2
798 Words
Something had happened, and she had a good inkling of what exactly it was.
She and Carol moved, appearing in the midst of a small crowd of incoming cultivators and diverting more teams to the space she had chosen until she had about a hundred in total. She gave her chosen mouthpieces a few moments to orient themselves to being outside of Minkalla before she spoke, with her Domain leaving no room for misinterpretation or delay.
“Explain exactly what happened. All at once and leave nothing out.” To ensure there wouldn’t be any complaints, she pulled a Tier 16 mana stone out of one of her spatial rings for each of them and placed her bribe in front of each respective ‘volunteer.’
It only took a second for all of them to start rambling over each other.
At Tier 43, she had no issues hearing and dissecting each and every one of the delvers’ stammering, cutting out the wasteful information and gathering the pertinent bits she wanted.
A smile crept over her face as she got the gist of the situation.
The children had gotten a four seasons theme for Courtly Warfare, beyond perfect for Aster.
As more people chattered, she started to paint a better picture.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Winter had attacked Spring and took the city in a surprise ambush.
They thought it was a fluke, but the season had a general before anyone else, and then turned and attacked Fall.
While it had been a harder fight, they had defeated a general in a great battle that wrecked a sizable portion of the city.
That information caught her attention, and an eyebrow rose as she heard of the general’s prowess.
The pinnacle fighters having most of an Intent was stronger than usual, but nothing she hadn’t seen before in a Courtly Warfare floor. Minkalla never made any monster stronger than Tier 14, which meant if it wanted to make a real challenge, it was limited in its ability to do so.
It also couldn’t, or at least had never, made a monster with a full Intent, but making monsters with some combination of Phrase, Image, and Anchor wasn’t unusual. Though a monster of that ilk appearing at floor four was rare indeed, and a monster with a strong pseudo Intent was unheard of on the fourth floor.
Still, from the babbling of the cultivators who exited, she was able to determine that her charges were part of the team that defeated the general, and that they hadn’t taken any casualties.
Susanne and her Queen identity had been identified and targeted, but she was alive and well. While unfortunate, her cover being compromised was entirely expected. She would’ve been hard pressed to kill everyone who saw her Concept manifestation.
She kept an ear out for anyone talking about a blood mage, but no one mentioned it, which meant that Liz had managed to remain hidden thus far, which was good.
It would’ve been better if she had stuck to fire skills, but with the talk of a water mage fighting the general, she suspected that the girl needed to bring out her real skills, even if hidden. Though she couldn’t be certain of that as water mages were all too common of an archetype to identify one of them as Liz from the third or fourth hand descriptions.
There were rumors that Quill had been in the fight as a massive ice spell she recognized was used to battle the general, but that seemed more rumor than fact and she had fully expected the children to be pegged for their masked identities.
That was their purpose after all.
With her curiosity sated, she provided each of them with their promised mana stone and allowed them to go on their way. They could now go Tier up and enjoy their immortality. The smart ones would buckle down and progress as fast as possible, but that wasn’t any of her concern.
The children were.
And things were going well on that front. Now, they just needed to see what the latter half of Minkalla would throw at them.
She chuckled as she thought of the fact that Kurt and April might miss them coming out because of the incredibly fast fourth floor.
With a flex of her Domain, she returned to her house and her vigil, Carol joining her a moment later.
This time, she was in a much better mood. Her little monsters were growing up and showing their fangs.
Killing a peak Tier 14 with most of an Intent?
Winning Courtly Warfare in a fraction of the normal time?
Her smile only grew as she thought over the debrief she would get when they came out.
She could not be more pleased.
- Writer
