The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

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Annie looked like she had discovered a new facet of the man and wanted to gobble him up after seeing how ready he was for her to do wetwork. So had Matt, for that matter. He had underestimated the quiet man.

“I’m pissed as well.” He answered all their unspoken questions with a shrug. He didn’t look pissed as he scratched a raccoon’s head.

Liz nodded. “That’s a good idea, but I don’t think there were just the other two teams who got f****d over. I think this was pretty widespread. Historically, there are a few things that Pathers do in retaliation. One is to form their own faction and make a third or fourth party in the war.”

Matt liked that idea. And images of burning down the prince’s plans gave him quite a bit of pleasure after all the man had bungled.

But Liz shot that down. “That isn’t likely to happen. There needs to be a whole lot more corruption for us to get to that point. What we can and should do is form a sort of Pathers’ union, with Pathers from both sides. If we do that, we can get more bargaining rights. If we do that, we can try for a few better things, but I need to network a bit more before I can make it happen.”

The others looked at Liz like she grew a second head. It was long enough for her to get uncomfortable and ask, “What?”

Emily shrugged and asked, “Where did you learn this? Seems like you’re always two steps ahead.”

Liz scoffed. “No! I bought and read Ingrid’s Path Vassal Wars. It’s dry reading, but it explains almost everything we need to know about this. This has all played out dozens of times before, and the rules are purposefully lax, so problems arise. They aren’t just testing us but the various leaders on both sides. If things got so bad that we, the Pathers, weren’t getting a good war out of this, the army would step in and impose harsher rules. But that’s only happened once.”

Still getting odd looks, she scooped up a passing puppy and held it like a shield as she cuddled it.

“I thought it was interesting, okay?”

Matt knew it wasn’t, as she had read parts to him when the war was first announced, but it was the best sleep medicine.

Emily said, “Well, first we need to decide if we’re going to move in a group or not.”

Conor just shrugged. As the lone solo member. He was free to do as he wished.

Matt threw his two cents into the ring. “I don’t know all of what Liz has planned, but I think we should move as a group. I know we won’t stay together after the war, but we work well together. While we may have lost at the end, we kicked major ass before we went down. I don’t really want to risk being separated if we don’t have to.”

He didn’t want to step on Liz’s plans, but added, “I wouldn’t mind leaving the kingdom side, but I also think we should hear Juni out. We’ve known him for a while, and he’s done right by us so far.”

No one else had anything major to say, so they just sat together, trading stories about how they went down while petting the animals who wandered past. No one bothered them until they received a message requesting a meeting from Juni.

They accepted it as a team, and a conference call started.

“Oh, good. You’re all up. Is this a good time? Or would you rather I call back later?”

Liz spoke first. “No, it’s fine now. We expected your call.”

Juni winced, and his AI translated that into the image of him projected to them. “You and everyone else. Today was a disaster.”

Liz and Emily both opened their mouths, but he cut them both off.

“I’m not blaming you. Unless being competent has become a bad thing in the last few hours, and I hadn’t noticed. You deserve an explanation to start, though. First, your own success was against our expectations. Or at least, the chances of the Pathers’ success as a whole was significantly underestimated. We, the prince and his headquarters staff, added the line about taking a fort as a throwaway. We expected maybe a team or two to succeed, but we’ve had nine, including yourselves, take their assigned forts. It’s been a disaster.”

“We had three relief teams ready and waiting, but that obviously wasn’t enough. We were forced to find bodies, but they weren’t the leaders we originally wanted to use for a reason. By the time your team needed reinforcements, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and your team suffered for it. I apologize.”

Juni sighed and continued, “Fortunately, or unfortunately rather, this petty bullshit wasn’t limited to the kingdom. We have intelligence suggesting that four out of six of their Pather teams were wiped out, just like you were. Their Pathers just weren’t as good as ours and didn’t take as many forts. We lost six teams from the nine forts we captured. You should talk to the queendom fighters you’re recuperating with to verify.”

Emily took the man’s pause to ask, “So, how are you going to make this right? I assume that’s your intention. And if you thought there was a chance of our reinforcements bailing, you could have told us to leave and not risk it.”

Juni didn’t look bothered by the interruption and pressed on. “The prince intends to reimburse every one of the points you’ve lost if you choose to come back into the war. And yes, we could have ordered a retreat, but Alyssa was supposed to get there a lot sooner, making it a likely capture.”

Annie opened her mouth, but Juni spoke faster, “Even if you wish to leave our side, we will still reimburse you.”

Annie shook her head. “Good to know, but not what I wanted to know. I want to know who f****d us over.”

Juni looked surprised for a brief moment but answered her question readily enough, “Alyssa. She’s the daughter of a Barron and has an incredibly pure bloodline. She’s a manipulative piece of… Well, let’s just say she’s a piece of work. Believe me, she’s the last person in the entire kingdom that we wanted to send, but we were backed into a corner.”

He looked to the right and said something to someone else that wasn’t transferred through the conference, before looking back to them. “Sorry. I’m handling a dozen things at once right now, and wanted to start with some familiar faces. The prince will also be pushing through changes in the way points are handled. He can’t do anything with the army AI, but he intends to reward those who think strategically, and those who can see the bigger picture.”