The two days moved swiftly.
Jake spent the first day in planning sessions that stretched from morning into late evening, maps spread across the villa’s administrative table, Ankerita and Maudlina on one side, Maureen on the other, everyone contributing what they understood about military engagents while Jake ran the system’s assessnt of the dungeon details against the scout reports Ankerita had collected.
Maureen had agreed without hesitation when Elise brought the request, arriving at the villa within the hour with the focused energy of soone who had been looking for a purpose since her sister had stopped needing rescuing.
"Coordinated military opposition," she said, reading through the scout reports with the quick absorption of soone used to processing tactical information fast.
"They hit the third group simultaneously. That ans either a signal-based command structure or a commander with area-of-effect capability."
She looked up.
"Either way there’s a central intelligence directing the response. Cut that out and the rest becos manageable."
Jake found it was odd that a dungeon had such a systematic arrangent of troops, like they had a conscience. They were called beasts for a reason. But seeing such a system in the dungeon, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He didn’t voice out his opinion; after all, it was a fantasy world. Nothing was impossible here.
He kept his mind open for now.
"The general," Jake said.
"Or a command tier below the general," Maureen said.
"Military hierarchies have redundancy. Cut the top, the next level activates. You need to understand the full command structure before you start removing pieces of it."
"From what we know, we only identified four war commanders and a general," Jake said.
"The reports identified what previous entrants encountered before dying," Maureen corrected. "That’s not a complete picture of what’s actually in there."
Jake filed this as accurate and adjusted his thinking accordingly.
The force he assembled by the morning of departure was leaner than he would have preferred but better than he’d initially feared.
Ankerita and Maudlina.
Maureen and three of her acquaintances from the guild, fighters who had spent years operating in the field.
Six soldiers from Ankerita’s clan, quiet and competent. Two guild veterans Raani had identified from the experienced lists were Class II fighters with military backgrounds who asked specific questions about formation tactics rather than individual glory.
Fourteen people total, including Jake.
Against four hundred organized soldiers, from what they knew through reports.
The math was uncomfortable but not impossible given what Jake and Ankerita and Maudlina could bring to bear at full capability.
Jake had run the numbers through multiple scenarios and kept arriving at the sa conclusion—this worked if they were disciplined and it failed catastrophically if they weren’t.
The morning of departure ca grey and cool, low clouds over Roakan’s mountain peaks suggesting rain by afternoon. The group assembled in the villa’s main courtyard with the quietness of people who had said everything worth saying during planning and understood that the ti for talking had ended.
Raani stood at the courtyard’s edge.
Jake stopped beside her.
"You’re staying," he said. He wasn’t suggesting.
Raani looked at him with the expression she wore when she had accepted sothing she disagreed with and was choosing not to spend energy on the disagreent.
"You said..."
"The villa needs you here," Jake said.
"Matilda and Margeret are still settling in. Chelsea needs soone with actual combat capability if Kunther decides to retaliate while I’m gone. Elise is capable, but she doesn’t know Roakan’s political geography well enough yet to manage a crisis independently."
"I know the reasons," Raani said.
"You explained them yesterday. And the day before."
A pause. "I still don’t like it."
"I know."
She looked at him directly, the professional composure she maintained so consistently thinning at the edges in the way it did when she was choosing honesty over her training.
"Co back safely," she said.
"That’s all."
"Working on making that my standard policy," Jake said.
Sothing moved through her expression that she didn’t try to hide or explain.
She stepped back and let him go.
He crossed the courtyard to where the group was ready, picked up the pack that contained his supplies, and didn’t look back because looking back had never made leaving easier in either of his lives.
The journey northwest took three days as Ankerita had said, through terrain that changed character progressively as they moved away from Roakan’s sphere of settled influence.
The first day was farmland and managed forest; the second was older growth where human presence had reduced to occasional logging operations and the tracks of hunters who ca out this far for specific quarry.
The third day was deep forest that felt like it had opinions about being traveled through, the trees old enough that their canopy created permanent twilight at ground level and the undergrowth had the particular density of vegetation that had been growing without interference for centuries.
Jake spent the travel ti with his blood sense extended, mapping the ambient life around them and talking through tactical scenarios with whoever was willing to engage at any given mont. Maureen engaged most consistently, her decades of command experience producing an instinct for anticipating how planned approaches could fail that Jake found more useful than reassurance would have been.
Ankerita fought a running, quiet argunt with the task in Jake’s awareness throughout the journey.
"The simultaneous elimination of the third group," she said, on the second evening of travel while they set up camp.
"Maudlina raised it before we left. I’ve been thinking about it since."
"And?" Jake said.
"Area-effect attack at scale. In a military styled dungeon with a general of unknown class."
She stoked the fire with the focused attention of soone who needed sothing to do with their hands while thinking.
"There are limited ability categories that produce that outco. Wide-area physical force. Environntal manipulation. Mass compulsion."
She paused. "Or a single entity powerful enough that its combat presence alone is lethal at range."
Jake thought about Vikram at the feast, the ambient pressure of his existence making breathing deliberate at five ters.
"Aura as a weapon," he said.
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