Island Kingdoms' War

by D. L. Harrison

  Annabelle sighed, and actually looked wistful as she said, “I’d love to join you, but with the battle looming so closely, just days or at most a week, and with me being in charge of the armies and defense I can’t take time away from my duties. I will however assign one of our scouts to go south with you and show you the tunnel entrances.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She nodded, “Very good. I’ll send Dalin here, he should arrive before you’re done eating.”

  The princess stood up, and after one more smile for us swept out of the room.

  After a moment, and he was sure she was gone, Dan asked, “How’d you become friends with the royal family?”

  Lara smiled, “We rescued her from dark elves who were torturing her, and then saved her father the king and her mother from dark elven assassins and traitorous kingdom nobles.”

  Gwen nodded, “We also helped get them ready for war, among a few other smaller issues.”

  Cassie grinned, “What do you think is down there?”

  I frowned, “Either a very deadly trap, or an enemy in the master levels, maybe expert? I can’t imagine none survived to retreat otherwise. As for what they’re up to, that’s probably another matter altogether.”

  Steve said, “Seems we should be more cautious than usual. Maybe we should hunt a couple of wolves on our way south? I can raise them and send them as scouts. Unless the trap doesn’t react to undead, it’ll be revealed, and if it’s a high-level enemy I’ll see them through the wolves’ eyes before they die, most likely.”

  “That’s a really good idea.”

  Cassie asked, “Party order?”

  “Same as in the gray dwarf city, Gwen and Dan in front, Steve as rearguard, with you, me, and Lara in the middle. I don’t imagine it will change at all unless we have more people.”

  Gwen asked, “Is it just me, or does the enemy seem a lot cleverer down here in the south?”

  I shrugged, “I’ve had that thought. I think maybe it’s because Stonefort is so close to their territory. Tunneling against the dwarves wouldn’t work, they’re too fortified, and the elves are too far away to bother messing with them that way when the whole horde is already marched and in play. Call it, more time and opportunity for mischief down here.”

  Gwen nodded thoughtfully, and we got back to eating so we could finish our lunch.

  Annabelle wouldn’t be pleased with me if I punched Dalin in the face, or so I told myself as he continued to be a shameless flirt with all the women in our party. I was fairly sure Dan and Steve would be up for my drawn and quartered plan as well. Problem was, Dalin wasn’t fully crossing the line, but he was amazingly adept at toeing it.

  Of course, our ladies weren’t flirting back, and looked at the man slightly distastefully, which helped us hold our temper, but he was still an annoying ass. I also didn’t think Gwen would appreciate any action on my part, she was more than capable of defending herself and was obviously annoyed with the man’s attentions. It wasn’t jealousy, not really, just a strong desire to protect her from obviously unwanted attention. Definitely not jealousy, not at all.

  Dalin the asshole, led us the ten miles to the border on horse, which was just a short ride, so we’d left the ship behind. Or at least, a couple of hours would’ve felt short, if we weren’t in the odious man’s company. The man set my teeth on edge.

  Gwen’s wink and longsuffering look as she went into the forest to bag us a wolf or two made me feel a bit better. Still, I had fun forming spells in my mind that would end Dalin in some painful manner, and then releasing them instead of casting.

  It was still mid-afternoon when we arrived at the border with two zombie wolves trailing behind the horses. The three tunnels were surprisingly close together, which made me wonder why three and not just one? They also clearly led straight to Stonefort, unless they turned under the ground that is.

  Dalin said, “I will stay, and await your safe return,” as he stared uncomfortably long into Cassie’s eyes.

  Dan opened his mouth with an angry look on his face, but I talked faster, although I was rather conflicted about defusing the situation. Cassie didn’t look happy at all either, which was probably why the guy was still breathing.

  “That won’t be necessary. Your appointed task is complete, and we can contact Annabelle directly about what we find. We’ll also be sure to tell our good friend the princess, exactly how helpful and solicitous you’ve been to all our ladies during our ride.”

