Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening, all rights to the owners.
Morgan.
"Morgan."
"Eh, uh, Father?" I blink, rubbing sleep from my eyes. From beside me, Nathan shifts in his own bedroll, squinting at the tent flap to try and make out Father's shape against the dark sky? "Did I miss something? It's not even sunup."
"We need you and Lucina to take a small team and check on a fort that hasn't sent a report in over a week." Father says bruskly. "It's sitting right along the battle-lines, but by all accounts the Valmese army hasn't arrived there yet. We're sending in Shepherds to investigate because we don't know what caused the reports to stop in the first place, and the squad sent to check out the problem didn't return."
"Why didn't this get mentioned yesterday?" I grumble while extracting myself from my bedroll.
"We only got word of the situation an hour ago." Father says tiredly. I grimace at the mere thought that Father has been up for at least that long already. He really should be sleeping. "We need this handled as soon as possible. The Valmese army is expected to arrive at least a few days before us, and we don't need a break in our defences making things any better for them. Those who will be joining you are being woken up already. Meet by the mess tent in ten minutes. Nathan, you can go back to sleep. You're not going."
Father leaves without another word, leaving me staring at the gently-swaying tent flap illuminated by the barely-there light of the moon.
"Sometimes I can't believe I signed up for this shit." I grumble, and start grabbing my things in the near-darkness.
"If this didn't happen so late you'd be excited to have your first mission where you're in charge. You actually like your job sometimes, somehow." Nathan mumbles, and nestles back into his bedroll like any sensible person would at this time of night. "You'll do great, don't die, love you. I'm going back to sleep."
"Love you too." I mutter and march out of our tent.
The mess tent has a few people working inside preparing a quick breakfast for those of us who are leaving. A tired Noire, Lucina, and Laurent greet me when I walk up, Nah grumbles something that probably isn't an insult, and Gaius is just outright sleeping. The only people who look properly awake are Cordelia and Anna, but Cordie is a freak of nature and Anna is a nut so that's not saying much.
A very tired Cherche steps out of the mess tent and pushes a hot bowl of stew into my hands without saying a word before ducking back inside, and I sigh and start drinking.
Father was smart in choosing who to send on this mission. As expected of Father of course. We've got a mage, an archer, a healer, a flier, a manakete, a sneak (two actually, but I'm counting Anna as our healer), along with Lucina to frontline and me to command. If Cherche is coming too then we have a second flier which is always useful, but I'm expecting her to stay here. She's Virion's second and not even technically a Shepherd.
"Stahl is grabbing his mare and riding horses for the rest of you, he'll be joining us." Cordelia says to me while I drink. Despite the late hour her posture is perfect and she has no bags under her eyes, and her smile is too radient for this whole situation. "It's wonderful to work with you, Morgan."
"You too. I'll smile back when I'm not tired."
Cordelia's laugh sounds like soft ringing bells, and I don't know if I love or hate hearing it when I'm too tired to properly appreciate it.
I sip my soup instead of thinking about it. Warm, hearty soup. Yes, this is indeed soup. Very soupy. No pretty lady, just soup.
A few people cycle in and out of the area while we wait for Stahl. Father and Frederick drop by with a mound of supplies what we all shove into our backpacks, Virion comes through with a few maps (most of which I take, with the extras going to Lucina and Cordelia), and Chrom comes just to check on us (mostly Lucina) before we leave.
And we do leave. All those events happen in the span of maybe fifteen minutes. We've got our supplies and are riding beyond the army camp's edge before the sun is up.
###
Look, do you really want me to spend time talking about the random stuff we did on the way to the fort? Tactics talk with Laurent and Lucina, casual talk with Noire and sometimes Nah, and just not really talking with the first generation Shepherds at all because they have their own little group.
Fun times, bla bla bla, we've got a fort to bust.
So, the fort. A bigass hunk of stone with crenelated walls and probably parapets for archers to fire from and duck behind the merlons to avoid return shots. The fort is basically a big box, though the towers at the corners stop it from being a straight-up square.
Also, the fort (and forts in general) isn't small. It would take you a good few minutes to walk from one side of the wall to another. Virion mentioned when he was dropping off the maps that about fifty people should be manning the fort.
Fifty against nine. Not amazing odds, but manageable. We're super-soldiers and they're not.
