Chapter 42 - Strategic Overview, FUBAR

Note :

Adding the map again so you don't have to go to the post where the update version was put. I'll probably do the same for RR (provided I remember).

After this chapter, it's 372 for The Fallen World (yes, the much talked about Beach Episode) in the queue, and then chapter 43.

Yesterday was absolutely awful for professional reasons, but it seems to be solved, at least for now.

Chapter 42

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

Sapphiria looked at the maps in utter fascination. Thankfully she didn't have to disguise the fact that she was basically scanning them, as curiosity was more than expected in this case.

"This is...fascinating." She said. And it was. "How accurate are those maps?"

"Decently so. But I wouldn't want to go on a trade expedition with them." Said Malry, before shrugging at Sapphiria's questionning gaze. "Trade maps were hard to come by when we set out. Most of them aren't standardized, they're more like accumulated knowledge, jealously guarded by guilds and companies. They'd been long requisitioned by the army. We got what we could, and to be honest, what was good enough to get everyone to safety."

"Which was also good enough to avoid walking straight into a Bane army." Kalia gestured at a few of the other maps. Those looked extremely worn, and while the style was similar, there was a...precision to them. If Sapphiria had to guess, these ones were drawn by engineers, not scholars. They were also on a much smaller scale, showing what had to be the path leading to the valley. "We had some of the maps of the northern imperial expeditions in storage. It's how we knew where the outpost was and that it should probably still be standing."

Sapphiria's eyes narrowed.

"You didn't have a world map worth a damn, but you had detailed maps of a half forgotten valley in the middle of nowhere?" Not to mention how to get to the pass leading into it. Though they were probably hellishly outdated, and that explained the ones they'd drawn after coming here, like the one for the pass itself.

Kalia coughed, as Malry sighed.

"Well, it may be that the Magistracy had...views upon the valley and perhaps Icerend."

"What?"

Malry spoke up.

"She means the Magistracy had broken its teeth on trying to expand its borders by force and was looking to revive the expeditions north."

"And you were involved with that project?"

Kalia shrugged.

"They didn't really care all that much about me. The person they did want was Gregor. He was alive back then, remember? Well, not alive, but you get what I mean."

"Right." It was probably a good thing to remember that the old skeleton had probably been alive for longer than even her mom. If she believed their dating system. A little bit of prodding had revealed they seemed to use a terran standard calendar, but she couldn't exactly go and ask 'hey how many days are in a month?' "Was he involved with the previous expedition?"

"No, but he heard of it and more importantly he's intensely familiar with how the Empire operated back then. He was supposed to be an advisor for helping set up the expedition. But then the Bane happened and...well, it fell by the wayside."

"I see." She looked at Teman, Malry's brother. "Hey, it felt like I haven't seen you in forever."

"That probably is because you have not." The young man smiled. "I am not much of a warrior, nor a logistician."

"Right, a scholar."

"Indeed. Something that is perhaps not the most applicable of skillset in our particular situations, so I tend to offer my undifferenciated labor where it is needed. A set of hands is a set of hands after all, and if I free someone more capable for an important taks, then all the better."

"Wait, why did the Kingdom send you in the first place anyway? Weren't you there as an advisor or something?"

Kalia smiled mirthlessly as Malry grimaced.

"Why yes Teman." Said the mage-magistrate. "Do enlighten our dear Hero. Why were you sent?"

The young man cleared his throat.

"Well, it may be that due to the Bane's advance, the Kingdom believed it would be in the interest of the fight against the overwhelming foe to secure any and all knowledge that would have potential application to the war effort."

"My, my, how polite." Kalia shook her head. "Long story short, he was officially here to advise us on better integrating with the kingdom, and me on being a noble, heraldry, all that crap, but in truth he was here to pillage the libraries and mage towers." She nodded towards Malry. "Hence why they sent this duo, the scholar and the mage. Well Malry mostly so we would take them seriously, since they seem to think that we consider anyone who can't wield magic to be lower than dirt."

"Hey, that's not-" Started Malry, before Sapphira coughed.

"Apologies for interrupting, but...if you were grabbing all of that knowledge, those books, scrolls, whatever, do you still have them?"

There was a short silence as they exchanged looks, and shrugs.

"Most of them were shipped off well before we had to evacuate." Said Teman. "What was left was either things Kalia had hidden from us, like those maps-" The mage-magistrate looked vaguely sheepish. "-as well as things we weren't able to requisition. There wasn't much, and given that it wasn't very heavy and potentially highly useful, we kept most of it. The maps, especially, as they became extremely important when we realized that marching west was no longer an option."

"I see. So, where did you say the Bane were?"

Kalia leaned forward, and tapped several spots on the map.

"Last time we heard anything, which was a while ago, mind you, they had laid siege to Exacor, the fortress city on the border between the Magistracy and the Prefecture of Umbra."

"Right, we covered that, I remember."

"I think Exacor should still be holding. It's greatest advantage is that it's in one hell of a terrain. They can't mass infantry assaults like they could when they took Mardecan."

Sapphiria blinked.

"What do you mean?"

"Exacor at a crossroads between two rivers and a lake." Explained Teman. "It is of rather high humidity and, in effect, a marshland."

"Ah." Right, and with low tech, that would be hell to go through. "Couldn't the undead just...walk through the water?"

"Sure." Said Kalia. "But what about the mud? And even if they power their way through, it would break up any infantry advance. That's not even mentionning dragging artillery through there. Besides, their main force is south, and it's the one that worries me." She tapped the south of the map. "They landed an entire damned Armada on Kamer during the opening stages. Massacred the entire city's population, and then used Landing, the Convergence, to bring them all back as disposable cannon fodder. They used that to batter down Mardecan." She sighed. "Of course, our army was halfway to marching to its relief when a second fleet punched through ours and assaulted Trunevald. We did the best we couldn we really did, but there were just too many."

