Planning Phase

The ticking of the clock reminded William Brighton of just how fleeting things were. And how quickly things could change. He had no illusions just how mercurial the Abyss was. There was never the guarantee someone would live to see the next day, even those with the Lady’s favor. It meant that one had to be ready to change if the current way of doing things wasn’t working.

And the Pruzonia issue was certainly a large change in the status quo. A Kingdom gaining access to Earth was one thing, something the Order had dealt with in the past. One that was freshly spawned, with a nascent goddess at its helm and a Latebloomer with the Lady’s touch guiding him as one of her adherents was not. To say nothing else of their connection to the vile **** that was killing lesser guilds right under their noses.

And they were still shaking things up. William regarded the report before him. It was a detailed account of the recent meeting between their artificers and the gnomish inventor Martius on Pruzonia’s progress on the method and device to tract the bloodletting Phantom Reach. While progress was slow, that wasn’t what pulled his attention.

No, it was the additional request from Pruzonia that dominated his thoughts. A request to speak with the dwarves of Clan Baz, a crafting and commerce focused group, about alliance was not the next move he’d expected from them, but he should have known more curveballs were likely to come from them. The Lady’s touch upon them made their actions something to carefully consider before taking action.

Which left him at an odd crossroad. Clan Baz, as far as their knowledge of them was concerned, were no threat. They had no known dealings with the darker elements of the Abyss. No connections to the various **** trades, nor did they craft anything that could be considered overly dangerous by the bloody standard of the Abyss. All in all, they were a perfectly acceptable group to aid in the extraction of Pruzonia’s mineral wealth.

Their desire to establish a strong tie with the Order to increase the prospect of their survival in the event of an attack was not some far out idea, but the method by which they wished to gauge their sincerity and integrity was unorthodox by the Order’s measure.

“A trial by combat is not the way the Order does things,” he muttered as he looked at the volumes of books resting on the shelf against the wall. The tomes of their history stood like a stern grandmaster, tradition made manifest, almost like they were cautioning him to not entreat this idea. But those histories also spoke of times when the ways they had lived by were **** to change, most often at the direction of those gifted visions and inspiration from the Lady.

And it seemed to him that this was one of those times. From what had been relayed, the dwarves were not after some kind of duel to the ****, merely a show of good faith and display of what skills in battle they could bring to their aid, should it be needed. He doubted whatever they had planned was dangerous enough that it would truly risk the life of one of their younger members.

That caused an idea to form. It was clear that Pruzonia was going to have Mr. Newman as their representative, so it would stand to reason to send one of their squires. If he sent someone with more experience, it could be seen as them trying to intimidate them into compliance, and while such a powerplay wasn’t out of the question, it was hardly the right tool to use in this situation.

And if they were to send a squire, there was one that came to mind that would likely help to make their case.

Lord Brighton lifted his arm and lightly touched a black box at the corner of his desk.

“Summon Knight Ramirez.”

“You know, I’m surprised the Order didn’t put up a fuss when Harker told them about the dwarves’ offer,” Aeolia remarked the next morning. The sanguinmancer had told them that the Order merely said they would send the information up the chain of command.

“To be fair, they were only dealing with their artificers,” John said as he stretched his arms. “They aren’t getting paid to make those sorts of decisions.”

“Are we sure they’re getting paid at all?” Beth asked with a grin as she jumped in place.

“The Order isn’t some medieval feudal state that trades labor for sanctuary,” Vivian said. “I’m sure they get paid just like anyone else. And yes, once we get something more regular than selling off random bits from loot, we’ll be getting paid too.”

“Don’t know what I’d do with money,” Anita remarked as she shifted her tanktop, the white material stretched taut over her chest.

“Some more clothes couldn’t hurt,” Senka mused, her own attire shifting from her default kimono to a more casual blue jeans and purple t-shirt with a stylized knife across her chest. “I could even model some for you so you can get an idea of what they look like in person before we go shopping.”

Anita nodded excitedly. “That sounds like fun!”

“S-so how are we training today?” Kiera asked, her wooden staff clutched tightly in her hands. John looked around at the group, a bit sad that Teri and Estelle weren’t able to meet up with them today. Verida too was absent, outside of her connection to Kiera, but that was to be sadly expected.

