Chapter 062: Attacking the Fortress
We managed to scramble quite quickly. After all, acting fast and using the element of surprise was our only chance. The Hand of Freedom was extremely well organized, and knew how to react to threats. With their organization being so good, they obviously knew that they lost a base already.
There was a decent chance that after discovering their loss they’d issue an order to move the most important bases somewhere else. After all, Stone Throne wasn’t the only potential base in the area, and if an enemy moves somewhere else, we’re going to be back to square one.
And that’s an optimistic scenario. If the Hand of Freedom is as competent as I was afraid of, they might have had additional bases prepared just in case. Something goes wrong? They move everything they can to the different place, sending us all on a wild goose chase.
Needless to say, we were in for trouble if we let an enemy like that prepare itself.
We divided ourselves into two groups. The first, commanded by Melvar (who replaced his lost feet with improvised techmaturgic prosthethics) was to assault the keep itself. Everything left from Melvar’s party was sent there, together with fresh reinforcements (two silver badge parties, without Players).
At the same time Layla with my party, remnants of Vasyr and Lybaer’s groups and a one fresh party of silver badges, was supposed to check out the mine. Just in case there was a cult presence there. Last thing we wanted were cult reinforcements attacking us from behind while we were attacking the fortress.
Keeping Lybaer and Vasyr in one attack group sounded like a terrible idea, so after a short while of whispering into Layla’s ear I managed to persuade her to send Vasyr in a vanguard while Lybaer in the rearguard. Maybe that way they won’t murder each other.
It’s going to be a painful mission. I know that already. Sigh.
It wouldn’t be a painful mission if that asshole Yhrezerach decided to help us a bit more. He was a First Shard, goddamnit! He didn’t even have to go anywhere, if he simply contracted Leria…the power boost she would get would be substantial. As in ‘with a few underlings I could fight with Firewing on equal terms’ substantial.
It was pretty common for successful adventurers, magicians, Chosen Ones and so on to get contracts with powerful beings they encountered somewhere midway in their lives. It wasn’t a familiar relationship - well, unless you considered the mortal in question to be the familiar - but something similar. Details of it - like the powers, unique spells or ability to summon the contracted being - depended on the contract.
If Leria contracted Yhrezerach… well, her manapool would probably be expanded by around five hundred times. Plus dozens of new hexes, the ability to summon a vast array of Yhrezerach’s daemonic underlings (calling him into battle personally would be overkill of epic proportions) and so on.
Ugh. His reasoning for not accepting? Even when he talked with us, he was still in the Vault behind the cathedral. Due to some weird twist of fate (yeah, right) the key to the door was lost during the fall of the Hold. He believed it to be a sign from Overtyrant (that, for example, Leria wasn’t strong enough to survive the contract and would pop like a balloon from too much magic) and refused to cooperate until we found a way to open the door.
He could open them with a snap of his finger. Or even phase through the wall, as most daemons of Overtyrant (especially stronger ones) considered the Reality their bitch and could pull stuff like that on a whim. But no, we had to find the keys.
I still shook internally each time I remembered that. So much power we might have had at our disposal! Yhrezerach made Firewing look like a puppy. We had a benevolent version of a lategame boss, and yet… at least we added another thing to our list of trump cards after the Stone Run Massacre.
The anti-tank rifle. Most adventurers spend a lot of time assembling their personal Chekhov’s Armouries. All those little thingies - like powerful scrolls, potions, or spells and hexes over your level (like the Destroyer Undead summon for the Kovacs party), used to turn the situation around when it looked most dire.
I already had one thing, that was… a major gamechanger. If only it didn’t require me to do a lot of complicated preparations. Well, at least we now had an anti-tank rifle (with seventeen remaining rounds, including 4 HEAT, 7 subcalibre and 6 shrapnel) that could be deployed if we ran into something REALLY troublesome.
Simea’s jab came maybe a second before the sound of explosions shook the forest.
“Ah, shit.” Layla said loudly. “They started ahead of schedule. “ Yeah, tell me more about it. “We have to hurry.”
