The visitors appeared to be satisfied, and Princess Alexis smiled at Dominic.
"You may move to the side. We still need you in attendance for the rest of this meeting." She explained.
Dominic wasn’t certain what his role here was supposed to be, but he stood along the wall between a pair of military officers who were taking notes on everything that had happened so far that day.
The next man that came in was wearing a Palace Servant’s uniform, and held a whole armload of documents.
"Your Highness, we have gathered the documentation on all the groups that were targeted yesterday. Seven of the ten Royal investigation groups were targeted, along with five other villages. Here are the details of the lineages and known alliances.
The top page is a summary for your consideration." The servant explained.
The Princess scanned the document, then paused and pointed at a line.
"They targeted Elder Brother Alex? How did that go for them?" She asked.
The Servant looked nervous, as they hadn’t memorized the information. But one of the soldiers stepped forward to speak.
"Your Highness. I was made aware of that situation this morning. As you might be aware, your Elder Brother just finished advancing his Trade Core as a Battle Mage to the Fortieth Level, and he specialized in area defence.
The attack on his unit was an infiltration attack, and nine assassins were eliminated without casualties."
Princess Alexis nodded. "So, the attackers had information on the abilities of the Royals who were with the groups, and the organization to target them based on their weaknesses. Were any of the Royals lost?"
The Servant nodded nervously. "The third and fifth Princes were lost along with their entire units."
The Princess sighed and made a sign of protection in front of herself.
"How did the other attacks compare to this one? How many forces did the enemy manage to muster against us?" She demanded.
"The numbers on the page are the relative forces. H stands for human, HG for Hobgoblin, O for Ogre, and G for Goblins." The Royal Servant explained.
Princess Alexis read the sheet and her frown grew continually deeper.
"So, the majority of the attacks were not by monsters, but by mercenary forces? Or have we confirmed that this is an attack by Dagos?"
The Servant bowed in terror at her anger. "That isn’t yet confirmed, Your Highness. The information wasn’t in the Royal Briefing."
The Princess glared at the stack of documents on the desk, then looked out the tent flap at the battlefield, which was still being cleared after the battle.
They couldn’t leave the monster corpses there to rot, they would poison the farms. So, there would be mass graves and cremations here, then again all over the region around the capital as the soldiers were commemorated.
"What of the situation at the Capital?" Alexis asked.
"The battle has ended. The attackers withdrew yesterday afternoon, hours before we got notification of the attacks on the Royal Investigators."
The meeting wore on, discussing details of the various attacks, but slowly Dominic was noticing that there was a pattern to them all.
If it was a planned ambush to get the Royals killed, they should have all attacked at the same time, except for possibly the assassination attempts. That would have made the most sense, and prevented the instance where two of the older Royals had managed to merge their forces to withstand two successive attacks.
Either the ability to control the attackers was limited in numbers, which seemed unlikely after the attacks on the Capital, or the same person was leading them all, and couldn’t be in multiple places at once.
If the others had noticed, they weren’t saying anything. Dominic also wasn’t sure what his position here was. They had addressed him as "Lord Sorcerer", which was much more polite than expected, but that didn’t mean that he had suddenly gained the right to speak his opinions in the presence of the Royal Advisors unprompted.
Fortunately, the scarred officer noticed his dilemma and called on Dominic.
"Sorcerer, you look like you have some insights. What do your instincts say?" He asked, causing everyone to turn and face the startled Dragonkin.
"The attacks don’t overlap. Going through the timeline, starting with the retreat from the Capital, through all ten attacks, none of them overlap. They were all done one after another, though the troops that executed them were already in motion.
I suspect that there is someone, possibly a powerful magic user, guiding the attacks." He began.
Then the scarred Officer began rapidly flipping through the notes of the man beside him.
"Ten minutes from the end of the attack to the start, roughly thirty to the next, then ten minutes to the next. They might not have been there for the whole battle, but it looks like when the troops actually engaged, the timing is right for a single General to remotely oversee all the battles." He agreed.
That changed the opinions in the room drastically.
The veterans were aware that there were actually items that would allow such a thing. One was a potion of suggestion, which would make it easier for a Mage to enter someone’s mind. Then, if they also used a remote viewing type spell and telepathy, they could order the leaders of each force in battle.
"Who was last?" The scarred General asked.
"The assassination attempt on Prince Alex was the last strike, and the battle here ended three minutes before the assassins made their move."
"So, the fake Archmage was most likely not the real mastermind behind the attempts. This should be reported to the Palace in person. When are we planning to move?" One of the other Officers asked.
"In three hours. We need to have the surviving supplies reloaded on the functional vehicles. We will commission the carriage maker here in Aramos Village to deal with the others. Staying here to have a single smith deal with it all will take too much time, and all of the members of this assignment will be needed once we are back." Princess Alexis insisted.
What he would be needed for, other than his work in the forge, was a mystery to Dominic, but with only a few dozen survivors, mostly still in recovery, they would have to borrow people from the newly arrived Battalion to drive for them.