After arriving in a small harbour town, where the river Norr turned from its eastwards driven flow to head down south, Twig and his companions spent twelve days on carriages. They were fast, but every few dozen meters they shook upon dirtholes and stones that plastered the ground. A uncomfortable journey to say the least. But since this was the fastest and most reliable way to progress north, they had to suffer through it.

Ultimately the change in scenery compared to the boat trip was very much appreciated. The ever flat fields of grass with sparse bushwork had hardly made for an entertaining sight. Traveling up north, through valleys with woods, rivers and ever changing animal life was much more easing on the mind to be sure. Ultimately the journey want by rather uneventful, and Twig was able to increase his little private army by a huge amount. Over six hundred golems, about forty hobgoblins and many abyss ravens were constantly keeping pace with the carriages.

The increase in inferno beetle queens was quite substantial too. From just over a hundred queens, his hive had grown to nearly five hundred. As this trend would continue, the amount of many that Twig could absorb daily would be quite something. Not to mention these little explosives grew stronger and stronger, the more levels he gained. Which so far had been only one, but soon there were more to come.

[Inferno Beetle] Level 4 - Mastery 41.10%

[Inferno Beetle: Contradictory to common belief, a inferno beetle does not belong to the family of beetles, but is more closely related to ants. Unlike ants, their queens reproduce asexually and do not require a male. The male beetles however, protect the females with their lives, even going as far as to explode on top of their enemies to protect her. A queen lays between fifty and one hundred eggs, which commonly hatch 96.3% male.]

[Manacost: 4.000 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 8.000 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

1 Female Inferno Beetle.

Lays 90 eggs per day.

Explosion Power: 20

Monster Core Bonus: +60 eggs/day, 0.3% chance to spawn additional female Inferno Beetles.

Aside from these minor improvements to his bugs, Twig had leveled up his golems as well. Even finally unlocking the much desired steel golems.

[Golems: A giant humanoid statue made of either earth, clay, stone or steel. Depending on the Mastery Level material, size or amount of golems summoned can be increased.]

[Manacost: 1.000 Mana]

[Monster Core Cost: 2.000 Mana]

Current Mastery Benefits:

4 Earth-Golems Maximum Size: 2,5 meters

3 Clay-Golems Maximum Size: 2 meters

2 Stone-Golem Maximum Size: 1,5 meters

1 Steel-Golems Maximum Size: 1,0 meter

And Twig had fallen in love with these. His experiments had shown that a single steel golem could easily deal with two stone golems in one vs two combat. He got dented and bruised, sometimes they even manages to rip its arms off, but the way the little steel fighter tore into the stone bodies was way too much for them to deal with. Twigs master, Teiming, had also warned him using too many golems in a large battle, since magic was their only weakness and a skilled sorcerer would just mercilessly pound threw them.

Which Mira had demonstrated to be able to do quite beautifully. She had fought twenty steel golems, piercing their steel hides with her magical thorns and penetrated the golem cores within mere minutes. Even Marcella was able to melt through them with magical fire easily enough. Daz was the only one really disadvantaged by them, since he prefered to just beat them until he accidentally crushed their cores…

The rather small fortress they arrived on, was nothing special. A mere outpost, that was hidden deep into the mountainside, nigh impossible to invade. The small valley that lead up to the first wall, would allow for only three, maybe four, men to stand next to each other. Which made the long corridor, surrounded by sharp rocks and the steep mountainside a perfect choke hold to defend. Not to mention the fact that there were four rows of walls, the second merely twenty meters behind the first.

Twig approved of this fortress, though he was confident that he could take it sooner or later if he were to attack something like this. Especially considering the fact, that there were only a couple dozen guards available. Even if they all were strong magic users, Twig could probably take the castle within a week. Teiming ordered the group to wash up, eat and sleep for a couple of hours. Once everyone had recovered, the prince called for a strategic meeting. A meeting that was also attended by the commander in charge, Ronan Dyce, and his scouts.

Ronan had the look of someone who was never really pleased with anything. Black hair, that was turning white and grey, a nose that had been broken at least once and a thick, short beard made him seem like a very strict person. Attached to the wall was a large, crudely drawn map, on which the fortress, border and assumed enemy positions were drawn. Twig stepped closer when the officer started talking. “We have here the current situation. The border remained untouched for the most part, only a few scouts of theirs trying to venture deeper in our territory.”

