Lieutenant Volmer Drask was sure he was going to die.

It wasn’t defeatism to admit so. It was an admission of straight facts. He’d keep quiet to avoid panic and let the others trust the plan, but this was insanity. Screeching down a roadway in a truck, waiting for the Stormsummoner to dip down through the clouds long enough to open fire.

The plan had hoped the Stormsummoner would be rattled enough by the train station’s explosion not to begin their storm shaping. They had been wrong. So now it was to Dask and his soldiers for it instead.

They weren’t sure if the Stormsummoner would even know to save her comrade. She might easily end up doing it by accident.

So she needed to be kept busy. And if some damage was dealt to her, all the better.

He’d pray to Ilvasker that they did not actually inflict any damage, but the dragon of his birth month was long since dead at Traveler's hands. He couldn’t think of a worse way to irritate the Traveler than actually inflicting damage.

The clouds ahead parted, a figure diving through before stopping easily over a thousand feet above the ground. To his eye, three and a half.

The Stormsummoner rotated lazily, lightning arcing between her hands before shooting at the ground below. More screams as whatever group had been ferreted out took the full brunt of the bolt. Above, the gathering clouds began to darken. She was preparing a storm. Crap. They’d been hoping she wouldn’t risk the townsfolk with that. No choice now.

Their truck turned sharply, dirt flying as it rounded the corner. They wanted to get her attention, to draw her closer. She had issues with small moving targets. From how high up she was, their truck must be like an ant scurrying around underfoot. And hopefully, it's just as hard to hit.

“Stop!” He yelled into the truck's cab, and vehicles screeched to a halt. He threw up his hands to steady himself, then as soon as they were motionless, turned to what was in the truck’s flatbed.

The rest of the gun crew was already in action, loading and aiming the anti-aircraft gun. A full round clip of forty mil was already loaded, two more waiting to be loaded as the barrel swiveled from the rest position.

He moved into the gunner’s seat, beginning to adjust the sights. The crosshair’s adjustment took heart-pounding seconds as the barrels were trained on the Stormsummoner. She did not move, holding still as the clouds gathered. Mouth dry, he squeezed the trigger.

The truck shuddered with each shot fired, the recoil of the gun driving it toward the earth before it sprung back up. Far above, little clouds of black sprang into existence, shrapnel-filled rounds detonating at the set height. For a brief second, the Traveler nearly disappeared from sight, a ball of white flashing into existence around them. A shell had directly hit the shield.

“Forget the other magazines. She knows we’re here. Driver, forward full to next firing location!”

Their best chance of survival was to keep on the move. Other crews would be joining in with the other motorized anti-air weapons. Trying to keep her focused on other guns while they move to a new location.

Of course, that assumed they move faster than a spell. The truck sprang to life, building up speed. But no other gun was firing yet.

The Stormsummoner had finished her rotation now. It was hard to see detail from this low. Being jostled around inside made it impossible to use binoculars. Without them, she was a speck in the sky.

Lightning struck that speck from the sky, linking to her before continuing to the ground below, towards them. Volmer had just long enough to close his eyes.

The rumbling of thunder echoed, but he didn’t feel the pain of electricity coursing through him. He heard crackling, but far away, barely audible over the sound of thunder.

The stakes of lightning that had been sent to spear them had been forcefully rerouted. The ends of the prongs of lightning were firmly embedded in metal stakes dotting the houses around them.

Dask allowed himself a grin as more bolts streaked down, only to be drawn away. Some of the last creations of their god's minds had worked. The lightning rods thrummed as electricity coursed through them before being sucked down below.

The earth swallowed the lightning, and the Stormsummoner went shrieking by, the explosions of AA shells chasing after her. They’d forced her on the run for now.

***

Jake paused as the tunnel above him shook and quaked, bits of stone and dirt falling loose from the ceiling. He’d been down here a little while, long enough to know those little mini-quakes usually meant nothing. Usually.

It had only been a few minutes after he’d nearly been buried after the street had been ripped apart underneath him. He hadn’t bothered climbing back up. Good chance the Scales would be waiting, and while he was immune to nearly everything they could throw at him, climbing up through the earth? He didn’t want to risk it.

So he had plowed on ahead through the collapsed stone and dirt till he burst into this tunnel. And he’d been walking down it ever since.

Alright, he was pretty sure the others would have mentioned if there was a massive tunnel network under the town. So this was the Scale’s work, which meant probably a trap. But he needed to follow the trap unless he wanted to collapse several tons of dirt and rock on top of himself, trying to punch his way through the earth.

Just play along till he found whoever had laid the trap and then feed them their own teeth, of course.

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Should have invested into some minor magic. Even if it was just to learn Light, He groused to himself as he felt his way down the tunnel. Or innate Darkvision.

He’d considered both before but usually put his level-ups into offense and defense. Call him basic, but they did the job. And typically, someone else usually tumbled into these tunnels with him. Well, it wasn’t too bad. Nothing could hurt him, so just feel around, crush anything jabbering in lizardspeak, and follow the tunnels out.

Speaking of which, he could hear some of that ahead, voices whispering. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to show me the way out down there?”

In response, tracers flew down the tunnel, heralding the stream of machine gun fire firing through the narrow passage.

Jake rolled his eyes as bullets sprayed down the tunnel at him, annoyed at how it drowned out his thoughts. Bullets rattled off his armor, off the stone walls, off of any surface they hit, and the din was cacophonous.

