Territory exploration was common — mainly for those who stayed on the edges of known territories, and the reasons were varied: food, nectar stones, information, the combination of the three in proportions that varied according to what had become most scarce. It was that kind of economic advantage that made a Lord richer than any former Lord could be by other means, because there was always a campaign in search of new resources in territory that had never been completely mapped and that therefore always offered what existed between what was mapped and what wasn't yet.
Of course Lords who chose to venture into territory beyond their influence needed basic countermeasures — protection for what remained while they were away, which was a variable most calculated poorly because they calculated the protection needed for what they left without calculating what could come while they were out.
The capital I had accumulated from the Purge had run out — with the speed of capital that had been invested in many directions at the same time, each investment seeming reasonable individually and the whole being more expensive than any individual analysis had communicated. The investments proved costly beyond measure — not from miscalculation, but from cost that only became fully visible after the process had begun, when changing direction would create additional cost greater than continuing. And to meet the demand I needed to go out and seek what wasn't available within what I controlled.
The Colosseum was an option — but it didn't provide supplies and stones with the same speed and efficiency that an incursion would offer, with the Colosseum being optimized for missions that produced a specific type of result and that left other types of result as a byproduct rather than the main product. Of course incursion had its own problems — the territory beyond the known borders was unknown for a reason, and the reason was rarely absence of interest and more frequently an abundance of danger that had discouraged those who had tried before building sufficient knowledge to try with adequate margin.
But Livina made a point of reminding me of another problem with a frequency I hadn't requested and that she offered with the generosity of someone who had decided the problem deserved to be remembered regardless of having been solicited.
"You're not leaving her behind because you two had a fight, are you?"
"Of course not." — I said, without stopping what I was doing — with the tone of someone who had answered that question before, not out loud, but internally, and was now producing the out-loud version of what had arrived internally. — "Someone has to protect the territory. Her together with the Griffin will be able to give us enough time for any invasion to be responded to. My idea is to do a sweep of at most one day's distance — go out, collect, return before any problem develops beyond what remained can contain."
I paused.
"Besides, I had promised you, hadn't I?"
"Yes…" — she said, with the tone of someone who had received an answer that covered what they had asked, but that didn't completely dissolve what was beneath the question.
After almost two weeks, the relationship with Morgana remained the same. I felt something needed to change — with the clarity of a diagnosis that existed long before any idea of treatment. But I didn't want to take the step, and I hadn't fully managed to identify why I didn't want to — whether it was the fear that what I said would make the problem more concrete, or the fear that what she said would reveal something I preferred not to know yet.
She seemed irritated by something I had no idea about, and that made me sad in a way that was difficult to name — not for the sadness itself, but for the distance between what had been and what was, for the difference I could feel but couldn't articulate in a way that made the difference solvable.
In the end, the tasks kept me busy enough to keep pushing the problem under the rug.
It wasn't that I didn't know it was there. There simply wasn't time.
Or I had chosen not to have time — which was a different answer that produced the same result but was more honest about what was happening.
"Changing the subject — did you train them as I asked?"
"Of course." — Livina said, with the tone of someone who had done what was asked with enough attention to have arrived at an opinion about the result. — "I mean, honestly I don't know if it'll work because they're slow. But I can certainly say my babies have a great deal of battle power."
✦
While we talked, I finished preparing.
I was very different from two weeks ago — not just in state, which had changed with the number of things that had happened, but in physical appearance, which had changed with the investment that had been made in that specific aspect. One of the advantages of leveling the iron and steel house to the maximum was having access to better equipment — not just in quantity, but in quality that quantity alone didn't produce. This time, instead of wearing the newcomer's uniform that had been practical long enough for me to stop noticing it was primitive, I was wearing thick plates that covered almost my entire body — with loose parts, connected by resistant leather straps that were more than structural connection, they were impact absorbers and flex points that made the whole more functional than solid plate would be with the same coverage.
