Swarming Sovereignty

“So, Connie, what have you been doing?” Lia asked curiously. She was currently in the hot spring building in the Dimension of Discounts after receiving a message that Connie had finished what she had been working on that week and was ready to talk with Lia about it.

Connie sighed. “Politics.” She said. “To tell you the truth, I’d mostly been trying to stay out of all the politicking the gods have been doing when it comes to the swarm, but despite that I garnered a reputation as leader of the gods who support the swarm. After what happened last week, I decided enough was enough and started to properly make moves, called in a few favors, did some talking and convincing, that sort of thing.”

Lia stared at Connie, stunned. “I…thank you, Connie.” She said. “This means a lot to me, especially since you didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to.” Connie replied, blushing slightly. “And…well, if it’s alright, I want to have a talk with you and a couple of the gods, right now if you’re available. Nothing like what happened with Hector, all good things, I promise.”

Lia nodded. “I have time.” She said. “How are we doing this?”

“Give me a sec, I’m letting them know now.” Connie replied, pulling out her phone and tapping out a message on it. A few moments after she had finished, the space around them distorted before resolving into the shapes of Matthew and an unfamiliar brown-skinned arachne.

Matthew gave her a little wave, but the arachne spoke up first. “Lia, it’s nice to finally meet you!” She said cheerfully, sticking out her hand for a handshake. “My name is Willow, Goddess of War, and I’m a big fan of your work!”

For a split-second Lia was confused, as there was no Goddess of War, but then she remembered what Heather had told her; the God of War had changed his sex in order to show support for the swarm. “A-ah, it’s nice to meet you too, Your Worship.” She said, timidly shaking the goddess’s hand.

Willow laughed, giving Lia a smile and a hearty pat on the back. “Please, just Willow is fine.”

“And I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but no need to be on ceremony around me, either.” Matthew added. “Especially now, it’s going to get in the way. Has Connie told you what’s going on yet?”

Lia shook her head. “Just that she wanted us to have a talk.”

Matthew walked over to one of the comfy chairs in the room and sat down, motioning for Lia to do the same. “So, we understand that you don’t feel up to snuff.” He said. “And, so, Willow and I thought that we could take some time out of our schedules once every couple of weeks and give you some one on one or one on two tutoring.”

“You’ve got a lot of potential, Lia.” Willow added, walking over so she was next to Matthew. “And though Rose is a phenomenal teacher, the two of us have ways of teaching you to fight that she’s not capable of replicating.”

“I-is that alright?” Lia asked. “Aren’t there rules to prevent favoritism to either side?”

“Yes, but we only need to accept proper ‘payment’ for our services rendered.” Matthew said. “For me, I just have to make your test proportionately more difficult, and for Willow you just have to use what she teaches to end the war faster, which I imagine is your intention anyway.”

“And that’s it.” Willow said. “No other strings attached, I just want to help you reach that potential and get your confidence up. And, to tell you the truth, I’m fascinated by modeling wax and the effect it has on the way people fight, and I’ve been itching to explore it in more detail, so it’s helping satisfy my curiosity as well.”

“Thank you very much.” Lia said. “I promise I’ll do my best. Um…how are we going to do scheduling?”

“Until you get a phone of your own, we’ll contact you through Connie.” Matthew explained. “And, if you have time now, we’d like to walk you through the facility we’ll be using to teach you, shouldn’t be more than ten or so minutes.”

“I don’t have any plans for the next couple of hours.” Lia confirmed. “Take as much time as you need.”

Willow snapped her fingers, and suddenly the four of them were standing in a featureless white room. “This is my brainchild, an advanced combat simulator.” She explained. “It allows us to create illusory copies of monsters or people and temporarily hook them into the system. You won’t be fighting something real, so you won’t gain any EXP towards your main level, and Skill experience will be the same as if you were practicing alone, but you will be able to see a simulated version of your HP decrease, and the same will go for the enemy.

“We can modify the terrain here too, and Matthew and I can take manual control of any of your opponents if we so choose. All of our combat training will be done in here, as it’s a safe environment that won’t give you benefit outside of sharpening your skills.”

