“Okay, so, what’s the plan?” Lia asked. She was currently in one of the meeting rooms, having been in teleported there from the village she had been overseeing the conversion of. She felt more than a little annoyed that this had to happen right in the middle of her first real field operation and in a way that probably wouldn’t leave the best of impressions about her reliability on those poor villagers, but the Lord of Monsters wasn’t exactly in the habit of being convenient for people.
“Amelia and I have discussed this at length, and we believe it would be best if you led the charge.” Rose said. “And, before you go on about how you’re not up to the task, you are. Even if you take only the buffs to your stats into account and not Alisha or the Skills you get via Pride, you have more raw power than most Heroes. With those, you have the more potential than any of them bar Amelia or my current self.”
“Be that as it may, I’m not good at leading an army yet.” Lia admitted regretfully. “I don’t want to lead people to their deaths because of a poor decision on my part.”
“That’s fine.” Rose said. “I was thinking we would just have some max level people, Septima, Izumi, Nailah, Ophelia, and Amphi. If you listen to them, you should be fine, and it’ll be a valuable learning experience for you.”
Connie, Matthew, and Willow all agree as well. Rose said telepathically, then continued out loud. “We won’t be leaving you out to dry, of course; if you do run into serious trouble, Amelia and I will step in, but until then, we’ll just be watching.”
“It won’t be a huge force, either.” Amelia added. “We’ll have six max level people, Ophelia, Nailah, Amphi, and Izumi. The rest we’ll supplement with monsters, so you’ll have room for some mistakes.”
Lia sighed. “Are you really sure about this?” She asked. “This seems like a big step up from fighting other people, and you were so adamant that I stayed out of those conflicts until now.”
“You have it backwards.” Rose chuckled. “I’d choose the Lord of Monsters over a war like this every day. There are no ethical qualms in the fight, and monsters are far less intelligent than people. As things are now, the only thing holding you back is a lack of experience, and monsters are a great way to get that experience. Trust me, you’ll do great.”
“She’s right, Mistress.” Ophelia said. “This will be far easier for you than fighting actual people.”
Looking around, Lia saw that most of the people in the room shared that opinion. And…they couldn’t all be wrong, right? “Fine. How do we even find it?”
“I think I know exactly where it is.” Amelia said. “Rose, pull up the SPS.”
Rose obliged, a map of the world appearing on the table. Amelia instructed her to pan it so that it centered on the capital and the parts of the Spine north of it, and then pointed out a specific location far to the north. “There.” Amelia said. “The Lord of Monsters isn’t even trying to hide its presence.”
“So why don’t we just teleport in and kill it, then?” Lia asked. “Why bother putting together an expedition?”
“Mostly for training.” Amelia replied. “This is an opportunity for you to learn and grow, and we want to use that. Plus, it’ll help bolster your confidence, increase the number of powerful monsters we have on our side, and further map out the world. It’s a win-win. If things ever get truly dicey, or the effects start to manifest outside of the Spine, we’ll deal with it via teleportation, but until then we think this is for the best in the long term.”
Lia nodded hesitantly. “So, how do we start here? We can’t exactly plot a course when we don’t know what most of the terrain leading up to it looks like, and if we’re gearing up to map it out then we might as well go all the way, right? So…we’re just going to pack a bunch of stuff and pray for the best?”
“Basically.” Rose said. “But you have the advantage of storage magic on your side, so as long as you empty it out beforehand you can be the equivalent of a few supply wagons just by yourself. We can go over the exact details of what you should pack later, but it’ll probably end up being two thirds equipment and one third food and water; that won’t feed you for the whole journey, of course, but that was never really an option on a trip like this. You’ll just have to hunt for yourselves, but –”
“Can’t I just bring one of the food dispensers?” Lia asked. “You know, from the old dungeon?”
Rose blinked in surprise. “I…didn’t think of that.” She admitted. “Right now they’re currently running off of the Mana of my tree, but if we could retool them to work by manually charging them, I think that should be doable.”
“I can handle that, no sweat.” Amelia said. “It’ll absolutely guzzle Mana, but if we figure out what the most efficient foods to make are, then it shouldn’t be much of an issue with the sorts of people you’ll be traveling with. You’ll just be short on variety for the month or two it takes to get there and kill the thing.”
