Swarming Sovereignty

Lia had a pleasant, if short, meal with Rose, then sat down and began to look over her evolution options. There were an array of options that were, for one reason or another, not particularly attractive to her, but there were a couple of standout choices.

So, her options were, essentially, to stay the course, to branch out more heavily into transformation, or still remain a fledgling but hop into what was almost certainly a more powerful race in the long run.

The only reason she wasn’t immediately picking the last was because jumping from a Champion race to a Disaster race would almost certainly mean another leap in the difficulty required to level up and evolve, and Lia wasn’t sure that was the best idea at the moment.

Yes, in the long term, the Exemplar was almost certainly the best choice, but the issue with that was that…well, it was the long term. She currently had a pressing deadline in the form of Ira’s two month time limit, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to reap the benefits of the Exemplar’s increased power by then.

If she ignored that option, then she would almost certainly pick the Multiplicity. She wasn’t really using the benefits that Beguiler gave her, and she was using her transformation magic often, making it the preferred choice. It wasn’t like she was remaining a fledgling, so she wasn’t even missing much by hopping lines.

She returned to internally debating about whether or not to pick Exemplar, before eventually remembering that she could consult Analysis about the issue. So, she did, asking if she would be likely to see a payoff considering the increased experience requirements that were probably to come with the shift to Exemplar.

Well, that pretty much sealed the deal, so Lia made herself comfortable in her bed, and began to evolve into the Swarm Fledgling Kitsune Exemplar.

When Lia awoke, she felt good. The lingering pain from whatever Ira had done had vanished, and looking at her stats, it seemed that she had regained the stats he had stolen. They had still been reset with her evolution, but their values indicated to her that all damage had been repaired.

She sat up, nodding in satisfaction before going to check her other Skills. As the evolution advertised, anything that came from kitsune had been significantly enhanced. Most notably, Humanoid Transformation had leveled up a whopping three times, which allowed her to “bend the biological rules” of species she transformed into, whatever that meant, gave her eight free transformations per day, and increased her uptime to eighteen hours as well as making her time spent in her default form count four times less instead of the two times less it has before.

That meant she finally had a way to stay permanently in her humanoid form, provided she didn’t transform into other forms much, but she wasn’t expecting that to be an issue so long as she didn’t get too crazy with transforming.

She transformed back into her humanoid form, then hopped off of the bed and left her room. As she walked out towards the entrance of the building, it became immediately clear that no one else was inside, not even the myriad of non-sapient drones or foot soldiers she had grown accustomed to seeing around the inhabited areas of the dungeon.

That didn’t change when she left, either, and a gnawing worry was beginning to grow in her stomach. A quick perusal of her swarm senses told her that everyone sapient was still alive, and the number of nonsapients was more or less the same, so…it was probably just Rose taking them out for training, right?

She tentatively reached out for Rose’s mind, trying to see if she could get some sort of contact going. Rose?

There was a pause, then an answer came back. Lia? You’re finished with your evolution? The words sounded…different, less clear. There was some sort of interference that normally wasn’t there when Rose used her telepathy. Lia was out of range of Rose’s telepathy, so…maybe that interference was Rose’s other thoughts bleeding in or something?

Lia wasn’t sure what a phone was, but that certainly seemed handy. She turned her attention away from the new Skill, and back to Rose. Yeah, I’m done evolving. Where is everyone?

I have them all out gaining experience right now. Just in the dungeon, so we can be close when you wake up. Rose replied, background interference completely eliminated. I…probably should have left a note, sorry.

No, it’s fine. Lia replied. When will you be back?

Soon. I was just finishing up for the day. Your family is on a different schedule, though, so they won’t be back for a bit.

That’s fine. Let’s meet back up and discuss where we’re going to go from here.

My thoughts exactly. I’m already on my way over, give me five minutes.

I’ll be in the lobby. Lia said. I’m going to mess with my transformation ability, so there’s a good chance I’m not going to look like myself. If anyone else comes into the lobby, I’ll let you know, otherwise just assume whatever is in there is me.

Understood. Rose replied.

