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Emergency repairs (Log 068)

I have realised that there is something even more annoying than being forced to do work and that is being forced to do work with a negative bastard like Trevor. I wonder for a second whether I really need to even convince the man, with how difficult it is becoming nowadays.

"well, I would warn you to be very careful, captain.", Trevor begins again, trying to convince me not to leave. This is his third or fourth time trying to convince me to go on this formation checkup.

"Well, there is little that I can do about this now, can I?", I reply, trying to keep my annoyance in check. It is very hard to keep repeating the same thing to the same man.

"It is just a very ideal method of getting rid of you, captain.", Trevor speaks. I do try to listen to the man, but he has become bit too frequent in predicting our doom that it is starting to get on my nerves.

"I know, but it is not like I can risk the absolute barrier because I will not be able to trust the people that are escorting me, now can I. It is not like they need to get me beyond the absolute barrier to kill me. They can do it right now at this very instant if they so wish.", I reply. "It would be more dangerous for the mayfires if that formation were to fail. I would have to think that the mayfires understand that better than me."

"You cannot really bet on that, captain. Humans are stupid creatures at the best of times. The family head is the only reason that these people are even working together.", speaks Trevor. "Beyond the barrier I am not sure of how much effective his commands will be."

"Are you sure of that, Trevor? I have never seen enemies that work this well together." I ask the man. I am sure that the man is right, but as I said he has been getting on my nerves.

"Well, I have seen blood enemies that would kill each other at the drop of an hat work together like blood brothers to kill the third enemy so many times.", he replies. "Sometimes I am left wondering why even are they fighting each other. Yet they do fight each other in the most vicious manner possible. Even if this means their death."

"Still, I am sure that my safety is assured, Trevor. In this case, I am certainly not the third enemy.", I reply. "The third enemy is the one that has invaded their keep and is still encroaching into their homes. Until they are gotten rid of, I am sure that the soldiers will remain focussed."

"I hope that the mayfires are also thinking like this captain.", replies trevor. "I find it wiser to remain prudent. It is not like necromancers are formation mages anyway. I find it very hard to believe that this vulnerability will even be found by the enemy."

"Well, if it was that simple, I would have remained behind. But if the team is to be believed then it would be wiser to just to go with these people Trevor. Why have a vulnerability if it can be fixed?", I reply.

Well, that is enough to shut up Trevor completely. He will try in a while again with different arguments and different logics. I guess there is wisdom in what he speaks but what can I do. It is not like I have worked so hard in strengthening the defenses of this place only to have it destroyed by a simple flaw.

Let's just hope that Trevor will remain quiet until I can actually leave on the mission. It is hard to enter into a focus with a person next to me constantly blabbering.

(after a couple of hours.)

When you are designing formations you always have to have a very clear idea of where each component of the formation is being placed.

Otherwise stuff like what is happening with me at this exact moment is going to keep happening.

How the fuck can a formation mage build a barrier formation by leaving the formation outside of the barrier. That literally defeats the point of having a barrier in the very first place.

Thankfully, the component of the absolute barrier that is outside of the barrier is a basic formation that is supposed to ensure that the shape of the barrier remains as it should be.

Without it, the barrier itself won't be affected but there is a chance that the barrier shape can be modified. It might give a creative enemy the opportunity to breach the barrier.

Naturally, with such a glaring weakness in the barrier there is little chance that I will be able to ignore it.

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Well, I honestly don't not have an idea as to what I am supposed to do with this formation but I will have to figure it out in my journey to the place.

It is not very far away from the barrier but the place it is in a prime location to be attacked by horde. It would also be quite easy to be detected by enemy necromancers.

That is why I am leaving under the escorting of the team that have done the modifications that I have proposed. I will be dealing with the modification of the formation while the remaining people will be focusing on protecting me.

I guess that I should talk to them, build a bit of a friendship with them. Neither I am nor the people escorting me are particularly interested in this. The reason for this I think is due to the fact that these people seem to be pretty hostile towards me.

