Here is the second chapter! Well, really the prologue. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and when you are done reading, please do not fail to read my notes at the end, as I have something I would like you to read.

Prologue

It was raining. Pouring, punctuated every now and again by a streak of illuminating lightning, followed by deafening thunder. Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinrich Fuchs had been sitting in his parked Mercedes-Benz 170 S, staring out the window and looking down the almost deserted street for the better part of 45 minutes. He let his mind drift to recent past events. Specifically, those that had lead him to be sitting next to a watery-eyed, bespectacled Dr. Wilhelm Munch on a mostly deserted street in Krakow, Poland on a storming July night.

Technically, it had started back before the war. You could say it was part of the reason the war was started in the first place, but only he and a select few knew that. His thoughts were interrupted by a wheezing sound coming from the doctor. He glanced over at him, the doctor was holding a handkerchief to his nose, wiping away phlegm. He then used the same handkerchief to wipe his sweaty forehead. He put the cloth away and pulled out another one he used to clean his glasses.

"Disgusting," thought Fuchs. "I'll be glad when this is over, and I can get rid of him."

Fuchs did not like the watery-eyed doctor of archeology. He was almost always complaining about something, and his eyes were always leaking tears. The only thing that he had going for him was that he really knew his stuff. He had spent the last two years finishing the research that Fuchs had started, trying to unlock the riddle that time had created, hiding the location of the gem. Then one day in August of 1939 Munch figured it out. The clues had eventually led him, mentally that is, to Krakow, which was the old capital of Poland. Problem was, there was no way to get the stone, at least not legally. It was in another country, in one of its biggest cities, and hidden deep in one of its most iconic landmarks. It ended up not mattering. The still rather new dictator of Germany was itching to start a war for his own reasons. Munch and Fuchs were able to get an audience with him and was able to convince him to start his war by attacking Poland. And now here they were.

Behind them sat the dark outline of an Opal blitz truck. Inside the covered bed sat 12 battle ready SS storm troopers waiting on him to give the signal to move out. The place they had parked wasn't picked at random. They were one block away from the Wawel Cathedral, and the castle of the same name that protected it. There was no real reason they were waiting, Fuchs was just hoping the rain would let up. Fuchs wasn't too big a fan of the rain.

Yet, Fuchs knew that it was dangerous to wait. There were Polish resistance fighters all over the place. If Fuchs and the truck sat for too long they would notice, trouble might start. That was not something he wanted to happen, but that's why he brought the troopers. So, when the rain did not let up after a few more minutes, Fuchs decided it was time to go.

Fuchs sighed and motioned for his driver to put the car in gear and finish the drive down the last block to their destination. The truck behind them rumbled to life when its driver saw the brake lights of the Mercedes come on. Slowly, they pulled away from the curb and drove the short remaining distance to the cathedral. They parked on the side of the road at the base of the hill on the north side of the complex near the Herbowa Gate, the castle entrance closest to the church. They would have to walk the rest of the way.

The cathedral as well as the castle and its walls could date its oldest sections to over 1,000 years ago. It had been the site of the coronation of Wladyslaw the Elbow-High, the first king to rule the united Polish lands. From then on it had been used by all but two of Poland's kings. Inside are the sarcophaguses of ten Polish kings, as well as war heroes and Poland's patron saint, St Stanislaus. It was one of these sarcophagi, that of Wladyslaw the Elbow-High himself, that so interested Fuchs. Or rather, it was what was in the sarcophagus that interested him.

Fuchs was a lover of history, specifically Medieval history. Even more specifically, the history of the Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, also known as the Teutonic Knights. After all, he could trace his lineage back to one of the founding members of the order.

A few years back, when he had still been an Obersturmführer, Fuchs had been reading a book about the Battle of Płowce. This was the battle that had halted the expansion of the knight's realm. It had been fought on the 21 of September 1331 between 7,000 Teutonic Knights and 5,000 Polish troops led by Wladyslaw the Elbow-High, the very man whose tomb now held his undivided attention. It should have been an easy win for the extremely well trained and heavily armed and armored Knights, yet, they had lost. The Knights suffered the capture of Reuss von Plauen, the commander of their army, along with 40 of their best knights and the death of more than half their army.

