Several teams had already reported in, and the camp was starting to fill up. More hands meant more work being done. Captain Angelton walked around, silently observing the various tasks that were being tended to. The sounds of construction felt like a march toward the civilization of this small stretch of the wilds. By tomorrow, everyone should be here, and then the real work could begin.

“Captain, I need to speak with you privately,” Sergeant Blackwood said, sounding worried.

Raising an eyebrow in surprise, the captain asked, “What’s wrong?”

Gesturing with his head, Sergeant Blackwood signaled for the captain to follow him. They made their way to a small area where no one was working, away from the center of the camp.

Captain Angelton’s height had him looking down at his longtime subordinate. “All right Sergeant, what’s the problem?” he asked.

Sergeant Blackwood sighed, and replied, “There was a plot to assassinate Lord Walker. I did w-”

The Captain took a step forward and loomed over the smaller man. “Explain. Now,” he ordered.

Grimacing in annoyance, Sergeant Blackwood said, “I was trying to. Just listen for a second. My asshole of a father apparently planned some assassination attempt in the wilds. He blackmailed me with a reassignment out of the wilds, and threatened to disinherit me if I didn’t go along with it. He had me provide the planned routes for the teams. Also, he told me to lookout for a group of three hunters, and to make sure they didn’t make it back to Dorchester if they were captured. Unfortunately, that’s all I could find out.”

Captain Angelton struggled to contain his fury, and with a tight voice he asked, “Why am I just hearing about this now?”

Scoffing, the sergeant replied, “Because you keep secrets like an amateur. I love you like a brother, but you’re not very good with the political aspects of the game.”

Reluctantly nodding, the captain said, “Fair enough. I’m assuming you had a plan, and you’re telling me now because something went wrong?”

The sergeant’s shoulders slumped, and he said, “That’s putting it mildly. When I was creating the information packets, I put something extra in Lord Walkers. I included everything I knew about the plot, and some recommendations on how he should handle it. When he didn’t say anything the morning we left Dorchester, I figured he had a plan in place, and I wasn’t needed.”

Running a hand through his hair, he sighed and continued, “But they should be here by now. I tried using the private communication crystal I was given to find out what’s happening, but my father isn’t answering. By now, the assassins should have already acted. Ideally, they’d be either dead, or captured. Now you know as much as I do.”

Captain Angelton pondered what he had just heard, and asked, “Why didn’t you just report it?”

The sergeant looked at his captain fondly and said, “Until the plot played out, I had no evidence. I needed to get my father caught in the act. Acting prematurely would just result in a slap on his wrist and my complete destruction. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had me killed for the betrayal.”

The captain nodded, and turned around to look over the camp. After quickly locating Specialist Howard, he said over his shoulder, “Come on. Let’s find out what’s happening.”

They made their way through the camp to the grumpy specialist. The man was sitting down on a hastily made chair, reading a book while doing his best to ignore all the work going on around him.

Walking up, Captain Angelton said in his command voice, “Specialist Howard, I want you to scry Sergeant Wesker’s team. I need a situation report.”

Looking up from his book in surprise. He saw the nervous sergeant standing next to the captain. He didn’t know what was going on, but he could tell it was probably important. Shrugging, as it didn’t really matter to him, he waved his book into his personal space, and closed his eyes.

Sergeant Blackwood and Captain Angelton watched as the specialist closed his eyes and concentrated. One minute passed, then two minutes, and then they saw the specialist’s face change from concentration to confusion. He opened his eyes, looked up at them and said, “Um… Captain… I can’t find them. I think they’re using essence diffusion to hide their trail. I can track them to a clearing, but I can’t tell you where they went from there.”

Both Captain Angelton and Sergeant Blackwood looked down at the seated specialist with surprised looks on their faces. The captain asked, “Did you show Walker how to hide his essence trail?”

Scoffing, Specialist Howard said, “Of course not. He couldn’t do it anyway. It must be Nick. But, I doubt even he knows how to do it. He’s a researcher, I doubt he’d bother learning a technique that is both a pain in the ass, and completely useless outside of the wilds.”

Sergeant Blackwood asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just stopping people from following your trail. If they know where you are, they can still scry you. I can only tell it’s essence diffusion that they’re using because I can sense their trail breaking down at the clearing I found. The technique is pointless inside a city. If someone knows where you hang out, they can find you easily enough. It’s like I said, the only time its useful is when you don’t want to be tracked while you’re covering a lot of ground,” said the specialist.

The three exchanged confused glances, as they thought about what that implied. Sergeant Blackwood was the first to speak. “I don’t get it. Maybe some of them are dead, and the others are running scared?”

