General Branson frowned at the projections floating above his desk. Tapping his fingers on his armrests, he mentally cycled through the reports his office had been receiving all week. Instances of increased activity were reported at every gate. Even here at central command, in the inner ring of the city, there was a noticeable increase in issues needing to be addressed.
Sighing, he sent his approval for two squads to enter the sewers below the keep. He hoped that the slime queen hadn’t migrated to the inner ring, but all the evidence seemed to support that theory. The last thing he needed were slimes crawling out of sewer grates and assaulting nobles in the streets.
Putting the slime issue aside for the moment, he reviewed the current population numbers. Two whole villages had been abandoned, and the survivors were now here in Dorchester, looking for sanctuary. The general had expected this, but not this soon. It had only been a week, and already the city gained almost 10,000 citizens. Maximum capacity was only 3 million if they didn’t reopen the mountain. But, who knows how many people are already on the way here? He had asked the mages to keep an eye on the roads, but all he got in return was a report on ‘increased migration from areas affected by the level shift’. The report had no hard numbers, and no one had felt comfortable even offering an estimate. He’d have to plan for the worst case scenario. With a grimace on his face, he sent a request for Gate 22 army command to come up with a plan for reopening the mountain.
Cycling through the reports, he didn’t see a single area that wasn’t dealing with problems. The forests to the east were filled with monsters and beasts. The plains to the south had beast hordes ravaging the land. The northern mountains were teaming with monsters fleeing their caves. Even the western steppes were reporting bogs replacing the patches of forests. The entire landscape outside the walls was changing, and quickly at that. He already had half his men patrolling the roads, while everyone else was either training or trying to thin out the threats.
Clenching his fist in anger, all he could do was offer support. It had been years since he had felt this powerless.
He opened the projections that Center-Research had sent over. All of their estimations were based on limited data. The essence had only started the density shift a little over a week ago, but they tried to do what he asked. He told them that he needed to know what to expect, and they did their best. The report they sent over had timeline estimations for density thresholds. It looked like Dorchester had a few more weeks of relative peace before things really started getting out of hand. In anywhere from three to six months, his men could be fighting at the walls.
Rubbing his head with his hands, he groaned at the implications. Hopefully this was all just pessimism. Either way, he would do his job, and save as many as he could.
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Nero spent day 9 of training doing what he did best: annoying his trainer partners. His personal goal was to make them mad enough to stop holding back. He only had two days of training left, and he felt the pressure building. With limited time, he needed to get the most out of each training block.
Captain Angelton was the first to suffer during the morning exercises. Nero had made it a point to ask the man things like “How was that?”, and, “Am I doing this right?” every 2 minutes. At one point the man had tried to stop answering him, so Nero started yelling his questions, then asking “Can you hear me? Sir are you alright?”. When the captain finally snapped, Nero feigned shock and replied, “Sorry sir, I was just trying to do my best. I’ll try and take it easy on the next few exercises.” The captain’s red face was too much, and Nero laughed his ass off while running away.
It didn’t surprise Nero that Cathleen hadn’t needed much prodding. After only a few sarcastic questions about why she braided her hair the way she did, the woman was positively brutal with her attacks. A blood covered Nero emerged from training ring 3 after she finished with him.
Specialist Howard was a little harder to rile up. Yet, Nero persevered until he saw the man’s forehead develop a pulsing vein. Even from across the room, Nero felt like he could hear the specialist grinding his teeth in annoyance. Smiling, Nero focused and tried to survive the man’s wrath. Even though Nero didn’t, the medics were nice enough to keep giving him chances to try.
By the end of the day, Nero felt physically destroyed, yet spiritually renewed. There was just something about getting under people’s skin that made him feel complete.
Plopping into his seat in the dining hall, he greeted his squad-mates. “Hey girls, how was your day?” he asked.
Rose raised her eyes in surprise at his good mood. Cathleen just grunted and didn’t look up from her meal. However, Nick said, “I’m here too Nero.”
Nero offered him a wide smile and replied, “Yeah, I saw you. You look very pretty today.”
Nick just smirked and shook his head, then returned to his meal.
Nero saw them all sitting in silence, eating their meals mechanically. The fact that no one wanted to trade barbs with him was destroying his good mood.
