ORIGIN

Vargas's response, prompt, was likewise best described as "boomed:" something, it seemed, the old Masters had liked in their Valkhounds. "Yes? -Here. And yes."

He was already approaching, his lanky stride bringing him in sight quite quickly. He offered a dip of his head, though one of his eyes was closed, wounded and perhaps healing. "Overseer Tectus. What brings you to Draco?" was his extended greeting, given with both professional respect and a demeanor of authority.

Vargas nodded once, then listened to the report. When Tectus briefly trailed off, seeking polite phrasing, he barely suppressed a quiet snort of laughter. With them sleeping on the job, you mean, he thought, but that would also be accusatory, and he wanted to watch his words.

When Tectus had finished, he took a moment to mull it all over, thinking over what she'd said. It would ease his work, certainly. His goals had been to restart the Nest as a whole, and he'd been struggling with creating and enforcing, training and supervising. He still didn't have enough Overseers of his own to delegate the latter three tasks to. One had gone to shit, so to speak. The other was a trainer and supervisor of only a single faction. So perhaps Tectus could help with all of this--and he could offer aid in turn.

"It will be good to have more of us working toward our goals. Let me see. Congratulations, first, on being selected by Aethril for your position. I can certainly suggest directions the Chaos Forge cannot or should not handle on its own; for example, I do not have the numbers to both patrol the caves and protect the Womb." He needed them here, most of the time. And some could not yet be trusted to roam freely. "Few of them are builders, either. Hmm. You speak of the infestation. That was our next task, as well; we might coordinate on that, and take the battle to them. Let us begin there. Let me tell you what I know of the Hive here, and what my plans were, if you have the time?" He hated the idea that a good Overseer might go in blind, knowing what he did of its dangers. And he didn't think Aethril actually knew how damn entrenched they were.

"Tell me when, and I will ask for volunteers. For now, I have been asked to have the Forge sit on Canis; it is cleansed and we are ensuring it is not retaken."

Vargas, nodding along to Tectus's summary of Ursa's situation, interrupted the gesture with as much of a grimace as his rigid face could manage. "That is part of it. The venom is bad, yes, and we do assume that's how it works." He hadn't ever verified it. The most they'd been told of were statues found that were clearly the now-dead. "But the Hive has... 'recruited' the Lessers in Ursa as well. Infested them with the Hive, and now their queen controls them. Most of them. That includes the Ice Worms. Do you remember them-? Or Hydra's Sand Worms, if you ever observed a Trial? They sense vibration, and tunnel very, very fast. They are enormous, and will come up beneath a victim. In Hydra they do this as ambush hunters. In Ursa, they are soldiers of an army. We also have no idea where exactly the Hive is. I am a Master now and could tell you where the Clearstones are, but the problem with Ursa is that they are everywhere. The nest extends throughout the underground of the cave. So we will need to dig them out and move through, tunnel by tunnel, clearing their soldiers as we go, while at the same time fending off the Ice Worms. To make things worse," he went on--he knew the Hive post-dated Tectus by some centuries--"the soldiers are the largest creatures that can fit easily in those tunnels. The tunnels are half my height. I trust you see the problem," he went on, with a grimace.

Tectus was smart enough, strategic enough (he believed, anyway), that she should be able to see the typical scenario: tunnels far too small for the majority of Valkhounds, ones they'd need to very slowly dig through bit by bit, all the while watching their backs and flanks for attack and their everywhere for the sudden appearance of Ice Worms.

"Those of the Hive also do not bleed. That is not only something that makes them harder to kill, but they explode when killed. Like small bombs, with shrapnel. And it means they are immune to many things: we cannot wipe them out easily with poison or disease. They have no blood to carry it. And below ground, there is no light. The Hive is used to fighting in darkness." Vargas sighed.

