While larger settlements have many strengths over their smaller counterparts, the System accounts for this when evaluating which horde to send them.
Giada Marino - Scholar - Intricacies of the System
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Silas Wycliffe
Level 35
Level 6 Duellist
Mana: 202/202 (recovery rate: 0.90 per minute)
Strength: 27 (+3)
Agility: 40 (+3)
Constitution: 23 (+9)
Arcana: 15 (+3)
Perception: 53 (+3)
Abilities: Weakness Vision, Harrying Blows
A giant portal appeared north of New Derby, signalling that the horde would descend on the town in a handful of hours. In contrast with its usual appearance, New Derby’s streets were empty except for the warriors racing through. Harlan walked briskly, leading Silas through the barricades being set up in the deserted northern sector.
It reminded the Duellist of the most recent ratkin attack on Riverside: they had used the village as a battlefield out of desperation. He recalled the signs of combat he had spotted on entering New Derby and figured they were preparing for a similar case, despite it being just a horde.
Inquiring about the matter to Harlan, the rugged man answered steadily. “Until last week, our hordes were fair enough with an additional portal spawning for every thousand or so citizens. I’ll admit, it was a lot of foes but we had just as many good men and the combat provided valuable experience and credit. But it wasn’t so last week.” He paused and waved his hand at the lasting damage around them. “This is all from then. What do you think changed?”
Peering to the distance, Silas spotted the peak of the portal in the distance and made the connection. “I’m guessing something to do with that giant portal there.”
“That’s right. Last week, we only had one portal like that come: now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s a bad omen, but none of us could have anticipated what came from it. We used to surround the portals and kill the beasts as they came, you see, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first change made was that the portal cast a thick cloud of smoke around its base. You can imagine the chaos that followed: we all struggled to get out, but every direction looked the same and I can only imagine how many of our troops died searching for a way out.”
Coming up to New Derby’s northern gates, archers lined its walls in addition to several gunmen. Silas was surprised they still had ammo this many weeks in, but his attention quickly flicked to the distance as he spotted trucks driving out with massive slabs of stone. They stopped near the edges of his vision and dumped the stone there to be used to create a secondary wall.
“You’ll see the wall in a bit,” Harlan said, “Last time, we got caught out, but this time we’re putting up defences around the edges of where the smoke should come to. That should stagger them, at least. Anyway, as I was saying, by the time we made it out, the apes didn’t just charge us, they split into two groups with only one coming to fight us. We had no idea this was the case until the smoke finally cleared and we saw the remaining apes had set up a fortress there. You might have caught a glimpse of it - it’s west of here and we’re still in the process of dismantling it.”
Silas gaped at Harlan, and the older man returned a stony gaze. “Then what happened? How did they get into New Derby?”
“Well, that was our mistake. We were injured and exhausted from the fight, so we left scouts to watch over the fortress while we went to rest. They didn’t have too many forces in the fortress, so we weren’t too worried. The plan was to storm it the day after when we were rested. We didn’t expect them to come down on us with a second army during the night. It was a bloodbath.” Harlan stopped and frowned, a fierce thing on his rugged face. “Like before, we weren’t organised, so it took time and a lot of lives to turn the tide and eventually tear down their fortress. It was then we found a manufactured portal inside, which is where the second army supposedly came from.”
By now, Silas could clearly see the walls they were setting up and the workers bustling about it. Aside from the barricades, he spotted several types of traps being set and ditches being dug leading to the portal. He chewed Harlan’s words in his mind before voicing his biggest question. “What do you think caused the horde’s format change?”
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“The theory I hear the most is that we passed some sort of citizen threshold: we had gone over twelve thousand that week, so it could be likely. It’s also why we’ve started restricting citizenship here,” Harlan said, before suddenly chuckling bitterly, “Or maybe we displeased the System somehow, and this is its revenge. At the end of the day, who knows?”
If it was to do with their population passing twelve thousand, then Riverside had plenty of time, Silas supposed. Checking the citizen’s list for the first time in a while, he stopped dead in his tracks as he examined the changes. Somehow, Sabine had become mayor, and Mike and Alice were off the list! He had no idea what had happened, but it appeared his friends were all alive at least.
“Hurry up,” Harlan called from ahead.
Figuring that the matter was something to ponder over for another time, he jogged to catch up. “What’s the plan this time?”
“Since it’s just the one portal again, we’re guessing it’ll be the same format as before. We don’t think the smokescreen is solid all the way through as it greatly thins by the fortress, so we’re going to have half our platoons flank them and strike the builders before they manage anything substantial.” Harlan scratched at his brow, “That’s the hope, at least. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to hold the front to keep the remaining monsters from charging down New Derby.”
