Septima looked up at the Queen, heart pounding in her chest. She had met the Sapphire Emperor before, but this was something else entirely; she may not have had his regal bearing, but there was a certain…something about her that made Septima nervous. Some of it was surely a result of the swarm’s conditioning, but the matter certainly wasn’t helped by the presence of Amelia and Rose, both larger-than-life figures.
“My Queen, thank you for taking the time to meet with me.” She said. “You wanted to hear more about my report?”
“I should be the one thanking you.” The Queen replied, chuckling. “I’m the one taking time out of your day to hear about this. Now, if you don’t mind, would you please tell us more about this assignment you were given?”
“To be honest, there isn’t much more to it than what I put in my report.” Septima admitted. “I was given two teleportation devices, and told to use one on an ‘expendable soldier’, and another on a member of the swarm that we were to capture. Given the circumstances, I can only assume they mean to perform experimentation on their own troops. They just don’t believe that conversion can work like it does, it’s too outlandish an idea for anyone who’s not part of the swarm to accept.”
“What do you think they’re going to do when they realize you’ve defected?” Rose asked. “Do you have any insights into the mind of General Gallus?”
Septima thought on that for a moment. “Well, first they’re going to have to do damage control in camp. I’m well-respected among the rank and file, and seeing me amongst their enemies is going to be a huge blow to morale. I can’t say for sure how things were in your day, but as things are now, the army is a meritocracy in name only. More often than not, a soldier’s superior is not the most qualified person for the job, they’re some noble who would theoretically do well in the position, but in practice spends all their time playing politics and currying favor with their superiors and leaves the little things to others.
“At the highest level that evens out to an extent, and by and large most of the people in those positions do actually do their jobs well, but I would be shocked if they were the actual best person for the role. I, however, am a commoner who rose to my position through continued excellence and, admittedly, a few lucky coincidences. While I am not the most well-liked amongst the noble-born officers, they begrudgingly admit my competence, and the rank-and-file usually greatly admire me.
“All of that is to say that, when word eventually gets out that I’m working against them, it’ll be a crushing hit to morale, and we can probably expect some delays on their end while Gallus tries to get control of the situation. After that, I would expect an offensive from them; Marcus is not a man who tolerates continued failure, and with only the one real victory, less progress has been made than they had hoped. Gallus likely will want a decisive victory to both bolster morale and prove that he’s still deserving of his position.”
Rose nodded. “As I thought, they did count that as a victory.” She said. “If they want to have any chance of victory, they’re going to have to shift their thinking. As far as we’re concerned, it was an unqualified success; The vast majority of our losses were monsters, and by now we’ve already gotten ourselves back up to strength in that department. But I digress; any guesses on where Gallus would strike?”
Septima thought on that for a moment. “Well, I would guess he’ll try to limit the viability of using the Scourge of the Skies, so he would likely aim for a place that either isn’t in an open area, or where he feels we wouldn’t use the Scourge of the Skies. Given that he’ll want to force us to engage if he wants a victory before reinforcements arrive, my best guess is that he’ll target one of the border forts, likely the one near the Spine, but possibly the one near the sea.
“Whether or not he goes for the one near the sea is going to depend on how ready the navy is. Unfortunately I wasn’t made privy to any information regarding the navy for security reasons, so I can’t weigh in on that, but he’d definitely choose the sea if the ships are ready to sail; he’d want the support of their cannons to help soften up the fortress. If the ships aren’t ready, he’ll assume the Spine is impassable, and see it as a natural barrier to help simplify the siege for him.”
“I’ll put both forts on high alert.” Rose replied. “In the meantime, I’ll have our navy start doing scouting exercises and see if we can’t get any info on their navy. Anything else either of you two wanted to ask her?”
After a moment of silence, the Queen gave Septima a smile. “It seems there isn’t.” She said. “Thanks for taking the time to meet with us, Septima.”