"Since they are all hidden in these tunnels, we have little idea of their numbers. I cannot tell which of the clearstone pieces I sense are workers, soldiers, or created Lessers, or what have you. We must assume the worst: that there are hundreds at a minimum. My plan was to host training in regards to combat in confined spaces. In those tunnels, numbers will only matter inasmuch as who has more to throw away; you cannot fight side-by-side, there. If we had something like a disease that could spread among them, it would be easier. But that is made more difficult by their lack of blood. We might collapse the tunnels, but that is no guarantee they will die: they might simply dig their way out, or summon an Ice Worm to help them. We can try to lure them out but their queen will not come, and it is her we must destroy. And no assassin would make it to her. Those not of the Hive cannot pass through their tunnels, and their Hivemind ensures they cannot foster spies." He sighed again, wistful and irritated. If it were easy they'd have done it by now, but there was a reason even Astraea had mostly left it alone after the single disastrous attempt.

"I think it will have to be a war of attrition. We kill every single plant and Lesser on the surface; we dig out the tunnels nearest the surface and kill everything within, and then collapse them. We leave one or two open and sit on them. And once they are starved out and chrysalized, we head in and shatter their stones. I see no way to assault it en masse."

"They build their numbers, but Ursa can only support so many," he pointed out. "The plant life is limited and they would need to begin to cannibalize their Lessers. Not that I plan to wait overmuch, but we are pushing them back, and I would rather not rush and lose Valkhounds. And on that note," he added, with a note of amusement on his tone, "I will shortly be hatching and training two specialists on the topic." Coincidental, really, that Tectus had arrived so soon after the designs had been formulated, but it worked well nevertheless. "One is designed to overwrite their Order with Chaos. It will destroy them or convert them to our side. The other is designed to take back over areas that are tainted by their mold. If you wish, once I have offered that one basic combat training, it might aid you in Eridanus. Its powers will not be as useful in Ursa."

Vargas considered. He sat down, an awkward hunch, the claws of one forelimb tapping the warm, black rock underfoot.

"You know my history, I think. An Overseer relegated to solo hunting and stalking, and later, to assessing designs in Hydra and disposing of failures there too. That does not make me an experienced war-leader or a strategist. So take my plans with a grain of salt and by all means, suggest improvements," and here he made an invitational gesture with one hand. "But my opinion on Ursa is that we will need to siege it in the long-term. When I speak of attrition, I am thinking of a very real, full-on assault, but the sort where we build our own barricades. Where we deny them food, corrupt their water sources, corrupt the earth around their tunnels, and kill any desperates who try and flee. And when none are left awake below, then we delve down and slaughter them." He paused. "No doubt they may try to mount a coordinated defense at some point. A desperate break-out. We would need to be prepared for that: that would be the war most might imagine. Do not repeat this to anyone, Overseer," he added, with the first hint of actual, forbidding authority in his tone. "The Hive has subjugated Lessers throughout the cave to act as hidden spies. So... Not a word to anyone. No matter how safe you think it may be. If anyone asks of any plans, you tell them I have forbidden you to speak of it: they may find me here, in Draco, away from Order's spies. But here, where it is safe, tell me what you think of such a plan."

"An outside suggestion. And let us not praise the design until I know that it works." Vargas's tone held amusement--a self-deprecating humor, rather than anything even remotely resembling reproach.

He was, after all, still very new to this whole "creation" business.

"A choke-point. Good, yes." He considered, and then nodded. "I did try to put my best assassin--Overseer Cain--on watching them. The cold makes that problematic, but I have been considering creating a few that are identical to the Lessers in that cave. Because the Lessers already in there are spies in and of themselves. But I suppose it does not matter if they see us watching. And that plan would take time." He tapped his claws on the rock, thinking.

"Who do you have, so far, and what are their abilities? It would be good for me to know yours, and you to know mine. And perhaps I can offer a creation or two to fill any niches you have unfilled, or point you toward useful bloodlines. The... 'Gembounds' in the caves, while often useless, still hold some more powerful families here and there you might be able to make use of--if you can convince members to join your or to lend your stones. I had to build the Forge from scratch, and most of those were created from the Gembounds' lines," he explained. And those had turned out quite well. The Sentinel, Onyx-Three, Khavur, Cain--either Gembounds or creatures not of Chaos, and all had surpassed his expectation.

In any case, it might have seemed an abrupt change of topic, but to Vargas, it tied in: he had to think about who to set as watchers, and he needed to know if he might cooperate with Tectus and her budding group in that regard.

"And does your militia yet have a name?" he asked, glancing up, as an afterthought.