By the time I got to my shoppe, I had about twenty minutes before the 7:00 am meeting and used it to write a note to Isaac. I sent Toby, one of the younger irregulars, to the Tower with a bag of rings. I had him take four guards with him. Toby took off at a run, and the adults had a hard time keeping up with him. It looked more like the Watch guards were chasing a young ruffian than escorting him on an important duty.

  Toby departed in a sprint just as the team leads were entering the map room for our standing meeting. It was literally a standing meeting because none of us sat down. If we stood, we reasoned the meeting would end more quickly.

  It was uncomfortable seeing everyone. The last meeting we had was interrupted by the goblin invasion. Junior, who was there instead of Ears, looked especially out of place. I was certain that he felt that if he had insisted Ears attend instead of him, his friend would still be alive.

  As we all stood together, I looked over at Steven. “Steven, would you lead us in a prayer? I thought it might be a good way to begin our meetings going forward.”

  He looked very pleased with me. “It would be a pleasure, Patron.”

  His prayer was short, and he asked for guidance and protection. I was surprised at how many present knew the prayer and joined him. I did not, although I was certain my father would know it.

  It was time to begin, and I wanted to make sure Junior knew he was not just a second choice to be here but that he was needed.

  “Junior, I want to thank you and the Irregulars for your work last night. Your leadership was critical, and I am very glad you are with us as part of our leadership team. We all miss Ears and know that his absence means even more to you and your irregulars.”

  He looked up, his eyes filled with tears, and he looked down again. Wilma was nearby and gave him a hug.

  I looked around before continuing. “The instructions for this meeting were to come up with ideas on how we can fix what we did not know was broken before our encounter yesterday. To discuss how we can add things we did not know we were missing. And how we can improve our outcomes.

  “I will ask you each to give your minute updates, and then we will open the room to any discussion. I have a couple of updates I will share first, which have some bearing on our work.”

  I lifted my hands and waved them to include everyone present. “The Duke personally expresses his deepest thanks to each of you. The words shared by him and several commanders were that our efforts last night saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. If the goblins had not been held, they could have, and most probably planned to, enter the residential and warehouse districts and we can only imagine what terror that would have produced.”

  I added, “The Duke has also sent a note to the university president, in essence conscripting the entire chemistry and alchemy faculty to our services, reporting to our current leadership team. Yes, that means some of your former professors are now reporting to you. Sandor and Marcia, have fun.”

  The others laughed. It was the dream of most students to have their professors work and answer to them for a change.

  “We are also to be given access to all needed facilities at the university, including labs and supplies. Students, faculty, and alumni not otherwise engaged in war efforts will report to us and will work as needed to dramatically increase the supplies of potions of all three varieties for the war effort.”

  Sandor looked like his birthday had come early. “That will triple, maybe quadruple our available labs, not to mention how many skilled hands we can use.”

  Biff chimed in, “It will also split our protections and offer vulnerability since we cannot protect the labs like we can here.”

  “True,” I agreed. “But we have been promised magical protection there, and we will also have a few tricks of our own. The main thing to keep in mind is that we need to move from hundreds of potions, which were already far more than we promised, to thousands of potions, far more than we dreamed of making.”

  I waited for the side comments to settle down. “And third, under the support of the Duke, we are creating a series of training facilities across the lower boroughs to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and needed job skills for our Special Services branch, and later for professions across the city. These training facilities will be located immediately and updated with equipment, sleeping accommodations, and food. They will be known as Ears Academies.”

  The room was silent. Junior looked up at me with wide eyes. I met his gaze. “He saved our lives, Junior. Now we will help change the lives of all his friends. We owe him that.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  There were more than just Junior’s eyes filling with tears now.

  I cleared my throat. “Red, are we ready?”

  He saw what I wanted. “All present, Patron. The floor is yours.”

  After only a moment’s pause, Adric chimed in, “Of course, the floor is his, he owns the shoppe.”

  Normalcy was restored, and we began. I turned to Adric, “What progress has been made in archery?”

  We had not made a lot of progress since last night. People were worked up about the attack, and there had been a lot of distractions. We discussed how that could not happen again. Regardless of what happened outside these walls, we had a duty to perform inside them.

  We finished the minute summary rounds, and it was time to generate new ideas.

  “I now open up the room to ideas, new or old, that should be heard,” I said.

  There were several quick and easy suggestions that most people agreed with, given their needs and work situations. We decided to make two 12-hour shifts per day since nearly everyone was working back-to-back 8’s and not getting enough rest. Plus, the longer shift seemed like it would be more productive.

  We also changed to mini strategy sessions designed just to update progress or get approvals every six hours. This allowed for more flexibility and rapid communications. We also decided to move our products to their destinations more rapidly. We were caught with a room full of magical rings and potions that had not gone out when the goblins attacked. Moving these every six hours would ensure that never happened again.

