The line of volunteer militia was about three deep in most places and had held back the Corrupted so far. Many of the refugee fighters were tradespeople or farmers holding makeshift weapons, but they spanned the promenade in a protective line about fifty feet in front of the mass of refugees. Behind them, there must have been over 100,000 people pressed in as close as possible to the Teleportation Hub.
“Who commands here?” Linus called,
“That would be me,” stated a decrepit old satyr woman with a bloodied gladius in her hand.
Level 38 Guard Captain (retired)
“They said they needed someone with experience, and I had plenty of that. Plus it's been a few decades since Lick here has tasted any blood.” She stated with a ghastly smile showing missing teeth.
“Yes. Well, you have done admirably considering the circumstances,” complimented the Commander, not at all phased by her almost ghoulish smile.
"I need to find Lord Hiro and my men need a few minutes to rest and recover,” Linus said curtly, wiping his sword off on a rag he produced from somewhere before sheathing it.
“Alright, Slugs! You heard the youngster. Part in the middle, then reform! No lingering! We will maintain line discipline or I will personally give you a Lickin you will never forget.” She snarled in an impressively loud voice.
Not surprisingly, many of the volunteers moved almost immediately, nervously looking over at the ancient guard captain with actual fear. Tilly wasn't sure if they were more afraid of her or the hundreds of Corrupted they had just faced and defeated.
The line of refugee militia parted, many of them showing relief at the appearance of some actual soldiers. The faces of those who had taken up arms displayed a mixture of grim determination and barely controlled panic. But they were maintaining discipline well enough under the command of the guard captain. Of course, there was no guarantee that they would hold in the face of what was coming.
That would change with the support of the Bastions. No matter how beaten and exhausted they were, each Soldier maintained a look of stoic indifference as they moved through the gap in the line. The severely injured in the center of the formation with Tilly seemed to be playing a game centered around who could ignore the greatest injury. A Satyr a few paces ahead of Tilly was missing most of his right arm, but walked on his own through the gap, still carrying his shield and spear on his back and his sword in the remaining hand. He wore a stoic expression as some of the Militia muttered and pointed at him. Tilly was sure that even without an arm, he was still worth 50 of the volunteers.
As they all filtered through, Linus started barking orders, “Alright, I want you to set up against that building over there. Rations and Water! Severely injured are to take a Soldier's Rest. Subcommander, I’m leaving you to it.”
The gap closed just as quickly as it had opened, just as the loose mob of Corrupted trailing the formation sped up at the sign of new prey. The volunteers were uncoordinated and disorganized, but they moved quickly enough to fill in the line.
“Weapons up, you Fat Pieces of Aroch Shit. They bite! So don't let their heads in close!” The Guard Captian shouted, turning her watchful eyes over the loose defensive formation they had set up. They took the loose charge of the scattered Corrupted with only one or two losses.
Tilly turned from the fighting and hurried over to the commander who was re-wrapping a blood-soaked bandage around his almost healed quad.
“Commander, I saw something while I was in the air,” Tilly reported simply, deciding he didn't need to go into the full story.
“Mr. Tillman, it's good to see you up. Come with me. We need to find Hiro.” He said, moving away from the men, and gesturing for Tilly to follow. Like almost everything else they did, as Tilly turned from the Bastions' position, they uniformly collapsed into sitting or laying positions. Tilly grinned briefly. If these men were anything like the boys back in the department, they would be able to sleep standing up if they needed to. He hurried to move up beside the injured Commander who was making his way toward the crowd with a quick limp.
“Sir, I think I know why the main bulk of the Cult’s army has hung back instead of capitalizing on our depleted numbers. They are using the deaths of the battle somehow, collecting the energy for something big, although I don't know what.” Tilly huffed out in between quick strides, the reality of the odds against them settled down on his shoulders, causing him to feel even more out of breath.
“It's been noted and I sent a runner. The way I see it, we only face two true possibilities. One, the emperor, may justice preserve him, has some sort of last counter prepared for something like this, or two, whatever they are bringing to the battlefield crushes us. Either way, it's above our pay grade. In times like these, you learn to do what you can, and not worry about the rest.” He remarked stoically as they moved. Tilly followed a step behind, trying to school his breathing through the pain of his ribs knitting back together.
He couldn’t help but be impressed by the Commander's even-keeled demeanor. He must have been absolutely dead on his feet at this point, but he let none of it show. He simply carried on, back erect and eyes level. Tilly could almost feel his purpose reverberating through every step, undampened by the near loss of all he had sworn to protect.
Tilly had led small teams in dangerous situations. He knew that on some level it was always an act – one that you maintained for the rank and file, giving them something to depend on even when their world was falling apart. When it came to good leadership, this all registered as par for the course in Tilly's mind. But something about Linus’ courage and fidelity to his cause touched Tilly in a way he could not quantify. He found his shoulders relaxing slightly as he followed the satyr towards what would undoubtedly be more conflict. The weight he was carrying became fractionally lighter as he began to understand that as dark as things would get, he wouldn't be facing them alone.
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For some reason, that made all the difference.
The crowd ahead was mostly facing forward, clamoring for a spot closer to the Hub and hopefully salvation. The closest of the crowd however were more focused on observing the thin line of militia holding back the Corrupted than adding to the press that was clearly not making progress forward.
