55 Planning

...Sarah's PoV...

"So, how was your day?" I ask my friends as we sit down together in the mess hall, which is on the bottom floor of the barracks. It has been a few hectic days since we were basically coerced into this cult, and we are slowly adapting to our new life. The administration of the Order was surprisingly effective, they brought us all our things and took care of all the paperwork that our sudden relocation caused. Some cultists even helped us move into our new, well-furnished rooms.

"How is this so good?" Cynthia, who already began to shovel food into her mouth, mutters between two bites.

This is something that's puzzling for me as well. We were given a brief tour after we joined, and we passed by the kitchens. Everything we eat starts as a sort of translucent goop packed with calories and nutrients, then it's printed into something that tastes and feels exactly like real food by a machine they call an Electromagical Printer.

I was amazed, Alex was weirded out, and Cynthia bombarded the cultist that was acting as a tour guide with a barrage of questions that he struggled to answer.

Even then, I didn't understand half of what he was saying. But from what I can remember this Printer is the pride and joy of Alan Carter, the leader of the Incandescent Fabricators. The machine can apparently print almost anything, artifacts included. In fact, we saw our new clothes being printed right in front of our eyes.

The bright red robes we are wearing above our regular clothes aren't the most discreet thing in the world, but we were told that they had something resembling optical camouflage built into them, so we wouldn't be spotted in a combat situation.

"I don't know about you, but mine was tiring..." Alex mumbles before munching on his food.

The ex-Club leader was assigned to the Legions of Cleansing Fire, the military branch of the cult. From what he told us, he was being trained to be a support mage. So they are teaching him spells and how to operate the large machine guns on the walls surrounding the compound.

Of course, his training also includes a lot of physical training, which is the main reason for his complaints.

I was also assigned to the Legions, but contrary to Alex I was assigned to a special unit focused on collecting intelligence and sowing confusion amongst the ranks of our enemies. The spells I am learning are different from Alex's, which are focused on enhancing our combatants, and they are terrifying. For instance, one of the spells in my repertoire can hijack the optical nerve of the target and force him to see unbelievable horrors that will destroy his sanity.

But most of my time is spent experimenting with my ability, which is apparently unlike anything they have ever seen. It doesn't use mana at all, and it can bypass any kind of mental protection the Order can think of.

The Order also quickly discovered that I could learn any spell known by a person, as long as that person is human. The hows and whys are still not understood, but it greatly sped up my training. The experiments also included attempts at manipulating memories and directly casting spells into the mind of a target.

We are also trying to find a way to extend the range of my ability, which is apparently limited to about ten yards around me. We started with cameras, but it didn't work. Now they are trying to use some sort of artifact to allow me to see the world through the eyes of an experimented soldier, that way I could get into the action without being in any danger.

Of course, our days are also filled with what the cultists call 'Learning the Promethean Truth'. It's basically religious indoctrination, they tell us to read their Codex which is nothing but an amalgamation of praise and stories about the so-called Prometheus. I find the contents of the book hard to believe but who knows, maybe they are true.

The line between impossible and possible tends to blur in a world filled with magic and demons.

"By the way, have you seen what Joh- Prometheus lately?" Alex ask. Saying the name of Prometheus is considered blasphemy, so the habit has been drilled into us pretty quickly.

"I see him sometimes... He's always spending time with Alan these days. They've been fawning over some sort of weird column with a rotating black thing on top and they are running hundreds of tests on it." Cynthia declares. "I still have no idea what's it's for, but we were recently ordered to come up with a way to ramp up the production of the essence, not to mention that-" she takes a deep breath and makes a wry smile, "Sorry, I'm rambling. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about, right?"

Alex and I exchange a knowing glance, we leave with a headache each time Cynthia tries to explain what she does.

"Since you're the one who had the most contact with him... do you think this Prometheus business holds any ground?" Alex whispers. He's been skeptical from day one, and I can't blame him. This whole thing about Prometheus being some sort of god amongst men seems a bit too far-fetched, even considering the power he displayed during his fight against Beelzebub.

Being skeptical doesn't trigger the Oath but it's still seen in a bad light by the Order, so we keep our doubts into our group.

"I don't really know... Everyone here is pretty convinced of it, and we can't really dig too deep or we might trigger the Oath." Cynthia says. It was explained to us that triggering the Oath would burn our souls, along with our bodies, to cinders in less than a second.

"It's still a bit fishy for me... I do see him sometimes when he discusses something with Terrence or after an attack. And it almost feels like the guy doesn't really know what's he's doing, that he's going along with the flow while trying to act like the Order expect him to." Alex continues.