This got Fuchs thinking. How had the commander of the Teutonic army, and 40 of his best soldiers, been captured? Better yet, how had the knights lost? Fuchs had to investigate. After a lot of digging around in musty libraries, his research led him to Hildesheim Cathedral. What Fuchs found among the dry, crumbly parchments and old leathery tomes of the cathedral's library would change his life forever. He had found numerous hints, all pointing to what he eventually found, but he had always been skeptical. Now he was sure. He had found proof. Hidden in a small wooden box on a shelf in the very back of the room was a three-inch-long piece of a golden scepter handle, about two inches in diameter and broken at one end. Small diamonds and emeralds were set in two small circles spaced one inch apart. The rest of the handle would have had the same pattern all the way to the top. So it was real. This was why the knights had lost that day. Why von Plauen and 40 of his best warriors had given up. Wladyslaw had been in possession of Saint Stanislaus' gem.

The legend of the gem had been all but forgotten by the time Fuchs learned of it. The Polish legend said that a green gem about the size of a crows egg had been gifted to the Bishop of Krakow, Bishop Stanislaus, supposedly by the Virgin Mary herself. It was said to be set in a small gold scepter, with three rubies surrounding the gem, one on top and one on either side and rings of small diamonds and emeralds spaced evenly up the handle. Mary had given it to him so that he would be able to resurrect Piotr, the dead owner of a certain parcel of land whose three sons were disputing Stanislaus' claim that he had bought the land for the church. However, the king, King Boleslaw II, was backing the claims of Piotr's three sons that Stanislaus had not bought the land. Stanislaus asked the king if he could have three days to find a witness that validated his claim. The king laughingly agreed.

Stanislaus then went away, and for two days straight prayed unceasingly. Midway through this marathon of prayer is when it is said he was visited by Mary and received the gem. On the morning of the third day, he got up, and dressed in his full bishop's regalia, went out to the cemetery where Piotr was buried. Upon arriving he had Piotr's grave dug up. By the time Piotr was on the surface, a small crowd had gathered. For Stanislaus, this was a good thing, for it meant there were more witnesses to what he was about to do. Holding the small scepter out over Piotr's body he bade Piotr to rise. Immediately a green light burst from the gem, flowing into Piotr's rotting corpse. The corpse began to heal, and then it began to move. Piotr slowly sat up and opened his eyes. He was back in the land of the living. Piotr then went with Stanislaus and told the king and his three sons that Stanislaus had indeed paid him for the land, and that it was rightfully his. The king was forced to then side with Stanislaus. Stanislaus then gave Piotr the choice to stay with the living, but Piotr refused. So, they went back to the cemetery they dug him out of and returned him to the ground.

Upon the completion of what he had set out to do, Stanislaus hid the scepter with its gem; which, after his untimely death disappeared into Polish myth. Until about 300 years later, whenWladyslaww the Elbow-High, somehow got his hands on it and used it to help him in his quest to unite all the Polish kingdoms under one king. Wladyslaw was very careful in his use of the gem. So careful in fact, that none of his enemies found out about it until his last battle with the Teutonic knights.

After his discovery at Hildesheim Cathedral, Fuchs had sought out Germany's most celebrated professor of archeology, Professor Munch. Munch was nothing like what Fuchs was expecting. Fuchs was expecting a tall, well dressed, almost aristocratic man. Instead he got pretty much the exact opposite. If only he had looked up a picture of him first, maybe he wouldn't have been quite so disgusted when he met him. Either way, Munch had surprisingly been a great help. Fuchs had figured out the gem was in Poland but where, well, he couldn't say. Fuchs had decided to let Munch do the rest of the hard work, digging through yet more manuscripts and old forgotten parchments. Until one day Munch had burst into Fuchs's office, blabbering about finding something.

"Sir, sir!" he had excitedly exclaimed, his eyes watering behind his glasses more than usual. "I found it! I found it!"

"Calm down man!" Fuchs had said. He didn't want Munch to drip tears everywhere. "Quiet down, then tell me where you have found it."

Munch calmed down a bit, he then proceeded to tell Fuchs everything.

Fuchs pulled his heavy leather coat tightly around him and glanced at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. Fuchs hoped the lateness of the expedition would mean that no one would be around, but you could never be too careful in a place like Krakow in a war-torn country like Poland. He stepped out into the pouring rain, Munch scrambling out on the other side. A great bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the slick grassy slope he was going to have to climb. Fuchs motioned to the driver to stay and keep the car running. Behind him he heard the soldiers dropping from the truck to the ground and spreading out, taking up defensive positions around them, ready for anything that might show up out of the darkness.

