Yet again Kay floated above a marching army inside of a bloodnstruct as they marched east. This time was different on numerous levels though. The army was much larger than before as it was made up of thembined might of Avalon’s military, the Itarian Crusade, The Shatterplate Order, and any adventurers thatuld be recruited through the Adventurer’s Guild. They’d long passed the sight of the battle against the undead armyntrolled by the thing that had puppeted Martha’s body. As the army finally began pushing out of the swamplands and onto solid ground Kay watched as the hundreds of mages, manipulators, and those with other Classes thatuld pave the way forward through the marshy terrain pulled back and reassembled into their respective units. uts and ambushers pushed farther afield once their mobility was less limited and began picking off lone vampyr that littered the way forward and leading mobile adventuring parties to deal with larger groups that would slow down thembined army.
Kay stopped looking down at the ground through the outer edges of hisnstruct and took several deep breaths with his eyes closed. Using Sanguinelocation or Blood-Sight was overwhelming and he needed time to rver after each session. The sheer amount of stuff heuld see when his “eyes” were as large as the outside surface of thenstruct they were traveling in gave him a headache as he tried to process it all, and Sanguinelocation gave him information in a way that he had no reference for, which made it even worse. The relatively safe and uneventful activity of floating through the sky in a red warship afforded him some time to practice, but they were getting closer to their goal and someone had called his name.
When the headache and dizziness finally faded Kay turned to whoever had been calling him. “Yes?”
“Your majesty, we’ve gotten word back from the long distance infiltrators we sent to look for other ritual circles.” General Crucius reported. The leader of Avalon’s military and former Bannerthrust Empire nobility looked professional in the uniform he’d helped design, but his face was a fraction less put together than normal. “We have a finalunt on the total number of circles that have been prepared.”
“That’s the good news,” Kay replied as he stood up and started walking to the meeting room where the gathered leaders where making plans. “Whats the bad news?”
“Waves ofmpletely feral vampyr have been unleashed on and around all of the circles and the last reports we received from our spies indicated there was greater than normal activity at the circles themselves. They either know we’reming and are trying to speed up tounter us, or we somehow timed it perfectly to have a dramaticnfrontation at the last moment.” The side of Crucius’ mouth twitched upward in the tiniest wry smile ever. “I’m assuming the first and I’ve signaled the army to be prepared for ambushes.”
Kay stepped into the meeting room with Crucius on his heals. He waved down Stonegnawer and Ravenhome as they started to stand in respect and took his own seat at the table instead. “You’ve heard what Crucius was just reporting to me?”
Eleniah nodded. “We have. We were discussing what to do about it.”
“We’re already in motion to hit them and we’re moving as fast as we can to get in range. What else is there?”
Edric Ravenhome shook his head sharply. “We need to split up.”
“Alright. Why?”
“The new reportsnfirm that there are six circles, but only four of them seem to be actual threats.” He pointed at the map of Nelam and it’s surroundings laid out on the table, tapping each of the six marks on it. “These two are the ones we don’t need to worry about as much arding to your sources. The saboteurs you sent seem to have done their best work their and the circles in these locations are months behindmpared to the other four. While activity has increased on them as well, they actually pulled a lot of their manpower away from them several days ago, which makes me think they’ve been relegated to being distractions more than anything else.”
A soft whisper drifted into Kay’s left ear. “He’sming to the samenclusion I did based on the information that we’ve gathered. And don’t make a fuss about meming along when I’m not ambatant, I’mordinating your military intelligence so that the rest of you can focus on the actual fighting.”
Kayuldn’t keep the frown off his face, he just hoped it looked more thoughtful than annoyed. “Alright, we’ve got four main targets and two distractions we’ll have to clean up afterward. Where does splitting upme into play?”
“Because we can’t afford for any of their ritual circles to go off.” Edric told him. “If we had a clearer idea of what they did we might be able to prioritize them or weuld afford to let one or two go off if we knew that weuld deal with the effects, but with no clue on how dangerous they are we have to stop all of them.”
Stonegnawer nodded in agreement. “The onlynfirmed bit of data about them we have is that these vampyr once used ritual circles to call more powerful eldritch beings into Torotia. If these do the same thing then hitting one of the circles but allowing three unknown beings from beyond our reality to arrive here and potentially attack us all at once is too big a threat. And that’s ignoring that theyuld do something worse than that.”
