Chapter 32 — Late Nights and Early Mornings

Ulvari Novidus had been Vesali province's representative to the High Council for two decades. Representing the province that included the capital city effectively made him the leader of the council and the political leader of the country.

The emergency letter from Vorshan's Hills in the Northern Frontier territory bordering the Revant Kingdom had caused quite a stir. That Lord Vorshan's scout had managed to obtain an item of official correspondence from one of Revant's dukes was surprising enough. That Revant's situation was so dire as to abandon almost the entirety of their food production, and according to the scout, sacrifice a significant portion of their population in some no-doubt forbidden ritual to reinforce the Great Barrier Wall was explosive news.

The trade caravans returning from Revant had been reporting strange happenings for two months now—only being allowed to travel directly to large towns and cities, all passengers being arrested at the border crossing when returning. If Revant was hiding that the villages were gone and trying to prevent peasants from escaping, then the reports would make sense.

The High Council had unanimously recommended sending the materials to the diviners for confirmation, and the diviners had wasted no time in providing their guidance.

It was all true.

And the most disturbing truth was that Revant had succeeded with their grim ritual. The Great Barrier Wall had been stabilized. For how long was unclear, but the consensus among the diviners was that Revant bought itself some number of years.

“Next is the matter of Lord Vorshan’s funding request,” Cresta Sorrel, the representative from Westiva province, announced.

Ulvari turned to the Grand General, “Alexander, what is your recommendation?”

Grand General Alexander Karth was the man appointed by the council to handle the country’s military matters. As he was the one they would be relying on to defend the country against the coming monster hordes, his opinion carried significant weight even though he wasn’t a council member.

Standing and saluting, the Grand General addressed the council, “It is long past time that we reinforce our northern border. Lord Vorshan’s plan to expand our territory into the western highlands would create better defensible border positions, and Revant is hardly in any position to contest the unclaimed territory. I would recommend a similar effort to claim and fortify the eastern highlands as well.

“As for the troop increases, it is best that we start training them now. Turning civilians into effective soldiers takes two to three years, and we will need several thousand more than what we currently have, ideally ten thousand. The recruiting can be phased, since our capability to train large numbers of new troops will need to be scaled up to meet the recommend troop levels.

“About training soldiers with limited magic potential how to make use of older-style ward magics… without the threat of monster hordes, I would consider his experiment unnecessary—better to recruit and integrate trained battlefield mages—but with the numbers that we may be facing, the potential increase in combat power shouldn’t be ignored, particularly when it comes to battlefield use of enchanted items. I would say to let him try, and evaluate the effectiveness of the results before adopting a wide-spread implementation.”

“Thank you, Alexander,” Ulvari motioned that the general could take his seat. “Does anyone have any points of discussion or questions?”

Loth Mendan, the contrarian representative of Dartha province, leaned forward and spoke, “Expanding the military and these construction projects are going to take vast sums of money. Wouldn’t some of these expenditures be unnecessary if we conquer Revant and use their wealth to expand their existing fortifications?”

“And, there is the problem that their king is clearly at least intemperate, possibly insane. If he’s willing to sacrifice a portion of his population in some unknown Spirit Magic ritual to buy himself a few year’s time, might he be crazy enough to engage in other large-scale rituals such as demigod summonings or cataclysmic land upheavals?” Chadrick Benathi, the representative of Erime province, worried.

Southern Frontier’s representative, the hero Archmage Jeria Emberflow, spoke, “That argument can also be a reason not to invade. If Revant is desperate, they wouldn’t hesitate to direct whatever forbidden ritual in our direction when provoked.”

“Invading Revant would lower both of our countries’ fighting capabilities and leave us stuck resolving whatever political messes are going on in Revant right now,” reminded Lineah Ravelle of Ithica province.

“The diviners responded that a war would be successful, but dealing with what comes afterward was unclear, which suggests we are approaching a major history-defining event with multiple possible outcomes,” Zell Vestra of Orrinth province pointed out.

“Regardless of which path we choose, either of these options are going to take vast sums of money and the people will need to be given a reason for the increased tax levies,” warned Venni Astacio, representative of Tellia province.

“Having the extra fortifications push our border forward into the highlands will also protect our interior once monsters begin pouring into the indefensible interior of Revant. The fortifications are a good idea even if we invade. As for the levies, we can have the diviners and the churches start warning about a coming ‘Age of Trials’, but we should focus on increasing production and trade to increase revenues, rather than substantially raising tax rates and fees,” advised Karin Blackmarsh of Peth province.

The representative for the Northern Frontier, Thentis Hammerfell, nodded his agreement. “Yes, this is the correct approach. More than just expanding the borders, we need to encourage the development of new farmsteads and mines. This will further increase economic activity, and the hardy people who tame such lands will become a natural barrier to the monster advance. Adventurer militias can be surprisingly effective in picking off monsters that make it past the new fortifications long before the threat reaches our country’s lightly defended interior.”

The discussion continued for a while, and when put to a vote, only Zell, Chadrick, and Loth were in favor of invasion at the current time, but there was some agreement that invasion plans should be prepared and ready should the situation change. The funding for expansion and development was approved unanimously with the only disagreements being over the source of the funds.

After the meeting, Ulvari gazed out over the moonlit rooftops of Vesali’s government district. He rested his aging hands on the viewing balcony’s railing and sighed. Much of the night had already passed, and tomorrow would be another long day.

He was getting too old for this. Maybe he should retire and enjoy the remaining years of peace with his family.

Ria woke to an emergency that required stealthily sneaking to the outhouse to solve.

