5/10/25

Theoric’s blood! I could feel the demon’s entrance into the world. The attack information is still being withheld, but an entrance like that can only be impressive or successful.

I'd be worried in a deep, abiding, and legitimate way if this invasion so far hadn't seemed like it was going for a pristine capture.

An arrival that could be felt at this distance would signal the beginning of the end, possibly even with heavenly aid. Actually, now that I think about it, the results of this attack will basically be confirmation for my idea that this mill of demons is to try and get somebody a new vacation place. If the Canada and EU factories aren’t wiped out, then the only explanation is that demons are being restricted to this can be a ‘good’ capture.

If one falls, then it’s either really bad luck or the capture planners are willing to sacrifice the perfection for a gain, be it ever so small. And to round out the speculation, if both fall, then I was wrong and there’s some unknown reason that they were wasting arrivals.

In any case, I should have at least a little bit of my two-world transportation idea up and running. I can try and be generous and altruistic and save people if it looks like the worst will cut things short.

But I’d really prefer if I can just get as long a duration as I can manage for this venture and that it ends because the bridge is stressed by distance and it must be closed.

Unrelated to all of this, by complete accident, I managed to see some notes on long term, under-informed observation of me. This accident will set back the rest of my spying, as they’re likely to expand the times and places I’m being watched in order to make sure I don’t see more of it.

If I hadn’t already found out that large amounts of information I was interested in weren’t here anymore, this would be quite frustrating. As it is, I can take this accident in good humor. Well, good enough humor. I’d prefer to know what’s being observed, what they’re saying about me, and all that, but it’s not worth the effort to (currently) try slipping out and finding these answers.

5/11/25

Moving the other end of the bridge was a pain. If there was more magical knowledge doing the watching, I’d be afraid of being found out. As these apartments are wildly empty (but not entirely, I’ve seen people enjoying the other apartments both in this building and the one I moved the portal to), I had a good amount of choice for where I could move the new endpoint to.

I even managed to disguise my search for people and things in two ways. The obvious, probably observed one was by trying to alleviate my boredom by trying to arrange a ‘we are still alive’ party for the residents of the apartments. I went and knocked and got just enough answers that there will be a party the tomorrow after the worst emergency states are cleared.

The magically obvious and thus probably definitely unobserved method was that I went and observed the empty or non-answering apartments with a scotic scout spell. I didn’t have the actual reagents for that, nor was I in the knight armor today, so I had to do it the hard way.

Meditation in the dark that I hoped looked like resting, blindfolding myself, and getting rid of every bit of light but the stars or the moon.

With the scout, I could examine the rooms and chose one that had neither persons nor spying equipment in it. Such things may be well hidden to the mortal eye, but as creature of shadowy nature, the spy of darkness could find them quite easily.

The actual moving of the bridge was almost disappointingly easy in comparison to having to cover up all those lights so well. I just sent my dream-self to move the communication point dream-brick by dream-brick.

It would be a little unwise, but the lack of dream-lands activity makes those risks and dangers a complete moot point. Right now all it means is that I am ever so slightly less in contact with my master.

5/12/25

It occurs to me that so much of my life for the past few months has revolved around fighting and being prepared for fighting that I don’t hav- wait, I forgot to put down planning for the whole two world transport thing, but that too.

I don’t have much to do outside of those things, and the first two have shut down to a minimum while the third is only days away from being complete. It is also, and this is crucial for my complaint here, pretty much an utterly passive thing on my end.

I only have to move a few stones, metaphorically, to keep the bridge in its place each night. I also have to cut off contact across the bridge as it builds, lest the alarms and sensors detect the thing.

At least tomorrow will be better. A number of emergency states will are set to be cleared tomorrow, so preparation can begin and a nice distracting party will happen. With any luck, the day after that, I will be occupied with my master’s arrival and newsbearing and all of that. That’s just on the outside of the margins, but I’m feeling like being optimistic.

Especially as the demon’s attacks tomorrow will cover up this little portal and hopefully also ease the formation.

The last attack I mentioned confirmed my idea, so I have little worry about the chain of attacks they’re starting. Until a change in tactics happens, the demons will die with little chance of ruining things for me, and only slightly more of ruining things for the pilots in Canada and the EU.

I can sleep easy tonight.

5/13/25

Got to do my shopping for the party. I’m going to make a few roasted chickens, well spiced. Also found out more about this EU, as two pilots were killed today, and neither directly by demons. It caused a bit of grumbling between the different nation-states of this EU empire and the home nation of the surviving pilot (once a member of the EU empire).

Also, the assassins were nationals of that Great Britain, which I think was the cause of the argument. Either way, this could be an actual problem, as the attack build up isn’t stopping. Oh, and there was an attempt on the factory itself.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I wasn’t able to get internal information on who’s to blame, but I can wait. It’s quite possible that the internal stuff is being delayed by a desire to find any possible demon links first, before assigning blame.

Unfortunately, I am being kept here, and not even by some detection of the portal I’m keeping in place. The matter is quite frustrating and also completely beyond negotiation.

At least I am allowed to practice in Natal and the Chevalier, which due to a cleaning error has temporarily become the Chevalier Blanc, and offer words of encouragement to the others. I can’t imagine they’re going to be that impactful to anyone but Kenny and Lettie. Especially the burnt hair joke. I had no clue what the EU members looked like when the thing was recorded, and now it mostly doesn’t matter.

I am going to check on the chickens and then hope for better news.

5/14/25

The survival party was a bit of a hit. I even got to drink a little beer and some wine. Nice wide variety of things were brought. I am going to have to find out who roasted the beef, because that was really good and I want their recipe.

Still nothing on the sabotage, but I got to at least hear about the fallout of the attack. Somebody was rushed into a knight armor and hospitalized for it. Combination of age and a bad heart. That sacrifice saved the factory, though.

