In a lavishly decorated grotto, a meeting was held. Nobody was talking as everyone was busy doing their own thing. Only one of them was not working. The small destructor was lazing on a couch.

“Oh already here? Did our Baju forget the time?” Enstarin greeted the Mind-Mage in a derogatory and contemptuous way as the later arrived for the meeting.

As the last member of the group entered, almost everyone reacted by setting their work aside and focussing their attention to the topic at hand. Only two women did not react in the slightest. The lazing one continued lazing and the silent one continued to ignore everyone while focussing on her work.

“I am in a good mood, do you really want to waste it?” in a happy-go-lucky tone the late arrival refused to fight.

“That is quite rare, I guess we should not waste it. Just tell us what they found out and we can finally be done with this whole situation!” the politician appreciated the other man's mood.

“The soldiers are still alive, but barely. The fort is alive. The most likely hypothesis is that the fort is draining the soldiers for all they are worth. No syphons. The fort itself is the only battery. The battery has hundreds of energy-collectors. No sane man or woman will want to live there.” Baju summarised.

“Then it is good that we do not have to live there, I was able to negotiate a temporary treaty with seven tribes. They will allow us to live with them while we negotiate the final form of the nation, we are about to found!” The Traitor happily announced.

After a long and drawn-out sigh, it was the Martial’s job to steer the conversation back on track: “What about the talal?”

“Divine, Physical, Dimension, Creation, Body strengthening, Soul, Syphon, Mental! Some minor amounts of Soldier, Officer, and a potpourri of elemental energies! She has no allies within the fort!” the mind-mage immediately answered.

“That is bad news! I hope she has not been trained in officer-abilities as of yet!” the female Coordinator worried.

“Even if she did, all we have to do is drag her into the seal-dimension and get her dead! No matter how much of an army she has out there, she won’t be able to do much in the dimension.” the mind-mage dismissed Drane's concerns.

“Only if she were stupid enough to summon her whole army before we get her in there!” she contested his claim.

“She won’t be able to supply herself with energy from the fort once she is in the dimension.” the discussion began to get heated.

"She could simply drain the fort of energy before we reach her?" with a scoff Drane pointed out that they could not count on the stupidity of their enemy, not while going against a talal.

“Are we really talking about sending someone in there with a talal-class mindfucker?” the politician queried.

“That should not be the problem, we can send in a mindfucker or mind-defender of our own and while they are in a mind-battle someone else can cut her apart!” Mellde stated matter-of-factly.

“I am not the only one seeing us having difficulties getting her in there, am I?” the bored destructor decided to speak up.

“The only problem is getting rid of the fort! If it is not too intertwined with her, we may be able to take it over! If it is we should at least be able to kill it, no?” Baju offered his wisdom as an experienced mind-mage.

“There is a problem! And that is the amount of soldier-energy this fort has collected. It may already be enough to cast skills without ability or intent!” from the coordinators perspective the fort was more difficult an enemy than the talal.

“You are implying that the fort may fall into overdrive?” The Traitor was suddenly feeling cold from fearing this scenario.

“In the worst-case scenario, yes!” Drane affirmed.

“There is no way to kill someone in overdrive!” slowly turning her body to face the discussion Ella stated the obvious.

“There is, it’s called attrition!” Enstarin offered his basic knowledge of military tactics.

“You want to fight a war of attrition against a structure with hundreds of energy-collectors? Good luck with that!” Baju spat words full of disdain.

“We could just destroy the energy-collectors first!” The Traitor tried to defend his argument.

“There is just the issue with firepower and manpower! If the fort really does have so much officer and soldier energy it may be immune to our soldiers! And then what? Do you want to put all of our destructors on a duty to destroy the energy-collectors?” with a contemptuous snort Baju talked down on Enstarin and his limited strategical knowledge.

“Why not? Do you think Ella will be able to snipe the talal?” with a condescending laugh The Traitor admonished his rival.

“She won’t! And even if she did there would still be the issue with her reincarnation! Besides, who knows what would happen with the fort in that event! But the other method is also invalid due to the amount of energy the fort and the talal currently hold!” Mellde stopped their bickering.

“If we rescue the soldiers beforehand, do we really care what happens to the fort?” Enstarin followed up by changing the subject.

“Yes, we do! We don't want the talal to have all that energy!” Baju argued, getting slightly aggressive out of annoyance for the other man.

“And the soldiers’ lives don’t count anything?” the two immediately went back to bickering.

”Why would the lives of a few thousand soldiers count more than millions of civilians?” the mind-mage shot back.

”Because the soldiers can be of actual help to us, whereas currently, the civilians are a liability. Besides I never said that I was willing to sacrifice a million civilians.” the politician was fed up with the other man.

