Agatha ‘encouraged’ Samantha to get back on her throne and get to business. The former marchioness waited deliberately to watch her ascend and do so, nodding in satisfaction once Samantha sat down and spread her hands as if to say, ‘Here I am, happy now?’ At that point, Agatha strolled over to chat with Heavenpeak’s court bard, the Siren Calliope, who’d been providing an understated, somber tune as background music for quite a while.

  Estara was the first to ‘poke in’ mentally, not long after sitting down. “Your Majesty? Mother. Are you alright?”

  Sammy smiled to hear her voice. “I’m okay, Estara. Glad to be back with you. How are you? What’s up?”

  “I am well. Caneboro holds. We have a new and… interesting visitor. I briefly posed as you to gain his confidence at a certain point, but I had to spill the beans and admit you were unavailable and I was just the High Priestess. He was maybe a little disappointed but very courteous and respectful. Treated me a measure of awe, still.”

  “Huh. Okay! This feels important. Where is he from, what’s his deal?”

  “He will only say he’s from ‘far northward.’ I know he’s not human, but not sure otherwise. Some kind of giant, maybe. He won’t say anything about himself until he can meet with you. He’s been very patient so far, but has stressed the importance, yes.”

  “Alright. Thank you, sweetheart. I will meet with him very soon.”

  “Okay! I know you’re just getting back, and things are… well, it’s so tragic about the marchioness. She was such a nice lady and a wonderful leader.”

  “Is, dear. She’s with us in Heaven.”

  “Right! Sorry. I need to visit her sometime soon. That will unbreak my heart a bit. But I’ll go now and stop taking up your time.”

  “I always want time with you and I cherish it. Love you, dear. Be safe.”

  “Love you, too!” She sent a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  Smiling, Sammy sent back the same before they disconnected. Immediately after, she contacted Jeeves for the rest of the realm breakdown. It had been a little over three days. It was morning time.

  Lots of deaths in Caneboro as the Dominion hit back harder than ever in the underground war. High-level spellcraft was being brought to bear, namely enchantments on lower-level, more expendable agents. They were hiding their spellcasters as generic fighters, too. Lucky had gotten around this in ambushes by baiting them into casting, taking advantage of the agents being quite quick to utilize their shiny new toys in altercations. On the downside, attrition was unavoidable. Casualties were becoming commonplace.

  Taking near total control in Geirkos has them focusing here. I’m just going to have to do the same, especially with the Servitor weight. She did it immediately, instructing Jeeves to shift priorities and pulling various patrols and posts that were seeing no action. And they really weren’t — Geirkos was eerily quiet of conflict beyond petty scuffles, and the overall numbers were climbing. Enough that she was probably going to move flesh-and-blood personnel over, too.

  The Samanthian diaspora out of Traesh was basically complete — most relocated to the summer castle of Vitarion in the southern hills of Bakalon, a rural landscape nonetheless the last of civilization before the relative jungle Lake Yura was in the middle of. Expansion was underway. They did this transparently in full knowledge by Glae, who found the arrangement satisfactory. Between Traesh and Bakalon were the independent peoples of Keskir, whose capable scouts he likely had plentiful spies within.

  Samantha had a recent gain in the walled town of Keskir O’lir — the wife of the mayor was a Redberry split-Follower with prospects for more within her existing cultic circle. According to Vitarion, it was ostensibly a semi-tolerated ‘agricultural thing’ that ended up being in many cases ‘a secretive sex thing.’

  Of course, it is. How did I get myself into this?! I’m not horny at all! It’s all Red’s fault.

  Smatterings of the diaspora went elsewhere, dispersing antimages through her territories, potentially to start up new cultures of their arts per Vitarion’s long-time argued preferences. He’d only kept from this out of respect for Glae’s position on the matter. With Samatha’s resources and communicative links, it could spread quickly indeed.

  Samantha took the opportunity to request some to be diverted to Caneboro to help there. She also recalled the AAA twins — two super-capable antimages provided by Glae. Because they needed to be separated and only one would be used in the eventual defense of Merrington, she asked them if one would go to Caneboro, and they agreed, citing they preferred two wholly different fronts. Adonis would continue terrorizing until eventually falling back to Merrington, and Andre would move to Caneboro.

  I’ll lose them both if I lose Merrington, though. Stakes, baby. Stakes.

  The Dominion forces at Twin Wells suffered heinous losses from death by alchemical poison through the water supply, triggered insidiously as they slept. It was the middle of the night before alarms sounded and various mitigating healing methods were instituted. Ba Ra estimated twenty percent were fatally lost, leaving a sea of corpses to deal with the next morning. Even more were disabled by weakness.

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  In any case, the Dominion cut off any further pursuit of the Naugites, with most of their numbers forced to fall back without a trustworthy water supply and needing reinforcements, leaving only a small force with some magical constructs to retain the wells for a fortified defense.

  It likely didn’t help that Adonis fucked up their supply lines in multiple precision raids orchestrated by Ba Ra and Zadkiel. It forced them to shift their approach entirely south toward the coastline, indicating a likelihood they’d avoid Twin Well entirely in their march to Merrington. As ordered by Jeeves in lieu of Samantha’s presence, they left any ‘return’ lines unmolested, as they were thick with the transport of the wounded, namely those just shy of dead from the poison, generally on a slow, laborious course for long-term care in Rivermount. Such as it was.

