Emerilia Series Box Set 3

by Michael Chatfield

  Sigaird turned from the balcony and walked back into his office, looking at the paperwork and his interfaces that seemed to float above his desk.

  “God, I just want to go back to adventuring. This leadership crap is for the dogs.” Sigaird groaned and slumped into his seat.

  Chapter 12: Decisions and Movement

  Loughbreck looked over the forces arrayed in front of him. There were twenty thousand troops moving around an orderly camp. Each wore weapons and armor without emblems. Groups were off practicing their spells or their fighting abilities. Others were running around and completing different exercises. There was one group of ten who were stationed around the territory that Loughbreck was in command of.

  “So, what do you think, sir?” The commander of the forces sounded rather proud of his people and his accomplishments.

  “They look ready, but we must make sure that they don’t slack in the coming months.” Loughbreck gave the commander a look.

  “They will be ready, sir.” The commander bowed.

  “Good.” The general looked over the camp. “I trust that you have had no difficulties with any of the king’s spies?”

  “We have a number of scouts and wards placed to find anyone trying to search for us and our concealing magic has been powered ever since it was created. We also have routine patrols throughout the day and night. I doubt anyone even knows we’re here,” the commander said.

  The general gave the man an appraising look. He didn’t embellish his actions and he had done more than his orders asked to secure his position.

  A man like that is a useful commodity, indeed.

  Loughbreck looked around as they strode through the neat camps, riding on his war cat.

  The soldiers saluted and got out of the way of the passing commanders. Only a few flinched away from the war cat as it eyed them like prey.

  They had been orphaned, kidnapped, or brought up from peasant farms and forged into fighting men. Everything they had was due to Lord Esamael. They were loyal and they wouldn’t be missed.

  “How are the mages?” Loughbreck asked in a low voice.

  “The mages think they’re the Pantheon’s gift to man, but they show that they are with us, and our own people among their ranks keep them in line,” the commander said.

  Loughbreck nodded his head. There were a lot of mages who came to Gudalo in an attempt to gain enough skills, or abilities to gain access to the Per’ush schools. Many didn’t make it and settled down into other lines of work.

  Mages bred other mages, passing on their information to their children. A number of them became peasants. Lord Esamael offered them training and a position. Many took it eagerly, but mages were prideful and sneaky creatures. There hadn’t been any of them who had tried to break their oaths yet, but Loughbreck hated waiting for fear that someone might reveal the locations and extent of Lord Esamael’s army.

  He took some consolation in the fact that everyone had taken magical oaths within Lord Esamael’s army to not reveal information. If someone broke the oath, then they would die. It was not an oath to be taken lightly and it had paid off.

  “Sir, if I might ask, when will we start to move?” the commander asked.

  “We will first gather our forces and then head toward Verlun and the teleport pad there, timing it along with the Dwarven tournaments.”

  The commander nodded eagerly. “Only a month and a half to go.”

  They shared eager smiles. Finally, the day they had been waiting for was fast approaching.

  ***

  Lucy looked at her fingers and the room around her. It looked to be Dave and Deia’s house in Cliff-Hill, but it was actually a Mirror of Communication conference room.

  Dave and Deia appeared after a few more moments.

  “Hey, Lucy.” Dave took a seat. Deia sat with him as they looked out over the cliffside from their porch.

  “Hey, so, uhh, okay—it really is a pretty big mind fuck dealing with all of this, you know?” Lucy sat back. Her usually calm composure was shot to hell as she squirmed around in her seat.

  “Trust me, I know,” Dave said.

  “Deia, how did you come into this secret?” Lucy asked, trying to put off talking.

  “Well, you always hear some odd stories and such about creation and the rest of it. The Elves keep pretty good records and the creation of Emerilia and the races was all a bit weird. There are no signs of races before we seemed to appear on Emerilia. That combined with Dave and Bob’s information. Then, me becoming a Player. It all kind of just came together.” Deia shrugged.

  “Wait, you’re now a Player?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah, I was a POE before Bob changed some settings and made me a Player. I can respawn and have access the internet.” Deia smiled.

  “This is a lot to take in.” Lucy held her head.

  “It’s pretty complicated,” Dave agreed.

  Lucy took a few minutes before saying anything else. “Okay, so I’ll keep your secret and I’ll help you out as much as possible, but what the hell are we going to tell the others?”

  “Nothing,” Dave said.

  “They’re living in a prison and they’re fighting an empire that wiped out our ancestors’ enemies! You want us to do nothing?”

  “Oh, we’re not going to do nothing, but we can’t tell everyone yet. Imagine if we do? The AIs that are watching over this world would turn on us. They would report everything to the Jukal Empire and they would wipe out the Players or they would wipe out the planet. I don’t know what systems they have in place to kill us off. But from what Bob and Player’s records say, we have some kind of kill switch in our bodies. We need to have the power to fight back. We need our people to be stronger. Bob is right—we lose our inhibitions when we think of life as a game. The longer they don’t know, the stronger we’ll get. We have our own issues down here. We still need to survive everything that’s going to be unleashed on this world and hold off the aggressive species. If we can do that, then we can look to the Jukal. Otherwise, it’s a lesson in futility,” Dave said.

