“Odditor and his forces will only move against the Warden Corps – and by extension, the Party – when a viable plan is in place. He has no interest in a prolonged conflict. Rather, if a blow is to be struck, it must be intelligent, precise, and final. His forces will not be mobilized for anything less than complete victory.”
Silence followed the terms, but Kaiden knew there was no way they wouldn’t accept them. Odditor had an army and they were going to put it to use. His mind reeled with the potential. An attack on Warden HQ wasn’t a pipe dream any longer. With this force and Maximus’, it might actually be possible. He hadn’t run the numbers, would need to discuss with Thorne, but they had to be close in strength, right? Enough to match the forces the Warden Corps kept at their headquarters.
But, with the terms Odditor had laid out, that wasn’t enough, was it? He wouldn’t mobilize unless victory was assured. What exactly did that mean? They couldn’t use his army unless they had an overwhelming advantage? The thought gave Kaiden pause, tempered the joy he’d been feeling at the sudden turn of events. He’d need to discuss with the others, figure out their next step, and what exactly Odditor would need to be convinced to put his army into action.
“This is all great,” Titus said, breaking the silence, “but I’m still confused on something.” He looked at Odditor quizzically. “If you needed to know that we were committed to taking down the Party, why make Zelda run the labyrinth? I mean, I understand making us ante up, but didn’t that already prove our commitment? Why have Zelda still run the labyrinth and risk dying?”
Odditor waited a good long moment to answer, then smiled.
“Because it was, ah… fun.”
Chapter Fifty-One
The humming of the medbay had faded to an almost pleasant drone of white noise. In reality, it was helping Kaiden think – something he very much appreciated, considering how insane everything had been since the revelation of Odditor’s support for their cause.
Since then it’d been all grinding and planning, grinding and planning. They had to level up as much as they could and figure out how in the world they were going to take down Warden HQ.
The last quest had been a tough one. Odditor had pointed them to the dilopoad home world and a chain quest there that had been – well, considering all of the dilopoads spat venom, rather messy. The EXP had been good but Kaiden had nearly left the boss fight with a week’s vacation. He had taken a direct hit from the monstrous frog creature’s Acid Spray and found the regen debuff from the higher level venom simply wouldn’t go away. He’d needed to return to the medbay of the Veritas II to heal and remove the persistent status effect. The others hadn’t waited up, pushing ahead to finish off a side quest.
Instead of questing, Kaiden had originally put forth the idea of grinding against Odditor’s menagerie. The man had a seemingly unlimited supply of monsters for them to fight, so it made sense – a sort of miniature version of the Grinder. Kaiden hadn’t counted on the fact that Odditor was thoroughly in love with his collection of monsters, so that idea hadn’t really gone over well. And there was the minor issue that Zelda had appeared on Odditor’s stream, so the Warden Corps was sure to show up at Odditor’s base sooner or later looking for her. So, here they were instead, grinding missions in a hopefully backwater-enough sector to avoid notice. Everyone had picked up a few levels, but seeing as they were all above level fifty now it was slow going. The endgame wasn’t designed to be rushed through, but time was a luxury they didn’t really have.
“Watch your back!” Zelda shouted through comms. Kaiden could hear the sounds of laser fire and the piercing squeal of a dilopoad.
“Got it, thanks,” Titus answered back.
Comms made it sound like they were right next to him, but they were actually quite distant, Ellenton having flown them down to the planet’s surface and their mission while the Veritas II waited in orbit. Kaiden turned the volume down a bit. Not so much that he couldn’t hear everyone, but enough that the constant battle callouts wouldn’t interrupt his focus.
“All right, then,” he said aloud, though he was alone in the room. Just him and the buzzing of the machines healing him back to full. “Let’s figure out this puzzle, yeah?”
And puzzle really was the word for it. Warden HQ was a tough egg to crack. Thorne had told them so weeks ago, before they’d set out on this mad adventure, but back then there’d been so much to take care of before making an assault that he’d mentally put off considering how exactly to go about it. Now, though, they’d made enough progress that he was starting to realize just how daunting the task ahead was.
Warden HQ was located on the asteroid Custos, which circled the known universe on a fixed orbit. Not exactly the most realistic orbital mechanics, but in the end, Nova was a game and sometimes the ‘Rule of Cool’ displaced realism. Cool orbit or not, Custos was the site of Warden HQ and it was fortified as expected, which was to say: exceptionally well.
Thorne had shared 3D renderings of the base with everyone and Kaiden pulled one up now. It hovered in the air in front of him, the image only interrupted when the ring of the medbed passed through it, its white light still healing his wounds.
The heart of Warden HQ – and most of the infrastructure, really – was deep inside of Custos, protected by