“You mentioned looking into modeling wax and how that changes combat, will that…work on these?” Lia asked. “They’re illusions, right?”

“It does.” Willow confirmed. “I tested it. These illusions are partially physical, and since they’re hooked into the system modeling wax seems to treat them just like it would a ghost or other intangible creature. I don’t know what it would look like if you try to convert one, since I can’t actually do that without being part of the swarm, but it’s something we’ll have to test later.”

A goblin appeared in the middle of the room, arms held straight out to either side, almost like a scarecrow. “Go on and give it a punch or two and you’ll see what I mean.” Willow said. “This one won’t fight back, so don’t worry about getting hurt, this is just for demonstration purposes.”

Lia nodded, walking over and throwing a punch at the goblin. It felt…off, her fist was still stopped like it should have been, and the sensation of the goblin’s skin seemed accurate, but something about it felt weird in a way she couldn’t quite describe. It was like the parts that were underneath the skin weren’t quite as she expected or something.

“Weird.” She said. “Kinda cool, though.”

“It is.” Matthew agreed. “Anyway, what say you we spend a little time getting to know each other better? Perhaps over some of the games in that hot spring you have?”

“If that’s alright with you, I’d be happy to.” Lia said. “I have a few questions I want to ask you.”

“I’m afraid I won’t answer work-related questions.” Matthew said. “Knowing the details of what I do will sully the results when I come to test you. I think we should do things on a more…personal level, like asking about hobbies and stuff.”

Lia blinked in surprise. “Uh, sure, but I’m afraid I’m not terribly interesting.” She said. “I’ll answer whatever you want about me, though.”

“Whether you think you’re interesting or not, I am interested in knowing more about you. I get the feeling we’re going to be working together more in the future,” Willow said, shooting a knowing glance at Connie, “so, I figure we might as well get to know each other on a personal level now. Shall we go, or would you like some more time here? We didn’t actually spend much time here so if you have more questions, now is the time.”

Willow was clearly referring to something that Lia didn’t have the clearance to know about, but Lia knew better than to push the matter. “I’m ready to go, I don’t have any more questions right now.”

---

Marcus, the Sapphire Emperor, frowned down at the war table. The swarm’s actions were puzzling to him, and he was having a hard time understanding what they gained from them. Currently, the coalition’s army had yet to properly gather their forces, and only Marcus’s own army had any sizeable presence in the region.

This was the ideal time for Amelia and Rose to be rampaging, causing as much damage as they could to Marcus’s army before enough force could be mustered to deal with them. Yet, instead of pushing for grandiose engagements like their first major battle, they instead opted for small skirmishes, appearing for a few moments, capturing some people, then quickly disengaging. Marcus’s soldiers were on edge, and it was made worse by the fact that the raiders had oftentimes been fighting besides his soldiers just days prior.

“Gallus, what are your thoughts on the current state of the war?” He asked, looking up at his general.

“It’s hard to say.” Gallus replied. “Aside from that first engagement, we’ve yet to truly see what the swarm’s army is like. They seem to favor a defensive approach, and often use monsters as shields, but that’s about it. We’ve tried to take captives, but we have no more than a few hours with them before the Heroes mount a rescue mission. For the time being, we’ve opted to stop trying to capture enemies alive, because we can’t handle the Heroes yet.”

“How are Louis and Raymond?” Octavius asked.

“Healing.” Gallus replied. “Whatever Amelia did to them wasn’t something they could simply heal off. Their HP is fine, but they have lingering debuffs that we can’t seem to dispel.”

“Even Louis can’t do anything about them?” Marcus asked.

“No, sir.” Gallus confirmed. “Even if the effects are relatively minor, the debuffs themselves are remarkably tenacious. Louis estimates that they’ll wear off within a couple of weeks, but cautions against sending himself or Raymond into battle in the meantime.”

“Do they have any insights about fighting against Amelia?” Octavius asked.

“They said she didn’t feel like she had been restricted to a tenth of her power.” Gallus relayed. “She was able to use magic under Louis’s Antimagic Field, and was able to physically overpower him when he was under the effects of Power Swap. Raymond likewise wasn’t able to get any good shots in, she easily countered everything he threw at her, including Rain of Arrows.”

