Shangri-la - The True Cost of War
The transport vehicles departed El Dorado at dawn, beginning the long journey southward through Shangri-la toward the distant deserts of Erebus. Rather than traveling directly to their final destination, Father had ordered the officer squads to make the journey on foot once they reached the jungle's edge; a trek that would take them through the heart of Shangri-la's lush paradise.
"The path matters as much as the destination," Father explained as they unloaded their gear at the northern boundary of the jungle. "You'll travel as a unit through Shangri-la, following a designated route to Erebus. Along the way, you'll encounter scenarios designed to teach you what no tactical exercise can; the true cost of war."
Aurelia studied the map they'd been provided. "This route seems... indirect," she observed, noting how the path meandered through several Fae settlements rather than taking the most efficient course to Erebus.
"That's intentional," Instructor Grimm confirmed. "War is rarely direct, and its impact extends far beyond the battlefield."
The six officers shouldered their packs, checked their MR1s, and began their journey into the dense jungle. The contrast with El Dorado's harsh mountains was immediate and striking; here, everything was alive, vibrant, almost overwhelmingly lush. Massive trees towered hundreds of feet overhead, their canopies interwoven with the elegant Elven architecture that characterized Shangri-la.
Julian, the Shangri-la Jungle Elf, moved with newfound confidence in his native environment. "It's good to be home," he said, easily identifying paths through the undergrowth that others might have missed.
Their first day of travel was uneventful, deliberately so, Father had designed this initial stretch to lull them into a false sense of security; to remind them of the peace they were training to defend. They made camp that night beneath the boughs of a massive banyan tree, the sounds of jungle life creating a soothing backdrop to their rest.
Dawn brought the first hint that this week would be different. As they broke camp and continued southward, they began to notice subtle changes in the environment; broken branches, disturbed earth, signs that something unnatural had passed through recently.
"Something's wrong," Lucius murmured, Silver growing increasingly agitated beside him. The dire wolf's hackles were raised, his sensitive nose detecting scents that troubled him.
They crested a small rise and stopped abruptly, confronted by a scene none had anticipated. Below them lay a small Elven settlement, or what remained of one. The elegant structures built among the trees had been shattered, some actively burning. Bodies lay scattered across the forest floor, and survivors moved in shock among the ruins, tending to the wounded or searching for loved ones.
"What happened here?" Damian whispered, his face pale with shock.
Before anyone could respond, a wounded Elf spotted them and called out desperately. "Help us! They came without warning, humans with strange weapons!"
The officers exchanged glances, momentarily frozen by the unexpected scenario. This was no controlled training exercise with clear parameters, it appeared chaotically real.
Aurelia was the first to recover. "Move in, assess casualties, establish security," she ordered, her training taking over despite her shock. "Julian, Lucius; perimeter check to ensure the attackers aren't still present. Leonidas, Iris; help with the fires. Damian, you're with me on medical triage."
They sprang into action, descending into the devastated settlement. As they worked, the full horror of the scene became apparent. Dozens of Elves had been wounded or killed, their homes destroyed, their peaceful existence shattered in what appeared to have been a lightning raid.
Aurelia knelt beside a grievously wounded Elven woman, applying pressure to a bleeding wound unlike any she'd seen before. "What did this?" she asked, noting the strange, jagged tear through flesh.
"Metal projectiles," gasped the woman. "Not magic... they fired them from tubes..."
"Guns," Julian said grimly, returning from his perimeter check. "Father warned us about human firearms. This is what they do."
For hours, they worked alongside other officer squads who had encountered the same scenario, treating the wounded, extinguishing fires, and comforting survivors. Though they eventually realized this was an elaborately staged training exercise; the "wounded" were actors, the "destruction" carefully constructed however the emotional impact was no less powerful.
As dusk approached, Father appeared among them, moving silently through the simulated carnage. "This is the aftermath of a human raid," he explained quietly. "A small taste of what war brings to civilian populations. Not glorious battles between armies, but this; suffering inflicted on the innocent."
The officers gathered around him, their uniforms stained with fake blood and soot, their expressions haunted by what they had experienced.
"Why show us this?" Leonidas demanded, his voice hoarse from shouting orders during the fire suppression.
"Because you needed to see it," Father replied simply. "To understand what you're truly fighting against, and what you're fighting to prevent."
That night, they camped amid the ruins, taking shifts to guard the "survivors"; part of the continuing exercise. Sleep came fitfully, disturbed by the moans of the "wounded" and the weeping of the "bereaved."
"How can humans do this to each other?" Damian wondered aloud during his watch, the question directed at no one in particular.
"They've had thousands of years of practice," Julian answered from nearby, his eyes reflecting the embers of their small fire. "Father says war became part of their nature."
The next morning, they continued their journey southward, leaving the devastated settlement behind. But the images remained with them, a weight that made their packs seem heavier, their steps more deliberate.
The second scenario awaited them a day later, a refugee column of Fae fleeing from an unseen threat to the west. Hundreds of Elves and Dwarves trudged along a muddy path, carrying what few possessions they could salvage, children crying from hunger and exhaustion.
This time, the officers understood immediately that this was another training scenario, but the emotional impact remained powerful. They were tasked with organizing the refugees, establishing security, and managing limited resources for a population three times what those resources could adequately support.
"We can't feed everyone," Iris reported after inventorying the available supplies. "At best, half-rations for three days."
"The children and wounded eat first," Aurelia decided. "Then the elderly. The able-bodied adults can manage on less."
