Chapter 229: Battle of Denyr – The Settling Dust

Lilyth - Days 16 - 110 Days Remain

My debrief with Prince Vikker went reasonably not-horrible. I imagine it was mostly because we spoke through the magic mirrors, with our group already an hour away from the city, in a forest and me standing in a way it wouldn't be possible to geo-locate our position.

To my pleasant surprise, he bought our carefully crafted story, which we haphazardly cobbled together in under thirty seconds of us pursuing the remaining Jägers hook, line and sinker. I also sweetened it with some self-sacrificing bullshit about not wanting to put the city even more at risk by staying there.

As for what happened to the warehouse, we, officially, didn't know and theorised that maybe the Jägers detonated their ammo in a last-ditch effort to kill us.

I mean, it is not like there was evidence of our involvement in the explosion and any witnesses to Persephone's presence weren't in a talking mood. Or any mood for the matter.

Of course, we felt for the families of any people caught in the explosion, but we didn't particularly think it was our fault and, as such, didn't want to get any blame for the incident.

Persephone was taking the incident relatively in stride, all things considered. I would have been a quivering mess had I flattened a warehouse district, but she seemed to have been made out of sturdier stuff. Honestly, I envied her.

Then again the slaver mess did cause her to bluescreen, so even she has limits.

My own limits also got tested later that day, but for a different reason. You see, having shrapnel removed from your body with a pair of tweezers was an experience I could have gone without my entire life. To her credit, Savri was gentle with those, but the process still hurt like a motherfucker. I couldn't bitch-and-moan too much, however, as Savri underwent the procedure before me and it was done by a decidedly less gentle Persephone and yet did not even wince.

I suspected that she had cast [Soothe Pain] on herself, something that she confirmed after she was done.

‘Sorry for not giving you anything for pain,’ she whispered, ‘but I’d rather they do their best to avoid looking like porcupines and royals should lead by example and all that.’

‘Fair,’ I replied to her. ‘Try not to make a habit out of it, though, pinkhair.’

‘I won't,’ she said quietly. ‘Listen, I really am sorry. I would have cast [Soothe Pain] on you - you have earned that and more, but given the circumstances, neither of us can afford to show weakness, you especially given you are now our titular leader.’

‘You do realise that my being a “queen” is a sad joke that's been going on for too long?’

‘You have had at least two occasions to step down without a hassle. You didn’t. And you are a fine constitutional monarch.’

Ignoring the fact that Ror-Bhyk has neither a constitution NOR elections.

‘I know… It’s just… I guess I liked it when Aki was in charge. Not you know… everybody is looking up to me nonsense.’

‘Then tell that to people. Or rather… tell Aki to fucking step up and do her job. The ship of you being just a grunt has sailed I think, but you can be co-leaders with Aki.’

‘A constitutional party leader? I can get behind that.’

‘That’s the spirit, furball!’

Aki was happy that we finally decided to establish the leadership hierarchy, because she wasn’t quite sure about how to approach the whole Chain of Command mess. As mentioned above, I would be the de jure party leader, with her serving as the de facto one. For appearances purposes, she would act as my “Chief Strategist,” with Savri being the “Tactician.” Meaning, ultimately, I would get none of the power and all of the blame, so, you know, everything I wanted out of the arrangement.

Finally, the world is making some sense.

Our next destination was a place called County of Halnyie. As none of the tributaries of the Ror river ran that deep South, we had to walk most of the way there. That also introduced another problem of “the boats we were using to travel had to stay behind, and since our pockets were deep, but not “buy a fresh set of boats every time we need to completely switch a river” deep we had to accept the sad reality of “the days of fast travel without a clear direction” were over.

The upside was Ere rewarding us with five extra days for stopping the Jägers in Denyr. She also added those terrorist motherfuckers as an option to the target list.

It would be insanely risky, but so would be going after all of our quarry, and given how they were actively hunting us, the Jägers had to go.

Zaevi - Day 22 - 104 Days Remain

The memorial wall in the city square broke her heart. It was a wide wooden wall with various personal effects hanging on it and hundreds of candles beneath it.

Its origin was harrowing too. Someone hired the Aterian Jägers and tried to assassinate the Witch Queen. When direct confrontation didn't work, the mercenaries resorted to using some kind of shrieking bombs to level several city blocks. And then their ammo stores were detonated destroying most of the warehouse district and killing all those who didn't evacuate.

