As they neared the bridge, they picked up speed and Joe caste Haste on them both. They quickly caught up to Bixby who followed them back to the bank the others were waiting in. Joe was happy to see that nothing had attacked them while he had been gone. He quickly caught the others up to what he and Mirabella had witnessed, and Iona answered the question he had posed to Mirabella earlier.
“A horde is a finite amount of beasties. Usually a few hundred with’ a leader or two. You kill all of them and that’s that. An invasion’s a mite different. The creatures what make up an invasion will keep spawning til you kill the Invasion Boss. And most times that boss is in no hurry to be seen. We’ll have to hunt it down.”
Joe let out a sigh. “Alright, so, we have a decision to make. We can’t hunt this boss monster down with the kids in tow, and we can’t really bring the kids to the County Building while it’s being attacked. What are our options here? We can’t leave Kelly and the kids alone here.” Joe saw the worry on Kelly’s face change just a bit as he voiced what she must have been feeling.
“I’ll stay.” Mirabella raised her hand slightly. “I mean, it makes the most sense. The five of you are all heavy hitters and Bixby can track it down, probably better than I can. I’m much more useful protecting the children.” She glanced back to where the children were stationed. The majority of them were asleep but the two oldest were sitting together and talking quietly.
Kelly breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank you.” She patted Mirabella’s hand, “I know I can’t protect them all by myself and I am beyond grateful for everything you’ve done so far. And I know getting them to a larger group of people will be the best option. I’m really hoping their parents will be there already.”
Kier added, “You’re welcome lass. We’d be right bampots to leave you and the wee bairns to fend for yourselves.” He looked at Bixby, “Can you leave some of your pack to watch over them?”
Bixby twitched an ear and woofed a few times, and everyone looked at Joe for a translation. “He says maybe. He’ll try to get them to stay here, but they’re more loyal to him the closer he is to them. They may get bored or forget their instructions before too long.”
Iona spoke, “Better’n nothing.” She stood up and helped Rory to his feet, “A’right, best we get this done before dark if we can.”
Joe stood and stepped up to Kelly, “It’s just going to be the two of you with the kids. I know Bella gave you a knife, but I want to give you a few things to help protect them.” He took his Void Ring from his finger and handed it over with an explanation of what it does. While Kelly slipped it onto her finger, he retrieved the Staff of the Forest Guardian that he had originally given to Gabe. “This is fully charged, and you can cast Wall of Thorns, or protect yourself or someone else with the Barkskin spell.”
Kelly looked a bit astonished but thanked him and impulsively gave him a hug. Joe froze for a brief moment but then returned the hug. Positive human contact was a rare treat these days and he relished the feeling. Iona and Kier also had items to gift to Kelly and Mirabella from the communal loot pool, and after a few more minutes of preparation, Joe, Bixby and the dwarves all headed out.
Joe took the group back the way he and Mirabella had come until they reached the Courthouse. Here, he led them straight down Water street until it intersected with Ocean. On the corner was a two-story, square Starbucks building, it’s glass windows surprisingly intact. At the large intersection, Ocean Street continued to the left towards the freeway but with a jarring change to the other side of the road. As far as he could see, the terrain on the other side had been cut right along the main road and replaced with a swamp. As he had seen before, the swamp land seemed to rise and fall with mounds or hills of rock and mud. It was dense with what looked like Louisiana Cypress trees with a clinging moss hanging down, shrouding, and obscuring the deeper parts. It gave the entire thing an eerie almost malevolent feel. The wetlands had spilled onto the paved road in places and Joe could see vines beginning to reach out from the swamp and invade the roadway.
Only a block away towards the ocean, Joe could see more saurians making their way out of the swamp towards the County Building. They seemed to come in groups of five to twenty and they all made a beeline towards the human defenders. “That’s weird. They aren’t using any kind of tactics. They aren’t flanking the people, just swarming.” Joe whispered.
“They’re nae capable of such thinking. Much like a horde in that.” Iona answered. She pointed to a narrow gap in the trees across the road. “There. We’ll enter the swamp between those trees. That should keep the boggins from taking a peek at us.” She gestured, “Bixby, you’re in the lead. Find us the boss. And double time across this road, tis too open and we donnae want to let them know we’re coming.”
