Chapter 74 - Buy Some Time

It didn’t take long for the first of the scourge ground forces to arrive the next morning. They materialized from the fog, a motley bunch of small, quick, largely herbivorous animals ranging from the size of rabbits to large dogs. Trix gave us the warning long before they got into range, and I was able to get up to the top of the wall before they entered our defensive perimeter. The squeaks and screeches of blind rage they put out weren’t nearly as intimidating as the proper scourge-touched I’d faced in Eclipse, but these things certainly didn’t lack for courage, going into a frenzy as soon as they saw us and charging headlong into the guns.

They lasted about as long as the predator bats did and gave almost zero experience.

The next waves were less direct. They circled us like wolves, far, far out, dancing in and out of turret range so that the guns only got off a second or two of fire before the scourge scattered and backed off. Then they would do it again and again, a different part of the perimeter every time.

The sound of the short bursts of gunfire were pretty normal now, even in the late hours of night. It was hardly even something to get up for anymore, which was good because I was having a hell of a time with our giant tree problem.

“They’re testing our defenses, Ryan,” Sissa ruminated quietly from next to the fire, its dull illumination exaggerating the edges of her scales. Around us, the rest of the team with the exception of Trix were all in their bedrolls, asleep from a long day of fortification work.

I gripped the casting bowl in my hand tightly as more of my mana flowed inside along with the instructions I had in mind for this iteration.

Automate a worker drone in this shape with six Imbued legs that form when the leg Triggers are activated. Activate the leg triggers immediately when done being Automated and outside the Casting Bowl. Use 400 mana divided equally among six different tapering layers to form the frontal cone. Place a trigger in the frontal cone that…

And so on. The instructions were becoming lengthy and complex, and holding the entire concept in my mind the entire time I was Automating the thing was extremely difficult, not to mention expensive. Luckily, I only had to do this once, and then it would be mostly self-sufficient.

“I said they are testing our defenses. I don’t like it. There’s almost a logic to it,” Sissa stated more loudly this time.

I dropped the finished bowl on the workbench and slumped over, letting my sweat-soaked hair droop down over my eyes. Sleep called to me, but it was from far away. Too much still needed doing.

“Yeah. I figure they’re waiting for enough bodies to make their move this time,” I replied.

Sissa cast a worried glance up at Trix’s basket perch above where he’d be using his excellent eyes to watch for just such a thing.

“They’re getting smarter,” she said.

I shrugged tiredly. “Something like that. Learning maybe.”

“They’re getting smarter, and we’re no closer to ready.”

I sighed and turned around, grabbing the new Casting Bowl and setting it on the shelf above the growing mound of metal slag on the floor, the ‘ant pile’ as I’d named it. It was essentially a mound of scrap metal that was leftover from my new drone production line, little bits that were carved off of the new models and allowed to collect on the floor to be put to use later. Right now the mound was about as tall as my ankle and twice as wide, composed entirely of silvery yellow and brown popcorn kernels of unshaped metal. Meanwhile, the casting bowl directly above was overful with dead drones awaiting a re-Shape and recharge.

“We’re closer to ready than we were,” I said, waving at the setup and then to the new Casting Bowl. “I had to increase the bandwidth of our production to prevent any more traffic jams, but that’s done now. The workers should charge at double speed and work faster.”

“Was wondering if you were still working on those things,” Sissa chided. “I thought we were moving onto the backup plan, since this one was taking too much time.”

“I’m about to do the backup. Really,” I insisted. “If I get this working properly, we might have a shot at not running out of metal. Ever.”

“Except we aren’t aiming for ‘ever’ are we?” She asked. “Furthermore, we might not make it to ‘ever’ if we get overrun immediately. Why have me along if you’re not going to respect my tactical advice, Ryan?”

“You invited yourself along,” I said, trying to make my tone light but not able to entirely conceal my insecurity.

This was going to work. It had to.

That didn’t keep me from doubting myself. Beedy’s labored breathing from his bedroll was a constant reminder of how fallible I was.

“Beside the point,” Sissa said, waving a dismissive hand in front of her face. “I’m here. We’re all here, and we all have an interest in living through this. I thought we discussed that you were going to use one of your explosives to bring down the trees.”