Medium protection — after all all my joints were exposed. But above all excellent flexibility and agility, which were the variables I had decided I wouldn't sacrifice in open field because they were what kept me alive when protection reached its limit — the movement that made the calculated blow miscalculated, the reaction time that created a window where there was no window.
It wasn't the maximum protection available — there were heavier options that the iron and steel house could produce. But it was what I could use without sacrificing what kept me alive in real combat, with the distinction being between protection that worked while it worked and protection that worked while what tested it was appropriate for it.
The evolution of the iron house had also allowed equipping all soldiers — not with the maximum that would theoretically be possible, but with the maximum I could logistically sustain, which was a different limitation but equally real. Another enormous expense was constructing the axes for the Treebeard, since they were too large and too strong to simply use no weapon at all.
Livina considered it an unnecessary investment — with the perspective of someone who saw the capability that already existed and saw the additional investment as a cost that produced less increment than other allocations would have produced. I had done it anyway. All power, however small, was better than none — and the difference between all and none was absolute while the difference between more and less was relative, which made the former more important than the latter in most situations.
"That armor of yours is very good." — Livina said, with the specific tone of someone arriving at a point through the compliment rather than going directly to the point. — "I keep wondering when I'll get mine."
"You understand that as a summoner I don't want you on the front line." — I said, with the calm of someone who had thought about this before being asked and was producing a conclusion that had arrived through reasoning and not impulse. — "Why would I make armor for you?"
"Hey. I'm a warrior, you know."
"No." — I said. — "Your race is warrior. And however much I see that you have capability with spears, and that capability is real and not small, I still need you at my side in a specific position. If you die, I don't just lose you." — I paused with the interval that made what would follow heavier than it would have been without the pause. — "Do you understand that?"
Livina was impulsive and irritable — with the combination of temperament that made her summoning abilities more prison than benefit for someone who wanted to be known as warrior before summoner. But I couldn't afford to lose her simply because she wanted to venture onto the front line — not because her loss would be unbearable in the emotional sense, which was also true, but wasn't the main argument, but because what she offered had no immediate substitute and in the field the absence of a substitute was a gap that expanded as the situation complicated.
I left the castle with the step of someone who had reached the point where preparation ended and execution began — with the specific mental state transition that happened when the time for calculating had ended and the time for acting had begun.
The expeditionary force was stationed with the organization of troops that had been developed to exist in formation.
"Are you sure that'll be enough?"
In front of me, fifty heavily armored soldiers. Bodies fully covered, long spears, giant shields — and a gladius for individual combat, not because that was the objective, but because battle rarely happened exactly as planned. The training was to fight together, small and coordinated movements, always protected by the companion at their side. The number had been calculated carefully: what remained and what went out, what the territory needed to defend itself and what the expedition needed not to be eliminated before reaching the objective. It wasn't my maximum power — but it was the maximum I could deploy without compromising what remained to the point of making it insufficient for what could arrive.
Each of them had been equipped with the best that the collected minerals allowed manufacturing — with the investment per unit that was larger than it would be if I had more units, the logic of quality over quantity applied here as much as in the territory in general. Due to the high investment per unit, I couldn't scale in quantity without sacrificing quality — and quantity with inadequate quality was quantity that behaved like less quantity than the number suggested.
But compact and well-equipped was still much better than standard in number.
"Each of these warriors should be equivalent to two or three in combat power and protection." — I said, with the specific satisfaction of someone describing something that had cost and that had produced what had been planned that it would produce. — "The numbers are good. And besides, this one here also helps quite a bit, doesn't he, buddy?"
"Tch."
The father Urskra wasn't effusive with recognition — with the specific quality of a creature that had arrived at the point where recognition was data it received without needing to demonstrate it had received it.
