Roland Turner vi Ishodir stood at the balcony of his palace’s highest tower. He gazed out and enjoyed the view of the Capital City, Ishoda, though he had a pensive frown on his face. The balcony was connected to a bedroom, though not his main one. It was the place he spent when he didn’t want to be bothered, by his people, or his thirsty girlfriends and concubines. 

The Eversoar River’s flow was placid as it split across the island the city was built on. Small ships trawled the three-league-wide river, which honestly looked more like an inland sea. The island itself was nearly a league wide, and about ten long, and the entire surface was covered by the city. 

His gaze shifted towards the elaborate marble buildings that looked more like art pieces than actual residences. Every year, architects and builders compete to beautify the city further. It resulted in a wide tapestry of disparate artwork. It somewhat detracted from the city’s beauty, and now he was moving to remedy the condition.

Sighing, Roland turned this gaze back to the countryside. Ishoda was serviced by a dozen bridges that spanned the river. Each one was nearly five hundred paces above the waters, giving ample room for ships to pass underneath. 

He had been ruminating over a decision for several days now. The reports from the battlefront during that day had finally come in. He’d been more than surprised at what he read.

“A battalion defeated by a foe that was outnumbered…” he grunted. “Were my soldiers that weak?”

No, that wasn’t it. Grandfather’s quarry wasn’t that simple, he guessed. 

Still, reports from the north were even worse than he expected. He’d been unable to countermand Grandfather’s orders and had to transfer a couple of battalions away from the northern provinces, and because of that, the Driax Hives pushed their incursions ever closer to the cities. 

Casualty reports already reached hundreds of civilians, and about a dozen soldiers. Those were deaths, rather than injuries, but a few weeks ago, the insectoids had not killed anyone. The empire had not pushed aggressively back either, but had defended when pressed. Now that there were twenty thousand fewer soldiers along that border…

He grunted as he went back inside the room. On a table, a map was spread out. It represented the battlefront in Bresia through the Sodden Plains Conflux. The distance from the nearest city was about fifty leagues, then the Sodden Plains took a week to cross. From there, the distance from the plains to Virtalla City was only a few day’s easy march. 

He noted the city outposts that sprung up, as well as several defensive positions scattered across the farmlands. It would be a bloody undertaking to march into Virtalla, but his soldiers didn’t need to bleed for that. The rebel group were doing that already. About a quarter of those defensive redoubts were attacked every few days. Actual deaths were a bit low, but the countryside was in turmoil. 

But that only made finding the Davar woman a bit more difficult. He’d resisted heading towards the frontline for weeks now, but Grandfather had been insistent. 

A light blinked next to his desk, then a spell circle blossomed. Roland noted that the third runescript node appeared distorted for a moment, then the twenty-third, the fifty-fourth, and the hundred-first. He nodded in acceptance, spun his own spell to open a hole in his room’s warding, and allowed the transfer spell to complete. 

The spell circle widened, but only to a couple of dozen inches. There was a brief flash of light as Elemental energies enveloped the rift to protect the material plane from rupturing, and afterwards, a canvas packet dropped onto the desk. On one side, the packet was covered in frost, while the opposite side was flickering with tiny tongues of flame. The exact middle was completely untouched by both extreme temperatures but also looked like it had been affected by a temporal freezing spell. 

He held out a hand over the packet and called upon the Elemental energies aired within. His Elemental Heart built and modified by his grandfather’s secret refinement formula, but also modified because their affinities were different, was called Rising Tempest. It allowed him to generate and store his affinity energies within his body, letting him cast spells with it at a fraction of the usual casting time. It also, unexpectedly, allowed him to directly manipulate those energies with his thoughts within the medium of a spell. The drawbacks were just as severe, however, though carefully managed. 

Crimson sparks danced between his fingertips and touched the temporal freeze aspect, jump-started its coils, and caused it to spread across the entire packet. The flames froze in place while the rime frost melted away. Travel across the layers of reality was quick, but often perilous should the traveller not be protected by a monumental Will. The spell that opened the passage, however, was designed to protect against most of the ravages of such a passage, while allowing some through that he held the counters for. 

Once the rogue energies dissipated, Roland opened the canvas packet and checked the contents. The papers inside contained an extensive report as well as a map of eastern Bresia. 

“Two thousand two hundred fifty-three deserters?” Roland’s eyes shot up. “Another five hundred filed for medical leave—what’s going on?”

He cross-checked the map as well as the incident reports. The strategy to annex eastern Bresian had been one of take and hold, and considering how vast the lands were, and how empty they were of humanoids, it had a fair chance of success. As long as the countryside was held by the Scions, the rest of the country could cut that part of them off. 

Visual reports, incident reports, leave requests…everything was compiled and there was even a cover report that gave several opinions and analysis… 

“Interesting. I guess I can’t put this off any longer.”

