Themis considered the events of the last few hours. The emperor wanted a report. This should have been simple: Observe two groups of fighters from rival corporations engage each other with a small village and an undeveloped mine as the prizes. Play referee and declare a winner.

Simple....and yet they hadn't even gotten to the start of the battle before the wheels fell off the wagon.

The beforehand maneuvering to cripple ACME's forces just stunk. But it had been effective, and so of course that would become part of every corporate war from here on out. The outcome was predictable.

If a corporation focused on building, they'd fall prey to one that focused on training an effective fighting force. If both sides had effective fighting forces, the winner would be the one who was most successful in sabotaging their opponent before the fighting starts. Stuck in the middle would be villagers and workers.

She was not going to give the process a glowing recommendation.

And siege engines? Where had those come from?

Brilliant use of them, but really? Six catapults and three scorpions to use in one engagement against an army of a couple of hundred? Just wasteful overkill. Those machines should be deployed guarding the southern passes to keep the Empire strong against the orcs and not wasted in some northern pissing contest. She needed to find out who had sold those things to ACME.

The engagement had been short at least. As expected, both sides were led by untrained people, sent by their corporations. The idiots had made mistakes even a rookie commander knew not to do. Deploying acid and fire together? What the hell were they thinking. But that was the point, they weren't trained and weren't thinking. They were play acting as soldiers and using magic they didn't understand. Both sides had paid a price for that, and the town had gotten off lucky.

But the icing on the cake was the final act in the tavern. Contract workers on the losing side attacked by a mob looking for beer and a barmaid. That could have gone much worse. The only losses were the idiots attacking up a stairwell.

It could have ended with an apology, but Brandon had pushed things. First with back-door deals where ACME sold out, (and sold off) their own people. Then a bit of taunting the poor girl, and unbelievably, a death from just the thought of having to work for those people. Just what had they done, and what was she afraid of? More mysteries.

And the final, horrible piece of stupidity: Hers.

She had thought of this mission as below her level. Tier one squabbles and nothing she couldn't handle. And she got careless around a Butcher. Centurion Marcus had told her the man was extremely strong for his level. She'd seen him and noted his size, heard some of the stories. She should have believed more of them. He'd moved too fast and caught her off guard, nearly killing Brandon. Then he'd surprised her again with raw power and brutality.

Themis knew she wasn't at peak STR for her tier, but she should be able to easily handle any Tier 1 warrior. At a STR of 20, no tier 1 Butcher in the world should be able to knock her around. But he had matched her STR, and her aura hadn't fazed him a bit. People shit themselves when she gave orders using that voice. Ozzy had simply torn off the paladin's arm. She'd been saved from further fighting by sheer luck when he was pulled out of this world.

That bothered her even more. Another mystery.

Time to swallow her pride. Inquisitors loved mysteries. And she had an Inquisitor close by. Time to put him to work. Meanwhile she had a report to write. No time for a courier to take this. She'd have to use a spell. An expensive spell. But she needed answers to some questions before tomorrows meeting with Brandon and Vernon.