When we were about half a mile away, my HUD generated a holographic map of the landscape beneath us, tracing the main landmarks of the battlefield. There was a small town surrounded by a much larger tent city sprawled out behind the western half of the wall, which was bounded by the dam and its lake to the north. The structures on the islands to the east were the logistical buildings that allowed the defense to produce different Mass Combat units. On a promontory that jutted out between the two largest waterfalls was a towering star-shaped fortress: Korona Fortress, the headquarters of the defense.
Korona faced the Endlar from the edge of the cliff wall, where had a commanding view of the barren, muddy hellhole the war had made of the swampland in front of it. About eight hundred yards of No Man’s Land lay between the Prezyemi Line and the edge of the drowned woods, all of it mud studded with the wreckage of abandoned farms and a village. As I was taking all this in, I noticed a side-quest alert. I leaned up on the saddle and swiped it in.
New Quest: Survey the Line
You have reached the place where Myszno’s fate shall be decided: the Prezyemi Line. To learn more about the area, survey it by focusing on and labeling different features of the environment. The more thorough you are, the better knowledge you will gain.
Reward: Skill EXP, Knowledge (Grade Varies)
E, X and P: my favorite letters. I accepted, and a ticker appeared in the HUD overlay. I leaned to the right to get Karalti to drop a wingtip and began counting. Each time I spotted something, a point was added to the ticker and a label was added to the virtual overlay. I dutifully marked off all the unit production structures, cannons, bastions, gates, siege equipment, the stone barracks and the militia encampment behind the wall, the bridges linking them, the strongest and weakest points in the defenses. It was like the JADE-IV holomaps we were given in the Army during mission briefings. Actually… now that I thought about it… it was exactly like a J-MAP, except that I didn’t need an augmented reality helmet to see it.
My experience paid off here. I was used to doing this exact task IRL, and after I hit forty-two tags, my HUD pinged.
[You have new knowledge: the Prezyemi Line (A-grade)]
[You have acquired a new map: the Korona Fortified District]
[Congratulations! You have attained your first A-Grade Knowledge! +100 EXP, +10 Skill EXP.]
A-Grade!? I’d never gotten an A for anything academic before. To my delight, a cluster of labels appeared on the map overlay. Including the name of the town behind the Western Wall.
I cracked up laughing. “Karalti. See that town down there? You will not believe what that place is called.”
“What?”
“Slutlava. I am not even joking.”
“That’s… not a Vlachian name. Or like… a name from anywhere.”
“No, it’s not. Someone used a fucking random place name generator, and those poor bastards down there ended up living in Slutlava.”
Karalti and I giggled together over that, and then I remembered that I had A-grade Knowledge I needed to check out. I surfed over to the ArchemiWiki, curious about what my survey had revealed.
The Prezyemi Line (A-Grade Knowledge)
The Prezyemi Line (Prez-yeh-mi) is wall of ‘fortified districts’ that separates Vastil County from Racsa County, the historic Southern frontier of Vlachian-occupied Myszno. Utilizing the dramatic geography of the Krivan Valley, the Line was constructed by Lawislaw Corvinus the Burned during his conquest of Myszno after the end of the -
“Hector! There’s an assault on the center wall!” Karalti’s voice cut the narration short, and my combat HUD jumped to life.
“Fuck.” I squinted at the battlefield, and sure enough, a straggling line of dark shapes were cutting the waters of the swamp. No sooner had we spotted it than the watchtower bells began to ring, and the defenses of the bastions along the wall came to life. I tapped the group voice chat. “There’s a small assault force attacking west, about 500 yards from Korona. Karalti and I are going in, you copy?”
Suri replied with crisp efficiency. “Copy that. Orozlan is coming into view of the Line now. Will advise crew of maneuver, over.”
“Uhh... roger? Over?” Rin didn’t have Suri’s radio experience, but I couldn’t fault her for trying.
“You can just say ‘Rin copy’, sweetie,” Suri replied.
“Oh. Sorry (-w-);” Rin sent an emoticon, which flashed up briefly on my HUD.