“Will she not be returning home every night like you two do?” Nailah asked.
“No.” Lia said. “If I’m going out on an expedition like this, I want to be there the whole time. It’s one thing to come back from an army that’s just sleeping in a fort, it’s another to not be…roughing it, like everyone else. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel the same and I don’t feel comfortable with that. I don’t want to be a leader that forces people to do something she’s not willing to do herself. They know that I’m like this, so they just assumed I wouldn’t be coming back.”
“I can respect that.” Nailah said appreciatively.
“So, putting this trip aside for a second, how will things be on the warfront?” Lia asked. “I know the other nations were planning some last-ditch offensive when the Lord of Monsters arrived.”
“It’s actually rather fortuitous timing for us.” Rose said. “ Our estimates say the armies won’t properly join up for another two weeks, and they’ll have to split themselves between the eastern and western fronts. We will too, of course, but we have the advantage of the Scourge of the Skies being able to ferry large numbers of troops from front to front, and Amelia being able to teleport our most powerful fighters from place to place quickly.
“We’re going to continue pushing in from the west, as well as launch our naval invasion. The naval invasion in particular is a little awkward since we can’t really afford to just take all the coastal towns for fear that they’ll just be invaded and massacred, but just the threat alone will make them reconsider their strategies.
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“Depending on how that goes, we’ll start pushing in from the east as well, but that’ll probably have to wait a bit; we weren’t able to get full control of Odria’s army, since a decent chunk of it had already left the country by the time we got around to beginning Odria’s conversion, so we don’t have the numbers we’d quite like over there. But, if things go well, then we can start getting pretty aggressive. I guess this really doesn’t change our plans much, except that we’ll need to keep an eye out for counterattacks, but that’s it.”
“Oh.” Lia replied. “Uh, I guess we can get back to talking about the expedition, then?”
“Yeah.” Rose replied. “For the most part, we want your storage to be full of gear and supplies to help with any unexpected situations. We’re talking potions, medicinal supplies, mountaineering gear, extra tents, a good chunk of modeling wax…the works.”
“Oh, speaking of, modeling wax isn’t going to cut it on the Lord of Monsters.” Amelia said. “And even if it did, we wouldn’t want to convert it anyway for the same reasons we didn’t want to convert Ira. I’d advise just killing the thing, it’s going to be more effective than trying to cocoon it.”
Lia sighed. “I was afraid of that.” She said. “What kind of people should I bring into the fight? I don’t think everyone is the right answer, that seems like it’s going to get a lot of people killed, but…what criteria should I use to decide who comes with?”
“Amelia and I will be on standby during the fight in case anything goes wrong, but you should be able to bring everyone but Septima. Ophelia, Nailah, and Amphi won’t be more than inconvenienced if one of their bodies dies, and Izumi and the max level people going with you should be able to survive any given attack in case Amelia and I need to bail them out.”
“Um, if I may intrude,” Izumi began, “what happens after? Once we win, I’ll be given the item that will link me with my home plane, and I’m not totally sure how it works yet. If it makes a permanent portal, then we may be leaving ourselves open to attack.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but provided it’s not a permanent portal, we’re probably going to want to leave it alone until we’ve settled things on this plane.” Rose replied. “If the item is just a permanent portal that gets automatically placed, then we’ll just have to deal with things as they happen. I believe the idea was that you would get something to the spirit of your wish, not to the letter, yes? If so, what did you envision?”
“Yes, and I thought of a device that would allow me to make temporary portals.” Izumi said.
“I’ll check with some of the gods to see what the most likely outcome is.” Lia said. “But either way, I don’t think we can delay killing the Lord of Monsters.”
“Correct.” Rose said. “Now, let’s have a brief talk about which six max level people we’re going to send with you. I have an idea, of course, but I’d love to hear other points of view…”
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Isaac, King of Misthaven, took his seat at the table apprehensively. He had been more than a little stressed lately; Marcus, the Sapphire Emperor, had been getting unstable, the morale of their armies had tanked, and their alliance was fracturing. It felt like things were getting worse and he could do little but watch.
