Carine Forest — Outer Camp — Laosian Section
Evening settled across the camp.
The battlefield had finally fallen silent.
Gone were the thunder of artillery and the screams of corrupted beasts.
Now the air was filled with quieter sounds.
Hammers striking iron as engineers dismantled temporary fortifications.
Wagons creaking beneath the weight of packed artillery.
Priests walking through the scarred battlefield, their staffs glowing faintly as they searched for lingering traces of corruption.
Smoke still drifted above what remained of Carine Forest.
The smell of ash lingered.
Victory had come.
But nobody felt like celebrating.
The Laosian camp, however, had already moved on.
Entire engineering crews dismantled artillery batteries with mechanical precision.
Banes lifted steel wall segments onto rail carriers.
Quartermasters counted shells one crate at a time.
Clerks recorded every expenditure down to the last bolt.
To the soldiers of Laos—
The battle had ended.
The work had not.
Inside the command tent—
A different battle had begun.
Logos sat at the head of a folding table.
Across from him sat Sous, Adrean, Darian, Mirelle, and the Arch-Prelate.
Bal stood quietly near the entrance.
Kleber wisely remained against the rear wall.
He had already decided this discussion was above his pay.
The atmosphere felt considerably heavier than during the battle itself.
Nobody had gathered to discuss tactics.
Nobody had gathered to celebrate.
They had gathered to discuss Logos.
The young baron sighed.
"I am not relinquishing the specimens, Lord Voss."
Darian blinked.
"I hadn't even spoken yet."
"You were about to."
"...I was."
The larger man grimaced.
"That is beside the point."
"It usually is."
Darian leaned forward.
"It ends here."
His voice echoed through the tent.
"Those things nearly destroyed the kingdom."
"They infected our soldiers."
"They spoke."
"They thought."
"They deserve nothing except fire."
He pointed toward the reinforced specimen containers stacked along the rear wall.
"Every one of those should be burned."
"No more experiments."
"No more dissections."
"No more preserving monsters."
Logos answered before the final word had stopped echoing.
"No."
One word.
Utterly calm.
Darian stared.
"...That is your entire response?"
"For the moment."
The room remained silent.
Logos folded his hands together.
"They represent an entirely undocumented biological phenomenon."
"My work has only begun."
The sentence landed like a hammer.
"They tried to kill you!" Darian snapped.
"They failed."
To Logos—
That settled the matter.
To everyone else—
It somehow made things worse.
Darian slowly rubbed his forehead.
"...Do you ever listen to yourself?"
"I do."
"No."
"You hear words."
"You don't hear meaning."
Logos tilted his head.
"Explain."
"They nearly ended every life in this camp."
"They transformed men into monsters."
"They forced us to burn our own comrades."
"And your conclusion..."
He pointed again toward the sealed containers.
"...is that you require additional samples."
Silence.
Long enough that even the lantern flames became noticeable.
Then—
The Arch-Prelate spoke.
"Baron."
Logos looked toward him.
"Yes?"
"You understand why Lord Voss objects."
"I do."
That answer surprised everyone.
Even Darian.
"You do?"
Logos nodded.
"Perfectly."
He looked toward the specimen containers.
"They are horrifying."
"They should be."
A brief pause.
"I find them horrifying as well."
This time—
Even Kleber looked up.
Logos continued quietly.
"I have studied engineering."
"Alchemy."
"Medicine."
"Magic."
"Natural philosophy."
"I can explain each according to its own principles."
He looked back toward the containers.
"I cannot explain those."
The admission settled heavily.
"If we destroy every specimen..."
"...the next time this appears, we begin from ignorance."
Sous folded his arms.
"You believe there will be another."
"I do."
"Why?"
"The intelligence beneath Carine was unique."
Logos shook his head.
"No."
"It was merely the first."
He rested one hand upon the table.
"Assuming uniqueness from a single observation is intellectually dishonest."
Another pause.
"It would also be strategically irresponsible."
Darian opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because—
For the first time—
He realized he wasn't arguing against research.
He was arguing against the man conducting it.
The Arch-Prelate noticed immediately.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
"Lord Voss."
Darian looked toward him.
"What troubles you?"
Silence.
Finally—
"The way he thinks."
Everyone looked toward him.
"He speaks about people the same way he speaks about engines."
"He dissects monsters while they are still speaking."
"He smiles when discovering something that should terrify any sane person."
"And after all this..."
He looked directly at Logos.
"...he still wants more."
Nobody answered.
Because nobody could honestly deny it.
For several moments—
Logos remained silent.
Then—
"Very well."
Every head turned.
"I am willing to compromise."
Mirelle narrowed her eyes immediately.
"...What is the catch?"
"There is none."
Then Logos added,
"I merely require several concessions."
Adrean sighed.
"There it is."
Even the Arch-Prelate smiled.
The negotiation had begun.
Logos looked directly at the old priest.
"I wish to dissolve our previous agreement."
Silence.
Not uncertainty.
Recognition.
Adrean looked between them.
"...The agreement after the Red Tide?"
"Correct," the Arch-Prelate replied.
Sous frowned.
"You already placed restrictions upon him?"
"The Church occasionally notices unusual children."
Darian muttered,
"...Apparently."
The Arch-Prelate folded his hands inside his sleeves.
"Since the matter has become relevant..."
"...there is no reason to conceal it further."
He raised one finger.
"The first condition."
"Baron Logos Laos shall not knowingly create any weapon capable of destroying a city district or annihilating a military formation in a single action without first informing both the Crown and the Church."
Several officers exchanged glances.
A second finger.
"He shall perform no experiment upon an unwilling human subject."
A third.
"He shall make no attempt to reconstruct relic technologies dating from the Age of Wars without external oversight."
A fourth.
"And finally..."
"He shall conceal no discovery capable of threatening the continued existence of the Kingdom of Gab."
The old priest lowered his hand.
Silence followed.
Heavy silence.
Darian looked from Logos...
...to the Arch-Prelate...
...then back again.
"You made him agree to all of that..."
"...when he was sixteen?"
"I did."
"And he accepted?"
"Immediately."
Mirelle blinked.
"...Without negotiation?"
The Arch-Prelate nodded.
"Without negotiation."
Everyone slowly turned toward Logos.
The young baron looked genuinely puzzled.
"They were reasonable requests."
Nobody knew how to respond.
Sous finally asked,
"You accepted restrictions on your life's work..."
"...for nothing?"
Logos frowned slightly.
"Not for nothing."
Every eye remained fixed on him.
He answered with complete sincerity.
"If I had refused, the Church would have assigned observers to follow me."
A brief pause.
"They would have interrupted my research."
Another.
"Negotiating was therefore inefficient."
Silence settled over the tent once more.
Adrean slowly leaned back in his chair.
"...You truly do think differently from the rest of us."
Logos tilted his head.
"I have been told that before."
Outside—
The sounds of dismantled artillery echoed through the camp.
Inside—
For the first time since Carine Forest—
Everyone understood that the greatest mystery in the room was no longer sealed inside the specimen containers.
It was sitting quietly at the head of the table.