It took Tanya an embarrassingly long time to figure out Charlie’s actual plan. At first, she thought him as arrogant; continually launching indirect attacks through catspaws to aggravate or weaken her. She thought herself clever for continually coming out ahead, her empire growing in territory and strength.
But not in wealth. She thought his plan to get her to overextend; to spread her empire too a size too large to manage, so he could start wearing down her side’s massive treasury.
The agreements with Earth forestalled that, she thought. Through extensive testing, it was found that as she suspected, accessories did not recharge without the titanic moneymancy of upkeep sustaining them. This was known; if you unequipped an accessory that could recharge, like a barrier, which was a distinct process from merely taking it off, it would not recharge unless you equipped it to another unit whose accessory limit could handle it and paid their upkeep.
Experiments with a high-capacity lithium battery failed to create accessories that could recharge with electricity. The collected dollamancers were still adamant that it was theoretically possible, but they could not bridge the gap without bringing in a shockamancer’s link, and that was not an acceptable solution.
What was an acceptable solution were accessories that were not designed to be recharged, one-use barrier accessories. So draining her wealth via conventional warfare wasn’t going to do much.
But that wasn’t his plan. No. She forgot who she was dealing with. After the sixth other side was eliminated and absorbed, either by getting the existing ruler to sign the agreement or by installing one of her own (She was running out of subordinates she’d trust with such responsibility…), suddenly literally everyone who shared a border with her were declaring war, assuming that they’’d be next. Charlie’s Archons featured heavily, as well as Charlescomm branded firearms. Which is when the treasuries she looted started becoming absolutely pitiful, as war chests were spent in the face of percieved annihilation.
This was Charlie. Of course he found a way to turn a profit over his proxy war with her. She was sickened with herself on how she couldn’t see it until it was too late. She could cast the moneymancy and mathamancy, and her new signamancer could see the terms they pay. He was lawyer-like man by the name of Danny Cow, known colloquially as “The Mad” for his constant inebriation from his smoking habit making him seem insane and insistence of saying his name. Despite the name, his livery’s symbol included a crane for some reason.
Charlie was making a killing (pun intended) for every side Tanya’s empire defeated. They were using traps that damaged the city enough to reduce any razing income, and the more her empire grew, the more aggravated their new neighbors became. At this point, she’d be unable to do anything except conquer the world or lose everything.
While their properly reinforced and fortified territories were quite difficult to attack, the newer territories were substantially less so, and they were much closer to the incoming attackers. Tanya’s knights still represented a substantially potent scouting force, and there were plenty of them around to keep an eye out for any attacks within the fortified territories.
Flying around with the Arkenshoes let her lend her strength as well as shift units short distances even off turn, frequently leading to her dealing with multiple battles a day. She even hit level 11, allowing her out of hex Chief Warlord bonus, when she duplicated herself, to reach a titanic +8. She even had to cut back on her trips back to Earth, spending only half-days there if she did at all. She put up a strong front, of course, to not compromise her bargaining position with the government, but they were getting suspicious.
Soon enough, she faced another side that was powerful, able to bring out powerful 16-stacks of mounted knights that were led by strong warlords. Their Chief Warlord, Gru, had a powerful lookamancy artifact of his own, one that blinded everyone in the hex when used except himself. Well, him and anyone that his ruler, the powerful heretic Date-a-mancer Overlady Weaver, linked to his stack magically with date-a-mancy.
It was what led to this: “This plan is suicidal.” She groused.
“Everything’s going to be fine.” Jack said cheerily, from his position as the leader of the stack. “We’re acting in accordance to a Prediction, after all. What’s more, over half of you still have unfinished business. Fate would be inescapably snarled if we lose… so we won’t!”
Riley hummed in agreement. “Everyone’s got their bonus hits, right?” She asked.
[Empress Tanya von Degurechaff]
Hits: 21 (11) (32)
“Yes…” Tanya said. It had been rather novel to finally have enough hits to theoretically survive one rifle shot, and now it was nigh impossible for her to croak to any less than four. She looked over the other members of their little caster kill squad.
