Askerr War

The Askerr War
Part of Gilgamesh's War
Date 1690 AN to 1692 AN Location Imarru-Lugal; Dromosker Island Result Hexarchy victory subjugation of Dromosker Island
Belligerents
Hexarchy allied Askerr allied Dromosker	Hostile Dromosker Lugals
Strength
12,500 men various vehicles two lightning dragons one fire dragon	65,000 (est. combat strength)
Casualties and losses
56 Hexarchians 2,500 natives	34,500

The Askerr War was the conflict fought in the wake of The Hexarchy's settlement of the island of the same name, or otherwise known as Dromosker Island. The conflict was fought between the settlers of the island, who were from various places of The Hexarchy (and elsewhere), and the natives of the island, who had proven unable to be subjugated by past settlers of the island. The natives, prone to cannibalism and constant warfare with others, successfully resisted all prior incursions deep into the island and instead practiced cannibalism on the very people claiming to be their colonial rulers.

The Lugal on the Hexarchy's side, Chief Eru Tepesh was having none of it, especially after his emissary's murder at a feast supposedly held in his celebration. If anyone were to die on his side, it would be those sentenced to a fate involving certain death. With Ereskigal Forest so far away, the Askerr would normally prove up to the task of replacing it. However, they seemed to be intent on eating his best people alive, instead of his worst. That said, it was obvious that these natives were under the impression that their "mana" gave them strength.

He was determined to send the permanent message that their concept of greatness was barely a drop in a very, very large bucket. The conflict, while lasting only a few months, was likely the bloodiest by far in the history of the island. Almost half the combat strength possessed by the natives was destroyed in violent dragon attacks that drew ire and criticism from home, namely in that dragons had never been used in an aggressive campaign against civilized humans in the history of The Hexarchy. However, Eru Tepesh still kept his post, and added the title of Lugal to his name -- in deference to the ones who first sent him to the island.

The Bloody Banquet

Interactions[1] between these settlers and the original inhabitants of the island, initially amicable, quickly broke down following an unfortunate banquet held on the lake-island settlement of Calēkhōpraksis which ended in an emissary's spilt entrails roasting on a grill before his eyes whilst native braves wetted their spearpoints in the gaping abdominal wound. The culinary redistribution of mana that ensued helped to embolden the lugals of the seven inter-connected 'swamp valleys' radiating from the lake in preparation for the interesting times ahead.

Instead of a war waged to eliminate these indigenous peoples, the Chief of the settlement, Eru Tepesh, had a more... interesting idea. Although the loss of a diplomat was always a sad event, in reality the man the settlers sent was of little consequence, himself being one of the indentured servants that arrived during a later wave in the settlement. Anticipating a rough time with the islanders, he had arranged for the secret transport of a pair of dragons along with a cluster of their eggs from the mainland. When the lizards were revealed to the public (which are normally very illegal to export outside of the mainland), the Chief simply rationalized that the lizards were there as a cultural artifact.

Releasing the deadly lizards into the wild, the Chief then sent another such messenger to the natives upon discovering the meaning of their practices: Just as the natives wished for mana, so did the settlers -- except they derived it from their dragons. Thus, they sent the dragons out to "collect" the weakest of the natives. In return, the natives would receive their own mana in kind from the settlers on a regular basis, at the Chief's sole discretion. Should the natives get greedy, so too would those giant, heavily-armored lizards able to spit the very power of the gods from their maws.

The Chief hardly bothered with issuing negotiations of any sort. He knew the natives would get the message almost immediately, once the dragons started their initial rampage to establish their own territory. And, if by some miracle, they possessed enough advanced weaponry to deal with the rough equivalent of flying nukes with armor, there was a whole other cluster of eggs about to be hatched in the settlement. It allowed for the Chief to deal with two of the emerging settlement's biggest issues:

Firstly, the carrying out of executions directly by one's own hand remained illegal throughout The Hexarchy and all of its territories, as even an execution of a heinous criminal was considered murder -- regardless of its justification. Thus, freely sending one or two people to the natives to deal with in their own fashion would provide a way for the Chief and the Council to rid themselves of undesirables normally deserving of the ultimate punishment, while still following the spirit and letter of the law back home. (On the mainland, a similar practice is followed in Ereshkigal Forest, where the condemned are sent unarmed into a forest filled with deadly flora and fauna at nearly every step.)

