Editing User:Trungle/Cataphracts Idis/Recap (section)

=== The Chert affair ===

The first of the side stories begins almost at the start of the game. A secret mountain pass only known to our two nations, connects Fenpr to Chert. The pass is hard to traverse and it seems that one general from Chert was concerned about things escalating there. Mere days after I set out from Torvaldsen, I was entreated to a letter from one General Phyllite Hornfel of Chert, who suggested a one-year demilitarization of the mountain pass, to which I heartily agreed. Doing continuous battle through this pass would be costly and dangerous and I was as reluctant as he was to let that happen.

At the end of August, around the time that I had retreated to Torvaldsen the first time, I received another letter from this same commander. He requested permission to traverse the pass, performing mercenary work in the north, taking loot for himself and offering me aid against my adversaries in a way that would be difficult to trace back to me.

I had a few options at this phase, were I to accept the offer. I could enlist the help of the army to attack the Uuqitans, but their stated goal was to procure loot and opportunities for such things would likely be few and far between in Uuqita. It would likely take ''weeks'' to even get to a place where the Chertan force could loot, and besides, I didn’t feel comfortable letting a foreign power come so close to my capitol. So instead, I directed them towards Lomowaza. My neighbor to the west had not made any moves against Fenpr; the closest they had come to our territory was attacking a small Uuqitan enclave on the mainland nestled between our two borders. But this force did not continue into Fenpr. Our nations’ prior cold relationship, I felt, could not be trusted to remain that way. So I invited General Hornfel to cross the pass and weaken Lomowaza in the likely case that relations soured.

The Lomowazans were not exactly happy with this. By the time that I had returned to Torvaldsen the second time, I received a message from one fortress of Calimai, close to the border with Lomowaza, that reported a force of Lomowazans gathering, seemingly to do war against us. I immediately inquired about their intentions in that quarter of the land to which they responded that no harm was meant and that they only intended to find more information about General Hornfel. I don’t know which direction General Hornfel went after stomping through Lomowaza, but it certainly was not back through Fenpr. Somehow, the Lomowazans had gotten the ''direction'' of Hornfel’s assault wrong and assumed he was in my land.

I informed them that, no, I had not heard of General Hornfel arriving in Fenpr from Lomowaza but it was here that I decided to spill a secret. To the Lomowazan force, I revealed the existence of the mountain pass. I claimed that the Chertan general had slipped through it unnoticed before I could travel to his location and apprehend him. However, for some strange reason, he left Fenpr untouched and headed straight for Lomowaza. I permitted the Lomowazans to search for Chert in my land so long as they remained peaceful, but promised that aggression would be answered in kind.

I still wonder about this choice to reveal the pass. On one hand, it was perhaps a betrayal of Chert’s trust to broadcast the knowledge of our shared secret. On the other hand, it was the only plausible explanation for Chert’s presence. If I were to obscure the truth even more, Lomowaza would suspect me of harboring them and that could certainly end poorly for my nation.

I think it worked out in the end, though. Later on, it became obvious that the Lomowazan force crossed this mountain pass after winter had set in and just barely lived to regret their decision. Survivors from their army were neatly folded into Chert’s, meaning that the nations on both sides of the pass ended up benefitting from me letting the secret slip.

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