Magical Engineering

“I know, I know, before anyone says anything, it's a weird group I've assembled for this, but I think it's the correct group,” I said, looking at Connie, Elody, and Orglina. Technically, I didn't even necessarily need Elody here for the entertaining discussion, but I hadn't met with her yet about these plans, and it seemed like the best time to do it. I had a whole other mission in mind for her.

“I can understand Connie and Orglina, but I'm not overly skilled in any sort of bardic ability,” Elody followed up, giving me a confused look with one of her eyebrows raised.

“We're just running into a time crunch, and I figured you'd want the rest of the week to plan around what I'm about to say.” I smiled, knowing she wasn't entirely serious about judging me.

A small nagging voice in the back of my head told me I should probably make sure to ask her to a more private meal in the future. That voice was gonna have to wait until after the competition. The other question of whether I even remembered how to do this anymore was something that could also wait.

“What Dave is taking forever to say, Elody, is that we want you to go through all the other channelers available to us and make a reserve list to add to teams as needed. The truth is, we have no idea how this is actually going to work once we get there, but we need to be as prepared as we can,” Pryte said, cutting in.

“Yes, I can handle that. Who exactly is going to be on which team already then?” she asked, producing a pen and notepad.

“Well, so far, there's the cook-off. Originally, I was going to move Red from that team over to the befriending team, but I now think Rabyn can keep the Polar Bear. She's probably too useful for him. But alongside Rabyn is Gorpila and his standard cooking staff,” I explained, while Pryte nodded along.

“Who is handling the befriending team then? Without Maude and that moose, I'm not sure what we have. Or are we just calling that event a loss and worrying about the others?” Connie asked.

“Actually, we have a surprise contender there. Turns out Glorp has been working on a mana beast sanctuary, and in doing so, he's been getting pretty cozy with the local wildlife. I think with the help of Alpha, possibly Chip, and the Hoary Marmot, he should be okay. Then again, maybe not the Hoary Marmot. I can't tell if that thing is angry or happy,” I answered.

Luckily, I figured that with the way Alpha interacted with the world, anyone watching was going to figure the dungeon core was just entirely controlled by us. Hopefully, that was enough to keep our secrets there. We were already doomed to out two of them, and I didn't want the trouble with the dungeon cores we're going to bring. But considering we had gotten away with it in the arena so far, I thought it likely we could continue.

“Let's keep the Marmot held back as a reserve. I'm not against bringing him, but I do not anticipate him being overly useful,” Elody said, with a poorly suppressed giggle, as she scribbled away. Picturing the Marmot in any sort of controlled event almost brought the same laughter to me.

“Yeah, I think that's probably for the best now that you say it,” I said with a shrug before continuing. “So the other two events are building and dungeon delving. Trolke has agreed to handle the first, with Bert assisting as well as his own construction crew. For dungeon delving, Cecile, Elicec, Glorp, Lorgela, and I will be handling that. That leaves everyone I haven't said up for grabs.”

“I assume it's not actually everyone, is it? Someone must be staying here to guard Alexandria,” Elody asked in between more scribbling.

“Oh, yeah, Timon and Ivan will be staying here. I'm guessing Pryte probably can't actually join in the events either,” I answered.

“Actually, I think I can. Though I don't know that I would be good at anything beyond the entertainment event, and only in the sense that I can help with the moods of the people watching,” he replied.

“I'll keep you on the reserve there then. Likely, I will keep myself open for reserve on any of the events. Though any sort of cooking is going to be where I fall apart. There aren't many dishes I can make, and most of them are generally only considered good by my people,” Elody continued.

“What about Quarilyn?” Connie asked. “Or for that matter, the other dungeon cores. I assume we can't take the soul reflections out of the soul realm?”

“Let's leave Corey with me. If Beta or Gamma are needed elsewhere, I'm okay with that. So, Elody, you can note them down in your reserve. And while we haven't tested if they can leave the soul realm yet, let's hold that for now. Probably not another secret we need to reveal to the Spiral,” I answered.

“Quarilyn should stay here. In fact, she should be standing by at the gate to immediately deal with any potential problems should anything, as we saw before, happen again. Let's keep both Travelers and Apollyon watching as well. What about Glunderlin?”

“I agree with Elody. Quarilyn should probably be on full gate duty. As for Glunderlin, I'm not quite sure where he would fit,” Pryte answered.

“But yeah, obviously, go ahead and toss him on your reserve list if you have some ideas,” I added.

“I suspect he would be useful as a potential addition to the befriending team. I'm going to note him down there. With the construction event, I assume it's going to be some sort of tower that we have to either assault or man after the fact?”

“No idea for sure, but we've had the same thought,” Pryte answered.

“That probably means we should have Beta prepared for that team in case they have to assault anything, and Gamma in case they have to defend anything,” Elody continued.

“Speaking of Glunderlin, I had drinks with him the other day. And he's recently gained a couple of quests that he's nervous to bring up to everyone. So, being the nosy operatic singer that I am, I figured I'd let you all know.” Connie had a wide smile as she informed us of this.

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I wasn't surprised that gossip was something she favored. And to no further surprise at all, I saw Pryte's eyes light up when she mentioned it. He was the king of gossip. Which was impressive considering how well he managed not to leak secrets, considering that fact.

“Really? Two quests? At his age? I assume it has something to do with the Reltleon people, though. Has to be. Can't think of anything else monumentous enough that he's done that would have caused two,” Pryte replied, suddenly far more interested in the conversation than he had been up until now.

“Yep, one hundred percent in the right direction there. I don't know the full details, but they both involve going to the Reltleon central Hub,” Connie answered.