Secondly, it would provide additional justification for the active suppression of these natives, should the Chief resort to more extreme measures, such as provoking the dragons to completely destroy the countryside. Unfortunately, such an action would land the Chief a ticket to the Forest due to the sheer violence that option would entail. The mainland government intended the colony to be a much more peaceful settlement, after all, and committing such an atrocity would be unconscionable -- at least on paper. On the other hand, should the natives accept the new status quo, then both sides could remain both secure and satisfied, in which the Chief's tenure as paramount leader of the island would be cemented for life.

As the dragons flew off to do what they did best, all the settlers had to do was prepare themselves for a possible defense of the town. Should the remaining natives go completely berserk instead of cowering in fear after seeing the dragons, the town still had to prepare for a native attack on the town before it was fully fortified, in the likely event that some would survive the nuclear option. Meanwhile, a letter was sent informing the government that the island's unstable nature resulted, in a time, its lack of recognition of the island's rulership.

The Attack on the Settlement

Preparations at the rapidly-fortifying town of Imarru-Lugal proved to be quick and efficient, probably because the threat of being eaten alive and suffering painful deaths didn't sit well with the townsfolk. Vigilance was especially high at night, since the dragons smuggled onto the island by the Chief were still tired from the very long journey on board those relatively cramped cargo ships. With the settlers' greatest living weapons resting, it was solely up to the townsfolk to ensure the safety of the city until their dragons and dragon-masters could also recuperate.

After about two weeks of preparation, the town was as ready as it could be on short notice. The natives had still not attacked the town, likely holding council and preparing for war themselves. On the fourteenth night, however, sounds were heard from beyond the town's palisade: the natives were on the move, almost 2,000 strong. The town had enough fighting men to hold off, but out of a settlement of 50,000, only about 12,000 in total were fit to fight -- and but a fraction of those were freemen. The prospect of the indentured servants joining the natives and revolting wasn't a pleasant one, and as such Chief Tepesh realized that a decisive victory involving the freedmen at the front was, for once, required.

The attack began on the 15th night of the war. The natives, though possessed of firearms, held but a few, left over from previous waves of colonization on the island. Additionally, their ammunition was low. The Chief and his lieutenants knew that if the settlers held until the dragons woke up and their masters prodded them to attack the natives, the battle was won. If the natives got to the armory, the battle would be lost and every last male on the settlement would be butchered alive, and the women and children enslaved -- or worse. Thus, the defense was concentrated there and at the palisade.

The natives hit the town hard, but they were still outgunned by the settlers, who had brought enough munitions for such a confrontation. Several times the natives attempted to breach the outer defenses, and only once did a significant force succeed. 56 men lost their lives -- the only direct settler casualties of the war. It was during this very moment, while the natives were beginning to storm the walls, that the dragons woke up.

The two that did take to flight were a fire dragon and lightning dragon, commanded by two of the city's only six dragon masters aside from the Chief himself. As for the Chief, he was still on the ground, at the front line, as his own dragon was still too weary to fight in earnest without risking it to unknown enemy capabilities. He had decided to lead the defense personally, as he wanted to instill unity among the settlers and give less reason for the peasants to revolt during the battle.

The dragons' oncoming rage was nothing like the natives had ever seen. A great sound like repeating gusts of wind sounded through the air for all of five minutes before they arrived. Blasts of fire and beams of lightning lead to a spectacular fireworks show that was normally meant to fell the vast beasts roaming the Great Wilds. Instead, it was wholesale carnage as the dragons did their work virtually unopposed. The natives did possess guns, but they proved to be entirely ineffective on the dragons' armor-like scales. Quickly, the attackers realized that the battle had suddenly turned hopeless. Those on the ground could only watch as the dragons blasted away countless numbers of people into unrecognizable heaps. Even the settlers turned away in disgust as the dragons' hunger overcame their instinctual desire to fight and began to feast on their prey -- just as they were wont to do during the hunts back in their native homes.

