Chapter 140 - Precautions (Patreon)

Notes :

Honestly I hesitated to upload the chapter, since I didn't want to leave it on a cliffhanger in case I had to take an extended break, but might as well get it out.

Started writing again, but on a secret project for now. Mostly because it's easier to write and to get me back into the groove of things, and also helps me get the damned idea out of my head.

FYI, things have gone from 'shit' to 'worse' thanks to me having a lovely, exhausting time hauling forty kilos of groceries up several flights of stairs, after being our for five hours in hot weather. Basically, I was non functional.

Which is why, when the light suddenly started dimming, I basically barely remembered that I was home, wondered why it was so dark so early, and looked up...

Straight into the eclipse.

Had to move out of the way of a plastic roof thing that dispersed the light before it finally clicked what I was seeing, and I looked away after four seconds of staring straight into the big 'DO NOT LOOK AT WITHOUT SPECIAL GLASSES OR YOU WILL GO BLIND' natural phenomena.

Needless to say, I have an appointment for tuesday to check my eyes. In the meantime however, my vision got worse for a day, but appears to have recovered to the main 'blurry as shit but barely clear enough to keep functioning' threshold I have been at for the past six months.

Hasn't helped with morale, but I still live, and I probably won't go blind. Certainly not from that at least. Jury's still out on my allergies, since I still can't treat them yet.

Also my tinnitus went up again, and I can barely sleep from the fluctuating, unending screaming ringing in my ears, to the point that even music can't overpower it.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the chapter.

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Chapter 140

Aurore Hills, Frostlands

Western bank of the Iceborne River

"Thank you for seeing me this quickly." Said Olivier as he sat down in the captain's tent. "I'm aware that you have a great deal on your mind, what with..." The trader gestured at the tent, and the army camp beyond.

"I do. But this is an important project."

"A project? I suppose that's one way of calling it." The trader smiled. "You'll be happy to learn that I have found the necessary cargo, and will begin readying for departure."

Gerard's eyebrows rose.

"That quickly? Truly?"

"Truly." Olivier leaned back. "Not that it was easy, mind you, but a great deal of cargo passes through, and not all of it for the military. I was even able to acquire some mana crystals!" Something must have shown on Gerard's face, because the trader smiled. "The highly stable, slow release kind. Not very good for combat spellcasting I'm told."

The captain nodded.

"Indeed." That much was true. Magisters made a variety of mana crystals, of varying quality, but not every crystal was suitable for every purpose. They'd do in a pinch, but a particular crystal could slow down a spell taking form. And in combat, even a split second of delay could be deadly. On the other side, crystals made to release their mana quickly could overload a machine.

Ironically, the issues only really started appearing on more refined crystals, meant to be more effective at particular purposes, wasting less mana into the aether every time they were used.

"So, since my preparations do not impugn on military readiness, there were fewer obstacles than might be expected. Besides which, I had been readying to do a cargo run, so I already had my contacts primed and my crew ready."

"Prudent."

"Given that I'm about to cross the Starborn Mountain range into a land whose only inhabitants are monsters and corpses, prudence and caution will have to become my middle names." The trader smiled, and Gerard answered in kind. He was starting to like the kid. "Fortunately, there are no recorded high altitude airborne monsters from Icerend. At least certainly none who had the flight ceiling to go over the mountains, or the inclination to voyage that far south. So the trip should be relatively safe." He shrugged. "Nevertheless, it pays to be prepared, and if nothing else, I might need to anchor my vessel for repairs or other reasons. And one never knows when a manastorm might force us down."

The captain grimaced.

"That was one of my main concerns with sending an airship."