  Lucy could see that he’d thought this through. She wanted to yell out, to argue his points, though she knew that sometimes timing when and where to tell someone a vital piece of information was important. Too late, and it becomes moot; same if it is too early.

  “So, why did you tell me?” Lucy looked to them both.

  “We trust you and we know that you’re a smart woman. You were asking a lot of questions and this was the best way to answer them. If you’ve got questions, then I think this makes understanding what is going on easier. You’re already questioning your environment. Also, with your growing spy network, you can keep us in the loop,” Dave said.

  “So, how do the Jukal Empire watch us?” Lucy asked.

  “The nanites in us that allow us to use the interface and the like—some of them capture what we see and send it to a transmission station in the North and South Pole, beam them through Mirrors of Communications and off to the empire. They can watch anything we do, unless you have the right runes on your body to stop the nanites or the ability to break the link, like I do because I’m a bleeder. I can sense the transmission and disrupt it.

  “Mostly, they just use the system when we’re broadcasting—they tap into it. If they want to see someone’s feed who isn’t broadcasting, then they have to vote for it. Otherwise, they have to use the satellites that are above Emerilia. They can zoom in on battles, so it seems that they’re right next to the person. Hell, they can even pick up audio.” Dave shook his head.

  “Okay, so, all-seeing eyes in the sky. They also have the ability to hack our bodies and see through us. Well, that brings up a whole lot of privacy things.” Lucy scratched her head, clearly not happy with how much information the Jukal were getting on everyone.

  “Okay, so they can see pretty much everything. I’m guessing that we’re in here for some special reason, though?” Lucy looked around the room.

  “Yes. Aleph cities and facilities alread
y have runes that make it pretty hard for someone to access it. While we’re down in the laboratory or what we’re nicknaming Pandora’s Box. We have a pretty crappy connection to the Jukal servers. I went a little haywire with it, well Malsour, Steve, Bob and I did. If a Jukal is using their cameras, sensors, or trying to connect to our interfaces and nanites, they’re not going to be able to.”

  “Okay, so we’ve got some options to stop their transmissions. Where else are we safe?”

  “When we’re within the mirrors of communication like this, specifically inside the conference rooms, they can’t access it. It’s part of the reason that I wanted to host our lessons in there. People can get stronger and the Jukal don’t even know about it unless they act out,” Dave said proudly.

  “So, beefing up the general population, making more of them capable of fighting and making them more likely to look at the Stone Raiders and our own businesses in a good light—maybe you should be doing my job.” Lucy smiled.

  “It kind of just worked out that way.” Dave chuckled. “Oh, also our private communications to one another, the Jukal can’t get that as well. Those two things have safeguards in them that the Jukal put in their own tech. If they were able to listen to that, then they could listen in to one another.”

  “Okay, so basically you want me to figure out how to disrupt a galactic empire, and allow us to stay under the radar as we build up strength and power? How the hell are we even going to fight them?”

  “That’s why I’ve been working on these machines,” Dave said.

  “Right, fusion reactor and Mana well.” Lucy sat back in her chair. She let out a frustrated noise and looked at the ceiling. “Okay, so, no need to be sitting in here and moping around. What allies and enemies do we have here?”

  “Party Zero knows what’s going on. The Affinities Fire and Water are backing us, as well as the Merpeople and Dragons. The Dragons and Fire know about the truth, but the Merpeople and Water don’t. Bob is also supporting us. We have also contacted a small colony of Humans who are hiding out somewhere.” Deia laid out all their cards. “Oh, and Air said that she wants to help us and make alliances. I don’t know how that is going for her.”

  “Okay, so, we’ve at least got some powerful allies.” Lucy shrugged. “We’re going to need more to fight what is coming. I think it’s time that we started to reach out to other groups and talk about entering more complete alliances.”

  “I should have some of those one-way teleport pads sorted out soon enough! We could have them set up embassies in Terra. That way at least their ambassadors get used to working with one another,” Dave said.

  “Seems that playing Emerilia hasn’t dulled any of your business acumen.” Lucy smiled.

  “You should see Suzy at work with it all. Anything like getting people to work together—she is the girl to go to. If you can give her an edge and the ability to make those alliances, I think she can do a pretty impressive job,” Deia said.

  “I will keep that in mind,” Lucy said, making a mental note. “Having those teleport pads everywhere is going to help with my information gathering. Dave, how long will it take for you to make an Aleph automaton factory? I can get a lot of different sentient spies, but those automatons are great for recording and watching over locations without needing to ever leave.”

  “Say a month and I can put some plans together. I have a project of my own that I’m working on right now,” Dave said.

  “That works for me.” Lucy nodded, excited to get more of those Aleph scouts into her hands. No secrets will be kept from me anymore! Lucy smiled.

  “You okay, Lucy?” Deia asked.

  “Yes, why?” Lucy asked.

  “Just looked like some devious creature planning the downfall of an empire,” Dave said.

  “Eh, who knows what the future will bring.” Lucy shrugged noncommittally.

