Unfortunately for Tilly, they had to stay up well into the night formulating the plan for the coming engagement. Food was brought in, and dozens of messages were sent out as they broke down every eventuality they could think of and created a loose contingency for each.
No matter what happened the broad strategy of the Three-Fold Alliance remained the same. Tilly and Erash had to convince Brokenridge to head straight to the Contested Lands, by way of several Factions that had completely fallen under the influence of Corruption. Erash informed them that Wild Hunt’s Buffs were not teleport magic, and while they would increase Oberon's ability to move his forces dramatically, TIlly still had a decent amount of time to get moving. He would need to present a moving target for the fey magic to keep them from zeroing in on his location immediately. To do that, they had to successfully channel all of the dragon’s passion for pillaging against the enemies that stood between them and the Contested Lands, whose locations they now held.
It turned out that the anonymous first purchaser of the latest edition of the Cartographer Guild’s map was the Church of Light. They were using it as an important means of securing crucial data on the layout of the coming battle and setting up supply lines to the front through a series of teleport hubs. They had offered full access to the information in exchange for a series of covert missions by some of the elites of the Three-Fold Alliance disguised as Forsaken operatives.
Corruption had attempted to infiltrate almost every major collection of power on the plane in the last year and a disturbing number of powers had fallen to its influence in one way or another. Some had found solutions at great cost to resisting and exterminating its presence, but a key few were still embroiled in internal conflict as the fate of their Factions teetered on the edge of defeat.
The church’s influence had been waning in these places for months. But now with the support of teams from the Alliance led by Amelia, Threstus, Franklin, and Ichiro, they were staging high-impact counterstrikes against the enemy. The goal was to stabilize these Factions and secure their support in the Contested Lands as soon as possible, bolstering the frankly dismal numbers that Reginald's information-gathering network estimated they would be able to muster.
If successful, the Three-Fold Alliance would be used as a staging ground, making full use of the Auctioneer’s offer to flood the Contested Lands with as many combatants as possible, with the goal of arriving and fortifying before the bulk of Corruption’s forces reached the field.
Yet, in order for that to be possible, Tilly had to succeed in:
1. Not dying.
2. Defeating Oberon, who was serving as Corruption’s advance force.
3. Settling this dispute Brokenridge had with the “Dragon Throne.”
4. Securing the patronage of the third Aspect of Origin.
With those impossible goals in mind, Tilly left the meeting as early as he could to handle some last-minute packing. He left the manor with nods to the guards and set off on a jog through the city which was kept brightly lit even this far into the evening. He planned to meet Erash at dawn near the mouth of the mine and needed to get everything ready plus a few hours of sleep if he wanted to be anything but a wreck the next couple of days. It was going to be a late night.
His first stop was Cog’s new workshop where the little gnome had apparently been working day and night to produce some truly terrifying new inventions. Gnomish explosives were already well known on the plane, something about the race seemed to lend itself towards volatile chemical combinations. But with his new class Thaumic Munitions Specialist, he was creating things never seen in Nephesh’s history.
Ichiro had taken Kindle to the new forge, and something had happened there that he said, “had to be seen instead of explained”. Witnessing this event, Cog then begged to be allowed to take her back to his workshop for testing and Ichiro allowed it upon her insistence. Tilly didn’t know what he was going to find when he got there but hopefully, Kindle was fine and Cog would have a few things for him to add to his new belt that would even the odds of the coming battle.
He had even tried to send Kindle a few mental messages but kept getting the psychic equivalent of the busy signal… which he had not known was possible.
The streets on the path through the city were quiet with only a few groups of higher-level individuals still out working on one thing or another. Tilly passed several patrols of Flame’s Watch guards on his way out, and was gratified to see that when they fully mobilized the military, the Alliance would not be left undefended.
Once out of the city, he picked up his pace significantly, making his way to the military encampment in minutes. Tilly was no longer surprised to see how much it had grown in the day he had been gone, with several new permanent buildings set up behind the huge blocky wall.
One building in particular was set far off from the others and smoke billowed out of several chimneys even this late into the night. Not needing much more of a hint, Tilly angled toward the squat sturdy building and arrived at its door barely out of breath.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Yes, It will level Cities! You are the best bird ever!”
“Cheep!”
An almost manic cackle emerged from the door along with swathes of smoke as Tilly shoved it open. There at the far corner, was an adolescent Kindle glowing with a bright white heat as she breathed over a cherry red object Cog was holding with a pair of tongs.
Neither looked up as Tilly entered, trying to make out whatever the object was.
“Ok, It’s sealed!” the little gnome squeaked. Kindle immediately cut off whatever it was she was doing, and Tilly was shocked to see that one once downy white chick was now almost fully feathered again, except now she continued to glow even when not actively putting out fire Mana.
Cog for his part, carefully hefted the object to a cooling rack, and set it down gingerly, as its melty glow dissipated and its shape became more apparent. Tilly’s jaw slowly fell open as something very similar in shape to a rubber duck made of glass resolved itself in the midst of the slowly clearing smoke.
Kindle immediately started preening as its final form was revealed and Cog turned to look at the doorway, a fierce white smile cutting a sharp line over his soot-covered features. He sighed in relief and lifted his goggles away from his eyes, unsuccessfully trying to remove the caked on streaks of sweat and ash that covered his face.
‘What is it?’ Tilly sent silently, approaching the object cautiously under Cog’s beaming gaze.
Kindle sent back a series of images of chicks in a nest, ‘It is my child,’
Tilly sniggered, before turning it into a cough, dramatically waving away the clearing smoke.
“So what have you two made for me?” He wheezed dramatically, attempting and failing to Identify the object as he squinted at it from different angles.