Manastorms already affected a terrifyingly large area on the ground level, but a great deal of their fury could be felt the higher one went, even if the effects were more...disruptive than reality breaking. It was one of the reasons why nobody had ever managed to reach the void, the great star ocean beyond the skies. All magic started to fail, sometimes spectacularly, once one got high enough. Of course, there were legends that it was a great punishment to imprison humanity on Tylis, or contain the mythical Astral Horrors, but the superstitious always attributed strange things to natural phenomena, be they magical or not. In any case, an airship too close to a convergence during a manastorm could be forced to ground, lest they court a breakdown. Which was normally pretty par for the course, the monsters of most Convergences being pruned by adventurers and regular patrols keeping the surrounding lands safe. But Icerend was the exception on the continent.

"Thankfully, my vessel is an expeditionary one, and should be able to come to rest on the slopes with relative ease. We will, of course, be careful."

"Of course."

The trader coughed, delicately.

"To that end, I was wondering if you had any guides of the mountains you could spare. I realize no one ventures on the other side of the mountains, but just knowing the slopes on the other side, should we need to cross in a hurry, would be invaluable in hiding from the Bane and surviving the emergency. Said guide will, of course, be compensated and given a contract for the voyage."

Gerard leaned back into his seat.

"A regular military guide is impossible, I'm afraid. Not for lack of wanting to send one, but my troops are barely familiar with the region as is, and I rely on them heavily." Which was true. The region was tricky to guard, and though the Iceborn river was a tremendous barrier, it also was a massive area to guard and the Bane were not shy about testing the cordon. He drummed his fingertips on the scarred and pitted surface of his tabletop. "But I do have some locals who are familiar with the area. Their advice is heeded but..."

"Less trusted than trained military?"

"Exactly. I'm sure some of them would be interested, and it would cut down on the paperwork." Seconding soldiers to Consortiums was doable and done regularly, but it was a slow, bureaucratic process...mostly to ensure that they didn't just poach from or fully control the military. And that, of course, higher ranking officers and bureaucrats got their share of the bribes.

"I am all for smoothing out the process. Also..." The trader hesitated.

"Out with it, boy. Whatever you are thinking about saying, I've heard or done ten times worse."

Olivier smiled slightly.

"Well, it is customary to offer a share of any potential profits with the one who arranged for the trade opportunity. That, or a straight payment."

Gerard chuckled.

"I appreciate the thought. But it is hardly necessary. I'm just pointing you in the right direction." Olivier looked troubled, and the captain sighed. "Alright, you're worried about people pointing out that I got nothing out of it, and starting to dig to see if something else is happening?"

The trader nodded.

"Quite. As much as it can be...problematic for officers to accept payments, Consortium compensation and shares are well understood and a part of well, how we do things. I'm sure that would avoid issues should there be...problems."

By which he meant, if the expedition didn't come back or took significant damage, having a financial stake in it would cover him. After all, if he has shares in the mission, he wouldn't send them to a suicide mission, now would he?

Which...was fair. Gerard sighed.

"Very well. I'll take a share then. Five percent sounds fair, don't you think?"

"Quite!" Said Olivier, nodding enthusiastically, and Gerard had to hold back a smile. The kid had probably been worried about him asking for an upfront payment. Given how little, if anything, the expedition was going to make, that would have been a significant cost. Asking for a percentage was symbolic.

After all, what could a group of refugees possibly have to offer?

"Very good! Then," He stood up. "let's go find you that guide."

*****

Sapphiria smiled as she exited the tunnel.

"Ah. Paul, you're here."

She extended her hand, and the magehunter clasped it. The militia hanging around tried every hard to look as if they weren't impressed, while they busied with the makework militaries, professional or not, always used to keep soldiers occupied.

It's not like they had much else to do. The tunnel entrance -she needed a better name for this place- was fortified to hell and back, and with Astralis being likewise, their presence here wasn't really required.

The changing of the guard however, very much was. The regular, heavily armed parties moving up and down the trail to Astralis helped keep it open. The ever heavier snowfall wasn't make it easy, but they persevered.

Honestly Sapphiria was glad she hadn't gone with her idea to link up to Astralis with a rail network. People usually heavily overestimated how safely a train could run in heavy snowfalls. That went triple for the small ones she would have had to deploy, a 'true' full train being obscene overkill for the amount of cargo going back and forth, as well as approaching the price of her snowpiercer. True, her conveyance of choice had less cargo capacity and more power problems, but it also could easily punch through the forest as well as, obviously, the snow, didn't require much infrastructure, and of course getting the mana crystals from Icerend had been a gigantic boon.

