The next day Mimic took Primus out, introduced him to some basic language, announcing his recovery from the ‘illness’, B dropped by sometime around lunch and handed over the map with the common routes that the soldiers take when moving supplies from the farm to the frontline.

“You did all this?” Primus looked at the incredibly detailed map

“B did, took her some time to pin point where we are, the rest is just migrating the map from the dataset to this paper.” He rolled the parchment paper back up, thanked B, and headed back to the house they slept in “Now that’s left is confirming the route, we have no idea which one they will take, and we have no idea when they will ship it.” He said, waiving the map around

“Oh those are just guesses?”

“Educated ones, there are only so many places they can go on a cart, assuming they use those. What we need to do is force a transfer of goods, and limit their routes, both of which is easier said than done.” Mimic pushed open the door, laid the map on the ground, and with a stick, he drew a rough outline of the roads, the targeted camps, and their location.

“Right.” He said as he pointed at the rough position of the camp “That thing we know is there. Now we are going to go in, burn their stuff and get out. Most places prevent people from getting in with a few options, we only have to worry about our ass getting spotted since we can walk through most magic based detection methods and not get spotted. We then sneak up to their ration storage, set up some runes everywhere, and get out before anything starts burning”

“Where is that storage?”

“Yeah, we don’t know right now, but we are going to scout out the site tomorrow” Mimic shruged it off

“Ok, so let me get this straight.” He pressed his palm together under his nose and took a deep breath, his eyebrows locked “We plan on rolling up on a military base tomorrow, which is miles away, and we have to spot and memorise the location of their food supplies, then some time later we have to sneak in and blow everything up. All that for stage one?”

“Should be easy enough, we just have to stick around, maybe climb up some trees nearby.”

“Oh we don’t even have a vantage point?”

“Well, trees?” Mimic shrugged

“Holly shit this is retarded.”

“B stole a horse a few weeks back, been keeping it well fed, we ride on that.”

“Oh you know how to ride those?”

“I mean, I need a stool to get onto it, but yeah, kind of, pull the rope to slow down, tug left to turn left, something like that.”

“Ok, fine. Anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah, we don’t have binoculars. And there is a high high chance that we get shot.”

“Right, sure, whatever.” Primus rubbed his temple, already accepting the fate that he is stuck with himself on this one “What about stage two, do we just block the roads?”

“Well, a few ways, blow them up, drop a huge tree on the road, spread rumors of a curse or something… ” He listed on

“That’s it?” Surprised by the overly simple action item, he lifted his head up for a short while

“Well, yeah? We just need to discourage them to go over certain places” Equally as surprised, Mimic looked at him, expecting to hear some criticism or advice.

“No crazy actions, no risky moves?” Primus confirmed again

“We could certainly add those in” Mimic’s eyes light up with anticipation

“Don't” He said softly

“Anyways, that should be all, get some sleep now, we are moving out at night. It’s going to be a tad chilly, bring food and water for a whole day, in theory we should be back before lunch, but hey, who knows.”

“Today? I thought you said tomorrow.”

“Well, like 1 am or something. Get some rest, you would need it.” He waved his hand, then headed out for some more food, leaving Primus in the room contemplating his mistake of accepting the invite from Mimic.

As nightfall drew near, Mimic again stood near the docking area waiting to see what they brought back, Primus by his side, just woken up not long ago, eyes still sleepy, B came up from behind, asking if there were any last minute requests.

They watched as the cargos were unloaded and sent into storage, helping with the lighter ones here and there, Mimic took some crystal and shoved it into his pocket when no one was watching.

The night went on as normal, they had dinner, went back into the house early, Mimic went over the plan one last time.

The smiling face that was present on Mimic’s almost 24/7 disappeared, replaced with a serious gaze “Remember, we are only there to scout, don’t burn stuff, don’t do nothing.” He repeated

“Why do you think I would do something stupid?” Primus protested

“Because I know I would want to, no weapons allowed just in case. We move out from that window over there after everyone is asleep, bring the map so we can mark the location.” He said as he went through the backpack one last time, some bread, water, ropes, crystals, and a map

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“All set here.” He said as he tucked the bag away underneath their bed, inside the haystack

“Now, we wait”

Primus and Mimic laid quietly in bed, and waited. Some time later, the sound partying died down, lights extinguished, the front door swung open then closed.

The man that first gave Mimic bread laid down beside them, not long after slight snoring started. Mimic gave Primus a nudge, after seeing a thumbs up raised up they slowly climbed out of the bed and worked their way towards the half open window, they grabbed the bag set there earlier and climbed out.

“How on earth did we get any sleep when that dude is snoring that loud?” Primus whispered as they walked to the edge of the village, and found the opening that B created some time ago when she needed to go into the forest.”

“You sure that’s the right path?” Primus asked as they march on into the woods, moonlight shun down onto the barely visible road

“Been there some time, should be up ahead.” Mimic said as he pushed away another branch.

