-Jean de La Bruyère

"We just launched an **** against one of the most powerful criminal enterprises in the state, certainly within the city, and you want to just bugger off for a full day?!"

"It's hardly 'buggering off'," John responded dryly, rolling his eyes at Moira. "I understand your concerns, but this is as much for your benefit as it is for mine. You saw how close we came to failing on that last mission - how injured I was when you were able to escape that Barrier and assist us. I came so close to defeat in that fight that I lost myself for a moment - and we both know things will only get harder from here on out. The Cabal, Lady Arista, the Albidians… nothing that stands before us will ever be 'easy'. I want to be ready."

Moira grimaced, staring at the map before her. It was the same map of Springfield that John had seen the last time they had been planning their war games, with the same coloration except for one single thing - the large square of black now encompassing what had once been a standing and functional factory.

"We call this a war, John, but your mundane history lessons can never truly capture the nature of Abyssal warfare. Even if we were across the country from another, even if we were across the continent - even if we were on another continent altogether - the nature of magical conflict means that no single section of our territory is ever fully safe. If they contact the proper organizations and hire them for assistance or if they acquire the necessary magical skills themselves to bypass our protective spells, they can strike anywhere and at any time. Can't you see why I want all hands available? They are more **** than ever right now - and that makes them more dangerous. More likely to try something foolish in an attempt to wreak vengeance or disrupt our future efforts. If we're going to prevent that, we need every available-"

"My Warden…"

The voice that surprised John was one he had only rarely heard interrupt Moira before, but one so powerful that it silenced all deliberation within the hall. Every head turned in unison, including John's own, and certainly including Moira's. Lord Brighton stood at the far end of the War Room's table, eyes flickering over the map as if considering a hundred things John could not even perceive.

"…if security is a concern that prevents this, dispatch all available soldiers - every man that can hold a blade - to defend our outposts. Strip this mansion of its guard and staffing, and provide every holding of ours with each and every man spared from this place. The Order's manor is a place even the Cabal are too wise to strike at. By reinforcing every outer perimeter we have, we will exceed their expectations of guard and preparation two-fold or better, and the chances of them catching us off-guard at a critical location fall drastically."

"Except at our homestead itself, where a defeat would cripple us in terms of morale and logistics," Moira pointed out. John expected that to be a decisive blow to Lord Brighton's strategy - he was, after all, suggesting that they leave their home without any Order soldiers to protect it.

"True. Losing the manor would be a blow almost as significant as losing the war… which is why I will remain here."

Lord Brighton adjusted his stance and took the pose of something akin to a statue… if a statue could emit a killing intent. Lord Brighton's eyes grew far heavier than the brevity of his tone would convey, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword in a mixture between a ready pose and a commanding stance.

"Father," Moira replied, "you are powerful indeed… and they may be a glorified street gang, but how can you protect the entire manor if they besiege us?"

Something entered Moira's voice there - something between an adult's disbelief and a child's awe. John was certain by the way she slowed herself that even Moira was acutely aware of how dangerous Lord Brighton could be. She had certainly seen him fight at some point... but what had she seen that still haunted her so?

"It is true that even in my prime I would have found it difficult to prevent any hostiles from entering the manor, given a complete lack of lookouts. The manor itself would likely suffer some damage as well… but given that if they besiege us they will not do so without the entirety of their forces, it will be well worth any damage sustained. If they come to this place, I will protect our prisons, our armories, and our most precious places until reinforcements arrive. Then, we will crush them between the Lady's shield and sword."

There was no yield to Lord Brighton's eyes. No doubt or room for argument. Not only was he insisting on his plan, but he seemed to have no doubts in his mind that it was perfectly reasonable. That defending the entire manor from a **** John had barely survived against on multiple occasions was a feat he didn't believe for a moment he could fail at. John had never even faced a significant part of their forces alone - he’d always had Moira, Tricia, or Seras at his side, sometimes multiples. Yet Lord Brighton was going to stand alone, unblinking over his entire manor.

The idea terrified John.

"How large is the manor? That's thousands of square feet. Actual hundreds of rooms, with hedge mazes and statuesandgardensand-ohmigod, how many acres is the estate itself?!"

In the middle of his panicked stream of consciousness, two thoughts **** themselves upon John at once, neither of which he wanted the answer to in the slightest. How powerful had Lord Brighton been when he was the Warden? To cover an entire mansion, and say that it would only be "difficult" to prevent entry by an entire army, no matter how lowly he considered them… that was a feat beyond measure. John had only met mages so far that were not unlike Moira - gifted, talented, but human at their core. Superhuman, yes. Superman? No. Which sent an all-too-familiar memory running through his mind, the icy chill of Moira's words resonating through his being as he recalled what she had said after his first encounter with Himiko Nakamura.

