Sword Astraea

Arrival

Marching in a column-like formation the Apollo familia made their way to Shreme castle. They carried backpacks and drove carts with supplies.

Their captain who was leading the group had a confident smirk on his face. He looked back and counted the number of his familia.

His smirk widened counting the extra hundred heads. There was no rule about hiring mercenaries after all. All that was stated was that the Apollo familia and the Astraea familia had to do battle.

It never specified how many had to be a part of the Apollo familia however. Something that the god readily capitalized on.

Hyakinthos turned his attention back in front of him and saw Shreme castle off in the distance. He knew his victory would be absolute. His god's victory would be absolute.

However, as they drew closer to the castle he noticed that there was only one good route of attack. The rest of the castle was surrounded by rocky hills and mountains.

A frontal assault would have to be attempted and he knew that would be costly. But then Hyakinthos laughed to himself.

Costly who was he kidding? There were only five of them. Three-level ones and two-level twos. This would be easy and finished within the first day.

However, further back in the line, a blue-haired woman was nervous. Nervous that their hubris would be their defeat.
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Bell stood atop the wall looking out upon the land. He could see the Apollo familia in the distance pulling off of the road to set up a camp.

He let out a sigh of frustration however seeing the added numbers. Bell was already coming up with a plan to counteract these added numbers.

Subterfuge should work well.

He hopped off the wall and made his way to his familia. Watching where he stepped so as to not step into a spike trap.

Arriving at the campsite he crouched down in front of his familia. Welf was at the anvil still making anything he could to put the self-destruct rune on. Lili was preparing breakfast while Emma and Karen took stock of what they had left.

Bell cleared his throat and for their attention. "Well, good news and bad news. Good news is the Apollo familia finally showed up so we can get this wargame underway. The bad news is there's a hundred more than the last time we saw them." He explained.

Welf stopped forging and turned to look at Bell. "A hundred more? How'd he get so many that fast?"

"Most likely mercenaries. Meaning they're already experienced adventurers or have some modicum of experience. Making our job a lot more difficult." Karen explained.

"Does this mean the plan won't work?" Emma nervously asked. She didn't want to lose Bell to the Apollo familia. He was her friend.

Bell shook his head. "No, it just means it won't work as well as I thought it would. However, not all is lost. They're setting up came right now so we still have some time before they attack."

"I'm guessing you already have an idea, Master Bell?" Lili asked. The prum had stopped stirring the stew.

"Well, I was thinking about doing a little subterfuge. It won't do much but it'll mess with their minds." Bell replied.

"And just what exactly would you do?" Welf asked.

Bell shrugged. "No idea, best I can think of is destroying their food supply and maybe a few tents. That way they'll be hungry and some of them will be tired."  

"Not really a lot of options there." Lili pointed out.

"Well, I need to get in and out quick. Sure I'm fast but there's 200 of them out there. Once I make my move I'll have to get out of there quick."