***
The mines were garrisoned by a small group of Hand of Freedom combatants. Unfortunately, the fighting in the keep started earlier and they were warned. So, rather than a swift blitzkrieg, it ended up a rather painful battle.
The enemy near the entrance held against our vanguard quite well, but after the main forces came, we pushed through.
More or less.
The enemy had time to dig in, and you could feel that. We lost Vasyr right before the entrance, slain by enemy sniper. Bullet completely ignored his magical defenses and instantly exploded his head. The same thing happened to Vhera. Then we came.
Antegnite. Bullet must have been made from antegnite. An anti-magical metal that was hoarded by anybody who could put his hand on it. It’s usage as a trump card for mass production was endless. Obviously, while it wasn’t rare in the world, it was rare in the field, because of everybody hoarding it.
Shit, looks like the Hand really had a great backer.
Syna managed to locate the sniper and put a bullet in him. Which allowed us to finally push the rest of the enemy fighters into the mine.
***
The enemy retreated in an orderly fashion. The same mechanisms that helped the average adventurer survive his missions also worked for cultists, allowing them to retreat without suffering serious casualties. They had enough manpower to replace beaten warriors and kept pulling back.
These cultists were obviously well trained… and according to adventurer combat doctrine. They were divided into well coordinated parties. They even seemed to be trained according to adventurer classes. Warriors and Knights for melee, Crossbowmen and Riflemen for ranged combat, plus Fire and Black Sorcerers for magic support.
They were good. Without the element of surprise (knights especially seemed to be incompletely armed, due to donning their armors in hurry) the situation might have been… troublesome.
They had no commander. Or, to be exact, we pushed in too fast for one to relay his orders properly. It looked like they had plans prepared for such an occasion, and now were executing them accordingly. They were obviously mining the place, probably to sell the metal somewhere to finance their operations. Despite this, we’ve seen no miners, only mining equipment abandoned in hurry.
Where the fuck are they going? This is stupid. They have nowhere to run, and yet… and yet, this just doesn’t look like they are doing this for the lulz. This is an organized retreat. So they have to retreat somewhere, right?
All our group did was follow in the footsteps of our silver badge party. Buffing and debuffing, sometimes firing something nasty from the distance when the enemy seemed to be weakened.
I had new hexes for that. I recently fed my familiar with every hex I could… and learned new ones from Firewing. Deathbolt (a Gold rank basic offensive hex of the Destruction Magic) was almost an overkill. It actually managed to break some defensive magicks in one hit.
Two times enemy turned out to be sneakier than we thought. We had to stop our offensive and turn back, to help Lybaer survive against a party that somehow showed up behind us. How?! Hidden rooms?
We entered a dead end, at the very lowest level of the mine… just to see the last of the Hand’s warriors disappearing in a teleportation circle.
Oh fuck, we’ve been had.
There is no fucking way they have enough money to install a long range teleporter. Instead, it’s probably short range. One or two kilometres, at best. And where is the nearest place that can be connected to it?
Stone Throne.
It was a wild guess, but they probably hide one additional teleportation device somewhere in the wilderness and send their noncombatants there. The fighters, in the same time, probably just teleported into the Stone Throne, where they were busy either wiping the floor with Melvar’s group or ensuring that everything that could help us cause troubles to the cult was safely removed.
Seconds after the last cultist disappeared, the teleportation circle depowered itself. Welp, so much about going after them.
“Fuck.” Layla summed up the situation pretty well. “Back to the Stone Throne, now!”
***
Syna Varival [N]: We might have a problem.
Teaching her how to use the Nexus to communicate really helped us a lot. Even if she still had to take a while to tell us what she wanted to say.
She could even do it while hurrying through the mine.
Avhar Khan [P]: What is it?
Syna Varival [N]: At least some of the cultists are using imperial equipment.
… oh.
Imperium had its own patterns of pretty much every type of weaponry, from swords and rifles to clubs and slingshots. It was the same with armor and all those additional equipment like belts and so on.
