by Sean Oswald
“This is a battlefield, so it’s General. Now, how can Ernst, Gunidar, and I help? Tabor will stay with Jackson and Sara and some guards.”
“Well Krinnk will help guard them and perhaps one of the elven monks and one of the paladins of Shanelle would be a good guard,” Dave replied.
Both of the boys complained that they didn’t need a guard, but neither of their father’s paid any attention. “Okay but who is Krinnk?” Steffen asked.
“Me is Krinnk, Krinnk is me,” the goblin said.
“I was meaning to ask about that. What is a goblin doing here … or I guess it's more like a hobgoblin?” Baron Eikhorn asked.
“Krinnk is Sara friend. Krinnk protect Sara.” The goblin puffed up his chest.
Dave simply said, “I will explain it later, but you can trust him to protect my daughter and anyone with her. The big thing now though is that I need you to take command. You have more experience as a general, and I have only ever commanded small units.”
“This is your land and you know the people here, but I will be happy to help you with tactical advice,” Steffen replied.
After that the two men put their heads together, but with only taking a few minutes to discuss strategy, the elves were already pushing back the defenders from the wall. The defenders had not been fully manning the wall as many of them had been helping the wounded to the healing stations. Now that lack of strength at the wall was costing them.
Interlude 5
Altracia the dungeon drake
Altracia was furious. It was one thing to sense things through her connection to the dungeon, a connection which ran through the magicyte veins in the walls. It was an entirely different experience to see the burnt, cut, and pierced bodies of the drake hounds and other bestial warriors which she had evolved and formed through her growing control of magic.
Rage burned through her. Not sorrow or grief, for she felt no tender sentiment towards her minions. They were but extensions of her will. Her rage was reserved for the defiling of her dungeon, the breaking of her plans.
She hit the large room where her carefully designed trap had caught that arrogant elf. The smug, elven monk had thought he was too powerful to have to worry about her dungeon and admittedly he fairly bubbled over with the essence of life that she yearned to absorb into her dungeon. Yet careful planning had created a situation which would trap him, and so he had been pinned against her wall. The trap had originally been intended for the hated foe, a way to immobilize her prey in order to allow her the time to savor his death.
Now, however, her traps had been cut down, her minions killed, and she had only gained the life force of a single being, the human knight Sir Tradon. The rest of her prey were escaping down the tunnel. She opened her mouth, tilting her head towards the rocky ceiling and screeched out her rage. Then she made eye contact with them. That one. She could sense the stink of her mortal foe all over her. She was his mate. Her death would be sweet.
Altracia plucked at the threads of the spell form which had reduced her size to that of a horse. She was a magical novice, granted one with a huge pool of mana to work with, but still essentially a novice. She possessed power and even a measure of knowledge but no wisdom. Had that not been the case, she would have realized that unraveling a spell form like she had done was dangerous, but she had no such wisdom. So just as Mira had done before with Dave’s summoning spell, Altracia not knowing what she wasn’t supposed to do, did what others could only dream of. Instead of dismissing the magic properly, she instantly unraveled the spell form.
In response, her form bulged and grew back to its normal size. She perched atop the flat stone that was covered with the blood of minions and enemies and looked down the hallway. The prey was running. Most importantly, the mate and offspring were being carried away by the others. Oh wait. One stopped. Well, he would simply be the first to taste her breath.
Forest drakes normally had a minimal breath weapon. It was enough to kill a single creature or to spray into the face of a predator. Although, with no dragons here, predators were few and far between. Still, Altracia was no longer a forest drake. She was more, so much more.
A dungeon drake was empowered with the very essence of that ancient magic which made this place possible and energized by the raw mana gathered in the magicyte veins of the dungeon. Thus her breath weapon was also so much more. It was a full dragon-like attack.
So as her lower jaw unhinged to allow her mouth to open impossibly wide, she sucked in air until her throat and sides swelled like a half-filled balloon. She channeled the raw magical power out with her exhalation. Instead of the fetid breath of a carnivore, a fine acidic spray burst forth. Forest drakes could hardly breathe fire and live within a flammable place, but an acid breath was perfect for her. Now empowered by the magic, it burst forth creating a cone twice as long as her body and filling up the hallway from floor to ceiling.
Chapter Eleven
The troops of other states have their reputation to gain, the sons of the Alamo have theirs to maintain. — Jefferson Davis
Eris’ Rise – Dave Nelson
Dave enjoyed the brief but detailed conversation about tactics he had with Baron Eikhorn. As soon as the shouts and sounds of fighting drew too close to the town square though, both men knew the time for discussion was over, and now was the time to move. So they put the plan into action. Dave ran forward followed by Ozakai and Sir Morganthal. A part of him couldn’t help but worry about Emily and Mira, but that had to be pushed aside. He was going to be the rally point to the men.
The human and elven commanders were both professionals and didn’t balk at following orders in the midst of combat. They might have set things up differently, but Dave continued to believe that merged forces were the most potent use of their forces, and both the battle with the swarm and earlier defense of Eris’ Rise bore out that theory. Calls were made for troops from the wall to fall back, but they had already been engaged in a fighting retreat, so it wasn’t hard for them to retreat more and fight less.
