Dan and Gwen cut down any that came close to the party, and the rest died in fire, lightning, or life drain. Apparently, Steve didn’t think it was worth the effort of even bothering taking out his crossbow. It took time though, at least a few minutes, which meant by the time Dan was tearing apart the buildings with his earth magic, the gray dwarves from the city were through our distractions and right on our heels.
I used control water to make a sheet of ice that had a very rough surface so it would give traction, we all got on it, and I lifted us all up to the level we came in on very quickly. After that, it was an easy run out of the cave, where we killed ten more orcs almost as an afterthought, before jumping in the ship.
I looked at Lyre’s surprised and very pleased face.
“You doubted us? I’m hurt,” I said facetiously.
Anlyth laughed, as he took the ship up into the sky, and Lara cloaked us for the minute or so it took us to leave their territory.
Then of course, I was inundated with popups.
Congratulations! Forty-three gray dwarves, and one hundred and fifteen orcs have been killed! It’s amazing you got out alive. You have earned one hundred and one thousand experience points!
Congratulations! Stolen artifacts. You have retrieved the ancient and powerful relics of the dwarven royal family. You have earned three million experience points!
You have leveled!
You feel smarter!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Fire sphere to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Water sphere to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Life sphere to journeyman level six. You have earned a Thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Meditation skill to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Sneak skill to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Builder skill to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Hunter skill to journeyman level six. You have earned a thousand Experience Points!
Chapter Twenty-Four
Status.
Name:
Jason
Classes:
None.
HP:
2020
Regeneration 1.5%/sec.
Race:
Half-Elven / Half Human
Mana:
9777
Regeneration 1.9 (2.7)% /sec.
Platinum:
0
Stamina:
1802
Regeneration 1.2%/sec
Gold:
522
Level:
26
TNL: 975,420 / 2,600,000
Silver:
49
Strength:
15
Bronze:
47
Agility:
14
Intelligence:
21 (27)
Willpower
12
Wisdom:
18 (23)
Magical Spheres:
Fire:
Journeyman level 6 (26)
Water:
Journeyman level 6 (26)
Air:
Initiate level 1
Earth:
Initiate level 1
Light:
Initiate level 1
Darkness:
Initiate level 1
Life:
Journeyman level 6 (26)
Death:
Initiate level 1
Skills (Combat)
Combat Skill Name
Description
Level
N/A
Skills (Non-Combat)
Skill name
Description
Level
Sneak
Allows you to move silently.
Journeyman level 6
Builder
You can build a small modest home.
Journeyman level 6
Hunter
Your skills at tracking and killing animals.
Journeyman level 6
Meditation
Calm and focus your mind.
Journeyman level 6
Well, I finally broke two thousand hit points, I also immediately adjusted my mana shield to five thousand mana, leaving me forty-seven hundred and seventy-seven for casting. My gold went up quite a bit as well, though I still had tons of jewels that dwarfed that amount in value.
More importantly, I finally got another intelligence point. I’d advanced twice in both now, I didn’t see how I’d do it eight more times each in thirty-five levels, when it took twenty-five to get two each. Then, Lyre never said ten points by level sixty, she said in a lifetime. The levels would just keep coming I imagined, I’d get there eventually.
My casting should be faster in battle at that point, a small leap in speed, since my intelligence will be thirty when Lara gives us all the enhancement boost to levels. Still not immediate, but a simple spell might take a second instead of two, and a hard spell three or four, instead of five.
We had a couple of days, maybe more, to meditate and incorporate the new concepts before we had to hold the fort, and either assist the dwarves after, or be assisted. However that turned out. Point was, I put that off until the next morning, we all wanted to celebrate at least one night on a hugely successful quest, that none of us had really believed we’d succeed at.
Sure, we’d just had two days off, but the speed of the horde determined what we were doing, and why not? As long as we kept things moderate that way, and not all the time, I wasn’t worried about overdoing it. I was far too driven to fall into that trap, if anything I was more likely to be a workaholic and not relax enough.
Still, the one thing I had to know was what the mage robes I’d picked could do, not that I could use them for another twenty-five levels. Anlyth helped me out with that.
It was plus two to both intelligence and wisdom. It had a mana drain enchantment that would activate if I went below ten percent hit points, kind of like an automatic heal. Since it was a grandmaster level enchantment, each mana drained would give me back six health. Suddenly I wasn’t so worried about my relatively low hit points compared to mana. Still, twenty-five more levels before I could wear it. Also, it was equivalent to full steel armor as far as protection from weapons, if I was foolish enough to let an enemy close to melee distance.
