The Bridge (Part 1)

It seemed that getting to the Inn, easily the largest and most central building in town, was not an original idea. Though screams and sounds of fighting and destruction came at them from every direction, so too did refugees. The townspeople were, for the most part, entirely unskilled in fighting and so they went to the one place in town where the men and women who did know how to fight tended to congregate.

Kaladrian directed them to ignore everybody and to keep moving. Eana seemed to approve and had no trouble following his instructions, but Idris felt guilty for every single soot or blood covered face they passed. Some of them simply, wordlessly, fell in behind them and before long they had a small procession of people following in worried silence.

Ahead the lights of the Inn were still visible. That was good. But as they drew closer Idris could see that rather than twinkling out of paned glass, torches and lanterns shone dully instead through broken windows.

At the entrance a growing pile of Drones lay dead or dying and the shouts of hasty orders came from within.

“Dad!” Idris yelled, rushing forward.

From behind Eana growled, “Let go of me!”

Idris glanced back and saw Kaladrian had a restraining hand on Eana preventing her from running forward with him.

“Let your brother check,” he said, “We go in once it’s safe.”

Before Idris had run very far a head poked out of the second story window and called, “That you Idris? Did you find her?”

Graham, a meat cleaver slick with insect blood in his hand, peered down at Idris who invoked Radiance and sent the light up and back to reveal Kaladrian and Eana.

Suddenly curious, Idris asked, “Have you been fighting?”

His father rubbed the back of his neck, looking chagrined, “I’m going to have to forgive you for investing in that Warrior class of yours. Once the fighting started to pick up, things changed for us here. A couple of the men are mentoring anybody with some spare XP into combat classes. And well… if a man can fight he’s got to stand up.”

“You’re a Warrior?!” Idris shouted.

“Fighter,” his father replied, “But it’s got combat skills so… anyway, get inside! It’s dangerous out there.”

Kaladrian and Eana approached and stood level with Idris.

“No,” Kaladrian said, “We have to leave. Get everyone armed and out of the Inn.”

“We’ve already got every weapon we could find. Most of us are down to fists and harsh language but here is where we can stand. Nobody is going to want to leave. You lot get in here and we can hold through the night,” Graham said.

“They’ll leave,” Kaladrian said.

“Like hell we will,” one of the townspeople who had followed them to the inn said. They had been so quiet that Idris had almost forgotten they existed. A chorus of agreement followed the man’s words and the whole crowd of them pushed past Kaladrian and made for the inn.

A few of them shrieked as arms reached out of the piled bug man corpses to grasp at them, but after a moment they all filed in.

“Huh,” Idris said, “What now?”

“I said they’ll leave,” Kaladriand said, “They’ll leave.”

He strode forward into the light cast out from the front of the inn and the tangled corpses of the dead and dying bug men. He waved his hand and the bodies that littered his path all slid aside as if pushed.

“Whoa!” Idris said.

“Who is this guy?” Eana asked, clearly impressed.

Feeling more and more like it wasn’t the case, Idris replied, “He said he was a Scholar”

“And you believed him?” Eana asked.

Idris shrugged. Graham’s head disappeared back inside the building and the two were left standing in the street.

They could hear Kaladrian’s voice booming inside, but the words were too difficult to make out in the noise of the night.

Before Eana and Idris could do anything sensible like watch for approaching drones in the night, Kaladrian emerged. Symbols glowed all over his armor and Idris could have sworn the man’s eyes were like two flames of emerald and sapphire. But in a moment it faded.

Behind him strode what must have been everyone from inside the inn. Other than the few real adventurers among them who carried their respective weapons, the people of Irondale were armed variously with kitchen implements, bottles, chair legs, and anything else that could even resemble a weapon.

As they exited a few of them waded into the dying bug men around the entrance and began beating them to death.

“Every little bit of experience helps I guess,” Eana said.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Right?” Idris replied, “What do you think he even said to them?”

“Follow me or you’re all going to die?” Eana suggested.

“Yeah, makes sense,” Idris said, “That’d probably work on me.”

Kaladrian strode up and Eana, impressed, immediately asked, “What even is your class?”

“Your brother didn’t tell you?” Kaladrian said, smiling disarmingly, “It’s got something to do with magic.”

Eana grinned. That was good enough for her.

One of the Adventurers tapped Kaladrian on the shoulder and said, “If we can get this lot to the camp, there should be plenty of gear to scavenge. Give us a better chance.”

Kaladrian nodded, “It’s on the way. Come on. We’re heading to the bridge.”

They began the walk, path lit by Radiance and the flickering light of a town on fire.

It wasn’t more than a few minutes to the adventurer’s camp, and the bridge would be just beyond it. With dozens of people around them and Kaladrian leading the way, Idris began to feel like this was just another adventure. The cost to many of the people of Irondale was steep, and getting beyond the reach of the dungeon didn’t mean they were completely out of danger, but the end was in sight.

Maybe now that his father and Conrad were back Idris could take a couple of days to relax completely. And with Eana’s new skill allowing her to hide her power?

Things were looking up.