I nodded in affirmation, but I didn’t try to conceal my doubts. The size of these things and the metal cores they had made shaped charges a risky gamble. Using them may or may not work, since there was a lot of mass they had to cut through to bring them down. Not just that, but if we went around limiting the approaches to the base right now, how would Tiba get back? Every tree felled meant lower odds of ever seeing our goblins again. What if they were out there now and looking for an opportunity to rush forward?

A hand squeezed my wrist, interrupting my train of thought. Sissa was in front of me, on her feet, her expression softened somewhat. “It’s the right decision, Ryan. Don’t let what happened keep you from seeing clearly.” She leaned forward to make sure my eyes met hers. “Queen Tiba will understand the necessity of it. Of hard decisions. You need to trust her.”

I did trust her. I trusted Tiba implicitly. What I didn’t trust was that bringing down the trees immediately would help us in the short term. The goblins needed a way back for as long as I could give them. They deserved a way back. Beedy deserved it too. That was what I truly believed.

I resisted the urge to glance over at Beedy for the hundredth time and torture myself even more, instead, choosing to meet the dragonkin’s stare honestly.

“I’ll get to work on the charges now, but I still think the drones are the right play. Throw a little trust my way too,” I ventured.

Already, the little constructs were gradually making progress on the metal inside the trees. That’s where our little ant pile had come from. My constructs weren’t quite hard or strong enough to mine the metal with their appendages, so I’d come up with a solution that didn’t require physical force instead.

State Change was the answer. An expensive answer but maybe the only one.

The model I’d finally settled upon ‘mined’ the nickel-osmium alloy by essentially pressing their sharpened heads into the metal of the trees then flash boiling tiny portions of themselves to quickly bring the foreign alloy to its melting point. The melted metal would then flow from the tree onto the head and backs of the drones where it would cool enough to stick. The drones that came back from mining duty came back heavy, but once they were back in the casting bowl, the excess would be Shaped off and allowed to fall into the ant mound as the drones went through their recharge.

Sissa glanced over at the, honestly, pitiful amount of metal my method had collected thus far then back to me with a little smile. “I hope you’re right. I’ll also try to trust that you’re right. How about that?”

“Movement to the north!” Trix shouted. “A large mass! I think this is it!”

Everyone was up on their feet within seconds, hands on weapons and armor already secured.

I got up to the wall via the stairs and heard the nearest trio of turrets snap into line, acquiring targets as I passed.

The night was pitch black and foggy. meaning I couldn’t see a thing out there, but I trusted Trix’s night vision and my turrets.

This was it. The scourge were coming and in numbers this time.

I heard Samila and Sissa shuffle into place on this side of the fort, armor clinking as straps were tightened, and I assumed Bole was getting into position too, though I never heard the guy when he moved. We were all stacked on the north quarter of the wall, spread out to cover a wide semi-circle where the charge would probably hit. The turrets would have to cover the other parts of the walls that we couldn’t.

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There was no slow start to the action tonight. Suddenly, the turrets opened up on full auto and didn’t stop. Thunderous booms of propellant accompanied hollow snaps as dozens of bullets broke the sound barrier all at once, the muzzle flashes from the guns lighting up the surrounding forest and my comrades in an odd strobing slideshow of purple. The light also dimly illuminated the distant vanguard of the monsters as they approached, never enough for me to pick out the individual things, but enough to discern there was a massive amount of them.

I made my new machine pistol materialize in my hand. It was a compact but heavy model with a reinforced bolt carrier and action, a wide, stubby barrel, and a bottom-fed magazine. I flipped the pistol over into my prosthetic hand, then, in a flash, I held my sword too.

The snarling faces of Black Ones, beasts, and other, unfamiliar humanoids withered and collapsed as the turrets poured on the damage, closest targets first. Supersonic streams of lead shredded entire swaths of monsters, mowing them down like grass, cracking through bone and perforating secondary targets behind.

The scourge tried to compensate as they’d done with their scouts, redirecting the mass to try and dodge with individual monsters, but this close to the guns, the maneuver lost more than it gained. The sea of bodies parted under the onslaught, the entire blob moving as one to avoid further damage, but the turrets’ tracking was flawless. Wherever the scourge stuck out its neck, that neck would be obliterated.

Despite its efforts, the scourge was losing lots of bodies, and it eventually opted for a full on charge with no wasted effort to spare itself further losses.

The horde poured over the inner circle where our barrier of sunlight was slated to be, and I suddenly wished I’d brought down the trees like Sissa had asked.

