The invaders had made their main base of operations out of the city’s water treatment and distribution facilities. Considering the amount of water in the place and the surroundings they followed an underground water source here, certainly there wasn’t a river flowing on the surface. Assuming it wouldn’t just freeze over.
The fish people were scattered about going about their tasks. Usually tending to the slime, they used for their eggs and food. Creating spawning pits, the less said about those horrifying places the better. The few specimens of pigs and gorillas guarded and patrolled the inner area, mostly doing nothing unless they were driving a particularly large group of fodder along. Content to laze around and not do any work.
The larger and nastier fish specimens led smaller groups of their undisciplined kin around. The facility itself was set near the center of town in a civil services area, mostly unrecognizable rubble. A few intact buildings, mostly with collapsed roofs. The fish had spread out everywhere, with little apparent intent.
They did swarm all over the place though. The invaders at first glance had outnumbered the locals by at least three to one combined. Unfortunately for these shit heads they were already under siege and didn’t even know it.
Alex kept the snipers from hitting the main base despite the juicy targets it presented. He wanted to see how the leaders reacted to the losses they suffered and didn’t know about yet. The fish were even worse off than the dregs and beastlings for equipment, some had weapons they clearly scavenged. The others had some sort of slime/rock/corral that was vaguely weapon shaped, barely worth notice given the performance, a good number of the creatures had nothing but their teeth and claws, perhaps some spit or ink. It may have been mildly corrosive.
None of it mattered to the snipers’ shots, and much less when his golems got going. Pound for pound they may have been slightly tougher than the beastlings who were slightly weaker than the dregs. If that was even a concern only the larger variants mattered to Alex and his creations. The weakest of which were his wolf packs, (he could have added the stabbing arms of the bone dogs, but he wanted them to be wolves dammit) well they tore through even prepared groups with ease, some minor damage to the ‘thin’ armor. They would be repaired naturally in a few minutes, not even having to hold off attacking the next group.
The snipers were vast overkill, blasting away huge chunks of the offensive monsters. Completely out of reach, it was almost a waste of ammo, they didn’t really add anything but kills in these fights. The monsters were too dumb to be disrupted, beyond the loss of cohesion they didn’t take cover. Just blindly charge or stand around dying. It was disappointing how worthless the fish were as enemies.
For the next few days Alex planned to bleed the invaders, if they wanted to send out piecemeal forces for him to destroy, he wasn’t going to argue. If they left the ‘fortress’ in mass, he would crush them. If they holed up, he would plink away with snipers. Currently two of those snipers were observing the open areas looking for targets, magic users specifically. He wanted to know if they moved and have records of how many and where they were.
The first day he began his siege thirty patrols went out, six returned. The second day twenty-five went out, only two battered and routed patrols returned. The third day a single large column left, and never returned. On and on it went.
The fortress and its defenses became sparse, the pools and resources from the outside were destroyed or cut off. The only outlets he didn’t hit were those underground there he left the creatures be. For a few days at least, then crudely enchanted stones were dropped down filling the tunnels with gases. Some flammable others toxic, manholes were guarded or sealed shut. Other stones were enchanted to act like thermite and dropped into water sources creating boiling currents, cooking and killing off the inhabitants.
A few slightly larger drones dropped similar rocks into the compound, some explosive others disruptive. Alex got a good laugh out of the masters dying as they tried to save what appeared to be a food source he had dropped a thermite rock in. They blindly jumped in to pull it out only to be cooked alive, along with the eels they had been harvesting for food. Many of the damaged cores in his inventory ended up in hollowed out rocks to be overloaded with mana and explode, injuring the groups.
Overloading enchantments to cause dangerous effects had proven simple, basic long lasting effects based on the elements where cost effective as well. He had found a use for the broken cores cluttering his workshop. They still contained magic that could be used but became one time use batteries for these enchantments rather than the rechargeable and self-sustaining power sources.
