(We have) no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

Pre-Fall diplomat

“No, I will not arbitrarily designate people for the draft,” the Countess of the Rocastle Demesnes told the captain.

Before Captain Hodges could start objecting, she cut him short.

“Last year, when you called that first draft, I called for volunteers. And I had enough to fill New Benton’s quota. So, do you object to my way of doing things?”

“There is no…”

The annoying woman simply waved Hodges’s concerns with a flick.

“The Rocastle Demesnes are not what you’d call an exciting and full of wondrous prospects place. What they have is plenty of Fourth and Fifth, for which the prospect of moving west is attractive. As long as they are fairly confident that their lives aren’t going to be wasted but used to defend their country? That’s usually good. For enough of them.”

Hodges doubted that very much. Anyone interested in that would have had ample opportunity to join – the army had started expanding its efforts to recruit when the northern barbarians had attacked, and placards extolling the virtue of the military profession and how it was open to anyone had been sent to all parts of the Marches, no matter how remote.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any of those. They were usually at least plastered on the town hall, even if everyone ignored them. But the Countess seemed to have “lost” them. They weren’t on the manor that was her seat of command for the town nor on the single inn that his small company was using.

Didn’t she know she had a legal obligation in those matters? In any case, he had more to ask.

“In addition, there have been rumors… of there being Talented people here. My superiors have made very clear that anyone exhibiting a Talent is to be included in the draft unless they qualify on the automatic exemption clauses. The army had four Talented draftees last year, and they almost single-handedly broke the tribals’ offensive. People like the Sorceress of the Mists are the reason the Marches are still standing, countess. So, any local Talent must be included in the draft pool, ‘volunteer’ not-withstanding. That is now a non-negotiable policy.”

The woman, far from repentant, looked at him with a… smirk? It couldn’t be a smirk, could it be?

“And what happened to those Talented, captain?”

She must have heard something. New Benton had tried to censor the news, but things had leaked in the foreign press if nowhere else. Someone from general staff speaking too fast, he’d heard. And the Demesnes were three days away from the frontier, after all.

“They were lost,” was all he admitted.

“Hardly something that I would recommend to a local Talent, then. If there were any to be had. If you are chasing rumors, you are wasting your time, captain.”

“Let’s not waste ours then. You have your papers, and I have a quota of draftees to get. If you can get ‘volunteers’, then so be it. If not, I have my orders. By your leave?”

The Countess Rocastle nodded regally. It half seemed as if she thought herself the Warden instead of Maistry. Hodges was heavily tempted to stomp and leave boot marks as he departed, but the wood felt extremely dense under his feet. He wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the mana zone’s forests instead of genuine wood. After all, this little pile of… something of a town exported timber, he’d been told, wood which was plentiful everywhere usually. She wouldn’t sell much if it were just the same wood as everywhere else.

I give her two weeks. Two. Besides, it will be rest and recreation before the month-long trip back, he decided, and he warranted such.

He threw a last look behind him, spotting the countess and one of her guardsmen watching them depart. She was still mashing that weird-looking ball, which she’d called a “stress ball”. She’d claimed it was an Ancient salvage item that helped with hand problems, early arthritis. Hodges didn’t feel bad for her in any way.

I wonder how things are doing back in New Benton? When he’d left for this mission, things were… not okay. Barring the Warden pulling out a secret team of sorcerers to replace the deserters, the draft was sorely needed.

“You almost insulted him to his face,” Valentin, her guard – and fellow Talented – told her.

“Almost is the right word. It was obvious he thinks very little of my domain as if we’re too backward to even notice. What do you think? Level 10?”

“Seems correct. Above anyone’s around the Demesnes, and level 9 is the highest I’ve ever spotted.”

Valentin may have had the intrinsic Talent to perceive those levels, but Catherine Rocastle had a way to cheat. Her Metal Sense had led her to what she initially thought was a potential mine, and had turned into a buried metal coffin. Hundreds of feet of metal, with old skeletons in there, dating obviously from the Fall. How it had ended buried in her backyard, with everyone still inside, that was a bit of a mystery. Some Changestorm.