Overall, the death toll was in the hundreds with thousands wounded.

‘Why would you do something like this?’ she asked when some of them went to look at the devastation in the warehouse district.

The scale of destruction… All the buildings lain flat… It felt unreal.

‘Who knows what’s inside the heart of a mercenary,’ Nevahl mused. ‘Though this is very much… unmercenary like.’

Zaevi had to agree. She didn't have any dealings with mercenaries before, but all she had heard didn't imply they were prone to making sacrifices. In fact, they had a reputation for putting their own survival first.

Get money and live long enough to spend it, with the first one being optional. Maybe there is something to the conspiracy talk that the large explosion was caused by the Witch Queen and her party and then blamed on the Jägers.

Her own disposition towards the Witch Queen soured since their meeting. Being unceremoniously knocked out rather than simply refused was… uncalled for. Oddly enough, Nevahl understood them.

‘They didn't want us to follow them,’ he said with a shrug after they woke up.

I eventually had to agree, as I realised that given how they arrived here days before us it must mean they had some means of faster travel they wanted to keep secret from us.

‘It might be prudent to try to make amends with the Witch Queen,’ Nevahl advised when they began walking back to their inn. ‘Very few groups on Dwynveia are powerful enough to defeat a full company of Jägers. To do so at a massive numerical disadvantage and without casualties… that’s almost unheard of.’

‘They did manage to kill a god,’ she pointed out.

‘I am now starting to believe that, yes. And even then… every fight presents its own set of challenges. Even assuming the Jägers didn't cause the Warehouse district explosion as some suggest, the mercenaries resorted to what sounds like rocket artillery. No matter how powerful you are, most people wouldn't survive it. Explosions, shrapnel…’

Nevahl didn't need to finish. The Jägers resorted to apocalyptic measures to stop the Witch Queen. And failed.

What kind of monsters are they?

Caeileera - Day 23 - 103 Days Remain.

Watching Lilyth during her afternoon naps was always a fun experience. She looked so peaceful lying rolled up into a ball in a sunbeam. Fluffy and Chirpy would usually accompany her, while Veenaya was more of a wildcard, being quite fond of exploring her new surroundings.

Usually, we wouldn't bother the sunpatch squad, but sometimes Aki or I would develop an… urge. Like I did that day. So, following the blue-haired light bug’s example, I lay down behind Lilyth, wrapped my hands around her and whispered how much I loved her into her ear. As usual, at first she became agitated by this interruption, but soon my presence soothed her and she drifted back to sleep.

By then, over seven days had passed since we left Denyr and it would be an understatement to say that, despite the fairly leisurely pace we had adopted not to overstress Sav, all of us were exhausted.

Truth be told, both of our godfuckers weren't handling the distances that well, but Lilyth's constitution has been slowly improving over the weeks, while Sav… well… her leg was only getting worse, so when our Jelly recommended she grab a walking stick the medic didn't protest all that much.

The state both of them are in only makes me wonder how much time we have before one or more of us join them or, worse, die? We got lucky fighting the Jägers and no one was irreparably hurt, but we have to be lucky all the time, while our enemies need to be lucky once, and, sure, Ere did us a solid, but she made no promises about future deals and they would probably be just as difficult as this one.

So, as you can imagine the question of “should we have accepted the Princess’s quest” was weighing heavily on our minds. We would be just as exhausted, but at least we’d have a concrete direction, and one with a lesser chance of randomly wandering into danger at that.

Instead, we were just slowly dragging ourselves to a place called the County of Halnyie as the next stop after we visited the Imperial ruins that Prince Vikker had suggested we check out. The place, remnants of a small town that used to house some regional administration buildings, did look promising at first but it had been so thoroughly looted over the centuries that there was little useful left there. and the only thing left were some faded records. Lilyth described most of them as "valuable but useless”, as they contained some historical harvest data. I was confused as to why she regarded them as valuable, but maybe I was missing something. We did end up getting a potential lead though, a reference to another Royal Magical Agriculture Institute facility in the Barony of Serrezht, south of Halnyie. It was a shot in the dark, but it was all we had.

And who knows what horrors await us there.

Still, that was a problem for the future Caeileera. For the present me all that mattered was lazying away in the sun with the woman I loved.

Aki is right. She is so soft and warm…