Bixby flew across the span in a heartbeat. Joe stayed with the dwarves even though he could have Blinked across instantly. As they hit the edge of the swamp, they began splashing into ankle-deep water the color of tea. They all pushed into the tree line before Joe stopped the group. He and Bixby cast Pass Without Trace on everyone, and they resumed their journey. Joe marveled at the outcome of the spell. They walked through the dark water as if it did not exist. They made no noise and left no ripples. The hanging gray shaggy beards of Spanish Moss that hung from every tree limb seemed to flow out of their way and their footing among the submerged roots of the cypress trees was sure and firm.
Joe and Bixby had spent a summer in Florida a few years back at the Big Cypress National Preserve. It was a huge freshwater wetland and this swamp looked, felt, and smelled just like it did. Could the System have just moved that swamp here and if so, why? He shrugged off the question, just like so many others about the System and its reasoning. As they followed Bixby, whose nose was working overtime, he saw swamp fern, spikerush and marsh fleabane. He saw a cocoplum bush with red-tipped leaves and idly thought that if they managed to make a village here that it could be harvested for food. He’d had a nice jam made from it once. He began to catalog all the plants that he recognized and their uses either medicinal or edible or utilitarian and surprisingly a notice appeared that his Survival skill had increased to Tier Six, and he gained a new skill at Tier one, Herbalist.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
While it was great to gain a new skill, Joe knew that he could not get lost in appreciating the environment, he had a job to do. As the group traversed the sometimes thigh deep, hip deep on the dwarves, waterways Joe found another pleasant side effect of the Pass Without Trace spell, the mosquitoes completely ignored him. Along with the swarms of gnats and other marsh insects. This spell rocks!
After ten minutes of making their way through the mire, Bixby stopped. Joe edged up and watched the large dog’s body language, then turned to his companions. They all huddled close, and, in a whisper, Joe filled them in, “Bixby smells saurians up ahead and can smell something that is saurian but also not. I don’t know what that means, but maybe they have a mutated alligator or something.” At the questioning looks he added, “Alligators are like giant lizards with lots of teeth that can swim really well.” That got nods all around. “So, what’s the plan?”
“I donnae like the area for fighting like we do. Too many trees and roots and such.” Iona scanned the area with a critical eye. “Our saving grace is the spell Joe and Bixby cast what’ll give us sure footing for the fight to come.” She looked each person in the eye and nodded, “We been through worse. Joe and Bixby should blitz the manky dobbers and the three of us’ll come in and take out the rank and file. Once they’re done for, we’ll all take out the Boss.” She smiled at the head nods and added, “Remember, keep your head and gie it laldy.” Rory and Kier smiled, and Joe, not really understanding the pep talk, got the gist of it at least.
Joe patted Bixby, cast Haste and moved like a black shadow through the swamp. Very quickly they came across the unmistakable sounds of people in armor moving about and the sibilant hissing of the saurian speech. Joe peered through a stand of ferns and was surprised to see a broken-down fort. This one looked ancient and had a distinct Aztec or Egyptian flavor to the design. The swamp had swallowed the outer buildings, with trees growing up and through the stone structures until all that was left were imprints of the building’s layout. The fort itself was small, smaller than the one he and Bixby had found a month earlier. Wow! Has it really only been a month? Joe shook the thought away. The fort itself was roughly sixty feet to a side and built on a square slab of stone that rose from the water about eight feet. The original color of the stone was barely visible where the saurians had tread and rubbed off the moss and dirt. The rest was covered in what looked to be centuries of dirt and algae build-up.
The front had wide stairs that led up to the flat of the slab and ended in an opening with square columns on either side. There was no door as that had rotted away long ago and Joe thought the saurians did not seem to have any need for a door anyway. Each corner had fifteen foot tall, squat looking, square towers with ten-foot walls that interconnected them. All in all, it was a very straight forward design. Time and weather had eaten away any décor that may have once graced the faces of the walls and towers leaving only bumps and mounds to suggest a long-ago bas-relief.
