Life Review Ch. 06

"A force of that size needs supplies. Their only choice is to raid nearby villages which will result in a large number of casualties and destroyed property," Cassidy tossed Bishop a bone.

"I am fully aware of that, but you can't honestly believe anyone would expect you to do something about it with your current strength. You did your part, you found the threat and reported it. Your part in all of this is done," Bishop protested angrily. "You will be throwing your lives away and wasting your future potential."

"That would be a completely logical thing to do," Tricha said kindly. "But on the other hand, who is to say Cassidy's potential is greater than that of a little girl or boy in one of those villages?"

Denza straightened and said proudly,"One of the lessons drilled into me by my teacher in the Oculsan rangers was that I should never fear the chance of failure if the chance of success will lead to a better world. We miss every shot we don't take."

"Yeah!" Cassidy cheered. "Nut up or shut up!"

Tricha rolled her eyes at her apprentice, "Cassidy, I'm glad you haven't lost your eloquence. You are truly a treasure."

"So what will it be Nessa?" Bishops eyes hardened. "It's your call."

Nessa was torn. She was quiet for several minutes until she came to her decision, "We will allow Cassidy to take her shot," She smiled at Denza who looked pleased with herself. Nessa held up a finger and said sternly to Cassidy, "But-You have to promise me to retreat if things get out of hand. Even if we only make a dent in their numbers it will slow them down enough to start evacuations of local towns and villages. I will not be a party to a suicide mission."

Bishop's shoulders slumped in defeat. He took up his pen and finished drawing up the contract, rolled it up and sent it on its way to be approved. He had an unreadable expression on his face when he said to Cassidy, "I hope you know what you are doing."

While they waited for the return of the contract Bishop had drawn up, Cassidy had Shawn, Denza, and Bishop sketch a map as accurately as possible. Once completed, Cassidy studied every detail on the paper. She asked various questions about movement inside the shanty town, and wrung every piece of information about all of the monsters they were dealing with out of the four native Niverrians.

In the middle of Tricha outlining everything she knew about ogres, chirping filled the air as they finally got a response from the guild. Bishop pulled a bundle of papers from the birdcage with a measure of difficulty as it had come back significantly thicker than it had been sent. Bishop unfurled the documents and read through them carefully before handing them to Cassidy while he explained the details to the group.

"The brass is willing to work within your proposal based on all of you waiving guild liability, and the support given to you by Nessa who has a reputation to back her up. All credit for the operation will be given to Nessa and myself, as I have elected to join you if only to keep Nessa safe," Bishop crossed his arms and looked at them sternly. "They don't see this as a venture that will work out what so ever, so they have added contingencies that state they will offer trophy rewards on any confirmed kill, which does apply as a bonus if we are successful in destroying the enemy force."

"Dope," Cassidy licked her lips as her eyes flicked rapidly from side to side as read.

"Why would they include that if we were successful?" Shawn couldn't see the logic on the guild paying them more if they already agreed to a flat amount. "And why wouldn't Cassidy or Denza receive credit for the operation? Denza did all of the information gathering and Cassidy is planning our assault."

"Think of it from their point of view. If we are successful, this will be a high profile joint operation between the guilds. It would cause too much trouble if it was well known that two apprentice expeditionaries were at the helm.

The bonus is included because they think Nessa is going to spend lots of money and rare ingredients to cast powerful ritual spells, wards and curses," Cassidy shot off before Bishop could answer. Bishop, to his credit, looked genuinely impressed at Cassidy's insight.

"Are we?" Denza asked, glancing at Cassidy's grimoire.

Cassidy hadn't outlined her plan just yet, so Nessa was as much in the dark as Denza was. Cassidy flipped the page on the contract and continued reading, "No, those spells take way too much magic and time to be useful in the short term. If we magically summoning a plague that could accidentally be spread outside of the valley, it would take to long and is considered black magic which is a big no-no around civilized society apparently."

"Yeah, bioweapons are typically frowned upon," Shawn laughed. "Let's table the anthrax and try something else."

Bishop cleared his throat and continued, "Outside of the initial amount of 1.2 million gold pieces to be awarded upon completion, I fudged the numbers so that it will cover my fee of fifty thousand gold for helping you."

