“Frankly, I have no idea, but better to plan for it than be caught with our pants down around our ankles,” Domonos said.
“A healthy dose of paranoia keeps people alive in the Ten Realms,” Choi agreed with a chuckle. “Only need to look to the West. You read the report about the fighting between Sanem and the family?”
“Some of it, the Halberd backed the Marceola family, they took three cities. When they reached Aberdeen they were stretched thin, their supplies had to travel miles and their people were wounded and tired. Aberdeen was built with interlocking castles inside the city and it bled the Marceola family.
“The other sects around them smelled blood in the water and were preparing to attack. The Halberd Sect gave them an offer: become part of the Halberd sect or they would make an agreement with the other sects and leave them to be torn apart,” Domonos said.
“So the Marceola family became part of the Halberd Sect. They got seven cities while only needing to take three personally. Using the war as an excuse,t ehy’re sending the Marceola troops into the Sanem’s defenses. It weakens the defenses and it reduces the number of loyal Marceola fighters.” Choi shook his head. “Sneaky tactics.”
“And just the kind that we want to use and emulate,” Domonos said.
“Pretty similar to the actions against the Willful Institute, they think that they’re dealing with a local guild, they don’t know how far it reaches. If we attacked them, they’d band together. Right now it looks bad on each of the city guilds that they are losing defense contracts. At the same time, another ‘unrelated’ group of traders are starting to snap up their business transactions. A hundred small attacks.”
“Weaken them before the final strike,” Choi grinned.
Domonos met his eyes, their grins cold and savage.
“Soon enough,” Domonos said, checking the other reports on his clipboard. “Time to go check on the recruits and tour the city.”
“The Marceola Family were looking at us when they took Aberdeen, there is a reason they attacked people outside our gates. What do you think about the Halberd Sect?”
“I think that it is interesting that they have not traded with us and that they have never sent a trader over to Vuzgal. Keep an eye on them, they’re not tame sheep. If they see an opening they’ll take it,” Domonos warned.
“Have fun, I’ll watch over the communication Channels,” Choi said, as he pulled out a book on gardening.
It was an Alvan book produced by alchemists and farmers to share their information. The book market was exploding in Alva and printing presses had been stepped up so that people away from Alva could learn even while traveling. If one poured water on the book then the pages would clear of words to make sure that others couldn’t get the information contained within.
***
Yui walked the deck of the cruiser, as the armed ships were being called.
He used the hand rope that was strung across the boat from time to time as they were pushed side to side, it was a jarring experience having the ground moving underneath him. A few people’s stomachs had already disagreed with the swaying motion. As soon as the woodworkers were finished with the first ship they had started training in them. Nothing replaced training Yui found.
The weapons were roughly similar to what they used already. The mana cannons used mana stones to fire. There was a readout that would tell one how hot the cannon was, when it needed to be cooled down with spells or slow down the rate of fire. The repeaters were standard weaponry. FAL look-alike emplacements acted as secondary weapon systems. They could be used in the semi-auto function, but these ones had enlarged charging handles and were belt feed, it looked like a wooden snake that went from a metal box to the weapon system. Gears with rotating formations lined the wooden snake arm. It was much easier to make them with wood than metal. When treated the wood was more flexible and as strong as steel back on Earth.
When activated the gears would turn, moving the ammunition from the large box on the ground to the weapons, allowing them to fire for much longer without needing to reload. Once the ammunition box ran out, they just had to move the lower section of the wooden snake to a new ammunition box.
Erik and Rugrat had passed on as much knowledge as they could to the Alvans. At this point they were making multiple advancements all on their own.
Yui was proud of what his people were able to do.
For them to come back to having the entire dungeon under our control. Yui stood up a bit more as the boat shook again, tilting wildly.
People panicked.
“Right side!” Yui yelled.
People shifted their weight, the ship coming back over.
The ship hit the water again and water came in through the open gun ports to the swearing of the now soaked gunners.
Some had fallen over but they were getting back up, or others were helping them.
His sharp eyes looked over the ship looking at the groups, they were recovering a lot faster than they had before, they were quickly loading their weapons, going through the motions without actually firing them. Senior Sergeants would call out issues for different gun teams so they’d need to react differently.
It worked the same as the artillery platoon, there were Sergeants that controlled a single mortar or group of mages, they would coordinate the group while the Senior sergeant would command four of these teams while Staff Sergeants would command half of the platoon each, passing the orders from the Platoon’s Second Lieutenant.
As a leader, Yui could see how beneficial a chain of command could be.
He passed a group clearing a stoppage, the two-person gun team working as a singular unit as they pulled the feed from the gun, empty rounds started to pour out.
“Turn off the damn formation!” a sergeant yelled, seeing the issue before Yui could say anything.
The two chastised themselves and worked even harder to show that they weren’t idiots as they slammed the weapon system back together and started ‘firing’.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” The call came from above decks and filtered down as everyone stopped what they were doing and calmed down. They were all breathing heavily it was warm inside the ship, there were three levels for the ship, one in the hull, and two in the pyramids.
