Fragmentation of the Mind
((This one is a bit longer but I had an idea and wanted to breath life into it, I think it worked out nicely in the end, I hope you enjoy. As always I would be happy to receive criticism))
In a dimly lit chamber, somewhere high up in the higher echelons of the School of Necromancy, echelons here both in actual height of the building as well as pertaining ranks within this strictly organised military faction and home to those that sought knowledge about the School of Magic that dealt with the raising of undead servants.
At least it was often considered as the School of Undeath only, a misperception he had fallen to initially as well, before joining their ranks and learning of the many other things, admittedly not only the School of Necromancy in itself had to offer, but also the other more general topics that were taught within the compounds walls.
One astonishing feat had become his own since learning of the manifold of different weavings. It had not manifested itself in the early stages of his studies, however the more complex the weavings had gotten, the more ways he had found to manipulate each and every spell he so eagerly studied. His venture into the lower dark, investigating on the Netherese ruins there, had fueled this thirst for knowledge. Studying even more meticulously ever since, all the weavings he could aquire through whichever paths opened to him, had shaped his mind.
After a long day of a variety of new duties that required his attention, he finally found the time to sit down in solitude. The chair, more of a throne really, in Beldroin's office was not padded. Nonetheless it was quite comfortable, strange considering the hardness of the obsidian used to shape seating surface and backrest. Compared to the stools available to him in the laboratories and his own Chambers, quite the luxury he enjoyed, his hands playfully gliding over the smooth and pleasantly cool a finish.
As he lifted his head, deciding he had been distracted long enough, his gaze met with the large map, showing in detail the patrol routes the school had been strictly following for who knew how long. Some of the routes had been adjusted due to collapses of a few tunnels out of varying reasons but other than that this must have been the routes for felt centuries.
There was records for everything that happened in and around the school walls but he didn't feel like searching through the files, neither did he have the time to waste, slandering between the dusty rows of shelves filled with their well kept records, all cleanly tucked away, catalogued alphabetical and per anno.
[
A section of the archives storing most of the School's recordings]
Ontop of the map, a heavy leather bound book with few traces of use, it held the register of the School's troops and was usually only touched to cross out the deceased or freshly entered students and enlisted, or to cross those out again, after their timely demise, which was more often the case than not.
Besides this large heavily bound book lay another, much smaller book also bound in leather, it was used a lot more frequently as it contained the different squads, teams, companies and brigades and reorganising these was a nigh daily task so it seemed.
For brief moments he skipped over the large register, memorising names skills of anyone even remotely in question, then his eyes took in the brigands composition and structure.
Lastly he used his body consciously to watch the map, judging the patrol paths. It took some time to analyse the to be covered ground, the allocated ressources to do so in the predetermined manner of teams of four and systematically find flaws. There were areas that were connected, but teams were not patrolling them in such a manner they would make use of these intertwined tunnel systems, there were intervals where one team would patrol parts of an area and another shortly after reducing the effective ground covered. While he was actively thinking of these patterns, his eyes following paths marked in various colours, recognising the vast arrays of areas to be inspected by his troops.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, not far removed really, he still very much realised it happened, it just happened to be an activity that required non of his sensorial capabilities, he was going through the names he had pulled into his brains memory from the large register. Matching their skill sets to create team compositions of optimal diversity or highly specialised for a certain task they might need to accomplish.
Simultaneously also not requiring his body at the very least, besides his synapses that were routing heavy traffic, caused by the manifold of things his brain was processing. He arranged teams adjusted to this other capsuled task, moving their previous patrols in schedules that had not come to existence but in his mind. A sacrifice these females and males would have to make was their free time was now allocated differently, might upset a few, it hit him but the net gain clearly negated any of the minor downsides of his plans.
In this fashion he crafted a completely new system of patrol paths optimised in every which way possible. His hands had barely finished placing the markers on the map, as they began to write up the new team compositions for the hundred-and-thirtyfour members of his brigade and their duty schedules followed only just shortly after.
Since all of it had already, been processed while adjusting the map, his mind already began splitting onto other tasks at hand, well technically not at hand, as those were still occupied with the writing as were his eyes, assisting them in their task, just his thoughts however were already racing to the meeting with the knight captains.
Once this collective of tasks was completed physically, he went well prepared into the meeting with the knight captains, dealing with their scepticism towards this new corset he was pressing their troops in. Chains of arguments lead them to safety in an argumentative kind of sense, only to then completely pull the rug from underneath their feet, figuratively speaking.
The meeting took him a full twelve minutes less than he had calculated, as the complex interplay of his arguments apparently hit less resistance than he had anticipated to be the worst case.
From now on the Defense Battalion's sixth brigade would follow his creation of a patrol system, the High and Master Necromancers would quickly notice his achievements did they, care to look for hints of it by any means.
Should he be asked to adjust the entire School's personnel's schedules and routes, which would altogether amount for close to three-thousand men and women, he would require a lot less time in comparison, thanks to the already discovered patterns at hand.
A smile played around his lips as he stepped out of his provisional office, pleased with his achievements of this cycle and those clearly ahead of him.