A draft doesn’t produce the people we need.

Pre-Fall politician.

When Johanna arrived back at the Executive House with Wexler, she found Ulrich waiting for them in the entrance hall, along with a familiar figure.

“Hey, Julian!”

Wexler looked at her oddly.

“Julian Kartmann, a former scavenger colleague of Ulrich. And a level 8 Contender. He was along with us on Washington,” she introduced him.

“I should expect all sorts of Talented to pop out of the woodwork with you around,” Wexler half-laughed.

“Gomez said we probably had about a third of all Talents in the entire Union within New Sandusky. Just more concentrated. But when you can provide Talents… things change.”

“Then let’s channel this change. Because we must… What does a Contender do, by the way?”

“It’s a bit of a strange specialization. It enhances a lot of Talents that go into other specializations. But what is important…”

“… is that I can directly perceive peoples’ levels,” the minotaur completed.

“You mentioned those,” Wexler remembered. “That lets you have more Talents, right?”

“Among other things. It determines which Talents, which specializations you have access to, and how many Talents you can pick. It’s mostly… based on life experiences.

“We think,” she added. She had had a direct view of experience while exchanged with Moore, and she’d seen directly Tom’s total jump up as the Warden’s goons had fled. She had debated with Gomez about the source of levels during the expedition. While she didn’t know the exact rules governing access to levels, she thought ‘life experiences’ was a simple enough explanation, although the underlying system that governed Talents clearly favored conflict for some reason.

“So you can help them work,” Wexler surmised.

“Well, my wife will put her hoof on it, but as I live in Vernon, I can go and help and be home at the end of the day.”

“Hoof? You don’t have hooves. Or do the women…” Peter said.

“Shh, it’s traditional. Besides, if she hits my ass with her foot, you can’t tell the difference,” Kartmann replied.

The six of them waited in the Executive’s antechamber while Wexler went on to talk with his office staff.

“What happened after you left us at Cheat?” Johanna asked.

“I told all to Ulrich when he arrived home and said that the prof had gone missing. Everything was fine right until we arrived in Nashville. He went straight to his academy, I think, along with his crates of books for them. He didn’t even go home first. It was early in the day, so I took the long way around the lake, spent the night at the west shore at the station, where I waited for the train. And then four days later, I was home.”

“So, how did the Adjutant learn about the parchments?”

“You ask me? No idea,” Karmann shrugged.

Rather than the Executive’s office, they were finally ushered into a larger meeting room, where half a dozen people were already there. Johanna recognized Katia immediately, and at least two of the men were in what she guessed was the uniform of Independence State Army.

“Those are the four?” the man she was chatting with asked.

“The ones you were trying to track in Yellowstone, yes,” Katia half-laughed.

“Johanna, may I introduce you to Robert Henley, the head of the intelligence service. He’s the guy keeping tabs on what people outside of the State do… which included ‘some people’ deserting from Montana’s army after having found some odd skeleton back west.”

Johanna shook his hand.

“We had a report about you four taking refuge among scavengers in the Yellowstone,” the man explained.

“Katia mentioned that, yes. That was Coby’s place. Another deserter and former scavenger – he had registered residence in the Montana because they were exploiting the same ruins as we did. Only to be taken in the draft, just like we did.”

“The Warden has expanded the draft. After you deserted, the tribals started to throw everything they could into the offensive, possibly because they feared you’d be coming back.”

The Executive finished whatever he’d been telling the two military men and moved to the head of the large table, prompting instantly everyone to follow and grab a chair. There was no obvious seating arrangement, so Johanna simply sat, Tom at her side, and looked at Wexler, who was waiting for everyone to sit.

“I am assuming this will be only the first of several meetings. But we are having a bit of a pickle. No, scratch that. A big pickle. Like the Fourth War of Unification.”

“Surely that’s a bit of an exaggeration?” one of the soldiers asked.

“I wish. Robert?”

On the Executive’s prompt, the spymaster stood up and started outlining something that Johanna was familiar with. Namely, last year’s mobilization and their incorporation – or rather, Laura’s, as Falter had been deemed the Talent most suitable for a battlefield, with them as bodyguards – into the army.

“That was a surprise to everyone,” she corrected him as he spoke of the fire ‘artillery’ that had disrupted the battle. “Including myself.”

The two generals threw surprised looks at her. She realized only the spymaster had been warned who they actually were.

Henley went on to detail the fact that they’d found out about the Skeleton. She had let out enough hints to Elena Worchester for the Sorceress of the Mists to figure out the origins of their anomalous Talents. She realized they might even have dug out information from their families.

Then she learned that the Warden’s people had tried to move it. The fact that Moore’s Ancient bones basically blasted people apart if they were not careful enough was a moment of cold sweat.

Thankfully, we did not try to disturb him. Or maybe he put those defenses in place once he got our choices, as he says.

