Chapter 454: Breaking and Entering

The two [Centurions] started to yell orders, no longer silenced. The two groups of soldiers slowly disengaged, warily keeping an eye on each other. Someone took a parting shot, a high speed rock magically propelled to the face, but I wasn’t in the chain of command, and wasn’t an idiot. My healing was still going.

The parting shot almost got the fight going again, and Katerina looked distinctly unamused as the [Centurions] cracked down to get everyone off the field.

She shook her head.

“Get Optio Coral. She’s going to want to clean the field. Let her know the centuries involved are to be given a week’s worth of combat pay, and everything that coming down from a battle entails.” Katerina ordered one of the omni-present runners around her. He saluted and took off running through the tents.

“Let the [Centurions] know that they’ve got tonight and tomorrow morning to do what they need to do. I expect to see them over lunch to discuss their thoughts.” Katerina told another runner, who saluted and slowly walked out onto the field.

Nobody wanted to be running into a bunch of jumpy soldiers who’d just been fighting for their lives.

“Sentinel Dawn. I’d like to invite you to a review session. Do you have the time now, and a favorite wine?”

I always had time for one of those.

“Sure! I’m always partial to a fruity red. Don’t mind white if you have it though! Lead the way!” I said.

There was no way they had mango wine here. It was extremely rare in the first place, and this was an army. If they occasionally ended up with exotic fruits, I’d be surprised. Same story with apples, and cider. I was extra unworried because I could always smell it ahead of time.

I followed Katerina and her entourage to a much larger tent, guarded by a few bored soldiers who snapped to attention as we approached. Most of Katerina’s escort spread out around the tent, taking up positions as we all entered.

The tent was spacious, most of it dominated by a single table in the middle. A personal living section was cordoned off in the back. Katerina grunted at the pile of papers on the desk, grabbed a chair, and sat down. The standard-bearer sat down with her, but apart from him, we’d shed most of the other high-ranking members of the Legion at one point or another. One member of her entourage grabbed some small snacks and started handing them out, along with mugs. He passed a bottle to Katerina, who looked at it and grunted appreciatively.

“Vesontio. Excellent. Have you had one of theirs?” Katerina poured herself a hefty mug, before pouring into my mug, then handing the bottle off to her standard-bearer.

Reed, his name was. I’d finally picked that up from various context clues and conversations. He poured himself half a mug as I shook my head.

“I haven’t. City far to the west, yeah?”

“Some members of the Tympestshard Council will come by now and then, bemoan how terrible the grapes are and how poor, unfortunate humans can’t possibly know better, ‘gift’ them better grapes, then fuck off back to their woods and crystal cities.” Katerina laughed. “Completely ignoring the fact that the grapes used are the exact same ones a different elf bastard handed over. Nothing can change my mind at this point that it’s a few different growers in competition with each other, all trying to see which one ends up being the most popular wine in Exterreri or some nonsense.”

She toasted vaguely off to the west.

“May their petty competitions keep us in good wine, and may that be the harshest fighting we see from them in our lifetime.”

I could drink to that.

“To the Sixth!” Reed dutifully toasted, and we got down to business.

“I know what I saw, and what I think. Sentinel Dawn, what was your take on the exercise? What went well, what didn’t?”

“Nobody died.” I started off stone cold serious. “That’s a huge win in my books. Mana-wise, I barely spent anything. My regeneration wasn’t quite able to keep up with the two centuries fighting, but my pool’s massive in comparison. Under good conditions, I could’ve kept them alive until they all dropped of exhaustion. My image is poor for this particular type of scenario, and I need to work on it. Something to do with time and experience. Your little surprise was unwelcome, but didn’t change a thing, and that last soldier’s sneak attack at the very end didn’t go anywhere.”

Katerina looked thunderous at the last one.

“Yes, and I’m not looking forward to the attempted murder trial on that one. Reed?”

The standard-bearer was looking like he was having a conniption at Katerina’s sentence. He leaned forward.

“With all due respect, with Sentinel Dawn’s presence, it’ll be easy to argue that it couldn’t possibly be attempted murder. She’d just demonstrated that nobody could die. Perhaps assault and disobeying orders?”

Katerina waved her hand.

“I still want to try it as attempted murder. A topic for another time. Dawn, you mentioned that you operate best under sunshine or moonlight, yet you just said you could keep going until they all dropped of exhaustion. How do you handle sunset? What are your capabilities under less ideal conditions?”