(I mean, probably. Maybe the fort was taken over by Valmese elites.)
Here's my question: why is there no one up on the walls? Even if Valm took over the fort, you need someone on the walls as a lookout, and they could just dress in Rosannite uniforms to make it less obvious what happened. Having no lookout at all is strange. It implies whoever is inside just doesn't give a shit if they're snuck up upon.
"Do we just fly in?" Nah whispers. "I could blanket the place in dragonfire."
"We don't know what's in there, Spitfire." Gaius clicks his tongue. He leans over and flicks a large beetle off Noire's leg while speaking. "You might get a faceful of lightning the moment you poke your muzzle over the wall."
"I do not have a muzzle!" Nah hisses.
"Technically you do." Laurent points out. "A muzzle is simply the protruding nose and jaws of a creature."
Very smooth Laurent. Unfortunately for him, Nah is glaring because she doesn't have my amazing sense of humor. I thought it was funny. I'm not sure it was supposed to be funny, but it was.
"Th-there might still be Rosannite soldiers in there." Noire mumbles. Her eyes are squinted, focusing on the beetle. A frown is on her face. "We can't just burn everything."
True. Honestly, this situation would be so much easier if 'kill everything' was a viable plan.
"Laurent, we've seen these before, haven't we?" Noire whispers while daintily picking up the beetle by a leg with a grimace on her face. "In the future?"
"Some creatures are simply skilled at survival. Cockroaches also passed Grima's test." Laurent says. He fixes his glasses and squints at the nearly palm-sized bug. It's got a glossy brown-black shell with a circular white mark and two tiny purple eyes. "Though it is curious that these beetles are also in Valm."
"Focus you two." Cordelia scolds. "You can do your insectology later."
Noire tosses the beetle aside, and it lazily crawls off into the bushes.
"We already know diplomacy has failed." I point out. "We should expect conflict. We don't want them to know we're coming either, so obvious scouting is out of the question. No flyovers. We need to get all of us in as quickly as possible."
"You sure, Coat?" Gaius asks with a raised eyebrow. "I can do subtle you know. Sorta my thing."
"Your thing is breaking into forts?" I ask.
"Breaking into anything." He shrugs. "I can climb the walls no problem, and without guards there's no one to spot me. If you want me to get in, I can get in."
I chew my lip. Do I want Gaius to get in? Is that worth the risk? Just because he can doesn't mean he should, but it's a valuable tool. "The sooner we can all get in, the sooner our small numbers are less of an issue. We can't afford to get caught outside the fort. We can send you and Anna in beforehand, but purely to get the gate open. Don't take any unnecessary risks, don't poke around. We can do that after we secure the fort."
"If you say so, Coat." Gaius says. "Sound like a plan, Moneybags?"
"Works for me!" Anna chirps.
"We're not going to make this complicated." I say. "Get the gate open, get everyone in, keep the fighting in the hallways and out of the courtyard if possible, secure the fort. Got it?"
"Yes Ma'am." Cordelia nods. "If I may, what would you have me do specifically? Will I be leaving Winter behind?
She pats her pegasus and I frown. That's a good point. Our mounted fighters are going to be a lot less useful with this plan. Nah might have trouble with it too, and that's the more pressing issue because Nah is our big advantage and she can't fight in tight spaces. However, tight spaces limit how many people can fight at once which is our most efficient defence against superior numbers. We don't have the manpower to control the entire courtyard at once.
"Might I suggest a modification?" Laurent offers. "Nah and Cordelia are to wait around the opposite side of the fort while we enter through the gate. We will likely be forced to fight through the courtyard in some small capacity to reach the interior, and so they are responsible for relieving pressure on the other side of the fort and keeping as many foes as possible occupied when we do get inside. Nah will be responsible for brute force, and Cordelia for spotting and potentially eliminating notable threats. If in significant danger, they are both capable of simply flying away."
I nod quickly. That's a good idea. We need to leverage Nah somehow.
"When are we doing this?" Stahl asks. "Right now?"
"I guess we could." I muse. "It's not like they have lookouts."
"Risen." Lucina hisses.
"What?" I blink. "What do-"
Lucina whips out Falchion and lunges, impaling the undead that had been sneaking up behind us on her sword. The other future kids are immediately up and ready, with the first generation just a moment behind. I'm the last to get on my feet.
