Wish upon the Stars chapter 882

I grimaced as I looked through the trees. We had a split second to make the call about our strategy. First of all, did we want to go in first or last? If we waited they would fight it out among themselves and we could mop up the leftovers. Tossing out the exhausted remnants would be much easier than defending a fixed position, but at the same time, we’d also be letting them get entrenched.

Alternatively, we could blitz our way in and defend it ourselves. We had ways to make that work, and while we’d end up slapping away a lot of fresh fighters, we probably had the manpower to hold a defensive emplacement.

I posed the issue to my friends. Abel, Mel, Dom, Sable, Chelsea, Nat, Serah, Holly, Gabe, Benny, Bethy, and Jessie were all gathered around me. My core council of advisors, as it were. Which including Callie and made thirteen. That was enough for each of us to pop a scroll and still have three leftover. When I brought that up, Nat cut in.

“Use mine,” she said quickly. “You can wish personally, and you’re less likely to run out when you need them. This is early game, and chances are we haven’t run into anyone really important yet.”

I nodded solemnly. “Alright, how many do you have on hand?”

“Fifty,” she beamed. “I’ve been saving them. Figured they’d come in handy, given you were likely to be blitzing through yours. How many do you need?”

I frowned, thinking it over. “One a piece.” I decided. “Thirteen. We need to save some for the next engagement, like you said, these aren’t going to be the cream of the crop, just the ones who landed locally. Do we know how many we’re going to run into?”

“There are a few hundred candidates, but they all came with hundreds of their own retainers.” She explained. “Some of the candidates were higher ranked, and they’re at the C-rank area or higher, with their retainers being out on their own. They probably still have scrolls, mind you, but there’s no candidate with them, so those groups are at a disadvantage.”

We watched through the trees as shadowy forms began to emerge. I called everyone from our side close, extending Murmur over the whole group. Luckily it was a distance thing and didn’t require too much extra effort with higher population.

I’d expected it to be a problem actually, but since Dantalion had to analyze and render everything within the radius it was barely a difference from analyzing rocks to people, given they were all within my range of Impact. Under the aegis of my domain, we were all completely untraceable, and the longer we remained in this spot the more undetectable we became. With no C-rankers, even my initial stealth was unbreakable here, so I wasn’t worried about being noticed.

“I really wish Argaunt was here,” I said in annoyance. “Actually…” I looked around. “We have a bunch of Verdyn followers here. Any archers in the crowd? Snipers work too.”

A bunch of people raised their hands. “Huh, ok, I assume at least some of you can charge shots?” About half kept them up. “Perfect, and how many of you can aim well enough not to kill when you’re charged up?” Abel cocked his head at me and I shrugged. “Look, some of these people are my relatives. I’m not going to hesitate if I’m in a life or death battle, but firing from perfect stealth with elite archers we have the luxury of shooting to wound.

I grinned at him. “Besides, you leave bodies behind, but wounded need to be cared for and moved. Worst case they burn scrolls bringing them back up to fighting fit and we avoid dealing with them in the future, best case they don’t and they’re temporarily forced to retreat to do triage.”

“Kill them with kindness,” Callie beamed. “That’s my boy. Just like we learned back in the army. Military forces function on logistics, and none of them ever have enough healers.”

I glanced at Bethy. “Once suppressive fire starts, I want you and the cats out there causing chaos. Pop out and shred them then retreat. Don’t stay in one place for too long, don’t get pinned down, and don’t let them SEE you unless entirely necessary. I want them paranoid and freaking out. 

“Jessie, Daysia, Celine, Alyssa I need a network of vines spread across the forest ahead of us. I’ll cover them as far as I can with Murmur, once you’re clear of that, move slow and let the archers and Bethy’s strike force act as cover.” I gestured towards the adjacent clearing where everyone was starting to gather, or at least to take sides. “Once they’re off balance, I’m going to spread Belial through the vines and use the corruption to take control of as many of them as possible. If this goes well, we can minimize scroll conflict by forcing them to burn their stock on their own people.”

Jessie grimaced. “I can TRY. I’m not great with Vines anymore. My abilities are so synonymous with beasts and healing people that my plant control has kind of fallen to the wayside.”

“I’ve got us,” Celine said kindly, putting a hand on our friend’s shoulder. “My forestcraft is pretty much perfect for this, and we have two ACTUAL dryad tree singers here to help. We couldn’t DESIGN a better team for this.”

Alyssa beamed at her girlfriend. “She’s right, Jess. This is what tree singing is best at. We’re not moving the trees themselves, so we don’t need any dancers. Just growing some vines is well within our wheelhouse. We’ll handle the motion, you just give us all a heaping helping of supercharged life fire.”

“Archie,” I called to my companion. He’d been perched on a tree branch at the edge of my Murmur domain, but at the sound of my voice he trilled and then swept down to land on Jessie’s arm, giving me a firm nod. “Thanks bud, knew I could count on you.”

