POV: Griffon Village
Everygriff were working, the forests that surrounded them being used for logging, as bands of griffons pulled them down after a great effort. Unfortunately, many of them were starved and the rest were getting hungry. The looming threat of starvation kept the tension high amongst the villagers, as they knew if the foragers could not yield and food source, they would all go hungry tonight. Despite the rampant atrocities, genocides and starvation, cannibalism was still deeply punishable by death, and actively enforced by all creatures, no matter their morals. However, all starved creatures become desperate and many had committed sinful acts, so many to the point that the elders throughout the griffon realm flirted towards legalising it. But before it could go any further, food would return and everything would be 'stabilised', so back to killing each other without an empty stomach.
The griffons present were all using primitives tools to uproot the trees to the ground, using their weights, wings and ropes to sway the trees and pull them out, much akin to pulling a tooth out. Griffons with sharp rocks or shoddy knives would then cut out their roots, branches and leaves to roll the logs into the village to be carved and made into walls. It was an utterly inefficient procedure, and Franz knew it, but he also knew he had to make do with what he had at his disposal, as the good quality irons and tools were reserved to the warlords' army. The village did not have a forge either to create the needed tools, as blacksmiths and artisans throughout their realm had been already 'hired' by the warlords, and they held a monopoly over the sale of tools. It did not help that they were expected to pay tribute to the warlords' for 'protection', as if they didn't they would raid their village for their goods anyways. Their overlords demanded the majority of their food, and any amount that they couldn't pay was paid in slaves, the lucky ones were assigned as frontline infantry, effectively being cannon-fodders to the real army with limited equipment, which meant a quick and swift death to escape this torturous world. However, the unlucky ones were sent to work in mines or as servants to the warlords' generals or ministers, where they would be abused to no end and worked until they died either by starvation or exhaustion. It was unthinkable.
Franz Tercio had to personally oversee the sale of hundreds of his villagers, their eyes that screamed betrayal had still scarred him and would act up whenever another soulless eye gazed at him. As an elder, he had promised himself that he would have to know a griff first before deciding them off to slavery, but this had the unintentional side effect of becoming friends with them or becoming attached to them. So many hits on his heart had hardened him, yet no matter how hard it became, the pain remained. Instead of piercing pain, it became a blunt pain, completely ignoring his mental fortitude, as the eyes of guilt always got him.
He had no time to cry though, he still had a village to run, many griffs who were still counting on him, many griffs who had put their hopes on him. As he stood there, surrounded by the sound of logs rolling and being cut by makeshift tools, he says something in the corner of his eyes. A crying child and a mother griffon hugging tightly, their faces adorning great smiles of joy, as tears rolled down their cheeks
"I'm here sweety... don't cry... don't cry..." the mother cooed softly. Rocking the child back and forth until it became silent. They both were visibly sleep-deprived, with large bags under their eyes, and their expressions locked in a state of despair, yet they smiled and tore with joy. Franz smiled at this, the scene warming his heart, for somegriff appeared to be happy among the depressed crowd. Yet, the mothers' smile slowly contorted into a depressed frown, as she let go of her child, and Franz could finally see why the child had stopped crying. Blood flowed in between the mothers' claws, as the childs' feathers quickly became soaked with its blood, and began dripping down its torso. The mothers' beak trembled uncontrollably, her eyes watering down like a thundercloud onto the childs' belly. She began to weep slowly until it became an uncontrollable shriek of pain and sorrow. Franz slowly flew over to her, placing a claw on the weeping mothers' shoulders.
"I'm sorry for your loss." He muttered quietly.
POV: Griffon Village foragers
Hett and three others were perched on top of a tree waiting for any unsuspecting prey to make into dinner. 6 groups had been set out, and theirs were sent out to forests near the hills that overlooked the village. They were optimistic at first, however, it was clear that there wasn't any prey in the forests ever since the raid. Hett pondered why, and it seemed like every forest animals ran away from even a slight smell of smoke from a fire. He began to become impatient and annoyed, as he stood there, perched up against a branch for hours without any movements in the bushes nor trees. He found work hard and boring, however doing nothing was torturous for him, it felt like watching plants grow. Hett folded his arms, becoming tired of holding an aggressive pouncing stance for so long in the quiet forest... Until he began to hear a voice approaching them. Hett instinctively hid behind the trees and gestured the others to follow, to only realise they were already hiding well on the other trees. The voices were slowly approaching, too slowly, as it began to test Hetts' and the partys' nerves immensely, as they still could not make out what they were saying, despite their excellent hearing, due to forests distorting the sounds that they were making. Hetts' mind went wild thinking of the possibility of the approaching creatures, were they enemy patrols? Were they friends? Were they the other hunting parties? Are these more deserters? What are they doing? Hett quickly eliminated the possibility of it being another hunting party, as they were explicitly told to spread out to cover more ground to survey a bigger area, and so they wouldn't cross paths. It couldn't be another raiding party, as all nearby raiders would've seen the smoke in our city and deemed it a worthless goal. It couldn't be their 'allies' as the warlords couldn't care less of what happened to a remote, useless village. Are they deserters? Hett thought for a second until it was cut short by their conversation which he could now make out.
"And that's how a gewehr 98 works...."
"Interesting... I think I had heard of it from my son before...."
"Really? Well I had completed the design in 1895, so I guess just 3 years before your death...."
His death? What is a ge-bear 98??? What in Tartarus were they talking about??? Hett was beyond confused, he had just eavesdropped on a conversation about somegriffs' death and something called a 'ge-bear 98'.
