The outside of the Nash's hospital was just as stormy as when we'd first arrived. The slight lull that had come from Sharon flexing her magic seemed past, and the swirling of the elementals continued around the weather tower. Knowing what I did, my respect for the role the Nash Family played grew even more. Despite not getting direct information on the various factions, a better picture of the city was being painted one color at a time. Logisticians, support, combat. Every group had some facet of this, but their specialties shone clear as day. Shaking those larger contemplations from my mind I hopped atop Blobby.
"Let's swing by the Taste of Old," I said, patting the slime as it finished adjusting itself to act as a magicalized unicycle.
Despite the weather, and a frisky Water elemental that rose straight out of the ground to try to snag Fievil, I was standing before the bouncer in minutes. Do I even really need to let the others know I'm going to head over to the Outpost? It'll probably take me twenty minutes to get there with the slime saddle... Nah, better err on the side of caution. The elf standing guard over the building gave me a nod before pulling the door open.
Unlike its usual atmosphere as a bar, it seemed the Taste of Old had been repurposed as a forward base for various teams of Cloth Muscles. The robed individuals were clustered at various tables, discussion patterns on maps and mentioning elementals in basically every other breath. Sharon's reminder that the rest of the city would pull its weight while she was otherwise engaged jumped to mind, and it was comforting to see that while the mood was tense it wasn't panicked or chaotic. Yet.
A warbling mess of ripples radiated from the kitchen behind the bar and all it took was a few minutes for a boisterous brunette to explode through the swinging door. "Don't you dare take those onions off the grill before they are properly blackened or I'm going to blacken your backside more than your Attunement did!"
Daniela finished shouting down some poor demon in the span it took the door to swing shut. Their response was cut off, and Daniela passed the platter loaded down with a ludicrous amount of meals over to the bartender before heading over to the kitchen. I cleared my throat, sending a poke through the comm-plant for good measure. Danny paused on the spot, frowning and double checking her surroundings before spotting me and Blobby standing out of the way from the bar. With an ease I would be hard-pressed to replicate, she used her fire magic to boost over the bar counter and slide into a stool in one smooth motion.
"I thought you were getting schooled by the old lady," Daniela said. She glanced over her shoulder, squinting at the bartender that had to separate out the meals from the platter she'd been carrying to prevent himself from dropping the dozen or so plates that had been balanced on it.
"And I thought you were new here," I shot back.
"They recognize my culinary talents here," the brunette huffed. "Plus, I've been helping them run a better kitchen. No offense, but they aren't on par with my Papa."
"If someone could compare to Juan, I'd eat my boots."
"Except you don't wear those anymore and I want nothing to do with those toes of yours."
"Har har," I said, actually chuckling when Danny smirked. "Jokes aside, I wanted to check in. Training with Sharon went... well, let's say it went. I took a beating."
"I can see that. If you hadn't been upright when you walked in here, I would have had to take a break to knock some sense into that hag," Daniela huffed.
"I--"
"Yes, you look like someone put you through a blender, Ron. Just because the rain washed away the mud doesn't mean I don't recognize battle damage when it’s staring me in the face. You good?"
I took a beat to think about my answer. That, in itself, seemed to give the brunette pause as well. "Yeah, I'm alright. Some stuff I'll want to talk to you all about later, but it's not critical. Again, I just wanted to let you all know I plan to head to the Outpost. We haven't gotten any reports of shenanigans from over there, but with Sarah on the case I don't think they would bother us. The elementals are liable to pressure them by virtue of their mana output."
"Dev did mention they were getting a few more creatures. Not as many as when Gec was whining about getting moved, but getting closer. He hasn't been back since the elementals cut down his mobility," Danny said, her face scrunching up. "Nothing much going to happen here with these monochromatic tailoring nightmares, so I don't see a problem with you heading over."
"Speaking of Devon, where is he? I thought he was going to be sticking with you. At an appropriate distance, of course," I added, squinting at Danny when she grinned.
Daniela smoothly swapped over to the comm-plant. "Sammy called him out a bit ago. Seems they made some headway into the body of the Tendril that tried to warn us, but I haven't heard back on anything else."
"What about the others?" I asked, somewhat relieved to hear of progress after we'd been holed up. It had been partially self imposed, what with all the unknowns, but felt good to know there was still things our squad could contribute to the established groups in Ocala.