"Teams of two, fan out, ten minutes in one direction, then turn back. Return here." Lucina orders. "Go."
She doesn't even bother to specify the teams. She and Laurent fall in together without hesitation and move in the direction the Risen came from, and Nah and Noire pair up to go more to the left. The rest of us blink in confusion for a second, and then I speak. "Stahl, with Anna. Go right. Gaius, with me. We're heading towards the fort. Cordelia, take to the sky. Increasing spiral. Move!"
Our brief scouting patrol turns up two stray Risen, both heading towards the fort, which Gaius dispatches before I can even get close. I do get a look at them though, and that's important because there's something off about them.
They don't have masks. All Risen I've seen so far have masks on their faces. These Risen don't, though they otherwise look and act the same. That's absolutely something I'm noting down as soon as we get back to camp.
Lucina and Laurent are already back by the time I return, and report similar results. In fact, all four teams report the same results. One or two Risen randomly shambling around the forest, strangely disconnected.
"Risen don't usually act like that." Lucina explains to me and the first generation. "They form groups and pack-hunt when they're not being directly commanded by a higher power. Singular wandering Risen are- or I should say, were, very rare. At least that was the case in the future."
"I might know why." I say. "Which way were your Risen heading? The two we saw were going towards the fort."
"Ours was doing the same." Anna says.
"Same." Nah adds.
"Ours as well." Laurent frowns. "That is concerning. For multiple reasons."
"How are there so many stray Risen past the Rosannite line?" I ask.
"And why do they have an interest in the fort?" Laurent says while pushing up his glasses. "If that is their gathering location, how did they overpower the fort's defenders in the first place? Surely a fort full of men can deal with a slow stream of Risen."
It just doesn't add up at all. "I think there's a solid chance that either the Rosannite soldiers are still holed up in the fort or there are Risen in there. Either way, that changes our approach."
"One Risen spotting us could set off the entire fort." Lucina says. "We might have gotten lucky that the stragglers aren't properly mentally connected with the main group and didn't set off their alarm."
"Assuming a main group exists in the first place." Nah mutters.
"You kids sure are experts on this." Gaius murmurs.
"We lived with nothing but Risen roaming the world for years. We didn't have much of a choice." Lucina says. "Now, Morgan, a plan."
"If one Risen can set off the whole fort, we can't risk sneaking in. You can't just kill or knock out a stray guard as if they were human and have no consequences." I say. "So no preliminary sneaking. We go in hard and fast. Nah, how many people can you carry?"
"Six."
"That's more than enough. Cordelia can carry Stahl. His horse will have to stay behind." I say. "There's no point in waiting, Risen have dark vision. The night is no advantage to us. Let's get moving. As soon as you have visual confirmation of Risen in the fort, say so. Nah, as soon as you have confirmation, lay on the dragonfire."
"Got it." The little girl growls. She already has her dragonstone in hand.
"We're going for a full-clear." I say, now speaking loudly. "Route the Risen, find any survivors, and then secure the gate and walls! Cordelia and Nah will cover from the air, and we'll use two teams to clear the interior. Stahl, Gaius, and Noire, and me on one side, Lucina, Laurent, and Anna on the other. Any questions?"
"No ma'am!" Stahl says, standing at attention. I feel a spike of excitement in my chest. I'm really doing this. I'm actually commanding my first proper mission.
"Then let's move Shepherds!" I bark. "Nah, transform!"
I don't have to ask twice. It only takes a minute before we're all on her back (minus Stahl, of course) and soaring towards the fort.
From our new vantage point it's easy to see the various individual Risen dotting the ground, all making a line towards the fort. Even as I watch, one digs its fingers into the grooves between the individual stones and claws its way up and over the fort wall.
"I d-don't think we're finding anyone alive in there." Noire mumbles into my shoulder.
I don't respond, but I can't help but agree.
"Visual." Gaius says abruptly. He's leaning halfway off Nah's back with no concern. "Risen in the courtyard."
I squint against the sun and nod. "Yep." Fewer than I expected… either way. "You have permission Nah. Blast away and bring us down."
Under my legs I can feel Nah's whole body swell, and as she turns into a dive fire erupts from her mouth in a concentrated blue-green ball. The ball smashes into a Risen on the ground and explodes like an elfire, searing several more Risen in the process.