But the coffin was a trove of Artifacts. The Changestorm had presumably infused the Ancient items, turning an ungodly amount into magically imbued items. Not many in the location where they’d found the old bones, but more in the containers below them that held a trove of Ancient goods, in relatively good condition.

The smooth ball she’d picked from one of the deceased was the weirdest. Depending on whether she had the yellow or blue in her palm, she could either see levels like Valentin, or mana, which let her distinguish Artifacts from simple Ancient items.

Or, in one case, that level 5 lumberjack who had a mana plume coming out of his shoulders. After interrogation, he admitted that cuts and little nicks when he worked healed fast, but that was it. And without the help of her Sphere of Seeing, no one, least himself, would think of it as odd.

That wasn’t the only one. She also wore Bracelets of Truth, just in case, and the nice captain had not noticed that her shoes, under the robe, were not quite modern. In addition to the protection against cold they provided, all she had to do was stomp her heels, and they poured heavy fogs to rival the Sorceress of the Mists’ own, or she thought. Fogwalkers, she called them. Thankfully, they were almost exactly of her size, even if a bit too high-heeled for her tastes. All the other Artifacts in her hoards – plural, she didn’t trust putting all the eggs in the same basket – were way more conspicuous. The ball was already too close.

“Someone talked,” she noted.

“It was bound to happen. People see Artifacts doing stuff, and if they don’t know, they think it is a Talent,” Valentin said.

“There’s a delicious proverb from before the Fall. Three people can keep a secret…”

“… if two of them are dead. It’s also quite modern. And I’ll pass.”

She snorted.

“In any case, Captain Hodges doesn’t have any tangible information. If he knew, instead of hearing rumors about people doing things, I’m pretty sure the Senate in New Benton would have passed a law saying that Artifacts are a state possession, and they’d have come to seize them. With more than twenty soldiers.”

“So, he’s just after draftees.”

She nodded.

“What if you don’t have enough volunteers?”

The smile vanished.

“If we pull out the Artifacts and equip the guard, they have no chance,” Valentin said.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Oh, no doubt. And then, when they don’t show up, they send more soldiers, ‘just in case’. At one point, they realize it’s not losses on the road due to some Elite roaming from the northern mana zone. The truth is, we’re not those four. We have Talents, but none of them are particularly offensive, save your Disarm.”

“What happened to them, anyway?” Valentin asked.

“I got a few messages from the family. Outside of that discreet message two weeks ago with the parchment that boosted three of my abilities, that is.”

“Do you think that… skeleton of theirs didn’t want us to be too powerful? At least until they were gone?”

“You think so? In any case, I’m pretty sure they’re safe in Independence. The family rumor mill says that cousin Carlin in New Sandusky is no longer wheelchair-bound, and that would take a miracle… or the workings of a Saint.”

“Ah.”

“I’ll give them a year, or maybe two before I ask if they’ve found more Ancient books and if there is more from what this came from. Until then, motus.”

“So, we wait.”

“I definitively do not want to enforce the draft. I had to pay bonuses to fulfill last year’s, and this one is nearly triple. Now, if I could be sure that the army is way too busy with the north, I could say ‘sod off’. But once the war ends, if Maistry is still standing, there will be a reckoning. Even if we have enough Artifacts to deal with a small contingent, we can’t fend off the entire army with only six of us and the few genuinely offensive Artifacts we have.”

“It could be worse.”

“Worse?” she said, looking at Valentin askance.

“If it was the reverse. If we didn’t have those, and they were all Talented.”

“God, no. I can’t imagine ordinary people trying to stand against a Talented army. You have way too much imagination, Valentin.”