For my turrets, it was like trying to hold back the tide with a broom. Where the scourge couldn’t use the tree trunks as cover, the overlapping, overwhelming fire of the turrets would create a shallow cavity in the enemy’s mass, pulping the softer targets and crippling the others, but as soon as the guns moved onto closer threats, the horde would reassert itself. Damage and experience messages whizzed through my feed, which I only gave a cursory glance to see what species we were dealing with here. The sheer variety was staggering.

The tide of monsters flowed into the trench, barely stopping as they were forced into the sharpened stakes Geddon and the dragonkin had carved and buried. More of the monsters died, but without remorse, the scourge simply used their dead as springboards to get at the fortress walls. Once there, they slipped into the deep shadows, invisible to me and to the turrets. The base of the wall was at too steep an angle for the light or bullets to reach.

When the mass hit the trench, Sissa hit us with her Duty and Mercy spell, and I could feel heat flow into my stiff limbs, my muscles loosen. If I’d had a real heart, it would have pounded in my ears.

My companions were already slashing and stabbing before I could even see what we were fighting. Nightmare pairings of armored humanoids squaring off against leaping horrors tried to draw my eyes away from my own portion of the wall, but I couldn’t allow myself to look. Only a handful of seconds later, I had my own problems to deal with.

The first snarling face I was able to pick out came up right in front of me, and the glance I got was only thanks to the harsh, fleeting flashes from the muzzles of the guns. Large. Gangly. Too many limbs. Too many eyes. It moved oddly, spasmodically flailing as it gained purchase on the lip of the wall.

Willing Edge [2 MP/sec]

I slashed at the thing before it could get fully upright, and my sword connected with something solid before the blade went through and out. There was a gurgle, and then a clawed hand raked across my knees, drawing a pained snarl from me but only a handful of HP in real damage. The next spurt of muzzle flash showed me more, the same creature there, on the battlements, missing two arms but now dead with holes in its cranium, too small for my turrets but just right for Trix’s rifle.

I didn’t get a chance to yell out a thanks before there more of the creatures bubbled into view.

Carefully, with as much form as I could, I advanced, slashing with Willing Edge at what arms and faces I could reach to give myself space, then, when I was nearly looking over the edge of the wall, brandished my machine pistol. I squeezed the trigger, dumping the entire thirty round mag down the vertical face of the wall and into the trench.

*PRRRT**PRRRRRRRRRRRTTT**

You hit scourge-touched bekal for 24 damage.

You hit scourge-touched bekal for 21 damage.

Scourge-touched bekal is bleeding.

You hit scourge-touched mountain cat for 24 damage.

Scourge-touched mountain cat is bleeding.

You hit scourge-touched goblin for 22 damage.

Scourge-touched goblin is bleeding.

You hit scourge-touched vine stag for 19 damage.

Scourge-touched vine stag is stunned.

You hit scourge-touched goblin for 26 damage.

…

Pistols is now level 5.

Upgrade paths available.

The pistol bucked in my hand, so hard I could barely keep my grip without using an ability. I was using the big ammo my turrets used and an oversaturated propulsion charge, and the power was such that even the strength of my prosthetic was tested by the recoil. The rest of my body, however, felt the power of those shots more acutely as the kinetic energy was transferred from my metal arm to the rest of me. My insides rattled, and I had to brace my feet and lean forward to keep myself from staggering. Two seconds of automatic fire, and the gun was dry.

I backed up, flicking the mag release and letting it fall to the ground. Another clicked into place as soon as it was out of my spatial storage.

The dragonkin sisters had not been idle. Several creatures layed dead at their feet, and I had to assume many more were down and injured below, not having been able to get up onto the wall before the women’s swords took them. To my left, Bole, similarly, was engaged in the fight, though his portion of the wall was mostly clear. He lept from spot to spot, shouted and cursed as he sliced at the monsters’ necks, cut tendons, and impaled them through their eyes before they could ever haul themselves fully into view. He never hit a target more than twice, and none of the monsters came even close to touching him.

*FWOOSH*

Yellow-orange firelight illuminated the left side of my vision as one of the flamer turrets engaged threats at the gate. I turned toward it reflexively, but the fire itself was beyond the walls and out of my sight. It cast the wall and our heavy wooden gate as black silhouettes. At the gate, a shadow that must have been Geddon stabbed down at a mass of creatures as they clawed at the thick wood.

