Chương 18: Mountain Fortress

The air within the 4th Regulars' base was a lot warmer than what Alcyr was used to in the northern frontier. He was dressed in a thin surgical gown, but even that was enough to ward off the weakened cold. Great braziers stood between orderly lines of leather tents or stone buildings, each burning more fuel than what the 3rd Irregular would have consumed across their entire camp in a day.

High cavernous ceilings and bastions of stone walls sheltered the inner wards of the base, blocking the harsh northern winds while still allowing sunlight to enter through the opened mouth of the massive cavern. He walked barefooted, the paved ground and baffling absence of snow proving no discomfort to his naked soles. Calling the place a mere 'base' was underselling it.

Alcyr had initially expected the military outpost to be a little more than a well-fortified version of the 3rd Irregulars' camp, but as Lenore guided him through the stronghold, he realised just how wrong he was. The place was a formidable mountain fortress — at least thrice the size of any Irregular camp, completed with multiple floors and wide tunnels, and carved into the granite face of a cliff rather than built upon the open tundra like the rest of the companies deployed in the campaign.

The location was well-chosen as well. Though further from the frontlines, it controlled the only reliable mountain pass between the kingdom's heartlands to the south and the barbaric frontier to the north, making it a prime region for coordinating the campaign's supplies and forces. Towers, curtain walls, and intermediate fortifications emerged from the rocks to protect the roads and depots below.

A raging river born from glacial melt ran beneath the eastern side of the base, feeding cisterns and powering the forges and workshops bellowing within the mountain hollows.

"Not quite the temporary encampment I was expecting," Alcyr commented idly.

"The 4th Regulars have been fighting this campaign for four years," Lenore replied indifferently.

"We've had more than enough time and influence to make our position secure and comfortable." A pity they could not have spared the same luxury for the Irregulars, but that was nothing new. The disparity in treatment between nobles and peasants was ever-present, even in a war. The pair carried on further into the base, entering the more sheltered sanctums of the open cavern. Dark blue banners rose above, carrying the herald of a sword held by a winged beast.

Pathways had been stamped flat between them, the mud and stone packed down into hard, dark veins cutting through the granite frost. Around him walked some of the most celebrated soldiers of the Morwyn Kingdom — Regulars, each an exceptional warrior armed with the best training and equipment the military could afford. They moved along the paths without wasted motion.

The quality of their weapons and armour surpassed even that of his captain back in the 3rd Irregular, no doubt forged by the powerful workshops hammering away deeper in the mountains. Even at a glance, Alcyr could tell that their strength was a match for Lieutenant Vormas or even Captain Halmon. Every single one of them was at least in the Elite tier. However, their numbers appeared… diminished.

"Where is everyone?" he asked Lenore.

"The base is currently undermanned. The majority of our forces have been deployed to stabilise the situation out in the tundra."

'Undermanned' felt like an understatement. A full company should number five hundred fighting men at full strength. Though he had not yet walked the full breadth of the camp yet, it felt as if less than a tenth of their numbers remained to guard the enormous base. That does not bode well. Just what had happened while I was asleep? There was more to come, however. As Lenore led him deeper into the camp, a scent crept in through the leather and steel, sharp and acrid. Alcyr sniffed the air. Venom.

An enormous winged creature soared over him, landing upon a wide, open section of the camp, where the ground had been reinforced with heavy planks and darkened earth. The beast snarled and spat, acid flecking wantonly from its maw, until the armoured rider on its back finally lost his patience and pulled the reins sharply, silencing the creature. Drakes. The 4th Regulars' pride and joy. The first drake was joined by a few others, each of them similarly strapped with a harness and reins.

The signs of recent battle were clear, with the beasts' scales scratched and marred, while their riders moved with weary energy, carrying damaged wargear and smelling of dried blood. The Regulars dismounted the drakes and led them further inside the caverns, where their roosts and handlers awaited.

"I remember flying on the back of one when you rescued me," Alcyr said.

"Do you own a drake as well?"

"Not owned. Mine is a borrowed beast." Lenore frowned slightly.

"Keep moving. The Regulars are a proud group, but the drake riders are more insufferable than most. It is best that you do not linger, lest one of them take offence at your presence."

"I am well aware of the arrogance of bluebloods." Try as he might otherwise, however, his attention was still drawn by the winged creatures. He rarely saw one of them up close, and their feral lethality fascinated him. Drakes were one of the most prized and powerful steeds in the kingdom. They were not true dragons, but they did possess a distant draconic ancestry, and that was enough to grant them great power.

