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A full moon brought much-needed light to the dense forests of Autumn’s Redoubt. Moonlight reflected off leaves of branches of golden boughs and a carpet of reddish leaves on the ground, bathing the whole region in an ethereal glow. With its sparse population and relative lack of travelers, the path grew nearly pitch black during a new moon.
Jelena and Enkidu crawled up to a ledge overlooking a fortress deep in the woods. Far below, a group riding dire-horses galloped up to a drawbridge.
“Hmm. Let’s just have a quick look-see.” Jelena brandished a slender tube-looking instrument.
It was called a ‘monocular’. A shrunken-down version of much larger tools that sit atop the Battletower. Useful for zooming in and observing far-off objects. For the Branded it was just a matter of Interfacing with the object, selecting ‘Use’, and letting the item’s properties take effect. It had an item designation and description and everything. But Jelena’s Brand was Scoured, and access to all features was lost. So, she just lugged it around the old-fashioned way and held it up to her remaining good eye to observe.
“Regular army. Just like the guys who picked off those adventurers a few miles back.” Jelena’s lone eye narrowed. “Full armor. Immaculately equipped. Maybe thereabouts level sixty or above.”
Enkidu lay prone beside her in silence, as usual.
Down near the fortress, the dire-cavalry was joined by another squad escorting a cart. Soon another cart arrived, and another, all accompanied by a squadron of dire-horse riding knights.
“They’re bringing in relics,” Jelena said. “Food rations and weapons, of course. And… hmm?”
The relic thief twisted the scope, zooming in on a carriage, pulled by a single dire-llama. Soft candlelight from within illuminated a single diminutive figure within.
“Someone’s stocking up for a power play~” Jelena said with a singsong tone.
Where there were stockpiles there would be relics. And where there were relics, there were opportunities to thieve those relics. Yes, simple arithmetic, really.
A grand drawbridge lowered and a man in austere, low-level clerical garb walked out to greet them. Though he appeared like an unassuming aesthetic, he was flanked by two guards in full plate armor.
“Oh?” Jelena focused in on this figure. “Lips are moving but I can’t make anything out.”
It was a silent request. Your move, buddy.
Enkidu grumbled, but focused-in on the conversation below, nonetheless. Jelena offered the monocular, but he did not take it.
“They’re saying this will be the last convoy,” Enkidu echoed. “Church Hunters on the roads. Wiped out the army coming in from the Fellmarsh garrison. Only the Battletower and Granite’s Pass relics have made it. That, and… someone else.”
Jelena raised her eyebrows in surprise. Her lips pursed.
“Now the cleric says. ‘No matter. At least the holy heir has made it. That is all we need. My beloved will be pleased. She’s waiting inside to meet her. Come on it, blessings be upon you.” Enkidu translated, his voice softer than usual.
“The plot thickens.” Jelena’s pursed lips turned into a proper smile. “Sounds like this is where all the real action’s going to be. Ah, I guess that strapping, upstanding church boy is on a snipe hunt…”
Yep, Calaf’s journey home had brought him on a collision course with the cannon fodder all along. A distraction. Some unorganized rabble was never expected to hold the Battletower – an impossible feat given its indefensibility. The real action was here, near another even more indominable dungeon. And whoever was organizing all this had a distinct interest in that old relic Jelena had inadvertently pawned off to a merchant around Deepwood… and in this guest currently sitting still in the carriage down on the road.
“You’re thinking of him again.”
All at once, Jelena’s face went perfectly neutral.
“Am not.”
“This uprising will spread. They’re preparing for a siege. This place will soon be a battlefield.” Enkidu grumbled. “Reunion is not out of the question; he may yet be redeployed.”
Jelena grit her teeth. “Seems likely. But what are the chances we meet again amidst all this chaos? Ah, he’d better gain some more levels soon. The Redoubt’ll chew up a level forty and spit him out.”
Below, the convoy and cavalry unit both stormed through the ancient portcullis of Fort Duran. There was work going on along the ramparts around the clock. Renovations were being done to better fortify the old castle, which hadn’t seen warfare since roving bands of demons flew the skies. There must be an incredibly powerful benefactor operating behind the scenes to both command regular armies from up around the Olde Capital and to clear Fort Duran out so thoroughly that it could serve as their primary base of operations.
“Your Riverglen friend,” Endkidu said after a time. “Is he jealous?”
“Pshaw. Of what?” Jelena deflected.
“You have prior sexual experience,” said the Wildman. “He seems… virginal.”
“Wow. Thanks for reminding me. Completely forgot about my wild and sordid past,” she squeaked, nearly forgetting their need for stealth. “Certainly, a promiscuous criminal such as my self is far to gone into sinful, worldly delights to be with this random, upstanding gentleman who chased us halfway across the land. And have I mentioned he’s engaged?”
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Blood pooled in Jelena’s cheeks, turning them a healthy shade darker than her usual complexion.
“Sheltered church-folk may actually find that attractive,” the hairy mountain man said all nonchalant. “It could be seen as tempestuous. A forbidden fruit to succumb to. Or quite the opposite; a fallen angel to redeem.”
“Stupid Enkidu,” she concluded in one raspy, cursing breath. Then, when there was no response, she muttered to herself: “New-convert piousness kept me dutifully following the rules for a time. But after pilgrimage ended and I returned to Japella, after a year or two, well… Even before I took the eye out… old habits die hard.”
“… Your wild and sordid near-present too.” Enkidu said with aloof indifference piled on so thick it came off as innocence. “Though I’ve noticed you’ve stopped paying visits to red light districts since the Riverglen job. Did you mention to your pursuer how we...”
