War Meeting (1/2)

We see Haalfrin sitting on a plain stone chair carved into the main hall of his fortress in the sky.

Of course, there is a perfectly suitable golden throne behind him, but that thing is far too ornate and lavish for his tastes. Besides, it would make him uncomfortable to seat himself on the chair meant for a king. He IS merely a general.

In all honestly, if the throne hadn't been Time Locked, Haalfrin would've had it removed from the great hall permanently. Now, it can only serve as a reminder to what this structure was for once.

Indeed, in every other way, this building no longer looks like a palace. Just looking at the great hall alone, Haalfrin no longer sees lavish paintings or finely stitched rugs and curtains befitting an emperor's abode.

The throne room isn't bare because of the emperor's (sorry, former emperor's) tastes, but because Haalfrin' and the Arkin felt uncomfortable seeing this place look like a palace when it's being used as a fortress of war.

Thus, the paintings of all the past emperors and important nobles have all been removed, and the fancy rugs have been rolled up and tossed over the side of the outer wall – never to be seen again. Even the gardens have been dug up in favor of training grounds and sparring rings.

The only decorations left untouched are the many landscape portraits, which depict memorable places in the empire – the natural beauties of their native world and historical monuments.

The Arkin aren't from this world, after all, and they'd like to remember their home. Even Haalfrin gets a little teary-eyed when he sees a portrait of the Pit.

And so, Haalfrin sits on a stone chair that's placed right in front of the throne, and his head is resting on the palm of his hand as he overlooks all of his appointed commanding officers.

Kaalhyme, of course, is on his right hand, while Kalastros is on his left. Other than these obvious choices, there are a few long-dead soldiers from the Alsa'ree army and a single guard captain from the Pit. The rest of the head officers here are Threshold soldiers.

Of course, there are no bandit chiefs here, since their bandits have either joined up with one of the armies or stayed far away in the Death Realm – adamantly keeping out of this scary war.

Haalfrin had also worked in the Threshold for a hundred years, and he's seen his own fair share of wars with Rehkin. Despite there being many Rehkin soldiers available for summoning, none of them answer his call, as they all prefer to stick with their own clans in the Death Realm and ignore everyone else.

"What now?" Haalfrin asks his commanders with a bored look on his face.

One of the Threshold commanders immediately speaks up, "I think we should go down and kill the Ants!" All the other Threshold soldiers nod in agreement.

Kaalhyme frowns at this, and he retorts, "Oh? And killing the Ants seems to do a lot of good, right? Weren't we losing pretty miserably before, now that the Queen has figured out how to make her Captain Ants?"

"He's right," Kalastros adds while nodding his head at Kaalhyme. "Whatever our plans are, it should include using our new castle; it's the only advantage making us better than the Ants. Leaving our safe walls and going down there would only give more food to the Ants to make them stronger."

"Pah!" the threshold officer spits on the ground. "Me and the boys didn't come back here to fight in the living world again just to twiddle our thumbs behind walls like cowards!"

Another Threshold soldier gets so excited that he actually stands up and slams his hands on the table. "We need to take the fight to the bugs! I want by sword wet with their blood!"

All of the Threshold soldiers present start exuding some sort of bloodlust at this conversation, and Haalfrin can see madness growing in their eyes.

…and this makes him mentally groan. He knows full well that these Threshold soldiers are what would be categorized as "the vengeful dead". Seeing the very bugs who had robbed them of their lives before them, all of them have lost most of their reasoning – only wanting to blindly satiate their bloodlust instead of actually win.

Why, then, would Haalfrin allow such emotionally unstable people to sit at his table? It's because most of his loyal forces are Threshold soldiers, and these were the most trusted and loved captains, back when they were alive. They're very crucial in keeping the Threshold Arkin on his side.

Some of the less vengeful Arkin – like the Threshold soldiers who died in battle before the ants ever came… They think differently; they're not as eager to blindly rush down and hack the Ants apart.

"No," one of these soldiers speaks up. "We're in a very good position up here. The Ant Queen can't reach us up here, and when we're possessing weapons, we can fly around freely."

"Yeah," Kaalhyme agrees vehemently, "We have the aerial and mobility advantage. I say we take our time and pick apart the Queen's mana supply until we win."

"How long would that take?" Haalfrin asks.

One of the Arkin in the back steps forward and hands a set of papers to Haalfrin. "Here, commander," the man says, "General Kaalhyme had me draw up these numbers for you. Take a look.

Haalfrin takes the war analysis paper, and he starts to frown as he reads it. After he's finished with it, he hands it back to the analyst and tells everyone, "With about 10 million ants down there… It should take about 100,000 years."

Haalfrin nearly throws up in his mouth just thinking about a 100,000-year-long war. WOULDN'T HE AGE TO DEATH BY THEN!?!? That can't happen!

Suddenly, Haalfrin starts to look at the vengeful Arkin with a bit more sympathy…

It's not just Haalfrin that is displeased hearing this analysis. One of the Threshold soldiers pounds his fist on the table and growls, "No! We get down there and keep killing them."

"Why?" Kaalhyme sneers as he rolls his eyes. "Give us a good reason this time."

"B-because they need to die!"

Haalfrin realizes now that the Arkin's arguments are going in circles now, and he suddenly loses patience with this debate.

The commander-in-chief Haalfrin claps his hands to get everyone's attention, he stands up, and he shouts in a firm voice, "ENOUGH!"

Once he has everyone's attention, Haalfrin starts talking – more calmly this time. "Now, now, we've talked long enough about whether or not to attack the Ants. I'm the commanding General here, so now that I've heard all of you argue in circles, I'll make my decision now."

He turns to Kaalhyme and says, "We can't let the Queen do whatever she wants down there, since we know very well that she often grows more powerful when we're not looking. We'll have to make sure that we constantly give her something to worry about by harassing her forces and poking at her defenses."

He then turns to the Threshold officers. "We also need to focus on equipping our new fortress with everything we need. We can't recklessly throw mana into the Queen's mouth, since I plan on doing everything within my power to win. So, you're free to attack the Ants, but you'll do so on MY orders."

Haalfrin steps forward and points at the maps strewn across the long table. "Now, we'll focus on attacking here, here, and here. We don't know what the Queen has there, so we need to find out…"

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Several hours into their war council, there is a knock on the giant double doors leading out of the throne room. Feeling a visitor wouldn't come now unless it was important, Haalfrin tells the sentries to open the doors.

Instead of a frantic soldier running in with news of the Queen attacking, a lone woman walks in, she's holding a few books full of research notes.

If it weren't for the woman's white coat with golden patterns on it, Haalfrin never would've recognized her. While she was alive, Haalfrin knew her as Laura – the chief enchanter of the fortress.

Of course, the reason why Haalfrin almost didn't recognize her is because Laura was a cranky old woman back when she was alive. Now? After becoming an Arkin, she's regained her youthful beauty.

(…and for some "mysterious" reason, she no longer has that familiar "cranky" attitude.)

"Ehem," Laura coughs, "me and my team are the only people who know how to Time Lock... Other than a team belonging to the emperor, of course. Anyway, being the most top-secret arcane technology in Brancotte, the emperor and Fisco both liked to keep the knowledge in as few hands as possible. Even Commander Fisco didn't know how to Time Lock."

She looks around at everyone and suddenly gets a little uncomfortable, yet she still keeps talking. "Anyway… considering our analysts guessing at the war potentially taking 10s of thousands of years, I felt it was important for us to share a few things about Time Lock spells. It will certainly be relevant to this war."