I sighed loudly. This had been a topic I was avoiding. I’d already had a sneaking suspicion we'd eventually need to figure out the highways ourselves. I'd been growing more and more concerned with the lack of returning Paladins and the still non-functional Traveler's Gates. But I had also been hoping to wait until Mel had returned.

“I don't quite know how to sigh as well as Dave does, but I imagine I agree entirely with the unsaid words behind it,” Elody said, giving me a gentle smile.

With another small sigh, before I started speaking, I explained my reasons. “It's not like I didn't know we were going to have to do this. Everything seems to be our problem. But I did kind of hope the Paladins would be able to handle it. They should be much more experienced than we are. Are we sure that they're missing? Maybe there's just something they didn't tell us.”

“I believe they're still missing, but there is a summit coming up in a couple of months. It's likely best to hold off any sort of exploration of the highways until after that. I’ve been invited this year, anyway, to help with Cecile's induction. It will be the best place to gather any information that they may know. We can also probably learn a few other things going on at the deeper levels of the Spiral,” Elody replied.

“How many people are you guys allowed to bring? I know the paladins mentioned Dave would be able to come, but is it just Dave? Can I sneak along? Maybe Timon?” Pryte asked, looking at Elody with interest in his eyes.

“I honestly don't know the answer. It's something I've written to them to find out, but I haven't had a response yet. Plus, Cecile complicates things because obviously, his brother has to go. Or at least he had to go. Might be best, though, that we keep the splitting apart as secret as we can. I still don't understand the full mechanics there, nor do I understand the history of their people with it.” All four of Elody's eyes narrowed on that last statement.

“Well, we knew they had two souls already. And there's been other Twinoges in the Spiral before, right? I'm pretty sure I heard about one,” I said, rambling some of my thoughts out. I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with them.

But it seemed Elody had caught my train, as she started speaking again. “Besides their own planet, I can only find one record of a single arena fighter. And when I say single, I do mean only one portion of them. Which complicates this entire change they are going through. Even if the two of them don't think it's normal, I'm starting to wonder if it was normal before the Dwarves' conquest.”

“Wouldn't be the first people that a faction decided were too powerful with their natural gifts. There's been plenty of battle-seasoned species that have made it to the Spiral only to be conquered, and some of their special abilities stripped from them over generations,” Pryte added.

“There's a reason Gramps retired to chaotic space. The Spiral just isn't a friendly place to be. And realistically, that isn't something we're changing. I don't care what Mel or anyone else thinks. We might do some good. We might alter a few things, but we can't change anything from the top down,” Connie said.

The looks on everyone else’s faces said they more or less agreed. They just didn't want to say it. And I felt basically the same way. The more I learned about the Spiral, the more I knew that while we might make an impact on the people closest to us, things were too far above us to ever do much there.

But we did have Korl sitting in prison. A Mimic, who had been almost taken over by a jester infestation, had come to us for help. And as far as any of us knew, he should have had far better connections than those we could provide. So how bad was the infestation, and how exactly did that man think we could help?

“Well, that was a nice, depressing thought there. Let's get back to the main conversation, I think. Connie, you and Orglina are going to handle the entertaining, as is very obvious by everything else we've said,” Pryte cut in, shifting the topic back to its original purpose.

“And I assume no details whatsoever about this either?” Connie replied.

“Nope, of course not. Yep, you two get to go in blind. But hey, think of what you did that day near the crops. If you just manage to replicate that, who knows what will happen?” I said, trying to cheer up Orglina. She hadn't spoken much during most of this, and as the conversations had gotten heavier, she had looked more and more uneasy.

“Should I plan something? I don't really have any idea how to do this,” Orglina asked, finally speaking up.

“Nah, it's alright. I've got the energy for both of us. Come on, kid. I've been cooped up long enough. Let's go see what we can do. We'll go scrounge up a crowd in the city, and see who we can make applaud,” Connie said, gently clapping Orglina on the back.

“So you're good with outing yourself as a member of this faction then?” I asked, looking at Connie.

“I think I've already done that, considering the arena, but I'm not entirely sure that I'll have to fully trade on my grandfather's name just yet. We're gonna let Orglina carry the crowd,” Connie replied with a giant smile as she stood up. “Which means we need to practice. Come on.”

“Well, those two should be interesting,” Pryte said after they had left the room.

“She isn't really going to make Orglina do all the work, right? There's no way that girl's ready for that,” I asked, a little worried. As terrible as I could be at reading most people, I was worse at Connie.

“Honestly, I'm not sure. Connie is a little bit like a force of nature at times. Not quite so much as Yorela, but she's close,” Pryte replied.

“I think they will be fine. Orglina could use more friends anyway. Not that I didn't hear she was doing well at those sleepovers, but still. More mentors are always a useful thing for someone her age. It's probably past time to have a talk with Glorp about a dedicated education path for her. She's incredibly bright, and there is so much she can learn if she starts now.”

I entirely agree with Elody. In fact, I’d had this conversation a few times with Glorp already. At least as far as getting them into the school went. I hadn't considered the idea of their own dedicated education plan.

“If you're gonna do it for Orglina, you should consider it for all of her siblings, possibly Red as well. Maybe just a whole study group of her sleepover club,” I suggested.

“It's not the worst idea. Students often do better in smaller groups where they can help each other. I'll put something together once we return from the competition,” Elody answered with a smile, finally putting away her notepad.

“Well, I think that completes as much as we can prepare. I don't know about you two, but I'm off to go enjoy what time we have remaining,” Pryte said as he left Elody and me alone.

“So, after the competition, wanna talk over a nice private dinner?” I said, feeling like a kid again.

“Sounds wonderful.”

Only mix love and war if you are prepared to destroy everything. There are few weapons more potent.

The Lesser Used Tactical Options by Sir Lemsworth Fenil