Yup, it was a ruse. He just left to ready all his men. Three Mages plus apprentice, six archer scouts and ten Guards with now heavy armor and shield walking right to my gates.

“As it looks like you did not accidentally forgot something in the tunnel and searching for it I will humor you and just ask the obvious question Geldar. Why are you still here?”

“It is Seldar! And to answer, we are not in Telk, as this is unclaimed territory. I take it myself and you are in the way.”

“I claimed it.”

“And I deny your claim.”

“Those are not the rules.”

“They are, as unclaimed territory has just one rule, and this is the Rule of the Strongest. Attack!”

As he said Attack, I did what he wanted and attacked. My Dart throwers shoot directly in the midst an make them stop to weather the storm. I even hit someone right in the skull. That poor archer was not quite dead but as his skull is cracked open and only heavily twitching with foam over his mouth... Yeah, no he is dead, the brain is too damaged for a potion to heal him.

The others are sadly all protected. Scouts duck and Guards have heavy shields. The Magi have their wards up and nothing gets inside.

“Flamearrows! Cut the ropes of the bridge!”

When you hear something like that with Magicians in the group you would not expect the scouts to just fire arrows that immolate when they hit something. Well they think high and mighty about themselves, so it should be logical to not deign their Mana to be wasted.

The Heavy infantry breaks the rock pillars and bends the Iron easily to make a decent hole all the while.

After a few minutes one of my Dart towers is malfunctioning and two others got blown up. While looking why one is malfunctioning the Bridge fell down. The reason for the malfunction are the runes. They somehow do not work right in this constellation over longer periods. Back to the drawing board with this, and start the melting of the bridge.

Four people stand on the Bridge, all Infantry and now they are falling with the bridge. As the Bridge caught on their side it fell to the side and the men rolled right off into the spikes. One dead as impalement should not be healthy up the butt, one screaming in pain as he ripped his arm of on one spike and two groaning between the spikes. Most survived sadly.

“Eldar, make a bridge!”

The one is named Eldar? His superior is Seldar, is that not confusing? Well I am looking more on the machinations of the Mage named Eldar right now. Creating a weave of Mana with the intent he wants to make the whole rock into putty and create a Bridge with it. Rather effective and quick, I am impressed.

The Miasma on the other hand seems to go unnoticed. Yep, Magic is the primary source for Miasma. They work in reverse order of Monsters. Or the Monsters are working in reverse. Who knows, not… Oh!

Quickly I create the rockfall by breaking the supports and let them drop, before they could start with the battering ram. They really came prepared for war it seems. Wow!

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“Bastard! Eldar again, this time with protection!”

Again Eldar works his magic and even chanted. Chanting is only used if you do not know the spell per heart or if you want to charge it with way higher mastery. A Bridge with a roof solidified and afterward even crystallized for maximum reinforcement. The way he is sweating shows these were his last fumes he had in his tank. Only Seldar, Mink and the third Mage have hidden tricks to be wary of.

And they are rather clever letting Eldar stay behind with one guard to be the warning of the rear. This is not the first time they broke a Rampart it seems.

Quickly on the other side Seldar shows his magic and green flames corrode the Gate. He is done with playing tricks, but I am not, as right as the gate was gone The glowing hot Iron blows out of the pipes right at the intruders. Most got guarded by the shields, but the rest flew over and catches some of the heavy coats of the scouts on fire. Two got blasted where one seems to fare better as he was quickly fed a healing potion and survived with only a lost eye and heavily burned face. There should be better potions, but definitely hoarded by the mages for themselves.

The other one died, albeit not quickly. Taking a Potion was not possible as he got some Iron in his mouth. Seemed like he wanted to shout something before it hit him, poor guy.

Infantry had to remove the shields and parts of the Armor that has extremely hot Iron on them, as it starts to heat up.

Right now Eldar was called to get back in the group as they needed the Guard back as heavy Infantry. With him there are four Infantry alive. Over half dead is a good result. Two scouts are still alive but only one healthy. The four mages are the ones, who are the least inconvenienced. One drained, One pristine, one partly without Mana and one Mink.

“Beryl detect life”

“As ordered!”

The third mage is a Woman. Well I’ll be. She was already wrapped up I could not see that. Before she makes the first move I look again to see if I forgot anything. No, everyone is in my Realm. Snow is… sleeping. Hovering there in the dark place and just rolled in a ball. Red is ready to be assembled and Ava is also floating inside my realm. Outside is nothing but plants and rodents.

“Only weak monster signs and plant life. No higher being or magical Life.”

As I already said.

“Where are you Null?!”

Well, nowhere you can detect. Now search the rest of the traps.

“Stay together. Do not enter a building and search the area!”

That is not what I had planned. What about the whole juicy Barracks waiting for search? This makes it way harder.

Starting to hover spikes in the air I ready them to drop onto the unsuspecting Group. Some guards do not have helmets anymore because of the Iron, so it should be possible to be used.

Dropping a rain of spikes and darts, it pummels on them head on. The impaired scout got hit and one more Guard was unaware of his demise. The others reacted too fast and the mages were protected by some kind of barrier. Sad days.

“Burk ready the retreat! Mink, go over there and take the sphere, it is some kind of source of warding. It will help us in the future to make our own entrance!”

First of Burk is still here and now in shining Armor it seems. And second it is a bad Idea to take this from the statue.

As they started to retreat Mink herself closed in on the statue. I would call it foolish, but they seem to disregard the rest of the danger as they want to quickly retreat, and an apprentice Mage with levitation has definitely more slippery spells to escape, so she is the person of choice to take the sphere.

...

What happens next was not entirely planned. I wanted to make a deadly zone of miasma for them to just die, but what happened was a bit different from my expectations.

Mink, nimble as she is, strangely for a mage came closer to the Statue. As she noticed the multiple runic circles around it she stopped and has gone into a further position when she chanted for the first time. It seems she was wary of the circles and just force pull it out with all her might to not step into a trap.

Ripping it out of the arms, the whole bubble collapsed. Miasma touched Mana and began their light show. The woman named Beryl quickly threw a new shield up to block the Miasma raining down. It held and Mink was protected by the Sphere with way less of a range than with amplification.

...then the Miasma hit the focal point of the already starting to fail runic circles and Space started to… break.