The specialist said, “No. I told you. I felt their essence signatures breaking up. They were all alive in that clearing, and then actively hid themselves. I just don’t know why.”

Captain Angelton straightened up and said, “All right. I’m going to report what we know to command. We’ll just have to deal with whatever happens as it happens.”

Turning to look at Sergeant Blackwood, his face took on a look of pity, and said, “I’ll do what I can to mitigate your responsibility, but if anything happened to Lord Walker, I’m not sure my help will matter much.”

Sergeant Blackwood looked at his longtime friend and said, “I understand, sir. I did my best with what I had available. If it results in my loss, then I have no regrets.”

Specialist Howard watched the two men have a bro-moment. Sighing in annoyance, he pulled his book back out of his personal space and said, “You two go deal with your personal matters somewhere else. Just let me know what happened to that little troublemaker. In the meantime, I’d appreciate some peace and quiet.”

Sergeant Blackwood and Captain Angelton shared a look of embarrassment, then walked off. The captain headed toward the newly built command room to report what he’d learned, while the sergeant followed dutifully along.

-----

Their night had passed peacefully, and he had to admit Nick looked much better after some rest. Nero had debated whether or not to use his psychic field to pull in some monsters, but in the end, he decided to let everyone get some sleep. They were almost out of the wilds, and the time for mind games would soon be over.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As they got closer to their destination, the availability of enemies for Nero to call dwindled. His field was currently about 120 ft in diameter, larger if he pushed it. If anything came anywhere near them, he could feel it. Even so, it had been almost an hour since they had an encounter.

Wesker was in the front of their formation as usual, so he was the first to notice the change in the forest. Nero heard him shout, “What in the hells? There shouldn’t be a road here?”

Nero and Nick were near the back of the formation, and they shared a look of resignation. It was time to come clean with the plan.

As Sergeant Wesker led them through the last of the woods, they emerged onto a wide dirt road. The sergeant checked the road for travelers, but there was no one. Even though the road stretched far into the distance, in either direction it was completely clear.

Nero stepped onto the road and said in a firm voice, “OK everyone, listen up. We needed to disappear for a while, so I made a plan. For the past day or two, Nick and I have been hiding our essence trail. Without knowing specifically where we are, they can’t scry us. I also diverted us, so we didn’t head directly toward Gate 15. In fact, this road will lead us straight to Gate 14. I’m sorry if you feel deceived, but you’re just going to have to deal with it. It was a matter of …. um… ‘operational security’… yeah. That sounds right.”

Nick added, “We needed to make sure we could get to Dorchester without anyone noticing.”

Unsurprisingly, Cathleen didn’t seem to care. She just kept her eyes on the treeline, while tapping her feet impatiently. Nero smiled at her predictable response. He figured, if she cared at all, it was about how they would be facing fewer enemies while traveling the road. Nero had read that the main roads were created with an ‘intent’ enchantment, but it hadn’t seemed relevant at the time. And, as far as Nero was concerned, he still didn’t care how it worked.

Mike and Rose both looked interested in what Nero was saying, but were unbothered. The only one who seemed to have a problem with their surprise destination was the sergeant.

“Operational Security, huh?” said Sergeant Wesker through gritted teeth. Nero was pretty sure he’d never seen the man so angry. Even from 10 ft away he could see the vein pulsing on the man’s forehead.

Holding up his hands like he was calming a horse, Nero said, “Look Sarge, it’s nothing personal. The fewer people who knew, the less likely it was that we’d be discovered. How about you just chalk it up to one of my crazy ideas, and move on with your life. We’ll be back in Dorchester in no time, and you can write a scathing report detailing my many failings. That’ll make you feel better, won’t it?”

The sergeant stared at the young man who constantly caused him psychological torment, and said, “Fine. Let’s get moving.”

Right as he turned around and started marching, Nick spoke up, “Oh, sergeant. Two things. One, Dorchester is that way.” Nick pointed the opposite direction from where the sergeant was stomping off.

The man stopped, and seemed to deflate. His head drooped, along with his shoulders. “And two?” he asked without raising his head.

Nero grinned at the sergeant’s plight, and gestured for Nick to continue. With a hesitant tone, Nick said, “We kind of need to collect everyone’s links.”

The sergeant’s anger returned full force as he spun around and shouted, “What?!?”

Nero answered with a smile. “Well, we can’t have you all reporting in the moment we get in range of Dorchester’s hub, now can we? That would defeat the entire purpose of us heading toward Gate 14. Come on Sarge, think it through.”

Without any fuss, Cathleen tossed her link over to Nero, who caught it easily. He turned to Mike and Rose.

