Chapter 44 – War Plans

It was time to make war plans.  That meant I had to go visit Fenris.  

I opened up my Traveling options.  I could open Portals to most locations I’d claimed and could grant permission to others, if I chose to do so.  As no one other than Charles had any real Teleportation spells, I spent a lot more time denying permission than granting it.  

After reviewing to ensure the Gateway was working on the Western Gate Fortress, I selected the point in Fenris’ office at the barracks and opened it.  The Portal flickered before stabilizing, showing a strangely empty room.  Fenris was located in his office according to the town map.  

I stepped through and realized my perspective was off.  From the town map, I knew Fenris was in the room.  What I’d missed is that he’d moved the instant I opened the portal.  I jumped left, as Fenris prepared to charge.  His new shield shimmered with power as he prepared to charge.  

 He recognized me and shook his head.  

“Someone’s being paranoid,” I commented, causing Fenris to stare at me coldly for a moment.  

“I was thinking that teleporting into the room of the Mayor’s general and slaying him certainly seems like something the Dark Overlord might try,” said Fenris.  He walked back over to his desk, placing his purple, dinosaur-themed shield within easy reach.  

“I figured I would go to the war council,” I said.  “You know, me being Mayor and all.”

“Well, you do pay the bills,” said Fenris, trying and failing to pop his back.  He looked tired.  Despite weeks of preparation, things weren’t up to where he wanted them to be for a fight.  “I don’t know how you do this all the time.”

“It's not fun,” I replied, “But we got this.”

“You believe in us,” chuckled Fenris.  

“Of course,” I replied.  He might have even believed me.  I glanced down at one of his chairs.

“Feel free to use any of my furniture in any way you see necessary,” said Fenris.

“That’s a pretty wide open invitation,” I said, examining the cushion before sitting down.  

“Yes, because I wouldn't tell my friends not to use my furniture because I’m not a prude,” said Fenris.

“A prude?” I replied.  

Fenris shook his head, “Yes, you are the biggest prude I’ve ever met, and I know Dalton pretty well somehow.”

“Just because I won’t let you guys have sex on all of my office furniture,” I said, exasperatedly.

Fenris looked at me like I was crazy, “Yes.”

“Where I come from, all of your crazy antics on my furniture is a social no no,” I said carefully.

“That’s sad.  Where you come from sounds sad,” said Fenris gesturing to his window.  “You are in Windfall now, you are the mayor of Windfall.  You might want to start thinking about what customs you want to keep.  Overall you’ve done a good job of acclimating, but you still have some strange ideas.”  

“I don’t think not wanting people having sex on all my furniture is strange,” I replied dryly.

“That’s what a prude would say,” replied Fenris.  

I had slowly come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t on Earth anymore, but Ordinal was weird.  They weren’t quite at the free love level right out of the 1960’s, but it was close.  We had something like 7 tanneries for leather goods, but the largest 4 all heavily leaned towards adult themes.

That gimp suit cost a fortune.  

Still, if the biggest problem I what was that I was considered a prude, I could live with that.  I had Jarra and she agreed to be monogamous, eventually.  After I explained it was important to me.  Twice.  That was just an aspect of Ordinal I was never going to get fully adjusted to.  

The City of Windfall had grown by leaps and bounds since I’d initially resettled it.  The handful of initial refugees had been swallowed up into the mass of humanity that all moved into the city.  Every industry in Windfall was operating at maximum capacity.    

When I’d resettled Windfall, the barracks was one of three buildings that made up the Army Base.  Two of them were in such bad shape that they would have been torn down on Earth.  Presently, the headquarters of the Army of Windfall was a sprawling affair, larger than it had been in even Grebthar’s day.  

The main building was currently upgraded to the Tier 4 version, allowing for multiple units to be assembled.  Multiple units being formed simultaneously was the order of the day, as my Great General perks significantly expanded the size of the army under my control.  Additionally, my Share Experience Great General perk filled out my command team quite nicely.  

As far as I was concerned, that had been the single greatest benefit of the Great General class.  I could take up to 100% of the Experience Points I earned and feed them down to my officers and party members as training Experience Points.  Then, they could train on the newly improved training field or go to the Adventurer's Guild and cash them in for massive boosts to their level.

