--- Balron ---

It was a few minutes past sunrise, and the last of the house guards had just joined them. It was almost time to leave.

Whiskers had returned to Balron half an hour ago, and he was happy for the good timing.

After he had told the aide to deliver a message to the chief of the guards, he had sent Whiskers to deliver encrypted messages both to her and to several of her subordinates who he personally trusted. You never knew who might have been subverted, so it was important to have fallback plans.

"It feels good to finally be outside again, and going on a proper adventure. It felt like we were stuck in the city forever." Rania said.

"I was sure Dov was going to join us before we leave, though. Maybe she still will, through unlikely events of some kind?" She added hopefully.

"I hope so, but I don’t think she will. Everyone is here, and we will set out as soon as the Ulein guards give the signal." Galanys responded.

Balron was a bit worried for her safety. She had discarded the faux-military uniform she wore on their last outing and wore plain clothes instead, trying to look as harmless and unremarkable as possible, so that she would not be targeted in combat. The clothing was magically reinforced and far sturdier than it looked, but it was not comparable to real armor, or to his own defensive arrays.

At least she had taken his advice and spent some of their budget on magic wands. Her mana reserves were greater than they used to be, but it was always useful to have backups.

"So this is how you will be traveling? Those are some... interesting modifications." Adam said as he looked at their carriage.

The bard was riding a live horse. Skeletal horses were generally preferred over living ones, but his mount was clearly the result of extensive biomantic modifications. An utter waste of money, in Balron's opinion. It was probably almost as expensive as their own pseudo-tank, and nowhere near as useful.

Adam, Rania's new bodyguards, and Mr. Smith were all staring in awe at the carriage. Well, mostly awe.

"Why are the skeleton horses painted red? They look so... gaudy." Norsh asked.

Balron had been expecting that question, of course. There was no denying that the carriage's looks were not nearly as intimidating as they could be. But there was a good reason for it, and he found himself looking forward to explaining it all in great detail.

After all, the bodyguards and Mr. Smith would be traveling with them, and since both the Coros and the Historian of Secrets were as trustworthy as anyone could be, he would not have to keep any of the details secret from them, either.

"The horses are red because red is faster." Rania said before he could.

"Rania was a great help in improving the carriage. Most of its security is state of the art arcane magic, but her shamanistic rituals improved its performance even beyond that. I have no idea how it works, but I ran tests on the final results. The carriage goes faster if it is being pulled by the horses she painted red."

"Is that also why the carriage itself is painted entirely in purple?" Norsh asked.

"No. According to Rania, purple makes the carriage more stealthy." Balron answered.

"Ah, that makes sense. It's a common misconception that black is stealthy in the dark, but there are actually few things in nature that are entirely black." The experienced scout responded. "A dark shade of purple like this one should be effective for night-time operations. But then again, isn't the carriage too loud for that? Being hard to see doesn’t help if they can hear you coming."

"That's an excellent point, and I would agree with you if shamanistic magic was as logical as the arcane." Balron said. "I tested it extensively, and the carriage is much quieter than it should be, and even divination spells sometimes fail to track it. The bright red skeletal horses somehow don't make it easier to spot, either. I have no idea how that works. It just does. Rania assures me that it's reliable, though."

"Only so long as we stay in Oruk!" Rania cut in. "It's because there are so many orcs here. That's important. It's because one of the spirits made a spelling mistake once, but I can't explain why that matters or the spirits will get mad at me. They say it's supposed to be an in-joke and it would be rude to explain it."

Gods, this was confusing. Balron was happy for the help, but he could not get over how frustratingly nonsensical shamanism was. He vastly preferred the reliability and reproducibility of the arcane. When Rania first started helping, she had actually refused to explain some of the modifications she wanted to make, claiming that would make them work better. It had taken a concerted effort by the entire rest of the team to talk her out of that. Having unknown magic around was just begging for an accident. She was still sulking about it to this day whenever she was reminded of it.

"You make a good point, Rania. It is important to remember that this will not work outside of Oruk. It looks like this mission will not take us outside of Orukian borders, but forgetting about special cases like these has spelled doom for more wizards than I can count. In any case, I should mention for the sake of completeness that we also have two spare horses folded up in the trunk. Those ones are blue instead of red, because it makes them less likely to break down. Somehow."

He had asked her if there was some logic to the color schemes she used, but all she said was that it was based on the power of belief. She would not clarify which god she meant however, and Balron knew of none who cared about colors in such a way.

At least the paintjob Rania had done on the carriage looked professional, unlike the horrible mishmash of clashing colors with which she had painted Pebble. He would be the first to admit that he was not an artist, but it just looked childish to him. Then again Rania had said that she had copied the notes from actual children. Maybe spirits liked that? Aesthetic preferences differed slightly between the humanoid species, but fey and spirits were another matter entirely.