  Thanks, Jeeves. Maybe their leaders wouldn’t return the favor, but it's the right call. It’s all…. horrifying.

  Ba Ra made a little point of it, though — she had raiders on pegasus-back and the like show themselves openly numerous times to these caravans. They’d all know they could’ve been killed — almost with impunity with the minimal numbers afforded to guard them — and been deliberately spared.

  Puck worship continued to balloon amongst the Naugites, including spreading through Merrington as the word of defense plans surged in tandem. Shrines were built by Servitors and clerics in disguise utilizing domains that greatly aided creation for exceptionally quick remodeling. The rubble of a building crushed by Merrington’s first siege (by its own Count, no less) was bought and cleared out to be replaced with faux-stone construction of significant architectural beauty of prominent red coloring, with the top twisted into the shape of Puck’s holy symbol — the asymmetrical, eight-pointed star.

  Puck’s biggest shrine was essentially a cathedral. Inside, centrally, a statue vaguely of her resemblance stood, covered in a mask with a painted-on Cheshire grin, eyes behind holding mischief, and her hands were cast out. Throwing gold coins in a heap, which was enchanted to hold the glittering little disks suspended in the air. ‘Come to me for fortune!’ it screamed without words.

  Wow. Well. After all, this is the only way we’ll ever compete with Zadkiel for the hearts of Naugites. They’ll love this shit right here. Heck, I do, too!

  The whole thing was a group orchestration by the Brain Trust in her absence. Servitors such as Metatron were the primary actual builders, leveraging high levels, but curiously it was a new Follower, a mortal architect, that designed it. A Naugite called Galguras with a fortification-building day job, but actually a brilliant architectural designer. He’d been intrigued and inspired principally by Puck’s creative aspects and potential, hearing rumors she appreciated the arts.

  Sammy quickly extended an offer through the growing clerical infrastructure to pay him exorbitantly more than what he was making for fortification building, to do exclusively what he was meant to do — for her — and preferably out of harm's way. She had no intention of losing such skills to the war. In any case, he readily agreed in principle, excited more for the possibilities of his art than the coin, though with seven children back home, it was appreciated.

  There were minor losses in Merrington as some clans up and left back to the Land of Naug, mostly the piracy-based ones who did the math on minimal spoils and greater casualties in the defense of a siege. Overall, Ba Ra, Deikmorn, and company did the work of promising glory and maintaining morale. News of the terrible losses to the Dominion at Twin Wells helped tremendously. There was a massive, rowdy feast staged on the castle’s main grounds for the occasion. Free food and drink brought more than horned folk in, too.

  For the most part, Merrington had been kept in rigid order by Zadkiel’s church, especially with new insistence from Samantha’s realm, as Zadkiel tended to be more chaotic in management and wasn’t present, either, which had resulted in some conflicts and tensions with the populace that had to be smoothed over, sometimes equating to punishing Naugites. Relative fairness went a long way, and word got around quickly.

  Despite the situation, much of Merrington’s population that had fled when allowed to by Zadkiel returned. Business as usual, and the Naugites were generous with the spoils taken and distributed from the high royal families they’d crushed. They partied and weren’t clannish about who showed up.

  They also continued to tolerate and even support lesser noble families, leaving them unscathed and relatively neutral about whoever their long-term rulers would be, Naugite-appointed or Dominion. They were already jockeying for position in courts occupied by ‘barbarians,’ quick to adapt lest their rivals gain advantage, and confident they’d be a part of the future power structure whatever the case.

  Yeah, well, we’ll see about that once things are actually stable. The plan is to establish Puck here, with vague hints of a greater alliance, eventually leading to the Celestial Horizon Pantheon and me as a global, public figure and shot-caller.

  Zadkiel was due for release, which was ultimately a good thing for the war, though Zadkiel was apparently planning on taking it very slow on the public reveal. He’d grown to like operating from a distance and would be able to do it more directly from his realm seat… meanwhile, he wanted the element of surprise to be maintained against the Dominion. Ba Ra noted that Puck and her efforts with Deikmorn had created enough anchorage and promise that the alliance didn’t need Zadkiel’s direct hand to hold together.

  Tashome, Ash, and others among the technological/magical enchantment branch had been hard at work daily on their projects. The golem project was progressing steadily, with numerous members such as Bast and Canmore out questing for the rare material ingredients necessary. Tashome had also already transmuted Draixia’s weapon into a smaller bell-and-chain which would attach and synthesize to Foolmaker once she met with him for a final consultation and capstone activation. He said there were some limitations, but the upgrade 'ought to be useful.’

  At this bit of news, Sammy exclaimed excitedly to Jeeves, whose mirror was still floating in front of her throne. “Ooh! Nice! Okay. Can’t wait. But — as usual — we have an itinerary. Ugh. Hey, can we pause any final updates? I’m… all updated out, honestly.”

  “Certainly, Madam,” Jeeves replied with a little head bow. “I can tell just from the light in your eyes what you want to deal with next. It still starts with ‘up,’ I believe.”

  Sammy smiled. “Yep. Upgrades, baby. Upgrades!”

  You heard her.

  Next Chapter...

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