“It turns out we were looking at the wrong place and worrying about the wrong thing,” Henley concluded.

Johanna steeled herself for questions, but the spymaster turned to Katia.

“Undersecretary Michaelson?”

“Thanks.”

Katia shuffled a few papers without looking at them before starting.

“We began to suspect something when, a few weeks ago, we got a message from the city of Cheat, where a hitherto unknown Changed species established contact, following up an expedition to Washington, DC, on the East Coast.”

Wait, what?

The fact that a group of tiny Changed had followed them to the Library of Congress and discovered about parchments was a massive surprise. They’d never seen them, but then no one had suspected there might be people still living in the gigantic mana zone that covered everything from the Appalachians down to the coast itself.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

And they were asking for help because they were simply surviving, not living.

That’s what I wanted the Talent House for. Not quite, but…

Katia’s presentation was winding down. Johanna was quite happy. By now, she was getting slightly tired of explaining the circumstances leading to their current predicament yet again. And the Undersecretary was doing a better job summarizing all that for the newcomers.

“I can see why you’re talking about the Fourth War,” one of the two generals finally said.

“Mr. Sengfield said we could face up to 3000 Talented troops. The Warden may have more Talents available, but that’s the core of his army. His veterans, despite the losses, should be enough for that.”

“Well, not to be disparaging, Executive Wexler, but the standing army of Independence is a bit below those numbers. And they are certainly not to the standard of an army that has fought in that tribal conflict and has Talents.”

“Well, we are going to remedy at least to the second, aren’t we?” Wexler answered, looking at Johanna.

It was Ulrich who took over.

“We have an expedition already being sent to the East Coast. There is a place with millions of Ancient Books remaining. That’s where we made the parchments that the Warden’s agents got,” he explained.

“Why the East Coast? There must be plenty of books dating back to the Fall around?”

“But in large enough quantities to matter?” Ulrich countered.

“There were a lot of major libraries back then…”

“They were all in Ancient mega-cities, and all those turned into death traps and mana zones. The only one we are sure exists and is relatively intact is the Library of Congress, and that is because the Ancient pointed it to Johanna. I only assume it is actually the best prospect.”

“And until then?”

“Well, we’ll have to do with what we’re given.”

The military compound was just outside Vernon, next to the outermost wall. Johanna felt immediately compelled to compare it to the army barracks in New Benton. Even though they’d only been there once, mostly training within the Warden’s castle, where the military command was headquartered, she could tell it was slightly smaller, but only slightly.

The big difference was that it wasn’t the central army compound, like in the Marches of the Montana. Instead, it was the only major military compound. If what the generals in the conference had told her was true, then it represented something like 70% of the State’s military strength.

And it didn’t look like it had thousands of soldiers. Maybe twelve hundred, tops.

At least they looked like true professionals, she thought as they crossed the barracks area to head into the base commander’s quarters. The barracks in New Benton had been half-filled with people grabbed during the first waves of the draft, like the ones from Valetta. Here, people seemed to work everywhere, looked like they knew what they were doing and why, and she’d spotted training sessions on square fields. She could even hear the sound of a smithy, probably fixing damaged weapons during those training sessions.

Kartmann was peering back and forth. Just before they entered the commander’s building, he whispered back to her.

“Nothing above six. And even then, it’s only one guy,” he replied.

“Means less in terms of effective potential, but still.”

Quality, not quantity, she thought. It was going to be complicated.

Then, she steeled herself for yet another meeting. She could tell it was going to be her near future. Meeting upon meeting. And here she thought the meetings for setting up the Talent House were bad.

“So, until we get those books, all we have are generalities.”

“I have a bunch of books, but that’s good enough for demonstration only,” Johanna replied.

“What bothers me is this… specialization bit. Specializations within the army, I understand, but that’s a bit extreme,” one of the generals said.

“If you don’t really care about further progression, you have more leeway in how each person will be shaped. You can force qualities to any given level, but that requires a lot of parchments. The Ancient specifically said he’d push for quality, which I take to mean that, say, each Fixer will have different Talents. There is a minimum core that you can probably count on, but I can’t guarantee every one of them gets First Aid.”

“And you say that is the most important of your Talent set?”

“So far, we think so,” Laura answered for her.

“There are other Talents that might be applicable, based on the names, like Trauma or Treat, but they’re all very high-level and demanding, and we have no one who knows about these. But that’s moot; Moore, of course, knows what each Talent does. And besides, all Fixer specializations have at least a basic proficiency in various ways of healing people in the field. Well, almost all.”

“Almost?”

“When Moore made a Talent set for the Undersecretary, he didn’t include healing. She didn’t need that,” Johanna said.

“It feels so… arbitrary,” another officer said.

“Not everyone has easy access to everything. You have to work around it.”

“You spoke a demonstration. Can we arrange for one?”