“Ignorant fool” Cog hissed under his breath. Tilly shot a glance his way, his smile slipping as Cog’s too-bright demeanor returned instantly. Cog’s wild swing back to excited pulled fresh creases into the grime covering his face. At the quickness of the kid's mood swings, Tilly wondered if he had somehow gotten access to fantasy coffee now that he was an adult.
“Ahem… I mean. Thank you for your delivery a few hours ago. I jumped another level just attempting to handle the substance.” He followed up sheepishly under Tilly’s gaze, which finally produced an identifier over his head.
Level 26 Thaumic Munitions Specialist
“Holy Crap Kid! How many levels have you gained in the last couple of days?” Tilly blurted, turning in surprise to Kindle and seeing her Identifier had changed as well.
Level ??? Bonded Starfire Phoenix
“You too?”
“Combat isn’t the only way to advance your level on our plane dummy,” Cog chided with an abashed laugh, “I think in the last three days I have invented over twenty novel alchemical items recognized by the system. But this…” He trailed off, turning a longing gaze upon the item on the cooling rack.
It sat there, holding a flickering white light at its center even as Cog tapped the surface to check its temperature, “I might have to reconsider my position on combat, because I would love to see what you can do on the field,” he whispered to the half melted looking glass ducky.
“Should I leave you two alone?” Tilly asked dryly as the little crafter’s antics started to stale.
“Tsht, hardly.” Cog snorted, clearly not sure what Tilly meant, but savvy enough to deny it anyway. Instead he picked up the figurine, admiring it from all sides. The glow within the object began to flicker and intensify in his hands.
“When you sent me a piece of Promethian Fire, and I saw just what your extraordinary bonded here was capable of, inspiration struck. I know my glass-blowing skill is still crap, but it was fashioned with love in honor of its inspiration… I call it Phoenix Fire.”
“Cheep!” Kindle added emphatically, hoping over to stand on the work table proudly next to her melted playdough look alike.
“Let’s back up.” Tilly said, eyeing his bond, “What happened with Ichiro and the forge? And why do you have Starfire in front of your name all of a sudden? Also, are you glowing?”
Kindle sent him images of eating a big meal while preening with the attention, obviously pleased with herself. Cog happily chimed in with a slightly more complete version of the story, when it was obvious that she would keep her answer short, “When Lord Ichiro visited the forge with her to check on the progress of the dragon glass weapons, it was up and running at full blast. He brought her as close to the mouth of the forge as he could and she was obviously loving the heat. But when he couldn’t take her any further she surprised everyone and jumped into the thing.”
“Some people started yelling, and the forger started flashing wildly in a way that hurt my teeth, but I was wearing my goggles and I could see her clear as day, settling in like a Roc Hen to roost. A few minutes later the forge had nearly powered down, and the three nearest smiths had lost all of their mana to the bond with the thing in its attempt to maintain heat. When she came back out, she wasn’t a chick anymore and had added Starfire to her name. Which was just about the coolest thing I have ever seen.”
Kindle gave Cog the side eye and then lightly tapped her beak on the item in his hand.
“Oh yeah, so they let me take her out of there and we started working on something that would mimic or reproduce her flame attack. Did you know that if she lights a fire and it is put out, her flame will almost always reignite on the fuel? It has to be taken to below freezing before that reaction is suppressed. I kept trying to find a way to weaponize that characteristic, but the reaction was just too gradual… Until your package arrived. With that and a dragon glass container that I imprinted with one of my abilities called Trigger, I was able to make this bad boy.” He finished stroking the half-melted face of the duck.
Bemused at the duo's antics, Tilly pushed on. “So… what does it do?
“Well, Promethean Fire is a permanent liquid combustion that is impossible to put out by anything short of divine intervention. We infused it with a bath in the rebirth aspects of Kindle’s flame and sealed it all in a dragon glass container set to explode upon activation. Theoretically, this is a fire bomb that will release a flame that cannot stop spreading until the end of time. In fact, we don’t know the upper limits of its destructive capability yet, but if you live through its deployment, I need to hear what happened.” Cog answered, reluctantly handing over his magnum opus.
“Yeah… I’ll keep that in mind,” Tilly said, holding it gently in one hand as he took a closer look at the strobing flame held in a sphere at the duck’s center. “How stable is it?”
“Oh, it was designed with you in mind, Mr. Tillman. It can’t be activated unless you infuse it with your specially aspected flame mana, but once you do, you have between five and ten seconds before it explodes.”
“Huh… Well, I dub thee Doom Ducky.” Tilly said, looking into the creature's lopsided face.
“What? No…” Cog said, looking around as if someone was listening. Then something mentally clicked in Tilly’s head and an identifier tag popped up over the item in Tilly’s hand,
Weaponized Phoenix Fire Flask - aka - Doom Ducky. (Legendary)
“By the Gods’ ugly Tes-” Cog fumed before choking down the rest of his sentence at Tilly's curious look, “I mean, I wish you hadn’t done that. Creating new items is a tricky thing when it comes to getting the system to recognize the name. I still regret letting some of the bastions into the workshop yesterday. Now Boom Juice is the system-recognized name for my best accelerant.”
Tilly nodded along, smiling as he attached the glass duck to one of the loops on his belt. The magic secured it instantly, but not before Cog caught a glimpse of Tilly’s most expensive purchase at the auction.
“Mr. Tillman, can I see that again?”
“Negative kid. The fewer the better on this one.” He answered, lowering the flap of his long jacket over the belt, “Now tell me more about this Boom Juice. Could I, say… put it in a container at the center of a sack of iron fillings and make the whole thing explode?” He deflected, sending the manic young crafter off on a tangent like a dog after a ball.