=]- The New World -[=
16th October 1859 anno Domini
=]-Staging Ground-[=
The change from one world to another didn't go past the whole army without notice – that is not to say that any side effects or worse were discovered, but as the first few days went on and the soldiers camped underneath the open sky, watching new and unknown stars far above them, a certain sense of unease began to creep through the ranks of the common soldier, who were more prone to folklore and superstition. That the Iron Granny's own cavalry unit had begun to go to the military priests with a new fervor and talks about a threat to the salvation of their souls…. had put many of the conscripted peasants into an ill mood, the priests swamped, and large open-air services being held to calm them down with pious words and wafting incense. Thankfully the general orders from above were putting aside the new religious fear and theological questions about gods reach into this world, in favour of shovels, latrines and drills. Together with the new watch rotations that were passed down through the army, together with a variable paperwork of orders, requisitions, questions and counter-questions that came down from the Witch-General in charge, the whole staging ground was soon covered by the encamped forces of the Tsarist Army, bunkered down and awaiting whatever sorcery or enemy might fall on them next. The forces under Kiril Avalov, where quite decidedly out of their Element on the swampy grounds, but their vigilance and use of the small teams of Witches in their ranks, allowed them to foil a small-time raid on their camp on the second night, without any causalities aside from a few lightly wounded. The attack carried out by the natives, had shown only basic metalworking skills, with the majority of arrows being tipped with stones, while a few metal axes and spears made up the majority of "high grade" weaponry known to the frog-like beings.
A few similar alarms went up over the nights from the 15th to the 16th of October, tiny raids of not more than a dozen or more natives skulking around in the dark and tiny ponds at the edge of the Russian Camp, their arrows trying to find the waiting pickets and the sporadic return fire keeping those sleeping closer to the edge of the camp awake. Thankfully even those attacks seemed to turn around and flee when confronted with the beginnings of fortifications that were being put up all around the Staging ground of the army, thousands of infantry's man digging under the guidance of military pioneers belonging to the 17th Pioneer and Support Battalion. Slowly but steadily trenches and depots were taking shape, a whole tenth city appearing between it in steady lines when the terrain allowed it, hugging the ancient structures and small mounds around them otherwise to stay dry, while smaller trenches were dug to keep the ground dry – or as dry as it could be in this giant swamp.
Thankfully it quickly became apparent that much of the "dry ground" the construction had been utilizing as good as it could, was in truth simply layers of earth and dirt above ancient structures belonging to the gateway – or rather a whole complex layered around the gateway. When digging deeper for latrines and the like, the soldiers often found whole ruined buildings just a few shovel digs beneath them, which could easily be cleared out as many were still closed by doors and the like. It took a bit more work to find the more spacious and intact of the ruins, but at the end of it, the pioneers had chosen multiple of these new basements as depots for equipment, weapons and cartridges. In the same way, some unlucky (or lucky) soldiers had broken through the cover of some ruins – falling right into the cisterns of the ancient complex that might have stood here at some time or another. Some of them were of the direct type and had to be cleaned out first before use, while others were indirectly filtering the mud and dirt from above and offered drinkable water after some testing.
What time wasn't taken up by digging and building up the basic homes and infrastructure to a whole army – a medium sized one, but an army nonetheless- was filled with drill, drill and even more drill. It was hard enough to find a sufficiently sized dry training ground, but both Antonya Antanova and Maria Pisareva went to work with a certain glee that allowed them to transcend such petty problems. Between nearly five regiments worth of infantry, together with artillery and cavalry, the whole swamp as soon resounding with the beat of drums, the fire of weaponry and the cries of charging cavalries that did their best to evade the more tricky patches of swamp that would pull a horse and rider down and into an potentially deadly tumble. If one thing becomes apparent, then that would be the lack of familiarity between the different units and their officers – after all everyone currently in this swamp, had been pulled from different garrison forces or armies all over the Russian Empire and while they were professionals for the most part, their lack of knowledge of one another still showed in the manoeuvres.