Soon they arrived at an empty field, ashes scattered around the bombarded ground, runes and crystals lying around, the missing armors and arrows stacked neatly and covered up with a few fallen branches, the horse B promised just resting off the side hitched onto a tree.

With some teamwork and quite some trial and error, they finally both got onto the horseback.

“So, about the rope around that tree over there.” Primus pointed

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Mimic jumped off, removed it, and this time with Primu’s help he got back on with ease.

“Right, here goes” Mimic held tightly onto the reins, his feet swung freely beside the horse’s body, with a tap of his feet, they were off.

The cold wind cuts through their clothing, scraping their skin

“Are you sure this is the right direction?” Primus asked as they rode under the bright moonlight

“Yeah, out from there, then turn right.” Mimic shivered, should've added some more clothing than this. “Hold on tight, I’m not returning for you if you fell off.” He called out as he swung the reins and sent the horse galloping.

“You know how to stop this thing right? Like safely?”

“Of course, pull up or pull to the side. Fuck it’s cold”

After a long ride, maybe an hour or so, they finally saw faint lights at the edge of the plane. The smell of blood, burnt flesh, and rotten flesh creeped into their nose, a few small animals skittered around their line of sight.

“Right, this should be close enough.” Mimic pulled over and rode into the woods, hopping off the horse and leashed it.

Primus soon hopped off, ran some distance, bent over and started vomiting.

“Is it the smell? Or is it motion sickness?” He walked over and handed over the watersack

“The…” Primus gagged “Smell.” he said as he dry-heaved some more

“You’ll get used to it.”

With Primus taken care of, they started their walk towards the camp in silence. Guard towers and the wooden barricades surrounded the whole area, people with torches and dogs scanned the parameter from time to time.

They stopped besides a tall tree, resting briefly, Primus took a quick look around and moved on deeper into the forest just in case.

“So” Primus whispered. “How on earth are we getting through the wall?”

“To be frank, no idea.” Mimic broke off a chunk of the bread and tossed it into his mouth “If there is a river we can use that.” He dusted off the crumbs on his hand, pulled out the rope from the bag and put the bread back in.

“A river? At night? At this time of the year?”

“Or we could just sneak in,” He said as he tied a rock at the end of the rope and tossed it up, hooking onto a branch. Mimic and Primus pulled down the rope with all their might, making sure the branch could withstand their weight.

“Just sneak in? What do you mean just sneak in?” Primus muttered as he started his climb, carrying the map and rope with him.

“Or we could set fire to a part of the camp, then use that as a distraction.” Mimic said as he looked around, making sure no one is around.

When he looked up again, Primus was already sitting on the branch, tying another rope on his waist and securing himself to the branch just in case something fails.

Mimic did one last check then climbed up the same rope, but instead of sitting with Primus he sat on a higher branch, just like Primus did, he secured himself onto the tree then started scanning the camp.

“So, how exactly do we know which is the food?” Primus asked

“We wait for breakfast.”

“And we came out here in the middle of the night for that?”

“I mean I don’t trust you nor I to wake up before breakfast, we get to chat, and the view is not bad up here.” Mimic explained

“You want to talk and you need to know B is not listening.”

“Sometimes I hate how we think the same thing. But yeah, that.”

“Reguarding our place here?”

“Can’t we just chill somewhere else? It’s the 100Bs that are doing the fighting, we don’t really have anything to do with it, and we might get killed off once all this is done.” Mimic said while he stared blankly into the horizon, the cold wind erodes his senses bit by bit.

Primus closed his eyes and took in a deep breath yet said nothing, his fingers lightly tapping on the tree bark, feeling the tingling sensation from the fingertip everytime it made contact with the coarse branch.

He himself has asked the same question during the long stretches of research on how to extend their lives.

Assist 100B, unify the whole planet, eventually they would become the only threat around, seeing how 100Bs plan things it’s not likely that they would be kept alive.

Don’t assist 100B, live a simple life, probably die at the age of 250 or something, no life extension, no afterlife, nothing.

“Say, why did you take the chance on another life?” Primus asked “There weren't any incentives to do so were there?”

“Well.”Mimic chuckled “That’s complicated.”

“I’m listening.”

“A chance.”

“At what exactly?”

“Well, I don’t know really. Maybe just because I’m bored.” He chuckled again, covering up parts of the answer.

Primus laughed with him for a short while, at the absurdity of the situation and at himself.

“Fine, my turn for a question.” Mimic said with anticipation

“Sure” Primus replied, still a smile on the face

For a while the world was silent as Mimic thinks, they sat in silence and watched the guards march around the camp with torches in hand, the moonlight shone on the whole forest and the sky was clear.

“Why are you still alive?” Mimic whispered

“Huh?”

“Why am you still alive?” He repeated.

“Really? That question?” Primus grinned as he searched for the answer.

“Well you see.” Primus said “I accepted the invitation to have another go at life, and I haven't died just yet.”

“Seems legit....”

“Yeah….”

“...”

“...”

“This isn’t working is it?”

“Nope, please at least bring someone else with you next time.”