"We can't deny that he's a very powerful person, and the Order firmly believes that he's Prometheus. So he must be doing something right since there's no way that he got into this situation through sheer luck and coincidence." I say. Him being a god might not be true, but we can't deny that the way he acts line up with what's in the Codex, so the reincarnation theory might be the truth.

Alex shrugs, "I guess you're right, there's no way that he was able to defeat Beelzebub through sheer luck..."

...John's PoV...

I somehow feel like sneezing, but the feeling vanishes as quickly as it appeared so I focus back on the task at hand. It's been three days since I brought back the Spell Jammer and Alan has been ecstatic. We ran numerous tests during those days, and we came to the same conclusion.

The Spell Jammer is truly a game changer.

Any kind of spell, no matter how strong or weak, is instantly destroyed once it enters the area of effect of the Jammer. Spells that are already cast are no exception to this rule, even if they take slightly more time to be canceled. We also discovered that the speed of rotation of the Starmetal piece was one of the main parameters that decided the range of the device, so we made another replacement column.

The new column was made with standard stainless steel, and it housed a powerful V8 engine that has been modified by the Order to produce more power and be more efficient. The results were staggering, and we increased the radius of the device by ten yards, bumping it to a respectable forty yards.

But that's not all, Alan made it a priority to build a machine similar to the one I saw in Krognar's secret basement. And I was pleasantly surprised when Alan suggested that we could be using the essence of frost instead of the Frostcrystal Roses. He said that his research on the Power Stones might allow us to exploit their properties.

However, the Starmetal collection and storage is a bit of a problem. Alan had no idea that the material existed, so we don't have anything even remotely on par with Krognar's containers. The efforts to reverse-engineer the Goblin's works are still ongoing, but the progress is slow since the runes are very intricate, and I suspect that they are intentionally obfuscated.

Right now, a small portion of the Fabricators is working on designing and building a rather large black box made to contain the Starmetal. We already gave up on making it portable, and my description of the situation in the Clan's vault made Alan realize that our only real source of Starmetal might blow up at any moment.

I didn't really understand the full explanation, but we are are apparently prototyping something based on quantum locking since Alan theorized that the Starmetal gets more unstable the more there is in one place. So his plan is to isolate each chunk into a container made of a specific material and fill the box with a constant stream of the essence of frost. This would make sure that the pieces are never touching each other, and the essence of frost would also act as a powerful mana isolator...

At least in theory. For all we know we are just making a very expensive fridge.

*I'm glad that the essence of frost is easy to get... Our ice cubes budget is going to explode.*

However, our ice-making budget isn't what worries me the most.

The attacks on the compound have increased in intensity, and we were attacked twice in a single day. The mercenaries were nothing special, and the barrage of bullets spewed out of the M2s was more than enough to turn them into a paste. But I did notice that their equipment looked better than the mercenaries that came before, and they were more organized.

This was bound to happen, especially considering that my bounty now almost reaches nine hundred millions Credits.

We're lucky that teleporting a large group of people over large distances is not too hard to detect, or we would've been caught with our pants down. But I doubt we're going to be able to keep relying on that fact. I'm certain that more discreet ways of teleporting around exist, and there's no way that the more expensive mercenaries outfits don't have access to them.

I take a deep breath and look around the compound. It's bustling with activity as all the Fabricators work on different projects, each more vital to our survival than the last. At least there were some successes, and every Legionary now sports a copy of the Shield Glove along with an AR-15 firing Exploding Growth Bullets.

Alan insisted to put a self-destruct system into the copies of my equipment, and I agree with him. It might seem like a waste, but we can't risk our technology getting into the hands of our enemies. I shudder when I think what would happen if the Enforcers reversed-engineered the Shield Glove and improved it.

They would be invincible.

I shake my head, there's no need to think about the worst case scenario since reality is already bad enough.

A knock on my door takes me out of my thoughts and Terrence, the Commander of the Legions, steps into my living room.

"I came here as fast as I could," he says, so I prompt him to sit down on the sofa in front of me.

"About the Shard, I made my research. I think I found a suitable candidate, but I'll leave the decision to you." Terrence goes straight to the point. I'm impressed by his speed, it hasn't been a long time since I gave him the task of finding a suitable Shard for our needs.

*But leaving the decision to me doesn't seem like a good idea...*

"All right, I'm listening," I say while leaning back. I have no clue about battle strategies, so I'll nod and accept whatever Terrence says.

