Fetch Quest Chapter 88: Information (Patreon)

The fancy knight melted under my torrent of flame, as did the wall behind him and several more beyond that. The screams of the fox-kin were joined by the screams of humans, most of them very brief, as I swept my flame from side to side. I caught sight of Kevin teleporting away before I hit him, though. I suppose he'd summoned me, so I shouldn't have been surprised he could do actual magic.

Something I'd failed to consider was that melting long gashes in a structure's supporting walls tended to not have great implications for that structure's continued existence. The walls fell, claimed by gravity, and with them the floors above. There turned out to be quite a number of floors above, and the collapse went on for some time. Many of the presences I'd been picking up with perceive presence winked out, caught in the destruction, but there were more approaching rapidly from outside. Big ones, too.

Fortunately, the exterior wall of the chapel remained intact, and none of the fox-kin were lost in the collapse. None of the surviving fox-kin. That one attack had taken out a third of them, and another third had obvious burns or injuries. At least the floor showed no instability, so presumably we were at ground level already.

"And so, without ever intending us harm, you're responsible for the death of us all," said Do'myrith, walking towards me. Her clothing was burnt and her left leg was a mess. "Far be it from me to question the will of the Goddess, but even I have finally reached the point of wishing I had never met you."

"I honestly don't blame you," I answered, watching the presences outside. They'd stopped at a considerable distance, but I was picking up a build-up of mana. Some sort of long range magical bombardment, presumably. There was mana from the fox-kin, too; some sort of shield, which might explain how that one wall survived, but it was nothing compared to the incoming attack. "Human mages seem about to bombard this place with long range magic. You might want to run."

"Yes, I can sense mana too," she replied. "Alas, we have nowhere to run to."

The spell was unleashed, a bright light raining down from above on the ruins of the castle. The fox-kin were simply erased, washed away by the light. I held up for longer, but I could see my health bar diminishing rapidly. I probably should have flown away, but I really wasn't in any fit state to think properly.

Holy magic tolerance advanced to level 2

I woke up in the ruined chapel, despite not really wanting to. I was done. I'd been rather soured on the idea of fighting to save the humans. Even if I did try, given my track record, I'd probably just end up accidentally causing an apocalypse. If I could, I would have jumped back to Earth there and then. Alas, I hadn't taken the pathfinder skill, trusting in shouty-guy to send me back to Earth. I doubted he'd want to do that now.

Fortunately, the fact that I had somewhere to respawn implied shrines existed in this world. If I could find a broken one, increase my skill cap and then gain a level, I'd be able to make my own way home.

I had to smile at the foresight of the carnes multiformis. They'd made the correct decision. Don't try to befriend me or attack me. Just stay at as far a distance as possible, and should I approach, ask me very politely to go away.

Lacking anything better to do, I climbed to my feet and used item box to dress myself in my stealth-boosting leather armour. The skill boost aside, the bodysuit covered my iridescent scales and a black cloak covered my folded wings. A helm and hood did a reasonable job of hiding my face. I could pass for human, as long as no-one looked too closely. I probably couldn't offer a reasonable explanation for why I was hanging around in the ruins of the castle, though, so I would need to find a way out.

There were no corpses around, including my own. Near the rear wall, there wasn't even any blood. I doubted a janitorial team had been through in the previous hour; that last spell must have wiped away everything. There was blood on the human side, though, and it came in substantial quantities.

There were no breaches in the chapel's exterior wall. I could either fly up to the window or climb over the bloodied rubble. Perceive presence picked up nothing nearby, nor did my other senses, so I risked the brief flight, peering out over a grassy area bounded by another wall, too tall for me to see anything over the top. So, this castle had an outer defensive wall. It was crawling with soldiers, too. I could fly over it, but I would certainly be seen.

I could see activity between me and there. A group of tents, one of which was particularly fancy. The entrance was guarded, but the back was facing me. What I needed most was information, and if I couldn't get out of here without being seen, there wouldn't be much extra risk to sneaking a look.

The soldiers on the wall were all facing outward, so I only needed to wait a few seconds for the people walking around the tents to look away, allowing me to swoop down unnoticed.

Proficient stealth advanced to level 16

"What do you mean, you can't?!"

The first voice I heard was male, loud and pompous, apparently not used to people telling him no.

"Exactly what I said! The ritual circle was completely destroyed in the collapse. Recreating it will take months."

The second voice was shouty-Kevin.

"You useless piece of..."

"Silence," came a third voice, and while the first didn't seem to appreciate being told no, this one didn't even see it as an available option. The one word was enough to bring silence to the tent.

"Kevin. I realise we don't exactly have procedures or precedent for summoning heroes, but that doesn't excuse applying your common sense. Expecting to keep her for no more than a few minutes was no reason not to conduct due diligence. Make no mistake, you are responsible for this, and the only reason your head is still attached to your body is because you're the only arch-mage remaining in the capital who wasn't struck with the divine curse."

"Yes..."

"Craig. What's done is done, and what's impossible is impossible. Instead of complaining about the problems, think of solutions."