They are all roughly my age and could be considered to be my peers. There are seven people in this team. The only person whom I knew from before would be jericho mayfire. There is not much about him, other than the fact that he is supposed to be pretty skilled at conjuration.

Other than that, the remaining six people are pretty unknown. I guess that I should record their information one of these days.

For now I am focussing back on the topic at hand. Right now, the main problem that I need to deal with is to prevent the component from being detected by the enemy. Normally it would not be a problem, but with a core failure it becomes way more likely that it would happen.

I could try and move the formation inside the barrier, but that is one of the riskiest move that I will be able to make. An absolute barrier formation is a class six formation at the very least and it is a hybrid formation. It is made by the combination of three to four different formations which work together to produce the barrier.

This absolute barrier formation is one of the more complicated, working with a combination nine to ten formations. Whoever made this formation though, seems to have done this for the first time in his life, leaving behind such an obvious weakness.

Anyway, all of this explanation comes down to the simple point that moving this formation will be quite a difficult task. Well, calling it difficult is quite an understatement. It would be quite likely that I would end up breaking apart the absolute barrier if I were to try something like this. Then it is certain that I will be popped by the the family head.

That means that is not an option at this point. I have to either build up a defense around the vulnerability or I will have to hide it somehow from the presence of the enemy. Right now, I am not sure as to which of these I should be doing.

I have a few ideas regarding that but I will have to figure it out looking at the scene myself. After all, there would be little point in trying to hide a formation if my method of hiding it would be more likely to reveal it's presence.

Then I will have to build a couple of traps around the formation and hope that it would be enough to keep it safe.

Also, there is an issue that I have neglected until now and that is the fact that the formation might be facing a core failure. A core failure might sound like a very fancy thing, but it just means that the formation is under a lot of strain.

The formation then begins to face a lot of problems. The issues could be quite simple like the formation shutting down for a few seconds to the absolute worse which is that the formation has begun to overdraw on mana.

If that happens, things can end up in one of two ways. One would be to either the formation will end up burning up or the second would be that the formation would explode.

The formation that we are going to visit is not that bad, but based on the descriptions that I am hearing it is well in the process of over drawing on its mana reserves.

Speaking of this, The propulsion formation of my previous ship is a pretty good example of core failure. It is a pretty extreme example of it though. A formation core burning up physically is about the worst thing that can happen with a core failure.

Most core failure cases could be managed by shuffling around a couple runes in most cases. Again I can only confirm this after reaching the location. Let's hope that this is simple, because it will certainly consume a lot of my time otherwise. Fuck, why the hell do I have to be the one that has to work with formations in the middle of a battlefield. Most formation mages tend to have an army of their own for doing their work. Me, I have to rely on an old man and a couple soldiers.

Otherwise, I have to rely on people that are equally likely to kill me, as they are supposed to protect me. It is a different kind of pressure.

Well, as my master likes to tell me, focus on the problems at hand. If you worry about the world, you will end up doing nothing.

Still, one cannot help but worry about all of this. At the same time, my surroundings are not helping me with my worries.

It is much like the scenes that I had witnessed from before. Piles of corpses laying around the room, burning under the fires of the mayfires.

Well, these corpses are not as thoroughly burnt as before due to the sheer quantities of corpses that these guys have burnt. I even had a couple of scares when the zombies would suddenly popup from the poles trying to strike somebody. They are so clumsy that it would be quite easy to kill them. They still cause your heart to beat harder though.

How the mayfires had so many servants, I do not know. Somehow I think that the horde is procuring corpses from the outer keep.

I guess if it is only corpses, it would be easy to get it through the absolute barrier. Still, I can't really imagine it happening.

Over all, things are feeling as if something is about to go wrong at any moment. I can feel my senses sharpening, as if some enemy is lurking in the corner. Things are about to go wrong though I can't really tell when or where. Somehow, walking here what trevor has been telling seems to be logical.

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