December 31, 624
I pulled into the terminal, feeling the cold air carried from Stronghold Charlie stream out through the open door, stepping into the comparatively warm atmosphere of the Capital. It was the difference between negative 10 degrees and 30 degrees, which may as well feel like the difference between winter and summer.
There were a few other soldiers who got off with me, most moving to greet and hug family that were waiting for them. There were bright smiles all around, decorations put up all around the structure and pillars that reminded me once again that it was Christmas time. My thoughts ended up drifting toward Umara and how, yet again, she wasn’t here with me. I felt lonely while bypassing everyone and leaving the Terminal.
I was greeted with a luxury set of wheels outside, something similar to a short limousine, low riding with a full metal exterior. It had to be heavy but with enough money and magic, it didn’t matter how much weight was on those wheels.
Ovidius was standing outside, taking a step forward to greet me when I approached.
“John, it’s good to see you back.”
“Good to be back. Eager to get down to business?”
“Sawn is eager, but please let him know if you need the rest. We know that you’re a busy man on the front lines, and there’s no reason to focus so much on work when Christmas is here to be celebrated.”
He finished speaking while opening a door, letting me climb in. The interior sported a wrap-around couch with plenty of legroom and headspace. Sawn sat on one end dressed in a light suit with an overcoat. I took one side of the cabin, Ovidius taking the remaining end before closing the door.
We started rolling promptly, Sawn nodding to me when we made eye contact.
“How was your time at the Treehouse?”
“Relatively good. My responsibilities have practically disappeared since I’m gone half the time now. Not necessarily good for my reputation but I don’t really care much about that at this point.”
“Indeed. Your worries are better placed elsewhere, such as developing what you’ve coined magitech. How much thought have you given your work since you left?”
I shrugged, “Plenty, but I’m limited until I can get my hands on a workstation again. Oh, what did you think about the little work I did manage to finish before leaving?”
I noticed Sawn’s eye gleam, his demeanor shifting a bit as he leaned forward, “Ovidius and I have studied your work, and you must know John, what you’ve done is nothing short of revolutionary. We wish to consult you on how exactly you came to develop those arrays, the design philosophy, if you will. Your improvements to efficiency can be applied across the board and we want to do so.”
“How much of an improvement to efficiency did I manage to squeeze out?”
“Strictly 6 times without factoring in size, which you’ve reduced by 4 times.”
“Oh, good.” I nodded, “So I wasn’t totally crazy.”
“What do you mean?” Sawn asked with a raised brow.
“I just realized that the design was really inefficient, but I thought that there had been a reason for it since it was so obvious. I wasn’t sure if the changes I made were going to entirely disrupt or destroy the formation. But since it worked, that means my theories regarding how enchanting works were proven.”
“You say it was so obvious. I can’t wait to hear what made it so.”
Sawn smiled and leaned back into his seat. His compliments made me a bit proud.
Ovidius asked me about where I thought I was in the learning process as we made our way to the Magic Spire. Once there we got out and went straight to the top floors where I was led to a new office on the 88th floor. It seemed to be newly built because I didn’t recognize the entryway, though it blended in with the rest of Sawn’s office fairly well.
He motioned to the room once we entered, “This will be your new workspace. You’ll have everything you need to work here, unless you ever want to go down to the production centers to observe or study. Ovidius will continue to teach you. While I’m eager to see what you can do once you start designing, we need to make sure your foundation is strong first. Even if you need to spend the next year studying, that’s what’s important.”
“If it takes me a year to get a grasp of all this despite what I’ve done so far, I may as well throw my degree away. Don’t worry, I want to start working on things before the end of the month. Last month felt short and I want to start getting my ideas down on paper as soon as possible.” I looked around the room, noticing the massive workstation and the wall of screens that mirrored Sawn’s own office, “Maybe I’ll be able to help the war effort if they get out fast enough.”
“You have weapons in mind? What kind?”
“All kinds, primarily vehicles. My concerns mainly lie with the war so that’s what most of my designs will be aimed toward. Hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”
“That’ll be no issue.” Sawn waved, “We have a contract with the Kingdom for certain weapons and tools used for the military. It’s a major source of income. If you can develop more, we can sell it and write up more contracts. Especially if the Scourge is beginning to increase pressure across the board. Reliable weapons will be in high demand. For today though, you should go home and enjoy Christmas. Lessons can resume the day after tomorrow.”
I let out a deep breath, doing my best to keep it quiet, “Sure thing.”
The three of us split after making those plans. I left the Spire and walked out onto the Capital City’s streets, the sun having already set beyond the horizon. The cool breeze hit my face, slipping between my coat and hitting the shirt underneath, chilling my warm body a bit. The coat warmed in response, keeping my temperature comfortably nominal. Still, sometimes a good chill was welcome.
