--- Dov ---
"*When you say artifact, do you mean that colloquially, or an actual artifact? What does it do?*" Balron asked.
Most people just used the term to mean 'a very expensive magical item' instead of its technical meaning of 'a unique item that nobody knows how to reproduce'. The type of thing that could only be found in the ruins of extinct civilizations, or as heirlooms of noble houses that were often their single most prized possession.
"*A real artifact of course. Why would I lie about that?*" Rania asked.
"*Of course. You received an artifact from a world famous author. As one does.*" one of the mercenaries that hadn't yet been introduced to Dov said sarcastically. "*You know, Mr. Smith, I am starting to understand why you were willing to pay so much for this.*"
Dov had to agree with the sentiment. This was not the sort of thing that one should just mention casually. Dov herself had seen a few artifacts in her life, most notably among them the pendants that she and her siblings wore to preserve their souls upon death. But her circumstances were anything but normal: The Cursed Lands were full of ruins of earlier civilizations, as well as the equipment left behind by powerful adventuring parties that were less successful than her parents and died in the process of exploring the place.
Most of the loot that adventurers sought in the Cursed Lands came from the remains of previous groups of adventurers. Somehow, they still kept coming anyway.
She wanted to know what artifact Rania could be talking about, that would allow them to confirm Galanys' theory. But she also feared the answer they might get.
It would be very disturbing if their enemy was really Cilia Ulein. The high priestess of Brytius, the same god she had dedicated her life to.
Was it heresy to kill the high priestess of your own religion?
Would Brytius accept "but she started it!" as a valid excuse?
Would she even need an excuse? After all, if they managed to win, then clearly Cilia was not skilled enough and needed to improve further. Really, if they managed to defeat and kill her, then Cilia should be thankful to them for pointing out her failures and revealing more opportunities for further growth.
Dov was about ninety percent sure that this wasn't just wishful thinking on her part. No, killing the high priestess should be totally fine and was not heretical at all.
What was far more worrying was the possibility that Cilia would kill them all. Even with Tonos on their side, an Old Power was still an Old Power. Although admittedly Cilia was almost unique among the Old Powers in that she had been killed many times before. Other Old Powers got old by being unkillable, but Cilia got old by coming back from the dead. It was possible to kill her. It just didn’t stick. There was plenty of precedent.
But killing her wasn't easy by any means.
What if they all died while fighting Cilia Ulein?
This was not how she had expected her adventuring career to go when she bid her parents goodbye and set out with her siblings.
Her thoughts were going in an unproductive direction. So she took a deep breath, and banished them from her head.
She focused on Rania instead, who had pulled a compass from her bag.
"*This is the Compass of Legends. Lilian says that it can be used only once per decade, to find one object, location, or person of legendary significance. You just have to press this button here and state the name of what you want to find, and it will point you in its direction.*"
Mr. Smith was staring wide-eyed at Rania. "*Can we trade for this? This could be used to find other artifacts that have been lost to time. If it works the way you describe, it is immensely valuable.*"
Rania shook her head. "*I'm sorry, but no. Lilian gave it to me to help me with adventuring. I can't just trade it away again without using it. That would really go against the narrative we have established. Pebble also says that some of the spirits would get pretty mad at me if I did that.*"
The man looked reluctantly acceptant. "*I understand. And Lilian Weaver just gave you this artifact? Why would she give such a treasure away?*"
"*Of course! What use would Lilian have for this item? She can find legendary things on her own just by walking around. This isn't really useful to her, so I traded it for a mystery potion that a Magical Girl gave me. You know the one, but you made me sign a contract that I shouldn't tell others about the Magical Girls.*"
What did Rania mean by magical girl? Was that code for a sorceress? Dov knew that Rania had a lot of secrets going on with the Coros, and she did not wish to pry. Rania's secrets were her own, and she would respect that.
"*I originally wanted to keep the compass a surprise for later. In a few years, when we all are legendary heroes ourselves, we could use it to find each other if one of us got lost!*"
Rania looked at them all with a bright smile.