"Some won't survive on those rations," Julian pointed out, his survival expertise making the math painfully clear.
"Then we find more food," Leonidas insisted. "There must be edible plants in the jungle."
"Not enough, not quickly enough," Julian countered. "This is the point of the exercise, sometimes there are no good options."
The scenario forced them to make increasingly difficult decisions; who received medical care when supplies ran low, which routes to take when all posed different dangers, how to maintain order when desperation led to conflict among the refugees themselves.
By the third day of their journey, the officers had begun to understand the pattern of Father's lessons. Each new scenario presented a different aspect of war's impact; not just the immediate violence, but the cascading consequences that followed.
They encountered a village where "collaborators" had aided the human attackers in exchange for safety, forcing the officers to navigate complex questions of justice and mercy. They discovered a cache of human propaganda designed to turn Fae against each other, learning how information could be weaponized as effectively as any blade or bullet.
On the fourth day, as they approached the central region of Shangri-la, they faced perhaps the most difficult scenario yet; a simulated field hospital overwhelmed with casualties, where the officers were forced to make triage decisions that meant life or death for the "wounded."
"This one won't survive transport," a medical officer informed Aurelia, gesturing to a young Elven male with simulated catastrophic injuries. "But he's conscious and in pain. We have limited pain relief medications."
"How limited?" Aurelia asked, her voice tight.
"Enough for him, or enough for five others with better chances."
The weight of such decisions settled into their bones, becoming part of them. Though they knew these were simulations, the officers found themselves emotionally invested, making choices as if lives truly hung in the balance; because someday, they would.
Their path continued southward, the lush jungle gradually thinning as they approached the border of Erebus. The scenarios evolved as well, becoming more complex, more morally ambiguous, more challenging to their fundamental understanding of themselves as Fae.
On the sixth day, they encountered what appeared to be a human prisoner; an actor so convincingly disguised that several officers initially reached for their weapons. The prisoner possessed information that could potentially save Fae lives, but would only reveal it under duress. The scenario forced them to confront questions about interrogation, torture, and whether certain methods were ever justified, even to save innocent lives.
"We are not humans," Aurelia insisted during the heated debate that followed. "We don't torture, even to save our own."
"Easy to say when it's a simulation," Leonidas countered. "What about when real lives are at stake? What about when it's our people dying?"
The question hung in the air, unanswerable in any satisfying way. Father observed these debates from a distance, never intervening, allowing the officers to wrestle with the moral complexities themselves.
By the final day of their journey through Shangri-la, the jungle had given way to the transitional scrub-land that bordered Erebus. The officers moved more slowly now, not from physical fatigue, though that was considerable, but from the emotional weight they carried.
Their final scenario awaited them at the border, a memorial service for fallen Fae warriors. Though the "dead" were merely symbolic, represented by empty uniforms laid out in neat rows, the ceremony felt painfully real. Each officer was required to speak words of remembrance for fictional soldiers under their command, to write letters to imaginary families, to face the ultimate cost of the war they were preparing to fight.
As twilight descended, Father joined them beside the memorial pyres that had been constructed for the ceremony.
"This week has been different," he acknowledged, his voice gentle. "Not about tactics or weapons or even survival. It has been about understanding."
The officers stood at attention, their faces reflecting the flickering light of the memorial fires.
"War is not glorious," Father continued. "It is not an adventure or a game. It is suffering and loss and moral compromise. It is decisions that haunt you for centuries, believe me, I know this better than anyone."
For a moment, his mask of calm slipped, revealing a glimpse of ancient pain that startled the officers with its intensity.
"I have shown you these things not to weaken your resolve, but to strengthen it in the right way," Father explained. "Not with blood lust or hatred, but with clear-eyed understanding of what we fight against and what we fight for."
He moved among them, looking each officer in the eye. "You will cross into Erebus tomorrow for your final week of training. You will learn desert warfare, adaptation to extreme environments, and other tactical necessities. But what you have learned here in Shangri-la, the true cost of war; is what will ultimately determine not whether you win or lose, but whether you remain Fae while fighting like humans."
That night, as they camped at the border of Shangri-la and Erebus, the six officers sat together in silence for a long while, processing all they had experienced. The bond between them had deepened beyond mere comrades or even friends; they had witnessed each other's responses to moral crucibles, had seen each other's strengths and vulnerabilities in situations that stripped away pretense.
"I never understood before," Iris said finally, breaking the silence. "Why Father seemed so sad when he spoke of humans and war. Now I do."
"Do you think we can fight them without becoming like them?" Damian asked, the question that had been haunting all of them.
Lucius stroked Silver's fur thoughtfully. "That's the real test, isn't it? Not whether we can defeat humans, but whether we can remain ourselves while doing it."
"We have an advantage they never had," Julian observed. "We have Father's guidance, and we have each other."
Aurelia gazed toward the distant desert, barely visible in the moonlight. "Tomorrow we enter Erebus for our final week. Whatever challenges await us there, we face them together, carrying what we've learned here."
As they settled into their bedrolls for the night, each officer carried private thoughts about the journey through Shangri-la. They had entered as soldiers prepared for the physical demands of war. They would leave as something more complex; leaders who understood that the greatest battles would be fought not just with weapons and tactics, but with choices that would define who they were as Fae.
Ahead lay the harsh desert of Erebus and their final week of training. Beyond that, the war itself loomed; no longer an abstract concept but a reality whose true cost they had begun to comprehend. Whether that understanding would make them stronger or more vulnerable remained to be seen, but one thing was certain: they would never view war the same way again.