Chapter Sixteen - Creeping Calamity

“That sounds like a great opportunity to teach the limpet,” I said.

Seventeen bowed.

We were in a laboratory within the corpse of the large turtle at the centre of the fortress. It was a wide room, with a low-slung ceiling and plenty of worktables spread across the room. It wasn’t the grandest lab I’d ever visited. There were no decorations or signs of ostentatious wealth. Rather, it was designed entirely for comfort and function.

The tables were at the right height for Seventeen to work at them, and familiar, well-maintained tools were all at hand.

It was a plain, and respectable, lab. I approved.

I had, up until some minutes ago, avoided making any changes. I didn’t want to reduce Seventeen’s effectiveness and ruin long in-grained habits by pushing my weight around. But, with the last bit of news he brought me, that changed.

I had borrowed a few bones and reshaped them into a scrying bowl. A nice, necrometer-wide hemisphere that I filled with some blood. It was rather tricky to do that latter, what with the entire room being submerged, but with a bit of careful spellwork nearly anything was possible.

“It seems as if they aren’t one unified group,” I mused.

In the bowl was an image of a shore, lapping waves beating against sand. Deeper in were trees and some open spots where the barren lands of the Flaming Steppes grew out of the vision’s range.

Seventeen had approached me to announce that his scouts had noticed a small group of people on shore. Not fishermen or travellers, but combatants.

Now, with the scrying bowl glowing and projecting its ethereal image, we could make out those very same people as though from above. A simple spell, linked to the vision of a will-o’-wisp I’d sent out ahead.

I gestured and the image sharpened over one encampment. It was getting darker out above the waves, the sun well on its way to setting. It was only natural that the soldiers would be preparing for the night.

“Four... no five camps,” I said. There were, indeed, five camps, though two of them were quite close together. Each one had a few tents, and perhaps two to three dozen men in them, most wearing uniform armour and carrying similar sorts of weapons.

“If you wish, Bone Father, I could send some of my army above to root them? Or perhaps we can ignore their presence. It is doubtful that they know where we are, not that they would be able to reach us even if they do know.”

I nodded slowly. He was likely correct. That didn’t answer the fundamental question of why there was a small force gathering so close, nor why they had formed up in such a strange way.

Curious. Very curious.

I gestured again and had the will-o’-wisp dip down closer to the camp nearest to the shore. The men there seemed jovial enough. A fire was set in the midst of them, with some bushes tossed into it for warmth and a few bits of driftwood smoking away next to the centre of the flames.

Someone was starting to cook, and others were resting their feet while sitting on stoney outcrops. They looked like men that had been walking for some time. None seemed that strong. About the levels I’d expect from town guards or conscripted soldiers, perhaps.

A tent flap opened and a man stepped out, soon followed by a strange, but familiar creature.

The man was obviously some sort of cultivator. The robes with gilding and the jewel-encrusted sword by his hip was just the sort of garish I’d expect from one of those. The creature was a mantis. Green-skinned, and wearing very little.

Now that I knew what to look for, it wasn’t hard to spot mantises in their other camps. For the most part, there weren’t more than one per camp.

I stood a little taller and crossed an arm over my chest, holding my opposite elbow while I tapped my chin. “Interesting, isn’t it?” I asked.

Seventeen nodded. “Do you perhaps know why they’re here?”

“I suspect they might be after our trail. Whether they’ll try to follow it, or if they merely plan on waiting us out is up to them, I suppose.”

“I could ready a force able to overrun them in one fell swoop,” Seventeen said.

I considered it, but decided against it. “No. Like I said, this could be a good teaching moment. How good is the limpet at directing a squadron?”

“She is learning quickly, but lacks the practice and experience to lead,” he said.

“And if you assisted her? Interpreting her orders and relaying them?”

Seventeen considered it. “That would make her far more capable.”

I gave him a skeletal grin. “In that case, let’s move all of this over to a more comfortable location. Could you fetch me the limpet?”

Seventeen bowed, and soon I was following him out of the room and to a place that was a little quieter than his laboratory. As it turned out, despite being underwater, Seventeen still kept a proper library on-site. The books within were all in sealed trunks along the walls, with carved plaques on their side with the book’s names and subjects. It was a somewhat ingenious way of preserving the texts against the ravages of water.

I found a spot near the centre of the library, near some bony chairs, and set the scrying bowl down while Seventeen ran off to fetch the limpet and prepare his troops for combat.

I wasn’t expecting to find that the first to visit me would be Alex and the mantis. “Hello, Bone Papa,” Alex said.

“Hello, Alex,” I said. “And hello Rem.”

Rem narrowed her eyes at me, then raised her arms in her customary defensive gesture. She unfortunately didn’t account for the fact that she was underwater, and soon had to wiggle all of her limbs in order to send herself back towards the ground. “Stupid water, being so wet,” she muttered.