We went straight back to the elven city of Aladell to sell our extraneous loot, and then returned to the inn. After a bath to get cleaned up, we all met back at the common room in the inn for dinner. We figured we’d get to the fort early, but none of us saw the point in staying in barracks for the next two or three days, not with the ship. Still, the place wasn’t nearly as crowded, there were a few groups of undying here, but the majority of them had already left for the fort.
I wondered when more of them would build ships. Maybe they didn’t have the gems and time to spare? Yet. Regardless, being stuck riding horses or walking on foot meant it would take them the few days before the battle to get there.
The common room was still pretty busy of course, there were plenty of citizens and off-duty guards that were still celebrating the victory, including live music. Although, I supposed all music was live on this world. It just wasn’t quite so packed, and we’d claimed a second table and put them together, to accommodate the eight of us. We all had plenty of space now, mostly, not that it stopped Gwen from sitting close enough that our bodies were constantly touching at shoulder, hips, elbows and legs.
We’d all had a couple of beers, and were relaxed, maybe that’s what the others had been waiting for.
Lyre looked over at Lara.
“You doing okay?”
Lara tilted her head, “
I think so? I’m fine. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but what I did just doesn’t feel right. We also got pretty lucky to get out of there, each of those fights were all or nothing in the first exchange.”
I nodded. If we hadn’t taken all of them out with the expert magic user, we’d have been toasted, if any of them had lived near the cavern entrance the mob in the city would’ve caught us. Although, that second confrontation had been a lot less risky than the first.
Lara didn’t look to be in shock anymore at least, even if she was clearly conflicted. I didn’t even know where to start on something like that, and she had Steve and the other ladies to turn to if she wanted. Still, I worried about the people in my party when they were off balance. It’d been a stressful time, with a lot of weird shit. Including everyone dying, me too for the second time. I was sure that had an effect, after all, something had prompted Lara to use a damaging spell on an enemy.
She’d already been changed before that happened, or she wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Cassie said, “It was wild, no doubt about it.”
Gwen took my hand when we finished eating, and we just chatted for a while. Let things digest a bit, before she pulled me out on the dance floor…
The next day we rested and enjoyed the morning, among other things that kept us in the bed until lunchtime. In the afternoon we meditated, and practiced our new skills and updated spells, like we did every time we leveled. We just didn’t usually have so much time to do it. Another huge battle was coming, and I’ll admit I was a bit conflicted about it. It was so much easier to just risk our own skins, and not worry about things like civilizations falling if we failed.
Of course, we weren’t alone in the fighting either. I had no doubts that fighting for our own lives, and the lives of all those innocents was the right thing to do. I wouldn’t back down on that. It was the world itself and Gaia I was questioning in those quiet moments of relaxation, perhaps even my own odd existence in this rich and diverse world, too much free time for reflection perhaps.
I think Gwen’s presence, touch, and her obvious love for me kept me sane in that time of my life. Sure, I’d have won through it anyway, and not shrunk back and hid, but I’d have been a hell of a lot more brooding, and dark about it.
We didn’t have to report to the fort until the next morning, but that night the vacation was over. We talked about the missions, what we might expect, and different scenarios. It was especially important with the new additions of Cassie and Dan. I already trusted them to have my back, but we still needed to mesh them into the team.
No one drank more than a couple, and we all went to bed early so we’d be well rested, and ready for the coming day.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It turned out General Jarbal was going to be the commander of the fort for the battle. There were elven and human officers as well, but he was clearly in charge. I knew there were masters among them to maintain the wards, but I wasn’t sure who. It just seemed rude to ask, or to start assessing the military’s leadership.
There were also four thousand troops, in addition to about five hundred undying. From what I understood, two thousand troops were added from the crown city to increase our numbers, and we had not only the fifty groups of undying that fought at Aladell, but also the fifty groups from the other city who hadn’t seen battle yet.
It was a lot of people stuffed into a relatively small fort, although the fort was twice the size of the last one. But even at those numbers we were looking at close to twenty to one odds, depending on how many of the large horde came this far.
We were all on the walls and in the streets, when the general got up on the north wall. He used some enchanted device with an air spell to fill the fort with his voice, it wasn’t hard to hear him, even over some light chatter around us that stopped a few moments into his briefing.
Jarbal said, “Alright, I have some new intel. The horde itself has finally passed by all the dwarven city entrances. We now know the split they have chosen for this invasion. They left twenty thousand each at three of our cities, which means forty thousand or so are coming here. As things go, it’s a pretty even split, we’re all facing about ten to one odds, a little less with our undying friends.