The magehunter let go off her hand, and he smiled.

"I am, ma'am. I heard we're going on a monster hunt?"

Sapphiria shook her head. The message Cia had sent to the surface, to ask for the magehunter to meet her here, had been fairly short. Mostly because the worsening snowfalls were making radio communications with the town more unreliable. The laser receiver was still in production, and she pinged Cia with a note to up the priority.

Scaling up was important, but keeping contact with the defense net keeping the squishies safe was a much higher priority.

The simulacrum acknowledged with a return ping. It was accompanied with a snow and a beanie emoji.

Even centuries later, these annoying pictograms still lived on. At least the simulacrum didn't have access to her mother's collection.

"Yes, no, sort of." Said the AI, before gesturing at the doors to the bunker. "Our primary mission is a survey. We need to find a spot to draw the monsters off of Astralis, then fortify the hell out of it."

"Ah. I see." The magehunter checked his weapon. Probably pointlessly, since she knew from having to live with him for weeks inside the snowpiercer that he had elevated maintenance of his gear to a religious level. Literally, he had a small shrine to his preferred Ancestors -not much, just a handful of carved totems he set in a pattern around his gear while he worked on it-, and his maintenance kit had devotional icons engraved on the box. "Well, I can certainly help pick the spot. Shouldn't be that much different from a good campsite. Your own artifices will handle drawing them in, right?"

"They will. But I need good lines of fire."

"That's going to require some cutting." The squishie drummed his fingers on his carbine, before nodding. "I think I got a spot. Clearing. Few kilometers in the mouth of the valley. Almost square between Astralis and Icerend. Considered establishing a logging outpost there, back before the Bane took the pass. After that..." He shrugged. "Too exposed, and too few people capable of wielding the axe to justify a full on lumber camp anyway. Especially one we'd have to abandon once the monsters showed up."

Sapphiria nodded.

"It seems like it'll be a good fit."

After all, she wanted the monsters to find it.

"Let's hope." He adjusted a few straps on his outfit. "Ready to go, ma'am?"

"Yep. No time like the present."

Paul smiled.

"Well, I can't exactly travel through time, so sure. Let's go."

*****

To say that the valley was eerie was a considerable understatement. It wasn't just the thick snow blanketing everything, or the way it muffled sounds. It was also the trees.

She'd checked the database. Not all of those were supposed to be 'evergreens'. She, admittedly, knew very little about seasons and weather in general, let alone how plants and animals were supposed to react to them. She was terran born and bred. And young enough to have only known the homeworld as encased in steel.

Things like snow, summer and winter weren't so much a natural phenomenon to her as something listed on the weekly program for the biodomes in the sector. And starships, of course, just maintained a day and night cycle. Only naval stations or supercapital ships were large enough to accommodate full ecological simulations, for the squishies and AIs to relax in.

But even to her, the tall oaks standing proud and fully leafed in the middle of winter felt bizarre.

So they advanced, under snow laden leaves and branches. Her sensors were on passive only, drinking in the energy from the environment. All was quiet. At least for now.

There were whispers. Not stealth. But anomalous readings. Distorted by distance and the environment.

"Alright." Said Paul, putting a knee down into the snow, as he gestured ahead. "The clearing."

Sapphiria joined him, and checked her sensors.

It would have been a good place to set up a lumber camp, she had to admit. Enough space to stockpile and process the wood. Getting it home would have been a pain, but the squishies had managed it during their logging expeditions, and a semi-permanent camp would have made break trails easier.

"It'll do." She said.

"Happy to hear it. Do you need to get closer? We can-"

Sapphiria stopped listening as her sensors alerted her to a burst of exotic particles and anomalous readings.

A few seconds later, a roar so loud it shook snow out of the trees reached them.