Battle of Aezenfjord

The Battle of Aezenfjord was a side conflict in the Bardonian Wars, fought on January 19, 2021, between Aezenfjord, Escharien, and Posavaria on the defense, and Sorveien and Bardonia on the offensive.

For more context surrounding the battle, see the Bardonian Wars.

Declaration
On the 18th of January, 2021, the relatively new nation of the Sørveien Empire declared that they had done a sacrifice to the Blood God and in return, had received a message "telling all those whose witnessed this ceromonial [sic] event that the Sørveien Empire is the holy successor of the Valdreech [sic] Imperial Republic" (Brydon). As a result, they declared war on the Escharien Protectorate of Aezenfjord, the old capital of the defunct VIR.

The Republic of Posavaria and their allies in the Crescent Concordant also came to the defense of Aezenfjord because of the direct threat that a VIR reconquest would pose to Posavaria, and because of Sørveien's alignment with Bardonia. Because the leader of Escharia could not be present for the battle, Sørveien agreed to leave Bardonia out of the conflict.

Preparation
The overall strategy of the defenders was led by GiberCat, a citizen of the Republic of Posavaria, with strategic help from the caretaker of Aezenfjord, SirMisterPanda. The defenders were split into two groups - skilled warriors with good gear, and mediocre warriors with a wide variety of gear. By the beginning of the battle the defenders had grown somewhat numerous, but due to lack of preparation and last-minute recruits, many were fielded with nothing better than partial iron armor, and some even lacked weapons from the start.

The defenders built a cobblestone tower to protect their beds in the middle of Aezenfjord bay, connected to the cliffside by a thin bridge. Dragon's Teeth and other obstructions were erected around the city to hamper invaders. Aezenfjord's extensive fortifications, constructed by citizens long lost to time, significantly limited the number of locations that attackers could enter through.

Before the battle HairySonic had killed the Sørveien leader of Hiraeth who had the entirety of Sørveien potions for battle and a spare Prot 4 set, her death by HairySonic resulted in him claiming to be a payed assassin and was told by many of the defenders of Aezenfjord, he was a "hero".

The Battle
On the 19th of January, 2021, the Sørveiens marched down from the northeast of Aezenfjord and entered the city through an hillside where the wall was unfinished. Some light skirmishes occurred until the Sørveiens reached the main defensive line of the defenders, where their progress stalled on the Dragon's Teeth and other obstructions. CalamityTree, BrydonThunder and Pixlo were split facing off against numbers 8:1 individually, through the force of numbers the Sørveien soldiers were forced to retreat from the fight.

The defenders rallied a counterattack and engaged the Sørveiens, eventually managing to separate the Sørveien due to overwhelming numbers and knockback and picked off the remaining Sørveien fighter's in the city.

Fierce fighting ensued around the tower and defenders were shot down from the ladder as they attempted to climb. The defenders hastily built a second tower beside the Sørveiens' tower, eventually gaining a vantage point to fire on them. Faced with defenders on the second tower and more climbing up the first, the Sørveien defence was broken with heavy casualties from both sides. Eventually the defenders killed them and broke their beds to prevent them from respawning. The attackers' bed tower was cleaned out and partially dismantled by the defenders before they decided to return to Aezenfjord, having destroyed the enemy base and assuming the war was over. Several players left entirely.

Bardonian Reinforcements
With the siege being temporarly broken, the Sørveiens had used the evidence of HairySonic being paid to join Aezenfjord side, and in retaliation they would be bringing the Bardonians to help them assault Aezenfjord once more. These reinforcements were Call_Me_Realz, Dex_Og, ViewedMarquis, Unic0rnb0i, and BacktotheHub. The Sørveiens came down from the northeast again, this time all on horseback and crying "DEATH", their Bardonian allies not far behind. After regrouping at the ruined siege base, the Bardonians led a second assault on the city. At this point in time the named mercenary switched to the Sørveien-Bardonian side and other less loyal fighters abandoned the fight as well for the Coalition side.

This time, the defenses were breached and Bardonia swept through the defenders. Many fought along the bay cliff to prevent the attackers from reaching the thin bridge to the bed tower, and others mined the bridge to prevent passage. Meanwhile, Bardonians picked off the defenders around the cliffs and began firing flaming arrows into the tower at the defenders inside, who were not successful in returning fire. Eventually some Bardonians breached the tower and scaled it story-by-story, killing the defenders in close PVP combat within the cramped tower rooms and breaking all the beds.

Some of the defenders outside the tower managed to survive and retreat while sparring with Bardonians, even setting off an explosion that killed several of the attackers. But most were killed and respawned far away, their beds having already been broken. Very few made it out of the city alive to flee to their hometowns.

The end result of the battle was a crushing defeat for the defenders, all of their defenses having been overrun and all of their gear looted, without managing to kill many of the Bardonians.

"From what I know, one of the terms for the war was no mercenaries. Aezenfjord brought mercenaries and Stor responded by calling in Bardonian reinforcements. At the time Stor had the upper hand in kills but was being pushed back by the massive difference in numbers. Then the Bardonians showed up, we duked it out, one of their guys betrayed them for us, and we fucked em up."

Surrender of Aezenfjord
The result of the war was embroiled in controversy because both sides claimed the other had broken the terms of the war agreement - Sørveien had openly done it by bringing the Bardonians, but they claimed the defenders had done it first by hiring mercenaries, which the defenders unequivocally denied. Many of the defenders believed they had beaten the Sørveiens fair and square, and that therefore Aezenfjord should not be surrendered because of agreement-breaking Bardonian interference. But the Sørveiens threatened to besiege Aezenfjord, and fight another war. Resulting in the caretaker of Aezenfjord yielded to the Sørveiens.

Aftermath
A member of the coalition, who had actually been a member of Bardonia before volunteering to fight on Aezenfjord's side, deserted to the Sørveien forces and accused a captain of Posavaria of offering to pay him money, which would have made him a mercenary. This accusation was only made after the battle concluded and the agreement was alleged conducted orally, thereby no evidence could be produced. The captain in question denied these obligations. The Administrative Pos of Posavaria in charge of adding volunteers to the war room produced photo evidence that the Bardonian had actually volunteered at first and not been offered pay. Additionally, the Posavari claimed that their captain could not have offered to hire anyone because he was not authorized to create monetary agreements like that. Lastly, the Sørveiens only claimed that the war terms had been violated after they lost the initial battle, putting their motivations into doubt. After the battle, photo evidence was produced that the Bardonians were simply joining Sørveien's side because they saw they were losing, regardless of the war terms, essentially meaning they had only planned on following the agreement if their friends in Sørveien were victorious.