Chapter 178: Where the Hell

December 9, 623

Over the next couple days, Jasmine and I were swamped with work. Despite being a Major General’s advisor, or perhaps because of that, we were pulled in every direction in an attempt to orient all the intelligence agents within the Treehouse. 

It wasn’t enough to just give the Major General some information whenever he needed it. By his order, we had to make sure that everyone below him was capable of carrying out his orders when he gave them. That meant filling all the intelligence agents in, which was an incredibly comprehensive job.

Jasmine and I did nothing short of creating an entire curriculum designed to teach every intelligence agent, from two-rank Knights and Warlocks to even our direct peers, anything that had to do with recon and mission planning. It was a lot, to say the least. 

But that wasn’t all. The lessons, pamphlets, and booklets we created for the intricacies of intelligence work didn’t cover what we needed from people right now. So we had to put together even more things, covering the theater’s strategic situation, current patrol routes, reactions to Scourge movements, and geography. 

That also meant that we had to update maps and synchronize the data between intel and infantry. To do that though we had to check in with the generals, which inevitably resulted in either more work from them to do or more information to add to our list of updates. 

After two days and an all-nighter, I felt like I was going to have an aneurysm. Jasmine was from this world, so she handled sleep deprivation much better than I did. I still didn’t forget that in exchange for not having dreams at all, people in this world got much faster sleep, resulting in shorter necessary rest hours. I, on the other hand, was in for a treat when I learnt about what it meant to keep up with an overworked Colonel. 

There was an endless list of things to do and the deadline for it all was ‘right now’. These generals wanted everything done yesterday, and since the entire intelligence force at this base was fresh, Jasmine and I couldn’t use them to get things done without training. We had to teach them so they could start picking up the slack, which took time that the generals couldn’t afford to give.

Not that they had a choice though. There was only so much we could get done, even though that didn’t stop us from working ourselves to death. 

After those two days though, our saving grace finally returned. 

I didn’t think I’d ever say it, but seeing Polly arrive was rejuvenating. Just her presence lifted a burden off my shoulders. 

Jasmine and I were there to meet her when she walked in with a thousand other soldiers. 

“Miss Polly!”

“That’s Colonel Polly to you, Major.”

“Miss Polly get hug now.”

“Hey-”

Polly stiffened a bit when I wrapped her in a hug, letting out some of my stress with my breath. 

“Can I die now?”

“Not before I get a report.”

“Dammit…”

“Alright, I know you two are probably exhausted but I need to get filled in before I can get back to working, so more talking and less smothering.”

She tapped my face, prying me off her before the three of us walked over to headquarters. 

“So what did I miss on my way over?”

“Cooper and I are the advisors to Major General Quill. He’s in charge of recon operations, and we’re responsible for getting just about every intelligence agent in the base updated so we can start using them for missions.”

“I see. The bags under your eyes make sense then. First, I’ll meet with Quill. Once I’ve got a grasp of this mess, I’ll be able to help out.”

We walked Polly to Major General Quill’s office.

Polly turned around when we got to the door. 

“Go get some sleep, Cooper.”

“Really?”

“Mm. I’ll have Jasmine fill me in today. You and I will work tomorrow.”

“No objections from me.”

I smiled and saluted. Polly snapped off a quick salute and an even quicker smile as I turned off and skipped to the barracks. 

Bed time! My favorite time of the day!

I was housed with the rest of the Pathfinders and Snow Doves, our technically unified command warranting just one bare-bones residence. There weren’t even proper beds yet; most people were using their camping kits, never returned to Requisitions. I, thankfully, got to sleep on the floor with my piles of blankets and any applicable camping gear. It was enough to at least give me some cushion, but I was starting to think that I’d need my own personal bed to carry around in my spatial device on top of everything else. 

I at least had the space for it, but there was no way I was getting one anytime soon. It wasn’t like I had expected any of this to happen. 

