The briefing was held in a large room in the administration building. There were a multitude of people there, only a few I recognized. One of them being Katherine, and another being instructor Tera.
We were some of the last to trickle in, most of the people already inside looked mainly like advisors or assistants, and in turn, hung back around the outside of the room.
In the center of the large oval room, there was a table, on it held the map of the entirety of the southern end of the continent, heavily detailing both Seltas and Alixia and only vaguely indicating the two countries further north and connected to us.
The map itself held a wealth of information, every single known village within the country was named and marked on the map, that number seemed to shimmer and waver, and then I noticed several of them on the cities changing.
The map was magic.
Around the map, there were several older men, and one woman, who looked like officers. There weren’t distinguishing marks of rank or authority to perceive them by, but everyone in the room seemed to be looking at them. It might’ve just been that they were in the center.
They stood opposite us on the other end of the table, however. Closest to us were people who looked much younger. Closer to my age or maybe Lea’s. Lea looked like she was thirty years old herself, or at least close to it.
Jazz only looked a few years past twenty.
As we approached the gathering in the room, the people standing in the center of attention glanced over to us, and the woman spoke, “Good, all of us have gathered, or at least the important members, so we may now begin this briefing.
“First off, I am Orthina Recalin, Vice-Director of the NSA serving under Mortimer. Starting from the beginning at dawn three days ago, Team 72 left on their maiden mission. They stopped in Lustirne for a short time before continuing east to their destination. Due to travel constraints, they stopped on the open road to sleep for the night. During the night they were ambushed, and after fighting them off and taking prisoners they retreated.
“After interrogating the prisoners for information they managed to determine that they were members of the international group of outlaws known as The Sons. From there they managed to gain a vague sense of where their base was hidden and sought to launch an assault.”
“They should have immediately come back instead of-”
“I did not give permission for you to speak,” Orthina stated loudly with a glare that could freeze a volcano.
“If you interrupt me again I will have you demoted and discharged, am I clear?”
I was sure Jazz felt vindicated in his opinions at the man’s outburst of words, I didn’t think it was nearly that simple though. And obviously, neither did Lea.
The man standing next to her nodded silently as she cleared her throat and continued, “Using the observational abilities of one of the members they were able to cover a large amount of ground quickly, but did not easily manage to find their base. Through a stroke of luck, they managed to find the entrance as members of The Sons happened to be leaving the base right as they walked by.
“After killing the men guarding the underground entrance, they infiltrated the base and began reconnaissance. What they found was a base that largely exceeded expectations in size and manpower. They were led to believe there were only a hundred members stationed here at most, what they realized is that they numbered many times that amount and that the base was miles of labyrinthian hallways.
“If not for the aforementioned individual they likely would have never found their way through, or back out, when they were discovered, despite giving no indication of their being there. They quickly made their way back through the base, only to be cut off from the ladder leading out of the base by the assumed leader of the sect.
“One of them stayed behind as a sacrifice in the hopes the other two would escape and they could then teleport out after them. The ploy worked and they quickly made their way to Lustirne for safety and then to Elendar to report on their findings.”
Orthina looked around the room before speaking again, “The purpose of this briefing is to glean any possible information that didn’t make it into the report, and then stage a counter operation to remove the sect from our borders. Any questions about our purpose here today?”
No one said a thing. After a brief moment of silence, Orthina nodded, “Good. Team 72, could you start us off by telling us what you managed to gather from your short time in enemy territory. Numbers, defenses, levels, everything you can think of.”
Lea stepped forward and with a curt, “Ma’am.” Began to recount all the information we had.
“Total number of members was undetermined, we never got into the main portion of the base before we were discovered. We-” This time another man on the other side of Orthina interjected, “You didn’t even make it fully into the base? What were you doing for the three hours you were in there?”
Orthina looked apoplectic. Poor Lea just looked confused as to what she should do in this situation, continue speaking or answer the question.
In classic fashion, I did something, probably stupid, and spoke, “Maybe you should keep your mouth shut so we can give you the full context before spouting bullshit?”
You could hear hearts beating in the absolutely appalled silence that enveloped the room after my words. Lea looked even more distraught after my outburst and Jazz looked like he wanted to laugh and my self-destruction.
I just simply couldn’t be bothered to care.
The man I’d, oh so thoroughly, debased looked like he wanted to strangle me.
“You-”
“You will keep your mouth shut like I told Halthor,” Orthina interjected, causing the man’s mouth to snap shut. She then turned to look at me, “And you should choose better words when speaking to your superior.”
I openly scoffed, “With all due respect,” I managed to lace as much sarcasm into my words as I could, “I was offered my position here by Mortimer. And he brought me here because he wanted me. Not the other way around. If you want my respect, then you will earn it. Like he did. Mortimer treated me with respect, I will defer to respect to others as my first action. But when you have absolute shit for brains like him,” I said gesturing to the man that most recently spoke out, “It tends to bring down the image of your organization as a whole.
“Maybe choosing people to serve in authority based on merits and not level or lineage might be a better way for you to go in the future?”
Orthina’s face remained cool in the face of my, quite positively reckless challenge. Lea looked distraught but did an excellent job of hiding it with a calm expression.
“Regardless of how you got here, or whatever your personal beliefs are, you currently serve in our organization. That means you will follow our rules whether you like them or not. You don’t like that, you can leave.”
I smiled, “And you’d be casting out the person who knows the most about the threat currently plaguing the country, irreparably damaging the relationship we have, and also getting rid of the one person who actually knows what the inside of The Sons’ base looks like.”
Orthina’s eyes narrowed. She likely caught the hidden implication behind my words.
I was the one who told you about Ili’kithari, you need me more than I need you.
Basically the same message I had just given except with a small flex.
