“Ah, that would make sense. I heard people getting scared about the automatons near the town. I had to say they were a project of mine. I wonder what the hell they think you two are doing, hiding in my house. Ela-Dorn hasn’t left since getting here.” Dave shook his head.
“Ah, she’s a passionate woman, whether it be about books or other things,” Gal said with a pleased smile.
“Before you ask, I’m not the reason he didn’t get much sleep last night. I might be driven, but I’m not deaf...men!” Ela-Dorn rolled her eyes as she looked at a portal that was surrounded by pieces of paper, books, and all manner of items.
“In two days, we’re going to Devil’s Crater. If you can’t figure out a way to get this thing moved, we’re going to have to disassemble it in a cart.” Dave’s face turned thoughtful as he walked around the teleport pad.
“What?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“Well, it’s made big enough, so that a wagon could go through it with some space to spare. That makes it about as big as a wagon, just a bit bigger, but really—who pays attention to those things? What if we were to tilt it and make it part of the wagon? Just need to sandwich it between boards. Could pile it with the next shipment of arms going through. Be a pain, but it could work,” Dave muttered, mostly to himself, holding his chin as he walked around the portal.
“Dave? What are you talking about?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“Well, if I was to put it into a wagon’s frame, then it would just look like a wagon. We load it up with weapons and armor, no one knows the difference.” Dave shrugged.
“How are we going to make a wagon to fit this into?” Ela-Dorn asked.
“That part’s easy. I’m just hoping that the path down here is still intact and big enough for this.”
Private Chat: Bob
Bob> Waypoint added. Good luck. Going to be a pain in the ass hauling that thing up.
Dave> Thanks, Bob!
“Okay, so, we do have a way to do this.” Dave smiled.
Chapter 3: Softening Up the Opposition
The Demon Horde was in terrible shape. With random night attacks from the disguised Demons of the Devil’s Crater Army, or DCA, and their own internal attacks they pulled on one another, they hadn’t slept much in weeks. They were thin from the lack of sustenance in the area. They were more savage and dire than ever before.
Good thing that we’re not fighting them yet.
Efri used the spell Heat Vision to see through the forest and to the Demon Horde. The first Demon disappeared into a trap, screaming as it was impaled on spikes under the thin covering.
Others disregarded the screams of pain, charging forward with renewed vigor and channeling a skill that the DCA had been trying hard to overcome: berserker.
Another was hit with spikes that swung down from the tree cover, impaling it. All across the Horde, they encountered traps from every direction. The smell of blood and cries of pain only served to make them run faster, screaming out their battle cries.
DCA Earth mages, both hidden within the Demon Horde and trailing them, had been adding traps all around them, enclosing the entire Demon Horde.
Panic started setting in after an hour. Any direction they tried, there seemed to be traps. The Demon Horde started charging forward, as if they were near the enemy. They screamed and brayed for blood, their hunger and lack of sleep driving them wild.
They only encountered more traps.
Efri frowned. Only a few tried to run away. They were cut down, but they were so few.
“What is going on? Why aren’t they pulling back? After all of this, I know we would have started regrouping. Knowing that we were up against an enemy, we’d start making some sort of plan. Charging straight ahead? What did the Dark Lord do to them?” Efri frowned, biting his lip in thought.
We’ve only got around two miles of traps. If they just keep running in a straight line, then they’ll clear it quickly. Without terrorizing them in the nights and making them slow their pace for the traps, they’d reach Devil’s Crater sooner than projected.
Efri pulled up an audio chat with Alkao.
“Efri, how goes the traps?” Alkao sounded cheerful.
“They’re running right through them. They’re running one behind one another, seemingly out of instinct. A few go down, but the rest keep going. They’re going to reach you sooner than we thought. I’m going to give the order to pull my forces back to your keep,” Efri said.
“Very well. I’ll send word to the Stone Raiders and Lezar. It’s time we started using hit-and-run tactics on them.”
“Yes, brother,” Efri said, angry at himself for his part of the plan for failing.
“This is not your fault, brother. These Demons are twisted. We did not know how they would react, but now we do. Your traps will still weaken them. Now, take your forces to the flank opposite Lezar. You will close in, then attack them from the rear. I trust in you,” Alkao said.
“Yes, brother.” Some of the tension in Efri’s shoulders fell away.
Alkao cut the channel.
Efri opened up his party chat and started to issue commands to his brigade. My people did me proud; we couldn’t have seen this. But, when it comes to finish off these beasts, this Demon Horde will come to fear my brigade’s steel.
***
“Dave, we’re moving! The Demon Horde sped up!” Deia yelled as she walked out of the house.
All last night, they had been working to carry the portal up through a tunnel that Bob had made. Dave had done his work and two Stone Raiders with horses had met them, taking the now functional cart from them.
“What’s the word?” Dave asked.
“All guild, assemble.” Deia closed the door behind her as Dave pressed his hotkey on his armor. It seemed to form over his body.
