Your best teacher is your last mistake.
Pre-Fall politician
“Slow down, Ulrico,” Elena Worchester managed to slip in between two fast sentences filled with expletives.
“They ran away,” he finally said.
“Who?”
“The Talented. They deserted.”
The Sorceress of the Mists of the Montana blinked.
“Johanna, Laura, Tom? But why?”
“Yes. A friend of someone on watch was bringing hot tea. Found another guard knocked from behind. Concussed, still hasn’t regained consciousness. But there was a rope ladder over the walls, so we pretty much knew someone was making a runner.”
“That could have been pretty much anyone,” she noted.
“I got my people to start inspecting the barracks, but one of the mess cooks then reported the box had been stolen. It didn’t make sense at first, then I figured out it had to be them.”
Elena frowned.
“The. Box. What box?”
“The Warden was quick to figure out they were going to be a major factor. He just wasn’t sure how to keep them. That was a way to uphold the letter of the law.”
“Ulrico. What. Box?”
“We didn’t want them to get out of the draft,” the voice of General Adorno came from behind.
“So, it was decided to put them under Zeroluck,” Pasqual added.
“Zeroluck…” she repeated, trying to jog her memory about when she’d heard that name.
Then her eyes grew wide.
“You didn’t?”
“There’s a seller in New Benton for those who want to ensure not too many heirs. Picked two boxes, and the Sorceress and Saint got their daily dose in their breakfast. No chance of them becoming mothers, and getting a lawyer for an exemption. Even with their husbands still drafted, too much of a risk they’d bail out. The Warden would not like to have to override the law, it’s always a source of problems.”
“And who thought it was a good idea? No, don’t answer. If you wanted them to stay, you needed to cultivate them. Not drug them. I would have gotten them to support the Warden before the end of their draft if you’d left me at it without interference. Johanna is likable and she enjoyed our sessions. But no. Military people…”
“Actually, it was…”
“I don’t want to hear it. Even not predicting how much their power was going to grow prior to the campaign doesn’t excuse you, or anyone. You may get away with pissing off a normal mage, but even then, a reluctant talent is worse than no talent… Do you realize that? Ulrico?”
“Hey, I was not part of that decision process!”
She threw the garrison commander a dark look, although Elena had to admit a decision made in New Benton was unlikely to be Pasqual’s responsibility. He would just have rolled with it.
That stinks. Of all the stupid ways to bind them…
She’d been happy to see them embrace the idea of defending their homelands. The perspective of savages at the gates was a wonderful motivator, one that Edgard had pursued after the northerners had presented him with a casus-belli. Although the Warden had never thought he’d need more than the oversized regular army of the Montana.
She’d joined him when he reached for her. Her distant family had always been a strong supporter of the Wardens, after all, and her husband had only been too happy to let his wife-now-legendary-sorceress tromp back to the North.
“And now, you’ve got a renegade mind sorceress-cum-saint and a legendary fire archmage. And a hero, a bonebreaker. Just because someone thought some pills would do what words wouldn’t.”
“We’ve dispatched a search team. We have good trackers, they already spotted tracks leading to the Heights. No doubt they will skirt the zones…”
“And they’re going to do what, exactly?”
“We’ve sent Devereaux to offer them clemency. They must realize that they’ll be outlaws in more than half of the Union. If they refuse to come back, he’s got orders to shoot to kill. Can’t let them escape to help any of our enemies.”
“I hope you’ve got real good troops. You’ve seen Johanna at work yesterday.”
“We haven’t done a doctrine to deal with that already, but adapting the one for Laura Donnall should work. Bow at 45-yard range. You lose all accuracy, but you can pin them down, and let crossbows at closer range. They don’t have a shield cover, after all. Besides, we have Devereaux armed with an artifact weapon in the worst case. Even a Hero can’t heal being sliced in two, and it’s almost indestructible. It will resist Milton’s fires, and her fireball is very predictable.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“An artifact weapon…”
“Yea, there’s…”
Elena felt like slamming her head into the walls of the office.
“Johanna’s an arch-arch-mage. She’s got the mana sight. You were there when she reported on that artifact she spotted from two miles away, right? You may as well advertise they’ve got a hunter on their tracks. They will know Devereaux’s coming, and they’ll be able to prepare. Maybe even ambush him.”
She saw the two incredulous looks of the generals.
“You’ll be the ones to explain to Edgard how he lost the biggest game-changers in history. Not me. Once he asks me, I’ll explain the why, not the how.”
She exhaled slowly, trying to get back in control of herself. Given their powers, she didn’t see a way for Devereaux to come with them alive. He would come with their bodies or not at all.
Moore was flabbergasted.
He’d read a few things, of course. Not enough, never enough. But that let him decipher the map the four had been clustered around as they plotted what turned out to be desertion. Manazones, as shown on the map, seemed silly on paper. After all, nobody – save those with Mana Sight, that is – saw that. The notions of areas that spawned – if you believed a few of the novels he’d read along the four – monsters and inedibles seemed more like nuclear waste from abandoned and ruptured reactors.