  Cassie’s eyes flashed from annoyance to amusement, as the blood drained from Dalin’s face.

  Dalin recovered himself, I couldn’t deny the man was smooth, “Right then, good luck.”

  He turned his horse and rode away.

  Lara said lightly, “Steve,” when the wolves started to follow.

  All the ladies looked both amused and rather satisfied at our reactions to Dalin.

  Cassie shrugged and looked at me, “That’s why I like this group. I can be friendly and be myself with you and Steve without it being mistaken for interest or flirting. I’m glad you all didn’t thrash him, but a part of me wouldn’t have minded.”

  Lara shrugged, “I’m not going to defend him, but remember the old perfect world? It probably works for him most of the time, we might be in a committed relationship with our men, but a lot of the undying jump beds all the time just on shallow attraction. I think that’s changing, but it will take time. Nothing really wrong with it either, just not for us. Not in the old world or the new one.”

  That was true enough, about the old world. Without consequences, no pregnancy or disease, most had been partyers. Of course, there were and had been consequences to random sex from base attraction just for the pleasure of it, they were just much more long term and purely psychological, harder to see. I knew one thing, the three of us were very lucky men. It was also a revelation of sorts, I didn’t know what kind of lifestyle Cassie and Lara had led in the old world, just Gwen, but I guessed all the women had talked about it together.

  Gwen shook her head, “Maybe, but he should have gotten a clue when we rebuffed him. He just assumed we were playing hard to get, that kind of arrogance annoys the hell out of me. Enough about Dalin and comparative morality, let’s go find out what’s going on.”

  There were separate entrances, short slanted tunnels dug down into the tunnels which were about twenty feet down. They were all close together, relatively, just a couple of hundred yards or so apart, and all ran north to south.

  “Western tunnel first?”

  We all dismounted, and then tied the horses to low hanging tree branches near some grass so they could graze if they wanted. I also cast a spell I hardly ever used, which created a spring if they got thirsty.

  Steve sent the wolves down, and we followed in party order.

  “Do you all feel that?”

  Gwen nodded, “The whole tunnel feels enchanted.”

  I put my hand against the walls, it was very hard, not dirt, but stone.

  “Not sure what it does, but it’s a water enchantment of some kind.”

  Dan said, “Earth too. Which makes it a master level enchantment, if not a grandmaster.”

  I sighed, “So one of the enemy masters set this up, the question is are they still here. If they are, we’re pretty much toast.”

  Gwen laughed, “Be positive, love.”

  The wolves took off down the tunnel.

  Steve said, “Let’s just stay here a minute, shall we?”

  Dan laughed, “Normally I like to rush in, but in this case?”

  Steve grunted about thirty seconds later.

  “I found the scouts and guards. Umm, their skeletons anyway. I don’t see anything or anyone else, if it’s an enchanted trap I bet it’s triggered off life. If it’s not, whoever killed them isn’t here anymore, or is deeper down the tunnel.”

  “Keep going?”

  He nodded, and we started to wait again.

  Gwen said, “If it is a master?”

  “We’ll call
on Duchess Catalina. I’m hoping they left though, after setting it up. Whatever it is. In truth, I’m kind of depending on the game aspect again.”

  Cassie asked, “Game aspect?”

  I shrugged, “The world feels real, is real in most ways. But some things are obviously designed. Like waking up when we want every time, or quest difficulties ramping up to our level to give us a solid but not impossible challenge. Numbers in raids going up by even numbers as the challenge increases. I don’t think Annabelle would have given us this quest, or Gaia would have allowed this to happen, if it wasn’t possible to beat.”

  Cassie looked thoughtful, “If that’s true, we should be okay if we just charge ahead.”

  I nodded, and then shook my head.

  “Maybe, but then I don’t want to depend on it. And it is solvable, since we can go snatch the duchess if there’s a master level enemy down here. She already saved us once from an impossible fight, when we were apprentices and ran into a couple of journeymen. Possible doesn’t necessarily mean by ourselves, or without caution, plus I’m not that much of a fatalist.”