Deia smirked. A smile grew across her face. Damn, he looks like he means business in his armor. She pressed her hotkey for her own armor and walked to Dave. It spread across her, her blades on each hip.
“Well, let’s go hunting,” Dave said, a devilish grin on his face.
Deia nodded, a wild look in her eyes as they ran through the copse of trees and straight for the training square where the teleport pad was.
Coming down from the Stone Raider compound, Josh led more Stone Raiders in their various armors and weapons to come in behind Dave. After them came carts filled with weapons and armor. Ela-Dorn and Ela-Gal were riding one.
“Dave, could you do the honors?” Josh asked.
“My pleasure.” Dave moved to the control center of the teleport pad and punched in coordinates.
Induca and Suzy joined them. A party of fifty people and ten wagons were ready to go through the teleport pad. People watched them as they moved, interested in what had got them in such a rush.
Jules and Esa were the last to join them.
“Good for you to join our little expedition.” Josh smiled.
“Sorry, Josh. Was getting a gift from Kol; he made me something.” She looked at her necklace.
Dave looked over the necklace.
Necklace of Protection
The first Master level piece Dwarven Master Smith Kol has crafted in twenty years, given to the one who gave him back his sight and his face.
Mana Barrier: 145/145
Increased Willpower +25%
Increased Stamina +25%
Charge: 12,000/12,000
“Damn, those are some nice pieces. Even without my level of Magical Circuit, he’s really a master to be able to get those kinds of natural Affinities into the metal, so that it doesn’t take a soul gem to provide them all power.” Dave shook his head.
“You admiring her necklace?” Deia asked.
“You want one?” Dave asked.
“No, my ring does just fine.” She smiled, held up her engagement ring.
Dave gave her a quick kiss.
“Though if we are about to go fight some things, it’s probably a good idea for me to put some more points in few more places.” Dave opened up
his interface and placed another 30 of his stat points: 15 into Intelligence and another 15 into Agility. He’d learned from when he’d gained a whole whack of classes in Alephir. Falling over and hitting ceilings sucked.
Character Sheet
Name:
David Grahslagg
Gender:
Male
Level:
34
Class:
Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer, Weapons Master
Race:
Human/Dwarf
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Unspent points: 441
Health:
18,800
Regen:
6.14 /s
Mana:
4,280
Regen:
15.75 /s
Stamina:
2,480
Regen:
14.20 /s
Vitality:
188
Endurance:
307
Intelligence:
428
Willpower:
315
Strength:
248
Agility:
284
Dave rubbed his hands together. With his stat points, he wasn’t close to being near a level 30. He was close to 340.
“Whoa there—stop leaking your Affinity everywhere,” Deia chided.
“Ah, whoops,” Dave said, his excitement getting the better of him.
“Looks like saving your stat points up is working out. Sent a shiver down my bloody spine, that’s for sure.” Josh kept his voice low.
Dave just shrugged with a smile on his face.
He could craft things to deal with his other weaknesses and spells to shore up the rest. He had a respectable amount of hit points. With his Intelligence and Agility, most people seemed slower, especially when he actually thought about it and started using his increased Intelligence and Agility. Well, he’d started to truly challenge Deia in the limited sparring matches they’d had at Cliff-Hill.
Dave was excited to see how his skills and attributes stacked against a horde of Demons.
He fired up the teleport pad. A gloomy room appeared on the other side.
“Move it!” Josh ran through the teleport pad. Everyone followed behind, including the carts.
Cliff-Hill disappeared; in its place, they were in the guild hall’s teleport pad control room.
“Push to the sides! We’re going right back out to Devil’s Crater!” Josh said. Stone Raiders rushed into the teleport pad room, gearing up and falling into groups.
Automatons clunked into the room, following Ela-Dorn and Ela-Gal.
“What is your magic?” Ela-Gal asked.
“Maybe, I’ll tell you later,” Dave said.
The teleport pad’s portal closed. Another one opened, this one showing them Devil’s Crater and the beginnings of Unity.
“Move!” Stone Raiders who had been gathering from all over Emerilia into the guild hall now stormed out and into the city.
“Ela-Dorn, Ela-Gal—get your cart unloaded quick as can be; I’ll put your time limit before the cart falls apart at fifteen minutes,” Dave yelled as he followed the rest of the Stone Raiders.
***
Ela-Dorn and Gal tore the payload off the cart. The driver took it back to the guild hall. Demons gathered the supplies, hauling the weapons crates around with ease. There was a tension in the air.
Ela-Dorn didn’t doubt that war was coming to Devil’s Crater.
The teleport pad’s portal closed behind them.
“Could you connect us to Alephir? We’re going to be taking the cart now,” Ela-Dorn said.
The two people who had guided the cart quickly unhooked their horses. Automatons took their place, holding the cart.
“We’re connected. Have a good one,” the Aleph in the control center said, waving to them.
Ela-Dorn smiled back, waving to them as they passed through the teleport pad’s event horizon.
She walked over to the group that was hurriedly assembling. The council was coming out and people looked at their councilwoman and her overly large cart with curiosity.
“Where is it?” Hamdir asked.