”In my father's prime, at his peak of power and with the full might of the Golden Rose behind him, he might have posed a threat to her.”

"Might? How powerful can mages become? What can they do? What is the upper limit, and… what have I gotten myself into?" After a few weeks of grinding levels and practicing his basic spells, John had apparently reached the point where his simple strength was enough to bend and break reinforced metals without meaning to. Even if the average sword wasn't meant to withstand the kind and direction of **** he'd exerted on the Order's weapons, he still thought of himself as a complete novice, the smallest of fishes in a pond that grew more and more expansive by the day. How powerful was the largest of these aquatic beasts?

John didn't get a chance to ask or answer his question. He got a single moment of silence, stretched out between every man and woman present, and then Moira sighed her way into action.

"I cannot disagree with your skill… but would you truly take such a burden? Why?"

"I know the look of a man with purpose, the look of someone who sees beyond the conflict they are currently embroiled in. Confronted with **** and suffering on all sides, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Abyss... to gaze beyond that, and to see the world waiting beyond one's own pool of misery? That is a rare curse. A curse John Newman now seems to bear with great dignity."

Moira eyed John, as if her father's words had bestowed a new perspective of John on her. Perhaps they had; perhaps, despite Moira's cocksure, headstrong nature, she was actually capable of taking outside perspectives into consideration. John doubted it, but it was a possibility.

"A former Warden of the Golden Rose has voiced trust in you, John Newman. Do not take that lightly. I will grant you your twenty-four hours… given the condition that you make contact with Tricia Gorbachev first and attempt to maintain any line of communication she can provide you with. Hopefully her studies of your private world and its prototypical nature as a Barrier have granted her some method of communication."

"I'll go see her immediately," John agreed, giving a half-hearted bow that neither Seras nor Sophia echoed willingly. Moira seemed to accept it all the same, not interrupting any of them as they strode out of the room. John cast his eyes backward one final time as he exited the room, daring a quick Observe on the man who spoke up on his behalf.

Lord William Brighton
Level ??? ?????
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Relationship: ???

"Fucking Gaia, but he terrifies me. But if he terrifies me… what could possibly terrify him?"

Nearly a full minute passed before either of them dared speak, Sophia finally breaking the silence. "Master, why did you ask permission from her before all this began? She acts as though she controls you. I know it is not my place, but… I do not enjoy tolerating her disrespect of your position. Are you certain we cannot simply disembowel her and be done with it?"

"I- I legitimately cannot imagine what would happen to us," John admitted, shaking his head. "Despite her more than aggressive style of leadership and her inability to take criticism particularly well, Moira is the head of her family, and currently that is a peak to which we cannot rise."

"I would gladly give my life to see her give you your proper respect," Sophia swore, causing John to chuckle nervously.

"That's not necessary, Sophia. So far, she hasn't been proven wrong."

"Wrong as in wot? Proven wrong in thinking that we're not worth a damn?"

"No," John growled, shaking his head, "just that I'm not. So far all I've done is function as another soldier, another cog. Even I can see that, and I'm biased as hell. I need to do more to progress, more to be useful in a larger context than a single battle. Even Gaia seems to see that - and now I do too. Lord Brighton as well, for whatever that's worth, which I think is a lot. So that's what we're going to do. I'm going to reset… and then I'm going to work on myself, in more ways than one."

John wallowed in the silence that followed until they reached Tricia's lab. She was tinkering with a set of phials and various fluids, but the moment he opened the door, she set them down and gazed over curiously.

"John Newman? What are you doing here? If you have come to request any kind of enhancements or alterations to your equipment, I will not be able to do so for quite some time. The Order has me replenishing their stocks of potions and enchanted oils, and I still haven't been able to obtain enough technological supplies in the middle of this conflict to rebuild all of my destroyed drones; I've had to resort to performing much of the alchemy myself."

"No, I'm going to be heading back to my world soon… I have some stuff to take care of. I'll be gone for about a day."

"You have 'some stuff'? What 'stuff' is so important that you would seal yourself off for a minimum of four hours and hoping for an entire day?" Tricia asked, eyes wide. "Moira will be quite angry if she calls upon you and you do not respond."

John didn't miss the fact that Tricia assumed he would disobey, rather than risk denial. He also didn't miss that Tricia didn't seem to have a problem with that, despite her surprise. John smirked a little as he held up a hand to wave away her concerns.

"I already asked… she didn't like it, but Lord Brighton backed me up. He said he'd defend the manor himself."

"I- he-" Tricia stammered for a few moments, before simply going silent and staring into John's eyes. She strode over to where John was standing and examined him nearly as closely as she had when first learning of John's abilities for herself.

"Lord Brighton is a wise man," Tricia said after a few moments. "If he believes your long-term improvement is so important, I trust his judgement."

