Felicity's Beas Chapter 120: Report

Chapter 120: Report

Ivan, Victor, Marx, and Sarge were brought to Vineyard’s command room.

The space had once been a large apartnt living room in the residential tower that Vineyard had converted into its administrative center. Whatever softness had once existed there had long since been stripped away. The couches and rugs were gone. The walls were covered with pinned maps layered over one another, so printed, others hand drawn and annotated in charcoal and marker. Patrol routes crossed the city in dense overlapping lines. Red circles marked recent sightings of infected movent. Supply corridors were highlighted in yellow where escorts were required.

Two long tables had been pushed together in the center of the room. The surface was cluttered with open notebooks, rolled maps, and stacks of patrol logs thick enough to look like bricks.

The windows had been reinforced from the inside with welded tal lattice and several layers of heavy plastic sheeting. Morning light pushed through the barriers in a dull gray haze that flattened the room’s colors. Dust hung in the air like fine smoke.

The place no longer resembled a living space.

It resembled a command bunker.

Rose was Vineyard’s official leader, but she was not present for this eting.

Her absence was not explained.

Instead the discussion was led by the man responsible for Vineyard’s patrol command and security forces. He sat at the head of the table with the quiet certainty of soone accustod to being obeyed.

He was a tall, broad shouldered beastman with dark fur along his jaw and temples that had begun to show threads of gray. His forearms rested on the table as Snow Team entered, thick fingers loosely clasped together. The posture was relaxed but deliberate.

Even before he spoke, his position in the room made sothing clear.

Rose held the title.

He handled the survival. His gaze moved slowly across Snow Team as they stepped inside.

Not hostile.

Careful.

First Victor.

Then Ivan. Then Sarge and Marx standing just behind them.

His eyes lingered slightly longer on Victor than the others, the way experienced hunters sotis study another predator before deciding whether it is competition or an ally.

Vineyard had survived long enough to develop instincts about dangerous people.

Snow Team returned the silent evaluation without comnt.

Victor’s posture remained easy but attentive, hands resting loosely at his sides. Ivan’s expression stayed neutral, unreadable. Sarge shifted a half step toward the wall as if simply making room in the tight space, though the position gave him a clear view of the door and both windows. Marx leaned a hip against the edge of the table while studying the maps already spread across it.

No one rushed to speak.

The patrol commander gestured toward the chairs.

They sat.

The eting began with routine confirmations.

Patrol strength.

Supply stability.

Outer watch rotations.

Those topics moved quickly. Vineyard command already knew the basic outlines of Snow Team’s capabilities and habits. They had survived alongside them long enough to understand that much.

What they did not know was what had happened during the mission that had taken Snow Team away from Vineyard for nearly three months.

Victor addressed that imdiately. He did not build tension, he did not soften anything.

His voice remained steady as he began describing the earliest changes they had observed beyond Vineyard’s outer patrol routes.

The first shift had been the ergence of what Snow Team began referring to as Scout class infected.

These zombies moved differently than the wandering dead most settlents had grown accustod to dealing with. They were faster. Not just in bursts, but in sustained movent. Their paths through ruined streets showed patterns that suggested awareness rather than instinct.

They did not drift.

They searched.

Several mbers of Vineyard command exchanged brief glances at that description.

Speed alone would have been troubling. Organization implied sothing worse.

Victor clarified that the scouts rarely traveled alone. They operated in loose patterns that resembled reconnaissance sweeps. They approached settlents cautiously, observed patrol responses, then withdrew before committing to an attack.

Testing behaviour.

Observation.

Mapping.

From there the situation deteriorated.

Victor explained the ergence of what Snow Team categorized as General class infected.

These were not simply larger or stronger versions of the dead.

They carried influence.

When one appeared near a roaming horde, the infected around it began to behave differently. Their movents aligned. Attack routes ford. Instead of a chaotic surge, the horde advanced in loose formations that attempted to surround rather than overwhelm.

Supply roads that had remained safe for months suddenly beca ambush corridors.

Patrol routes had to be adjusted constantly.

Territory boundaries expanded and contracted with a level of intention that made several of Vineyard’s commanders shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Sothing inside the infected population was learning how to organize.

The room grew noticeably quieter as Victor continued.

Vineyard had fought hordes before.

Everyone in the room understood how dangerous they were. But hordes that responded to leadership represented sothing entirely different.

Victor then introduced the na Byron.

Several people recognized it imdiately.

Fragnts of that na had circulated between nearby settlents over the past few months through rumor and half finished reports carried by traders and scouts.

