by Dakota Krout
A Mage had flown down to scout quite a while ago, looking for survivors or defenders. She had just returned, bringing news that someone else had apparently already collected anyone living and hauled them to a holding area on the outskirts of the capitol. From the look of the rotting guards, their stay wouldn’t end up being a pleasant one. Or a long one, for that matter. Dale flinched as a huge pack of Cloud Cats sprinted past him, jumping off the wall and gliding toward the city a mile below. While they couldn’t survive outside of the dungeon for any real length of time, if they made it back within a day there wouldn’t be too many detrimental effects. Especially if they were well fed, and the sad truth was that there was plenty of meat below.
Tom strolled up to Dale, golden armor gleaming in the weak sunlight that diffused through the choking smoke. The unit’s armor had arrived, the rush order being completed in record time by a very happy Dwarf. After being processed, the scales from the Manticore had taken a golden shine, and the leather was a soft golden brown. Dale was happy to see Tom using both hands to carry his oversized Warhammer, and he waved at the barbarian as he walked up.
“Looks to be a good day for battle, Baron Dale.” Tom was very somber today, his green eyes looking down at the burned husk of a city that used to contain his least favorite people.
“It does, indeed. Outside of the smoke, it’s a beautiful day.” Dale tore his eyes away from the minor explosions and waves of darkness erupting on the distant ground. Rarely the screaming roar of the cloud Cats would drift up to them and cause him to shiver. “Are you going to be okay doing this, Tom? We are trying to rescue Amazons.”
Tom leaned on the wall, body posture relaxed in a way Dale couldn’t match when he was this tense. “We are saving their people, their man-slaves. If I understand correctly, the first action that would have been taken is to kill the leadership of the nation. If so, this means that my family has been avenged. Now, there is no place in my soul that holds anger toward the desperate people below. I will fight to the best of my abilities.”
“That’s good, Tom. I’m glad to hear it.” Dale reached over and grabbed his new helmet, slowly pulling it on. A perfect fit, as expected of Dwarven work. “Let’s get to it.” They walked over to their team, and Hans struck a heroic pose at them. Now that they were in matching armor, they really looked like a team. Of course, Adam was still wearing his brilliantly white robe. Instead of detracting from the uniform, the robe instead highlighted the armor he now wore underneath. Dale looked at each of them and felt that he had done all he could to protect them. He rolled his arms to relax his stress-clenched muscles and took a deep breath.
“Are we ready for this?” Rose looked at the pale faces surrounding her, receiving shakes of their head ‘no’ from all of them. “Oh, good. I thought it was just me.” She looked out over the sea of people waiting to attack, but her attention was caught and held by the portal Mages. They were doing… something together, and their voices were rising and falling in an intricate chant. Mana was intertwining and accumulating above them, forming a rift in the air above the city.
“Are we certain the city is populated only with the dead or necromancers?” Frank called to the scouts. They nodded, eyes wide and staring. They had seen horrors today. “Bring it out, then.” A ball of tungsten was rolled in front of the waiting army, pushed by four straining Mages. The ball was set into an indentation on the stone floor, waiting to be used. At first glance, it was just a lump of metal, but Dale could feel the dungeon’s work at play and decided to look closer. As tall as a man–roughly six feet–the ball was so heavy that it left a furrow in the ground it rolled over. What made Dale catch the breath in his throat were the Runes engraved on the ball: extra weight, force, and demon banishing. What was happening?
Tyler was glaring at the ball. “Six feet in diameter, nineteen point three grams per cubic centimeter… that is two hundred and four thousand, six hundred and eighty-five pounds of Inscribed tungsten we are throwing away.”
“We aren’t throwing it away, Tyler.” Chandra stepped toward them as she decided to take a moment to explain what was happening. “I’m not sure you will understand the significance, but there is a Tomb Lord down there.”
Tyler shrugged at her. “You’re right, I don’t understand.”
“There is a hierarchy of undead summons. There are basic versions like zombie and wraiths, a mid-tier like abominations and minor demons, and a higher tier that contains beings like standard demons. These are all things you have seen before and are the usual things summoned by Mage-rank necromancers. Then there are beings summoned exclusively by A-ranks and higher. The weakest of these is a Behemoth, which is twice the size of an abomination and armored.”
Chandra took a deep breath and continued, “One of the strongest in the A-ranks is the Tomb Lord. This is a heavily armored being that commands armies of the undead. They are puppets of demon lords in that they are inhabited and controlled by them. This means that they not only have all the power of the dead but the infernal powers of the abyss as well. Fast, intelligent, powerful. Nearly impossible to kill with conventional weaponry. Thus, we have that.” She pointed at the ball the portal Mages were surrounding.
The second in command of the portal Mages, Justin, started a secondary chant that created a harmony to the first. Next to the ball, a portal slowly opened on the ground. Ten feet above it, another portal opened simultaneously. As it widened, Justin’s face became more and more strained. “Now!” He gasped as his strength began to wane.