There were Jack’s other contemporaries, of course: Riley, Fortuna, and Count Harbinger. In addition to that, there was the unpopular date-a-mancer Princess Cherry Vaseline, a slick caster who Tanya expected to betray them all if convenient, and the Dollamancer Alan, who was a good friend of Maggie’s preferred dollamancer Ken. He had some kind of golem armor that made him look like a mannequin, but also gave him knight-class combat stats of his level. It was basically a small-scale version of the Heroic Mecha she used to have, as she understood it.
The two additional casters were no less strange: Miss Manton was a carnymancer who wore nothing but body paint and tattoos, which did a good job of conveying her ‘circus freakshow’ aesthetic without making her ugly. She had those knight-class stats honestly, by random chance. Only about one in 20 casters had them, although naturally a strike force like this held a disproportionate amount of them. Finally, Lady Shatterpoint didn’t offer her actual name, but she was the stack’s dirtamancer, who apparently was a big fan of using spells that let her act as siege. She wore stained glass armor that granted flight.
Of course, with Tanya’s ability to use the ‘Warlord’ slot in the stack, that meant they had space for one golem in the stack. By dint of ‘it was made precisely for this job’, they used a unit that Riley made. It was the culmination of the intersection of Croakamancy and Healomancy, yadda yadda yadda, point it it was a horrible abomination made of severed limbs and still-living units stitched together that…
[The Crawler, level 9]
Combat: 60
Defense: 60
Hits: 144
Move: 14
Specials: Heavy
Conditions: Flight, Hard, Transport
…was the single-strongest unit that Tanya had ever seen that wasn’t some sea monster that was meant to engage ships instead of ordinary units. She was reasonably certain she’s seen such sea monsters that were slightly weaker than this thing.
Tanya also fed Jack juice for his masterful conversion of Tanya’s infinite move into replenishing The Crawler’s movement, as well as making it fly with his weirdomancy. So they can actually get there.
Brock Bae was a coastal capital that was nigh impossible to get to over land, a bunch of mountains cutting it off from the rest of the landmass, unless you went through the nearby safari zone.
Safari zones were special places that had horrifically dense feral pops, daemons most of all, and frequently exceptionally hostile natural ally tribes as well. Control over such a zone made for excellent training opportunities, real danger that had little to no diplomatic consequence, perfect for getting the first few levels for your warlords, if they had a good monster in their pocket to do most of the fighting.
Viridian Forest was a hazard zone filled with insect-type ferals, and to a side ruled by an aggressively domineering date-a-mancer? It might as well be an army generator, because that’s how Overlady Weaver used it.
Besides her Leadership, Tanya was primarily responsible for using Foolamancy to conceal their approach, as the prophecy required an attack on Brock Bae. Slipping in undetected was easy; yeah, there was a startlingly large amount of insect scouting stacks, but between their ability to take long routes and Tanya’s ability to roll spot checks from adjacent hexes, slipping the net was simplicity itself.
It also helped that they were attacking at night. It was the first time she was using this function of the Arkenshoes, but this outing functioned as multiple tests.
The attack itself was… easy, actually. Even attacking at night didn’t stop everyone in the hex from suddenly noticing that the city was being contested; while it was theoretically possible to use foolamancy to suppress that sense, it was the kind of trick that was usually reserved for Headmasters. So, they instead used a more… blatant method of introducing themselves.
Despite the name, Rhyme-o-mancy didn’t always have to rhyme. Or rather, it did, but it didn’t always need you to use words. Tanya was using a rhyme-o-mancy effect known as Cresendo; it built up power over time, allowing a rhyme-o-mancer to amplify an effect. With multiple casters involved, it could even provide a synergistic effect similar to a linkup, for one big spell. It wasn’t nearly as blended of an effect as it would be normally, but it was still good.