“Not entirely sure,” he admitted. “The goal should be to get me up to snuff to handle whatever the dwarves have cooked up. Which means I should focus on getting the skills I most often use, and the stats they use, up as far as we can.”

“Those skills would be Evocation, Spirit Link, and your fighting skill, correct?” Vivian asked.

“Those are the base of my build,” John answered, lifting his hand to manifest his wind and water spirits.

“Then I think maybe focusing on them in sequence could work,” Vivian suggested. “Spend some time only using Evocations, then rest, then try the same with spirits.”

“The issue with that is mana,” John said, dismissing his minor spirits. “There are only so many fireballs I can throw before I’m tapped out. Bask isn’t going to let me top up enough to keep going for more than a few fights. Even with the mana I’ve stored up in the few batteries we have isn’t going to extend that by much.”

“Sounds like you could use some of my potions.” Lynn’s dry voice caused everyone to jump in surprise and turn to see the blonde stepping in from the backyard.

Aeolia was the first to react with words, “A bit of warning would have been nice.”

“And you guys could have told us you’ve built more pathways for the Kingdom,” Lynn shot back with a grin. “But seeing Martius have to trudge through the woods is a fair exchange, so you won’t hear me tell him about this.”

“What do you want, Lynn?” Beth asked, annoyance creeping into her voice.

“Like I said, I think some of my potions can help with getting you guys ready for this dwarf thing,” Lynn repeated.

“Didn’t you say that repeated potion use was a bad thing?” John asked, recalling how Lynn had been cautious about giving Harker too many healing potions.

“They can be, especially the ones focused around healing the body,” Lynn answered. “Good memory. Mana based ones have a bit more leeway since mana recovers faster than flesh usually does. Still not advised to chug them like Gatorade every day, but you won’t be seeing any major issues for a while.”

“Weren’t you just complaining about workload yesterday?” Beth pressed.

“Whipping up mana restoration brews is child’s play compared to tuning up the scanner’s stuff,” Lynn said haughtily. “And I made a bunch of them that are just taking up space before we started with the revamped system. Figured we might need them if we were going to be working long hours. Turns out Martius’ redesign didn’t need as much channeled mana as I thought it would.”

“What’s the catch?” Vivian asked pointedly. “You knew this was our plan, so you could have offered these potions then.”

Lynn grinned at Vivian. “You’ve got a good eye. I was hoping to tag along. Mainly to see how my potions interact with him.”

She hooked her thumb at John. “Might give me some inspiration on how to make them better.”

Before John or anyone else could give their opinions on Lynn’s request, a display popped up in front of John.

Can you hear the training montage music?

New Quest: Focused Training

You’ve made a training plan, let’s see you stick with it.
Defeat 30 enemies using only Evocations and Defeat 30 enemies using only spirit-based skills using a special barrier configuration.
(Using weapon based Evocations or spirit skills will enable you to use the weapon for the duration of the effect.)

Reward: +2 Evocation and Spirit Link skill levels, +100 max MP

“Guess Gaia would prefer you tagging along,” John said after he read out the quest. “She could have sent this after we decided to focus on my casting skills, but I’m not sure I would have gone for it without your offer of mana potions.”

“I’m not one for prayer, but thanks Gaia.” Lynn smirked and John couldn’t help but see her resemblance to Beth for a second. “How quickly does using those moves drain you?”

“I’m at 140 before factoring in the cost to keep any spirit summoned. Fiery Pursuit uses 19 and I can use it sixteen times before the glove needs to recharge. Not that I can cast sixteen of them on my own,” John explained. “The spirit stuff is less costly, but less directly powerful, excepting Senka.”

“I wonder if I count,” Senka mused. “Technically, I’m only here because John’s giving up a bit of his mana to anchor me.”

Quest Addendum: Fully sentient spirits do not count when using their independent magic.

“Well, that answers that,” Senka said with a wry grin. “Looks like Vessel Cloak is the only way I can help you.”

“At least I can fight with the shadow blade doing that,” John remarked. “That should count as a ‘spirit skill’ since I need your mana to use it.”

