Alexis stared at the note in her hands as the rain pounded down on the Manor.

"I should have seen this coming. But at least we’ve got another beacon point set. They set one early, and now one wherever they’re stopped for the night. Should we try to extrapolate the army insertion points from that? Or should we wait for more points to go up?" She asked the gathered Princes.

Prince Claudius sighed. "We should wait. We need at least one or two more points to give us a proper idea what the extents of the scouted area are. If they can’t give us to that, we can deploy to the marked points, but it won’t be a full encirclement."

"Was there any word of casualties?" Prince Russel asked.

Alexis shook her head. "They didn’t mention it at all. So, while that could be interpreted as zero casualties, they might also have not wanted to make them public."

The Crown Prince sipped rum and sighed. "We will have to assume that they’re safe somewhere and planning to continue in the morning, if the rain stops."

"If the rain stops is the caveat. This storm looks nasty, and even the airships are returning so that they’re not hit by lightning." Claudius noted.

That would make it difficult for the team to contact anyone, but it was critical to avoid lightning in an airship.

A direct strike was a disaster.

"We will send the airships out again as soon as the lightning stops. With some luck, we will get contact again before morning."

"We have the units ready to move as soon as the portals are set. The rifles Dominic made have been distributed to cavalry units. Not as many men as the Natural Sons, but it’s a start.

We’re also short on artillery, but your Royal Guards should have them, right?" Russel asked.

Alexis nodded. "Yeah, they have both versions of the grenade launchers, so we could spread them out if we needed. But they’re a bit tricky to use the first time, so it might be better not to."

The Prince sighed. "I get it. I just wish that we’d remembered to ask him for artillery before he ran off with the adventurers."

Alexis laughed at her brother. "Should we wager on his trip? Perhaps how much each of them earned? Or the highest level monster core that they come back with?"

The men all considered the wager. "How about a bottle of good rum on who is closest to the highest level monster core that they bring back?"

"Excellent idea. I suspect that they might surprise us. If there is any chance of finding a champion among the outlying scout teams they’re targeting, Dominic is almost guaranteed to have run into it already.

So, guessing something low, like ten or fifteen, seems too conservative to me." Prince George pondered.

Alexis sighed. "It seems likely that he will find at least an Ogre Warrior who doesn’t belong among the scouts, for sure."

They sat in silence as they reviewed the airship reports on what was likely to be found in the area. None of it looked too extreme, but there was a definite chance that they might have run into an Ogre Warrior, or even an Ogre Lord who had gone out to check on their underlings.

But most of the outlying region is just Goblins, Hobgoblins, and minor members of the Ogre Clans. But on the far side, there were some Minotaurs.

It didn’t look like they had made it that far tonight, but they would probably encounter them tomorrow. That would add a lot of level ten monster cores to their pile, but it was unlikely to be the strongest opponents that they encountered.

"Alright, I have my guess." Prince Fahad announced.

The others nodded, but Alexis raised her hand. "I say that we write it down, and seal the guess, then we will open them when he gets back and see who won. It will be more fun if we don’t know what everyone else wagered."

"Oh, that is brilliant. It does feel a bit macabre, wagering on it when we don’t know if they’ve suffered casualties, but the chances that Lord Dominic will be seriously injured seem low." Prince Russel agreed.

Fahad laughed. "Do you not know? Even if he is seriously injured, it’s probably not a big deal. The next time he kills something, he will just heal. That’s one part of the legend that is almost certainly true."

Alexis nodded. "His Arcane Blast spell has a blessing on it that heals him. As long as he keeps casting, he should be fine."

While the Royals placed their wagers on the team’s outcome, Dominic’s team was cooking stew in the Barony manor house and enjoying a warm evening.

"This is so much better than camping in the wilderness. It’s really shocking how intact this place is." Bella noted.

Dominic shrugged. "Most of these houses had self repairing spells placed on them. I will reactivate the one here before we leave so that it can be used as a command centre in the future.

The real danger was that we would have come inside and found that the whole place was full of corpses from the invasion.

Seeing that many dead can disturb people, especially when the spells on the house either preserved the skeletons or mummified them."

The adventurers looked around nervously, but Dominic shook his head.

"I looked already, the house is empty. Most likely, they either fled or the battle was in the yard somewhere."

"Well, we should set a watch schedule. Who wants first?" Wiz asked.

"Why don’t we take first?" Bella suggested.

Dominic nodded. "Alright, then I will take last. Who wants to take the middle watch?"

One of the gunslingers raised his hand. "I will take middle watch."

A warrior raised his spoon. "I will watch with him. Two at a time is better, in case something happens."

"In that case, I will watch with Dominic." Amie added.

"Perfect. See you all in the morning. I will put biscuits on so they’re ready at first light." Dominic informed them.

Nothing made a rainy morning better than warm biscuits and a stove turned up to take the chill out of the air.