Fuchs started up the hill, closely followed by a wheezing Munch. Once at the top, Fuchs found the gate was closed, the portcullis having been dropped into place. This was not something he had planned for. Thankfully it was only held in place by gravity. Fuchs got 10 of the SS troops to lift the gate by shear strength while the other two stood guard. Eventuall,y all 14 of them got through.

By this time Fuchs was soaked, despite his leather coat, and Munch's nose was running more than ever. The dark, imposing mass of the cathedral loomed up out of the dark. Fuchs was getting excited now. So far, it had all gone to plan. No attacks by resistance fighters, no bad luck. Other than the rain of course.

The outer wall of the cathedral was part a longer group of buildings that formed another inner wall of sorts. Between the cathedral's outer wall and the beginning of the walls of the next buildings was another gate. However, this one had large wooden doors instead of a portcullis. Thankfully though, these doors had been left open.

Between the gate and the giant black metal doors of the cathedral's western entrance was a wide path, flanked on one side by the cathedral and on the other by a group of three story buildings. The path opened into a large courtyard in the middle of the entire complex. The path was a perfect place for an ambush. The doors were recessed in a small alleyway created by two flanking wings of the cathedral. The whole cathedral was surrounded by yet another small wall, punctuated by two small gates. There was one such gate directly in front of the alley to the doors. The dash to the gate was uneventful. The gate wasn't much, just a fancy wrought iron gate, held in the closed position by a chain with a padlock. Fuchs had come prepared for this. He had keys for both the gate and the cathedral doors. The doors were big enough that they had a smaller door built into one of them for normal usage.

The group paused at the iron gate. Fuchs's fingers were getting cold, and it took him longer than it normally would have to get the right key and insert it into the lock. The lock was well oiled, and quietly clicked open. Fuchs let the chain hang down from the gate, he would secure it again when they left. Lighting flickered, revealing the forbidding black doors for a spilt second.

Ten of the soldiers, Fuchs, and Munch had safely gotten through the gate and were crossing the small courtyard when six shots rang out. Fuchs heard the two soldiers who were covering their entrance through the gate grunt, then the clatter of their weapons and the thuds of their bodies as they hit the ground. The other troopers immediately returned fire and were rewarded with a scream as some of their bullets found a target.

"So, they have been watching us," thought Fuchs.

He yelled at the last soldier through the gate to re-secure the chain and lock it, before running the last few meters to the cathedral doors. The key hole was hidden in the dark, so Fuchs pulled out a flashlight and gave it to Munch to train on the door. While Fuchs and Munch were working on the door, the SS troops had set up a defensive perimeter around the door. Six formed a semi-circle, blocking off the alley. The other four took up positions at the gate.

The resistance fighters had taken up positions in the building across the way. Some were up in the third floor, able to fire down on the Germans. There were a few on the ground floor, but the only suitable places to fire from on that floor was the door and a small window set high of the ground. However, the storm troopers forced anyone who wanted to shoot at them too keep their heads down long enough that Fuchs was able to get the door open. Munch immediately dropped the flashlight and dashed inside. Fuchs cursed at the man before picking up the light. He decided he was going to wait on his soldiers.

One of the enemy caught on to what was happening fast enough to be able to fire off a few shots at Fuchs's men just as the last of them were going through the door. One of the bullets found its mark, burying itself in the lower leg of one of the storm troopers. The trooper grunted and fell to the ground, then pulled himself up and used his rifle as a crutch to hobble the rest of the way inside. Fuchs had the door quickly closed and locked. Fuchs sent a couple of the soldiers to find something to use to block the doors. Finally, he was inside. So very close to his destination. Saint Stanislaus' sarcophagus was right smack in the middle of the massive nave.

The first thing that stood out about Stanislaus' coffin was its color. It was entirely silver. The coffin itself was raised about two feet off the ground. It was supported by four silver angels, one at each corner, sculpted to look like they were bearing the coffin on their shoulders. The coffin had 12 cherub motifs carved into it. They were evenly spaced along the side, their wings touching at the tips, forming a continuous row of wings along both sides. However, there were no cherubs on the ends. In between the cherubs were depicted 12 scenes from the saint's life and supposed posthumous miracles. The lid was large and also made of silver.

Fuchs couldn't wait to get the lid off.

"You!" he said pointing to the nearest soldier, "Get three others and come with me, everyone else get ready to repel anyone who tries to get in."