Probably also some of the town, but that was less important than knowing that they’re going to have a full complement of knight armor pilots by this time tomorrow. If there was any chance of us working together, I’d have looked into this more, but it seems doubtful that I’m even going to the Canada factory much less the EU one.

So, sorry Sam. I had prepared notes for how we might work together, but it looks like I’ll never have a reason to actually write them down.

Nor reason to lionize your description. I think it’s telling that I’ve had time enough to complain about this. Well, hopefully only a day more and then I shall be able to commerce and learn and in general be even more engaged with things.

Perhaps next party, I’ll get to work lionizing people for the things they bring. Duke of Roast Beef. Legate of Lasagna. Sultan of Sweets. Prince of Drinks. Then write overblow and flattering descriptions of each according to the title. I’ll have to pass that along. Probably with some kind of vote.

Details for next time.

I go now to sleep, perchance to not have to visit the dream world any more for a few weeks.

5/15/25

I think that this day would be considered very numerologically auspicious for me if it was, in full, 5/15/2125. Of course, I have no skill in such arcane magics and don’t have the assistance of my master. Although now that I reflect on this statement, I think that numerological blessings are too obscure for even her. It will be a long time in either world before anyone is born that can get full blessings and I think its divinitory prowess is little.

Again, not my area of knowledge, and I don’t know anyone religious enough to study it for sacred purposes. Still waiting and hoping.

I went to the gymnasium. They had a much higher dress code than I was expecting. Ah, Greek jokes. Nobody here’s going to get them, and nobody knows why I’m making them. Well, if they could read my mind to hear the joke.

Being unable to fight has worn on me. I can at least say with satisfaction that the continued assault ended and the incidental attack on the factory didn’t end up with a city or town being lost. The lives lost were minimal, but more than what had happened in previous attacks. On the positive is that with the spires in the EU, they will have a long time without a new attack. Canada will have to endure until more new spires can be made.

5/15/25 addendum

No, it seems that the free demon that was here has moved to the EU all to sabotage those spires. Destroyed by drinking down large amounts of the demonic and factory mana. I’ve heard of jet lag. It is so wonderful to see that demons don’t suffer from that. Perhaps I might be similarly immune? I’d love to be able to test this.

5/16/25

Classes, though not truly restarted, have at least handed out things to do while the decontamination closing extends the period nobody can be inside without a protective suit. I was not allowed to bring either knight armor close to the school, though I think it would help.

The leader has at least some kind of planning beyond just abusing power and is fighting quite dirty. I am glad that there’s no nuclear attacks to complete that horrible NBC trio.

Just the two parts of that triangle that have been already used are quite frightening. I have no desire to be further assaulted invisibly, and especially not in a way that this world has no good way of dealing with it.

Nor would I be able to find a magical cure. I can hope to only ever have nightmares of what a demon might twist those waves towards.

I believe I will set aside some extra time tonight to pray. This will come before doing the assigned work. I may have a great deal of latitude in that respect, but I think I want to distract myself from what I thought of more than anything else.

In fact, I think I shall try and finish that before I continue here.

5/17/25

My attempt failed, and I am rather shaken still. The idea haunted my nightmares and while I don’t recall them vividly, I do recall the fear. It even affected my ‘work’ in the dream.

Thankfully even shaken as I was, the bridge is still in place. It would take many nights of drunken self-destructiveness to ruin the bridge. Thankfully there is no plan for another opening, or we’d have to hurry very badly.

I managed some of the assignments though. I probably shouldn’t congratulate myself for doing something so expected and menial, but I need to keep track of something while I am here rotting away.

Perhaps I should count and give an actual number instead of some. Out of twenty five things, I have seven finished and three more in various degrees of completion. Two more are started but not near anything more than a single degree of completion.

Prayer was a little comfort. I think I need somebody to pray with me. Again, I say hopefully tomorrow.

Oh, another thing to think about. A few important stores are open again. I can get some minor reagents, and perhaps even look into breeding them since master Alissa will be here soon. Oh, and green houses and other ways of growing out of season.

Plant reagents were never the most popular because of the seasonality, but this can help with surprise uses. There’s no way to properly store them that I’ve found that is that much better than what we can do back home.

Well, no. Tests need to be done. Perhaps something can preserve their mickle qualities better than drying or … preserving, but I’ve not tried it out. Mostly because the things I can use plant reagents for are hard to measure.

Wait, why I am writing things that master would want to read in here? I’m sorry journal, but I’m going to stop inorder to copy to a better, less information filled location and then go back to work.

5/17/25 addendum

I got called in for a fight. Wish me luck and no long term injuries.

5/25/25

I kid, I kid. But I can feel the steps upon the bridge even while waking. Master Alissa will be here soon and I want to hedge my bets on her looking at numbers first and then reading. This is why I put such a space.

The demon here was a threat. A new kind of Knight Opener. It flew. This lead to its downfall as it managed to fly over the army’s base while avoiding Chevalier Blanc’s attacks.

It was also probably looking for Natal, meaning that the demons can’t tell who is in the knight armor. Or at least don’t know about how the rotation can work.

I just can’t figure out how to best do something with that.

Oh, and we found out why there was an attack despite the lack of factory. Before the Knight Opener was a cavalcade of demonic base building demons. They seemed to think this place was abandoned and so were going to use it.

If no attacks show up in places without a factory, if they do; I believe the secretive heads have good, popularity gaining answers for both circumstances.

But it’s now a question of how to fight if the demons can get such a place in play. Remote enough and they’d have an unquestionable advantage.

I can only hope there’s no way to target the floors of the oceans or other inhospitable and hard to find places. Wait, no. They’d have to have a presence here, a big one, before they can make suitable a space like that.