“She must have some way to temporarily undo the binding.” Marcus inferred. “That or the binding was a lie and the status screen I saw was a fake, but I don’t believe that’s likely. If it was, they would have faked Blessings from the gods, and they would have already been struck down if that was the case.”

“Could they not have only faked part of their statuses?” Octavius suggested.

“Possible, but I find it unlikely.” Marcus replied. “It’s not wise to test the limits of the gods, especially when they must already be in a precarious position due to their very nature going against the natural order. While they may be amoral, they don’t strike me as fools. Moving on, have our autopsies reveal anything?”

“Nothing of note.” Octavius said. “The internal makeup of each individual member of the swarm is by and large unremarkable, with one exception; they each have some sort of second stomach that contains the substance they call ‘modeling wax’. The substance itself is something of an enigma to us at the moment, as well. We have yet to determine what about it allows it to do any of what it does, but aside from the propensity to try and cover any living being it touches, it seems mostly safe to handle.”

“The prisoners claim that once something is ‘cocooned’ with modeling wax, any member of the swarm can start ‘converting’ the occupant into a member of the swarm, and their memories match.” Gallus said. “I find that unlikely, if only because the magic you need to brainwash someone to the extents we see isn’t something your average magician can do. I find it more likely that they have a group of powerful magicians they have exclusively working on brainwashing and have fabricated memories in all their soldiers to throw us off what’s really happening. It’s still preposterous, but they’re doing it somehow and this seems more reasonable.”

“Have we tested it?” Marcus asked.

“How do you propose we do that?”

“We have a prisoner try and convert one of the peasant soldiers. If she succeeds, then we can verify that what the prisoners are saying is true. We can then use that person to study methods for deconverting someone.” Marcus explained. “Understanding how conversion works is going to be pivotal to our long-term success, so if we have to make some sacrifices to do it, then so be it.

“Attempt to take prisoners once more, we’ll deal with the consequences of the retrieval raid, but we need to know. In the meantime, I’m going to press the other nations to get their strongest here faster; we can use these retrieval raids to lay a trap for the Heroes. Octavius, how close are we to having the navy ready for battle?”

“Two weeks.” Octavius said. “Our scout ships report no significant naval activity from the swarm, but we have yet to venture into swarm-controlled waters outside of very brief scouting missions.”

“They have to be preparing something.” Marcus mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Any suspicious monster activity?”

“No, sir. Everything is within normal parameters.”

“Keep an eye on it.” Marcus ordered. “The latest estimates from our allies give us one month before the bulk of their forces arrive. If we can hold on until then, then we’ll have a good shot at victory. Octavius, you’re dismissed. Gallus, we need to work on countermeasures for these raids.”

“Yes, sir.” Octavius said, giving a salute before exiting the room.

Once he was gone, Marcus turned to Gallus. “Gallus, what’s the main issue we’re facing with the raids?” He asked.

 “Unpredictability.” Gallus replied. “There is no consistency with them; the types of forces they send, the time of day, and how long they stay for all vary wildly from raid to raid. The Heroes or Simona also join in roughly three quarters of the time, so we have to take each raid seriously and divert some of our stronger troops to deal with it before it gets out of hand, leaving us vulnerable if they decide to raid another spot at the same time.”

“And moving camps hasn’t helped stop the raids?”

“No. After that first battle, they always seem to know where we are; they’re likely using animals to scout us, but we can’t set up wards to detect when a member of the swarm approaches, so we have no way of countering that yet.”

Marcus sighed, thinking over the situation. “Do we need to start telling the soldiers to be more aggressive?” He suggested. “The swarm is attempting to convert rather than kill, and if we can defeat the raid before they leave with their captives, we can rescue them.”

“I think it’s worth a try.” Gallus said. “But, really, we just need a way to tie down the Heroes, and then most of the pressure will be off.”

“I’ll think on it.” Marcus said. “For now, tell the soldiers to be more aggressive and send out more patrols so we can try and catch these raids earlier. Dismissed.”