Chapter 73: Chapter 3 A plan for the future

Nathan grabbed a set of fresh clothes before heading to the baths. As he scrubbed himself from the blood and grime of the day - most of it his - Nathan considered two things.

First, he was growing ever more convinced that Gemore’s culture around Insights was harmful. He could understand why they kept secret the knowledge that could grant Talents, classes and skills. If you shared an Insight broadly, it lost its value. Anybody could gain your power, and it was easy to learn your weaknesses. That could hamstring you both against true enemies like Giantsrest and internal enemies who could challenge you to duels and reduce your standing.

But Nathan could also imagine how powerful Gemore could become if they shared their Insights. If every mage had an education like Stella, if every warrior could learn [Airwalking]. If they stopped tracking debts for every little favor, and actually worked together, then Gemore had the diversity of powerful Insights to truly stand strong.

But how would that happen? How did one change a culture? Sudraiel seemed to be trying to tackle this problem over the long term, and Nathan wanted to help her. The training course had included several basic Insights and several not-so-basic Insights, but most weren’t appealing for Nathan or the Heirs. The sole exception was the [Message] spell, which Sudraiel was pushing every mage to learn.

That makes sense. Communication is one of the most important parts of any conflict.

The second thing Nathan thought about was more imminent. He and the other Heirs were planning to talk this afternoon about how to direct their builds and refine their tactics moving forward. And apparently what kind of missions they would take now they’d been granted the ability to choose.

To Nathan, this was part of a bigger decision. What they should focus on as a team. What kinds of threats they would fight. Kia and Stella’s parents, the Guardians of Gemore, had mostly focused on defeating monsters. They excelled at fighting brutally strong opponents who required excessive amounts of damage to put down.

On the other hand, Stanel - Aarl and Sarah’s father - had specialized in fighting other people who carried weapons. He had a weapon for every occasion, but was best suited to fighting other weapon users. The Seven fools excelled at trickery and misdirection, but were underpowered for their weight class. They would counter the Guardians of Gemore, but wouldn't be able to fight a Grave Tangle.

None had specialized in delving dungeons. That was essentially a profession in and of itself.

Nathan walked back to the Heirs’ suite. They had a new one now, moved out of the trainee building and located elsewhere in the sprawling complex of the Adventurer’s Guild. Their new rooms were a bit larger, and had easier access to the main hall. They’d been assigned to these rooms permanently.

The Heirs hadn't left much of a personal touch on their new lodgings yet. Much of what they had done thus far was clear out the room of things left over from the previous team. That, and clean out the thick coat of dust that Stella had mostly blown away with her powerful but imprecise wind spells.

Sarah and Aarl were already here, chatting softly as they did weapons maintenance. Nathan surveyed them for a second. “Do you two ever do anything other than keep your weapons clean and sharp? Aarl, do your new swords even need it?”

The handsome dark-haired man was looking down the blade of one of the elegant sabers that were his primary armament now. This was the force-bladed one, though the enchantment wasn’t active right now. The edge of the sword looked crystalline, and Nathan knew it could project a large force blade that was harder and sharper than any normal sword. It also doubled the cutting surface of the saber, making the elegant weapon's profile closer to a curved greatsword.

Aarl’s other saber was across his knees. It was a twin to the first, except that the edge looked like a frozen electric arc. The [Master of Melee] looked up and met Nathan’s eyes, one sculpted eyebrow raising. “I would know my weapons well, and that requires attention paid. Something I see you do not do with your own weapon.” He gestured with one hand toward the spear standing in the corner.

Technically, it was Nathan’s, gifted to him by Aarl’s father. It was a fine weapon, with a dark haft of sturdy wood and a finely worked gold-tinted spearhead. Since the spearhead was the only enchanted part of the weapon, Nathan could even wield it without breaking the magic if he was careful.

But it really wasn’t his weapon. Nathan wasn’t especially good with the spear, and he didn’t have any skills around its use. He couldn’t use his antimagic with the weapon, and viewed it more as a stopgap weapon until his bare hands could efficiently deal with larger creatures. But maybe that was something to reconsider going forward! Nathan might be able to Develop his antimagic to work with weapons if he really tried!

That Talent's been advancing pretty slowly since it hit unique-tier, but I'm hopefully coming up on the next Development. Definitely something to keep in mind.

Sarah looked up from her own work, smirking slightly at Nathan. “I think Nathan’s a bit too direct for a weapon like a spear. He doesn’t have the necessary subtlety. Did you see the duel against Simla? One side all skill, speed and poise, the other just an unstoppable advance.” She snorted. “Simla might as well have fought a Siegeboar in the open.”

Aarl’s twin looked very similar to him, with the same finely sculpted features, dark hair and coppery skin. She spun the chamber on the revolver she’d just finished reassembling, listening to the click click as the cylinders rotated through their path. Sarah nodded and the gun flickered into the bag of holding that served as her holster.