The moment healers or magic was seen they fell with limb sized holes blasted into their bodies, several drones deactivated their stealth to draw fire. As several mages attempted to kill these off with spells they came under fire. The tunnels leading out of the fortress were sealed, filling with gas that ignited with simple sparks. At night the sentries were silently killed and lithe forms scaled the ‘walls’ to plant mines, cut throats and set fires.
Since they refused to come out and fight during the day his golems stood in the open mocking the defenders and drawing attention. When they moved to react others struck where defenses had weakened. If they didn’t react the force in the open assaulted the walls killing the defenders and raising hell. Carrying off the bodies and withdrawing under cover of the snipers, all before a response.
Honestly Alex was disgusted, a part of him wondered why he had been so cautious of these invaders. Another part reminded him that it was only his current abilities that made this so easy, yes he could have probably won back then but it would be a toss-up. A final part told him that he should still be cautious, as he had already killed more than they had. They were getting reinforcements.
The defenders that had survived so far were getting thin and worn out, fresh faced groups had come in. That and he had killed of more than the base should hold, wherever they came from was sending more troops and some supplies. That or he had vastly underestimated how long it took these things to reproduce, maybe he had gotten his estimates off when he was planning.
In any case he was almost ready to finish this place off, he didn’t want others to come and break his siege. The forces he sent had weakened the place enough, the constantly changing attacks had revealed their capabilities, he had yet to reveal the full extent of his snipers having no more than three working at one time.
Four times as much firepower as they were expecting should trivialize the defenses. Then his golems would go over the walls and crush the defenders, followed by the wolves. Then he and his unit would move up to deal with the magical bullshit of the gems. Alex hadn’t just been testing out his siege tactics, nor was he doing this ‘just’ to torment the defenders. He could and would have deleted this place two weeks ago if he wasn’t trying to find a way to deal with the miasma. He was observing, both the enemy and his own forces. How the magic he was releasing into the facility interacted with that miasma. How it interacted with enchantments on ‘dud stones’ he dropped along with the flashier ones. Many recovered by the golems in their assaults for further study.
He was standing nearby but out of sight seeing how it affected him, both inside Aegis and when outside. He had been testing both how to stop the miasma and how to clean it up, including the small amount he absorbed. This battle wasn’t ultimately important, if he had to run nothing would change. It was the future battles that mattered, when he wasn’t in control and in enemy territory surrounded by miasma.
His opponents had given him too much time. Time to take the city, time to improve his crafting, time to counter their bullshit, time to weaken them. Time they would never get back, time he no longer had to spend figuring things out.
Now. Now they were going to pay for it.
Nilfstrum had several ways of handling both negative mana and miasma, they ranged from grand rituals and holy purges, all the way to small simple enchantments designed to slowly clear affected areas.
A combination of these practices had Alex building a type of shielding in his golems, around their cores. One that pulled in miasma and ‘ignited’ it, purging it back to raw mana. Mana that was expelled back into the world when not used by the cores in the golem. It was similar to respiration in that the ‘bad’ mana was used as a fuel, the byproduct was beneficial to the world, much like plants cleaning the air by pulling in CO2 and releasing oxygen. Totally different but similar principles, when combined with basic shielding he was no longer affected by miasma or other magical environment factors.
The same process saw negative mana being broken down, a little less efficiently but still. That process required mana conductive material, and some time. Alex still wasn’t sure what happened, he had been on a crafting spree when he just did it. In the zone and unable to consciously decide or justify precisely why, and he ended up with something that worked. After he was done he could quite easily copy what he had made, but if asked to explain the mechanics behind it in depth he couldn’t.
It worked that was what mattered, using the highly conductive material from broken cores as a base, imbedded in enchanted stone to make tablets and discs that rebalanced the mana in an area. When he got time he had been making them by the hundreds, his drones scattered them about the city and its surroundings. Eating away at the problematic environment, given time they might even begin to alter the wasteland. Create something like an oasis or reversing desertification except for mana.
It meant that he had a way to be annoying to his enemies, to remove or at least reduce the impact of their tools. The miasma helped them take and hold territory, draw and convince locals to join subduing them through a slow poison or suffocation. Scattering smaller versions of these around and occasionally taking the time to build larger more effective ones would be a new goal during his travels.
