He left the meeting room with all those who would be joining him on his fight to the compound, everyone else stayed behind and worked out a revised plan on how they would now attack and retreat, planning out a timeframe of how long they would be able to hold The Pantheon back until they were forced back into the compound.
Eric and Yarila gathered their people quickly and as he expected, not 10 minutes had passed when everyone was together and they were moving out of the fortress. They had not been informed of what was happening, only that they were needed again for a fight. Little did they know that this group was either going to win the event or be the reason why they failed.
As they moved out towards the central fortress that he had previously decimated he stayed with the group. He had made the decision to stay with them for most of the journey as leaving them for any extended period of time would leave them open to attack by any smaller units of enemies and he couldn’t afford to lose them before the time came to take the compound.
He didn’t really expect to come across anyone outside of those within the fortresses which he planned to mostly avoid. It wasn’t worth the risk though and with him with the larger group he could push them to move quicker.
While they moved, consistently alternating between running and jogging, he pushed his echo out and started manipulating the skill to get a better idea of how hard he was pushing the people he was with. There was a mix of physical stat focused and magical stat focused people and because of that they wouldn’t be able to push as quickly as he would have liked. The had to rest when he found that the mage focused classes were nearing exhaustion, not wanting to run them into the ground completely.
He gave them all an hour and was clear that if it was needed that they should be doing everything they could to recover stamina as quickly as possible. It was only when they stopped did he inform everyone what the real plan was, and as he expected it made everyone push themselves that much harder.
He didn’t have the ability to move everyone at a quicker pace and the fact that they were needing breaks was frustrating. Rather than let it show he sat with Eric and Gabe so that they could distract him.
“So what’s the plan for you guys? After this event is over what are you going to do?” He wanted to know their future plans as it would impact on what he planned to do when he returned.
“Weird question, but sure, I will bite.” Gabe was giving him a weird look when he spoke but seemed happy to go along with it. “Assuming we win I am going to split my time between the school and training in dungeons. I want to hit D grade sooner rather than later but after that I guess I will mostly train the next generation and make the school a place that every parent wants to send their kid.”
He nodded along with what Gabe said, it was what he had expected him to say. He looked at Eric waiting for him to answer.
“The same as Gabe really. I never thought I would run a school but honestly I enjoy it more than I do fighting sometimes. It will be easier once this event is done, Viv will hopefully get off my back a bit. But yeah, my plan is about the same as Gabe’s.”
“How would you feel about moving the school to the D grade area? The chances are you would need to give up all the rewards that The Empire was going to give you but it would mean you had more privacy and a larger area. We would ask for it to be made an independent entity, even though its in the settlement, that way Viv would have no control over it and you would be free to do what you want.” He hadn’t planned on bringing this up so soon but he needed their opinions and the more he had thought about spending the next 6 months on Earth the less he liked the idea.
Eric and Gabe sat for a bit thinking it over. It would be a big change and they would have to give up some of their control over the natural treasures, but the benefit would be worth it in his eyes.
“You think they would go for it? It’s the only D grade area unlocked on Earth, giving us control over it seems like something The Empire wouldn’t want to do, even if we join them, it would still mean that we take control away from Viv, at least in this regard.” Shaun had thought about this as well.
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“True, but only short term. If we win Viv becomes world leader without The Pantheon there to fight against her. She will be stuck ruling a planet so its not like she will have time to do much of anything else anyway. Eventually the other D grade areas will be claimed so one area isn’t that big of a deal.”
“But if we lose the event, what then?” Shaun didn’t even want to think about that. It would impact him only as far as the fact that it would impact his friends. For him though he wouldn’t be on Earth and probably wouldn’t ever come back so even if they lost, the future didn’t change for him. He would be pissed that he lost the event though, missing out on all of the rewards that came with it.
“If we lose the event who knows what Jason will do. Honestly he didn’t seem that bad when we spoke so its not him that I am worried about. Its just the factions that makes me question what exactly they want with Earth and why they are fighting so hard to win it. I don’t know how it will impact the school or settlement but my guess is that once the year is up that if we lose The Empire will allow those that want to join them into one of their minor factions.”
“What about you? What are your plans? Are you going to go to another cluster and start claiming more dungeons?” He laughed at the idea, it was so far from what he had planned that it was ridiculous to even consider.
“No, I will stay at the settlement for a while, in the D grade area. There is a few things I want to work on in seclusion. I don’t know how long I will stay though, maybe a few weeks or a few months. I will be gone before the year is up and the factions come to Earth though.”
“Gone where?” Eric stared at him intently, hoping he would answer. Instead he just gave him a shrug and changed the conversation.
“Have either of you come close to an affinity yet? Kind of sad that a child got one before you.”
The hour passed quickly and he forced everyone back on the move. It took them the better part of a full day and night to reach the fortress they had been aiming for. When it came into view he was even more impressed with just how well his ritual had worked.
The Fortress was little more than rubble, nearly all the buildings had collapsed and what was still standing was so badly damaged by fire that it didn’t look safe to be anywhere near it.
“Hold back here for a bit and I will check and see if anyone is around.”
He took off into the air and made his way into the fortress quickly. From above the destruction looked even worse. It was clear where his rituals detonated as there was the blast had incinerated everything close to them to ash. The Pantheon hadn’t even made an attempt to restore the fortress, there was no one around, not even a look out.
He searched the entire area twice with his eyes and echo and found nothing. It had been completely abandoned. This outcome was even better than he had wished for. He told the others to move around the fortress to the opposite side while he stayed in the air and kept look out.
When he rejoined them he communicated his plan for this place. “I want to leave behind a small group. If we get a message from Viv that we are needing to cause a distraction they can claim this place and an alert should be sent out to The Pantheon, they will know we are here and hopefully come running. No more than 10 people should stay, but those that do should be ready for anything at all times. For all we know they plan on sending people back here.”
Everyone agreed with him and 5 elves and 5 humans were chosen to stay behind. He agreed that they would rest here for a while and then continue to move out. He had pushed the team hard to get here quickly and now they were right in the middle of enemy territory. Soon they would get to the inner fortress area and after that they would need to cross a bridge and head straight to the compound. An hour into their break they got the message that they had been waiting for.
Vivenne Grace: We are about to attack as planned before leading the retreat. We have sent back a portion of our forces to the compound to ensure we have adequate coverage there.
He gave every another hour after that to rest just in case there was a need for him to go running back. Thankfully that didn’t occur.
Viv confirmed that they had eyes on all three Charlo’s and that they had caused as much damage as they could right from the start, using every bomb he had made and sacrificing a pre-determined chunk of their people in the assault.
The reasoning was that if they could weaken them more now it would be easier on them in the future. Everything had gone to plan and they were now retreating back to their own fortresses to prepare for the retaliating assault.
When he was happy that everyone had had the rest they needed he had everyone move out and start their trek forward. His hope was that they would make it to the inner fortress before The Pantheon made their move. He would access the fortress and how many people The Pantheon had left behind, determining if it was best to leave some of his own group behind to attack if needed or if it wouldn’t be worth the risk.
He could use an attack on the inner fortress as a way to send a message to Jason that they were closing in on his compound. Depending on where he was at that point he would risk running towards Shaun’s compound or run back to his. This event, which should have probably taken months longer, would now probably be over within the next week or two. They had cut through all of the large battles and claiming every position, it was now all about the compounds, Jason just didn’t know that yet.