Nah swoops low and we all take that as our cue. Lucina leaps high and slashes as she lands, as do Gaius, Stahl (off Winter), and Anna. Noire has an arrow knocked before she's even landed, and Laurent has a spell circle swirling around his hands.
I hop off like a normal person, if only because my coat is heavy and I can't execute theatrics like that.
We have strange, maskless Risen on all sides, but that doesn't mean much. The courtyard is sparsely occupied, and we're never in danger of being overwhelmed. A hailstorm of dragonfire, normal fire, and arrows deal with most of them before they even get in range. Those that make it past are cut down by Lucina in a single strike.
We fully clear the courtyard in about five minutes. Nah and Cordelia take to keeping away the roving Risen still trying to get in.
"That felt too easy." Lucina mutters.
"Stick to the plan. Stahl, Gaius, Noire, with me!" I call. "Lucina, Laurent, Anna, you go around the other side of the fort. We'll take the lower floors, you handle the higher ones."
"Understood." Laurent nods.
"Stahl, take point. Get the door. Everyone else, weapons ready." I command. "We don't know what's behind that door."
As it turns out, what's behind that door is Risen. Like, a fuck ton of Risen. Packed like sardines.
"Naga above!" Stahl yelps. He stabs as quickly as he can and starts backing away from the door.
"Don't move!" I snap at the knight. I then turn to our thief. "Gaius, stop throwing daggers! Get next to him! If we can't hold the door they're going to all run out and surround us! Block that choke point!"
Gaius grimaces but listens. He draws his sword and joins Stahl in holding back the wave of Risen trying to push out through the doorway. The lack of a long weapon really sucks, he has to dance around enemy spears with no easy way to strike back.
"Lucina is going to have it even worse." I realize. "She has to hold the door alone."
Admittedly she also has a full mage and our main healer to back her up. I made sure to stack the short-handed team with everything important to make up for having one less person. Lucina is also a monster in combat.
One good thing about all the Risen being packed into one place is that my tomes are hella effective. I just aim over Gaius' head and watch things die. With fire. Lots and lots of fire.
Nathan was right, sometimes I love my job. It's easy to find the fun in some good ol' Risen blasting, and soon I have a grin on my face.
"It's fire~! El-fire~!" I sing cheerfully, lobbing another ball of fire. It detonates deep into the room, vaporizing several Risen at once and singeing a dozen more. Several beetles crawling across the ceiling are turned into charred shells. "Now Risen it's your turn~!"
"I like your singing as much as the next, but I'm getting stabbed here Coat!" Gaius barks.
"Nathan would have appreciated that reference." I huff. Then again, he's the only person who actually understands the reference. Even I don't. I'm just mimicking something he sang. "Chug a potion or something! I'm killing them as fast as I can!"
"Isn't that a tactical failure or something?" Gaius snipes. "Me nearly dying?"
"Depends on how you define 'failure'!" I chirp. "Besides, you're alive enough to quip. You're fine."
"Fuckin' kid…" Gaius grumbles. He ducks an axe swing and lops off the offender's head. "Glad you're not mine."
"Me too. I'm out of your league." I lob another blast of elfire over his shoulder.
Noire groans. "M-Morgan, please don't flirt with my dad."
"You're all no fun."
(Stahl has the good sense to keep quiet and not draw my attention.)
I do take pity on Gaius though. I whip out my sword and take his place for a moment so he can drink a vulnerary before switching back because we really do need my literal firepower and I can't do that when Risen are poking at my cloak. I mean, they weren't doing much damage because they're so cramped they can barely swing their weapons, but still. Point-blank magic is ill-advised.
Another fireball, another dozen dead Risen, and a side-effect. The stone floor of the room above is tough, but not enough to take repeated fireballs to the same spot. The insides of the fort weren't designed with heavy magic use in mind.
(They're also chipped and burned in places I never struck. Was there a fight here beforehand? Where did the Rosannite defenders make their last stand?)
Stone and wood and Risen crash down from the room above. For every Risen crushed, two seem to have fallen from above to take their place.
"How many of these things are there?" Gaius groans.
"Wh-Why are there so many inside?" Noire yelps.
