Teams were organized and sent out. The Forged was a diverse bunch, but that ended up making their teamwork all the stronger. Being in the faction had increased everyone's appreciation for those with alternate views and different life experiences. Ultimately, they had all been pressured and bullied by more well-connected, wealthy, and influential students, and that single experience was enough to unify everyone.

Now, the fruits of that mutual understanding and appreciation showed in spades. The second plans started to form, and actions were taken; Caeden and Lily were inundated with teams taking the initiative, improving upon their tasks, and spreading that knowledge. A loose plan to chart routes through traps rapidly transformed into a systematic disassembly and redeployment of all the explosives, poisons, and sharp objects they found.

Collectively, the search teams managed to figure out not just where the traps were but also how to disarm them and take the components. Resources poured in, and Caeden and Lily used the armory as a base. From there, Caeden had set up a team of students that had taken classes on ethertech, and they started working on the traps.

In less than an hour, they had found a mechanism that let them link a detector to a trap or multiple traps to a single detector. From what they could gather, the Revolution was using it to denote what area a group was operating by having their detectors linked to their traps. But a little improvised ethertech gave them traps that couldn't be detected without a link detector or deactivated without the same detector. Now the revolutionaries couldn't do what they had just done.

Caeden wondered why the Revolution hadn't done the same thing, but Lily noted that every revolutionary they ever talked to insinuated that they thought shrouded were somehow dumber than unshrouded. That kind of arrogant rhetoric might have led the Revolution ethertechnicians to discount the idea of shrouded commandeering their tech.

"This is why an ideology based on belittling others is doomed to fail. It has built-in oversights." Lily snorted. "Whatever, their failure is to our advantage. Ugh, it's so annoying that this never would have happened if someone had just taken me seriously all those months ago."

"Nothing to do about it now." Caeden patted her back soothingly. "We just have to power through."

Lily huffed. "Yeah, power through a campus full of dead people. People our age that didn't have to die if stupid people had just listened."

Caeden said nothing; he just kept rubbing her back. Internally, he couldn't help feeling a kernel of shame. He had discounted Lily's attempts to move the Academy to action. The results of that apathy were apparent now in spectacular fashion. Caeden was glad he hadn't followed the same path. And now wished just as much as Lily did that they had listened to her as he had.

The next hour and a half had the Forged disarming and reassembling hundreds of traps and transforming the area around the armory into their own personal killing field. Taking the revolutionary penchant for long-ranged attacks, they blanketed every viable vantage point into a death trap. Once Caeden and Lily felt they were secure, it was time to move on.

The next step involved a lot of risk. Sending out Forged into the greater campus and searching for other pockets of shrouded. Since so many Forged had made it across campus to the armory, they would have been shocked if other groups hadn't managed something similar. The most obvious gathering locations were also the most obvious targets.

The Mess and the Seats were already gathering points for students and faculty alike, so it made sense that people would move toward those once the field went up. But at the same time, the Revolution would have known the same thing. They had members on campus for at least several months, but likely years. They would know where to strike for maximum impact.

Despite that, Caeden and Lily agreed that the main buildings were still the most likely to have large groups of survivors. Anywhere that would have teachers had an astronomically higher chance of weathering the Revolution's assault. While most of the stronger staff had left on the monster-hunting training course with the top-ranked students, all the school's teachers were leagues stronger than the students and even stronger than most soldiers in the military.

The only reason this attack had succeeded at all was because of the field. With it, half or more of the teacher's strength was locked away, and the loss of aura senses made them vulnerable to ambushes and traps. In these circumstances, even the strongest shrouded would have to be cautious. When the Revolution was packing ether-infused explosives, everyone was vulnerable to a well-prepared ambush.

That was one point Caeden would have to admit. The Revolution's weapons technology was more advanced than theirs. Luckily, they could just steal it. It didn't take the Forged long to figure out the ranged ethertech that fired metal pellets. Now they had their own opportunities to ambush.