With that settled, Lia began to experiment. As it turned out, “bending the biological rules” meant that she was free to do pretty much anything she wanted, so long as she didn’t get too crazy. If someone squinting from far away was able to reasonably say that the form she was transforming into was whatever species she was ostensibly transforming into, she could get away with it. Twenty feet tall or just under a foot? Sure, no problem, that’s just bigger or smaller. An extra set of eyes or some gills or extra organs? It’s probably…a mutation or something.

This had limits, though. Most notably, she wasn’t able to add wings to species that didn’t normally have them, and too many extra body parts, no matter the type, were likewise unacceptable. And, of course, the form had to remain solidly humanoid. Still, she was offered a shocking degree of freedom, more than she had been expecting.

“Lia, I’m – woah.” Rose stopped in the doorway, staring at Lia.

Lia quickly shifted back to her normal form the extra eyes she had dotting her arms closing and vanishing. “Just testing the limits of this.” She explained. “It’s pretty lenient.”

“Could you see out of those?” Rose asked.

“Yes. It was very strange.”

“What about wings or extra arms or legs?”

“No can do.” Lia said. “Unless that species already has them. It has to remain mostly humanoid. And, for that matter, even centaurs or arachne are too much of a deviation from humanoid, so that’s a no-go too.”

“Shame.” Rose replied. “That would have been pretty useful.”

“I must just have to level the Skill up more. I can probably get it to do that stuff later.” Lia said. “Anyway, so…what’s the plan? I assume you cooked something up while I was out of commission?”

“Yes.” Rose said hesitantly. “I would have liked to run it by you before beginning implementation, but we’re on a time limit now, so I thought I’d start with stuff we’d probably want to be doing anyway, like leveling, and I’ve made the non-enlightened portion of the swarm evolve as I’ve seen fit. You’re free to stop any of that or change the direction of the swarm’s evolution, though, I just –”

“It’s fine, Rose.” Lia said, laying a gentle hand on Rose’s arm. “I trust you, and were I cognizant enough, I would have asked you to do that anyway. You made the right call.”

Rose gave her a relieved smile. “Good. I just didn’t want to seem like I was…overstepping my bounds, especially after the stunt I pulled to get Ira off our backs.”

“Again, no worries at all. You did what you had to do. But, leveling and evolving aside, what was your plan?”

“Right.” Rose said. “Um, well, I’m going to be blunt here, we don’t have a chance of beating whatever Ira throws our way. If it was just one monster, then maybe, but I get the feeling he’s going to be bringing five or six, at the least. And if that one was a failure, then I shudder to think about what a success would be.

“We may be able to grow in strength much faster than normal, but Ira has an enormous head start on us.” Rose took a deep breath, then continued. “However, I believe I have come up with a strategy that will almost guarantee us a pyrrhic victory of sorts. It will involve great risk, but we have a good chance of keeping all the sapient members of the swarm alive, given things shake out how I hope they will.”

Lia frowned. “Oh.” She said. “I…”

“Thought I could do more?” Rose said sadly. “Sorry. I’m not quite the miracle worker history has made me out to be, at least not at the moment. Tactics can only take you so far in the face of overwhelming odds, and, in the old days, I made up for the rest myself. I…don’t have the strength to do that now.”

Her face screwed up in frustration as she continued to speak. “I doubt Ira thinks I can do it, either. He’s probably planning to kill everyone else and take me back by force, but he’s unsure, and that’s going to cost him.”

“I didn’t mean…I…no, I shouldn’t make excuses. Sorry, I should have controlled myself better.” Lia said.

This time, Rose patted Lia’s arm placatingly. “I get it. My whole persona was built upon doing the impossible. Everyone except Chrys reacted the same way.”

“But I know better.” Lia said. “I’m –”

“Forgiven.” Rose said gently. “It’s not easy to overcome preconceived notions. But that’s not important right now, I still haven’t told you my plan.”

“I…yes. Sorry, please continue.”