"This place seems completely untouched... Do you even think there are any high-level sentient lifeforms in this planet?"
"We will see in time...."
"I mean... look at this! There are iron nuggets everywhere! Sure they aren't pure, but a blast furnace will make quick work of that!"
Blast furnaces? Sentient life? Hett was confused, the first word was completely foreign to him, but intrigued him, as the voice mentioned being able to purify iron nuggets, and the second word confused him, isn't all life sentient except plants? What are they talking about As Hett continued listening, it was as if the voices were aliens to this new land, and began to become worried about what they would look like, but for now he and his group held position and hid well on the trees.
"Were you an artisan?"
"Yes and no, I am a designer, however, I always like tinkering with my weapons, before this, I was actually handcrafting a hand-held automatic gun."
"That's unthinkable, it'll be too heavy and impracticable in battles."
"That's why It will fire pistol cartridges, instead of it being semi-automatic, it will be fully automatic if you hold the trigger, allowing the bolt to be free during fire-"
"Okay, you have me sold. Funded."
"Funded?"
"Oh sorry. Force of habit, heh."
As the two voices approached closer, Hett could finally make out what the voices were, and he signed in relief upon seeing two griffons. The one talking about the 'ge-bear' was light-grey with yellow-tipped feathers and darkgrey strips that extended down its torso to its legs, whilst the one who had just apologised was darkgrey with silver-tipped feathers and a small dark iron plus? on its neck that was surrounded with a silver outline. Hett and the party kept quiet as the two mysterious griffons continued talking.
"Well, enough about me, do you know anything more besides diplomacy?" The lightgrey griffon asked.
"I have familiarised myself in the arts of war and most importantly- mobilising and logistics." The darkgrey answered proudly.
"Why would they be the most important?" The lightgrey griffon pondered loudly, putting his claw underneath his beak.
"Well, an army is nothing without food or ammunition, and a general cannot lead without soldiers in his divisions. The mastery of organising is far more important than mastering strategy in conventional battles." The darkgrey griffon replied quickly as if it was common sense to him.
Hett began to be interested in their conversation, it was unheard of for a common farmer to listen in on strategy from a learnèd mind, even though he could barely understand what the darkgrey griffon was saying, he was fully immersed in his imagination, in what ways the mysterious griffons' strategy could be used against the raiders. He was so immersed to the point that he didn't realise that the two mysterious griffons had passed them, and were now watching Hett and the party deep in thought against the trees.
POV: Otto Von Bismarck
Whilst he and Paul were discussing military strategy, they had passed several trees to spot 4 other griffons in their peripheral vision all leaning against the trees, waging wars in their heads. Bismarck tilted his head, confused as to why there were four others of his kind just... perches on top of the trees, but after thinking for a second, he realised what they were doing: eavesdropping on their conversation. As he stopped talking, Paul looked at him confused as to why he had stopped, to only look at what he was looking at to spot the 4 griffons as well. Paul emulated the reaction that he had gone through until they were on the same page. Bismarck coughed loudly in his claws to break the silence and the trance which the griffons were in, as they all flinched, fumbled on the branches and fell in front of Bismarck and Paul on their belly, arms and legs splayed across the uneven ground. Pauls' eyes twitched, as his empathetic side made him partially feel the pain of the fall, as he imagined the uneven, rooty grounds stabbing into the ribs of the griffons. However, instead of the griffons groaning in pain, they immediately jolted up, as if nothing had happened, and began to stare at them.
POV: Hett Mirov
Shit shit shit shit shit
"Uh.... nice to Hett you, my name is greet!" He face-clawed himself. great job moron, he could see in between his claws that the two griffons in front of him were not observing him in amusement and not in confusement, which was a start...
"Why were you listening in on our conversation fellow gryphons?" The darkgrey griffon questioned accusingly.
"We meant no harm! Honest!" Hett responded quickly, "We were just hunting- and we were finding nothing- but then you griffs show up and make noises- we hid because we were scared- and then we got interested in your conversation- and then we fell out of the trees!" Hett answered too honestly.
The darkgrey griffon simply blinked at this sudden barrage of information, and began to digest the information into usable chunks and dumped the rest into the deepest corners of his brain.
"....Why were you interested in our conversation?" The dargrey griffon questioned further, squinting his eyes at Hett.
"Well... we don't really get the opportunity to hear such refined strategies or procedures due to our low birth and illiteracy. So we decided to listen out of interest of learning new things!" Hett responded after pumping his arms into the air as if he was triumphant.
"What were you hunting with?" The darkgrey griffon asked whilst surveying our arms for any tools,
"Our trusty claws of course! We don't get the weapons to hunt with, and our claws are naturally sharp as it is!" Hett responded in kind once more.
"Why don't you have any weapons?" The darkgrey griffon looked like he was realising something.
"Well, we are a poor farming village, with little to no trade, we have no forges nor blacksmiths to run them, and any metals that we can get our hands on are more brittle than stones." Hett listed, which garnered a grunt from the lightgrey griffon, as it began muttering something about having to 'start from the stone age'.
"What is your most modern weapon?" The lightgrey griffon chimed in, asking hopefully, yet it looked like deep down, he already knew his answer.
Hett pondered for a second, conjuring up images of warfare and trying to remember any new weapons. "Well, we haven't had any new weapons for a while, but we have recently started using crossbows more often, but only for the elite troops that is." He answered.
Upon hearing this, the lightgrey griffon dug his beak into the ground and screamed, and just as quickly jolted back up to look at Hett straight in the eyes.
"Take me to your village."