Chapter 74: War Preparation - Supply Caching
The maps covered every surface of the Kaer Morhen planning room.
Trade routes, evacuation corridors, battle lines I'd drawn based on knowledge nobody else possessed. Each mark represented life-or-death decisions that would matter when Nilfgaard's armies finally moved.
"Twenty-five cache positions," Viktor said, reviewing the locations I'd identified. "Weapons, supplies, healing items, emergency gold. You want to bury resources across three kingdoms."
"Not bury. Position strategically. Hidden locations accessible to guild members during crisis, invisible to everyone else."
"The cost?"
"Eight hundred seventy-five crowns in materials, plus fifteen thousand GP in system resources." I'd calculated obsessively. "We don't have that. We need emergency revenue generation, aggressive contract operations, conversion of everything into preparation."
Viktor set down the map he'd been holding.
"You're asking us to bankrupt the guild for war preparations against invasion that might not happen."
"The invasion will happen. The intelligence confirms it—supply caches along invasion routes, scout networks mapping Northern defenses, diplomatic pressure isolating border kingdoms. Nilfgaard is preparing for war within the year."
"The Northern kingdoms don't believe that."
"The Northern kingdoms are wrong. They've been wrong since I first warned them eighteen months ago." The frustration leaked into my voice despite effort to control it. "We sent intelligence reports. We documented the patterns. They dismissed everything because accepting the truth would require action they don't want to take."
"And you're certain enough to spend everything we have on preparations?"
"I'm certain enough to risk everything on preparations. If I'm wrong, we've depleted reserves and need to rebuild. If I'm right and we haven't prepared..." I let the implication hang. "The guild loses people. Members, orphans, Witchers—everyone we've built connections with. I won't let that happen because I was too cautious to prepare."
Viktor was quiet for a long moment. His military background included war—he understood what unprepared armies suffered, what happened to organizations caught without contingencies.
"What do you need?"
Six weeks of maximum operations followed.
Every outpost pushed to capacity, every member working extended hours, every contract opportunity exploited. The pattern was familiar—we'd done this twice before for Kaer Morhen payments—but the scale was larger, the stakes higher.
[CONTRACT SURGE: WEEK 1-2]
[Contracts Completed: 47]
[Revenue Generated: 89 crowns]
[Net After Expenses: 62 crowns]
The members were tired from previous surges, their reserves already depleted. But they understood the purpose—preparation for conflict everyone could sense approaching even if official sources denied it. The motivation held.
[CONTRACT SURGE: WEEK 3-4]
[Contracts Completed: 52]
[Revenue Generated: 97 crowns]
[Net After Expenses: 68 crowns]
Halfway through, the treasury showed 130 crowns accumulated. Insufficient for the full cache network, but progress toward the target.
I supplemented contract revenue with system shop conversions—purchasing healing potions with accumulated GP commission, selling them for crowns through merchant contacts. The conversion rate was inefficient but necessary.
[GP CONVERSION: 15 potions sold]
[Revenue: 90 crowns]
[GP Cost: 750]
[Current GP Balance: -14,070]
[CONTRACT SURGE: WEEK 5-6]
[Contracts Completed: 58]
[Revenue Generated: 112 crowns]
[Net After Expenses: 78 crowns]
The final accounting showed 298 crowns in treasury—short of the 875 crown target, but enough for the critical caches when combined with GP-sourced supplies.
"We'll create twenty caches with available resources," I announced during the logistics planning session. "Five more when funds allow. Priority positions along primary evacuation routes and Cintra border."
"You're prioritizing Cintra?" Viktor asked.
"Cintra will fall first. Anyone we need to extract from that region needs supply access immediately after invasion begins."
"That's... specific prediction for someone working from general intelligence."
"Call it informed analysis. The geography favors Nilfgaardian assault on Cintra as opening move—they're positioned along the southern border, the kingdom is isolated diplomatically, and conquering it gives staging ground for Northern advance." All true, even if my certainty came from knowledge I couldn't explain. "We prepare accordingly."
The cache positioning took two months of careful work.
Teams deployed to each location—always small groups, always at night or during low-traffic periods, always using approaches that wouldn't be observed. The supplies were buried in waterproofed containers, hidden in abandoned structures, concealed in natural formations.
Each cache contained:
[STANDARD CACHE CONTENTS]
[- Weapons: Steel sword, silver dagger, crossbow with bolts]
[- Healing: 4 Minor Healing Potions (system-sourced)]
[- Food: Preserved rations for 10 days]
[- Gold: 8 crowns emergency funds]
[- Equipment: Rope, fire-starting kit, basic tools]
[- Communication: Emergency beacon (signal only)]
[Cost Per Cache: 43 crowns + 200 GP]
[Total Investment: 860 crowns + 4,000 GP]
The locations were marked in my mental map using Resource Scanner's permanent memory function—I could detect caches anywhere within range, eliminating need for physical maps that might fall into enemy hands.
Outpost leaders received encrypted location codes for caches in their regions, memorized rather than written. The redundancy ensured cache access even if individual leaders were killed or captured.
"This is the most paranoid preparation I've ever seen," Mira observed, helping me verify the final cache placement near Oxenfurt. "Twenty hidden supply points, positioned for war scenarios you've predicted in detail."
"Paranoid preparation is the kind that saves lives when normal preparation fails."
"And if the war doesn't come?"
"Then we've buried supplies we can retrieve later. The potions don't expire, the weapons don't rust in sealed containers, the gold is still gold." I marked the final location on my internal map. "The cost is sunk regardless. The question is whether we'll need what we've prepared."
"You're certain we will."
"I'm certain enough to spend everything on it. Draw your own conclusions."
The last five caches went into position during the final week of winter.
These were the most critical locations—positioned along the route between Cintra and Redania, the evacuation corridor that refugees would flood when invasion began.
"When Ciri runs, she'll need supplies. When Calanthe falls, survivors will flee north. When the kingdoms burn, these caches might be the difference between escape and capture."
I placed the final cache personally—buried in a forest clearing three days' travel north of Cintra, marked by distinctive rock formation that would be recognizable to anyone with the location code.
The container sank into the earth, its contents invisible to anyone without the system's detection capability. Twenty caches total, positioned across Northern kingdoms, containing supplies for survival during the chaos to come.
[CACHE NETWORK: COMPLETE]
[Total Caches: 20]
[Coverage: Primary evacuation routes, Cintra border, strategic crossroads]
[Detection Method: Resource Scanner (Finn only)]
[Access Codes: Distributed to outpost leaders (memorized)]
[Treasury Status: 24 crowns (depleted)]
[GP Status: -14,820 (rebuilding from commission)]
The guild was essentially bankrupt—treasury empty, GP massively negative, reserves exhausted. But the preparation was complete.
"Eight months," I said to the empty forest. "Eight months until Cintra falls. Eight months until everything I've built gets tested."
The walk back to the nearest teleportation point felt longer than it should have.
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