While the mundane parts of the Army were busy fortifying their foothold on the new world, their Witch-General was pulled into the circle around Elder Vasilia, the ancient witch conduction the experiments in regard to the reaction of witches in this new, magic rich wold. Unsurprisingly, there is an effect, even if it is slow to measure. Verusha found herself led into a chamber where around half a dozen young girls, barely into the cups of adulthood and initiated into the Covens, were kneeling on ancient stone floor, a circle of candles put up around them. Under her eyes, measurements were taken, each day and after barely three days it became visible that the younger girls were able to light candles quicker and brighter than before – and the same effect could be seen slightly diminished on the adult witches. It seemed the effect worked better on the young, alignment with the presence of magic?
Thus, the centre of the new foothold was busy – but not busy enough to stop smaller or larger crowds of soldiers from gathering at the edge of the camp and watching the White Devils stalk through the marshland around them, performing slightly confusing actions as they dug and hide strange German-esque devices all over the place. Meanwhile the quartermasters were busy dealing with 200.000 Rubel worth of chemicals and other materials disappearing and making their way into the very ground around the Staging ground – the mine field slowly but steadily taking shape…even if sometimes things fall out of alignment as seemingly firm ground gives away underneath the mines and others suddenly get flooded when the water moves through the marshes – making the whole minefield still impressive…but not as neat and orderly as its planners might have hoped for. Still: whoever was going to try attack the Camp, was going to go up in flames quite quickly.
=]- The Black Marines -[=
Under the slightly envious looks of their comrades, the thousand strong Marine Battalion was moving out of the only slowly building camp as soon as they arrived – leaving behind their artillery and heavier baggage train as they instead moved out only as rifleman. It proved to be the correct choice as everyone in the dispatched unit could swear at the end of their first day of marching through the swamp: the mud was clinging to the boots, as if trying to pull them off their wearers and the morass seemed to stretch across the whole horizon, only the most basic of vegetation peeking out of the water and mud. It was a hopeless image and looking back the whole column of soldiers was looking dirty at the 15th, many of them missing boots, while others had slung them over their backpack and were now walking barefoot, too afraid of losing the important (and costly) equipment themselves.
Only barely are the Marines able to make their way out of the swamp on the 16th, a small miracle as they scramble up the rise signalling the end of the water and mud and finally get to march over firm terrain, with grass growing peacefully till the Russians marched over it. In any other surroundings they might have gotten over this distance in two days or less, but with the swamp hindering their every step – quite literally- they were just glad to collapse onto the firm ground and put up their tents. There's no way these soldiers are going to start fortifying their positions right away without getting some kind of rest first of all.
A few of the man able to push themselves just a bit further return and report that a thick forest seems to grow further up north, a fertile strip of a valley or something guiding through it towards the north, while forest seems to cover the hills in all other directions. Guess you had made it out of the swamp at least.
=]- From the Eye Above-[=
Far above the shovel wielding peasants, the Marines drudging through the mud and the witches playing with fire, are the flying leviathans of the army: the airships under Alexandrei Nicolas Ternovish. For the first two days the Wyvern and witches had flown their aerial reconnaissance flights, clad in heavy warm furs and with scarves and helmets to shield their face as they rose up ever higher to hide themselves closer to the clouds than anyone on the ground would expect – and so far this seems to have paid off: none of the natives had seemingly noticed the weird dark dots on their horizon and their mobilization continued without giving any hint that they were observed from the sky. What the riders saw was off-putting enough: in the close vicinity of the camp were thousands of native frogmen, gathering in tight knots of armed and partly even armoured formations. The closest might not be of a direct danger, but the further out the riders flew, the larger the number of armed frogs they could observe were.
On the second day the steady influx of frogman was noted to come from the west, follow up through more riders lead to a rather strange report and the take off of the airship itself. Far above the issues that would have slowed down any other unit, the airforce was pushing to the west, flying over the head of thousands upon thousands of natives that were marshalling for a fight with spears, bows and more. Still – thankfully they seemed to have no magic users that could engage the airships and troops. Even when the origin of the ship became more known to them and the first few panicked flights at its appearance had stooped: they only shot a few bows upwards into the air, the primitive projectiles falling far too short to make any damage either way.
From up high the airship was able to make out dry land to the east of the camp – and something furthermore to the west. For now the view was too bad, but with the airship right ontop of the frogs armies…well – no one could say they didn't go out of their way to get a good look at the forces the enemy was marshalling.
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