Jersey had been particularly useful in that regard.  Slaying all those very high-level demons had been worth a torrent of Experience Points to all my allies.  I hadn’t been here that long, and Fenris was in the high forties.  Julia, who had started at a much higher level, was in her mid-fifties.  

Even the Experience boost SueLeeta and Sir Dalton gathered from participating in the King’s War was nothing compared to the bounty of shared Experience from Jersey.  I had maxed out every class I could take while down there, and the feeling was heady.  

“Here’s the plan,” I said, sending a report over to Fenris.  He examined it and settled down.  This was going to be a few minutes.  

I brought up my character sheet.

“Oh, feck, not this again,” groaned Shart.

“I need to look at my stats at some point,” I argued.

“Then look at them.  Do not spend the next twenty minutes patting yourself on the back for how clever you were in taking the various perks and abilities,” snarked the demon.

“Those are kind of important,” I replied.

“How they work is important.  The fact that you already chose them in the past is not,” growled Shart.  “Let me recap. “

“Fine,” I said.

“Dum Dum took a bunch of perks and abilities designed to fight Grebthar.  He started doing that right after Grebthar ‘killed’ Jarra, like four stories ago,” said Shart.  “When he fought the Sphinx, Dum Dum finally realized that taking all caster-busting skills left him weak against non-caster classes.  He’s been filling out parts of his build with those skills and abilities ever since, presumably in an effort to be less of a Dum Dum.”

“I think it is a little bit more complicated than that,” I began.

“No, it isn’t.  You could spend hours talking about how you chose Dragon Scales, which grants you improved resistance to magic, instead of blasting things with magic.  However, when you do, I die a little inside.  Imagine watching paint dry while listening to the worst music possible,” said Shart.

“Yoko Ono sings Christmas music,” I replied.

“I hate you,” groaned Shart, as the music started.  

• Jim, Level Max.  

• Mage: Eldritch Guardian 15, dorky Anti-Magic class

• Wizard: Traveler 15, moves around quickly

• Monk: Badger Fanboy 15, special ability, Badger Handy

• Warrior: 16 Duelist, Our boy doing solo things

• Woodsman: 15 Badger Wrangler, special ability, Badgelor’s Great, he’s also here.  

• Cleric: 15, Badger’s Fandboy Fanboy, special ability, Hype Man.  

“Could I at least get my Hit Points?” I asked.

“Why? Even if you have a million Hit Points, which you don’t, half the attacks at this power level do Advanced Damage that can just explode you,” said Shart.  “A Plasma Shot to your chest will kill you, regardless of Hit Points.”

“Are they worthless?” I asked.

“No, but, in general terms, higher-level adventurers aren’t really worried about dying from Hit Point Damage.  They are worried about taking too much of the Advanced Damage types.  A Severing attack of sufficient power is still going to slice off your arm.”

“Then, the reverse is also true.  I should be able to do enough Advanced Damage to Grebthar to kill him outright,” I said, considering that.

“In theory,” said Shart.  “In practice, you have to figure out a way to destroy his crystal.  That is a massive problem.  So far, I’ve seen it take one point of Damage, and I didn’t see it long enough to figure out how.”

“That means it is damaged,” I stated.

“No, probably not.  Divine crystals will only heal slowly, but slowly is enough if one point of Damage is noteworthy,” said Shart.  “You are going to have to feed it to Badgelor.”

“That will kill Badgelor,” I said.

“A sacrifice I am willing to make,” replied Shart absently.  Suddenly, he grew quiet.  

“There’s got to be another way,” I replied.

“You’d have to break the crystal.  That means dealing with Charles,” said Shart.  

“It’s a shame he’s not as weak as when he first spawned,” I grunted.

“Oh, yeah, You’d have easily been able to take Grebthar when he first woke up in the dungeon,” said Shart.  “He’s massively powered up since then.”

“So have I,” I replied.

Shart examined me, really looking for a moment.  Then, the demon shrugged.  “Maybe.”  

“That’s a vote of confidence,” I chuckled.

“Well, if anyone else fights the Dark Overlord, they are going to die.  That makes ‘maybe’ high praise,” said Shart.  

“I suppose.  Let's see if we actually figured out what the Dark Overlord is up to.  Then, maybe, we can figure out a way for me to defeat him, once and for all,” I said.

“Let’s not get crazy.  This is just your first time.  Even if you survive, you are going to be at this for the rest of your life,” said Shart.  

“Great.”