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Aliasing: Haha, already too much of that going on!
Boris: Exactly! It's not fun to always lose at all.
Razgriz: Well the way I see it they weren't really able to organise themselves too well, so basically it came down to individuals. Remember that the Incans have just lost their leader.
Dewirix: I think you're right. And I just realised something too. I started playing the game in 1434...which is after the Incans were conquered so in game they will be. I'll just assume it happens later on narrative wise. I didn't think of that!
blsteen: You're assuming I know about my own story! That's a pretty big assumption. :p
Sather: Well, I had intended them to conquer the Inca, but I figured anyone could read about that from history, and do it better than me. So I'll diverge now from history...and see what happens!

Chapter 9 – The Retreat

25/12/1532

“Merry Christmas,” Talena said dryly as she sat down beside the fire.
Rodrigo huddled closer to the flames and gave her a dirty look. “At least it is not as cold here as in Spain,” he said.
“Winter in the Pyrenees was not pleasant,” Talena agreed. “Still, I’ve been in worse.”
He looked at her, and now there was something akin to awe, or even fear in his eyes. “Who are you? Really. Look at you!” he suddenly exclaimed. “You look the same.” The forced retreat had not been kind to Rodrigo Sanchez; his beard was unkempt, his face burned by the sun and his hair grown long.
Talena sighed. “At least now you might start believing me when I say I’m not just a hapless woman. I’ve been in more military campaigns then you have years. So I get really annoyed when people try to patronise me.”
“So I see. It’s an unusual experience for me. I’ve never seen a woman warrior before.”
“They’ll become more common eventually. Anyway, we’ve had no more contact with the enemy. Three more men dead though.”
“How many are left?” Rodrigo asked hollowly.
“Including you…forty one I think.”
Rodrigo put his head in his hands. “How could this happen?”
“It shouldn’t have…Spain was destined to conquer all of South America. It…” she stopped. “You’ll have to try again, I guess.” They had buried Pizarro in the mountains looking back into Peru…where he might one day see Spain conquer what even he could not.
“We need to report this to the King in person,” Rodrigo decided.
Talena raised an eyebrow. “Can you do that?”
“Even a penniless Count is still a Count.” He explained further, “My father was not a great Christian, God rest his soul. He sold our estates, our lands…everything but our title. He was killed in battle…but only after the King ordered him to go.”
Talena nodded. “Well…it’s got to be worth a try.” In reality she had little intention of doing so, but wanted to get to Europe as soon as she could. Why? She figured there might be something more…engaging there. After all, America in this time was sparsely populated and offered little for her to do.
7AARExpeditionRetreat.jpg


18/1/1533

Tumbes looked no less appealing now than it had six months before. Now however it was salvation. Though the Inca had given up their pursuit it represented a bastion of safety and security.
As the ragged force came into sight a rider came out to meet them. It became clear to the garrison that this was not a victorious return. The battered and decrepit survivors, the few horses and no artillery was all that remained of the expedition to conquer Peru.
“Where is the Captain-General?” the shocked rider from the garrison asked.
“Dead. Killed,” Rodrigo said. “Is there a ship here?”
“Yes, the Joanna arrived last week!”
“And is my fiancée safe?”
“Yes, Lord,” the man promised.
“Good…then gather all those in the settlement and all the equipment you can. We head north to Mexico. The heathens might come down at any point to attack. Quickly! We leave on the tide.”
Talena, following behind, could see the signs of strain on Rodrigo’s face. He had been shaken by defeat, and now wanted nothing more than to flee. It was not an unreasonable desire.

The abandoned Inca city had been dismantled in parts to create a strong fortification by the water’s edge, and living quarters for the people. Among them was Isabella, her maid Maria and the priest Alava.
Rodrigo ran to Isabella and embraced her. “Oh my love, you are safe!” he said.
“Rodrigo, what happened, my love?” she asked, looking at his dishevelled appearance, and that of the remnants of the army.
“The heathens…there were too many! They overwhelmed us. Defeated us! How could such a thing happen? The Captain-General is dead…so many dead!”
Finally, after holding it in for so long tears brimmed in his eyes as the horror overcame him.
“My Lord…come…you must eat, must rest,” the priest said.

