Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.--] [New Year Celebrations]

It didn’t take them long to arrive at the meeting chamber. Except for P’pfel, every Head was present. The Gremling was helping Irra with her thing at the moment. Other important members of the Guild were waiting in nearby rooms, but it wasn’t time for them to intrude on the council.

They had a little more than 2 Earth hours before the predicted invasion, so around 2 to 3 Corora hours. It wasn’t much, but the beasts wouldn’t just teleport inside the city. Also, most of the initial preparations were already finished. They had enough time to talk things out in private first.

That’s the issue with predicting the future, Zeph thought, sitting down in a lavish armchair. The enemy knows that we augured the attack, so their movements will change in accordance with their own prognosis. It’s a self-feeding loop. They know that we know that they know… I wonder if we can even minimize the losses that way, assuming the beasts are communicating instantly with their leaders through a Bond. He sighed in defeat, not yet ready to envision how a battlefield of this kind would work or how it should be managed. I just hope auguring is actually useful in face-to-face combat. If it really is working for me, that is… He didn’t have time to test it, though. His constitution was getting better, but he was still hours away, if not more, from even thinking about exerting himself.

The last notification about his Will mentioned that it was in a ‘Medium’ depleted state. Going by the old statistics, it should take around 55 hours to replenish fully. Probably more because ‘mental’ PE had an adverse effect on recovery times. Now, though, it was impossible to tell. Instead of leaving it to natural regeneration, Zeph started packing his Will full by burning bodily nutriments; and even tried to relive crucial moments in his life by reading Soul memories. All this to enhance his Will recovery, and a courtesy of Willforce Mana constructs flowing through him. Only half an hour passed after he started, and he dreaded how long it would take to decrease the ‘depletion’ state to ‘Small’.

Heaving a deep sigh, he concentrated back on the meeting.

There was no table between the people gathered, only small, tiered counters the size of a nightstand that stood near each armchair. A collection of drinks and snacks populated their lower levels—which Zeph started using immediately to replenish more calories—while the top shelf and the drawers below were full of documents. Even as he looked around, Kwan’s people were delivering new notes, placing them on top of the piles of paper.

Everyone was geared up, so it was no surprise that he didn’t receive any comments on his new armor. Ghrughah was wearing a leather suit resembling a wetsuit. His armor, an enormous construct that almost scrapped on the over-three-meter high ceiling, was standing behind him. It was painted black and red, the same colors Kwan’s people used. Aisha was in her typical gear – warhaxammer alongside leather-bound metal armor that didn’t seem too heavy. Kwan’s weapons and armor were new and all-black – probably a new creation of Ghrughah. An oversized cleaver, or more like a straight razor blade, was sitting right behind her, leaning on the chair handle-up, while a deep-blue, giant club with black barbs was lying on the floor to her left. Her armor was a little bulkier than the previous one, too. Makani was wearing a really thick and probably metal-inlaid coat. A backpack-like, brass-colored contraption was laying behind his chair. It was holding a compression ‘box’, that looked more like a bulbous gas tank, with a Manasolid inside. A simple pipe system was affixed to the slot at the top, and Zeph could spot a few valves on a movable metal arm that should make them easily accessible when wearing the pack. How Makani was going to use the Mana-O from Manasolid, Zeph had no idea.

Maybe similar to how workers used the welding tools in the twin’s hangar? That would waste most of the Mana, though… He decided to wait and see.

The bar behind his seat was empty and the hearth silent. The air was heavy with Mana as a multitude of enchantments and Spells—much more than he ever witnessed at once—suffused the room with a constant influx of Ambient Mana exhaust. The room, normally elegant and stylish, felt more like a command tent of an army because of the Mana density, tension, serious mood, and constant movement happening in the background.

“We have read Pavail’s and Irra’s reports,” Ghrughah was first to speak, even before reaching for the new missives. Meanwhile, Zeph was unceremoniously packing his mouth full of something resembling a cheesecake. “If what you said is true, the City Council is hiding more than we anticipated.”

“Or they don’t know,” Kwan cautiously suggested, without looking away from a file of documents she was reading. It was much bigger than any file accessible for other Heads, but it was only natural. All of the logistics details were put on her shoulders. “Even if we have an augured or divined evidence, let’s not accuse people before they act, shall we?”

Her matter-of-fact and bored tone did much to soothe the atmosphere in the room. But Aisha wasn’t having any of that.

“Don’t just dismiss what they were planning,” she said with a pout. “Ignoring their would-be machinations will only grant us problems. Besides, it seems we really need to concentrate on infiltration attempts, from the Council as well… Is our base ready to freely relocate?”

““It’s not.”” Makani and Ghrughah said in sync, shaking their heads.

“Tch. I told you to shorten the deadline…” she complained.

