The leadership council had formed quickly after Duke’s announcement. He was pained by the next hour of competing opinions and idiotic strategies bandied about to highlight individual groups. Things had broken down into two primary camps. One was “blast them with magic until something works” while the other Duke had started referring to as “Hulk Smash” in his mind. He sat virtually alone in a third group. And, yes, he sat. While most had stood ingroups arguing, he had pulled a chair out of his INVENTORY and sat down.
Finally, Baslin broke off from the Archmage contingent and visited Duke, “You seem pretty comfortable sitting there.”
“Well, what else am I going to do? There seems to be no way to alter the idiotic opinions being tossed around like a bad salad. You know, the kind where they throw radishes in and too many carrot slivers that just get stuck in your teeth.”
Baslin ignored the salad rant, “You have a solution?”
“Potentially. But it might not work either. I do have an escape plan should this whole thing fail but that is a shitty contingency plan at best.”
“Enlighten me. Perhaps I can persuade others.”
“OK, it comes down to this. Every attack misses them because they shift to Exospace to avoid it. What if someone were to fill the corresponding area in Exospace with an attack as well. There would be nowhere for them to go to evade the attack.”
“Is that what is happening? Are you sure?”
“My TELEPORTATION Ability has given me a lot of insight into other dimensions, and I am certain that is what they are doing.”
“I am not really familiar with Exospace. You say that is another dimension?”
“Yes, it’s the dimension that ships move through to get from world to world relatively quickly. The problem is that they say there are some godawful monsters that live in Exospace that prey on ships that can’t cloak their presence or move fast enough to evade them. Standing in one spot for any length of time is sure to lure creatures to you.”
“And you, of course, are volunteering for this role, aren’t you?”
“Who else could do it? No one else here could get themselves back from Exospace.”
“This can’t be the best solution with you putting yourself into such danger alone.”
“I am hoping that others will join me but, again, I’m not sure who else can survive in Exospace. My Tier and my Abilities grant me enough protection that I can survive it for a time before it affects me. I’m not sure who else could.”
“I don’t like it, Duke. You are once again putting yourself in the position of peril.”
“If things get bad, I’ll just pop back into our dimension. And I also have this little device that will guide me if I somehow get lost.” Duke pulled out his portable navigation core and handed it to Baslin.
“What is…By all the failed gods, what is this thing! Such small scripting.” Baslin pulled a pair of thick-lensed glasses out of a pocket inside his robes and examined the core with them.
He seemed absolutely lost for a few minutes while Duke observed the crowd. The so-called leaders of the planet did not strike Duke with a positive impression. Even with the entire planet’s survival hanging in the balance, they bickered and argued over appearances. His intrusive thoughts told him to take everyone he cared about and just leave the planet to its fate. He put a stop to that thought almost as fast as it appeared.
Duke was broken out of his thoughts by a tug on his sleeve. When he looked down, he saw a wonderfully familiar catkin face.
“Have you gotten even taller, Duke?”
“Emberclaw! It’s been so long. I’m glad to see you, but wish it wasn’t here.”
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“I know, my friend. Fate has brought us to another conflict but perhaps, if we are lucky, it will give us some more time to reconnect.”
“That would be great if it were not for the biggest problem we are facing. So few of those gathered here have any chance of fighting the Hounds. Look around us. They are all bickering over who is leading this mess. I can’t just wait around for them to figure it out. But I can’t do it alone. Not this time.”
“Duke, this creation of your is beyond what I thought was possible. I would love to be able to study it further.”
Duke took the navigational core back and smiled at Baslin, “Have you met Emberclaw?”
“Pleased to meet you. Duke has told me of you. It is an honor to finally meet you.”
Emberclaw returned the greeting, “An honor to meet you as well.”
Duke’s communications crystal chimed, “Hey Duke, there’s nowhere for us to land down there. Can you clear a landing zone?”
Duke activated his crystal, “Mira, not sure what you can do down here. I am not completely sure, but it looks like these creatures have some sort of defense mechanism that shifts them back and forth into Exospace.”
