Chapter 48 - The Calm

Fenris tried to remain calm, but with so many adventurers milling about he felt out of place.  Especially with all of them looking at him.  He was the Commander of the Armies of Windfall, a character right out of their legends, and he did not enjoy that one bit.  

There were dozens of adventures up here at the moment, ranging from the mundane clerics setting up a field hospital, to legendary ones who were busy signing autographs and sharing anecdotes to calm everyone down.  

Perhaps the most legendary adventures outside of the Mayor or Badgelor had walked right into the camp a few hours ago much to the awe and amazement of the collected adventures.  He’d walked straight over to Fenris and shook his hand, something Fenris would never have even considered possible two years ago.  

Now he was on a platform attempting to look as solid as Jim usually did, when he wasn’t looking over his shoulder, and trying not to wince as more and more information about the previous battles was dropped.  

“The fifth Dark Overlord came right up to the wall with his horde of mutant dinosaurs,” said Filly as he continued lecturing on earlier battles with the Dark Overlord.  Fenris listened in for a moment, Filly’s ability to talk about the battles like he was there in person was amazing.  

You really felt like you were with Grebthar and Badgelor.  Fillidelphia Badgington was instructing the adventures in Dark Overlord fighting tactics, and if anyone could manage it, the old professor was the one to do it.  

“It's not the age, it's the leagues,” said Filly when Fenris’ surprise showed.  He thought Filly died, quite a while ago.  Instead the large, muscular and very hairy man complete with iconic hat had come to Windfall in it's hour of need.  

Fenris wanted to introduce him to Badgelor, but was afraid of how that would go.  Badgelor was even more a legend than Filly, and Fenris never quite got along with the badger.  As a child, Fenris always dreamed of the day where Badgelor would tell him that it was up to the two of them to save the world.  

Now Fenris was pretty sure that was never going to happen.  

Fillidelphia continued talking, pausing only a moment to salute Fenris as he kept going.  It was little things like that that built up the confidence of an army.  Having the legendary Filly show up out of the blue was one thing, having him be personal friends with Jim was something else entirely.  

That must have been why he was here.  Jim knew Fenris was going to need someone to remind him that he could do this and there was no better person than Fillidelphia Badgington for fighting the Dark Overlord except either the Mayor or Badgelor.  

Fenris looked down from the top of the Western Gate Fortress and surveyed the broad, open plain before them.  To think all those runs to Narwal would have paid off in such useful knowledge of the general terrain. 

There was the time the wheel broke in a hard to see crack in the ground.  It had upset him so much that he had that hole filled, but while filling it Fenris learned that there was a lattice work of cracks all around that were naturally filled.  

Now, Margwal was leading a crew of her short friends in an effort to clear out those cracks and fill them up unnaturally.  She was using a large assortment of thingamabobs that were hooked up to triggers that would explode when stepped on.  Jim called them land mines, which was the stupidest name Jim had ever come up with.  And there was a list there.  

“How are the groundamabobs going?” asked the warden, over the Great General communication perk Jim had enabled.  The ability to just talk to someone was useful but the actual implications were concerning once you got past that.  Fenris was worried that he’d never actually have a private moment after the connection, but quickly realized how to mute it.  

He realized Jim must be doing the same, otherwise he’d have gone insane by now.  Of course, now Jim seemed to have purposefully disconnected himself from the communications links.  That was part of his plan, to remain hidden until the Dark Overlord was committed but Fenris was worried that Jim might not be able to react fast enough without his eyes here personally.  

“Almost done,” replied Margwal, bringing up a map in his vision.  She really was Sir Dalton’s daughter and had adopted the go big or go home mentality the knight favored.  There were groundamabobs just about everywhere in thick patterns.  Some weren’t even triggered, but designed to go off when nearby explosions lit off.  

“I think I have it,” said Hansa from behind him as one of the drones flew straight up then whizzed off into the sky.  Rose was still examining hers with the tiny dragon looking down earnestly from her shoulder.  The dragon was uncomfortable around Badgelor and therefor started accompanying one of the daughters everywhere, but that daughter was usually Rose.  

Which meant that HarDragon was standing behind her, carefully watching for danger.  Oddly, he tended to glance in Filly’s direction a bit more often than Fenris would have expected.  Fenris didn’t take HarDragon for a Filly fanboy, but they appeared in the strangest places.

Not like his Badgelor fandom, that was normal.  

Normally that would have been fine, HarDragon was a capable fighter and focused on protecting the dragon at all costs.  Unfortunately, he had a history with Julia, and it was her turn at the fortress.  That was a bit odd, Julia was on the outs with the family so her visits to the wall had been virtually non-existent.  Now when she arrived, the Duke left.  He’d have to ask Ashe about it, presuming he could find her.  

Julia spent all of her time glaring at Rose, because while she was ‘over’ HarDragon, she really wasn’t.  Fenris sighed as the second drone launched itself into the air, the four little blades it used spinning so fast they became invisible.  Rose continued fiddling with the drone in her efforts to control it.  

“So how do those work,” asked Julia, to Rose.  She had a history with both girls and was trying not to be mad at Rose.  She at least hit her problems head on instead of dealing with them in a passive aggressive manner.  

Which made her entirely different from the Duchess, who could instantly make you feel an inch short.  

Rose flicked her fingers around in a manner that a spellcaster would envy, then made a pushing away gesture as the drone stabilized then flew off.  Then the young engineer adjusted the new visor on her armor and nodded.

