--- General Bahrug ---

An aide approached General Bahrug of the Second Grey Legion of Oruk: "Sir, The Coros report that their summoning was a success. The angel Arariel is on his way and will arrive in twenty minutes. The angel Rakul is being kept away for, and I quote 'reasons of public relations'."

"They actually succeeded? I was not expecting that. It seems I owe General Underhill an apology. Go fetch her and everyone on the strategy council."

This was great news. He hadn't put any stock in the Coros' claims that they would be able to summon an angel. It had all seemed like an enormous waste of money to him.

But his fellow general had insisted it was worth a shot, and now they had two angels on their side.

Oruk's military was the greatest on the planet, with the obvious exceptions of House Mardok and the Living City, of course. Possibly Ossor might be on their level as well, but it would be a close call. Compared to that, the invasion by the Shan Kingdom should be rather easy to fight off. But just because they were very likely to win did not mean that nobody would die in the process. The fact that the ultimate outcome of the war was so obvious made it all the more galling how pointlessly the lives of his soldiers would be lost. All because of the political machinations of an Old Power, toying with mortal armies like pieces on a chess board.

The presence of two angels might be able to change that, at least a little. That was what summoned creatures were for: To take the hits so that the mortals didn't have to. Sort of how the Shan Kingdom used war beasts as disposable frontline troops. Except that the might of an angel could not be compared to any mortal beast. They were small armies unto themselves.

Better still: They were intelligent. Arariel in particular was not just a simple soldier but a military commander within the legions of heaven. He would be well worth talking to.

Twenty minutes later the angel entered his command tent.

He was imposing and magnificent. General Bahrug was well-versed in all manner of supernatural creatures, as expected of a high-ranking military commander. As such he understood that the angel's form was a conscious choice. Angels did not have fixed bodies, and could choose how they appeared when they took physical form. Arariel was the picture-perfect image of an inspiring commander. His face looked like it was taken straight from a propaganda poster.

Bahrug's practiced eye noticed that Arariel's armor even had adornments on them that would make it slightly harder to fight, but that looked visually impressive. This angel was a leader and a commander, and there was no doubt in his mind that he could rally a demoralized army or intimidate an enemy just as well as he could fight.

"Greetings, mortals." The angel said, and bowed politely in greeting. "My summoners have bargained for my support and that of my partner. But our help comes with conditions. This war of yours is a conflict between people of similar moral character. It is a tragedy. We will not help one good person to kill another good person."

Oh great. He really should have seen this coming. Why couldn't the Coros just have summoned devils instead? Those were evil, but at least they listened to orders and didn't get all judgmental about it.

While he agreed that this war was a pointless tragedy, he was still a general of Oruk. His loyalty was to his people, and nobody else. If it was necessary to kill every single Shan invader then he would do so, and lose not a single night of sleep over it.

He really hoped the angels wouldn't turn out to be a colossal waste of resources. He had already apologized to General Underhill a few minutes ago and it would just be embarrassing for both of them if he turned out to be correct now, after all. And also it would mean that thousands of his soldiers might die. There was that, too.

"I understand heaven's reluctance in getting involved, but let me be direct and save us all some time: If you can not assist us in combat, then how can you be of use to us at all?" He asked Arariel.

The angel smiled in response. "Straight to the point, without any ceremony. Good, I like it. I am offering our services both for strategic planning and for the purpose of de-escalation. While we will not kill the Shan soldiers ourselves, you are under no obligation to let them know that."

"You want us to lie, and intimidate the enemy into surrendering?" He asked the angel.

"I do."

"You are a lot more devious than I was expecting."

"I am a pragmatist. We angels can not all be naive. Some of us value results over principles. If the threat of my wrath will suffice to save lives, then threats are what we shall use. If all works as planned, the enemy will surrender without a fight."

"And if it does not work as planned?"

"Then we will go with one of our contingency plans, of course. The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack, so it pays to have backups."

He took back everything negative he had thought about the angel earlier. He could work with this one.

They spent the next five hours poring over his plans together with his command staff. The angel was unfamiliar with the current political climate, but he had a vast amount of experience to draw on. General Bahrug was one of the top commanders in Oruk, and he was experienced enough to realize that he was in the presence of a military genius.