Orthina just shook her head, “Don’t overestimate your worth,” She said warningly, “No amount of goodwill with the Director or the Government will overshadow an untenable behavior between soldier and superior.”
I opened my mouth to say something but Lea put her hand on my shoulder, “Alex,” She said chidingly, “Enough.”
I closed my mouth with a click, getting a raised eyebrow from Orthina, but she moved on and motioned to Lea, “Continue.”
Lea lets out a silent sigh before continuing her report, “As we had approached the main entrance of the base we were able to determine that the entire thing had been a trap. We’re still unsure of how they knew we were here, but they allowed us to slowly make our way further into the base while they most likely circled behind us to cut off our escape route.
“The only reason we had been able to navigate so effectively in the first place was because Alex,” She gestured to me, “Has a skill capable of mid-range omniscience. He can see everything in a radius of nearly a mile.”
That got some eye raises. Which was understandable, when you realized 4000 feet turned into 8000 foot diameter? Things got kind of wacky with that kind of area coverage. Granted, it took a lot of work to maintain.
“Finding the base was a stroke of luck,” Lea said, continuing, “Based on our conjecture of the base structure, it was made of stone walls layered around sheets of metal carved with runes and enchantments to protect from observation and attack. It is most likely those same runes that allowed us to be detected despite not giving ourselves away during our infiltration.
“Once we had determined that we had been discovered and said so out loud during our discussion, Alex noticed all the people in sight turn to look directly at us. Through the walls.”
Someone next to us shivered slightly. I didn’t blame them, I nearly shat myself as well when it happened. It was like watching a horror movie or something, except infinitely more terrifying because this was real life.
I wasn’t afforded the layer of disconnection from what was happening on a TV screen.
“Once that happened, we quickly made our way back to the entrance, stealth no longer a consideration for us if we weren’t really hiding from them in the first place. Once we got back to the ladder, or at least close enough for Alex to see it, we noticed that it was completely blocked off by a large retinue of members.
“There were 25 members, including a tier four, blocking our path out. Alex came up with a plan that was really our only chance of success. He would distract the tier four, given that he is the fastest out of the three of us, and we would get past and take out the other 24 bandits and make our way to the surface, from there Alex would warp his way to the top and he’d carry us and fly back to Lustirne at his top speed. Given we are still here and alive, the plan worked.”
Lea stood at rest while everyone mulled over the information. One of the other men standing next to Orthina asked a question, surprisingly it wasn’t in a rude tone, more just trying to see all the angles, “If one of your members was capable of teleportation, what was the reasoning behind not using that to make your way further into the base faster?”
“He has a form of teleportation that’s limited to only him as far as testing was concerned, and it requires him to use his lightning-based attacks to, as he says, jump through. Given that it’s lightning-based, all his attacks are very loud and very bright, making for terrible stealth.”
The man nodded satisfied. One of the people standing closer to us asked the next question, “How many people did you take out in your escape? You mentioned there were 25 at the ladder there towards the end, were there any more that you fought?”
“We took down fifty-three of them during the entire operation.”
I smirked a little at the level of surprise everyone displayed. It’s one thing to take out a dozen or so bandits that have no training and no discipline. But taking out over fifty? Most of which was during a mad and desperate rush for freedom. It was an impressive figure.
Orthina frowned, “And you still believe there are many more within the base itself?”
Lea nodded, “Alex was keeping track of upwards of sixty members patrolling through the labyrinth. When we reached what looked like a commons area, he saw upwards of an additional hundred people. We assume there was possibly more, we just didn’t get the chance to confirm the numbers.”
“Average level and tier?”
“Average tiers are two and three, levels varied wildly.”
“This is more a question for the elf, you have a form of omniscience as has been described. Can you detail how the power works for us?”
I looked to Lea who gave me a subtle nod before I spoke, “Yes. My third class is a nature-based class that has deep roots in elven culture. I mean that both figuratively and literally. And like most people, I hold a control over nature the same way someone might over fire, one of my skills in the class is to displace my senses through every form of flora-based nature in a radius of…” I quickly did the math on the numbers as they had increased with my level, “4000 feet.”
The man frowned at the question and Katherine was the one who picked up the next one, “How are you able to even process that much information without bleeding from every hole in your head?”
I sighed, “I wasn’t able to initially. [Accelerated Thoughts] has worked wonders for me being able to process information… But the biggest help has been [Parallel Minds]. Currently, I have thirty-two minds working to process any and all information that comes through to my head, all of them being enhanced by [Accelerated Thoughts].”
That brought Katherine up short. And most other people, it was also something I hadn’t told Lea and Jazz before, mainly because it hadn’t come up and partially because I didn’t like talking about who I got the skill from and why. It was an all-around bad time. I was sure there were gentler ways to receive the skill. But that had not been the nature of its origin for me.
Plenty more questions were asked, including gear, average race, and species that we saw. After a while questions started to turn away from us and delve into the strategy of assaulting the “compound” as they took to calling it, occasionally calling for our input on something.
After several hours of talks, Orthina took control of the situation again, “I believe we’re decided then. Qualtin will lead the operation, Team 72 will join as a supplementary group. We will allocate fifty soldiers to the fight. Ten of which, including Qualtin, will be tier fours in the case of dealing with unforeseen circumstances. Does anybody disagree with this course of action?”
She looked around for a moment, but no one was forthcoming, “So it is,” She said simply, “Qualtin leads, fifty members, not including Team 72. The goal of the operation is the complete subjugation of the sect of The Sons within our borders in the northeast region. The operation will begin at dawn tomorrow. Qualtin, your team list will be given to you within the hour and the members attending will be notified at the same time. If there are no further questions?”
She looked around again.
“Dismissed.”