“They seem to be controlled by the gauntlets and grant you a visual link to an orb on the bottom of the drone,” she said.  

“Drone,” asked Julia.

“It's a precursor word, apparently, I’d call it a flyamagizmo,” said Hansa as her hands seemed to twirl around and one of the drones did a backflip.

Julia hesitated, then shook her head, “We shall call it a drone, I don’t want to offend the Precursor.  But you are correct, that is a really strange name.”

“I know, right,” said Hansa as her drone dipped low then pulled back up.  Rose was testing hers out as well, just not quite as extremely.

“Why aren’t you on your boat,” asked Julia.

“No naval action is anticipated,” said Fenris.  “If everything goes well, nothing should get into the valley.”  

“Plus, I can teleport back at need,” said Hansa as her face scrunched up into the cutest concentration expression Fenris had ever seen.  The drone backflipped, then front flipped before corkscrewing away.  

“Jim,” said Fenris as he surveyed the field.  He thought he saw something a while back, an odd black cloud that moved far too quickly, but while his vision was good it was not as good as someone like SueLeeta or Jim and the object had been very far away.

 “Of course,” said Julia as the two drones started flying around each other with Hansa engaging in some mock battles.  Hansa rapidly became quite skilled at being Aerial.  “Aren’t you two supposed to be scouting?”

Hansa’s cute grin turned into a cute, shocked expression, and both drones zipped to the north.  The young captain coughed, “Of course, we were just testing the speed and maneuverability of our craft.”

Everyone found it impossible to be mad at Hansa.  

Fenris examined the gateway Hansa built and hoped it would hold up.  Jim could make a portal here using his Mayoral powers, but those gateways were much smaller than the one out of the metal contraption.  Jim was supposed to use it for rapid troop movement, but after his last use in teleporting the daughters to the Elven Kingdom, which still sounded insane, the structure was warped and more than a bit melty.  It didn’t fold up anymore, that was for certain.

“How did you get the device placed in Union so quickly,” asked Fenris.

“I shoved the device in Jim’s face at dinner and made him enchant it then had the runner make it to Union overnight,” said Julia.  “That is a several day trip by wagon, but far faster when you have a pouch full of mana and stamina potions.  Plus, the direct orders from the mayor didn’t hurt.”

“Jim ordered her,” asked Fenris.

“He said something to that effect,” replied Julia serenely.

Fenris nodded, he would complain but Jim’s name was sun touched oricalcum and few people dared complain about anything he ordered.  In other words, Fenris used the same trick of interpreting Jim’s orders to cut through red tape, for which the Falconians had a positive skill of erecting.  

“Several of our Fast Action Response Teams were in Union preparing to march to Windfall, I bought them over as well as the supplies you requested,” said Julia.  ”The Youth of Union has also requested to assist as they can.”

“Fuck you?said Fenris.

Julia nodded, “I’ve sent them to the hospitals to assist with the supplies, but I’m not entirely sure what to do with them.  I was hoping to fuck off?”

“Have the falconian officers handle it?  The Duke did assign me several of his officers, I’ll have them figure out some assignments,” said Fenris.

“Good, I think that has us just about ready,” said Julia.  

“Did Jim have any thoughts of changing the unit abbreviations?” asked Fenris.

“The Fucking King said they were Fucking great,” said Julia confidently.  

“We can bring the additional supplies to the staging sites here,” said Fenris gesturing to the army milling about in the courtyard of the fortress.  The extra two smaller camps each housed a Falconian unit to complement the army of Windfall.  That bothered Fenris, but Falcon had a larger standing army than Windfall could muster and always would. 

The problem was the quality of those troops was lacking, by Jim’s standards.  They had rebelled harshly against Jim’s training requirements.  He was supposed to deploy some of the enhanced reconnaissance units across the wall, but even their elite units were coming up short.  

“They can’t even do a proper Puma check,” said Fenris as he examined the Falconian units.  “It doesn’t matter how powerful you are, if you fail at a puma check you are toast.”

“We have explained to them, at length, the importance of Puma Checks,” said Julia.  “They will listen now.”

Fenris glanced over at the proud young woman, so proud that she was carrying around something OttoSherman would have steered away from, but he didn’t doubt they would increase their training tempo.

“Vait, I have a dead scout,” said Rose as she suddenly jerked to the right.  There were railings on the top of the wall, but it was enough of a step that HarDragon moved so she’d run into him first.  

“What’s going on,” asked Fenris.

“I’m looking at a dead scout too,” said Hansa in a way that made Fenris uncomfortable.  She was supposed to be cute, and that clinically detached way of talking she got when she was working was more than a bit worrying.

“Something got our scouts,” said Fenris, trying to bring up communication with the units over the wall and failing.  He contacted SueLeeta and told her to get here ASAP.

“Should we contact Jim,” asked Julia.  Fenris was torn, he was under strict orders.

“We shouldn’t get him out here until we have better reports,” said Fenris.  “I’ve contacted SueLeeta, she’ll be able to discover what’s going on out there quickly enough.  Jim is worried about the Dark Overlord intercepting our communications, so he wants to have his location remain secret until the last possible moment.”

“I suppose the Mayor probably has a way of sensing what is happening here,” said Julia uncomfortably.  “What do you think Fillidelphia?”

“I’m certain the Mayor is aware,” replied the legendary explorer with so much confidence Fenris believed him.