It was when the dragons landed and began physically devouring people that the natives turned and ran for their lives. The Chief decided to send the peasants forth, and watched as his countrymen got more than their fill of glory as they routed the natives for almost five miles outside of the town. By the time dawn finally broke, none of the natives remained within sight of the city, and almost none of the original 2,000-odd attackers escaped a combination of dragonfire and the settlers' wroth.

The Great Fire of 1690

The aftermath of the Battle of Imarru-Lugal left an indelible impression on the settlers' morale. Although they suffered casualties following the breach on one of the palisades, their superior firepower along with the dragon attacks destroyed their opponents almost completely. Confidence rose that it could be repeated elsewhere -- especially of the back of the Chief's far larger dragon, the very same that was still slumbering in the town square, unaware that anything of note ever took place the night before.

No chance was ever given to the natives to dispose of their dead. The enemy dead, at this moment, were nothing but free dragon fodder to the settlers, who were resentful of the double insult of their emissary's murder and the unprovoked attack on their settlement. While neither event was ultimately of much consequence, it was the principle of the matter that successfully led the Chief to rile up the townsfolk to war. Instead of wanting an immediate working relationship with the natives to defend the island and contribute to each other's success, outright subjugation of the entire island was now the only thing now on the townsfolks' minds.

To the Chief's convenience, he thought the same thing all along, due to his previous studies on the island's natives. In fact, he had even picked out the least consequential settler among them for the very reason that he'd likely be murdered by the natives, inciting the townsfolk to further violence. Now, he got his way, and three days later, he was greeted with most welcome news: his dragon, Skyfall, woke up. He didn't bother reining in the dragon, and instead took the shocking action of letting it join the others in clearing the bodies from the town's vicinity. He wanted the beast to get used to the concept of different prey, as he had a feeling that would be a common food source for those giant lizards for years to come.

Even with the three great dragons gorging themselves, it took almost another two weeks for them to clear out the carnage they had caused during that single night. By the time the dragons were done with their "holy work" (as the Chief billed it afterwards), preparations were made to give the new resident dragons enough food to last them through the year. Any of the remaining mess would have to be dealt with later, but none of the townsfolk were inclined to do anything about it: almost all remains left over were burnt down to mere carbon, and even now their ashes were slowly blowing out to sea.

However, the Chief had different plans than the settlers. He wouldn't risk more of his own people's lives on a pointless crusade through territory the natives knew far better than they did. Instead, he had a different plan: blast the opposition away from the sky. By the 30th day of the war, the second phase began. Chief Tepesh ordered the fire dragon and its master, Enkidu Arad-Horus, to remain near the town, assuring that he'd get to feed his dragon later. It had much shorter attack range, but the natives would likely fear its fire more for that simple fact.

Meanwhile, Chief Tepesh and Juno of Arumen climbed their own lightning dragons, ascended beyond what the natives could reasonably launch at them, and set off. It wasn't long before they torched the nearest settlement from an altitude of nearly 1,000 feet. Without warning, twin blasts of plasma blasted down onto the nearest lugal's town and destroyed its center. Since the Chief didn't want to wipe these villages off the map outright (since the settlement would need servants and scouts later on), he figured that destroying what appeared to be their centers would inspire the survivors to surrender before long.

This process was repeated for the next twelve days, as he and Juno went from city to city, destroying village centers before news could reach them of the previous target's demise. Naturally, these blasts started fires that spread rapidly through the villages' primitive building materials. It wasn't long before much of the entire island was caught up in a great conflagration that was, in subsequent years, dubbed the "Great Fire of 1690." The next thing for the Chief to do was return with Juno to Imarru-Lugal and wait for entreaties from the natives to not go on such another expedition again, whose ferocity far eclipsed anything the natives had experienced -- even when weighed against the retaliations against them under Jing rule decades prior.