Chapter 315 - Triangulation

Reivyn stared out at the vast expanse below. The air at the top of the mountain was cold and crisp, but his high Vitality, even with the penalty he was currently under, ensured that it didn’t bother him. It was like noticing the light was slightly dimmer inside as compared to outside. It was noticeable, but didn’t really matter all that much. His Vitality could handle much, much colder temperatures before he needed to worry.

The mountaintop wasn’t snow-capped all year round. It wasn’t quite that high. That being said, it was also on the edge of a ridge with a steep cliff leading to lands far below. The land stretched out for miles and miles. Reivyn felt like he could see half the Region from this vantage point.

The Region was actually much larger than that, but it was the feeling that he got. With his Perception, he could see the enemy forces moving about below. He couldn’t see individual soldiers, but he could see the large blocks of platoons and companies moving about, and he could see the bases they had set up.

He couldn’t spot the location the incursion originated from, but he could see clear signs of movement originating from a common destination out of sight beyond the horizon. He could use that intel to triangulate where they were coming from on a map. He took out a parchment and sketched a map with the lines and enemy positions clearly expressed.

Done with that simple task, he took a moment to bask in the beauty of the Realm. There were myriad colors painting a vivid picture of the landscape below. Greens and blues made up the majority, but there were also many different shades of the different colors.

Kailey and Riley would love to paint something like this, Reivyn thought. If it wasn’t so potentially dangerous and so far of a journey, I would consider bringing them here just for this view alone. I know what I’ll do.

Reivyn had nowhere near the Skills necessary to capture the vista before him with a painting, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t sketch something crude. He pulled out a larger piece of canvass and set to work capturing a facsimile of the landscape. It would be enough for the twins to make their own interpretation.

After he was finally satisfied, he rolled it up and placed it in his storage pouch. He once more gazed out at the landscape, focusing on the blocks of enemy positions.

I could direct the entire war effort from here. I could have Kefira stand by my side and send messages through Space Magic, coordinating the entire effort. I can view all the pieces on the board, anticipate their movements, and cut off their actions before they even make the decisions…

He shook his head to clear those thoughts from his mind. He wasn’t here to win the war. He would pass his thoughts on to the Commanding General of the fort and his company commander and let them make the decisions. Even if he did take the opportunity, he didn’t have the position and trust of the other commanders to listen to his orders. If the Commanding General was in charge, though…

He would have to talk to Kefira about it. She wasn’t technically part of the mercenaries and had no place in the chain of command. She couldn’t be ordered, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t participate. She would likely volunteer to help assist with issuing messages between the commanders on the front lines if asked, though.

I have a mission for her, first, though.

Now that he was done contemplating the strategic implications of their position, Reivyn turned his attention to his System Notifications. Now was as good a time as any to go over his gains over the past couple of weeks.

[Skills Leveled Up!]

[Tier 1:]
[Horsemanship (36 ->37)]
[Map Making (30 -> 35)]
[Map Reading (26 ->32)]
[Memorization {Social} (22 ->24)]
[Observation (67 ->70)]
[Shading (7 ->8)]
[Tutor (27 ->38)]

[Tier 2:]
[Alcohol Tolerance (11 ->13)]
[Gab (25 ->29)]
[Meditation (53 ->55)]
[Teach (35 ->40)]

[Tier 3:]
[Command (60 ->61)]
[Commanding Shout (45 ->48)]
[Eagle Eye (19 ->24)]
[Inspire (66 ->67)]
[Night Vision (57 ->65)]
[Silver Tongue (19 ->24)]

[Tier 4:]
[Charm (5 ->7)]

[Tier 5:]
[Aura (22 ->24)]
[Clandestine Prodigy (40 ->43)]

[Tier 6:]
[Regeneration (24 ->25)]

He hadn’t made too many advances in his Skills, overall, but he had gained Levels in several that had been stagnant for quite some time. It was the first time in a while that his Map Skills had gained any Levels. Humorously, his Alcohol Tolerance saw a boost with having to drink wine with the Commanding General and other officers on occasion.

His Teaching Skills saw the greatest benefit from his training of the Special Unit. Not only did his Teaching Skills go up by much more than his other Skills, but the underlying Skills he was teaching also saw a boost. There was no other reason he saw a three point Level gain in his Clandestine Prodigy Skill, otherwise.