In this case, Cherry was building up an aftershock spell that would unstack the whole hex besides her own, with a small chance of the targets getting confused enough to even attack their comrades. Units vulnerable to this would be isolated ones, that have few connections to their side and comrades. “Columbine, U.T., Parkland, Uvalde…” She muttered as Tanya continued to wordlessly sing, the musical accompaniment traveling to everyone in the city of Underwhere.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Shatterpoint was chanting to build up an Erfquake as well. “Loma Prieta, Hawaii, New Madrid, Long Beach…”
In addition to them, Count Harbinger was casting mathamancy to help them optimize their spells as well. It wasn’t a trick she had considered using before, but then again she usually doesn’t use large enough effects for there to be a lot of wasted energy. “Fault Slip, Stochastic…”
“Karas, Sadiki, Watanabe, White…” Fortuna chanted, hexing the rolls of their enemies to maximize the enemy casualties.
Everyone else held back their juice, as there was very little chance of even this much successfully winning the battle on its own. That would be for the cleanup crew. Alan cast spells to sharpen his golem armor’s limbs, Jack passed around some combat weirdomancy, Riley was ready to heal any damage taken, and Miss Manton readied a spell to make the stack invulnerable to whatever the first dangerous thing they saw was.
Everyone finished their spells at the same time, of course. Her magical music ensured it.
“-SANDY HOOK!”
“-SAN FRANCISCO!”
“-GUTENBURG-RICHTER!”
“-PACKER!”
With the last of the songs she was binding together finished, Tanya screamed out in an operatic high note, holding it for as long as possible. As she did, the many glass windows of Brock Bae shattered, the distinctive pewter fixtures lit up with powerballs snuffing out from the power of the Erfquake.
The enemy tower, the Meadhall Gym, collapsed immediately, inflicting massive damage on everything that was inside. Which… did not include Overlady Weaver. She had a sixteen stack of knights wearing insect-themed armor riding Atlases, giant flying beetle units with a map-sensing Findamancy special. Darkness started to spill around them as Gru’s artifact started to conceal them. She had clearly used her magic to counter Cherry’s attempts, reinforcing her stack’s bonds to survive the wide-area magic.
This was where Tanya’s contribution really mattered; as her bonuses meant that those surviving units couldn’t just tear them apart. Overlady Weaver’s stack started firing their rifles, because of course she had at least that many, but Miss Manton’s spell, which cannot simply make them immune to guns for what Tanya assumed was the same reason guns ignored Flower Power, instead rigged the screening rules, making every single shot that hit them instead affect The Crawler. Given that Overlady Weaver’s elite knights could only muster 43 combat, against The Crawler’s 60 defense they could only hit 2.5% of the time, so despite unloading their full magazines, the resulting 270 attacks hit… about ten times. Which was not enough to defeat the massive beast even before Jack reinforced its skin, which multiplied the number of shots required by about five. Although it would have admittedly gotten close without that bonus.
Their return fire was much more effective, although Overlady Weaver had a flight pack to keep her in the airspace. They conquered the rest of the city instead, automagically capturing her in doing so, and the invasion ended with Fortuna taking her pistol and shooting the Overlady in the back of the head. Twice.
“See? Easy.” Jack said after Signing the agreement to become her vassal as the new ruler of the city, his side now named ‘Horrorshow’. Riley immediately signed on as his Chief Caster along with Miss Manton and Alan, but the rest of the stack just went back into the Magic Kingdom, purses heavy with Shmuckers and their pockets full of gems.
When Tanya used the Magic Kingdom as a shortcut back home, she was greeted with two additional declarations of war, and one of them was spotted as fraudulent.
That’s it.
---------------------------
Tanya liked to think of herself as a lover of peace. It was true, to a certain extent: She saw having to go inflict violence as a chore that she’d rather not do, even if she would admit that the actual combat was actually quite fun. War planning was also quite engaging and enjoyable, too. But nevertheless, she would prefer a world where all such matters were strictly simulated. She would always make at least an attempt at a peaceful resolution before resorting to violence, which rarely worked out.
