Half an hour was all Jake Smithson took to figure out that the situation in Evergreen was worse than he could ever have imagined."This is going to royally suck."
Song"s explanation was able to get every important detail Jake needed to know, and by the end of it, Jake only asked one question.
"So… it"s war then, huh?"
"Exactly. Two days after we sent our people to the Grand Duelists for help, Froad struck," Song answered.
It was a unilateral preemptive strike: a declaration of war in all but name.
Evergreen was forced to act in its defense.
"And those guys bringing their pets with them?"
"The Hunters" Guild."
Jake nodded in understanding about the war: based on what he saw on the road from Kingsville to Carter, a lot of divisions were in either overt or covert conflict with one another.
What Song said had solved a part of the puzzle within his mind, but he still had a significant number of pieces missing to solve it properly.
First and foremost was the Hunters" Guild: he and Liam gathered some information about it back in Kingsville during the evaluation of novice awakeners, but they were few and mostly confined to various rumors.
He ended up voicing his thoughts aloud.
"What made the Hunters" Guild get involved with this war?"
"So far, it"s still…" Song replied, trying to come up with an answer, but his shoulders fell after a moment. "We don"t know."
Jake tried to hide his disappointment, but he saw the vice master of Evergreen slump a little; such a reaction was only natural to someone of his stature: it was not a good sign that he didn"t know several key details of the war they were in.
"Well, what now? You"re not saying that we"re surrounded from all sides by the enemy, right?"
"That"s exactly the predicament we are in now, Jake Smithson."
"Then how were we able to make it near your town"s main gate?" Jake asked, confused because they had to go over a mountain to get to Evergreen – if the enemy surrounded them, how would they have made it across?
"They decided to let you pa.s.s," Song explained, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place for Jake.
He nodded.
"They let us through on purpose and now locked us in here with you, then."
"Exactly; let you pa.s.s then lock you in so you cannot return to your masters with this information."
"There"s no way out, is there?"
"Not with overwhelming force, no."
Jake considered their situation: no way out, with the enemies not intending to let them out, the only way out is to force their way, but with the power of the enemy division and those allied with them…
Song noticed Jake"s thoughts and asked him a question.
"The Grand Duelists sent the two of you?" he asked carefully, the gravity of the situation a bigger priority than hurting the pride of the two awakeners before him.
Jake took a steadying breath before giving Song another nod.
"Yep, it"s just me and Liam," he answered bitterly. "If we had known that this was going on, we would have brought more people or come up with something better… my apologies."
"I should apologize as well," Song said sincerely. "Bringing you to Evergreen in circ.u.mstances like this is tantamount to a death sentence."
"They know Liam and I are from the Grand Duelists, right?"
"I a.s.sume so; we only have the Grand Duelists to ask for help."
"All the more reason why they"ve locked us up, despite knowing where we"re from…" Jake said, and his voice trailed off as he began thinking: what is this blockade for? Do they aim to exterminate Evergreen, while also knowing the Grand Duelists are protecting them?
What purpose would this serve?
The biggest pieces of the puzzle in Jake"s head loomed in the distance when Song replied to him.
"They"re going to try and finish us off in one fell swoop before your division realizes what"s going on, Jake Smithson."
***
"Great. Just f.u.c.king great. We"re at war with unknown forces, faulty intelligence, and I"m perhaps the only uncompromised source of logistics in this dump," Jake thought, summarizing the dismal situation he and Liam were in.
"We only know two-thirds of our opponents: Froad and the Hunters" Guild. What about those masked men, where are they from?
Oh yeah, and the worst part here: we"re cut off from the outside world, meaning I can"t go and run to Carter for help if need be.
If Evergreen is the target division, why are they investing this much in this theater alone? Why this much resources, why this many alliances?
With all this manpower, they could have taken care of a larger division than Evergreen… it"s like shipping toilet paper by air mail.
Something is missing.
I"ll know exactly what to do when I find it, but in the meantime, what am I going to do?
There"s only one good answer here."
Instinct gave Jake only one good answer: hold fast and stand your ground.
"Well, s.h.i.t. What was supposed to be an easy a.s.signment ended up with me and Liam smack-dab in someone else"s war.
How the h.e.l.l did I get involved in this s.h.i.t? d.a.m.n it."
Jake took a breath before thinking further.
"Holding the fort is the best out of a bad lot of alternatives: if we hold on and the Grand Duelists don"t hear news from us from a long time, they"ll think something has gone wrong and send people to see what"s happening.
Once we get to report what"s going on, the cavalry is going to show up, and that will be one problem taken care of.
Still, though… there are other, more pertinent concerns, like which divisions are backing Froad? For now, bringing in help would take care of Evergreen"s most urgent concerns."