And yet he didn’t just leave his sanctum. He spent several hours thinking before a true decision was made.

__________

Yuriko stared down from above the clouds. Enhanced Sight used with triple the normal amount of Animus, coupled with a Farsight spell allowed her to count the whiskers of a rabbit from dozens of longstrides above. She was also high enough to spy on Twilight Hold, the southernmost border fortress that was currently occupied by the Ishodir army.

Well, rebuilding actually. The border fortress wasn’t a simple building protected by a ditch and a palisade but had been dug into the hillside and had an extensive underground portion. All of that had been exposed or caved in, from spells and artillery fire. 

Rebuilding wouldn’t have taken all that long, but the Bresia’s left unexploded ordinance buried in the rubble, and it seemed that every time the Ishodirians were almost done, the Bresian saboteurs managed to set those off and ruined progress. 

Either that or one elite or another would do an ambush strike to disrupt their progress, and that was her mission now. 

From high above, Yuriko contemplated what to do. She didn’t want to simply destroy them since it would mean that another set would just come and replace them. Besides, there were roughly a couple of Ishodirian battalions stationed here. Of the twenty thousand soldiers, she was sure at least one would be a True Magus. She had to strike and leave so as not to give the enemy a chance to fight back. She even had the sun at her back so no one on the ground could see her. The Ib’honara scouts flew below her height, and it was easy enough to avoid them they also didn’t have much of a habit of looking upwards after they reached cruising altitude…

So, what kind of attack should she do? Radiant Lance was the easiest answer, and for some reason, Radiant energy felt particularly dense here. It took barely a thought to gather ambient Radiance to her hand, and she idly toyed with gobs of it across her fingers. 

If she aimed the Lance at the stonework and melted through all the way to the foundations, she could delay the rebuilding process by another day…probably. If she threw more than one, it could give them more time. If she killed the soldiers, they might retreat but they could also hunker down. Besides, she couldn’t track every last one of the two battalions. Besides, it was much more fun terrorising them than just plain killing. 

Over the past couple of weeks since she first intercepted that supply company, she felt her Mien grow a tiny bit stronger. She examined her dreamscape body. Though there were nearly countless threads hovering around her, just on the cusp of touching, some of them had started to turn crimson. That colour dyed into her dreamscape body and made her colours richer. 

It was a pity that the minuscule improvement was really hard to quantity, but she was sure of her progress. She could feel her Mien extend from that forbidden corner of her Anima to permeate the rest of it and her body. She felt that once it had covered all of her, it would have a quantitative improvement. 

Well, that would be too far off in the future. But since the owners of the threads were still alive, they continued to transfer their colours to her, albeit at a more sedate pace. 

That only proved her initial assumptions. When fighting the weak, it was better for her to spare them, but also to indelibly mark them with her Mien. Besides, terrified soldiers would drop morale, and once it fell too far, it wouldn’t be hard to drive the rest of them away. 

Well, she only had two options when striking from this far away. Radiant Lance or accelerated pebbles. Or both of them, really. She had a purse full of smooth river stones that she could blast down with, and once they moved fast enough, the speed would multiply the pebble’s potency. 

With a determined sigh, she had out both of her hands and superimposed her Sorcerous Implement over both palms. Then she expelled Radiant energy from her core then called all the ambient Radiant energy surrounding her. They came to her like puppies and quickly formed the Radiant Lance. At the same time, she pulled the first river stone from her pouch and infused it with more Radiant energy until it was glowing golden white. 

Oddly, there was a cloud of darkness that slowly grew around her, and moments later, she threw the Radiant Lance on her left hand towards Twilight Hold’s central building. 

The Lance fell from the skies, gathering ambient energies near the tip. Radiant combusted everything else to Radiant and, in the process, excess heat streamed behind the spell. As the spell fell, it left a long stream of steam and golden light. 

Swoosh! Shunk! Boom!

The Lance penetrated the warding and the stones, sank deep into the earth and exploded in fiery destruction. Some soldiers might have died, but Yuriko knew it would only be a fraction of their numbers. 

Small figures emerged from the buildings looking like a kicked-over anthill. She threw the second one, but this time, aimed at one of the outlying buildings. It was supposedly their armoury, but they might have already moved their supplies. It didn’t matter much though. 

Kaboom!

More fiery destruction. Followed by Radiant infused pebbles that struck the suddenly exposed inner part of the buildings. Each pebble exploded with Radiant light, though she added a little twist into each one. A spell that let out a high-pitched, keening wail that sounded akin to a pig being slaughtered. 

Once her pouch was empty, she flew away, leaving the outpost a scene of panic. She didn’t fly back to Greyith Fortress, however, but towards the next border outpost. Ah, but she had to go back to the ground first, towards a nice riverbank filled with smooth pebbles.

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