Third Courtyard of The Fenrir Guild Hall:

“So what will you two be doing?” Siria asked as Viel and Gwen loitered about. Kinu, Kavaris and Sammy were still practicing with their weapons and Apport Rings.

Viel was reading a booklet, her lime-green eyes glowing with the Interpretation Spell as she read through it.

“It’s an instruction manual for how to operate a howitzer.” Viel said.

“A how-it-what?” Siria asked.

“It’s a big gun used for indirect fire.” Gwen explained, having assisted Philia multiple times during her several secret experiments over the years. One of the reasons Philia had spared her life was because she was the only one who had earned her trust. When Philia was only five she had plagued the maids with tons and tons of annoying, repetitive, and unreasonable requests. Being the unwanted daughter of the king; her maids had more latitude towards their treatment of Philia.

Only Gwen alone had endured her annoying and sometimes demeaning requests. After enduring a few years of stupid things like cleaning large objects with a tiny brush and doing things that ran contrary to the king’s orders, she ended up being the only one she revealed her secret laboratory to (it too having been destroyed with C-4 when Philia left Elion-Nosco for good).

From then on, she would accompany Philia alone as they went to remote areas to test her modern weaponry. And one of them was the howitzer.

Earlier in the wagon ride, when Viel’s Telekinesis was mentioned she revealed that she could not only grab multiple objects at once but also perform up to three separate tasks. Philia originally had intended for them to use a mortar, but Viel’s superior telekinesis had emboldened the ex-princess to let Viel use the King of Battle.

Viel was a quick reader, and she got to work with the summoning spell. First was an innocuous-looking crate containing a couple of rejuvenation potions, a stake, and several poles to be driven to the ground and a length of rope.

Viel drove the stake into the ground and tied one end of the rope. It had a knot along its length which was supposed to be the “base” of the knot. Then, Viel stepped back and pulled the rope taut until her hand reached the second knot. This was the marker for the perimeter she was supposed to mark on the ground. Walking in a circle, she held the rope taut while Gwen planted the poles on the ground to mark the perimeter for the summoning spell.

“Sounds like it’s pretty big.” Siria remarked.

Viel then got to work casting the summoning spells. The first one took five minutes and brought up several crates outside of the perimeter as well as a folding table with a black box atop it. The second spell took almost fifteen minutes to cast, which probably explained why the first crate had more than a few rejuvenation potions. Everyone in the courtyard had at the very least turned around and had a look at what Viel was summoning. Slowly, the glittering particles took the shape of the howitzer.

Viel sat back and downed a few rejuvenation potions. That spell was really complicated and drained her alot, and for good reason, it had so many moving parts. She wondered where Philia had stored this. Even more intriguingly, this didn’t look anything like the howitzer in the picture. Judging from its royal-looking appearance it had to be a reproduction. Viel could only regard Philia with respect considering what she had created.

More than a few adventurers had come over to look at the monstrosity.

“Emm seven-seven-seven one-hundred and fifty-five millimeter howitzer.” Viel said, quickly glancing at the booklet. “We’ll be using this to fight the monsters from a distance.” she explained to the other adventurers.

“So something like a catapult?” One sharp adventurer asked.

“That’s right.” Viel said.

“How powerful is it?”

“Strong enough we have to shoot far away from the front lines.” Gwen replied.

“There’s more,” Gwen said, walking over to the crates. She opened them up and Siria had a look. Inside were several large cylindrical objects, which narrowed to a point. They were metal, colored green with a yellow stripe around the nose. Atop these objects were two other anomalies. One was white box with four prongs at the corners. These had a pair of wind-mill like blades, one at the top of the prong and the other at the bottom. The other anomaly was what looked like a flat stone. It had several stubby projections out of it. Gwen quickly picked this up and manipulated what turned out to be buttons. The black mirror-like center lit up with strange runes, before showing a projection of Siria and Gwen.

“What is that?” Siria asked, wondering what this never-before-seen magic tool was.