"Actually no, the soldiers will not be of much help! As it stands they are close to death and presumably barely able to stand on their own." a sneer crept on his face while Bajue informed his hated rival about the facts.

”And here I thought you would argue that you religious people, power your gods with the civilians' emotions.” Drane shrugged while interrupting the two squabblers, and got the conversation back on track: “By the way, if we followed the logic of preventing the enemy to have all that energy, we would have to kill all ten of them.”

"That won't be possible!" the mind-mage dismissed the argument.

“Why not? It's not like we have anything better to do!” the coordinator tried to stay calm but was very irritated from listening to the two men squabble like children.

“I doubt we have enough time to deal with all of them! Maybe we can get … two? Maybe we could take out three before the rest of these forts will have finished their meal” Baju calmed down due to having to divert his energies to calculation.

“That is if we waste time talking before each and every battle! But let’s presume all of them were the same! That must surely change the prediction, no?” the coordinator tried to find fault with Baju's result.

“No that was already the best-case scenario! All of them are the same and we don’t get attacked by anything powerful while running from one to the next” the mind-mage explained.

“We don’t have to run around! There is Bae, Enstarin, you, and about twenty others! With all that storage space, we can easily transport an army.” Drane was not convinced.

“Do you really think I of all people did not consider that?” Baju felt personally attacked by that statement.

“Let’s concentrate on this one first! No matter how many of them we would theoretically be able to take down; if we don’t formulate a plan we won’t be able to get rid of any of them.” Mellde tried to end the useless arguments.

“We could just ignore them! Since we cannot get rid of all of them and don’t need the fort as a temporary base, why bother at all?” Ella was getting a major headache from the juvenile behaviour of her allies.

“The forts are strategically placed so nobody gets out of the nation without them noticing.” Enstarin reminded her.

“I could just blow that fucking toy up! Simple and efficient!” due to growing headache and boredom, Ella pushed for a quick solution.

“You could, but it would not buy us nearly enough time! She would be back before we are able to get the first half-a-million people out of the nation!” Enstarin rejected the idea, in comparison to his tone while arguing with Drane and Baju, it sounded almost loving.

“In summary, what we have to think about is the fort going into overdrive, the talal using officer-abilities on her mindless minions, how to prevent her reincarnation and how to destroy the energy-collectors! Anything else?” Mellde concluded this confusing discussion.

“Rescuing the soldiers!?” the coordinator reminded.

“Right! I think four squads will be enough to free the soldiers! Bae will support them! I think two additional operators will suffice. While that is going on, Ella and seven other destructors will be dealing with the energy-collectors! We will have three mind-defenders on stand-by to prevent the talal from using any mind-tricks! We will need a mind-mage to find the talal!” Mellde, quizzical look at Baju.

“Josy would be perfectly suited for this job, as she already found the talal once!” not wanting to do it himself Baju found a suitable excuse.

“Once Josy found the talal me and five martial knights will distract the talal until the soldiers have been freed! Once all that is over, hopefully, the talal will have used up most of her minions and we can drag her into Bae’s seal-dimension! Where we can end her. After that, we can deal with the fort-creature! Either mind-control it or destroy it! Should it fall into overdrive we will retreat!” Mellde decided the battle-strategy.

“Then I will help with the civilians!” Drane offered.

“No you will be coordinating the whole affair!” Mellde refused.

“I already told you numerous times that I only coordinate the front-line!” the coordinator complained.

“Not a problem you just have to monitor Ella, Bae and the mind-defenders, while keeping the officers and knights up to date!” the martial argued that the job was easy enough.

“We have better personnel for this specific task! For example, the coordinator who led the scouting mission!” Drane remarked, then facing the mind-mage she inquired: “What was her name?”

“Ino!” Baju answered with a single word.

“Fine but then we need a back-up coordinator!” not knowing the coordinator in question, Mellde demanded backup while conceding.

“On it!” Enstarin jumped at the opportunity to get some achievements for his faction.

Baju shot an angry glare at Enstarin, not at all happy with the fact that the other man was faster than him.

“Anything else?” since silence followed the question of the group's unofficial leader, she concluded the meeting: “Then we will set out at dawn!

 

---

 

The next day they set off to conquer the ZraKi-outpost.

Arriving at the prison’s location the small army of roughly a hundred sentient humanoids was greeted with tens of thousands mindless constructs standing in front of the structure.

The constructs were made of sand, held together by the energy ZraKi provided.

A grin appeared on Mellde’s face as the coordinator’s network took notice of the enemies’ formation.