"His name is Boomwagon the First. It's important for the carriage to have a name. That gives it more personality and makes it more likely to survive." Rania said.

"...the First?" He wondered out loud. "Why? I don't pretend to understand how nominative determinism works, but wouldn't that make it more likely to be destroyed? Otherwise there couldn't be a Boomwagon the Second."

Rania nodded. "Yes, but it also means that we have to survive, so that we can build Boomwagon the Second. The name makes the carriage more likely to be destroyed, but his sacrifice will save us all, and he will live on in our hearts when we build Boomwagon the Second."

Balron had to stare and blink while he processed that. He had seen enough weirdness from her by now that he no longer questioned this, so he resolved to start referring to the carriage by the name Rania had chosen for it. Maybe it would help somehow? After two centuries of life in which he barely had any contact with shamans, he found Rania's way of thinking incredibly difficult to follow. The others were younger, and had adjusted more quickly.

"Of course. That makes sense. I will try to keep it in mind." He said belatedly.

Lynn pointed her flask at the carriage. "So, why do you all keep going on about the colors? Are we just going to keep ignoring the enormous godsdamned cannon?"

He had been looking forward to that prompt.

There was a cannon mounted on the carriage's roof, on a rotating turret. It was Balron's pride and joy, and the focus of much of his work for the past weeks. He hadn't been able to believe his eyes when he found it in one of the shops. It was a relic from the Great War. The shop owner had kept it around as an exhibit, and claimed that it was too broken to work. Balron had run some diagnostics, and found out that it would actually be possible to restore it. Galanys managed to haggle the price down to a point that Balron considered almost criminal for such a powerful weapon.

There was only one thing he wasn't happy with: The only reason they had visited that particular shop was because they had run across Lilian in the streets and wandered aimlessly for a bit while talking to her. This was probably not a coincidence.

"I am glad you asked. This cannon is a variant of the Cataclyst cannon also used by Northpass's own protector golem. It is weaker in power, but this variant has numerous other advantages."

He then went on to describe the cannon with great enthusiasm for several minutes.

When he noticed that Pymion was able to follow along with his explanations he went into deeper and deeper technical detail, until he realized to his embarrassment that he had lost the rest of his audience some time ago.

The cannon formed the centerpiece of the tank's weaponry. He had discussed how to build an "everything-bane" weapon with Galanys for hours, debating which types of special materials would be worth including. Would garlic be worth it for its use against vampires? Vampires were rare, and every inch of space taken up by special materials like this was not used for something else.

In the end, they discarded the idea of using bane materials almost entirely, and focused on the basics instead. The secret to building an anti-everything weapon was that "overwhelming power" actually worked really well, so they used most of their budget to increase the power of the Cataclyst cannon.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Vampires were weak against garlic, but they were weak against supersonic plasma blasts, too.

The cannon was not the only weapon system they had built into the carriage. They might have gotten carried away a bit on the first draft. Atrog had made them take down some of the more specialized things, arguing that sometimes less was more. The space freed up by removing a gadget could be used to strengthen the shield generator or the cannon's power supply. So the carriage ended up with far fewer weapons in the end than he had initially planned.

He still remained quite proud of the omnidirectional liquid dispenser system. It could cover the surroundings in holy water, acid, or oil. One of those was effective against practically anything, making it highly versatile and efficient.

"Are we all supposed to fit in there? It's going to be awfully cramped." Mr Smith asked.

Balron could not keep the smug smile off his face as he opened Boomwagon the First's door and revealed its inside.

"It's bigger on the inside!" Lynn shouted in glee. "Thank the gods, I was not looking forward to a ride with so many people in a normal carriage. But how did you manage that? I thought that spatial magic was very difficult."

"You are correct. Arcane magic does have difficulty with these sorts of things. Bottomless bags are a highly optimized and standardized magical item, and even so they are quite expensive. Enchanting the entire carriage in this way would have been infeasible even on the significant budget that princess Dov provided for us. Fortunately, Rania came through for us once again, and performed a ritual that made my own enchantments much more powerful than normal."

It was anyone's guess why wearing a fez had been a critical component for performing that ritual. It was hardly a standard spellcasting component, so they had actually had to spend half a day shopping around until they found one. Luckily, it had been more than worth it, and the results spoke for themselves.

"Very impressive." Pymion remarked as he inspected the boundary of the door for spatial imperfections and cast a minor spell to test it. The man clearly knew his craft. Balron was glad to have someone knowledgeable to talk to. "I can barely even notice the boundary. Amazing. Is the device back there the shield generator? How strong is it?"