Soon Maria was left alone with Talena. “I thought that the Spanish were destined to win?” Maria said thoughtfully. “Two hundred against an Empire, what could have gone wrong, Mistress?” she asked.
Talena looked at the woman, frowned at the amused tone. “What?”
“Nothing, Mistress. Please, come aboard,” Maria said, smiling politely.
Talena took one last look at the ruins of Tumbes, then embarked to leave Peru….

8AARMapDefeatRetreat.jpg
 
OH MY GOD!!!

Maria: she is from Transsexual, Transylvania!
Only Talena can not be from there and do the Time Warp
 
Nice.

I always like watching the Spanish lose.
 
Looking at the map just confirms how screwed the Inca are long-term. Surrounded by Spanish yellow is not a nice place for a New World state to be.

If Maria's meant to be protecting the timeline she dropped the ball by letting Talena accompany Rodrigo. Maybe she's an Inca-supremacist from future Peru, out to change history!
 
Boris: You have no idea how hard it was! I had to take any leader out, tag switch to Inca to move their army there, then attack with my one unit and no leader. Even then I had to reload once because I won! So yeah, I got this number through the game.
polport: She sure is....
Aliasing: Haha! That cracked me up.
Chicken: Then watch this AAR! ;)
Dewirix: That's how the game starts. Spain spreads rather impossibly actually. They have colonies in central south america they can't even reach! And yeah but she's NOT protecting the timeline. ;)
Razgriz: I hope not too annoying!
Sather: It is...but not too strange once you know why!
BTW I hope this chapter makes sense to everyone. It made sense to me...but that's not necessarily the same thing! :p

Chapter 10 – A Paradox Revealed

7/3/1533

Veracruz was restive in the breeze that blew in from the west. In the harbour a ship lay at anchor. On the quayside Talena, Rodrigo and the others waited to board. It had been a gruelling experience since the new year, with a long journey across the still unpacified areas of the former Aztec Empire. Though under Spanish control it was anything but unified, and on one occasion rebels had attacked them.

Z25ShipPort.jpg


“The permission to leave arrived from the Viceroy today,” Rodrigo said. “It’s time to go.”
Talena nodded. Getting on a ship again was hardly her idea of a good time, but she felt an urge to leave the New World and return to the old.
“I see you are coming with us as well, Talena,” Isabella said. Her tone was ambiguous, hinting at disapproval.
Talena stared levelly at her. “I think after saving your husband to-be from bloodthirsty savages I would be allowed to do this.”
“Unnatural, I would call it, a woman acting like a man. Hardly a woman anymore after that.”
“Depends on your definition of woman. If you mean, self-righteous harpy then-“ Talena begun a very un-politically correct rant.
“I think, Countess, that the ship is prepared to board,” Alava the priest interjected smoothly.
Isabella gave Talena a dirty look and strode aboard, followed by the priest and maid.
Talena looked around Veracruz and the Americas as a whole one last time, and then followed.