"And I thought you were just coming along to protect me," Nessa ribbed him sarcastically.

"I am, but I might as well make some coin for my troubles," Bishop winked.

"Oh, wow," Cassidy muttered. "Whoever you sent this to either sucks at making contracts or really wants that cargo back."

"What do you mean?" Shawn asked.

"Remember how we were being paid fifteen thousand gold to find and rescue the caravan?" Cassidy reminded him. Shawn remembered the general details, but really only focused on the up front payment. "They reworked the contract to reflect the new escalation. The owner of the caravan is still offering the fifteen, but the guild itself is adding another fifteen plus and fifty percent retail fee for recovered goods."

"When I read that I figured something was up," Bishop added. "It would also explain why the personnel were kept alive as prisoners. gnolls and ogres usually prefer to eat people, and rarely keep them as slaves."

"The expeditionary guild contract for finding Loren's party remains unchanged," Cassidy concluded.

"Is there a spoils provision included?" Tricha asked Bishop.

"There was nothing specified, so we can assume finders keepers," Bishop replied.

"Good. If you manage to kill the giant, the corpse alone will be a wealth of knowledge and resources," Tricha looked at her grimoire in Cassidy's lap. "If only I were alive."

"We need to kill it first," Nessa lamented. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. All stories point to them having very tough hides and being really hard to kill."

Cassidy signed the revised contract and passed it around for everyone's signatures. After Bishop sent the signed documents away to the guild, Cassidy rubbed her hands together, "Nessa, can you make high grade explosives?"

"Like black powder?" Nessa asked hesitantly. "I can make it, but I don't have the ingredients."

"Okay, scratch that. Do any of you know where we can find dynamite or any other localized explosive?" Cassidy looked between them expectantly.

"I could probably buy some from a mining company," Bishop offered. "It's not easy to find and only a few people make it, so it will cost you a few coins. How much were you looking to buy?"

"I was thinking seven crates small enough that you can sneak into the compound, along with equal amounts of nails or any kind of sharp metal you can find," Cassidy explained causally..

"You are going to make shrapnel bombs?!" Shawn blanched.

"Oh yeah, let's see how tough those sons of bitches are," Cassidy purred, reminding Shawn of a cat with it's prey in sight.

"So what is this plan of yours, apprentice?" Tricha asked, floating down to look at the map.

"We are going to use their numbers against them," Cassidy explained. She took a pen and drew a winding serpentine line starting on one side of the compound and wove around and through the alleys and streets of the cobbled together town. "Now that Bishop is joining us, we will have him and Denza sneak in using Bishop's invisibility and set up roadblocks and obstacles that will slow down pursuers."

Next Cassidy drew another path that looped around the far end of the camp but still close to the town, "While Shawn is leading the foot soldiers on a merry chase around their compound, Bishop will appear and provoke the giant and ogres into chasing him along the route we placed explosives on beforehand. Each blast will damage or kill the ogres while damaging and possibly weakening the giant."

"Oh, sure, make me the bait" Bishop complained.

Cassidy stuck her tongue out at him, "Bishop will meet up with Shawn at the end of his route, which by that time a good chunk of the gnolls and kobolds should be dead or incapacitated. Denza and I will take to the rooftops to support Shawn while Nessa dissolves the enchantment around the prisoners and evacuates them from town. If she gets finished before we do, she will come to assist us."

"We fight the giant together at the end once it has been weakened," Bishop said thoughtfully. "He will be restricted inside such a small space. That's actually a pretty good plan."

Tricha agreed, but raised a question, "What do you plan on doing if the plan goes awry?"

"The shanty town is made mostly of wood. If the plan starts to fall apart and we can't recover, I plan on setting the town on fire as we retreat under the cover of the resulting panic and confusion," Cassidy explained. "Our vantage point from the rooftops should allow us to keep an eye on the theater of battle."

"A bit scorched earth for my taste," Tricha said dryly. "But it will do given your relative inexperience and short notice. I look forward to hearing of your success the next time you summon me."

