Chapter 231: Return of the Mess Makers

Chapter 231: Return of the Mess Makers

Bee and Tony sat across from each other on a grassy knoll, munching contentedly on a plate of sandwiches. They were having lunch together in a rare, quiet moment in between their otherwise frantic schedules. She only had half an hour's break, but she had been convinced very politely by Mary and a few others that she needed some time for herself. So when Mary had sent her son her way with a serving basket of lunch, they had gone on a little impromptu picnic.

Tony was his usual charming self, doing an excellent job of joking with her and keeping her mind off of what was going on. He managed to make her feel like things were almost normal. Not that they'd ever really been normal, but it was as close as Bee had felt in a long while.

Then, that 30-minute imposed break ended, and everything got a lot worse.

Bee felt significantly more relaxed. But as soon as they packed up and started to head back, she had been ambushed By a messenger waiting just around the corner. Apparently, she'd been summoned to the command center where Arthur, Captain Major, and Susan were waiting.

"Do you know what this is about?" Bee asked the messenger, and he shrugged a little bit.

"Um. Yeah. Some reports came in, and apparently, we got some more news about the troop allotments."

Bee frowned. That didn't seem urgent enough to warrant a meeting like this. They had a rather rough idea about infantry versus cavalry and all that, but it wasn't going to massively change their strategy, at least not that she was aware of.

When she reached the meeting room, she saw the taut and drawn faces of Susan and Captain Major, along with a rather haggard-looking Arthur. That was when she realized that there might have been something else to the report than she'd been led to believe.

"What's this?" She asked. Susan and Captain Major exchanged a look, for once putting their rivalry to the side. Rather, they each seemed to be hoping the other would speak. Eventually, Arthur's frown deepened, and he took charge.

"It seems that we have a problem. Some of our scouts have been reporting odd anomalies for a bit. The saboteurs have been running into more resistance than they should. And recently, when we hit them hard enough, we discovered why. Apparently, many of these soldiers aren't actually as human as they appear. When pressed, some of them will transform into demons."

Bee frowned. "What kind of demons?"

Captain Major and Susan finally found their tongues. Susan spoke first. "No particular kind. As far as we can tell, there are some lesser demons and various elemental varieties. Even a greater demon took an entire squad out at one point."

"That's concerning," Bee said as she processed the news. "The lower orders of demons aren't intelligent enough to act human, much less disguise themselves. How do we not see this? How do they interact with the people around them? Do the regular humans in the army know what's going on?"

Bee had carved out enough research time for herself that she had learned some basic enchanting. It was a fascinating discipline where she could inlay runes with material or draw them on something to imbue it with certain magical properties. The basics were simple enough that she'd even had some successes. It was similar in principle to the warding circles from demonology, but just in a slightly more permanent method.

The runes were finicky to get right. Unsuccessful ones had a chance of fizzling out. Still, if you did them wrong in a very particular way, a cracking explosion could be obtained. And that was just what the doctor had ordered.

Today, Bee strode over to a large pile of uniformly sized stones. They would work in trebuchets and catapults where they were enchanted to explode on impact. A few of them were already armed and dangerous, but she had a lot of work ahead.

She actually had some proper enchantments she was working on as well. They were a lot harder to pull off and more likely to fail. But she had learned how to give the rocks extra momentum, for example. But her experiments on homing or improved accuracy so far hadn't achieved more than a few stubbed toes. Something that would guide a thrown object toward a designated target was a very complicated ask, especially considering how much she was pioneering in this field. She had to both work with how long the thing would be in flight and then also somehow designate a target.

If she could somehow mix that with anti-demonic explosives in the vials, perhaps they could be used a lot more effectively. It was going to take a lot of experiments to work, and they didn't have much time. Luckily, Maranda had taken to magic even more than she had. Well, Bee definitely had an edge on her in certain aspects. But Maranda was a true savant. Perhaps they'd be able to figure something out together.

---

I was stuck. I had determined that the mountain was alive, but I didn't have a good way of communicating with it. I didn't want to leave to go find Daedalus while the snowmen were still vulnerable, though I supposed they would probably be okay if they had survived as long as they had without me. And I couldn't just remove the offending rock monsters on my own. It was quite the conundrum.

Just as I was about to despair, two broad sets of dragon wings appeared on the horizon: one red and one white. Within a few minutes, I was no longer alone in the sky.

I quickly replayed the scene of what happened for Daedalus and Thucydides to see, and they both groaned as they watched. Daedalus looked over at his little brother with a cloudy expression. "Thucydides, how did you fail to mention that you were living next to a mountain spirit?"

Thucydides looked anywhere but at us. "Yeah, I... well..." He spluttered, starting several sentences before giving up and just shrugging. "I didn't know. Either it's fairly young, or it just was dormant the entire time I was here. It's not my fault."

Daedalus shook in laughter. "Oh, you silly thing. This is what you get for all your meditation and symbol-scratching."

Thucydides shot his brother a baleful look. "Hey, it wasn't really something I thought to check! Who would even think that? Besides, it wasn't causing any problems anyways."

I quickly disabused him of the notion that it hadn't caused any problems by replaying a few of the scenes of me absolutely chopping apart a rock creature and it just reforming like nothing happened. Thucydides winced. "Yeah, I suppose that could be a problem. But normally, on their own spirits don't do much."

Daedalus grumbled. "I suppose I'll go talk to it. Mountain spirits aren't generally unreasonable. Just a little bit slow."