The network was briefly shocked by a flood of terror. Those who knew about Mellde's character feared what was about to happen.

The tediously crafted plan was immediately thrown out of the window as the martials charged and the destructors started bombarding the prison.

The soldiers were delegated to stay behind and protect the rest of the army.

The coordinators were split up! Ino coordinated the martials, destructors, mind-defenders and the mind-mage, who was searching for the talal! While Ufak, one of Enstarin’s most loyal subordinates, coordinated the defence.

Upon meeting the enemy formation, the martials did not react in the slightest, as they just ran through the sandmen. With their own senses and the information provided by the network, the martials knew how to defend against any incoming attacks in the most efficient way.

None of the projectiles fired by the destructors reached the fort, as they were blocked by a barrier. A barrier conjured from the collective effort of tens of thousands novice soldiers.

As the martials came closer to the walls of the fort, they formed up into a tightly packed wedge formation.

From observing the barrier react to the incoming projectiles, the destructors knew how to break it temporarily.

With Ino's help, the destructors timed the disintegration of the barrier so that the martials did not collide with it.

Instead of colliding with the barrier the martial at the tip of their formation ran into the wall. Having lost all momentum from her collision with the wall, the martial was pushed through the newly created hole, by virtue of being in the tip of the formation.

Once the martials were through the wall, the destructor's barrage on the fort ended.

Due to still not having found the talal, the group repositioned one of the mind-defenders. He was instead integrated into the defensive network.

Aside from attacking the charging martials, the constructs were completely unresponsive. This indicated that they were only acting on automated commands rather than being directly controlled by the talal.

Giving up on finding the talal the mind-mage instead concentrated on the prison’s internal machinations. She quickly found the three vital organs, prompting the martials to split up.

Navigating through the narrow paths was not difficult, as every time an obstacle presented itself, it was swiftly cut apart.

The vitals were not defended at all. Yet, before three of the martials could simultaneously strike and kill the fort, it asked for negotiations.

“Uh? Hi there! Can you please not do this?” a random voice could be heard inside the fort.

“If you want to negotiate, you’d have to first show some goodwill by letting the prisoners go free and cutting ZraKi and her army off from your energy-supply?” one of the martials voiced the collective agreement within the network.

Shortly thereafter the barrier vanished and a gate appeared in the fort’s exterior structure. Through this newly-created door one after another, the half-dead soldiers appeared. They did not walk out on their own they were brought to the gate via a rearrangement of the internal structure of the fort.

As that happened Ino informed the others about the current proceedings.

This prompted one squad of soldiers to move out and clear a path for the tattered soldiers freeing them from their personal hell.

The squad conjured a giant horizontal blade and ran it through the file of sand-creatures in front of the gate.

After seeing the remaining constructs not reacting the three operators strode forth, flanked by one squad of soldiers on each side.

While the operators carefully and slowly walked up to the gate, about a hundred small humanoids plopped into existence. The servanoids were carrying water and food and ran through the aisle free of sand-creatures.

After the operators and soldiers entered the gate, they saw the condition of the prisoners and could barely trust their eyes.

The prisoners were nought but skin and bone. And even the skin was slowly beginning to fall off of their bodies.

While the servanoids inspected the half-dead soldiers, to see if any of them needed immediate attention, a message from the rebellions main base came in.

The message said that a few thousand zealots were on their way to the ZraKi outpost. And that there was barely an hour left before they would arrive.

As the data collected by the servanoids resulted in 90% of the soldiers being equally close to death, the servanoids were ordered to carefully transport the dying soldiers to the operators. Once the soldiers arrived in front of the operators they vanished.

The two squads which were meant to protect the operators withdrew. While the one who previously cut an aisle through the sand-creatures entered the terrifying room.

While the operators were collecting the prisoners, the rest of the army prepared for the incoming attack, and the martials had a little chat with the prison.

Three martials were ready to strike at a moment’s notice to end the structure’s unnatural life. One of these three was voicing the network’s intentions. The three that were not needed to hold the fort hostage were already on their way back out of the living building. The fort was making it easy on them by rearranging its inner structure to minimise the path they would have to travel.

“What do you wish to be referred to?” the voice of the network asked.

“ZraKi!” the fort replied.

“Where is the talal ZraKi?”

“Taking lessons on how to use soldier-energy and officer-energy.”

“When is she expected to be back?”

“In about ten days!”

“Are all of the outpost-talal there, and are all of the outposts like this?”

“I am not informed about these kinds of things!”

“How were you created?”

“That I do not know either! Do you people know how you were created?”

“Yes! Our parents had sex! And about half a year thereafter we were pressed out of our mothers! Do you have memories about the time before you were a fort?”