All fair questions, and it hadn’t escaped my notice that the shadows had been creeping across the field when Katerina called a halt.

“First, I’ve got a passive healing aura. It’s not going to save anyone from massive injuries, but it’ll stave off the worst of slowly being chipped down. Light cuts and slashes - and by light, I mean to the bone, missing vital organs - should heal themselves in extremely short order. I have [Imbue] and a few ranged skills. It’s not perfect, it's terribly inefficient, relatively speaking, but I can keep people up that way. Lastly, in a pinch, with small numbers, I can just walk up to people and slap them. It’s how I started as a Ranger. Just running into fights, tagging the Rangers that needed it, and running back out again. My skills and abilities have grown since then, but I’m never averse to returning to the fundamentals. My mana regeneration also means I’m never truly out and useless. Keeping a single line alive isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.”

Katerina gave me a sharp nod.

“Ties nicely in with your request for a full line of batteries, and after today’s demonstration, I’m much more inclined to make it happen. Might need to trade with another Legion. I’ll set Leonidus on it, let him work his magic. You mentioned a poor image?”

“Yup.” I said. “I’ve got thousands upon thousands of images across every single elvenoid race prepped, along with thousands of different types of injuries and diseases, and how to cure them. What I don’t have are partial cures. I’ve needed to triage people and injuries before, only taking care of the worst ones, but I haven’t built a full army image yet.”

I grimaced.

“I’m also deeply concerned that I’ll get something about it wrong. I forget an artery? I misjudge how much blood is needed? I miss an interaction with my healing aura? Soldiers will slowly die, thinking I’m going to save them. Frankly, it scares me.”

My pronouncement had a brief moment of silence, before Reed spoke up.

“I never got deep into images and how they work, but could you simply subtract minor things you know aren’t an issue out, and gain some efficiency that way? Like bruises, or something else almost entirely harmless?”

I chuckled.

“The idea’s good, and I’ll look into it. But taking bruises as an example. That’s when people are bleeding a little inside. If I ignore bruises entirely, that naturally encompasses all internal bleeding. I wouldn’t heal anyone rattled by the alchemical’s explosive shockwave, for example.”

The standard-bearer opened his mouth in a perfect “O”.

“Medicine and healing is more complicated than we think.” Katerina gruffly reminded Reed. “That’s why we leave it to the specialists, and let them figure out how they do their thing. Remember Maxlin and the five pigs?”

Reed groaned and flopped back.

“Please don’t remind me about that.” He begged.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“That’s why we don’t interfere with the technicalities.” She reminded him, then turned back to me.

“Equipment and morale. You saw the meatgrinder out there, you saw how people were impacted, and how we were a hair away from the two centuries punching each other after their gear was wrecked. Got anything for that?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing in the slightest. I’m going to shamelessly push that problem off to you. I keep people alive.”

Katerina grunted.

“Fair enough. That is my job in the end. Your fight with my escort. Excellent show and display of skill, but are you capable of properly defending yourself if your team isn’t present? If you’re caught alone, assassins come for you, are betrayed, or otherwise find yourself needing to fight for your life?”

I nodded.

“Oh yeah. I was in no danger. When I’m in no danger, my [Oath]

to do no harm kicks in, and kicks in hard. Took me years before I got alright with sparring, and even then I aim to fight more like I did now. When I do need to fight? I go straight for the kill.”

The Legata eyed me up and down.

“I’ll take your word for it. Anything else I need to know?”

I hesitated, unsure if I was willing to extend my trust, knowing I needed to.

“You’ve got to have privacy wards. Can you get your strongest wards up and around us?” I asked.

Katerina raised an eyebrow, and called over her shoulder.

“Get me Optio Petra, and however many [Enchanters] she’s got with her on short notice here.” She ordered one of the runners, who saluted and took off.

“The rest of you, shoo.” She ordered with a flap of her hand.

The tent emptied out with salutes, and my eyes flickered over to Reed, who was still sitting at the table. Katerina raised an eyebrow at me, and I stared at Reed again.

She sighed.

“Reed, you’re dismissed for the evening.”

The man took his leave, and a panting Petra, along with a few other people, came into the tent a few minutes later.

“Legata! You called?”

“Privacy wards. Your strongest. I don’t want anyone to ever hear or figure out the conversation I’m about to have.” She ordered, remaining seated the entire time.

