Chief's Crown I

The Silver Arrow Alliance, now fully reunited after defending Astania, holds a strategy meeting to retake Castle Pandragon. The greatest threat to the plan is the Empire's airship Kelberos — Iyolin proposes luring it away, and the Alliance resolves to carry it out.

The Alliance, having arrived at the Vermont Forest, tries to reach the Irin River while avoiding the Empire's watchful eyes. Along the way, G.S and Landam Kelvins feel a strong sense of crisis at Kelberos's performance as it pursues them, and split off to disrupt its course so the diversion can succeed.

The main Alliance force, having reached the Irin River, advances quietly to avoid detection — but is discovered by Imperial forces mid-crossing, and a full-scale battle erupts. Victorious, the Alliance continues its advance toward the Mace Great Plains.

Confident after hearing that reinforcements are en route by ship to Port Hoarfrost, Griam Lang believes his judgment has been vindicated. But at the Mace Great Plains, the Alliance engages the waiting Imperial forces and gradually turns the tide — until Imperial officer Berndt himself steps onto the field. The Alliance defeats him and reclaims Castle Hastings.

Amid the victory, Durant Rembrandt finally finds his sister Dunamis, who had been imprisoned in the castle — freed, but left mind-broken by the experience, he steels his resolve to focus on the greater cause. Elsewhere, G.S and Landam successfully complete the Kelberos diversion and rejoin the Alliance.

This is the start of the "crown reclaimed" campaign, and it corrects an old guess in this compendium: Kelberos is the Empire's own airship, not an ancient guardian, and its diversion runs as its own thread alongside the main campaign, converging with the Alliance again only once the mission succeeds. Griam Lang doesn't personally take the field at Mace Great Plains — his own second-in-command Rovel Fields fights there instead, fleeing once the battle turns, true to the cowardice already on record for him. Griam's real reckoning comes later, at Pandragon Castle in Chapter 14.