The soldier he had pointed to nodded and rounded up the three strongest of the group. The others helped the wounded soldier to a safe spot off to one side and set him up in a position that was easily defendable. Then they took up positions behind the large stone columns that supported the roof.

The lid of the coffin was very heavy and awkward. There was only a thin crack between the bottom of the lid and the top of the coffin. The first time the soldiers touched it, a mighty thunderclap sounded. Fuchs just dismissed it as a coincidence, but he could tell that some of the more superstitious of the soldiers thought it as an omen. It took five minutes for the soldiers just to move it enough to where they could all get a grip, one on each corner. The soldiers heaved, lifting the lid a good six inches off the top.

"Careful with that," said Munch. Fuchs glared at him.

"Set it over there." Fuchs said.

Just as they were about to lower the lid to the ground, a loud booming sound came from the door they had come through. Fuchs looked up startled. One of the doors was partly off its hinges and jutting into the room. Wisps of smoke slowly drifted in. The four soldiers carrying the lid immediately dropped it and ran for their weapons, which were stacked on a pew about six feet away. Fuchs heard someone yell from the other side of the door, and a small round object rolled in through the opening. Fuchs was about to dive for cover when the grenade started spewing smoke. Munch about lost his mind and fell to his knees in a blubbering state of shock.

Fuchs realized he only had a short time to act. He ran up to the coffin and looked inside just as the storm troopers opened fire. Inside was another coffin made of wood. It was obviously old, and it took no effort at all to rip off the lid and throw it aside. Inside lay a skull with a withered scalp and wisps of brown hair attached to a skeleton wearing robes of red with gold trim. Clasped in the long bony fingers was a small brown box.

The smoke had grown thicker and was working its way to Fuchs. It appeared that another smoke bomb had been thrown in. Fuchs could hear the storm troopers coughing and moving farther back into the interior of the cavernous room, trying to get their gas masks out of their canisters and on to their faces. A burst of gunfire erupted from the direction of the now completely hidden doors, just missing one of the troopers who turned around and let loose with his MP40, eliciting a grunt from the smoke. Immediately, another burst of fire came from the door and the trooper was felled without making a sound.

Without wasting anymore time, Fuchs reached in to the wooden coffin and grabbed the box. It crumbled in his hands, revealing a brown cloth wrapped brown cloth wrapped round object. Fuchs paused. The little object was not the right shape. He picked up the cloth and quickly unwrapped it. Inside was a pear-shaped gem, hazy and pale green. Fuchs realized what had happened. Apparently, sometime during its 1,000-year history the scepter that held the gem had been lost. This explained the piece he had found in Hildesheim. Even though he knew he was pressed for time, Fuchs couldn't help but stare at the gem. It was beautiful and seamed to almost speak to him. Fuchs felt himself start to slip from reality, the gem seemingly calling him into some unknown realm.

Fuchs forced his gaze away from it. He looked up just as the smoke enveloped him, the sounds of a desperate gunfight raged all around him. Without thinking, Fuchs stuffed the gem in one of his tunic pockets, buttoned it back up, and ran toward the back of the long sanctuary. Munch stayed where he was, either dead from a heart attack or too scared to move. Fuchs didn't care either way.

Halfway to the cathedral's rear (east) entrance Fuchs remembered that this opened into a very small courtyard that lead directly to the palace entrance. This was not where he wanted to go, as it would take him much too long to get out, and for all he knew there could be people waiting inside. The way Fuchs wanted to go was out through the cathedral's south entrance. This was directly across from Stanislaus's tomb. Fuchs hesitated only a moment before turning around and running back towards the sounds of the continuing, albeit now less vigorous, gunfight and the slowly dissipating smoke. Once at the coffin he turned left and sprinted for the door. Gunfire erupted behind him and he saw chips of stone fly off the wall only feet from him.

The return fire from his troopers was becoming less frequent. Somehow, they were losing the fight, but Fuchs didn't have time to ponder why. Upon reaching the massive metal doors, Fuchs pulled out the key and hastily unlocked the smaller inset door. He pushed it open and ran out into the freezing rain. Lighting was flashing all around him, and the thunder was deafening. Fuchs didn't stop. The south entrance opened into the same courtyard as the west entrance. About four meters away was another wrought iron gate with a chain and padlock. This gate opened into yet another courtyard, this one much larger. Fuchs ran to the gate, fumbling with the keys, desperately trying to find the one for the padlock.