Yet another reason to dislike alcohol! She grumbled to herself.

Afterward, she looked up at the starry sky that was clearly still nighttime and took a deep breath of the chill autumn air. The smell wasn’t exactly great, but this was a nice place to live. Vorshan’s Hills was much more lively and prosperous than her hometown of Shadewood.

Not in a particular hurry even though she was standing under the moonlight in her nightgown, Ria gazed out at the section of the village across the stream that she had yet to visit and thought of her plans for the coming day. Getting up this early was fortunate, an opportunity to get done what she was too tired to do the night before.

A sound from over by the stream drew her attention, and she saw Ranger digging by the stream bank. He sure had become much more active since becoming her familiar. The contract must have made him feel young again somehow.

Leaving him to his fun, Ria returned inside and used her energy perception to find each of the cooling stones that needed refilling. The meat processing areas of the store were way scarier than she expected, and the images of the various tools and animal corpses hanging from chains would certainly keep her from going back to sleep even if she hadn’t already resolved to get an early start to the day.

Cooling stones refilled, Ria returned to her room. The dishes from the previous night had already been cleaned, so there weren’t any other chores for her to do.

Ria had lent out her grimoire, which prevented her from working on making new wards, but there was still something that she wanted to practice.

Laying out a sheet of low-quality paper and using her fancy new brush, she drew her trademark with the leftover enchanted ink. She had to actually siphon off some energy out of the ink while drawing, since the low-quality paper was surprisingly poor at withstanding the energy stored in the magicite. The energy resilience of the paper was also inconsistent and required constant adjustment and awareness—another reason why parchment was superior, no doubt.

Simply drawing on the paper was much more effective practice than Ria expected, and she was beginning to get an idea of what Master Rigure meant about becoming familiar with the materials.

When the drawing was complete, Ria felt the enchanted trademark with her senses and pictured it in her mind. Her goal was to be able to shape heat energy into the trademark shape and brand it into the paper without otherwise damaging the paper. The current level of energy was clearly close to the maximum the paper could safely handle, meaning that her planned magic needed to use less.

Over the next hour or so, Ria practiced shaping the energy and burning the trademark into the paper. It was much more difficult than she expected. Only a few had turned out acceptable. She was proud of her effort and progress though. If she could do this much, then creating wards by directly forming the energy certainly was possible.

Ria looked up at the insects fluttering around the lightstone she had left on the windowsill to provide light while she worked. The cooling weather would soon solve that problem, but she was definitely going to put a long-lasting insect ward on her window before the pests returned in the spring.

That was her next task to study then with Ward Magic. Wards that triggered immediate effects were fairly simple, but wards with lasting effects were much more complicated. Self-maintaining wards that drew power off the ley-lines or other power sources were even more complicated.

Other than the insect repelling ward, a ward that Ria had been thinking of for a while now was a healing and stamina restoring ward to be placed under her bed.

Muscle pain from over-exertion wasn’t a joke. Her first week traveling in the wilds while carrying that heavy pack had been terrible. If it wasn’t for her ability to use the Inwardly Focused meditation to speed along her recovery…

No use dwelling on it. They hadn’t the luxury to delay the journey once the bandits moved in.

The worry now was the training at the Adventurers Guild. Harris had said the wood practice dagger was less likely to cause injury, not that it wouldn’t. And her opponent would probably be using a sword, or mace, or… a battle axe. Wooden or not, that was going to hurt—a lot. The bruises and injuries would be in addition to the muscle pain.

Ria also suspected that such a healing ward would be valuable. Even a low power ward that helped people wake more refreshed could be worth possibly a silver coin, maybe, but more powerful wards would surely be of interest to the military. The increased efficiency of training by itself should be valuable.

Stories of people desperate to find help for their loved ones were not uncommon. Though she didn’t like the idea of taking money from desperate people, surely such a person would gladly pay gold for a ward that could help with overcoming an intractable condition or extend the life of someone with an incurable condition.

Stretching, Ria yawned. Dawn had yet to arrive, and she had already reached the limit of her mental focus.

Ranger had been waiting to come back in for a while, so she changed into her play clothes and attended to that. Interestingly, he chose to return to his bed by the kitchen instead of following her back to her room.

Ria spent the rest of the time until dawn oiling her armor to make the leather more supple.

The helmet was the most interesting piece. With its layered neck guards and fancy metal face mask, it gave off a unique look. Most leather helmets just looked dumb, but the raven design incorporated into the blackened metal and leather of hers was eerie and cool. It had wingtips made of blackened wire covering the ears so hearing wasn’t impaired by the leather and padding, and embossed feather shapes flowed from the ‘wing-tips’ and extended over the blackened facemask and around the eyes, below which a smooth triangle extended downward toward the chin like a downward facing beak.

Unable to keep her imagination from running wild, she toyed with the idea of adding raven feathers to the shoulders of her training coat. Haha, poor Leon was going to be panicking bad enough when she showed up in armor.

Still chuckling to herself, Ria donned her armor, pulling the legs and sleeves of her play clothes unbunched as she went along. She tightened her tool belt and worked the lacings to give herself as much of a feminine profile as possible. She belted on her dagger, thigh and boot knives, put on the helmet, shouldered her cloak, and checked herself in the mirror.

“Pfft. I look like a fearsome halfling warrior,” Ria chuckled to herself. Or maybe an elite goblin, if either such thing really existed.

She slung the brown satchel over her shoulder. The day’s satchel contents had been prepared before she went to sleep.

Ranger joined her on the way downstairs, and she snagged a tart for breakfast before heading out.