What a shit show. Ambros was standing at an intersection, looking at the incoming group of frog men. A double group. At his side, his squad stood ready with arbalest loaded and determined looks. This wasn't the first time this night that they had been outnumbered, but the number of bolts used was stacking up even as they gathered back any that could be saved.
When the enemy was only thirty steps away, Amrbos lowered his right arm, and the storm of bolts started. Frog men became perforated as pincushions, and even the battle leaders fell under the hail. The squad was definitely getting better at choosing targets. The fight was over before it started. Ambros didn't even have to go in and clean up this time.
Battle Award
0 Exp
0 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpses?
That was becoming a problem. Even if he was the leader and therefore got the prompt, his contribution was nothing. Ambros called out. “Jerry, Karl, Nick and Terry, on me. The rest reload.” They were all two nighters. So far his squad hadn't lost anyone, and he planned on keeping it that way.
Carefully making their way to the corpses, he knew the four squad members would have trouble seeing, but when they got close enough, they should be able to see the bolts in the moonlight. Picking up what they could. Ambros guessed a good half of what they had fired was reusable. He finally chose yes, and the corpses went up in smoke. He had learned that bolts still suck in the frogmens body would disappear when looting.
Hearing another battle group come running from down the street, he shouted, “Get back to the line,” Even as he summoned Ogre Slayer and ran to meet the frogmen. Buy them time. He needed to buy them time. Meeting the first three, Ambros slid down and chopped at their legs. Rising up behind the first three with Ogre Slayer in Battle Axe length and his heavy steel shield, he tapped the sword coming towards him with the rim of his shield so it would miss his right shoulder as he stepped forward and struck a frogman three times in rapid succession with the front spike. Taking a step left, he brought the axe to the torso of the one standing in front of the battle leader. The frog man was knocked into the one on its left, making it tumble while Ambros stepped past and under the battle leader's maul and planted the back spike in the center of its helmet. The battle leader stood for a moment after Ambros removed the spike before falling to its knees. He took a step back and to the right taking a sword stab on his shield before lashing out with the rim as he took a step towards the one frog man to survive the initial rush through the first line. The shield's rim crunched into the frogman's helmet, killing it. The battle leader finally fell forward with a crash of metal hitting rock. Unsomming his shield, he made Ogre Slayer go into pole axe mode as he held it with a hand, the shaft like a staff, spinning it around as he closed in on the last four frogmen.
Fighting with fifty points in both Body and Mind was different. He knew where enemies stood or moved by how the air was displaced. He smelled them. He could almost feel them like they were strings in the part of the tapestry of battle, and he was weaving it.
Moving faster than they could follow, he was in between them, knocking one prone with a jab of the shaft, slicing a frogman from scrotum to neck as he brought Ogre Slayer up and struck backward into the one behind him with the bottom spike. Twirling the poleax from right to left, he cut through one throat as the other one got its left eye pierced with the back spike when he turned it around. Walking over to the one he had knocked prone, he brought the bottom spike down on its helmet, killing the frogman.
Battle Award
1780 Exp
1930 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpses?
Yes, ignoring the expected loot list. He watched the group turn to smoke as he hurried back to his squad. The fight had taken all of his meager Energy reserves, but he should have a few moments to take a breather before the next group came, and now the squad was ready. So maybe he got some experience and system points.
Ignoring the gazes of the people in his squad, he sat down on a rock and massaged his temples. He couldn't believe how unprepared the settlement command had been. They were literally in a state of being besieged.
The mustering had gone well enough. The command had obviously been prepared for Ambrose's little ploy because the nobles were quickly integrated with the search for the grand ritual. The search patterns were set, the squad clearing buildings knew the area they had, and the squads to hold intersections knew where they needed to go. The map ended up looking like a chequered pattern, but every building within three depts would hopefully be cleared by dawn.
