The new plan was terribly named and went to show that Julius needed someone to help him when it came to anything creative.
Delta-Three.
And not because we had a Delta-Two stashed away. I wasn't even sure there were Alpha, Beta, or Gamma plans.
Julius probably just liked saying Delta better. And it was now a '-Three' because there were three people assigned to this plan.
That same dreadful plan was currently underway.
From my vantage point overlooking the river crossing, I could see Hanna and Luke's division approaching. They had lit plenty of torches and conjured magick to illuminate their whole division.
The army was tightly positioned and had well-postured defensive lines. The shimmer of large-scale defensive magick covered their center mass.
Opposite of them, the Renaultians were scrambling.
A series of flares were shot up from the watchtower, and way off in the distance two sets of return flares were launched. One from the nearby village and one from the camp we weren't sure was still there.
The Renaultian brigadiers and other reinforcements would likely arrive in less than an hour.
Now all we had to do was wait for all of them to group together and our three buffed-up mages would deliver them to the afterlife.
- - - - - -TARGET- - - - - -
[RIAS]
HEALTH: (170 / 170)
STAMINA: (250 / 250)
MAGICKA: (830 / 830)
» ACTIVE EFFECTS:
[ARCANE BRILLIANCE]
[AURA OF LIGHT]
[FORTITUDE]
[PROTECTIVE BARRIER]
[PRISMATIC BARRIER]
[AMPLIFY MAGICK]
[BLESSING OF DIVINE SANCTUARY]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'd cast my new and improved OMNISIGHT on Rias before she left with Sara and Ikuye. Those two I knew were already established powerhouses, but Rias was another story.
I'd known she was proficient in magick, but until we'd journeyed to Umbraedomis I hadn't been aware she'd crept into the realm of our better mages.
That was when I began to see her not entirely as a kid—though it was short-lived after she nearly burnt down the room at the inn.
Still, after receiving help from Sara, her MAGICKA value had jumped another hundred points. She was starting to creep into the level of scary to consider fighting.
She was also boasting more buffs than I'd ever seen on a soldier. Most of them were defensive, and I silently thanked the Goddesses for creating such magick.
Half an hour later, the brigadiers arrived with a show of force. They had a small group of spellcasters with them, and lobbed fireballs at the Crimson Seekers division.
It did no damage against their barrier magick, but wreaked havoc on the terrain.
Huge craters of disturbed earth covered the distance between the two armies. If our plans included the Seekers engaging the enemy it would've been a pain to deal with.
Unfortunately for the Renaultians, we had no such intentions.
It didn't take long before the remaining defensive troops arrived and it became clear the enemy was confused at what our troops were planning.
We had basically knocked on their doors and sat outside with no declaration or intent to attack, so I understood the sense of unease that would cause. Their uncertainty was not long for this world, however.
A massive nova of bright white light spread out through their position, centered just outside the watchtower.
The entire area was bathed in a glow brighter than the morning sun.
I flinched, raising my arm to shield my eyes.
That was when the shock wave came. My legs gave out and I toppled over. The blast not only knocked me down but took my hearing with it.
A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.
When I came to my senses and scrambled back to my feet—the watchtower was gone.
The hill with their barracks was gone.
A one-thousand-strong Renaultian army was gone.
Everything in the external radius of that white nova had been vaporized out of existence.
In the epicenter, there remained a small golden dome with a six-winged angel, the Imperial Archmagus, and my little sister inside.
The battle was over in less than a minute.
The bridge was ours and my armies marched on to Axio.
And the only thing I was focused on was a dreadful, clawing feeling deep within that I should have been terrified out of my mind.
But I wasn't.
I was wearing a sickening grin and my heart soared at the thought of unleashing that same power on top of the traitor, Renault.
-✵-
After the 'battle' at the Larian crossing, our divisions consolidated together in a single massive camp.
It was twice, if not three times, as big as the temporary camping sites we'd set up on our way north, as now we were preparing to house the remaining Aestori forces.
I was looking through reports when someone called my name from outside my tent.
"It's unlocked!" I called back out of habit.
The many hours sitting in an office back in Tolin were still taking their toll on me.
Julius entered with an amused look on his face.
"It can't be locked without a door, ya know?"
"Yeah, yeah. My brain is fried, gimme a break. You need me for something?"
"I was reviewing how the camp was coming along. Your communirune was disabled or…" he trailed off, eyeing the small rune on my desk, "Sitting on a desk somewhere."
"I asked Rias to take a look at it. It's been acting up since this morning. I'm guessing you don't have important news, seeing as a runner wasn't sent."
"The opposite, actually."
"A runner was sent, or your news is important."
Julius smiled smugly, "Anything I tell you is usually important."
"That is just categorically untrue." I sighed.
"Mei and her party showed up at the Seeker camp an hour ago. They'll rest up and then it tear down. Should be with us tomorrow or the day after."
"That's certainly something I'd expect someone to send a runner about. They all okay?"
"She lost two knights in their escape but took Elyssia out of commission. Turned out, Renault was using it as a garrison."
"Shit. That's pretty good all things considered… Was it anyone we knew well?" I asked hesitantly.
Julius shook his head.