“Our goal is to defend this fort, and then go to the assistance of the Dwarven cities. Given there’s an even chance that it will be them to come to our defense at the last, I’d like to kick some ass and beat my dwarven brothers to the punch. What say you?”
Everyone cheered and had vicious smiles on their faces. It was both a bit disturbing, and inspiring. I kind of wanted to show we were the better army too, and I got caught up in the excitement despite myself. But then, I already knew I was kind of crazy.
Jarbal continued, “The enemy should be here by tomorrow morning, right before dawn. We will stand fast, and we will send them all to hell!”
The fort was filled with yells of affirmation, as Jarbal returned to the tents.
Anlyth turned to us, “We’re on the northern wall, left side. With so many undying groups here this time, there’ll be ten groups on each wall, and ten on the ground inside the fort as quick reaction forces for any infiltrators or to handle siege engines. Our job is to handle keeping the wall secure from sneak attacks and footholds.”
I nodded, the ice spell I created should handle that well, if things started to get sticky and we couldn’t just kill them fast enough. By then, I was sure every wielder of the Water Sphere would know it, it’d been indispensable as a tool for the last battle that lasted a week. Hopefully this one would be shorter, we faced less than half the numbers with more defenders.
Anlyth continued, “Jarbal is the fort commander, but between him and us the officer in command of our wall is Kellen. At least, on our shift. We’ll be taking over for the night shift at dawn, even if they’ve only been fighting for a couple of hours, or not.”
I couldn’t help but notice the high prairie grass had been burnt out, up to a mile away in all directions. No one would be sneaking up to the walls unless they were cloaked. We were also protected from that, but the enemy had shown ingenuity in getting a foothold, even if they hadn’t been able to keep it. I didn’t imagine the Eastern Horde would be any less cunning than the Northern one had been.
“We’re on duty then?”
Anlyth nodded, “It’ll be a long day, but we need to be wary of any scout mischief. Small teams could have easily gone unnoticed and ranged ahead of the horde.”
We all exchanged glances, and then moved to our assigned part of the wall. If anything did happen, it would happen fast when they lost their cloak to the grand enchantment right at the base of the walls. Still, it wasn’t easy to stay alert. The sun was shining, and it felt good against the skin with the cooler breeze to prevent us from getting too hot.
Our alertness didn’t pay off, and there was no enemy mischief before we were relieved at dusk to hunt down dinner, clean up in the baths, and then get to bed. We were all in the same barracks, so there were no intimacies that night, for anyone.
I expected to wake to the sounds of battle. As usual, I woke up an hour early for my general meditation, to improve the chances to rise in a point of intelligence or wisdom during leveling. It was… disturbingly quiet, but I put it out of my mind with everything else the best I could.
As usual, time went quickly when my mind was quieted, and I felt the others start to stir. Warm soft lips against mine made my eyes pop open, and then close again as I returned it.
Gwen whispered, “Good morning.”
I smiled, “Now it is.”
She grinned, “Breakfast? We need to be on the wall in thirty minutes.”
I nodded, and we headed for breakfast with the others trailing behind. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst food I’d eaten since my arrival on this world either. There was bread, cheese, fruits, and some dried jerky for protein. We all dug in and were silent for a few minutes as we stuffed our faces. It was going to be a long twelve hours on t
he wall, with even worse food eaten in stolen moments before dinner at dusk.
Cassie said, “I’m surprised they haven’t attacked yet, they’ve never waited before.”
I nodded, as did the others.
Dan replied, “There’s no cover here at all, they probably want to build their own temporary fortifications. Otherwise we could fire bomb their camp, or at least those of us that are journeymen and have no range limit.”
That… kind of made sense.
Lyre said, “They haven’t in the past, normally they don’t let up on the attack at all, until they finally break and retreat. Even in the lulls when they’re adjusting their tactics, they send enough suppressive fire and wall climbers to keep us busy.”
Cassie shrugged, “We’ll find out soon enough.”
We finished breakfast in an easy silence. I was proud of the group I was in, there was a confidence in ourselves and in each other that just couldn’t be faked. Even Lara had that confidence, in a defense only kind of way.
We headed out and made for the northern wall. As soon as we got up on top, we noticed there was no enemy in sight and looked toward the east instead. The sun wasn’t high enough to be in our eyes, but it still wasn’t easy to see that way yet. There were confused grumbles from the night shift as they shuffled off the walls to find their dinner and bed.
It was maybe ten minutes later, when Jarbal came out of the command tent, and then started another briefing. The night shift was still awake, so they all gathered outside the barracks and mess hall to hear it as well.
Island Kingdoms' War Page 16