Eriane was sitting in a sniper"s nest atop a brand new guard tower at 9KCCC (Nine Kings Central Command Camp) when George climbed up the access ladder to join her."How is it?" George asked.
"Hot." Eriane complained. It was in the middle of the afternoon and the guard tower only had a few bare branches overhead for shelter.
"Sorry. I"ll see if I can get people to put more work into the guard towers, but everyone"s busy right now." George winced.
Eriane thought about that for a while, then nudged George. "How you?"
"Me?" George shook his head. "I"m fine. Feeling a bit useless, but I"m healthy."
"Useless?" Eriane"s head twisted to one side quizzically.
"Well, because there"s not much I can do to help." George explained. "We have plenty of experienced and skilled commanders, and even better fighters than me out there. I just approve the receipts and pay for what little I can pay and keep writing letters to ask for help."
Eriane considered. "Help is good."
"It is, but that"s something anyone could do. I"m sure others could do that better too." George mused. "So, yeah, I"m feeling kinda useless."
Eriane thought some more, then helpfully offered George her rifle. "You shoot?"
George barked a laugh. "Not like you can. I"m afraid I"m not very good with rifles or bows. I"m more of a spear or halberd guy."
"Then go poke." Eriane suggested.
"I"m not that good in a battle either. Using my Frame, I can take out a Tier 3, maybe take on a Tier 4 a little, but that"s about it. Compared to all the Tier 5 Slayers out there, that"s not much. I"m basically just one more soldier in an army. There are thousands of others out here who can do the same." George stretched. "Meanwhile, Darrian and Mindy are charging straight into the thick of battle and n.o.body raises a word in protest. They"re tearing into Tier 6 Spectres on their own, not to mention their Comrades. I need a big Comrade."
"Tim." Eriane said.
"Tim? For a Comrade?" George blinked.
Eriane shook her head and pointed. "Tim. Dragon."
George turned and suddenly saw a ma.s.sive creature covering the sky in the far horizon. He gulped. "Tim is sitting on a Tier 8 Great Dragon! Is that… Mal"thor-dras? No wait, Darian said Mal"thor is still sleeping, and Tim was investigating the labyrinth at Fal"Herim. That means… Khar"al-dras?!"
Below them, someone else noticed the incoming creature. "DRAGON!!!!"
There were shouts and screams erupting almost by instinct, but George yelled, "It"s a friendly! That dragon"s on OUR side!"
As if to emphasize his point, Kor"ag-dras raised his head from where he rested and roared.
In response, Khar"al-dras roared back as if in greeting. The two roars shook the air and the guard tower almost fell over.
"We definitely need to fix up the towers better." George grimaced, sweat dripping from his face as the tower stabilized.
***
With the arrival of Khar"al-dras, the advantage once again swung towards the defending team. Four Tier 8 Emperor-cla.s.s Wilds stood in the way of the three Tier 8 Spectres and plotted how they might eliminate one or two from the conflict entirely.
On the lower Tier arena, the fortifications and artillery built up around the Nine Kings range were sufficient to hold off everything below Tier 6. For the middle Tier, there were roughly two dozen Kings, a hundred Lords of the Wilds and Lord Challengers ma.s.sed up to handle the Tier 6 and 7 Spectres.
Now that the high Tier defenders outnumbered the high Tier invaders, things were actually looking up for a change. At least for now.
But of course, there was no telling when a fourth, fifth or more Tier 8 Spectres might show up. Worse, the Rift seemed to be in a state of flux and might very well just yawn open one day and let a Tier 9 through.
If that happened, all h.e.l.l was going to break loose.
"We need to close that Rift." George said at a meeting roughly half an hour after meeting Khar"al-dras formally. "Any word from Ecclesia?"
"Not much." Mindy grimaced. "Our formal channels get very polite replies that basically mean nothing, while our old friends in the Academy have very little access to s.p.a.ce magic. There"s only one student in the whole group in a Club who specializes in that."
"Who is it?" George asked.
"It"s Gary. He"s in Club Saturn. They have backing from Guild Astral and they seem to be concerned with astrology, sun, moon and star magic. He says they have a training camp coming up, and there"ll be access to restricted magic in it. He"s signed up for that camp."
"We don"t have a lot of time here. When does the camp take place?" George asked.
Mindy calculated, thinking back, and counting days.
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"Right now."
***
Back at the Ecclesia Academy, Gary was half bored trying to learn magic.
"What?" Siti exclaimed. "But it"s so much fun! Look, if you only changed the third stroke of this Sigil to be a bit bigger, the result of your spell"s trajectory…"
Gary yawned. He just couldn"t help it. Studying little details like strokes and angles were just making him fall asleep.
Still, he toughed it out. He went to the very last place in the whole Academy that he really wanted to go to and did the very last thing he really wanted to do.
Frankly speaking, Gary was sitting in the library with a stack of books trying to study.
No, it wasn"t because he was forced to. This was, in fact, his free time.
So why was he doing something he really didn"t want to do during his free time?
Well, there was only one reason, really.
Siti was here. And if she was here, then he wanted to be here too. Even if it meant studying.
He"d come every day if he could, but today was actually the last time they were going to be able to study together like this for a while. Siti had an Intensive Study Camp coming up with Sacred Sigil. For the next few days, even if Gary came here to see her, she wouldn"t be here.
As to why Gary was closer to Siti than all his other emanc.i.p.ated friends, well… suffice to say that since discovering her working in the library, he"d enjoyed more success plying his trade in that place than any other.
Okay, fine, so pickpocketing wasn"t a trade. It was an art. It was a test of skill and observation, of timing and patience, and evaluating those who could be good marks.
See, Gary had been reading in libraries long before he entered the Academy. He especially liked to sit down and read next to bags carelessly placed on vacant seats beside sleeping patrons. Fairly often, those sleeping patrons would wake up later to find their entire bags missing… and n.o.body seemed to notice anyone stealing their bags. When Gary got up from those impromptu reading sessions, he"d simply picked up the bag in the seat next to him and walked out with it…
Unlike Loh, who had been found unsuitable for work and had a limb cut off to be sent to beg, Gary kept every limb and every digit. His previous owners found fit not only to keep him in good health, but in good shape, including feeding him and teaching him various exercises to keep him nimble. One of the reasons Siti didn"t mind Gary prowling around her library was that he was very, very quiet. Most of the time, she wouldn"t even hear his footsteps or his breathing. The other reason was that he never stole books and always put them in the sorting cart properly after he was done.
Then again, Siti didn"t own the library or anything.
"There he is!" someone called. "Hey, Gary!"
"Hi, Cooper." Gary greeted the President of Guild Astral with a wave.
"Hey! Quiet in the library!" Siti called, almost automatically.
"Sorry! We were just leaving." Cooper said. "It"s time. Let"s get to Camp before we"re late!"