Snorting to myself, I looked back over my shoulder to see if I could spot the Orozlan, but then something out of the corner of my eye snagged my attention. My head snapped around, just in time to see a squadron of swiftly moving shadows slide through the fog generated by the waterfalls.
"Should we go back?" Karalti, who didn't have my extreme peripheral vision, was oblivious.
"No. Descend five hundred and hold. I just saw something."
The dragon tilted against the roaring wind and dropped quickly enough that my ears popped. As we leveled out, I saw the shadows again, and then the creatures that were making them: ten drity brown vultures almost the size of Karalti. They were sneaking up on the bastions that projected over the river by using the waterfall spray for cover, flying out of sight of the artillery that fired on the rest of the staggered assault force. Their target wasn’t the wall, but the sprawling camp behind it. Civilians, and-or refugees.
"Look sharp, three o'clock," I ordered. "Are we close enough for you to scan them?"
"Maybe? I think so." Karalti swiveled her head in that direction, and I smelled ozone as she began to work her magic.
"Ten bogeys on the refugee camp, holding formation from low 5, low 5. We’ll engage once in range." I rattled off the PM to Suri and Rin before the spell took hold, closing the dictation box just before my HUD pushed in the monster description:
Kalxat
Unit Rank: 5 (Level 12)
Faction: Napathu Undead
Health: 883/883
Morale: 110% (Flock boost)
Speed: 100 (Very Fast)
Melee Attack: 35
Melee Defense: 26
Abilities: Nauseating Stench, Spread Disease, Anti-Artillery, Aerial Charge.
Buffs: Causes Fear in enemy units (-2% morale), boosts morale of allied ground units (+2% morale), +20% damage to Artillery units on successful charge
Vulnerabilities: Vulnerable to Anti-Air tactics.
Terrifying undead birds of prey also known as Plague Rocs, Kalxat are hideous, huge vultures worshipped as avatars of Ensi, the god of victory in Napath. Intelligent and social, they work in flocks to spread disease and dismay using their foul acidic breath weapons, and their attacks can cause blindness, deafness, and uncontrollable nausea.
"Ten Level 12 monsters. Let's figure they get a bonus to attacking as a group, so plan for damage to about Level 16," I muttered. To Karalti, I said: "Think we're ready for our first dogfight, Tidbit?"
"Yeah! Roast turkey for dinner!"
“Kentucky Fried Vulture. Gross.” I pulled my spear off my back, just as my HUD chirped and Suri patched in.
“Second Company Dragoons are armoring and will assist with quazi once in range,” she said. “If you have trouble, kite the bogies back toward the Orozlan for support. Otherwise, kill ‘em dead. Over.”
"Roger-dodger." I banged the top of my helmet with a fist, then unclipped the safety straps that connected me to Karalti's saddle and knelt up against the pummeling wind. "Okay, girl: let's see if all this training’s paid off."
“Okay! Hold on!” Karalti dropped her wing and slipped out of the thermal, swooping toward the vultures as they dived at the fortress below
Chapter 12
There were three main factors in aerial combat that made it radically different to ground combat: gravity, velocity and altitude. It was a bit like rock-paper-scissors. Gaining altitude meant sacrificing velocity, but having altitude gave you some key advantages. For one thing, your pointy-stabby bits – spear, dragon claws, breath weapons – faced down toward the enemy
when you were above them. You also had the ability to weaponize gravity by diving. Diving meant sacrificing altitude for velocity, which was great if you needed to evade or hit hard, but reducing altitude put you underneath the pointy-stabby bits of the enemy. From my earliest training days with Karalti, I'd somehow known this instinctively - that aerial combat was, at its heart, the struggle for altitude and velocity against gravity.
“Diving in three!”
I bent over the saddle grips: knees tight, ass up, head down. “Ready!”
“Here we go! Wheeee!” Karalti folded her wings and almost lazily rolled over into a plummeting, arrow-like dive.
Gravity pressed me against her back like a huge crushing hand, greying my vision around the edges. A normal man would have passed out. No matter what fantasy soap operas would have you believe, getting on the back of something going and diving at hundreds of miles per hour with your head above your feet was not a good idea. Even with my head down, my magically fortified body had to shore up against the intense g-forces as we hit two hundred miles an hour, then two fifty. The gut-clenching torque felt like it would tear my tongue out the back of my head. The adrenaline hit was damn near sexual. I fixated on the target as the roar built in my ears, ready to jump.