Kay flicked a finger at the map, sending a bead of blood onto it that grew upward into a chess piece. “I follow you. We have to split up to get to guarantee we get to them all in time.” The chess piece dived itself into four smallerpies that each slid across the map to land on the marked locations.
“Correct, your majesty.” Crucius said. “If one area is more easily dealt with then any portion can move on to the next to reinforce our forces at other sites, but we’ll have to be sure that they’vempletely pacified the area and destroyed the ritual circle first.”
“Alright. How do we divide things up?”
The three military leaders shared a look, with Edric glancing to Kay first. “Because of my experiences and how the Order works, I’m more of a small unit leader than a general, but we’ve managed to agree on a general plan.”
“Not all of us agree.” Eleniah shot in, sounding testy.
Edric nodded to her. “I understand, but unless weme up with something better…”
Kay leaned forward to break their staringntest. “What is this plan?”
“We divide our forces into five. Four smaller armies dedicated to each of the ritual circles and one strike force to assault the Nelamian royal palace.” Edric pointed at the mark denoting a ritual circle that was drawn over Nelam’s former capital. “As you all already know the information Avalon’s spies have gathered points toward Nelam’s royal palace having been repurposed into a residence for the vampyr leader we suspect to be in charge of their side of this.”
Thisntent has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“The thingntrolling Martha met with it in an area that looked like that.” Kay muttered, drawing interesting looks from Edric and Stonegnawer.
After a long careful look at Kay Edricntinued. “We cannot allow the leader vampyr to escape. This entire event points toward it weaving plans and causing chaos for hundreds of years, minimum, and several events we thought were unrelated might actually have been part of it’s long term planning. It’s too dangerous to let it stay alive, so the strike force’s goal will be to track it down inside the palace and destroy it. Due to it’smbat power being unknown and your capability as a direct threat to it, we think you should be the main thrust for the strike team, your majesty.”
A glance over at Eleniah to read her expression told Kay that that wasn’t the part of the plan she was unhappy with. “What else-“
For the first time in months ampletely unexpected screen flashed into existence in front of Kay’s eyes and startled him into jumping backward. It was a dull metalliclor Kay hadn’t seen one of the System’s screens be before and there was a pixelation effect around the edges that looked our of place.
Concur. Previously unknown vampyr leadership must be destroyed. Systemrruption and instability for this world are reaching critical levels at unprecedented speed. The previously unknown vampyr leadership is likely to be a cause for multiple percentages ofrruption. It’s removal should allow for System resources to be allocated following defragmentaion and cleanup ofrrupted resources, reducing instability. All other System assets are striking other sources ofrruption and cannot be diverted. Any additional sources ofrruption must be prevented while eliminating preexisting sources.
A deep wl crossed Kay’s face as he read the message. “Great. Anything else world shaking you want to drop in my lap, System?”
There was no reply.
“Kay?” Eleniah leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “What’s happening?”
“The System finally spoke to me for the first time in ages. Apparently it really agrees with Edric that we have to kill the vampyr leader, but we also need to prevent those circles from going off because they might cause mroerruption.” He grit he teeth as he waved around to indicate the world. “Seems like things are going badly all over the place and the System needs things toned down to manageable levels ASAP. It said all other assets it has have been sent after otherrruption sources and can’t be diverted our way.”
“That explains why the Adventurer’s Guild Founders put so much emphasis on the Guild helping us butuldn’t show up themselves.” Metenmmented after a long moment of silence. He and Cindy were both in the meeting but had remained quiet until this point. “If they aren’t System assets I’ll be very surprised.”
“It also explains why I haven’t gotten any notifications or rewards for the Quest that sent me to the Isles. If the System’s already spending a bunch of it’s processing power to deal with whatever instability is going on actually paying me for helping with it is probably low down on it’s list. If we win it can always pay me afterward and if it fails…” Kay shook his head to clear the dark thoughts. “But it won’t. We’re already on the way to stamp out the vampyr, now we just have extranfirmation on why it’s important. What part of the plan are you unhappy with, Eleniah?”
“The way we’re being split up.” She shot Edric another glare. “They want you by yourself.”