Catherine “Kitty” Rocastle

Female human, 39 years, 9 months

Metal Shaper

Level: 6 (13000 XP needed)

Mana: 208/208 (+17/hour)

Stamina: 42/42 (+18/hour)

1 unallocated skill point

XP: 13034

STR: 18 (1549 XP needed)

Metal Skin (42)

AUT: 19 (4240 XP needed)

Rust (63)

Fusion (63)

AGI: 14

PER: 17 (4021 XP needed)

Detect Metal (40)

MANA SIGHT 101

DETECT LIES 78

DEX: 16 (2000 XP needed)

EMP: 15

FOG CLOUD 110

20.1% additional lung capacity

Automatic recognition of the primary metal of any alloy

Bodily immunity to fire, up to 930°F (499°C)

Grant bodily immunity to cold, down to -450 °F (-268°C)

Enhance your effective Perception by up to 7.8 for skill checks

Detect mana flows & pools of 10 size or greater

Arturus Windmiller told the wendigo, “Throw your glasses. They’ll know where we are otherwise.”

Snowbound Glatteis looked back at him with those quasi-unreadable eyes, even with the glasses on his furred face.

“I am never leaving the Glasses of the Hunt. It’s a sacred heirloom of my family.”

“Then excuse me, but I will go my way. I am not staying with what must be a pillar of light pointing your way if what you describe can be seen from miles away. Don’t follow.”

“Then go, tribesman,” Snowbound replied. “May you find your way home.”

The tribal chieftain did not bother replying, and he and the two tribesmen immediately started moving away from him and his other wendigo companion at a nearly straight angle compared to the path they had been taking.

“He’s not wrong,” Blackleaf finally said once the three men had moved out of sight between the trees.

“Don’t care,” the first wendigo replied curtly.

The two wendigos kept moving as fast as they could. The pursuit had been relentless over the day and the previous night too, and exhaustion was threatening. And when he looked back, Snowbound could see through his Artifact glasses three plumes of mana moving in the woods. But he was not about to lose an heirloom that has been handed from ancestor to descendant for nearly 150 years, no matter how dire his situation was.

Yesterday was the day everything turned wrong. Wendigo forces were starting to arrive again as the November weather favored them finally. Snowbound had joined the tribal main force at Kootenai, hoping that this time would be the turning point of the war.

He’d barely arrived when an impossible spectacle began. Off in the distance, at the edge of his glasses’ perception, mana plumes started showing. Not of Artifacts, but the slightly more subdued plumes of mana users. One… two… five… dozens slowly became visible.

Nobody would believe him until he reluctantly shared his glasses with the command. The fact that scouts reported a small company of soldiers arriving from the south served to confirm the glasses’ mana vision.

“How the fuck is that even possible?” one tribal commander said after handing back the glasses.

“Last winter, they had two new sorceresses. And they were neutralized,” Arturus noted, looking at Snowbound.

None of the wendigos had briefed the rest of the tribal command about Snowbound’s actual actions. The meeting quickly devolved into bickering, the majority of the tribal leaders suspecting some trick.

It was not a trick. The army of the Kootenai poured out of its garrison barely one hour after the small reinforcements arrived at the fort holding the Kootenai Gap’s entrance from the Montana. The tribal forces roused themselves to face the enemy, and that was when the actual magnitude of the peril became apparent.

Soldiers dodging arrows, others walking surrounded by fire like a reincarnation of the Burning Walker, while others moved at an insane speed. Fireballs, like the ones last year, launched in straight lines into tribal formations. That particular company had split into three platoons, supported by the rest of the army, but those platoons tore into the tribal units. Snowbound watched the plumes of mana moving, with a dizzying array of offensive abilities demonstrated.

Fifteen minutes after the battle was joined, it was a rout. The tribal leaders scattered, with Snowbound Glatteis and Arturus Windmiller ending up running to the side, risking the mana zone. Snowbound quickly discovered that they had pursuers, quite insistent ones. His guess was that at least one of the new soldiers could see mana… and his glasses.

“They’re nothing if not dedicated.”

“I am going to try something. But we have to split,” Snowbound replied.

“I’m not a tribesman.”

“I have a trick. But I am not sure it will work, and it wouldn’t if you’re around.”

