Next morning,

Rayla slumped her head on her desk as she hadn't slept a wink last night. damn that dumb human, making me go through this,

"You okay Rayla?" Jasmine looked at her with concern since Rayla was looking the most miserable out of everyone present.

"Do I look ok to you?," Rayla whined as she barely lifted her head to look, her eyes felt like they were on fire

"Guess what they said was true, day one will ruin you." she looked around at everyone's tired faces,

I should probably not tell her the real reason I couldn't get any sleep. Rayla looked up to see Jasmin had dark circles under her eyes as well, "You seem unusually full of energy today?"

"What can I say, coffee is the ultimate fuel." she was pretending that her exhaustion wasn't as bad as it was knowing it would crash on her when this day was over.

"Is that why you humans drink so much of it?"

"Most people yeah, in my case I just like it... so you have any idea on what all the instructors are busy with?"

"Yeah I have an idea..." she sunk further into the desk, wanting nothing more than to sleep through this entire day.

"You do?" she beckoned for everyone,

"I said, I have an idea," She let out a tired sigh as she was surrounded by her platoon, "We're gonna be sent to fight the walking fertilizers in a few months."

"We're fighting zombies?" one of them asked, "How'd you even get this intel?"

"If I told you then we'd all get in trouble for it," Rayla knew full well that telling them that she could ask Callum for info probably wasn't a good idea. She tried to sleep ignoring all the questions that she was being bombarded with.

An hour later, an instructor finally arrived, "Alright you lot, I got good news and bad news," She looked at the entire classroom for a moment, "The bad news is that your training has been shortened by a month and starting eight days from now, your getting a two week long break."

"How is that bad news mam?" one of them asked. No matter how they thought about it, getting a vacation and finishing training a month earlier sounded like a good thing,

"Because once the two weeks are over, you all are gonna make up for it and the extra month with some intense training," she felt a bit of pity for them knowing full well what they were thinking right now.

The room was enveloped by a dead silence, That is bad news. They were still sore from day 1, doing this for a whole month sounded like it would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. Rayla looked on with lifeless eyes.

"Whats going on mam?"

"Sorry cadet but thats above your rank," The sergeant paused before continuing, "The good news is you greenhorns will be going to the Cursed Caldera to kill some fertilizers in your last month. Those who don't want to go can stay behind, but those who do go will a get promotion based on performance upon graduation. Any questions?."

"No Drill Sergent!" All of them were thinking about that promotion,

She gestured for some men outside to bring in some envelopes, "Good, here are your applications for going, fill them up and turn them in by the end of next month, Dismissed."

Rayla took her envelope and found it contained the application he signed yesterday, So he's letting me decide if I want to go or not, guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point, he always gives me a way out. She felt her cheeks warm thinking on it.


Next Day, Margrave's Office.

Callum was on the phone with Opeli while going through budget their current countermeasures for Operation Jester,

Callum: The military academies have been informed, they've begun to prepare as we speak.

He was currently reading through reports on the status of the modernization of their current stealth-airships

Opeli: I've finished going through the justice system so far none are implicated though I found something odd, there seems to be an unusual amount of transactions originating from Grasslands-Housing. Co.

Callum: Preston said he'd help with that place if we speed up the delivery.

Opeli: They seem eager to get them, I take it they've noticed similar movements on their sides?

Callum: That or they're feeling the pressure from the dukedom and feel their defenses are inadequate.

Opeli: I'll see to it that the delivery is sped up,

Callum put the phone down and began to go over the report on the Rimemere case, he turned his gaze towards the sofa half expecting to see Rayla goofing off, he lowered his shoulders and began to rub the bridge of his nose. The large spacious office felt empty now that she wasn't around. He decided to get some coffee hoping it might help him focus more on his work.

"Callum, you in here?" Ezran's voice came from outside

"Come on in Ez,"

Ezran opened the door and began to look around, "Where's Rayla? I haven't seen her." He held the door open for Zym to enter before closing it while carrying bait in the other arm.

"She's in Boot camp. She'll' be back in a week" He began filling a second cup for Ezran and added extra sugar to satisfy his brother's unrivaled sweet tooth.

"How long?"

"Two weeks, then she's going back for a few months," He found it made him feel worse thinking about how long that would be.

"So whatcha working on?" He took the cup before taking a sip to see Callum put enough sugar cubes or not,

"Right now, Rayla's fraudulent landlord and Viscount Hasting."

Ezran got on the sofa carrying Bait while Zym followed close behind "Why hasn't Opeli grilled them already? she does that with everyone else."

"If it was only those two then she'd have done it by now, there are several other's we need to fish out first before grilling them,"

"Speaking of grilling, where's the buffet you said you'd be taking all of us to?"

Callum smiled "You'll have to wait till we get there and they have plenty of sweets including jelly tarts"

"SWEET!... wait can we bring Bait, Zym and Eva?" Ezran asked as he didn't recall ever seeing animals at buffets he'd visited.