Sarah was a [Ranged weapon specialist] to complement Aarl’s melee focus. She reached back into her pouches and pulled out the rifle Nathan had given her, along with a rag, some tools and a container of oil. Nathan knew the guns had enchantments to prevent fouling, but he supposed that regular cleaning was probably important to smooth operation. And preventing rust, probably. The rifle was a big weapon, and took up most of the table in the center of the room as she pulled out the bolt and examined the chamber.

Khachi walked in through the door. The big wolf-man loomed in the door, his nearly seven-foot armored bulk overshadowing Nathan's six foot-five. His armor was a thicker and bulkier copy of his mother’s, and he carried a shield and hammer to Kia’s greatsword. He’d recently picked up a larger bag of holding to store both items in when he didn’t need them, which notably freed up the [Martial Cleric of Deiman] in his everyday motions.

His gaze swept the room, and the gray-haired wolfolk sat in a sturdy chair across from Nathan. “We wait for Stella, then. She is learning [Message], yes?”

Aarl snorted. “If she can focus on it. I bet dragon bones to stalker teeth her parents can’t get her to stop practicing her new mana types.” He looked over at Nathan. “You really summoned the dragon with that, Nathan. There’s quite a lot of chatter about Stella having six mana types before level 81.”

Sarah spoke without looking up, her focus on the disassembled rifle. “No blood from our wounds. I rather like having the best mage of this generation on our team.” She looked up. “And the best cleric.”

Nathan spoke up. “I think you mean the only one. Khachi, why aren’t there more who practice Faith?”

Khachi shifted slightly. “It is a difficult path, and I was coached from a young age. The necessary Insights are not common here in Gemore.”

And you also all have the culture of not sharing, even when it would benefit everybody. But then again, I don’t want to just start telling mages how nukes work either, or exactly how my own various skills and Talents work. But there’s surely a better system than this one.

They didn’t have to wait long for Stella to arrive, the short mage barging through the door with a tray of baked goods. “I thought these would be a good addition.” She had to put the tray on a side table, as the central table was occupied by a disassembled firearm.

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Stella’s dark red hair was in its typical braid, tucked into the back of her heavily enchanted green mage robes. She pulled a pot of warm tea out of one of those pockets, demonstrating the incredible amount of dimensional storage she had in there.

Pockets for days. Jealous. Even when I have pockets they tend to become not-pockets during the first fight.

Aarl leaned back and directed his attention to Stella, as she sat in an overstuffed armchair. “How is [Message] going?”

Stella pulled a face. “Not well. I’m learning to cast it with air mana and it’s awful. That spell really needs shadow or dream mana. Dimensional mana is best but that’s not one we have the Insights for in Gemore. Even void mana can be forged into a workable alternative. My dad can do it with air mana, but… bah. It’s hard to learn to structure your mana over that kind of distance.”

Khachi hmmed. “We all appreciate you working on it. Teams with [Message] have quick communication with Gemore and other teams. That spell will change how we are able to act and react while away from Gemore.”

Stella sighed and cast her gaze downwards, biting into a pastry. “Yeah. I know.” She looked sideways at Nathan. “Anything with you? My parents mentioned Kia was going to talk to you today.”

The rest of the Heirs shifted their attention back to Nathan. He’d been open about his desire to learn the [Airwalking] Talent for a while, and they’d wanted to hear how it went. After all, Kia had never taught anybody else that Talent. She never taught anybody, with Khachi and Nathan being the notable exceptions.

And bargaining for [Airwalking] was expensive as hell. Lightning and magnetism for Stella, guns for Sarah. And I still suspect that the Oath of Endings was what made her agree in the end.

Nathan grimaced. There was also the fact that you had to fall off a cliff and survive to learn the Talent. He shrugged. “Yeah. I’m on the path to the Talent. I have [High-Tier Slow Fall] now, it lets me control how fast I fall and guide where I land. We’ll need to talk about ranking it up for later, and using it in our fights.”

Sarah spoke up, starting to reassemble the rifle. “A High-Tier Talent? That must have been an Insight of Adamant.”

Snorting, Nathan nodded. “I suppose you weren’t watching the sky today. It almost killed me.” The Heirs looked apprehensive, waiting for Nathan to describe one of Kia’s infamous training techniques.

He decided to change the subject. “We should talk about what kind of mission we want to do. Kia just told me that we’re going to be allowed to choose our own missions immediately, instead of having them assigned. I don’t think we want to do patrols for too much longer. We should prepare for our eventual challenges.”

The patrol of the transit roads that led through Old Gemore was a standard job that was required of Adventurers staying in the city and not actively completing other missions. Teams like the Seven Fools and the Guardians of Gemore got a pass, but the Heirs had another patrol tomorrow. It was easy to see getting locked into a pattern of living comfortably in the Adventurer’s Guild, training, patrolling and occasionally getting called on for urgent missions. But that wasn’t what any of them wanted - it was a good way to stagnate.