This created a growing murmur of awareness as Commander Linus approached with a strange fur-and-leather-covered human in tow. They parted respectfully as the pair neared, but only as a little way into the crowd. Once they got to the true press, everyone was facing away toward the Hub still hundreds of feet forward. Tilly was above average height in the crowd of shorter-statured satyrs and could see that each road leading to the hub was similarly packed, with a barrier of magic holding them back. Past the barrier and the honu maintaining it, were only a few other figures in the large opening.
Tilly could just see the imperial palace in the distance and noted a silvery haze rising from the building, like heat off asphalt on a summer day.
“I think I can see Hiro ahead in the Hub past the barriers. We just have to find a way through.”
“Make way in the name of the Emperor!” Bellowed Linus in his Commander's voice. Many almost automatically pushed to the right and left to part the crowd just enough, but not all were so accommodating.
“The Emperor? Why would you evoke such a weak name at a time like this?” hissed someone to their right. Tilly turned to look in confusion, thinking that the voice sounded a little off when Linus flashed by him, blade already out.
Before Tilly had even registered what was happening, Linus was exchanging lighting strike blows with a Naga wielding two scimitars.
Level 45 Shadow Hunter.
The surrounding crowd screamed and scattered as four other figures shed their draping cloaks and enchantments fuzzed out around them, revealing four other Shadow Hunters ranging from Levels 25-29.
Tilly’s stomach clenched in tension as two more surged toward Linus whose blade had already found his attacker's guts. The other two were already facing him and struck like the coiled serpents they were.
Tilly's pathways screamed as he forced his Mana to respond in desperation and recall his hatchets from their loops, to his hands, bringing them up in a crossblock just in time to check the spear thrust of one of the serpents. Unfortunately, he was no master of close combat and the best he could do to mitigate the horizontal strike of the second attacker was to step into the blow and lower his shoulder, hoping to not lose his arm in the process. He felt his healing Mana pathways shudder, protest, and strain at the usage in their injured state.
The blade of the second spear sheared through his armor and parted his flesh until meeting the top of his humerus, jarring his right arm with its impact. All three warriors looked at the point of impact in surprise. Despite the full swing, it had stopped an inch deep.
Looks like a 97 in Endurance wasn’t just for blowing smoke up his ass.
Tilly capitalized on their shock and hooked the first attacker's spear shaft with the bearded head of one of his hatchets. Simultaneously, he yanked for all he was worth and dropped his second weapon to bend his pinned arm at just the right angle to grab the length of the second attacker's spear.
Both attackers attempted to pull their weapons free and Tilly resisted for only a moment, screaming in defiance at the trauma of once again having a weapon piercing his body. As soon as they shifted their weight and leaned back, Tilly felt himself losing purchase at their superior strength. Instead of continuing to pull, he suddenly kicked off the ground, adding his weight to their leverage and launching himself at their bodies.
He crashed into them in a tangle of limbs, all technique forgotten as he degraded the fight into a desperate brawl. He chopped with his remaining weapon at one and hooked an arm around the neck of the other. In turn, the one he was choking immediately locked down his legs with its long snake tail and began to squeeze in retaliation. The other dropped her spear as the hatchet impacted her shoulder with a cleaving thunk. She produced a knife with her free hand and thrust it right at his abdomen with a wild glee shining in her abyssal eyes.
The thrust pierced into his stomach but caught on his abdominal muscles, digging in painfully, if shallowly. In the press of bodies, Tilly did the only thing he could think of and rallied his barely functional pathways to gasp out one more Flame’s Renewal into the faces of both of his opponents. They, like the others Tilly had encountered, were covered in black tattoos bleeding dark ink all over their bodies, and at Tilly’s Ability, their skin immediately began to bubble.
Both screamed in fury and agony, and the one wrapping Tilly squeezed even harder around his legs, causing his recently healed bones to creak. The second ripped out the tip of her knife to thrust it again, mad with rage.
“That is enough of that.” Linus snarled in disgust as his gladius whirled overhead and then smoothly cut through both of the Naga's heads at once. The double decapitation was truly epic, or so Tilly would have thought if he hadn’t been suddenly showered in blood darkened by Corruption.
He pushed himself free from the slack appendages and sputtered as he tried to wipe the clotting mess from his eyes.
“Apologies,” came the sound of Linus’ voice as Tilly felt a cloth press into his hand, which he desperately began using to wipe the viscous liquid from his eyes, spitting all the while.
“I thought the situation called for speed over cleanliness,” he continued drily.
“No, you made the right- BLLAAARRRGGGG!” Tilly vomited, his body forcefully ejecting any of the foreign bodily fluid from his system. Along with the pain of his recently won wounds, he felt a stinging prickly sensation building around the bleeding opening. Amidst all of the horrible new sensations he was experiencing, he was glad to feel the flame at the center of his chest kindle and begin to warm his whole body.
“I think… their blades… are poisoned.” He gasped out between a few lingering dry heaves.
“What is your status? Can you continue?” Linus demanded, looking back toward the Hub.
“Yeah, I'm good. Fucking up stuff that tries to get inside me is becoming my micropower.” He said shakily as he straightened up,
Health : 56%*
Mana : 82%*
He was sure that the system had all sorts of details and caveats on those numbers, but he didn't care. His [Hostile Environment] title would have to step up and take care of the poison, and his Mana Pathways would just have to suck it up along with him. This wasn't a fun day for anybody and his complaining pathways were just going to have to get with the program.
He used the cloth to try and mop off the blood beginning to mat in his short beard and hair. The stuff all over his body was going to dry and smell, he just knew it.