Though they could not breathe fire, their glands still produced a flammable acid that they could use as a breath attack. Alcyr watched as one drake exhaled slowly, and a thin stream of viscous fluid dripped from its jaws. Where it struck the ground, the wood hissed and blackened, smoke curling upward in thin, bitter strands. A rough estimate placed the drake's strength at the High Elite tier. Alcyr would not know for sure until he fought it.

"Do not stare," Lenore murmured to him.

"You'll aggravate them." For a split second, against his better judgement, his eyes lingered, and his fingers thumbed the handle of the scalpel hidden in his gown's inner pocket. Something in his blood stirred. Thoughts of throwing the blade at the beast came unbidden. He wanted to trigger conflict. He wanted violence. Then rationality kicked in. Alcyr blinked and hurriedly looked away before the beast noticed. Strange. He was not usually prone to such reckless actions.

It seemed the loops had altered his cautious nature into something more troublesome. He hungered for battle. The thought that he might have to face consequences for such unrestrained madness hadn't even occurred to him when he grabbed the scalpel. I need to be more careful, he chided himself. I don't even know if the loops still work anymore. My death could be permanent this time. It would be easy to believe the time loops would always save him from death.

After all, it already happened across two separate occasions; why wouldn't it occur for a third, fourth, or hundredth time? But such thinking was reckless. He still did not fully understand how the time loops functioned. Perhaps it would only trigger for certain deaths under certain conditions. Or perhaps each death drew upon a finite pool of resurrections.

With only two looping sets to draw his conclusions upon thus far, it felt prudent to treat each death as his last until the loops trapped him within the same repeating day once more. There is also that stranger I saw in my dreams, Alcyr thought. A woman in a white cloak… She's responsible for this somehow. What does she want? If he died once more, would he see her again? Strangely, the thought of that did not feel unpleasant. As he theorised over his unusual predicament, he and Lenore moved deeper into the base.

Alcyr kept a watchful eye on the pens, careful not to make his appraisal obvious. Handlers moved among the drakes with careful confidence, armoured in strange, layered gear that repelled the acid. They carried hooked poles, thick reins, and long syringes filled with murky fluid. Some of them even held large buckets, draining the drake's flammable acids from their glands in large quantities.

"They're for the armoury," Lenore answered his unspoken question.

"The acid is useful for weapon and armour crafting. The flammability makes them viable as alchemical reagents or incendiaries as well." Alcyr nodded absentmindedly. Just as he was about to look away, one of the drakes turned its head. Alcyr felt its bestial gaze settle on him. For a moment, the world narrowed to that slitted, predatory eye. Alcyr didn't slow, nor did he acknowledge the creature in any way.

After a heartbeat, the creature snorted, a faint spray of corrosive mist spilling from its nostrils, and lost interest. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Shame, Alcyr thought. Fighting it would have given worthwhile experience. … After a second to reflect, he wondered if perhaps the apothecary's suspicion of his waning sanity was correct, and whether she was inclined to help him readjust his mental state before he got himself killed.

The air inside the cavernous command room was thick with the scent of ash and expensive vellum. Outside, the rhythmic flapping of drake wings provided a low-frequency hum that vibrated through the stone floor, accompanying the sound of hushed, relentless activity within the massive room. Alcyr had not been expecting so many people inside. Rather than just soldiers, there were countless auxiliary staff as well, far more than any Irregular company.

Well-dressed scribes threaded through the crowded floor with purposeful strides, while lesser ink-stained clerks hurried between long stone tables burdened beneath maps, ledgers, and wax-sealed dispatches. The atmosphere was tense, and what little he gleaned from the scattered reports on the tables told him all was not well with the campaign.

"The barbarians launched another mass offensive?" he asked, slightly surprised.

"That's two major attacks in the span of a month. I thought they would have fallen back after the assault on our outposts on the Frost Tooth Peaks." Lenore nodded.

"The second offensive happened while you were asleep, just over a week ago. This time, our Irregular companies stationed in the plains were all hit simultaneously." Alcyr winced.

"That's far too much territory to cover, even for the drake riders."

"True. The situation in the tundra is deteriorating beyond our worst predictions. Our manpower is limited, and our medical supplies are stretched thin. But that is not your concern for the moment. Come, Commander Faldren awaits." At the centre of the room stood the leader of the 4th Regulars. Commander Faldren Vayne's presence was formidable. As a Grandmaster, his strength utterly eclipsed that of everyone else in the room, save perhaps for Lenore.