The Santa Juan was a larger ship, but had other passengers, so Talena found herself in a small closet-like room a mere four feet wide, but ten long. If it came to battle the wall partition could be removed and a cannon was ready to be used.
As Talena was settling in she came back from a look at the ship to find that someone had casually placed a paper on her bed. It was written in the original language of her home and time. It was a travel brochure for Cuzco. ‘Come see the site of the Inca capital…in Reality Vision Cinematics! Experience the campaign that conquered Peru as if you were there!’ After so long it was like a foreign language to her, but finally she finished it. Eyes narrowed she crumpled it into a ball and stood.
Talena knew she was impetuous, impatient and usually didn’t think things through. But this time took the cake.
As a noble, even a penniless one, Rodrigo had a larger room, and the priest was saying a prayer while Maria and Isabella cleaned clothes.
Talena burst in and held the paper out. “Who put this on my bed?” she demanded.
“Talena, please,” Alava said.
“No! I am sick of being jerked around. One of you did this, and I want to know who!” Demanding information and threatening a Count, his fiancée and a priest was not the smartest move, and for a moment there was silence.
Her eyes tracked from one to the other. Any one of them could have done it. Any one of them was a possibility. One of them knew something, had helped her, but was keeping her in the dark. One of them needed to confess.
The tableaux stretched before Talena. The priest flustered and surprised, the Count embarrassed and annoyed, the Countess angry and vindictive, and the maid amused and smug.
Her eyes snapped to Maria again and she pointed. “You!”
Maria put down her brush and stepped forward. “I won’t be long, Mistress,” she said. “Come, Miss Mazari, I will explain everything.”

Out on deck they were practically alone. The problem of them being overheard was quickly solved when Maria started speaking a language Talena barely remembered; her own.
“I suppose that the pamphlet was a bit much,” Maria said lightly. She grinned.
“You told me you couldn’t read!” Talena accused.
“And you believed me? I’m sorry, but it was necessary. I didn’t want to interfere with you…and you did exactly what I expected and wanted. You’ve derailed the time track again.”
“What? Just who are you?” Talena demanded angrily. “Tell me what is going on with time! First I change history, then it’s back in place, and now it’s broken again?”
“Correct. Your journey back into the past was unplanned, and has severely changed you. Your immortality is a direct result of that. Thus, as long as you are alive and conscious the timeline is changing with you. Normally people’s efforts are absorbed into the greater thread of history, but not you. And I was sent to monitor you, to observe.”
“So you’re from the Order?”
Maria shook her head. “Oh no. Not the Order. We are a group opposed to them. I won’t bore you, but I’m not with them.”
“So you’re the bad guys are you?” Talena asked sourly.
“I’ve not been ordered to neutralise you,” Maria replied pointedly. “So no, I rather think we are morally superior.”
“How did you know where I’d be? Out of all the places in the world you just happened to be there?”
“No luck was involved. I can travel in time remember. It was a simple matter of discovering from your future self where you’d be and going there.”
“So now time is out of sync again? What should I do?”
“You ask me?” Maria asked.
“Well you’ve got an opinion, so you might as well share it.”
“Then I suggest you do as you wish. It is your gift to be your own force in the universe, so use it. I think the two of us could do much to make the world a better place.”
“What do you mean?” Talena asked suspiciously.
“Lucille is a nice girl. I have no enmity towards her, or you. Rather, I think that if you could redo history wouldn’t you want to? Without the great wars, without the instability?”
“Where is Lucille? Where is Cade?”
“Lucille was arrested and taken by her own people. They didn’t want her to help you…they wanted her to neutralise you. As for Cade…I don’t know. He perhaps survived.”
“I don’t trust you still…but thank you for helping me,” Talena said.
“But of course. I wouldn’t expect you to accept me on blind faith. I hope in time you’ll come to agree with me. As a token of good faith though…” She handed Talena a small bag of coins.
Talena took it, puzzled, but pocketed them. “Thanks. I guess you’d better get back to your Mistress.”
Maria snorted. “Only until we get to Europe. Farewell…Talena.”

Talena was left in silence. This…woman. A rival? A friend? Whatever she was, Talena was on her own; she knew this only too well. Things had just gotten a bit more complex though.

Z24Ship.jpg
 
Ah Lucille. Good times. Goooooooooooood times.

Great Update!
 
So Lucille is out for now, good.

History without the big wars eh? Nice dream girl, wake up, Talena alone won't change history of mankind in a way that there are no more wars.
 
