5.51 Without Calm before the storm (Patreon)

Difference: Minimal

AN: A bit shorter today. Next chapter should be longer. I felt like there wasn't a good cut off point after this in what I have planned.

Avys gently rubbed her swollen belly as she imagined the pieces moving into place. The ditty she hummed in the meanwhile was quick paced and joyful, an old tune she recalled from her home. She did not quite remember the exact lyrics—or the notes, for that matter—but in her memories it started something like…

Hum, dum, child, quiet, quiet.
Tears summon the hungry piet,
and that bird attracts a snake,
bites a child, who won’t wake.

Of course, even in that little nursery rhyme was an allegory for carelessness attracting calamity, like most others she had been taught. Until the target child was imparted with a dose of paranoia thick enough to survive those naive early years. How petty that all seemed in hindsight. That she had once dreamt of ruling a petty town in an insignificant kingdom, beholden to a so called god that could be smitten with one glance of her husband now.

Since then, she had walked a road few ever would. And dared to strive higher still.

Avys finally received a quiet confirmation that a letter has been delivered, and could not help but grin. It was one of many, basically a formality. Some messages were better delivered physically or only vocally. But this one in particular, Avys knew had set fate in motion. Set them on a course that would not longer change, no matter the outcome. Or rather, the fact that it had been intercepted, read, and then forwarded again did. 

Arrogance. That would be the downfall of either her or the lich who had dared try to hurt her daughter and smother her reign. Because the undead were so incredibly used to knowing. Everyone with any real power in the Federation was rather old after all. A Truth mage rarely reached that stage before a hundred years of age, often twice that. Which meant at least four or more lichwars to gather information on them—not to mention the spies during the quiet inbetween. Anyone with the power to make real decision, the Rot had already learned to read and predict.

Naturally, everyone tried to compensate. Non-mage strategists and advisors were a genuine assets, as were various ways of “randomly” choosing. But those could all be intercepted. Influenced. Even predicted. That was why they could not be trusted blindly, as the weak personnel were susceptible to replacement or nudges. Nor would most quite dare make a genuinely risky plan to propose to their ancient Truth mages. So, ultimately, the limits were obviously known and difficult to surpass when even compensating became part of analyzed behaviour. No one in the Federation’s leadership could conceivably propose something the Rot would truly not be ready for.

No one except Avys. 

Oh, they had investigated her, she had no doubt. As soon as she had first appeared on Ezax’s side they would have tracked down her homeland and scoured what they could. The disgraced schemer, finding second wind so far from home. It made them closer to the Truth that most. But it was still what Avys had let on.

They would know that she was the little manipulator behind Ezax, pulling to move the world in their favour. It was simply not possible to fully conceal operations and patterns on her scale of operation. The other noble houses of Black were simply under-equipped to detect such truth, as their approach to information gathering was often to bring clubs, then invite the Inquisition just in case. So the Rot would know what she could only leave to a prying eye. Holding onto that secret until the moment it could cause the maximum schism possible between their most powerful mages.

There was a chance that the rot knew more than that. Perhaps they had understood her true depth, despite the countless erased and false memories she had Calm arrange. That the layers of obfuscation and false admittance had been seen through. But she was confident they did not. Because the dead had the same blinders of arrogance as the living—that it was inconceivable for someone as magically impotent as her to be truly better than them. To be the lynchpin in their downfall. So, thus her puppet strings went.

From years before the war had even started, when she had recruited that young man with no strong outward interpersonal connections—a desirable trait—to be part of her staff as a messenger. Except, he had a found sister who he cared for deeply, but kept hidden out of trauma induced paranoia. That was not an accident, it had been a deliberate pick. Though Avys’ plan had been to nurture them far longer, the early war required adjustments.

Such as providing additional resources and protections to all her weaker messengers, to justify his continued employ. Or arrange the gradual elimination in anyone above them in the chain of command for accelerated promotion. Then, of course, the repeated and intrusive tests of loyalty, which the young-ish man naturally passed, given their lack of treachery.

Until his sister had died. About a week prior, just after his latest testing. Making that seem completely inconspicuous while allowing the Rot to claim the Soul had been a headache. If there was even a small hint that anyone was paying any attention to the young woman who wasn’t even a mage it would become a vector for exposure. Ultimately, the undead had taken care of it for Avys, making her out to be collateral damage during a major attack at Drathsol where they lived. A life forgotten in the cracks and wrongly dismissed as unimportant, at least as far as the Rot knew.

From there, the trick was simple to pull of. Just have Ezax hand them the correct critical message when the time ripened. It was even justifiable to choose them! Sometimes, critical information was handed to one of the many weak messengers, as they were much less conspicuous. With extra protections against subversion and divination, of course. He would even be inspected for any influences afterwards, and found unmolested. Merely a traitor would show no effect of hostile magic, after all. Avys kept humming.

Hum, dum, my little snake,
snatch and snatch, take and take,
but be not seen, be not heard,
away from grass, scales burnt.

That was, naturally, only one of many, many pieces. Everything had to be arranged with excruciating care. How does one even convincingly pretend to be positioning individuals with the power to level cities? With teleportation, they could be on the other side of the Federation instantly, and yet she had to genuinely convince a force of utter unity with eyes and ears everywhere that they were out of position at the right time and not make it seem like enough of a blunder to be suspicious. Maddening. Rewarding.

All of it complicated by the fact that she could only speak through Ezax and only dared exposed the true intent to the people directly participating in her plan. She had to account for fragile egoes, human unpredictability, her own mistakes, blindspots in the Federation’s defenses, and the chaos inherent to war.

