From the personal log of General Vaiolder, First of His Name, Military Regent of Ul'varh'mir
Thirty-seventh day since the Treaty of Ash
I write this in what was once the Royal Archives, now serving as my command center because the palace's east wing collapsed last week from structural damage sustained during the elvish bombardment. No one has come to repair it. There is no money to pay workers. There are no workers who would accept our currency even if we could pay them.
We lost.
Three words that encompass the complete destruction of everything Ul'varh'mir has been for four thousand years.
The final territorial accounting came through this morning. Sixty percent of our kingdom is gone. The northwestern territories—everything from the coastal cities to the interior forests—now fly Xyi'vana'mir's silver banner. The southeastern provinces, including our richest agricultural valleys, are occupied by Vel'koda'mir's military administration.
The two conquering nations aren't allies. They're simply not fighting each other while they consume us like scavengers over a corpse. The High Elves hold our rare wood forests—the Tra'vvv groves that took six thousand years to mature, the Tra'inki stands that were the foundation of our weapon exports, the Tra'ji fire woods that powered every forge from here to the desert kingdoms. All of it, gone. Controlled by elvish forest wardens who've posted execution notices for any Ul'varh'mir citizen found attempting to harvest even a single branch.
Vel'koda'mir took our farmland. The grain belt that fed our cities now sends its harvest south to feed their aggressive expansion. Our people will eat what they can grow in the remaining forty percent of territory, or they will starve.
What remains to us? Iron and copper. Base metals. The unglamorous minerals that every kingdom has in abundance. Our economy was built on rare woods commanding premium prices—a single Tra'vvv log worth five years' wages for a common laborer. Now we're reduced to selling iron that fetches copper prices because every nation from here to the ocean has their own iron deposits.
The markets are chaos. Bread costs twenty copper per loaf—triple last month's price, ten times what it cost before the war. Unemployment has hit the logging sector catastrophically. Forty thousand skilled foresters with nowhere to work, no forests to harvest, no buyers for their expertise even if they had access to timber. They can't transition to mining—our copper and iron operations already employ everyone they can sustain. We have three workers competing for every available position.
The mana users are fleeing in numbers that would be comedic if they weren't so damning. Every week, another hundred families disappear across our borders—to Seleun'mhir, to Vel'koda'mir's occupied territories where they're cynically welcomed as "liberated citizens," even to the desert kingdoms despite the harsh climate. They don't feel safe here. They're right not to feel safe. The genocide officially ended, but the hatred that fueled it still simmers in every street corner conversation, every tavern argument, every desperate citizen looking for someone to blame besides themselves.
And blame flows like poison through the kingdom's veins. The common people blame the nobles. The nobles blame the military command. The military command blames me, though they're careful not to say it directly to my seven-foot frame. Everyone blames the dead king, which is convenient for Ashtherion'vaur and solves nothing for the living.
I seized power to end the genocide and save what remained of the kingdom. I succeeded at the first goal. The second is revealing itself as impossible.
Yesterday, the Xyi'vana'mir occupation administrator delivered new terms. They're not satisfied with territorial control and economic devastation. They want administrative oversight. Permanent "advisory councils" that will oversee our governmental decisions. Veto power over military appointments. Approval authority for any legislation regarding mana users, which effectively means approval authority over everything because they can claim any law "indirectly affects" mana user rights.
Puppet state. They didn't use those words. They spoke of "transitional governance" and "ensuring compliance with treaty obligations" and "protecting vulnerable populations from future persecution."
But I've lived six hundred forty-three years. I've seen enough political theater to recognize annexation dressed in diplomatic language.
I accepted their terms because refusal meant resuming a war we've already lost. But acceptance means acknowledging that Ul'varh'mir as a sovereign nation is finished. We're a protectorate now. A cautionary tale. A conquered territory that still pretends to govern itself while foreign administrators pull every string that matters.
The rare woods are gone. The economy is broken. The population is fragmenting. Our autonomy is surrendered.
And I am the man who will be remembered for presiding over all of it.
History will not be kind to General Vaiolder.
History should not be kind to General Vaiolder.
End log entry