Chapter 693: Book 11-3.1: Progress

Krystal’s eyes had adjusted to the pre-dawn light, but even so, the shadows across the groves could easily trick her senses enough to cause a stumble. If she stepped on the dried twigs or leaves, the rustling and crackling could alert the sentries. Even if she knew that most Haveenians and Kadracki had swarm foddering bad hearing, there were a few who were focused on such things.

If she were alone, her Facet techniques would have made sure that no sound went further than her hand could reach, but behind her, strung along from several dozen paces, was her team. Their target was just around the hill. A supply collection point for the Federation forces, where multiple logistics lines converged before they diverted to the varied command groups surrounding the Watchtower.

Faron’s Crossing had remained mostly unmolested over the past Season but only until all of the enemy forces had converged. There was a powerful and frightening earthquake back then, and she could have sworn that the mountain peaks in the east had changed. Maybe landslides or fissures happened to alter the landscape?

Either way, the Federation armies returned. And from the Tidelands, what seemed like a Wyldling Wave appeared. Except there were no warnings from the Veil and no rampaging swarmlings and Wanderers. No roaming Hunters either. Instead, all of the Wyldlings converged around the Watchtower, even beyond the normal limit imposed by the Gemheart, and had been besieging it ever since. And then, the Haveenians with their pet Chaos Lords joined in.

Faron’s Crossing had been penned in by a holding force. They encamped several longstrides away from the walls, well out of reach of the Plasma Carronades, but still within striking distance of their Steam Cannons. Even if the shells weren’t able to penetrate the Shield, which had been repaired and upgraded by Finan’s people, the need to keep it constantly active had been wearying. Then, too, food was slowly running out.

The river Caradec running through the middle of Faron’s Crossing provided both water and food. Both could be purified by Facet techniques, so there was little worry of the Federation poisoning the water. Then again, the river ran all the way down to Haveena, so anything strong enough to kill Imperials had the potential to kill their own people as well.

Though…she wasn’t sure if that would actually deter the crazy rotters who ruled the city-state. Despite the beatdown Yuriko and the others had given them, they persisted in their siege not a Season later. It was a pity that her friend still had not returned from her mission. Her original goal of heading off the flow of nameless Chaos Lords didn’t seem to have borne fruit. The creatures were still trickling up here, though perhaps in lesser numbers now.

Anyway, back to the issue of supply.

Munitions and war materiel weren’t that much of a problem. The town had instituted an Animus storage initiative that allowed people to store their excess Animus in jade cartridges for rations. There were more than enough Plasma Casters, Lancets, and cartridges for everyone. Just that…fishing was getting scarce and with the farmers being unable to plant, there was no harvest this year except for what could be grown within gardens.

So their mission now wasn’t just to destroy Federation supplies, but also to relieve them of it. The backpack she wore, as well as the ones her team wore, were spatially expanded. They were capable of fitting three times as much inside than normal and weighing only as much as a normal load would. There were ten of them in the team, and aside from her boyfriend, Mikel, as well as Zeyn Strider and Danika Lorn, who had been in the same batch of students to enter Agaza with them, there were six other militiamen.

The nominal leader of the team was a senior Agaza student, who would have been a graduate by now if not from the Academy’s closure, and the grandson of one of Rumiga City’s Dukes, Kale Kinnock. The young man had changed greatly from when they first met in the Watchtower, right after Krystal’s Atavism Ritual. He was a bit more intense now, angrier, and he fought with the Haveenians with a vengeance whenever he had the chance. He jumped at the chance to liberate supplies as soon as the mission was tacked up on the job board, though the team they had now was a hastily put-together affair.

Krystal, Mikel, Zeyn, and Danika were the newest Journeymen in Faron’s Crossing, just past the First Order and touching on the Second. And they were also far more capable than their Anima strength would indicate.

Krystal scouted the rest of the path towards the Haveenian campsite. The fools had learned not to make their bases in the open and now, this particular supply depot was tucked into a cul-de-sac. Well, it was actually a depression between two hills, but the camp was set in the middle which meant that anyone trying to cross the crest would be clearly visible. Krystal’s hiding technique was barely enough to prevent her from being seen, but that was because she crawled and only peeked.

The camp was barely worth the name. It was really only a dozen paces or so across, with a wooden palisade and a shallow ditch. The wagons on the inside were parked in a circle too, and the guards numbered less than thirty. There were more supply points scattered across the countryside so the Federation couldn’t exactly man each of them with hundreds.

And if they gathered in greater numbers, Finan’s Implacable Jade would inevitably fly over it and bombard it with a rain of plasma fire.

It was also the reason why the Federation didn’t organise larger caravans for supply. They were too tempting a target for a powerful Chaos ship. Instead, they broke the supply trains into small groups of two to three wagons, guarded by a couple of dozen warriors, and it was a toss-up on which one got hit. But Krystal reckoned that maybe three out of four convoys made it through. Faron’s Crossing just didn't have the bodies to spread out and hunt the food down.

She found the rest of the team hidden in the bushes. Aside from Mikel, her friends, Kale, and his shield brother, Rorke Dinia, there were four other militiamen with them, two men and two women. The entire team were Journeymen, though there was an even spread between First, Second, and Third Orders.

