Once the decision was made, there was no point in dragging things out needlessly.
After all, the enemy was already gearing up for war, so time was, as always, against us.
Still, despite Mordred being more than ready to go off to war, we still had to wait for the Ancient One to set up the battlefield.
I didn't fully understand all the magic going into it, but it was complex enough that even Merlin would be impressed, and maybe even challenged… yeah, the more I thought about it, the more this felt like something only Morgan could pull off.
It just had that whole feeling about it.
That didn't, however, mean that we had nothing to do while she did her magic; after all, going on a major campaign like that wasn't easy.
"We still need to figure out who will stay behind and protect the realm while you are gone, Your Majesty," Sir Agravain said as he stood beside me.
"Indeed," I sighed. "It won't be easy; everyone wants to go." I leaned back in my chair.
"And yet, we can't possibly leave the realm undefended, and the Enforcement Knights can't possibly stand on their own—not against such… unpredictable opponents," Sir Agravain reasoned.
"And mortals will be even less able… even the Veiled Hand can do little more than alert more capable personnel," I pointed out, and we both fell silent.
"I'll stay behind," Lancelot said as he entered the war room.
My head snapped toward him, as did Agravain's.
"Are you certain?" Agravain asked, surprised.
"I want nothing more than the honor of standing beside my king as we engage the enemy, but if someone has to stay back, then I will carry that burden. My oath is to the kingdom and to you, my king, and I would rather you be free from worry than have the glory," Lancelot said, placing a hand over his chest.
I looked at him, hard and long. I hadn't expected him to be the first to step forward. After all, he was right; he and all my knights wanted the honor and glory of standing beside me on the battlefield.
Still, perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised. Lancelot was, after all, someone who didn't hesitate to fight for others' glory. If I remembered correctly, his Berserker even had a Noble Phantasm along those lines—something to hide his identity.
A truly selfless knight.
Finally, I nodded at him. "Very well. Sir Lancelot will stay back. Though one knight is hardly enough, even with you, Sir Agravain, also staying. After all, I need someone here to handle the work while I am gone, and I trust none but you," I told him, and Agravain looked proud, and perhaps a little relieved.
"Yes, Your Majesty. I shall ensure the kingdom doesn't fall apart in your absence," Sir Agravain said with a bow.
"Even then," I continued, "the two of you can't handle it alone. With Sir Agravain staying full time within Camelot, and only Lancelot to handle any problems, it's still too few hands, no matter how skilled those hands might be."
The solution was simple enough; more knights had to stay. But still, the fact that we would be fighting so powerful enemies also meant we needed all the support we could get. So keeping too many back would be a problem; too few would be the same.
So we had to figure out the minimum amount of forces needed on defense, so we could have the maximum possible join the offense.
But without a good idea of what we would be facing on either front, it was difficult.
"Sir Agravain, have you had a chance to look over the information the Ancient One brought us about our enemy?" I asked. "If we have a better idea of their capabilities, we can better estimate how much force we need to leave for the defense."
"Of course, Your Majesty. The information has been very insightful," Agravain said, then took a deep breath.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It is… complicated, Your Majesty," Agravain said, choosing his words carefully. "Our enemy is not a single group, but many. And they all have different ways of doing things, but beyond the Hell Lords themselves, there were also listed many of their generals—powerful demons that would likely require one of the Round Table Knights to handle," Agravain explained.
I nodded; it was as I expected. So many enemies would have many different tactics, though thankfully, it would also make it harder for them to fight as one united front.
Not to mention that they were nominal enemies and had spent eons fighting one another; they were therefore unlikely to truly fight as one.
Not that fighting many different armies at once was much better.
I rose from my seat and walked toward the center of the war room. The great round table was already prepared: a map of Albion spread across it, as were a few small sections that represented the realms of Hell.
Those realms obeyed their masters; they had no truly set form and could be changed at will, so making maps of them was pointless. Instead, they were just filled with small figures of the enemies we would face.
Mephisto and his legions of demons.
Dormammu and his Dark Dimension—he was both many and singular. He didn't really have an army, as he consumed all things and all beings into himself, making them become one with him.
D'Spayre wasn't as powerful as Mephisto, so his army wasn't as large, but still, he had considerable forces under his command, if the intel from the Ancient One was to be believed.
Nightmare also had his demons, but they mostly existed in dreams and were heavily weakened in the waking world. He would likely only put up a token force and save his true assault for our sleep.
Despite my forces not being normal humans but heroic spirits, the lack of sleep would still affect them over time, since I had fully materialized them into real bodies. They still needed to eat and drink, to sleep and rest, even if they could last far longer than normal humans.
