CHAPTER 327: BROADCAST

“Gooooooooood morning New Krim-sim! Hey, this is not a test, this is psychic comms! Those of you who know me know me as Master Sergeant ‘Earworm’ Elodi, but those of you who don’t can just think of me as the voice insiiiide your heeeaaad! If you’re new to this intrusion, then I’m gonna need you to pay attention because I’m only gonna be thinking this stuff once!

“First things first, everyone who’s got a psychic side thang going on needs to link that shit up with me, pronto, because I am gonna be your psychic MC for the duration of our operations here in the Forest. The only exception applies to our celebrity guests, Fortune’s Folly, who are in charge of the roaming Folly Fallback position. I can’t tell you guys what to do, but I am gonna strongly recommend that you follow the same protocol for reasons I’m gonna explain in just a minute.

“As for the rest of you oily-furred burrow scuttlers, I know that half of you outrank me more than I should like, and I outrank half the rest of you by half as much as you deserve, but this order is coming from the man! The big LC himself! Lieutenant Colonel Tavio of Seqaria! Our CO has declared that I, Earwig, the man inside your head, am the voice of Yara her-self for the duration. That means that if I say ‘Duck!’ you don’t ask questions, you just run.

“But this ain’t the kind of day that draws ducks out of their nests, and can you be-lieve what kind of a day it is–beautiful, spring, peak of the dry season, but don’t let that combination of words fool you! On this northern side of the Forest we got two seasons but only one type of weather and that’s HOT, WET, and MUDDY. Which is how I hear Specialist Rufio likes it, if you know what I’m sayin’, heh.”

“Rufio: Not by choice, Earworm! Your mom’s too afraid of having another you to let me use the front door!”

“Earworm: Sumrann’s BALLS, did somebody grow Rufio a brain? I hope it’s not a loaner, because you will not be getting that thing back in good condition. You’d probably be better off growing him that left eyebrow back! Ha! Now, for those of you who were paying close attention, you’ll notice that Rufio’s love letter to my long-dead mother came with its own psychic signature telling you who it’s from and letting you know that it was analyzed, recognized, and authorized.

“That, right there, is why Earworm needs to be in all the many psychic threads going on. Not only can I talk to everybody at once, but nobody can shut me up, nobody can force me to tell a lie, and nobody can spoof my shit. That means that if you ‘hear’ that psychic signature, the incoming message is Earworm approved. If you do not hear that psychic signature, then you SHALL assume that the incoming message is a hostile Subterfuge attempt or other type of social attack.

“This means that if you do not want to be the subject of friendly fire when your un-analyzed, un-recognized, and un-authorized ass tries to call in a backup request, then you WILL link your psychic side hustles up to the one and only Earworm! Fortune’s Folly are the only ones who are welcome to keep their privates private so long as they know that the moment they present their unmentionables to anyone outside of their own team, they WILL bring down the hammer on themselves. Otherwise, I wanna hear that chatter, people! Let’s go!”

“Arlo: We’re happy to have you eavesdropping on us, Earworm.”

“Earworm: Glad to hear it, King. Now that you’re hooked in, feel free to run your psycomms like you normally do. I’ll hear it all, but the only other people that’ll get your gossip dropped into their brains are the people you’re trying to talk to.”

“Or we could just talk out loud,” said Xim.

“But then more people will hear us!” said Etja.

“How many instances of focus do you think this Earworm guy has?” I asked.

“More than one,” said Nuralie.

We all grunted and muttered about how Nuralie wasn’t wrong, but that her guess was dumb. She gave us a rare grin in response.

Our party was gathered in the killing fields outside of New Krimsim, alongside a hundred Littan Delvers and change, about half a mile from the Forest’s edge. We were currently in the ‘hurry up and wait’ part of the operation, which meant that everyone was doing their own thing while Earworm got the Littans coordinated.

While our collective thumbs were being twiddled, Xim knelt on the soggy ground next to Team Pio’s resident spatial mage, the black-furred and black-eyed Baltae, and the pair of them were doing some side-by-side communion with their respective deities.