Beyond the fifty soldiers, I would take the father Urskra as a mount — with the logic that a mount in unknown territory was an advantage of visibility and speed that on foot couldn't replicate. The reason for taking only the Father was simple and slightly awkward: the female had finally felt safe enough to have cubs and was pregnant — with the pregnancy being both good news and an immediate complication, because pregnant didn't go out and whoever went out provoked the pregnant one. Part of the reason for the expedition was precisely to get meat or stones to sell and feed what was coming — after all the cubs would be the largest current expense I would have in the following months, and the largest expense needed larger revenue, and larger revenue didn't come from inside the wall.
Unfortunately, due to the Mother Urskra's pregnancy, I had difficulty taking any of that mother's relatives with me — who had demonstrated, repeatedly in the past weeks, that physical proximity to her was non-negotiable for any member of the family group. The Father had accepted coming, understanding that the problem existed and that the problem needed a solution that required going out — with the cooperation of a creature that had arrived at the conclusion that cooperating was the most efficient path to the desired result for everyone.
Of course the difficulty of going out with the Father Urskra already made me anxious — it was clear the female hadn't liked me taking him, with the specific demonstration of displeasure that creatures of that scale made when they wanted to communicate that something had happened that hadn't been approved.
In the Oasis there wasn't necessarily a horse as I knew it — and it had become clear that even with all the money in the world I couldn't buy the creatures used as standard mounts by established Lords. My theory was that there was some parallel noble market I still couldn't access. Without a conventional mount, the father Urskra was the only available option — and it was an option that worked, with the quality of a solution that wasn't the one that had been planned but that resolved the problem it needed to resolve.
"But what are we going to do about this big baby here at your side?"
While stroking the Father Urskra with the distraction of someone making the gesture out of habit while thinking about something else, I noticed another creature was at my side — looking with what could only be jealousy of the kind that didn't distinguish between situations where jealousy was reasonable and where it wasn't.
"Pegasus. You know it's dangerous where we're going."
The Cockatrice seemed not to care about what I had said — with the specific indifference of a creature that had decided the argument wasn't relevant to the decision it had made before the argument was presented. It jumped on top of the Urskra and started cleaning its foot on his fur with the naturalness of something that had chosen the most available surface for the most convenient gesture, clearly irritating the Urskra who hadn't been consulted about whether he wanted to be an available surface.
"You two could get along." — I said, with the tone of someone who had tried that suggestion before and had reached the point where the suggestion had stopped being expectation and had become desire. — "Forget it."
✦
The power I had for an incursion was meager in every aspect — with the honesty of someone who had calculated what they had against what would be adequate and had arrived at a result that didn't produce satisfaction but was true data.
The Codex itself indicated that a successful expedition should take numbers into account — because even the weakest creatures never traveled alone, opting for groups that could vary from a few dozen to a few thousand depending on the race, the region and the season, with each variable adding to the number in ways that made prediction difficult and preparation for the worst case necessary. An expeditionary force not prepared to face a thousand creatures was one that was depending on luck for a thousand creatures not to appear.
I didn't think that way — not because the Codex's logic was wrong, but because the Codex's logic was based on a premise I had chosen not to follow. Strength in numbers was a strategy for those who needed to guarantee through quantity what they couldn't guarantee through quality — and quantity demanded logistical support that created its own problems, making the group more visible, noisier, slower and more dependent on supply routes that unknown territory rarely offered.
My theory was that a lean but powerful force would go unnoticed by enemies who would see me as a waste of time — too small to justify the cost of engagement, too present to be easy prey — and that those who risked fighting would discover that fewer didn't mean weaker in the way they had calculated. Besides, I had something with me that would help avoid the worst locations.
"At least this map is up to date."
In my hands, a map that wasn't large in physical extent, but that showed almost all my territory with a large blank area beyond the borders that was exactly the area I needed to map. It was a magic item I had discovered recently through a channel that had cost more than the item itself — the cost of information about where it existed being greater than the cost of the item once found.
