The prisoners looked a bit confused at the notice that their official task for the first week of their lives as prisoners of war would be to help decorate the village for a celebration, but that seed to be much better than sitting in a cell, so they weren't about to notify Wolfe about their regulations on forced labour.
In fact, if they did, they were afraid that he would simply kill all the witches in the next group he ca across, since he wouldn't have any use for them. After seeing what one demon and the locals could do while working together with forbidden weaponry, they were under no illusion that there wouldn't be more losses in battle in the coming days, especially after the United World Army moved against the human nation that was mining in the War morial.
The Sergeants hadn't ntioned it to Wolfe, since he clearly wasn't allied with the human Grand Dutchies as they called themselves, but that was the primary reason that the Governnt had chosen to act now.
A bunch of vagrants living on the morial was a trivial matter, and though there were changes from the Fae Forest, many of them had accepted that as naturally occurring, and thought it was a reason to celebrate.
But when they had looked further into the matter and found that there were thousands of humans running oil drilling and mining operations within the boundaries of the War morial, there had been a moral outrage and near universal condemnation that the leaders had leveraged as a reason to do a full purge of the residents of the War morial.
Not that the rank and file knew most of the details, but the Sergeants were kept in the loop so that they could keep their troops on task and prioritize the targets that the governnt was the most concerned about.
Now that they were looking at this village, they were beginning to wonder if these 'vagrants' as they were officially terd, actually had it better than they did back ho.
They didn't have to wonder for long, though, as a bell rang in the spire and all the wandering crowds turned toward the building at the sa ti.
"What is that bell?" The grumpy Sergeant asked, with her golden eyes shining in interest.
"It's the signal from the spire that the dinner special is ready. They ring the bell twice a day, once for lunch and once for dinner to let everyone know that the nu has fully switched over and the new dishes are out and ready, while the leftovers are put in storage if you want them to go. We might as well go get dinner before we do anything else, then we will settle you into housing, and you can start work in the morning." Priya decided.
She led the group up to the spire, while Wolfe tagged along and flagged down a few of the witches from the operations departnt that he saw headed ho after their shift.
"Co join for dinner, I have so questions about current events." He requested.
"Of course, Mister Wolfe. We were just going for dinner anyhow, and we only now left the radio room. There is a lot to report for the day, but it seems that you are once again the topic of interest among all the communications.
Also, we found out that the radios that the Covens use are compatible with the frequencies that the United World Army uses, so once Ella found a decryption spell in the library, we were good to go. We've got full access to their communications, or at least the ones that are close enough to us."
"Oh, that is outstanding news. But first, did the Faerie and her Witch make it back ho alright last night?" Wolfe asked.
"They made it back late last night. Apparently, the Fae insisted that they keep circling through the mountains and destroying Cursed Talismans all day once she realized that they weren't going to be able to make it back south to where you were due to the presence of the Grand Dutchies air force.
They're mobilizing and shifting their forces in preparation to defend their oilfields, according to intercepted radio communications."
They took a table across the room from the prisoners, where Wolfe could keep an eye on them, but they shouldn't hear his conversation, and Wolfe got right to business.
"Do we have any indication of what they're going to do to try to get rid of the Witches?" He asked.
"They haven't said anything over the radio, but they have set up their extre range artillery units, and they've got all of their bombers on a five-minute flight notice, so I think it's safe to say that they're going to gas them then bomb them. Or maybe the other way around, since they like to take the Witches as slaves."
Wolfe had almost forgotten that part. The Grand Dutchies wouldn't be in a hurry to kill all the Witches, only to cripple them and take them as slaves. It was the humans who were with the United World Army that were the least likely to survive the coming days.
"Anything else of note?" He asked.
"Other than the ones that you were at, there were seventeen monster attacks on villages without witches present, all of which were successfully turned away, and twelve of the Cursed Talismans were found and destroyed. There is a chance that the other five were found by our air force, who were out with Fae assistance all day, destroying as many as they could find.
We didn't send out any ammunition today, by the way. You were gone, and we depleted our stockpile, but it should be alright. We're not finding nearly as many Cursed Talismans tonight as we were in the morning.
There was also one village reported missing, with no response from the scouts who tried to check in, but it's not clear if they were overrun by surprise while their scouts were out, or if they're having communications issues. The next shift should know, the news ca in just before we left."
"Alright, I will check in on them before I go to the munitions room and set things up for general use. Thanks for your assistance. Now, what's for dessert?"
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