Rose’s face looked sour, but she slowly reached into her pockets to pull out her link. Mike’s blank expression, aptly conveyed how defeated he was both mentally and emotionally. He didn’t need to toss over his link, as it had already been collected from him during his capture, along with the communication crystal he had used to contact the mage who had been tracking them.

Rose said, “I’ll want this back as soon as possible.” Then tossed her link over.

Nero grinned at her and replied, “Sure thing, Rosy.”

“Rosy?” she asked with a reluctant grin.

Nero shrugged and said, “Just trying out a nickname. Don’t worry about it, I’ll workshop it.”

Turning to the sergeant, Nero’s easy smile disappeared. Locking eyes with the man, Nero stared him down. Sergeant Wesker looked at Nero like he was contemplating murder, then his eyes darted around to see everyone staring at him. Reluctantly, he pulled his link out of his pocket and tossed it over to Nick.

Nero smiled at the man, then offered an easy nod. His voice was light and unconcerned as he asked, “You wouldn’t have another way to contact anyone, would you?”

The sergeant bristled, and said, “No, I do not.”

Nero scoffed, and said, “See. This is why you had to turn over your link. You’re about as trustworthy as a used… horse salesman?” Nero took a moment to think over his analogy, and then said, “No, let’s go with a noble. You’re about as trustworthy as a noble with an agenda.” Nodding happily, he added, “Yeah, that works.”

The sergeant could see Cathleen staring hard at him, while Nick took several steps back. He said, “I didn’t contact anyone.”

Nero said, “I didn’t say you did. I just asked if you had something that COULD contact anyone.”

The sergeant pulled out a small communication crystal and held it up. “How did you know?” he asked.

Nero put his hands on his hips and said, “I didn’t KNOW, I just assumed. It seemed unlikely that the army would actually send us out into the wilds without any way of contacting anyone. I’m guessing that is a direct line to either the captain or Gate 15 command?”

The sergeant took a moment to look at the communication crystal in his hand, then tossed it over to Nick. He said, “It’s an emergency line to Captain Angelton. He has the command crystal. I didn’t contact him, even though I probably should have. I don’t care what word games you play, that man is trustworthy.”

Nero shrugged, and said, “Maybe so. But why take the chance? Someone close to him might intercept the message, or any number of other scenarios. There is no upside to keeping him informed. It’s better for us to just get back to Dorchester on our own.” Clapping his hands, as if he was concluding the conversation, Nero continued, “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get going. We should only be a few hours from our destination. Right, Nick?”

Nick nodded, and said, “Yeah, I’m almost positive this should lead us to Gate 14. I do know that Dorchester is that way,” he pointed, then added, “And with some simple calculations, I estimated our route toward Gate 14’s first side gate.”

Nero wasn’t sure what Nick meant by ‘side gate’, but didn’t feel like getting into it. Instead, he said, “All right. Let’s stay in formation in case something jumps us. After all, no reason to let our guard down now that we’re so close to the finish line.”

He saw Cathleen nod seriously at his caution, and he and his companions were soon on their way.

Nero opened a private connection to Nick and said, “That went about as well as we could have hoped.”

Mentally scoffing, Nick replied, “That’s an understatement. Do you think the sergeant has been in contact with the captain?”

Nero said, “It doesn’t really matter. He had no idea where we were. But, I think we’ve kept him off-balance enough for him to have kept putting off the decision. He probably didn’t report in.”

“Do you want me to take over the essence diffusion?” asked Nick.

“No, I got it. It’s not that hard once you get used to it. Remind me to ask you about how to actually BLOCK scrying. But I have a more pressing question,” replied Nero.

Interested, Nick asked, “Oh? What’s the question?”

“Why can’t I store these links in my personal space?” asked Nero.

Nero could feel Nick’s disappointment over the connection as the man said, “Dammit Nero. It’s obviously because they aren’t yours. I know you are smart enough to figure that out on your own.”

After taking a few seconds to think about what Nick said, he realized what he was missing. His link was saturated with his center, which was how the hub knew who he was. And that’s why he could store his own link. But other people’s links were filled with their center, or their ‘soul signature’. Nick was right, it was pretty obvious when he thought about it.

True to form, Nero refused to admit his shortcomings, and said, “I was just confirming a theory. No reason to be a dick about it. Anyway, we should figure out what we’re going to tell Vera.”

Mentally chuckling, Nick was kind enough to not focus on Nero’s asinine question. They spent the remaining travel time planning their next moves. They would soon be in Dorchester, and things would transition from fighting monsters, to playing politics. The battlefield changes, but the game stays the same.