The item had the capacity to show thirty kilometers around the bearer in real time — not as a static photograph that became obsolete quickly, but as a continuous update that reflected what existed in that radius at the exact moment it was consulted. Sold mainly by explorers who made money passing updated information about what they mapped — with a business model built to ensure they continued to be necessary. It wasn't dependence by preference. It was structural dependence, created by those who had understood that the difference between the two was the difference between a customer and a hostage.
The cleverness was elegant in the way elegant mechanisms always were: impossible to buy, only to rent, with a daily cost that ensured whoever rented was using and not accumulating. The model ensured that explorers continued as necessary intermediaries — because the map was returned at the end, and what had been mapped stayed with whoever had paid for the rental but the map that had produced the mapping returned to whoever had rented it. Information stayed. Tool returned. It was a balance that had been maintained long enough to demonstrate it worked.
It wasn't cheap — with the daily cost that made each expedition day a compounded cost, time being both a result variable and a cost variable. But it was necessary with the necessity of something whose alternative made it more expensive than the asking price. Advancing without information into unknown territory with fifty soldiers was the most expensive version of recklessness I could commit — recklessness that paid not in currency but in lives, which was a less convenient exchange rate.
"It'll have to do." — I said, storing the map with the care of an object that had been paid for by the day and that therefore each day of use needed to be taken advantage of. — "Now that you reminded me of it — every day is a cost. We'd better get moving."
"Finally, action." — Livina said, with the specific energy of something that had been waiting long enough for the waiting to have started costing.
I watched the gate closing as we left — with the attention of someone verifying what remained before committing to what came next.
Morgana hadn't appeared anywhere.
I had prepared myself for that possibility — not the preparation of someone who had anticipated and developed a response, but the preparation of someone who had accepted it as data and had decided the data wouldn't change what needed to be done. Even so, the absence arrived in a way that preparation hadn't completely neutralized.
"Don't worry." — Livina said, noticing my expression with the reading she had developed over months of coexistence — the capacity to identify state from details of expression that hadn't been produced to be identified. — "She'll be fine."
It was comfort — the genuine kind, not the performative kind that existed to fulfill a social function. At least it was less painful than the Cockatrice, which had jumped into my lap while I was on top of the father Urskra and seemed determined to make my departure a personal issue, with the persistence of something that had arrived at a conclusion about what it wanted and hadn't found an argument that altered the conclusion.
"You know you're not that small anymore." — I said, with the tone of someone trying to present a rational argument for a situation not being processed rationally. — "Actually, I think you could already—"
It turned its head deliberately ignoring me while observing the horizon — with the specific gesture of a creature that had heard the argument and had decided that ignoring was a more efficient response than responding.
"Forget him, Lord." — Livina said, with the pragmatism of someone who had arrived at the conclusion the situation had no immediate solution and therefore wasn't worth the time to keep trying. — "Anyway… Where are we going?"
It was an excellent question — the question that had been in the background throughout all the preparation, that had been waiting for the moment where all the preparation had been concluded and the destination needed to be communicated to those who were going but hadn't been consulted about where they were going.
There were many places to explore within the available radius — some dangerous in ways I had calculated as exceeding what I had to deal with danger, others more common but with sufficient resources to justify the cost of the rented map day. What I needed was money, but without getting killed in the process — with the specific balance between risk and result that made the expedition profitable instead of merely expensive.
And on the map, within the radius where I could operate without compromising the return — without creating distance that made coming back impossible if something went wrong — there was only one place that produced the result I needed with the risk I could calculate as manageable.
"We're going here."
Livina looked at where I was pointing on the map — the territory of a creature clearly identified by the markings the system had produced automatically, with the clarity of data that didn't need interpretation to communicate what it was.
She was silent for a second.
"You can't be serious." — she said, with the tone of someone who had verified and confirmed that the conclusion was what she had received and that the conclusion was a problem. — "Explain to me how you don't want to get us all killed."