Avys once again went down a part of the list, just a fraction of the steps, though the ones she still felt the most conflicted about. As agreed, Intercallate made sure that Lizzy’s squad would be denied that Time mage which would expand their effective range, making them much more predictable. Careful syphoning of resources unmarked in their own records to build the necessary staging ground—and in doing so inducing chaos akin to self sabotage. Putting just the right people into the right position that would make just the right mistakes without any traces of her will, and offering them no choice or mercy in the matter. And many more, despite…

The price had to be paid. From countless unwitting martyrs that would far surpass the sum of their potential contributions. Even personal, because Avys knew she would lose something that would likely never again be reclaimed, one way or the other. And part of her mourned it already. The rest burned with passion. With the seed at the heart of her being that wanted nothing more than to create and manage this:

A crazed contraption of ten thousand pieces that each require precise arrangement and had to be managed through proxy and from a great distance. The Fate of the world, in the palm of her unseen hand. Both thrilling and maddening. But in Avys’ mind, it was all converging. Her greatest work yet. One that would rewrite history without ever a whisper of her name being heard. The labor of countless intentional mistakes, baiting a decisive one.

Like, of course, the leaked letter, which was a twice coded message confirming Ezax would assist in an assault with Intercalate’s personal participation—only relayed in vague euphemisms, of course, which would require other information breaches to decypher. Codes she was betting that her enemy could and would crack in time. Despite all the arrangements, there was still no true certainty. Nor could she exactly ask for Fate magic to be performed in its favor, as that would be detected. She sighed. Then smiled and hummed.

Hum, dum, venom of mine,
with or without me, shine, shine.
Go and show them, let them see,
all you will have learned from me.

And again, I will, mother, she thought. More than you could have ever dreamt.

The Duchess could not stop smiling. Because despite the risks involved, all the variables she could not possibly control, genuine mistakes she could have overlooked, or sheer misfortune that could have struck… deep down, she was certain:

Avys von Blackburg would be the bane of a Named Lich. 

Conflagration stood up at the designated time, that hateful old fear sparking in his chest. As much as he sought to avoid this, their position was precarious. Even with some reinforcements trickling in from outside of the Realms. Despite the many victories a favourable skirmishes. The Federation faced an existential thread.

They had too few Truth mages left. That Fragment imbued attack could have been far worse, and it had still almost crippled them. Because, ultimately, that was the only metric that truly mattered. If there were not enough Truths to match the other side, it would not longer be a war, merely a gradual genocide.

So, the Archduke of Red took a step forward, his body trembling in familiar dread. The weakness that he could never excise, no matter how he tried or how many memories slipped from him. The knowledge that he was braving the unknown. Taking a risk. For to save the Federation, he once again would have to gamble with his life on the line.

How many more times in a row could he possibly win?

By the 32nd deployment, Irwyn was getting into a strange mood. Not quite stir crazy, but… unnerved. The Raveners were becoming rarer and rarer—with none at all appearing ten times in a row—yet their missions came more rapidly. Perhaps it was a sign of the Rot’s bottomless reserves emptying… much more likely, it meant they were being anticipated.

Naturally, Irwyn convened with Elizabeth and brought those worries to Fig. They approached her while traveling to a location under attack. The squad leader failed to truly reassure them.

“We have limited effective operation range without a Time mage to work alongside me,” she conceded. “So the Rot knows approximately where we will not appear due to distance, then aggregate their myriad sources into some decent guesses as to who might appear where and when. No amount of anti-divination can cancel out statistical analysis.”

“So they can estimate when we will appear with at least some accuracy,” Elizabeth pointed out. “That makes us ripe for an ambush.”

“In a way. But most likely, they are just not sending any more Raveners at all anywhere we can get to. You two are absolutely obnoxious to fight when together. They would need the kind of power that is kept in reserve for big pushes, not opportunity attacks.”

“Like the Realm mage that had attempted to ambush us in transit,” Irwyn said.

“That was a middle hitter at most,” Boat supplied. “The Rot will almost never sent out peak Raveners unless most of the Truth mages are already occupied. Even among the Rot, those who have embodied more than just a few Domains.”

“Often because undeath directly contradicts with being the ‘ideal vessel’ condition,” Elizabeth added. “Raising particularly powerful Domain mages carries an inherent risk of failure that increases with their power. The Rot does have ways to counteract that, though those are not wieldy enough to use in short term.”

“All this is still limiting our impact to very little,” Irwyn lamented.

“Do not underestimate the aegis we have become,” Blow commented. “We are, in practice, protecting a much larger area than we physically could be.

“And this is much safer,” Boat added. “Being a full time deterrent doesn’t involve much danger.”

“Until we are complacent and worth taking a shot at again,” Fig warned. “We will not be loosening any procedures or precautions until the War is over. Now, we have arrived.”

Again, there were no Raveners. Irwyn almost saddened by that. The rapid growth in his mastery he had experienced the few times that had made him truly battle had birthed excitement and anticipation in his heart. Now, those were being betrayed. There was still some progress on Desolation from just honest dedication towards thinning the hordes, but everything else was back to a crawl. 

After ensuring the little military base—and adjacent mines—had the situation back under control, they departed again. Leaving a small hill of ashes behind while Irwyn contemplated his meagre gains.

“We have new base of operations to work from,” Fig announced not long after their successful attack.

After their journey, they emerged onto a flat open plane, most of which was taken up by a city. Not a particularly prosperous or important one, but certainly sprawling and populous. Not too far away on one side, there stood deep woods and while Irwyn could not see the wide road travelling through the town’s center, he knew it to be there. Remembered it well. For everything was so very familiar to him.

“Ebon Respite.”