Suddenly a massive lightning bolt hit about 15 meters away, throwing him to the ground and leaving a huge scorch mark where it hit. Fuchs got up and started on the keys again. This time he found the right one and quickly unlocked the gate, yanking the chain off. Without thinking he started running diagonally across the yard, determined to reach the far away exit on the other side. He had barely made it 30 meters when another bolt of lightning hit the ground, closer this time. Fuchs went flying, landing on his back. He lay stunned.

Through his hazy vision, Fuchs could make out the figures of armed men coming through the south gate. Fuchs dug deep into his energy reserves, and with a mighty effort got up and started running again. He had just made it past two large trees, just over a little past halfway, when the world exploded, and everything disappeared in a swirl of blackness.

The headache was immense. Fuchs groaned and tried to sit up and open his eyes, but the combination of movement and bright white light caused the pain in his head to explode, forcing him to lay back down. After what seemed like hours lying on the very hard ground, Fuchs's eyes had adjusted enough to the light on the other side of his eyelids that he was able to open them. He sat up and looked around. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was still in his uniform though, and he could feel the small lump that was the gem in his tunic pocket. His hat was laying on the ground beside him. However, something was a little off. His whole body felt numb, even though it looked fine. He could also still move both arms and legs, so he didn't think much of it.

Fuchs looked around at his surroundings. He was sitting on a large white plane with a huge pale-yellow ball of light hovering high in the sky above him. Fuchs made the mistake of looking straight at the light. He fainted again.

The air smelled damp and musty. Almost like a cave. The ground beneath Fuchs's back was damp and ridged, like he was laying on a bed of evenly spaced logs. The holster on his hip had slid around behind him and was digging into his back. Fuchs slowly opened his eyes, carefully, not wanting a repeat of last time. He needn't have worried. It was pitch black. He tugged the holster back to its rightful position, then rubbed his aching face. It felt as if there were small hard ridges running downing his face, originating in his scalp. He could feel that the ridges ran all the way down his body on both sides, snaking around like the little ridges mole tunneling leaves on the grounds surface. In other words, they had no discernable pattern, at least not the he could tell from feel. They just meandered around like a river. All the cartilage on his face was gone or withered, leaving him with a hole for a nose and small nubs where his ears were. Interestingly though he still had hair. His hat was yet again laying beside him. He dusted it off and put it on. His eyes felt funny. It felt like there were cotton balls packed inside. He couldn't tell if this was affecting his vision, though, because of how dark it was. He felt his pocket, reassuring himself that the gem was still there.

He stood up, careful not to fall on the uneven ground. Two steps later his left foot slammed into something low to the ground and hard as a rock, sending him sprawling. Thankfully, there was a wall only a meter away that arrested his fall. Fuchs could tell by feel that the wall was made of bricks, and old ones at that. They were slimy from the buildup of decades of fungal and mineral buildup. Fuchs was extremely confused, but he was still alive and not in any immediate danger, and to him that was all that mattered. He would worry about getting back to his quarters later. First, he had to get out of this infernal darkness. He cursed, then crouched down and gingerly worked his way back to the obstruction on the ground.

Before he had a chance to examine it more carefully, the air in front of him burst into stars, a migraine suddenly rearing its ugly head. Fuchs fell to the ground again, moaning with pain. He closed his eyes. Slowly the stars went away, the pain and the cotton feeling in his eyes along with them.

Fuchs quickly opened his eyes again and almost shut them just as fast. Everything was a shade of green. It was as if he was wearing a pair of those newfangled night vision goggles that he had the privilege to try out at a lab back in Berlin. He saw the thing he had tripped on. It was clearly a railroad track. On the other side of it were two more tracks right next to each other. This was a clear sign of a subway. The tracks also explained his discomfort when he had woken up. It appeared however, that this line had not been used in a long time. The rust-covered tracks were a testament to how long this line had sat, unused and derelict. The ceiling and walls were streaked with water, the dripping of It onto the ground sounding oddly magnified by the curved brick walls.

Fuchs sat down and looked around, even more bewildered now then he was when he first woke up. For one, how was he seeing anything at all? Even if he had on a pair of the NVGs, there was no ambient light source for them to amplify, much less for his eyes to see with. Or at least, there was none that he could detect. But for now, he decided it wasn't worth devoting any energy towards. For seconds, what was he doing here? Here being a brick tunnel about two and a half meters wide and ending in an arch about three meters above his head. It stretched on in a straight line out of his sight in both directions. The only other feature in the tunnel beside the tracks was a light set on the other side of the tracks, encased in an extremely rusty cage. Fuchs stared at it. It was obvious the bulb hadn't been changed in a very long time, yet somehow it was able to still emit a soft glow. Fuchs realized that this light was the source of ambient light. Looking closer, Fuchs was able to determine that these lights were spaced every 50 meters or so for as far as he could see.