What mattered is that now both he and his creations didn’t need to fear miasma, while the effects started as minor and temporary if he got away, they did compound and if he was traveling towards those concentrations, he would have problems. Somewhere like Three Groves with its minor amount of local miasma was no problem, places like Martes where it hadn’t had a chance to build up were also manageable. He did not want to think about what centuries of buildup might have looked like or done to him.
The final assault on the base was the same as so many others, he just didn’t stop. First a bombing run, heavy sniper fire and golems going over and through the defenses. This time he counter attacked anyone that looked to be massing to repel the assault, the wolves breathed gouts of flame over any important looking structures. His golems broke up into teams and cut down desperate defenders.
Alex had joined the assault after the breach was secure, it was only when he breached the main building that he encountered meaning full resistance. Several magic users and elite versions of the pig and gorilla bastards, larger and better equipped. A big pig in full thick plate armor with obvious enchantments, and a… human? Pallid skin with black veins, bald with eyes completely red and no pupil, waving his hands and casting magic. Scary magic… the kind that did terrible things to living creatures and flesh. He saw the results as it hit his golems and killed of the defenders around them, friendly fire was never friendly. No real effect on his golems, a small amount of rust, patina and decay coated the surface of them. The mana output slowed from the core before the regen took over. They lost a bit of their shine, then they charged on through the gaps to get at the magic users.
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They were intercepted by the elites, though only the largest one was a problem. Actually managing to stop and drive back a heavy. They battled it out, his other golems tag teamed the others as heavies worked to break them up drive them away from support. Once that happened death was certain. As for the magic users well… the wolves had shown up, charging them keeping them from looking for other threats.
The defenses they put in place might have been good for a lot of normal threats, the snipers that entered the building and began climbing and crawling over the walls and broken machinery and debris were not among them. More and more fell, the human actually made his stand the best among them. Though it was obvious that he had little to use besides his scary magic, no overwhelming elemental damage hit golems. Everything he did was based on biology, nature and life/death only to find that golems were immune. The magic items he carried only delayed the inevitable, preventing some attacks from landing forming shields or barriers.
The finishing blow was when the second group of golems broke through a wall and hit the enemy’s flank. Alex took down the pig commander when he wandered too close to Aegis, getting distracted as a few of the Numbers nipped at his flanks or blinded him with blasts of fire to the face. It caused him to stumble, then a sniper round found a joint in his leg dropping him to his knees, Aegis then thrust the point of its halberd through the commanders neck from the side.
As for magic man he made the mistake of assuming that the breathing room he bought himself by carefully maneuvering was a chance to flee. Only to find himself knocked to the ground as Aegis swung an arm into his chest the golem then planted a foot on his prone form.
The other elites hadn’t fared any better, being picked apart and whittled down by tireless golems content to wait them out. Bleed them a little at a time, let the smaller and faster golems cut them up while they focused on the heavies. If they tried to change targets the heavy reminded them that it was a very large murder machine, all too happy to land a devastating blow.
As the disappointing battle ended Alex had to admit he wasn’t impressed. If the enemy elites had coordinated with the lesser defenders, and if they remained in a formation protecting the magic users this may have been much harder. Or if the magics that were being used were designed for fighting golems. Or if the equipment and training had focused on defense. As it was those ‘elites’ had just charged his golems, letting themselves be separated, leaving the magic users defenseless.
Well, he wasn’t going to complain too loudly, a relatively easy victory was a good thing after all. He looked down at the man under his feet and considered. He hadn’t killed him immediately on the chance he might want to interrogate him. As he looked into the panicking man’s eyes, he decided he didn’t. He couldn’t trust anything he said, the man had a feel and look that reminded him of the fanatical Taliban. One good life rule was to never trust fanatics, regardless of what they were fanatics about, they would do anything to progress their goals. Plus, the man’s aura brought back unpleasant memories of his death, not as strong but just like the purple fuck that killed him. He was absolutely still salty about that.
When the man recovered and went to speak Aegis’ arm pointed at his face, then a blade punched right though his skull. T-box hit killing the man instantly.
