V6: Chapter 10

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Interlude: Celia

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The skies were blackened and scarlet from the fires burning whole battlefields. Verdant fields filled with flowers and grass were now muddy expanses covered in the dead. Towns abandoned in the war between the Scholars and the Academy were now ruins with only stone buildings remaining. Across the battlefields mages dueled one another. Barriers of wind intercepting flashes of flame and lightning with tempestuous storms forged into flat panes imposed upon the world itself.

Armies of the dead clashed against one another, those employed by my people firing volley after volley into nigh-endless hordes of shambling corpses and skeletons barely equipped with clubs and rusted, broken weapons. My Necromancers and Vampires guided our Undead forces through the whole battlefield, drawing the endless hordes into positions where mages could fire, and where numbers meant nothing. The Familiar Nests used by my people struck down Harpies whenever they took to the skies, but still they contested the skies whenever we tried to move through it.

The Forgers moved as an unbreakable army across the region. Wherever they went, there was only the destruction of the enemy. They were slow, even with assistance from Jack's transports, but wherever they went their march could not be broken and they destroyed any attempt made by the enemy to create a fortified position. Their hammers fell not only upon the Undead, but also the monsters that the Death Lord called its citizenry and soldiers, and they burned and died at the gauntleted fists and hammers of the Forgers.

The Wardens were the swiftest of us and even outnumbered us. Their most zealous barely went into battle with any armor. They did not fear death, as dying would only merely return them to their capital if their body was destroyed. If their body was recovered, they could return after being given onto their priests in the backline. Sometimes, when Sirena or the High Justiciar was on the field, neither was necessary and they returned to fight another battle after dying in another. Their weapons were strong and mighty, and recoverable after death, while armor and trinkets broke and deemed largely unnecessary.

Their zeal was unmatched in battle. Death was nothing to them, and so they drove themselves into impossible battles for others and won victories most pyrrhic without blinking. They returned to fight again and again, against the fiercest of monsters, whether they were smashed apart by ogres, ripped apart by feral Beast Tribes, or torn to shreds by Undead. They strode as beautiful figures into battle, their bodies anointed and ready for death, without breaking or retreating.

More than the Forgers, I feared the Wardens, but most of all… even as we waged war unlike any other I feared Jack.

I had just returned from his side of the battle.

Where he and his nation waged war without any allies against the Death Lord.

And, while we were slowly grinding them down, the Death Lord's forces were being annihilated in his lands.

There the skies were blue and under his control, and he rained hell upon the formations of Skeletons and deployed Conquerors right atop Mages. From fortresses constructed and deconstructed within days, he set up cannons and put the enemy to siege wherever they gathered, and each one supported the other. Any attack on one could be fired upon by two others. He advanced by be leaps and bounds, his forces were highly mobile, striking deep into enemy territory, and when given chase they led their foes into the guns of fortresses.

The only reason the Death Lord's lands were not cut in half by his advance was because we could not meet him halfway and even he could not fight whilst flanked from two sides and so close to the enemy's heartland.

"Lady Adil." I was brought from my thoughts by Mallory who was fallowed by Christine. The twins were my finest Champions and they won me many battles since the Death Lord had arisen. Only Tormund could compare to them in merits. The black-plated Vampires both knelt in my presence. They were freshly returned after rotating back to rest for a month. The reprieve did them well. Both had fresh fire in their eyes. "We have returned and we have been informed on the front. Where do you have need of us?"

And, of course, the most effective operations my forces were partaking in was from him.

"We have caught sight of the lieutenants of the so-called Harpy Queen." The Death Lord defended against my teacher's people. Wraiths and other spectral entities were repelled by the Death Lord's wards. They could not pass his borders. Thus, my people were blinded by the very first move of our foe. The Wardens and Forgers had little success in gathering intelligence behind the Death Lord's lines, too. We all had to rely upon the patrols from the air sent by the King of Wisdom that surveyed the enemy's lands… but there was information coming from him that could only come from actual informants. Informants from an army composed of Undead, monsters, and the vilest of mortals. "We go to strike her down today."

"As you command, Lady Adil." Both bowed at me, and I turned to my nearest handmaiden. She nodded at the others and I raised my arms. My dress was undone and fell away. Beneath it I wore only bandages and wrappings of spider-silk darkened a deep black. They weaved and tightened it around me, keeping it close to my skin, and enclosing me within it. Then, came the chain mail, the plates, the artifacts, and more. Every layer was designed to protect my body and keep me alive. With synchronicity, they clad me in armor and protections, before two knelt and offered me my weapons. I took after the style of the Sword of Wisdom after I fought with her. A blade in one hand and a strong firearm in the other, but I augmented it with strong shades and Undead. Finally, I took my helmet from my last handmaiden. "We go to war once again."

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Was this war?

The war that I learned all my life had… pageantry.

Warriors, mages, and skilled archers dueled across the battlefield. Champions met with one another while the armies behind them listened. Warlords would be close by, waiting with their most loyal and strongest, ready to turn the tide of battle. Battles would take course over days, small skirmishes on the same plot of land again and again, until terms were brokered between two sides and victory was taken by one as the other went off to lick their wounds.

An endless cycle of violence, with beasts of war growing stronger as they tested one another and never grew complacent, which I wanted to bring to an end.

Yet, now, the war that I looked upon was that of annihilation.

People died in the thousands, monsters in the tens of thousands, and I looked upon deaths and casualties in the thousands like they meant nothing.

The war we fought now was alien to me, yet what loomed over us was going to be far, far worse.

I felt like I was stuck in the past, as the world entire walked forth into oblivion with strides I could not match.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, and found comfort in the grip of my sword and the weight of my firearm on my hip.