Of larger note, his Regeneration Skill finally broke through the first threshold. His body’s natural fight against the debilitating weakness he was suffering did wonders for its passive increase. It was very likely that he would have had to heal through several serious injuries to overcome the first obstacle, but it was almost like he got a free pass.

He didn’t think he would get a second freebie with the Level 50 threshold, though. It was a double-edged sword. As his Skill increased, the time for him to fully recover would go down, and then he wouldn’t have enough time to reach the threshold before his body fully recovered on its own. There was a way to force the issue, but he wasn’t one for intentional self-mutilation just to increase a Skill. Intentionally exhausting oneself for training wasn’t the same thing as stabbing oneself in the leg.

He dismissed the Notification window and the thoughts of his Skill Levels from his mind. He turned to the guards standing at attention in the little gazebo erected on the top of the mountain. They had been stiff as boards for as long as he had been present, even though he had told them to relax. They were probably too nervous to go about their regular business with a “high ranking” officer present.

Reivyn nodded to the guards and headed to the trap door. One of the guards jumped forward and lifted the door for him. There was a simple staircase leading down into the depths of the caves inside the mountain.

“Thanks,” Reivyn waved his appreciation to the man. He just shook his head when he tried to hand him a torch. “Don’t need it.”

The guard gave him a quizzical look before shrugging and placing the torch back in its bracket. Reivyn descended down into the darkness, his Divine Sense informing him of where the steps were.

His Night Vision Skill was gaining Levels by leaps and bounds even though he could see with perfect clarity in the pitch black. There was some sort of feedback loop the System was recognizing, and Reivyn wasn’t going to complain. His Divine Sense had a limit, and his improved Night Vision extended beyond his other Skill’s range.

The stairs looped around like it was a tower built into the interior of the mountain. It took several minutes to reach the bottom, and the stairwell opened up into a larger cavern with a couple of portals swirling into themselves on the far end. There were guards stationed at a little makeshift outpost next to the portals, though Reivyn didn’t think it was really needed at this time.

Usually, there would be Adventurers and others with permission slips to visit the Dungeons, and the local garrison had the duty of safeguarding the portals and regulating who went in. Now that there was an invasion of the Region, there were no groups delving the Dungeons other than the local squads on rotation.

As far as Reivyn knew, the soldiers all got a chance to delve the Dungeon with their squads, so there was no reason for any of them to sneak into one of the Dungeons on their own. He would probably bring it up to the Commanding General. They were probably standing guard there just because it was what they always did and didn’t really think about it. There was no reason to continue a practice just because “that’s the way it’s done.” At some point, some critical thinking would need to take place.

Now that the Mercenary Company had arrived, they had been integrated into the rotation, as well. It was part of the agreement their Mercenary Corps had made with the local empire. Access to Dungeons was almost a must, unless there really just wasn’t any way to make it happen. It was one of the reasons their company had been sent to this fort. The existence of the incredibly fortunate strategic positioning of the fort was just a bonus.

Apparently, the cavern and Dungeons had existed all alone in the dark for who knows how many years until the mining expedition of the local empire had accidentally found them. Reivyn had always known that there was a fixed number of Dungeons in any Region, and the Region had supposedly already had all of their Dungeons discovered.

That just begs the question: how many more Dungeons are there in each Region, hidden below ground or in some other inaccessible location, that we just don’t know about? Someone will need to discover some sort of method to sense the magics of the Dungeons in order to unearth such hidden treasures. Maybe Kefira can study them and figure something out with her Space Affinity.

It made sense that the Dungeons would leave some sort of trace on the veil. They were like little bubbles attached to the outer edge of the Realm, after all. There was also a reason the monster had been able to trace them in the Tier 5 Region through the Dungeon. It bore discussing.

Reivyn made his way through the tunnels leading out of the mountain, leaving the Dungeon portals behind. Now wasn’t the time for him to worry about the Dungeons. His Special Unit Squad had already delved the Dungeons once, split in half due to the restrictions on Party size. He hadn’t accompanied them. He didn’t think it would be a good idea for them to rely on his strength, and he wanted to go with his own Party, anyway. It wouldn’t be the full Party like on their expedition, but they were mostly all there: Refix, Kefira, Serilla, Teilon, and Kimberly. Kimberly wasn’t interested in rehashing her experience in the military, so she had no official duties with the Mercenary Corps, but she joined them as part of Kefira’s entourage.