None of them had heard the full account.

Victor explained that Byron represented a classification Snow Team had begun referring to as Commander class.

Unlike the generals, Byron did not simply coordinate infected movent.

He directed it.

The infected under his control responded to signals rather than simple presence. They repositioned mid battle. They cut off retreat paths. They shifted formations when resistance changed.

Marx added quietly that Byron fought like a predator rather than a monster.

It adapted.

When attacks failed, it changed tactics. When Snow Team attempted to isolate it, it redirected surrounding infected to close the gap.

It was not simply stronger.

It was thinking.

Victor explained how Snow Team had ultimately engaged Byron directly and managed to cripple it. The battle had been costly, but their combined assault damaged the commander badly enough that they believed they had destroyed it.

For a brief period afterward they assud the chain of command would collapse.

It did not.

Victor paused slightly before explaining the next part, because it forced them to abandon several assumptions they had relied on.

Byron had never truly been the source of the control they observed.

The real influence ca from sothing else. Victor described what Snow Team began referring to simply as the mist.

During the confrontation with Byron, a dense shifting fog had appeared across the battlefield. The mont it spread across the streets, the infected changed behavior instantly.

Byron moved within it differently. Not like a commander issuing orders, like sothing receiving them.

The creature’s movents lost their independence and began to resemble a puppet responding to unseen guidance.

The mist itself behaved strangely.

It lingered in certain areas.

It withdrew when Snow Team pressed too aggressively.

Then it appeared again later in entirely different locations.

Snow Team encountered it several tis after that first battle.

Every ti it appeared, infected forces moved with the sa unnatural coordination.

Victor emphasized that the mist never attacked them directly.

It watched.

It adjusted.

When Snow Team pushed back too effectively against infected under its influence, the mist retreated as if observing their strength rather than committing to a confrontation.

That detail unsettled several mbers of Vineyard command more than anything that had been said about Byron.

Victor admitted that Snow Team still did not understand what the mist actually was.

They only knew that it possessed awareness, that it could influence infected commanders.

The room remained silent for several seconds.

Then Ivan stepped forward.

The next part of the report had not circulated through Vineyard yet.

Snow Team had been sent to investigate a settlent several days beyond Vineyard’s usual patrol radius after multiple caravans disappeared along that route.

If possible, they had been ordered to retrieve any surviving civilians.

What they found there had not been a ruined settlent.

It was a functioning city.

Guarded.

Controlled.

The streets were patrolled by organized units. Supply depots were heavily protected. Entire districts operated under ration distribution systems and enforced labor rotations.

Authority was centralized under a rigid military hierarchy.

But the most disturbing discovery had not been the discipline of the city.

It was the population.

There were no won.

Not among the soldiers.

Not among the administrators.

Not among the civilians.

The entire city was male.

Ivan explained that the ruling force consisted of beastn who maintained control through food distribution and ard authority. Families had been gathered and placed under their protection, but the structure of the settlent functioned more like an occupied territory than a community.

At the center of that structure was a single leader.

Snow Team referred to him as the Supre.

Victor clarified that the Supre did not simply command the soldiers within the city.

Everything revolved around him. Patrol routes changed when he moved through the districts.

Orders spread instantly.

Food distribution and civilian movent followed directives issued through his authority alone.

Victor did not describe the confrontation that followed Snow Team’s arrival.

He only stated that the command structure maintaining control of the city had been dismantled and the civilians were no longer under that rule.

Displaced survivors had already begun leaving the settlent.

Vineyard should expect refugees within the coming days.

The room had barely begun absorbing that information when Victor added one final detail.

During Snow Team’s interaction with the city’s leadership, the Supre had taken a particular interest in Felicity.

Victor’s tone remained controlled.

The Supre had not treated her as an enemy. He had attempted to claim her.

Victor did not elaborate on what happened after that.

He only made one point clear.

The Supre was a powerful beastman who commanded absolute loyalty from every soldier under him.

Victor concluded the report with a simple recomndation.

The civilians had been freed.

But until more was understood about the Supre and the structure he had built, Snow Team strongly advised Vineyard to avoid direct interaction with that city.

Victor allowed the room to absorb the information before speaking again.

"If the Supre decides to expand his territory," he said calmly, "every settlent within travel distance will face the sa occupation."

He looked directly at the patrol commander.

"Including Vineyard."

No one dismissed the warning. Snow Team had not returned with rumours.

They had returned with evidence.

And the threat they described was no longer wandering chaos.

It was becoming organized.