Nessa bowed and Cassidy waved as Tricha vanished from sight. With everything set, Cassidy put everyone to work. Bishop used his Gate scroll to transport himself to Oculsa with a list of items Cassidy had requested. He grumbled about billing them for the cost of the two Gate scrolls after everything was over.

When Bishop returned a few hours later the sun was rising above the mountains as morning crept upon them. Once the gate appeared and stabilized, Bishop walked through the portal pushing a cart laden with boxes. The gate fizzled out of existence in a rush of air and an electric sizzle leaving the campsite with the faint smell of ozone.

"You won't believe the hassle I had to go through to get these," Bishop grunted as he began unloading the boxes. "I had to go to four different mining companies to find one that even had the stuff, and then the guy didn't even want to sell it! He spouted some hogwash about his stock was reserved for a project starting next week and he couldn't part with it."

Cassidy headed over to the growing pile of boxes and started sorting them, "How did you manage to get everything then?"

"I told him it was an emergency and I had to invoke the requisition clause in the owner's supply contract," Bishop made a sour face. "I'm pretty sure the old coot knew exactly what he was doing to line his greedy little pockets."

"What clause?" Cassidy opened a large box that contained rows of cloth wrapped red cylinders nestled in layers of straw that lined the inside.

"We have to pay triple the value if we compel the owner of a business to sell us their goods. That was a hefty sum, the final bill came to about forty thousand gold."

"Gods above!" Denza swore. "That's robbery!"

"That's business," Shawn chuckled. "That man was a sharp trader and knew how to work the system."

"We can't afford to be picky. I think forty thousand is a small price to pay for success, don't you?" Cassidy said distractedly, sizing up the various metal bits Bishop had collected to use for sharpnel. She grunted as she picked up a smaller box filled with one inch square metal plates and placed it at Denza's feet. "Sharpen the edges of these to a razor edge."

"How are we constructing these explosives?" Bishop asked, unloading the last box of dynamite from the cart.

"It's simple," Cassidy said after she was finished organizing the components. "We split the dynamite into seven sets, put it in a box and fill it with metal bits. We won't have enough time to make them directional, so I was just going with hide them in plain sight and we can set fuses to be extremely short so a fireball can set them off."

"That is a truly horrifying idea," Bishop shuddered. "Make no mention of this device to anyone else."

Cassidy shrugged, "Nessa has more destructive power at her fingertips than any bomb I could readily put together."

"The scary thing isn't the bomb, it's how easy it is to make," Nessa clarified. "Spells of the same magnitude take special training and materials to use. Anyone could make this given the means."

Cassidy looked at Shawn thoughtfully, "I guess we just come from a really fucked up place. Some of our greatest achievements have come out of our desire to have bigger and more efficient ways of killing each other."

"I shall make a note never to go to your homeland," Bishop chuckled darkly.

The party worked in shifts to get the production of the bombs finished by the afternoon. After hours of work, Cassidy stood looking proudly at seven medium sized crates of concealed death. Nessa had nailed and glued the lids so the chance of accidental discovery by a curious kobold or gnoll would be lessened.

Cassidy turned to address her troops, "Alright ladies, Bishop and Denza will begin the first stage of the plan. You will use your invisibility to sneak into the compound while the kobolds are sleeping and only the gnolls are on patrol. You need to be careful because they have keen senses of smell. Once you have completed the task, return here and rest. We will begin our assault at dawn when the kobolds will be tired and the gnolls just waking. Any questions?"

When no one raised any objections to the plan, Bishop took Denza aside and cast his invisibility spell on the both of them. Nessa went over to the seven bombs and took a feather out of her bag. She placed a hand on each box and muttered a few words, brushing each crate with the feather. Once each incantation was finished the boxes glowed a faint blue-white.

Shawn heard footsteps and a box lifted from the cart and subsequently vanished. One by one the boxes lifted and disappeared until none were left. He heard two sets of footfalls leave the camp and he strained his ears but after a few minutes he couldn't hear the faint sounds any longer.

"What kind of enchantment did you put on those crates?" Cassidy asked, having been watching the show from where she was lounging against her bedroll.

