The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 58

Part 11

"However, there will be times when I will do everything I can to convince you combatants that the exercise is real. That will include your not knowing if psionic contacts with the outside world are genuine or simulated by me, you will not be able to perceive any non-combatants who have been Translocated beyond Hiliani in the exercise, and if the exercise is held when the children are awake and they are Translocated to the shelter, you will not be able to perceive them. And of course, on those occasions, some of the attacks that are no longer effective against the simulated demons will be effective again, to prevent my ruse from being revealed as it was tonight.

"I'll leave you to discuss your performance amongst yourselves.

"And by the way; well done."

With that he was gone.

"How about a cheer for our new young warriors?!" Bezedil called, and everyone did give them a rousing cheer.

"Thank you." Reggie said, speaking for the four of them when it was quiet again enough for him to be heard.

"We might not have an exercise for a while after this." Mark chuckled. "I think it might take Quewanak some time to figure out how to counter your spell. I sure can't think of a way yet! And he never has his demons counter anything we do unless he's actually found a way to counter it in reality."

"The easiest way would be for him to simply kill the four of us at the beginning of the attack.” Helemia mused. "So we should teach it to as many of you as we can right away."

"Beyond that, we can think of at least three ways they could counter it by magical and psionic means." Reggie stated. "Including Shielding from the energy that comes from the sun, casting very big psionic Shields a few meters beyond their bodies, and doing a lot of really fast Translocations to avoid being targeted. So I'm sure Quewanak will find a counter quite quickly. On the other hand, we do have a few more tricks up our sleeves. As Quewanak once told us, researching in isolation gives you originality, and we four have been able to think of different things than the rest of you have. Of course, now that we've joined the community exercises, it's time to meld all our efforts.

"So we should make sure we're psionicly Shielded against Quewanak and any demons who may be listening and that Ria is sheathed for a while, then we'll show you what we've been working on..."

The next exercise was four days later, in the late afternoon. The four children had just finished sparring and were relaxing on the grass when there was a bright flash of extremely short duration, then they suddenly appeared in the main shelter.

"You are dead." Quewanak informed them from the center of the cavern as dozens of children and older women appeared around them, and the command group appeared around the table. Then most of the other powerful members of the colony appeared around the edge of the cavern, having been 'killed' as well.

"The exercise is concluded." Quewanak stated a moment later.

The four moved up to the table and past the Privacy Barrier, allowing them to see the display spells and hear the command group, which today was composed of Silaran, Kragorram, Bezedil, Dalia, and Markhan the Senior.

"You were killed in an explosion which sterilized the vale you were within, killing everything there. Would you like to see it?" Quewanak continued, as the situation displayed on the table became apparent in tiny blue and red lights.

"Later definitely, but not now." Reggie stated as they appraised the display, which replayed the few seconds of the battle over and over.

Only about two hundred greater and lesser demons had appeared. They had obviously arrived as suddenly as possible in positions and deployments that targeted the most dangerous of the settlers, many of whom had none-the less survived the initial attack.

"They came in assassination squadrons, and tried to get everyone who could cast the Brain Bomb right away." Helemia observed.

"Yes, but they failed." Silaran stated. "They got Mark, Yazadril, Theramin, Equemev, and Povon in the initial attack, though Povon still had time to evacuate the non-combatants before they got her. That left us to form the command group. Talia and Alilia stayed up there and cast the Brain Bomb, and that ended it."

"It was somewhat predictable, but it had to be done. It would be the demons' logical next move." Quewanak said with a shrug as he scratched his chin with a claw tip.

"So the scenario we're actually facing in the exercises," Reggie mused, "Is that we're trying to hold Hiliani against successive waves of demon attacks, and that the big commander demons out there somewhere have a way of observing or monitoring the battles here, since they responded to what we did in the last one even though every attacking demon was killed. And we have to pre-suppose some constraints on their resources or they'd just overwhelm us with millions of enemies every time. So in this scenario, the war in the rest of the world can't be going that great for them, since they can't consistently allocate enough forces or enough power to guarantee them victory against us. You have to figure that they've learned through repeated observation of the battles here who the most dangerous among us is. Then last time we four popped up at the end of the battle and ended it with the Brain Bomb. Since we were new to them and the Brain Bomb was new too, and none of the rest of you used it in the battle before then, they probably thought we were the only ones who could do it. They probably didn't expect that the rest of you could do it already this time, they just targeted you because they knew you were the most dangerous fighters here."

"That's essentially the case." Quewanak confirmed. "I play the demons fairly, and they only act on information that they could learn by distant observation and communication with the demons who have come here. Though I usually know what all of you are going to do before the exercise begins, I don't let my simulated demons act on anything I know that they would not. They learn and adapt at the same pace the real demons did in the first Demon War."

"And that was an apt deduction, my son." Mark said as the rest of those who'd been killed in the exercise gathered around. "That they didn't know the rest of us could cast the Brain Bomb yet, that is. We managed to stay one step ahead of them."

"Well we did succeed in defending Hiliani, and all the demons were killed." Valentia nodded. "But I have a hard time feeling like we won when I was killed. I'd like to see the explosion that killed us now, Quewanak, if we may."

"Certainly." Quewanak nodded, and cast it as a Revealing.

"Ah." Helemia nodded. "A Demon Lord and four Greater Demons. They were already casting the explosion when they Translocated in a half kilometer up."

"And with that, we'll get these kids home and get ourselves to the debriefing." Mark nodded. "See you all in the gathering hall in a minute."

This time it was Talia and Alilia who were cheered as the heroes of the day, then they settled down to planning for the next attack.

The next one came three days later during breakfast, and only lasted a moment. Everyone in the settlement saw a very brief flash, and that was it.

"You are all dead to the last soul. The demons are victorious." Quewanak informed them. "That being the case, I have left you all in place, and I suggest you finish your breakfasts before debriefing."

And so they did. When they met in the Hall to discuss it, Yazadril revealed what had happened. "It was an explosive spell of the same type they used against the four twins last time, but much more powerful. On the same order as the spells that were cast in Mark and Talia's last battle with Zarkog at the end of the war of the founding. It would take billions of lesser demons to cast such a thing."

"Or millions of Greater Demons, or thousands of DemonLords." Alilia added.

"The few dozen of us who are powerful spell-casters can't charge the Wards with enough power to resist such a powerful spell." Yazadril continued.

"We still haven't figured out how they've been Translocating through the Wards, either." Bezedil pointed out.000000

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