"...I believe that these two segments of the enemy army are going to perform a pincer movement in this location." The angel explained while pointing at the map.

"That does not sound like a good plan. We could easily counter it by moving the thirty-fifth battalion here to establish a chokehold."

"I agree. It is not a good plan, but I am quite certain that this is what they are planning to do regardless. The enemy leaders are former adventurers. They think differently from military commanders. They are used to a much greater degree of force concentration and do not properly account for the way the geography will restrict their movements. Based on the way they are stretching their forces thin in the Eastern valleys, I am quite certain that they have not yet adjusted to thinking on the scale of armies.

"Their use of powerful war beasts changes the equation somewhat, but not significantly. Notice how the armies closer to the North are making better use of the terrain? I believe that those parts of their forces are led by an actual general, while the forces over here are under the direct command of their leaders. This difference in movement patterns between army segments is similar to what I encountered in the war against the Living City, so I am quite confident in this prediction."

"You fought against the Living City?" He asked the angel.

"I was the commander of the third angelic host back then. It was my responsibility to detect and root out soldiers corrupted by the enemy's mind control. Identifying insurrections behind our lines and tracking their movements was an important part of my duty."

The Living City was a blight upon the world, and quite possibly the greatest threat in existence. Its ability to corrupt and subvert creatures was horrifically dangerous. It was only Denissa Mardok's intervention and the counter-curse she put on the city that prevented it from consuming all life on Hyd. He did not envy the angel for his role in this war. Purging your own ranks of traitors was a horrible thing, much more so when the traitors were unaware of their corruption.

Arariel continued his explanation: "I expect that the enemies' advance can be slowed down significantly if we manage to prevent their pincer attack. It will force their leadership to find a new plan, and that will likely slow down the advance of their other armies as well. The more the war is delayed, the greater the chance that you can achieve peace before too many battles are fought.

"To this end, I suggest a plan to minimize casualties: I will approach the Northern part of the pincer with my partner Rakul. We make an effective pair. I am the good guard, and he is the bad guard. The carrot and the stick. It is quite likely that we will be able to force a surrender without a fight.

"As for the Southern part of the pincer, I want to suggest an unconventional approach. I want to bring in a third faction."

The angel explained his idea.

It was crazy, General Bahrug thought.

But maybe it was just crazy enough to work.

--- Dordall the adventurer ---

"Charge!" The little pixie shouted at the top of her voice.

Dordall knew it was supposed to be a bloodcurdling scream, but Betsy the pixie was so small that it sounded cute instead.

The reckless slaughter that followed was anything but cute though, and the pixie's maniacal laughter would probably haunt her in her dreams tonight.

Thank the gods she was only killing the war beasts and not their handlers. The humans surrendered immediately when they saw what the little fey just did to the enormous beasts.

It was the second group of scouts they stopped today, and Dordall hadn't even gotten to do anything, yet. Betsy had a severe discipline problem and always charged in ahead before Dordall could even formulate a plan.

All Dordall got to do was to capture the terrified scouts after the fighting was done. A pixie was normally hardly intimidating, but Betsy was covered in blood from head to toe and giggling wildly. The little fey just asked her if she was allowed to kill the scouts since they had swords, and they immediately dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender.

Betsy pouted at them for ruining her fun. Spoilsports, she called them.

Dordall had known that working with a team of fey was going to be weird when she signed up for it, but she hadn't expected it to be quite this bad.

"Betsy, why do you always charge recklessly like that? You could die!" She asked the little pixie. Maybe appealing to her sense of self-preservation would prevent a repeat of this?

"Because it's fun, duh! And so what if I die? I live, I die, I live again!" Betsy replied enthusiastically.

Right. She was immortal. That had been part of the briefing, but the implications of that hadn't really sunk in for Dordall until now.

She decided to try a different track: "If you die while fighting then you might fail a mission, and then you won't get paid."

"Yes I will! I'm an intern! I get paid in experience, not gold, and dying in a fight totally counts as experience as well! So I win even if I die!"

"Wait. You get paid in experience only? You don't get any money? That's terribly exploitative!" Dordall responded. She was aghast. For an adventurer like herself, not getting paid for a job was second only to dying. She had really not expected that. Betsy was working for the Coros and that group had a reputation for making fair deals. But the pixie intern wasn't even getting paid?