But after the end of that fight, when he’d checked the status for XP, something had been immediately off. Sure, 2260XP for everyone, that was a significant amount. Less than a full-fledged army battle, but good. But that wasn’t the point.
Tom Virgil Milton (Welter)
Male human, 19 years, 9 months
Specialist Battler
Level: 5 (8000 XP needed)
139/175 stamina (+25 per hour)
0 unallocated skill point
XP: 3390 + 2462
STR: 18 (1871 XP needed)
Slam (41)
Double Tap (41)
AUT: 14
AGI: 17 (263 XP needed)
Intercept (56)
PER: 14
DEX: 14
EMP: 16 (1603 XP needed)
Optimal Strike (37)
The regeneration was too high for the Strength. In fact, once he’d checked, everyone’s regeneration was off. Peter, Laura, and Johanna, all got about 40% more per hour.
He wished now he’d been more obsessed about checking statuses. He’d learned over the weeks to simply observe, and go with the flow of their daily lives. It wasn’t as if he could change anything about XP earnings, so there was little point unless things happened – like the fight against those soldiers. But if he had, he might have seen exactly when the regeneration started rising.
That fact belied what he’d dismissed as a mere “modern” superstition. There really was something special about where they were, and it provided them with extra resources, in the form of that accelerated regeneration. Might as well call it a mana “gas”.
The trees were growing more clustered, and they finally took a small break, picking a small breakfast, before restarting. Johanna saw no other signs of pursuit, and each mile into the Golden Heights made them simultaneously safer and more exposed.
Now that the day had begun, and the wan November sun was shining, the weird magical feeling from the small luminous bushes was gone. Save for the color of their leaves and the shape of those, it was more normal. By comparison, the trees were a bit weird.
For one, they were almost all of the exact same height. Rectilinear bare trunks reached up, with a handful of branches at the top. The leaves on those were in clumps, dark green under the slanting sunlight.
It didn’t take long before she spotted a splash of light.
“Mana blanket to the left,” she called out.
“What does it look like,” Tom asked.
“Not too much. Maybe two dozen yards in diameter. Funny, the trees in it aren’t conducting the mana. It’s not like the ruins, where it followed the walls and buildings.”
Then she spotted Laura picking up one of the few berries from the bushes. Before she could say anything, her friend put it in her mouth.
“It’s weirdly sweet,” she commented.
“What are you thinking?” Johanna asked.
“I’m trying. Since we got run out of Anasta, I never get hangovers. Or anything similar. Beer and that spirit thing we had at the wedding… I enjoy. They work out fine. It’s the consequences that don’t affect me. Or Peter.”
“Or us.”
“Well, when you ask. So, I’m wondering… if I can cure whatever those berries do, maybe we can eat them. Anything to supplement rations can help.”
“We only need to make it to the frontier. And besides… your heals got better… your gaze is still there. You probably lost that skill to make room for the instant transport.”
“Oh.”
“Yea. If it fails, you’re going to have to stop to go behind the bushes all the time. That’s what every veteran said. Very few of the things from mana zones are edible. Even dogs know better than eat changed meat,” Johanna objected.
“Well, I’ll stop there. And pray. Like a good saint should.”
“Stop taking risks like that, that’s all I ask.”
“Thanks for warning me.”
“That’s my job. Used to be, rather.”
“Still is,” Tom replied.
With light and the sun climbing, sounds had started. Bird noises were almost familiar. Johanna didn’t know if she was finding them slightly weird because they actually were, or just because of where they were.
Peter pointed to the north of their path. She looked and startled.
The furred shape, elongated legs, and the horn were unmistakable. That was a Lepus up there.
But rather than swarming with his comrades, the single Lepus was more focused on a bush. The Changed beast was grabbing leaves – and probably berries, although they didn’t look like they were its priority – stripping the bush of the fern-like cover, letting bare branches remain there.
“We avoid it,” Peter whispered and Johanna nodded in confirmation.
As they passed, the beast paused. She was quite certain it had noticed them. And, as a confirmation, it turned its head, casting a sideways glance. Then it moved until it was behind the bush, turning to face them.
Then, as she watched, it started to nibble again. More slowly. More carefully.
More deliberately???
They didn’t do anything to provoke a further reaction from the beast. After all, there wasn’t anything to gain by antagonizing it. The further they went, the better.
Moore watched them progress in the wilds. The presence of the Lepus startled him, but the single level 2 beast was not very dangerous. A bundle of free XP, maybe. Although he wasn’t sure they’d spotted it, the Level 4 Prime Thunder Corvid up in the branches, very obviously looking down at them, was more of a worry. He didn’t know what the Prime qualifier hid, but he wasn’t specifically anxious to figure out what it meant, even with a level 4 versus a level 5 team.
The regeneration factor held steady at around +40%.