Sapphiria saw tears well up in the mage-magistrate's eyes, and she felt herself reaching out, almost despite herself, and-

Kalia took a deep, shuddering breath.

"But the fall of the capital bought us time. Time to get the population out. Most of the archmages died there, but we were able to move the refugees through towards Exacor. Most of them anyway..."

"I see. So now that Mardecan has fallen?"

Kalia sighed, and tapped the map.

"They were already closing in on Agylvan from both angles, no way it held. They probably sold their lives dearly, if the garrison didn't manage or wish to evacuate, but either way it's gone. That means the Western Confederation and the Free Cities northward. The Confederation...they relied on alliances, diplomacy and a superb heavy cavalry. None of those are gonna be worth a damn against the Bane."

"Why not? Couldn't cavalry just dance around them?"

Kalia laughed out loud.

"You really are an artificer, aren't you? Always assuming everything has as much endurance as your machines. Horses need rest, food, and they don't exactly have a great deal of mobility or endurance when they're covered in armor plating. The Bane can just march, day and night. They'll eventually run down any cavalry force you could possibly throw at them. They're going to sweep through the Heart Plains like a storm. No, the Confederation will try to make its stand at Marketville." Kalia's expression was all she needed to say about her thoughts on how successful that would be. "Thankfully at least, we have the Free Cities. They have an extremely strong naval tradition, and their cities are fortified to hell. if anything will stop the Bane south of the Prefecture, it's them."

"You're placing a lot of faith in them it seems."

Kalia smiled.

"I've been there. Besides, faith is all we got left. Well, faith and you."

Sapphiria blushed slightly.

"Right." She coughed as Teman's eyebrow rose, and Malry seemed to smile slightly. "Well, hopefully we can rely on more tangible things in the future."

"Mana would be a good start." Said Malry. "Herbs can do a lot, but they can't do everything. I'm making balms, salves and remedies as fast as the foraging parties can get me the ingredients, and I've got everyone more or less stabilized, but if we get hit like that again I won't be able to save half as many people, even with your assistance."

"Right, of course. I've started working on the vehicle's design, but there is much work left to do."

"That's unsurprising. We'll need to get something together on our end as well."

"No doubt. One of the things I might need help from is one of your logging groups. I'm going to need the area near the tunnel entrance cleared so I can begin assembly."

"Won't that be...visible to the Bane?" Asked Tamen, a well concealed quaver of fear in his voice.

"Probably not. But given how many parts, heavy parts, I'm going to need to get to that thing, I don't think moving it away will be worth it. Plus it's not going to be tall, just a glorified shack so it doesn't get wrecked by the weather, and I can keep working on it with my golems."

"We'll get right on that." Promised Kalia. "If nothing else, we need to work on the trail a bit, and it won't hurt to give the guards there some more visibility by clearing the nearby area. We'll lose some logging efficiency, but thanks to you we can afford it."

They all nodded, the siblings having been brought up to date on the new heaters. Well, the broad strokes anyway.

"Thanks. I really appreciate it. I've been working on getting some more equipment running." No need to tell them she was preparing to build entire smelters. "I've also been...relocating the minecart rails in the mines to make use of them. Hopefully it will make bringing supplies up to you easier, and smooth out the construction process."

Kalia's eyebrow rose.

"It certainly would, though your small vehicles have seemed capable enough."

"They are rather...expensive to make compared to a minecart, and comparatively have lower capacity." Which for that matter, was true.

"Fair enough. I wonder..." Kalia tapped her cheek in thought. "If we cleared the trail, could you...draw a line all the way to Astralis?"

Sapphiria blinked.

"I...might be able to. But it would be complicated, especially with the snow coming. Keeping the track clear from the tunnel mouth to the shack might already be a bit of a pain, and it'll probably be short enough that I could cover them. The whole length to the town?"

A train could do that, certainly. Probably would need a specialized variant with bulldozer blades and such, but she had that in her database.

But a makeshift minecart? No way, no how. And scaling up to a full on train wasn't an option just yet. Not only because she needed the resources to make the snowpiercer, but also because she really didn't have the amount of cargo moving back and forth to justify a project of that size.

For now, at least.

"Damn. Alright, fair enough. Sorry, it's just that having your golems or my people haul stuff by hand isn't exactly a great use of resources."

"That's a good point. If you enlarge the trail however, I might be able to use my more autonomous vehicles."

"They can deal with the snow?"

"And then some." They weren't quite the snowpiercer's level of 'this planet is a frozen hellscape and I don't care', but they could operate damned near anywhere on a planet that was at least somewhat viable for terraforming. So long as you didn't take Sol as a example of what was terraformable or not, since for some stars forsaken reason her mom had decided to make every single rock that could hold an atmosphere habitable, before the Federation's centuries of industralization and explosive population growth and covered almost every world and moon in the system in metal. Even the gas giants were pockmarked with high altitude habitats and orbited by unfathomable amounts of infrastructure. "They'll do fine, trust me." They couldn't punch their way through trees, but they'd deal with soft, white powder. "So long, of course, as the path can accomodate them."

"Give me the dimensions you require, and I'll make certain of it. Though, honestly, given the fact that we'll probably need to bring back the lumber from the site near the tunnel, I think it'll be plenty large."

"Better be safe than sorry though." Sapphiria sighed as she got pinged. "And I'm afraid I must also get going soon."

"Of course. We've kept you here long enough as it is."

Not nearly long enough, in her considered opinion, but she wasn't going to voice that.

"It's no trouble. Now, about the dimensions of the trail..."