The vultures swelled in size as we grew closer, and I felt the muscles of Karalti's body flex beneath the saddle - my cue to cling on with all my strength as she snapped her wings out to full extension. “Get ready!”
The dragon’s jaws parted, and blazing liquid fire boiled out. The stream hit one of the monsters square in the back, ripping a line of oily, sticky flames along its body. Before it had time to squawk, Karalti struck it with her hind feet, flexing her killing claws deep into its body, then flung it from the sky.
[Sneak attack! x3 damage!]
[Ghost fire does 1010 damage!]
[Gore does 216 damage!]
[You killed Kalxat!]
[You gain 115 EXP! Karalti gains 115 EXP!]
[Congratulations! Karalti is Level 9!]
The Kalxat’s head shriveled and its skull charred. It spun out of the sky like a thousand-pound hunk of charred meat. Karalti swelled in size as she leveled up, the saddle adjusting to fit. Even as she was growing, she rolled and pulled us away from the other eight pissed-off birds. Screaming with rage and confusion, they swirled into formation and chased us up into the air.
"Jump, now!" Karalti cried. “While we have altitude!”
My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear the roar of the wind. I tried to leap off from my sprinter’s crouch, but then I saw how far we were from the ground. As soon as my lizard brain began screaming, my legs locked up. Fuck. In Taltos, I'd trained by jumping onto enemies on the ground from a maximum of fifty feet. We were at around three thousand and climbing. I’d skydived before and loved it, but this time, there was no parachute.
“Hector! What are you doing!?” Karalti seesawed out of the way as one of the Kalxat shot past us, leaving a gut-churning stench in its wake. I managed to stay on her back as she swung back and righted. Breathing. Focus on your breathing.
“Sorry. Try again.” Sucking in air through my nose and teeth alike, I opened and closed my hand on the saddle grip until I could let go of it. That was an old stunt trick. If you can will yourself to open your hand, you can will yourself to lift off your bike. I looked down, and saw a pair of malicious, glowing eyes gaining on her tail. “Okay, here comes the next one!”
“Go! I’ll catch you!” Karalti's back became rigid, giving me a stable platform to spring from.
I had to trust her. I forced my hand open, got to my feet, and before I could scare myself into another freeze, I triggered Jump and sprung out into the open air like an acrobat. “WaaaaHOOOO!”
There was a thrilling moment of weightlessness, then the brief, entirely reasonable panic of being in free-fall without a parachute. But the Kalxat got real close, real fast. I landed on it with the Spear, plunging the blade into the Kalxat’s back in a blaze of dark fire.
[Jump deals 640 damage!]
[Kalxat takes +150 Fire damage!]
[You have been exposed to Terrible Stench!]
Suddenly, my fear of falling was pushed aside, because holy motherfucking shit. I’d only smelled one thing as bad as this monster in my life, and that was when my friend’s dog had interrupted our tabletop game night by vomiting up the cat poop he’d eaten onto the sofa. The stench was indescribable. All five of us ran from the room, coughing and weeping and retching.
Coughing, weeping and retching was exactly what happened now as the Debilitating Nausea debuff appeared. It was all I could do not to throw up on the inside of my new fancy helmet.
“SCREEEE!” The bird, bleeding toxic sludge and mana, bucked underneath me. I lifted up, then slammed down belly-first onto its back. One scrabbling hand caught a handful of stinking, oily feathers just before it rolled out of its formation with another short scream. My stamina bar drained with the effort of holding on as it see-sawed violently from side to side.
Karalti wheeled above us, executing a sudden hairpin turn that took one of the vultures by surprise. The bird tried to backwing, desperate to get away from the plume of sticky, napalm-like fire that slashed it across the chest and belly and set it ablaze. As it fell away, screeching in agony, two vultures closed in on Karalti.
"Left and right!" Seizing a moment of steady flight, I reared up, and plunged the flaming Spear of Nine Spheres down like a butter churn. It swung as the blow came down, and instead of driving the blade into its body, I whiffed through the feathers of its wings instead.