"Why do none of them have masks?" I mutter quietly. There's something weird going on here and I want to know what. I bounce another fireball over Gaius' head while thinking it over.
There are other things I notice about the Risen that are slightly more important too, like when they have any clothes at all they tend to have Rosannite uniforms. So I guess we know what happened to the Rosannite garrison. One of the Risen doubles over after it's legs get burnt off and I can see a beetle with its pincers dug straight into the back of the Risen's neck. I guess these beetles bite. Joy. There sure are quite a few of them in this fort.
Doesn't explain how the Risen got in here in the first place though. The gate didn't look like it was too damaged, nor did the outer walls when we approached. Did they really just climb over the walls?
Mysteries, mysteries…
Whittling down the Risen mob isn't so much difficult as it is tedious. These are basic Risen, and even if Gaius isn't a proper frontline fighter he fares well enough holding the door that we aren't in much real danger.
That sounds absurd when we're facing odds of 50 to 1, but the doorway really is an amazing choke point and Stahl's spear and my fire do most of the work.
We almost have the room cleared when Lucina kicks down the door on the other side of the room and tears through the remaining Risen like a tornado, reducing them all to smoke in under ten seconds with broad swipes of her divine sword.
"The ground floor is secure." Lucina reports as I step into the room. Something crunches under my boot, and I grimace and kick aside the fried beetle. "Did you have difficulty?"
"We managed." I say. I glance up at the roof I accidentally broke down, and balk at the sight of a dozen Risen staring down at us. "Uh…"
Lucina looks up and flinches, and then readies her sword.
None of the Risen move. They watch, eyes fixed on the both of us. Gaius and Noire step into the room, and despite their more physically obvious reactions of shock, the Risen still don't attack. Their eyes twitch to the side to regard Gaius and Noire, but they don't jump down.
After a few tense moments, Lucina speaks in a hushed whisper. "They've done this before in our time. They're inconsistent. Sometimes they fight by level, sometimes they all rush to one area. Only if they're being directly controlled will they employ higher-level tactics, so at the least we can rule that out."
Good to know. "Well, no sense in making this complicated. Stahl, take Noire and Anna and hold the stairway. Get Laurent over here. I'm going to trigger the Risen. We'll see how many want to come down before going up to confirm the upper level is clear."
"Yes ma'am." Stahl salutes and jogs off with Noire to find Anna.
Gods I love being in charge. Obey me, slaves!
(I can't say that out loud without Nathan here because no one else would find it amusing. I finally have the energy to roleplay and my partner isn't here.)
Lucina stands up front with Gaius waiting on the other side of the hole. Me and Laurent summon some fire.
It's a massacre. They're Risen, and we have two mages and Lucina. It's barely a contest. They come jumping out of the hole in a constant stream, and we muder them. They all land in the same spot, so me and Laurent just shoot at that one place while Lucina cleans up the extras and we have an easy time. Gaius doesn't have to step in once.
After peeking into the next room to make sure that, yes, the other members of our group are still alive. We take a mosey upstairs and don't find any more Risen or more stairs, so it's time for the basement.
It occurs to me that we sort of abandoned my original plan of 'Lucina takes upstairs I take the basement', but that was before we figured out there were more than 100 Risen crammed into this stupid place.
Sorry, make that 200. The basement is even more crammed, if that's even possible, and those beetles are everywhere. Any surface the Risen aren't actively standing on is covered in these beetles. Some big, some small (that's new, we've only seen big ones until now), but either way it's too many.
Look, I don't mind bugs. Nathan wants them scoured from the face of the Earth (or the face of… uh… I don't think our planet has a name now that I think of it), but I think they're fine. Cool even. As long as they're not bothering me too much.
Within five seconds of the door opening I have a dozen crawling up my legs. Even worse, I can't brush them off because I have to throw fire to make sure Lucina doesn't get dragged into the mob. We've got a thin stairwell to work with, so there's no space for Stahl or one of the other melee fighters to back her up. We need that space for me and Laurent.
Not to say it's difficult exactly. Tedious, tiring, smelly, sure. Not difficult. As soon as we thin the crowd enough Lucina cuts her way through and that's that.
We're left with an celler void of Risen and filled with beetles. Way too many beetles. I'd consider killing them with more fire if I wasn't worried about wearing out the spell diagrams inside.
So, naturally, I ask Laurent to do it instead. He complies.
