“The best kind of lesson is one that the learner would experience themselves. Those lessons are harder to forget than ones they only heard in classes or the like.” - Old folk saying.

“Here, girl, take a look and tell me what catches your attention,” said Reinhardt as he handed an enchanted spyglass over to Alycea. The two of them were perched high atop a tree in the forest, and they were observing the Podovnian camp in the more old-fashioned way, as Hannah was away in Levain city to exchange information as usual.

Despite Reinhardt’s large build, he was nimble and agile like most of his kind, and climbed a tree almost as easily as he ran on flat ground. Alycea was not blessed with such superhuman agility or claws, but the girl had always been an active one and knew how to climb trees just fine, if she did so slower than her adoptive father. Their perch was on top of a tall branch on one of the tallest trees in the forest, at a height where a fall would likely send them to the afterlife, but neither of them showed any fear.

The spyglass Reinhardt handed over to Alycea was enchanted in a different way compared to his eyepiece. What similarity they had was that the spyglass had two “modes” of operation where it could switch between a normal view and a view that instead filters out heat sources by the temperature, both while retaining its normal functions as a spyglass.

While the heat-view was not useful during the day, it allowed people to get a good idea of people’s movements during the night, as living people were always warmer than the air around them. Reinhardt had good enough night vision to not need such aid, but other people, like Alycea for example, found it useful to augment their much worse night vision capabilities.

“Very strong patrols, lots of redundancy and overwatch. I don’t think we can sneak past them without causing a ruckus, dad,” replied the girl after she observed the enemy camp for a while. “I even caught glimpses of people who seemed to be seated behind the walls of the watchtowers. They’re probably there to sound the alarm if someone like Aunt Sal sniped off the watchers there.”

“Good catch, I didn’t even notice those,” admitted Reinhardt with some pride at his adopted daughter. To be fair, some things would likely be easier to notice through the heat-view of the spyglass than by his natural eyesight, as good as it was in the night. “Now, a little thought exercise for you. If you must assault this camp, what would you have done?”

“What sort of forces would I have?” asked Alycea back without missing a beat. Reinhardt has quizzed her on tactical and strategic scenarios on a regular basis, so she was rather used to it.

“Our present forces at the forest base, including the volunteers. Assume you have full authority over everyone,” replied Reinhardt. Such thought exercises were ways he used to train both Erycea and Alycea in tactical and strategic thinking. In addition, sometimes the girls thought of things he hadn’t considered before, so it was a useful thing regardless.

“Definitely a night attack then, unless they get so engrossed in the siege to the point of leaving only a small amount we could take on in their base, but I find that unlikely,” said Alycea after a moment of thought. She then remained silent for a while as she looked through the spyglass and viewed the camp once more. “With the strict guards… I think a diversion wouldn’t be enough. They would know to expect it. Maybe if we pull off multiple diversions, we might have a chance of getting the actual strike team into the camp and make a mess before a quick retreat.”

“Elaborate,” said Reinhardt simply.

“First we’d set off an attack towards their southern camp, make it a large, noisy one. This will be our primary distraction,” explained Alycea with an even voice. “Their job would just be to catch the enemy’s attention and keep it pointed their way, while making it look like a serious enough attempt so that the enemy would take them seriously.”

“Then I would have a second distraction strike the camp from the east, and after we confirmed that the enemy had moved to intercept that force, send our fliers to drop some flame jugs on the north-west side of the camp. Those would be the secondary and tertiary distractions, making the enemy think that we lured them away to pull off those attacks,” continued the girl.

“So far, a decent plan. Carry on,” noted Reinhardt with an encouraging nod of his head.

“Our main force should consist of only our elites, probably not more than five hundred or so. We would try to sneak as close to the camp as we could before we strike. If all went well, we might be able to overwhelm the defenses on the south-western side before the enemy can react, and from there enter the came to do what damage we could,” elaborated the girl. “I have not seen any high value targets that would likely be within our reach no matter which side we strike from, so that’s the best idea I have at the moment.”

“Not bad, not bad. Pretty meticulous thinking behind your plan, though you forgot some things in your hypothetical scenario,” praised Reinhardt.

“Do tell what I missed out on, dad,” replied Alycea.

“In your scenario the strike team would likely overwhelm the enemy defenses on the south-west, so you should have brought your Aunt Sal as well as the rest of the second archers with you. Let them take the walls as the rest of the strike team go deeper. There they could not only provide support, but also take out targets of opportunity thanks to the elevated position.”

“You’re right, dad,” noted Alycea. “I should keep note of that. I had them providing support from the forest in my plans.”

“A safer approach, nothing wrong with that. It’s just that in our line of business, sometimes we have to take the risks to come out ahead,” replied Reinhardt with a toothy smile. “But enough of that for now. Let us return to camp first. It’s already getting late and there’s likely little more we could learn at this point.”