The King pounded his hand on the throne, bringing the room to silence as the doors closed behind the Dagos delegation.
"We have come to an impasse in the Armistice negotiations.
The demands that have been made are not acceptable by either side, and the representative of the Royal Family of Dagos is not convinced that they are actually going to lose the war.
So, today, we begin the offensive phase of the battle.
The Airships have been prepared, the mechanized cavalry is ready, and our Battle Mages have been positioned for the assault.
Unit assignments for the Royal Family will be delivered by my personal staff tonight.
The Sixth Prince and his unit will escort Prince Kaizon back across the border, as his safety was guaranteed under the terms of the ceasefire." The King explained.
He stood and left the room, the signal for everyone else to break up and prepare.
Dominic followed Princess Alexis back to her suite, where a Royal Advisor was waiting for them.
"Your Highness. This is for you." He declared, as he passed over the small note.
Alexis took the note with her as she entered the suite, then waved her hand for everyone but Dominic to leave.
"Let’s see how bad this is. We found out today that Dagos has an alliance with Skiple on their western border. The two nations have fielded an army of nearly a million men who are currently making their way across Dagos on the main roads.
That will lead them near the staging point for the last attack at Staptontave.
It is also the only route that their vehicles can take, as they are not built for cross-country travel." She explained, then opened the royal missive.
{Dearest daughter. The future King apparent of Dagos is serious about his demands. He will accept nothing less than the public humiliation of our family in return for the Armistice. If this war ends any way except with their utter capitulation, I fear that your freedom cannot be guaranteed.
As such, I have put the Natural Sons at your disposal, and you have free rein to plan your own battles.
Accept no defeat, never surrender, or face a fate worse than death.
"I knew that I should have killed him." Dominic muttered.
Princess Alexis shook her head. "And brought every border nation down upon us for killing an envoy under the flag of peace? No, it’s better that you didn’t. At least not today.
Don’t forget that Mitfield and West Keria had nobles in the room for that meeting.
But I have a plan. Do you have a way in your Techno Magic knowledge to set up mobile artillery quickly, and lightweight enough that it won’t overload a storage item?"
"Give me a night, and I think that I can come up with something." Dominic agreed.
"Then we will leave at first light. The riflemen are already being prepared to move."
Dominic nodded and prepared to return to his rooms.
"No, you’re remaining here for the night. We’re not having another incident like the assassination attempts. If you need tools, we will send someone to get them." Alexis ordered.
"I will need to make the launchers later, then. This suite isn’t suitable for metalworking. But the idea I have is for shorter range artillery. One to two hundred metres maximum, but man portable, and quick loading." Dominic explained.
"And how did you come up with that so quickly?"
Dominic smiled. "I didn’t. It came up as an option earlier when we were thinking of ideas for another issue. Fireworks launcher tubes. Only, instead of fireworks, we put a fragmentation grenade with a fuse on the end.
It’s shape like an oval tackle ball, but with fins at the back to stabilize it.
Drop it in the tube, like a firework. But don’t aim it straight up."
Princess Alexis relaxed a little and smiled. "And you can launch them across the city. The kids in the Noble district do it with fireworks every year. I suppose that it would be much more deadly with a grenade than a sparkler in the tube."
The next thing that Dominic needed to do was modify and build a new version of the [Create Munitions] magitech orb. One that would make the mortar rounds.
They weren’t that different from cannonballs, and they were much smaller, so it was only a small adaptation to the [Self Loading Cannon] orb.
In under two hours, he had a new one made, and he had successfully created the first batch of mortar rounds, though he hadn’t been able to test them.
"Are you sure that those will be deadly enough?" Alexis asked.
"If they land on a city wall or within infantry, certainly. If they hit a house, it’s less likely. What were you planning?" Dominic asked.
"Hit and run cavalry riflemen tactics. If we take a few all terrain trucks with the riflemen, we can get anywhere we need to be quickly. Leave the trucks further back, send the cavalry forward, bombard Dagos camps when they are settled in, and then retreat if possible.
I want to inflict as many casualties on their infantry as possible so that there won’t be enough men for them to continue their war effort."
Dominic nodded. "In that case, we will need a lot of the mortar launchers. I will try to get one made for everyone in the Natural Sons. Even three or four volleys from five hundred cavalrymen will be enough to cause utter chaos in a camp.
But I will warn you, these are not precisely aimed weapons. You pick a field to target, and hope they land on it."
Alexis nodded. "We will take what we can get. The Natural Sons are competent riflemen. Even if the first strike isn’t successful, they should still be able to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy.
But we will be doing it deep within Dagos, so don’t expect any sympathy from the locals."
Dominic nodded. "If we had more time, I would work on improved gear, but as it is, I will just grab every bit of spare tooling and parts for the weapons they have. I can make more along the way if necessary."
"You know, when we get back after the war, we are going to have a lot to answer for, right?" Alexis asked, unsure if Dominic understood the many violations of the rules of war that a surprise mortar bombardment of sleeping troops entailed.
"In that case, we should likely leave the Royal heraldry behind when we depart."