Makani frowned. “That would change nothing. The twins may be talented in piloting, but they don’t know the first thing about Aero theory. The non-standard hull we are constructing is ways beyond them. Rather, you should feel happy I managed to correct so many mistakes in such short ti—”

“Right!” Aisha clapped loudly, interrupting the coming monologue and accusations. Accusations with quite strong arguments. “What was Irra’s proposition again?” she asked, glancing at the pile of documents with disgust. “I wasn’t there when you discussed it.”

Ghrughah massaged his eyes while Kwan covered her face with her hand.

“Aisha, are you serious?” Makani asked, an incredulous grimace on his face.

“What? I didn’t have time for—”

“Did you read any of the documents?” he disrupted her.

“Ummm… Look, I take my role as the Head of my department seriously, but reading an unending flood of paperwork isn’t part of it! I can speak, too, you know?” she exclaimed defiantly, blushing slightly.

Zeph sighed, alongside the rest of the council. “We are wasting time,” he noticed. “Explain Irra’s idea, please. Is there anything more to be done at this point, anyway?”

Kwan answered immediately while searching for an acceptable beverage on her mini-counter. “She is trying to reproduce a failed experiment. A concoction producing fumes that congeal in contact with vapor and Water Magicules, forming long strands midair. They are too weak to trap anything, but we have the tide coming up, so the effectiveness should skyrocket.” She finally found a bottle with a blood-red liquid inside. With a flick of her thumb, she got rid of the wax seal and poured the liquid into her mouth directly. After gulping a few times, she sighed with satisfaction and filled her glass in a more civilized manner. “Fast-moving objects should catch enough strands for it to become a problem. Better yet, the strands are slightly adhesive. We can expect beasts and humans alike to get immobilized in the coming mist – a perfect trap and an early alarm.”

“You hadn’t seen it yet, so I will explain,” Aisha said, looking at Zeph. “The wave of Magicules from our marine visitors will cause a dense mist to form. Because it’s almost pure Water and Organic Magicule mix, it will majorly influence the effectiveness of most Spells even after diluting, so take that into account.”

Shit, I only learned Heat Beam… Zeph thought depressingly while smiling wryly.

“Yep, you better start training with the Force version,” Makani chuckled, seeing his face. “You just need to push them into the river. The tide will take care of anything staying too long in the water – those organisms aren’t known for their ability to recognize what is alive and what isn’t. And aerial beasts are notoriously bad swimmers,” he smiled warmly in contrast to his cold words.

“Oh! That, I can do already,” Zeph nodded, receiving happy thoughts from Gru. It seemed his companion would also be able to help. “But the mist… what are our call signs?”

Everyone looked at him in confusion.

“The what?” Ghrughah asked.

“Well… how are our troops going to identify themselves? I get that the visibility will be minimal? We need something to prevent friendly fire, no?” Zeph explained.

“Hmmm, you have a point,” the giant rumbled, falling into deep thought.

Kwan shook her head. “Normally, the commander would know the exact position of each team, squad, and troop. And no one attacks before confirming the enemy’s position. And that’s the role of scouts.”

Zeph frowned. “So what? You are waiting for your specialists to either detect an enemy or return from reconnaissance? I understand you are just proceeding as always, but… Don’t you think this method leaves too many opportunities to cause chaos? Especially because of the mist. What if someone calls back using the voice of one of the scouts, and two teams start to attack each other?”

“Visual confirmation is a requirement for—”

“And you are sure no illusions can affect them, or that in the heat of battle, they would keep to the procedures?”

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Before Kwan could retort, Ghrughah spoke up.

“La-Gewong, even if what he proposes is unnecessary, it would speed up the identification. Better yet, if an enemy uses a wrong call, we will know instantly. We can set a trap that way. And Zeph, please don’t speak accusingly until you have enough information. Their system was tried many times over, and I can see at first glance that you don’t know enough about it.”

“Oh… I didn’t mean that…” he said awkwardly, trying to scratch the back of his head.

Kwan sighed deeply in defeat, averting her gaze to the floor. She took another deep swing from her glass and composed herself. “No, it’s my fault. I already know you have a more practical mindset and exoteric knowledge. And, most importantly, that you aren’t knowledgeable about our methods,” she looked straight at Zeph this time. “But if we try to introduce a new call code right now, it’s more probable that someone will make a mistake. Rather than catching an enemy, we will hurt ourselves.”

“I may have an idea…” Zeph said, after thinking for a moment. “Did you manage to produce strong flashlights? That project is going on for a while…”

Kwan nodded, and the people present seemed to understand where this was going.

“That won’t set a trap for the enemy, though,” Ghrughah noticed.

