Long-Distance Diplomacy

After leaving Lerianna’s room behind, John turned his attention to the rest of the house’s inhabitants. Judging by the sound of feet against the floorboards, everyone was up for the day now, and either most of them were on the move or the kittens were feeling particularly rambunctious today.

It was most certainly the latter, as John found out when the sound of his own feet trotting down the stairs summoned six eager Nekos, each with something they seemed to find fascinating clutched in their tiny paws.

“Papa! Look what we drew!” the twins shouted together in earnest, holding up drawings they’d sketched so eagerly that John was amazed the paper held together, particularly with their claws starting to come in.

“Which one is better?”

“It’s mine!”

“No, mine!”

“They’re both lovely, I can’t choose,” John managed to get out before the two were shoved aside. It wasn’t exactly a lie – the drawings were nearly as identical as the twins, especially considering they had each drawn the other. “Just keep practicing!”

“Can you help me test the new monster I made?” Moira asked, leaning in to show John a fully statted out monster, complete with a sketch only a little rougher than the twins’ drawings.

“Okay, maybe this afternoon we can-”

“No, Papa, we have to go over my training plan!” Magnus insisted, proffering a list scrawled in his mostly legible handwriting.

“And mine too!” Midoriya shouted, holding up one with a touch more organization.

“I mean, that’s fine, just-”

“No, read my story first! Tell me if it’s good!” Miriam screamed, proudly flailing a piece of paper. John couldn’t see much of anything about it except that every bit of white space was scrawled on with haphazard writing that seemed to go in every direction at once.

“Okay, okay, one at a time!” John pleaded, urging the kittens toward the large sofa and making a heroic effort to separate the lot of them so that they weren’t trying to swarm over each other for his attention. “I have all afternoon now; we have so much time for this!”

Over the course of an hour, with Maera and Mithra eventually making their way into the common room to help wrangle the unoccupied kittens, John did his best to help his excited children. Art critiquing was a bit difficult, but John channeled every bit of Miss Summer’s classes he could recall. He wasn’t sure they wanted much more than attention, but every time he made a comment about their drawings, the two twins would squeal in delight and hug each other so adorably John didn’t particularly care whether they were actually listening.

Magnus and Midoriya both had pretty optimistic training regimens in mind, so John’s job was more about shaving things down to be more realistic. When they were younger, he could’ve assumed the plans were something they would forget about within the hour, but as the Nekos grew older, they seemed to be getting a lot less forgetful. Still just as excitable and energetic, but a lot more likely to actually stick to things – so John made sure to talk them out of anything that seemed more likely to hurt them than make them stronger.

Miriam and Moira were thankfully asking about things John was far more familiar with, especially since Layla had just helped him refresh his story ideas and his tabletop prowess. The two of them kept him busy with questions for most of the hour, constantly bouncing ideas off both him and each other, to the point they may as well have been working on a project together. In fact, he was still alternating between helping both of them with brainstorming ideas when one of Tricia’s drones buzzed into the room, beeping loudly enough to make the kittens frantically leap over the back of the couch and hiss at the intruding robot.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” John cooed softly, biting back a chuckle as he tapped on the screen the drone popped out. “That just means that it has a message. It’s probably just something about the arrangement with the mercenaries…”

“John? We need to talk about the war,” Moira said the moment that a video feed popped up, still half static when the first words left her mouth.

“Yeah, I figured it was something like that. Is this about Glen and the mercenaries?”

“No. We just received our first contact from Adantia. I’m going to have Tricia add her to the call in just a moment; are you ready?”

“Ah, one second,” John responded hurriedly, giving Miriam and Moira a quick pat on their heads while he stood, tousling Moira’s hair to distract her when she went to grab his arm. “I was just chatting with your namesake, actually. Let me go somewhere more private.”

“Take your time. She is currently conversing with my father on matters of strategy. We will have more to discuss once you join.”

The feed cut off for a moment as Moira swapped back to the other call. John did his best not to look directly at the two young kittens now staring up at him with the widest eyes they could muster, ruffling their hair to obscure the adorable gazes of the manipulative youngsters.

“Behave while I’m gone. When I get back, maybe we can talk about the two of you working on a campaign together. You could even ask Mika and Miya if they’re willing to do character art for you!”

That did the trick – as John walked away he could already hear the two breaking into an excited chatter that devolved into muffled cat nonsense by the time John was up the stairs. A few of the others that were around to notice threw him glances as he went, eyes filled with curiosity and a slight apprehension when they saw the drone hovering with him. John just threw up a calming hand, not wanting to dive into any explanations until he knew exactly what was going on.

