-Fort Steiger-
"Well met, Battlemaster." Pheros said. "I believe this is our first time meeting, correct? I can't recall us meeting before, but it seems hard to believe that we've never interacted at any Imperial function."
"Surprisingly, yes. At least, as far as I can recall, and I've amnesia." Robin said. Unfortunately, his bout of amnesia was common knowledge, as he'd made no effort to keep it concealed before getting conscripted into Valm. Thus, rumors were flying, so Robin found it better to embrace them than fight it. "I believe one of my subordinates trained under you, though, after transferring out of my force. Argenita di Cratez? She mentioned she had a frosty relationship with you."
"Ah, yes, that one. We had a disagreement, but it all worked out in the end." Pheros gave a rare smile. "You may not wish to mention this to the rest of the fort. She's very well liked, despite the fact that I was going to throw her into the Damsel's Brigade. A good amount of us like her."
"So, what's the problem… oh, right." Robin swallowed. "I remember. I broke up my engagement with her, didn't I? They hate me for that, don't they?"
"No, that got celebrated." Pheros corrected with a slight smile. "You aren't very well liked among the ladies of military. Or the Empire, for that matter."
"What?" Robin frowned. That would throw a wrench in my plans. "Wait, no hold on that doesn't make sense. I didn't think I was hated."
"Sorry, I meant in the romantic sense." Pheros snickered. "You aren't exactly, shall we say, Valm's most eligible bachelor, despite every major house trying to force you into a political marriage with them. You're viewed as excessively competent, but to a scary point where you aren't to be crossed, and we're glad to have you on our side. Not a bad person, but definitely not deserving of Argenita."
"Yeah, I'll agree with that." Robin said. Well, maybe not for the same reasons as Pheros, though. "So, why the anger if I broke it off?"
"Because you're the one who got her engaged to Zulas." Pheros said. "Which means that she'll be leaving the fortress between soon."
"They do know that she's still going to be a battlefield healer, and that she isn't going to become a housewife, right?" Robin raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, can you imagine trying to keep her from fighting? Or, well, healing on the battlefield, but I don't think I could reign her in if she wanted to fight."
"Something I also happen to be aware of." Pheros said. "She's told me stories."
"Great." Robin sighed. I wonder which ones. But I don't think Argeni knows any truly problematic ones about me. Unless Dant told her, but I don't think – it's Dant, of course she did. Not enough to get me in serious trouble, but enough so I can get snickered at. "So … you aren't mad at me, right?"
"On the contrary, I'm quite happy. Argeni deserves the happiness." Pheros smiled. "I think it's a bit late for me, but it's quite good for her. I'm also quite happy to meet you, you aren't exactly what I expected, even after hearing Argeni's stories."
"I will they that few things are what you expect them to be." Robin said. "Take yourself, for instance. You're not from Valm, correct?"
"No." Pheros shook her head. "I'm from the State of Mila."
"And how did you become one the three Generals of Valm?" Robin asked. "I would imagine there's a tale within that which more than meets the eye." Especially considering that you used to be a devout of Naga.
"Ah, well, that's a long story." Pheros said. "The short answer is that something happened when I was younger, so I went on a pilgrimage to reaffirm my faith. That … didn't end up happening. I even traveled to Ylisse to hear the guidance of the Exalt, which inspired me for a while, but that faded. Then I met him on a battlefield."
"Walhart." Robin said. "So, you worship him now?"
"Don't be ridiculous, I worship no man. Or woman, for that matter." Pheros shook her head. "It was very nice for all of the Naga Devout to preach for peace, but I was their honor guard. I was forced to defend them, day in and day out while they preached that goodwill would save them. That's why I lost my faith in the first place."
"You don't have to say any more." Robin said. "I can guess the rest. You wanted results. You wanted to start working from the world that existed, rather than the world that should. So, you joined Walhart."
"A succinct way of putting it, yes." Pheros responded. "What's your reason for joining Walhart?"
"… Curiosity, I suppose." Robin replied. "Walhart was curious about my abilities, which is why he gave me a chance to join him, and I was hardly in a position to refuse. In any event, he posed me a question, which I've sought to obtain the answer to."
"The question?"
"What is 'strength'?"
"Walhart." Pheros answered instantly. Okay, I knew she wasn't going to help with that, but that is extraordinary levels of unhelpfulness. Robin sighed internally. Pheros continued. "But where did you come from?"