"I think Jolene and the squirt went to a library." Danny made a gagging noise. "Said they might be able to get timelines for... suspicious tendril activity, I think? I think Jolly spent some time with Dai because she was hitting me with some archaic nonsense about cross referencing tendril activity with suspicious events in the city."
"That... sounds tedious," I said, wincing. And useful. Man, it's good to have reliable team members.
"Tell me about it," Danny chuckled, swapping back to her voice. "But yeah, I'll let the others know where you are when they come calling. Don't worry, everyone is a big boy around here. We don't need big brother hovering over our shoulder. Though, I suppose Jolene might not mind..."
"You are impossible," I groaned, setting her stool spinning as I rose to my feet.
"Stay safe, rock brain," Danny called back through the comm-plant. Her ripples disappeared as she did her best imitation of a spaceship's RCS before reappearing almost at the kitchen's swinging door.
"You too," I sent back, smiling despite myself. When I stepped back outside and turned to Blobby, I had to do a double take. "Where did you get a chicken leg from, buddy!?"
--+--
The trip south to the Outpost barely took twenty minutes. Despite an increasing number of elementals harassing me and my axe-hammer, the light of Gec's observation tower eased some of the tension I'd been holding on to. No reports could mean good things, but also terrible ones. As a fae on the wall waved at my approaching form, a smile on their face, I knew things were at least well enough in hand. With a flex of
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On the other side I could tell the Wild Guard hadn't been idle, and neither had the Stoneshapers. Where before there had been trampled dirt and a handful of sporadic structures, cobbled streets cut paths through the Outpost in a neat grid. One, clearly wider, path led towards the Ock River Bridge which had gained a fancy archway to decorate where it touched down on the northern shore. A very obvious 'Ock River' plaque was set at the base, and I just knew Sarah had a hand in the rough forged thing.
Even if improved pathways had been the only thing worked on since my last visit that would have been impressive enough, but now the Observation tower had a ring of buildings stepping down around it in four directions. With the main road of AE-1 skirting the west edge of the tower before heading towards Ocala, one of the stepped buildings stood on the other side of the road, a notable red painted cross marking it as a medic center or hospital of some kind. The others didn't have any clear identifiers, but the many partitions on the closest one screamed 'barracks' to vibrosense.
Before I could really take in more of the improvements, a bell rung through the outpost and it turned into a hive of activity. A funnel was forming in the sky, particularly right over Gec's sliver. People boiled out of the various buildings, and a few that had been on the river-facing wall of the outpost started saturating the air with water before flashing it into snow. The lizardfolk and merfolk worked together seamlessly, some focusing it into a gust of frigid mass while the others pulled from the river. Once oriented, the few elves that came out of the buildings threw their own magics at their working, turning the gathered snow into a localized blizzard that plowed into the rapidly forming funnel like an arrow into a target. The glimmering core of more than one elemental twinkled through the sky as their natural formation was overwhelmed by the Wild Guard.
For my part, I remained tense with Fievil in hand and Blobby hadn't waited for further cue before transforming into its hulking humanoid form. The only difference from the stone golem form he'd mustered for the Hog Parade was the saddle secured to its back like a turtle shell. The two of us remained tense, watching as distinct elementals flitted through the sky in an attempt to rejoin the tumultuous mass of the storm. A glimpse of the afternoon sun through the weakened clouds seemed to mark the passing of the attack before another cloud returned everything to gloom.
A quiet cheer went through the defenders before they all returned to what they were doing with surprising ease. They must have been defending from this for a while. I hadn't spotted anyone on the observation tower, but it would surprise me if Sarah didn't have scouts up above and beyond the walls keeping her appraised.
Those that had been close by finally noticed my arrival, and more than one congratulated me and my squad on our success at the Hog Parade. The exchangees had returned to the Outpost after the incident with the Air Tendril and had spread their retelling with gusto it seemed. After a few polite minutes of conversation and chuckles at people asking me to teach them some of the events I was finally free to make my way towards the Observation Tower.
Surprisingly, the main building in the outpost looked mostly unchanged other than the entryway and an astounding amount of new furniture. A second floor partway up the spiral ramp had been formed from wood and it seemed to connect to the three other stepped buildings through what had once been windows. The open concept design got my full approval.