“A drone. It’ll serve as our observer since we won’t have a direct view of the fight.” Gwen said. She took the drone and the tablet to the folding table and manipulated some switches on the black box. It was short and squat. After some manipulation the black box lit up too. Gwen took a smaller black box attached to it and spoke.

“Maid One to King Fish. Do you copy? Over.”

“King Fish copies. Send Traffic, over.” The box spoke, and it was in Philia’s voice. Viel and Siria jumped in surprise.

“Howitzer is live. Sending drone up, over.” Gwen replied.

“Use the spike barriers as reference, aim farther ahead of it, no danger close. Over.”

“Maid One copies, signing off.” Gwen said and put down the walkie-talkie.

“That was Philia, to prevent hitting our own people, we will be using this drone to confirm the distance and set the howitzer accordingly…”

Meanwhile, atop the tower of the New Gorpisal city hall, Cecil laid down the crates of bullets, as well as guns for the three of them; Cecil, Philia, and Zefir to use.

“Start shooting once the melee starts, aim for the thickest of the mobs behind the frontlines. Angle your shots so you get to hit as many as possible.” Philia said.

The tower’s rooftop was not crenelated, which allowed them plenty of room to whip their guns around. Cecil laid out two PKP Pechenegs for their light machine guns as well as spare barrels.

“Hmmm… I’m sure these Pechenegs came with ballistic armor?” Zefir joked.

“It did, but a helicopter landed on it.” Philia said. She then quickly taught Cecil and Zefir how to reload the guns as well as replace the barrels when needed.

The walkie talkie sitting atop one of the ammo crates squawked.

“Maid One. Calibrated distance. Howitzer good to go.” came Gwen’s voice.

“King Fish copies Maid One.” Philia replied. She signalled to Cecil. “Use the RPG-7, hang out from your room to avoid the backblast.”

Cecil nodded and began lining up the rockets.

“We’re gonna be alright, right?” Zefir asked.

“We should, Ingrid’s with us.” Philia said. “But if it doesn’t, there is a nuclear shell in that howitzer.”

“That…” Zefir began “...sounds like it's best used for the first wave.”

“Fallout” Cecil reminded him. “...besides, New Gorpisal’s probably been around for a while, we’ll live.”

___

As the sun set on the darkening horizon, a group of volunteer riders galloped back to the town, having spent a good amount of time harrying monsters that were still far away. All the warriors have lined up at the improvised palisades of the town, with a lot of space between them due to their magic abilities enabling them to strike farther than their range of their weapons could provide. Also among them in tightly packed groups were the ordinary folk armed with polearms; some improvised and the others handed out by weapons shops. There were also some mages present, those who specialized in short to mid-range magic.

Atop the walls were more mages and archers as well as the occasional ballista. New Gorpisal even had catapults, one per gate, instead of rocks the locals had placed packages of volatile compounds that gave their artillery a much wider area of effect.

An hour after the sun had set, the Red Moon was high enough to be seen above the walls of the town, and those standing atop the walls of the town, the sheer number of monsters of all shapes and sizes making their way to the town.

“This isn’t a game, what’s causing this?” Cecil asked.

“Something about the crimson moon affecting them. No idea why it doesn’t affect people, but I heard it affects their minds.” Zefir replied.

“Chronic zombie syndrome.” Philia laughed. “But yeah, Zefir’s answer is pretty right-on. Something about the creatures’ sapience falling above animal intelligence but below sapience makes themselves susceptible to this phenomenon.” That said they don’t always home in on every city. Even a big city like Elion-Nosco didn’t get attacked every year. As a matter of fact, we once had five years of no attacks, but they did get pretty close.”

“Now that you mention it.” Zefir said as loud shouts were heard everywhere. “Some sides of the city are pretty sparse on monsters”

“Don’t count on it.” Philia said “We have all night to fight…”

Sammy, Kinu, and Kvaris heard the shouts from atop the town’s walls, rallying warriors to the north and east side. A second shout to light the fire moats were issued and a small team of townsfolk lit torches from their bonfires and hurled it to the ditches they dug around the city. A bright roaring flame wall lit up as they scrambled back.

