Chapter Four-Hundred Ninety-Eight (Patreon)

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Leo

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The wolf scion pores over the reports from the Abyss, making notes to pass on to Poe once he finishes with his latest round of training.  The Marshal takes his role seriously, and in Leo’s opinion, the raven is even better than he is at ensuring logistics are properly established.  He’s not sure how Poe manages to keep the expeditions running smoothly while also preparing to battle the delvers as a Raid Boss.

In truth, he’s a little jealous, both of his skill and of getting to be the next raid, but he doesn’t let it impact his performance.  He could feel when the Alpha decided against him being the next boss, and he could feel the reason was how far behind the wolf spawner is, especially when compared to the birds.  As humbling as it is to admit, he really would need to have better wolves to provide a proper challenge for the delvers.

He shakes his head and growls at himself before refocusing on the reports.  Playing with the delvers is fun, but dealing with the Betrayer is important.  Even Poe’s raid could be said to be the final check to make sure the delvers are ready, so he can’t shirk his duties in that any more than he can shirk organizing the expeditions.

Thankfully, the expeditions are going smoothly so far.  The dragons are slowly getting closer and closer to the territory of the Betrayer.  It’s almost certain it knows about them now, but it doesn’t appear to have responded yet.  Leo is positive appearances are deceiving.

So he not only has asked for more eyes on the territory, but for a forward base to be established somewhere.  He doesn’t know how long it will take to deal with the Betrayer, but the Alpha is making plans for it to take as long as it needs.  The delvers need food, a place to rest, a place to recover, and ideally the equipment to take all that in with them.  The reports say the territory is larger than the Tree of Cycles, and not by a small amount.  If it’s as packed and twisting as the Labyrinth, the delvers could be occupied for days on end, and running supply lines literally within enemy territory is a tall order.

The distance is also concerning.  The distance is significantly further than with the Maw, and the Betrayer’s spawns are certainly going to be much stronger.  Alpha Thedeim suspects something to act as a shield, something to act as a shield breaker, and something to be an assassin, alongside support that could use the shadows similarly to how Teemo uses shortcuts.  If the enemy really could be hiding in any little piece of darkness… this attack will be much more difficult to plan for.

But not impossible.

The new unremarkable foxes will make excellent scouts, and he already has a request for Poe to send some to start poking around.  The magma protection collars are still rather basic, but should work well enough for now.  Leo needs information about the interior before he can make any real plans, though the Alpha’s thoughts on it being mostly tight passages with plenty of magma are a good place to start from.  Each group will need several living vines to make the spaces a little less tight, and at least one unremarkable fox to scout and possibly deliver messages.

He’s not sure if an unnoticed scout or an unnoticed messenger is better, and hopes he can get both.  The spawner is a lair, so he might not be too restrained by numbers, at least.  He bares his teeth at the sparse plans for the actual invasion.  He can only speculate until he gets more information, but if he doesn’t get something solid soon, he may have to plan with only that.  He wouldn’t want to do that with only denizens, let alone with delvers on the line!

He has much more to sink his teeth into for planning the forward base, at least.  There are several potential candidates in the solid rock, far above the Betrayer.  One is a large spire of rock jutting downward like a huge fang, ready to pierce the enemy dungeon.  Initial reports say it’s solid, so they’d need to dig into it to make a proper base, but it would also give excellent access to the subterrains for docking.  The biggest problem is that it wouldn’t be especially defensible.  The biggest advantage is that every last subterrain could be loosed at the same time.

The other potential base location is effectively a large cavern in the magma, which appears to have a few small tunnels leading into it that are not flooded with magma.  It would be much easier to defend from attack, but would also limit how many subterrains could be released at once.  There’s also no telling where the other tunnels lead.  They could even be the main way the Betrayer sends its own expeditions out, though Leo would have expected something like that to be defended already.

He pauses and makes a note to make sure the scouts are looking for those sorts of locations as well.  Multiple Harbingers are confirmed, and if they all have the same mission as the first one they encountered… they may see their siege attacked from behind.  It’s not unreasonable to even assume the Betrayer has been coordinating them at a distance for exactly that.  They’d have finite numbers, but who knows how many times the Betrayer has consumed a dungeon like the Maw, but wasn’t stopped?

If that’s the case… having a defensible forward base will be absolutely vital, as will finding whatever path the Betrayer uses to send out expeditions, and where they return.  There may even be whole armies of least and their kin secreted in chambers all throughout the land connected to the Abyss.  He remembers the odd behavior of the least digging out a space and going into a sort of stasis.  There’s surely more than a bit of loss, but how much?  And how many did the Betrayer start with?

More things he’ll need to plan for, but not insurmountable things.  He discards the fang site and focuses on the cavern, making sure to request a more detailed survey of it, and to be on the lookout for similar locations.  They’re going to need to make a fortified position, ready to handle attacks from the Abyss and from above, too.

“Are you alright, Leo?” comes a familiar buzz, and he can’t help but smile as he looks up to see Honey hovering before him.

“Yes.  I’m just… planning.”

“It looks more like you’re stressing,” she teases before buzzing down to look over his notes.  “Though I can see why.”

He sighs and nods.  “There’s a lot we still don’t know about yet.  I feel like I’m just chasing my tail and calling it practice for a hunt.”

Honey titters at that.  “Maybe you should take a break for now?  Even I need to clear my head some times, no matter how fascinating the information is.”

He considers that for a few moments before nodding.  “That’s probably a good idea, yeah.  How have you been doing, Honey?  We’ve both been pretty busy lately, so we haven’t had a chance to talk.”

“I’ve been swarming over every scrap of information the Emperor lets slip about the subterrains.  He keeps on coming up with new ways to use old affinities, let alone the new gravity affinity!”

“I saw Doppler training the poppers and scarabs the other day.  Something about defending the subterrains?”

Honey buzzes excitedly.  “Yes!  A popper on the ground is not much of a threat, but when submerged, it’s much more efficient!  It takes advantage of another interesting thing the Emperor knows about, but I don’t think he’s realized nobody else actually understands.”

Leo tilts his head at that.  “Oh?  I don’t talk much with Teemo about the Alpha’s concepts, but he’s usually very careful with them, isn’t he?”

Honey dances in an excited circle.  “He is!  But I think he thinks people already understand the concept.”

“Well, what is it?”

Honey buzzes in thought for a few seconds instead of immediately answering.  “You know how Rocky says stuff is made of stuff?”

Leo chuckles and nods at the seemingly-innane statement that backs up so much of what the zombie does.

“Even air is a form of stuff.  But there is also not stuff, the idea of a space being actually empty, even of air.  It’s called a vacuum, and the stuff around naturally wants to fill that space as quickly as possible.  When a submerged popper pops, they push back the liquid, but don’t have anything to fill the space with, so it rushes back in with tremendous force!”

Leo tilts his head again, only just keeping up with the explanation.  It makes sense, in a way.  He can imagine making a shelter at low tide, building something to keep the sea out once the tide rolls back in.  If he imagines taking away the walls at high tide… everything within would get pummeled.

He tilts his head the other way as he gets an idea, and glances over at the rough map of the Betrayer’s territory from the outside.  He’s been planning a siege, but there’s more than one way to succeed with one.  The first is to starve out the defenders.  The second… is to break the walls.

“Honey, could you get Coda, please?  I’d like to hear what you both think of an idea I just had.”