FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

On our side of the portal no one seems to really care that I am bringing my spell book with me. For a bit of energy everyone is encouraged to go and get one last meal so as to not have to worry about hunger or thirst pains while in the middle of combat. And to this I am still appreciative of since I was still so hungry from when I ate nothing the previous day. The other side of the portal, however. Once I had stepped through the portal and began seeing people from all the other facilities on our side of the portal I got nothing but strange looks and many of them somewhat disappointed or of disdain. And I suppose I can't really blame them. If I was in their shoes I'd probably do the same thing. I am, after all, doing something that is for the most part simply not done. There is too much at stake for if the book gets destroyed or even damaged. And since I'm carrying around the book into a battlefield I'm all but declaring to them that I am not intending on getting into any serious fighting. In other words, someone effectively just here for show.

It is an interesting thing seeing everyone on our side all in one place, just seeing the multitude of species. There are a few that are mostly human but most are like me in the half state or further along. And the species list seems to change a lot. It almost seems like even though it is supposedly about what is inside you the people of various parts of the world seem to get species that are native to that area. Like I see a few that are obviously from the African continent, a few from the Australian continent speaking with a very heavy Aussie accent. Which does bring to question of which would probably be worse to suddenly have to deal with, me with my six bumps on my chest with the knowledge that if I ate too many fatty foods or began to lactate that they'd swell up or to have a pouch suddenly. It is an odd question to be sure, on whether a slit in the skin is more an ordeal than six lumps. Oh well, no time to really dwell on that situation. Better to focus on getting rid of my own bumps rather than wonder what it'd be like to have to deal with a pouch.

They quickly begin rounding us all up and splitting us up not by where we're from but by where we're going. And so, I head off to see all the ones in the tower. There are quite a few of us here, a couple even with multiple pairs of arms which I would think would be all kinds of confusing. I can instantly tell from looking at them which are the ones that are going to be on healing detail and which are more like Jack. What I'm guessing are the healers are all wearing effectively modified white smocks with a lot of rather large pockets to probably carry any of the little things they may need. And then there are those wearing ammo belts and walking around with rather large cases that probably house their weapons. It is strange just how much I stand out amongst these two groups. I'm only wearing the dress that gave me on day one and walking around with my spell book. I definitely stand out. I consider for a moment whether it'd be feasible to use the mines in this battle, but due to the level of complexity and the sheer number of people that I'd have to write the sigil on that'd be very unfeasible, if not impossible.

But I must stand resolute. I must continue to give the impression I know what I'm doing, even if I do not. Once gathered up we're put into special containers and that begins to move on its own, probably to our end destination. I sit down on a seat provided and place my hands on my spell book, closing my eyes and preparing myself for the battle up ahead. A voice in the container makes me open my eyes.

"Yar the explosion girl, right?" a kangaroo with a case as long as she is asks.

"What?" I return the question, not entirely sure what they're talking about.

"The yank that blew up a building first mission. That's you, right?"

"I suppose so," I respond, knowing that I do technically fit the description, though not sure how I feel about it being so common knowledge that anyone would know about it not in our area. But then it was apparently a big enough deal that they went and wanted me to do an interview.

"Thought so. Good work that," the kangaroo nods.

I close my eyes again and go back to focusing myself. I have to trust my body. It's not so much a matter of the mind. The past two times I've done well not so much because of my knowledge or brain but because I put faith in that this body knows how to handle itself. As I focus my mind after a few minutes I feel a wave of something, an energy I cannot describe. I open my eyes in confusion, trying to figure out what this is.

"This is," I begin before pausing, not entirely sure how best to phrase it.

"So, you can feel it too," One of the healers, a panda states. It's odd that I can understand him considering I would have thought he'd be speaking another language. Perhaps there's a translation spell in place because it didn't sound like they had any accent anymore. "That's rather interesting. It's rare that people can feel things like that, at least not without a lot of training. It's an useful skill to be sure, just rare. This place is a holy site to them. I've been here once before, a long time ago. Well I've been to another site like this. The entire area has been saturated with magic. It's the remains of a battle a long time ago. Magic seeps through this place like sweat through a pore. That's why it's a fitting site for our Special. It's already uninhabited and likely won't be for a good long time, at least not until the magic has fully dissipated. The magic is harmless enough, don't worry about that. But there is an excess of it. You'll find no sleep here and anyone who can sense will never be able to not sense it."