"The shields are powered by an array of six Mark Four Arrays, from the Cale 3087 series. I use one of those for personal protection, and it kept me safe from the basilisk attack. Unfortunately these things are not really usable without training, so we can't use them for personal defense, only for shielding Boomwagon the First while we are all inside it. If the field is active while people are leaving or entering, there is a risk that it will treat your own organs as an attacking weapon that it needs to defend you from. It's not pretty. So please do not ignore the warning lights when the defensive field is turned on."

"Duly noted." Mr. Smith said, with a somewhat queasy expression.

The man had told them that he was not a combatant, and would stay in the carriage for the entire duration of the expedition. The Coros wanted him to join because Rania was just that important to them.

"How expensive was all that?" Lynn asked.

"Very. Dov was quite generous. It's an investment for keeping the heiress of a kingdom safe, so our budget was quite a bit larger than I am used to. I wish the annual funding for my department at the university was on the same level. Or at least that it had the same number of digits."

"I think it's a little unfair that you Sidekicks didn't get any of that money." Rania added.

"Oh, don't worry about it. We got plenty." Lynn smiled.

"Rania, I don't know how to feel about it that you call them your sidekicks." Atrog said. "It's certainly better than 'minion', but it still sounds demeaning even if I know you don't intend it that way."

Rania looked upset. "I don't know what else to call them, though? Adventurers don't have bodyguards, so they can't be bodyguards. Except for nobles. Those can have bodyguards even if they are adventurers."

Balron thought he could see the gears in Rania's brain move as he watched her scrunch up her forehead in thought.

"Hey! Wait a minute! That's it! Maybe my Secret Origin Story is that I'm a noble? That would explain why I have bodyguards. And it would also make all the money the Coros are paying me much more narratively appropriate. Do you think that might be it?" Rania asked them all hopefully.

"I doubt it, Miss Mortal. But I will be sure to mention your suspicion to our investigators." Mr. Smith responded.

"I hope that's it. It would be a really cool backstory. But just in case that isn't it, I'm still confused about what I should call you guys." She asked her bodyguards.

"Maybe just call them companions? They might be the heroes of their own stories. Even if they aren't quite as strong as you, maybe all this is their backstory for later?" Galanys ventured.

Balron was glad that at least one of them had the ability to speak Rania's language, because the gods knew it wasn't going to be him.

Rania looked thoughtful. "I don't know. They are kind of old to still be establishing backstory. Most heroes are young adults, and they are way older."

"Ouch." Lynn said, putting her hand on her chest. "That really hurt. Hey, Mr. Smith, the contract says we get extra hazard pay for unnecessary suffering. Does this count?"

"No." He responded laconically.

"Eh, it was worth a shot to ask." She shrugged.

Galanys was undeterred by the byplay. "Rania, I think it's perfectly fine for older people to still have an open backstory to live through. You mostly read books with younger protagonists, right? There are other books with a different target audience, who do have older protagonists, aren't there?"

"You are right, Galanys. I think I was being self-centered there. I apologize for saying that you shouldn't have additional backstory anymore. You may be really old, but that shouldn't stop you from having more adventures!"

"You apologize for the backstory thing, but not for calling me old?" Lynn asked.

"Yes? I mean, you look much older than me."

Lynn started laughing, and took another sip of wine. It looked to Balron like she was more amused by Rania's social ineptitude than offended by her words. It was pretty difficult to actually insult a follower of Duna enough to hurt their feelings, after all.

"One moment, please. It seems I have run out of wine. Can you give me a minute please?" Lynn asked.

Everyone watched as the cleric proceeded to loudly cast a powerful food conjuration spell, and produced several dozen more flasks of wine.

"Sorry about that." She said. "I ran out faster than anticipated."

Most gods would probably balk at such a misuse of divine power, but Duna did not care. Balron thought it was quite unprofessional behavior, to spend valuable mana on a luxury like that while they were on a mission. But it was not his place to criticize her, and judging by the looks on Norsh and Pymion's faces, they weren't going to call her out on it, either. In fact, they both looked quite happy as she handed them a few flasks as well.

"I believe it's time to leave. The others are starting to move out." Atrog said.

The group made their way inside.

Entering the carriage caused a slight prickling sensation. The wards against supernatural creatures, familiars, and shapeshifted druids were overtuned, and Balron hadn't managed to calibrate them properly yet. It was better for the wards to be too strong than too weak, so this wasn't a priority for him.

Once everyone had taken their seats, they started moving.

The carriage allowed the driver to look outside through a reinforced window, and control the horses remotely, so that they weren't in any danger.