Ela-Dorn looked at the cart that the automatons were pushing. “Right there.” She watched as the time on Dave’s construct’s time limit reached zero.
The cart disappeared and the portal dropped to the ground. It had been the base of the wagon’s cart. Dave had somehow formed an entire cart around it, allowing them to smuggle it out without any questions.
Excited chatter rang out as they all looked at the portal. The Aleph’s pursuit for knowledge, the thing that had pulled them together, was symbolized in this very portal. When they were cast out as heretics, it was for questioning the gates of the gods. They had gone on to reverse engineer the teleport pads from the portals.
To them, they were looking at a holy relic.
Behemoths were dropped from their storage racks above the teleport pad. They grabbed the portal and heaved it up.
“Now it’s time to figure out its secrets. I’ll be at the college,” Ela-Dorn said. The teleport pad activated again and the behemoths walked through.
Chapter 4: So, It Begins
“My lord! The Demons are in Devil’s Crater.” Boran-al came to a knee in front of his lord.
“Good. I thought that they would be too dumb to make it all the way. What are their levels?” The Dark Lord thought of what else he could do with the creatures.
“My lord, I don’t mean our Demons. I mean the first generation of Demons,” Boran-al said.
Where the Dark Lord’s eyes were, purple flames seemed to ignite.
Boran-al shuddered under the pressure of the Dark Lord’s aura.
“What?” the Dark Lord asked, his restraint clear.
“I was watching over the Demon Horde. They’ve been fighting among one another for the entire time. Without there being other beasts to kill and that large fight between all of the larger groups, they’ve been in chaos. I now think that those attacks were carried out by the rebelling Demons. As the Horde got within two hundred miles of Devil’s Crater, they encountered traps, hundreds of them. Giving in to their rage and sensing a fight, they charged forward through the traps—which had to be made by someone. I looked over Devil’s Crater and all the keeps have been restored. There are fields of crops being grown and just a few minutes ago, I saw a force rushing from a teleport pad toward our Demon Horde that is slowing down and apparently getting into fights.”
“How many of the first-generation Demons are there?”
“At my best guess, maybe four hundred to six hundred thousand.” Boran-al coughed under the pressure coming from the Dark Lord.
“Change the second generation’s quest and make them capable of seeing one another. I want them to kill anything that’s first generation. Get me the strongest of the Horde and I’ll give them my blessing. Use your own abilities to enhance them as much as possible. We will crush them,” the Dark Lord said.
“Yes, master.” Boran-al bowed all the way out of the room. He couldn’t even stand fully under his lord’s pressure.
The door closed behind Boran-al.
The Dark Lord let out his full aura. Few would know that it was not anger but bloodthirst. “I will take those who dared to try to fight against me and I will crush them wholly in their own home. The Grey God robbed me of their defeat all those centuries ago; he will not take it from me again!” He fell into deep rolling laughter and stood up from his chair. The room seemed to disappear around him as he looked through the clouds above Devil’s Crater. Marks appeared, showing where his newer, loyal Demons were and where the forces that had rebelled at him hid.
He laughed and moved his skeletal hand, a trail of Dark power following after it. Although the other gods used their power wells, diminishing it on their creations, the Dark Lord had never been more powerful. “Those Alturarans have their uses. Now i
s not the time to use my power. Live or die, it will be a spectacle.”
The Dark Lord filled with excitement. It had been a boring few years, but now war came; he lived and thrived in war and battle. It was the only thing that made him truly feel alive.
***
The Stone Raiders ran through Devil’s Crater, out of the growing city of Unity and down the road that led to Alkao’s keep to the northwest. Everyone from the guild who was combat trained and not in the middle of something crucial was with them.
Dave placed a call. “Jesal, it’s Dave.”
“I got that much from the private chat request,” Jesal said.
“I know that you’ve been experimenting with the aluminum artillery tubes as well as alternate rounds. I’m asking if you could lend them to me,” Dave said.
“Why?”
“I’m about to go into a fight against about two million Demons—need some fire support. Also we can see how useful those rounds are,” Dave said.
“Where the hell are you that you’re fighting Demons? I didn’t even know that they were back!” Jesal said.
“I’m in Devil’s Crater. The Demons who rebelled against the Dark Lord are here and we’re supporting them. I have to ask that you don’t start spreading that right now, though. I couldn’t share this with you before because the leaders here wanted more time before they dealt with the rest of the world. Right now, we need support; if we don’t get it, I don’t think we can hold the Demon Horde back.”
“So, you want me to lend you the artillery to help the Demons that we fought against centuries ago in the name of the Earth Lord?” Jesal said. “Ah, I’m screwing with you. Fuck the Pantheon—we owe them one. I can send you the artillery and their support people within two hours, if you have a teleport pad.”
“We’ve got one. I’ll put you in contact with Lucy; she’s running all this support stuff. Thanks, Jesal.”
“No worries, Dave. You’re always helping others. You have the support of me and the Council of Anvil and Fire. You’re one of us,” she said, her voice firm.
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