  Steve grunted, “This is odd, hold on a second.”

  We all waited a few more moments, and I almost flinched when the wolves dropped back down into the tunnel, from the entrance we’d come in.

  Steve shook his head, “So the tunnel goes about a quarter mile straight to the city, and then runs east a few hundred yards along the southern wall, and then back south to the eastern tunnel where the wolves climbed out. I had them run back here. In other words, the eastern and western tunnel is the same tunnel, just a big ass U. I didn’t see anything or any creatures at all, I think it’s safe to say a trap of some kind killed those people. I found more corpses in the eastern tunnel as well.”

  I frowned, “A big U tunnel enchanted with water and earth magic, and maybe other enchantments only in certain places to guard it? Let’s check the center tunnel.”

  Dan said, “Hold on, let me try something.”

  He cast a spell that ripped the dirt out of the wall. Two things happened. One, the loose dirt fled down the tunnel, two, the wall repaired itself.

  I frowned, and then cast a water spring on the floor. The water trickled out and started to flow down the tunnel south, same direction as the dirt.

  Dan grinned, “Thought so. These enchantments are meant to move water and earth south in the tunnel. They aren’t offensive in nature.”

  Gwen said, “Or mud… I bet it’s a sapping tunnel. Enchanted or not, if the southern wall’s foundation melts away, it will be easy to pull down. It can resist spells all it wants, but if it’s physically compromised another way, they can just pull it down.”

  I tilted my head, “Or, if they just make a sinkhole using physical forces, a huge trench of sorts, since their magic won’t work directly under the wall, they could just charge and run underneath the wall, if it held even in its weakened state.”

  Cassie frowned, “So if this U tunnel routes mud, I bet at the end of the center tunnel is an enchantment to create water to turn the soil into mud. I bet it’s been running for days now, at least, and compromising the wall’s foundation. It’s kind of brilliant, they can’t use magic on the wall, so they use natural forces by using magic a little further away as an engine to get things moving.”

  Steve said, “It’s still all just guesses, but it sounds right. Let’s go take a look in the center tunnel. I bet that’s where the enchantment is to flood the dirt foundation with water.”

  “Sounds like a plan, let me send a quick report to Anna first, about what we found, and our suspicions.”

  No one commented as I pulled out my communicator and messaged the princess, but they all got the idea I was doing it in case we all died shortly. The sooner Catalina came to take care of it in that case, the better.

  Granted, it was a guess, but nothing else made sense. The only reason to enchant a tunnel running under a wall of a city to move large quantities of mud, earth and water, was if they were sapping it and expected a bunch of mud to cave into it.

  That done, we headed out of the exit, and made our way to the central tunnel.

  Cassie said, “I’m not feeling any enchantments in the walls.”

  I nodded, “It looks like packed dirt, and not stone.”

  Steve sent the wolves ahead again, and we all waited for word.

  Steve said, “More corpses from those teams Anna sent, looks like the tunnel goes as far as the city. I can only assume twenty feet below the wall.”

  After a long pause he said, “There’s a device embedded in the wall, with a gem. I can’t feel magic through the wolves’ corpses, so outside of our earlier guesses I have no idea what it’s enchanted with.”

  “What do you think killed the scouts and soldiers?”

  Steve frowned, “Death, or fire. I don’t think anything else is capable of making instant skeletons.”

  I nodded, “Cassie, Lara, can you both hit us with protection from Death and Fire spheres?”

  They both nodded, and cast the spells, and I checked my resistance. I knew getting to eighty was pretty easy. It took two spells, that both granted forty percent resistance. But outside of heavily enchanted objects, where the objects themselves were immune to a spell sphere, people couldn’t really get up to a hundred percent resistance, or rather full immunity. Probably because in the end, we were still squishy flesh bags of mostly water.

  Regardless, their two spells on top of our protection enchantments got us up to ninety percent resistance for those two spheres.

