During the Pythian Games, Gamma which had fallen into the hands of Arget Nore had suddenly fallen to an invincible wave of undead shadow warriors. Although they didn't help the undead empire, they kept a close eye on the situation.
“Adding Bart's information, it makes sense now. They probably had people overlooking the system church ever since the Y-City was abandoned. I bet they used it as an entry point to Urth and intended to come to Delta from there.
When that didn't work, because we closed the teleport hub, they must have turned to Gamma. We always guessed that Spatia was behind what happened to Arget Nore, but this is technically a guarantee it's the truth,” Leana spoke quickly, excited, but also shaken.
Her theory suggested that not only did Spatia have a fixed entryway to Urth, but they also had a path to forward their troops directly to Gamma. Although Gamma was not much closer to Delta, compared to other districts, it had the Land of Dead.
Their opponent was a powerful necromancer and now they had a base that constantly nurtured undead. It also meant that they probably didn't have that much more time left. It would take high-level players up to a week to traverse the mountains on the ground, but Natina could just pack her army on the dragon and fly over here. The enemy had the potential to arrive within less than two days from now.
“Doesn't seem like we have much time,” Seth concluded disgruntled. If things were like this, he wouldn't be able to finish the quest before Natina arrived. “I think we have to change our plans a little,” Seth announced. His quest, the new information, and the shortened time called for it. It was reassuring that most of their preparations were already done.
Leana had kept him updated about their progress while he was crafting. They had dealt with the aftermath of the demon attack in Delta. As the central district was apparently Spatia's main goal, there had been a lot to fix to get ready, after Chrona technically sabotaged the city to fail the moment they left.
Yet, Delta was most likely the most fit to face a siege of the current cities in Urth. With Project Iego in place, its defense was assured. Seth had full confidence in Al'Zalsa's work, even if they were to face Natina's mountain-sized dragon.
A big part of the preparations was not in Delta, although they were the most urgent here. Spatia was a super power and it would have been naive to expect that they would focus all they had in one place. Even the Scene had attacked several Tree Stations at once.
It was up to Leana and the others to manage their human resource to assure the safety of all Tree Stations, in case the empire decided to besiege them simultaneously. Even if that meant that they stretched their power a little thin.
Business in Little Gamma had also finished. Leana and Mary had not just taken care of the consequences of battle in the Pythian Village but had also managed everything necessary to station the fleet of Epsilon in TS5, as their new home. One of the measures to ensure safety across Minas Mar, the district.
TS 4 and 5 were not big yet and were only protected by smaller forces, without any announced guardian, while 6 had Angelique, the Mirror of Dawn, who was slowly gaining levels as Seth's servant revived by the
Delta would be mostly protected by his creations, especially the big guns. He had no intention to hold back this time. While most of the golems were stationed in Delta, they would send members of the field teams, Oathguard, and some golems to all Tree Stations that lacked high-grade troops.
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This was a measure to guard against Spatia changing targets, but also to put more precious personnel in safer places. Many of the golems and the Faer could regenerate if they were destroyed, but the dead were a little harder to revive.
“While Delta and the tree stations are ready, we still need to buy some more time,” Seth opened up to his friends. The blacksmith revealed the quest he had just received. Some listened with attention but lacked understanding. others who came from or traveled in the system worlds had shock written on their faces.
Becoming a legend by inheriting from a Myth was one of the hardest but also one of the strongest known methods. Dragons were the best example of it, all Dragons were legends because they inherited power from the myth of Dragons. Now, Seth talked about his four golems becoming legendary Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
They had decided to teach Spatia a lesson and what better lesson was there than steamrolling them with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? But for that, he needed time to finish them. Seth needed to provide his four creations with three steeds and a weapon to complete the quest. Just 2 or 3 days wouldn't be enough. After all, the quest spoke of condign arms and steeds. Seth couldn't just throw something crude together and call it a day.
The golem steeds he mass-produced wouldn't do it and producing one, much less three by hand... he doubted there was enough time for that. They needed to buy more time for him. Originally, buying time may not have been feasible, as they didn't know the plans of Spatia, but now?
While there was a chance that Spatia changed their strategy after finding the System Church in Delta blocked, they doubted it. The time was just too short. Even if there were other factors, like spies, or missed reports from imprisoned spies, it was unlikely that the enemy would change the course of its main forces at this point and focus on one of the tree stations.
They wanted Delta. Natina wanted Seth. She wanted revenge on Minas Mar and maybe even Urth in general. It was the only explanation for why she would come personally. Although the tree stations had developed a lot in the past few months, Delta was still the biggest and strongest known target on Urth.
Finding it destroyed by demons or occupied by rebels, it was their best public excuse to lay waste to Delta. Conquering, or getting completely rid of it was also the easiest and most cruel way to break them. If they started with the Tree Stations, they could still try to evacuate people to Delta, but if Delta was gone, things would be tighter.
Without a doubt about their target, what stopped them from setting up traps? As they said, the best defense was a good offense. They quickly started brainstorming ways to hamper Spatia's advance. No method was judged too malicious, or cruel to make them suffer.
Especially Dowloon, their newcomer, shined in this discussion, offering her various skills. Guerrilla Warfare was the name of the game and especially the Faer that had rejoined after the battle with the demons were fire and flame for this game.
The biggest trump card they had against Natina might have been Haa'Skon. Like the “Beasts of Calamity”, the Death Knight was allowed to roam freely. He had traveled north of Delta and apparently assembled an army of the dead.
Seth had not seen him since then, but they had called him back once they knew that Spatia was coming. Haa'Skon was also the only horseman who didn't need anything from him. The blacksmith was curious what his “steed” looked like, but it had to wait.
With the Death Knight's power to naturally dominate, he was like the natural enemy of Necromancers. Putting him in Natina's way was the greatest trump card to buy time. After spending two hours talking and refining their plans, Seth left organizing everything for them.
Time was precious, now more than ever. Sleep? How could he think of sleeping? He had to start working. Making a weapon for Strix was the first point on his agenda. Then he could completely concentrate on the steeds. And if Spatia managed to come before he finished, at least the golem would have a weapon to boost its powers.
The armament of hunger was a scale. Seth was convinced that it was simply a symbol of the original myth. What exactly it symbolized in connection with Famine, he had no idea. There was also no description of its power in any sources he found.
Now, Seth was a blacksmith and not a scale maker so he was poring through images of scales on the web to find inspiration. While the traditional imagery of famine asked for a balance, the bard just couldn't warm up to the idea. Luckily the quest only said a scale, without defining how exactly it was supposed to look.
Maybe a great enchanter like Al'Zalsar would have approached this in a different direction and created a powerful mystical artifact... Well, what he realized was that he wasn't happy with the image of Strix the knight puppet to carry a simple scale, like a priest would a cross.
Although time was running out, the lack of sleep caught up to him as the situation turned quiet. Soon he rather listlessly scrolled through the search results, thinking up random ideas, like a sword that had the guard as the beam of a scale. But that would have been a sword and not a scale in the end.
The search results became more and more obscure and unhelpful as his thoughts slowly wandered off when his eyes fell on something, that had him doubt it was a scale in the first place. It looked outlandish and dangerous and it spoke to Seth. He got excited.
“If a horseman of the apocalypse carried around a scale, it's this one!” it whispered in his ears. Inspiration started bubbling up, as the blacksmith made the decision and got to work. he wanted to make sure that, by the time Spatia arrived, Strix would swing this around.