In front of us was an outpost, within which I could see at least one strong source of magic. I hadn’t taken that much time to consider what a portal felt like when I was in front of them, except those made by Gate. And without a direct line, Arcane Sight was only giving my vague ideas. Even so, it was reasonable to assume that there was a portal or something else important we didn’t want these people to have.
The problem was the outpost. It wasn’t small, and I could already make out ten plus people on the walls. Unless everyone was assigned to guard duty all the time, I’d expect thirty to fifty people. Others confirmed my vague estimate.
I looked at my remaining points. 13. “Well, I’m out of ideas.”
Midnight knew me too well, turning and squinting. “You just had a stupid thought, didn’t you?”
“Not at all. It was perfectly normal and reasonable. I just don’t have the points for it.”
“Not enough for some sort of Invisibility?” Midnight asked.
I paused for a moment. “Huh. Not a good one, no.”
“What was your actual plan?”
“I told you, it was a stupid one. A huge waste of points for something I’d only ever use here.”
Midnight tilted his head. “It’s that situational?”
“Well we couldn’t use it literally anywhere in New Bay. Also… I’m under informed about some of the workings of the spell so even if I could get it I’m not sure it would do what I want.”
“Well now I’m curious,” Midnight said.
“Me too,” Bolster commented. “I have a good number of spare points. Do you think I could cast it?”
“Definitely not,” I replied. “You’d need to be practically my level.”
“Now you’ve got to tell us,” Bolster pressed.
“Yeah hold on. Psst! Sir Kalman!” All of us were in a relatively tight space, an odd hollow in the cavern walls. He turned towards me to acknowledge my words. “You’ve seen some high level spells right? Does Meteor Swarm need open skies?”
Kalman blinked a few times. “I’ve only seen the spell once. Came down on an empty field. There’s a large pond there now.”
“So you’re not sure, then.” I shrugged. “Well, again, don’t have the points so it doesn’t matter. What we need is to scout the place out. Can Flower help with that?”
“Already on it,” Lyklor said. “She should be back in a minute.”
“Good,” I nodded. It was a good thing we had him. Without that, our next best option was Miss Flutter, and she was both new to working with people and a hundred times bigger than the other bat. Even if she was ‘natural’ to these tunnels, she would draw more attention.
The old beastmaster’s pet was way better at giving pertinent information than Zeb’s new friend. Though she’d learn eventually, I imagined.
Flower came back and reported forty visible individuals within the outpost, with sufficient room to house perhaps sixty people. She also reported there was a ‘big magic thing’ inside one building, though she hadn’t gotten close enough to figure out what.
“So what’s the plan?” Malaliel asked.
I wanted to ask her that, but most of these people were Power Brigade. Then Strife and Eglantine who we knew very little about. And the last two were from this world so I understood them best. I wasn’t meant to be in charge of things, though.
“Unless someone has a way to level the whole place… I don’t think we can safely do this. Which means… the correct choice is to head back and return with elven soldiers.”
Flower squeaked as quietly as a bat could in Lyklor’s ear. “One slight problem with that,” he commented. “They have a big pile of these… lasers… loaded up on a cart.”
Midnight felt nervous. “I could… I could go. My suit has stealth capabilities. Then I could… steal a bunch of them?”
“What, with Storage?” I asked. “At max that would be like, ten weapons. Not a cartful. And using offensive magic to try to melt them would absolutely reveal your location.” I looked at Malaliel. “You’re not hiding some sort of apocalypse spell, right?” Then Lyklor, “Or a dozen cave bears?”
The old elf shook his head. “I left them all at home.”
That left only the single individual who I was less familiar with. “Got any giant explosive magic, Strife?”
“That’s not really within my domain,” Strife said matter of factly.
“Then we head back and hope they don’t ship those out to their people immediately,” I commented. “The sooner we get back, the better.”
“Wait.” Strife said. “I can… maybe still do something.”
Eglantine- who was packed in with us and still managed not to poke anyone- spoke from next to her. “Are you certain? It’s risky.”
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“Even if these people aren’t the Scouring, I can’t just let them be when they might hurt innocents. I just have to… somehow…” She grimaced.
I cleared my throat. “If you are willing to share you plans, I do have many supportive options.”
Strife nodded slowly. “I need to get as many of them as possible watching me at once. But the walls aren’t set up for that. Maybe if I could fly…”
“Yeah, I can do that,” I nodded. “Anything else?”
“... You can fly?”
“I can make you fly,” I said. “That’s easy. Obviously you’d want Energy Ward in case they shoot lasers at you.”
“Don’t forget about arrows,” Lyklor commented. “They do just have bows. Even if they aren’t meant for shooting nearly vertically… Strife doesn’t appear particularly armored.”
“My transformation makes me more durable,” Strife commented. “But… I’m not sure about being shot by arrows.”
“Okay,” I said. “Arrows we can handle. Other magic might be a problem though. We won’t be able to assist you up there unless…” I looked over at Midnight.
He nodded. “If Lady Eglantine remains with us, we can refresh spells on you to absorb additional damage.”
