Roska and the team made it to a rest spot along the road. The area had been cleared out by traders needing some place to sleep on the side of the road.
“Tully, get those pickups ready! Everyone, harnesses on!” Roska ordered. Her beast had barely come to a stop when she jumped off her mount, taking the impact in stride as she checked her map and sent another message.
“Eagle One, we are in position.”
“Special Team Two, understood. We’re ready and on station. You have a group five minutes from your location.”
“Understood.” Roska pulled out a harness, stepped into it, and pulled it over her shoulders.
Yang Zan pulled on her straps without her needing to ask.
He checked them and then she turned, returning the gesture as Tully pulled out a box with a length of rope. Some of the team members with their harnesses on hooked up to loops on the rope.
Roska finished with Yang Zan and took the last place on the rope. “All secure?” she yelled.
“One secure!” Tully called from the front, holding her hands up to be visible.
“Two secure!”
“Three secure!”
They went all the way back to Roska.
“Fire up the balloon!” Roska said. “Eagle One, balloon going up.”
“Special Team Two, understood!”
The metal box formations activated and shot into the sky, pulling on the rope slightly.
There was a sound of rushing air as two birds dove and banked around the area; the mages on them were ready for anything.
The kestrel flapped his powerful wings. On his stomach, a formation activated. It stuck to the metal box; the harness-attached metal and the box fused into one, and there was a pull on the line. Then the kestrel was rising higher and forward with greater speed.
Tully was off in the air, then the next person, and so it went, people being rapidly pulled up, attached to the line.
Roska used a spell to clear the ground of their footprints and cause the mana to settle. It would be hard to track anything that had happened.
She was pulled up and forward. Her harness held her as they dangled below the bird, picking up speed.
“Last man off the ground!” Roska yelled into her sound transmission device.
The two sparrows moved beside them, ready for anything.
Ten minutes later, they dropped back down toward the ground.
Roska dropped first and ran forward. The others did the same, so they wouldn’t land on top of one another.
There were two kestrels waiting for them.
They split into two groups and ran up the ramps that ran down the kestrel’s tail feathers. The cabin was inclined. Roska looked around, checking everyone was loaded. The first kestrel had landed, detaching the metal box. The box and rope were hauled into the cabin.
Roska ran up the ramp, the last person off the ground, and smacked the crew chief on the back. He talked into his own helmet as Roska sat on the bench along the wall of the wood cabin.
The crew chief pressed a formation, and a tree limb moved to the middle of the ramp. The crew chief looked out of the ramp; he was using the new belt-fed machine gun—a modified automatic rifle that accepted belts of ammunition and could be split apart easily to clear.
The pilot was up front, manning spell formations as he commanded the kestrel, who waved her wings, pushing them all into their seats.
Two secondary gunners were on each door, wearing their aerial sharpshooter badges and medical patches.
Roska looked through the portholes in the wood cabin.
The kestrel took off, and in moments, they were above the trees and climbing. The three kestrels and two sparrows rose higher. Roska looked out past the crew chief. In the distance, she could see the Willful Institute’s city.
Roska sighed. The tension faded from her body as the city became smaller each second.
“All right, how is everyone looking?” Roska asked on her command chat with the rest of her team.
“All good here, boss,” Tully reported as her second-in-command.
“Okay. Everyone, check your equipment. We’ll be replacing our mounts and heading to the Grey Peak sect to stir up trouble and plant traces there.”
“Looks like we’ll be busy.” Imani laughed.
“Time to earn our pay.”
Blaze watched as the enemy weakened and pulled back. Finally, they turned and ran; the guild started to give chase.
“Not today. We’ve landed the opening blows. If we chase them, we might be going into a trap. Quickly, gather up our people and head to the rally point!” Blaze yelled.
They finished off the wounded Institute members and used healing concoctions and spells on their wounded. Unfortunately, three of their people had gone too far and nothing could be done for them.
The group mounted and rushed away from the city.
It wasn’t long until a group of panthers jumped out onto the road. Atop them was Niemm with his special team members, including some new faces.
“How did you do?” Blaze asked as he sped up.
“Well, they’ll be feeling that for some time.” Niemm laughed and tossed over a storage ring to Blaze.
Blaze caught it. It was filled with piles of ingredients and concoctions. Being a city in the Third Realm, Meokar had nearly forty thousand students, all of whom needed resources to cultivate with. Now all those goods and the items the sect had been holding onto for years or even decades were turned over to Blaze.
“The council approved the mission. We have enough resources. Use this to bolster the ranks of the guild. This was just the opening attack; the campaign is sure to be a long one.” Niemm grinned.
Blaze nodded. Alva had reached the point where even these resources, although interesting, weren’t enough for them to fight over. With their different outposts and the vast amount of high-quality resources they were able to acquire every day, they had more materials than they had crafters to process them.
They were still working through the resources they had gotten from Vuzgal.
“So, what’s the next move?” Niemm asked.
