#all on one layer. true chaos just like he wouldve wanted

[stormy-sierra]

a quick painting of spider bc i miss that weird old guy

[isaacathom]

thooough kevlar is supposed to stop bullets, ya. so in theory, even if the Captain had managed to get the shot off, Esther could have still been reasonably fine. understandably shaken and probably bruised, but fine. of course that also depends on what GUN the Captain actually has? like ive basically been working off something thats not remotely automatic. no burst fire. basically a semi auto. a rifle would be ideal except that the scenario is is close quarters, making a rifle pretty fucking stupid, so it has to be some sort of handgun. raising the question Why does he have a handgun if the military is expected to be at range, and how did he get the scenario to let him get so close as to invalidate his rifle?

also he probably would actually have an auto of some kind, but for dramatic purposes id rather not? simply because then its far more difficult for him to be disarmed without basically killing Esther in the meantime. if its semi-auto, then in theory he can fire one shot that misses and then be disarmed before a second bullet can be fired. if he has an auto, you squeeze the trigger and youve already launched a small volley and even if Seora bends the goddamn world to stop it, at LEAST one would likely hit Esther, not to speak of the multitude more bullets that could then be fired between the initial trigger pull and the disarm from Seora. so for dramatic purposes he cannot have an automatic. like a full auto.

which then means the actual circumstances surrounding the shot have to be changed in order for him to even be capable of using his semi auto rifle with any confidence. which works fine, i suppose. maybe the reasoning behind the military having semi autos rather than full autos is because they’d likely want to be picking off combatants at range with a /degree/ of stealth. considering in general the combatants are Blue Mages that’d be pretty important. the moment they’re alerted, you basically can’t really get them as easily. immediate dirt wall, immediate scalding hot guns, etc. toasty. so like.... i guess like sniper rifles???? except theyre just.... regular rifles..... yknow actually that doesnt make a fuck ton of sense. hold on. uh.

actually, one important thing re: guns is that they were likely invented AFTER the schism and after any fighting between the two countries. so the guns would never have actually been used for their intended purpose, that being to shoot Dusk Maidens before they can use magic. So they are unlikely to have been field tested in the practical sense. plus theres the fact that metals are rare in the Light Kingdom, so they might have been limited in terms of just how much progression they could make on this front. so since there hasnt been open warfare since like 300 years ago, the military’s non-sword equipment is probably Pretty Ordinary. technologically behind the times relative to the rest, mostly due to the structure of the kingdom separating Maidens from crafts. unlike the Dark Kingdom, which likely has a stronger technological basis, with stronger and more advanced weaponry, armor, etc, especially if its derived from metallic substances. more “organic” substances would be the realm of the Light Kingdom. so its a bit complicated. so the light kingdom probably has these older style of guns because they decided, well, the guns dont matter TOO bad as long as theyve got decent range and dont break. we’ll focus our limited metallic resources onto things like phones and shit.

meanwhile the dark kingdom would have a far greater industry for weapons, with their Warrior Maidens being Fucking Kitted Out. the actual Dusk Maidens among them wouldnt have guns (no real need, tbh) but the few human members would, they’d all have decent armor. the onl downside is that this tech is the only thing the dark has OVER the light, because they still lack in more organic resources like GD food. they’ve got a few farms clear of darkness that are responsible for a majority of organic produce, a few people manage to scrape out tiny farms in their homes, some people have come up with the idea to dig up piles of tainted dirt and place them in pots to then be cleansed, allowing them to grow shit like tomatoes or carrots or smth. meats are rare because the only consistent sources of animals are mountain dwelling, and over hunting probably already forced a few species to extinction. fish is still available on their limited coastline (the light kingdom kept almost all of the coast following the civil war) but its not ideal by any stretch and they certainly dont have ENOUGH of it.

uh shit so i guess like.... the light kingdom have great tech in terms of software and such, while the dark kingdom has stronger “practical tech” like industrial shit. we got good cars, we got good infrastructure (except in some particularly bad joints), got good weapons, etc. niice.

ok so then. light kingdom has shit guns, probably timelocked to a specific era. potentially circa a time JUST before the civil war, as that would have allowed the proto-dusk maidens to help in their creation and lay down the groundwork for their blueprint to be slowly adapted by the light kingdom. so thats like..... uh...... can that be semi auto???? i suppose with the use of magic itd be fairly uncomplicated for the advancement of tech to be faster than our own. so if the story itself takes place around 2000, even though in our world the first semi auto wasnt until the 1880s, with magic being present its not unfeasible for them to have been successfully made ~300 years ago, so the 1700s (perhaps late? or maybe just 200, so 1800s still, but earlier than us). except then following this there was the civil war and the separation of the two countries, separating the light kingdom and their human-exclusive military to these semi auto rifles that they couldnt really improve without significant expense. so theyre probably timelocked to the early 1900s? maybe up to around the M1 Garand? which is still a solid weapon, but not like, a machine gun or anything. whereas the dark could easily have continued tech progression past this point up to present day, so they’d have shit like..... uh... whats a really modern gun. idk. get shit like AR15s and M14s at any rate, or even just the AK47 (i couldnt remember that for the life of me, wild). though again, considering the fact that the majority of the military possessed magic, the extreme advancement of guns was definitely not a priority for the people, so i dont need to get /super/ modern. jsut modern enough to where you could easily fuck up a guy with an M1 Garand which wouldnt be difficult, surely. maybe even a lil further cback from the M1, w/e, shit like that.