Right now though, I’d sleep on a boulder if it meant I could actually get some rest. Diving into my nest, I wasted no time in getting to sleep. The one good thing about this prison cell of a room was that it at least blocked out the sounds outside. Not completely, but enough to make it relatively peaceful. 

Plus, I didn’t have to deal with the barracks like most of the others did. I was on the second floor of this building, not the first floor which was one huge wide open space with cots scattered throughout it. Thanks to Jasmine, I was able to grab one of these rooms, so that I didn’t have to stay down there. My room was right next to hers, much to the envy of all the Pathfinders down below. 

I passed out given a handful of minutes. I didn’t even set an alarm, a luxury I seemed to seldom have these days. 

……

…

Polly was quick to insert herself between me and Jasmine and the generals, just as I knew she would. Although we had the experience at this base and had the right to take the lead in the eyes of these generals, we deferred to her. That was our deal with her, and neither of us were interested in reneging just for a little more power. 

She took control of the things we were doing and started organizing the operation. We filled her in on everything she needed to know and then let her loose. 

The first week was spent preparing. Both the Treehouse and the Scourge were regrouping and planning. All hell would break loose only after everyone had their bearings. 

That only took a week though. Before long, we started getting reports of Scourge ambushes on inbound convoys. The ravine full of Scourge army, even with a set of rather obnoxious mountains in the way, was still close to the route between Stronghold Charlie and the Treehouse. It wasn’t that difficult to send over some small units and utilize rudimentary guerilla tactics. 

By the middle of the second week though, they started mobilizing, as did we. Recon was first priority, so dozens of these missions were drawn up with Polly, Jasmine, myself, with Major General Quill and Brigadier General Hristo at the helm. Hristo had plenty of experience running operations at the Treehouse, and his knowledge of the nearby terrain was unparalleled. We picked his brain as much as he used ours. 

Despite that though, all of us were swamped with work. It was no longer about teaching intelligence agents to formulate plans. After going full force on recon operations, the objective shifted to parsing data. We would receive reports from the intelligence agents we trained concerning the missions that we planned, sift through useless data, and present it to the generals in a digestible and convenient way. 

Layers and layers of data, all of it gathering in our hands. If we weren’t summoners, there was no way we could get through so much. The amount of information we were going through couldn’t be analyzed by normal humans, and I meant that in a most literal fashion. Without the ability to memorize the amount we could, there would be no way to get through dozens of reports in mere hours. Each of us parsed weeks and months worth of data in a day before compiling it all between us and making it comprehensible. 

After all, the Major General was a summoner too. He wanted details, but not the useless details, and left us to filter it. That meant that, while he was going through our daily report, it was only several pages long instead of a stack of papers taller than he was.

It was enough for him to pick up subtleties within the bigger picture without getting bogged down by the tunnel vision of individual missions. 

Fortunately for me, so much thinking did a good job of consistently draining my Psyka. That meant that I had good sleeps at night, and good sleeps were conducive to good dreams. 

In short, I was making good progress with my advancement formations despite barely touching them. 

I was probably close to a third finished, almost ready to form the first of three clusters. Progress had been gradual, bits and pieces coming together over many days, and it was all beginning to coalesce into something greater. 

However, after the second week came to a close, my concerns briefly shifted. 

One snowy cold night, I made my way to the top of one of the walls and looked off into the distance. 

I liked to find secluded areas on these walls and spend some time thinking. It was also a good place to exercise my eyeballs since I hadn’t been getting out much, cooped up in war rooms crunching data. 

December 25th. 

What had been Christmas on Earth was now just a prelude to the end of the year on this world. New years here were both a celebration of another revolution around the sun and a celebration of the birth of Christ. 

This time, I wouldn’t be going home – either back, or to Joffrun – for it. 

It was my second Christmas on this world, and fast approaching my second year, at almost 21 months… 

So many things had happened in such a short amount of time. I felt like a completely different person, not totally unrecognizable, but certainly far from the man I used to be. 