"Solutions? The entire royal family are dead! We've lost half of the royal guard! Almost every mage of note in the capital is under a divine curse for attacking the Goddess' chosen! And now I'm told we can't summon new heroes. What sort of solution do you expect me to invent?!"

"The worst effect of the curse is the ninety percent penalty to mana regeneration," said Kevin. "That can be compensated for by potions. As long as they preserve their mana, they can still form a formidable part of the capitals defences. The royal guard weren't involved in holding the front line to begin with. As long as our border isn't breached, the capital isn't at immediate risk. Can they hold for the time it would take to summon new heroes?"

"No," said the third voice. "Current projections indicate the garrison at Muigal Pass will fall in five to six days, with the loss of the grand barrier two days later. We can expect dragon raids within a day of the barrier falling, and for the capital to be under a full siege within the month."

"Then can we hold off the siege? We have food supplies."

Craig snorted. "Yes, we do. In some rather flammable warehouses. Once the dragons start raiding, they'll be among the first targets."

"Food can be moved, but even if we did hold off the siege, by the time new heroes were summoned and made ready to fight, there wouldn't be a kingdom left to save. Any plan needs to hold the demons off either at the border or within the outlying territories for any eventual victory to be anything but pyrrhic."

"Within the outlying territories? We have no great fortresses there. Holding the demon army would be impossible."

"What if we forego all defence of the capital and internal garrisons, and dispatch everything we have to the front, even including the remaining royal guard?"

"The damage from spies and saboteurs would be too great. We'd lose too much farmland, and the capital would burn within days."

"We're losing more than enough farmland as it is; we've never had the manpower to cover the entire country. And if I'm creating the ritual circle from scratch, it doesn't need to be within the capital."

"You... You... Do you have any idea how much that would cost?"

"Yes. You'd lose your mansion and everything you own. But at least you'd have a chance to survive, which is more than I have; I imagine that as soon as I'm not needed for the war, it'll be the chopping block for me."

I took some amount of perverse comfort in knowing that I wasn't the only one making decisions that, while seemingly a reasonable idea at the time, were civilization-destroyingly bad in retrospect. Their conversation continued, sending runners out to request their analysts make projections for how long the front line would hold with reinforcements, then discussing defensible locations where a new summoning might be performed. It was interesting, but I knew none of the place names, and the longer I stood there, the greater the risk of being seen.

Not that I could see any way of getting past the castle wall without being spotted. My armour didn't even come close to matching anything that anyone here was wearing, so despite hiding my wings and scales, I would certainly stand out. Perhaps I should join in their conversation? I could hardly make things worse.

"Yo, Kevin!" I called through the tent wall. "Can I come in?"

"Who in the...?" gasped Craig indignantly. "How dare... This is a private, top secret meeting! Guards!"

"Wait!" yelled Kevin, thankfully getting the coughing fit he'd broken out into the moment he heard my voice under control in time to prevent another accident. "But you're dead..." he added completely incorrectly.

"Oh, sorry. No-one told me. I'll just go find a graveyard and lie down then, shall I?"

"Explain," said the third voice, simply.

"That's Katie. The summoned hero."

The pair of guards, who had rushed around and were pointing spears at my sides, took a couple of steps back, suddenly feeling rather uncertain about their lives.

"What?" shouted Craig again. "The murderer of the king! Seize her!"

Much to their credit, the guards didn't move. Possibly that was because of the way I'd single handedly demolished their castle, rather than any particular desire not to follow Craig's command, but I'd take what I could get.

"Do not carry out that order," said the third voice, and the guards immediately stood down. "By all means, please join us."

Not quite the reaction I'd expected, but I'd take that too. Feeling it would be impolite to tear a hole in the tent from the back, I walked around to the front instead. Kevin was standing around a rough table with two other men, one overweight and dressed in fancy clothing, with jewelled rings on every finger. The other was standing straight, staring at me with piercing eyes, wearing some lightweight pieces of armour with a sword at his waist. It wasn't hard to guess which voice belonged to each person.

On the table itself was a map displaying a single continent, formed from two lobes joined by a narrow land bridge. It lacked a helpful 'you are here' pointer, but one of the marked towns was considerably larger than the others. If I was in the capital, that was likely it. I couldn't interpret the other markers, but given how many there were around the bridge, I would be prepared to bet that one lobe was human and the other demon, with the battlefront being that small connection between them.

Appraisal informed me the third voice belonged to someone called Ortho Grelingham, a minor wind mage with above average strength and great intelligence and tactical skill. From his own appraising stare, I could well believe it.

"I imagine that you currently consider us your enemy," he said eventually. "However, you seem to lack the rage you possessed when you destroyed our castle. Would I be correct to guess that you simply want to go home?"

I said nothing. I did want to go home, but whether that was before or after interfering here, I hadn't decided.

"Yes, it seems that you do," he continued, apparently reading my expression. "But you don't have the ability to travel yourself, else it is unlikely you would have approached us. Then might I suggest a trade. You join our forces against the demons, and once the battle is won, we send you home."