Satannish was a brute; he had countless minions, and he likely had the largest army… even if he didn't have too many heavy hitters.
Which meant numbers.
Endless numbers.
Demons could not truly be exhausted in the way mortals could. They did not fear death in the same way. Many of them simply reformed within their realms. Others clawed their way back through ritual and corruption. Even if their masters could not fully invade Earth, their generals and lieutenants certainly could attempt to breach it in fragments.
This would not be a single battle.
It would be a campaign of attrition unless we shattered the structure at its core.
I placed both hands on the edge of the table, studying the figurines.
"We cannot fight them conventionally," I said quietly.
Agravain nodded.
"If we meet them as armies meet armies," he agreed, "their numbers will grind us down. Even if we win tactically, we will lose strategically."
"Exactly."
Lancelot stepped closer to the table, eyes moving between the infernal pieces.
"Then we remove their ability to coordinate," he said.
"Yes."
I straightened.
"They are united by fear. Fear of extinction. Fear of precedent. Remove the instigator, and the rest will hesitate."
"Mephisto," Agravain said.
"Mephisto," I confirmed.
Dormammu was dangerous, but Dormammu was predictable. He sought conquest. He did not bargain. He did not weave alliances out of whispers and paranoia.
Mephisto did.
He was the glue.
Without him, Dormammu would turn inward toward his eternal hunger. Nightmare would return to his own amusements. D'Spayre would resume feeding in shadows. Satannish would tear at whatever lay nearest.
Their coalition would fracture.
But that meant our first strike had to be decisive.
Yet the fact that we could think of that meant Mephisto could think of it as well, and he likely wouldn't give us a chance to act freely.
"The Ancient One will handle setting up the battlefield, and Dormammu—that removes him from play," I said, pushing the figure representing him aside.
"The Ancient One will keep him occupied, at least for a while, and likely he will be focused on trying to break through her spellwork to try and attack Earth again. He can't afford to be distracted by something else.
So, for the initial stages, Dormammu is out."
"Nightmare is another matter," Lancelot said.
"He is not a direct threat, but he will erode us slowly," I said. "So someone needs to make sure he is kept out of our dreams."
"Who is best suited for that?" Agravain asked.
"Merlin would be perfect… but trapped as he is in Avalon, he can't help us… and when it comes to magic, we have none but the Ancient One on our team at the correct level," I said grimly.
"And she needs to handle Dormammu, which means she can't handle Nightmare as well," Lancelot added.
"Then we will have to rely on other methods. What we need is to secure the place we rest, and the people in it… a large-scale Bounded Field would work, or a blessed place—one where demonic influence would be weakened," I said, considering our options.
"Would an area like the scar in Mephisto's realm work? That seemed holy enough that even a Hell Lord was powerless before it," Agravain suggested, and Lancelot looked intrigued.
"Holy power is a powerful deterrent," Lancelot agreed.
I shook my head. "I doubt it will work. The reason Mephisto couldn't overcome the scar in his domain is because his realm was never meant to have holy and blessed ground. The fact that it happened burned itself into the foundation of his realm, as the one place hope remains… as long as any of the souls in Hell have even a single spark of light, of hope left in them, that hope will feed the scar." Or at least that was what the Ancient One and I assumed was the case.
"And within the dimensional gap, such a place would not be quite as effective, since it's not as alien to that place as it would be in Hell," I explained.
"But would a Bounded Field based on blessings not work? Maybe we could use holy relics to power it? This is, after all, a world with many gods and churches," Lancelot said.
"True enough, but the demons are not exactly helpless against it. They have their own methods, their own cursed relics that can cancel out the blessings, or corrupt them. We can't rely on that alone, especially since the enemy will not fight fair," I sighed.
"Then what do you propose, Your Majesty? We can't have our forces constantly fighting their own minds as they fight the enemy," Agravain pointed out.
"No, we can't, which is why we need someone to keep Nightmare busy—his focus locked on something else… that way, a Magic Resistance skill should be able to counter him," I mused.
"So, we need to find someone immune to Nightmare's influence… or at least resistant enough to keep him busy," Lancelot said. "Perhaps Sir Galahad? He has the greatest resistance to magical effects, next to yourself, Your Majesty," he pointed out.
"He is also among the strongest of your knights, my king. If anyone should be able to stand against a Dimensional Lord on their own, it is his time," Sir Agravain added.
I narrowed my eyes. I didn't like the idea… that any of my knights went to fight something like that… but in the end, someone had to do it.
"Not alone, though. Maybe we should send Sir Kay and Sir Ector; their Noble Phantasm might help," I thought aloud.