Sammy thumped her halberd Silent Storm on the ground while the Enthana girls smacked their longswords against their shields, joining the rest of the warriors clanging out sounds of defiance against the incoming wall of death…

Those near the walls heard a collection of mages standing atop one of the roofdecks of a nearby house, they were chanting together, localized black clouds formed in the sky and let out intermittent bolts of lightning, striking down the thickest of the mobs before dissipating.

At the courtyard, Gwen jumped off the howitzer after adusting the range per Philia’s direction, having been directed to shoot a little farther than planned.

“Viel! Rain fire now!!!” She yelled. The ciltran girl nodded and got to work. Using her multi-tasking telekinesis she loaded the rounds and propellant and closed the firing chamber. Next came the primers which flew into its slot before the firing mechanism closed on it. No string was necessary as Viel was using her telekinesis.

The Silence spell Gwen had put around the perimeter wasn’t perfect, it deflected all the sound upwards and helped muffle the noise, making its operation much more tolerable for a newbie to use, and greatly reduced the effects of the shockwaves to the nearby buildings.

Viel and Gwen still felt a light push coming from the howitzer and a great plume of smoke erupted from the barrel. Meanwhile the shell sailed high over the city, past the designated poles the mages used as a visual aid before the shell opened and dispersed its cluster munitions.

“King Fish here, good work Kitty-Five. Keep it up and shoot a little farther away. Over.” Philia said over the radio.

“Kitty-Five?” Viel asked. Working efficiently, she began the post-fire operation by opening up the breech. Gwen quickly used the mop-like implement to brush the insides of the firing chamber then stepping side so Viel could load the next round.

“That could only mean you. Viel.” Gwen replied. After Viel readied the cannon, Gwen quickly adjusted the angle as per Philia’s instructions. Being a ciltran she could jump pretty far away and as soon as she kicked herself off Viel let out another round.

“Good effect! Good effect!” Philia said. “Keep changing the distance.”

“That’s pretty impressive!” Sammy said as she saw the ground far away erupt into flames. A wild cheer ensued from the defenders of the city, punctuated from the bolts of lightning that struck down the tightly packed mob as they swarmed past the marker poles.

It was then the mages at the walls then started casting their most destructive spells to cut down their numbers while the monsters hesitated over the fiery wall. Hailstones the size of a man dropped the furthest away from the fiery trench so it would become more difficult to use them to quench the fire, while fireballs and lightning strikes detonated over those close to the trench. This decimated the monsters huddled around the fiery wall. Now it was the archers’ turn. They waited until they gathered around the trench before loosing a volley of arrows at them.

Cecil got to work immediately and started firing off one RPG around after another at the same side that Viel was shooting; figuring that if they could quickly cut down the numbers on one side the other warriors could relocate to the other side. He hovered high above Philia and Zefir so they would avoid the backblast.

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Meanwhile, Philia joined Zefir on the eastern side and they began opening fire into the back rows of the advancing monsters.

“Short bursts only!” Philia commanded. “Angle it so it hits as many as possible! Kitty-Five, turn the howitzer a few degrees every three shots!”

Sammy looked at Kinu and Kvaris, as she saw the howitzer and RPG decimate the monsters. She saw some adventurers rushing towards the east side palisades which were starting to buckle against the assault.

“Enthanas! Let’s seek glory there!” She yelled, running at full sprint. The two girls quickly followed, howling like wolves as they reached the defensive line, empowering Sammy, themselves and others nearby. Sammy did the same, adding another layer of enhancement as she and the other orcs roared a defiant warcry. The palisades are knocked over and soon the monsters start pouring through them. Sammy took the left side while the Enthana girls took the right side, fighting as one.