"That's weird," he thought. "The power to the rails is cut, but not the power to the lights?"

Fuchs didn't want to tarry, yet he had no idea where either direction of the tunnel lead. For that matter, he didn't even know what city he was. So, with nothing left to do he flipped a mental coin. Heads he would go right, tails left. It landed on tails. Fuchs gave his surroundings another look before letting out a sigh and standing back up and heading off into the seemingly never-ending tunnel.

Many hours and many kilometers later, Fuchs finally came to the end of the tunnel. It was a station. It was a simple station, just a large concrete rectangle dug into the ground, and only about 30 meters long. It sank back of the tunnel about 10 meters. There were only two entrances, both blocked off by very large metal doors with wire mesh covered square windows set in them. At the end of the tracks was a single car. Like the door, the car was painted grey and streaked with rust. Over all the windows was rusted wire mesh. A still bright yellow number 1 was underneath the driver's side of the windshield. The letters ZCMA were painted below that in the same rust streaked yellow.

"What the heck?" Fuchs thought. "What is this, a prison?"

He looked around for a sign but didn't see one mounted on the walls. At first, he thought there wasn't one, but then he saw a long thin metal plate laying across the tracks, directly underneath a rusty stain on the concrete.

"Ah, here we go," he thought.

He walked over and awkwardly flipped the long rusty metal sign over. On the other side he could barely make out the yellow letters, streaked as they were with rusty and calcium deposits. After a few minutes spent figuring out the ones that were obliterated by rust, he was able to determine that it said "ZOOTOPIA MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON STATION ALPHA".

"Where the heck is Zootopia?" he thought.

The fact that it was a prison explained why everything was so plain. This was beyond strange. What on earth was he doing in a subway tunnel that lead to a prison? And by the looks of it, a high security one. He wondered why it had been abandoned, and where the tunnel lead in the other direction.

"Well, I guess the only thing left to do is get inside," he thought.

He climbed up on the platform and walked over to the door furthest from the tunnel end. The handle was very large, much bigger than it should be. He grasped it and pulled. Nothing happened. As he thought, the door was either locked or rusted shut. Probably both. The next door had the same large handle, but set into the bottom was a smaller door, about the size of a 12-year-old. Fuchs wondered just how much stranger things would become.

Fuchs grasped the handle and pulled. He was extremely surprised to hear a groan issue from the hinges. He tugged again, and the door moved a couple centimeters out. After 10 minutes of hard work, Fuchs was able to get the door open just enough that he could squeeze inside. On the other side was a room with another metal door. Next to the door was a large window with wire mesh built in. the inner door was just as rusty as the one he had just forced open.

Fuchs was exhausted; his eyelids were felt as if someone had tied small lead fishing weights to them. He decided he should take a nap before he went any further. He didn't want anyone getting the jump on him because he was to sleepy to react fast enough. Without further ado he sat down against the wall, facing the door he had just come through. Just as he was nodding off to sleep, a vision of a tank exploding passed through his mind. The peculiar starkness of this vision was not enough to keep him awake though, and within minutes he had drifted off to sleep.

St. Stanislaus was a real person, and the story about him bringing Piotr back to life is not of my creation. He lived back in the early 1000s. I did my best to stick with the official way things went for him, with the obvious exception being the addition of the fictional gem. However, it was very hard to find any real detailed information, specifically about his coffin. The only thing I had to go off of for his sarcophagus was a couple pictures of the outside. I made up the part about the wooden coffin inside the metal one.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone who worships in the Catholic church, neither do I mean any disrespect to Stanislaus. When I read the legend about him bringing Piotr back to life, I just knew I had found the basis for my story.

There is a good reason why Fuchs knows about NVGs. NVGs were invented by the Germans in the early 1930s and in fact were being used on a limited basis by German tankers and infantry as early as 1939. So yes, it was possible for Fuchs to have had experience with them.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I had a fun time writing it. I even learned a few things. As always, I would love to hear from you, so please leave a review with your thoughts and ideas.

One last thing, I will work on making all my chapters longer. I realized that the last two are a bit short.

Signing off,

Erwin.