Vigilance wasn’t enough. Gloe stayed up throughout the night, only let himself doze off atop the tower’s roof when the sun edged over the horizon. A soft rapping sound from below woke him.

“The commandant is gone. So are all the sojourners and chosen.”

“What?”

“Apparently they slipped out just after dawn. They must’ve planned this. Everyone assigned to sentry duty on the west wall is gone too.” Oresus paused. “Don’t want to desert, but…what do you think we should do? Something must be coming.”

Gloe looked out into the distance and saw a haze to the east. “Something’s already here. Dust cloud to the east. How many kavar did the commandant leave?”

The sound of someone kicking a wall came from below. “None. He took ‘em all.”

“Ah.” More silence. “They’re coming fast. I’d guess there are centituars in the vanguard.”

“What?”

“You know, those fast demonlings with all the legs and armor. I don’t know what they’re actually called.”

“Oh.” Oresus sighed. “No point in fleeing then, huh?”

“If we scattered and hid a few of us might make it. Probably not though. Judging by the dust cloud this is a serious attack, and we barely repulsed the last one.”

“And that was with those damn cowards.”

“Yeah.” Gloe stared a minute more, then leapt to his feet. “Oh well, we all have to die sometime. I’m going to go cook us up a decent breakfast. Tell anyone who’s hungry to meet in the commandant’s quarters. I doubt he was able to carry away all his delicacies.”

...

Gloe turned out to be right on both counts. The oncoming enemy force was led by centitaurs. Within a couple of hours they had swept up and begun patrolling around Tranche. At least a dozen of them. That number rose to a score within a few hours more. The newcomers were streaked with fresh blood. Some had ignored Oresus’ warnings and fled. They apparently had not gotten far.

But the main host was far less swift than its vanguard. It wouldn’t arrive until mid-to-late morning. While waiting the centitaurs patrolled endlessly, but made no effort breach the walls. So after setting a few rotating sentries many of the remaining occupants of Tranche gathered in and around the commandant’s compound. He had not been able to take his food with him.

Gloe had never been a good cook. He’d been content with plebian bachelor fare in his old life, and in his new one acquiring food had been more important than its method of preparation. He didn’t know any great recipes, and this world failed to be full of foodstuffs that were precise equivalents of the food he was used to.

On the other hand as he’d leveled up he’d simply gotten better at everything. He picked things up faster, he was defter and more creative. His enhanced senses included smell and taste. That didn’t magically make him a better chef, but he improved quickly as he tried various things out. His first creations were extremely simple, but at least the ingredient quality was good and he hadn’t burned anything. As he experimented he learned how to blend vegetables and meats together to create complex savory meals.

Baking was a bit more difficult. He had no idea of the properties of the various powders and spices, and the labels didn’t help at all since he couldn’t read this language. Finally he took the scientific approach and baked a couple dozen small lots of various combinations. His improved memory allowed him to keep track of what had been in which lot, so he was able to rapidly deduce certain properties. Once that was accomplished he was able to reverse engineer several rough approximations of pancakes or breakfast pastries.

It didn’t exactly win rave reviews or match up to mother’s cooking, but when you included the high-quality ingredients the end result was better than most of these men had eaten in a long time. For a time that was able to cut through the fear permeating the fortress. A bit at least.

The remaining guards remained apart, but Gloe picked up snippets of conversation. Eventually they seemed to reach a consensus, and one of them deliberately but without fanfare handed off a shackle key to one of the most capable prisoner aberrations. Within twenty minutes or so all the prisoners were unchained, and word began to circulate that the armory was open.

Some rushed in that direction, others moved more reluctantly. Gloe noted with amusement that many of the guards already sported significant arms and armor upgrades. So they had helped themselves before opening anything up. That was fine.

Gloe made no move to arm himself. Presumably the commandant had taken anything truly valuable with him, so he’d make-do with a left-over spear or something. Besides, he was doing more good here. He was, without a doubt, the most powerful person remaining in the fortress (although that wasn’t saying much.) Playing chef here provided an illusion of stability. More importantly, didn’t everyone deserve a decent last meal?