Nuralie stood at a safe distance while manipulating some of the eldritch, shapeshifting abbandite into different types of arrow heads. The mimic twin, Cezil, was giving the loson tips on how to make shapeshifting things ‘shapeshiftier.’ The sneaky Littan apparently didn’t mind being close enough for the unknown god that was connected to the malleable crafting material to whisper to her, although her red eyes flashed with concern on occasion.

Cezil’s twin, Madel, floated in the air as overwatch with her bold red cape fluttering in the wind. It matched her eyes and struck a nice contrast with her dark fur and darker armor.

Varrin and the golden-eyed Littan tank, Guar, had started doing some needless gear maintenance. That was quickly turning into an impromptu repair shop as one Littan after another approached them to see if they could fix up a weapon, some armor, or other sundries. Each piece came with its own excuse for why it hadn’t been maintained, ranging from the army’s smiths being overworked, to the local quartermaster being famously shrewd and refusing to replace gear until it was hopelessly broken. ⱤÃ₦𝘖ΒЕＳ

To be fair, they were probably telling the truth.

Meanwhile, I used one instance of focus to pay attention to my surroundings while chatting with Ishi. The rest of her team–now officially going by Two of Crowns–had already divided up elsewhere amongst the company of Littans based on their attunement. That would govern our positions while entering the Forest here in a few minutes.

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My second focus was working on my soul connection with Grotto, trying to get the shared intrinsic skills from the Traveler’s Amulet to go both ways. The Core had recently made some headway on that independently, and I was carving a little wooden doll, which I would try to animate using Golemancy. My Wandmaking skill wasn’t quite on point for the task, but as a Woodworking subskill, it was definitely making it easier. My familiar had a lot of juicy intrinsics that I wanted access to, so my second general-purpose instance of focus was staying on the project permanently unless we were attacked.

After those two foci, I had one more focus that could only be applied to managing Closetland. I was using that one to maintain a me-clone by occupying one of my magisters, which was currently overseeing Grotto while he applied the MIST procedure to the Chovali soldier, Nokomi Moonwing. Nokomi had rescued Count Starion’s daughter during the Battle of Krimsim, and the count was generously rewarding her by paying for the process.

And when I say ‘generously,’ I mean it. I was charging people double what it cost to execute the procedure, bringing the price tag to fourteen diamond chips. That was a substantial portion of the count’s fortune, but the man had revealed to me that he was making Nokomi one of his knights. He had enough sway to keep the Chovali stationed nearby until her military service ended, and once it did, he’d have his own personal Escalated Delver to lead a team or act as house security. Assuming he took a cut of what Nokomi grabbed while inside Platinum Delves, the count would make his money back eventually.

Prior to meeting with the count, my magister copy had been handling another session of mass fealty pledges. Closetland had just passed the next population milestone, meaning I was very close to getting another focus to apply to my dimensional kingdom. It would come with the Level 20 evolution breakpoint for Statecraft.

Closetland has reached a population of 10,000!

Your Statecraft skill has increased to Level 18!

That would give me enough instances of focus to tie with Etja, who’d been the party’s reigning Queen of Focus for a while. She had four in total, but all of hers were general use and none of them depended on an item. Even once I matched her numerically, I’d just be the party’s Discount Prince of Focus.

Etja was using her first focus to keep up a conversation with Captain Pio that was drawing in more and more of the other Littan Delvers, her second to practice mana shaping, her third to practice mana shaping, and her fourth to practice mana shaping. The air around us was filled with pretty magic colors and shapes, all of which were somehow perfectly arranged to encourage people to mingle and mill about, being all social and shit. They even made relaxing tonal noises that combined into an unintrusive droning song.

We were standing in a muddy field under the hot midday sun, getting ready for war, and I felt like I was in a crowded spa.

“Earworm: All right lords, ladies, and everyone too broke to buy a title, here’s how things are gonna go. Have you heard it all before? Yes. Am I going to be telling you again? Yes. Will somebody still somehow need to ask an adult for help later? Yes. Looking at you, Rufio.

“Today’s objective is to establish three security perimeters. The first will be maintained outside the Forest, where patrols of Coppers and lower-level Silvers will be ready to raise the alarm if something like a small pack of a hundred thousand mana-drunk beasties decides to come crawling out of it again. You’ve probably seen those roving patrols pass by once or twice, so guess what? We already got the first perimeter done. Go ahead and give each other a pat on the back!

