Is it enough?
When everyone was comfortable, Skyler spoke up, "Ok then. So, what do you all feel about the missions we just did on the way here?"
"I understand they were important, but… It feels like we are punching down," Neria sighed.
"Yeah. Not to talk shit about the job. After all, we know someone has to do it, and there is no shame in that. Besides, we were already there, so we might as well do it. But still, it felt… off. Like we were no longer doing anything to help with the war effort," Roan sighed.
"Really? I didn't feel that, and I'm the one that barely did anything. We are doing the things that would take large teams on matching levels to do. I don't mind doing something else, but I don't feel like it's a waste," Vash took a bite of his croissant.
Skyler nodded, "I have to agree. Taking care of the small things is a big part of the job, even if it doesn't feel like it. Then again, I wouldn't mind being a part of something a bit bigger. But that doesn't mean I'm not satisfied with what we are currently doing."
"How about you, Flint?" Hera turned to the dwarf.
"Honestly? If I'm making ammo for the army or making plaster for people to fix a dam. It's all the same. I'm just doing this so this bullshit can be over so I can go back to my work."
"That really helped, thanks," Neria rolled her eyes.
"What? You asked for my opinion. That's it."
"Hang on. Let me ask this. Who prefers doing what we did during the trip back? The smaller missions instead of participating in a larger operation. Raise hands," Hera asked, Vash was the only who raised his wing, "Now who would prefer to be part of big things instead of these smaller ones," Neria, Hera, Roan, and Skyler raised their hands this time.
"And who doesn't care either way?" Flint asked, but he was the only one with his hand up.
"So Vash. If we try to be more active, would you be ok?" Neria asked.
The harpy shrugged, "As long as we are not going to fight in the front lines. I'm fine with that. Even if it means we are going to face some danger."
"With that I have to agree. I want to do more, but not being in the front lines. Or on missions to assassinate someone," Hera added.
"This makes it sound like you have something in mind," Roan turned to the Ophidianite.
"I do. I wanted to help the Strength Spirits. Not just for Vulcan, and to save those being experimented on, but to make sure that people like Delta don't show up anymore," Hera admitted, but she held back on the fact she had a new quest for it. Not that it would make any difference to her decision. In the end it was a just the cherry on top.
"Ok then, so we need to tell Milla to check the missions we can make for those who are more involved," Neria nodded.
Skyler pulled her tablet and chuckled when she saw a notification, "In the end. All this talk might have been for no reason. Milla just sent a message. Someone from the agency is coming here to talk to us about a couple of bigger missions we can do. Apparently, these are the ones Ka'mal wanted to send us to before the caravan."
"That's great! When they will get here?" Hera opened a smile.
"Later today. Close to sundown, it seems. Also, they will be moving along early tomorrow since they are a part of one of the missions they will offer us," Skyler continued.
"It does feel a bit weird. Doesn't it? Like giving us choices of missions," Vash crossed his arms.
"You think so?" Neria turned to the harpy.
"Yeah. I mean, we are not special. Not really. So why are they treating us like this? Giving us this much leeway on what we can choose to do. We are at war, it wouldn't be weird if they just told us to do something specific. It's not like soldiers can pick where they are deployed," Vash continued.
"Honestly, I have a couple of theories," Hera took a chocolate donut, "First. They are doing this with everyone when they have the chance. If it's an emergency, they just talk about a single mission. Like when we came to the caravan. The reason for that is to keep the spirits up, and make sure they are not being absolute assholes like the guild," Hera took a bite out of her snack, "The second theory is that I'm the reason. Since I have an honorary seat at the council table, they are thinking about how things will go once my species starts to grow. It's a way to have the Ophidianites in their good graces already. Not to mention the possibility of the bunker."
"What bunker?" Flint asked.
"I never talked about that?" Hera tilted her head.
"I don't remember," Neria replied.
"Oh… Well, don't spread the word, please. It's a bit of a secret topic still. But Deakoshara, the room that the old Naga civilization lived in, has three sets of two doors near the doorways connected to it. Each doorway has two extra doors, made by the Naga. I mean like. One door in Deakoshara, and another in the room those doorways lead to. And if needed, a Naga, or an Ophidianite, can close those doors and lock them. They are made in such a way that it should be impossible to break in or breakthrough. Any successful attempt would trigger a spell trap that turns the area around the doorway into a solid block of mana that cannot be destroyed. Or at least, that's the idea. The records we found only had people up to level 60 trying to break through the earlier stages of that spell. Which was the highest level they had at the time. So basically, if the guild truly starts to win, we could, in theory, bring everyone back to Deakoshara and lock the entrance that leads to human lands without having to lock the entire room," Hera continued eating as she spoke.
"That's a good thing, but then again, every room could do something like that. If the idea was to just hunker down, we could just lock the rooms," Roan shrugged.
"Yeah… but I think they want that as a second layer of protection. Not to mention that in that case, you can just block some of the doorways while still leaving one open. Also…" Flint turned to Hera, "You mentioned that if the trap is triggered, the doorway becomes inaccessible. Right?"
"I did, why?"
"I heard rumors about a lock picking legacy. One that could open closed rooms. And it seems like it's with the humans," Flint was just staring at a piece of bread with butter on his plate.