Essentially a standardization of production to allow the Imperium to mass produce the stuff. The few imperial factories in its core provinces were surprisingly modern even before the Apostasy. The Imperial Army, after all, had around a million soldiers that it had to equip. And it was merely the most numerous part of the imperial warmachine.
It had a side effect. It wasn’t that hard to figure out if a sword came out an imperial factory. And when you could produce a hundred thousand weapons yearly, having a few thousand disappear for the sake of some black ops operation was nothing.
It still proved little, however.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Imperium was a decent country, but it didn’t mean that it was omnipotent in its pragmatic benevolence. Red Mist was proof that it made mistakes. Sometimes horrible ones. The cult could trick it to supply it with weaponry, pretending to serve the Light while in fact trying to unleash some Pentagram abomination into Reality.
Also, its secret backers might simply buy them on the black market. It’s not like Imperium was impervious to the scenario of people selling equipment (especially surplus) to the black market. Heck, they could be fakes made according to imperial patterns without licence. Here, outside of the Imperium, you couldn’t get sent to a prison colony for that.
I had to agree, though, that it opened up pretty… dark options to consider. After all, the Imperium had both resources and money needed to instigate an armed rebellion in the Dragonspine Mountains. Sending equipment and instructors was nothing. Few discharged veterans from the Imperial Army or the Imperial Adventurer’s Guild was more than enough.
It still didn’t make sense. Was it trying to instigate another Aevarian War? Was the rebellion done to destabilize the region, allowing the Imperial Army units from the nearby Fifth Military District to achieve easy victory? Two infantry divisions, cavalry brigade and two warmachine legions (if they didn’t send additional forces recently) could certainly topple the balance and help the rebellion succeed.
But then the Tyranny of Ashkar would make a move. Even Northern Aevaria might try something. This doesn’t make any sense. War between two powers of this size is bound to end up in another bloody stalemate. Since both sides, if they decided to go all out, had almost endless industrial and demographical capabilities.
Imperium already tried to go full out once, but decided to call the offensive back after unleashing enough magic to collapse the entire Isle of Yalta on the northwestern edge of the continent into a magical anomaly several hundred kilometres wide. Which, despite obliterating the main Ashkarian fortress on the continent, made the victory only a moral one.
Are they trying that shit again? No way, right? I mean, they obviously will do that sooner or later, at least when brightside Players get strong enough to serve as the spearhead of Imperium’s assault, but… right now?
***
We entered the Stone Throne fortress. It was quite big. Locals must have invested a lot of money in constructing it. Walls were mostly intact, but the gate was open. Or, to be exact, it looked like it was partially opened and Melvar made sure they stay like that with some deconstruction spell. Everything kinda broke.
That’s what you get for not having a guardian spirit capable of holding against a single platinum badge. There was probably one before the fortress fell, but the Hand failed to install another one.
Signs of fighting were everywhere. Several dead cultists, slain by Melvar judging from the wounds. He certainly was strong enough to overwhelm their defenses, no matter how organized they were.
Weird.
I looked at Leria and she nodded back. She felt it as well.
It’s hard to say what precisely occured in the fortress before it was abandoned to ruin. There were a thousand possible scenarios and ten thousand types of culprits that could be responsible for that. It was, most likely, the fault of the people living in it. It’s always like that.
Sins, blasphemies and terrible atrocities are for evil daemons what lamps are for the moths. You rarely get one without the other one. The fortress lord had a blasphemous desire for his own sister, or tortured people for the lulz, or had several lovers and repeatedly forced them to abort their children, or hated religion in the most idiotic way possible and destroyed or desecrated holy places for laughs and suddenly it’s OH MY GOD THE DAEMONS ARE DEVOURING ME, NOOO, WHYYYY.
And then, if they survive, it’s the inevitable moment of ‘I DIDN’T DESERVE THAT’ combined with ‘WHY DID THE GODS LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME’. No wonder the darkside loves to do stuff like that.