Ambrose's squad was set to hold one of the middle intersections close to the mustering field, so they had a pretty short walk. There was a feeling of hope. Finally, they would be striking back a major blow to the invaders. After all this time of just holding the line, they were in some way going on the offensive. If a brass band had started playing them out of the held territory, he wouldn't have been too surprised. For a moment, he wished Whisper was there to be with them, she had deserved this moment as much as anyone, but he knew from Eku that she was still bedridden. He promised himself to go see her the moment they got done.
They hit the regular patrols about two building blocks out, cleared them and moved on. Then another, and two more before they had cleared the second block. After that, there was a constant stream of battle groups hitting them. Ambros and his squad broke off and held their intersection, but he knew they were some of the lucky ones. The ones at the end of each area were probably still trying to get to theirs if they could. It would be a brutal slog. They had plenty of Adepts in the ranks with them, however, so things were still in good order.
His squad was one of the few without an Adept from the central tower taking over the leadership of the squads. There had been surprisingly little argument from both the nobles and the other adventurer squads than he had expected.
Personally, he would have been throwing a fit like a four year old not getting ice cream. When he thought about it, that may have been why his squad didn't have one.
Then the stream had turned into a constant onslaught. He had long since lost track of the number of frogmen who had come to test their arbalest. He had no wish to enter his memories to count them either. It had been one long bloodbath. At times Ambros were moving between bolt volleys to stop battle groups from making their way through the rubble on their left side.
The right side came with an intact wall, as luck would have it. He almost withdrew his squad to the roof of the building behind them, but that would have allowed frogmen to slip through and hit the other squads on the flank. As he saw more and more blue and green flare pairs in the distance signaling squads about to be overwhelmed, send reinforcements. He grew more and more worried. No reinforcements from the garrison had gone past Ambrose's position. He quickly jumped up on a roof to scan the roads he could see, and nothing.
Then hell broke loose. The strangest frogman Ambros had seen so far had come riding on some sort of flying disk from the main horde encampment. The thing's bulbous head was grotesquely large for its thin body as he saw it sitting cross legged on the disk. It flew over the right flank of the clearing squads, and when it seemed to have found its preferred spot by the ramparts that made up the barricade, it opened its mouth and looked like it was inhaling the very fabric of existence. A swirl of Energy was visible to the naked eye for a moment before the thing unleashed an attack on the barricade. Ambros didn't know what power that was, but he could see the debris and rocks being hurled up into the air with too many guardsmen. It destroyed an entire section of the barricade, keeping the frog men out of the outer ring. The one attack snuffed out the life of hundreds of rift guards. Then Eku and a small woman were on it.
They came flying from the inner ring. Even to Ambrose's enchanted senses, it looked like they had teleported. The woman unleashed a neverending stream of red glowing daggers at the frogman, it managed to avoid most of the daggers, but a few made it through, and the thing roared in pain as its floating disk spun out of control. It retaliated by shouting. Its voice made visible rings of displaced air around them as it traveled, forcing the woman to maneuver away from the battle for a moment. That's when Eku struck. Long tears rending reality apart as they struck at the frogman, pushing it towards the ground. It yelled its pain and protest but was far from out of the fight. Sending shout after shout after Eku, who was dodging and trying to position himself on the other side of the frogman.
Suddenly the little woman was back. Instead of a neverending barrage of daggers, she crashed into the thing with a red sword taller than she was. It was not as much cutting it as crushing the frogman's defenses. Again she hit it, forcing it closer to the ground. Eku now at its back. They hit it from both sides. Having the thing almost grounded. Then it exploded in a shockwave, throwing both the woman and Eku back and making a beeline for the main horde encampment.
The woman managed to get in front of the frogman however, and made it change its course towards the ruined city to the northeast, with Eku close on its tail. They were still out there fighting. None of them fully managed to destroy the other. Ambros could only see them as flashes in the distance now. It had been both incredible and terrifying to watch. He knew that if either the woman or Eku had to retreat, anything of the outer ring would not survive for long. That frogman had been something else.
It had been like watching a movie at twelve times the speed, with the occasional teleportation thrown in for good measure. He didn't know how many down here on the ground caught as much of it as he did, but it was awesome to see how much power was thrown around over such a short time, and they were still at it. It was also slightly terrifying.
