§133 Iredale III

By noon, he was peripherally aware that most of the battalion was ready to leave, taking a good portion of the healer contingent with it, but hadn't gone yet for some reason. Troops were standing around the coaches, waiting. After nearly an hour of that, the prince barged into the clinic. His hat was too tall for the humble building, and its top scraped the ceiling. 

"Do you intend to take the quest?"

"What quest? Your Imperial Highness?" He remembered the courtesy at the last moment. Taylor didn't feel a sense of personal duty to the man, but he still held an office with responsibility. He just wished the prince wouldn't come barging into the room while he was in the middle of healing.

"Don't you watch your logs?"

"Not really." His hands were busy unwrapping a bandage to expose a gash underneath. He had cleaned it the night before and set the muscle to healing, and now they were nearly done. For some wounds, that was safer than trying to heal them all at once, assuming you could keep the wound protected. The remaining gash closed easily under Taylor's touch. The patient was one of the catatonic former slaves, run ragged by weeks or months in the mines. If his injuries had been any more severe, his body wouldn't have been able to withstand the demands of magic.

"Check your logs," demanded the prince, "now."

Quest: [A Princess in Need is a Princess Indeed] Princess Mariella has been kidnapped by Mine Lord Reccared. Rescue the princess for moderate rewards.

"That's unexpected."

"Are you taking it?"

Taylor considered it. He had rescued one princess already and received a minor title for it, buried somewhere under all his other titles. He had no class-based reason for rushing to her aid, but he didn't want to see her come to any harm.

Kidnapping Mariella meant getting through Eterine, which was no easy task. Underneath the attendant's neat blouse and skirt was a steel corset and a well-trained body. Maybe the erstwhile bodyguard had been enslaved while nobody was looking. For that matter, the princess herself could be an enemy now.

But that didn't mesh with the rescue quest. He'd read that, if a princess was captured and changed sides, then her rescue quest was canceled. Completely controlling another person removed them from their lord's roster as minions, broke marriages, and otherwise nullified allegiances recognized by the system. Enslaving her would almost certainly cancel the quest, or at least change the text.

So, what was the point of taking a princess without enslaving her?

"Well?" Prince Wolson was getting impatient. "Speak now!"

"How many people can see this quest?"

Impatience tugged at Wolson's face. "Every classed fighter and leader in the battalion. So if you want to take it, you'll have competition. The emperor decreed our family is not to interfere with the," his voice dropped, "Divine Envoy. I need to know your plans."

Right. Dux Twilight was increasingly public, but his Divine Envoy title was mostly a secret. Plenty of people guessed he had close connections to the gods because of the divine figures he made, but the title remained closely held.

"It would be my privilege to aid my imperial sibling," Wolson continued in a normal voice. "But I can not go against certain forces."

"I appreciate you asking first, Your Highness. Has it occurred to you that this is a ploy? This Reccared fellow wants you to do something unwise. Or, he wants to fracture your forces by encouraging ambitious soldiers to pursue the rewards."

"Yes, we know that already. Commander Bolan and I have spoken on the matter. You haven't answered my question yet. What are you going to do?"

It sounded like Mariella had a prince and a battalion coming for her. She didn't need Taylor. "You should already have a group quest for this expedition. Just make the rescue a bonus quest, accept it on behalf of the battalion, and share the rewards. The most important thing is to keep your forces together and win. "

The prince closed the door behind him, separating him from the guards who were always nearby. "I don't know how to do that," he confessed, "and there isn't an expedition quest."

"Why didn't you make one?"

The prince's face flashed anger for a moment before settling back into its usual expression of imperial impatience. "That isn't how it works. I don't have the right titles."

Taylor almost blurted out, "I'll fix it!" but elected for more diplomatic language. If the man weren't an imperial, he would have just done the deed and left him astonished. It was certainly more fun that way.

"If your Imperial Highness will allow me to assist, I can do both. The personal rewards will be lower, but the chances of success will be higher. If achieving the goal is more important than personal glory," Taylor shrugged and left the rest unsaid. A prince worthy of the name would understand. And, this one had a lot of cleaning up to do. This entire mess and all the lives lost so far could likely be traced to his attempt to acquire cheap iron for a secret military project.