Edric sighed and shook his head. “Not by himself. We think it’s best if your elites get sent with the armies going after the circles and me and my personal team are your strike force after the leader. Lady Eleniah would go with half of the Crusade’s forces to one of the circles, Duchess Cinderella would take her personal forces with the other to the snd, Sir Meten would take your Sentinels and the adventurers after the third, and you and my team would take the final army in to takentrol of the circle in the capital before pushing after the leader as soon as it’s under ourntrol.”
Several people raised their voices in protest about one thing or another but Kay cut through all of it with a raised hand. “Why?”
“Because we can’t assume that the enemy is going to be stupid, and if I were them I would have at least one elite at each of the sites.” He gestured at Stonegnawer, “The generals are great at being generals but-“
“But I’m not an elitembatant myself.” Stonegnawer declared easily. “My main focus is on my General Class, and while I can fight personally it’s not my forte. I focus on empowering my troops, ensuring clear lines ofmmunication, and so forth. The same is true of myunterparts amongst the Crusade and other military leadership Classes overall. There’s a reason why Lady Eleniah wiped the floor with one of our High Crusaders.”
Kay glanced at Crucuis, who nodded in agreement. “Alright. We assume that there will be at least one elite at each circle because we can’t afford not to, so we have to send our own tounter them. I get that. Your division isn’t perfect though.” He turned to look at his girlfriend. “Eleniah, I love you, but he’s right that you need to go with one.”
Her face screwed up with all kinds of negative emotions, but Kay kept going. “You’re one of the best elites we have, we need you to go with one of the armies. I’m sorry, but it’s non-negotiable.” He turned away from her eyes, filled with so much at once, to Cindy. “Cindy, you’re not really an elite, no offense.”
“No, I was going to say the same!”
“You and yours are with me and whatever Strike force I’m with.” He kept talking over Edric’s protests. “She’s not tier five, she’s not an elitembatant like that yet. I’m not sending her up against someone stronger than her and getting her killed. Which of the four we have to deal with first is least defended?”
Crucius pointed at the one furthest away from them. “That one, your majesty. Likely because it’ll take us longest to get there.”
“Right then. We send whichever force isn’t going to have one of my three elites to that one, but we stack it with as many fighters that are close to that level as we can. Meten, is Cindy’s old team with us?”
“They’re working on bming part of my vassals, or whatever you want to call them.” Cindy answered.
“Then sorry, they’re going that way with anyone else we can spare. Meten and the Sentinels going with the adventurers still works, ofurse. But,” He looked at Edric. “Why aren’t younsidered an elite? The generals I get, but you…”
Edric let out a long breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “Because I’m an assassin.”
Stonegnawer grunted in a way thatnveyed a sense of “I knew it”.
“Yes, I know it’s a bit of an open secret. Before my hometown was destroyed I was an agent of the Bannerthrust Empire. I retired and formed the Order after vampyr killed my entire family, but the Classes and Skills I developed don’t perfectly mesh with the ones I picked up hunting vampyr. I’ve been working onmbining them into a package that makes me a better direct fighter, but I’m not close enough yet. My personal hunting team is geared toward getting me in range of the vampyr undetected so that I can assassinate them. That’s why I think it’s best that I go with you with my team to go after the leader. I doubt that me getting in a solid first strike will kill them, but it should make things much easier for you.”
Kay thought about it quickly. “Alright. We’ll do it that way, but we’ll prioritize the force without and elite fighter to get the best hunting teams and whatever units we can spare that are good at personalmbat.”
Cindy raised her hand and Kay pointed at her withoutmmenting that she really didn’t need to do that. “I don’t know if you’ve seen all my reports on them, but some of the weapons I manage to make with your blood are devastating. We can probably take less people with us to the capital site and still take it easily.”
“And Kay can make his own army on the spot.” Eleniah said with a rough voice. “We can devote more troops to the farthest site because of that too.” She stared down at the table without looking at anyone.
No one else spoke up as Kay looked around at all of them. “Alright. We have a plan.” He stood up and walked over to Eleniah where he took her arm. “Figure out the best point for us to split up then start getting everyone in position to do it quickly and seamlessly.” Eleniah slipped her hand into his as he gently led her into the room he’d originally been in and sealed the entrance behind them. The fact that nobody should disturb them until the last possible moment without an absolute emergency went unsaid, but everyone understood perfectly.