As he started eating, he said, “OK. I get it. You’re all mad at me. I’m not saying you are wrong to be angry, but I respectfully would like to offer an alternative opinion. Is it possible that you all just need to lighten up a bit?”
Harsh stares snapped to Nero, and he felt a slight shiver. Holding up his hands in surrender, he said, “Look, I’m just saying that psychological warfare is a completely viable tactical option. It’s also funny. I don’t mind when you are calling me ‘little lord’ and mocking my continued failures. We only have one day of training left, and I wanted to make sure that everyone was giving 100% effort.”
Smiling, he attacked his meal with gusto. His squad-mates shared a look, and Nick said, “Nero, if you’re worried about what’s going to happen in the wilds, we understand. Fear of what we will face is perfectly reasonable. There’s no need to lash out. But if you feel like you have to, we’ll still be here for you.”
Nero’s fork paused in front of his mouth. He looked around at the kind and understanding faces, even Cathleen looked like she was forgiving him. He dropped his fork to his plate and leaned back with a sigh. All he wanted was for some good natured ribbing. It had nothing to do with fear or any other psychological issue. The LAST thing he wanted was for this dinner to turn into a therapy session.
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He squinted in anger and said, “Listen closely. I am not afraid of the wilds. I am fully aware of what we will face, and I am looking forward to it. My actions today were not ‘lashing out’. I didn’t try to piss you all off as a ‘cry for attention’. The simple fact of the matter is that I wanted everyone to get a fire in their belly. People perform better when they are pushing themselves. Anger clouds judgment and focuses the mind. Your kindness and understanding are unnecessary, and I recommend that you all grow a pair. The beasts and monsters will not care if you are emotionally well adjusted.”
Cathleen started laughing, while Nick looked offended. Rose just looked confused and said, “What do you mean ‘grow a pair’, it sounded like you were meaning to say ‘be fearless’. I don’t get it.”
Nero looked around the table, shocked at what they all took away from what he just said. Nick looked like he was offended Nero didn’t want to talk about his feelings. Cathleen looked like she was proud of his dedication to battle. Yet it was Rose’s confusion that irked Nero the most. He wasn’t specifically trying to offend the women or anything, but the fact that he hadn’t been lambasted for his obviously chauvinistic remark was jarring. The fact that gender-inequality wasn’t a thing in this world was just too weird for Nero to handle.
Cathleen broke Nero from his internal musings. “I agree wholeheartedly. The wilds aren’t for the weak. We will harden our wills, silence our feelings, and face the horrors with hate in our hearts. Rest assured, tomorrow I will push you to your limits. You will not be coddled by me. I will make sure you get the most out of your time here,” she said with steel in her voice.
Nick snorted as he stabbed his dinner. “I think you are both taking all this too seriously. Constant, tempered effort will produce the best results. It will just take time. And for the record, I think you are just worried about what will happen. But I recognize that you aren’t ready to hear that, so I’ll not say anything more,” he said as if he were talking to an unruly child.
Rose piped up, “I still want to know what ‘grow a pair’ means. Is is some type of saying from where you come from? I’m guessing it’s a pair of horns.”
Nero cocked his head in confusion and couldn’t help but ask, “Horns?”
Rose said, “Yeah. Is it a reference to animals that grow horns when they reach adulthood? You know, babies just have the little nubs. But when they grow up and have to face the perils of adulthood, they grow horns to face the challenge head on.” By the time she finished talking, she looked very proud of her theory.
Nero just stared at her. It was ridiculous how much sense that made. In fact, it made a lot more sense than saying people needed a pair of testicles to be brave. Instead of correcting her, he internally admitted defeat, and said, “Yup. That’s exactly where it comes from.”
Rose nodded with a smile on her face, proud that she had figured it out. Nick looked interested in the subject and started listing off the different types of animals that grew horns during their adolescence. Cathleen just smiled and attacked her food with vigor.
Nero was still leaning back in his chair. He felt like the fight had gone out of him. There was no joy in picking on puppies. He needed to shake it off and focus on the upcoming expedition. Sitting up, he returned to his meal while trying to force himself to participate in their polite dinner conversation.