The prince's struggle was evident in his restless eyes and the way he huffed when the decision was made. "I've heard you have extraordinary favor with Knexenk. If you can perform such a feat, then I gladly accept your help."

Taylor washed his hands in a basin. "You need a goal that's easy to state. And it helps to have a snappy name for the quest. Knexenk appreciates a sense of style."

Minutes later, after Taylor had whispered enough Mi'iri commands at Wolson's class and prodded it gently into cooperation, every class-holding member of the battalion discovered they were on a new quest.

Quest: [Menace Of The Iron Hills] Defeat Mine Lord Reccared and release those he enslaved. A bonus is awarded for each enslaved citizen recovered alive.

Subquest: [A Princess In Need Is A Princess Indeed] Rescue Princess Mariella from Mine Lord Reccared.

Knexenk took the hint and spun out several targeted subquests: one for the healers to develop a cure for the previously enslaved; a quest for the local legate to help his neighbors in their time of distress; a magician quest to locate and close a rift inside the mines; and several more. Wolson was increasingly uncomfortable as the subquests spooled into his logs.

"I received a Questgiver title and a new tab." The prince scowled. "How are you able to manipulate the goddess? What dark magic did you use?"

"There's no dark magic involved. You know the title I hold. It shouldn't be surprising that I know how to speak to Knexenk. When I finish here, I'll join you in the mines."

"Don't. We have sufficient forces on hand."

"More wouldn't hurt," he said reasonably, "and you don't know how extensive the mines are, or how many enemies you face. Nobody does."

"I forbid it!" Wolson had to make an effort to calm his voice. "Mind your tone with me. Spirits may call you Dux, but to the empire you're a nobody."

"My apologies, Your Imperial Highness." Taylor bowed, just low enough not to be mocking. "I only wish to protect the lives of imperial citizens."

"Then you are more useful here, helping the wounded. The healers tell me you're quite skilled."

"I think you're making a mistake, Your Highness." The prince's face reddened, but Taylor pressed on. "This expedition has not gone the way anyone thought it would, and you should use every resource at hand. Hold nothing back. Use everything and everyone within reach. My army of spirits is nothing to sneeze at."

"Your spirit army serves you, but whom do you serve, Dux Twilight?"

Taylor wasn't sure how he should answer that. The prince wanted him to say the empire, or the church, or the imperial family, anything other than, 'I'm doing whatever I want to do because the gods said I could.'

"I serve the gods' intent, as best I can."

"Pledge yourself to the imperial family, and I'll let you fight for me in the mines."

This was why Taylor didn't want to involve himself with imperials. It always came down to promises of eternal servitude, tests of loyalty, and accusations of treason. Once they were done with him, they would toss him aside in favor of someone else.

"I can't do that, Your Highness. You know I can't."

"Then stay out of the mines. Consider that an imperial order."

Wolson turned on his heel and stormed away, leaving the door open.

Taylor yelled at the prince's back. "You're welcome!" Then, he remembered his manners. "Your Imperial Highness!"

By evening, wounded soldiers started arriving from Sinter, one coach at a time. The frontline clinic in Sinter had two priorities: heal anyone who could be returned to the fight at minimal cost, and stabilize any other injured enough to travel to Iredale. Deliveries of wounded came on a schedule, every thirty minutes, or whenever the carriages were full. Some patients needed a few days of rest and regeneration before they could get out of bed. Others needed weeks to regrow limbs or organs. A few died in transit.

Taylor didn't mind when he got drafted by IEF healers to help with the mayhem. Many patients required surgery. As wonderful as magic was, often it was far safer to make a small incision to remove unwanted fluids or foreign matter than it was to vanish it with magic. Most treatment decisions were rooted in mana efficiency: it was better to expend materials than use mana at an unsustainable rate. For example, the military made a regular practice of treating bone injuries with powders or grafts made from specially prepared monster bone, and kept ample stock on hand. Taylor would know: a fair quantity of his monster parts went to the government. The treatment was expensive, but it cost far less mana and time than using magic alone. Taylor volunteered to handle the carving and shaping of grafts. His handiwork always dropped neatly into place, as if it had grown there.

