Ultimately, anyone who tries to comnt upon Tartarian society or says that they have figured out the direct system of governance that they use is the worst kind of cretin: a confident one. The simple fact of the matter is that the we do not know how their society is organised because we have ventured into their cities. To pretend that we can work figure out the specificities of laws and such simply from looking at their Legions is an exercise in vanity. Is there any nation on Arda right now where its civilian society is a perfect of its military?
That concession to being out of our depth has to be made before we discuss Tartarus. Everything that shall be written has to be understood that it is re our observations of how their military acts. And in that, we do not even know if it is their real military or if their Empire is so vast that they have rely sent one section of their forces upon us.
What we do know is that they have equivalent to Divines in the form of Princes of Tartarus. There are many who once thought that Tartarus engaging with Ardan armies would simply result in either a clean sweep for us thanks to the overwhelming power of Divines, or that no matter what we did, we would eventually be overwheld by their endless flood of bodies. That is not true. In fact, the Princes are more varied than Divines. So are hiveminds that exist split across thousands of bodies, others are individuals so superpowered that they can overwhelm even major Divines. The simple fact of the matter is that strength and military capability is not a zero-sum ga. Just because they are nurous does not an that they will be weak. Just because they are strong does not an that they will be few. That is how children think, the winning army excels in every quality and quantity is a quality all in itself.
- Excerpt from “Tactical Considerations and Strategic Guidelines”, written by Goddess Kassandora, of War, during the Great War. It barely entered mass print and was instead used as a guide and discussion piece of Imperial Officers.
Anassa snapped her fingers. The underground world of darkness around her flashed in crimson light. The head of a greater demon suddenly twisted as his muscles seized, and then his head slowly fell off his shoulders with a cut so clean it could have been done by a machine in factory. Ten other demons fell down to their knees around Anassa. Their armour fared no better than paper against the Goddess’ Sorcery. Red crimson spears fell down upon the horde around her as Anassa stood unmoving, her eyes lethargically sweeping from left to right. Behind her, dwarven support was finally engaging with the demonic horde. A phalanx had ford and was serving as the anvil to the hamr that was Anassa. Tartarian Legionnaires fled from the Goddess of Sorcery as another copy of her appeared in the air, behind the rear guard. That copy multiplied into a half-dozen different incarnations of Anassa. Each themselves yet each sharing a mind. Red waves of sorcery, amalgamations of a made unconstrained by sanity that looked like pictures drawn onto reality started to devour the Tartarian Legion from the rear.
Anassa stood on the ground, head held high, as she watched n clean up the remains of a battle. It was Doschian soldiers along with dwarves attaching ropes to the corpse of a huge greater demon, and then affixing those ropes to cars and transport trucks so that it could be pulled away for burning. The closest Hold, Askovo, which Anassa had singlehandedly saved a week ago, was the cremation plant for this entire Legion thanks to the fact it possessed an exposed magma lake. The dwarves raised so huge, horrific, fat, slug creature that would drink the magma and then excrete excess iron ores. Anassa had given them one glance, almost been sick, and disappeared. She could clean this ss up herself, of course, but the whole point of being a Divine, and especially a Goddess of Sorcery, was that other cleaned up her ss.
Anassa floated in the air as n below worked to expand a railway. This Anassa was only here because it was a junction, and she would not trust that all the three entrances were safe until she saw those them lit up by electric lights. The local commander had assured her, of course, that it was safe, but the man simply forgot his place. He was not here to tell her what to do and how to act, it was the opposite in fact. She was to tell him what to do. Anassa sighed and tutted as a team of combat engineers kneeled around a huge steel beam. They fired up a blinding welding torch and began to work.
Anassa dismissively waved her hand and cleared rubble which had fallen when tanks of the Forty-Eighth Doschian Armoured fired upon a horde of demons that were advancing on them. Officially, they should have not done that and instead let Anassa handle it. And officially, they should be clearing this ss instead of letting Anassa handle it. But that did not really matter at this point, what mattered was reopening these tunnels because eight hundred n had gotten stuck behind them. Anassa looked up at the ceiling as the dwarf that reached up to her knees finished explaining what to do about the rubble. She was a Divine, but there was a limit. Frankly, she did not want however miles of ground coming down on her. “You an remove it without disturbing anything?” Anassa asked.
“If it can be done Goddess.” The dwarf miner answered.
“It can be done.” Anassa’s dismissive wave beca sharp, and then she thrust her hand forwards. A huge ball of sorcery appeared in the air. It was shining red, like a glowing beacon of crimson light. The body was opaque, the edges hard and sharp, as if it was a drawing brought to life rather than an actual physically object. It moved forward and where it touched stone, the stone simply faded away.
Anassa tipped her head back and swallowed a mouthful of wine. The Goddess of Sorcery did not bother that there were soldiers in the camp, nor did she really care if they talked of her. Plenty of people talked of her and now she was annoyed. Annoyed at how much there was to do, annoyed that Kassandora had an easier job, annoyed that Neneria could go and prance about with her pocket army of ghosts. She drank another mouthful of the red wine. Even this garbage was disgusting, just so cheap shit brought in from the surface. Probably so north Epan trash that didn’t have a right to be called wine. It wouldn’t surprise her if it had never even seen a plantation and instead this was just fruit juice (and fruit juice from concentrate at that) with so spirit added.