“Well, fuck. I guess I’m going to spend some time in Exospace then.”
“You’ll be attacked by god knows what if you stay in one spot there.”
“Yep. Good thing you juiced up our Mana cores. We can take a hell of a lot more pounding than we could before with the empowered shields.”
“OK, that might help but you have to limit your time there.”
“Oh, trust me, I have no desire to draw in any of the true dangers in that hellish dimension. But if we don’t stop these things here, they’re going to eat your whole damned planet.”
“Right. OK, here’s the deal. You have better sensors than anything down here. Watch the combat line. The druids are keeping the things occupied but they have to be running out of Mana or trees soon. I’m going to flip over to Exospace and see if I can cause some chaos. You keep a laser-focus on that front line with your sensors and see if it allows them to be more effective.”
“I don’t like it, but go for it. I’ve got my sensors locked in.”
Duke nodded to the small group around himself, “I’ll be back in a bit. We need to test a theory. Hope it works because it’s all I have so far.” He did not wait for a response before flying back to the front where the druids were ineffectually fighting the Hounds. As he flew closer, he could see signs of Mana fatigue rampant among their ranks.
“Have you come to help? Everyone else seems afraid to come here.” The unconventionally burly elf that greeted Duke took him by surprise.
“You are holding the line by yourselves. It’s far beyond time someone came to help. It looks like most of you are suffering from Mana fatigue.”
“Yes, we have gone through so many Mana potions that they don’t have much effect anymore.”
“I can help a bit with that but then I have another thing to try.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, give me a moment and gather around the crew that needs the most Mana.” Duke closed almost all the Portals he had opened to transport forces to the staging area and immediately felt his Mana regen jump back up to normal. He smiled and gestured to the gathering group, “Who needs the most Mana and how much do you need? Give me a number.”
A wizened kobold shuffled up to Duke, the others parting at his approach. He fixed Duke with his left eye, his right being milky with blindness, and spoke, “I am the Archdruid Thelmek. I have the greatest Mana pool of all here but it is quite depleted. I have spent all six million of my Mana struggling against these beasts to no avail. How do you propose to help?”
Duke reached a hand out to the kobold who responded. When they shook, he spoke, “I am Duke, King of Stormstride and I freely give of my Mana to you.” He proceeded to transfer the full six million Mana that would fill up the kobold’s pool. When finished, he looked at the rest of the crowding druids, “OK, who’s next?”
“Who are you really?” The question came as the kobold stepped back with a look of awe and relief on his face.
“I am just another person trying to save our planet. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, who’s next?”
One by one, the rest of the druids stepped up to have their Mana topped off, rotating themselves back into the fight with renewed vigor. When they were all back to full, Duke called up to the Iron Reaver, “Mira, are you in position?”
“Have been for the past ten minutes, slowpoke.”
“Thanks, thirty seconds, “He smiled in anticipation as he spoke. “Thelmek, I am going to do something that I hope will make these Hounds susceptible to physical attacks. Pray this works, because nobody else seems to have any idea how to fight the things.”
“I will pray to Gaiathia so that she may bless your attempt.”
“I’ll take it. It won’t help where I have to go to do this, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”
“Thought that counts? What are you talking about?”
Duke smiled enigmatically, “I have to shift to another dimension and make it inhospitable for the Hounds to shift back there. I am hoping that will force them to stay in our dimension and be vulnerable to attack here.”
“How are you going to do that?’
“It’s just a thing I can do. Can you clear an area by the base of the mountains of trees and underbrush? I want to use that as a Portal destination for everyone in the staging area to come through and kill these things if this works.”
“We are already pulling the trees from there. We will have the area clear for troops in less than an hour.”
“Thanks, that will help if this works. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to find a plan B.”
“Let’s hope it works then. I’ll keep praying.”
Duke stepped back steeling himself, “Mira, it’s go-time.”
“Sensors of full lock. Good luck!”
With that, Duke TELEPORTED to Exospace.