The one part of their forces that Dave didn’t know a location on was Eisuke and the forest wardens. He was gratified when one of the men falling back from the wall said that the Hogo-sha shinrin was leading them in hit-and-run attacks strafing the flank of the advancing elven forces. Dave knew it had to be significant that, from what he had been told, the first attacking wave of the day had been from human mercenaries and now the second wave was elves. The two waves apparently didn’t merge but were somehow allies. Something didn’t seem right about that, yet he had to take the reality of the battlefield as it appeared.
He could now see the men retreating from the wall. There weren’t more than forty of them left, and the force pressing them seemed to be much larger, but he couldn’t tell for sure. The air around the attackers was clouded in thick mists which served to hide not only their numbers but also their arrows until they suddenly burst forth. Those mists had to go, but now he was busy setting up a line at the edge of the town square. To his left and right, his knights and their soldiers, church soldiers of both Mishpat and Shanelle, were all setting up interspersed with elven warriors and archers to form the final line of defense.
Dave found himself wishing that he had a good old fashion dispel magic or even some type of wind spell to break up the enemies’ protective cover. His archers would be far more effective once that happened, but fortunately he wasn’t the only one with that thought. Either on his own or at Steffen’s command, Gunidar’s voice could be heard
chanting a spell behind them. Dave didn’t have Mira’s sensitivity to magic, but he could still feel the energy being gathered. It stood out as a particularly powerful spell if for no other reason than the extended casting time.
While his men were still setting up and the royal mage’s spell was still building, Dave took the time to cast his own defenses. First, his new Ablative Armor. Dave was already in love with this spell and imagined it would be the cornerstone of the new direction his build was going. As
the crystalline aura of the first spell took shape around him, Dave immediately cast Minor Shock Shield in front of him. It would serve to lessen incoming arrows and also provide him a bit of punch back. His two defensive spells had short cast times so he finished them both before Gunidar’s spell went off.
As soon as it did there was a lull of quiet as if all sound was sucked up into one spot, and then just as quickly, the silence burst and a howling wind seemed to be all around them. In front of him, three small funnel clouds appeared and cut through the mist the enemy was hiding in. The air flow was created by mini tornados that battered against each other as the funnels moved in zig zagging patterns across the battlefield. Those same winds buffeted any arrows launched from either side, and both fighting forces were stuck staring at each other for a full thirty seconds. While the royal mage’s spell hadn’t done much in the way of damage, it had definitely changed the flow of the battle, and sometimes that was all it took to win.
Dave didn’t waste time and modified his original plan slightly. He decided to take a risk. If it panned out, it would be great, if not, well maybe he would be dead. It wasn’t his normal style to take this sort of risk, but his battle with the ogres had emboldened him. He felt like he was more than a match for the challenge, and so despite the fact that with the howling wind sound no one could hear his words, he began chanting Summon Dire Rhinoceros.
Just like before, Dave felt the difference in this magic as he used the spell form empowered with his mana to shape the very fabric of space in Eloria and pull the target creature through from a far distant place. Once again, he sensed a connection to a barren land of arid heat, and then with an audible whoosh as the air was displaced, a massive beast appeared in front of him. The men of Eris’ Rise knew about Dave’s previous foray into summoning, and so they were caught off guard a little less than the invaders, but it was difficult to be entirely calm when such a massive creature suddenly appeared.
The rhino he summoned was quite a beast, albeit not of quite the same size as the previous one. Dave just figured that was because there was a variable in the level range of the creature which could be summoned between 21 and 30. Still, the larger of the two horns on its snout was over three feet long and reached nearly ten feet into the air. At its shoulder height, the massive rhino was six feet tall, and its body was as wide as a car while easily close to twenty feet long.
Dave got an immediate notification:
Summoned Creature: Dire Rhinoceros Level 25
Health: 4500
Defense: 110
Attack: 85
Damage Resistance: 50
Fire Resistance: 180
Strength: 1269
Constitution: 450
Endurance: 20
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 1
Move: 60
Run Speed: Triple
* * *
Main Attacks:
Trample 264 dmg
Gore: 396 dmg
Special Attack:
Charge (2 stamina) 649 dmg 150% of max run speed.
Dave’s first thought upon seeing the beast was to be thankful that this one wasn’t a near max level one like his first summoning had produced. Hopefully a level 25 one would prove easier to control, especially now that he had gained several more levels. Before he could worry about that at all though, he received another notification.
You have begun a military-style event: Defend Eris’ Rise from Elven Rebels Part 1. You will only be able to receive XP at the end of the engagement, assuming that you survive. Should you be driven from the city, you will gain no XP. XP rewards will be reduced for every citizen who is killed. Potential Event Rewards: Faction points with Kingdom of Albia, Duchy of Holstein, Town of Eris’ Rise. Additional reward unknown and contingent upon the degree of success.
The untimely arrival of the notification threatened to undo Dave’s concentration, which was immediately tested by the summoned rhino. This time though, he was smarter. Dave didn’t allow that momentary distraction to cause him to lose the upper hand. This beast was disoriented by being drug halfway around the world in an instant just like the first one had been.
