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Year 16, Month 3
More time with infrastructure development. Alzar purchases two more Decanters of Endless Water and uses them to set up irrigation in his farmland, and will spend much of the money on building water and pipes and such. With the rush of immigrants, he doesn’t want to run out of food.
Winter mostly ends. Alzar orders another castle built in the far northwest of his territory as a keep to defend. He’ll name it Castle West.
One of his courtiers dies from a plague she got in Freiburg. Alzar heals her, resurrects her, and then spends a week or so ensuring that the plague from nearby in the south is not coming here. The good news is that Alzar has a lot of experience fighting plagues back in Thorasia, as well as a dense number of temples and people to cure and help folks out.
ISLANDS REVOLT
The Thyatian-controlled nations of Ochalea and the Pearl Islands seize the opportunity to regain their independence, which they lost a thousand years ago. They declare their independence from Thyatis and prepare their own military forces for a Thyatian reprisal which they hope will not come.
HELSKIR JOINS ALPHATIA
Seeing her military forces stalled on the Isle of Dawn and facing ever-increasing opposition to the war at home, especially from the Shiye-Lawr elves (followers of Eiryndul), Empress Eriadna returns to the diplomatic skills at which she has such great prowess.
Helskir, a nominally independent city on the northern tip of the Isle of Dawn, sided with Thyatis when the war broke out but has played no great role in the conflict so far.
This winter, Helskir is suddenly overrun by Alphatians who occupy the city and seize the Thyatian troops and ships there but do not interfere with the civilian population in any perceptible way. The Alphatian forces immediately move south, crushing the Thyatians between them and the Alphatian-occupied cen*tral island. Within days, the entire northern two-thirds of the Isle of Dawn-more significantly, the most heavily-occupied and militarily important two-thirds of the island-are under Al*phatian control.
Within a few days, Eruul Zaar, the powerful fighter who had ruled Helskir in the past, is crowned king of Helskir and the northern third of the Isle of Dawn by Empress Eriadna herself; shortly thereafter he marries Asteriela Torion. Asteriela, third child of the Emperor of Thyatis, had been held in Alphatia as a hostage since she was a teenager (Empress Eriadna's son Tredorian was the counter*hostage held in Thyatis).
This is quite a coup for Zaar: if Alphatia wins the war, he re*tains all of his new power, and if Thyatis wins the war, he retains most or all of his new power. Amazingly, the marriage also appears to be a love match rather than just a political arrangement.
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