[Kalxat uses Contagion!]
[Karalti has killed Kalxat!]
“Kalxat uses WHAT?!” As greasy flames caught its feathers, foul smoke boiled up into the air - and to my disgust, the fire drove out a cloud of hopping, slithering parasites that blew into my face and clung to my armor. The ones that found skin bit and stung, and another debuff icon appeared in my vision.
[You take 5 bite damage!]
[You have contracted Grave Rot! Strength and Stamina will begin to decrease!]
[Warning! You have blood poisoning! -2 HP per second!]
Grave Rot!? For the first time in a long time, I felt panic: real, honest-to-dog panic. I was sick. It was killing me. Every instinct I had told me to let go, get away, claw the bugs off my skin.
Before I’d even started hyperventilating, the Kalxat shored up until it was nearly horizontal, then folded in the uppermost wing and rolled back the other way to try and jolt me off into the open air. I was suddenly pinned by gravity against the crawling mat of flea-like parasites seething in the vulture's feathers.
“I’m coming!” Karalti thundered down, slamming into the badly-injured vulture in a tangle of jaws, claws, and wings. The weakened Kalxat took two sets of talons to its exposed belly. It screeched, and then - to my horror - opened its beak wide and vomited. Karalti bellowed as acid and bile struck her in the neck and chest, and a disgusting, nauseating cloud of hot mist blew back over me.
[Karalti takes 225 acid damage! HP: 974/1199]
[Karalti is immune to poisoning!]
[Karalti is immune to Grave Rot!]
“Duck!” The dragon twisted her head around, jaws gaping. I dropped down against the vulture’s body just as oily white flames erupted overhead, engulfing the Kalxat’s head. Ghost Fire stripped the feathers and flesh from its skull. Its wings spasmed and then folded, flapping limp as the scorched, disemboweled monster tumbled bonelessly from the sky.
“Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” I dry-heaved from the smell – half-digested shit, now with the added aroma of burned feathers and stomach acid – but let go and threw my limbs out like a skydiver. Drag ripped me up into the air, away from the dead monster as it spiraled like a falling star to the waters far below. “Karalti!”
Karalti dodged the remaining Kalxat as they dived, one after the other, screeching and reaching out for her with hooked talons. She swooped in, snatching me up by the back of my Cossa
ck Harness with one back foot while I clawed at myself. Bugs were everywhere. Even in the places where there were no parasites, my skin crawled. The Spear hung from the securing cord around my wrist, dragging us down. Karalti was carrying this fight. I had to get my shit together.
The Kalxat saw their opening. They dived again, belching plumes of acid at Karalti as she struggled to gain altitude. The dragon barrel rolled to evade their claws and breath weapons while I held onto my harness with grim determination. “Use Split Turn! Get some momentum and throw me at one of them!”
“Okay!” Karalti roared, folding her wings and diving sharply just as three vultures charged from either side. She barreled out of the maneuver, struggling for breath, and then executed Split Turn, which allowed her to make a supernaturally sharp hairpin turn in the air. At the apex of the turn, she let me go. I used Shadow Dash, briefly dematerializing, and then Jump. The double dash landed me right above the Kalxat, and I hit my newest ability: Master of Blades.
“Tarn takhran, shitbirds!” I grasped the Spear in both hands, and as I did, raw power shot up from the weapon from my fingertips to my back. For a moment, I felt like a spider at the center of a freezing cold web of energy – a web which caught me in mid-air and reversed my fall. The energy divided, forming patterns like a great mandala of dark light, then contracted into six lances of pure Darkness. They were slender bolts of black deeper than the night sky around us, blazing with ghostly transparent flame. It was over in a second: the lances rained down on the screeching Kalxat, impacting them so fast they blew out the other side into clouds of violet, crackling electricity. Black bolts of it rebounded back to me, slithering over my body as I burned the rest of my AP and triggered Rain of Glass.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! The power was pure rage, sharpened and focused. I flung it out with a hoarse roar: a rain of smoking violet knives that chased the birds like homing missiles and shredded them apart.
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 90
