two bombarding. A leisurely pace of combat, but it turns out that thousands of Shkodrianans were only barely able to fend off half a thousand Glimmerites, and two ironclads.

Go figure.

A few dozen Glimmerites had died, but when word was delivered, Vanbools was not upset over that. He was upset over the audacity that the Shkodrianans had shown. Brekock, however, was not upset at all. He did not feel much of anything these days. Not since Vanbools had taken three of his daughters as his own, and not since Vanbools made himself Shqipojn in all but name.

As for those two ironclads? They still maintained their vigil outside the city. Every now and again, each of those two forts would attempt to bombard them, but fail. Their range was inferior. They simply watched.

They watched and watched and watched.

For two years.

It was now 905 – and the city of Shkodriana had surrendered.

Their Shqipojn had been terrified of the upcoming Glimmerite attack. The fear had driven him to negotiate. He sold off his kingdom for a chance to fleet to Zeal, a bag of gold, and one of Brekock’s daughters.

All he got was a handful of bullets through his chest.

And now, as Brekock watched the city of Shkodriana burn to the ground, with all her inhabitants, he couldn’t help but try and feel. Anything. Anything at all about what he did.

Next on Bulkhanization...

[Part 4]

[M]: The city of Shkodriana is no longer on the map. It is replaced with ruins (blackened). Glimmerite Bulkhai now occupies the territory it once was in.