Which is why she took so long to finally make a decision: Charlie had to die. He was pretty much the only one left on Erf that was dangerous enough that she didn’t feel the luxury of mercy, and the fact that all of his actions were so indirect also gave her pause; what if she was wrong and blaming him for things he wasn’t actually responsible for? He did keep denying culpability…
But that was how carnymancers functioned. Being hated enough to be shunned, but not enough to be killed, because then you’re the bad guy. “Charlie.” Tanya spat, opening up a thinkagram. “Arranging for Chibi’s capture is the last straw.”
Charlie sarcastically acted afraid. He was using the shape of an older man this time, white haired and stooped with a cane, but nevertheless retaining a vitality, dressed in khakis and a sweater with a bomber jacket, a tiny moustache giving him a hint of class. “Me? Oh no, you’ve got the wrong guy. Besides, what’s the problem? You paid the ransom and got her back. Then you destroyed Wiseman for his temerity, and turned her head right back to standard.” He rubbed his hands together, as if dusting them off. “No harm, no foul.”
“You have two choices.” Tanya said icily. “First, you surrender unconditionally. Turn your entire side to mine, and I will split it off into a new side.” She grinned wolfishly. “Or, I croak you personally instead of disbanding you.”
“Hardly much of a choice, now isn’t it?” Charlie said petulantly.
“I agree.” Tanya said, “But there is one major difference: By surrendering, all of your field units remain alive. You’re already a dead man, so it makes no difference to me, but…” She shifted her face to an expression of faux-sympathy. “-I was under the impression that you actually cared about your girls. After all, you give them purpose, like renting them out as call-girls who also go on suicide missions when the sex gets too boring.” Tanya took a moment to think about what she just said. “You know what? I see where I erred in thinking that.”
The Archon involved with the call was absolutely furious at the imprecation on Charlie’s character. Charlie’s own heartstring actually felt hurt by the insult. “You’ll kill them all, then?” Images of the archons in question flooded the thinkagram.
Tanya shrugged. “I was willing to put off your demise. For years, even.” She said honestly, “I didn’t see much profit in risking my life against your deathtrap. I was a fool for thinking that you could ever comprehend, much less accept that the only thing keeping you alive was my own good nature.” She waved her hand, turning each of those archon’s images into aggressive dogs with collars. They started flashing, like a bomb’s countdown. “Just because your armies will fall with you is no reason to hold back. Their survival is entirely on you. Last chance” She drew her lightsaber, activating it and pointing it at his thinkagram image. She stopped right before the image of her lightsaber intersected his own.
“You’re bluffing.” Charlie said firmly. “Now, as for what I may or may not be doing to your side…” He grinned evilly. “How much are you going to pay me to stop?”
Well, that’s that. “Good riddance.” She said firmly, taking a step forward as the thinkagram broke. Not because she ended it on purpose, but because she stabbed him, and his eyes were already turning into X’s. A flash of red light brought him back to life, and Tanya coldly said: “The Arkenshoes can walk over any distance, through any connection.” She said simply, shooting him with her pistol to prevent him from using carnymancy to save himself. She had fibbed a bit; it required a date-a-mancy connection of sufficient strength, but her rage at him counted.
Charlie turned to dust. Alarms went off everywhere, of course, and the archons that were his personal attendants went berserk, but… She had prepared for this. The archon’s shockamancy failed against the protective carnymancy she had cast on her, making her immune to all shockamancy. It just grounded out, as her Fate had been snarled into that of the ground. As for their guns? Well, she had the faster draw, more Defense than they had a hope of overcoming, and a barrier on top of that.
She had Maggie open up a thinkagram again after she cleared the room, taking the Arkenpliers and Arkenhammer with her as she stepped across the connection once more.
Once done, she flew the long way to Charlescomm, shooting any archon that was in the airspace dead without even entering the hex, then flying in and personally shooting each and every one of the remaining Archons, as they suicidally rushed her in order to stop her from exactly what she did after they were all croaked. With that handled, she touched the Arkendish, commanded it to shrink, and then flew back to leave it at home.
