Chương 156: Chapter 232: Honest Mistake

Vincent Duncan found. Do you wish to assign a bounty to this Climber? Yes/No That bastard never left! Zodiac thought sourly. They had seen the signs that the norworm had used the Key Site to move to another Floor, and for a frenzied 40 minutes of planning, Zodiac had competely forgotten to confirm it via a lockdown bounty until after he'd already sent the other Lords away. They'd even discussed them during the meeting! What a stupid, amateur mistake.

Now Zodiac was facing a choice: Bear the shame of calling everyone back and admitting to his own panicky oversight… or… take the risk of exterminating the norworm himself. Even if they would be helpful… which they likely wouldn't. The other Lords would suffer immediate acclimation sickness if he brought them back with William's messenger girl. They had made their moves. Bringing them back now would be worse than useless. Not to mention… The set represented a great deal of political power.

If he could acquire it, he could trade it to Akul for a rather large concession, and those new Lords would have another obstacle in their plan to leech off the city. Yes, none of the other Lords are going to be available for two weeks anyway. I'll have to deal with this myself if I don't want this Stronghold to become a festering hive of norworms. Zodiac went into his office and opened up his personal vault, where he kept his fighting kit. As he was removing the ring of his 'towing' kit, he paused a moment.

Void is nowhere in the Stronghold. I've already confirmed that. There's no indication that Void's Build would grant him advanced detection or navigation Abilities. Can I just… evade him? Steve the constellation acted as both a deterrent and a landmark. If you could find the continent-sized snake in the sky, eventually you could locate the stronghold as well. Zodiac had no idea where the worm was, but the worm knew exactly where he was.

It was probably mastering its new body and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Taking it on alone is stupid and gambling the fate of the entire Stronghold, but… Zodiac took the killing kit out of his vault and stuffed the Relics in his pocket, turning on his heel and marching out onto the veranda, staring up into the sky. Over the course of two centuries, Zodiac had navigated these black skies. There were none better than him. The work crews I sent to clear that island is that direction. Zodiac mused.

As good a direction as any. He could pick them up before the worm could get its eggs into them, and then move on from there. There was enough food production on the island to keep them going indefinitely. It would not be pleasant, but pleasantness was not a priority. I won't issue the bounty right this second. That'll probably make it stop and look at the Stronghold. As long as it's not actively looking at us right this moment…

Telekinetic Skein Zodiac's threads anchored into the seven islands and dozens of boats floating around them, began moving them. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. He formed a shield around the stronghold, preventing the wind from knocking anyone or anything off the islands as they began to blaze through the starry night.

"Milord, is something wrong? Why are we-" Zodiac's minister asked, wobbling in place as he tried to navigate the sudden acceleration.

"Shut the ports down. Make ready to defend the Stronghold. Get all the camouflage paint from the stores under the palace." Zodiac said, not taking his eye off the sky rushing towards them.

"We're doing to disappear."

"Yes, Milord." His minister bowed and retreated back into the palace. Zodiac thought about his counterattack, slowing down and snagging the island his workers were clearing as they passed by it. It was a particularly big and flat island that Zodiac was eager to use as a second farm island, but in this case it might work well as a shield.

Once they had the distant workers, he drastically changed their course, unwilling to be discovered because someone clever drew a straight line between the Stronghold and the worker's last known locations. As they flew through the endless night, Zodiac arranged the seven islands into a column, stacking the plates on top of each other as close as he could get them without causing their gravity to kick in and slam them into each other. The extra-large island went at the bottom of the stack, facing towards Steve.

Whoever was looking for them was likely going to use the giant snake as a reference point and scan the surrounding sky. From the perspective of the area surrounding the snake, if someone used a spyglass, they might locate a single uninhabited island, never suspecting an entire Stronghold hid in It's shadow.

Of course, there's a possibility he's lurking somewhere else, Zodiac mused, locking them in place over a thousand miles distant from Steve after confirming that there weren't any other constellation within six months distance that could swallow them whole. With that in mind, zodiac issued a flurry of orders to distribute the constellation paint along the edges of the disc-islands, breaking up their silhouette and making them nearly invisible from the sides.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. In a matter of hours, the Stronghold was nearly impossible to spot from a distance. I've heard the body this worm is riding was a necromancer. What kind of tactics is he going to use? Necromancers favor attrition. The human wave. They are happy to sacrifice their own minions in order to deal damage to their enemies.

His plan is probably going to be to acquire tens or hundreds of undead constellations and launch a devastating attack on our most populated island to foment chaos, then he'll trim down the number of minions to just the strongest to boost their individual power, then cut a path through the confusion with his elite troop, causing huge casualties while everyone's head is still spinning. Hmm. I can work with that.

"What's going on, Lord Zodiac?" William Oh's pet monster asked as he marched through the palace. She was forced to half-trot to keep up with Zodiac's purposeful stride.

"I'm hiding the Stronghold until we know where the normworm is," Zodiac said with his most reassuring voice.

"Just a precaution in case it comes back. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh, alright." Ria nodded, still hustling to keep up.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No, we're quite alri-" Zodiac paused in thought, his legs still moving.

"Forgive me if this is question is insensitive, but what happens if your bodies die?"

"They remain, although they do evaporate into miasma after some time," Ria said.

"…and how long does it take you to starve?" He asked.

"If the primary body just ate, it takes about a week before any of the offshoots get hungry.

"And can you abandon a body at will or are you stuck?"

"I can reabsorb offshoots, or die at will. I generally don't like to do that if I don't have to." Ria said.

"Brianna doesn't want us become callous towards our own lives."

"Well, if you're willing, I've got a rather impertinent request for you, young lady." Zodiac said.