I'm such a great leader, it's incredible.

"First of all, the preparations for the Shard Campaign are almost finished. We stockpiled enough supplies to handle anything that could come our way. We are only waiting for the Fabricators to adapt the Portal Gun design. Once this issue is resolved, we would be ready to go on your order." The Commander declares with confidence.

I find it hard to share his enthusiasm, making the Portal Gun work without the help of purple Magicite isn't an easy task, and the Fabricators are already overworked.

"You've already been to the Underworld, so I don't have to explain the purpose of the stations containing a lot of Gates, right?" he asks, and I nod.

"Good, then I think this should be our first target. The Shards containing those buildings are part of a loose alliance of numerous gangs that hate each other, so they won't lift a finger when we attack. It will be too late for them to react when we cut the Shard off their network, but we have to act quickly or we might be targeted by the elites of the most powerful gangs."

Terrence's explanation makes sense, cutting off the Shard from the network will make any retaliation attempts almost impossible.

"It sounds good to me, but how are we going to assault that place? It's quite well guarded." I remember the ominous guards when I used the terminal, and they weren't pushovers by any stretch of the imagination.

"We won't do a frontal assault. Instead, we'll rely on the locals," he says with a grin.

I raise an eyebrow, so the Commander continues his explanation. "As you already know, some Shards contain native populations. When a Shard is discovered, these natives are usually enslaved or outright removed. Either way, they aren't treated well at all."

"I get it, you want the locals to fight for us? That certainly sounds like a way to save manpower, but how do you expect it to not backfire?" I ask. While arming locals to remove the local government sounds like a good idea on paper, it more often than not brings instability to the area. And there are no guarantees that they won't turn their back on us once the war is over.

"As expected of Prometheus, you've already thought of this!" Terrence praises me, but I just wave my hand in the air to prompt him to continue. "All right, normally I wouldn't suggest something like this, but your arrival changed everything. I think we can easily convince them to join our side after you show them your greatness. After that, we only need to add a bit of coercion and preaching to push them to take the Oath."

So we're basically enslaving an entire population... I don't know how I feel about this.

Terrence, who interprets my silence as an agreement, continues. "The first step will involve you taking out gang members that are oppressing people. We'll just have to wait until the situation gets worse before you sweep in and show the true power of Prometheus. If my assumptions are correct, then it won't be long before the native leaders start to hear about our actions. Your actions will earn you the support of the people, so they won't have any other choice than to accept our conditions. As a show of good faith, we'll also improve the people's living conditions with the Printers, and we'll distribute copies of the Codex."

*So we're going to brainwash these people? I am starting to think that we aren't really the good guys...*

Terrence, unaware of my internal conflict, keeps enthusiastically explaining his grand plan. "At this point, we should have unified a good part of the native population, and the gangs should be unaware of what we're doing. Unexplained deaths and disappearances are common occurrences in the Shards and we'll be targeting worthless lackeys, so we shouldn't attract the attention of the major players. Then, we can start our recruitment drive after we showed the light of Prometheus to the inhabitants. This will bolster our ranks, something we desperately need if we want to accomplish our objective."

From a strategic point of view, Terrence's plan is very good. It's killing two birds with one stone, we get a Shard and a lot of new recruits.

But from a moral point of view, it isn't as appealing. We're exploiting the suffering of these people for our own profit, and what Terrence propose is no better than forcing them to join us.

"So, what's your decision?" Terrence's question interrupts my train of thought, so I block the timeline to have time to think. It would be hypocritical to admit that I'm not tempted by his plan.

If I were to accept his proposal, we would improve the lives of those people by a ton if the things I saw in the Shards are anything to go by. And as far as I know, the Order doesn't plan to enslave them, but to pull them into our ranks. We are at war, and we need soldiers, but would these people really fight for a cause that ultimately doesn't concern them?

On the other hand, if I were to refuse, then we would attack the Shard without additional support. That means reducing our already small numbers, and that's something we can't afford if we want to actually win this war. Or we search for another Shard, but we don't have an infinite amount of time and we run the risk of being wiped out by a band of mercenaries once my bounty becomes too big.

I close my eyes and review all the possible consequences of my choice, I feel like it's an important part of the Order's history and that it'll shape our future conflicts.

My eyes open after what feels like an eternity spent reviewing hundreds of potential situations. I think this decision is the best one for everyone involved, and it will help us accomplish our goal.

So I let time resume it's normal course and turn towards the expecting Commander.