"New Aestori additions. They were both career knights. It doesn't feel good to lose anyone but this is the kind of thing they spent their lives preparing for. I shook Mei up pretty bad though."
"Well," I sighed, "Try not to be a total asshole to her when she returns. Anything else?"
"Yeah, two things. First, I'm stealing Tatsuko into the OSW officially. She's been really helpful handling the elves integrating into our modified divisional core and a big part of most of our planning—though she never seems to be noticed. I think she has some sort of passive ability that reduces her presence."
"I'm fine with that if Hanna and Luke are. She was part of their division initially. Make sure you keep in mind that she isn't an Aestori, though. I'd hate to get a report about how she feels discriminated against because of some comment you make about her dealing with elves well and it being taken the wrong way."
"The V'alen remains a V'alen. Got it."
Smart ass.
Great," I said flatly, "And your second thing?"
"Rias wanted to see you. She's at S-Four R-Thirty-Seven C-Twelve."
Julius sounded like he'd just had a stroke.
"She's at fucking what?"
"That's her tent number. Section Four, Row Thirty-Seven, Column Twelve. Section Four is the second large grouping if you head south from—"
"Just lead me there. Please."
"…so that was row fifteen but this is now row twenty? Who designed this system?" I mumbled under my breath.
"You can just look above the entryways." Julius said, pointing above a nearby tent flap.
There was a mess of characters printed on it: S4-R20-C11-OSW. Julius looked at me like I was dumb.
"That still doesn't explain the gap in rows."
"Because across the way," he pointed to the other tents on the opposite side of camp, "Those rows are set up. But in this section the open area we just walked through. This way all the row numbers are the same for each section. This is all within regulations."
"I feel like it's been a decade since I've looked at a divisional camp operations manual. Whose bright idea was it to give Rias a tent so far away from mine?"
"It has been over a decade since you ever had to prepare a camp yourself because I've always done it for you. And we're going to the workshop, not her personal tent. Her experiments have been more… volatile, ever since Lira started helping her. I can't trust her workshop to be in the middle of camp."
"Ah, that's fair."
We reached Rias' tent a few rows later. It was fairly large compared to the ones nearby. Column twelve appeared to be all on its own, many paces from the main encampment.
"Momma Airis!"
Akari emerged from the tent and wrapped herself around me.
"Hey, kiddo, I missed you. How's Auntie Rias?"
"She's making more weird stuff!"
Akari led me into Rias' workshop by the hand.
Rias and Lira were inside, along with a few other people I didn't recognize by face or outfit. They both had their hair up with goggles and masks covering their faces.
"Pretty serious-looking work going on in here." I said offhandedly.
Lira looked up from her workstation and set aside her tools, "Heya, boss lady! You got here quick. We just called the Commander not too long ago."
"Hi, Lira. I was ready to take a break when Julius came to get me so it worked out." I pointed at my sister, whose hands were both deep inside another strange device, "What, uh, is she doing?"
"We think we've finally got the JPS working!"
"The Jaypiece? Huh?"
"J-P-S." Lira spelled it out one letter at a time with a pause, "It's the acronym for our Jewel Positioning System.
"That… still doesn't explain anything, Lira."
POP!
A loud noise came from Rias' device and she cheered.
"Yes! We did it, Lira! Oh hey, sis, check this out!"
She beckoned me over.
"Sure, is this what you wanted to see me about?"
"Yeah and no. We were wrapping this up and I know you wanted me to look at your communirune and that other project you mentioned."
"Ahhh, yep. Here's my communirune," I placed the small rune on her table, "You can get around to it whenever. Now what the gangs all back together, it's not a huge deal if mine is busted."
She held up in the light, humming and hawing.
"Huh. Weird."
Rias handed the rune to Lira, who did and said the same thing as her.
"All this stuff is weird to me," I cut in, "So, what's this new Jaypiece thing?"
"That's not what it's called!" Lira whined in protest.
Rias ignored her, "You know how all the divisional officers have metallic insignia on their uniforms?"
"Well, most all the divisionals have metal insignia, not just the officers." I countered.
"Oh, yeah I guess so. Okay, lemme rephrase—you know how all the officers have golden metallic insignias?"
I nodded my head.
"Okay! So, it's not just gold—which I think is obvious because it would be too weak to withstand wear and tear—but actually a gold-copper alloy with a very small amount of refined quartz."
"And this relates to your new device here?"
"Yes! That trace amount of quartz can be energized with magicka like a focus crystal and tracked, with the help of one of these."
Rias produced a handful of runestones that looked pretty much identical to the one I gave her a moment ago.
"With communirunes?"
"Communirunes Mark Two!"
"But I was still right, yeah?"
Rias sighed at me, "Yeah I guess. We added a small additional function to the runes, to take in ambient aether magicka and energize any quartz crystals in a small sphere around itself."
"And then," Lira chimed in, "We use this receiver to track the positions of each set of energized insignia in a three-dimensional space projected onto Aethermist."
"...Cool?"
"It is cool!" Both Rias and Lira responded.
"Julius, is this something you'd want in Command?"
I turned to find my companion already scribbling furiously on a notepad.
"Julius?"
"Yes. We'd want this."