He knew that the Lord of Monsters represented their last hope against the swarm. If this last desperate offensive failed, then he would be surrendering. As much as he hated to admit it, Astrea was right; there was no sense in fighting a losing battle that would only result in the deaths of more people than was necessary. If there was a chance, then he’d struggle and fight as much as he could, but only if there was a chance.
The other monarchs filed into the room one by one, ending with Marcus, appearing a full three minutes after everyone else. They all looked about as haggard as Isaac felt, and none of them seemed to be coming into this meeting with much hope.
“I’ll cut to the chase.” Marcus said. “We all know that the Lord of Monsters is our only opportunity at winning this war. It’s come earlier than expected, but it should buy us at least three months as the swarm tracks it down and dispatches it. In that time, we need to do something to help turn the tides or we will lose.”
“Going on the offensive to the east seems the wisest choice.” Zara, Queen of Ilex, said. “They don’t have as many troops there, and it will be easier to take back from them.” She turned and glared at Marcus, who was already opening his mouth. “No, Marcus, I’m not considering the west. They currently have most of their army concentrated there, and they’ll probably be able to handle anything we can throw at them with little issue.
“We’re making a desperate last stand, understood? And with a desperate last stand, we have to make hard choices. I’m closer to the west too, I understand your fears, but this is bigger than all of us. We can think about taking your lands back when we finish with the eastern front. As things stand, if we allow them to get a foothold there, then we lose.
“Amelia can teleport their most powerful fighters from one front to the other with ease, and it would take our best mages multiple hours to move one across that distance. They’ll have the much more flexible position, and in the end, we would be stretching our forces too thin to try and stop them. We have to deal with one of the fronts, and the east is the only viable option.”
“She’s right.” Isaac said. “Marcus, stop and ask yourself if you really think we have any shot at taking the west. If you can come up with a solid plan, then we’ll hear you out, but until then we have to take our best shot. And, yes, at this point I would rather attack the east without the support of your armies than I would attack the west with them. If you try to hold your support hostage, then I would advise leaving the meeting now.”
As spiteful as it sounded, Isaac had to admit that he enjoyed seeing Marcus like this. The man had always been so prideful and arrogant because his country was the largest and had the most powerful military, so having the tables turned on him, even if it was by a mutual enemy, was gratifying to see.
What wasn’t so gratifying to see was Marcus standing back up, red in the face. “Fine. I see how it is; you all have it out for me. In that case, I’ll be defending my country by myself, then.” He stormed out of the room, ignoring any attempts to get his attention.
Once he was gone, Isaac sighed. “I was afraid this was going to be the case. Now that he is gone, I wish to be candid with you all; if this offensive fails, I’m going to surrender. We won’t win, and further war would only serve to kill more people needlessly. If any of you can convince me that we have a legitimate chance of winning otherwise, I’ll gladly change my mind, but until then I’m firm in my decision.”
“I was thinking the same.” Cedric, King of Larios, said. “In anticipation of the likely event of an unsuccessful defense of my country, I even reached out to contact Astrea for clarification on what Emily meant by ‘semblance’ of our positions. Yes, I know we’re not supposed to be contacting them, but put yourselves in my position; it’s highly likely that the next country to fall will be my own, and I need to know my options.”
Zara sighed. “I think we understand.” She said. “It’s been a rough time for all of us. What’d she say?”
“In essence, that we won’t receive any sort of preferential treatment anywhere, that in terms of the law and how we are treated in formal settings, we would be the same as any commoner, but that we would get to retain our living spaces, and retain a degree of autonomy over our countries so long as we rule in a way the swarm deems just. Astrea called it ‘extra work for little benefit’, but said that this is how it is for everyone, herself and Nailah included. Extra benefits like our castles or other luxuries are tied to the work we do.”
“That’s not that bad.” Amos, King of Illia, said. “As long as we don’t act unreasonable towards our citizens, then that’s basically the same as our lives now, no?”
“It depends on the policies they want us to enact.” Zara said. “But let’s leave further talk of that for if we fail the offensive. For now, let’s start planning out details. Cedric, I know you’re unsure about giving information to us, but any that you can would be appreciated. Otherwise, we’ll just make plans based on what our maps say, okay?”
Cedric thought that over for a moment. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to spare some information on the border.” He said. “Emily will know that anyway. Here’s how it is…”