by Brent Tyman
“I agree,” Juliana said. “If we fail to contain the Ogres and they get loose into the town, then your defensive line would quickly fall apart.”
“Yes, yes,” the elder said. “But we have enough archers to subdue any stragglers, and my kin will set up barricades to block the streets around the west gate.”
“Even so…” Juliana retorted. “I still believe linking up with my own troops would be best. Only me and Alex, along with perhaps a dozen soldiers would be able to face the Ogres directly.” She shook her head. “That isn’t enough to fight very many of them at once.”
“Ahh… yes,” Anny added, idly fidgeting with her hands. “I’m fairly sure there are hundreds of Ogres, behind that gate. Things get a bit blurry, with the furnaces and all, but many hundreds.”
“You know,” I said absently. “If we wanted to even the odds, we could just dump the contents of the furnaces down the tunnel.”
Everyone grew silent as they all stared at me.
I blinked at the sudden attention.
“What? I’m just saying. Whatever you are burning up there must produce some kind of molten liquid as a byproduct, right? Even if it doesn’t stop the Ogres outright, it would push them back. I’ll take any advantage I can get in a fight like this.”
“Would that work, elder?” Juliana asked. “Can you bring those furnaces down?”
“Hmm. Perhaps we can,” he said, stroking the fur on this chin. “It would take some time, but we can bring a few of them down in the next hour or two.”
“Would we have to stand next to those burning furnaces?” Anny questioned, wiggling nervously in place. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“Chin up, Anny,” Clarissa said, flashing me a smile. “Alex’s idea is very appealing. I would love to see these Ogres run away screaming or end up with melted feet. Nice one, handsome.”
“Then do you agree to our proposal?” the elder clarified. “I assure you, this is the best plan we have to turn the tide against our foe.”
“And you promise you will help find my retinue after this?” Juliana asked, her face determined.
“You have my word.”
“I will hold you to that, and make sure you keep your end of the deal elder, personally,” Juliana said sternly. “We are agreed, then.”
There were a few other mundane things to go over that Juliana oversaw with the elder, such as where to position the troops and going over each individual’s strength, which I let her do.
My mind was awhirl at what would happen next.
I would be fighting Ogres pretty soon, and while this fight had much higher stakes than anything I had done in the Dungeon thus far—the feral Demons’ attack excluded—I was determined to see it through.
I had come far in this world and considered this next obstacle a boss battle that would determine if I would be able to progress any further. Needless to say, I intended to smash through these Ogres and increase my Strength stat to overpowered levels.
Perhaps, even game-breaking heights…
24
We all pitched in to help set up the barricades around the west gate. The Beastkin seemed to appreciate having some extra hands and the few soldiers we had with us quickly made themselves useful.
Occasionally, I looked up to see a Beastkin climbing the walls of this cave that the whole town resided in as they worked to uncouple several of the furnaces. Once one of them was neatly placed near the west gate, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek at what they were actually burning.
I thought they would burn something similar to coal, but that was definitely not what I found.
“What even is that?” I asked, pointing to the strange green liquid.
“That’s from a material called Notranal Ore that burns very, very hot, nyaa,” a cat girl said as she tended the furnace, stirring vigorously. She held out a small piece of what almost looked like coal to my eyes, but which had large blue and green flakes speckled through it.
“With enough heat, this ore becomes molten very fast, nyaa,” she said. “And it can stay molten for weeks in our pipes, nyaa, which are also made from Notranal.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Weeks?”
“Nyaa,” the cat girl responded. “We cycle them around town for a long while before we have to feed more ore into the furnaces, nyaa. That’s only because of the pipes though, nyaa. The heat will dissipate quickly, once we pour it out of the furnaces, nyaa.”
Well, I was relieved this plan of mine would give us bit of an edge. I had envisioned scooping up the contents of the furnaces and dumping it into separate pots for us to toss on the Ogres, but the Beastkin were bringing four entire furnaces down, which would probably be more effective.
Multiple Beastkin fed the furnaces they’d brought down with more of this ore, despite their claims that it would stay molten for a while, I guess they didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
The pounding on the west gate only increased as we worked, but eventually everything was as ready as we could make it. We had barriers that blocked off the rest of the town from these streets and four furnaces lined up facing the stone gate.
The Beastkin had arranged for a row of cat girls to stand on platforms with very thick gloves at the ready. Whether those gloves would be enough to protect them against the intense heat of the furnaces was anyone’s guess, but they looked determined.
“What happens now?” I asked Juliana, who had been organizing most of these efforts with the elder.
“Any second now, they will have the soldiers stop reinforcing the gate, allowing the Ogres to breach the stone doors. As soon as that happens, the furnaces will be tipped over. We will join the fight as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Juliana seemed a tad more nervous than usual and squeezed her shoulder before stroking up and down one arm.
“I’m fine, Alex,” she said, though a blush crept up her neck.
I raised an eyebrow. “Something troubling you?” I asked.
“No…”
“Juliana…”
“This whole endeavor has been a disaster from the beginning,” Juliana admitted, sighing. “I just don’t want you to perish, too.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “All that Defense training wasn’t for nothing, you know.”
