Oran sat alone, at the edge of the forest facing fields filled with virta stalks. He had been scouting ahead for the army, but it had been a boring assignment.

  Otek who he always travelled with was absent. He had been ordered to be the liaison between the Amanita kingdom and the Villen barony.

  Oran chewed on a dried meatshroom. It had been smoked to add some flavour to it, but it was still a paltry meal.

  Oran did not complain though. He knew the amount of rations that they had brought with them, and the need to maintain oneself during battle. He had never truly fought in a war, but both Jod and Mafu had prepared Oran, Otek and Parek for this conflict.

  Of course, they had prepared others aswell, ever since Mafu had extended the invitation to the human baron.

  Oran tapped a leather bag hanging from his belt, feeling the metal shapes contained within. It contained a few small grenades, an improved version that Ula and Akro had worked together on.

  The grenades might be smaller than the bombs they had used against the Hollow giants, but it apparently packed the same punch.

  Oran found Ula quite frightening. She was but a child, but whenever she got into her experiments the area in which she was working in would be shut off by her assigned warriors.

  Explosions would follow, of different sizes. The townspeople had started calling her the thunderchild, as the sounds of the explosions made them recall the sound of thunder.

  What scared Oran though, was that he did not understand the principles behind her explosions. He had tried to, but it was impossible. A small bomb might create a large explosion, and a large one would then create a small one.

  He could never evaluate Ula correctly, and that made him look at her bombs with more than a little skepticism and fear.

  He heard the sounds of the army marching further behind him, and got up to scout ahead. It was not all that far to the barony, but they expected enemies so Oran and a few other orcs were to scout ahead to avoid any ambushes.

  So far he had not spotted any, but he was sure there would be one.

  ---

  Jod had felt the difference as they entered Dolorans world nearly a week ago. The air itself seemed to press down on him, making him feel smaller.

  He was the leader of the army, with Parek as his second-in-command. Normally, this would be something Jod would delegate to Parek and Tudain, but neither of them had fought actual wars.

  Jod had been in larger scale battles when he was part of the templars, although not many. He had also read books about larger scale battles, so he had more knowledge about how the enemy would fight.

  With this in mind, he had taken command himself. He felt much weaker outside of Mafus territory, but he was still a warrior. Himself, Parek, Tudain and Gwarth had all trained outside of the territory every now and then.

  It was to make sure they did not forget how their bodies worked if they had to fight an offensive battle. A defensive one was preferable of course, as they were much stronger then, but Jod had faith in the army that had trained in the dungeons.

  The levels of the orc and dwarven warriors had steadily increased over the months. The dungeons kept them sharp, and often tested their reaction speed to unforeseen circumstances.

  Jod judged that therefore, his warriors would have a bigger advantage in unconventional warfare. The templars had better formations, strategies and well planned combat.

  If Jod could disrupt that, his warriors and his army would have the advantage.

  The first key for that was the new grenades. The templars often fought in compressed formations, covering themselves and their teammates with both physical shields held in their hands, and mana barriers blocking both physical and magical attacks.

  Grenades were extremely effective at forcing those formations apart.

  After that happened, the second key was to have the ants under Taressa attack the enemy mentally. Most templars had a basic function to block mental attacks built into their mana barriers, but it was not on the level to fully block Taressas and her ants attacks.

  It would either lead to their mana barriers consuming mana at a worrying rate, or the mental attacks going through. This would then stop communications between units, thus breaking the battle up to a skirmish between units.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  At least, that was the plan Jod had concocted with the help of Parek and Tudain. Plans in war had a tendency to go wrong though, so all leaders of the army had been prepared if the strategy did not work out.

  As long as "Faithful" did not arrive, they would have the strength to push through. They had strategies for the other "named" enemies they could encounter, but "Faithful" was shrouded in too many mysteries and rumours.

  As the baron's estate came into view, Jod sighed a sigh of relief. Everything seemed to be normal, they had not been too late.

  As they entered the estate, the baron himself was waiting at the gates. He had been talking to Otek for some time, so he knew that Jod was the king.

  Thus, the baron bowed as deep as he could and welcomed king Jod.

  "Welcome, my king. We have prepared dinner for you in the great hall." The baron spoke with respect.

  Jod found it slightly embarassing. He was younger than the baron, and was not of noble birth. He had learned since he was a child that commoners should not dare to interact with nobles.

  But he had gotten over those feelings and teachings long ago, mostly. He had learned over the past year that he was a king. He had started shouldering the role he had been granted earnestly.

