As it turns out, it’s way easier to fight a disorganized mob that’s already fighting itself. It almost made me want to get a confusion spell, but I knew that it wouldn’t be nearly this powerful starting out… and there was the slight issue that people weren’t really controlled. That left a lot of room for collateral damage or unnecessary casualties. It wouldn’t be super popular in New Bay.
But there was a war here, so it was pretty good.
While I had focused on the few rational people who could potentially remove confusion, others had charged the gates from above and dealt with the few disorganized individuals there. That let those without the Fly spell into the outpost, though frankly most of the work had been done by people fighting each other.
A few arrows struck me, launched either by some of the few rational individuals or as a random noticeable target. That was the problem of flying, of course. I could completely avoid obstructions… which worked in both directions.
Strife had already dropped down into the outpost, and I figured that was a good idea for myself as well. My defenses weren’t unlimited, after all. My suit was puncture resistant, but that didn’t mean it was immune to arrows by people with magical abilities. Though as it turned out, shooting bows didn’t make people archers- just like shooting laser weapons didn’t make them gunners.
I dropped onto the wall right in front of a woman who immediately dropped her bow and reached for her spear, leaning right against the wall next to her. I reached out as well, not to grab the spear but instead her arm. Shocking Grasp was about twice as powerful as another spell of its level for needing to be used in melee range, but even if that hadn’t incapacitated her I was certain that I could make a spear non-functional in a grapple.
But the elf woman spasmed as her muscles were flooded with electricity, and that gave me the leverage to toss her off the wall walk. It was a fairly simple outpost so it didn’t have anything preventing people from just being flung towards the inside. It wasn’t a huge drop, but the woman landed hard, the wind knocked out of her.
I spotted Fluffy running further into the outpost, chased by Zeb. While the remaining number of foes was still concerning, the fact that they were partially locked in combat with each other reminded me there were other things to focus on. Like whatever the big magic thing was.further into the area. I was kind of hoping it was a portal, but I wasn’t sure.
Either way, some of my furry friends were running towards it so I thought I should back them up. Along the way I took some shots at enemies I passed by, conserving mana by using my gun. While most weren’t really prepared for such a weapon, they had some understanding of firearms and would try to avoid my aim if they saw me. But a majority were still engaged in battle with their own allies- or already fallen for the same reason.
Along the way I picked up Twirl. “Help me fight past anyone along the central path!” I ordered. Not that there was anyone immediately in our way. Indeed, there was just one individual already incapacitated by Miss Flutter, the giant bat standing proudly atop their crumpled form.
I rushed past a flimsy and busted door and indeed found a portal. “Zeb!” I called out. I couldn’t see her, but she’d definitely gone this way.
A snout poked around the corner of the portal. “Hi Turlough! I found something!”
“You shouldn’t run through portals alone,” I said.
“I didn’t! Fluffy is here!”
“... And what are you doing in there with Fluffy?” I said. Beyond the portal was a vaguely familiar industrial sort of environment. Certainly not a type-F world. Instead, if I had to place a bet I would say it was the inside of a secret lair.
“Breaking stuff,” Zeb said.
“Portal related stuff?” I asked.
“It’s got a big power source,” she said. “I was just going to bust that.”
“And then… the portal would close.”
“Exactly!”
“With you on that side.”
“Uh…”
“Inside an enemy base.”
“Well if you say it like that it doesn’t sound as genius. But it totally is!” Zeb said. “We’ll just uh… make sure it breaks after we run through.”
“Can you do that?” I asked.
“Sure. All that we have to do is- Fluffy, no! Left wire!”
I turned to Twirl. “Do you have a Power Brigade signal alarm on you?” I asked.
He pulled a small device out of his utility belt. “Of course. Don’t you?”
“Mine got an arrow through it,” I held up some broken pieces. “I’d toss that through real quick. Also… Zeb! There’s some super tech things approaching!”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Oooh! Can Fluffy eat them?”
“Zeb come back through the portal right now!”
“Okaaay. Just… one more thing.”
There was a loud sound and a spray of sparks filled my view. Then the portal began to wobble- but I was already expecting that. “Zeb! Now!”
I made use of Alter Portal to the best of my capabilities to hold things open. Twirl had already tossed the signaling device through- it might be blocked by the facility if it was Doctor Doomsday’s, but we had to at least try. And if it was some other world, maybe someone would pick up the signal regardless. It wasn’t made to be subtle.
A rocket streaked across in front of the portal, and bullets began to impact the floor. Zeb slid into view and dashed through the portal.
“Fluffy! Hurry up!” she called.
Whether it was simply from the encouragement or some actual ability that used a trivial amount of mana, either way I heard the pittering of feet increase in volume as various attacks filled the room. I stepped away with Twirl as some of Doctor Doomsday’s death robots came into view beyond the portal.
