Might as Well - Chapter 389 (Patreon)

Part of the preparation for the war with the Blood Army took place in the real world. The information, documents, and any maps or plans were all encrypted using several methods and distributed between several locations, just in case their enemy decided to send people to physically infiltrate AFK.

Sadly, this always meant that when they wanted to talk about the overall picture, they would have to organize a big meeting, making sure everybody was available and had time in their schedule to converge on one location.

Which was thankfully currently happening.

They were sitting in Lara and Dan’s apartment, around the couple’s kitchen table, with the entire thing covered in documents and maps, while everybody had at least a laptop or similar device in front of them.

The location, just in case, also always changed. Usually, they drew a name out of a hat right before the meeting. After all, if Sam and his team didn’t know where the meeting was going to happen, then neither would their enemies.

Around the table sat the core leadership of the guild and company.

At the head of the table sat Sam, with Lucy on his right and Tim on his left. Next to Tim was Claire, his second-in-command and previously Isabella’s maid. Currently, she was leading the guild’s Maid Force.

The Maid Force consolidated all the service people employed by the guild and company, including those who worked at Heavenly Forest. They made sure everyone’s training was sufficient, and that the information gathered was collected smoothly and organized into a digestible format for the Intelligence Team.

They also operated several maid cafes in the malls the guild operated, and they even had a location in the capital, which they had acquired after one of the random NPC nobles visited the one in Deepanchor during a layover while traveling to the capital and decided they absolutely needed one there too.

Next to her were Isabella, Katie, and Clarissa. They weren’t really involved in the day-to-day operation of either the guild or the company, but as they were part of the leadership team and among the first members, they had a seat at the table. Granted, they each had things to add, but the seats were somewhat honorary.

Katie and Isabella came with their connections to the upper echelons of the world, while Clarissa represented the healers and maintained the guild’s connection with the Healers’ Guild.

Then came Lara and Dan. Lara was here for her connections, contribution to Ferabor and other skills. Dan was the same as Katie and Isabella. He was one of the first members, plus of course he lived here.

Following them was Adam, who was big enough that he almost took up two seats, and finally, closing the circle, next to Lucy was Liz, who was alternating between sending moony eyes at Tim and looking composed and serious.

“Alright, that was the civilian population,” Sam said as he put away a few pieces of paper with notes. “Let’s discuss something more riveting. Adam, how is the guild? Morale? Security? Power?”

Adam looked down at his device, then back at Sam. “Morale, as always, is high. With the available resources, I would be surprised if it dropped by even one percent. We regularly receive feedback about people being astounded by the sheer variety available in our guild vault. Not to mention the knowledge and information we regularly provide them.”

“And security?”

Adam shrugged and nodded his head toward Tim. “We do what we can, but by our estimation, at least ten percent of our members belong to some other faction. We have currently identified several hundred spies and informants. And while we’re making sure that we’re feeding them false or contradictory information, it’s still an uphill battle.”

Sam leaned back in his chair and began rubbing his chin. “Understandable... I think... you should focus on keeping the numbers static. At this point, it would be almost impossible to eliminate every spy or person selling information. It’s simply not worth the resources.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Adam agreed with a grim smile. “As long as we keep their presence in mind, we can work around them.”

Tim chose to interrupt. “I have a few key personnel marked as important spies. If we focus on feeding them information, we could strengthen their position and lead our enemies into a false sense of confidence.”

Sam looked around the room, meeting everyone’s eyes, and watched as they all nodded thoughtfully – except for Katie, who gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up – before turning back to Tim. “Do it. We only have to last until Operation Bamboo. After that, we will have to rewrite the playbook, whether we like it or not.”

“Got it,” Tim said quietly, making a few notes.

“Do we really have to do Operation Bamboo?” Liz asked suddenly.

With every eye in the room snapping to her, she looked a bit self-conscious and shy. “I-I mean, my creations are good, but I don’t think our entire battle plan needs to hinge on them.”

Lucy reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “They don’t really hinge on them. It’s more that your creations… make things much easier. Do you really think my idiot boyfriend couldn’t conjure up a way to destroy the enemy without you?”

Liz smiled, a bit reassured. “I know, but I still worry. What if they discover the location? Our element of surprise would be gone.”

“Then it’s gone...” Sam shrugged. “Don’t sweat the little things. If they discover it, they discover it.”

Tim gave Liz a smile. “We have a team specifically set up to protect the cave. You don’t have to worry...”

Liz blushed and looked away.

Lara chose this moment to comment. “Do you still plan to finish it with a siege?” she asked with a disapproving look. Sam understood her, as the siege would take place in the city she had built with painstaking effort. It was her current biggest accomplishment, and she was inordinately proud of it.

Sam sent her an apologetic look. “Project Bamboo works best if we manage to funnel their army into an area as small as possible,” he explained. “Naturally, we’re going to do our best to whittle them down and maybe find a way to defeat them without it, but a siege would allow us to deal a decisive strike.”

“I would prefer that wouldn’t happen,” Lara said with a dismayed look on her face. Then her expression shifted to resignation, and she let out a deep sigh as Dan reached over to squeeze her hand. “But I suppose that just gives me motivation to improve the city’s defenses.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Way to go!”

“Have you thought about pits with spikes?”

“For the last time, Katie, stop trying to make pits with spikes work!”