“End ex!” Another call went out.
“Unload weapons, clear hatches!” Sergeants called out.
“Clean up your area of any obstacles. Make note of what you dropped!” Another called out.
Hatches opened, revealing outside.
They were in the largest pond on the Alva floor. The floor was growing bigger to fit in more housing, more industry. They were already three-quarters of the way to the barracks and beast stables.
Pillars of fused rock dotted the area, supporting the ceiling above.
The 'pond' was part of a small river that ran around the city, its banks turned into a park for people to rest in.
Around the main pond there were some people watching, a dock that moved pleasure craft for people to sail around in had been taken over by the army, there were tents along the shore to support training.
“Well... needs must I guess,” Yui muttered to himself, looking at the ropes connected to the ship that were attached to shore where two platoons had been hauling on the ropes randomly, creating chaos inside the ship’s hull.
“Well it’s a good work out,” Second Lieutenant Sun Li said.
“Frigging tug of war and we’re in the middle,” Yui smiled.
Li snorted and shrugged.
Boats made their way to the boat and people disembarked, once they were ashore, the next group were shipped out to the boat.
Glosil was on the shore, he snuck out of a tent he had been in as he saw Yui.
“Sir,” Yui said snapping off a salute, the group with him coming to attention.
“Captain,” Glosil returned the salute as he indicated for Yui to follow him.
Yui waved the group off and walked with Glosil.
“Pretty m
agical how seeing two officers everyone seems to hide,” Glosil said dryly.
“Ah, yes and you weren’t hiding in that tent so that your arm wouldn’t go numb from saluting everyone coming ashore?” Yui asked.
Glosil just smirked, letting out a bit of a chuckle.
“How are we looking?”
“We’ll need some more time, we have the weapon systems sorted, getting used to the movement is the main issue, people need to get used to it, still have people losing their lunches.”
“If we’ve got anything we have time, you have three weeks. Gives them a goal to strive toward, we’ll have another talk then,” Glosil said.
“What about the Willful Institute?
“We haven’t seen them doing much of note recently, they’re annoyed but some of them probably don’t even know who is attacking them, or that they’re being attacked.”
“That will change one way or another,” Yui said.
“Yes, it will, the situation is fluid. If something happens, your Company will be the first to be sent out. I know that Domonos will become part of it too, we now have enough troops to create a third Platoon. I’m going to be pulling leaders from Dragon and Tiger Company to form Panther Company, they’ll meet up in Alva, get used to one another, then they’ll head to Alva and then pull half veterans half new bodies into their unit.”
“Just as we discussed in building our new units,” Yui said.
“Just as we said,” Glosil agreed.
Yui paused, making Glosil stop walking and look back at him.
“Glosil, I feel that there is a fight coming, a big one,” Yui said.
“King’s Hill Outpost has been newly formed and the other kingdoms are eyeing it as more roads connect it to the surrounding outposts every week. Vuzgal is a prize that any sect would want to have. Alva is hidden for now but if others were to find out about it, then who knows what they might do? Then we’re poking the Willful Institute with the Adventurer’s and Trader's Guilds and then the Stone Fist Sect won’t have forgotten that we might have been the reason for their ice empress leaving, slapping their faces and pissing off one of the larger factions inside the Stone Fist Sect,” Glosil said, sounding a bit tired. “The Ten Realms has never been a quiet or peaceful place, one has to fight to earn their place here. There will come a time that we need to fight, for now, we just need to make sure that we’re as ready as we can be.”
“More training,” Yui said, looking at Alva, “You know, sometimes I still can’t believe all of this is real.”
“You should probably sleep more,” Glosil said with a sideways glance.
The two of them started laughing at Glosil’s joke.
“After we take the Water floor then we will be moving ahead with the new beast assignment,” Glosil said.
“It’ll be good to have some more diversity with our beasts, the panthers can only create so many young. I heard that you have plans for the flying beast that Pan Kun captured at King’s Hill?”
“If we can have scouts that can fly, then they’ll be able to get to spot others can’t and survey the area before anyone else. Also, they can conduct bombing raids,” Glosil said.
Then with the fire Lizards we have long-range capabilities that will complement the artillery units well, Metal affinity beasts with high defenses that can assist our Engineers with the Rifle platoons riding on the quick panthers and healers using the Earth affinity beasts to increase their mana regeneration and effect of their healing spells and speed across our lines. What about the CPD and Special teams? I haven’t heard of any plans for them.”
“They’ll get to choose their own beasts. They’ll be able to use stronger or specialized beasts.” Glosil said.
“Makes sense. With all of those beasts being added to the fight it will diversify what we can do, allowing us greater flexibility on the battlefield.” Yui paused, causing Glosil to slow.
“It might just be me overreacting but I can feel it building. Everyone is honed in. Our military is growing rapidly, we’re taking on more aggressive operations, and special teams have been deployed to scout out the Willful Institute. We’re going to war, aren't we?”