Sammy’s ability to quickly switch between a greatsword and halberd instantly allowed her to take advantage of each weapon’s quirks whenever she saw an advantage. The halberd was excellent for chopping, stabbing, and hooking while the greatsword, while seemingly redundant, had much better handling for slashing attacks, allowing her to make rapid-fire combos. Her Guardian swords quickly following up after every attack gave her breathing room as she swung at full force. Coupled by her ability to summon and unsummon her weapon thanks to the Apport Ring, she was able to quickly position her now-empty hands for the next strike.

Meanwhile the Enthana garm girls used their enchanted axes at long range. Its enchantment allowed them to strike multiple targets as it cloned itself the moment it left their hands. Their corseca spears with their long piercing blades punctured deep and struck vital organs and major blood vessels, the outward-pointing crescent prongs pushing back, and the augmentation of the Companion Rogue Shillelagh summoning a warhammer to strike the monster’s heads or legs or chests with vicious force and causing them to topple over.

When the fighting got into mid-range they switched to their flails; the enchanted weighted head allowed them to swing extremely fast and strike with immense force, shattering skulls, knees, and lower legs. Closer up, the girls switched to their long swords; their broad, double-edged straight blades made them a whirlwind of steel as they hacked and slashed their way through. When the opportunity presented itself, the girls would either use their shields to bludgeon an enemy or shatter bones by striking with the edge. Alternatively they would use the Wand of Duality imbued into their shields to switch to a second sword and increase their slicing and stabbing attacks.

The two sisters fought as one, as one girl fought with a whirling storm of flail attacks, the other used her corseca to attack from a distance. Like Sammy, the Apport Ring allowed the girls to unsummon their weapon and quickly reposition their arm for the next attack. As a result, it was a barrage of high-speed spear strikes so numerous that the sister fighting up close was as good as being protected by a phalanx, and the accompanying hammer blows ensured those struck by their polearms would drop to the ground and get trampled over by the next set of monsters. As the girls needed to pull back they would jump back and throw their weapons before rushing again and pushing them back with their attacks.

A large ogre-like creature was jostling its way towards the girls. Excitedly the trio hacked, slashed, and bashed their way through to meet it but their excitement was cut short when the Guildmaster leapt over their heads and latched onto the ogre’s face. The panther-like guildmaster let out a pulse of energy over a wide area causing everyone’s attacks to manifest on all the monsters in the area of effect at a fraction of the force. This allowed the trio (as well as everyone else in range) to push forward quickly. Kinu and Kvaris focused on their corsecas so that the hammer blows crippled and maimed the opposition quickly.

“I see our girls!” Cecil said, looking over at Zefir’s side. He started focusing fire a hundred feet ahead of them. “Looks like they switched to the east side!”

“King Fish. Turn the howitzer east! Over.” Philia said over the radio before heading back to her gun. The lightning strikes were continuing, now focusing closer to the now-dying flame wall. Many monsters had fallen victim to it, but their bodies ended up becoming a bridge for others to walk over. This allowed the hailstone-using casters to bring their spell closer, as the monsters were still funneling themselves over the several breaches on the palisades rather than break new ones.

Back in the courtyard, just before Viel is about to let off another shot, she felt a huge surge of energy coming from the middle of the yard. She turned around just in time to see the floating ice formation Ingrid was encased in to break into large chunks and cascade down the floor. Ingrid then vanished, creating a shockwave that felt like a strong gust of wind that nearly toppled Viel and Gwen over.

“DUCK!” Philia yelled as she saw Ingrid at the height of her super high jump. Cecil quickly ducked back into his room while Philia and Zefir hit the ground as Ingrid created a circular forcefield in mid-air and kicked herself off of it.

Ingrid saw the cluster munitions explode on the east side of the town so she kicked herself off to the north side which had a huge amount of monsters pushing through. She did see that the south and west sides were relatively sparse although the latter was starting to pile up.