I had been tested, the burden placed on my shoulders incomparable to anything I’d ever faced on Earth. To think that I was now in the position to both save and end countless lives here in the military. My judgment could mean the difference between an entire squad of people coming back or… not.

And yet somehow I didn’t feel so daunted by the task ahead of me. Was it because I was getting used to it, or because I had much worse things to think about?

I let out a long breath, watching as it turned to fog, and enjoyed the snowflakes slowly piling up on my head. 

My Aerial chimed. 

The Treehouse had its communications developed a bit more. Now there were clear lines not just back to Stronghold Charlie, but to the rest of the Kingdom’s Aerial network. People like my girlfriend could contact me now even out here. 

I checked her message before tapping the device and making the call. 

“Hi John.”

“Hello, darlin’. It’s good to hear your voice.”

I smiled a bit, Umara sighing. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would matter that much, but they’re really not letting anyone leave. My mother couldn’t get the request approved.”

“I told you that would probably happen.”

“I know, I just thought my mother’s word would be able to bend more people than it did.”

I shrugged internally. 

Umara had been trying to get me some leave so I could be with her for Christmas. Unfortunately, this place was on lockdown. There was no way anybody was getting granted leave, let alone someone like me. I wasn’t massively important but I had a role that few could fill, not to mention that I was basically the culprit of this whole mess. 

Still, she tried, and predictably failed. It wasn’t anywhere near her fault. 

“It’s fine.”

“I can’t even go to you either, though I’m pretty sure that’s just my mother refusing to put in the transfer order.”

“Again, it’s alright. We’ll make it up another time. It won’t be that long before I get some vacation anyway. Hopefully things will be settled by then and there won’t be any objections.”

“Unlikely, which is why I’m fighting so hard. I want to see you.”

“I know. So do I…”

A sigh escaped as I leaned on the wall. 

“How are things at the Treehouse? Dangerous?”

“Not yet. I’m doing my best to make sure it doesn’t get to that point. How effective my work will be remains to be seen.”

“You know what to do if things get too risky though. I don’t care if you get branded a traitor, don’t let them get you killed.”

“I won’t allow myself to get put into that position. I’m doing pretty damn good already, so I’m not worried. I’m actually able to make something of a difference.”

“I’ll say, you’re the one to thank for that whole reinforcement. I’m just glad they actually did something instead of leaving you guys there to get trampled.”

I smiled a bit, knowing that this was all pretty much my doing. I didn’t expect such an impassioned response, but it was welcome. If they hadn’t done this, I’d be doing everything in my power to get the hell out before the Treehouse got bombarded to hell. 

Well, the cards had been shuffled and now we were playing with a new deck. More players with more money were at the table now. I just had to make sure I didn’t get drowned in the middle of their war. 

However, bigger games moved slower. The time spans just got bumped from weeks to months. Polly, Jasmine, and I were laying the groundwork for the next several months. Unless another King showed up, there would be nothing that could accelerate that timeline. I was stuck here for a while whether I liked it or not. 

With those thoughts I continued my conversation with Umara for a little longer. We were talking seldom these days, perhaps getting a call in once a week. It wasn’t rare to go a month without any communication. 

I wasn’t worried though. A bit lovesick, maybe, but not worried. It could be said that my love for her was blind, so a bit of time apart was nothing but an annoyance. 

Both of us were just that busy. Umara was fighting more and more often, while I was getting swamped with work. We just had to make do with what we could get. 

It just sucked that we would be missing out on this Christmas together. 

After some time we ended the call. Both of us needed our sleep, me more than her, and I had no intentions of staying up longer than I had to. I was always punished for not getting good hours. 

Taking one last look at the lands beyond the wire, I went down the wall and went back to my residence. 

For a while, I’d be going through the tedious part of this whole military thing. 

……

…

Christmas came and went. It was the most exciting thing that happened for a while. 

My birthday came in January, making me a whopping 24 years old. I don’t know how I managed to live that long, but apparently I was doing something right. 

After that, it continued to be nothing but mind numbing work at the Treehouse. 