Aarl started the conversation, looking around at the rest of the Heirs, who he’d known he’d be adventuring with since childhood. “We were generally planning to follow in the footsteps of the Guardians of Gemore, yeah? Take hunting missions, specialize in monsters and hordes. But now we’ve all sworn a somewhat unique version of the Adventurer’s Oath, to take on the most ancient of magics. How can we prepare ourselves for that?” Aarl’s tone was questioning, indicating he didn't have any ideas.

Sarah responded. “It seems clear. We take on dungeons, especially from Kalis. Ones with lots of ancient magic.”

Khachi’s brows drew down, and he frowned. “It is hard to dive dungeons regularly. Those sorts of jobs face the most competition, and present much danger. The rewards are high, but dungeon-diving is usually considered a vocation for teams that want to get rich quickly at high risk, then specialize in little else. I do not think that is what we need. We need to learn a most difficult specialty. How to fight an Ending. One nobody can teach.”

He had a point about the Heirs not needing money. Stanel and the Guardians had provided a lot of basic enchanted gear for the Heirs - all together it was probably worth a fortune. They’d held off on providing powerful magic items that the Heirs might grow dependent on, but showered them in things like dimensional storage and magical cooking and camping implements. And ammunition for Sarah’s new guns. It wasn’t like Nathan had that much use for money. His biggest personal expense was clothing. And jerky. He loved the jerky that Gemore made.

Nathan shook his head to get himself back on track. He remembered back to the mission board he’d glanced at this morning. The most important missions got assigned immediately, especially those that were obviously more time-sensitive. But there were dozens of missions that weren’t so critical, and Sudraiel was being measured in assigning them. Usually they boiled down to, “A villager scout noticed something weird, go check it out before it kills somebody.”

He looked through his mental notes on the missions he’d seen, speaking aloud as he thought. “Let’s break this down. Our goal is not so simple as learning to take on dungeons. That often relies on specific knowledge and research on the dungeon in question. But the Endings… nothing is known of them. Nothing survives them beyond the Tale. We may have to travel farther away to learn what is needed. We are going to need to learn to deal with magic and tricks laid by ancient mages with methods unknown. Things where we can’t do research ahead of time.”

Nathan continued. “There’s a famous text from Earth that discusses how to outthink an enemy. It states that all warfare is deception. I think we need to focus on outthinking an intelligent enemy based on minimal information. I don’t think monster hunting will be very useful. We need to practice unusual tactics and solutions that will let us beat somebody smart who may be more directly powerful than we are.”

He looked up at the Heirs, seeing if they had anything to contribute. After a second, Aarl cocked his head. “Tell us of this text.”

“It’s an old book. Written thousands of years ago, during a time of constant warfare. Called The Art of War. It’s as much philosophy as advice on war, but much of it tries to communicate a single idea.” Nathan thought back to when he’d read it, back when he’d been an edgy high-schooler who played too much Starcraft. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

He kept explaining. “The basic idea is that if you know exactly what the enemy is going to do, then no matter the relative power level you can always make a plan that will let you win. But the trick is that the reverse is also true. A thinking enemy will always try to anticipate your next move and counter it. Good strategy must model the decisions your opponent will make given the information available to them. Unless your opponent is an unthinking beast, you need to know what they know.”

Nathan raised a finger, in lecture mode now. “All warfare is deception. The way you guarantee your win is to outthink your opponent. The easiest thing is to ambush them, to not give them time to come up with plans. Otherwise you need to deceive them, prevent them from having accurate information. Both ways, hiding information is the key, so that your opponent cannot react properly.”

Stella frowned. “I can see that being relevant to fighting Giantsrest. But what about the Endings? And ancient magic in general? Can we trick them? It seems like we should be studying magic, modern and ancient. I think my parents have some Kalis Conclave treasures we might study - those things are spellcasting masterpieces. I don’t see how learning deception will help us defeat fancy magics. What are we going to do, lie to a [Detect Life] spell?”

Nathan grinned in response. “Those magical systems were set up by ancient mages, with multiple contingencies and failsafes, right? They tried to anticipate everything that might happen, to outthink us from the start while hiding how their mechanisms work. They can’t adjust on the fly, but they tried to account for all possibilities and weave that into their workings. We just need to see through their deception and come up with ideas they didn’t think of. Or trick the mechanism into activating the wrong contingency.”

He spread his arms wide. “And the same is true for the Endings. We don’t know what causes them, but there’s a good chance it’s either some ancient being, an ancient magical system or Davrar itself. We can outthink all of those if we do it well enough. We start by learning to deceive people, so that we can deceive things made by people.”

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