Krystal relayed her observations. “Standard camp composition, three wagons, thirty guards. Rotting palisade and ditch, no gaps, though.”

“Are they all at the Intermediate Binder level?” Kale blurted out, but then shook his head, “Sorry, there’s no way to tell…”

Sometimes there was, especially if the Binders were showing off their Bound Spirits, or if they were practising. Chaos Sight would show how much Animus they’re able to control, but even so, that would just be a guess. Another way was to directly clash, but then, it would be too late to do anything about it. Then again, Adept Binders weren’t exactly common, and on average, a logistics convoy like this would have ten Intermediate Binders at most, and the rest would be Beginners, Basic Binders, or even unawakened.

“Armaments?”

“Standard.”

Zeyn snorted. “Let’s just strike. The faster we can do this, the faster we can get back home with the loot.”

Kale gave the younger man a side eye but ultimately nodded. Krystal rolled her eyes, then said, “Let me use a reading first.”

Mikel grabbed her hand and asked, “Are you sure?”

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“I’ve a feeling,” Krystal said.

“Go ahead.” Kale stood up from his crouch and stretched.

Krystal went off to the side, got into a seated meditation pose and activated her Facet. Reading the possible consequences of their actions, as well as potential threats wasn’t easy. Or frankly, possible for a Journeyman level practitioner to see more than a few seconds into a possible future.

Instead, Krystal had an edge. While she had been injured during the campaign a few Seasons back, she had a lot of time on her hands. Her Facet techniques were information-based, allowing her to track down someone even if they left no physical tracks, and pinpoint weak spots in their defence while fighting.

The two of them had been injured simply because she hadn’t been able to see an attack, and had been too late to do anything about it. If only she could discern what dangers they would face, she could prepare appropriately…

Several weeks of just stewing…wanting…yearning for knowledge. And the result…

Around her core was a lattice. The pattern repeated over and over, without end, flowing from one sigil to the next without a clear beginning. She had touched upon an Ennoia, though she wasn’t sure what it was called.

That name that she couldn’t say was the final barrier to attaining the first step, but even this was more than enough for her purposes. Her Animus activated her inlaid Facet and her sight darkened. Soon enough, she found herself in a place filled with nothing but mist. When she opened her eyes, she saw countless threads crisscrossing her surroundings. Some were thin and faded, others were thick or braided together. Only a few were connected to her, but of those, she could discern where it led to. That one was Mikel’s. It was tied firmly to her fingers.

Another thread she knew was her father’s. She took heart in the fact that somewhere in the Chaos Sea, he was alive. A third was Yuriko’s. A rather thick golden chain that was wrapped around Krystal’s waist. It was entangled with Mikel’s threads, too.

These weren’t the ones she needed to look at though. She intuited the correct threads to look at using her unnamed Ennoia. She followed the threads and a vision unfolded in her mind. Well, multiple visions that spread out simultaneously. All the possible consequences of their actions from the most likely to the least, based on all the information she could access. This place was filled with the unknown, and even though she couldn’t parse through it on her own, her Ennoia and her Facet interpreted it well enough to be usable. Otherwise, the sheer number of possibilities would have paralyzed her with indecision, and by the time she looked through all of it, she was sure that events would have moved on.

As it were, the only thing she could say for certain was if she posed a question, she would get a positive or negative answer. But a side effect of this was that she would get a sense of how things would go for a short while back in the real world.

“If we attack the camp, will any of us die?”

The mists around her seemed to freeze for a long moment. And as they began to shift, Krystal felt the stirrings of an answer. It was hesitant, and she cursed herself for making the answer too broad. She could have asked if she, Mikel, Zeyn, or Danika would die, instead.

No.

But she felt the answer had several caveats. But then again, she could feel her core-lattice energy running dry, so she couldn’t investigate the caveats more. It was good enough.

She opened her eyes and met Mikel’s anxious ones. She nodded and he sighed in relief.

“Team leader, we can proceed,” Krystal said.

“Good.” Kale Kinnock grunted. “Mister Pike, the alpha strike.”

Mikel nodded. “My pleasure.”

They made their way towards the camp. Krystal’s meditation had only taken a few minutes, but the Radiant Sun was already peeking over the Zarek Mountains. The shadow of the mountain range meant that dawn was actually much later in Western Rumiga than the east, by an hour or so, Krystal remembered.

As it were, the dawn coincided with increased activity by the Haveenians. Changing the watch, and breakfast.

Sparkles of orange light gathered around Mikel. Krystal hadn’t been the only one who changed by getting wounded in that battle. They paused just before getting over the ridge, and Mikel stepped forth.

He raised his hands and the sparkles multiplied a thousandfold. Where once he shot out gouts of flame, now, it was different. He swept his hands to the sides, and the sparkles, the fireflies, darted towards the palisade. And as soon as the embers touched the wood, even though it was green, they burst into a deadly conflagration. Clouds of black smoke spewed from the flames and they flowed over the walls and encircled the guards.

“Charge!” Kale yelled, and they did.

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