Archie had learned from me how to snipe and bicker. I was pretty sure he picked up a lot more through our bond than I did, and even more than I was even aware of. He was just a baby, and he’d picked up so much of what he knew by osmosis it seemed like. I’d have to watch out for that in the future. But I was proud of how he was handling himself now. He knew when things were serious and what to do when that time came.

I focused on Bethy. “I’m going to set you up with a shield. Any preferences?”

She frowned. “I don’t need one, but I mean, I guess just make it a pretty color? I don’t want you to ruin my outfit with some dumb olive drab force field.”

“First of all,” I said in disbelief. “WHEN have you seen an “olive drab” forcefield? Second of all, this a STEALTH mission, so I will obviously be making it transparent. If I made it colors that would defeat the entire purpose of you BEING in stealth.”

She gave me a scathing look. “That’s dumb. It’s MOST important to look good in stealth. Because then you get to feel smug that they can’t even see the kickass outfit you have on. It’s way better than being invisible in ugly clothes. That’s not being sneaky, it’s just being embarrassed and having to hide.”

“I…” I trailed off. “I don’t know how to respond to that. I fell like it’s wrong, but I can’t figure out WHY.” I looked at Callie worriedly. “Why is Bethy making sense to me? What have I become?”

She patted me on the shoulder consolingly. “Just focus on the battle, honey. Some things we mere mortals weren’t meant to know. Bethy’s logic is strange and insidious.” Her face went pale. “We can never let Crell teach her the doubt Skill. No one would ever be able to stop her.”

I physically shuddered at the mental image, and turned to see Bethy pouting at us. “You guys are so mean. I expect that from Abromawitz, but not from you.”

Abel threw his hands in the air. “What do I have to do with this? And how did I know you were talking about me? I’m answering to any A name you say now. And they’re getting more and more ridiculous.”

Bethy squinted at him. “You didn’t say anything, Alfalfa, but you were thinking it.”

He turned and stalked away, muttering curses under his breath. I just laughed and turned to the others. “Alright, everyone in position. We need to wait for the fighting to kick off. We’re fishing in muddied waters here, and the more chaos they cause on their own the easier it’ll be to confuse them.”

Just because they couldn’t see our archers didn’t mean they couldn’t figure out where we were by tracking the shots. But if we fired into a melee and picked our positions, we could mix the arrows into the gestalt. They would fall apart searching, leaving Bethy her opening, and leaving the ground clear for the girls to expand the vines I’d need for Belial.

I waved to the archers, twelve of them total, and dispatched them to the edge of my Murmur domain to begin charging their shots.

We watched, we waited, and we observed. The enemy was divided into about fifteen groups. Their clearing was the one right outside of Schvitz, they were arguing, several people having arrived late and joined in. I saw one form I recognized. He was smaller now, but it was definitely the same giant who had crushed those Mammoths in a fit of rage. I stepped up next to one of my archers, a slight girl named Whisper, and nodded to him. “You’re the strongest, right? Burst damage?”

“Yes sir,” she acknowledged. She was blonde and blue eyes, with elfin features that made her look like someone’s kid sister, but those blue orbs were icy and flat. It was like she’d swapped them with the eyes of a bird of prey. “You want me to target the metal one?”

I nodded. “Soft tissue, if you can. I want real damage. He’s tough enough to survive a little maiming, and I don’t want to take chances.”

From what I’d seen, that one was strong. Bethy could handle him, but it was my job to make sure she didn’t have to. Even vampires weren’t invincible, if she got pinned down among that many enemies she could get hurt. I confirmed with Whisper and headed back over to where Bethy was waiting. I withdrew some of the scrolls that Nat gave me, and I started making wishes.

First thing I did was describe my ideal shield. Size, properties, functions. I designed the perfect defensive structure, with all the bells and whistles. Then I dialed back the durability until it was within Nats limits, and then I adjust it a bit lower and made it modular. Then I wished for the same shield again, and again, and I layered them on top of each other. Five times. I paid with D-ranked chits, and by the time it was done, Bethy was under a five layer translucent bell shape.

Once she was taken care of. I returned to the adge of the clearing where the girls were waiting, ready to do tree stuff. I looked out at the clearing full of enemies, seeing them finally snap and charge across the space. I smiled. “NOW!”

A dozen arrows exploded from a dozen bows, tearing through the air to smash into ten different targets. Two of them missed, no fault of their own, the targets had been swatted aside by their opponents, but ten out of twelve wasn’t bad.

As they went down, Callie flicked her wrist and a portal of shadow opened on the ground, Bethy dove inside, her cats on her tail, and vanished into the dark. I triggered Belial and pressed my staff to the vines, beginning the spread of corruption. It was almost time for my part, and then they would see what we could really do.