At that point, I was pretty much decided on the plan. Though as I began doing calculations, I realized we did need to know what Strife was actually going to do. “So what’s your actual plan?”
“I will unleash the curse within my eye upon our foes,” Strife said. “Any who look upon my eye will know Strife.”
“Okay, that sounds great probably,” I said. “But like, do they actually have to be looking into your eye? Because realistically most of them will be targeting your torso in general.”
“Uh.” Strife appeared to be thrown off. “Well, just looking in my direction is enough. Though that also means you guys. So… don’t do that.”
“I will not be affected,” Eglantine commented. “But beyond that, any of you are at risk. I will let you know when you absolutely must not look.”
Now I wanted to look. I wondered if I could protect myself?
“So what’s actually going to happen?” I asked. “Does everyone just get quills in their eyes?”
“What? No, that’s ridiculous.” Strife said. “Why would you think that?”
I shrugged. “The only thing I’ve seen you do is transform and stab people with quills.”
“... I suppose so,” she admitted. “Just… be ready to take advantage of things when I unleash my curse. It’s difficult to explain the actual effects.”
“Alright,” I said. “So, here’s what we’ll need.”
I returned to calculations. Here were our plans.
Fly x5- Multicasting would allow that to cover Strife, Iron Hawk, Twirl, Honey Badger, and myself and Midnight. Plus Lady Eglantine, but she didn’t intend to actually get into the thick of things. Midnight might get close, but my plans were just to fly to get a better angle. Malaliel could just fly. With Multicasting costing triple the base, that was 21 mana. But hey, it was suddenly better having gone from four to five targets.
Stoneskin on all the same people, another 27. We all had Energy Ward specifically tuned for lasers already. Strife specifically was given Energy Ward for all the basic elements between the efforts of Bolster and Bandage. At least we didn’t have to worry about that, which was good because just those other two were half of the mana Midnight and I had.
Our main goal was to get the gates open for those of us who couldn’t fly. Or alternatively, to throw a grenade into the pile of weapons. If things didn’t go as planned, we intended to retreat before we got that far- Eglantine would let us know if Strife’s ability worked as planned. I was still hoping it was actually just a bunch of quills in people’s eyes. That would make our job way easier.
Bandage would be providing additional protection to Strife with Shield of Faith, which was actually the first spell she’d used mostly by accident. Sir Kalman knew Shield Other, which would apparently allow him to split the damage Strife took… just in case. I had to know how that spell worked… later.
Then it was time. The whole plan hinged on Strife’s thing actually doing what she thought it would. Since she’d denied the quills in eyes thing… what could it be? Maybe she’d summon porcupines that attacked everyone who was looking? Though that seems like she could have just said that if the effect were so simple.
“I’m going now,” Strife said. She looked fearless as she stood. Then she looked kind of nervous as she started to fly. “This…?”
“It just works,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got like ten minutes.”
The ceiling of the cavern was high enough to allow her to get decent distance while being directly over the outpost. That was important for getting the most eyes on her. But perhaps unsurprisingly, with so many guards on the walls she was spotted almost immediately.
Shouts rang out from the encampment, but that was probably what she wanted. Lasers blasted at her, but these guys didn’t really seem to know about leading their targets. Or those who did overcompensated, adjusting for their presumed travel time. She still got swept with some, and the archers were actually much more accurate even as Strife tried to fly in less direct patterns.
As she flew, she threw a hail of conjured quills- complete with sparkles and light- down at the people below.
Midnight and I were ready to refresh Stoneskin if she seemed to be getting hit too much. But before it got to that point, she was in position. She began shouting something down at them- perhaps to get them to pay attention? Either way, I couldn’t make it out.
“Now’s the time!” Eglantine hissed. “Look away!”
I conceded, reluctantly, as I saw Strife reach up for her eyepatch. I closed my eyes and lowered my head, and there was a bright flash as well as a huge surge of energy spreading out from her.
“Okay, you can look,” Eglantine commented.
I did, just in time to see one of the elves turn and stab the guy next to him. The same happened elsewhere, and it seemed most of them had forgotten about Strife herself.
“Oh, it’s a confusion effect,” I commented. Sure, it was a really big one, but she could have just said that. It was still cheaper to look away than to try to protect everyone with Mental Freedom, but we could have been better prepared.
Those of us who weren’t flying scrambled down from our perch on the edge of the cavern. With the majority of people being quite occupied, they weren’t as exposed as I’d worried we might be.
As one of the fliers, I was able to get a good picture of the layout of things. I saw a couple people who looked like they might be spellcasters. Actually, one of them was still in his right mind and was doing something to help the woman immediately next to him.
Well we didn’t need that. Lightning crackled in my hand, arcing towards him. As focused as the spellcaster was on trying to deal with the confusion on his immediate neighbor, he wasn’t ready for lightning. And neither was she. Nor the next two people it zapped its way through. And I managed to spot that cart. The remains of the spell would happily bounce their way around in a pile of metal guns. They probably weren’t completely ruined, but it was a start.