(Obey me, slave! Muhaha!)
With the Risen gone and the beetles still here but less so, we signal Cordelia and send her off to alert the nearest Rosannite outpost and then the Shepherds while the rest of us (minus Nah, she's still on stray-killing duty) search the building. There… isn't a lot. I mean, there's weapons and clothes on the floor from all the dead Risen and some documents in the commander's quarters, but nothing important.
Also beetles. So, many, fucking, beetles. Why are they all concentrated in this stupid fort? Why do they all like the basement so much? Is it the dark? Why do they like the fort and not the forest? Do they have a thing for stone?
You know what? I know I'm supposed to be looking for important stuff, but if another beetle tries to crawl up my leg I'm going to scream, so I'm finding their burrow/nest/house whatever you call it and killing them all so I can actually focus. That, and this is genuinely suspicious. There's no way the Rosannites didn't have time to deal with these beetles if they're coming from inside the basement of the fort itself. Something must have happened.
This is the one time that the beetle's size is a boon, because I know the entrance to their burrow has to be big enough for something palm-sized to squeeze into.
I follow the movements of the beetle hoard as best I can. I knock aside the splintered remains of crates with my sword as the beetles guide me to the back of the room.
Out of everything I expected to find in the back of the room, hidden behind and underneath barrels of ale, is a chest-sized stone box with a hole on one side the size of a small book with beetles crawling in and out of it in a constant stream. The box also smells bad. Decaying meat sort of bad.
With a sigh, I open the box. That does, in fact, make the smell a million times worse, but it also lets me see what's inside.
Beetles, beetle eggs, larvae, rotting beetle corpses, and a blue gem generating cool mist. Someone dedicated an entire magic gem to making mist in a beetle box.
I take a moment to extract the gem, pull out my elfire tome, and bathe the inside of the box in fire. I instantly plug my nose because that really does not help with the smell. Oh Naga that's so much worse. Oh gods that's awful.
"What are you doing down there Morgan!?" Anna calls from somewhere up the stairs. "I can smell it from up here!"
"Burning beetles!" I shout. I resist the urge to gag so I can keep talking. "There's some sort of box intentionally housing them!"
"Well stop burning them! It reeks!"
As soon as Anna says that, it clicks in my head. It reeks. Reeks. A reeking box. Nathan didn't know if they actually existed or not, but I have one right here. Reeking boxes served to create Risen encounters in the game, which means it does it through these beetles, which makes these beetles…
"Kill any beetles you see!" I shout. "They're thanatophages!"
"They're what?"
"They create Risen!"
"You've got to be kidding me." I hear Anna mutter. "Fine! I'll pass it on to the others. I'm charging extra for this."
"Take it up with Father, and get Laurent down here to look at this!" I bark as the merchant walks away. I grin while plugging my nose with one hand. "Ooh, this is big."
It feels big at least. The real question is why something like this was used to take out a random fort. Why was this specific fort so important that Valm used a previously unknown weapon just to target it?
Maybe this was a trial run? Maybe this isn't an isolated incident? Maybe maybe maybe. I don't have enough information to work with. I have a reeking box and a bunch of beetles, and they aren't exactly a wellspring of insight.
Perhaps Laurent or Father or even Virion or Say'ri will have more insight when they hear about this.
Speaking of, hurry up Laurent, it smells so fucking bad down here.
Plot happening. Kinda. Sorta. I do have an idea of what I'm doing, I just don't know if it's good, and I won't know for a few more chapters yet.
I'm not used to having to make up my own plots. I mean that seriously. Plot is something I've almost always borrowed from the source material for my fics, unless the plot is functionally irrelevant and I can get away with something dead simple. Unfortunately, I'm in a case where neither is true. I can't borrow from Awakening because the whole point of the Valm arc is that things are different, and I can't go with dead simple because dead simple is super boring in this context.
No one wants to read a dozen chapters of Morgan working while Nathan randomly chats with Noire, Nah, and very occasionally another character as the allied army slowly grinds its way through Valm. That might be in keeping with my vaguely 'realistic' tone, but it's dull. So I'm trying something different because the alternative is embracing a dozen chapters of basically nothing. Hence the introduction of Thanatophages. I have an idea of how I can use them to make things interesting. He's hoping it pans out.