“Always plan what you’re going to do in five years when you set out to complete a one-year project.”
-Famous quote of the ‘Stone Magus,’ creator of Mount Averus’ now-unmoving inner fortress
*=====*
The Kharon pulled out of the mod dock and began to slide its way northwards. Fara stood beside Mori, checking various gauges beside the two levers that controlled the skiff, “Output is stable… speed is stable… steering is fully connected… Everything looks fine!” she proudly said, “Ah, this is great! I was worried that the skiff wouldn’t work for a bit.”
Mori glanced over her shoulder to her masked friend, “So you’re saying that you didn’t know if it would work? Fara…”
“Hey, don’t give me that look!” she said, “I knew it would work; I was just a bit worried it wouldn’t for a bit. Maybe some variable I hadn’t considered. Like weight distribution or the like. But now that we’re out here, I have a good feeling about this!” she laughed.
Mori smiled, “You’re pretty excited,” she observed, steering the Kharon to the side to avoid another skiff, “This is hardly a flying fortress; save some enthusiasm for when we make something like that.”
Fara waved a hand, flipping a few switches, “I have plenty of enthusiasm to spare. For now though, we need to get to the north gate. Before the mercs or hunters do, anyway.”
Mori rolled her eye-flames in a dramatic manner, “I still don’t get why we’re leaving the city from the north; I mean, why not leave from the east? Maybe even the south, if not the east.” she ranted, “Fara, you’re smart with this sort of stuff; why do you think they’re doing this stuff?”
Fara turned, “Politics,” she said simply. Mori let out a long, low groan, met by Fara’s laughter, “Oh, don’t be like that. It’s because of politics we’re even going to be part of the command structure in the first place.”
Mori groaned again, “I get that, but who the hell are they politicking? Our allies that we’re going to be fighting with for the good of the world at large? Just thinking about it makes me feel a chill.”
“From what?” Fara asked.
“From the idea that we can’t trust our allies,” Mori responded, “I mean, I’ve never had the experience, having to be wary of my own friends and allies. We’re pretty much loyal to each other to a fault, Zubov can’t be assed to pull off a big betrayal, my undead are literally loyal to me to a fault, and we’ve only worked with people who had more to gain by working with us than against us, like Norta and Mokan. I guess it’s just… a new experience that I don’t want to deal with,” she said wistfully as they continued on their way.
Fara sighed, stepping away from her console of switches and buttons and giving Mori a short hug, “Mori, don't worry about that. If worse comes to worst, you’re a lich, queen of the dead.”
Mori chuckled, “I think @!_!$_*** is the one who’s the queen of the dead, but that’s beside the point,” she said, “Though, she’s more a Persephone than a Hel, but-”
“Never change, Mori,” Fara laughed as she pulled away from a pouting Mori, “Either way, the ones Green Oasis is trying to snub is Gribnik,” Fara explained. Mori showed a curious expression, prompting Fara to continue, “The guys from Gribnik are… not very nice. They’re a chock full of nobles, poor peasants, and other stupid shit. They’re probably the largest of the fleets coming, but they’re also the most poorly trained and supplied. The marshal of their fleet will almost certainly be a cutthroat noble that’ll throw us and his whole fleet to the Clockworks if it nets him a personal gain.
“Believe it or not, Green Oasis is taking the easier problem to deal with; Mount Averus is traveling with Nolus and their Affex allies. Have I told you about Nolus?”
Mori shook her head, “Nope. I heard Zubov complain about them being snakes or something, but that was it.”
“Fair enough assessment,” Fara snorted, “The city is basically all organized crime, with their actual ‘government’ just being a glorified foreign affairs department. Because of that, the ‘fleet’ Nolus will send won’t be anything more than a loose confederacy of gangsters, thieves, and pirates. Affex, well both of them, aren’t much better. The two of them have been locked in a civil war for… the last few hundred years? Their skiffers are just as savage as Gribnik’s nobles.”
“I see…” Mori said, nodding, “But what about the last one? The one with the kinda russian name? Um…”
“Nikolan?”
“That one! Are they being escorted by anyone?” Mori had not known about most of the Vast Dust beyond the confines of Green Oasis, so finding out more was interesting.
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“Oh, them. They’re not bad at all. A bit isolationist, but more in a ‘I want to be left alone’ way than a ‘everyone else is uncivilized and savage’ way. They are probably some of the best architects in the entire Vast. They built a giant wall, spanning over five hundred miles of barren desert, that funnels all trade and travel into a series of two dozen gates. They’re also almost on par with Mount Averus in terms of magic, but only in siegecraft magic; fortifications, siege engines, anything to get over or around a wall.”
