We are marching uphill along a creek. Our leader has decided that no attackers from one side is worth the reduction in mobility. I’ve broken a shield. If I can take out two tree cats per shield we will make it to the aperture with shields to spare at the present rate of encounters.
Of course things do not turn out to be so simple. We come up to to a line of trees, all of which are surrounded by clearings. That would have warned us, even if we could not notice their auras of the very top of iron rank.
T: Everybody retreat.
Z: What? Why, it’s just trees. Nasty trees, but trees.
P: One of the functions of a visible barrier can be to make your enemy stop and pin him at a known location.
We retreat. Except for my spy eyes. Them I send along the line and into the brook to our left.
P: I have seen relatives of these trees. They used gas weapons.
T: We have gas masks, but no spares.
P: I have a mask and a spare.
Z: They wouldn’t fit me anyway.
Lidija taps her horns. My head, though my face is still recognisable, is not all that human anymore either.
M: Can’t we cross the creek to the other side?
T: They want us to do so. Last resort.
P: It looks pretty swampy down right. No telling what is living in there. And we could be jumped from both sides of the gorge. We’d realistically have to backtrack quite a bit.
Zora bites her lips. Her pink tongue is really quite cute. She is twirling the split ends. Does she notice what she is doing?
Branko: That suggests going right through the middle.
T: Yes. We are likely to have the range advantage in weapons. Let’s plan this out …
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It is astonishing what an essence magician with all slots filled can accomplish.
I build them a fortified position with [Equip the Army]. I conjure spades and shovels the men dig foxholes with. I added two EOA men with guns to [Pipes of War]. I hand out potions and my gas masks.
Then I start doing damage. We have selected three trees. [Wrath of the Magister] hits the first tree right next to the brook and reduces its resistances. My sniper rifle starts giving out [Joy of sustained Fire]. I still have to drink down a mana potion to repeat that feat twice, while Maria systematically starts hurling fire bolts at the trees.
They react like we expected. Clouds of spores are drifting our way. Luck is on our side. They burn like dry tinder. A squelching sound is coming from the brook. The eye floating over the brook reveals the truth. Mud elementals are crawling up. Zora starts to curse the trees. The trees start swaying.
P: Any moment now. Get down!
The whole line of trees explodes into pointy twigs and cutting leaves. Foxholes are a prominent element of modern warfare for a reason. They work.
T: Now, second front.
Maria is shifting her fire to the mud elementals. We flyers start out towards the treeline. As we pass Zora gives the middle tree an extra dose of fire.
It blows up. Zora’s and my armour hold. Lidija gets to to cast [Regenerate] on herself. My spy eyes are not so lucky. We land. I try to loot the tree to remove its flaming corpse and let our people pass, while I still pour gunfire into adjacent trees. It does not work. It is clinging to life.
No plan ever goes completely according expectations. You need to have reserves. An annihilating beam hits the obstacle unwilling to leave the land of the living. Our people start running towards the gap.
That is when shrill piping sounds emerge from holes opening in the ground and animals really looking like blue iguanas scatter out from them and climb on the conventional treeson the side of our team.
Around Maria a bright blue sphere flashes. I see the trace from one of the lizards, to be precise its frilled back hitting Maria’s shield. Chunks of fibre glass are ripped out of the EOA men’s shields. Then we see the first holes opening on our side. We need a distraction. Our people running towards us are still wearing gas masks. I trigger the biggest looting of my life. Rainbow smoke turns the forest into a display normal people need to blow a month’s rent on illicit drugs to reach.
The iguanas go wild, but forget to aim. They are even killing each other.
Are those kills lootable? Immediate experimental verification shows that they indeed are. The mayhem intensifies.
But that does not help us three. Nor is it a lasting solution for the fast approaching half of our team.
We need an alternate route. It needs to be done. I create a screen from the last tree to the rim of the gorge with [Chemical Warfare] and Zora and I start slaughetering the lizards on our side, while we keep running towards the creek, Lidija and I also holding up conjured shields. Yes, I am that much of an idiot. I could have used conjured shields from the very beginning. We really need training. But that is a thought for later.
I repeat distraction by looting a last time.
We all tumble and slide down towards the muddy waters. Sometimes recklessness works. Very few of the mud elementals are left down here and they are slow. They turn out to be highly vulnerable to all our staffs and wand, [Fire Bolt] and Zora’s fire breath.
We notice the first camouflage newt only as we step on it. Spears, guns and [Decontamination] finish it. And a few more. The iguanas refuse to get off the trees and concentrate their fire from the smaller number of trees so close to the rim that they can aim at us on Maria and Dalek-3H. Cutting the pipes to everybody but her allows me to keep her fueled.
A frog monster ejects a tongue that looks like a spiked club towards Maria. Her shield holds and Lidija blows it into oblivion.
We break through and reach the aperture. It has cost us one mana potion more for me, but I’ve looted so much that the supply has indeed gone up.
Branko demonstrates superhuman endurance by performing the ritual to open the aperture.