“Even so…”
I took hold of Juliana’s hand and leaned in to give the brunette a kiss, which she returned whole heartedly.
“Trust me,” I said, when I regretfully pulled back. “We’ll cut down these Ogres, save the town, and be home before you know it.”
“Hmm,” Juliana said, nuzzling into my armored side. “I’ll hold you to that, Alex Augere.”
We stared in each other in silence for a moment before Clarissa approached, grinning widely.
“Having a nice chat, are we? As cute a couple as the two of you make, remember who will be healing those bones of yours, handsome.”
I laughed, “Don’t think I would ever be able to forget you, Clarissa. Get over here.”
Clarissa quickly leaped to my side, and I hugged her with renewed vigor. As always, she ensured that her breasts pressed into me and I grinned at her tactics.
“Hmm, so warm,” she murmured.
“I’m sure that’s just the furnaces doing their thing,” I said.
“It’s made your armor hot to the touch,” she commented. “Why the Beastkin choose to live like this, I’ll never understand.”
Anny blurred into view and waved her arms around nervously.
“It’s happening!” she shouted. “The elder says to get into position.”
We all nodded and headed to the spot set aside for us. I pulled out my sword and held it ready. Our soldiers took up their stations parallel to the west gate itself, and we stood amongst them as some Beastkin joined us.
Juliana and I would naturally be up front and center, while Clarissa would support both of us from the rear. Anny would help, finishing off any injured Ogres and quickly relaying additional orders and informat
ion as needed during the fight.
We watched as the last Beastkin soldiers abandoned their posts on the west gate, dropping their wooden planks and metal bars and high-tailing it out of there. The pounding on the stone doors became deafening once the Ogres realized there was far less resistance than there had been moments before.
“Here we go,” I whispered to myself.
My words were emphasized by the resounding crack of the West Gate buckling under the force of the Ogres wailing on it. The stone door split right up the middle before collapsing into pieces. I heard loud, monstrous cackles before the first Ogres came into sight.
The first thing I noticed was that these Ogres had muscular bodies with deep gray skin. They almost blended into the stone tunnel behind them.
Their faces looked like a mix between a human’s and a Demon’s. They had large mouths above a wide chin, with barely a nose to speak of. In terms of armor, these Ogres wore little more than simple loincloths. Most had either a dirty sword or a sturdy club that had likely seen plenty of action.
Many of them were bald, though a few did have small spurts of hair that hung limply on the sides of their heads. Deep set eyes completed the picture. The cold look in those eyes promised no mercy.
“Pour!” I heard the elder shout from somewhere further down the line.
At that instant, the line of cat girls tipped the furnaces towards the west gate, the ground groaning under their immense weight. I watched in fascination as the green molten liquid spread over the floor, stopping just short of the barricades we had set up to protect us.
The Ogres roared as they rushed forward, seeking to smash through the barricades before realizing the liquid was as hot as lava. Many screamed in agony as their feet melted and they tried to run back the way they had come, the molten liquid following them down through the ruined west gate.
The arrows were next, which the Beastkin promptly let loose on the Ogres that were stubborn enough to ignore the molten Notranal liquid. I had never seen so many arrows being peppered into such a closed space, other than in my RPG’s I supposed.
It didn’t take long for the furnaces to run empty and the molten Notranal to cool. Our plan had worked so far though; the Ogres retreated back into the tunnel, giving us an opening.
“Charge, for Valdura, for our home!” the elder roared, and to my surprise, he was the first one to dash past us and into the tunnel.
“The old Beastkin runs fast, eh,” a Hogannan soldier commented.
“Let’s go, ladies,” I shouted, gripping my sword tighter.
Soldiers, both human and Beastkin alike, poured into the tunnel like the molten liquid had before them. I could still feel the heat it generated beneath my boots, but it was not nearly as lethally hot as it had been just a few moments ago.
The ground didn’t feel quite solid, but it wasn’t enough to make anyone slip.
“How far do we need to clear out?” I asked.
“Only a little,” Juliana replied. “Just far enough for the Beastkin mages to do their work.”
I could already hear the sounds of steel clashing on steel as my eyes adjusted to the low light in this tunnel. Soldiers were already fighting ahead of us, and I found a gap for us to close.
An Ogre moved to maul me with its club, and I sidestepped and stabbed my sword through its chest. I was surprised, when there was a fair bit of resistance before my sword sliced through to the other side, causing the Ogre to fall.
I had to pull my sword out quickly to deflect an overhead blow from his buddy. My Strength, combined with my sword was fairly good against these opponents, but as I deflected the blow and returned a solid swipe to the Ogre’s side, the amount of time it took me to dig through their flesh was too much.
It left me exposed and open to all kinds of counterattacks from the surrounding foes.
I saw Juliana’s fireballs tear through an Ogre’s chest, one penetrating all the way through to smash the Ogre behind it. Clearly magic was far more potent than my sword.
An Ogre slashed at my shoulder with its sword while another swung its club at my side.
Clash!