"Plegia." Robin said. "One half of me, anyway. The other half, well I'm not sure. I'd rather not talk about it, you understand."
"Pardon me for asking, then." Pheros said. "I'm glad we had this conversation. I've wanted to get to know you ever since you replaced Yen'fay."
"Ah-h-h-h." Robin stammered. "How much do you know about that?"
"No more than the basics, but I presume you were involved a bit more, considering you replaced him as a general, and his sister, formerly our sworn enemy, is now your sworn sword." Pheros met him with a level gaze. "I can guess quite a few more parts. Would you like me too?"
"No. No I would not." Robin shook his head. "Those are my sins to deal with, and I would ask you leave them to me."
"Good." Pheros said pleasantly. "Now, how about this Wolfguard Initiative of yours? I know you aren't exactly normal, but why make your army in such a manner?"
"A lot of reasons. You can read one of the posters if you want to know them." Robin said pleasantly. "But I'd like to discuss something else right now?"
What is that?"
"I apologize for the abrupt change of subject, but I don't know when the next time we'll meet is, so I figured I might as well talk to you about it once you requested a meeting."
"A new subject? What of?"
"The invasion of Archanaiea." Robin said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He started unrolling a map of the world onto the desk between them, dropping paperweights.
"Pardon?" Pheros frowned. "But are we so far along our unification of the Valm continent that we can afford to be discussing something like this right now? I was under the impression that you were hard at work with both the Wolfguard Initiative and the expansion of the Vermillion City to house the greater economy Walhart's empire has. In fact, you wrote a very strongly worded letter against sending a raiding force to assess their defenses."
"Well, yes, but…" Robin scratched the back of his head. "Honestly, I've never had a problem looking far into the future. Now is not the time to invade, but that just means that the time to invade will come later. And, besides, we'll be setting the infrastructure for our production capacities, so now's the perfect time to start planning. I don't expect these to take effect for at least five – no, make that ten – years."
"Looking a decade into the future? Is that how far you needed to defeat Excellus?" Pheros asked. "And please don't tell me you had nothing to do with Excellus's betrayal."
"Hardly. I only needed to think one move ahead of him. About a month. Give or take." Robin said. Give or take twenty-nine days. But it behooves me to inflate Excellus's reputation. "Ylisse's tactician is reputed to have the gift of prophecy – not something I believe in, given that I met her. But she's incredibly dangerous all the same."
"The new one or the old one?"
"…Come again?" Robin fixed her with a stare,
Pheros blinked. "You do know that there's a new tactician among the Shepherds, right? One that took over for the Foreseer. She's known as the Tactician Magician."
"…What? No, that can't be right." Robin blinked. Dant…! Why would you do this to me? I thought you were being sarcastic! "I thought that was just a hoax! Are you seriously saying that the Tactician Magician is real?"
"If you have evidence to the contrary, then I won't dispute it, but my reports indicated as such."
"If your reports corroborate, then I'll believe them." Robin sighed. Dant, why!? "One of my sources delivered a report which, well … never mind. And, unfortunately, my other source has been quite on the matter. Anyway, it's all moot, because I have no intention of attacking Ylisse. Not at first."
"Oh? Would you go after Plegia, then?" Pheros asked. "Bearing a grudge?"
"Well, yes, for a lot of reasons, but it's not why I want to go after Plegia." Robin said. "They've got ships. A lot of ships. My intelligence is reporting that they've been channeling a good amount of resources into building ships even before the Plegian-Ylissean war, and they've got a hefty stockpile already. Seems like they wanted to go after us once they beat Ylisse."
"Now that is some unparalleled hubris." Pheros noted.
"Well, Plegia, so yes, of course. Aside from the fact that they're currently alienated from their neighbors, who have, at the minimum, a mutual defense alliance with each other, they're also the only force capable of launching a counter offensive. In the, ah, technical sense. Not that it would work, of course." Robin said. "If we strike them first, we can take their ports, and stop them from being able to launch a counterattack."
"Are we really that worried about reprisals?" Pheros asked. "We've never once lost ground during any invasion, and never been forced to retreat."
"Ordinarily, I would say no to reprisals. The logistics for naval lines are dynamically different than the land line counterparts, to the point that I'd be worried." Robin held up a hand in defense. "However, I know we'll have the Conqueror leading us, so I'm not worried about that. The problem is that he can't be in two places at once. Once he lands on the shores of Archaneia, then they can send armies around to engage our rear. And that'll be a mess. A horrible mess. So, while we'll conquer Archaneia, we'll have to deal with guerilla strikes all over Valm."