But here… here it wasn’t the case. Or, to be exact, it wasn’t the case for the thing living in the dungeons beneath us. There wasn’t the slightest bit of malevolence in its power. Of course, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t bite off the head of anybody stupid enough to go down there, but if my feelings as an amalthian were right…
… it had no intention of doing so if it wasn’t forced to do that. It… does this thing just want to be left alone? Did it move in after something else murdered someone, or was it forced to do that and now just… bunkered down in the dungeons and ignores the world as long as the world ignores it? Just what the heck happened in this place?
Why am I 100% sure that we are going to discover the truth, sooner or later?
***
Judging from the aftermath we encountered in the fortress, it looked like the cultists inside pulled an organized retreat as well. But with Melvar on the offensive and having less time to prepare, they were less successful. They left in hurry. And seemed to be losing a lot of people.
The place suddenly trembled. Uh oh. Looks like the fight was quite hard.
We ran into what must’ve been the banquet hall of the lord… to see the battle had almost ended. The last of cultists were escaping through the teleportation circle. We ran just in time to see Melvar sent flying by…
The fuck is that thing?
Stone Throne
Unique
Category: Earth/Stone
Type: Daemon/Servile
Threat Grade: Gold V
Once an earth elemental that was changed into the ruin elemental, a daemonic personification of stone worked by mortals but then left to ruin. It moved into the fortress when it was abandoned and created himself a golem to walk through the halls of his dominion.
It was a golem. Two meters of stone in a roughly humanoid form. Unlike typical stone golems, like the ore golem we once fought in the Descent, it obviously saw some stoneworking. It’s surface was smooth. There were engravings decorating it. Its head looked like a small model of a fortress, the eyes looking at us from two of its gates.
Oh, and its arms were made to look like a battering rams. Lovely.
Melvar was either dead or unconscious, and the rest of the fortress group was thoroughly massacred. The cultists seemed to go for one last counterattack, with the golem obviously fighting on their side, probably being a sort of guardian deity of the place that they persuaded with sacrifices to be helpful. They almost managed to beat the adventurers back before they detected us coming and decided to flee. The golem stayed.
He suffered a serious beating at the hands of Melvar. Half of its hitpoints left. He probably only managed to get close to Melvar because the silver badges got swarmed by the cultists. Otherwise he would probably take it down alone.
Ah, shit.
“Hyrkan, get the adventurers out!” I shouted to the leader of our silver badges that accompanied us. Layla didn’t comment on me usurping her authority, instead she used aura to leap towards Melvar to check out if he’s alive. Huh. Priorities.
Well, time to take down the Stone Throne.
***
The first part of the battle was making sure that the Throne won’t murder the remaining adventurers from the Melvar’s party. As Hyrkan hauled out those who couldn’t walk (and Layla took Melvar out), our warriors were dancing around increasingly angered golem. In the same time I was repeatedly casting Destroy Life, my best (and only) directly damaging Death Magic hex.
He was busy trying to hit Leria and Lena with his battering rams. But, from to time, he turned his head towards me and sent a stone projectile for an intimate meeting with my face. Rather than trying to stop it with my defensive magic - which would be costly - I had Simea stationed beside me.
She had enough aura skills improving her reflex and strength to catch my arm in the last moment and then pull me sideways. It might have hurt without the Inhuman Resilience, but with it, I barely felt the pulling.
Oh boy, the Throne seemed pissed each time we did that. It isn’t precisely a typical way of fighting, but hey, as long as it works?
I managed to take him down from 54% to 43% of HP by the time the other adventurers retreated. Even Hyrkan’s party which, I guess, was sensible. They weren’t going to be of much use. They would probably end up getting instakilled by golem’s rams.
I managed to take him down to 42% before he decided he’d had enough of this shit.
A massive magic-reinforced stomp caused a shockwave strong enough to push our warriors back a little and stun them at least partially. Leria got hit by a ram, but she managed to partially move away before it hit which dampened the strength. She wasn’t sent flying, but she was almost immediately put out of commision for a while.
Where is Vaera when you need a heale… oh, right, I forgot.