Lifting his head, Ambros heard more footsteps coming from the road in front of them. Soon enough, another two battle groups, followed by two more, were heading straight for them. “Squad. I want you to take down as many as you can. If any of them get within ten steps, your job is to hold a line of pikes pointed at them. Got it? Good. Now choose your targets and start firing.”
Ambros stood to the right of his squad, watching them send bolts into the incoming frogmen. They had taken down two of the front squads as the frogmen were thirty steps from them. At twenty steps, only six frogmen and one battle leader made it. At ten steps, a single frogman stood looking confused for a moment before a bolt took it in the helmet. Now that went better than Ambros had hoped.
Battle Award
0 Exp
0 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpses?
Going out to pick up bolts took longer than normal this time, mostly because the bodies were spread over such a large area, but they did manage to get a bit more than half back. They had run out of explosive bolts long ago, however, and ripper rounds were only for the goliaths.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Then a flare of green and a flare of blue went up to the left of their position. Ambros was torn, but he finally decided to trust his instincts. “Grundan has command. Anything comes down that road, you turn it into pincushions. I will head over and try to help our neighbors so we don't get flanked. Understood?” They looked very skeptical and far too scared for his taste. Finally, Grundan answered, “Yes. We hold this intersection until you come back.” Nodding at him, Ambros took off, jumping up on the roof of the building behind them before making his way to the next intersection, crossing to the opposite roof when he cleared the destroyed building.
Coming to a stop at the edge of the roof. He looked down at a goliath smashing its clubs down a creator in the ground. One of the squads adept had to be down there. No one else would have survived the onslaught. He saw adventurers attacking its legs and fighting frogmen and battle leaders around it. They were good, really good, but they would not last long with the goliath there. Cursing himself, he jumped over to the goliath's back, almost throwing up from its smell and scampered up to the neck. Summoning one of his long thin knives, he cast Stasis on the blade, almost emptying his mana pool as he drew on an Energy stone. Sliding it into the back of the helmet, he started cutting out a section of the helmet. Constantly having to recast and absorb energy from more and more Power stones. His mana channels felt like someone had poured molten lava in them.
He finally managed to remove a section of the helmet with a whimper, but by then, the goliath had noticed something wasn't right, so it kept trying to hit him with its clubs. Luckily it hit its own shoulders and the side of the helmet more than him, but it still almost managed to shake him loose from his perch on its neck. Summoning Ogre Slayer as a battle axe, he started hitting the cleared section of the things helmet with the back spike. Over and over, he hit. It must have started feeling it because it started howling and dropped two of its back clubs trying to reach Ambros.
He was finally rewarded with the skull giving way and could see sections of the thing's brain. Summoning the arbalest he kept for himself, he loaded a ripper round and fired into the hole. The goliath simply collapsed. Ambros road the things fall down to the ground with one hand on the helmet and one still cradling the arbalest. His head felt two sizes too big, he wasn't sure if he had ruined a few of his mana channels, but the bloody thing was dead.
Battle Award
79 471 Exp
3 988 369 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpse?
Yes, damn it. Yes. Looking at the experience and system point distribution, he had done more than enough that any loot was his. Unsurprisingly it was another long straight horn, seven platinum coins and an Energy stone half the size of his fist. He wanted some compensation for the thirty or so Energy stone chips he managed to burn through.
When the goliath went up in smoke, there was silence. Even the frogmen stopped fighting for a moment. Then with a shout in exaltation the adventurers went at it again with renewed vigor. The frogmen went down like wheat before a scythe as Ambros waved farewell to the befuddled Adept crawling out of the hole in the ground and the few adventurers he recognized as he headed back to his squad. The intersection would hold. It would damn well hold.