“So we have a bunch of snooty nobles, a fleet of crooks, a gang of scholars, a lot of pseudo-dwarves, and a group of bureaucratic orcs-”
“More violence-regulating orcs, but yeah.”
“And they’re all going to the same place to fight a hive of killer robots that want to eradicate all sentient life that lives on the planet?”
Fara pursed her lips, “Sounds about right.”
Mori grinned, “Gods, I love this world,” she said to the sky.
“I’m with you. Come on, that’s the fleet over there,” Fara said, pointing at a congregation of skiffs at the far edge of their vision. The fleet was large, bigger than Mori had ever seen before. Easily over a hundred steel Green Oasis military skiffs sat at the front of the convoy, cannons lined all across the sides of every one. Most cannons, though, were closer to what Mori would consider World War One era artillery, something the Kharon was behind on with their solid-iron cannon balls and simple lever-action rifles on the turrets. Hundreds of orcs filled the decks, working and training as the skiffs sat waiting.
Behind the military armada, a small but nonetheless growing crowd of hunter and mercenary skiffs waited, a bit of distance between them and the military skiffs. Skiffs of all shapes, sizes, designs, and armament were part of the group, from small sloops to massive warships crewed by anything from small, goblin-like creatures to massive, short-haired minotaurs.
Flanking the volunteer fleet from both sides were small contingents of supply skiffs, all lined up with orderly efficiency. Beside the orderly supply skiffs were groups of skiffs, all flying two banners. One was a red skull on a black background and another was of a lute. Mori pointed to the flags, “Fara, what’re those flags mean? Are the skeleton flags pirates?”
The woman squinted a bit and, despite the skiff groups being a bit too far for most to see, she nodded, “Huh. I didn’t think the necromancer’s or the bard’s guilds would join so openly. That’s nice,” she said, much to Mori’s shock.
“Woah woah wait wait, you mean to say that there’s a necromancer’s guild in the city and we could have visited them anytime we liked? Why didn’t we go there before?” Mori asked.
Fara waved the notion off, “We didn’t go there because of the fact that no-one knows where ‘there’ is. They keep to themselves, Mori. Even if they wanted to invite you besides that, they would need to test you before you could visit. No matter if you’re a lich, human, or other, they follow the rules they make everyone else play by. It’s fair, but also pretty annoying when no-one can get their help when dealing with the wild liches. You know, the ones that butcher towns on an everlasting crusade against the living? Those ones.”
Mori nodded, slowing the Kharon’s approach and aiming to join the military contingent from behind, “Fair enough, then. Besides that, I doubt they believed any news about a lich like me-”
“A goofy, peppy, unserious lich who only cares about doing the right thing.”
“I object to a few of those, but either way my point stands.”
Fara nodded and went back to work on her console, the thrill of her new skiff leaving port evidently fading as the slightly displeased expression she had shown for a while returned. The only time she changed her expression was when she looked at Mori, which was both flattering and worrying for different reasons. Mori aimed her skiff to be between the two main contingents and slid to a halt as she reached the center. Just as she stepped back from the levers, a loud, almost deafening horn erupted from the military skiff and they began moving forward as one. With her quick reactions, Mori was able to move with the military skiffs as they moved beyond the confines of the outer wall.
Behind them, scores of other skiffs followed, creating a river of sliding metal and wood through the desert. Mori turned to Fara as she leaned against the console with a smile, “Hey, this is going to be a long journey, right?”
“Of course it will be. A week at least, a bit more for the detour. Luckily, I heard a rumor that Nikolan has a small detachment guarding against Clockwork intrusion. Why?” Fara asked, “Are you making a plan or something?”
Mori wibbled her hand, “Kind of. I’m thinking of what I need to do to try to become the most powerful before we get there. My idea, right now, is to figure out a way to make my little project from before work, then to get working on our regenerating mecha project. I think we need a cool name for them, too. Something tough and edgy, but also brutalist and practical. Like battlegraves or warcaskets.”
Fara rapidly shook her head at the last suggestion, “Not that last one; those are pretty much permanent suits of armor used by convict soldiers in Gribnik. They’re heinous, disgusting things that turn a person into little more than a warbot.”
“So no warcaskets then. If not that, then something a bit more on the nose?”
Fara shook her head, “Try to make it work first. Then you can name them. But if we’re going to start thinking of things we need to do, then the first thing I need to do is start using my new Trait.”
Mori nodded, smiling at Fara as she continued to steer the skiff. ‘A dawn of war rises. Crosses grow in the sand. Yet, we never change.’ Mori laughed to herself, ‘A bit poetic, huh? Whatever. We’ll win.’