"Hey Sarah," I sent through the comm-plant. "I'm here at the bottom of the observation tower."
A loud thud echoed down the ramp and I glanced up just in time to watch the woman stomping her way towards me with her eyes squinted. The orc woman's hair was spewing choking ash into the air and her eyes were squinted over her tusks as she glared at me. Instead of responding to my message, she made it all the way down to the main lobby before looking up at me. That seemed to agitate her even more.
"At least a mile," Sarah hissed aloud. "The comm-plant has a range of at least a mile when unimpeded and you wait until you are right on my ass to let me know?"
"Uhhh," I winced, scratching the back of my head. "Sorry? I was coming over anyways!"
"Yes, but maybe I could have shunted you to-- Never mind. It's handled. What are you doing here, Ron? I thought you were holding down the fort over in the city what with all the crazy of the hurricane coming." Sarah was shaking her head, but she gestured to a nice set of woven benches off to the side. Already our towering forms and reputations were drawing the eyes of what I assumed were clerks assisting the Wild Guard.
I took a few minutes to bring the woman up to speed. I didn't bog her down with all my lingering concerns and hypothesis, but what I dropped in her lap was enough information that she forgot she was mad at me for underusing the comm-plant outside of battle. On second thought, I probably could have used it to touch base with Danny at least if not the others...
"This... complicates and simplifies things," Sarah finally said. She paused, staring off into space before one of the people working upstairs leapt down and stood at attention beside the orc woman. She spoke through the comm-plant, evident by the lack of talking and intense eye contact between the two --unless there was some sporadic flirting trend based around aggressive eye contact I'd missed somehow-- before the elf launched herself back up and out of sight.
"Care to share?" I asked, unable to keep my curiosity in check.
"We've had a number of developments of our own," Sarah said, crossing her arms. "I assume you saw our defense against the elementals. Things have been going well, but it would be helpful to have someone able to better handle the problem instead of forcing everyone on the defensive every hour. By my estimates, we should be able to handle a gale of elementals with half our active members but it would put pressure on our patrols."
"Yeah, it was quite impressive. From my understanding, the Nash take on this for the city as a whole with the help of their Shards since they act as a magnet for the elementals," I said, nodding.
"Are you sure your hammer won't be a problem?"
"Fievil doesn't align with the elementals tagging along with this hurricane," I said, speaking from experience. "The only reason they attacked like they did up on the Nash weather tower was because he... well, ate is probably the right term. Ate one of the members of the collective."
"Is he going to do that again?" she asked. "To be honest with you I wouldn't mind having less of these things to deal with, but I don't want a full blown attack from the sky at an inopportune time."
"Well... He's waking up, but I would imagine he would end up doing so at least a bit. Still new to the whole 'totem' business and it wasn't like the Shaman was very forthcoming after our parting." Sarah had the abbreviated description of
"Let's do this then," Sarah said, her back straightening. "We'll take care of things today into tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be too bad to pull double shifts for one night. And tomorrow you can take over and hash out whatever is going on with the Totem thing. Plus, I would be quite a shit commander if I put you at the fore while still afflicted with
"I can--"
"Contribute, yes, yes," Sarah said, rolling her eyes hard enough for me to worry they were going to fall off. "I entirely expect you to do something instead of resting like I am suggesting. You wouldn't be you if that was how you dealt with limitations. Instead, just take it easy. I'll keep you busy enough tomorrow, okay?"
There wasn't much I could say against Sarah's argument, despite how it annoyed me. Perhaps it was part of how much introspection I'd been working with, but I was starting to realize people had my responses pegged with astounding degree. For my friends and allies, that was more than fine. For potential enemies... Something more to work on and contemplate.
The two of us spent a few more minutes catching up, particularly on the fact that we'd both assimilated new Traits, but it wasn't long before something else called for the attention of the leader of the Wild Guard. While she wasn't acting in her full capacity as a council member for Wildwood, especially with the ordered restrictions she'd send scouts with to the Allied Towns due to the hurricane, the entire development and maintenance of the Ock Outpost was in her hands. Making a point that I would keep her appraised as needed via the comm-plant, I ambled out of the observation tower in search of how best to apply my time-- other than dumping every bit of my free mana into Fievil's seemingly endless gullet.