“Not necessarily. Instead of communicating only when needed, we can set a constant stream of light signals. It would also help in illuminating the environment. Only a part of them will be meaningful, your people just had to know which chain of signals means a start of a message. The rest can be cyphered in a simple way to not be too obvious. Like, reading two letters ahead in the alphabet or something. I think we can produce some booklets for the commanders and people responsible for the communication to be able to work with it?”

“Yes,” Kwan nodded. “We already set up the production of leaflets promoting our area. If it’s only text, we can change that immediately. I am more worried about giving out our code to the enemy in case our people are seized…”

Zeph shook his head. “It can be easily avoided. Firstly, the message-starting sequence is to be remembered, not written down. Secondly, a simple cipher should confuse them enough, and we can use it as a trap. Just use short words that have meaning in both cases – in ciphered and obvious message.”

Aisha nodded vehemently. “We already implemented a similar mechanism in our department. I should still have a matrix of words for the simplest of ciphers – the proof of concept, if you will.”

“Perfect! Now, nobody said our communication specialists have to stay close to their group. Chasem, we can just send fake ones to confuse the enemy – they will be as blind as our people, so creating a fake squad isn’t out of the question. Two can play the game of shadows,” Zeph said, now much more excited.

Kwan scrunched her nose. “It’s already overly complicated… But doable,” she added in the end. She took an empty piece of paper to write on. “I will make sure we have more people with flashlights, just to ensure no group is left without one. They will need to periodically turn off the stationary ones, though. It’s much too easy to hide in the shadows…” she started rambling to herself.

The next two hours flew past in no time. Zeph was updated on all safety protocols and building access restrictions while they planned how to set the troops. The orders were sent; new messages only confirming their situation. Of course, their council wouldn’t stay idle – each one of them will be a part of the defense force.

They managed to process all the notes. Which was a blessing, as people waiting for the meeting to end unanimously returned to their posts, thus saving more time.

That was when Kwan decided it was time to do the rites. The attack should happen soon, but the Roaming Onsen Village was quite far from the city walls. It was important to raise the morale and appease their aquatic guests.

As so, the group walked downstairs, into the troops’ canteen hall on the ground floor. Potted plants were removed, leaving the hall fully open. Six people sat on the stage, playing a slow melody using only hand drums. The area was already filled with long tables buckling under the amount of food prepared for the occasion…

~~~

Zeph never felt this full in his life.

Even Gru started complaining. He stopped helping Zeph’s digesting system a good ten minutes ago, yet some nutriments still found their way into his body.

After people made themselves almost comatose with the insidiously potent meals, they started to hum to the rhythm of the drums in the background. In the beginning, Zeph didn’t even notice the change, but as more and more people joined, he felt the Mana in the air becoming more viscous and heavier.

A tell-tale sight that Mana-L was being released all around him, for only this kind of Magicule group had similar properties.

By the time he decided to join, the staff started to set out incense while serving small glasses of clear liquid to everyone. The drink had a strong herbal smell to it but was surprisingly sweet to the taste.

Zeph knew for a fact that the workers would go through the same process right after them, as almost half of the security personnel still waited for their turn. But the strange disparity between sober and meditating people made him slightly nervous.

He sipped on his drink slowly, trying to hum alongside Gru in the same way everyone around was. Yet, he wasn’t able to enter a meditative state. Truth be told, he was becoming sleepy instead. Probably from the abundance of food that his body was struggling to absorb.

After everyone in the room—in a huge part consisting of people important to the Guild—entered the state of trance, it became clear that he wouldn’t be joining them.

He sighed with relief, then started to also burn his Mana to power the recovery of his Will. The trick to it was to actually use miniscule amounts of Will to enhance the process – the discovery made by Gru. But Mana wasn’t that easy to use as an energy source. His body was heating, his cells were being damaged. He could feel how inefficient the process really was, right in his bones. Of course, Will naturally took his Mana when it regenerated, but manual implementation was another story altogether. Either way, he didn’t want to disturb the rites. His Veil didn’t take on the quality of Mana-L flying around and he worried it could interfere with whatever was happening.

Now, that he was sure he couldn’t join the event, it was time to think about his situation. Taking into account the fact that he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to join, it was mostly for the best. He just hoped that it wasn’t a function of Earthling’s Will, but something related to his full-body enhancement or other upgrades. Otherwise, it would be way too easy to test if someone was a Terrien.

Looking around and seeing the half-asleep people, he decided he had time for some experimentation. Also, it was nice to experiment with the Willforce Morphon while relaxing in the cozy armchair. That didn’t mean he didn’t try to look the part, though. For the sake of workers, he relaxed and closed his eyes, still humming and trying to not move much.

The fact that the fever and pains he felt were a product of his own machinations helped tremendously in keeping himself stationary.

On another note, he was quite fascinated by the strange Mana-L that was being produced by the people around. He could tell that everyone in the room was using the Stabilizing Spell or an equivalent, which put into perspective just how handicapped he had been without it. The most distinct property of the Magicules was the fact that he couldn’t really tell if it was Mana-X or Mana-O. In other words, he wasn’t able to tell if the Mana was even connected to anyone.

Mental Medium, huh? Going by the name… I suppose it is connected to all of them somehow? Now, that is an interesting thought! Gru vibrated slightly, in tune with his constant humming, confirming that it was probably the case. A Magicule that can connect to multiple organisms. Well, not really, he thought, testing the interaction between his Veil and the Magicules. Rather than being connected to the pseudo-hivemind activity, it was losing the connection to his Soul as if interacting with normal Magicules.

Whatever… But it’s strange that the cloud isn’t returning the feeling of the Magicules drifting upwards. Is that why the organisms in the water can harvest it? Is it ‘heavier’ than air… the moment he thought about that, Zeph sent a Mana tendril to check the space near the ceiling. The density was much less than around him, but it wasn’t the only observation he managed to make. It’s denser around people’s bodies? He observed, thinning his tendril to check in more detail without interfering. Hoh, I wonder how much their Will is influencing this behavior…

In such a way he spent another half an hour, trying to get more insights into this, evidently, unique Magicule group. Even if he knew beforehand that it had to do with brain activity, it was impossible for him to test that out. The herbal tea did nothing for him, as did the incense. He tried, but there were no results.

At some point, though, a notification that he was waiting for showed up.

[Will] depletion decreased to [Small] status!

He continued to feed his Will, but now he knew he had a space to maneuver. It took almost three hours, all in all. A record time, if he ever saw one.

And, as people started to come to their senses, Kwan hit her weapons together with a loud, metallic band, waking everyone in the room. “Time for pleasures just ended. Everyone, to their posts!” she commanded, standing up.

