by Andrew Lynch
I was left with two concerns, however. Two things that were out of my control. Where were Bri and her followers? And when would the Child of Light strike?
Chapter 43: Committee Meeting
I pushed open the door of the tavern, and it fell forward onto the floor.
The hinges had rusted through. Part of me wanted to ask what happened, but it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out. I looked back at the crater I’d just climbed out of, which made entering the tavern like running an assault course. No time to rebuild when the wolves were at your door! Although, looking down at my ruined tavern door, it turned out that proverbial wolf-barring door wouldn’t be the best protection if you didn’t repair it. Quite the conundrum.
The tavern only held a sparse crowd now that the fight was in full swing. A few runners stood at attention near the entrance. A guard or two for anyone important enough to warrant them. The furniture had been pushed to the sides, leaving only a single table in the middle of the large room.
Ixly was leaning back on his haunches, fingers tapping his drum. He was an impressive sight in his full battle regalia – he didn’t wear armour so much as he had bolted plates of bronze, emblazoned with obsidian emblems, runes, and filigree to his alabaster scales. He had his honour guard stood directly behind him. I suspect he had told them to stay at the walls like the other guards but had quickly lost that battle. He also had his little pointy hatted Geeko who was busy inspecting a minor shadowgem – it was filling the minor shadowgem with silvery arcane magic and then sucking it back out again. Over and over.
Horace paced back and forth around the room, and when he saw me enter, disappeared to the kitchen. Two cultists stood so motionless I almost didn’t see them.
Muadshai had pulled one of the chairs back to the central table and was leaning back so precariously I wanted to check if he’d cast a spell. Legs up on the table, gourd in hand, alcohol spilled down his tunic that was more a criss-crossing of leather and metal belts, holsters, and quivers: so much so that I questioned the point of his shirt. Maybe it was there just to show off the stains from the alcohol. I wouldn’t put it past him. His sandworm was nowhere to be seen, but he had a hunter with wolf companion sitting on the steps up to the second floor. Interestingly, he also had the shield bearer captain leaning on the bar.
I nodded to the shield bearer, who had his ruined helmet next to him, and he lifted a blue naterry, returning the nod with his still unscathed face.
I ran my hand through my beard and over my face, trying to wake myself up. As I did it, I felt the metal studs at my temples, reminding me I was in a game. No one else would be able to see them or feel them, but they were there. It was a game. I saw a flash of white corridor lined with mirrors and experiments. Huh?
‘Okay, where’s Bri?’ I asked.
They all spoke at once.
Ixly began a slow, ‘Well, that’s an interesting question…’
Horace returned from the kitchen and began a series of honorifics before getting to the answer. ‘Oh great lord Tepidious, he who shall plunge the world into eternal…’
Muadshai gave a simple, ‘Who?’
I held up my hand. ‘Ixly, where’s Bri?’
‘That isn’t as simple a question as you might hope.’
‘Okay. Where are her followers? There was hardly even a skeleton crew left behind. I managed to send three to reinforce the gate. What’s happened?’
‘Ahh, well that’s an easier answer. Her followers are almost certainly with her.’
‘And she is?’
He was clearly working hard to not have to give the answer, but he finally caved. ‘I don’t know. Actually, we don’t know.’
‘Uh huh. Expound upon that a touch for me, please.’
‘She came back through the portal along with the mage council and that sack of minor shadowgems. Then, just before The Eastern shadow had moved into position, she left. With almost all her followers.’
I nodded slowly. ‘So she abandoned us. She took the road and fast travelled out of here.’
Horace placed a bowl he’d fetched from the kitchen on the table in front of me. It held a thick, brown soup with poisonous looking yellow oil splotches floating on top. Bubonic buttercup stew. My old nemesis. ‘Not exactly, master. She went to the East.’
As the steam – noxious gases – hit the back of my throat I struggled to hold my composure. I gagged a bit. ‘Past the lumber mill? Wait, how close was the enemy at this point? Did she charge them in some bizarre suicide move? Did she break through their lines? What?’