Ingrid aimed her high-velocity dive kick past the palisades, her aura flaring out and taking the form of a stylized eagle, its enraged eyes wide with clear intent to kill that the monsters that saw it felt petrified and some keeled over from the intense pressure she was generating. It was the sight of this eagle aura that prompted Philia to yell to Zefir and Cecil to take cover. Despite being quite far from the city hall tower she generated enough of a pressure wave to break glass windows from a hundred feet away.

The fiery, spectral eagle that was Ingrid doing a dive kick shot like a comet and impacted the ground with an explosive force even bigger than the artillery strike. The mana she expended from the that reached even farther than that caused many of the monsters to be consumed with mana burn as the ether around them feasted on their very life force.

Ingrid leapt off the crater, just high enough so she was at head level with most of the monsters before kicking herself off for another high-velocity flying kick. This time her aura took the shape of a falcon. As she passed by, she generated an intense vacuum that sent monsters into a whirling vortex that shredded them like dry branches thrown into a wood chipper. The horizontal vortex then lost its inward momentum and the compressed force exploded outwards.

She traveled forward hundreds of feet before performing a spinning kick. Her aura took the form of a huge knight with a wild mane of fiery red hair and armed with a fifty-foot sword. As she kicked, the knight swung his sword, mimicking her motion. The aura was merely an ethereal projection, but the effect of the blade and huge crescent-shaped shockwave it released were real, cutting through hundreds of enemies all at once.

In one swift motion, Ingrid kicked off in another direction the backblast generated by the forcefield launching her away tore huge chunks off of the ground.

She repeated this process again, and again, and again, aiming for the densest concentrations of enemies. Ingrid then leapt into another group of monsters and froze herself. This time the ice formation was much bigger, and much more erratic looking. The monsters caught in the formation had their life force drained as the ice slowly took their bodies.

“King Fish! North Side is almost cleared! Kitty-Five, focus fire on the east!” Philia called over the radio. Cecil had run out of RPG rounds and was joining in with the machineguns. He flew over to join Sammy and the Enthana sisters, they were having a blast smashing, slashing, and stabbing their way through the swarm of monsters.

He saw Sammy thrust her halberd into a monster’s gut, then the Guardian Swords materialized and performed a cross-slash, shearing its head off as well as those behind and around it. By that time, Sammy had leapt forward, and spun around as she swung her greatsword in a circle and another pair of Guardian Blades mimicked her motions after a short delay, proving her cover as she dispelled her weapon and positioned herself for another attack without having to worry about her weapon snagging onto anything.

Kinu leapt forward, her advance being covered by Kvaris who delivered lightning-quick jabs from her corseca as she intercepted any and all monsters trying to get in the way of Kinu pulverizing her opponent’s skull into a crimson fountain of gore and bone splinters as she swung her flail downwards. Kvaris changed up the war hammer’s behavior to aim for the legs, making it easier for Kinu to swing her flail at their heads. Kinu then summoned her twin long swords and pushed deeper into the crowd, hacking and slashing away before leaping back and throwing her swords followed by a short barrage of her throwing axes.

There was no respite for the crowd of monsters to gather however, as Kvaris advanced forward. The ability to instantly apport and dismiss her corseca allowed her to strike quickly from multiple unexpected places multiple times it was like to Cecil’s eyes as good has just running forward and shooting a machine gun at her enemies, except these machine guns came with additional mortar strikes courtesy of the brutal hammer blows thanks to the Shillelagh charm. Now it was Kvaris swinging that vicious flail around while Kinu acted as her personal phalanx support. The two sisters looked unstoppable, he could understand why an amazon like Sammy could fight so well; she was an orc, a people with a fierce warrior culture, but for the Enthana sisters he wondered how the daughters of a traveling merchant fought so well like trained Roman legionnaires.

Cecil changed his mind and decided to flank the monster horde and open fire at them at the sides, cutting away at the mob’s left side and allowing the line of adventurers to steadily envelop them from that side. He brought up the BMG rifle and fired into the horde, spacing his shots to ensure he was shooting through several bodies at once.

