Redux: Lineage

Once Grael and I had returned from our talk, I gathered the others in Luna's master suite and began to discuss a brief idea of what we were going to do.

"I want us to head back to the Barb Tails little compound, but I want everyone else there as well," I said, looking at each of them as I spoke. "Celana, Angela, and Lot are as much a part of this team for now as we are, and I hate repeating myself."

"Pardon?" Zane asked with a smirk.

"Get fucked," I said, hating myself for chuckling at that horrible joke. "So we're gonna split up and gather the others: Annerose can go with Luna to find Lot, Zane can go and get Angela, and Grael and I can go get Celana as well as the armour she was supposed to get for us."

"Basic plan," Luna nodded, crossing her arms as she looked at me. "But what's your main plan of action when it comes down to Heimili?"

"I'm not exactly sure right now," I said. "I haven't really had any time to look over the Barb Tails' and their arsenal to see what we're working with. I doubt they're going to have siege weaponry and vast armies, but they should have enough men and women with pointy sticks to get us through."

"And the magic users?" Annerose asked. "What're they gonna do?"

"We'll assign roles to each of them once we get to the compound," I answered. "Any other questions?"

"What did you and Grael go to talk about outside?" Luna asked.

"He made a very polite request for me to keep it in my pants while I'm here," I lied, looking at Luna with a smile. "Anything else?"

The general consensus was that we were ready to head out and get the others, so Grael and I made our way through the streets and into the castle. The guards, recognising me this time, opened the gates and let us in without more than a bow and a nod. We made our way into the main throne room, this time lacking any presence whatsoever, before heading into Celana's lab. The place was the same mess of pages and experiments it had been before with the mad doctor herself sitting on a worktop with a spoon in her mouth and a leather-bound book in her hands. There was a pot bubbling next to her that was overflowing with purple fog, rather reminiscent of similar experiments I'd seen Twilight do over the years.

"Celana?" I asked the ancient mage.

Her eyes darted up before she gave a polite wave, walking away from her pots and pans. She took the metal spoon out of her mouth and set it down on the side as she gave us a welcoming smile.

"What can I help you with?" she asked, looking between the two of us.

"We're getting everyone together so we can formulate a plan to deal with Heimili," I said briefly. "We need you and what you're bringing to the table there so we can figure out what you're going to be doing."

Celana looked over her shoulder briefly, drumming her fingers on her thick thighs, before turning back with a raised finger.

"Can it wait twenty minutes?" she asked.

"Bath bombs?" I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"No, but nearly as important," she answered, picking up the metal spoon and placing it into her mouth once more as she walked over to her brewery.

I stayed quiet for a long moment, my curiosity building more and more in regards to why she was sucking a spoon. She began to crack open, cut, mix, and crush a number of different alchemical ingredients I didn't recognise before dumping them all into the brewery. She then reached up to a shelf above her, fumbling for a glass bottle for a brief moment, before gripping a green one filled to the brim with a yellow, translucent liquid. She uncorked it quickly and dumped the whole thing into the brewery, in which the colour of the smoke changed from purple to a deep red colour. She then took the spoon out of her mouth and began to stir it just as she started coughing and spluttering loudly.

After stirring for several moments, she staggered backwards, placing the spoon in her mouth and trying not to cough it back out again as her bloodshot eyes watered like a fountain. The ancient mage wiped the moisture from her eyes and cheeks before walking back over to us, taking the spoon out of her mouth and coughing again. She looked miserable as sin and very disgusted at whatever the brewery smelled of during the mixing process, sticking her tongue out and shivering violently.

"You alright there?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "That stuff is impossible to deal with without one of these."

She held up the spoon and flicked the curved head of it before setting it down, still looking queasy and upset about her previous actions.

"What exactly does the spoon do?" I asked.

"The metallic taste of it overrides the taste of the mixture when the two combine," she answered. "The brain can't process the two of them together and only tastes the spoon. If you haven't got one, then it just tastes like trying to swallow a handful of volcanic ash laced in vinegar and sweat."

"Lovely," I nodded. "What exactly is it?"

"High-potency window cleaner," she answered. "An acidic little compound that attacks dirt and grime but isn't volatile enough to damage the glass, so long as it’s washed off before an hour."

"They're making the court mage make a window cleaner?" I asked in a bemused manner.

"It can't always be life-saving potions and contraceptive chews," she shrugged. "Sometimes the castle has a really mundane problem that I I'm told to help with. Surely Twilight gets boring-as-all-shit jobs every now and again?"