  Dave and Deia shared a look before smiling and looking back to Lucy.

  Chapter 13: A Time to Build

  Dave looked over the teleport pads. Well, teleport pads that could only go to one destination.

  “So, the factory line is up and running?” Dave looked over the machine that was suspended in mid-air. It was a third the size of the original teleport pads. Removing all the complicated circuits, replacing them with coding, and then taking the options from all across the planet to just between two locations made things a lot easier.

  “Yes. The factories are ready to go through production with this immediately. I have to say that Steve’s help with this is incredible,” Ela-Dorn said.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of like how webpages used to be. We started coding them ourselves, but then with the advent of AI and quantum computing, we were able to match the two systems. They took over making all of the code; we just input parameters to see if our different ideas would work. People know coding, but it’s like comparing knowing how children are made to the biological process that people go through when having a child,” Dave said, still looking over the teleport pad intently.

  “While I do love your explanation, what is this exactly?” Josh asked.

  “You really need to start reading your messages,” Suzy growled. All the leaders of the Stone Raiders, as well as Party Zero, were there, minus Anna. Apparently, she was off training the DCA how to use their new weapons.

  “These can be put all over the world, in every single city,” Suzy said.

  “But you said that they only connect to one location, so what use is that?” Josh asked.

  “Dave, I officially found someone worse than you!” Suzy said.

  Dave grinned, but didn’t look back. The coding on the teleport pad was a thing of beauty. While he was looking at it, he compared it to the teleport pad he’d taken apart, the information he had on teleport pads, as well as Bob and Fire’s teleport spells.

  “We can connect them all to Terra,” Suzy said.

  Josh opened his mouth, closing it again as his brain started to figure out what Suzy was talking about.

  Lucy nodded in understanding. “We would become the center of Emerilia. You need to trade anything, go to Terra. You’re a Player looking for the best gear or to get your items repaired? Go to Terra.”

  “It would also be great for combat power. We could have people from all over the world with a direct line here to gather our forces, then we can send them out to wherever they’re needed,” Dwayne said.

  “Woohoo, more vacations in different places!” Kim said, getting looks from everyone. “What? Don’t need to sleep, just go to the next town as the sun is coming up! Be a crazy party!” Kim sighed, stars in her eyes.

  “It would be a huge bottleneck. How would we do it?” Josh asked.

  “How much would it cost?” Cassie added.

  “Extortion.” Dave turned around and looked to Suzy.

  “Right now, we control Selhi Capital. We get them to pay a fine, and with that we pay for a good portion of the teleport system we’re going to set up.”

  “Then we can take the rest from Gudalo. Their lord’s going to attack us. I know you want to make a show out of it. If we defeat them, we claim their territories and anything affiliated with them. Lucy probably has a list of all of that.” Dave pointed to Lucy; she nodded.

  “Then, we use their territories as collateral. They pay us to leave or we sell them off. Then we should have enough to go on. Stopping a coup and taking out a mass of lords is a pretty big incentive for people to not mess with us and secure us the capital we need,” Suzy said.

  “I now see why you two work so well together.” Deia sighed and gave Dave a look.

  He winked at her, making her look turn into a smile.

  “Okay, lay the plan out to me,” Josh said.

  “Well, first we’re going to need more normal teleport pads—well, we can get cheaper ones because Steve is recoding them right now in that big ole AI brain of his. Then we move to replacing the Verlun teleport pad and then start moving outward. We’re going to need more power facilities.” Dave and S
uzy ran through a presentation for everyone. The Aleph and Stone Raiders asked for more clarity as the two talked on.

  ***

  “Well, it is good to be home.” Dave looked to Deia as they stepped through the teleport pad and exited out into Cliff-Hill.

  “I’m so excited to see Fornau, Quindar, and the kiddos!” Induca squealed.

  All of Party Zero had joined in for the little trip, even Gurren and Lox. Anna was still off in Devil’s Crater. Deia, Induca, and Suzy had been making dangerous eyes at one another when talking about Anna, sly smiles on their faces.

  Dave could feel that they were planning something and he was sure as hell not going to get in their way or be anywhere near them when their plan worked.

  “Well, Quindar and Fornau talked about moving to Devil’s Crater. They’re interested in being closer to the rest of the family, but still want their space. Also, it would keep Fornau with his fingers in a project and the children can meet others from different races,” Malsour said.

  The group moved toward the road.

  Dave looked around to make sure everyone was out of earshot. “Well, that would be one hell of a thing, a family of Dragons in Devil’s Crater.” Dave grinned.

  “They are looking for you to put in a good word with Alkao, if at all possible,” Induca said.

  Dave scratched his chin as they walked the road toward Dave and Deia’s home. “Of course, I can do that. I’m just not sure what the conversation is going to be like,” Dave admitted.

  “Well, that is a problem for later. For now, we can just focus on the here and now, relax a bit and build our home together,” Deia said.

  “I’ll try to keep the work stuff to a minimum, firecracker.” Dave kissed her hand as they continued their stroll. Winter was coming and snow was starting to drift down, but all of the party had spells or enchantments to keep them warm as they walked and talked.