And, with that, Septima was teleported back to the fort she was stationed in, mind already whirling with possibilities. She wanted to weaken Gallus’s forces as much as was possible before reinforcements arrived, and while she wasn’t in charge of their overall strategy, just doing her job as best she could would help, so there was nothing for it but to go to the commander and get her orders.
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“Report on the missing troops, sir.” Gallus’s assistant called out from outside his tent.
“Come in.” Gallus called back. A couple days prior, after the swarm’s attack on their camp, a detachment of mages had disappeared from camp, and the scout patrol Gallus had sent out to survey the area had never returned. It was a puzzling matter, to say the least; the best explanation they had was that both groups had deserted, but Septima had been nothing but loyal, and wasn’t the type to be disheartened by a simple superior force, and the mages…well, Gallus didn’t know them well, but desertion under these stakes was…unthinkable.
Gallus’s assistant entered the tent, a nervous expression on his face. “We checked the tents of the scouts, and, just like the mages, all their personal effects are gone. But, um…” he trailed off, causing Gallus to frown.
“Out with it, man.” Gallus said. “I need to know.”
“Captain Septima was spotted leading a detachment of swarm members.” Gallus’s assistant said gravely. “She’s some sort of…bird beastkin now, but it was definitely her.”
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Gallus slumped in his chair. “And she didn’t notice whatever scout saw her?”
“Uh, she did, sir.” The assistant said awkwardly. “She, um, let him go.”
Gallus frowned. “Why would she…” He trailed off as he realized what she had likely intended. “Oh no. Where’s the scout now?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The assistant replied. “He gave his report then went to do…whatever he would normally do after a mission, I assume. Why? Do you think she put some sort of surveillance spell on him?”
“It’s a possibility, but I’m assuming she wants word of her defection to spread. If people know she did it, they’ll be more likely to follow suit or, at the very least, lose morale.”
Gallus’s assistant paled. “Should I go get him?”
“No.” Gallus sighed. “It’s too late by now, and word will get out eventually no matter how hard we try to keep it under wraps. We just need to lie and say that they were captured whilst performing their normal duties. It’ll be a morale hit, but less so than revealing that they defected. Go get on that, now.”
“Yes, sir!” Gallus’s assistant saluted, then exited the tent, leaving Gallus alone with his thoughts. Things had taken a turn for the worse since the swarm made their show of force, and he was starting to get desperate. The emperor was not a forgiving man, and if Gallus let this blow to morale lead to a major defeat, then he would be removed from his post and likely demoted a few ranks.
The emperor already wasn’t happy with how little progress Gallus had been making, so Gallus needed to make something big happen, and it needed to happen soon. To make the time pressure worse, his best scouts were now working for the enemy, meaning he had precious little time before he was at an enormous information disadvantage.
That all pointed to one thing: he needed to force a large-scale confrontation. There had only been one truly large battle, and he had walked away with a victory, so another seemed like the logical choice. The victory would raise morale, get the emperor off of his back, and force the swarm to go back and lick its wounds whilst Gallus’s reinforcements arrived.
Fortunately, those reinforcements were just a few weeks off, and even if Gallus did end up losing his job…he had confidence that the combined might of the world would be able to defeat the swarm. It might be a pyrrhic victory, the swarm would certainly get harder to deal with once they were on the back foot, but the rest of the world should be able to win, even if just by sheer numbers.
But he wasn’t going to let go without a fight. His soldiers were rested from their last engagement, and they had begun to get antsy for a fight. Now was the time, he just needed to pick where. The swarm would likely aim to push confrontations towards open areas so as to fully take advantage of the Scourge of the Skies, and Gallus didn’t want that.
If he wanted to force the swarm to engage in a specific location, it would need to be a location of strategic importance, and the obvious targets were the border forts. Not only were they places the swarm couldn’t afford to abandon, they were places that the Scourge of the Skies would be limited in; it couldn’t recklessly use its abilities for fear of damaging the forts.