His main specialty that night was purification. Nearly every wounded soldier had corrupted mana eating away at their wounds. Some of the enemy's weapons were designed to shatter inside the body, leaving corrupted fragments behind. Those were the worst of the corruption cases. Damaged tissue sometimes liquified at his touch, and he had to cut fast enough to get ahead of the spreading decay while blasting the patient with divine magic.

Occasionally, he glanced at the divine figure of Umiña, where she stood watch over their labors in a little shrine he built into the clinic's wall. He didn't usually pray to the gods of Aarden. They were immensely powerful beings tied deeply to the governing laws of the world and weren't prone to interfering in mortal affairs. That's what Knexenk was for, like a keyhole through which the gods could thread a fine wire of influence to poke and prod at the mortals. 

"Umiña guide my hands, make them sure," he prayed to the goddess more than once. For others' sake, he'd take a little goodwill from the goddess if he could get it.

He fully expected the IEF to run out of everything, but the Midway battalion was well supplied. It was the frontline clinic that tended to run short. Every coach that brought wounded left with whatever supplies the Sinter clinic estimated it would run out of next. Coaches rocketed back and forth on the road between Iredale and Sinter at high speed, despite the middling condition of the road. The only thing Iredale's clinic ran out of was mana, and it was mostly the younger healers who suffered.

About four am, the coaches stopped coming so frequently. Taylor lay out a cot and summoned Saria to watch over him while he slept. Thankfully, Simon didn't put him to work that night.

His eyes snapped open at a word from Saria. Morning light rimmed the ill-fitting door. Two hours, by his guess. It wasn't enough, but it was something. 

"Someone is coming for you."

He popped out of bed, drew his sword, and layered enhancements over them both. He wondered who had the gall to try to harm him in the middle of an IEF camp. Mana surged through his body, ready to erase their attacker.

"Not like that!" Saria tried to interrupt him. "It's a messenger."

"I have a message for the messenger," he quipped, grasping his sword. Someone was on the other side of their door, so he ripped it from its hinges with Unseen Hand, surprising the man on the other side. He wore expensive leather head to toe, in Dimmik colors, trimmed in fur. He carried a message tube in one hand. He had a gaze Taylor recognized, one that came from open skies and distant landmarks. The messenger was some kind of flyer for sure.

"Whose message do you bear?!" he commanded the startled flyer. The man's mouth struggled to work.

Saria interjected, "I'm so sorry. He woke up a second ago. He's not usually like this."

"Speak!" he commanded again, and the Dimmik messenger fell to one knee and put one fist on the ground. Taylor didn't like people kneeling at him. First, they knelt, and then they asked for things. All kinds of things.

"Her Grace, Duchess of Dimmik, begs for the aid of Dux Twilight!" He lifted the scroll above his head in both hands, sealed by a round blob of fragrant wax stamped with the image of an orchid that only grew in the Dimmik caldera. The canister shook in the messenger's hands.

"How does her grace know where to find me?"

"I beg your forgiveness, Dux Twilight! My only purpose is to deliver this message and, if Your Grace agrees, ferry you across the border. Please accept this message!"

"Why is he acting like this?"

Saria smirked at him. "I haven't a clue. I think it's entirely normal for powerful magicians to leap out of bed ready to slay the world. Perhaps his experience is different."

"Right." Taylor lowered his greatsword. He didn't remember edging the instrument in force and blue flame, but it was about to catch the dilapidated house on fire. The unfortunate messenger was a young soldier of Dimmik sent over the Rim to deliver a message of unknown contents, and didn't deserve harsh treatment. Taylor reeled in his mana and took the tube.

The duchess wanted his help on her side of the Rim. The mines were more extensive than anyone realized, and monsters had made their way into Dimmik. She couldn't get enough force into place fast enough, but Taylor could.

And, there was another matter, too. It seemed she was in need of a champion.