Even with the Executive’s sanction, Johanna could tell the army’s staff was still dubitative about the perspective of Talents.

“Yes, but as I said earlier, each time we consume part of the books. I have some at the Executive mansion, and that’s enough for two, maybe three people.”

“Do they have to be your books?”

“Well, it must be Ancient books. Anything that was made prior to the Fall and is still reasonably intact.”

The other officers all turned as one toward one general, and Johanna blinked.

“I don’t have that many originals…” he started defensively.

“And they’re going to be burned or something?”

“Converted,” Johanna said, contemplating the stack of books.

General Finley Sharpe was a fan of old-time military books. He had a large and extensive collection of all sorts of editions, but he also had over fifteen original Ancient books. Most of them were small and thin, though. She guessed military treatises did not wander around the bush like a good fantasy series and went straight to the exposé instead. The only thing that broke the mold was titled The Campaigns of Alexander, and she briefly wondered who Alexander was.

“Well… I hope the executive will reimburse me… I will have to purchase those in reprints, I presume,” General Sharpe suddenly realized.

“If Ancient books can be converted into Talents, there is no way they’ll stay in circulation,” his colleague noted.

“So, who wants to…” Johanna asked.

“Soldiers. As tempting as it is for me to get Talents somehow, we need to start the ball rolling until you have your stock delivered.”

Johanna nodded, and the officer elaborated.

“You said one factor in the Warden’s agents failing was improper training. We’ll need you to train some soldiers in how to use Talents best, and they’ll train the rest once we get those Talents, and so on.”

“Back when we were drafted, they assumed we’d know how to use what we had. They just brainstormed on their own how to apply the force best.”

She was forced to admit, “They also had better ideas than me. Thinking of Laura as a Saint made me skip over her offensive capacities… which I think we will have to demonstrate. Elena knew better then, and I’ve learned more. We’ve learned more.”

An hour later, the four of them along with Kartmann and Ulrich were back in the conference room, with the table moved slightly aside, and twenty soldiers lined up.

“That’s one of our sections. All veterans, some of them even went to assist the Marches of the South. There’s usually sometimes minor scuffles flaring along the border with Aztlan, and they helped on skirmishes there.”

Johanna looked at Kartmann, who nodded back before she turned back to address the troopers.

“Kartmann will basically sort you into potential Talent pool order. As we have only a limited pick, we can’t get Talents for everyone. We should be able to make a full squad, but that’s going to be seen. Julian?”

The minotaur announced, “No sixes, but four fives. Only one three; the rest are all at four.”

“Whatever that means,” she heard one of the soldiers mutter.

“Basically, it means four of you are possibly slightly ahead in terms of possible Talents. We’ll do you four first, then.”

The four identified as level five lined up, and she simply shook the hand of the first before he sat in front of her. She remembered that Moore’s view only included the level and specialization, but apparently, once she touched someone, he could know enough to do more. She then placed her hand on one of the largest volumes.

As usual, everyone goggled when the lights started to swirl from the book through her hand.

Moore had still in mind the drafted plans the military had gone over for making squads on their blackboard. Unsurprisingly, it matched balanced adventurer teams: a pair of frontline melee fighters, three range, and one heal. They hoped to repeat the pattern into a larger formation. Unfortunately, he could tell this was going to be harder to achieve the exact ratio. But since it was about raising troops for the upcoming war, he could work around that, squeeze what he could out of each candidate.

The first soldier was trivially easy. He could even have raised him to level 7, if he did not have to improve all stats as well.

Hugo Alexander Phillips

Male human, 29 years, 3 months

Unspecialized (corporal)

Level: 5 (8,000 XP needed)

5 unallocated skill points

XP: 22,891

STR: 16

AUT: 18 (3000 XP needed)

AGI: 15

PER: 15 (2000 XP needed)

DEX: 15

EMP: 15

“Welcome to the rank of Sorcerers, Metal Shaper Phillips,” Johanna said when the conversion concluded.

Ulrich silently pushed the finalized record sheet to the officers, who had been looking very curiously.

“One of our highest levels has a lot of those. Metal Skin is defensive, while…”

The general raised his hand to interrupt him.

“Later. When we’ve got that squad going.”

“So, five people total.”

“Your books were not enough for more,” Johanna replied. “Still, that’s good. All of them to level 6, but five Talents. With a Combat Fixer, even. That’s a solid core.”

The officer looked at the remnants of his book collection.

“Can you rebind…?”

“It doesn’t work. We tried it, and it didn’t work, even by picking intact pages. It’s like a book that is not in a good enough shape, Moore can’t use those. The biggest difference is re-backed books; those work as long as the original pages are still together, possibly with the original binding. What next?”

“Next, you start training those five in how to use those Talents.”

“Until the expedition brings more, that’s all we have to start.”