An agonized scream sounded out from behind me, and I turned just in time to see Samila go down clutching the back of her leg as a Black One gurgled and died under her boot.

No. Not this time.

With a shout, I charged, feet carrying me over dead and dying monsters, my sword cutting down some kind of emaciated ape-wolf, my machine pistol spitting bursts that raked across the expanding line of monsters that were now cresting the wall. When the pistol ran dry on ammo, I bashed anything lucky enough to be within reach with the heavy barrel.

When I got to Samila, she was already trying to stand on her own, but I could tell she was hurting. I slipped under her shield arm and propped the both of us up together. My sword arm was next to useless wrapped around her waist, so I made it disappear and brought out my last pistol mag instead.

Samila and I met the next few minutes together. Her sword was quick and powerful, but with a whole other person attached to her at the hip, every swing was clumsy, less precise than her usual perfection. Her body attempted to flow into forms her leg could no longer support as she fought the horde, and she was having a hard time compensating. I could feel her torso heave as the effort and the pain left her more breathless with every move. All I could do was hold on tight and keep her from falling. I aimed and fired at individual creatures as they approached, bashed others if they got too close, while Samila finished them off with her blade.

At some point, the buzzing of Geddon’s chainsword ripped through the backdrop of chaos, followed shortly by a deep roar that drowned all other sound.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, all was still, silent except for everyone’s heavy breathing, the crackle of unchecked fire, and the hiss-pop of slowly cooling gun barrels.

Gently, I set Samila down and summoned a rock to hit with Volatility for illumination.

Dead scourge lined the forest floor and filled the trench. Severed, broken parts lay everywhere, and black blood dripped from still twitching, monstrous bodies. All of us bled from multiple wounds, though I didn’t remember where most of mine had come from.

“Too few- Too few bodies,” Sissa panted. She hadn’t sheathed her sword yet, instead turning from side to side, the tip of her sword tracking along with her eyes.

I looked again. She was right. With the amount of lead we just threw out there, there should have been way more carnage than what we saw. The concentration of the dead seemed to be highest near the walls but then tapered off gradually into the distance, where it, in reality, should have been the scourge’s heaviest casualties. Optimal range for the turrets.

“They must have taken them. They’re recycling their dead,” I said. “They were doing it back in Eclipse too. It’s why the goblins liked to burn their fallen.”

“True. That means we’ll have to burn these too,” Sissa said. “For various reasons. Disease being one of them.”

“Not just that. Look,” Samila grunted as she wrenched a pressure bandage into place on her leg.

I turned my attention to our little courtyard. Geddon was there in the center of the circle, next to the fire. The door, such as it was, was in splinters, and a number of charred monsters were dead next to it while several more were in pieces around Geddon. One of them, a mottled orange and black thing that was once vaguely humanoid, dwarfed the rest. It was taller and broader than even Geddon (or it would have been if it hadn’t been bisected) with thick, powerful arms and legs, wicked spikes on its knuckles, and overdeveloped fangs in its open mouth.

Geddon, for his part, heaved for breath, slumped down next to the body, but he looked as happy as I’d seen him as he rested the point of his chainsword inside the creature’s chest cavity. A little further back, behind the leori, Beedy slept in his bedroll, untouched.

Thank Constance for that.

“They’re still testing us,” Sissa speculated. “Testing themselves too. I wouldn’t call it strategic thinking, but they are at least as clever as some of the smarter beasts.”

“More than that, Princess,” Bole growled. He was busily cleaning his sword with the ragged clothing from one of the Returned he’d downed on the wall. Once the blade was passably clean, he sheathed it and gestured down to the dead, giant cat-person. “The little ones were a feint to hide the gresh there. I’ve played dice with less clever folk.”

I looked out into the night, pumping more mana into my pebble light to spread the illumination. Nothing but fog and shadow. How many of them were left out there? How much of itself did the scourge commit?

“Trix? Do I want to know?” I called up to the vulpa’s sniper perch.

“No. You do not want to know,” came his terse reply. He sounded as ragged as the rest of us, even though he hadn’t mixed it up in melee like we had.

“Those trees really need to come down,” Sissa said. She didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ but I heard it in her tone.

“Yeah.” I affirmed. “Yeah, they do.”

Tiba, I hope you know what you’re doing.