Second Archdruid’s POV

“We need a cohesive plan. We can’t branch out to become ‘strong’ in ‘all directions’, we need specificity against these enemies.” Our grandiose leader speaks, trying to drum up support.

“The enemy is too good defending against everything.” An Archdruid of relatively little import says.

“No, that’s not quite correct. They have managed to achieve middling levels of skill with most things and they generally quickly figure out counters to our assault, but there is one thing that they have shown themselves fairly inept at and with the right plan we can achieve major victories in this manner.”

The group listens intently and though it’s nothing of grand proportions, he plays the crow well.

“What it is?” One of his most steadfast supporters asks.

“Pinpoint precision attacks. Concentrated and intent on piercing their defenses to kill a select person or even small groups. Hell, most of our kills come from attacks like that, but we need to drive this point home.”

I drop my head sinking into my hands.

“What? Do you have a comment?”

I realize the open invitation to challenge, but he hasn’t chosen a fully adversarial position, so he isn’t aiming for my head… today. He is probably just using the opportunity to further discredit me while increasing the support for his plan.

“That’s a small advantage we should hone and hoard until a critical juncture. If you use it too early, the enemy will learn to counter it. Simple as that.”

“It's not quite so small an advantage and it might be enough with a few other preparations for us to finally take over some of the enemy territory. Maybe not proper Aether Icons, but there are plenty of places we need. Using your own words against you, with how impressive the enemy is, they are going to improve on this weakness eventually.” His words get more expansive until he is speaking to the whole room once again. “So far they only have good large scale shields, grand workings of defense powered by tremendously powerful runes drinking more mana than every elve we have on this mud ball. But they ‘simply’ throw mana and willpower at the problem, they haven’t acquired the finesse that real magic demands and we are starting to get the level of craftsman required to produce what we need. With my preparations we just need another month or two so we can get the tools to eliminate a decent portion of their strongest warriors, maybe even that cursed Nash. Though that will likely require a much larger sacrifice.”

The way the crowd moved, showed that not a single one was willing to concede my point in our new leader’s presence. Most simply swallow his words whole, but when the alternative is to admit we are weak, it grows too hard.

The meeting ends and I walk away trying to put it all in perspective.

I will have to step up my own efforts to protect my race from their stupidity, from politics past the point where different viewpoints add and sharpen each other. Instead, we walk into a dangerous realm where diminishing our elven opposition as the goal.

I doubt they will appreciate my efforts even if I succeed, they have too much to lose if I’m proven correct. If I’m not careful or the circumstances are ambiguous, I might even get the blame.

Entering my humble abode is a stark reminder of my new position. Humbler than even a few of the higher level druids, though my demotion couldn’t be too overt given I’m a fully fledged Archdruid. Still, glory and accolades are of little concern, only my work developing contingencies is important.

After sitting on a chair I had to make myself otherwise I would be left without, I start my work. I mold a wooden disk with a tiny portion of another design of mine entirely done inside my own head, practicing for when I might need it. Gentle guiding touches made even the dead wood change shape and I question why had I always been instructed we need to be more forceful with nature. To rule it with an iron fist and dominate it.

Deep down, I know exactly why. To keep us on paths of destruction, even when it proves to be the inferior path. The goal of the empire is to expand. Others tended to arrive with honeyed words and contracts as restrictive as the system would allow. But elves couldn’t abide that and given goblins were our fellow invaders this world was destined for a nice comfortable place underneath our boots, probably with quite a few less alive than before integration.

We might allow for more on occasion, but we always push for complete dominance if the natives don’t bow before our majesty and rightful rule.

I almost spit out given the absurdity of the propaganda I spoke every day for the last millenia. We are the empire’s frontline fighters, doing the bidding of the council, though I doubt even the Primearch has even met a direct council representatives let alone any of the council’s actual members.

The council’s shadow is long and they don’t want a single nugget of Mithril that could be in their hands to escape. Nor the natural treasures, the prime hunting grounds and whatever else we can extract from a planet leaving us with the stew and bones and only the smell for the natives.

My attention comes back to the piece in my hand. With ease I failed to achieve even at my full level, the runes came to me as my hands seemed almost guided by the pliable wood tablet in my hands. Strange symbols with meaning attached to them mold the wood just like the enemy could do on the fly, but the critical difference is that they aren’t familiar with the runes I’m using. A nonsensical design meant to mislead until the very last second. I will only create the full version seconds before I need to use it. Right now, what I need is more practice.

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The lingering knowledge someone may be watching me, even this close to the heart of our forces. I don’t know how, why, or if it's really happening but it would explain so much. I can only rely on my own mind as a safe place. Even that may not be fully safe, not if the fools in charge decide I need to face a public trial.

As I look at it, I realize I made a mistake in my design. It matches the blueprint I came up with, but it won’t work very effectively. With a slight modification, I smooth out the mana pathways. That seems to balance everything once again. I just hope the final design won’t be riddled with such problems. Shaping the small disk from its finished form back into a flat piece of wood completely eliminates any proof of my actions.

Then I’m back to producing small formations to be placed around the city. Some I scrap judging they aren’t up to my standard, only occasionally melding parts of the formation I wanted to practice with and with other runic formations.