With the parts of Charlescomm she actually wanted dealt with, it was just a matter of clearing out the hundreds of golem defenders and the traps. She had to bring a team for that one, essentially repeating their invasion of Underwhere: Erfquake to break the traps, clear out survivors, and Charlie’s massive store of shmuckers was now under her control.
Finally. It was a long turn, but Charlescomm was finished.
---------------------------
“Hello again everyone!” Tanya shouted, her face the very image of excited joy. “I’m so glad to have finally managed to set this up, welcome to my castle!”
Tanya had wondered what an unattuned Arkendish could do. As it turned out, that answer was primarily ‘nothing that’s actually useful’. Tuning the thing to accomplish anything specific was incredibly annoying, even with Archons and a Master-class Thinkamancer to help. Why did the remote control have so many buttons!
However, things like ‘accessing other dimensions’ wasn’t dependent on that, instead being dependent on how big the dish was. So she could access her home computer back on Earth, from Erf, but in order to do that she’d have to accept never being able to use it for anything else without needing to spend several hours tuning it away and then again to tune it back.
Tanya took that tradeoff in a heartbeat. So now she could have the best of both worlds! Joy.
“So, today we’re just relaxing. I’ve had a long day in the war room, so I just want to chill. There’s this farming game my mother recommended to me that we’re going to try out.” She started up the game while watching chat freak out. What, was Chibi having fun in the airspace with her “Pretty Guardian Archons” too much for them?
Wait. Tanya turned her head around and shouted at them. “Keep it shoujo over there!” She projected, her voice resonating. “This is not a josei stream! No yuri allowed!”
Chibi giggled at finally getting a rise out of her. But thinkamancy meant she both understood and obeyed the Order, and her archons stopped kissing. “Okay, Mom!” She shouted back.
“Kids.” Tanya said, shaking her head. Chat was going on and on about ‘seiso’, which… “Okay, you can just ignore my little Princess over there, she’s just having fun with her bodyguards. Now, farm time.” After a moment, she added, in response to chat: “Do I look old enough to have a kid that age? She’s my heir, which makes her a Princess. I’m not saying anything else on the subject.”
---------------------------
Tanya spent alternating days between Erf and Earth, unless there was a special occasion of some kind. Whenever she found the time to relax with some videogames, she streamed, and without Charlie stirring the pot, things at the borders eventually calmed down.
Well, to be more precise, her empire had grown to encompass the entire continent, and the only enemies left were sea-based sides. She expected Fate to come kick over her sandcastles at some point, but letting her subordinates make massive fleets of ships and go off conquering other lands to split off new colony sides to their heart’s content seemed to stave that off.
Her income from trades with Earth continued to grow as more products became commercially viable, although she made sure to keep things still relatively limited.
Eventually, after about four years… she conquered the Erf.
“No one?” Janis said with awe as Tanya relaxed.
“I wasn’t that surprised to find out the Erf was round, but… it is.” Tanya said, humming as she bit into the Delicious Fruit that Janis had provided her. It slipped from her hand, but she caught it before it rose too high in the air. It tasted somewhere between an apple and a cherry, it was quite good. “I checked Portal Park, too. Only one side in the entire world is not part of my empire.” She gestured around to the rest of the Glade. “You know the one.”
“Ah, right.” Janis said, flushing in embarrassment. “So… no more war?”
“Not on my watch, at least.” Tanya said simply. “I mean, I’ve got teams making a world map, trying to find every lost city site, but once that’s done? There’s just… nothing left to do. We’ll need to figure that out.” She demured for a bit, not really comfortable. “It’s probably a good thing that Noah and his lady friend are staying out of my Empire, honestly.” She confided. “The Titans might notice if I controlled literally every city site, and do something about it.”
Janis nodded understandingly. “It’ll be hard, having a world without war, but we can do it.”
“All we can do is the same thing in every world:” Tanya said, “Survive as long as we can, and enjoy ourselves to the fullest while we’re doing it.” She chuckled. “If Fate wants this world to fall to ruin? To take my peace away? They’ll have to come down and take it from me, sword in hand.”
“Spoken like a true Ruler.” And thus began the Argent Silver Millennium, a time of peace.
