When fighting in an urban environment, remember the three things you must reduce.

* Civilian Casualties

* Loss of ready combat personnel

* Property Damage

If One must be sacrificed, prioritize what is at the top of the list.

-Excerpt from ‘Urban Warfare; Combat of the new age,’ Author Unknown

*=====*

In an instant, Mori whipped her head to the rising fireball in the sky and began sprinting towards it. Pulling out her revolver, she ignored the shocked expressions of the people around her as she ran past them. Some fled. More followed her. Mori idly wondered if the people following her would be okay with her raising their bodies. She then further wondered why her thoughts were so simple as she sprinted and she heard the gunshots ring in the distance.

Giving it some thought, she could tell that they knew she was a lich and that they knew what a lich did to corpses. Going by what the guard she met the week before said, she guessed that they could be uncomfortable with too many undead in case they ‘broke away’ from her control. Obviously, she never had such a problem but she would take it into consideration.

Pushing her thoughts away for a moment, she realized that they had almost reached the site of the explosion and the source of the gunfire. Holding up her gauntleted hand, she wove the mana in the air into one of her new spells, an ‘enhancing’ spell, covering the ones following her. In an instant warmth rose in her bones; she knew that it was successful, both from her own feeling and the excited exclamations of the people following her. Other spells were cast behind her, covering them all, though only half of them actually took root in her bones for whatever reason. The rest were devoured by her mana-hungry soul. ‘Odd,’ she thought, ‘Another thing for another time.’

Finally running past the last skiff to block their sight, the small crowd of gun-toting travelers finally laid eyes on the scene of the explosion. Shattered shards of steel and wood were embedded all over the stone dock-wall and the stalls sitting atop it. A small group of masked people, wearing robes adorned with gears and other metal trinkets, stood atop the burning wreckage of a Green Oasis warskiff. From Mori’s count, there were over two dozen skiffs shattered into splintered scrap all around them, each leaking survivors like a gunshot wound. Bullets flew, blocked by some magical barrier, from survivors and guards already present at both the masked bombers and a circle of, to Mori’s surprise, Clockworks protecting the masked people.

The lead mask-wearer, the leader if the amount of useless scrap he was wearing was any indication, shouted down at them, his voice drowning out the gunfire, “You sully the Goddess’ name with your actions!” he shouted as the new arrivals sprinted to cover, “We have come to rectify the mistake of lesser peoples and bring about the reign of the Great Goddess of the Clock!”

The man crouching beside her behind a particularly large piece of wood rolled his eyes, “Damn clockies. Why do they always talk like they’re actin’ in a play?’ he grumbled.

Mori chuckled, catching the man off guard a bit, “Maybe he studied poetry and wanted to get some use out of it?”

The man grinned, “Fair enough, that,” he said. They both peaked over the wood, catching a glimpse of the gold-white mana shield surrounding the Clockworks before a small volley of gunfire sent them back into cover, “So… got anything for that?” the man asked.

“Dunno. Maybe, but it’ll be pretty flashy. And it may not even do anything,” she admitted, “That count?”

The man laughed, “Sure, but I don’t want to get hit by a fireball or a rocket. Let me move, okay?” Mori nodded and began weaving her spell, watching as the man beside her, a large human in scrappy plate armor and wielding a shotgun, sprinted from his spot and dived into the shadow of a large piece of masonry. Unfortunately for the man, he was shot in the leg as he dove. He gave a weak smile to Mori with a thumbs up as he sat bleeding.

Mori nodded to the man and finished weaving her spell, letting it sit for a moment before poking her head over the piece of wood. The Clockworks’ line was being pelted by an increasing number of bullets, simple spells, and the occasional searing fireball of utterly dark bolt. Even so, the barrier was wavering, appearing as a heat mirage to her eye-flames. With a final look, she cast her spell. A blinding lance of light erupted from her outstretched hand and clashed with the gold-white barrier. Just as the blinding light faded, Mori watched as the barrier was reinforced by one of the people in masks.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Then fire began to sprout from the base of the barrier. To the obvious mounting horror of the masked barrier mage, fire began to eat away at the barrier. Mori smiled as she saw her new mana type working, but raised a confused eyebrow as the fire became darker. A black smoke began to sprout from the flames that forced the people closest to it back. Like Mori, the Clockworks were not impeded by the smoke and aimed their guns at the fleeing fighters, gunning them down without remorse.

A sudden burst of light shone in the cloud of smoke, just as bright as Mori’s, and Mori saw as the masked people became light, shooting into the sky and disappearing. Just as they left, her fire took on its natural hue and the smoke stopped. Mori sighed as the barrier still stood, shielding the Clockworks. It seemed that they were more interested in something approaching from the other side of the docks. Mori took a moment to look over her opponents.