"You can save your thoughts for later, it is dangerous out here," Song said, and led Jake and Liam to his stronghold. "You"ll understand more when we get to Evergreen Castle."
***
Evergreen Castle is located on a plain surrounded by mountains on all sides: the enemies are surrounding this plain with many camps up in the mountains, with the plains still the domain of the Evergreen division.
"This is horrible… so this is what war is like on this world…" Jake thought as he was led through the castle by Song.
The atmosphere within the castle was quite alien, and a sensation Jake never experienced before was emanating from the place.
Numerous injured, constant chaos, the smell of healing potions and the smell of ozone when healing magic is being cast… everything was happening all at once.
Still, though…
"Their bodies are broken, but their spirits aren"t. How?"
…despite the despair permeating Evergreen Castle, the awakeners within were stubbornly holding onto their hope, even in the desperate situation they were in.
As soon as they swept through one of the larger pa.s.sageways, awakeners began to make their way towards Song.
"Vice Master has returned!"
"The outer walls have been repaired."
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
Jake figured it out: their division"s vice-master was singlehandedly giving hope to the people of Evergreen.
"He"s their spiritual anchor. Skilled, handsome, charismatic…"
He continued to watch the awakeners of Evergreen help out their Vice-Master.
"Please, take as much time to rest as you can," Song answered. "There will be another attack on the castle soon, it has been half a day since the last time they tried for the walls. Rest your wearied bodies, we will need all of your energy for our next defense."
"Yes, sir! Can"t wait to send these Froad b.a.s.t.a.r.ds packing again!"
The awakener laughed joyously, and Song continued on his way towards the keep after he gave the soldier an encouraging pat on the arm.
"We"re going to fight this as hard as we can – they never expected us to do this well," Song said, anger beginning to color his tone. "You know what? I don"t want this war to end like this, and I"ll make sure it doesn"t, by any means necessary."
"What do you mean?" Jake asked.
"I want to win this fight," Song replied, his hands beginning to shake with anger. "This d.a.m.ned war has already taken the lives of nearly a hundred of my awakeners and injured countless more. I can"t let this war end in this way for them."
"I see..." Jake said as they finally entered the keep, the death of a hundred people keeping him from saying anything further.
After going down several halls, Song gestured to one of the guest rooms.
"The both of you can stay here. The Master is not in a good way; I"m afraid you won"t be able to meet him for some time."
***
After Jake and Liam established themselves in the guest room, Song presided over a meeting with the elite awakeners in his division.
"Just two awakeners from the Grand Duelists? And fresh novices, at that?"
"That"s so."
"We"ve been doing our best to hold out while waiting for the Grand Duelists to arrive, but we only get two novice awakeners for our trouble?"
"It"s not their fault," Song explained. "These two were sent to mediate the war, and didn"t expect this to meet them; we didn"t expect this, either."
"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" one of the troops asked, the hope draining out of his voice.
Murmurs filled the meeting room, and despair began to overtake them, as they were all filled with hope that they would pull through in spite of this situation was that the Grand Duelists would show up aid the defense of their division, and maybe turn the tide.
It was the sheer strength of their division that made a miracle like that possible – but being sent two awakeners who just finished their tutorials not too long ago?
"Igor, what the h.e.l.l, man? You could have brought more or better guys…" one of them asked Igor.
It was Igor who had a skill that opened pathways that lead to life or death: something akin to foresight.
This skill was why he was asking Igor that question. And was the situation really that bad that Igor"s skill made a deliberately dangerous choice?
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"The skill didn"t work properly," Igor whispered, and the last bit of hope the troops had just flew out of the room.
"Have we truly been abandoned?" one of the troops asked when she heard of Igor"s mysterious skill not working properly at such a pivotal time, and talk of death and despair filled the meeting room immediately.
It took less than five seconds of such talk before Song wrested control of the conversation back to more important subjects by slamming his palms down on the table.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Nothing has changed. We are still here to do the same as before. Fight, kill and win. Nothing else matters. Understood?"
The determination was clear in his voice, and he intended to fight this all the way to the end.
"Understood," the troops replied, rather reluctantly before making their way out of the meeting.
The vice-master"s charisma wasn"t enough to completely remove the despair the troops were feeling.
"The lowered morale is an even bigger problem than the Grand Duelists being locked out from helping us."
Song knew that a catastrophic loss of morale would lead to defeat and death.
That is the value of morale in war.
"They didn"t buy it completely. I"m at my wit"s end here. What can I do here?" Song thought, wanting to find ways to raise his troops" morale, and ended up hearing a strange cry from the guest room.
"Oh yeah, it"s time for me earn my keep! I now have all the s.e.xy I need to start bringing in the big bucks! Get your gla.s.ses on and watch carefully, because your boy is about to BALL OUT OF CONTROL!"