Glosil looked at Yui and then looked at the tower that stood in the middle of Alva, the headquarters of the dungeon.
“The Willful Institute has crossed the bottom line of the Adventurer’s Guild, they have attacked Erik and Rugrat in the past. If we exist, they cannot. One way or another we will tear them apart. The Adventurer’s Guild attacks weaken their foundations, they will pave the way,” Glosil let out a sigh and looked to Yui. “This is the Ten Realms, we need to show our strength, there are people eyeing our Vuzgal, if we are able to defeat the Willful Institute we not only remove a thorn in our side, we gain capital and position. We affirm our position, sending a warning to those that are thinking of attacking us.”
“You don’t think that the guild can handle this by themselves? Won’t we be exposing the fact that they’re part of us?”
“I don’t think that the Willful Institute will be able to deal with it all, they are a powerful group, don’t get me wrong, but even though this is a powerful group, they’re split right now, but once united they’ll be strong, we need to hit them before they have time to pull themselves together. We will show our hand in the guild, but there are plenty of forces that control guilds and groups of different kinds. Showing that we have hidden cards and that one of them has become so powerful will look good for us and warn others. We have the ability to raise an army, a guild and expert crafters, not too bad,” Glosil said.
Yui sank into his own thoughts.
“Taking the Water floor isn’t only about taking the Water floor, we need to secure our rear lines, our home first before we attack externally,” Yui looked to Glosil for confirmation.
He nodded and cleared his throat.
“Once we have taken the Water floor, we’ll start deploying army units to assist the adventurer’s guild against the Willful Institute. It is time to put our new units and training to use.”
***
“Aditya? Hey Aditya.”
Lord Aditya made some noises as he started to stir.
Huh, why am I, HUH?
He sat up, waking up violently, finding that he had fallen asleep on the information book he had used, the overload of information and his lack of sleep had caused him to fall asleep. He peeled a scroll off of his face, looking at Evernight.
She tilted her head at him as he wiped his face, he’d got used to her presence and took a few moments to wake up properly.
“You do have a bed you know,” Evernight said.
Aditya shrugged. “I do? Huh,” He’d been using his couch to sleep when he could.
The building of King’s Hill Outpost was a full-time job.
Over three-quarters of the outposts that were allied with the outpost had a road connecting them to the outpost now.
Traders were coming from across the First realm and even some from the second realm had showed interest. As Yao Li from the Trader's Guild had said there were a lot more traders than Aditya thought there would be. Their wares were items that would cause interest in the Second Realm. More powerful items such as the mana barrier formation that covered Vermire and King’s Hill Outpost weren’t dealt with publicly.
“I heard that the first army is out and patrolling the outposts and the linking roads, the second army should be finished training soon as well,” Evernight said.
“Yes, the biggest problem has been the relocation, to make sure that there are no old influences in the occupied outposts we have kicked out a number of supporting families, banning them from coming back to the Beast Mountain Range for ten years. Then we have been shuffling people in and out of the outposts so that the different factions and groups are broken up. It means that instead of helping with our money issue they’ve just been costing more,” Aditya sighed.
“Don’t worry about that,” Evernight said casually as Aditya felt the mana density in the room increase as he fe
lt more alert and his body relaxed as his five mana gates opened and he started to draw in the surrounding mana hungrily.
He looked over to see Evernight tossing up a mana stone in her hand.
He had seen Mortal mana stones but this was clearer and the mana was denser.
“Is that an Earth Mana stone?” He asked, his voice catching in his throat.
“Yes, though this will be hard for you to use here.” Evernight passed him a storage ring.
He looked inside finding it filled with gems and jewels, from cut to uncut.
“We have a whole bunch of these from acquiring another piece of land. With your contacts it should be easy enough to turn this into liquid funds, no?” Evernight smiled and put the mana stone on the desk as well.
He looked at it and then at her.
“For you to cultivate with,” she said.
He couldn’t estimate how much was in the ring but looking at the Earth mana stone his eyes went wide.
It was worth onemillion gold. Such an item was simply too extravagant.
“Don’t worry, there are plenty more where that came from, literally could rain from the sky, though that would suck. So how are things going here?”
She dropped down into the chair opposite his, she was wearing the emblem of King’s Hill Outpost but was wearing rough traveling clothes.
“We have expanded rapidly, there are thirty thousand people within King’s Hill, every day we have several dozen trading caravans moving to and from King’s Hill, trading at the outer outposts and beyond. A number of people have sent messages, looking to create alliances or threatening us. Well, all of them are threatening us. They offer us an agreement, but they see we are facing difficulties or will in the future so they are looking to snap up our outpost for cheap. A number of crafters and healers have appeared from somewhere and are setting themselves up in King’s Hill, I’ve given them the assistance I can provide. Some of them came with plans for crafting workshops and we are building those up now,” Aditya said.
Evernight smiled at the mention of the crafters and healers, knowing all too well where they came from.
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