More cynically, as long he wasn’t taking decisive action everyone had to be aware that he could be provoked into action. Most of the remaining people were trying to stay calm. From what he could hear a few were freaking out, and there had been a few murders, but most were trying to stay under the radar. A few were feeling hope, most were despairing. It wasn’t as if they had a lot of options though.

So he kept feeding them. If some people found the converted dining hall and thrown together food more soothing than they would have expected, well, that was only to be expected. After all he had to eat too, right?

...

Doom came to Tranche. It came bearing banners and blowing horns. The demonling host was the largest Tranche had ever seen, but they were far from the worst of it. Behind them sauntered demons. True demons.

It had been a while since Gloe had seen one. He couldn’t gauge their shroud at this range, but he could analyze the way they moved, the way the demonlings interacted with them. He could try to ascertain the quality of their gear.

Not an encouraging exercise. All evidence pointed to the demons being quite powerful. Although they were casually, arrogantly sauntering across the field he noted that their spacing was such that each had ample room to dodge if necessary. The most ornately attired were in the center while the others formed a loose but complete perimeter around them. At one point a demonling scurried over a hill to investigate something. From his vantage point Gloe could see both the demonling and the demons, but the hill was between the two. Despite that he saw the nearest demon’s head track the demonling as it scampered back and forth. It seemed the demons were far more battle-ready than they appeared.

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The demonlings’ body language and actions supported this. They made no effort to protect or guard the demons, instead clearing out before them. When the demons approached them directly they fawned, almost cowering. The host included car-sized demonlings that looked a little like four-armed grappler torsos on a scorpion’s body, presumably the next level up from grapplers. He decided to call those grappions. Even these appeared to be terrified of the demons though.

The demonic panoply was excessive, almost garish, but it also seemed to be high-level battle gear. There were no ornamental features that would hinder movement or block vision. All weapons were tightly strapped in locations that would provide quick, unobstructed access. The weapons themselves were overelaborate and fanciful for Gloe’s taste, but without inhibiting their core functions.

No, he feared these were serious experienced fighters. Likely this was what had caused Marore, the commandant and the rest to flee. If even one of the demons could have beaten Marore then the fortress had no chance. The more he looked the more he feared that most of these demons were far higher level than him.

They drew closer. The remaining guards tried to get everyone organized, but it was difficult. Despair was beginning to inundate the fortress. Then the demons drew closer and one of the sentries gasped something. “Laukis.”

Within moments the name rippled through everyone present. The fear and outright terror it cause began to wash over Gloe in waves. He couldn’t even begin to eat it all.

Before anyone could break Sergeant Eitaly stood up. “Men, I know we’re all afraid.” His voice was shaking. “I certainly am. But I don’t see Tojas! Does anyone see him?” There was a chorus of denials. “Then we might be allowed to die! If we flee they will run us down, but if we all fight we might be able to force them to kill us!”

For some reason that helped alleviate the fear, just a bit. A few men still vanished deeper into the fortress but most resumed their defensive positions, still shuddering. Clearly Gloe was missing some critical context here, but there was no time to remedy this lack. Most of the men here didn’t have Gloe’s eyesight, so they had only recognized this “Laukis” when the demons were almost to the trench.

The demon in the center waved a hand lackadaisically and the demonlings surged forward. A few demons looked at their leader eagerly, and with another flick of his hand he released them. They rapidly followed behind the horde.

There was no finesse this time, no back and forth of siege tactics and counter-measures. The base demonlings had such a numerical advantage that they were able to simply scale the wall and swarm the defenders. Most of the first wave died, but in so doing they allowed a number of vets to make it up unassailed, and while the defenders were tied up with them C-Types began to poke their heads over the wall.

By the time the grapplers arrived a quarter of the defenders were already dead. It was utter chaos, and there were demonlings everywhere. Gloe had killed everything within reach on his section of the wall, only to find himself flanked on both sides. He swept his spear in continual bloody rings around himself, using the imbued shaft to simply crack the bones and crush the organs of the base demonlings and vets around him. He took out the first two C-Types to charge him, the first with a jab through the eyes, the second skewered through the heart. A grappler parried his strike at a third and the spear shattered.