Pheros considered, looking on the map. Valm had dozens of entry points for a naval invasion, considering that it spanned the whole continent, and not all the harbors were well defended, or even capable of being well defended. "I see what you mean. But aren't you the tactician? Don't you have a plan for dealing with something like that?"
"I do." Robin said. "The plan is like emergency amputation – it's incredibly painful, and if you need to do it, it means that someone, somewhere, has either screwed up badly, or has been screwed up badly. I'd really like avoid that kind of scenario. If we don't cripple their ability to strike back, then we'll need to reinforce the militia and docks just about everywhere, triple the out-land scouts, and have large armies ready to move at a moments' notice. It'd be like the Wolfguard I'm trying to put together right now, if we increased the size and resources intake threefold. Fighting against guerilla warfare sucks."
"So, the plan?"
"We'll build our fleet and burn the Plegian fleet when we get there. Capture their docks." Robin said. "We'll divert a small warfleet to just west of Feroxi's docks, not engaging them, but forming a quasi-blockade should they attempt to launch a pre-emptive fleet. Then, land invasion until we conquer Plegia, all without giving Ylisse a reason to attack us."
"And Ylisse and Feroxi? When do we take those?"
"We'll need to reinforce our beachhead before taking the fight to them." Robin said. "Even the best estimates I have don't give us enough soldiers to conquer both. So, as we're taking Plegia, we have an eye towards taking and holding. But we don't antagonize them, because a three-front war is asking for trouble. The most we've ever done currently is two."
"Wouldn't a warfleet outside their harbor antagonize them?" Pheros asked dryly.
"Well, scratch that aspect of the plan." Robin muttered. "Ah, do you have experience with naval combat?"
"No one does." Pheros said. "Naval combat? Why would that ever be taken seriously?"
"Fine. We'll need to find some other way to know whether or not a warfleet is leaving Feroxi harbor." Robin said. "I suppose non-aggressive. Maybe used a network of dock-working informants?"
"Well, we could just use the Icebergs if all you need are scouts." Pheros said.
"Icebergs?" Robin blinked. "The image that comes to mind is a giant floating block of ice. Tell me that's not what you mean by that."
"No, silly." Pheros laughed. "The Icebergs are our long-range cold-weather pegasus knights. They got the nickname because they've been known to camp out on icebergs during long ranges mission if they can't find anything else to sleep on. Feroxi is north enough to have a constant flow of ice, so I think it could work."
"Seriously." Robin blinked. "Wow, your people are nuts. I'm impressed. Would you mind if I lend you Say'ri so you can train her to work with them?"
"The Chon'sin princess? Sure, I don't see why not." Pheros said. "So, sound good?"
"It's a good start. Thank you for the advice, Pheros." Robin said. "It's been my pleasure meeting with you."
"Mine as well." Pheros said. "Where are you off to?"
"One last area of Valm to meet with." Robin said, yawning. "Then I'll have met just about every major official that I might end up commanding. Sounds fun."
-Ram City-
"More traveling. And that means more waiting." Robin sighed. "And without any companions to annoy."
While he liked the company, traveling between two points took time, and time was a valuable commodity for anyone, especially tacticians. Aversa detoured to return to the Vermillion City, working to create her spy network. Say'ri has done good work rallying Chon'sin to his side. Virion was trying desperately to grab support in Rosanne, but Cherche was helping, alongside Ravena, who claimed to have a lead on Valm's spymaster. Zulas was doing training on recruits, or something of that nature, Argeni was busy trying to seduce Zulas (which Robin considered odd, because they were already engaged but Argeni claimed it was a necessity to prevent 'gold-digging harlots' from snatching him up). Vermil was on-assignment, and Dant was, as usual, on her top-secret mission. That left him with no company while waiting in the barracks in at the absolute southern edge of Valm.
"My apologies, Battlemaster." Ignatius, the famed Sea Wolf of the Valm army was finally ready to see him. "What brings you this far south?"
"Your wargames." Robin said. "I was working with General Pheros a month prior on prospective invasion plans for Archaneia. It was then I noticed that while my knowledge of naval combat is excellent from a theoretical standpoint, I've never really witnessed one done."