"So even if we did lock the rooms, there is a chance the humans could still invade?" Vash asked, getting only a nod as a reply, "Fuck."
"You know… that never crossed my mind. But now, it does sound odd. The whole idea of needing to a bunker room. And it also explains why the council was interested in Deakoshara. Then again. If we do have to go there, we will need to do something about the roaming clouds of poison."
"The what now?" Skyler stopped mid bite.
"Don't know much about it. All the information I have about that came from scribbles on a wall in an outpost near two of the doorways. But basically, after the Naga locked themselves inside, they started getting paranoid. And started making things to block and harm people who tried to invade the room. Even if, in theory, no one could reach them. One of the things they did was creating poison storms that could occur naturally. I have no idea how, but it worked. The poison was just stronger than they expected, and killed a lot of people, including all the children. Only the ones with a higher poison resistance skill could pass through them. So we have to deal with that before going in there. That's probably part of the reason why the alliance didn't ask me to just start clearing that place. I mean, where do I even start? But honestly, I really want to try," Hera's eye shined with the idea of exploring the Naga homeland.
"Can you even move around there?" Neria asked.
"I'm not sure. I would have to test. But my natural poison skill also makes me more resilient against poisons. And it's at rank 6 already, and some poison spells I have can even buff me because of that. So I think I have a good chance of being immune to that poison."
"I wouldn't mind going with you when this is all over. Looking into an ancient civilization sounds amazing. And I have a few spells to remove poison," Neria smiled.
"I won't say no to that. But this is only after this whole mess is over," Hera sighed, bringing the team back to reality.
They talked for a few more minutes before the entire team headed to the Alliance Center. They were actually going to use the training rooms to practice their fighting. Despite it not being enough to traumatize anyone, even Hera, who was almost killed, they all realized that if they didn't improve their abilities, it would be hard to survive until the end of this war. The encounters they had against humans showed they lacked experience. Everyone agreed that the best way to go about it would be to spare against each other, Roan, Flint, and Skyler were doing exactly that. Vash, Neria, and Hera focused on the fundamentals first. Sparing would come later.
During the trip back, each of them took some time to find a martial art that could help them. In Hera's case, she decided to focus on the Dorohla Style. She sent some texts to Shane about it, and the enchanter did find some tomes that people used to practice. In addition, there was also a historic dungeon in one of the outposts around Zaxalam where they would be helping defend the small village, along with some guards. After a few runs, Naka was able to get close to the Naga captain, and he offered to teach her a fighting style, which was a version of the Dorohla Style that hear learned from Rris. They were even able to record the lessons to let others learn the fighting style, but no one was able to. The main issue was the movement that required a tail instead of legs. Still, there were enough videos of not just the captain but the other warriors fighting to cross reference with the tomes and try to improve what the Empress already knew.
Some of the Harmony Guardians spent the entire day there, while others left sooner. Only when the message letting her know that the contact sent by the agency had arrived that the Ophidianite left the training room. That person wanted some time to rest before meeting the team, so Hera took a quick shower to clean herself.
When they finally met the person, it was someone Hera only saw in passing. A dwarven man called Balthazar, but went by Balto. He was a level 63 assassin, and he brought three flash drives with the information of the possible missions.
The first was the do more supply runs to the front line of the army. Having a high level team could shave off a day or two on each route, which could be beneficial in the long run. But the danger of being ambushed, or being in a camp while there was a battle, was very much present. He added that this would just open up some lower level teams to work on various tasks. According to Ka'mal himself, it wouldn't make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
The second option would take them to a deeper layer in the MAZE. In one specific room was a group working on new weapons and spells to be used in the war. The Harmony Guardians would be one of two teams responsible for testing the weapons and spells against the high level monsters and in the dungeons that had human enemies. Balto added that the room in question was mostly covered in undead due to what Emperor Xu Jiayi did a long time ago. Hera recognized that name. It was the same person that she was sent to kill during her assassin role test, and part of the reason she fought against the undead while in her original explorer test. From what she remembered, Xu Jiayi had a necromancer like legacy that trapped the souls of people in their bodies, allowing his undead to still use the skills they had during life. King Gwendelan managed to kill the Emperor, but in doing so, took his legacy and somehow became an undead while still having the legacy. She had no idea if the undead version of the king was still 'alive', but it did make her curious about the situation.
Lastly, the third option would take them to a location where the Alliance believed some of the Strength Spirits were being experimented on. It wasn't a lab with prisoners, or at least not many as the others were, but one with dedicated to Spirit research. If they went there, they would be close to an area where the agency believed the Strength Spirits were born. Hearing that, Hera glanced at the rest of the team, and they all came to an agreement without words. They had already dealt with the lab, and any hits they could deal with that research were a good thing in their books.
"Ok then. Here are all the details," Balto passed the flash drive to Skyler, "My mission takes us to a similar location. So I will be traveling with you for a while, if that's ok."
"Sure. We don't mind the extra luggage," Flint smirked.
"I would imagine so. You are a full shipment of bullshit while I'm just a carry on," Balto replied almost instantly with a smile.
Flint grumbled something, but their interaction was playful enough to be clear there wouldn't be problems. Having decided on their next task, the group prepared for a new journey.