It was just barely cold enough for faint snow to form in the sky, nothing more than sparse flakes to excite the children. It was generally peaceful, the joyful airs of festivity pervading the collective Aura of the city. I could still see the Great Barrier on the horizon, far beyond the Royal Palace where large collections of power were congregating, probably a few Marshal level powerhouses. Sovereigns were exceeding rare to come by. Three of the only ones I’ve ever seen or felt were Anarchy, the Sovereign that guarded Purple Sky, and Anderson.
For a time I found myself simply walking in the direction of the Black Spider Hotel. My thoughts whirled like a maelstrom despite the peace around me.
I gave the Key Master a brief greeting and conversation. He seemed to notice my mood and didn’t keep me, which I appreciated as I slotted my golden key into the elevator and punched my floor number.
Then I got inside my room. The air felt a bit stale, wholly undisturbed in the time I was gone. It felt like an eternity since I was last here. Everything was exactly the way I left it. There was even a small grease stain on the counter, my eyes noticing the way the light reflected off its irregular surface. I had been too lazy to wipe the entire counter down when I left last. Now it was a marker of this room’s isolation.
I tapped one of the devices in the room and turned off the heater, letting the place cool. Then I walked over to the glass wall overlooking the city beyond. I could feel the cold air radiate as if seeping through the glass, the heat within the room flowing out in a complex system of convection and conduction.
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My thoughts spun through everything I knew about temperature, thermal conduction, infrared, my eyes scanning the city and thinking about how all the lights were sending more energy into my room through the glass, though minuscule and nearly negligible, wholly outclassed by the energy my own body was radiating into the atmosphere, my lungs and core heating the air that came in and out and pushing my body heat into the room…
Suddenly I made contact with my Spark and disconnected it. I gave it no tasks over my mind, cutting off information that might try to route through it. My thoughts reduced in volume considerably, and that helped me slow down my mind even more.
It was only then that things felt a bit clearer, and taking advantage of it, my mind felt like it crashed.
I squatted down, feeling lightheaded as I let out a long sigh. I shifted and sat down, back against the glass, eyes scanning the rest of my room from a perspective previously unknown to me.
The Psyka within my mind space stilled to some extent, and for the first time in almost two years, I went back to a thinking ability close to my original self. It felt slow… nostalgic.
“...You sure I can’t just go back home?” I muttered, nothing but the air particles around me to be disturbed by my voice.
“I’d like to see my mom and dad again. I know they’re worried about me. Do they think I’m dead? I wish I could let them know I was at least okay. I don’t mind fighting so hard, but at least don’t worry them for nothing. They don’t deserve that, not after everything they’ve done for me…”
I felt my body go limp. I was tired even though I still had energy. It felt like things were weighing down heavier than normal today.
I moved my head, my view shifting even though my own body felt foreign to me right now.
“I want to help these people, but maybe… I just don’t want to work so hard. Why can’t I just be given the power I know I can get and solve the problem already? It always has to be so fucking difficult to do something good. I’m going to spend years building my power, just to watch people die anyway. And even after building all that power I still have to be careful. I’m the one who has to pioneer a new summoner Call, I’m the one who has to weed out traitors, I’m the one who has to develop technology and get people to get off their asses and do something about the monsters trying to slaughter all of humanity…”
It pissed me off thinking about everything I’d have to do. It felt like I was the only one doing anything, and yet I also felt wholly insignificant. In the face of the monsters trying to kill us all, I was clawing my way forward with the hopes that I was able to keep up and acquire the power necessary to do something significant, or risk losing what little I had in this world.
The worst part was that I didn’t want to.
I didn’t want to fight so hard. I didn’t want to watch people die. I didn’t want to crunch mortality rates and hand in reports estimating incurred losses, treating tens of thousands of soldiers as mere numbers on a paper, as if it would change anything about how the war would actually go. I felt my head spin whenever I tried to put it in perspective, just how many people I had sent into battle, just how many people I had briefed, told to be careful, knowing that they would die no matter what I told them, yet witholding my knowledge in case they attempt to back out and preserve their lives out of fear.
I thought of myself as important enough to do whatever necessary to avoid dying meaninglessly, yet I had sent out thousands beyond the wire knowing that their sole purpose was to die on those red biomats and take as many monsters as they could with them.
I knew that I would go out and fight, and I had done so, but I only ever went into battles I knew I could either win or escape from. I never went into any battle willing to lay my life down. I thought it was a waste, as if it wasn’t a waste for entire companies to die in my stead. Was that just a natural consequence of their weakness? If they were stronger, they should be able to survive too, right?