“Rem,” I said. “Would you know, perhaps, why at least five of your siblings would try to come here. Or at least near here?”

The mantis tilted her head to the side. “Because they’re stupid?”

“That is a possible reason, but I suspect there’s more to it than that,” I said.

Her eyes looked this way and that as she thought. “Mother sent me and some others to find you. Maybe they know that you’re here?”

I nodded. I had suspected as much. It wasn’t hard proof though, just more conjecture in one direction. “I see. I suppose that’s likely. Do you siblings frequently work with others? Humans, I mean.”

Rem wiggled a little. “No? Some do. The weaker ones, that are newer. They were born after Mother started to like humans more. They have servants and things like that who do stuff for them. It makes them weak and careless.”

I gestured to the scrying bowl, and using some illusionary magic, turned the image within into a grand three-dimensional projection over the bowl. Rem hissed and backed away, but Alex merely stood there, smiling and content, as the floating landscape grew and settled in before him.

Now, the soldiers were no bigger than grains of sand, but they were still easy to make out as they stood next to their fires.

Rem stabbed at one of them, her scythe passing through quite inefficiently. “What’s this stupid stuff?” she asked.

I didn’t answer, not when I saw the limpet and Seventeen arriving into the library. “Hello Master,” the limpet said. She came closer, then eyed the floating image. “Is that a... sort of projection?”

“It is,” I said. “This is what we used to call an MMORTS viewer.”

“What’s that stand for?”

“Massive Magical Ocular, Real Time Skeleton viewer,” I said. “It allows you to see where your troops are in real time, and with the right magics, you can communicate and direct them around at your leisure. I find war far more enjoyable from the comfort of a nice armchair. Perhaps with a warm drink.”

Alex sighed. “I’m still working on that.”

The limpet nodded and started to walk around the projection. She poked at it with a pinkie, to verify its transparency. “This is very cool magic,” she said.

“It’s one of those few sorts of magic where I would advise using an enchanted object to cast the spell, rather than doing it yourself. Though you ought to learn how anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

“You often need to issue orders and cast communication spells while the projection is up. It’s difficult to focus on those while keeping the MMORTS running. These can be very distracting you know? You expect to spend a few minutes on one, and the next thing you know a day has passed.”

The limpet finished her circuit of the projection. “Who are those soldiers?”

“Enemies, I suspect. Here to capture us.”

“We’re not in any danger, right?” she asked.

“Of course no. our troops here outnumber them by a factor of ten. In fact, I think they’re more of a nuisance than anything else. Which is why you will be getting rid of them tonight.”

“I will?” the limpet asked. “Um, Master, I’m getting okay at casting, but I don’t know if I can take on... about fifty soldiers. And are those mantises like Rem?”

“No no, not on your own. You will be working with Seventeen here to direct some forces over to our enemies here. Seventeen, have you moved an appropriate force nearby?” I asked.

The lieutenant nodded. “I have projected the minimal number of units necessary to win a fight and have sent those ahead. If the Bone Father would be so kind as to move our view under the ocean, we should see those troops moving into position now.”

I sent the will-o’-wisp out over the ocean, and with a tweak, was able to make out the soldiers Seventeen had mentioned climbing up the slow gradient of sand at the bottom. They were making good time, especially if he had sent them out just recently.

There were three groups of six skeletons, one of those with long bony bows, the other two with spears and bucklers. A small squad of six will-o’-wisps trailed after them, as well as a squad of larger, many-legged abominations bristling with arms and rusted weapons. At the rear, shambling along, was another squad, this one of fleshy zombies.

“That’s a fair number of troops,” I said.

“Enough to take care of the enemies on shore, though not enough to merely outnumber them,” Seventeen said.

The limpet licked her lips, a habitual gesture. There was no chance that her lips were dry here. “Okay,” she said. “I think I see what I have to do. How do I order them?”

“I will be acting as your lieutenant,” Seventeen said. “Give me the orders, and I will relay them to your troops.”

The limpet turned around, searching for something. Then she ran over to a bony armchair and pulled it over with a squeal of bone on bone. “Okay,” she said as she sat down and wiggled herself comfortable. “I’m ready.”

Seventeen stood taller. “What are your orders, ma’am?”

The limpet stared at her troops, then pointed in the direction of the beach. “Can we see the land part again?”

I accommodate.

“Okay,” she said once the image resolved. “Five camps... I think... Seventeen, how stealthy our those troops? The undead, I mean.”

“The skeletons can be quiet. The will-o’-wisps make no sound, but are fairly bright. The abominations are quite noisy, and I suspect that a normal human will smell them coming. Likewise for the zombies.”

The limpet nodded. There was a glint of something feral in her eyes as she gestured before her in a grand fashion. “Okay... so, this is what we’ll do.”

***