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Of course I get paid in experience! Experience points are a great currency! Much better than gold! I have already gained so many experience points, I have learned to attack twice instead of once in a six-second interval!"

Betsy looked at her with clear pride in her eyes.

Dordall had absolutely no idea what any of that meant. Experience points? Six-second intervals? What an overly specific thing. But the fey looked very happy about it, so she just decided to nod sagely and smile, and pretend to be impressed.

They continued to walk through the forests together. Dordall soon gave up trying to move stealthily. There would be no point, what with Betsy's incessant rambling and excited noises.

"This is the place! Here is where we are supposed to meet the other Magical Girls!" The fey intern suddenly declared.

Dordall could not tell the difference between this clearing and any other, but she trusted that the little fey knew what she was talking about.

She still didn't understand what exactly was meant by "Magical Girl", but Betsy seemed to take it very seriously. Her superiors in the military had assigned her to this strange new initiative on short notice and with very little in the way of briefing. Military intelligence was considered an oxymoron for a reason. Someone had given her a strange foreign novel as part of the briefing, but that had obviously been a prank, so she ignored it.

A dryad and a strange metallic-looking fey suddenly stepped out from behind a tree that was clearly too small for them to hide behind.

"Hi! Are you Willow and Chrome? I'm Betsy! It's nice to meet you!" Betsy immediately greeted them.

This was a dangerous moment. Greeting a fey always was. It was one of the parts of their culture that had particularly many pitfalls. She did not care how much she had been assured that this was going to be perfectly safe. In her experience, when people said that something was perfectly safe, it usually meant that the thing was perfectly safe until it suddenly wasn't.

So she gave a very polite and well-practiced greeting.

The fey all looked at her weirdly.

"Don't mind Dordall. She is a little formal, but I'm sure she will warm up to you both super soon!" Betsy chirped in her support. "Anyway, I really like your whole theme, Chrome! But I'm confused! Aren't you a guy? How can you be a Magical Girl?"

"Silent Martha said that I should try being a Magical Girl anyway. She said that the Power of Friendship does not discriminate." The strange man explained.

"Silent Martha is very wise, so it must be true. She is very nice, too. She helped us with our bully problem!" Willow the dryad added.

Betsy looked at them in shock. "That was you? I heard about that!"

"Everyone heard about that." Someone said. Oh, that had been herself, Dordall noted. Her mouth had run ahead of her without prompting when she realized what the fey were talking about.

Really, everyone had heard about what Silent Martha had done. She wished she didn't, but it was hard to forget. Those poor bullies.

"Yeah, Silent Martha can be a little bit scary sometimes." Betsy agreed when she noticed Dordall's disturbed looks.

Willow and Chrome nodded glumly in agreement. They seemed quite perturbed, too.

"So, is Silent Martha your boss then? I have to admit the briefings did not make it very clear." She asked the three fey.

"Yes, she is. She is trying to become something called a 'middle manager' and that means she is our boss now." Willow explained.

"A middle manager? Seriously? She is one of the most terrifying fey in the country. Why does she want to be a middle manager?"

"Oh, there is a great story behind that and we know all about it, because she spent like five hours explaining it to us. She sounded really enthusiastic about it, too. There were graphs and everything.

"Silent Martha says that middle management is special because it is a bane of civilization while also being a part of it. It ruins everything it touches, even without malice. Even if a middle manager is trying to help, the fact that he is so far removed from both the top decision makers and the workers means that he can cause a lot of damage to society.

"That's really important because Silent Martha was born by the collapse of civilization, but she says she can't openly act against civilization because her ethics books say that's bad. We didn't really get that part, but she said that a power beyond our comprehension told her not to be evil and to do what those books say. That sort of thing happens from time to time, so I guess it makes sense.

"But she found a way around that problem. Being a middle manager is a way for her to harm civilization without actually opposing it directly. She is totally following all of the rules and laws that the locals make. She is just being a little obstinate and obstructive about it on purpose."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that Silent Martha has turned into a bureaucrat? A deliberately evil, maliciously obstructive bureaucrat? And she is in charge of managing fey?"

"That's right."

The color drained from Dordall's face. A fey bureaucrat. It was the worst thing she had ever heard of.