"Not that I know of," I shrugged. "I only ever see her working on methods to legally reanimate dead people or trying to create a new type of energy crystal that's more efficient than the other seventy she's made."

"Is she still using them to avoid sleeping?" Celana asked.

"She can do that?"

"She discovered that if you grind them down to dust and put them in a drink, they act as a restorative to the body," Celana nodded. "She also discovered that the body can become heavily dependent on that kind of restoration and it suffers a crash so bad that you lose about eighty percent of your brain functions if you don't keep taking them."

"Wow," I blinked, rather horrified at that discovery.

"And of course, with Twilight being the idiot that she is, she often forces herself to go through the energy task and tries to perform different kinds of tasks to see what still works and what doesn't," Celana continued, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "So far she's found out that the language centre, taste centre, memory centre, and motor centres of your brain stop working entirely, usually leaving you as a quivering mess of drool on the floor. But she also discovered that, for some reason, that crash causes your hearing and touch senses to increase exponentially."

"Why the hell would she ever subject herself to that kind of thing?" I asked. "Multiple times?"

"Don't you know?" Celana asked in a scoffing manner. "Twilight is an actual mad scientist. She tests practically everything she's working on herself for the most accurate results. She tested a plague cure by giving herself that plague and working in seclusion until she either cured it or died, and has killed off her own living tissue with magic to bring it back with her miracle formulae."

"I... that's..." I fumbled, unable to bring myself to find a sentence worthy of describing how insane that was.

"Yeah," Celana nodded. "But back to the topic at hand: where do you want me to meet you when I'm done here?"

"Don't worry, I'll wait for you to finish up," I said, crossing my arms and leaning back against one of the worktops. "In the meantime, you can tell me where that armour you promised is."

Celana froze at this point, eyes wide and lips pursed with the expression of a woman who let something important slip her memory. She was still for a long moment, neither blinking nor breathing, before an awkward smile spread onto her face.

"About that..." she said, chuckling nervously. "I... may have forgotten to put the requisition forward to the armoury... so you may not be able to get it."

"So you lied to me?" I asked.

"No, I just forgot," Celana said, sighing heavily as she ran a hand through her thick, white hair. "Look, unless you're willing to wait two or three more days to let the requisition go through the proper channels, I can't get you any of it. I'm sorry I promised you that armour and I'm sorry I didn't get it, but I've been swamped with a million other things since I last saw you and haven't even finished half of them. I need to use the rest of the wyvern's blood to brew up a crop enhancer, I need to put together an ointment to help clear the scarring from the king's face after an altercation he had whilst dealing with his son's stupidity, I need to soak and boil the castle hounds' dinners in a stomach-settling solution so they'll stop shitting a storm all over the castle-"

"Alright, I get it," I said, cutting her off before she needed to start counting on her second hand. "You were too busy to put in a requisition form. I can deal with that once I figured out if you're good for anything else."

Celana blinked once before placing her hands on her hips and glaring angrily at me.

"I'll have you know that I'm good for a lot of things," she growled. "I'm worth eight human mages in one, and nearly as strong as an adult elf."

"And yet you still forgot to put in a requisition order," I said, cocking an eyebrow.

"It was one single slip-up-"

"-which is all it takes to lead to a colossal fall," I countered. "Just keep in mind that if my friends get injured or killed by an attack your armour could've prevented if you’d done your job properly, I will kill you."

It was clear that the threat was something she wasn't expecting judging by her reaction. Her snarky expression was replaced by one of shock and a hint of fear, her raised finger falling limp and the words she was about to speak dying in her mouth.

"S-Surely that's a little harsh for a simple mistake?" she asked, swallowing loudly as she noticed how serious I was.

"A mistake because of an accident and a mistake because of stupidity are two different things, and should be treated as such," I said, walking towards her and jabbing her in the collarbone with my finger. "And if anyone I care about gets hurt because of this, how you're treated for your own stupidity will be no accident, are we clear?"

"I-I... y-yes, Sir," she said, nodding her head and bowing slightly. "I'll do everything I can to keep your friends safe."

"Then where the hell is my armour?" I growled.

"I'll... I'll see if I can pull a few favours," she said, darting out of the room and leaving me and Grael alone.

The wolf padded around to my front, sitting down and looking at me with a cocked eyebrow.

"Where the hell did that come from?" he asked in shock. "I haven't heard you talk to your worst enemies with that much vitriol."