“The next two perimeters will be inside the Forest, positioned in the buffer strips between Dungeon zones. Perimeter two will be maintained by our top-level Silvers, and you fine fellows are gonna dig in between Dungeon Zones One and Two. For the layman and new arrivals out here, Dungeon Zone One is the outermost ring of Dungeons, where each one corresponds to one of the five magic schools. Dungeon Zone Two is the next set of Dungeons farther in, which are all focused on crafting skills.

“Once the Silvers are set up and good to go, the Golds and Plats will pass through the crafting Dungeons to set up a perimeter between Dungeon Zones Two and Three. Zone Three is where the combat Dungeons begin, but we’ll be saving those tasty steaks for another day.

“The outermost perimeter will be resupplied by Krimsim and Choval, depending on proximity. The second perimeter will be resupplied by Delvers doing training runs through Dungeon Zone One. The third perimeter will be resupplied via portals brought to you by our outside contractors, Fortune’s Folly. Rumor has it that if you’re nice enough to Folly, they’ll let you take a toasty bath inside their secret hot spring.”

“Arlo: We’re also open to bribes.”

“Earworm: They said it, not me! But if you want my advice, I happen to know that they enjoy beer, wine, nice cheese, and fresh apple juice. Folly bribes aside, once those three perimeters are set, top-level Gold parties and above will migrate through the combat zones to explore deeper, and we’ll get further orders based on what we find.

“This will have been the third time you’ve heard all of this, so if you still have a question, keep it to yourself and use context clues to figure shit out. Now I’m gonna pass it off to the bigwig himself, Lieutenant Colonel Tavio of Seqaria!”

“Tavio: Thank you, Master Sergeant.”

Everyone on the field straightened and turned with supernatural accuracy to where Tavio had appeared. The man drove an eighteen-foot pike into the ground, spearhead first, then hopped up easily onto the haft, where he stood on its end with one foot. He folded his arms behind his back and still managed to emit a sense of formal military precision, despite his stance.

“I will not delay us any longer!” he shouted. “I believe we all know our roles and responsibilities by this point. Company! Break out into your attunement teams and prepare to enter the Forest!”

The soldiers saluted and, with nods and waves, most of Fortune’s Folly and Team Pio sped off. Pio’s mage, Baltae, was actually Mystical attuned despite focusing on Dimensional magicks. Their only Dimensional attuned member was the caped martial twin Madel. She joined Ishi and me as we formed the center of the Dimensional group, which included the one-eyebrowed Specialist Rufio and about ten other Littans I half-recognized.

It was a mix of Gold and Silvers, with Ishi and I being the only obvious Platinums. I say ‘obvious’ because there was a single Level 26 Gold with some funkiness going on in his soul. The man wore heavy plate armor of black and red, matching the coloring scheme of most of the higher-leveled Littan Delvers.

When the Level 26 was making his way over to us, his arrival was preceded by the air becoming metaphysically thicker somehow. It wasn't actually any denser, more like there was a smudge on the lens of my Soul-Sight; some infiltrate of a much bigger presence in the area than I could directly perceive. I couldn't tell much about it, but it seemed friendly enough. I got the sense it knew I could just barely smell it and was telling me that things were all good.

Ishi didn’t have a direct form of Soul-Sight, but like all dragons, she had an intuitive sense for someone’s strength, along with the ability to suppress her own. Both seemed to be rooted in the soul, which partially explained how dragons were so difficult to gauge through my Sight. The moment I felt whatever this was wash over us, she tensed and turned towards the man. He moved amiably, giving us a lazy wave and greeting, but otherwise ignored any tension he noticed in either of us.

The thickness wasn’t centered on or emanating from the Littan, but felt intertwined with him. It was such a deep connection that I almost mistook it for the man’s soul itself, but his soul looked like it belonged to an ordinary Level 26 at first blush. A closer look made me think it was too dense to be Gold, with too many levels packed into too tight a space, threatening to spill out like some kind of soul-based clown car.

And if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that any time a clown car showed up…

There was some funny business afoot.