A couple of drones had rushed in out of the dark but on their own they weren’t much threat to the throng of people who mobbed them and beat them to death before they could chitter out warnings to their friends.

“Why isn’t the node looking any better?” Idris asked idly.

Kaladrian and Eana glanced up. Above them the dome of magical energy continued to shift and swirl, to tear open and rapidly close.

“I’m not doing anything,” Eana said.

“It isn’t you or any of us,” Kaladrian said, “Nodes of order form wherever sufficient men and women, people of Order, gather and stake their claim on the Chaos Lands. With every person that joins the group, the node is strengthened and extends. The node surrounding Confluence extends for miles in every direction.”

“So, more people means a stronger, larger node,” Idris said.

“Correct. But the opposite is true as well. Travelers tend to move between cities in groups because when they camp, if group cohesion is good enough, they often create a temporary node which slowly dissipates once they move on. With more powerful individuals, fewer people are needed.

“But consider an established town like Irondale. What’s happened here in the past day or two is a small influx of new people, mostly minimally skilled, but a large loss of very powerful adventurers. The node should have naturally reduced in size slowly to accommodate the change in power, but monsters managed to penetrate its barrier. Creatures of Chaos, the direct opponent to Order inside one of its nodes - my thinking is that they have the opposite effect that new people do.”

Idris pondered a moment before venturing a guess at what it all meant, “More creatures get in, which weakens the node, the monsters kill people who are inside, which weakens it further.”

“Exactly my thinking,” Kaladrian said.

“Why’re we leaving then?” Graham asked, “It was a fine speech in the Inn, but if more people makes the place stronger why didn’t we stay where it was safe… relatively speaking. And chip away at the monsters until there’s not enough left in the node to keep harming it.”

“That was my first thought too,” Eana said.

Kaladrian dipped his head in acknowledgement before continuing, “Because the node has deteriorated to the point that monsters will continue to enter. If we stay at the Inn, they will enter unhampered and their numbers will grow beyond our ability to beat them. If we seek them out for a fight, most of the people here won’t be of much use and each of them that we lose weakens us further.

“The Hive seems determined to get what it’s after and has unlimited resources to pursue it. Staying at the Inn and fighting is losing slowly. Attempting to clear the node without a cohesive force and within the range of the Hive’s influence is losing faster. The only chance we have is to go beyond its influence, stick together, and establish a temporary node far away from its influence.”

It was all making complete sense to Idris. He hoped they would be able to link up with the Seekers outside the node. There might still be time to mend the damage.

“Is this what you said to them all back at the Inn?” Idris asked.

Kaladrian laughed mirthlessly, “Do you think any such reasonable argument, from a stranger no less, could have brought these people out of what they saw as safety? Men are not driven by reason, Light Bringer. Passion, though. Anger. These things bring action. It’s the reasons afterward that they listen to, the reasons that make it all make sense once it’s all over. And at that point anything goes.”

“But my dad said you made a speech,” Idris said.

Kaladrian gave a wan smile and continued onward.

They arrived at the camp. The sound of fighting and the flashes of magic and skills were just visible a few hundred yards off where the bridge spanned the river.

It was deserted, which was about what Idris had expected. If the Seekers came through and said to get to the bridge, the others would have followed.

But what he hadn’t expected was the carnage.

A battle had been fought here. At least a hundred drones were dead and strewn about the camp, though most of them were piled as if they had been massing on the road leading to the bridge. At least twenty Hive Soldiers lay dead or dying, and around them were the corpses of adventurers.

“Order preserve us…” Graham said.

A dozen dead? Maybe more. Idris retched when he saw one woman who seemed to be trying to climb out from the maw of a monster that seemed more mouth than anything else. Her face was a frozen rictus of agony and terror and the desperate attempt to save her was evident in the broken shafts of arrows and spears that riddled the creature that killed her.

“Those ones are nasty,” Eana said.

She was a Healer and had spent a lot of time around the wounded and dying, but Idris was still shocked at her composure.

“Gather what weapons and equipment you can find,” Kaladrian called out, “There’s work yet to be done.”

Swallowing bile, Idris moved to comply. He could use some armor. He and Eana approached the dead woman and Idris attempted to size her up for a fit without actually looking at her.

“Help me get her armor off,” Eana said.

Idris, glancing only briefly and trying not to breathe, felt around on the woman’s shoulders and back for the clasps that let him and Eana remove the hard leather vest she wore. It wouldn’t fit Idris and it was a little big for Eana, but it would do.

Idris managed to find some mail that was a little tight. Around them people were arming themselves with everything they could find, and after a few minutes they were a raggedy looking group in all their scavenged equipment, but they were considerably better armed. One woman, bizarrely, still held a bottle of liquor in each hand.

“Comes with special abilities,” she said with a toothy grin. She removed a cork and took a swig, offering Idris a taste. He declined and tried to offer her a spear he found. She just laughed, corked the bottle and walked back to join the rest.

The group began moving toward the bridge, Kaladrian at its head and Idris just beside him. Up ahead the fighting at the bridge was beginning to take shape. In the flashing light of skills and thrown magical projectiles Idris began to see the scope of what waited for them.