In short order, groups of Forged were sent to each of the Seats and the Mess. All of them had ranged ethertech as well as infused arms and armor Caeden had made. They were more well-equipped than standard military units. Most foot soldiers didn't have weapons and armor made by a master ethersmith or highly advanced ranged weapons.

As much as it pained them, Caeden and Lily couldn't go. The Forged had become intelligent, independent thinkers that could adapt and overcome, but they still looked to the duo for leadership and direction. Of course, if one of the units came back with news of a Revolution stronghold, they would be the first to move out and break it down.

Cat was much more free to act. In fact, she sent out a unit of undead with each team, led by a Death Knight. Caeden and Lily approved, though Cat was the one to bring up the idea. The undead could shield the shrouded and provide additional muscle in a fight. Plus, Cat had figured out how to tap into the undead's latent telepathy, so the Death Knights could report back to her in real time about whatever the teams found.

Despite not leaving, Caeden and Lily did not sit idly. Lily was managing the trap operation. Sending out smaller teams, organizing resources, and collating data was a monumental task. Fortunately, Lily was from a mercantile family. Even if she wasn't directly taught much, she read plenty and knew more than enough about managing a relatively small operation like the one they currently had.

Caeden worked with everyone that had even the slightest bit of talent with ethertech to reverse-engineer the Revolution tech. They were looking for any advantage. Weaknesses, benefits, tearing everything apart to see how it ticked and what it could do for them. There was a massive amount of tech to go over and not much time to work with, so it was a mad scramble of shifting ideas and wild theories carefully managed to prevent a disaster.

This was Caeden's home turf. Not ethertech, necessarily, but he had memorized tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of ether and material combinations and effects. He worked mostly on that end of the equations, making sure no one was mixing up an accident in the making as they dug through an explosive. No one else here had the knowledge base he did for the material they were working with, though others had taken actual classes on ethertech, and they outstripped his limited experience in that category. Caeden's only real experience with ethertech was a brief explanation about ether engines. Other than that, he was a true novice.

Unsurprisingly, many of those that joined the Forged were students less inclined toward combat. It was one of the main reasons they were targeted by the heavily combat-oriented Seat Factions, and thus one of the main reasons they joined the Forged. So Caeden was not surprised that at least a dozen of the Forged out of the fifty-odd that were at the armory had some ethertech knowledge.

With that team, they had managed to guarantee that the ranged tech had no in-built precautions to prevent unintended users. The more of their tech they looked at, the more certain Caeden was that the designers never thought shrouded would take them. It wouldn't have even been that hard for them to add features that locked out shrouded specifically.

"The first team got to the Sun Seat," Cat shouted, calling everyone's attention to her. Caeden carefully set down the poisoned bolt he had been handling with Forged Infinity's gauntlet form, Lily stopped managing the most recent patch of traps, and they both went to join her.

Dave was standing guard over Cat. He had had his hands full on their march in. The old undead had been the main reason Cat could control her army unhindered. He had blocked every shot and stopped every attack aimed in Cat's direction the entire time. The former Death Knight was tireless and frankly businesslike about the whole thing. Caeden wouldn't be surprised if he had been bored the entire time.

"What's happening? Caeden asked, nodding toward Dave, who nodded back. Once he had moved over, Caeden also noticed Asherta. He had completely forgotten about the strange girl. She was flat on the ground beyond Cat, looking like a ten-year-old and snoring loudly.

"Well, they encountered a few groups along the way. One of the Forged in the team has a creature shroud that lets them formshift for better eyesight, so she sniped all of them before the revolutionaries even knew they were there. These ranged weapons pack a punch." Dave huffed at that. "But we're just now coming up on the Seat. You were right; it's crawling with revolutionaries. They have the entrance locked down tight. The team says their detectors are going off constantly. They turned the plaza into a killing field." Cat explained.

"Are the guards facing inward or outward?" Lily asked.

"Uh, a little of both? Mostly inward, I guess." Cat shrugged.