He touched the armor around his ears, sealing it shut. Okay, there’d be no Wind Strikes down here, too much chance he brought the tunnel down on his own head. He’d be working his way through this the hard way.

He strode forward into the hail of gunfire. He’d stacked so many defensive talents that even with what must be a machine gun pounding him over and over again, it didn’t slow him down at all. The corner of his eye kept filling up with successful saving throws against Supressed, Pinned, and other such conditions. Okay, that was it.

Walking forward, Jake brought up the UI. Disable all.

Are you sure you want to disable all notifications?

For fuck’s sake, yes! Stop littering my screen!

Bullets still hammered ineffecutally at his armor. He could feel the sensation of heat. If he was close enough to the machine gun to feel the heat of it firing, he was close enough to handle this.

He thrust his arm forward, the razor-sharp tips of metal capping off each finger pointing. They hit something and, within a second, punched into it. The firing of the machine gun stopped.

He frowned. He could feel something sticky and wet on his gauntlets, but it wasn’t blood. He’d felt blood many times before, Scale blood in particular, and this was not it. It began to hiss, and a foul stench reached his nose.

Ah, acid. Someone here had their ancestry traced back to some corrosive spitting lizard. Enough to have their blood take on those properties. Annoying as hell. The finish of his armor was even more ruined than if it had just been the blood now.

He moved past, the corpses being mashed underneath his tread. There was light ahead, obscured and dim, but a direction to move towards. He forced his way through the tight tunnel, knocking bits of rock and dirt off the walls with his armor. Eventually, an opened doorway came into view, and with a final push he stepped through it onto wooden flooring.

A single lamp illuminated the large room, with filing cabinets on either side and a water heater working away in the corner. Old brickwork filled the walls and floors, not the smooth stone of Scale tunnels. Various old pieces of furniture and detritus were strewn across the floor, stacks of paper, and an assortment of random stuff.

A cellar. Apparently, they’d decided to build a tunnel from here. Rather large, way too big to be a house, but there were stairs leading up. He could figure out where he was later.

***

Halice’s town hall was a ridiculously sized building, three stories and with two wings, occupying an entire side of the town square by itself. The Major shook his head as he considered it. Bigger than his old schoolhouse. You could probably fit the entire town’s population inside of it.

In front of the building, about twenty of his soldiers were fitting their equipment. Fire-proof suits, air tanks, respirators, flamethrowers. They were a relic from when they had urban assault specialists. It was time to see them off.

“Lieutenant Welker, are your preparations complete?”

“Almost,” the Lieutenant replied nervously. Understandable. “You’ll need to seal the doors immediately after we enter. We can guarantee at most three minutes before he makes his way past us. Do you understand?”

“They understand Lieutenany,” The Major answered. “Don’t worry on our end. Just do your best on yours.”

Welker gave a brief nod before looking at the assembled platoon behind them all. “There should be a cannon here. Something to slow him if he makes his way out.”

“If he makes his way out, one will not make much of a difference, Lieutenant.” It would also be more likely to attract the attention of the Stormsummoner, who would ruin the entire plan. “Hammel, calm yourself. We have it handled.”

Welker looked piercingly at the Major before his expression seemed to falter and then collapse. “I know sir, it’s just..I don’t want this to be wasted.”

“It won’t be Lieutenant. I can assure you of that.” He couldn’t, but the lie was one he wouldn’t regret.

Welker nodded and gestured towards his squad. As one, they fitted masks to their heads, attaching the tubes to air tanks. He reached for his own, then they entered the town hall.

As the flamer squad went inside, the door was closed behind them. Engineers carried up a welder, working on the door to seal it shut. All the windows had been blocked off either with metal or wood. They’d done their best to reinforce the walls as well. There was only one thing left to do.

Forty or so task group members waited near the town hall, Molotov cocktails ready. There were more on the other side of the town hall. Some looked uncomfortably towards where the Stormsummoner ducked and weaved between streams of fire. Their window would be short for this. Seconds ticked by as the welding continued, other soldiers dragging furniture in front of the entrances.

From inside the building, the Major could hear the whoosh of a flamethrower being engaged. Already, smoke was beginning to billow out of the ceiling. The engineers had nearly finished, but every second was precious.

The ground shuddered, hopefully just from the Juggernaut smashing his way inside the town hall’s basement. Troops had been stationed along the tunnel, funneling him towards this. Giving him things to smash and not trying to dig his way out of the tunnel.

Thunder rang out as lightning crashed down further off in the town, stabbing toward the ground. The Stormsummoner had found an opening, and already a second bolt crackled through the sky. She hadn’t seemed to notice them yet, and the Major restrained an order to hold their ground.

Either the lightning rods would work, or they wouldn’t. Plans would have to be adjusted in the latter case.

If the Juggernaut survived, they wouldn’t have to worry about the Stormsummoner because they’d be dead. Tools for killing the Traveler with the stolen Wyrmtooth were much more limited than for the aerial menace.

The engineers were heading away from the door now, one of them yelling that they had finished. The Major gestured, and forty bottles flew through the air, strips of flaming fabric trailing. They shattered against the wall, and immediately fire began to devour the wood. Troops were heading towards the crates, grabbing more bottles, while the Major was already walking back to the staff car.

This was a done deal. Either the Juggernaut would perish, or he would break out of the building and kill them all.