"Yes. It is true that Valm has never fought an extended naval campaign." Ignatius agreed. "You've come to participate in my wargames?"
"Just to observe, really." Robin said. "I would love the hands-on experience, don't get me wrong, but I believe I'd gain just as much watching you."
"You fear losing?" Ignatius chuckled.
Yes. "No, of course, not." Robin said. "My mind is honed for battle like a well-sharpened blade, waiting to be drawn. If the blade is used in sparring, it grows dull to accommodate the sparring, whereas if only drawn to take human blood, the blade can see more use. You see?"
"I do." Ignatius sighed. "You are a man of many words, and little action. Battlemaster, indeed."
"May I observe your wargames, then?"
"By all means."
-Ram Bay-
Wood crashed against wood. A terrific spray of white ocean foam roared up as the bow of one ship slammed into the stern of another. Wood creaked and shuddered, but thankfully for the men on both ships, the wood held firm. Rope with grapples were hurled between ships as soldiers from both sides worked to bring the ships together. Then boards were hastily thrown, and an all-our brawl between Valms wearing red and the Valms wearing black began fighting.
Naval warfare? Robin blinked. Ignatius had offered the crow's nest on his flagship as a vantage point, which Robin did not trust, so he elected to view the battle from a nearby hill, using a large spyglass. This looks more like hand to hand combat.
Across the bay, the black and red fleets slammed into each other, as a similar scenario repeated itself. Occasionally, one ship would get flanked by two, and the crew of the one would almost immediately fall to the flank, but by and large, such events did not happen, and the combat mostly stemmed from solo boarding actions between ships. The red fleet was winning. This made complete sense. They'd had started with more men.
"Like what you see, tactician?" Ignatius asked. He usually commanded from his flagship (easily the largest ship there, and thus the one with the most men) but he elected to join Robin watching from the hill.
"Actually, I'm a bit uncertain about what I'm seeing." Robin muttered. "You, ah, seem to be focused primarily on the combat that occurs when two ships collide."
"Of course. You see, the advantage to this approach is that it favors our strongest element – the cavalry and infantry." Ignatius said. "We'll always outnumber our opponents, so we charge their boats, and then seize their ships. Strategically, of course – the frontline are weak, and only serve to disrupt the ships so that the soldiers can get to the middle of the formation."
He's treating naval warfare like land warfare. Robin internally sighed. He's turning the ships into just larger troop measures, like squadrons, and applying from there. The only problem being that it's NOT naval warfare. A ship which is sunk means that all men aboard are lost, regardless of how strong the men are. Mages should be able to light other ships on fire, wind to cut sails and render ships immobile. And what of the current? And what of saboteurs? Not even that, I saw what happened when ships get flanked, because reinforcing is all but impossible, but neither the reds nor the black seem to be doing that deliberately.
"Out of curiosity…" Robin said. "I notice that some ships seem to be fighting against two enemy ships."
"Eh. That's Double-up at work again. Sorry, I mean Captain Archie Pike." Ignatius frowned. "He was a ship captain before he signed on, so he kept his rank, but he doesn't seem to get the point of these exercises. Keeps trying to convince his side to do that, which of course defeats the purpose of a drill. I'm not interested in the squadrons learning how to fight enemies, which that can't do if they're horribly outnumbered. Good captain, so I can't demote him, but he frustrates me."
He doesn't understand how it works? Robin internally sighed. I think, Ignatius, you don't understand how wargames work. Two against one is horrible training, true, but the training here should be focused on teaching the captains how to achieve a two on one, not how to win a one on one. The point of wargames is to test new strategies and ideas.
"So, what do you think?"
"I was going to take you up on your offer." Robin said, removing the spyglass. Note to self: Have this Archie Pike reassigned to my division. I could defeat Ignatius by capitalizing on his mistakes, but I don't think he'd learn a thing from it, and this Captain Pike could be taught ground up to replace Ignatius by the Archaneia campaign. "However, I fear that I have nothing useful that I would be able to teach you, and I've learned all I needed here."
"High praise." Ignatius said, smiling. Robin hid a smirk as he watched the insult fly clean over the Valmese admiral's head. "I am pleased that you're satisfied."
"Oh, I am indeed." Robin raised the spyglass. "I never knew I wanted one of there." Robin walked off, chuckling at Ignatius' confused face.
