Battle plans

Vanessa's willow wisp slipped unimpeded through the sleeping city and into the generals sleeping quarters

these were all very strong and capable warriors with great years of experience and battle prowess on their side

however, their mental awareness had not been trained life beneath the seas left them

extremely vulnerable to celestial with a mental ability like Vanessa as soon

as the men went to sleep the-wisp flittered through their rooms silently attaching themselves

to the generals they drained their memories filling the crystal and then one by one they took small parts of their cultivation

little purple balls of flame turned into clones that looked like and even had the same abilities as the generals

still, sound asleep in their beds there was no distinction to tell clone from its real counterpart everything including

the speech was exactly the same silently the other willow wisp surrounded the sleeping generals in energy sealing

them and then their bodies were transported back to the warship

Vanessa and the others waited on the deck of the ship as a swarm of purple flickering

lights looking like fireflies in the ocean swept towards them they swarmed onto the deck swirling in a ball

that soon vanished leaving a bunch of unconscious generals bound and sealed in a heap on the deck

Vanessa smiled in satisfaction Zyle gave her a proud nod as she threw the crystal to him and he caught it

"General Saevar send these generals to jail in Draconia do not let them escape they will be tried later" Zehan ordered

a troop of his men was only too happy to oblige loading the unconscious men into the back of the fastest seahorse carriage

in camp and make a special express delivery to Draconia City Dungeons immediately

they didn't want to take any chances on them waking up and escaping later it would be

rather difficult to recapture them once fully awake they would have a fight on their hands

they would wake up locked in the dungeons with the other ministers already locked up down there the next morning

with absolutely no clue how they got there or even aware that their memories and identities had been taken

Vanessa immediately began to go through the memories they had obtained onboard the warship

"We have positive identification of Minster Akos and there is Minster Falma from Ember Falls are the two main heads

these other people are under these two " Zehan said looking at their images circulating in the middle of a sigil ring in the middle of the table

"We also have troops posted at the other cities as well as the number of troops at each city" Zyle added

"theres a set rotation of troops used for protection of each city we can take advantage of that by sending in our

own troops on the next rotation to replace theirs if we are to enter any these cities we won't be stopped" General Saevar said

"they are also expecting our ships to arrive with food and supplies from Draconia but we stopped those they will have doubtlessly heard of our return by now I have an idea," Zehan said

"and that would be?" Vivian said

"it's still vague but they are going to have a shortage of food and supplies unless they surrender to the capital, they don't know that we have taken Stormfort yet, so if our generals tell them Stormfort has food and supplies we are willing to share with them

then they might be willing to let in ships to their ports from Stormfort they will willingly let our soldiers into their cities to deliver the food that could be our way into the cities too but

we have to create a way to get all the minsters together in one place so we can catch them all at once leave no chance for escape no one else gets hurt"

"how about we put pressure on them from the capital" Zyle suggested

"We need to send them official notice that we are the new kings and we expect them to hand over the cities to us give them a deadline

let's see what they do then they will probably all arrange to meet to decide whether its best to surrender the cities and be ruled under us

or rebel they will try to decide which options have the most benefits for themselves and they have done a lot of shit and are living in luxury all this time

they won't want to lose that and if they feel a sense of security that they have the troops and the power to fight us they will choose to rebel,

and that will play them right into our hands because when they rebel we can simply shut them right down and arrest them all for treason we will actually have their troops"

"This plan of yours is wicked and devious I love it," Vanessa said with a smile

"We are not dragons for nothing" Zyle replied amused

"so we win a war by playing mind games with the opponents?" General Saevar said

"We won't accomplish anything by open war, why do things by fighting and killing? we lose too many lives that way" Vivian said "this way is smarter and the civilian population doesnt get dragged into it"

"up top, we call it Espionage the art of secretly fighting unseen wars," Vanessa said

so when do we take stormfort? she asked

"We do it tomorrow night" Zehan decided "let's take advantage of our clone generals as much as possible first don't waste our bag of tricks too early"

Zyle and Zehan sent out imperial decrees across dragon land

notifying the leading ministers of the other cities of their rightful claim to the throne and then they waited

throughout the day the soldiers in stormfort city were quietly

infiltrated and replaced unbeknownst to Minister Akos their clone generals were giving out orders for troops to go out on patrols that delivered troops of Stormfort's soldiers ambushes captured soldiers were brought to camp in batches

where facing General Saevar and King Zehan were given two options

serve their rightful kings

for which they would be paid their due salary and their families would be well cared for

or be sent to the Draconia's dungeons in the capital as allies of the black dragon and be charged with treason to be executed later

naturally of course the soldiers all choose to serve their kings Zehans offer was too good to pass up

they would all be given a pardon for orders they were forced to carry out during the black dragons

reign and they would be allowed to keep their lives and those of their families

they would be well paid and well fed as well the soldiers were happy to comply

by the time the night fell the word had spread through the military city and soldiers were turning up at camp willingly

many brought further information about Minsters Akos and his court of people to prove their loyalty to Zehan and Zyle

the city was ripe for the claiming by the dawn of the next day

Zyle and Zehan's imperial decrees and the food shortage from the ceased goods were shaking things up throughout dragon land

and a summit was called at Frost Hollow to discuss the situation

Minister Akos and two of the clone generals with a ship full of food

formed an entourage for the summit and departed to Forst Hollow that afternoon