One last unpleasant task remained after looting everything else he got to work having Aegis, dissect the man. He did this out of caution, and was rewarded when a ‘thing’ burst from the chest and tried to scurry away. It was too fast for him to get a good look, and after the waiting heavy stomped it he would never get one. Several tons of metal hitting the ground hard enough to shake it and leave a bit of a crater in the cement floor. Nothing was left except a smear and some pieces.
As for why, well he couldn’t loot the body. That only happened when there was something living or too large to be looted. Now he had been thinking the guy was undead or some shit, and not hosting an interdimensional parasite. Different from the brain tentacles but still. Never trust cultists.
The rest of the remains were examined purely for science, then an incendiary was dropped onto them, and wolves blasted away with fire until the bones became ash. No point in taking chances.
He collected three corrupting jewels in the basement and found the shallow and murky waterway they had used to enter the city. He in turn left several of his cleaning tablets around the area and even floated a few down the waters, sinking some others. Like everything he made they had a bit of encryption based on his world, similar to the grimoires of this one. The effect wasn’t large either, scattering them about everywhere he went and taking the time to truly hide others was his counter ‘fuck you’ to the miasma spreading shitheads.
A few more days of rest, recovery and analysis of the tactics and actions he had taken. Complimented by sending his arial drones to drop off more cleaning tablets in the surroundings. He had modified each to carry four and before he brought them back, he made sure to leave the payload behind. Hard to reach places, as well as off the beaten path.
Then he was off, he made the choice to return to Crystal Lake.
“Fuck these guys and the horse they rode in on!” Summed up Alex’s feelings. At least he wanted to seed the lake itself and more of the surroundings. After this battle most of his worries about fighting these people were laid to rest. If asked he was doing this out of necessity, he wanted the crystals here as well. He might be a tiny bit addicted to their convenience. As far as the rest goes, he wanted to disrupt and distract his opposition. Everything he had seen about the monsters convinced him that they were xenophobic, social, and intelligent there almost had to be kingdoms/tribes or clans of some of the species. Like most intelligent and planning beings they were likely to prioritize the ‘plan’ rather than hunting him down, as long as he wasn’t too consistent of a nuisance.
It wasn’t like he had seen much of this wasteland in the grand scheme of things. If they formed groups that were moderately loyal to each other in cities, they probably had something like that on a grander scale. The people spreading the miasma were apparently intent on taking control by force, so if they had enemies on multiple sides and used this as a means of control… fucking with their operation might make finding him a lower priority than putting out fires he had already caused. Give their enemies a better chance at fighting back, force them to distribute forces to find and remove the objects he was throwing around like candy. Maybe disrupt things enough that he could slip past without major conflict.
He wasn’t a hero who would devote his life to cleaning this place up, nor was he naïve enough to believe that he was actually able to be more than an annoyance. If the full force of these bastards fell on him he was done, small skirmishes and battles aside. He could seed a place like Trenton and let the locals do the fighting, unimpeded by miasma. Or force them to commit and spend ridiculous amounts of resources on the place, considering that the jewels they used required living sacrifices it probably meant their own forces would suffer. Make them deploy the heavy hitters he expected them to have to deal with the super monsters. Rather than passively waiting for the miasma to corrupt or kill them off. He would hit key points if he found them and could do so without risk, become a massive pain in the ass.
It also wasn’t like this wouldn’t affect him anyways, leaving aside the need to cross the territory, what about after he left the wasteland? Would it spread? Cause problems where he wanted to settle down? Cause an apocalyptic event? Open holes in reality for extradimensional monsters or impower their agents?
Yes, he was just spit balling. He had no idea what the goal was, or why they were doing it. That said so far Alex had survived by trying to prepare for the unexpected, the worst case scenario. His life here made it difficult to maintain anything remotely close to optimism, seeing bad people fuck with seriously dangerous forces… Well it was kind of like watching a child play with a live grenade.