Once he was back in his room with the sounds from outside silenced, John sat on the bed and called the drone over. It took a few seconds from when he started the call up again to when the image finally appeared on screen, but when it did, it was a split feed, with Moira taking up the right half of the display while Lord Brighton and Adantia both shared the left. Judging by the quality and stability of the feed, Adantia must have been using her phone or another manual camera for the call, though both of her arms were still clearly in view.

“Took you long enough,” Adantia said as soon as she was in view, scoffing and jostling around to adjust herself. It seemed like she was in some kind of tent, camped out on a rough bedroll. In the background John could hear voices, though they seemed fairly distant.

“We were just beginning to discuss our plans on when and how to move our forces, and what the best way to coordinate with the Great Plains guilds would be,” Lord Brighton explained. “We’re trying to arrange it so that we can move our forces en masse without antagonizing any of the larger groups, or risking a conflict with the alliance before we are able to explain ourselves and our purpose there.”

“Won’t be an issue, at least not with these guys,” Adantia said quickly, shrugging. “They haven’t changed much since the last time I dealt with them. Even a couple of old faces still hanging around. When I got here a few of the home guard tried to pick a fight with me rather than talk with their councils, so I knocked a few heads around without seriously hurting anyone, convinced them I was worth their time, and went from there.”

“And that worked, apparently,” Moira said, not even bothering to hide how skeptical she still was about that.

“Yeah, more or less. They need strength right now, and even when they don’t, they still respect it. Once I met a few of the older ones still hanging around from my time, that pretty much sealed the deal. They’re reaaaallly not happy to be letting someone like me just wander around their territory, but they’re putting up with it and giving me the run of the place as long as I keep their territory safe. If I’m there when you hit the border and tell them you’re friends of mine, they won’t try anything. Well, not anything organized anyway.”

“That last part didn’t sound terribly reassuring,” John pointed out.

“Like I said, they respect strength, not people. These are a bunch of mages who only stop killing each other long enough to make sure nobody else gets to do it first. Just because they think you’re powerful, or because they can make good use of you, doesn’t mean they actually like you. When you all join me up here, you’ll be making your own camps, and you’ll be setting your own guards. This is a warzone, and even without the Northern Ashes, this is not what I’d call friendly territory.”

“We are already prepared for such matters, as we have discussed,” Lord Brighton said, nodding his head. “We are aware that any cooperation between ourselves and the Great Plains guilds will be a matter of convenience and mutual interest, not a genuine alliance.”

“Aren’t you all worried about them trying something on the battlefield? **** Moira, or Kim, or me? I’ve… I’ve been ambushed a lot. Kinda tired of it, honestly.”

“Relax, princess, no one is locking you in a tower while I’m around,” Adantia replied, camera jostling as she sat up straighter. “You’re going to be sticking with me as closely as possible anyway, seeing as how you’re the one responsible for getting me in this mess in the first place. As for the others, like I said, they’re not dumb enough to try anything organized. They can barely hold their own territory right now, and it was a losing battle until I showed up – they know if they piss off even a smaller guild from another angle and have to divide their forces up on two fronts, they’ll either collapse on the northern front or get picked apart by the smallfry until there’s nothing left. They’ve already been raided about a half-dozen times by small, mobile groups of mages that hit a few of the guilds on the western side early in the war.”

“So their forces are truly stretched that thin?” Lord Brighton asked, voice clearly concerned. “Are you certain that they will be able to win this war, or even come to a proper stalemate, even with our aid?”

“The borders are pretty threadbare, but that’s just because of how much of their overall **** is concentrated up north. Since I’ve gotten here, we haven’t lost anything on that side of things.”

“You’ve been around a long time; what’s your opinion on how the war is going overall?” John asked. “We know that they were slowing these necromancers down quite a bit, and you say you’ve stopped their incursion in its tracks… but what are we really dealing with out there? How many are there, and can we beat them?”

“Honestly? It’s hard to evaluate with necromancers,” Adantia admitted with a shrug. “Most of the time they don’t risk the front lines of combat themselves, and when they do, they’re surrounded by their most elite crew that makes it hard for even me to dive straight at them. I managed to catch a couple off-guard in the first two days after I showed up by hitting them from underground, but they wised up pretty quickly after that. They’ve got a Fateweaver working with them, or at least a resurrected one, hard to tell. Whatever the case is, they started keeping anyone that comes anywhere near the battlefield locked up tight in a Barrier, and a tough one at that. By the time I can break into it from such a long distance, they’re always gone.”