  I blew out a breath.

  “Alright, there’s nothing to fight here, just an enchantment. Everyone put all their mana into their mana shields, and let’s go see if we can make it through. Hopefully the protection isn’t a grand enchantment, and just one.”

  Reason being even a grandmaster level enchantment only had enough mana capacity in one gem for twelve hundred mana. That was damage times six, or about seventy-two hundred damage. We could all survive that even with just resistances, after the mana shield we’d only take ten percent of what was left, and we all had far more than seven hundred hit points.

  Gwen smirked, “I’ll go first. No reason to risk us all, although it’s a good plan.”

  Before I could even think of objecting, she took off at a jog. Damnit, and of course I was stuck, I couldn’t object, even as my stomach twisted. I always wanted to protect her but joining her in battle was the only way I could do that. Coddling her would be met by me being sent to the doghouse. Rightly so, but that didn’t mean I didn’t hate it.

  Even as I was highly turned on by her deadly grace and strength. Conflicted summed up my feelings nicely.

  Steve said, “I’m watching through the wolves, from a safe distance. Or what I hope is a safe distance.”

  A few moments later he added, “Death magic. Must be on its own, no grand enchantment, she’s fine, and right now she’s prying the gem out of the object embedded in the wall. I can only assume it has life magic too, to detect a target on when to go off.”

  That… made sense. Sort of. There were other ways to trigger it using the other elements. Air could detect movement, fire the heat of a body, water the water in a body, and earth could detect footsteps. Hell, even light could detect motion by the light changing, and darkness could detect shifting shadows. Sure, it didn’t go off on the undead wolves suggesting life as the trigger, but that could be explained by the size of the foot prints, or in their case paw prints.

  Steve grinned, “She got it out, and she put it in one of the wolves’ mouths.”

  A second after he said that, the undead wolf bounded past us and outside of the tunnel. The gem was still deadly.

  “We should get the other two as well. We can store them somewhere safe the next twenty-three levels.”

  We weren’t powerful enough to cleanse out the enchantment and put our own on it, not until we were grandmaster level, but I wasn’t willing to leave behind grandmaster gems. We wouldn’t find many of them af
ter all. Maybe we could put them in a box or something, with an enchantment to suppress mana regeneration, like those anti-magic cages. If we were lucky, there was a fourth at the end of this tunnel.

  Gwen yelled, “Should be good now. The gem was enchanted with death and earth.”

  Steve nodded, “I’ll get my wolves on it while we check out whatever it was protecting.”

  We all moved to join Gwen, then went to the end of the tunnel. The dead-end wall stunk of damp earth, and there was a small diamond in a stone setting against the wall. I felt both water and earth magic again, but unfortunately it wasn’t a grandmaster gem, just a journeyman level one. That wasn’t all that surprising though, sapping the earth beneath the walls would be a slow process, if they went too fast it would be apparent at the surface, when the topsoil turned to mud and water started to gush out.

  I cast control water, and I could feel the water slowly seep upward and to the sides through the dirt. It was a basic spring enchantment, it looked like, while the earth enchantment created small channels to spread it out. It was slow, but I imagined in another few days the whole thing would’ve collapsed.

  Steve grabbed and tugged it out of the wall, gem and the stone setting.

  I pulled the water out of the soil, and then switched to the Fire Sphere as I let the spell go and cast heat, another spell I didn’t often cast. The soft earth hardened, as the water left behind after my spell quickly turned to steam and evaporated.

  “Dan, collapse the tunnel on the way out? We’ll also have to get the other one, once we claim those other two enchantments. I suppose we also need to find and remove the mud moving one, which is probably a grand enchantment made up of weaker gems embedded throughout the U tunnel.”

  That enchantment would be easier to disable at least, pull one gem and the whole spell structure would fail until it was put back in place exactly where we would take it from. We could also cleanse those and re-enchant them for our own use if we wanted.

  We pretty much had the problem licked, there was just a lot of cleanup left to do on it…