The enchanters bustled around us, setting up a number of protections. I recognized a single one, written in Melas, and I swiftly memorized the one written in Anaconda, spinning out a thought process to try and figure out what it was doing. I recognized almost all of the runes, it was just how it was put together was interesting…

They finished up and left.

I wasted no time.

“My curse.” I said. “It’s related to apples. I doubt we’ll see many out here, so it’s broadly not an issue, but apples are my bane.”

I gave her the full rundown, along with what my experiments had revealed.

Katerina chewed over that, then gave me a brisk nod.

“Thank you for your trust. I’ll keep it in mind.”

We made a few more polite noises, then separated.

It was late, it was dark. I wanted to see how Auri had done, see if Nina had any questions for me, cuddle with Iona.

I had another job to do first. One last task, and this evening had given me the perfect opportunity.

I flew away from the Sixth Legion’s camp, back to Sanguino. The entire way there I flapped up, gaining altitude, going higher and higher into the dark sky. I made it to the ceiling of the world, the great Ashen bat that hovered protectively over the capital, shading the city in perpetual night. As I neared Sanguino, I took a deep breath, and dipped up into the Ashes.

I had hours of air capacity, thanks to my dip in biomancy, but I didn’t need it all. I flew over the city, occasionally peeking down out of the clouds to check where I was, and navigate to the next place I needed to go.

I knew my destination, and I was starting to get familiar with the layout of Sanguino. I paused in the air, high up above the library, and stopped, hovering in the Ashes.

Then at the speed of thought, I dropped [Scintillating Ascent]

, going into freefall, and activating the [Greater Invisibility] rune on my chest.

I fell through the air, spending a moment savoring the wind in my hair. The breeze caressing me, the sheer joy and freedom of being alive, free, and moving. The world was my oyster, the sky was my stage, and all the world was a play.

I focused as the ceiling of the library rushed up at me, cursing the fact that I was still short of an instant [Blink]. This would be so much easier if I could teleport.

Nobody could know what I was up to. Not Auri. Not Fenrir. Not Nina, Katerina, Sentinel Tyrannus or Night.

Not Arachne.

Especially not Iona.

With her ever-present threads in the city, it was impossible for her to not know something was going on. As long as she didn’t know it was me, that was fine, and it was clear that she just didn’t care about the vast majority of crime in Sanguino. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any gangs running around, for one.

Right as I was about to hit the roof of the library, I teleported a spellbook out of [Loremaster’s Library], instantly flipping it open to the right page. I summoned a sheet of metal under my feet right as I landed, bending my knees to absorb the impact of going from terminal velocity to nothing.

My knees screamed in protest, and I probably would’ve popped something if I didn’t constantly have my healing going.

But hey! Huge improvement! Last time I’d landed from terminal without slowing down with my wings had been at the guardian fight, where I’d broken every bone from my pelvis down, and most of the other ones as well! Now, with my improved biomancied skeleton and massively increased vitality, it was just a little hard on the knees.

I wasted no time on the roof, lying down on it and [Blinking] through the ceiling.

I was falling again, but starting over from scratch. It was easy enough to use a spellbook to summon a set of heavy weights over my feet, landing on my makeshift boots.

I had good boots and shoes in my spellbook, but none of them would disguise my vibration-profile from Arachne, and I wasn’t going to gamble on just using [Greater Invisibility] to hide myself. It might work, but I was taking no chances on this operation. None at all.

Nobody - nobody - could ever know.

Instead of an 80 kg elvenoid with a distinct step pattern and unique biomancy that could easily be traced, I was more like a 87 kg WTF with plodding circle metal shoes. Enough of a difference that it should hopefully throw off the scent.

The library was empty at night, which made it easy to navigate around. I debated trying to go during the daytime, set up shop in some corner reading a normal book, and using [The World Around Me] in combination with [Manuscript Mastery] to read the books I needed to, but no. Arachne had a solid sense of what I could do, and she’d know I was close enough to read the books in question. With how terrifyingly intelligent she was, with how incredible her ability to gather information was, it’d be trivial to know I was using [Parallel Thoughts] to read the book in question.

And nobody could know.

I snuck through the memorized halls of the library, quickly finding what I was looking for, the book that contained the forbidden knowledge.

Lithos’s Longboats and Love-knots: Tracing Troll Influence on Matrimonial Customs.

What was the best way to propose?