Together with the Shadow Talons, Hera and her team crossed the doorway that was located beyond a small tunnel in the cave. However, they didn’t do that right away after killing the monsters. Instead, they took around one hour to harvest any useful materials from the creatures, like the frozen tusks of the patriarch, and push the bodies out of the cave. If they didn’t, the meat here would attract other monsters that could decide to use this place as their own nest. Korrin was the one who insisted on tossing the bodies down the mountain, arguing that even if nothing bad happened, they would be leaving a cave that eventually would be filled with putrid, disease infested corpses for the next group that ended up here. He wasn’t able to convince the entire group about that, but won by sheer insistence.
Still, it wasn’t exactly hard work. Using the Sleyti Patriarch’s body as a giant shovel, they just pushed most of the other bodies out of the cave, letting them fall to the bottom of the mountain. During that time, the teams just had some small talk. Questions about what they liked to do, or the kind of food they enjoyed. Nothing too personal, but still enough to be on a friendly basis.
Once that was done, they crossed to the next room, ‘Mountain Blossom.’ Once more, they were near the peak of a mountain, but the weather was completely different. Instead of the cold and ruthless winds, there was a soft summer breeze that constantly cooled off the sun kissed peaks. In addition, no matter where they looked, recently blossomed flowers in various types, sizes, and colors covered the mountains.
The two teams slowly climbed down the peaks while keeping the conversation to a minimum since their voices echoed in this height. Not wanting to be alone, even if the monsters that existed here would drop to level 40, Vash and Syrinx decided against flying ahead. Which was also the best option to avoid being detected by anyone who could be here. Right now, they were still in neutral territory. A room that neither the humans nor the Alliance had laid claim to. But they were close enough to the border of the human influence to potentially find some patrols.
Maintaining places like these, despite their beauty, was complicated. Here, the problem was the plants. Regardless of what was built around them, the plants would still grow. Even if someone were to burn a large area, in just a few days, they would reclaim their lost territory. The cost of maintenance was too steep, and even if there were interesting dungeons and materials to be found here, it wasn’t worth the effort of creating an outpost. Frostmare Peak had a different issue. The harsh conditions, steep incline, and aggressive monsters made any attempt at making a base there too much trouble for what it was worth. Liraelle also said that was the case for the next room they would pass by. It was called ‘Fairy Teapot.’ Everything in there was either an illusion or an attempt at deception. Even if someone were to build a house, the house they built themselves would also start to play tricks on the people inside.
Once the team was able to reach the ground, they looked for a safe place to rest. It had been a good 4 hours since they arrived here, and the Harmony Guardians still didn’t know the details of the operation. It didn’t take long for Borin to find a rock wall that he could shift to create a temporary cave for the group. Once inside, he closed most of the entrance, and Liraelle placed an illusion for anyone who was outside.
With everyone in place, Korrin passed some food for everyone before speaking, “Ok. First things first. You all are incredible! I wish I had some beer to give you a toast,” he glanced at the jerky in his hand, “Oh, screw it. Here, here!” he raised the rubbery piece of meat and took a bite out of it.
“Yeah, we are kind of awesome. You should’ve seen us during a rampage. Man, we popped off. Specially during the last day,” Vash nodded and started recounting the fight against the wendigo. However, Skyler cut him off.
“Before you go there, is it ok if we know more about the operation? We only knew that we should come here and help you. But not how we are supposed to help you.”
“Right, right. The agency is like that,” Korrin sighed.
“You just have to cause problems for the guards. We take care of the rest,” Syrinx replied.
Liraelle chuckled, “Syrinx, sweetheart. I know you are not trying to be a bitch, but you are being one.”
“Am I wrong?” the harpy huffed.
“No, but that answer really doesn’t help,” the silver-haired elf replied.
Korrin sighed, “I’ll catch you up. As usual. Honestly, I should ask for an extra pay for this,” he shook his head, “Anyway, do you want me to star with the plans for the lab, or everything that is going on?”
Skyler glanced at the rest of her group, as if asking for their opinion, and Neria was the first to reply, “Let’s start with everything. If we know the bigger picture, that might affect how we see the actual plan.”
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“Good call. But I would say that either way,” Korrin took another bite of his jerky, “There are about a dozen of different facilities that will be hit at the same time. They are somewhat close to the Verdant Labyrinth, but it would still take three or four days to get there. An in the span of two days, all the operations targeting those facilities will happen, one after the other. Some are like ours. A break in to steal something, others are rescue missions, and a couple are purely about destruction. Not gonna lie, I kind of wanted to be in one of them.”