How sweet that this was her first thought for using such an item. To use an ancient artifact to find her friends if they got lost. She seemed to just assume that they would all become legendary figures at some point, and spared no thought to the possibility that they might die before that. Rania was delusional, but it was hard to get annoyed at that when she was so very nice.
Dov sent thoughts of appreciation through the telepathic link. It was kind of like giving somebody a hug with your mind. Her friends did the same thing. Rania was just the sweetest.
Rania basked in the appreciation for a bit before she continued.
"*I couldn't tell any of you that I had it of course. Plot relevant items work better if they remain a mystery until they become relevant. And it looks like now is the time for that. I can use the Compass of Legends to find out where Cilia Ulein is. If she is in Oruk, or even near Transcendence Laboratories, then Galanys is right.*"
"*Wait, Rania. Before you use it, can you describe how it works? We wouldn't want to waste it.*" Atrog asked.
"*It works by asking the spirits to share gossip.*" She responded, as if that was a perfectly normal way for magic items to work.
"*Any being as powerful as Cilia Ulein is bound to be well protected against scrying spells. How does it interact with divination wards?*" Balron asked.
"*Um, it doesn't? It just asks the spirits what they know. Magic doesn't really factor into that. Gossip is a powerful force.*" Rania answered.
Balron narrowed his eyes critically. "*You are saying this can just bypass divination wards? Then what prevents spirits from doing that normally? Can shamans do that? Can you do that?*"
"*It's hard to explain. Basically, spirits normally respect privacy a lot, so they wouldn't do that. Even though they totally can if they want to. But the compass tells them that the target is of public interest, so privacy rules don't apply. That's why it only works on legendary things.*"
Dov noticed Mr. Smith furiously taking notes.
That was quite the revelation, if Rania was correct. Spirits could bypass divination wards, and the only reason they couldn't be used to spy on people was because they had their own set of norms that prevented them from doing so. Norms that a savvy enough shaman would presumably be able to exploit.
"*Does that answer all of your questions? Can I go ahead now and use it? I’m really excited to find out if Galanys is right and figured out who the main villain is all on her own.*"
They all gave their assent, and Rania immediately set to work.
She activated the Compass of Legends, and gave it Cilia Ulein as its target.
The Compass began to glow, and the needle promptly pointed at a corner of the carriage.
Time to put her recently acquired perfect memory to use. She had memorized the exact coordinates of important landmarks in the country, and she could see the sun setting through the window and compare its angle to the compass needle. The rest was a simple matter of geometry.
After a few seconds of thought, she had her answer, and she was not happy about it.
"*That does look like it's pointing in the right direction. But for all we know it might be pointing slightly past the facility, and Cilia Ulein is actually on another continent. Does anyone have any idea how to make sure?*" She asked.
With any luck, Galanys might still be wrong about this. She really did not look forward to fighting Cilia Ulein.
"*Excuse me, spirits? This Compass only shows a straight line and we don't really have the time to triangulate. Could you tell me how far away Cilia is? Is she where we think she is? Oh, you can't tell me anything except through the compass needle. No, it's alright. I understand. Rules are rules. Thank you anyway, this compass is really cool and you are doing a great job!*"
"*Wait. Can you ask them if they are allowed to make the needle wiggle up and down and answer questions that way?*" Galanys asked.
Gods, how did her girlfriend keep coming up with brilliant ideas like that?
Dov considered herself very lucky to have found her. She was so funny and romantic, too!
Well, for a given definition of romantic. Most people preferred exclusive relationships and would probably get scared rather than excited by some of the weirder ideas she came up with. But for Dov, she was perfect. She couldn't wait to introduce her to her family. If she could trust her slowly returning memories, they were going to get along great. She wished it could be under better circumstances than a looming war, though.
Rania appreciated Galanys’ suggestion as well, and promptly asked the spirits if that was alright, or against the rules.