Fluffy barreled through, though I could see patches of red on his fur- he was fairly tough, but conventional weaponry was his weakness. Just like most people with bodies. The instant he was through, I let my control over the wobbly portal drop. It began to shrink rapidly, but one of the chasing robots got its front half through before it completely closed. But half of a death bot was still functional. Bullets were spraying. Zeb ran out of the small structure, but Fluffy lunged for exposed wires.
Twirl thrust his rapier towards the bot- not aiming for the head where there wasn’t anything super functional, but some of the torso. He could only aim so well while also dodging the gatling arm, but he punctured into some likely important stuff. When I found a moment with nothing in my line of fire, I used Sonic Lance, sending the thing flying. The wires Fluffy was chewing on were torn out, and enough of the remaining torso was crushed that the bot finally stopped shooting.
My torso hurt, indicating I’d taken some hits. Unlike Force Armor which caused impacts to not reach my body, my suit just distributed damage like a flak jacket. It was way better than having holes in me, but I’d probably have some broken ribs. I was glad I also had some head protection.
Outside, the battle was dying down- I saw some dark elves fleeing, and most of the others were already taken out. However, I doubted we would be able to hold the outpost if they went to get reinforcements.
Once we took stock of the situation, pretty much everyone was injured to some extent. The main exception was Eglantine, but her main purpose was to channel power to Strife to begin with. Bandage was patching up the worst wounds as well as she could, but she only had so much mana to make use of.
Large battles were exhausting. But was it worth it?
My favorite metric said yes. I was level 40… and I imagined most of the others should have leveled up at least once. Even if they didn’t get extra experience from combat, it was a big one.
Too bad for Strife and Malaliel, though. They just had to grow strong whatever their normal way was.
“We managed to confirm the presence of a portal,” I said. “Looked like Doomsday, based on the half… quarter bot we have. It’s unclear if this is the only one, but we’ll have to make our way out of here to rest and recuperate regardless.”
Malaliel and Sir Kalman were providing supplemental healing, after Bandage diagnosed the worst damage.
“How are you doing?” Sir Kalman asked me.
“Cracked ribs and stuff. Nothing that bad.”
“I’ll take your word on that until we get somewhere we can properly check,” he said.
We didn’t have nearly enough room to carry all the lasers and we didn’t want to be burdened down by half functional devices, so we instead dismantled most of them and set all their explosive bits in a pile. Then we blasted that from afar on our way out of the chamber.
-----
It wasn’t fun moving at a hustle with cracked ribs, but that was preferable to winding up in another battle before we had a proper chance to rest. Besides, I didn’t mind the pains of battle too much.
“Good job with that confusion effect,” I commented to Strife. “You could have just said that’s what it was, though.”
“The- the essence of Strife is not so simply condensed into a simple explanation,” she crossed her arms.
“Sure thing,” I nodded. “Anyway, I can see why you’d be hesitant to use it. It’s quite effective, but if you caught allies it would be quite annoying. Plus, it looks pretty draining.”
“An expenditure of mana such as that will not bring me down,” Strife commented.
“I guess you don’t need a mana crystal then?” I asked.
She slowly reached out her hand. “It wouldn’t be too bad to be topped off if we ran into trouble.”
Feeling no need to cause her more grief than that, I handed over the crystal. Just one big one that contained about five mana, because I didn’t know what her proper limits might be on absorption over time. Maybe her threshold was much lower, or much higher.
I’d already taken up to my limit, which was just about twenty mana. That was going to be troublesome if we had more large conflicts in the near future, but I wasn’t certain this was something we could solve in the near future. If there were more portals, they’d be better defended. And if there weren’t any immediately, then we would be done.
At least I’d refreshed what they felt like in my mind. I had much more experience with the temporary ones. But now… maybe I could actually Scry them. If that was even possible, because for all my effort I hadn’t been successful yet.
Since we pretty much had to follow one of a few set routes back to the surface, Miss Flutter the dire bat was tasked with scouting in front, while Lyklor’s little bat watched behind us. Some pursuers got close to us near the end, but we threw them off our trail. By which I mean mostly Lyklor, because the rest of us were pretty useless at that.
Tracking people on stone floors wasn’t easy… but if they had some proper animals that could smell we would have found things more difficult. I wondered if that wasn’t a thing that dark elves did, or if anyone with pets were just smarter than to get involved with this stuff. Or maybe we’d been lucky to avoid them.
When we made it back, everyone pretty much collapsed into their beds, except people who had serious injuries that needed more attention. And me, because Midnight said he wouldn’t be able to sleep if I was hurting this much. He had a pretty good point there, so I got to see a druid with Regenerate. That was good for fixing small but otherwise lasting damage… but it sure made me even more tired.
In the morning we’d figure out our next plans. Probably.