annoying drawback to Blink’s excellent ability. He could not teleport someplace he had never seen in person. Once he found the door, he teleported back out to Varia and together with Lisian they left Melody to wage her war.
Varia never intended to win that war, his plans were much bigger.
Throwing Lisian's army against Markhato served to weed out the weak and cowardly. And while General Rondeaux's death was unfortunate, losing him resulted in the lifting of the mind control thrall he had the army under. That resulted in everyone not psychologically suited to Varia's purposes going home. So what he had left was an army a quarter million strong of blood thirsty killers eager to follow him as long as he gave them something to murder.
Looking down on his slow moving army, Varia found himself annoyed once again that he was forced to forego the convenience and speed of modern transportation to move his army to the encampment out east. The majority of his soldiers were unfit to be seen by humans, and too many were unable to fit in vehicles anyway. The ogres and trolls were too big, the wights and poltergeist were too ethereal and the gremlins kept shorting out the electricity everywhere they went. The only notably human portion of his force was Company Thirteen.
Varia did not like their commander, Connor Lot, but he accepted the young man's skill as a leader. Though human, Company Thirteen was just as deadly and perhaps even more horrifying than the rest of Lisian's soldiers. No supernatural creature in the entire army approached the level of depravity and evil of Connor Lot and Company Thirteen. Oddly enough, there was a camaraderie among the men that extended to the non human balance of the army. They just seemed to really hate their fellow men.
So the army walked.
As long as he could keep them from killing each other on the way, he would have a force to take to the Verge that would rival even the Milleytes Lux.
Trytohn expected Lisian to lead them to the gates of hell, but that wasn’t the plan. The army couldn’t even make it to the Verge until Varia could secure a safe passage large enough to accomodate them.
He had sent a message to Oberon, seeking an opportunity to woo the fairy king to his cause. Oberon himself had the largest army on the Verge. If he was more ambitious and less childish, he could rule the Verge in place of the reluctant queen, Cadence. But of even greater interest to Varia was Oberon’s ability to open passage to the Verge. Unfortunately, The Fairy King had refused to join Varia’s initiative… so far. Varia prefered to view the refusal as the first step in changing Oberon’s mind.
He had already made great strides with the Djinn, and was cautiously optimistic they would join his endeavor or stay out of the way. Add to them the demons he would collect after binding Trytohn and the Vergers he had already collected from the Soul Singer's Guild, he was confident the Verge would fall quickly. Especially since their soldier queen was stuck on this plane with Lyric and his demoness.
Lisian would likely need to be dealt with, but Varia was certain she would remain faithful until Trytohn was no longer a threat. The only thing she loved more than the Prince of Lies was herself. Naturally, that's what he appealed to when he struck this bargain. If Lisian helped him overthrow Trytohn, she would get the throne. It was a low cost deal for him, he didn’t care about the throne, he just wanted the army.
No significant opposition and an unstoppable force at his back. Soon, Hell would be his, then the Verge. Then with his combined forces he would grind the Thunder Monks into dust and follow
Sharon Kleve, Jennifer Conner, Danica Winters, Casey Dawes