-Robin's Estate-
It was late, and Robin was at home, attempting to relax. Endless days and nights of scheming were pretty bad, and Robin felt like he could use the very rare breaks he got. And now he had one, with his massive circuitous Valm trip over, and the Wolfguard picking up steam in recruitment. Which is why Robin expected something was going to go horrifically wrong that night.
"Father!" Ravena noticed him and her eyes lit up. And there it is… Robin internally sighed. Ravena continued. "I thought you weren't going to be home until tomorrow."
"Got a ride back early." Robin said. "My plans were ahead of schedule, so I decided to leave early."
"Oh, good!"
"Why do I have a terrible feeling right now…" Robin sighed.
"I just finished building a new Einherjar deck!"
"Yup. There it is." Robin sighed. His hand went to one of his pockets, feeling for his own deck. The advantage to a coat like his was that Robin simply didn't run out of pockets. No matter how many things he had, he could always find a pocket that was both empty and the right size. So the same deck he had when he first started playing the game with Ravena and had absently stashed into his coat was now readily available. "You burn through games like a wildfire, you know that? What happened to chess?"
"No one's willing to play with me anymore." Ravena sighed. "I beat them too much. And Wargames is fun, but the rules are really complicated, and the only people who know all of them are crusty tacticians twice my age."
"My ego…" Robin moaned.
"Sorry, Father! I meant everyone aside from you." Ravena hastily backtracked, to no avail. Robin's ego was still bruised. "Anyway, everyone's willing to play Einherjar, especially now that they've made a Walhart Mastercard! And people tend to think that they can beat me, so they're willing to play with me more."
"You're playing a Walhart deck?" Robin raised an eyebrow.
"No, of course not." Ravena shook her head. "The card's the most OP thing I've ever seen. It makes beating people no fun at all. But it does give people a good handicap against me, so I like it."
Robin withdrew his deck and shuffled through it. The last time Ravena had challenged to his game was when they both had first discovered it. They split the first few games, then Robin got a handle on the techniques that you could use. But once he started, Ravena figured out the ways to counter it, and they ended with her on a three-game winning streak.
"All right." Robin said. "I select Celica as my Mastercard."
"Still using Valentian decks? They went out of the meta weeks ago." Ravena snorted. "I'll use Lyon."
Robin had to give the Einherjar makers credit, they were highly imaginative with their character designs and names and had even released them in sets with storylines tying together the cards and the deckmasters. Robin's Valentian deck was historical based, but using Lyon meant that Ravena was using a Magvel deck. Lyon was the tragic antagonist of the Magvel plotline, from what Robin understood. The lore had to be cobbled together from flavor text and snippets on the back of the card packs.
Robin drew his hand, Ravena mulliganed to draw again, and Robin saw her eyes light up in a horrible way, despite her best efforts to hide it. Robin went first. "I summon 'Lukas, Deliverance Solider', and since Celica is my Mastercard, I'm also allowed to summon 'Celica, Young Girl' to my side of the field. Now, I play one spell card facedown, and I end my turn."
"An interesting start. Not like it's going to help you." Ravena looked at her cards. "Well, I summon 'Knoll, Watcher of Darkness'! And, with Knoll on the field and Lyon as my deckmaster, I can freely cast any dark Magvel spell, which I do now, called Time Shear! This spell card reverses cause and effect, allowing me to summon a promoted unit, so long as I sacrifice a unit to power it on my next turn. And, since I have 'Knoll, Watcher of Darkness' on the field, I can summon his promoted form, 'Knoll, Summoner', which I also have in my hand."
Robin just sighed. "I can see where this is going."
"Now, using both Lyon and Knoll's special effects, I can summon two Magvel creatures at random using their special Necromancy abilities, one for each." Ravena continued, riffling through her deck. "And I summon … a wight and a bael."
"Can I have a turn now?" Robin asked, internally groaning. He didn't enjoy being outnumbered.
"Now, using Lyon as my deckmaster, I summon 'Lyon, Young Scholar'. And since I have Lyon, Young Scholar and two Magvel creatures, I'm able to perform this." Ravena held up a card with a dark demon on it. "The Unsealing of the Dark Stone ritual card. I sacrifice all three, which allows me to summon 'Possessed Lyon' from anywhere in my Deck, which is lucky because I don't have it in my hand. And now that I have 'Possessed Lyon', I can sacrifice the promoted Knoll as a Dark Magic Sacrifice to power the inherit ability of 'Possessed Lyon' to sacrifice 'Possessed Lyon' as well, and summon 'Formotiis, the Demon King'. Which also happens to be the most powerful card in my deck. Now, I can't attack with Formotiis the first turn I summon it, but summoning Formotiis also lets me summon an army of lesser monsters. Eight to be precise. And I can attack with all of them."