‘We aren’t certain, master.’ We didn’t see any combat, but as you’ve noticed, we can’t see much past the tree line.’
Ixly pointed a finger towards the East. ‘She was also the one that put the mage council in hiding. By the time we’d realised she wasn’t coming back, it was too late to retreat the council. She muttered something about an ice bomb.’
The tavern shook, and a bright light flashed through the wooden slats. Artillery fire was still peppering Thanis.
Ixly continued, ‘And she took the shadowgem with her.’
I waved a hand. ‘It’s not like we don’t have enough to go around.’
‘No. The shadowgem from the Emissary. Not one of the minor shadowgems.’
I threw my head back and sighed as I finally got out of the doorway and stood around the table.
‘Why? We don’t even know what the difference is.’
Ixly shifted to look at his Geeko, who, realising all the attention had swapped to him, clutched the minor shadowgem to his chest and looked paranoid. He squeaked and chirped a bit.
‘He says that he didn't have much time to fully inspect the shadowgem, but it’s mainly an issue of useage. Minor shadowgems can’t be socketed by players, is the bottom line. The Emissary’s shadowgem can.’
‘Players can’t use minor shadowgems?’ I mulled that idea over for a few scratches of my beard. ‘Good to know. And we have no idea why she took it with her?’
Everyone shuffled around, and no one would catch my eye.
Horace broke the silence. ‘The troops have been bolstered by our recent win. That was delectable work, master.’
‘Thanks. I remembered when I first met Muadshai. The sandworm came out of nowhere. We got lucky. No rest for the wicked though, we need to tackle the next problem.’
‘Which one?’ Muadshai asked, and at exactly that moment, an artillery spell shook the tavern.
Chunks of earth smacked against the tavern wall, some of them managing to get between the damaged slats. A stone landed in my bubonic buttercup stew. I didn’t complain. ‘That! They can bombard us indefinitely, and we can’t return fire. Our ranged units can’t attack from this distance, and even if they could, those light shields are impenetrable, so any return volleys by our mages are out too. Obviously, we can’t let our melee go out as they’d get surrounded and slaughtered.’
No one jumped at me with a solution. As I looked at them all, I could see the signs of defeat creeping in despite our recent win. Time to get to the point. A leader has to lead. ‘We have to accept that Bri is gone. I spoke with her in the tunnels beneath her grove, and she told me she wanted to run.’ Ixly wanted to say something but I shrugged at him. ‘I didn’t want to believe she’d do it either, but in hindsight, she’d always said this was just a game to her. This was her escape from reality. Trying to kickstart a revolution isn’t escaping.’
It sucked, and I hated to say it, but there was no evidence to say where she went or if she’d come back. Even if she did, we couldn’t rely on when. She was no longer part of my game plan.
‘Which brings us to the light shield. Impenetrable by any means, right? And we have no food stores outside of this tavern’s kitchen and whatever the troops may have brought with them.’
‘And whatever Bri’s grove may hold,’ Ixly added.
‘We’ll have to ransack it. We need that food more than someone who abandoned us.’
Again, Ixly was
about to say something, but I flashed him a forced smile. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so bitter. It’s just the facts.’
Horace spoke up. ‘You’re right about the light shield, master. It takes a significant amount of power to maintain, and that is the only reason their artillery fire is so light. Bodies can go through, though. It only protects against missiles, physical and magical.’
‘Let’s be honest here. What we did last time won’t work again. But we need to pressure them. We need to do something. Horace, those light shields work both ways, correct?’
‘Correct, master. The enemy can’t fire out of their shields, they would have to drop them. This artillery fire is coming from mage units outside of the protection of the light shields.’
‘Hold on, why can’t we return fire on them, then?’
Muadshai, realising that he was the subject matter expert, chimed in. ‘Fog o’ war. They’re hiding in the trees. Had ma scouts watching, and they be repositioning after every shot. Enemy ain’t as dumb as I’d like ‘em. We could shoot the launch site, but dey’d have moved by then.’