The attending Mages shoved the ball, and it ponderously began to move. Ever so slowly, it tipped over the edge of the portal and fell. And fell. And fell. The wind began to shimmer as the ball dropped from the air above, only to drop into the waiting portal and appear in the air again. The friction in the air was causing the ball to heat up, and in seconds it was glowing a bright cherry-red. Now falling so fast that the air began to catch on fire around it, the ball was now almost impossible for people to look at directly. A huge amount of Essence began to be generated as wind Essence was torn apart and created fire and lightning Essence. James tried to let the ball ‘fall’ for as long as he could maintain the portal; just as he was about to collapse, Amber hijacked the portal on the ground and connected it with a different hole in the world.
Impossibly fast, the ball of tungsten entered the portal on the ground and exited the portal high in the air, aimed at the city below. Specifically, it was aimed at an armored form that towered over the highest of the buildings still standing. With meteoric speed the ball impacted the form that was standing in the center of the largest wave of undead, causing a shockwave that forced the floating dungeon higher on a blast of air. The ground collapsed in all directions, and the earth of the dead city rose into the air as debris. The dust reached the edge of the dungeon’s influence and was absorbed, protecting the people waiting to attack whatever survived. Optimistically looking at the power of the artillery, they all hoped there would be nothing left to fight at this point.
It took a few minutes for the air to clear enough to see the ground below, and the view confused many. The Tomb Lord was still standing, though everything else had been annihilated by the shockwave. It looked at its hand and seemed to laugh as it tried to toss away the ball it had caught. It seemed confused that the ball wouldn’t leave its hand. It violently shook its appendage, and a furious screech left its mouth. The ball glowed brighter for a long moment, then it and the Tomb Lord vanished with a faint *pop*.
“Banished. Thank goodness.” Justin collapsed, lying on his back and breathing deeply.
“Good God!” Tyler whispered as he looked at Chandra with wide eyes. “You would have had to fight that thing?”
She nodded. “It would have been very difficult. It had the power of the Mage who summoned it as well as the demon’s strength. It was essentially two A-ranked Mages working together in perfect harmony. If it hadn’t tried to show off by catching the ball, we would have needed to retreat.”
W
hile their conversation continued, the scouts were making reports on the city below. There had been quite a bit of damage but the city center remained completely intact. The Amazons cleared up the confusion generated by this revelation. “The Queen’s circle. There were powerful protections in place, powerful enough to slow S-ranked attacks. Though this was a potent blow against weak creatures, that ball was not infused with Mana. It was just moving quickly. Obviously the protections designed by Amazonians were enough to stop that mediocre damage from spreading.”
While it took over thirty minutes to land, the time seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. After the first tremor of touching down shook the mountain, the gathered people began walking out of a portal maintained by the dungeon. There was a short drop at the exit, but the real shock came from the change in environment. With a single movement they stepped from a virtual paradise into the ashen ruins of what had once been a great city. Ash and foul stenches clogged the air while thick infernal Essence cloyed against their meridians. The people rushed to get into formation; weaker undead were already charging across the flat expanse of the tungsten meteor’s killing zone. Stronger undead were taking their time, and intelligent demons were holding back to direct the assault of their puppets.
Mages from Mountaindale–specifically scouts and Spotters–were searching for any hint of where the necromancers in charge of the creatures were hiding. If the people controlling the undead and demons were killed, all of their puppets would return to the piles of rotten meat that they were supposed to be. Until then, the army needed to defend themselves, and barriers began appearing around the shield walls. The advantage of earth Mages in an army cannot be understated. Walls of stone rose, blocking a charge that could have shattered the defensive lines of the living.
The Goblins howled in response to a rousing speech given by Bob, and they slammed their weapons either on the ground, their shields, or else stamped their feet. Their enthusiasm for the upcoming fight was intoxicating, and the adventurers were not to be outdone! Battle cries and bloodlust-filled shouts rose into the toxic air. The Goblins cheered as Bob directed the placement of a totem. This was a mobile version of my obelisks and used earth Essence to activate. When the totem was inserted into the ground, a Core in it lit up and connected to obelisks in the city. The people smiled, feeling fresh air as my influence was spread to the area and began changing the battleground in their favor. Smoke lessened, ash stopped raining on them, undead began to melt away, and in the small area my influence occupied everyone could see and hear each other clearly.
“How many of those pillar things do the Goblins have?” Frank yelled over the din of battle coming from the outskirts of their formation.
“No idea! Who cares?” Dale screamed back with a chilling grin on his face. He was looking forward to this fight. He didn’t think he’d need to wait long; the pounding steps of the dead were drawing nearer.
A thought struck him, and he smiled grimly. “Frank! There is a dungeon in the sewers; find an undamaged tunnel into it! I’d bet my last gold that the necromancers controlling all of this are taking defensive positions below us!”