"Oh, don't be scared! She is very nice. I thought at first that she was going to hate me because cyborgs are very thematically related to civilization. But she didn't hate me at all! She said that cyberpunk is dystopian and therefore in line with her worldview, so she thinks I'm cool." Chrome explained.

She had absolutely no idea what the man just said. Most of those words sounded made up to her.

The fey were all so fucking insane.

And now it was her job to keep them from breaking things.

Her job as a 'Magical Girl'. Whatever that was. They still hadn't explained things, and at this point she was afraid to ask.

"Anyway, now that the introductions are over I am very excited to start working on our next mission." Betsy said. "Silent Martha said that we should set up a trolley problem in real life because she read about it in an ethics book and she wants to learn more about it. It's really cool! We have to find Bad Guys and tie them to a railway track, and then we have to drive a train!"

What?

"Oh, that makes sense. That sounds like a cool mission." Willow agreed.

Seriously, what?

"Wait a minute. I think there is a problem here. We should think about this carefully first." Chrome said in a concerned voice.

Oh thank the gods, at least one of the fey was not insane.

"Where are we going to find enough rope to tie all of the Bad Guys to the tracks? We need to find some places that have ropes first, and loot them!" Chrome continued.

Dordall felt the last bits of her sanity shatter.

--- Lilian Weaver ---

"Please milady, have a seat." Sir Cedric offered to Lilian while pointing at a chair in the ruins of Oruk's capital.

The impeccably dressed knight in gleaming plate had spent the last five minutes cleaning that chair because his insistence on chivalry and honor would not allow him to stand idly by while they waited for the last member of their excursion to arrive.

"Thank you, sir Cerdic, but I will be fine. I believe your time would be better spent looking for trouble than cleaning furniture."

"Of course, milady! I shall not allow the wildlife or any other threat to endanger you! You have my word!"

With that dramatic exclamation, he started looking around for any conceivable threat, with a look of utmost concentration on his face.

"Be careful not to stare too dramatically. Your eyes might pop." Abbadon the oft-betrayed commented besides him in a brooding voice.

Lilian was about to laugh at his joke, but then he continued "I lost a friend of mine that way. Gruesome way to go. At least he bought the rest of us time to escape. Well, some of us."

Right, it hadn't been a joke. She didn't know what else she was expecting. The young lord of House Edge had a backstory so tragic that Lilian could feel nothing but pity for him.

The man was dressed entirely in black, and tended to naturally gravitate towards the darkest corner of any room he found himself in. He was a capable rogue, and was driven by a need for revenge against his former mentor, who murdered his parents. His adoptive parents of course. Naturally the man never met his birth parents because he grew up in an orphanage.

He only discovered his secret noble heritage later, shortly after uncovering the evil plot of the headmistress to sacrifice them all to a devil. His best friend died in the fight against her, and she escaped only seconds after wounding him with a magical dagger. Lilian had to admit, the glowing wound made for a badass scar even by her standards.

His nickname was apt. His mentor and the headmistress were not the only people to betray him. Abbadon the oft-betrayed, scion of House Edge, had an impressively large list of people he had sworn revenge on, and he missed no opportunity to remind them all of it. It was kind of impressive how well organized the list was, though. He clearly had it mapped out well in advance which of his various antagonists he should take revenge on first. He had a flowchart and everything.

Surprisingly, the young man used a mace in combat instead of the daggers she was expecting. She would not be surprised if he found a way to use the mace as a slashing weapon though, what with all that edge.

She looked over at the other two people in attendance so far. Throckmire Battlebeard the warrior and Elara the cleric.

All of the people here looked ridiculous and acted like stereotypes. Even without her presence here, it should be clear to anyone watching that their meeting was ordained by Tonos. The god was clearly bringing his A-game here.

This was probably the most important story going on in the country right now.

All others paled in comparison to this one, with how much effort Tonos had put into gathering this team. All of these people were monstrously strong. Not quite at the level of Akleshktans, the adventuring group that founded the Shan kingdom and created the Davlash, but quite close.

If they were somehow capable of working together without the ongoing divine intervention provided through Lilian's manipulations, the four people present here and the fifth they were all waiting for could probably take over a small nation with relative ease.

"Look, I'm just trying to understand, that's all." The heavily armored form of Throckmire Battlebeard said to Elara. "If your god says that you should carry at least ten rations, and you eat one of them, then you are no longer carrying ten rations."

