Shovels In Spades

Daz was incredibly thankful for Madison being in his life.

Perhaps the circumstances of their meeting had been orchestrated in a bid to gain the Hamilio bloodline by her parents, but still, regardless of the reasoning, he couldn't help but feel lucky.

She was one of the few people who truly understood him and tried her best to help him. She didn't always agree with him and even got upset with him from time to time.

Daz truly loved her for that and felt if there was anyone he could put his entire trust into, it'd be her.

Were he a ship, she'd be his rudder, sails and oars. Sure, without her, he'd still be able to float around but never with any direction in mind.

He'd also be helpless as his ship got more and more damaged with no hopes of ever reaching safe harbour again to seek repairs.

With his oars, sails, and rudder, he was free of such worries.

Sadly though, all good things must come to an end. Daz had to get to work and he'd already spent almost a full day on Sandy's funeral or with Madison.

She had helped him come to understand his own feelings on Sandy's death a bit more, however, that matter had to be shelved for now.

"There's a lot of them," Daz noted as he glanced up from the map to his little sister.

She looked just as exhausted as him, if not more so. The sleeping Bronze Dragon on her lap, while cute, didn't help relieve much of her stress. "I was thorough. Which one will you attack, Brother?"

The coldness in Rose's tone shocked Daz a bit and made him think for a moment that he was talking to one of his clones, not to his sister.

'Anger, bitterness... and a bit of worry? There's so much more mixed in... This Ember of Empathy is tough to figure out, especially on her,' Daz thought.

He had no concrete ideas as to why Rose was being so distant but he could guess. 'She's still upset that I dismissed her protests towards my plans of going off on my own and assaulting the Truthians...'

Sadly though, as much as he loved her and valued her opinion as being the smartest person he knew, Daz had made his bed. He wasn't exactly well-known for not lying in it. Not without excellent reasoning.

He trailed his index finger across the map and let it rest atop an indicated camp in the state of Wisconsin. "Here."

Rose nodded. "Do you need me to contact Larry Billard for you since you'll need to pass through Nebraska to get there? Or do you plan to just fly there in your car? You may still need to inform him since it's his air space."

'Rose without her snark doesn't really feel like Rose. Is this what it feels like to be ignored by someone you care for? Hmm, maybe not. It's certainly a slightly different situation,' Daz thought.

"What's your opinion? A part of me wants to explore why South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota are a hellish winter wonderland right now. That worries me since the snow seems to be spreading and it could be related to the Truthian's somehow," he said.

Directly attacking a camp could be a bad idea. Daz knew that. Going after something they were invested in covertly though? That interested him greatly.

He saw Rose look at him with suspicion in her eyes so he smiled a little bit wryly. "You're right. I really shouldn't launch a direct attack immediately. At least, not personally. I'm thinking of sending Beta to pretend to be me and fight with very guerrilla-oriented tactics. Confuse the Truthians while I continue to grow my power to resist them, y'know? I will go and attack myself though."

"When?" Rose asked.

Daz paused to stroke his chin thoughtfully. "Not for a few months, sadly. I need more Stars of Eternity and I need to make a trusted task force of Ember users who can fight against Truthians competently for a real militaristic push. Beta can be used to just keep them on their toes and wary of a retaliatory full-scale attack. How does that sound to you, Little Sister?"

Rose shivered from head to toe in disgust. "I won't call you 'Brother' again, so never refer to me as 'Little Sister', please. It feels more than unnatural."

Daz nodded. "I can agree to that."

Rose's expression softened a bit. "I'm glad you can see reason. The chances of things going poorly if you attacked alone were incredibly high. I even conferred with Ben's smarter side, Red. The analytical weirdo said if you went off like some sort of Rambo, his chances of survival dropped by 42.30%."

"Such an incredible ability that Red has," Daz noted. "Thoughts on the winter wonderland though?"

Rose wore a complicated expression. "It's linked to the mythical city I told you about."

Daz frowned. "Didn't you say that was in the north pole?"

Rose nodded. "Yup. however, it has a few entrances hidden around the world. Ar least, my data suggests as much. I think, now I must stress, I think, the situation just a little bit northwest of us is one such entrance. Like I said when we last spoke on this, I used up all of my guesses from my skill just finding out about the thing."

Daz stroked his jaw in thought. "Huh... If it's a trial like El Dorado was, the more people the better. I'll need Mr Barrier though if we're dealing with Truthians. He supposedly kept the castle academy entirely safe, his shield proving immune to the Truthian's system cancelling."

"Yeah, I know. I was there visiting Madison for some business. It was amazing, honestly," Rose replied.

"Hmm..." Daz thought for a bit before asking, "Does New Earth have any experienced fighters with very high cold or elemental resistances?"

"A handful, yeah. Oh, also, I found someone for that thing of yours you wanted to get rid of a while ago. Take them with you," Rose said.

Daz raised an eyebrow. "What thing?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"The Frost Phoenix's egg," Rose explained with a roll of the eyes. "I finally found a skilled enough tamer-type class holder willing to take the thing in and hatch it as a familiar."

Daz nodded. "Great. That has been a loose end I've had for quite a while, hasn't it? I trust I don't need to tell you that anyone who goes with me on this expedition shouldn't be aware it's me or can be trusted to keep such information a secret. I might even just disguise myself through the system. We need everyone to believe Beta is me."

"What do we do about Beta himself then? He's quite integral to the reconstruction of Fort Skip thanks to a few of your skills like your Industrial Item Box," Rose pointed out. "We can't just have him go missing suddenly. Bit of an oversight on your little plan."

"Hmm... Any ideas?" Daz asked, ignoring her harsh words.

"We could always get someone to disguise themselves as him. It's convoluted, but it would work. Someone with similar skills to the one he's using right now," Rose suggested with a shrug.

"Mu then. We need someone we can trust. He can get his clone to change its appearance to me- Ah, he can spare it, can't he? He and I haven't spoken about our skills in some time, but I would imagine he's upgraded Death Energy Manipulation to have more clones," Daz said. "He also has the right items and skills to mimic my basic skillset, I think."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, he has and does. His skill is the same as yours now - Manifestation, not Manipulation. He's busy too though with reducing the suffering, fear and loneliness of everyone. He can probably spare a single clone though. If not, I can figure something else out."

"As reliable as ever, you are," Daz praised with a smile.

Rose furrowed her brow as her cheeks flushed. "Of course I am. One of us had to have our head on straight."

"Says the only one of us two that distinctively isn't straight," Daz teased.

Rose gave him a pointed look and was clearly going to retort with some snark so he spoke instead of allowing her to jab one of his weaknesses with that sharp tongue of hers.

"Now, tell me about this tamer, would you, Rose?" Daz requested.

For Rose to have picked them out, they must be special in some way, so Daz was most curious. At that exact moment, however, a quest popped up in front of the Archreaper's eyes.