Surrounded by officers, engineers, and quartermasters, he spoke with clipped authority while multiple clerks hurriedly recorded his every order. The man spotted Alcyr soon enough. He excused himself from the others and walked over.

"I see our mysterious slayer is finally awake," Faldren said.

"How are you feeling, Private Alcyr?" The cordiality of the man's tone caught Alcyr off guard. Faldren was undoubtedly a blueblood, while Alcyr was clearly just a peasant soldier. Even now, Alcyr's mere presence attracted glares and disdain from the other highborn officers in the room. Yet Faldren's tone held no such derision. He sounded tired, but little beyond that. Alcyr nodded in reply.

"I've been better, sir."

"I can believe that. Your condition was grave when you first arrived." Faldren turned to Lenore.

"Is he fit for questioning, captain?" The physician shrugged.

"That would depend on what kind of questioning you have for him, commander. If you have something more invasive in mind, I can have my tools ready in minutes." Alcyr tensed slightly, while Faldren sighed.

"Please do not jest. Your patient is under enough stress as is. Both of you, follow me. We shall speak in private." She was joking? I can barely tell. And here he thought he had troubles expressing himself… The three of them moved to a separate room linked to the command chamber. As the iron door shut behind them, Alcyr felt the hair on the back of his neck stand. A strange hum swept through the room, and the ambient noise beyond the walls dropped into sudden silence. Dampening runes. Interesting.

So the base had arcane wards on top of its more mundane defences.

"Curious. You do not look surprised," Lenore remarked.

"I am familiar with rune magic," he answered.

"Yet you are neither a noble nor a mage. How does a peasant born in a backwater village know of such things?"

"An old friend of mine worked with runes," Alcyr answered noncommittally. Lenore hummed but did not ask further. He stood in the centre of the silenced room, still clad in his infirmary linens, while Faldren and Lenore took their seats behind a heavy desk of polished oak. To both sides of the room, two pairs of steel-cladded soldiers stood at attention, their powerful halberds ready at their sides. Alcyr studied the two figures who held the mighty leash of the 4th Regulars. A Master and a Grandmaster.

They were undoubtedly the strongest figures within the entire stronghold at present, though Alcyr wagered there were other formidable captains in the company he had not seen yet, deployed as they were in the tundra at the moment. Commander Faldren was not what Alcyr expected. The man was tall and well-dressed, but the slight looseness of his robes hinted at a fragile frame. He wore a set of thin, wire-rimmed spectacles, framing a pair of tired grey eyes.

He didn't look like a frontline soldier or even remotely like the fierce officer Alcyr had envisioned for the commander of the vicious Drake Cavalry. He looked more like a scholar than anything. The faint blue shimmer of his robes, however, hinted at his true strength. The commander of the 4th Regulars — a company famed for their ferocity in battle — was a mage. An odd combination. How did a spellcaster end up here? Mages were elusive; Like bloodlines and blessings, the ability to use magic was largely hereditary.

Spellcasting required a special organ known as a mana core — a rare mutation that only seldomly manifests through the occult ancestry passed down from mage parents to child over generations. With how difficult it was for children to inherit mana cores, the domain of magecraft was mostly controlled by a handful of magus noble families within the Morwyn Kingdom.

The Houses ensured their heirs intermarried exclusively with one another to preserve the purity of their magus blood, ensuring the highest possible chance of the mana core trait being passed down. Normally, Alcyr would have guessed that Faldren himself came from one of those families, especially given his strength and position. But his House name, 'Vayne', did not sound familiar. It's unlikely he came from a prominent magus family, then. A fostered child, perhaps? Or maybe something even more scandalous…

There was little time for further speculation. Commander Faldren addressed him.

"Let us start," the man began with a friendly smile.

"First, I'm glad to see you are well and awake, Private Alcyr. There were some among us who feared you would never return to the land of the living."

"His eventual recovery was hardly in question under my care," Lenore said flatly, as if she took offence at the commander's words.

"However, I'd admit his awakening came much earlier than I expected. Given the damage and fatigue his body suffered, I had anticipated another month unconscious, at least."

"A good thing he is here with us now, then." Faldren nodded.

"We have an opportunity to alleviate some of the company's concerns while our other more… obstinate captains are not around." Alcyr frowned.