And of course to interfere because of that moral superiority...to only promote the best in humanity
Best for some humans of course.
No big wars, stability...just what Jefferson Davis and his cronies would want, or Adolf's Lebensraum, one little piece of Europe at a time. Stability like Confucian China or hidalgo Spain.
Nice that she offers no hints about the fate of Cade.
 
Quite a surprise. I don't trust Maria even slightly though and hopefully Talena ditches her as soon as she returns to Europe and instead decides her own fate.
 
Boris: Thanks! :D
Chicken: Thank you!
Sather: Oh, I think Maria is a lot more wise than she lets on, and just lets Talena think that. You never liked Lucy, did you? :p
Aliasing: Haha, thanks. I'll get there eventually!
blsteen: Yes, but is it convienient or truthful that she doesn't know anything? And yes, best intentions...paving stones to hell.
morningSIDEr: I think they trust each other about a fraction of an inch...they do happen to be on the same boat so they might as well get on for now.



Section 2 – Shifting Allegiance

Chapter 11 – Rivalry

12/6/1533

As sea voyages went it had not been unpleasant, but for Talena she was glad that the end was in sight. Fair winds and warm temperatures had moved them at a rapid pace so that now they were just days out of Cadiz.
Mostly she had stayed apart from the other crew, and especially avoided Maria. Occasionally though she had tried to ask questions, but the other woman was in her ‘maid’ persona and ignored her questions.
Now as they passed into another day Talena decided to get some air on deck, and headed to the stern. When she arrived she found the Countess was already on deck. Isabella had turned with a smile, but then saw who it was and frowned.
“Did you pass the Count on the way?” she demanded.
“I haven’t seen him since last night,” Talena replied, staring out.
“I’m sure,” Isabella said scornfully.
“Excuse me?” Talena replied, glaring at the woman.
“My husband to be is a kind man, perhaps a little naïve, and he has not seen through your intentions.”
“And you have?”
Isabella glared back. “Your claims about a shipwreck are impossible. You arrive alone in perfect health, you seduce my fiancée and lead him on that damn fool expedition, and now you have your claws into him. But not even that is enough, you harass and accuse my servant of things also!”
Talena glowered. “I have no interest in him except as the only person who’s been nice to me this whole time!” she shot back. It wasn’t entirely true, but in the heat of the moment that didn’t matter.
“Well mark my words…woman…when we get into port I will see that a very thorough investigation of you is performed.”
“Perform what you like, but I’ve not done anything wrong, except save your lover’s life!”
“And for that you’re going to try and hold that over him forever? You are no Lady, you are no woman! You sicken me.” With that Isabella stalked past Talena.

Z21RenDress.jpg


Talena was left fuming to herself until Alava appeared. “The Countess was in quite a temper, I noticed.”
“And you assumed I had something to do with it?” Talena snapped.
“Did you?”
“As it turns out…yes,” she admitted.
“You are a most curious case. The things you told me, I still cannot believe them, yet I saw strange things. The Count, he too reports on your skills.” The Priest looked at her though, and there was a touch of remorse in his eyes. “Though you understand I must tell my superiors of you, and what you told me. They might well not take the tolerant view that I have.”
“I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition,” she said grimly. But I suppose that’s what you’re leading too, yes?”
Alava looked uncomfortable. “I am sorry, Talena, but it is what must happen.”
“I see. So now you are turning your back on me, are you? You think that it’s your duty to just abandon me to a pack of fanatics because I’m different? Some Christian you are.”
She could not have had more impact if she’d picked up a hammer and hit him. The Priest looked horrified.
“I am a Christian, Talena. I take my vows seriously, but I am also oath bound to serve the church. And you are what they would deem abnormal, heretical and worse. I will not accuse you, but I must seek guidance from my superiors.”
Talena leaned forward. “If you think I’m going to let anyone imprison or try and execute me again then think again. If you want to try and arrest me, or tell someone to do it then you better be prepared…I am not going to give myself up.”
“What must be will be…God ordains all things,” Alava said, and turned away sadly.

Z26GalleonStern.jpg