Hearing that, Lurize frowned. Hera had called the court out as they arrived here, including Livy who had already recovered from her injuries. Storm and Pyro needed a bit of extra time. The Royal Tutor found the plan a bit strange and asked, “Why? Why are delaying the attacks? Wouldn’t it be better to do them all at once? If not, after the first, the other facilities will be on high alert.”
“That would be the case if we only had a couple of operations going on. But due to the sheer number of them, this is more likely to mess with the human’s minds. After the first attack, they won’t think we are doing another one. And if we are lucky, some of the backup that could help defend against the second attack will be routed to go help the first. Once we showed that there are more operations going on, the humans won’t know how many. Or where we will hit. That will make them scared, paranoid, and more likely to make mistakes,” Korrin continued.
“But that also means some places will have more defenses. They will have more backup, and maybe even activate some sort of emergency protocol,” Lurize pressed.
“Do you seriously think the agency didn’t consider that?” Syrinx scoffed. She was about to say something else when Liraelle gave her a look that made the harpy stop talking.
“If they do that, then those are resources not being used in a different facility. And we will know that they have something worth protecting. Also, each team has a report on the expected defenses of their targets. If the defenses go beyond a certain point. Our orders are to not engage and retreat,” Korrin continued.
“I see,” Lurize nodded, but Hera could feel he was still hesitant about this.
“The whole idea is to go for quantity over quality. With the exception of the rescue mission, that will kick everything off. All others have smaller priorities,” Liraelle explained.
“Why is that? Korrin mentioned more than one rescue mission. Is the agency saying that some people are worth more than others?” Neria stared the elf down.
“Actually yea. But not in the way you are thinking. The priority is about their situation. The first rescue is to bring back people who are being sent to one of the labs. The others are targeting war prisoners,” Liraelle continued.
“I thought the humans were not capturing anyone. Not publicly. The people they imprisoned were all going to the Spirit experiment,” Hera frowned.
“It’s a recent development. We are not killing all the humans who are at war. Some surrender, and others are just knocked out. Which means we have a lot of war prisoners, while the humans have none. They realized that they didn’t have anything to offer for those prisoners, and liking it or not, it’s bad for morale not to help them. So they started capturing us to trade for their people. We do believe that some of the prisoners they have will be going to the labs anyway, but we know for a fact that some of them are treated fairly. Well… as fair as you can be in that situation,” Liraelle started drinking her tea that was finally ready.
“I don’t know if I should say that’s a good thing or not,” Hera slumped, leaning against the wall.
“I say good? Maybe,” Nimbus sighed, “Yeah it’s complicated.”
“Now that we have the context, what about the actual plan for the operation?” Viper asked.
Korrin finished his jerky, “Right, I was getting there. First, we need to actually find the laboratory. We know that it’s in the Verdant Labyrinth, but not where exactly. But the agency told us Hera might be able to help with that.”
Hera nodded, “I have a couple of options, but they are not guaranteed. And for them to work, you need to both give me space to do what I have to, and trust me.”
“C’mon, you can share your explorer secrets with little ol’ me,” Liraelle batted her eyelashes.
“No. I can’t. If I do, I lose that ability,” Hera shot her down.
“What? How so?” Liraelle pressed.
Hera had a brief mental conversation with her court to find a good way to explain it without getting a strike. She had a feeling that the elf wouldn’t let go with the usual, ‘It’s related to my relic, and I can’t say more. But the information is correct. Trust me, bro.’
“It’s a skill that has very harsh restrictions. If I try to go against them, I will lose the skill. With that skill, I can potentially get information about the room I’m in. The information will always be correct, but it might be incomplete,” she paused, trying to figure out how to say more, but gave up, “That’s all I can say about it. I’m already too close to the restriction line and I don’t want to mess up and lose a skill we will need soon. Aside from that, my relic can also answer questions as long as I pay the mana cost. One option is to pump a truckload of mana into it and ask to mark the lab on my map. I just don’t know how much it will take for that to work. And if it doesn’t, we need to wait 2 hours for the next attempt.”
“Wait, are those two different things?” Liraelle asked.
“Yeah. I have two information gathering skills. One is better, full of restrictions but more reliable, and I can only do it once per room. Also, I can’t ask about anything personal. It has to be something about the room itself, not the things that people did to change it. The other is weaker, but I get multiple tries,” Hera explained.
“Damn, do all explorers have those kinds of things?” Liraelle was staring at the Empress.
“From what I know. If someone wants to, they can have variations of it,” Hera nodded.
“Interesting,” Liraelle smiled.
“Ok, but after that. When we actually find the lab. What are we supposed to do?” Viper asked again.
Borin stood up and walked to the center of the circle. Creating a small miniature version of the lab they were going to search for, “I’ll explain,” he said before laying out the plan.