There was a brief discussion between the leadership of the army, but Marie and Henry seemed to agree with Dale’s calculated assessment. The administration pulled an Amazon over to them and told her to direct them to a sewer entrance. After she looked at them like they were insane, she tried her best to find a landmark that she could use to locate a sewer entrance. The process was difficult as this entire area had recently been reduced to rubble at best, and at worse, the terrain had completely flipped over.
While the Amazon worked to find a tunnel opening, the army was doing their best to survive, beset upon on all sides by the ravenous dead. Luckily the necromancers were in seclusion, else there would have been ranged Mana-based attacks to work against from more than just the demons. Arrows flew from Goblin, Elf, and Human alike while large ballista bolts flew from Dwarven war machines placed on the mountain. It turned out that swords and other close range weapons were more effective against the undead, as the bodies had to be quite damaged before they would stop moving. Arrows and ranged weapons, though they didn’t destroy many of the undead outright, were useful in pinning bodies in place so the warriors could destroy them easier. On the other hand, the ballista bolts could tear several bodies apart before losing momentum. The speed at which the Dwarves had been able to create these siege weapons gave the other races pause. When all of this was over, the delegations planned to make alliances immediately. All of the people represented in the army were very pleased they had not made enemies of the Dwarves.
Another great asset in the battle was that Tyler’s shop of oddities had harvested the spikes on the Manticore then distributed the anti-demon weapons amongst the army. This forced the demons to make a choice: fight and possibly be banished or observe and make tactical strikes. While there were dedicated demon fighters such as Father Richard amongst the clerics, the weapons that allowed you to banish the foul creatures were rare, expensive, and single use. Unfortunately, the Demons seemed to have decided that with such weapons in use they should stay on the sidelines to control the movements of their minions. The ‘taskmaster’ type of demon, though not front line fighters themselves, could control the undead with a master’s touch. Thanks to their subtle influence, attacks that should have been absorbed by shields or parries were instead landing against living flesh and armor. The people wouldn’t last too long against the waves of enemies if this continued.
The dead were working as a unit, making the battle far more difficult for the living. A wall crumbled as an abomination made its presence known, walking through the mundane fortification like it wasn’t even there. Rose noticed a dark miasma of Essence on the outskirts of the platoon of walking dead that had just arrived, and recognized the signs that showed that a demon was present. Her sharp eyes pierced the swirling particles in the air, and she lined up an arrow for what should have been an impossible shot. She pulled back hard on the bowstring and released with an inaudible exhale of breath. Her arrow screamed as it flew in a straight line across four hundred meters, causing a tiny sonic boom as it broke the sound barrier. The arrow shattered as it entered the demon, but the Rune on the arrow’s tip stayed intact! That was all that mattered.
Screaming as it felt all of the Essence that sustained it upon this plane vanishing, the Demon furiously gave one last order to charge. It vanished with an echoing *pop* as the Rune came to life. After stopping in place for a moment as their withered brains processed the order, three abominations charged directly forward from where they were standing. Luckily, two of the mounds of flesh were facing away from the living army, and trampled various minor undead as they sprinted off into the distance. Only one of them charged into an area that contained Goblins, but this was still devastating as the massive undead ignored all defenses and attacks. Defenders were tossed aside or trampled, and with each death the abomination grew larger and stronger. It sucked the blood, bones, and flesh out of anything dead as it passed, nearly doubling in size before the Mages were able to counter its movement.
Incantations began to reach completion as the Mages directed their Mana and laws to destroy these unholy beings. Elements, particles, energy, and abstrac
t thought ran rampant around the area, causing the earth to tremble, the particles in the air to be charged with Mana, and the undead to become just dead as they fell to pieces. Madame Chandra tossed seeds into the air, and they scattered on the wind. When they landed they remained inert if they fell on living things, contrarily burrowing into flesh if they landed on dead beings. Splashes of color other than sanguine or various hues of dirt began appearing as flowers started to bloom with beautiful pigments.
The flowers released an invigorating scent, covering the odor of decay and death that otherwise permeated the area. Morale improving, the army roared a challenge to the dead and screamed their hatred toward the cowardly necromancers fighting from afar! Attacks redoubled in strength and speed, potions were chugged, and war was waged!
The Goblin berserkers began decimating the minor undead, their blunt weapons and powerful blows perfect for the situation they found themselves in. As time wore on the effects of the flowers began to wane and the Goblins become fatigued, yet still they threw everything they had into battle. The assault gained ground, and they pushed deeper toward the city center. Another totem was raised, and the Goblins cheered as they felt their connection to the dungeon reappear. The berserkers–now approaching exhaustion–slammed a closed fist into their chest and pressed the Runes of healing into their bodies. In moments, they were feeling relief as lactic acid buildup was removed, wounds began to close, and exhaustion faded. They returned to combat, the undead in their paths being destroyed brutally and mercilessly. An hour into the battle a voice rang out, clearly heard by those in charge of the army. “Here! There is a path into the sewers over here!”