however the lack of general gun usage from the Dark, and the general understanding from the light that their military is exclusively magical in nature (which was true for quite a while) light military protection is PURELY against magical shit. a human Warrior Maiden with a gun could very easily kill any number of light military troops, because they simply arent prepared for be fired upon. which would be a fun revelation at the climax for the Captain, when his troop headed for the castle’s main room is under a hail of fire and many of them are easily killed because No Fucking Shit, lads. meanwhile the dark military is aware of the solely human military and very capable of understanding the guns they use. they’d only need to recover a SINGLE gun from the troops (likely during the first failed attempt to recover Seora) to work out exactly what sort of defences they’d need in order to fight the light side safely, ie how many layers of the Good Stuff. really, provided the dark are prepared (they sure are) they would easily, at this stage, win a war. the only way to lose would be ambush, having their tech reverse engineered (a little tricky but technically possible) and running out of food. a quick war would easily favor them.

so then, in THIS case, that means when the Captain reaches the castle for the second time in his second brave quest to save the maiden Seora, his squad is substantially smaller than it was at the start. they specifically probably weren’t under fire, as they would have entered through the back rather than the through the dusk maiden army guarding the front gates. but its in the lead up, after the first shot WAS fired (by the light army under someones command, probably not the Captain’s specifically) that he wouldve lot a solid number. mild earthquakes, raging heat, bullets?????? the army basically served to divert attention while they dove the fuck for cover and his squad went ‘oh shit, time to go NOW’ and bolted for it. a few of them might have been shot as they ran. idk. good fun! then they get into the castle through the same entrance they used the LAST time (it was at least partially deliberately left open. there are folk waiting on the inside but theyre basically in shadows just in CASE)

so when the captain enters the room with Esther and Seora and the other small group of Dusk Maidens who are present, he is probably one of the few if not the only person in the room with a gun. his troops likely dropped theirs in the chaos (either from the quakes or the heat, or just general pants shitting terror). he’s got his gun out. everyones ready to fuck up, but noones firing off yet. he’s probably yelling something about it being Esther’s last chance to turn over Seora before more people are killed, Esther’s going all ‘yea cool but a) my troops are winning by all accounts and b) youre the idiot who didnt listen LAST time you came here! she doesnt want to go’ seora going ‘right. fuck you’ captain ‘>:o thats it!’ and then fires on Esther. Seora makes that first shot miss, but now the dusk maidens are fucking Ready to Fight and leap forward. before the captain can take a second shot at Esther, Seora and Esther disarm him (making the gun too hot to hold and then flinging it the fuck away with that Windy Business) and then that whole long fucking post from last night ensues. nice!

which is cool. but i THINK, looking at tech, the M1 miiiight be too strong for kevlar. might? im not positive. numbers are confusing and im bad at math. but i thiiiiiiiiiink its penetration velocity is too high for ordinary layers of kev. yea no theyre too high. hold up. we need to back up the semi auto time frame a little. plus, m1s can do 40-50 rounds a min, thats a few too many. oh bitch i can bring back the model 8, oh fuck yea, i love the model 8. oh perfect. mm yup thats a good one. ok so that means that roughly speaking, light kingdom gun advances stop in the early 1900s, with dark kingdom advancements continue up till around the 1950s. its a bit fiddly because the light probably did have resources left over from before the civil war that allowed them to continue development for a while, but if we basically stick to model 8 era (not 81, generally). but because the dark kingdom contained the majority of the experts (even if a number woulda eaten dust from that Dark Plague Nuke) they’re far closer to that M1 level. M1s, AKs, the fun shit, really. that shit and beyond. meaning that, in theory, sufficient layers of kevlar (approx 6-8?) could block a model 8 shot (at range, anyway) allowing for the dark to be Kitted The Fuck Out. niiiice.

i lost my train of thought because of my mum which is pretty bad because this post is incredibly stream of consciousness...... dammit.

uh tl;dr dark side better weapons, armour, and infrastructure. light side better organic industry (farming and fabrics, also glass shit). dark side has jack all food and relies on limited coastal fishing and a few specific mountain creatures plus their limited farmland.

gun? light kingdom stuck at arooooouuunnnnddd model 8 level tech. its a good gun, and it gets the job done, that job being to shoot maidens before they can fire back. it was developed before the civil war and proved instrumental in many of the fights. however, in the time SINCE then, they havent progressed at all. the dark kingdom has continued to progress, especially in terms of armour (w/ the goods like Kevlar available for all Warrior Maidens) and they have stuff closer to m1 garands. the dusk maidens dont typically use guns, but the human members of the Warrior Maidens are usually given them. for uh, obvious reasons.

unrelated aside - most of the gems used by the Light Kingdom are made of glass, due to the lack of actual gemstones on their side of the border. just sorta how it goes