In the autumn of 1868, shock rippled across Aerius as it was discovered that a statue of Queen Deja had been stolen from the heart of the Verdant Castle.  As jokes, hot takes, and anxiety built on the internet, exhaustive searches by Verdant Kingdom guards produced little evidence, and the weeks rolled on with concerns growing.  Who had stolen the statue?  Why had they done so?

The culprits waited to announce their presence until fear had grown enough to suit their tastes.  Morgana and Muramasa Kita had come to claim what they saw as their kingdom.  They publicly offered their son, King Nero, and his sisters (who were not present), Fae, Delta, and Carina, the chance to join them, and were met with flat refusal from the King.  They ignored Queen Iola entirely until they were leaving, when Morgana Kita began to heap profane abuse on the younger queen.

What followed was a war of nearly a month long, fought in the traditional dextroluma style.  Battlefields were marked, with the agreement of the Verdant Kingdom royals and their would-be challengers, and troops clashed on the battlefield each day to try to determine a victor.

Although neither side found a true victory, the Kitas wound up quitting the field.  The reasons are only rumored and have been difficult to verify, but sources within the Verdant Castle report that their clothing was eaten by 'beasts' and they appeared at Verdant Castle at an odd hour to berate the King and Queen for it, to immense confusion within the castle.  There is, however, blurry footage available online of Queen Morgana losing part of her dress to a strange being during the final battle of the war, which seems to have marked the final straw for the battle.

It is generally believed the strange clothing eating being had a role in the return of Queen Deja's statue, as Queen Iola announced after the departure of the Blighted Wilds ships that it had been returned.  Although she declined to publicize the letter left with it, sources within Verdant Castle told reporters that the statue had been returned with a frankly obscene amount of trash and that the letter had been signed by an individual calling themself "the Trash King".  It is unknown what this will mean for the future of the Verdant Kingdom or the Blighted Wilds.

At present, the only known lasting consequence of the war is that the battlefields and the campsites of the Blighted Wilds' army must be regularly sprayed with chemicals to prevent the growth of blighted and elder mushrooms, for the safety of residents of the Verdant Kingdom.