The difference being that Dave had expected that and asserted his will as quickly as possible. The delay caused by the notification could have been much worse, but his single-minded focus brought the beast under control with barely a fragment of the struggle he had experienced before. Still, Dave couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
By this time, Gunidar’s wind spell had died down, and the invaders had resumed launching arrows. The delay had spared many lives on the defender’s side as the human and elven units meshed together again. Humans held shields for their elven counterparts to have cover under. That allowed the defending elves to focus solely on the archery and not also on having to avoid being attacked. Dave gave a mental order to the rhino telling it to charge into the enemy line and then turn sideways working its way down the line. Not wanting to waste the impact the rhino could make, Dave yelled out to taunt the enemies and draw their attention.
The plan worked very well, and almost half of all the enemy arrows turned to aim at Dave. The elves may have been deadly marksmen, but in the heat of battle, they launched their slivers of death straight at him and almost all flowed through the shock shield cutting their force in half. Then his ablative armor did the rest. Even though each arrow was only hitting it for between (20-25) damage, it was still adding up.
He began to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew as he felt his health being chipped away as over forty arrows hit him. None did more than fifteen damage to him, but the damage absorbed constituted a significant portion of his armor spell and an even greater portion of personal health. The upside being that the ablative armor converted the kinetic force of the arrows into enough mana to almost fully refund the cost of the summon.
Just as Dave was fumbling to pull out a healing potion, he felt a pair of regeneration spells take hold on him, and a quick glance showed him the two priests in support. In that instant of looking at his shoulder, the summoned dire rhino had reached the enemy line and was wreaking utter havoc. It charged and every couple of steps swung its massive head to the left or right, hurling elves around as though it were threshing wheat. The arrows peppering its hide didn’t seem to be strong enough to pierce it, or at least if they did, they weren’t causing any real damage.
The battle flowed back and forth. One instant the invading druids controlled the battle with their fog bank, and the next, Gunidar countered their influence. For a moment Dave seemed to be doomed for a quick death, but it was countered by the devastation being delivered by his summoned beast. It wouldn’t stand for long though as a trio of enemy forest wardens leaped upon the beast and began cutting into it with scimitars and a long hunting spear. The weapons, whether due to superior crafting or superior force, were able to cut through the creature's hide, and it soon was more distracted with ridding itself of the source of its pain than with trampling the enemy archers.
Those same archers still outnumbered the Eris’ Rise elven archers, but because they were more exposed, a couple quick volleys of arrows caused them more casualties than the defenders. Before the invaders could settle in, they were struck on the far northern flank by Eisuke’s band of forest wardens and druids. It even looked like a couple of bears were fighting with them. That was bad enough, but on the other side, they were hit by not one but three distinctive waves of mounted knights.
First, the paladins and knights of Misphat rode through spearing enemies with lances and calling down the holy fire they were known for. Then as the southern flank started to break, a second wave of knights and paladins bearing the mark of Shanelle followed up riding through the broken ranks with long maces and axes meant to be used from horseback against infantry. The final thrust was from three of his knights. Though a much smaller group than the first two waves, they came in hard and fast and put lances into the chests of two of the rebels who were busy slaying the su
mmoned rhino.
Dave wanted to think that it was over, but he knew better. Checking his health quickly, he saw that the healing spells had him back up over four hundred health, and his ablative armor should still be at half strength. He raised his hands and cast lightning bolt. He felt the rush of mana through his body manifesting in a charge which danced along his fingers for the briefest of instants before flashing out from his hand at the speed of light. His will split it into two bolts rather than trying for a third, and the speed of the attack was such that it seemed to not even travel but rather simultaneously appear at his fingertips and in the body of the convulsing druids who were his targets. Their spell shields had dropped from the multiple arrows and flanking attacks, so they were easy prey for his spell.
One of the two druids must have had some magic or ring which increased his health or he had simply spent a good number of stat points on raising his Constitution because the bolt struck him and sent him flying fifteen feet through the air to land burned and spasming on his back. The same (394) damage struck the second of the rebel casters and burnt into his chest. The electrical charge stopped his heart, making it burst out of his body before falling to the ground. For an instant, Dave had seen through a fist sized hole in the man’s body.
The rebels were now in full retreat trying to assist their wounded and carry their dead, but Dave was having nothing of it. A quick cast Minor Enlarge followed by a Magic Missile spell, which leapt from his hand into the back of retreating archers, was his message of no quarter asked nor given. He drew his long sword and ignited its flame as he yelled out, “Don’t let those who would take your lives, the lives of your family and neighbors, leave this ground with their own!”
Ozukai and Sir Morganthal ran forward on either side of him to act as his guards and keep the counter attacks to a minimum, but both shared a quick glance at one another and had the same thought. Who is this man and what did he do with Baron Murkwood? Despite their confusion, both were good soldiers and accustomed to following brutal orders at times. Even if they had come to expect a more peaceful and forgiving approach from Dave, they weren’t going to question him, especially not in the middle of a battle.