Battles began to escalate beyond the walls. Through the month of January we received another 20,000 soldiers, putting the population at nearly 50,000 troops. It was crowded everywhere, and apparently they had started building a Rail to Stronghold Charlie. 

They were turning the Treehouse into a full fledged stronghold of its own. 

More troops meant larger battles though. Thousands would go beyond the walls every day to do battle, and entire companies were sent out just to do recon. Giving briefs to Company Commanders was now a part of my daily workload, and reports were flowing in by the dozen. Thankfully I wasn’t only one of three to parse through them anymore. Our training in December paid off as many more intelligence agents were able to pick up the slack. 

However, because I was below the Major General and Colonels like Polly and Jasmine, but was also above First Sergeants and even Commanders due to chain of command, my position became curiously unique. I was basically responsible for facilitating communication between the highest ranking infantry in the base and the highest ranking intelligence agents. I would go to the infantry, most often Commanders, Chiefs, or Brigadiers, and give them their missions and assignments from above, while they would supply me with what was requested of them, most often reports. 

I was an intermediary, but most importantly, my words came from the Major General and his Colonels. 

At some point, people started calling me the Envoy. 

My words came down from above and they would mobilize thousands. I usually wasn’t one to delegate my personal tasks, so there were no other intelligence agents to deliver my words for me. The reason I often did things personally though was because I had no issues talking on equal grounds with the strongest combatants on this base and getting what I needed, whereas many summoners did. Apparently that was a major reason why my name had spread around so much, according to Jasmine. We had the conversation before, and she said I was good at commanding attention. 

Either way, I was Major Cooper, the Major General’s Envoy, someone who sent out thousands of people every day to do battle with the Scourge. Many often died, as was normal in these battles, so perhaps my small bit of fame wasn’t as spotless as I’d initially thought it might be. Either way though, given some time I never had any issues getting the respect I needed to get things done. It was nice not having to kick people’s teeth in just to get them to listen. 

January passed. 

More recon, more information, more unease due to the Scourge’s movements, and more battles. I watched from within the walls as the Generals played their grand game of strategy. I analyzed, picking at their tendencies, seeing the results of their orders. I did what Jasmine told me to do and didn’t step beyond my station. I did my job, did it well, and didn’t bite off any more than that. But that didn’t mean I was passive. I was learning exactly why these Generals had earned their positions. 

Many times I had questions, and I almost always held them in, waiting to simply see the answer. I formed my own hypotheses and came to my own conclusions. 

What would happen here? How would that affect the battles there? How would this diversion affect the Scourge movements over there. What would happen afterward if this battle was a victory or defeat? How did the degrees of victory and defeat affect how each side responded, and how could that be used for and against our goals? 

Subtle questions and answers floated all around. I just had to pick up on them, and I wasn’t half bad at it. 

All the while, I continued to accumulate power. I worked on my advancement formation, progressing by the day. After the first cluster was finished, I got the hang of it and my progress accelerated. By the end of February I had almost completed the second cluster. While it was unfortunate that I couldn’t use it partially like I had the other advancement formations and start cultivating it early, the quick progress was nice. Months of constant analysis finally culminated in explosive growth. 

My power at Authority 5 wasn’t good enough. It had never been, and my friends were advancing faster than I was. I needed to keep up, so I never forgot that advancing was a higher priority than simply learning strategy or even climbing ranks. 

It wouldn’t be long before I hit Authority 6 though. I hoped to do it while I was on vacation so Maxwell could temper me and give me the next formation. 

Thankfully, my workload went down gradually with every week that passed, and I got more time to myself. My personal progress only got faster. 

March came and went, the conflict escalating during that month as well. More battles, but more importantly, more deaths were what caught my attention. That would usually be normal considering there were far more people getting sent out. However, when I started doing investigations, I got an eerie feeling. 

The month of April came, and a new variable was introduced into the field of battle. 

In the back of my mind though, despite everything going on, there was still one question in my mind. 

Where the hell were my infiltrators?

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