Ronan Dyce scratched his nose and continued. “The problem is, their own scout lines are really well guarded, from the ten scouts I sent out only four returned. No long distance magic communication is possible either, since they have installed a barrier… We do not yet know where exactly its coming from, but if my assumption is right, that would be in Torrenveil. And that’s.. here.”

The officer pointed towards the largest red formation on the map, most likely a city. Twig had already been curious what disturbed the communication between him and his ravens. He had barely gotten any scouting reports beyond the border earlier. Aside from a couple of ravens flying way too high to be influenced by this, none of his birds were able to report anything. And even these reports were not reliable at all, since they were so far up, that the only piece of information they were able to deliver was green woods, roads and cities or large structures.

“So, what are the other three positions?” The officer looked at Twig in a surprised manner, most likely more that he was able to talk rather than over his question. Twig threw a glance towards Teiming and the prince asked the question again, sharper this time. “Officer, please elaborate on the other three key enemy structures.” - “Yes,sir. Right away. Uhm… The southeastern one is a fort, currently being fortified by Markan military personnel. They most likely try to gain a foothold on the roads before the war starts. I guess securing supply chains for the invasion… The two on the western side are garnison, heavily fortified and hard to access. They serve as a failsafe for Torrenveil. Should a army march past them, they will attack from behind, encircling the enemy.”

Twig nodded after hearing this. Before he could say anything though, Teiming spoke up. “Any unusual things that should concern us?” Ronan laughed dryly. “Ha. You could say that.” He walked over to a table, holding various scrolls and reports. “Hmm. Ah here…. We have spotted seventy trolls on different locations along the border. All are led around by soldiers that have them seemingly under their thumb. Sometimes there are mages accompanying them. We’ve had some fatalities encountering one patrol too.”

“Alright. This just confirms my suspicions. We are splitting up the forces. Jorak will go assault and distract the southeastern outpost. If we can destroy or delay that, we could launch attacks on their supply chain later into the invasion. You confident you can handle that?” The young scout was seemingly disturbed by the thought to go alone. “A-Alone? Sir?” Twig interfered there. “No, you will get a squad of golems and hobgoblins for scouting and fighting. And you can take as many bugs with you as you can. You should be fine, I may not be able to control them remotely, due to this communication barrier, but they will follow your every order still.”

Jorak cringed out a smile. “A-Alright. Sure thing.” Teiming nodded and continued. “The second task force will be… Daz, Marcella, Mira and me. We will lead four of Ronans scouts and the remainder of Twigs golem force right towards the city. On the way we will wipe out all scouting parties we can find. Of course we will not be able to thin them all out, and word will get towards the outposts in the west. But this is the main plan. Twig will set traps and prepare ambushes, we will bleed their forces when they come to flank us, then we annihilate them outside the city instead of laying siege towards the outposts directly. That would just take too much time.”

Ronan Dyce spoke up. “Sir, do you deem it wise, to put yourself in such danger? They will surely have prepared a significant force by now, we can hardly assume them to just-” Teiming immediately waved away the officers concern though. “You will be tasked with securing a path for escape. Should the need arise, we can just sacrifice the golem army and retreat.” Twig nodded. “We are comfortable with sacrificing them. Also… we will need a couple of soldiers to watch and feed our inferno beetles. They will be a valuable asset later. Could you organise that for me, Mr. Dyce?”

The officer nodded. “Yes. Of course sir. I am sorry I doubted the plan, I will do my best to support it in any way.” Twig then stepped away from the map and walked towards his four disciples. “You excited?” Daz grinned. “Very. I can’t wait to try out how strong I got.” The two girls merely nodded, apparently concerned. “What is it?” Mira answered hesitantly. “It’s just… This is war. People always die, even though they don’t expect it. I’m worried, is all.” Jorak sighted. “Geez, thank you. As if I’m not nervous enough.

Twig just shrugged. “You are strong. You will not die. That’s what I think. And I ordered all my minions to prioritize saving you over killing enemies. So you will be fine. I promise.”

And even though Twig meant that promise, he had no way of influencing the outcome of this mission. Since War was a ever changing and twisting entity often closely resembling the ever so elusive lady luck...