Rose gave her a small smile. “The crux of my plan lies with Ira himself.” She explained. “Or, rather, the threat that he represents. We find ourselves in a situation where a critical lack of knowledge is going to make the difference between an obliteration of our forces and potentially keeping fifty to sixty percent of them.

“To be precise, it depends on how Ira is keeping his monsters in line. If he has trained them to follow his commands and work together, we will likely lose the majority of our soldiers. However, if, he is just keeping them in line with some sort of Skill, which I believe is significantly more likely, then they are likely to turn on each other the moment Ira has been taken out of the picture.

“Should that happen, we can probably retreat without too much issue. We’re far and away the smaller threat, so the monsters’ attention should be pulled away from us. If we’re extraordinarily lucky, we might even be able to poach one of them for ourselves, but I wouldn’t count on that. Even if they fight themselves to the death, there’s a decent chance that, in our wounded state, the winner would be more powerful than us.”

Rose paused for a moment before continuing. “Unfortunately, this plan has some elements that I know you won’t like. First and foremost, you can’t come with us.”

Lia blinked. “Why not? I should be a significant help, even if my role is just to cover the retreat.”

“Two reasons. First, you shouldn’t be in any decent fighting shape, given what Ira did to you. Which…it looks like that’s been healed, seeing as how you don’t have any visible discomfort, but Ira probably doesn’t know that. Um…you are healed, right?”

“Yeah.” Lia confirmed. “At least, I think so. Unless my stats are supposed to be twice what they are now, which seems…highly unlikely, as they’re already higher than what they were last evolution.”

“Good.” Rose said. “Even if Ira knows you’re fixed, the main reason you can’t come is that the old me wouldn’t let you come, and the plan relies on Ira believing I’m still the old me. I thought about a few plans that would let you come with us, but in the end, it was just too much of a stretch unless I have no other options. I think I have others, but we’ll get to that in a sec.”

“I…suppose that’s fine.” Lia said. “If you genuinely think me staying home has the highest probability of getting us out alive, we’re not exactly in a position where I can complain.”

“I do.” Rose said. “My plan is to sit on the sidelines of the fight with Ira, or even just leave with him, all under the guise of sacrificing the last remnants of the swarm that are loyal to you. I was going to have you fight to “weaken you”, but then I realized you already should be crippled by whatever Ira did, so that doesn’t work.

“But, anyway, when I find an opening, I’m going to try and dump a bunch of modeling wax on him at once. If I can convince him to join me willingly, that’s even better, but I’m not holding my breath. Unfortunately, if I have to try and catch him off-guard, then I’ll need some way to hold a large quantity of modeling wax at once. Your Dimensional Storage is the obvious answer, but since I don’t have you, I’m going to have to ask if you can find something that’ll store some for me in the Dimension of Discounts. If you can’t, then we’ll have to take you along with us, but that might seriously mess with things.”

Lia nodded. “I’ll take a look.” She said. “But there’s a good chance that whatever I find will be too expensive for me to buy.”

“Well, you probably have more Blood Money than you expect, since we’ve been killing Spine monsters this whole time.” Rose said. “Still, we should at least know how much that sort of stuff costs.”

“What’s the minimum requirement for what you need?” Lia asked. “Obviously I’ll try to go for something better than the bare minimum, but I need to know so I can get an accurate price estimate.”

“The bare minimum is something that can discharge its entire contents immediately, with enough space to hold let’s say…twice the modeling wax that would be required to fully cover him. Ideally, we want a device that discharges completely unnoticeably by methods Ira has access to, and even better if we can make it appear directly on top or around him, so he has no time to react.”

“Right. I’ll go take a look at that stuff now, would you gather everyone up so I can say hi? I’m sure they’re worried about me.”

“Um…change of plans.” Lia said. “Connie wants to talk with the both of us, and force-upgraded my Skill so I could bring you in with me.” She reached out a hand to Rose, and opened a portal behind them. “Shall we?”

Fighterman481

It's been a bit too long since I wrote this and have lost anything I might have wanted to say (I don't think I had much, though). Next time we'll do some quick shopping and get on to how everyone else has fared while Lia was out, so...look forward to it, I guess.

And, as always, thanks for reading!