"Levitation for the weight and Tethering so that they didn't have to try and carry each box individually. They will float in a chain above their heads as to not get in their way," Nessa said with a hint of pride.

"That is a pretty interesting application, I didn't think the Levitation spell was worth investing my time in, but I have been proven wrong," Cassidy admonished herself.

"Every spell has a use, and it is up to the caster to bring out it's full potential," Nessa pointed to the grimoire at Cassidy's side. "You are going to have to learn and master every spell. Many spell casters get by with specializing in a discipline, but being the Wise Witch means being a master of all forms of magic. That is the main reason I only hold a rank of thirty in the guild. I am still learning every spell I can within my vocation."

"How long have you been a master witch, Nessa?" Shawn asked the witch.

Nessa twirled a lock of her dark hair around her finger, "I passed my complete mastery exam when I was Cassidy's age, roughly nine years ago."

"I understand that we learn things very quickly, but in nine years surely you are close to learning all the witch spells there are?" Shawn mentally did the math, considering the average time to learn a single spell was six weeks, Nessa should know at least seventy eight spells.

"I am a white witch," Nessa said simply. When she noticed that didn't answer Shawn's question she explained, "Being a white witch means I have chosen the path to being a force of healing in the world. To become a white witch I had to become a full master witch and also become a journeyman healer and alchemist. I only have my fifth rank in being a white witch. I have been spending these past nine years learning how to heal and fix instead of maim and destroy."

"Nessa still knows a lot of spells," Cassidy commented. "But her skill set has been geared towards a support role. Buffing, debuffing, and curing ailments."

"I'm not sure what those terms mean, 'buffing' and 'debuffing', but I help strengthen my allies and debilitate my enemies," Nessa looked like she was dying to dig into what Cassidy had said, but forced herself not to. "My pool of magical energy is considerably lower than some mages in the guild that have trained in a variety of magical arts."

"Your energy pool is smaller?" He hadn't noticed a change in the amount of energy he possessed, but he also hadn't paid much attention to that aspect of his life.

"That is a good point, how do spellcasters measure their energy levels?" Cassidy sat up, her interest piqued.

"You are both so behind in your studies," Nessa huffed in frustration. "Your magical energy levels are determined by two factors: natural capacity, and experience. You both already display unusually high energy levels just based on the amount of spells you can both cast before flagging. Experience is as it sounds. The more your practice, learn, and accomplish, the more your reserves will expand."

"So why would you say your energy pool is smaller?" Cassidy's eyes sparkled as more of Niverra's rules were laid bare before her. Shawn couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm.

"Alchemy is science, so there is no real magical application there besides transmutation and constructing magical tools," Nessa outlined. "Being an apprentice acolyte is only the very first step. By the time you graduate, your pool will be set and grows as you accomplish more in your life. Entering a new vocation grows your reserve slightly, while becoming a full master increases it substantially through effort."

"So it's like milestones? Major events in your life trigger growth," That conclusion made sense to Shawn. Even though the essence crystals had let him learn spells and skills, they only imparted knowledge to fuel his growth.

"Exactly," Nessa smiled at him. "Your situation will be different, Shawn. Since you are a monk, your paths are different. You might never be an arch mage, just as Cassidy might never be a paladin."

Shawn and Cassidy glanced at each other conspiratorially. They both knew that they could follow any path they chose as long as they knew how. They both neglected to mention that information to Nessa because it would only make the witch spiral again.

The infiltration party returned without any trouble. They reported the bombs were placed along the specified route and everything was ready to move into phase two. The camp was quiet as each of the five members rested and collected themselves for the coming fight.

Cassidy seemed unaffected by the pre-fight tension and lounged against her bedroll studying her grimoire as she had been doing the past few weeks and she never seemed to get any further in the book. Shawn found himself being the big spoon with him arms wrapped tightly around Denza who slept fitfully. Nessa was attending to Loren while Bishop sat nearby and was looking over documents from his briefcase.

Dawn came at a slug's pace. Shawn was tense and he was filled with nervous energy, so when the light began pushing back against the night sky, he woke Denza and helped her gear up while she shook off the effects of her restless sleep. They divided Nessa's regeneration potions amongst themselves so that they each had three.