“So, what do you think? Ol’ Henri often said that knowing is half the battle, so I figured that if we could take a good guess at the identities of the other demon [Champions] we might be able to interpolate some ideas on what they are capable of and the sort of skills they’re likely to learn in the future,” said Alissa to Ethan and Joshua.
The three were gathered together – which was a rarity as Joshua mostly kept to himself – since the topic of discussion was something only they, as fellow summoned otherworldlers, could likely contribute to. Alissa had gathered what intelligence the Kingdom had on the other three demon [Champions], and shared them with the other two.
When she had asked Sirs Inolet and Marsten the day before whether it would be useful to know who the other demon [Champions], or rather, [Great Champions], and predict what they would likely be capable of in the future from their identities, both old knights had given their approval. Apparently some [Heroes] in the past had done that as well, but it was not always a feasible thing to do. Sometimes the [Heroes] had simply never heard of their enemies before.
Nothing to be done when that was the case, unfortunately.
“Not a bad idea, honestly. I think we should start with the obvious one, namely the one we just fought a week ago,” said Joshua, who seemed to be in a less taciturn and more cooperative mood that day. It was a fortunate thing as most of the time he kept to himself and only really talked with his teacher, Magus Drummond, and Vesta. “Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.”
“Her skills definitely took some inspiration from that, yeah. Those undead things she made use of were clearly patchwork ones made by combining more than one body together,” added Ethan to the discussion. “Some of her other skills are pretty classical for the necromancer type too, buffing her undead, debuffs, and even that explosion one. I’d guess she’d be pretty typical of the type, maybe with more emphasis on the creatures she built.”
“Considering how weak she herself seems to be in actual fighting, I find that a likely case, yeah. Definitely a case where killing her would probably neutralize her undead, though we didn’t have a chance to test that last fight,” noted Alissa. To their side, Moira and Bronwen were present and took notes of the discussion, as any potential intelligence they could glean from the talk might be of use to the strategists and tacticians of the Kingdom. “Will have to test that next time, though her creatures seemed to be pretty vigilant against ambushes.”
“More confirmation that she herself is weak in a fight, I feel,” suggested Joshua. “If she herself is a powerful combatant as well, she wouldn’t need to be as vigilant as she would be able to beat back ambushers on her own. She clearly was unable to do that and relied almost completely on her undead when we struck her back then.”
“Good point. Anything else to add about her?”
“Her corpse explosion skill likely can only affect the undead that’s still… active, for the lack of a better word,” replied Ethan. “One of them was put down shortly before she pulled it off and the corpse was close to where I was. It was damaged from the explosion but didn’t explode with the rest, so putting her undead down would likely neuter that skill.”
“Very good observation there. Please keep note of that,” said Alissa to the two noting down their words at the side.
“Also got to keep in mind that she didn’t do it in the last fight, but what if she made use of those undead as… well… suicide bombers? We’d be pretty hard-pressed to stop that, as it’d take some skills even from us to put one down quickly,” Ethan added after some thought. “Not sure if she just didn’t think of it or had other reasons why she didn’t do so.”
“Another worry to tack on the list, I guess,” noted Alissa with a sigh. “Unless any of you got more to add about her, what guesses do you have on the others?”
“I don’t think we have anywhere near enough information to even make an educated guess about the identity of two of them as of yet,” answered Joshua in a rare thoughtful look. “What information we received so far has been too general in nature. It does little in helping narrow down the options simply because there are far too many possibilities that fall under that umbrella.”
“I get what Smith is saying,” affirmed Ethan. “Take the craftsman one for example. The books we found on past [Great Heroes] indicated that they’re often summoned from different time periods, so I think it’s safe to assume that the [Great Champions] would work the same way. Because of that just because we found out who one of them is, it doesn’t help narrow things down for the others.”
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“Neither are they summoned from the same place. In fact all the records I’ve read indicated that most of the time all four [Heroes] were people that have never interacted with one another in their life, often due to being from very different times and places,” said Alissa as she completed what Ethan had to say. “That does help narrow it down somewhat, in that we can exclude possibilities from around 18th to 19th century England, but that’s about it.”
“What clues we have on the craftsman are far too vague. They could be just about anyone, with far too many people fitting the criteria. All we know for certain is that they are capable of producing artifacts in some way,” said Joshua analytically. “There are many famous craftsman and artisans from history, so what we know is far too little information to go on.”
“Fair point,” admitted Alissa.