“We have their lifelines in our hands. Now we squeeze and see what happens.” Blaze took out a sound transmission device. “Send a message to Elan. It is time to begin.”
The message traversed the distance back to the city.
A simple-looking trader sat in a bar, talking to the bartender. “Ah, ’scuse me, looks like there is work for me to do!” He slapped down his money on the bar.
“Come back anytime, Old Sawai!”
He waved to the bartender and pushed through the door. He made sure there were no eyes on him as he stretched.
“Move!”
He shifted quickly as guards rushed past toward the walls.
Old Sawai accessed his sound transmission device and listened to the message.
His eyes turned solemn and then he smiled as he headed to the totem in the middle of the city. Three totems later, making sure no one was following him, he made it to the grand city of Vuzgal. Through a bar and downstairs through a fake cask and the hidden tunnel beyond. A quick trip through the undercity, and he rode a hidden elevator up.
The doors opened for him, and the old man’s lackadaisical smile was replaced with a serious expression as he walked out into a kitchen. A man waved him forward, taking him through the Sky Reaching Restaurants backrooms, into the quiet corridors before reaching a room with two guards outside it.
Elan Silaz looked up from his papers as Old Sawai entered the room.
Old Sawai felt the pressure of Elan’s gaze on his body. There was no trace of Elan’s level or his cultivation, though there was power in his eyes of a man who could see through people’s lies and secrets. He was the intelligence department’s director and one of the few people who directly answered to the council and to Erik and Rugrat.
“I hear you have a message for me?” Elan asked.
“The Adventurer’s Guild won their fight. The Willful Insti
tute took the bait as we predicted. The special teams were able to sneak into the city, empty the warehouses, and escape unharmed. I was sent a message by Blaze to move forward with the next part of the plan.”
“Very well.” Elan nodded.
Sawai bowed and left the room.
He saw a flash of a sound transmission, not knowing the commotion it would create.
28
Calm Surface, Raging Depths
In a teahouse in the Fourth Realm, four men sat in a corner, having a quiet conversation.
“Did you hear that the Ghost Wolves sect and the Thunderous Mountain Consortium announced a trade agreement the other day?”
“Weren’t they in an agreement with the Willful Institute?”
“I heard that they had found out the Willful Institute was attacking their own caravans to drive up the cost of protection and goods. They broke the contract and chose to work together!”
“That is audacious! To rip off such sects! What kind of tricks are they using against us smaller traders?”
“You best watch out if you say you are from the Willful Institute these days. The Earth Dragon and Great Mysterious sect have put their differences aside after it was revealed that the Willful Institute was the real force behind their animosity. Seems they forced the two groups into a battle to try to suppress them both. They have contacted the Ghost Wolves and Thunderous Mountain consortiums, offering their protection. If these four sects can unite against the Willful Institute, who knows what might happen?”
“I think you are right. It might be a good idea to take our families and assets and trade in calmer waters than these.”
Erik sipped tea as he looked out over the snow-covered city. It seemed calm on the surface, people going about their daily lives. But in the back of teahouse and behind closed doors, everyone was talking about the latest developments surrounding the Willful Institute.
The once-powerful leg they had clung to for protection seemed to have daggers pointing in every direction.
He glanced over to his drinking companion. “Seems that things are not going so well for the Institute, Mister Niemm.”
“Not at all. While everything is calm on the surface, the different branches and roots are trembling. We’ve paid special attention to them all. The Trader’s Guild and the intelligence department are more effective weapons than me or my team could be.” Niemm shook his head.
“It is all about finding your enemy’s weakness and their enemies’ tipping points. If they don’t have enemies, then you can create them—a betrayal, the right information in the wrong places. Even the wrong information in the right places. Sometimes people just need a reason.” Erik drank his tea again.
“I somehow feel that it is more brutal than a straight-up fight.”
“It is, but wars and battles are waged in the shadows and gray areas well before a true confrontation.” Erik’s eyes were deep, cold, and rough. “At least this way, the people who are not affiliated with the Institute will distance themselves. We cannot take it all down with our own power, so we borrow the power of others to do so.”
Niemm looked out over the city. He was silent for some time. “Should we head back?”
“Yes. There is a lot to be done still.” Erik stood.
The Adventurer’s Guild headquarters in Vuzgal was a hive of activity. Messengers entered and left with grave expressions.
In the center of it all was Jasper and Blaze.
Around them, there were mounds of dust as they went through information reports. While the messengers brought in official messages, their assistants slipped them information that Elan had gathered.
“So far, other than our little fight, there have been no disturbances between the Adventurer’s Guild and the Willful Institute. The attacks seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, and the people who were on the fence about attacking or going against the Institute are all looking to gain from their misfortune,” Jasper said.
“What about Meokar itself?”
“Mendes has all of his people on alert. They are licking their wounds, but from our reports, they are readying their forces to attack Grey Peak Sect. They are talking to the leaders of the cities we have bases in to influence them and isolate us,” Jasper said.