Making it back to his squad, he was happy to see that they were just cleaning up another group of frog men, and all were accounted for. Coming up behind them, he said, “Excellent work Grundan.” He was sure the orc had a heart attack. It made him smile for a moment. “The intersection of our neighbors still holds, but it was close. I want you all to be prepared to switch out for ripper bolts in case a goliath decides to visit us too. Now, I want to half the squad resting for half a turn and the rest with me to pick up bolts. Grundan, you are with the squad resting. The ones with me, if the enemy comes, I want you to head back here as fast as you can and start choosing targets. When I shout clear, you make them sorry they decided to get up today. Understood?" At their nods, he said, “Excellent, let's go.”
The retrieval operation went surprisingly well, they weren't interrupted, but that may have been because they suddenly started hearing clashes of battle further out in the outer ring. He had no idea what was going on, but he would take it. He had slowly been draining Power stones since the battle with the goliath, it was painful, but his mana pool felt like a black hole. No matter how much he drew in, it demanded more. His mana channels were also siphoning a minuscule part of the stream, slowly healing, to his relief.
The men rested for half a turn, then switched with nothing happening. Ambros could see the fight between the little lady, Eku, and the strange frogman was still going out far in the distance but even to his eyes, it was more like watching a blinking star.
Standing beside half his squad, he imagined how they would have been if they were closer to the adventurers in power. The adventures had fought in their groups but not as a squad, more like four groups doing their own thing. Having a group of trained soldiers at the third or fourth step would be devastating to the frog men or most of the forces he had stood against so far. Arbalest fire followed by a pike wall clearing out any remaining resistance, short sword and shield for close fighting, proper armor… Yeah, he was getting tired. His mind was running from him. Still, he would eventually have to set up his own seat of power once he reached Paragon. He would need soldiers to stand as a first line of defense.
Shaking his head, trying to clear away thoughts that weren't needed for hundreds if not thousands of years. He stretched, feeling his spine pop. With a smile, he thought back to the man he had been when he came first came here. Much was still there, but he was being honed into something more. Bit by bit, he was being transformed into someone who could stand on their own. He just needed to not be caught before he could do that, and he had taken a major risk using Stasis earlier on the goliath. He was happy to note that it had gone up by a rank after reapplying it on the books and finally that he had used it as a weapon on the goliath. He looked forward to testing what had changed.
They waited and rested. Then there was a rumble from down the intersection. Ambros signaled for the squad to get ready. They had been given enough rest and food by now. Turning his head towards the road, he tried to pick out the sounds. It took longer than he expected, but that wasn't the sound of frogmen. That was the marching of armored men.
The first thing he saw coming from the next intersection stunned him. It was standing half again as tall as him, then two more followed but slightly shorter. Ambros realized he was seeing proper enchanted armor for the first time. The full plate armor was enormous. It looked more like late medieval jousting armor on steroids. How could anyone move inside that? The smooth way they moved made it even stranger, like automatons. None of the three carried weapons he could see, but that wasn't too strange when it was only a summon away.
When the tall one reached the middle of the street, it turned, and Ambros felt a cold and calculating aura envelop him. It didn't try to attack him in any way, however, so he just let it happen. The armor signaled to someone behind it around the corner to keep going or something similar because the marching of armored feet continued. Row by row, rift guards marched past. Moving past the intersection, Ambrose's squad was guarding. Then the thing spoke, and Ambros immediately recognized the voice of the Castellan. “Ah, Sir. Ambros. I had hoped to find you whole and hale. I see you have your intersection cleared, and your men are in good form. Truly, nothing more than is expected of Lord Ekurzakir's disciple, but still worth of note. The settlement owes you a debt for your part in apprehending the traitor and more so for the warning of a possible calamity that could have befallen us. It has been found and dismantled. I will see you at a later point to make sure you receive the honors you deserve. Now, this section of the outer ring has been taken back, and new barricades have been placed. Your squad will fall behind the guardsmen and join us on the assault of the outer ring encampment. It is time to drive the beasts out of my city.”
Ambros was frankly too stunned to say anything, well, anything that wouldn't get him instantly obliterated. He had no illusions about the power disparity between them. It was a mountain talking down to a pebble. Setting aside his dreams of ramming Ogre Slayer up the Castellan's backside for the moment, he did the adult thing and bowed while saying, “Yes, My lord. Thank you, my lord.” One day… One glorious day I will skin you alive. He was pretty sure the feelings were mutual, but it would be like an adult picking on a toddler. In other words, something the Castellan probably didn't consider seemly.