After a few seconds of listening to voices nobody else could hear, it looked like Rania received an answer.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"*The spirits say they are totally allowed to wiggle the needle! Awesome! Please wiggle up and down if Cilia is in this area on the map.*"
Rania pointed at the area around Transcendence Laboratories.
The needle wiggled up and down.
"*Wow, that is so cool! Galanys, you were right! You figured out who the villain is! And it's going to be a super strong and thematically cool one who we can keep fighting multiple times. This is going to be so much fun!*"
Rania looked at them all excitedly.
Fun. Right. Fighting an Old Power was going to be fun.
By the looks on the faces of everyone else, Dov was not the only one who was not looking forward to this.
This was going to be terrifying. Back in Greenwatch, she and her siblings had been forced to flee into the Realms Below by a powerful human mage. Had that been Cilia Ulein's current incarnation? Or only one of her servants? The man had been strong enough to defeat them all on his own, but she had grown more powerful since then and team Nundru was stronger and much better coordinated than her siblings were.
They might be able to win.
But maybe Cilia Ulein was holding back even then?
She was worried for herself, her lover, and her friends. But at least all of them had signed up for this. Becoming an adventurer carried with it a certain assumption of risk. They all knew what they were getting into.
But what about her siblings? They might have decided to become adventurers at first, but they were minding their own business in Northpass when they got caught up in all of this. She did not know what was going to happen to them. The government of Oruk couldn't possibly be stupid enough to harm them intentionally, but there was no telling what the traitorous House Ulein might do in order to trigger the war they were so clearly trying to provoke.
And what about her responsibility to her kingdom, and her parents? If they failed to stop Cilia Ulein, then whatever plans she had could very well end up destroying the Shan Kingdom. As powerful as her parents and their armies of beasts were, Oruk was still Oruk. The country had fought most of the rest of the world to a standstill during the Great War, when the Azadian Empire threw one slave army after another at them in an attempt to win by attrition.
She had wanted to go adventuring in order to grow stronger, and to become worthy of her position. But it looked like that played right into the hands of Cilia Ulein. Would this end up causing the downfall of her entire country?
And what if the enemy attacked her parents? If the enemy wanted to spark a war, then assassinating one of them in a false-flag attack with Orukian troops would be a smart move.
It could very well be that she would never see her parents again.
She was torn from her dark thoughts when Rania pinged her telepathically and pulled a strange magical necklace from her backpack.
"*I just remembered that I forgot to give you your gift! I gave everyone a gift, but you weren't there because you were busy with your own plotline. It's a power-limiter that will help you train better, and you can also use it to disguise yourself.*"
"*Thank you, Rania! That is very thoughtful of you. How does it work?*" She responded.
Rania gave a brief description of the item, which was apparently made by an archfey to fit among mortals. It must have been ridiculously difficult to acquire, and not for the first time Dov wondered just how much money the Coros were paying Rania.
"*You probably won't get much use out of the power-limiting part now, but I think the gift has already done its job.*" Rania said. "* I was planning really hard to give it to you and told everyone about it. That made it more likely that you would show up in time, because otherwise you couldn't get the gift. I'm happy that it worked so well!*"
Dov did not know what to make of that reasoning.
But regardless of the intention, the gift had inadvertently helped her a lot more than she had expected. The story of the archfey that tried to fit in among mortals had reminded her of an important part of Brytius doctrine that was very applicable to her current situation: Change the things you can, accept the things you can not change, and develop the wisdom to tell the difference.
There was no point in dwelling on what horrors could result if Cilia Ulein won. Her time was better spent planning how to stop her.
All those fatalistic thoughts she had earlier were not useful. Getting absorbed by them would only distract her, and thereby make them more likely to come true.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. And aim to win.
...
What assets did they have?
The same assets that they always had. Atrog had practiced this with them over and over.
A better question would be: How was their current situation different from how she had expected their first mission to be?