They were bad, the sort of things they were doing had on multiple occasions resulted in catastrophe, pretty hard to justify ‘human’ sacrifice as well. Even though their victims had so far been monsters they were intelligent beings he kinda doubted that they would hesitate to put him on the alter.
Not that he had any explaining to do. Out here he answered only to himself. Spreading a counter agent to their nonsense was reasonable. So was treating them as hostile, even if it was because what they were doing affected him, didn’t matter if it was targeted specifically at him.
Long philosophizing session done his drones began dropping their little presents in the lake, the river that fed it, and the outflow from the dam. Others began doing the same for the surroundings. His actual body and forces were days away and moving closer, the drones’ power of flight making them rather fast. Alex himself wasn’t in a hurry, he had to make more devices anyways it was clearing out his stockpiles of broken cores. Whether destroyed in the fighting or his constant practice he had kept them all, shaped into an acceptable shape toss it in a stone setting and enchant. Three to four minutes of work for the disposable versions he was using, the main reason he was so gung-ho about this plan was how simple it was, a few hours each day and he would make several loads for his arial drones to deliver. Combine that with the speed said drones moved and he was scattering them everywhere. Not even leaving an easy to follow trail due to simple dispersion, they might know where he had been or just a general geographic location… it all depended on how good and up to date their information and tracking was.
~ * ~
By the time Alex reached the lake he could already see the early results of his actions, the conflict between the fish at the lake had reached new heights. It had started to escalate not long after the first few drops from his drones. He wanted to keep the full capacity of his forces a secret, so far, the air power was an overwhelming advantage if he didn’t need to use it, he would hold back. At the lake itself the opposition was disorganized, and the dam wasn’t a defensive structure. It had some defense but after his siege he didn’t expect the taking to be too difficult. Nor were the forces a great challenge to his improved golems.
Against his forces the first time he came here nearly two years ago, definitely. Not now. The lake itself just got seeded. He would stay well away, even the monsters were not a priority. It was the town and the crystals that ‘grew’ in the environment he was after. And deleting the enemies from the dam. The dam itself, well he had no way of destroying the thing, and couldn’t be bothered to figure one out.
The garrison on and around it was going to be fucked, their camps gone and infrastructure that he could reach and damage was going to take a beating. The local fish people population was also at risk.
Not wanting anything fancy or too time consuming, Alex just stormed the main encampment and the dam.
Heavies tore through lines weakened by accurate sniper fire, his other golems working like a well-oiled machine picking off scattered remnants while wolf packs dragged lonely individuals off.
Not like they were able to put up an organized resistance in the first place.
He left the snipers on the hills nearby then Aegis joined in, Drei Vier and Fünf following as a command squad. The halberd Aegis was using soon became slick with blood, the screams howls and commands silenced under unfeeling golem onslaught. The commanders of the two squads picked up the bodies and looted while the attack was going on. Eins and Zwei staying back unless the fighting got particularly fierce. The resistances he added making the enchantments on enemy weapons mostly useless, and fighting his golems with brute force alone was a losing proposition. The light bone golems were the most vulnerable but as part of a force and no longer forced to operate as they used to, became his deadliest weapons. The mediums like Eins outperformed them but he had more light units and they killed nearly as quickly. As for the heavies they only shined when facing masses of opposition for them to wade into. In a complete surprise attack on enemies that had no concept of scouting or patrolling. Organized resistance was hard to find.
Alex’s forces were not unscathed, but the damage was minor, most of it would fix itself and aside from a few golems that had gotten unlucky, he would need a day at most to fix and replace damaged parts. Still no losses, as his forces advanced on the dam’s top. The enemy had time to organize here getting pike walls set up behind some barricades. The snipers still reaped an ungodly harvest, and the narrow and confined conditions would limit the mobility of his golems.
Until they faced a pike wall of heavies, standing shoulder to shoulder and moving in unison halberds down. Again, the golems basically walked over the defenses, tearing the barricade down and continuing their advance. It was what they had been built for after all.
“Didn’t think that one through, did you? Assholes.” Came a mutter from inside Aegis.
The battle was surprisingly short and decisive. All that remained was clearing out the interior.