“And what trick can serve the Great Hunter Glatteis?”

“A trick. Now go. And if I don’t make it… well…”

“What do you mean you lost it?” Lieutenant Cancilla said.

Spotting Artifact-bearing enemies had been a boon. They would probably be some high-ranking enemies, and capturing them would go a long way toward decisively finishing the war.

“I had it, but then… wait, it’s back,” Corporal Tufo replied.

The Earth Shaper had had difficulties. The Artifact’s mana plume had suddenly started to fade in and out. But now, it had suddenly firmed again. He knew that, based on measurements, the Talent was based on his weakest quality, -1 in Perception, but a few of the Shapers had been handed it “in case”. If he had had more of that “talent energy”, he might have gotten Earth Master and gotten improvements, but as it stood, he dealt with his limitations.

“Let’s keep up. It’s been nearly a day. If we can’t catch those leaders, we’ll have to turn back, and it will have been a waste. Colonel Markov will be unhappy.”

The eight-man team of Talented pushed on.

“It seems to have stopped.”

“You’re sure?”

“The plume isn’t moving.”

Lieutenant Cancilla frowned but kept his course. Worst case, he surmised, the fugitives had finally discarded their Artifact, and they would recover it. Artifacts were not as impressive as they once had been – now that the 1st Talent Brigade was being built, the quantity of Talents had a quality of its own. But nobody was going to neglect the right Artifact. An Artifact’s Talent did not count as one’s intrinsic Talent, after all.

The gap closed slowly. The pursuing team finally broke into a small hollow, where Corporal Tufo finally spotted the plume plunging at the end of the clearing.

“No one?” Lieutenant Cancilla wondered.

“It’s there anyway,” Tufo pointed.

“Well, let’s recover that at least,” Cancilla sighed.

The team moved in, but almost immediately, a loud roar broke. The men froze, and the source of the sound came into view.

A 6-feet tall Felid. Tufo immediately spotted the manalight playing on claws and eyes and felt the weight of unnatural fear come.

“Falter. And another Talent,” he immediately announced, stepping back as he locked the beast in place.

“By the numbers, people,” the lieutenant announced.

The frontline spread, weapons drawn, and got ready just as the beast started to breathe a sickly yellow cloud.

“Another,” he warned.

The attack took him by surprise. He felt cold metal and pain and briefly wondered how he’d missed that Talent of the cat. The Fixer immediately turned in surprise, but Tufo’s vision was fading fast. The last thing he saw was a furred arm drawing back across his face.

The Felid was doing its part, Snowbound noted. He moved out of view and immediately faded his presence, moving carefully out. Without that old prey – or rather enemy, as he’d never dared actually hunt her – of his, it would have been hard to do. But with that kind of distraction, even a team was hard-pressed to keep track of him.

Apparently, the same soldier who’d been tracking him had also interfered with the beast, and she was now released and even more furious. Snowbound slowly made his way around, watching the southron soldiers tackle the enemy. Poison clouds, claws that struck at a distance, but they were slowly grinding her defenses. One of them moved, helping stem the wounds with a touch.

Empowered, all of them, he realized, as he finally reached the spot where he’d left the bait for the ambush and snatched his glasses back. He just hoped they only had one tracker. Doing it twice would be hard.

He did not wait to see the outcome of the fight and slowly moved. After all, he knew he had only under a dozen minutes of continuous discretion and did not dare turn it on and off at need – not here, not now.

Good luck, old enemy. As for me… well, I might need to take Ulrich’s offer, as bizarre as it is. Because obviously, others have.

Snowbound “The Great Hunter” Glatteis

Male wendigo, 38 years, 3 months

Explorer

Level: 7 (21000 XP needed)

Endurance: 3/33 (+17/hour)

5 unallocated skills points

XP: 35,922

STR: 17

AUT: 13

AGI: 18 (3000 XP needed)

PER: 18 (703 XP needed)

Accurate Pierce (7)

DEX: 19 (2521 XP needed)

Reconnaissance (26)

EMP: 13