Three days passed in the blink of an eye. At dusk along the Maginot Line, Happy Stick was warming up for the flashy high-speed flight and dive-bombing maneuvers he was about to perform.
Not far behind him, Thirty-Year-Old Smokey, who would be serving as the "bombing guide" tonight, was explaining the details of the operation to the assembled vampire players.
A ring of vampire NPCs belonging to the Shadow Intelligence Bureau stood around them. Lady Adele wasn't there, but her offspring, Dana, was listening intently.
Although the Blood Eagle Clan had shifted toward recruiting players to form the backbone of the family, no gaming faction could consist of players alone. For one thing, players simply couldn't handle tedious diplomatic affairs like dealing with vampires from other clans.
Even if you brought in a true role-player, learning ancient customs passed down for millennia and the taboos of every family would probably drive them insane.
That sort of thing was better left to the locals.
So after the Blood Eagle Clan was rebuilt, its ranks continued to grow steadily, albeit in secret. Nearly a hundred people had now become vampires under Archduchess Triss, each one carefully selected.
Most were fanatical blood thralls, and the Shadow Intelligence Bureau thoroughly investigated every one of them before they received the Embrace.
That was a joint order from Triss and Murphy, so Adele didn't dare slack off.
Tonight's operation was dangerous, though, so Thirty-Year-Old Smokey hadn't assigned the NPCs to the dive-bombing. He had only tasked them with escorting the players.
That was an important part of the operation, too.
The bombing would begin at the Maginot Line, sweep across the northern and southern fronts, and end at the camp in the west. They couldn't stop along the way; they had to finish the bombing as