"Yeah… they told me to come here, though. Something about a communication link you think you can set up between my world and this one?"

"Ah, yes, just a prototype, I'm afraid, more of a change of wavelength than anything else. If you take one of my drones with you, I could attempt to fine-tune it - I'll set the drone you take to alter its broadcasts on a regular basis and monitor for any incoming communications. If I had a Fateweaver here, this would be far easier; I could use any information they could give me about the nature of your personal Barrier or the wavelengths of your mana as you transport yourself to narrow the range of my searches. Even if I have the right idea, this could well take hours of testing."

"I'm just glad there's some kind of hope… if worst comes to worst, you can at least tell me to come back earlier than the twenty-four hours I asked for."

"I doubt physical location will have much to do with my ability to communicate with you, so… I would recommend that you pick a random location within the Order's manor to use your ability from. If you make a habit out of the locations you transfer from, it will become easy to set up a trap for you, or for others to betray you - both Himiko Nakamura and Lord Brighton have taken advantage of your inability to transfer to new locations."

Cold, pragmatic advice. John wished those things sounded as harsh to him as they used to, before he started counting the number of bodies he'd laid at his feet in the double digits.

"I'll do that."

"'Ate to think about 'em campin' out for days just waitin' for us. Bad enough stumblin' into the camp when the Nekos are… gettin' intimate," Seras muttered, a blush betraying her memories of one of their prior trips. "An' that 'Imiko girl…"

"Well, we'll start being more careful," John agreed. "If we have a way to communicate, it'll be much easier to avoid any ambushes that might be coming our way, so for now, let's find somewhere and set out."

One of Tricia's drones whirred and floated over to John, taking up position several feet behind him and just slightly above his left shoulder. As they left the lab behind, Sophia waited a respectful number of steps before coming close to John's ear and lowering her voice, using her hand to block her lips from the drone hovering behind them.

"Father, are you certain about the woman in the strange clothes?" Sophia asked, notably avoiding turning her eyes toward the drone. "We can go wherever we want, but this drone will inform her of our departure position."

"I appreciate the concern, but… I trust Tricia," John said, purposely not lowering his voice. "She's been more hurt by this world and the conflict around it than I have, and she's lost far more. I trust Moira and Lord Brighton, too - and Etriyya. Not really sure about Kim, and I don't know most of the Order Knights very well… but those three? I honestly think any of them would die before they betrayed me."

"Let us hope you are correct," Sophia murmured. John turned toward the expansive garden area of the manor, hoping for a place concealed from the sparse windows of the inner manor where he could depart without being witnessed.

"What about each other?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Do you think they'd let each other die before they let some bloke come after you?"

John opened his mouth, prepared to voice his confidence in them. Tricia surely cared more for John than Moira, that much was obvious, but what was the strange respect she seemed to have for Lord Brighton? And what of the Warden and her father? John knew they were both loyal and principled people, but wouldn't any daughter protect her father over her "best friend"? What about the reverse?

"I think they'd go down swinging before they ever let it get to that point. Lord Brighton is offering to defend this entire manor himself just to give us time to work on ourselves, with no promise for results… that speaks volumes about both of them, I'd say."

"Speakin' of which," Seras murmured, "what exactly are you plannin'? You said somethin' about resettin' again, which seems like a really bad idea in the middle of a war. Any other plans?"

"Honestly, I… I've been neglecting everyone lately," John admitted. "I go to my world in four-hour bursts, I've barely been bringing enough food to keep Maera, Mithra, and Lunaya fed even with the extra fruits, and when I'm there I barely even interact with them because I'm so busy working on my abilities or grinding out dungeons. Twenty-four hours is enough time to grind out a bunch of dungeons, but in my down time, I want to do something for everyone."

"Awfully sweet of ya. What did you 'ave in mind?" Seras asked, eyes widening in anticipation… a look that was, John noted happily, just as cute with her blood-red eyes as it had been with those deep pools of blue.

"Well… what do you want?" John asked. The three of them had reached a circle of trees and bushes that shielded them fairly well; John couldn't see any obvious windows with a clear view, and nobody had been wandering through while they secluded themselves, probably all on high alert still or recovering from the battle.

"I mean, I dunno, maybe a nice bath? 'Aven't 'ad one of those in a long while, actually."

"I can probably do that… gotta figure out what porcelain is made of though," John noted. "What about you, Sophia?"

"To serve you more faithfully and truly than I have already," Sophia immediately responded, no doubt or hesitation in her voice. John blinked a few times and then shook his head.

"Right - whatever I make for you, it's got to be a hobby. Hopefully the Nekos are a bit more helpful. Wonder what Lunaya will want?"

John contemplated that as he placed a hand on Tricia's floating drone for assurance that it would be brought with them, and whisked the four of them away with a quick World Shift.