There always had to be people to send to the slaughter. There always had to be the masses that could be sent out at the direction of those smarter than them. After all, the enemy had to be fought. The Scourge wouldn’t rest until it had taken over this world and turned it into its nest. It was okay to continually send out thousands to die, because they would either die fighting, or die worthlessly among their families, nothing more than food for the monsters.
No, the problem wasn’t the thousands that died. The problem wasn’t me, either. I was doing my utmost to get the most value out of every soldier I sent beyond those gates. I made sure that I could multiply the value of every platoon and company by utilizing tactics. I made sure the generals were equipped with the best, most up-to-date intel so they could make better decisions, so that more avenues of attack were open to them.
I made sure that there weren’t traitors leading even more men to the slaughter. I used my knowledge to prepare against threats that even the Kingdom’s military didn’t yet understand. I was proactive in my fight against the Scourge. I used nearly every waking hour to contribute to the war in some way, sparing no small amount of my energy and mental integrity.
In other words, I wasn’t wasting energy. I was using my energy, constantly, to do some good.
The problem was the other people who weren’t using their energy. The people who were wasting it. The people with the most energy to use.
The Marshals. The Sovereigns.
Where were they? Why weren’t they constantly on the battlefield? In a single day a single Marshal Warlock could wipe out at least 10 thousand monsters, if not more, and they could do it again after 12 hours of rest. Under optimal circumstances they could slaughter at least 70 thousand lesser monsters a week, 280 thousand monsters a month, over 3 million monsters in a year. And that was a single Marshal. Sovereigns had multiple times the power, all stuffed into a single body that could be moved anywhere without inhibition, relying on nothing more than food and water to sustain. They were the single greatest weapons that humanity had to offer against this existential threat.
And yet, I had witnessed the Marshal of the Treehouse engage the enemy all but once. Day by day I felt him through my Aura simply sitting within the base, all that energy doing nothing. Wasting.
In the two weeks I had spent working with Major General Quill to wipe out the flanking Scourge force during the first phase of Operation Breakwater, Marshal Boores would have had more than enough time to take them all out single handedly and with ease. On top of that, we wouldn’t have had to sacrifice half the force. We wouldn’t have lost half our Brigadiers.
And during that time, Marshal Boores was doing nothing but sitting at the top of the headquarters building, going through what little paperwork he had to handle and holding meetings with the Generals to discuss battle plans.
How many lives sacrificed, how much energy wasted, all because a single Marshal was too afraid to encounter a strong enemy on the battlefield that could match him.
Oh the irony that, in their strength, they found cowardice. Instead of seeing how much they could do with their power, they were fearful of how much they could lose. And so they sent thousands to die in their stead, slowly delaying the day they would have to fight for their place at the top, not realizing that by then, everything around them would be reduced to blood and ruin.
And here I was, attempting to multiply the force that these little minions could exert, trying to extend the lifespans of thousands by mere days or weeks, when in the end none of my efforts or the products of my industry would match even a single month’s worth of exertion from a single powerful being, let alone the hundreds located everywhere else.
No wonder I felt so hopeless. No wonder everything I did felt so inconsequential. No longer blinded by the sheer volume of information going through my head I could finally step back and see where the real problem lay.
In a way it was no different than the conjectures I had already reached before. The Kingdom was complacent. More than that, I believed they were scared. Knowing the sheer power of their enemy revealed to them by the survivors from the Pillars of Creation, their spirits have already been culled. They didn’t want to believe that the time was coming to truly fight for their lives, and were throwing numbers at the problem in order to indulge in their blissful ignorance and bountiful power just a little while longer. Even worse, some of them were ready to turncoat and join the enemy so that they may preserve their lives at the expense of humanity itself.
And yet, despite what I knew, and despite my indignation, I could do little about it. I could arm the thousands I sent into battle with information and weapons, tools that may revolutionize this world’s warfare, and all it would do is provide another layer of comfort for the demigods that sat behind the hundreds of thousands on the battlefield.
But I’d have to do it anyway, because it wasn’t fair to everyone else for me to withhold what I could do just because I was mad at the leaders. It wasn’t their fault.
In the end, it always came down to the same conclusion. Yet every time I reached it, I was further drained of my spirit. I could barely muster the energy to be enraged. It was so typical and I was so powerless that I just went with it, knowing it was all I could do.
I could only do what I could. I hated that. I hated knowing and being aware.
I couldn’t even be mad at the real problem, because I knew that it could be solved. I could only be angry at the people who refused to solve it.
Despite having slowed my mind down so much, slouched against the cold glass wall in my chilly room, I found myself completely drained of energy. My only choice was to go to sleep there, slumping down against the floor when my mind finally gave out.