Transcendence Laboratories was located relatively close to the edge of the Capital Containment Zone. It was one of the worst Cataclysm Containment Zones in the country. Everything in it was a random mosaic of various extreme climates that slowly shifted over time. There could be a firestorm raging in a one hectare area, and right next to it there might be a smaller area filled with a blizzard, while an adjacent street was perpetually blasted by a sandstorm, or exposed to constant acidic rain. A year later, the whole pattern might have moved a meter or so to the West, or shifted in some other minor way.

Almost every part of the capital was dangerous enough that exposure to the outside would quickly kill an unprotected person. Since the effects were so varied, it was extremely difficult to protect against them, as most protective spells were only designed to deal with one specific element, not all of them at once.

This made the entire capital very difficult to navigate.

The Interim Council had discovered that Transcendence Laboratories was located underground. This was not unexpected, as the constant hazards in the capital had completely destroyed most buildings on the surface by now. The only things worth looting in the capital were heavily fortified against the elements, and often hidden underground. Sometimes the extreme climates also extended underground and destroyed everything there as well. As a result, many expeditions into the Capital Containment Zone recovered nothing of value. Presumably Transcendence Laboratories got lucky in this respect, and was outside of the area of effect of the environmental hazards.

Balron had prepared Boomwagon the First to be resilient to the elements, but even with his nigh unlimited budget the protections were not enough for extended operations in the area. Instead, the Uleins were bringing a highly specialized magical item with them that would cast a communal protection spell once they reached the edge of the Containment Zone.

Their travels on the first day were luckily quite uneventful, and they spent most of the time getting to know Rania's bodyguards better. They only had a day to prepare, and Atrog was determined to make the most of it by discussing battle plans with them.

Balron was happy to see that they were quite serious about this. Even Lynn was paying rapt attention at all times and did not touch her wine. It seemed that he had judged her prematurely.

They set camp in the evening, at just half a kilometer distance to the edge of the Containment Zone. The plan was to rest here, and then cast the protective spell first thing in the morning before rushing in. Hopefully they could clear their target and make their way out again before the spell ran out.

Team Nundru, team Delta and Mr. Smith were all sitting together at the campfire and having dinner, when Balron suddenly noticed a familiar mental ping.

"*Scenario 12. I'm the male orc soldier fifty meters to the South who is smoking a cigarette. I'm going to approach you in a few minutes and I need you to invite me into the carriage with you. Medium urgency. High danger.*"

"*Oh, hi Dov! I knew you were going to join up with us! I'm so happy we can all go on an adventure together!*" Rania immediately piped up.

"*Dov, you are here? What's going on?*" Galanys replied.

Her thoughts were tinged with worry, but unlike Rania, Galanys gave no outside appearance of being shocked. Team Delta were giving Rania odd looks because she suddenly looked very excited for no apparent reason. Fortunately, people giving Rania odd looks was normal enough that it did not arouse suspicion.

Instead of reacting with words, Balron sent the feeling of a rather unusual emotion through the telepathic link.

"*...Seriously? Even now? This is ridiculous, Balron. What the fuck kind of paranoia made you decide to use an emotion as a password? I thought you were joking when you told us about that.*"

Good.

That was the correct response. The words 'paranoia' and 'joking' had the correct emotional inflection, too. If an enemy psychic was listening in on this, they would be unlikely to guess that this was the pass phrase they had planned ahead of time.

The best kind of password was the one that the enemy wouldn't believe even if they found out about it.

In the meantime, Atrog had already told the others to pack up dinner. Once they were inside and out of the range of eavesdroppers, he explained the situation to them.

Five minutes later, Dov knocked on their door, and they let her in with some excuse about trading booze. Well, 'him' right now. The Davlash did not really have a gender identity, Balron reminded himself. Dov just preferred being female because her telepathy worked slightly better that way, due to an odd quirk of genetics. Being a male orc was far outside of the ordinary for her.

"*Are they trustworthy?*" Dov thought at Atrog, indicating Mr. Smith and Rania's bodyguards.

"*Yes, they are. Please report what's going on.*"

He felt Dov add Team Delta to her telepathic link, and begin speaking to everyone at once.

"*My siblings and I were framed for a murder. I escaped. I spent the whole day cramped up in a wagon, disguised as a guard, and looking for a way to contact you without making people suspicious.*"

Oh. Scenario 24 B. Not unexpected. Framing the Shan siblings for a crime was a logical step to increase political tension and make a war more likely.

"*Also, House Ulein is behind it all, and most of the troops here are in their pockets.*" Dov continued.

Oh.

That was bad.

They hadn't planned for that.