“Same goes for the general-type one,” said Ethan. “All we know is that their skills improve their people’s morale greatly and they seem to specialize in large-scale buffs. Since there had been no mention of them leading from the front, I am inclined to think that they might be from a period of history closer to our time, since generals leading from the back were more common then.”
“Greene made a good point. Other than that, we still know too little. Again, it’s a case of there being far too many possibilities on who this one could be. Many generals from history were known to be good orators or motivators to their soldiers, so it could be any of them,” added Joshua. “What he mentioned about not leading from the front also makes sense. That’s something you see done mostly in older times.”
“Guess that’s that on those two for the time being then,” conceded Alissa who also felt that they had far too little to go on when it came to guessing the identities of those two [Great Champions]. “What do you all think about the other one? The one who led charges from the front?”
“Several points of facts come to mind about him,” said Ethan quickly. “For one, that habit of leading charges from the front could likely be seen as the reverse of my previous point. It could indicate someone who came from the older part of history, when such a practice was still relatively commonly seen in battles and wars.”
“On top of that, you said that Sir Inolet informed you that he led his troops in a bout of hit and run attacks, pulling off mobile warfare tricks with expertise, didn’t you?” asked Ethan, to which Alissa replied with a nod. “That sort of mobile warfare would be hard to pull off using infantry, while the ability to arrange for thousands of cavalrymen to pull it off flawlessly couldn’t have come easy.”
“He’s also supposedly skilled with both the sword and the bow, on top of being a very skilled rider himself, wasn’t he?” added Joshua as he caught on to where Ethan was leading the conversation. “Not too many cultures in history practice mobile warfare while being skilled riders who use both melee and ranged weapons skillfully. That helps narrow it down quite a bit.”
“That it does. I have my own guesses about that one. We don’t know enough to guess the exact person but knowing more about them would help us formulate proper responses I think,” said Alissa. “Want to bet on where our mystery [Great Champions] likely hailed from? I’m guessing they might be related to the Mongol hordes, probably Genghis Khan’s era.”
“That’s the safe bet and you know it, Allie,” mocked Ethan half-heartedly. “I’m not too certain on that, though. Whatever decided who gets summoned already kinda threw us a curveball with Mary Shelley of all people, so I’m gonna bet that it’ll be people from elsewhere. I say they’re from Attila the Hun’s horde of warriors.”
“Both of you are just picking the easy guesses,” complained Joshua with a sneer. “That said, what Greene said makes sense. So I’m placing my bet that it’s some native american instead. All records agreed that they too were skilled with such tactics and were great mounted archers.”
“Bold,” admitted Ethan reluctantly.
“What matters now is what can we do with this information?” asked Joshua.
“I’m going to have them pass on one copy to Sirs Inolet and Marsten for them to peruse, of course,” said Alissa as she pointed to Moira and Bronwen who were rapidly writing down what they had said so far – not an easy feat using a quill – while remaining silent on the side. “We should add in everything we know about the civilization from our guesses in case it could help them out in making countermeasures. They should know better what to do than us in this sort of thing.”
“Yeah, they didn’t exactly teach us that much about commanding soldiers on a larger scale and the like. Allie had it right in that they’d be able to come up with countermeasures better than any of us could,” admitted Ethan. Most of the things they had been taught were either fighting skills or how to work in small units, with little to no lessons on larger scale tactics.
It seemed that the locals were not too keen about the summoned [Heroes] subsuming their military and all. That said, the demons seemed far more willing to give their summoned [Champions] free reign and even command over their forces, if the reports that two of the [Great Champions] being in direct command of the armies they led were correct.
All three of them then listed out everything they could recall about the cultures they guessed the [Great Champions] might be from. Anything that they thought might be helpful, they listed it. Even minor trivia like the lifestyles of people from said cultures – or at least what little bits the three knew from what they read or watched in their previous world – were listed to be scribbled down.
None of them were certain how much what they had guessed would be of use, but Sir Inolet and Sir Marsten had informed Alissa that every little bit she could offer might be of use. Alissa had to admit that while she still held many doubts about the Kingdom and their cause as a whole, she couldn’t help but feel some attachment to some people.
Like to some of her party members – namely Nadine, Maribel, and Moira, all of whom seemed to genuinely intend to befriend her not because she was a summoned [Hero], but for just being herself – or Sir Inolet, who while a harsh teacher, seemed to actually care for her and Ethan quite a bit in a way that might be considered grandfatherly.
Even if she were to discover that the Kingdom had lied to her and the others in the future, she had a feeling that those who were genuine to her might not have been involved, and might even listen to her.
Either that or they were all the best actors Alissa had ever seen in her life.