"And what concerns would those be?" Lenore reached into the desk and pulled forth a shimmering orb, roughly the size of her fist. Oh. I know where this is going.

"I trust you know what this is?" she asked. Alcyr nodded, now much more wary.

"An appraisal orb." He had already seen it several times before, as did everyone in the military. Status screens were sacrosanct. What lay within one's own System — skills, Mysteries, levels — was considered the deepest kind of privacy. Even between family or loved ones, demanding information about another's abilities or levels was considered a serious social taboo. However, worth still had to be measured somehow, especially for important institutions like the military.

Armies and governments could not be built on trust alone. The Royal Oracular Order had hence introduced an acceptable compromise: the appraisal orb. The mass-produced device was not capable of seeing a person's entire skillset. Rather, it isolated and revealed only the highest-level skill, thus allowing an administration to judge an individual's general worth without peering too deeply into their System.

Alcyr had been subjected to the appraisal orb a few times before: once at enlistment and the other a few months ago.

"At enlistment, the appraisal orb graded you as a High Initiate, with your best skill being Sword Discipline at level 12," Lenore said.

"Acceptable for most lowborn folk, perhaps, but nothing notable in our eyes." Lenore paused for a moment. Seeing Alcyr's unfazed expression, she continued.

"Around two months ago — after the Battle of the Red Rime and around a year after your enlistment — you requested from your superiors a redesignation to the tier of High Journeyman, in hopes of a promotion. Once again, an appraisal orb was used, and you were graded according to your Sword Discipline skill of 31."

"Reaching High Initiate at enlistment was already impressive for your age," Faldren said.

"Likewise, your skill growth in the 3rd Irregulars over the last year was commendable. However, neither appraisal reading was particularly exceptional or wildly beyond the norm for a soldier of your background. Unlike this." The officer turned the appraisal orb's display towards him. The readings displayed themselves clearly enough: [Appraisal Orb #1806-A1] Sanctioned Status Screen Reading (Restricted) Displaying results…

Alcyr Rivers — Age 18 Highest-levelled Skill: Sword Discipline — Level 47 Current Tier: Low Elite [End] A few soldiers in the room gave an involuntary gasp. One nearly dropped his halberd, while another whistled lowly.

"This was recorded while you were unconscious," Commander Faldren said, his friendly tone switching to something more serious.

"A Low Elite tier rating, with a Sword Discipline skill of 47, is not normal for an eighteen-year-old. It is far beyond even what we expect of most noble children. There are those your age who would not have even unlocked their System yet."

"Half of our Regulars do not even possess such a high-level skill, despite being decades older than you," Lenore added.

"For a lowborn to achieve such heights at any age already strains belief. But when we factor in that it took you only a mere two months to reach this level from Sword Discipline 31… Well, it raises a few questions." Alcyr's expression remained unchanged, though internally, he was trying — and failing — to find a reasonable explanation.

"Am I to be condemned for my strength, then?" he asked." Condemned? No, of course not! But you cannot blame us for our curiosity," Faldren reassured with a sheepish smile, the tension abating slightly.

"What little we have on your background revealed nothing of substance. Your motivations are shrouded to us, as is your baffling enlistment into the peasant militia, given your prodigious strength. Seeing as we know so little of you, I thought it would be only appropriate for us to get to know each other before I extend my offer." Alcyr raised an eyebrow.

"Offer?"

"To join the 4th Regulars, of course." Commander Faldren reached out his hand, his expression bright.

"Tell me, Alcyr Rivers. What is it that you want? Power? Wealth? Or perhaps fame? Under our guidance, we can help you achieve your goals, no matter how distant they might be."

"My goals are mine to achieve," Alcyr replied immediately.

"It is not something the 4th Regulars can give me."

"But we can help you get there," Lenore countered.

"Treat us as a stepping stone if you wish. Your service with us need not be permanent, while the benefits you gain with us will be. Connections go a long way. You may have power, but it's clear you do not know how to best make use of it if you thought joining the Irregulars was a good idea." Alcyr wisely chose to keep his mouth shut. Mistaking his silence for contemplation, Faldren pressed forth.

"We are not your enemy, Private. Nor are we here to bleed you for your secrets and discard you once you are spent. The 4th Regulars wish to come to a mutually beneficial agreement with you. You have more bargaining power than you think, for we will take no more than you will give. So I ask again, Alcyr Rivers:"What is it that you want?"