There were many dozens of them, though only a half dozen were actually firing. The ones firing, Scorpion-like things with long, cylindrical tails, and dual gatling guns on top of each ‘claw.’ Behind them, a dozen four-legged, squat spiders with two large eyes eerily watched the battle unfold. As soon as the barrier fell, Mori decided, she would scrap those ones. Carrying the spiders on either their shoulders or heads were tall, thick humanoid Clockworks with rifles for arms. Apart from their more thick silhouette and solid chassis, the creature seemed functionally identical to the Clockwork Scout. Despite making up the rest of the Clockworks, they did not add their fire to the Scorpion-like ones’.

Mori finally turned to the side and saw a large creature, made of a glass-like material, charging the Clockwork lines. With a flick of its wrist, a gale flooded into the burning flames and the fire rose until it covered the gold-white shield. WIth a sound like shattering glass, the shield broke and shards of condensed, burning mana cascaded downwards, onto the ground. Without hesitation, Mori charged as well, praying to the gods that her new barrier mana could stand up to the assault. A quick spell and a second later, a black and white, transparent mana shield was in front of her. Two of the Scorpions took their guns off of the creature rushing them and aimed them at her.

Holstering her revolver with a growl, she held up her other hand and poured mana into her ring finger. With the wave of mana came groans and gurgles of newly raised zombies. Without a word from Mori, they took their guns and charged the Clockwork lines, with Mori and the glass-like creature following from two different sides.

Bullets tore into the zombies, but they made it further than their living counterparts, buying feet of ground instead of inches with every death. Suddenly, bullets began to clash with her mana shield and Mori’s charge was stopped. Her feet dragged across the ground as she was pushed backwards. Soon, the air around her could not feed her spell, so she resorted to feeding it from her reserves. Glancing to the rest of the field, she saw the glass creature wreaking havoc on two Scorpion-like crafts. Behind it, a man with three eyes slung spells that, to Mori, seemed to simply use mana as its driving force. Beside him, an orcish woman fired runed rounds into the Scorpion in front of her, laughing the whole way through.

Determined not to be outdone, Mori decided to have a little fun with making new undead. Staring at the puddles of blood splattered around, Mori surrounded a fire mana with her natural death mana and turned it to a bolt. She let the spell loose into the sky and watched as it naturally found its way to the closest pool of blood. It then veered off course into the somewhat intact body of a young woman. Shrugging, Mori watched as the woman’s body twitched and spasmed, then burst into flames. With a defiant cry, the creature rushed into the crowd of Clockworks.

With mechanical efficiency, the Scorpions let bullets rain on the undead, but they simply passed through it like it would Aerolat. Then the tails of the Scorpions ignited. Mori bit back a curse of disbelief as a salvo of rockets shot at her new undead. Unlike the bullets, the small missiles burst into flames as they connected with the undead, pushing it back. More missiles came, but Mori had not been idle. Three more cries rang out, just as many new undead raging towards the Clockwork line. It was then that the soldiers began to fight back. They fired bullets at Mori —an obvious attempt to make the undead attack her allies— and Mori inched backwards under the onslaught.

Someone rushed up beside her and, with their hands outstretched, conjured a mana shield as well. It was blue and green, a more common color, Mori guessed, but seemed to work almost as well as her own monochrome shield. The man standing beside her seemed to be an average mage, with traveler’s clothing and a few pieces of jewelry Mori could tell was enchanted.

With a glance at her undead, Mori pushed forwards with the man, others falling in behind her as they pushed. The closest Scorpion, the one that had been shooting at her for the last minutes, stopped its fire and abruptly lashed out with its claw. Stepping forward to meet it, Mori shoved her metallic arm into the claw, hoping to buy time to fire her gun. With a clank, the claw closed, and Mori’s arm held.

Her arm band glowed with golden light that ran down her arm and seemed to push back against the claw. Without a second thought, Mori loosed a lance of light into the Scorpion’s head, making it rear back from the damage. As she was about to go for the kill, a humanoid Clockwork rushed to meet her, its forearm spinning to reveal a fist. Too far away, Mori could not use her gauntlet to block and braced for the impact.

A bullet ripped through metal and Mori watched as the Clockwork’s head was shredded by a runed bullet. Without wasting a moment, Mori rushed the Scorpion and drove a metal-cutter into its head. It died instantly, barely thrashing about. Mori spared a glance at the source of the bullet and caught a glimpse of Fara raining runed shots into the heads of the humanoid Clockworks.

Once the lines were broken, the battle was already won. No matter how organized the Clockworks were, the holes in their line left them unable to help each other and the rest of the fighters open to follow Mori and the glass creature’s charge. Once the dust had settled, a field of scrapped Clockwork husks laid around them, shattered and broken.

As those present took a breath and gazed upon the carnage, the man behind the glass-like creature walked up to Mori, “You did well out there, Madam Lich,” he said with a gentlemanly smile, “My name is Captain Eaner Ductur. It is a pleasure to meet you.”