"What's that?" Ria asked.

"Would you be willing to pretend to be every Climber in a Fake Stronghold?"

"Bait?" Ria asked.

"Yes." The Tangled girl seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding.

"Yes, I'm willing to do that. How many 'me' do you need?"

"About five hundred."

"No problem." Ria began dividing in front of him.

"I've only got fifteen Charge at the moment, but our Focus has passed deca-dailies, so we should have all five hundred in about sixteen hours." Zodiac's purposeful stride stopped in place as he did the math. 15, 30, 60, 120, 240, 480. That means…

"All of your copies have their own Charge?"

"Yes?" Ria said.

"Remarkable," Zodiac mused, playing down his panic. Will never mentioned that. Of course he didn't. He figured we'd call for her destruction. We've got a powerful fighter who can overwhelm all of our strongholds in less than a day. Simultaneously. The boy's got a knife at our throats and pretends it's a messenger bird. Zodiac set it aside as something to work out later, not letting any of his thoughts show on his face. That was for the future. He was more concerned with the now.

"I'm going to grab some islands and cobble them into something that resembles the Stronghold. If you wouldn't mind coming with me?" William Oh Will entered Bree's Bakery, Messenger & Odd-Jobs, the aroma of fresh bread and pastries washing over him as the bell on the door announced his presence. Brianna emerged from the back of the shop, wiping dough-flaked hands on her apron. She was wearing her hair up and tight so as not to add anything 'extra' to the pastries.

"The usual?" She asked as she spotted Will taking his usual spot by the open window. The heat of the unmitigated sun would've been uncomfortable if his Resistance wasn't so high.

"Yes please." Will replied from the table. A moment later she came out with his 'usual', which was a couple of the sticky pastries she'd invented using the cactus syrup. It was basically just a shortbread cookie with a dollop of syrup hardened onto the top. Nothing fancy, but it was damned good.

"How's the bakery doing?"

"The bakeries themselves are losing money hand over fist, but we're making way more just from passing messages up and down the tower," Bree said, sitting down beside him. Ring! The bell at the door rang, prompting them both to glance up as a Climber walked in. An instant later Anna came out from the back and saw to the customer.

"So I'm kind of just baking for the satisfaction of baking." Bree said, resting her chin on her palm.

"Maybe I'd be able to turn a profit if I had an actual baker Class, but passing messages between Floor to make ends meet is basically zero effort, so…" She shrugged.

"How's it going with the whole crystal thing?"

"You've been watching over my shoulder the whole time." Will replied.

"Doesn't mean I know what's going on in your head. Humor me." Bree said.

"Well, as it turns out, despite my best efforts, I am not a Crafting Class. Who would've thought? All my attempts to turn crystal into jelly have failed miserably."

"You've only been doing it…what, a day?"

"Twelve hours or so." Will said, waggling his hand.

"But on the other hand I have managed to assemble an – and I want to stress this – extremely rough wand." Will said.

"Objectively, making a wand in twelve hours is pretty good, yeah?" She asked.

"Yeah…but I still kind of want to hire a Crafter of some kind. Maybe multiple ones."

"I can roll that into the job to find the necromancer to clear the wilds. I'm currently interviewing for the position, and it wouldn't be any extra effort to find some crafters. Easier than finding our potential necromancer, even."

"…Please." Will said around a pastry. Ring!

"The usual," Loth's raspy voice called as she entered the bakery. In a moment, Anna emerged from the back with a couple grilled steak bugs, setting them at the table with Will and Bree. Loth's stomach couldn't handle wheat and sugar so well, but she did appreciate a good grilled steak bug.

"How's it going on the fourteenth Floor?" Loth asked between bites of steak.

"Right now?" Bree asked, her gaze going blank for a moment before it snapped back to Loth.

"We're fighting a living stormfront."

"No sign of the norworm?" Loth asked.

"Not that any of my offshoots have seen." Bree paused, her eyes going distant.

"Although, Zodiac is doing some weird stuff. Just after you left, he moved the whole stronghold really far away and hid it. He and I are currently creating a fake Stronghold in the hopes that the norworm gets lured in." Will frowned. It wouldn't be totally unreasonable for Zodiac to put his entire stronghold on lockdown until the norworm was destroyed. And creating bait wasn't unwarranted, but the norworm was on the uninhabited 12 th Floor, wasn't it?

Zodiac must've confirmed it wasn't on that floor and both Bakton and Ghoul had already told Will through Bree that Void wasn't on their Floor either. So it must've gone up… Will blinked.

"Did Zodiac issue a bounty on the thing?" Will asked. It had been an extremely hectic half-hour of furious planning to cast their net around the Floors they suspected might harbor the worm. It was easy to miss simple things when one was in a panic. Especially when there was evidence that suggested the worm had already left.

"Can you ask Zodiac if he actually tried to issue a lockdown bounty on Void in that first half hour?"

"Sure." Bree said, her eyes going distant for a moment.

"…He says he did." Will and Loth shared a glance.

"…I don't fully believe that." Will pointed a cookie at Bree.

"Can you watch his stronghold for trouble?"

"Already doing it."

"If Void shows up, let us know immediately." Bree nodded.

"Even if we knew, how would we respond?" Loth asked.

"If Void truly cleared the Key Site but didn't move on, then he's banking a Door to juke us when we try to catch him. He might even still be able to use it, even with a bounty on him, since he earned it before the bounty was assigned."

"…Shit." Will groaned. If he tried changing Floors again before ten days went by, he would suffer even worse acclimation sickness than he already had, rendering him useless as a fighter. His options were extremely limited.

"Who can we ask to help with this?"

"…. Travis is free." Bree said with a shrug.

"…Yeah, okay."