Eventually dinner ended, and Nero found himself back in his room after another annoying group shower. As usual, everyone had treated it as completely normal, and he had even felt himself starting to ignore all the naked people. If he were being honest with himself, the fact that he was adapting to the new social norms was terrifying. Would he be an emotionally healthy robot in 10 years? It’s only been a couple weeks, and he had already changed so much.
Sitting at his desk, Nero pushed the worries to the back of his mind. There was no point in worrying about it. Just because everyone else was crazy, didn’t mean he was going to be. It’s not like ‘new-age-wisdom’ was contagious. He just had to stay true to himself, and continue being considerate to their alternative lifestyles. He’d done it before. One of his old girlfriends was a vegan. That was weird, but he had never made a fuss about it.
Smiling at his internal decision to be the better man, he went into his personal dimension for the book of the day. Searching, he found a large leather book about essence vortices. Nero knew that dungeons, spawn points, planar gates, and other things all fell into the category of ‘essence vortices’. It seemed like an appropriate subject to study before he went into the wilds. In fact, he was surprised that no one had brought it up during training. If he remembered correctly, General Branson’s primary reason for creating this unit was to fix those vortices in order to slow down the density shift.
Opening the book, Nero sipped his coffee and looked over the introduction. It basically said what he already knew. Occasionally, essence would pool in certain areas, and the interactions in the ethereal plane would reach a critical mass causing a manifestation in the material world. Spawn points for animals could be corrupted into monster-spawners by merging with a planar shift. It wasn’t uncommon, or even that big a deal.
Nero flipped through the pages, and read about monster spawn points. There were charts and diagrams showing how the different planes could send information to corrupt local animals. It was all very interesting, but Nero didn’t really care about the ‘how’ or ‘why’. He was more interested in what to do about it.
After taking a sip of his coffee, he checked the index of the book. Finding a chapter called, ‘Returning the local essence to balance’, Nero flipped through the pages with a smile. As he read, Nero tried to filter out all the scientific mumbo-jumbo and translate what it was saying into something useful. The chapter assumed a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader, and Nero had some trouble figuring out what it was trying to say.
From what he could tell, the most important thing to consider was whether or not anything should be done at all. For example, when faced with a monster-spawner, the question is whether or not it serves the greater good to untangle the essence-knot and return the area to its original design. Nero ended up reading the entire chapter, and all he took away from it was that before taking action, hunters should speak with the local Hunter’s Hall in order to find out whether or not they should do anything.
Annoyed, Nero slammed the book shut. Mentally checking the time, he realized he just wasted an hour. As his mood was already sour due to the fact that no one seemed to want to argue with him today, Nero wanted to spread the pain. He felt the need to bother someone.
Opening his link, he sent out a connection request. The connection was immediately accepted and he heard Jennings say, “What’s wrong now?” The old man’s annoyance was broadcasting over the link without any issue.
Nero smiled and said, “Don’t pretend you’re doing anything important. I have questions about essence vortices, and the book you gave me is useless. Get your ass over here, and don’t forget to bring something to drink. You can tell me all about a subject you know tons about. Think about it. It’s win-win. You’ll feel really smart doing it, while I get to enjoy learning something useful. I don’t want to have to ask Nick. He’ll just turn it into a boring lecture on the history of essence studies or something.”
The connection closed abruptly, and Nero’s eyes widened a little in shock. Sitting at his desk, Nero wondered if he had offended the crazy old arch-mage. Seconds later, a bright gold flash happened above his bed, and Jennings fell into a comfortable sitting position. He waved his hand and a bottle with two cups appeared.
Offering Nero a smile, he said, “I was just finishing a stupid meeting anyway. This seems like it will be more fun. What do you want to know.”
Nero smiled at the man’s enthusiasm. It was like when Nero used to call his married friends and tell them to come over to play x-box, they were so excited that Nero couldn’t help but find it adorable.
Waving his hand, Nero mentally grabbed the full glass Jennings was holding out to him. After bringing it over to his hand, Nero offered a toast and said, “To a night of drinking, and talking about magic!”
Jennings’ smile was wide as he raised his glass, seemingly familiar with the concept of a toast. “Hear! Hear!” he added.