  We also decided to create a rapid response spot on the opposite side of the back wall, across from the vault. It was immediately outside and to the right of the map room. We would have bows and arrows, ring sets, spare armor, and potion belts. We also agreed to keep a box of each potion type up front by the entrance in case they needed to be taken somewhere quickly.

  Another suggestion that I would have to take to either the Enchanter’s Guild or Isaac was a request for magical rings, earrings, or stones that would allow more effective two-way communication. The archers and others were out by themselves in the fog and had no idea what to do or where to go. I decided to mention it to Davon as well, since he had that magical stone, which he used to inform me about goblin movements. It was brought up that a downside concern was that if there was some kind of broadcast spell, and if the enemy got hold of one of the charmed receivers, they would know our every move. We tabled it since it was above our magical skill level, but it was an excellent idea.

  The Magebolt and Mage Blast spells showed that they were not very effective. Guildmaster Sam was spot on in his assessment. We needed something more effective given the large numbers of goblins. They did not have as many health points as humans; usually about half that of an average soldier and far less than veterans. But at ten to fifty goblins for every defender, we needed something better.

  The team debriefed several ideas, and we decided to pursue each for different reasons. First, instead of copper Magebolts or Mage Blasts, which were not very costly at five casting points, but also not very effective, we decided to change to silver ring Scorching Light spells at seven points. Chompers and Red had already convinced me about it, and many journeymen had been in the discussions, but it was the first time everyone was included.

  It didn’t sound like that little change was much of a difference with one ring, but over a few hundred rings, it was a massive increase in used casting points. We were also limited to a few wizards that could cast the spell, where before, any mage could cast one of the mage staple attack spells.

  But they liked it for three important reasons. First, it was an area of effect spell that could sweep through and impact multiple enemies. Second, it could be used by a lot of soldiers at the same time to create a massive attack across an entire section of a battlefield. And third, given the uncertainty about undead showing up to spoil our day yet again, the Scorching Light spell had some kind of additional damage effect against corrupted creatures. So shadows and undead were especially vulnerable.

  The choice of seven points was a guess to injure or drop most goblins at once. We toyed with larger casting costs for more damage, but the cost of production of rings became too high. Several of the students had been at the Arena and witnessed the seven heroes battle in the Keeper’s Games. Steven missed it, but was excited to say that both Paternus and Klondike from Keelwell survived. Klondike had taken out a hundred goblins at once with Scorching Light. She cast it at a higher level than we were planning and in a circle, but it worked amazingly well. And it was fast-acting.

  So we would replace the swirling lights of Magebolt and Mage Blast spells with a wall of bright, white light that burned on contact.

  We also decided to create a battery of more powerful gold SUS rings for heavy-hitting spells such as Fireball, Fire Storm, Twister, Thunder Strike, and Rock Storm, which was like a little earthquake combined with quicksand.

  Additionally, we added Firebolts and Wall of Fire to our repertoire. Firebolts could target siege weapons and set them on fire. Walls of Fire were defensive but benefited us both in damage and in light since goblins preferred darkness.

  We went round and round about the infernal, its motives, how it might use fire itself or our fire against us, what it witnessed about our strategies and unpreparedness, and so forth. We ended up concluding that it probably came away with a false impression of our plans. None of our secret weapons or strategies were exposed other than exploding arrows, and we were changing from Mage Blasts to Scorching Light. The initial worries ended up with our improved confidence in our plans.

  In addition to fire spells, we would also build Second Spellbook Spinnet Action web spells. They would hold weak goblins in large groups, and the webs were highly combustible. I decided to get some of the Irregulars and the slingshooters to practice the spell in the lower level. I’d use some crystal marbles as SUS spells and let them experiment. We could expand to slingstones and whatever else we wanted if that worked out well.

  The final suggestions focused on our plans to head to the capital in a few hours. I had planned to have the fashion design team create magical cloaks for all the irregulars. The plan was to use the fine fabric to create a simple SUS cloak of invisibility. It would destroy the expensive cloak, but if it allowed them to escape with their lives, something Ears did not have the chance to do, then we would all be happier. The irregulars ran around at all times of day and night and in some rough and vulnerable places.

  Wilma wondered if the planned bright yellow cloth would make them targets more than protect them, and Biff, in classic form, stated, “We spread the word all over the city that if you see yellow, protect the little fellow.’”

  It stuck. We planned to make them even more conspicuous so that people would see them, protect them, and even cheer them on. A reaction much different than the jeers and broomsticks these same citizens would have sent at the irregulars before the invasion.

  It is amazing what priorities will do.

  We would keep the invisibility a tight secret, regardless.

  Red tried to change the color to scarlet, of course. He suggested we add hoods in case the weather turns bad, and we could call them the Red Hoods. He argued that most were hoodlums already, so why not?

  He was booed.

  Junior was all on board and excited beyond belief to have a magical cloak. He was a little bummed that it could only be used once, but he got over it.