Some monsters were now coming his way, as he dealt with them, a huge spectral eagle belly-flopped behind the monsters’ frontlines. It was Ingrid.

Ingrid leapt from the crater she made, sailing over the monsters' head and crashed into the mob with a mid-air axe kick. It made a second, shallower crater and the shockwave struck everything around her with lethal force, those farther away were hurled forward and effectively taken out of the fight with several broken bones or carapaces. In addition, her stomp created a huge wave energy that annihilated everything in its path. Quickly she leapt back into the air and kicked off another barrier, smashing into the fray making their way into the east-side palisades.

“Storm Falcon!” Ingrid performed her hypersonic flying kick as she tore through the crowd, her aura taking the form of a soaring falcon, wings folded as it flew through the air, creating that vacuum that sucked in monsters by the hundreds into a deadly vortex that dismembered and eviscerated them wholesale. The backblast of her kickoff once again creating a giant shotgun-like blast in a huge cone effect, turning the monsters caught within its large range into a bloody paste.

“Excalibur!” Ingrid yelled as she performed her mid-air spinning kick at the end of her flying kick; creating the effigy of that red-maned warrior swinging a huge fifty-foot sword that fired off shining crescent-shaped shockwaves that tore through more bodies. Those standing above the walls saw the giant spectral knight perform several slashes with his colossal sword as Ingrid performed several spinning kicks in the air, obliterating the monsters wholesale as easily as a farmer with a scythe on harvest day.

The monster population was starting to thin out and Ingrid changed her attacks to avoid friendly fire as the defenders were now pushing past the palisades. Ingrid’s Nemea constructs appeared on her arms and she performed a quick dash into the crowd of monsters and let loose a punch. A bright explosion of energy emanated from the point of contact, it struck with the force of a high-powered mortal round if it was concentrated into a cylindrical shape forward.

“YEE-HAW!”

Cecil flew in and opened fire at the mob with his BMG, assisting Ingrid. He didn’t need to warn her to get out of the way. As soon as a bullet flew her way it was pulled into a high-speed orbit, turning her into a spinning blade.

“Just like old times!” Cecil said. Together the ex-Starchaser and her slime familiar tore through the crowds. As Ingrid saw the defenders rush in, she leapt high into the air, high enough so the backblast of her forcefield kick-off wouldn’t harm them as she did her eagle belly-flop into the rear of the still-advancing horde.

Sammy, Kinu and Kvaris were the first of the defenders to reach the last of the monster horde. At some point in the battle they developed a way to synchronize their actions with each other. It looked like Sammy was just charging headlong into the fray, swinging with no regard to safety but that was when Kinu and Kvaris compounded the defense her Guardian Swords were giving her. Their nimbleness and agility along with their arsenal of weapons they could summon instantly allowed them to intercept any attack coming Sammy’s way.

Atop the tower, Zefir switched to sniper rifles now, providing support for the east side. The north side of the wall had the defenders fighting off the last of the monsters and the latter’s numbers were quickly dropping, while the west side at this point remained unbreached, the monsters joining up with either the north or southern hordes. Philia on the other hand had turned her attention to the south side, the build up was getting alarming now and she had instructed Viel to focus firing on that side.

“Slime-Two this is King Fish. Get to the south side now!” She called over the radio.

“Ingrid! Head to the south gate! They’re piling up there!” Cecil said as he quickly anchored the Dialogue Window to Ingrid. Quickly she turned her back to the monsters and kicked off at hypersonic speed, letting the back blast turn her enemies into a gross paste. She dive kicked well away from the palisades and a second later the cluster munitions exploded in a cascade of destruction hundreds of feet away.