Such thoughts were harder to ignore whenever I met with Jack, but I could not falter.

Not now when so many people's lives hung in the balance, and there were still some things that only I could do.

"Yes, my Champions, let us wage war."

I spoke and donned my helm, finding some comfort in its narrowed vision and its confines.

Yes.

For now, I could still find a place to belong in battle.

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Interlude: Rita

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"It's done. I've discerned how they keep evading us." Morgan stated with a satisfied smile, while placing an artifact around the table we sat upon. We have pursued the Academy and its mobile base for weeks now and have not managed to get any closer to it. "The tunnels have a form of magic laced within the walls designed to prevent collisions. Space is warped and stacked atop one another. At a distance, we can see them, but the moment we arrive in their section they are effectively in another tunnel system entirely."

"So, it's not an active method on their part. They're making use of the domain created by the Ancients. Is there any way to intrude upon the realm where they stride?" I asked Morgan, and she nodded with her prideful smile growing larger. My sense of danger increased in an instant, and Ilych stood straighter. "It involves an Ancient ruin that is extremely dangerous, doesn't it?"

"Indeed, it does. In essence, we must breach a sub-control room of a massive, planet-wide transportation system that has maintained itself and its ability to warp space for countless years." Morgan produced a map from an inner pocket of her large coat and placed it on the table between us all. The Artifact she had placed earlier was the result of an earlier foray into an Ancient Ruin in the tunnel system. The defenses of the place had been fearsome automatons the size of dogs, but with the ability to skitter along the walls and kill their targets with bladed weapons. Had Ilych not borne the brunt of the initial attack, many of our retinue would've died, and she had nearly been sliced apart. "This artifact is an access token to such a place… but I'm sure that the Academy had one already, since that's the only way they could've entered another layer of the transport system."

With such an artifact, then we will not have to worry about Ancient defense systems.

I discerned who our most likely foe would be with that in mind.

"So, our foes will be the Academy's forces guarding such a place. I suppose that they need to control it to return to our layer of space, which holds the exits and entrances to the tunnel system?" The Academy was the one using the spatial manipulation feature of the location. None had ever used it before and the control room was necessary to intrude upon their isolated space. Thus, I discerned that having access to the control room in the first place was needed to enter and leave that space. "And, you've already located this area?"

"The Academy showed it to us already. I've been tracking their movements, and more importantly where they send people out to gather supplies or communicate with their forces above ground. They need to remain in contact with the control station to enter and leave their closed space without being intercepted." Morgan explained and drew a line connecting all the points where the Academy stopped, where we tried to intercept them again and again only to find them vanishing the moment, we got close. In but a few moments, Morgan created a circle with all the points and drew lines from them towards a point where all those lines met. "This point here is equally distant to all the places that they have stopped. The maximum range of a communication artifact of some sort, I believe, and thus the location of the control station that they are used to defend themselves."

"A place of this much importance will be heavily defended. This may be the place where the Academy's unaccounted Champions are." Morgan had insisted we look through the records of the Academy Champions who went missing during the Scholar War. Those whose bodies were never found, much like the Headmasters. We assumed that the ten or so individuals never found or verified dead were all with the Academy force we were now pursuing. "If they're the ones we believe that they are, then it's likely that they're commanding the remains of the Academy's elite forces. Their finest soldiers and their specialists."

"It'll most likely be heavily fortified, then. The control station itself, of course." I recalled those amongst the dead. The offensive Champions were sent to try and stop the falling city of the Scholars, while many more were sent to try and take the Scholar's lands. Many died to the Scholars after they were cut off from supplies. Others cast aside their former allegiances and turned to mercenary work with the Merchants. Those that remained who weren't dead or had new loyalties were focused on the defensive and carefully leading specialized troops. The spies, policing force, and the home guard of the Academy, in essence. "We cannot do this on our own. We'll need at least a small army to take a position held by the Champions we believe alive and their elites."

Morgan's smile didn't falter in the slightest at my words, as when I usually said the words that implied we couldn't achieve something.

Instead, it ceased to reach her eyes, which narrowed as she stared menacingly down at the map and leaned on the table propping up her chin with one arm.

With her free hand, she placed a finger on the probable location, and looked like a predator playing with her prey.

Ilych spoke for the first time.

"You wish to use the new weapon developed by our King."

"Indeed, I do. It's perfect, no? Underground position. Substance heavier than air, and it's an Ancient, civilian structure. Not a military holdout location. It'll work. It'll work very well, in fact. All we need to do is make sure that they breathe long and deep." Morgan's finger traced the tunnel system and found the nearest exits and entrances to the center. We were going to shatter them all and pump the poison that could fell Ogres and Trolls, hardy beasts that took dozens of men to take down, in seconds. "Why turn our noses up at such a wonderful tool carefully developed by our long-sighted ruler? Do you think he did something wrong by making such a weapon?"

She didn't even look up at either of us, as she knew our answer.

Ilych, much braver and stronger than I, nodded at Morgan's words.

"I'll requisition the weapon. How many shall we need?"

"I think they'll have a garrison of about four to five thousand led by ten Champions in there. About thrice the amount they use to flood a tunnel will do, I believe." The words were casual, but Morgan's smile and hum with the words made me shiver. She brushed back a strand of hair to rest behind her air, like a charmed young woman given a wonderful gift. Save for the fact the gift she was given was going to kill thousands in horrific ways. "Let's be thorough and take the place without casualties as our king desires."

Ilych nodded, and I didn't say a word.

With that the three of us consigned thousands to die drowning on their own blood.