  "Thank you, baron Villen. Dine with me, and report the current situation." Jod spoke with authority, but was polite.

  The baron rose from his bowing position, and escorted them to the great hall of the estate. Jod looked around, comparing the architecture with that of the dwarves.

  It was different. In some ways it was inferior, but in others it seemed more "free".

  As they sat down to eat, the baron started talking about the current situation. They expected the inquisition to send forces to stop them, as they had let civilians leave after announcing that they were leaving through the portal.

  This, the baron mentioned, probably meant that the inquisition had gotten quite a lot of information about the intentions and plans of the baron.

  The barons face looked worried as he mentioned this, and Jod noticed it.

  "Be at ease, baron. We do not condone the killing of innocents, even though they may have been spies. Our god would rather have traitors in our midst than innocents in the ground." Jod said.

  Jod and Mafu had talked about this topic at length many times. Mafu's mind-reading ability that he used with the help of Taressa was not without its faults.

  The more Mafu used it, the less coherent his thoughts became for a while. Jod was the only one who truly noticed this, but he had worried for Mafu's mental health because of it.

  It was also an invasion of a persons... everything. Jod and Mafu agreed that true loyalty could be hard to gain from people that had their minds fully read. If every interaction with someone started with them violating their minds, many talented individuals would not join them.

  Thus, Mafu had stopped using the mind-reading ability. Mafu had felt more at ease with traitors than Jod, however. Jod felt that they needed other safeguards to guard against the possibility of betrayal.

  Mafu was of the opinion that they could deal with it when it happened. After all, he himself was a safeguard. His minds patrolled the territory regularly, and anyone betraying them would thus not be able to do much damage before they would be caught.

  Jod did not feel that they could rely on Mafu spotting traitors in time, and sometimes betrayal was not immediately noticable.

  He had been talking with Benoit and Kira about spying on their own kingdom, to prevent crime and betrayals. They had come up with a few plans to safeguard against traitors, but the plans were still in their infancy.

  Returning to the baron's choice of letting people leave the barony, it was something both Jod and Mafu would agree with. Information would leak anyway, and they were prepared to fight whatever may come.

  The baron's worried face relaxed somewhat, as did his wife's face. She was seated next to him, and had been introduced just before they sat down.

  "We are prepared for a fight, and many of my warriors want to test the strength of this world. They are tired of fighting in dungeons, and wish to fight more... honest enemies." Jod continued.

  "Otek has mentioned the dungeons, but only in passing." The baron's wife spoke.

  "We also hope for an honest fight, but you can never know with the inquisition." The baron said right after his wife stopped speaking.

  "The dungeons are a good place to train, your knights will find them useful. As for the inquisition, we have strategies for everyone of the 'named' enemies except 'Faithful'." Jod responded, and then continued.

  "We have a slight hope that we might face 'Everburning' as we think we might be able to unleash him from the chains the inquisition has bound him with."

  The baron and the baroness looked astonished at the revelation. "Everburning" was someone that every noble had heard of. It was the inquisitions weapon in large scale battle.

  A man on fire that ran into the battle without any regard for his own safety. Arrows, spears and swords melted and disintegrated in the heat of his flames without ever touching him.

  However, some additional information was known to others. The baron and baroness did not seem to know this information.

  "Everburning" was not sane. People who had survived the battlefields he had been on said that he seemed to be crying and screaming as he attacked people in anger.

  And at the start of all the battles he was in, he was chained. He was released from a metal box, made of a shiny bronze metal. There was always a man speaking to him as he was released, that pointed toward the enemy.

  Then "Everburning" would take off running at the enemy.

  Benoit had come up with this information, so Jod trusted it.

  Him and Mafu had talked about it, and Mafu had seemed to be thinking deeply about it. After a while, Mafu had said that "Everburning" might have something called "PTSD".

  Or atleast something similar to it.

  Mafu had explained that the inquisition might be keeping his mind in a sort of "mental trauma" consistently, a sort of separate reality.

  They might then say something like "Those people are the way out of here, kill them and you will be free." and point to the enemy.

  If their speculations were correct, or even close to correct, then maybe they could use Taressas mental attack to break him out of whatever traumatic world he found himself stuck in.

  It was many heavy "ifs", but they had strategies if that would not work either. Jod's "flameleaf" spear could maybe negate his flames, and they also had cordium forged weapons that had a chance of resisting his heat.

  The dinner party was interrupted by the sound of a horn. It was an orcish horn, and Jod knew what it meant.

  War.