Specifically, he was targeting the one closest to the Spine. The mountain range formed a natural barrier, reducing the amount of directions Gallus would need to worry about and allowing him to more easily cut the fortress off from resources. Now he just needed to figure out his countermeasures against the Heroes, and he would be ready to march.
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Lia stepped back as she finished off the last of the monsters, panting heavily as she did. “T-there.” She gasped. “How was that?”
“Pretty good.” Matthew said approvingly. “You finished that lot about fifteen seconds faster than I had predicted. I’m glad to see you’ve been practicing outside of these sessions.”
“S-something has to occupy my time.” Lia panted, sitting down on the ground. “If I’m not working on conversions or going through the lessons Nailah’s prepared for me, then I’m in the dungeon fighting monsters with a bunch of different Skills like you suggested.”
Matthew took a seat next to her. “And what about spending time with your lovers and taking time for yourself?” He asked. “You’re going to burn out if you don’t have any downtime.”
“My time for myself is spent in the dungeon.” Lia replied. “And I make sure to get a couple of hours with my lovers every night, that alone is enough to keep me from burnout.”
“You’re quite driven, I’ll give you that.” Matthew said. “If that’s what you want, then go for it. Just remember that taking some time to rest isn’t weakness, it’s as important a part of your training as any.”
“I can’t really rest on my own.” Lia said. “Every time I do, I get lost in thought and the dark feelings start popping up again. Combat training keeps me occupied and works towards my goals, so it’s killing two birds with one stone.”
“Well, I’m always open to lend an ear if you need to chat with an outsider.” Matthew offered. “Just tell Connie, and she’ll get you in touch with me. And don’t worry about interrupting me; if I’m not actively testing a plane, and I don’t have any plans to test other planes for at least a couple of years, then I have a lot of free time.”
Lia paused, then nodded. “I’ll do that.” She said. “So…what’s today’s lesson going to be?”
“Well, with that sort of time, I think you’re ready for a test. And, depending on your results, we’ll go in one of two directions. Don’t worry too much about passing or failing, if you do fail all it’ll mean is that we need to go back and spend a bit more time in this stage of training. It’ll be in the real world, but even if you get into a situation that would be legitimately dangerous, I’ll just pull you out before there’s a problem. I can guarantee that there will be no lasting consequences for it, so don’t stress it.”
“Okay.” Lia said. “What are the rules?”
“Live.” Matthew replied. “Your goal is to make it to the end of the road, and anything and everything aside from calling in outside help is fair game. There’s no time limit, and if you need to put it on hold to head back home for the night, we can do that, I’ll just have to put your resources back to what they were when you left.”
“Is it really going to take that long?” Lia asked.
“Probably not, but it is an option if you feel it’s what you need to do to survive the situation. Now, whether or not that gets you a good score is entirely dependent on why you chose to take it so slow, so just make the decisions you feel will give you the best odds of success.”
“Oh, I see.” Lia replied. “So, what am I actually doing?”
“I’ll be running you through a dungeon.” Matthew replied. “It’s in the far reaches of the Spine, beyond where anyone has explored, so there’s no chance of us being interrupted and you’ll have no information going into it other than what you’ve learned about dungeons in general.”
“So, kind of like when I was first dropped into the dungeon when I was brought back to life?” Lia asked. “Minus the guesses I could make from my familiarity with the area itself?”
“Yes, like that.” Matthew said. “This will be a far more traditional dungeon, though.”
“What happens to anything I convert in there? If I end up converting things, I don’t want to just leave them there, never to be seen again; that seems really cruel.”
“I’ll bring them back with you.” Matthew replied. “Some simple teleportation isn’t a huge issue so long as you don’t convert the entire dungeon.”
“Okay. Um, no more questions.” Lia replied. “I think I’m ready.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Matthew said encouragingly. “Now, I’ll be teleporting you in three…two…one…”