I had only just stopped the first Ogre’s sword with my own before the club smacked into me. I grit my teeth as my armor repelled the blow, but by God, did it hurt.
“Alex!” Clarissa shouted behind me. “Here!”
A wave of relief flowed through me. As the pain ebbed, I kicked the first Ogre away from me. I was surprised when my kick tore through the Ogres stomach with such devastating effect that the rest of its body was propelled into a host of its kin, creating a sizeable space before me in the middle of the tunnel.
I didn’t have much time to think about it, as I whirled to face another Ogre with a club and defended against another attempt to smash in my side.
Crack!
The Ogre’s club strangely snapped in two when it struck my sword, wooden splinters flying everywhere. It stared at the stubby handle in its paw with puzzlement before roaring in rage and staring back at it again. I stabbed forward with my sword, ending the befuddled Ogre the same way I had done the first.
As the fight raged on, I tried to apply my monster behavior techniques that I’d used on other Dungeon monsters. These Ogres were dungeon monsters, I believed, so there surely had to be some kind of behavior I could take advantage of.
“Grr,” the next Ogre growled as I batted its sword back with my own. “Human. You don’t know… what’s coming!”
The fact that it talked startled me enough that when it tried to pull back and strike at my shoulder, I was too slow to stop it. The pain as its blade rent my armor felt like a monster had bit into me—while its strike hadn’t penetrated my armor, it had made a sizeable dent.
I barely noticed Clarissa’s healing magic as I swung my fist to force the Ogre to back off. When my fist connected with its face, however, its body became a blur—crashing into the wall at the far end of the tunnel, dragging several more of its kind with it.
Others were knocked down from the unexpected force.
“Jeez…” I muttered. “That damage is crazy.”
I guessed Juliana’s father hadn’t been joking when he’d said these Ogres were civilized, even if they didn’t look it. I noticed that they were speaking and making noises that sounded like words, in between all the roaring and growling they did. I figured this meant they had to be communicating with each other this whole time.
That was another thing.
As we tried to hold the line, I noted that the soldiers were simply no match for the Ogres, one on one. I managed to carve out a brief space after that titanic punch, where I was able to observe that it took two soldiers to down one Ogre.
This disparity was forcing our line backwards, a step or two at a time. Little by little, we were being forced back the way we’d come. Even the Beastkin, who made up the majority of our forces, were having trouble with the Ogres, despite their bulky armor and weapons.
“Alex, you need to step back!” Juliana shouted. I ducked as a fireball crashed through an Ogre who was about to strike me with its sword. I nodded my thanks to her.
“These bloody Ogres!” a Sovereignty soldier cried. “They won’t go down.”
“Stab’ em in the gullet,” another supplied. “And then keep stabbin’.”
I tried to work out any behaviors that had a pattern, but nothing really stood out to me. They either didn’t have any tells—at all—or their ability to talk rendered them too intelligent to be bound by any game-like behavior.
Neither of those possibilities were good.
Wait.
The only true anomaly I had noticed was when that Ogre had frozen up as it stared at its ruined club. Was that one of its behaviors? As I moved back to rejoin the line, I decided to test out this theory as quickly as I could.
When the next Ogre roared as it stabbed forward with its dirty sword, I sidestepped and instead of immediately attacking its chest; I opted to whack its hand as hard as I could, forcing it to lose its
grip on its sword. The blade spun off to the side.
“Grr!” It growled. “You git!”
I readied myself in case it tried to attack me with its fists but instead; it dived to the ground and attempted to recover the sword that had fallen a fair distance away.
“Out of my way!” it roared as it pushed past its own kin on hands and knees, knocking aside any legs that got in its way as it sought to recover its sword. “It’s mine!”
I didn’t have much time to watch this spectacle, but it told me all I needed to.
“Hey!” I shouted down the line. “Knock their weapons out of their hands! It makes them drop their guard.”
“Are you sure?” Clarissa asked as she shot off a healing spell at a fallen soldier who was still alive, though his leg was shattered. “That can’t be right.”
“Just tell Anny to relay it to everyone!”
I fought on as I tried to test my theory. Time and time again, though, as soon as I either destroyed their weapon or disarmed the Ogres, they completely ignored me and did everything they could to rearm themselves.
It was even better if I destroyed their weapons, as they just stood there in a puzzled daze, even as I ended them. I grinned to myself as I watched some of the men aim for their weapons, rather than trying to hit the Ogres directly.
“These Ogres must love their weapons,” a Beastkin said as it stabbed a spear through an Ogre’s hand.
“Push them back!” another Beastkin hissed. “For Valdura!”
The line gradually inched forward as our soldiers adopted my technique. With more and more starting to do so, I spotted Anny’s blur behind our line, likely relaying information.
“Alex!” Juliana said as she stood next to me. “The Beastkin mages are almost done…”
She stopped to lob a quick fireball towards an Ogre who was helplessly looking for its weapon on the ground behind it.
“Incredible… Hmm. Once they have completed their task, we must fall back to the West Gate.”
“Got it,” I replied. “There are so damn many of them, though, we need to watch when we turn our backs.”