"This isn't a situation where I can afford mistakes, Grael," I said, looking down at him. "Celana told me she'd do something and she didn't. The fact that she didn't has put people I care about in a lot of danger, and that is not something I'm okay with."

"Very well," Grael nodded, returning to his position beside me. "If you're going to start using fear and intimidation as your bartering chip, then I'm not going to stop you."

"You disapprove?"

"From a logical reason," Grael nodded.

"Such as?"

"People are less likely to revolt against a hand of friendship than a fist of intimidation," he answered.

"Just as much as people are more likely to play you if they aren't afraid of what you'll do to them," I retorted. "Mistake kindness for weakness, as it were."

"Time and a place, is all I'm saying," Grael said in a low tone.

"And both of those are now," I said, looking across the room.

There was silence between the two of us now, merely waiting for Celana to return from her bargaining efforts. The mixture continued to bubble and boil across the room for us, minutes ticking by and adding up until Celana finally re-entered the room with a flustered expression and a heavy pant.

"Alright," she began. "I managed to call in a big favour, nearly blackmailing someone actually, and the armour is gonna be delivered to the Barb Tails' compound within the next two hours. So... are we square now?"

"Of course we are," I nodded. "There'd have been no need for all of this if you'd just done what you were supposed to when you were supposed to."

"I'll keep that in mind from now on," she said, her voice still quivering a little bit. "Are... are you going to the compound now?"

"Not until you're ready to go," I said, waving a hand at her mixtures. "So finish up as fast as you can."

"Y-Yes, Sir," she nodded, darting back over to her brewery and placing the spoon back in her mouth, going as fast as she could to get her mixtures finished.

Once she was finished with her work, Grael and I escorted her back to the Barb Tails, where we were guided by one of the mercenaries to a large war room, complete with a large oak table strewn with pieces of paper, leather-bound books, pieces representing units, and a large, ancient map of Winter's Maw in its entirety covering the oak surface. I instructed Celana to take a seat, the nervous mage doing as told and finding a sitting position next to Angela and Lot. The two mages struck up a conversation, both seemingly knowing one another rather well, as Grael and I sat down at the table.

"You took your time," Luna said. "What kept you?"

"Celana being an idiot," I said, jabbing a thumb at the white-haired mage who gave a nervous wave to the others.

"Fucking hell, Richter," Zane said as he turned back to me. "What did you do to her?"

"Threatened her with death after she fucked up her end of the bargain," I answered.

"Was that a threat you plan to go through with?" Luna asked.

"Fuck no," I said, Luna's question forcing me to break my little pretender's glare and return to normal.

"I hate it when you do that," Grael asked, realising he'd been duped by my phenomenal performance. "I really hate it."

"Honestly would've thought you'd gotten used to it by now," I said, looking at the others. "So, what've we got from the catgirl?"

"A decent sized forced of relatively-well trained brutes with swords, shields, armour, spears, and bows," Luna said, walking around the table as she gave a brief recount of what she'd learned. "They're a mix of everything from warriors of the Arid Plains to the sun-and-sand-filled Glory Line, each possessing the will to kill and the know-how to do it rather efficiently."

"That's good to hear," I nodded. "Any particulars I need to be aware of?"

"Not any of note," Luna said with a shake of her head, sitting down at the table and looking at me. "So, Your Majesty, what's the plan?"

"Do we have scouts?" I asked.

"We've got people who can act as scouts," Luna nodded.

"Then get two teams to scour the mountains for any hide or hair of Heimili," I said. "I want each of them to start at either end of the mountain range and meet in the middle. Once they've done that, I want them to report back to me."

"The whole range?" Annerose asked. "That could take days for them to search."

"They want their pay, they better earn it," I shrugged. "And besides, the longer they take, the more strategies we'll have time to come up with."

"How many plans are we gonna go for here?" Zane asked.

"As many as we need to cover every possible scenario," I answered.

"That's a big undertaking," Luna said. "And very time-consuming."

"Look, the way I see it is this: this battle doesn't start until we start it, so we can sit around for as long as we want to come up with every strategy to handle this fight under the sun," I explained. "And with the intel we're going to be getting from the scouting teams when they find Heimili, we can use that to narrow down our scope and come up with the perfect plan."

"A good strategy, but don't become dependent on it," Luna said in a warning tone. "You're not always going to have ample amounts of time and a lack of pressure to think under."

"Noted," I said with a nod, standing up and looking to the girls. "Ladies? Can you come here a minute?"

The three of them wandered over to the table, each taking a standing position next to it except for Lot, who decided to sit down on Luna's lap and hug her.