"I got us a special room booked, we can eat there and they'll bring food for those three... and do you have to eat the sugar cubes?" Callum narrowed his eyes as the sugar bowl was being emptied.

"What can I say, I like sweets," Ezran kept tossing the cubes into his mouth.

"It seems I'm surrounded by gluttons," Callum pretended to complain as he took a sip realizing he added a bit too much sugar himself.

"But we're your gluttons," Ezran stuck out his tongue.

"Ain't that the truth,"


A Few Days later.

Rayla was doing push-ups outside the barracks while almost everyone was trying to rest in the barracks, At least I'm getting a good work out from this, next to her was Jasmin pleading on her knees,

"Come on Rayla, can't you help me with this?"

"Nope, and what do you expect me to do? cause a commotion?"

"Can't you turn invisible and sneak in some deluxe coffee powder?,"

"I need a full moon to do that and I refuse to be a part of this," Rayla knew getting caught wasn't gonna end well, That would cause problems for Callum if this ever got out.

"What if I gave you enough money to buy yourself some tasty treats," She recalled Rayla was a bit of a food lover and thought this might convince her.

My sad prince pays me better for this kind of work... STOP THINKING THAT! Rayla shook her head trying to clear that though, "Hate to break it to ya but I already have a luxurious high class buffet waiting for me, so try something else,"

"How'd you afford that?!" That was not something she expected, she knew how expensive a buffet would be unless it was the harvest festival. "Ok then what if I sweetened things with a ..."

"WORD OF ADVICE CADETS! PLAN YOUR CONSPIRACIES FAR AWAY FROM MY OFFICE! 30 LAPS ON THE FIELD! DOUBLE TIME!" Boomed the drill Sergent's voice from the other side of the concrete wall

"YES DRILL SERGEANT, SIR!" They ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Was his office always close to the barracks?" Rayla asked

"I don't know and I thought he'd already went to the castle, whats he doing back here so soon!" she did not look back fearing to see their superior's face.


Frenoria, Erdus.

"How are the preparations for the meeting?" Ernest asked

"All taken care of," Richard replied, "Sadly because of all this, the prince had postponed his forsaken hunting trip,"

"Cant really blames him for that, this is too big to ignore... I really wanted that recording,"

"The good news is that the black market problem originating from Rimere will be taken care of,"

"True, it's too bad we had to risk an international incident to deal with it,"

"It can't be helped, they normally smuggled regular items through Rimemere so it wasn't a high priority compared to other matters such as us... though there is an issue,"

"an issue?" Ernest knew this wasn't going to be good news,

"I got another communication, it seems while trying to investigate what we've done, Katolis found a separate etherium smuggling operation originating from our side,"

"Was it all for that?" Ernest knew where this was going

"It seems they were slowly building a stockpile and we've accidentally caused it to be discovered," Richard was beginning to get a grasp of just how large this operation truly was and that his information network had failed to notice it happening under nose worried him, My plans for a peaceful world are at jeopardy because of some ambitious warhawks,

"We should probably fish around during the meeting."


Moonshadow Kingdom, Xadia

Within the courtroom, the king and Runaan were discussing surrounded by court officials and military commanders along with representatives from the other elven kingdoms.

"How are your preparations?" The king asked wearily, the burden of carrying the weight of everyone's lives was taking its toll on him, he was mentally exhausted because of this mission which he had to ensure remained a secret at all costs.

"I went to the quartermaster and he is refusing to give us the concentrated poisons," Runaan said,

The king gestured to one of the court officials to deal with it,

"But when does your team depart?" One of the court officials asked

"We'll depart within a few months when the humans will begin their preparations for winter," Runaan had spent days going through every report on human activity within Xadia he could find in order to know figure out when to enter the human lands with the highest chance of success.

The king held out two shadowhawk arrows, one red and one white, Runaan took them knowing that one represented the hope of Xadia which rested on his mission while the other represented what might be an even greater disaster if he failed.


Polmauren, Erdus Dukedom 2:00 AM

Duke Vanderbilt's laboratory was still filled with the nearly overwhelming smell of the very chemicals he was mixing merely moments ago. Several containers were in front of his labeled in cipher as to what their contents were. These potions had proven to be extremely difficult to make despite his unrivaled expertise in this field. He called for his subordinates to have these potions delivered to his allies knowing that he had done all he could and everything now was up to fate to decide. He sat at his desk contemplating as he waited for the room to ventilate itself. His goals were in front of him right now and there was no turning back, No, I have no choice but to go through with this,

His face contorted with a pained expression as he opened the desk drawer to take out a strange disk, his hands were trembling as he held it almost as if he was holding a dangerous beast that would bite off his hand. The disk had had a symbol engraved on it which glowed indicating that they were nearby which he knew could be interpreted as being literally anywhere as their standards greatly differed from his. Not a day passed where he didn't wish he hadn't learned the truth of everything. He knew the power this symbol held and he genuinely fears it.