‘Can we get scouts out there? Set down wards, maybe?’
‘Ma guys can’t make it without bein’ seen. Dere’s a killing ground from da walls to da forest.’
I began pacing, and Horace fell into step behind me, which was actually very distracting. ‘Okay. Ixly. Bullet point it for me.’
He rapped his drum as he spoke. ‘We need the enemy to attack our gate as that is the only way their numbers don’t count. They have no reason to endanger themselves that way after we sent them running from their first attack. They can wait us out. We can’t attack their bulk forces from range because of their shields. We can’t attack their artillery because they’re in a fog of war and constantly on the move.’
Muadshai added, ‘And our scouts can’t get out there to change the fog of war.’
‘We do have sight of one of The Eastern Shadow unit blocks,’ Ixly continued. ‘The mage council is hidden close enough to see them on our Eastern flank.’
I nodded along to every point as I paced. ‘Is that everything?’
Everyone nodded in agreement.
‘So, all we need is an invisible mage-killing unit to cross from our walls to the forest, and then hunt down the artillery mages.’
Horace spoke from directly behind me. ‘That will stop the immediate threat, but starvation will still occur.’
‘Oh, sure, of course. At least, if we didn’t have a way to break through their shields, that would be a problem, definitely.’’
Muadshai slammed his gourd down. ‘Ya what? Ignoring da fact we ain’t got none of these made-up invisible mage-killers ya talking ‘bout, we can’t break through their light shields.’
I walked round to the Geeko and held out my hand. After Ixly motioned for him to be nice, he handed over the minor shadowgem. I opened the crafting screen, and sure enough, I was able to infuse the minor shadowgem with one of my spells.
As my shadow magic flowed into the gem, the plan clicked into place for Ixly and he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. ‘You’ve come a long way, Akuma Severo. A long way indeed.’
Chapter 44: Battle
I had rotated the original gate guard back into position as they’d had time to rest. I took note that, although some of my cultists were among their number, there were a lot more black robes than there should have been. I’d have to ask Horace about his conversion policy.
I’d tell him that it’s “perhaps a touch overzealous”, to which he’d reply “apologies, master” while stitching a large black robe together. I’d ask what it’s for, and he’d deny that it was for a large, alien insect. Classic Horace.
It had been a few quiet, tense, and productive hours since the last skirmish. One squad of angry looking, chakram wielding women had taken a direct hit from the light artillery. They’d lost one of their number who’d been at the epicentre, but the other twenty had been saved thanks to some quick bandage work from the adjacent squad of thieves. When I’d questioned them regarding why they had so many bandages, they’d remained comically tight lipped, all of them suffering from sudden short term memory loss, not even being able to recall saving the chakram wielders, despite over a hundred eye witnesses. Including myself.
But I didn’t have any time to care. I’d spent the entire hour sat at my Altar, putting everything I had into the sack of minor shadowgems. Imbuing a single one was easy. Imbuing a hundred was not. Horace was now in command of Thanis’ army and was regularly cycling all troops from the walls. We didn’t need all troops, of course, but we had to assume that Koif was watching and planning, trying to second guess everything we did. We already knew he was bloodthirsty and willing to take advantage of an opportunity – like a downed hunter player. We also knew he was calculating enough to hold back when needed, like he was now, willing to bombard and starve us.
This way, there’d be no way for him to realise what it was we actually wanted from the walls. He’d just see constant rotation. A mess, basically. Due to the lack of stairs, it was tiring all the units, but it was the safest way. It had to be a surprise. I needed his reaction. That was the key. We were weak and uncoordinated, he was strong and in control. He had to believe it.
It was true, of course, so that helped sell the idea. Our first win was just beginner’s luck.
We’d also needed time, and a distraction. Having half your army running along the walls, being replaced by others, and looking out of breath was a good show. Keep Koif’s eyes there, and he wouldn’t be looking at what else we’d done.