Gloe kicked off backwards off the wall, rearming himself with an axe from one of the fallen. As the grappler leapt in pursuit Gloe hurled his new weapon. The grappler parried and reached out with its free hand to seize and crush the human. Gloe was faster than he had been though, and since this was his last hurrah he was willing to push his body to the limits and take chances. He slapped at the oncoming hand, altering his own trajectory given his lower mass.

It put his feet in contact with the ground, and he quickly imbued. Not only did this check his forward momentum but it let him fake the mass he needed for what came next. As the grappler flew overhead Gloe seized its foot and pulled. His muscles began to pop and his bones to creak, but he was able to slam the beast headfirst into the flagstones. It was only stunned for a moment, but that was enough for Gloe to draw a kitchen knife and put its eyes out. He slashed as many arteries as he could as he ducked under the closing arms and fell back.

There was no time to finish it though. The fortress was lost. Three more grapplers were closing in on him. Most of the defenders were already dead. He saw Baur get his head crushed as he ripped the guts of a grappler open. A demon slip in behind Oresus as he frantically tried to hold off two C-Types. The first grappion hauled itself over the wall with difficulty, and fixed its eyes on Gloe as one of the few surviving humans.

A spear flew at his face and he reflexively parried, chopping it in half. It hadn’t been imbued, apparently. His head snapped around to find the source. A demon was swinging through the air, using the two whips it was wielding to swing between the watchtowers. Gloe snapped his knife off, throwing it at the flagpole the whip had wrapped around. It bounced off.

Gloe leapt backwards as the demon scooped up another weapon with its seemingly prehensile whips. When his target dodged the hurled blade shattered against the courtyard stones. Gloe’s mind raced, trying to make sense of this, and then suddenly he intuited something he’d been working towards.

There was no time to think about it though. The demon was fast. Incredibly so. It swooped in and unleashed a flurry of slashes. The whips cut through Gloe’s shroud like it wasn’t there. If the demon had aimed for the throat it could have ended the fight in seconds, but it seemed inclined to play with its prey. At least, that’s what its cackling laughter indicated.

Slashing strikes ripped his flesh in dozens of places, all calculated to be painful and debilitating without being mortal wounds. Gloe dodged and parried as well as he could, but the whips curved around and sought him out as if they were sentient. He didn’t have much in the way of options, so he played along. He feigned weakening and trying to retreat. He couldn’t win, but as long the demon wanted to see suffering Gloe could prolong the fight. He was surrounded by fear and pain- it wasn’t as if he needed his blood at the moment.

So he tried a variant of the way he’d bagged his first grappler. He fell back until the terrain lined up right, with his back against a watchtower. The demon latched his whip onto the tower, but when he pulled the flagpole ripped free.

Gloe had realized that the sojourners and reavers didn’t know precisely how their abilities worked. They knew what their abilities did and how to use them, but when the gods gifted them with abilities they included (for lack of a better term) scripts that ran in the background, taking care of the fine details. Their abilities were partially automated, information about them conveyed using the ‘UI’ Marore had mentioned.

That smoothed their paths considerably he was sure, but there was value in knowing precisely how things worked. The demon’s ability automatically imbued objects when he used the whips as locomotion, but not otherwise. The demon didn’t know that, it just knew that the whips allowed rapid transversal.

So when Gloe had imbued the watchtower the demon hadn’t noticed. The whip had attached, and the ability had tried and failed to imbue, but the script had recognized the structure was sufficiently stable to allow transversal. So it hadn’t raised any alarms in the UI. The script had been right, at least until Gloe dropped the imbue. At that point it was too late.

The demon had a lot of shroud, but the fall still knocked it down and did a fair bit of damage. Before it could recover Gloe had imbued a piece of rubble twice his size and hurled it at the fallen demon. Then he charged behind it. He wasn’t certain he could kill this demon before it recovered, but he was sure going to try.

Without warning another demon was there. Gloe had no idea where it had come from, but it shattered the hurled rubble with an offhand blow. He had a split second to realize it was the leader of the demons. Then everything went black.

When he regained consciousness it was obvious not much time had gone by. The whip demon was still on the ground, the pieces of the rubble were still in motion. But somehow the demon leader’s fist had punched through his stomach wall. Gloe fell over backwards, gore spewing from the wound. He took a breath, had just enough time to realize a number of his internal organs had ruptured from the force. Then the darkness returned for a longer visit.