He paused to give Gaia the opportunity to counter his assessment, and when none appeared he sighed. “At least I can keep using a weapon this way.”

“Guess I’m on battery duty today,” Senka said with a smile that clearly showed she bore no ill will over her role. “And if I’m being honest, with my mana pool, I’m not sure how much of your potions we’ll need, Lynn.”

“I don’t want to make you sit on the sidelines, Senka,” John protested.

“I’m fine playing support,” Senka firmly stated. “Not having to run around as much sounds fine to me. I’m at my best when I can stand my ground.”

“Even if John doesn’t need as much juice, the rest of you don’t have the luxury of a back up supply,” Lynn dryly pointed out. “I know you’re sending John to impress the dwarves but none of you are going to just sit out a training opportunity, right?”

“Of course we aren’t,” Beth hotly answered.

“Then my potions will help you keep things going for longer,” Lynn said. “More gains, more experience, better chances at you not dying.”

John saw realization dawn on Beth’s face. He knew Lynn had given up trying to **** her younger sister away from danger and it seemed her new strategy was to make it so they were able to stand against whatever was waiting for them down the road. He also knew the sisters had spent close to an hour chilling out in the forest somewhere, so maybe they had reached some kind of renewed sisterhood.

“Suppose we can’t say no to help,” he diplomatically said. “More fighting, more level ups, more loot. And we have no idea what setting Gaia’s got lined up for us, so we’d be pretty dumb to turn down a leg up on the mana front.”

“Great,” Lynn grinned, “so, any weird rituals you guys do before these things?”

Special Enemy Combat Type Available: King of the Hill

King of the Hill: Modified Tower Defense Barrier mode. Remain within a set area and defeat enemies before being taken out. Each participant will have ‘3’ lives. A life is taken when they receive any damage from an enemy. After all lives are lost, that player will be removed from the round, placed into an intangible spectator mode. Leaving the set area will result in forfeiture of all remaining lives. The round will last until one side is eliminated. Loot drops, exp gains and skill level ups will manifest after you elect to end the game. Enemy type: Gremlin.

Do you wish to begin?

“Sounds like this is going to be a ranged combat sort of deal,” John mused as they stood in his backyard. The faint hum of Vivian’s magic around them kept them hidden from view, but nothing kept their voices unheard so he kept his low.

He caught Kiera shift uncomfortably behind him, hands clenching around her staff.

“But,” he continued, “that means either these gremlins will be attacking at range too or will be fast moving close combat types. That sounds a lot more likely. Blitz us and three tags and we’re out. So we’ll need to be able to slow them down and keep them from touching us. I can think of a few ways we can do that.”

He pointedly looked at Kiera. “Think you can use that floating aura to trip up some gremlins?”

Kiera blushed under John’s supportive gaze and her hands flexed around her staff. “I-I think I can.”

Aeolia clapped her hand on Kiera’s shoulder, drawing out a squeak of surprise. “You can. Good staff like that is great at tripping things up before they can get in range. Add your magic to it and they’re going to be falling over themselves.”

“Y-yeah, I can do this,” she said, her words growing in volume as their confidence in her stoked her own.

“Are we going to make more of a plan or do you just wing it?” Lynn asked, her eyes narrowed.

“Can’t make much of a plan until we see what we’re working with and up against,” John answered. “We don’t know what sort of area we’re going to be stuck in. Is it going to be flat, an actual hill, will there be structures? Too many things to consider. Same with the enemies. Until I can throw an Observe at them, we’re blind to just how they’re going to operate.”

“So, we just pop in and hope we don’t get ambushed?” Lynn asked incredulously.

“Last time we did the base version of this, we had some time before the enemies appeared,” Vivian said. “And in other barriers, there’s been time for us to get our footing before anything approached us. We’ll be able to make a plan once we get in.”

“If you say so,” Lynn muttered as she pulled out a flask from her coat and popped off its stopper. “I’ll have something ready just in case.”

John wasn’t going to say anything about her paranoia. If she ended up being right to be worried about dropping into an unknown barrier, then she would have a means to protect them. If not, then no harm, no foul.

With no further questions or comments put forward, John created the barrier.