"Guess that means we're close," Jack responds, grabbing his own case a bit tighter.

And we were. The transports stop a minute or two later and we're let back out into the evening sky. The battle sets as soon as the last rays of the sun no longer touch the towers. That's what we were told. But my mouth opens at the scenery in front of me. At least compared to what I had seen previously both in the previous two battles and on their side. The entire place is nothing but rubble and plants grown over rubble. And then at the back, like fingers thrust out of the ground are five, seemingly untouched towers. The sheer degree of magic pouring out of this place makes me nauseous. I can understand why no one would want to live here ever again. A lot of people died here. A battle most likely very one sided.

I'm directed to the tower that I'll be stationed in as Hammer, Tower and Glass show up with a few other teams, all apparently discussing the best patrol patterns and how to spread out for best effectiveness. I head over to my tower with Jack and stare at it. It's an impressive monument to say the least. I rest my hand on the surface, trying to get a feel for the place. Jack just ignores me and heads on in, probably so as to get set up right away. There's only two more going into our tower. This building is old, a miracle that it has lasted this long against the assault of this place and from time. I head in myself and see that the interior looks oddly newish. Wooden floors of some kind or other without any warping or any other side of degradation. The entire interior seems to be in stark contrast to where we are, as if they went about and made these brand new but left everything else completely untouched.

I head up to the top floor, the other two seemingly setting up on the bottom. At the top I notice that this building has no real ceiling. Well it does, but there's a giant hole in the ceiling, as if at one point or another something either entered or left this room with such speed and force that the ceiling just gave way. There are a bunch more windows along the side, giving us a good view of the surrounding area. And on the big table in the far side of the room is the map. I move over to it curiously and take a look at things. Sure, enough it looks like a pretty good map, even to the extent of showing changes in elevation as if someone took a three-dimensional image of this map and made a tiny little model of it rather than just a map. And on that map are a bunch of little glowing blue dots starting to spread out.

Everything looks good so far. I see a page next to the map and look at it. It's a fairly simple spell it describes. Just mentally focus on each dot on the map you want to talk to and then think the message at them. Oddly there are no dots on the towers. I can see where the patrol team are, each spreading out to cover an equal area. I suppose their job is best to start now to get a feel for how things look now so that they can tell if anything has changed. I take a deep breath and check on the position of the sun through the goggles they gave us. Won't be long now. And these apparently aren't that good at long range. As I cannot see any outlines outside but I can see an outline around my own arm and Jack very clearly. Or perhaps not. I pull out the spotting binocs that Jack set to the side to take a look out and focus my mind at one of the people patrolling our towers and as I get closer to seeing them clearly, the outline starts to form and get clearer and clearer. So that's an interesting thing.

Jack makes no comment to me grabbing the binocs. After all, for much of the fight that's what I'm going to be periodically doing anyway, looking through them to not only help him find targets but make sure he's lined up already. Currently I don't see any lights being aimed save for Jacks and a few others coming from the towers. I guess no one else has their weapons drawn yet. Well that's certainly okay in my mind. I spend the bit of time left before the battle starts helping Jack get as close to where he's in the middle of his sights as possible, using an apple of all things. Or rather something that looks like an apple. Can't exactly tell at this distance and I'm sure the fruits in this place are much different than our own.

Though I wonder, eventually are the battle sites from our own missions going to look like this? Feel like this? Just how much devastation would a battle on the scale that caused this have on our side of the portal. Course I suppose there is the simple notion of nuclear weapons. We have nukes and those are capable of destruction far greater than what happened here. And those make a location uninhabitable for thousands of years I think. Anyway, I distracting myself. The battle begins. I spend much of my time going back and forth between checking the map and helping Jack, choosing which targets he should go after. It is a nice touch that I can even see a small cursor over a group of lights when someone else is contacting them. Makes it easier so that we can coordinate better and not have multiple people giving the same instructions.