Anassa watched the Fifty-Third chanized Infantry run through their morning manoeuvres. n were running around, taking positions on the hard stone and learning how to dive onto the ground safely. The Fifty-Third had only just arrived from the surface and so new moves had to be ingrained into muscle mory. There was no soft dirt here, so n needed to know how to dive onto hard stone with rifle in their hand and backpacks on them without injuring themselves. Anassa didn’t really understand what the trouble they were having, but they were having such a challenge that a full team of twelve of Kavaa’s Clerics had to be reassigned to the Fifty-Third to heal bruises, fractured ribs, and dislocated bones. There were other things too, taking a kneeling position was apparently a challenge, three n had dropped too quickly onto the stone and destroyed their legs. Without those Clerics here, they would have beco permanently assigned to the dics. Likewise, running in the dark was a difficult. Sohow.
And then there were the tactics Kassandora had developed to be used almost exclusively for this terrain. Sweeping the ceilings was one. As was having overlapping cones of light from torches. Then n had to be trained to talk side-by-side to each other, as the new helts they were receiving had blinding torches built into them. So things did not change though, Anassa doubted they ever would, if soldiers were sent to fight on the surface on the sun, they would still be training the march and cursing basic jogging. Anassa did not even know why she watched these n. Presumably because she was bored down here. She wanted to see the sky again at this point.
Anassa stood and stared into the darkness, her red eyes unfocused as she concentrated on the fight happening in the tunnel over where Anassa was slaughtering demons. At the sa ti, she saw herself guarding a junction, she saw herself clearing rubble and she saw herself inspecting n. She did it all. Anassa smiled to herself, even though the Anassa here had her hands free, her tongue still tasted the wine that another Anassa was drinking. She did it all indeed. Just as it should be.
Doing it all is what it ant to be Divine.
And now, one of the nineteen Anassa’s in existence lazily walked through the site of a battle which had happened recently. This terrain and these forces were under her managent. She was not worried, but she needed to go and inspect the fact one of the local commanders had stopped responding. If she sent humans, then it would be what felt like a century before she actually got a reply back. Why bother when all it took for her to know imdiately was for her to go and check the situation herself? Anassa took a step and traversed a mile in the blink of an eye. And again. And again, the Goddess jumped from position to position as she advanced through the tunnel in which this brigade had been sent. This though, she did appreciate about the underground. There was only one route they could have taken, all Anassa had to do was keep making small steps, making sure that she wasn’t such distances that she would miss the idiots. She snapped her fingers with each jump, illuminating and pushing back the darkness for a second with the red glow of sorcery. And then she kept up the advance. And then she did it again. Until her face twisted in annoyance at how far they had gone off. Honestly, what was this even? Did they really think that…
Anassa’s thoughts trailed off when she saw the remains of the n.
And imdiately Anassa’s instincts kicked in. There was no theatrical snapping of fingers or waving of hands to demonstrate ability. There was a threat about, so Anassa got to work imdiately. In an instant, the whole nearby landscape was lit up by sorcery’s red glow and several different copies of Anassa were blinking in and out of existence as they looked in all directions and yet more analysed the wreckage. The Anassas that were doing mundane, tedious tasks back in the base camps disappeared. A bottle of cheap red wine Kassandora procured for her soldiers fell out of the air and smashed onto the stone. Anassa inspected the carnage.
A tank was torn open, its fuel had already burned up. More of the brigades vehicles were scattered about as they had been picked up into the air and thrown. Bodies lay scattered, so torn, others sliced by clean cuts. Anassa imdiately discarded the idea of it just being a brigade overwheld when one Anassa found a man that had been sliced cleanly in two, diagonally from shoulder to hip. Everything, his body and bone, his clothes, his pack followed that line. Everything, even the gun that lay by his side. It had been dropped, but the cut on his arms ant made it look like he had been holding sothing up above his head to block. And the rifle had been sliced clean through, not smashed or bent or hamred, but sliced. Such things were not to be considered, such things were simply to be acted upon.
Anassa waved her hand and her sorcerous energies materialized to create a barrier which could be used as a dozen blade. It slowly swept the bodies and scraps of tal to the side. And imdiately, two more Anassas appeared, one looking behind, the other forward. They raised their arms ahead of them, the tunnel was lit up with a red glow. It was stone and wreckage and blood and… And that was it. Further ahead, there were even a few corpses of demonic Legionnaires in their black armour and the heavy cleavers that they used.
Yet Anassa had lived far too long to be confused or to question what had happened. She had not experienced a century of conflict in the Great War to now be stood here, scratching her head like a gormless little girl. No. So things were obvious. Her eyes ignored the blood and carnage, they started running through the sa checks Anassa always did in the past. And there was no need
The three Anassas disappeared from this location.
This had to be reported.
The Anassa at the junction heard laughter coming from the darkness.
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