"Ok, so there are still shrouded inside. Most likely scenario?" Caeden turned to Lily.

"Trapped with a teacher? They have too much firepower and the element of surprise. The only way anyone has survived this long is with a teacher to protect them. We would have been taken out in another hour if we were stuck in here." Lily hypothesized.

Caeden nodded. "I'm guessing they managed to force any teachers onto a defensive footing with them having to guard the students. After that, pushing them into a room and surrounding it in high-yield explosives would hold back basically anyone. So, what's the approach?"

"Well, we need to make an exit corridor. That requires controlling a large portion of the building."

"...Not necessarily. All we really need to do is clear the way for the teacher. Basically, we need to disrupt their operation while not putting any Forged at too much risk."

"Right. So long as we can disable their trap, whatever it is, we've essentially won. But that means we need scouting. Cat, I know we sent out a stealth specialist with each team. They'll need to infiltrate and find any living shrouded. Once we know more, we can come up with some specifics." Lily turned to Cat, but she was really looking at Dave.

"Right, right. I'll get him going. You know what's up." Cat gestured at the War Wight. Before any groups had left, Caeden and Lily always planned for this situation. They needed a way to pass messages to groups outside the range of Revolution ethertech. The solution came from Cat and Dave.

Dave had an ability called Spirit Walk. It allowed him to slip his body onto the soul plane and travel through it. Since time and distance worked differently on that plane, his movement was instantaneous. It had a few limitations, though. Firstly, it consumed a large portion of his Mana. Secondly, he had to set his exit before he entered the soul plane. In normal circumstances, this meant he could only Spirit Walk a few times in succession, and he could only travel within his eyesight.

Cat had the solution to both of those problems. Dave was Cat's familiar. This meant they could share Mana and senses. Dave had explained that normally a necromancer would use a familiar as a battery and/or a scout. But Cat's shroud turned all that on its head. Cat had far, far more Mana than any normal necromancer. She could fuel Dave's Spirit Walk for many more jumps than he could alone.

But the real kicker was the shared senses. Cat could use a spell to essentially inhabit the senses of one of her summons. Then she could share that with Dave. Basically, Dave could Spirit Walk from the armory all the way to the Sun Seat in a single go. He was the ultimate messenger. Cat had turned into a one woman information hub and messenger service in under an hour. It was an impressive transition.

"Ok, now we just need to wait and see how this goes." Caeden shrugged, getting back to his disassembly. There was nothing more he could add until a report came back. Lily marched back to her own operation, and soon they got back into the flow of everything, even as more reports came in from teams that reached the other Seats.

It was a similar situation all around. They had a Forged slip into the Seats through various means. Some of them had formshifts like Lily's that turned them invisible, while others could shrink or turn into animals that could slip past the revolutionaries. Once they reported back, it was obvious that the situation was essentially exactly as Caeden and Lily predicted.

The infiltrating Forged found multiple groups of shrouded in each Seat. All of them had at least one teacher, and they were surrounded by some of the most violently intense and deadly armaments Caeden had ever heard of. Not just explosives but weapons that shot dozens of infused javelins and spears or fired darts that injected highly corrosive poisons and acids into whatever they hit. The Revolution had not come unprepared to deal with powerful shrouded.

The approach from there was simple. Caeden and his group designed a simple device to briefly shut down the weapons before it burned out. The infiltrator dropped it off and then warned the teacher. They took care of the rest. Once one group of shrouded was free, the rest of that Seat would be thrown into chaos. From there, the team of Forged outside would bust in, clearing a path and securing even more students and faculty.

It was dangerous. Several students died, though no Forged did. They were too well-equipped. But others that were being extracted were much more vulnerable. Some of them had no armor and weren't proficient enough in formshifting to maintain their own defense without their aura.

Soon, the Sun, Entropy, and Bronze Seats were free. That left the real problems, the truly different locations. The Core Seat and the Mess. Each had their own separate issues that made them harder to deal with than the others. Caeden and Lily were planning ways around the issues when the teachers started to arrive.