Only a high level rune craftsman or someone of equivalent skill would be able to tell what I’m doing and with some luck, the enemy won’t even be looking into the pitiful workings of the former elve’s leader.

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Observation Seed #16 during shift

“Sad little elf being sad.” I transcribe my words while drawing the shapes he is working on, but even Nash would likely not be able to tell what they do.

Eyes down, more care for the wood and even more for the living plants in his office, but still a bad Elf, even if not so bad as the other new boss man bad man Elf.

Being a plant wielded by the new boss man bad man Elf would be exceedingly painful. The old bad elf, but not so bad elf man boss is careful even when working with simple wood. So yeah.. not so bad.

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Nash’s POV

The days long trip back from Egypt back to Pando’s city is finally over and I drop the last few remaining people, though a core number still choose to remain in the inner world even though I’m heading into another trial. A few simply because it was a unique environment to experiment, others are just happy to experience something different while some simply grew used to the environment and thought of it as their actual home.

I have prepared myself and given all the tools and systems I could think of to the people remaining behind. Now I have to take another step and won’t be here if something goes wrong.

This time, there is even more ambiguity about the trial. I can’t even guess how long it will last, nor how it will change. It might be a couple of days like the last one, or months like my first ones. The increase in wait time can actually mean something, or it might be meaningless beyond that I’m growing higher level and that is the order of things.

I’m likely to still be the one that ‘decides’ when the trial ends and I doubt that one bad result in the trial would cripple me. But I don’t want to make that decision unless it's absolutely necessary. It’s an opportunity to grow stronger and even if I went on an extreme training regime solely focused on combat power, I doubt I could achieve anywhere near the gains that a decent level of success on the trial would entail.

Without hesitating a second longer, I give a quick farewell to a few of the friends who returned from the instance to ‘formally’ found Charlie’s village. They for so many reasons end up absorbing most of the ‘Pando’s village’, but that had been the plan. Though the core group of Charlie’s village is still all inside, with way more money they they need to pay for the ‘original village’ to stay another month or two. That would change as the cost grew at an unbelievable rate and even a ten month difference would make the payment about 1000 times higher, but it is enough for now.

I draw in a deep breath as the last preparations all run through my head.

The positions of all the bubbles inside the inner world, the longest tendril and its smaller counterparts spread throughout to maximize my capability of finding a matching angle to watch multiple places outside the main bubble of the inner world. Mathematicians had worked long and hard to find the best use of my time, and so I end up with long angled walkways crisscrossing way farther than the central bubble that took so long to expand.

Taping the system screen, I only have to wait a fraction of a second before I’m taken inside the trial. Fully prepared and still with Pando’s lingering touch on my soul, I have full access to all my stats for another few minutes, including my prodigious perception. Knowing what to look for, I try get a sense of the system’s teleportation. I sense the tiniest hint of Time before I’m ‘instant’ teleported all but confirming I’m subject to a very similar process I witnessed on Ajax in the pyramids.

I had left all kinds of instruments in my room to capture the moment, but without someone like me operating them, they aren’t really precise enough to give me a high definition scan of the teleportation, but better than nothing. And if I don’t start somewhere, how will I be able to improve the design?

I take in my surroundings for the trial.

White marble, cut ever so slightly unevenly to imitate artisanal blocks, thought without any tool marks. Long corridors following impossibly perfect lines and alignment that I wouldn’t believe even modern earth construction would be able to achieve. This must have been constructed by the system or at the very least using techniques of a high level system user.

But all my conclusions are tinted by the human perception of pre system developments. And even before, with lasers bouncing all over the ruins and the right technique, we might have been able to reproduce something like this by tweaking each stone millimetrically into place.

Then the system pulls my inner world, given the ‘rules’ of this place. It also tries to lock my resources, but this time I have a good plan. I instantly give up as much ground as I’m willing, which is well over 99,9999% of the inner world, but I hold steadfast on a person sized piece of the inner world.

I sense the system’s attention that had been rising, preparing to vehemently fight me, like a dog confused when the owner simply releases the rag doll. But unlike a dog, the system doesn’t lose interest and it simply takes most of the Inner world away. If I didn’t know that this is only an insular response of the system, fully powered by its machine intellect, I would actually feel a bit of pity at denying it its fight. Just ‘surprising’ it, is nowhere near enough to wake the slumbering intellect of the system. That task seems impossible, but I can only take one step at a time and this is the mountain I’m climbing, so without even getting my feet off the ground by fighting against the system, my exceedingly precise control keeps everything inside myself and I set out my exclusion zone inside my own body.

Still, like this tiny tendril of the system’s attention, it hovers almost anxious for the fight. Like a watchdog waiting for any scrap of food to fall from the plate so it can steal it.

“Do you want to play? Yes, yes, you do.”

Sending out a flickering and teasing scrap of Vigor, not enough that I will miss it. Then the system eagerly starts to fight me for it. If I used it quickly enough I would face no meaningful opposition, but that is not the goal.

Now I tease as I fold and lengthen it trying to grow my own capabilities for the minute cost. But the moment ends with the system yanking in triumph from my grip a mote of my own resource and then the trial starts as I take off in flight forwards and all my bodily senses are engulped in darkness.

Then I poke a tiny sliver of the resource at the expectant gaze of the machine, to entice the system and learn.

Learn all about its endlessly fascinating reactions.