Ingrid sailed high into the air in an arc before curling into a ball. Before she hit the ground she froze herself, creating a chaotic formation of ice that froze all monsters in a large radius. Cecil was unaffected. They’ve already tested this before and all that happened is that it pushed his Dialogue Window until it was a few feet away from the ice. Taking advantage of Ingrid’s ice’s ability to freeze and steal the life force of anything that touches it, Cecil opened fire, driving the monsters to try to come and get him. It worked and they swarmed the jagged little ice field, getting slower and more lethargic as they got closer to the center, both from the ice starting to chill their bodies and from their own mana being siphoned off of them.

Three minutes later, the ice shattered violently, sending huge shards of razor-sharp shards everywhere. Quickly, Ingrid resumed her Storm Falcon > Excalibur routine. Cecil disengaged from Ingrid and flew off to the sides to assist the defenders of the southern palisades while she focused on cutting down the approaching horde. She continued to drive further into the back of the swarm.

Cecil in the meantime let out full automatic fire with his light machine gun, steadily backing away. Quickly the defenders were now advancing and he soared high up to return to Philia.

“Cease Fire. Kitty-Five.” Philia said on the radio. “It’s all under control now.” Together, she, Zefir, and Cecil started packing up their weapons. Carefully, they picked up the overheated spare barrels and placed them in Cecil’s room, which he laid on the stone floor of the balcony.

“Looks like we’re going to be real busy cleaning all this stuff up.” Philia sighed, but her voice was clearly colored with relief.

“I’m only too happy to clean all this stuff up.” Zefir said, sniffing one of the barrels “Now that I'm a cat boy, I can sssssmell the gunpowder…aaaaaahhh…”

“And now…” Philia said after she finished her apport spell. “Wanna light it up?” she held out a lighter.

At the courtyard, Viel sat back as she downed the last of the rejuvenation potion before unsummoning the howitzer and all its accompanying gear. Gwen had provided her invaluable help by acting as a spotter when Philia wasn’t engaged. Despite the muffling effect the perimeter had, the volume of fire that Viel was shelling out eventually broke the glass around the upper floors and knocked off some of the roof tiles.

“Cease Fire. Kitty-Five. It’s all under control now.” Philia said over the radio.

Wearily, Gwen picked up the radio. “Maid One, howitzer has been recalled. Over.”

The shouts of victory were reverberating all over the town by now, The Red Moon had ended relatively quickly for New Gorpisal thanks to Ingrid’s ability to clear out the attackers so quickly as there were so many of them. Some monsters still remained but at this point some of them have regained their senses and have fled.

Outside the palisades, Sammy, Kinu, and Kvaris looked up as they saw celebratory fireworks shoot off from the city hall tower. Their last opponent was a big tusk boar but as soon as they felt its malevolent aura vanish Sammy grabbed it by the tusks and wrestled it to the ground while Kinu and Kvaris used their flails to snag it’s legs and trip it over. Jumping back, the confused tusk boar picked itself off the ground and quickly made its escape.

It didn’t take long for partying to start, and it lasted all the way into the morning. There was also bustling all around as the wounded were taken away for treatment as well as preparing the valiant slain for a grand funeral pyre.

Ingrid appeared an hour later while the party was in full swing. She found her friends in their usual booth at the Heucuva Tavern, that spot having been reserved for them as the proprietor had seen Ingrid’s deeds during the battle. Joining the party was Siria, who had been pulled aside by Millarna to help her with the lightning storm spell, much to her regret.

“Hi! Sorry I’m late!” Ingrid said. The party raised their tankards of ale in salute, and then they stared wide-eyed when they saw what she was carrying as well as the others that followed her. Zefir laughed while Philia put a hand over her face.

“Of coouuuurse…” Philia groaned.

“I-Ingrid!” Viel squeaked in surprise. “Th-that’s a wild monster!”

“It’s not!” Ingrid said. She was cradling in her arms a dog-sized ferret which was affectionately nuzzling her cheek. Following her were four more mice waddling upright, chittering and squeaking curiously.

“It’s a swarm mouse, Ingrid!” Siria said, backing away in her booth in horror. “It’s dangerous!”

“They’re friendly!” Ingrid said.