Ixly had spent the time in what had to be the slowest possible communication he’d ever endured. Thanks to his warshouter drum, he could order the entire army with a few beats of his hands. But that wasn’t the only advantage. He could also send coded messages long distance. It had taken over an hour of random drum banging before he got any reply, but finally one of the council mages responded. Of course, they couldn’t respond with noise, that would give them away. So instead, they replied via morse code, managing to use one of their weapons to glint the sun. With communications established, we managed to confirm a few things. Primarily, that they were trapped and would have to stay there. That was fine. Ixly’s final message was for them to be ready for the signal. I had no doubt that they’d be annoyed that we didn’t specify what the signal was, but we didn’t know at this point.
Fighting a battle was all about improvisation. Sure, you could have plans and tactics and formations, but at the end of the day, whoever could react faster and get his troops in position first, won. At least, that was a nice philosophical idea for me, as I was fighting a numerically superior enemy, and this was my first ever fight.
In my defence, I didn’t have much energy left for deep thinking that was, you know, actually correct. It turns out that when you drain your mana to 0 and keep it drained for an hour, you feel it. I suspect that if Angie were still around, she’d give me the low down on why, and how mana was super complex and tied to your spirit and who you are fundamentally, or the equation of two colliding spheres when you don’t understand maths. What a dork.
Horace prostrated himself in front of me.
‘What’s up, my main man?’
‘It’s time, master. Perhaps a rejuvenating drink to restore yourself in this most important time?’ He asked and pulled out a small vial from within his robes that held a purple liquid.
‘Don’t mind if I do.’ I snatched it from him with a shaky hand, popped the cork, and knocked it back. Calling it a “liquid” might have been generous. It had the consistency of infected mucus. Most of it stuck to the insides of my mouth and I had to swallow harder to get it down. It also kind of burned.
‘Eyes, Horace! Did you just poison me? Again?!’
‘No, master. A rare occurrence, I know. Indeed, the concoction solidifies rapidly when mixed with air.’
‘I’m guessing I don’t want to know how it’s harvested?’
‘A fascinating process, rea
lly. First the larvae are left to fester–’
‘Stop! It’s fine, thank you.’
His hood bobbed up and down in acknowledgement. ‘Shall I set events in motion, master?’
Regardless of the no-doubt numerous ethical violations that mana potion had just committed against my mouth, it had worked. I was suddenly feeling rather… spunky.
‘Are you kidding me? If anyone is setting motions, it’s going to be me!’ I sprang to my feet and walked off. After a few steps I turned to see Horace was still kneeling on the floor. ‘You can follow, come on.’
I made my way to the northern wall, signalling Ixly to join us there. The mana mucus gave me enough energy to climb the wall rope without issues, and I surveyed the battle from the ramparts. I couldn’t see anything. It was a no man’s land between my walls and the tree line, and then, somewhere in those trees, lay the enemy army.
To my left there was a flash of light, and a giant ball came arcing towards Thanis, smashing into the walls, sending those on the walls scattering for their lives.
‘They’re getting more accurate,’ I noted.
‘That’s right,’ Ixly said, joining us. ‘Every shot to the walls is on target now, forcing the troops in the way to move or die.’
‘Good thing we’re ready. We are ready, right?’
‘It’s been all quiet since they went out, so they at least made it through the no-man’s land. I’d be shocked if they were caught amongst the trees.’
I turned and looked to the gate. Muadshai and his new favourite shield bearer were looking at me. He raised a hand in acknowledgement. I looked to where Ixly had come from, and where his two personal honour guard remained – how he’d talked them out of following him, I don’t know. They raised their black weapons into the air.
I pointed to Ixly. ‘Give the signal.’
He swung his wardrum to his front and set his legs wide. He rubbed his hands together furiously for a few seconds, and then placed them tenderly onto the taut skin of the drum. He applied pressure and circled them, warming the instrument. I wasn’t sure if drums needed to be warmed up, or if this was the casting animation for his spell, but whatever it was, his ritual was complete.