Elara was a cleric of Shallor, a minor god, of proper behavior and etiquette. Strangely enough, Shallor considered proper behavior to be context-sensitive. For an adventuring cleric like Elara, that mostly meant that she was religiously required to always carry at least ten packs of rations, fifty feet of rope, a crowbar, ten torches, and an assortment of other useful items wherever she went.

For a god of etiquette, Shallor was very pragmatic. This was unsurprising to Lilian: The Orukian Ministry of Culture encouraged worshiping sensible and pragmatic gods, and most of Oruk's citizens followed their advice.

"If you want to make sure that you always have enough stuff to satisfy Shallor's requirements, then you have to pack all of that stuff in addition to the amount you actually expect to need. So it sounds to me like you should pack two different bags of adventuring equipment, and using up one of them is heresy. That seems kind of counterproductive to me." The dwarf continued talking to the clearly exasperated cleric.

But before she could articulate her response, they were all interrupted by a sudden flash of magic, as Betrand the wizard appeared in their midst.

"You are late." Sir Cedric and Elara both admonished him at the same time.

Lilian did not envy the others for having two sticklers for rules on the team. One of them cultural, the other religious.

Bertrand looked at them and responded in an aloof and deliberately slow voice, as if talking to idiots. "A wizard of my caliber is never late. I arrive precisely when I plan to arrive. If you fail to account for this variance in your plans, then the fault lies with your own inferior intellect."

Right. Better to interrupt and nip this in the bud before the inevitable squabbling could really get going.

"I'm sure you are wondering why I called you all here today." She asked the assembled group.

She had needed to pull a lot of strings to get all five of them together for this mission, and naturally she had kept important information hidden until the most dramatically appropriate moment.

They all looked at her expectantly, and she took the cue to start her exposition.

"The task that you have all been hired to do is to break into the Ivory Tower. We have intercepted important documents that indicate that the enemy has found a way to take control of the artillery at the tower's top remotely. You will make your way to the very top of the tower and disable it. This mission is exceedingly dangerous, as every level of the tower carries its own unique dangers.

"The Ivory Tower was a meeting place for the country's intellectual and industrial elite. It contains the most sophisticated security systems, and is full of prototypes of magical items of all kinds. Based on personal experience, I expect that roughly half of those will somehow still be active and will have spent the past few hundred years eagerly waiting to murder whoever sets foot in the tower."

Bertrand started laughing. "Hahaha. No. I'm not doing that. I'm not suicidal."

"But think of the loot! Your contract contains the finders-keepers clause standard for adventurers. Isn't that worth the risk?" She responded.

"The task is impossible. I can not use a reward when I'm dead."

"It would normally be impossible, but I have a secret weapon."

With that announcement, she opened one of her Bottomless Bags and retrieved a potion bottle.

It was the same potion bottle that Rania Mortal traded her a few weeks ago.

Bertrand blinked in shock and rubbed his eyes as he took in the bottle. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes, it is."

"Amazing, I never thought I would see anything like this in my life." The wizard responded.

"An amazing boon to be sure. If I may ask, where did you get this, milady?" Cedric asked.

"A friend traded it to me in exchange for a magic compass."

"That's insane." Abbadon the oft-betrayed commented.

"It was really a very good compass."

"With this, it looks like we might just have a chance." Throckmire Battlebeard added, with awe in his voice.

"This does look like it will help a great deal. But it will not get us past the infamous seventh floor of the tower. Do you have a plan for that?" Elara asked.

"I have talked to some of the greatest military planners in the country, and they have come up with a plan that is as cunning as it is daring."

Then she motioned for everyone to come closer, dropped her voice and said dramatically:

"Here is what you are going to do."

...

...

"Yes? What is the plan?" Bertrand asked after about fifteen seconds of dramatic silence.

"Sorry, I don't actually have the plan in my head right now. Let me check my notes. I just needed to say something dramatic to trigger a scene transition." Lilian responded as she began rummaging through her backpack.

"Pardon?" Sir Cedric asked incredulously.

"Trust me, it will make the plan more likely to work. Once I have found my notes. Ugh. I can't find them. There are way too many ancient artifacts of unspeakable evil cluttering up my backpack. Makes it hard to find the notes."