Sam watched people talk for a little while before gently knocking on the table’s surface. The discussion quieted down as people turned toward him.

“Right. Upgrading Ferabor’s defenses is a top priority, but the most important thing is to discover what grand – and foul – magic the Blood Army is planning.” He turned toward Tim. “Have you found anything?”

Tim stared back for a long moment, stone-faced, before a small, self-satisfied smile broke out on his face. “For a while, we ran into walls everywhere. No matter what lead we followed, it usually ended in a dead end, or our agents were uncovered due to not being immersed in blood magic enough,” he started to speak with his usual calm demeanor, but Sam could hear the sheer smugness radiating off him. “Until we found a social media account.”

“Wait, wait!” Isabella exclaimed, putting her hand up in a stop gesture. “Time out! You found them through a social media account?”

Tim nodded. “Pretty much. There is a reason I tell you all not to post anything important there.”

Isabella crossed her hands in front of her and pouted.

Tim just continued. “So, we found a social media post from a woman bragging about getting a new piece of armor that somehow became public because somebody reposted it to ask a question about the armor on a forum. And in the background, we managed to identify a previously unknown location.”

“Are you sure it belongs to the Blood Army?” Lucy asked, a bit worried.

Tim nodded. “It’s on the edge of their territory, but after we sent some scouts, it became clear that it’s their location. We found several logistic chains that terminated there, and found several towns around it that seemingly operated as collection points.”

The entire team watched Tim as he went through the information he had gathered.

“Then we went in with a few devices built by Liz.” He made sure to give a nod of respect toward Liz, who smiled proudly. “With those, we found traces of blood magic. It seems they made sure to suppress any evidence that they were there. But with the traces we found, we managed to figure out the exact locations where it was radiating from, and well…” He finished his speech by pulling out a laminated sheet of paper and placing it in the middle of the table.

Sam leaned forward, followed by everyone around him.

On it was a picture of the aerial view of a small valley hidden within a circle of mountains. Drawn on it in red was a ritual circle, each spoke of the circle directly on top of one of the mountains, while the middle of the circle was in the middle of the valley.

“After we found this, we looked around at similar locations,” Tim said and pulled out another map. This one was a simple map of their part of the continent, with the countries and territories marked. On it, there were several red spots, all of them marking one of these rituals. Sam’s eyes traced the spots.

There were seven of them.

Four in a straight line, while three were arranged in the shape of a V, creating a simple arrow pointing directly at Ferabor and, consequently, at the Emerald Kingdom.

“What do you think?” Tim asked as he faced Sam, the undisputed expert on rituals and generally the most knowledgeable about the game.

Sam frowned and hummed a little. He moved his finger to the end of the arrow. “I suspected that these four are the spots that provide the main power for the ritual.” His finger moved to the three at the tip of the arrow. “These are to direct it and help with the outcome.”

He thought about it for a moment. Then he moved his finger to the second spot from the tip of the arrow. “If I were them, I would put the main circle here, allowing them to direct the incredible power of the ritual while also being protected by the defenses of the other locations.”

Sam couldn’t help but be impressed. Rituals this size in the other Sam’s life were either the content of an expansion or world quest, initiated and planned by the game company, or, on very rare occasions, they would hear about one of these when a country was destroyed by a guild.

The other Sam had never seen one of these personally or participated in an operation against them or protecting them. Not willingly or knowingly, at least. However, looking back at his inherited memories with his new knowledge, he suspected that at least a few of those fights were about protecting ritual locations, based on how specific the people leading them were.

Sadly, the other Sam didn’t really have the opportunity to study runes, so there wasn’t more than that in his memories.

Not that it mattered.

Sam had already surpassed whatever knowledge the other Sam had accumulated over the years.

“Do you think we could launch a coordinated attack against all locations?” Adam asked as he eyed the map thoughtfully.

Tim shook his head. “It would involve too many people. Either we would be spotted, or someone would leak it. Plus, there is the fact that these sites are probably protected by some of the strongest members of the Blood Army. I don’t think we have enough teams to contend with them. The only team that could steamroll any of those locations is here. Maybe we could put together one or two super-elite teams, but even that would not be enough.”

Sam nodded in agreement. “Plus, there is a chance that if we attack one or more, they would launch the attack early with whatever they had gathered.”

The room fell into silence as everybody began to mull over the possibilities and tried to figure out a way to deal with this conundrum.

It was Liz who broke the silence. She raised her hand hesitantly and began to speak. “Um, I have been experimenting, and I think I may have a solution for some of the issues.”

“Oh, what is it?” Sam asked.

She shook her head. “It’s kind of complicated to explain. I can show you after the meeting.”

Katie also grinned. “I also have super important news.”

“Then why did you wait so long?” Clarissa asked with a roll of her eyes.

“I wanted to be dramatic,” Katie declared proudly.

Sam just sighed and motioned for her to speak. She straightened up and grinned. “You asked my father for a favor. He made contact.”

“Ooooh…” Sam grinned. “Well, these are all good pieces of news.”

Katie enthusiastically nodded, proud of what she, via the transitive property of familial connection, had accomplished, while Sam was already dreading the favor he owed her father.

“Let’s start to put together a preliminary plan...” he said, indicating the pictures provided by Tim. “I want everyone on the same page while I try to figure out how to disrupt the ritual.”