He went onto explain New Derby army’s composition then, saying how it consisted of 10 elite platoons 40 men strong and 10 companies 200 men strong, together forming an army of roughly 2400 men. This was their professional fighting force, and the remaining 10 000 or so citizens were expected to protect the town in case things went south.
Coming up to the 3rd elite platoon, Harlan briefly introduced Silas to them and spent the remaining time explaining tactics and sharing information before finally leading them into the core army’s formation. Four other platoons marched to the sides of them, and Silas found himself near blindsided by the density of intense auras. By the edges of his vision, well beyond the portal, he could see the other five platoons, including the 1st platoon.
Time ticked by and the tension thickened until it grew palpable. The suns were blazing down from the cloudless sky when suddenly smoke gushed from the portal and rapidly swirled out, coming close to the walls and stopping as if hitting an invisible barrier. Several soldiers with machine guns tensed by the front of their formations, waiting.
Finally, monsters surged out from the smoke, giant mantises with bulbous eyes, menacing sickle-like arms, and gleaming green chitin armour. The chittering beasts charged forward, and the gunfire began. The cacophony deafened Silas, and he stilled entirely, shocked by the sight. While most of the bullets bounced off the beasts, some pierced through and grounded them in one.
Paying close attention, he soon picked up on a pattern on all those which fell. Against common sense, it seemed the mantises’ weak spots weren’t their bulging eyes, which turned out to be heavily armoured, but rather their tapered snouts. Sharing this information with Harlan, the rugged man observed the battlefield to confirm it before hastily sharing it with the platoons beside.
Unfortunately, their ammo reserves were almost through and the machine gunners rapidly withdrew as the rest of the army dashed forward, meeting the second wave of the horde. Despite this, Harlan kept his open hand raised, keeping his platoon in place just like the other platoon captains. It was only as the third wave of the horde rushed out of the smoke like a furious tide that he lowered his hand and gave the signal to charge.
Silas launched himself into the chaos and freely struck needle-filled mouths. While his strikes were weak, they were precise and allowed him to abuse the monsters’ Achilles heel, goring through triangular heads one after another. They struck back in turn, and although he couldn’t dodge because of the limited surrounding space, he parried to good effect and stayed relatively intact.
As the minutes passed, he streamed ahead of his teammates like a fish swimming against the current. Surrounded by suicidal enemies, he had more notches to his armour and nicks to his skin than before but nothing serious yet. However, it appeared this was going to change as one of the few black mantises suddenly drove forward, making a beeline for him.
The black mantises had thicker exoskeletons unmarred by bullets and wielded ferocious jagged sickles. They also seemed more intelligent than their kin as they acted like captains, directing reinforcements to struggling areas and occasionally heading out to deal with troublesome enemies.
Thick bloodlust seeped into Silas’s lungs and screamed at him to forge onward, but he remembered his lesson from the ratkin sorcerer and instead began backing. However, the black mantis must have given a soundless command as its kin around him began to resist fiercely, locking him in place. Figuring he had no other option, he cleared as many enemies as he could and waited. As the black mantis drew into range, he lunged and drove his spear into its snout, only for the point to bounce off. He barely sidestepped in time to avoid its bisecting chop.
Sobering up from this brush with death, he quickly used the space the surrounding mantises made for their big brother to dart out of its range. He sporadically jabbed as he danced about it, and although his stabs merely scratched its armour, the scratches built into tallies, and the mantis grew slower and clumsier as his Harrying Blows continuously shocked and drained it. Moving at a fraction of its natural speed, it threw itself at him but tripped over its kin in the process.
Sensing the opportunity, Silas leapt forward and chopped down. The mantis’s head rebounded off the ground, and it tried to rise but he chopped again with force. Splattering green blood with each blow, he kept up the barrage until finally his blade split apart its tough chitin and cracked its skull. He pulled back and wiped the sweat from his brow, smearing his forehead green.
This was going to be a long day…
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This should already be clear from my entries, but many creatures on Idroa are actually not from Earth, Caen, or Xiivet. Some are brought from god-knows-where by the System, and they permanently get to stay on Idroa if they destroy their corresponding hub crystal. Due to the nature of the hordes, it means these animals tend to be social creatures that can create complex civilisations.
Lavanya Sanghvi - the Monster Bane - Adventurer’s Guide to Surviving the Idroan Wilderness