I quickly look around and, after making sure nobody is around us, I cast Abatement on her twice. I had one Overtyrant hex for restoring stamina and lifeforce, and another one to counter debuffs and status conditions. Pain caused by getting hit by a local equivalent of a bus counted as status conditions.
Aaand… she charged again. But not in time to prevent the golem from casting a summoning hex.
Undead. Skeletons and ghosts. Probably remnants of former inhabitants. Damned ruin elementals.
They weren’t precisely strong, but trying to avoid being sent flying by the golem was a bit harder when you were swarmed by the undead.
Another stomp, but this time without a shockwave.
A second later I lost consciousness. When I woke up, my head felt like it was about to explode, and I could feel a bump the size of my brain on my head.
What th…
I wasn’t out for long, since the situation hadn’t changed a lot. Simea still guarded me.
“What…”
“He dropped a part of ceiling on you, and… WATCH OUT!” I heard another stomp, but this time she caught me and pulled me away before a chunk of rock, one meter in diameter, hit me.
I’d totally be a bloodstain after the first hit if not for the Inhuman Resilience.
Ugh, golems and warmachines are the worst. Resistant to almost everything. If you can’t kill them with weapon, it’s bound to be a pain. Alright, what now?
I resumed casting the Destroy Life, but I could already see that our warriors were getting pushed back. While they couldn’t do substantial damage to the golem, they at least pissed him off and caused him enough pain to focus on them, rather than on casting spells on me.
This battle… wasn’t going very well.
The golem suddenly hit the ceiling with his ram.
Oh shitshitshitshit. It was like the former death-from-above attack, only AoE. A rain of stone fragments of various sizes fell from the ceiling, annihilating undead and causing wounds to us as well.
Obviously he replaced his undead right after the AoE attack stopped.
Fucker. Fighting him in the fortress is a horrible idea. If we fought outside, the group of silver badges would have a decent chances of beating his ass. Here? This is his domain. He almost literally IS the fortress, just like Yhrezerach is the Tyrant’s Hold. Everything here belongs to him.
Alright, plan B.
I quickly communicated the change in tactic to Syna. She jumped back and began setting up Hekate.
It’s three meter barrel was, in fact, made from three separate parts (each one meter long). It was essentially a railgun/coilgun/Gauss rifle - people in Long War summed them up to MAW, Magnetic Acceleration Weapon - and it wasn’t as vulnerable to microscopic holes in the barrel as normal guns were.
Each one meter of the barrel meant one more meter of the electromagnetic rails used to accelerate the round. Though it also made the weapon less handy. One meter with HEAT round should be enough.
And it almost was.
We were pushed back almost to her position, when she finally managed to go through all those tedious preparations. One of our few precious HEAT rounds hit the golem right beneath the neck. It went through like the hot knife through the butter.
The golem collapsed on his knees. Undead were banished. My ears were in pain and I felt stunned for a second.
Ouch. That was painful. We had to actually resort to our trump card to make up for the fact that the enemy fought in the place perfect for himself. If not for the stones falling from the ceiling, we might have actually managed to stand ground despite the wave of undead. And then take out his remaining lifefor…
… wait a second, it’s still alive! It has one percent of hp left, and…
Oh fuck. It raised up. This sudden surge of power, it cannot be...
Stone Throne
Unique/Overdrive!
Category: Earth/Stone
Type: Daemon/Servile
Threat Grade: Gold V → Platinum V
Once an earth elemental that was changed into the ruin elemental, a daemonic personification of stone worked by mortals but then left to ruin. It moved into the fortress when it was abandoned and created himself a golem to walk through the halls of his dominion.
Known spells and hexes:
Stone Toss, Bring Ruin, Go Under, Shockwave, Summon Undead, Devouring Abyss (O)
It’s using it. It’s using this Devouring Abyss spell. FUCK.
“DESTROY LI…” I screamed. But before I managed to end the hex, it was already too late. This time the stomp was filled with a lot of power.
I could see the golem collapsing just as I was falling into darkness when the floor beneath me opened up. Ugh.