“While the traders and the intelligence agents are the blades in the dark, the other groups are preparing to stab the Willful Institute in the back as they are fighting us. They don’t expect to defeat the Institute, only decrease their power. We have some teams in the field. See if they can’t turn the minor conflict between the two groups into an unstoppable grudge,” Blaze said.
“Thinking about it, doesn’t the Silver Moon sect have an issue with the sects on the fifth continent of the Third Realm?”
“Yes, there were rumors that the Willful Institute’s students were stealing from the Silver Moon sect’s fields, taking their ingredients.” Jasper nodded.
“We’ve worked with them in the past, no?”
“Yes, they are a harvesting sect, only based in the Third Realm. It is a relatively peaceful realm, and they have been able to become a power, paying off the surrounding groups with their ingredients and raising powerful alchemists who have entered the Alchemist Association,” Jasper said.
“All crafters have the ability to draw in massive amounts of support. Talk to the traders; see who in the Third and Fourth Realm might be interested in the ingredients of the Silver Moon sect. In the meantime, why don’t we send a representative to talk to them? It would not be bad if we can become closer; we are two sides of the same coin. They grow and trade while we protect and take on missions requiring our fighting abilities. If we can introduce them to more people in the higher realms, then they have more routes to sell their products. If nothing else, their newfound alliances will turn them into a strong wall that the Willful Institute needs to watch out for,” Blaze said.
“That makes sense, but what if they don’t want to work closer with us?”
“That is fine. The more people we have to split the Willful Institute’s power and people who are calm and could work with us in the future, the better. We need to plan for what will happen in the power vacuum of the Willful Institute losing their branches. If they collapse, then fighting over their corpse, more people could die than actually fighting them,” Blaze said in a bleak voice.
“Greed knows no bounds,” Jasper agreed.
Kanoa saluted as Delilah and Erik walked close. Erik saluted him back.
“Looks like you’ve settled in well and you’ve been raiding our stables.” Erik glanced past him at the rows of men and women standing next to their mounts.
“I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into when I agreed to try out Alva,” Kanoa muttered.
“Hey, that’s part of keeping it all secret. Hard to find out about.”
“My feet are starting to hurt just standing here. At least I’m not standing at attention,” Delilah interrupted.
“I remember when you used to be meek and quiet.”
“Yes, and then I was corrupted, having a teacher like you. So, Captain Kanoa, can you talk us through your new units? I’m excited to meet your people.”
Kanoa stifled a laugh with a cough.
Erik looked at Delilah in shock.
Kanoa waved them to review the units.
Afterward, they retired to Kanoa’s office. The barracks were on the Wood floor; it hadn’t been heavily developed and maintained a balanced temperature and atmosphere compared to the cold Metal and Water floors and the boiling Fire floor.
Combat companies were training alongside the new air force.
“Not what I was really expecting.” Kanoa stared at the two groups training together. “I was expecting us to have to train people into airborne units, air assault squads. You’ve gone more of the way of the Brits. We control the skies; army controls the ground.”
“Our military is much smaller. We don’t have the numbers of the United States military. We pack all of our training into t
he people we have, give them all the tools possible,” Erik said.
“How is training going?” Delilah asked from where she sat in front of the desk.
The two men turned and made their way over to their seats.
“It has gone well. The learning curve with the mounts is much shorter than it would be with helicopters. We got the carpenters and farmers to create the tree hulls. They’re lightweight but strong. The birds get used to them quickly.”
“I thought you were going to have three types of birds: the gliders, sparrows, and kestrels?” Delilah asked.
“That was the thought. But the gliders were redundant. I was thinking in Earth terms, not Ten Realms. The glider was supposed to be a bomber, but if you have the pilot of the sparrow underneath in a tree hull instead of on top, they have a better vantage point, and they can drop bombs out of their storage rings. There’s two machine guns mounted into the tree hull and a formation plate to increase the power of the pilot’s spells. They can strafe, bomb, and spell the shit out of whoever pisses them off.”
“How about cross-training with the kestrels?” Erik asked.
“They’re damn strong. Scary strong and pretty damn fast. I’ve modeled their loadout and operation on a Chinook.” He glanced to Erik. “They have a back-mounted tree hull; the kestrel leans forward to allow loading. It can take forty people, though we’ve just been saying two squads, so thirty-four people. Three gunners: one at the ramp, one at each side. Two pilots linked to the kestrel; they’re also casters. Provide magical support, spell scrolls, buff the kestrel, coordinate with the other units in the air.”
“Sounds powerful,” Delilah said.
“Weapon-wise, sure, though their biggest strength is mobility. We can use them to get combat companies inserted behind enemy lines, even into their cities if they’re big enough.”
“You’ve run some missions with the special teams, but what about with the regular army units?” Erik asked.
“Doing that totem and teleportation pad training helped. Just adapting it. Instead of pushing out around the totem, they push into a semi-circle at the rear of the kestrel then follow what they’ve been trained before. Same thing to mount up, defensive fire; they rush people on, and off we fuck,” Kanoa said.
Sixth Realm Part 2: A litRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 7) Page 33