“No. No. No. What happens in Firefield stays in Firefield,” Jelena said. “I mentioned nothing about your highly embarrassing backstory, old man.”
“So, he wouldn’t be jealous if he knew…”
“That was a one time thing.” Jelena’s blush grew even deeper. “Look, we were in a brothel. I’d had, ahem ahem, dealings with the working girls, and they seemed satisfied well enough.”
Again, the pair paused.
“Wait… are you jealous?” Jelena looked over.
“No.” Enkidu said.
“Okay. No relationship talk during a job,” Jelena declared suddenly. “Just… don’t mention that go-getting, determined, morally upstanding pretty boy again until we’re done here. Kay? He’s… distracting.”
“Okay.”
“… or next time, I’m definitely sharing your embarrassing backstory.”
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Night passed with near-constant harassment along the edge of camp by unruly vandals with twelve levels and sixty+ Agility stats under their belts. Few slept well with sabotage and supplies theft rampant. Despite minimal training, these Cultivators were growing increasingly adept at guerrilla warfare.
Come dawn the thieves and saboteurs had slunk away into the hills. The armies marshalled from four cities marched in a wide arc through the lightly forested foothills north of Twelfthnight. Too large to be fought on the open field. High-level Scouts made up the van, both discouraging future harassment and sensing attempted guerilla movements well ahead of time.
Jedd’s party, with the Paladin in the front, his sister and Gael just behind him, and Calaf taking up the back of the position. Mikail was off among the Vanguard. Fitting, as his class was indeed ‘Vanguard.’
Before the sun even began to dip down into the west they encountered it: The Battletower. A hulking monstrosity of concentric pentagonal structures narrowing near the top before spreading out once more into a high redoubt.
The Battletower, the first dungeon on the pilgrimage route, but far out of the way, was hemmed in by mountains taller than even the tower itself to the north and west. Beyond that was a inhospitable badlands of crags and dried riverbeds. Belatedly, Calaf realized he would have passed on the far side of that mountain range during his journey with Gorman, skirting the alpine Deepwoods. The mountains alone had blocked his proper view of the tower. And what a sight it would have been to his low-level self.
“There it is.” Gael nodded sagely. “Lower levels are still inhabited. Or were; who knows where all the scholars have gone since the Cultivators moved in. It’s the tower itself that’s the deathtrap where only the most guile heroes dare reach the top.”
“No signs of Cultivators. They must all be in the tower,” Karol said.
“Church will send a deacon out to request parley,” Jedd said. “Under guard, of course. Our role is to wait.”
And wait they did. Calaf looked southeast, two whole armies arrayed at his back. Gorman was out there. And an entire second wave of reinforcements, with Charlotte among them. Would it be enough?
In time, a higher-level Deacon came out from the Firefield contingent. This deacon and a contingent of church-ordained guards rode out on dire-emus towards the Battletower. For a time, nobody appeared. But then, a group of five left out the largest door.
Calaf and company’s role here was to just sit back with the main army and observe. Maybe the Cultivators would surrender, surrounded as they were. What terms could they be given? Surely if they just handed in these weird baubles to church authorities and go home, this could all be resolved without too much in the way of excommunication.
“Can anyone hear them?” Karol asked after a time. “Ah, if Mikail were here, I think he’s got a long-distance lip-reading perk…”
Calaf sighed. He did not at all expect to actively march in an army against a heretical movement. It was caused by downstream effects of those relic thefts that had sent him on a journey so long ago now. Funny how that worked. Well, with the Cultivators surrendered, it wouldn’t be more than a few days walk back home. And he could do that on the march, with Charlotte and Gorman.
“Hmm? What’s that?” Karol held a hand up above her head like a visor, blocking the sun from her eyes.
Up high atop the Battletower, a whirling purple glare appeared from a window. It went from tiny pinprick of light to whirling ball of electric death in seconds.
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Spell:
Thundaraga XXI
Effect:
Deals Prodigious Lightning Damage Across A 1-mile area. (INT: 50, ARC: 75)
Description:
Do Not Use in Close Quarters
A wide, jagged arc of off-white lightning that phased into purple as it traveled to ground shot forth from atop the Battletower and cleansed a 270-degree arc from the front of the tower. The church deacon and his guards disappeared into the ether – as did the Cultivators sent out to parlay. An arc of charred ground was all that remained.
A collective gasp went out from the Plains Junction and Riverglen contingents. Their foe had just fried their own delegation.
Up in the high tower, another set of whirling electric lightning balls formed… joined by nascent fireballs and whirling vortexes of compressed wind.
Horns blared from the back rows.
“That’s the all-forward signal!” Jedd said, sword brandished. “Weapons up. All, march!”
Brigades were organized by parties. So individual units of five, arranged in turn in columns five to ten parties wide. ‘Independent’ parties such as Jedd’s sellsword pick up group were in the front line, nominally under Plains Junction’s banner.
All at once, the front line took a step forward, then another. Calaf prepped his shield.
A searing fireball of some prodigious numerical designation flew directly at the party…
Spell:
Fell Fireball LXVI
Effect:
Throws a Single Fell Fireball of Hellfire in an arc up to half a mile. (INT: 68, ARC: 80)
Description:
Aiming Not Provided and Indeed, Impossible. Throw and Pray.
Jedd stood his ground in front of the group. His towering great shield stood tall. The entire blob of molten fell-fire impacted the shield and fell right to the floor. Smoldering, but failing to even singe Jedd’s fireproof boots. He looked back at the party, particularly his sister, Karol.
“Stay behind me!” he ordered.
They charged, Calaf doing his duty as the rearguard.
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