"Would you mind familiarising us with what exactly it is you're all capable of?" I asked them. "Starting with you, Celana."

"Well... I'm an expert alchemist, graduated from Dunheim University at the top of my class, and I'm an extremely powerful elemental mage. I'm also capable of using Adept-Class Summoner Cards for extended periods of time without exhausting myself too badly to fight and am educated in using basic rune traps," she explained.

"Summoner Cards?" Annerose asked. "The fuck are those?"

"They're decks of cards that mages can use to summon magical beings that have their spirits infused with the card, so long as they have the energy to power it," Luna explained. "Without getting into the nitty-gritty of spirit levels, booster cards, and power fusion, as long as a mage has been proven to be strong enough to channel the energy into a card of a designated level without dying, they can summon it and use it to fight for them."

"Pretty much," Celana nodded.

"What deck do you have?" Luna asked, looking at Celana.

"Celestial Spirits," Celana asked. "They're tucked away at my lab in a drawer somewhere."

"There are different types of decks?" Zane asked.

"Right, just to get this out of the way so there are no more questions," Luna said, taking a deep breath and practically vomiting the explanation onto the table. "Summoner Cards are created by mages in a tower a long way away from here taking the souls of beasts or creatures they've killed and infusing them into mass-produced cards, with each deck having a specific theme to it, like dragons, forest beasts, or cursed creatures. The rarer the creature, the rarer the soul, and thus, the rarer the card, with the more powerful beasts being extremely rare and extremely expensive. The Celestial Spirits are a mid-tier deck for adepts that focus mostly around little animals with white glowy shit on them that strengthen each other with by using power fusion, a technique in which two or more spirits can combine themselves into a much more powerful card. Any more questions?"

"Later," I said, throwing the topic away for now. "Angela, what can you do?"

"Construct magic and expert-level close combat techniques," she said in a brief description. "If I can imagine something and power it, I can hit people really hard with it. Simple and clean."

"Fair enough," I nodded, turning to the Elf. "Lot?"

"I'm a life-long trainee of manipulator magic, being able to take pretty much energy form of energy and use it as an offensive or defensive weapon," she began. "Whether it’s light, fire, wind, or negative energy itself, I can take it, shape it, and use it for my own benefit. I'm also highly skilled in elemental magic, energy projection, healing magic, and warding arts."

"An impressive skill list, to be sure," I nodded. "What are your guys' thoughts?"

The others pondered the choices for a long while, Zane opening his mouth and bringing the first suggestion forwards.

"I want Angela up with you and me when we go for Heimili ourselves," he said. "Whether she's generating a shield or smashing her in the teeth, I want whatever she's got right behind us."

"Perfect," Angela growled, slamming her fist into her hand and cracking her knuckles. "Up close and personal is where I wanna be."

"Lot and Celana should focus on diverting Heimili's breath attacks," Annerose pointed out. "Dragon magic may be insanely powerful, but they really can't do shit all besides breathing at you. If we take that away, or use it against her, she's gonna be fucked seven ways to Sunday, no questions asked."

"Maybe keep Celana on the manipulation and diversion," Grael said, adjusting Annerose's idea slightly. "It'd be good for us to have Lot acting as a sort of white mage, thanks to her healing and warding abilities. If we keep her on the back lines, we can drag injured and dying soldiers back for her to heal if needs be."

"And the big girl's gonna have the biggest magic tank out of all of us," Luna said, affectionately kissing Lot on the cheek. "Being an Elf and all."

"So we're sorted with roles for our lovely ladies?" I asked. "Angela's on assault, Celana's our support, and Lot's gonna be our healer?"

"It seems so," Luna nodded.

"Do you ladies have any problems with this?" I asked, wanting to get their opinion on their positioning as it was kind of extremely important for them to agree to this.

"Nope,"

"None,"

"Not at all."

"Good," I said with a grin. "Are you three going to need any specific preparation or items for battle? Something we can supply you with?"

"I'm gonna need to get my deck out of the drawer," Celana said.

"I'd appreciate some magic-restoring potions, if I'm going to be healing an army," Lot pointed out.

"I'm gonna need a big meal and a big sleep the night before," Angela shrugged.

"Basic enough," I nodded. "We should be able to sort all of that out. So, if we've got our magical mamas sorted out, should we get down to business working on the Barb Tails themselves?"

"I don't see why not," Annerose shrugged, with everyone else seeming to agree with her.

"We've got archers, haven't we?" I asked, getting the ball rolling on the subject and letting the suggestions flow in from there.