"Well, this was fun." Robin said. And now I know how Virion felt when I ruthlessly exploited Wargames against him. "I lost, I take it?"
Ravena looked up for the first time. "Well, unless that magic card is the spell 'Celica, Self-Sacrificing Princess', which allows you to sacrifice any card with 'Celica' in the name to stop the summoning of any draconic or demonic creature and summon 'Celica, Imprisoned Soul' on your side of the field. The downside is that I get to control 'Celica, Imprisoned Soul' on your turn instead of you, but you won't lose."
Robin lifted the card. It was Fireball. Which could only be played on his own turn.
"Okay, I attack with all my creatures and win." Ravena pumped her fist. "First Turn Kill For The Win!"
"…and people want to play this game again with you?" Robin headdesked. The lore was very involved and apparently there was a lot to discover. The balance of the gameplay, on the other hand, was absolutely terrible, if it let players pull cheap stunts like that.
"To be fair, it usually takes like five turns to get that combination going." Ravena said. "It's known as the Formotiis Rush, and this is the first time I managed to get all the components into my opening hand. I've never been that lucky."
"More like I was just unlucky." Robin muttered.
"Let me see your deck." Ravena snatched it and started looking through it. "Wow, this is terrible. You did nothing to your deck since last time, did you? You can't just do that! Power creep came around a month back when they got bought out and the entire meta got thrown on its head because the new owners didn't get how the game works. I mean, it's been really fun breaking the game, but it's only a matter of time before they put out another series and break it even harder."
"Right." Robin scowled. "I'm buying the new owners out."
"You can't just do that! …can you?" Ravena asked. "I don't think they're military, and they have no interest in selling. Besides, you don't understand the game either, so it's not like you'd be a better owner."
"No, but you know the game."
"That's right, I do." Ravena said, trailing off. Suddenly, father and adopted daughter manifested identical evil grins. "So, how are we going about doing this?"
"We have near unlimited funds, influence, and are master tacticians." Robin said. "So long as we end this with myself possessing a secret deck that can beat anyone, I'm happy with whatever you have in mind."
"Heh heh heh heh." Ravena smiled. "I love it when we spend quality father-daughter time together."
They were interrupted when Cherche entered the room. "Young Mistress. And Robin. I hope I'm not interrupting any scheming."
"Hello, Chantage." Robin sighed. "We were about too. Is something wrong?"
"You have an urgent visitor." Cherche said. "General Cervantes."
"Send him in." Robin sighed. "Sorry, Rave-rave. Father-daughter time will have to wait."
"Ah, Battlemaster! It harkens me to see you well." Cervantes said. "And your lovely daughter as well."
"Sir Vantes!" Ravena cried.
"Ha ha! Your daughter has quite the streak of humor."
"Of course he understands you." Robin sighed. "So, what's the news? More Risen?"
"They aren't hidden. Not at all." Cervantes said. "We have confirmed reports. At least three rebellions have sprung up, almost overnight. Independent, striking separate parts of the country. We've no idea what caused this, or even who's behind this."
"A rebellion?" Robin blinked.
"Yes. They shall be crushed like ants, of course, but I thought I would drop off the message to you, should you feel the need to participate."
Ravena shot him an inquisitive look. Robin shook his head, surreptitiously. They weren't his. This is bad. Robin smiled. Or would be, if it didn't represent an opportunity. As it happens, the Wolfguard was made precisely for this. "I understand." Robin said. "I shall assemble the Wolfguard."
"Sounds fun." Ravena said. "Can I join?"
"Ravena, send for my friends." Robin said. "With the exception of Dant, they're all within half a day's journey. I think it's time to form the old fellowship again, even if this quest isn't exactly suited for it."
Report: I've been working on the assignment you gave me. So, the deal is that it IS possible to create tomes stronger than what we've been working on so far – we've taken to calling these S-rank tomes. The problem is that they have a highly unstable spell matrix and… well, it's technical. I've got a theory as to how we can make one, but the downside is that it's not going to be the fire element. Vermil out.