“You heard the Lord Castellan. Move out, and fall behind the guardsmen.” As the squad came to the next intersection, watching thousands of guardsmen marching past. Ambros was a bit apprehensive that Arthur de Vere, the Castellan, hadn't left yet. When Ambros reached him, the man said, “I don't really like you, young Ambros. You are sanctimonious and think you are better than those around you. Even worse, you think you are more clever than you are. Even if the ploy you pulled on the Steward and the merchant was well done. We caught the Steward trying to sabotage the Citadel shield. If not for your ploy, I would never have thought to set a watch on my former friend. A single drop spills an ocean. Yes, very well done.“
Ambros could feel the cold gaze of the Castellan through his helmet. “You and your men have done enough to rest on your laurels tonight. You will be in reserve, and you will watch, and you will learn how a large engagement takes place. You will then report your observations to Lord Ekurzakir. I have my eye on you, young Ambros, and I will watch you grow with great interest.” The last part sounded like more of a threat than anything else. The Castellan turned on a dime and was in front of the marching guardsmen in short order. Ambros wasn't sure if he should bury his head in the sand or run. The Steward was the traitor? They had dismantled the great casting without him there? Who had read the runes? Ambros was having a minor existential crisis. Wasn't he the center of the universe?
They stood there for a while. The armored guardsmen just kept walking past, so Ambros had his squad rest again. Get something to eat. As for himself, he sat against a wall and tried figuring out what was happing to his mana pool. He was also running out of energy stones rather fast. Looking inside himself, it was like there was a drop going down into nothing. Had he managed to make his mana pool leak?
Only giving it a moment's consideration, he summoned the marble sized Energy stone he had gotten from the Son of Meloch and started drawing on it. His mana channels had constantly been getting better, but the amount of Energy they were sucking from the stone now was ridiculous. He could literally feel it going to half its stored Energy in moments. Then it, too, was empty. That left the one he got from the frogman goliath. He didn't even hesitate. He felt like a man in the desert thirsty for water. The stone started draining at an alarming rate too, just as the marble had. When it had reached three quarter empty, however, it slowed down to his great relief.
The mana channels were still drawing in mana from the Energy stone, but his mana pool. Then it did something Ambros never would have guessed. The closest way he could describe it was that it burped. If it hadn't been so damn painful, he would have laughed.
It then started shrinking, and Ambros had to bite his hand so he didn't scream in front of his squad. Smaller and smaller it became until it was nothing more than a marble. A pool turned into a marble. Ambros was so far gone that he hadn't noticed the last of the guards passing them, but good old Grundan was on the spot and had the men line up while he tried getting Ambrose's attention.
Eventually, he got through to his commander, and he immediately knew something had happened to him. His eyes had an inner light they hadn't a moment before. What that meant, Grundan didn't know. Nor did he care, but he wanted his commander up, so he tried lifting him by holding him up under the arms but quickly realized that would be pointless. He might as well try to move a mountain. What was the commander made out of, led? He felt sorry for his slave. She seemed to be happy enough with the man, though, and it wasn't his business. Just as he was about to see if he could slap him to his sense, the commander's eyes focused on him again. The strange light was still there though, just like stars peeking out behind clouds in the sky.
Looking up at Grundan, who looked about to slap him, he had to ask, “I get wanting to slap a superior officer, but maybe keep it out of sight of the squad?” Guntar seemed to let out a sigh of relief before he answered. “You were lost there for a bit. I was getting worried. The squad is following the guardsmen.”
“Excellent work as always, Grundan. You are doing great. No, let's not get there too late. Thank you.” Ambros said as he clapped Grundan on the shoulder, walking by him. He didn't notice it almost brought the Orc to his knees.
They quickly caught up to the collum making its way through the street. His squad looked exhausted but well. They were all there. Ambros had reached his own goal of the night. Tomorrow bring what tomorrow will.