“But do you think that we can take the offense? Or at least whittle away enough of their living forces once we arrive that the Great Plains Alliance will be able to hold their own territory without our aid?” Moira reiterated.

“Indefinitely? Not really. These guys don’t have the coordination or the cohesion to keep up a war like this for years,” Adantia said, shrugging. “Offense? Maybe once you’re here we can re-evaluate. With all of you up here, it’s probably doable, otherwise it’s going to come down to how long it takes me to catch them making big mistakes on the offense. For now, I don’t feel like making that kind of dangerous push on my own, and I don’t trust these idiots not to collapse the first time something goes wrong during an attack. ”

“Understandable. We’re finalizing preparations for security measures around the city and preparing all the logistics of getting a **** up there, but we should be ready to depart by your deadline,” Lord Brighton announced. “May the Lady watch over you until then.”

“Yeah, something like that anyway,” Adantia said dismissively. “By the way, John, I still expect you here at the end of the thirty days whether the Order is prepared or not!”

“I’ll be ready,” John promised. “I know I dragged you into this, and I don’t plan on leaving you to take care of it yourself.”

“Better be. Remember, Springfield isn’t my home, and these people aren’t my friends. Hell, even the ones I like aren’t. I’ll leave these clowns to get steamrolled while I come down there and drag you up here, if I have to.”

“Won’t be necessary,” John reassured her.

“Hope not. Anyway, I’m gonna get some shut-eye now.”

“Now?” John blurted out. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Ah, right, what was I thinking? Gonna be awfully hard to get to sleep with all this sun in my eyes,” Adantia said, voice so thick with sarcasm it nearly fogged up the display. “It’s a warzone. Never know when the next attack is going to come. Better to get rest where you can in case you end up needing to stay awake for a few days on end. Anything else you two need?”

“None.”

“We’ll start adapting our plans based on what we’ve discussed today. If you have any more advice or intelligence to pass on, don’t hesitate to call. We want to be as prepared as possible for what lies ahead.”

“Then keep training with the idiot; you should be able to at least hold your own in case we get separated. Otherwise, I’ll work on setting up an official meeting point so there’s no misunderstandings. Anyway, I’m out, talk later.”

Adantia hung up promptly, while the others were still giving their farewells. As her screen faded, Lord Brighton and Moira cut themselves off, then gave the same frustrated expression.

“I wish she would treat this war as if it were at least a slightly more serious situation than a schoolyard brawl,” Moira groaned as she rubbed at her temples.

“Her confidence is certainly reassuring… assuming she has some of her old abilities to read a battlefield still sharp enough to measure our chances accurately. But I do agree, I wish she were perhaps a bit more professional,” Lord Brighton emphasized, though he had a semblance of a smirk as he said it. “John, was there anything that you wanted to speak with us about?”

“Nothing new that affects our plans on my end of things. I’m glad she got there okay. How are the preparations for Springfield’s security going? Are we taking any measures besides the mercenaries?”

“Aside from the mercenary contract and a few soldiers left behind as an emergency home guard and to maintain the manor, we had intended to contact the Forgotten Legion to arrange a similar agreement with them, but they’ve been difficult to contact,” Moira said. “They frequently move around their primary base, and so far, all of the old ones we’ve sent soldiers to investigate have come up empty. We believe they may have already fled to the south.”

“That sucks. I wasn’t assuming they would want to come fight with us, but it would’ve been nice to have them watching over the place, assuming you trusted them enough.”

“Difficult to say. The Forgotten Legion were our enemies once, and could be again, but ever since Julianna took over as their leader, they’ve mostly kept to themselves and functioned largely on commerce rather than encroaching on territory, or other hostile action. They still perform the occasional bit of sell-swording, but I believe they’ve become a bit more, shall we say, particular about what jobs they’re willing to take.”

John let out a thoughtful, “Hmm,” but shrugged after a few moments. “If they’re gone, they’re gone, and if we can’t contact them, it doesn’t matter either way. I suppose if you’ve got the manpower to spare, there’s no harm in trying to contact them, but I should get back to training, myself.”

“Agreed. We should do our best to be as strong and ready as we can. I’ve got Glenna running most of the Knights on double regimens to get them ready. It’s been a long time since the fight against the Cabal; we need everyone as sharp as they can be.”

John gave one final nod as he reached to turn off the feed. “Absolutely. I plan on resetting my level at least one more time before we go, and maxing it out again shortly before we leave. It’ll be the strongest I’ve ever been…”