Reivyn eventually stepped out into the sunlight, appearing from the cave inserted into the wall behind and off to the side of the headquarters building. There was a pair of soldiers standing guard at the entrance to the caves, as well. Reivyn simply nodded to them as he walked past.

He briefly glanced at Teilon overseeing the training of the Special Unit in their sectioned off training area of the parade grounds. Yerrik was there participating with the combat training, taking advantage of the opportunity like Reivyn had hinted toward him. The man didn’t participate in all of the training, with his mission being learning to guard against what the Special Unit was training in, but he dabbled. Having the Skills would only increase his understanding and ability to thwart them, after all.

Reivyn quickly walked past the soldiers training and patrolling. He entered the headquarters building and greeted the soldiers in passing that were carrying out their own duties. He approached the general’s aide.

“Do you have a large map of the Region I can have?” Reivyn asked.

“Certainly,” the captain answered. He rummaged in his desk for a moment before procuring a rolled up scroll. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Major?”

“Nope, that’s it,” Reivyn said, patting the scroll in his hand. “Thanks.”

After bidding farewell to the aide, Reivyn made his way to his quarters where Kefira, Serilla, and Kimberly were hanging out. He spent as much time as he could with Kefira when he could, but he still had duties that he had to take seriously.

He entered the room, the three girls looking up from their seats briefly, and made his way to Kefira. He unrolled the large map of the Region and pulled out his own crude map he had made from atop the mountain. He placed them side by side, and as Kefira watched from the side, he transferred the lines he had seen to the larger map.

After filling in the locations of the enemy positions he had spied and the lines of movement, he extended those lines beyond what he had been able to see from his vantage until they all met in one place way off in the corner of the Region. He circled the spot and pushed his finger down on it.

“That’s where we need to strike,” Reivyn declared. The other two girls broke off their conversation to look toward Reivyn with Kefira. “I’m guessing this is where they have their teleport circle set up. If we get there and disable it, we cut off their reinforcements and supplies.

“Can you create a Space corridor from here to there?” He turned to Kefira and asked.

She leaned over the map, studying it. She scrunched up her face as she did some mental calculations to gauge the actual distances involved. She could 100% create a corridor that spanned the distance, but she would need to combine two precise points, something she hadn’t done yet. The previous corridors she had created had been random.

“I’ll need to study the map more, and get myself more intimately familiar with the area,” she answered after a while. “I’m confident I can get us where we need to be, but it will probably be an approximate location in a range.”

She leaned forward and circled a relatively small area on the map near the destination. It was small on the map, but based on the scale, it was still hundreds of square miles in size.

“That will have to be good enough,” Reivyn nodded his head. “We’ll require you to go with us on this mission. You’re the only one Skilled enough to disable their portal in the way we need. We need to prevent more people from arriving from the other end while leaving an escape route for those still here. If we completely cut off their way out, they’ll fight tooth and nail and increase the casualties considerably. Much better to let them run away than to fight to the bitter end.”

“I think I can do that,” Kefira nodded her head. “I’ll need practice a bit, though. I can make my own teleportation corridors to nowhere and practice making them one-way.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Reivyn nodded his head. “In fact you can make these corridors to deploy our Special Unit on their missions. That’s the way I’ve envisioned using them ever since I saw the mountain and surrounding terrain.

“We’ll spy on the enemy, pick a place to strike, teleport behind their lines, get the mission done, and then trek back to the fort on foot. You’ll get ample practice with your Space Affinity and casting the Teleport Spells, and I’ll be able to tell your mother I kept you safely behind the lines - minus this one little detail with closing their portal. We can leave that out of the official report, if you want.”

“Yeah, we’ll just say you disabled it with your Special Unit. No need to worry my parents any more than is necessary. They would have a fit if they knew I was traipsing about behind enemy lines. They already don’t want me here at all.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Reivyn smiled. He turned his gaze to Serilla. “Right, Serilla?”

Kefira looked over at her friend, quirking a questioning eyebrow. Serilla glared at the two for a moment before sighing.

“I guess I can just not bring it up,” she relented. “If they ask, though, I won’t lie.”

Reivyn nodded, and Kefira smiled.

“That’s fine,” Reivyn said. “As long as it doesn’t come up, everything should be fine.”

“I feel like we’re setting ourselves up to fail, here,” Kefira said. “It’s very reminiscent of ‘what could go wrong?’ The answer is usually, ‘everything. Everything can go wrong.’”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Reivyn waved her concerns off. “We’ll deal with whatever comes when it comes.”