The only differences she could see were the changes she had made to her own body, and these unknown mercenaries who were presumably the bodyguards Rania had been promised. It was possible that Rania had more surprises, but Lilian had made it clear that asking about this would be counterproductive.
She was currently in the form of an orc. A guard whose identity she had stolen in order to escape the city.
The nice thing about this body was how healthy it was. Non-Davlash generally weren't able to tell the difference between a healthy immune system and a weak one, since most people went their whole lives with the same immune system they started out with. But a Davlash could change their genetics quickly, and could notice differences like these.
She felt energized and strong, and she knew from experience that she would need less sleep than normal. It was the opposite of her draconic form, which had been physically stronger and more powerful, but also absolutely miserable in terms of health, because too many of its genes were incompatible with each other.
It was a pity that this genetic makeup was once again incompatible with Damiah's telepathic powers. Those were simply too important to sacrifice for any other ability.
Because of this incompatibility, her telepathy was currently slightly slower than normal. The difference was not great. Almost imperceptible, really. But in the heat of combat, every millisecond counted. The ability to coordinate at the speed of thought was more useful than being able to hit slightly harder.
She wondered if Adam would have been able to listen in on their conversation if it wasn't for her current state. Probably yes, she had to admit. The difference was not that great, and the Historians of Secrets were not to be underestimated. She actually had no idea what technique Adam used to read her telepathy. Was it a magic item, or was he secretly a mind reader as well? At least he was sworn to maintain political neutrality, and so it did not actually matter if he knew their secrets.
She idly wondered if he would be able to read her mother's telepathy as well. Almost certainly not. Damiah was the leader of one of the most powerful groups of adventurers on the planet. The Law of Adversity strengthened every aspect of a person, and that made it very likely that her telepathy was by now practically impossible to counter or interfere with. Her mother was able to detect the presence of minds through meter thick walls, and to induce panic or delusions in people without even entering the building they were in.
All in all, Dov would prefer to be back in her default form, for the stronger telepathic abilities. Unfortunately there would probably not be enough time between now and their fight with Cilia Ulein to revert these changes.
That left the second thing they hadn't planned for: Who were all of these mercenaries?
She asked the others for an explanation, and received a brief introduction.
Mr. Smith was just there as an observer. The other three were competent fighters in their own rights.
She was a little irritated by the immense amounts of alcohol that Lynn seemed to be carrying with her. That was just unprofessional.
The woman always opened her wine flask and got ready to start drinking whenever Rania started talking. It was almost like a conditioned response.
Then again, Lynn was a priestess of Duna, just like Dov's own mother Elona. If she used Elona as a point of reference, then Lynn was practically normal. Duna gave no commandments to her followers except to acknowledge the inevitability of death and entropy. They tended to get a bit eccentric as a result.
The mercenaries seemed competent and were already used to working with each other. Unfortunately they didn't have any experience with using Dov's telepathy, so using the same tactic that they had employed during the assassination attempt in the courthouse could be problematic. Without practice, they wouldn't be able to fight well while relying on Dov's senses instead of their own.
After the introductions were out of the way, they all started a heated discussion on how to proceed.
They were surrounded by the enemy. The Interim Council was a day's travel away and would not believe any message spell they sent as a warning. They were walking right into a trap.
The country itself was in big trouble as well. House Ulein was in charge of foreign relations. If they were actively trying to cause a war, they could have done any number of things. That was actually kind of suspicious, Galanys said: House Ulein should have more subtle ways of triggering a war than this. There must be more going on here than they realized. But they all agreed that figuring this out could be left to someone else, and stopping Cilia Ulein took priority for them.
To her surprise, Atrog suggested that they proceed with the original plan.
"*If the enemy makes a trap you know about, spring it on your own terms and ambush them.*" He said.
The underlying reasoning by the rest of the council was still valid despite the Ulein's betrayal: Attacking the facility was better than waiting around. Right now, they had the advantage because they knew Cilia's exact location. If they fled, they would lose that advantage because the Compass of Legends could only be used once. But if they struck now, they might be able to kill Cilia and end this entire budding war in one strike.