“No!”

“Then what is the first thing you remember”

“Sitting here and being shackled!"

“So you don't know if you were created, or born!? The same way you don't know where you originated from?"

“That is correct!"

“Fine! Why did you not coordinate the builds in front of your door?”

“They belong to the talal, I have no control over them!”

“Are you mobile or sedentary?”

“If I wish for it, I can leave this place!”

“Even though it is unlikely, do you have exterior weapons?”

After a small pause, the fort answered: “Yes!”

“Would you mind explaining why you did not use them against us?”

“Why would I fight for someone who constantly forces me into doing things I don’t want to do?”

“Because we were attacking you!?”

“Wasn’t that a hilarious misunderstanding?” the tone of the fort began to turn lighthearted.

“No, it wasn’t! We attacked because you are in our way and because you were slowly killing three thousand of our allies!”

“Once you will have unshackled me, I can move out of your way! And I had barely anything to do with your friends!”

“Tell us how to unshackle you, and once you helped us combat the friends of your suppressor, we will follow these instructions!”

“Another reason I did not attack you, is because being shackled prevents me from doing so!”

“Ok, then tell us how to unshackle you!”

“Instead of destroying my vitals, you have to reconnect them into my bio-system.”

“Great, how does that work?”

While this conversation continued, and the fort unshackling process was underway the enemies came in sight.

Shortly thereafter the sand-creatures started to move, indicating that the talal was among the arriving enemies.

During this first stage of the battle, the arriving army stayed out of range and used the sand-creatures to soften the rebel-army up.

Had they known what was going on in the fort they would have likely acted differently.

Easily defending against the onslaught of the sandmen still cost the rebels a good amount of energy.

Shortly after the Zealot-army began marching unto the battlefield they stopped and braced for an attack from the opposite direction.

Two crazed martials, one male, the other female crashed into the zealot-formation. After the initial impact however they were soon forced to retreat out of the enemy-formation.

Despite their best efforts, they were both covered in hundreds of minor wounds.

The zealots ignored the fleeing martials and resumed their march on the cornered army.

Being informed of this circumstance the two martials came crushing back into the zealot formation. This time they did less damage and in return got more wounds. But they managed to keep the goddess's followers from encircling the rebels.

After five of these reckless attacks, the two martials were reinforced by a small army.

Burning rocks and lightning strikes began raining from the sky, and laser beams came shooting from the new arrivals but the zealots did not retain many casualties and managed to counterattack.

The offensive capabilities of the zealots were mediocre and only their sheer number had enabled them to wound the Siblings of Horror.

Going against a proper army, the zealots had a much harder time getting through their defences.

As there were no elites, warriors or otherwise superior combatants among the zealots, the mind-mages of the new arrivals started to target random individuals, which easily dropped without much effort.

The zealots had weak mental defences but the same was not true for their physical capabilities. Otherwise, they would not have been able to take over the nation so easily.

The zealots fought on, even when their heads exploded from being hit by projectiles, or their bodies got bisected by invisible blades, they fought on.

Luckily the same was not true for the sandmen. Those moved very sluggishly and did not regenerate once downed. But their sheer amount still made for a good distraction for the rebels in front of the fort.

The behaviour of the sand-creatures made it clear that the talal was not nearby, meaning their newfound activity must have stemmed from a device the zealots had with them.

Once the fort was fully unshackled, it stood up and began to make true on its promise. It stomped hundreds of sandmen at a time and shot laser beams at the zealot army.

Within the fort, the remaining three martials made their way out of the fort to help their allies. The operators, on the other hand, were still busy collecting the barely living soldiers.

The tree martials jumped out of the fort and ran straight towards the zealots.

Seeing how the fort was helping out the other martials broke off from defending the rebel army and made their way to help flank the zealots.

Having a hand full of martials fall into the back of their formation disoriented the zealot-army greatly, and the martials were able to push in far enough to glimpse their device.

The device was about a quarter of the way through the zealot-army but as the resistance from the zealots increased it got increasingly harder to draw closer to the device.

Ino, who was still connected to the martials via her coordinator-network informed the fort and the destructors about the location of the device.

As hundreds of tiny metal projectiles started to rain down on the device it broke.

Immediately the sandmen stopped moving and the zealots too lost a lot of their fervour. Those missing their head or some other vital organ instantly fell dead.

The rebels quickly gained the upper hand and soon the remaining zealots surrendered.

With the surrender of the zealots, the rock invaded the mind of its lover.

Overcome with emotion neither Mellde nor Siep managed to say a word, they just entangled their minds and lay silent for a few days.

For the following months, they stayed within Mellde's mind and caught up on what happened during the last century.