The grounds outside of the fort held perhaps twenty saurians, which Joe’s Inspect ability told him were all level fifteen to twenty skirmishers. Each wore leather armor much like the saurians he had seen before, but these had metal plating adorning various parts and it all looked much cleaner and more intact than the ones he had fought before. More elite units? Or at least better armed and armored. Crouched in the bush, he glanced at Bixby who winked and then Blinked behind one of the patrolling guards. It never knew what hit it.
Joe Blink Stepped between two saurians at the base of the steps who were just barely reacting to Bixby’s sneak attack. They had just leveled their spears into a fighting stance when Joe lashed out with a sword in each hand, cleanly beheading them. From there, the rest were alert and ready to fight. Unfortunately, they were not ready for Joe and Bixby. The duo Blinked and moved through the ranks of the saurians like scythes of death. In just a few short minutes, the outer guards were dead, and Joe and Bixby were watching as more saurians emerged from the open doorway and gathered at the top of the steps.
Just as the first lizard-like warriors began running down the thin steps, Iona stepped out of the brush and used her challenge ability. Instantly all of them turned to orient on her. Like a school of fish, Joe marveled. Just as the first wave of skirmishers arrived to engage Iona, Rory sailed out of the trees and over their heads. He landed among the second wave of warriors and with a mighty dwarven cry, ended two of them with a single swing of his hammer. From there the saurians were caught in what Joe could only describe as a meat grinder. The opponents facing Iona could not get past her and so were trapped between an immovable wall of steel and the relentless tide of Rory’s hammer. Joe took a quick look at Bixby, who had simply sat down to watch, and then turned back in fascination as the siblings turned the swamp around them into a green, lizard blood tinged killing floor.
Joe was pulled from the enthralling sight when an arrow thudded into his chest and bounced off. Startled, he looked all around for the archer just in time to see a saurian plummet from atop one of the corner towers with a crossbow bolt through its neck. Kier casually strolled out of the tree line, reloading his crossbow. “Now’s nae the time for a nap laddie-buck.” He winked at Joe and fired another bolt that found a home in the chest of another archer.
Bixby exploded into motion and Blinked to the top of the nearest tower and out of Joe’s direct sight, but he could hear the sounds of saurians being savaged. Activating his Shadow armor, he shot up the stairs, ignoring the warriors still coming down and entered the fort proper. Inside was a letdown. Joe’s mind had conjured some cool looking building with lizard men camped in and around it, and maybe a crazy sacrificial alter with a priest about to sacrifice a young maiden that he would need to rescue. Instead, the grounds were muddy from the many feet and smelled like a weird mix of fish and rotten meat. One corner was dedicated to being a latrine and the rest was simply empty, except for the fifty or so saurians, who were all looking at Joe like he was an Uber Eats delivery person bringing them a steak. Okay, I can do this, Joe thought, then an idea struck him and out loud he exclaimed, “Oh yeah!” Hah, like a shadow covered Kool-Aid Man! Joe laughed at himself.
Arrows and a few spears sailed through the air only to pass harmlessly through Joe’s shadowy form as he shot forward to the middle of the group. They were pressed close together which severely hampered their ability to fight effectively. As soon as he thought he was in position, Joe activated his armor’s other ability. Six-foot long, black, smokey spikes erupted from all around Joe’s body. Each spike passed cleanly through the saurians around him. Piercing multiple foes at once, the Umbral Soul Strike ignored all their armor and did enough damage to each individual, that a handful of seconds after casting it, almost twenty saurians dropped dead in a circle around him.
Joe surveyed his handiwork, “Holy shitballs!” The ground around him was littered with bodies and the remaining saurian warriors took a step back from Joe with actual fear in their eyes. That’s when Bixby landed among them and began shredding the ones nearest him. From there it was not even a contest as the dwarves arrived and the last of the saurian warriors died to Iona’s axe.
Joe searched the fort for any sign of a boss but saw nothing. Kier mended the few minor wounds the group had received, then they all filed out onto the stairs. Rory spat then said, “I cannae loot the corpses.” He eyed the terrain warily, “Still a Boss to end.”