~~~

Zeph loaded a weak battery that Kwan’s research team managed to produce into the bottom part of his spear. Then, he started to use Electrify to keep it from discharging. The Spell was enough to keep the electrical current from flowing freely through the spear by balancing the charges.

It was almost time.

The beads were already placed in the deep snow. Undetectable and primed.

He was stationed near the laboratory building, just by the river on the small plaza. His squad had melee fighters and ranger specialists in equal proportions. They were a bait for human aggressors.

Of course, another team—this one led by Aisha—was waiting on the roof of the laboratory. They were to dispatch to the closest skirmish, but were mainly backing Zeph’s squad.

Because the building was already known by the enemy, it was mightily possible that they would try to infiltrate the base from that angle. Zeph’s and Gru’s unusual methods of detecting enemies were the main reason they were put in such a dangerous spot – they should be able to find any attacker even in the all-encompassing, milky-white mist.

Zeph could see outlines of the buildings around, partially thanks to the fact that a whole district was trying to illuminate the vicinity, partly thanks to the flashlights blazing irregularly all around.

It was almost like an old-school disco. Or a scene of a smoke-obscured parade in which the police took an active role. He wasn’t sure.

Zeph managed to keep three detection Spells active at all times. Constructing them was a pain, but he had the time and his cube. Except for Electrify, which was purely a Matrix construct, he had ‘Lesser Sound detect’ manually constructed, self-sustaining ‘Lesser Life ward’ active, and ‘Lesser Magnetic scan’ in the cube. From time to time, he strained his mind to construct a ‘Lesser Tremor detection’ or ‘Lesser Life detection’, but he still wasn’t able to focus on two different places in his Veil efficiently.

Add to that Gru’s Soul perception, and his own Mana tendrils geared with the new Spell-detecting technique, although a more primitive version, that he set up before using the Spells, and they were a walking radar station.

Sadly, they didn’t have enough range to pose as one.

Thin, white treads started to fall down from the sky. Obscuring his vision even more. He got rid of them as soon as they accumulated on his armor, either by ripping them apart or patting himself to collect the strands.

Not long after, ‘Life ward’ started pinging him from the direction of the river, but he wasn’t going to react. The aquatic creatures arrived.

Slowly, in the span of a few minutes, the mist was painted blue and turquoise by the flowing, gentle light coming from behind his view.

It seems the water organisms here are fluorescent… or, at least, are geared with similar mechanisms, he thought absentmindedly.

The vicinity started to brighten as the river started to produce more and more light, the effect slowly traversing up the river. The mist was being colored by so many sources of light now that it truly started to confuse him. At least, he was able to see the nearby buildings now.

And that’s when the ‘Lesser Sound detect’ started to show visual cues of a regular beat. Soon, the ripples on the surface of the modified ‘Air bubble’ started to multiply, creating mesmerizing patterns that Zeph knew very well.

They are close, he thought, crouching in preparation, making a defensive stance.