That left the question of how to inform the Interim Council of what was going on.
Luckily, Mr. Smith volunteered to ride back to Northpass and inform them. The Coros had an impeccable reputation and so they were likely to believe him.
Most of the guards and mercenaries were not part of House Ulein, but as Dov told the others, several of them were in their pockets and it was difficult to tell who. It would take too long to establish where everyone's loyalties lay, and the attempt could tip off House Ulein. It was safer to assume that they were all hostile, and to rely only on team Nundru and team Delta.
A plan was coming together.
They would take a few hours to sabotage the carriages of the Ulein guards. Then they would rush ahead and assassinate Cilia Ulein.
Dov still had qualms about it, and voiced her concerns. Put simply, if the enemy wanted you to be in a specific place and you didn't know why, then it was a good idea not to go to that place.
Balron agreed with her concerns, and said it was better to return to Northpass and consolidate forces.
Galanys agreed with Atrog, because an opportunity like this was not going to present itself again any time soon.
Pymion of team Delta agreed with Dov, though she suspected this was only because it would make his job easier. Norsh and Lynn plainly admitted that they had no idea how to make plans like this because they were military and had never been asked their opinions before.
Rania was extremely confused why they were discussing this at all. She said she had never read a story in which the heroes would just turn around and go back after discovering such a cool opportunity for a boss fight.
She said she was very disappointed that Dov would even suggest that, although she grudgingly admitted it might be because Dov was "*from a crossover with a different genre*". That actually sounded surprisingly insightful to her. After all, she had learned how to fight from her parents, and their approach to combat was as non-traditional as it got. Unfortunately, sending in wave after wave of telepathically controlled and biomantically enhanced monsters was not an option for them.
Dov had to admit, after all the strange things Rania had managed to achieve, and with Tonos' involvement in the whole affair, her narrative reasoning was actually pretty trustworthy. Would they lose Tonos' support if they went back to Northpass instead of charging ahead?
In the end, it was Atrog's decision as team leader.
She knew better than most people that unity was important. Even if you did not always agree with your leader's decision, it was better for everyone to follow a slightly sub-optimal plan, than for everyone to run off in different directions.
Atrog decided that they would go ahead with the plan, and as far as Dov was concerned, that was that.
That left only one important question to discuss: How to actually get to the facility intact?
"*Boomwagon the First is resistant to the elements, but without the specialized equipment House Ulein brought along, it is too risky.*" Balron said.
That did not bode well, Dov thought. "*I had a look at the device when I spied on them earlier today. It is integrated into one of their carriages. It won't be possible for us to steal it without taking the whole carriage, and that would definitely alert everyone. It's in the center of the group, and well guarded.*"
Atrog looked irritated more than anything else. "*Any other ideas? Frankly, I would be very surprised if Tonos arranged for all of this bullshit only for us to fail to get past environmental hazards. I don't understand story logic like Rania does, but even I can tell that there is no way this should be a hindrance.*"
What had the world come to, that even Atrog started to rely on narrative causality to pave the way for them?
Not that he was wrong, of course. It was an empirical fact that Tonos was interested in them, and therefore relying on his interventions made tactical sense, to a degree.
It just rubbed her the wrong way. Her belief in Brytius told her to learn, improve, and overcome challenges through her own skill, and not to rely on divine help to solve her problems for her. Even Cilia Ulein herself did not receive any direct help from him. Brytius only enabled her to keep growing, but she still needed to put the effort in herself.
She looked to Galanys, expecting her to come up with some idea how to solve this problem. The others were looking at her as well, but she just shrugged and said she got nothing.
After a few seconds of embarrassed silence, Rania spoke up.
"*Um, I haven't mentioned this before because it's kind of a rude thing to do, but if it's this important, then that changes things. I think, maybe we could just take a shortcut through the feywild?*"