by Dakota Krout
The quartermaster nodded at these instructions and asked Joe to get the magic started. Touching the ritual, Joe activated it and smiled as wispy darkness began to travel from the ritual into each arrow. He couldn’t wait to see how useful these were in the upcoming battle. Stepping out of the tent, he was shocked to see more crates piled up and more on the way. How many arrows did they expect to use in the… war. Right. This was an entire nation of people they were fighting at this point. It was a hard concept to wrap his mind around. They would likely run out of arrows by the time the fighting was over. Freaky.
It took a bit of time, but Joe was able to find and wrangle his team back together. Each of them had used the time to train themselves or improve themselves in some way, and the results were obvious. Poppy now sported a rapier that had incorporated the stinger from the giant wasp, letting him deal critical hits and inject poison easily. Luckily for him, running out of the dangerous liquid wasn’t going to be an issue–thanks to Alexis.
She had been found in a well-ventilated room stirring a cauldron and cackling like a witch from old Shakespearean plays. There were barrels of poison surrounding her, and she had obviously slept very little in the last few days. Apparently, the guild had given her anything she asked for so long as they got to use up to ninety percent of it for the war. She gave them ninety-five percent and rubbed her hands greedily at the thought of the experience points she was going to earn from the next few days.
Bard had been in a tavern chanting to his heart's content and had apparently found a few mass-effect chants that he was excited about, and Jaxon had been tossed into a prisoner of war area and had been going wild learning the weaknesses of all the Wolfmen he could get his hands on. This had also apparently been good training for the healer that had been assigned to follow him, going by the man’s exhausted face. He had cried tears of joy when Joe stopped by to pick up Jaxon, and a fearful cheer had erupted from the Wolfmen that had been captured as well.
The fighting had died down over the last hour, but it seemed like the silence was starting to get on people’s nerves. After a couple days of constant bombardments and explosions, people were expecting violence and noise. The quiet was ringing in their ears, and everyone was nervously watching the countdown timer that was ticking downward too swiftly for comfort. Aten recognized the issues that were going to appear if he did nothing, so he stood up on the wall and cleared his throat, preparing for a speech.
“Listen up, everyone! Tomorrow is the big day! Over the next few hours, reinforcements should be arriving, and we are going to have to waste time with guild politics. Just try to be polite, and don’t brag too much about how amazing we are!” This got a few chuckles, helping Aten maintain a wide smile. “If you are off duty for now, get some rest or work on your skills. We didn’t build this gigantic egg so that we would scramble away from it and not use the bonus skill experience, right?”
“Was that an attempt at an egg pun? Disgusting,” Joe whispered and shook his head. “Stick to fighting and administration; your jokes are fowl! You could have hatched all sorts of better yokes than that!” Alexis slapped him, followed closely by Poppy.
“You stop that right now!” Poppy hissed at him, massaging throbbing ears.
“Seriously,” Alexis chimed in, “that was terrible.”
Jaxon raised a hand. “I thought Joe made a few good points.”
“Good luck, everyone!” Aten was finishing up. “Stay safe tomorrow; make sure to watch your health, mana, and stamina! Don’t die due to negligence, or I’ll hear about it and we’ll have some classes on situational awareness! Have fun!” Some confused cheering followed his statements, but the general consensus was that there was going to be a battle and they should do their best without dying. Fairly standard. Huge groups of people shrugged at the same time.
Aten was certainly correct about one thing: reinforcements were arriving. The town was soon flooded by people they didn’t know, and then the Kingdom’s Army began to arrive along with the offensive-capable members of the Mage’s College. In Joe’s mind, this was shaping up to be an amazing battle! Apparently, the King wouldn’t arrive until later in the actual battle. He had the same issue as the Queen; when he moved, everyone would be forced to hold their breath in terror. Apparently, he had an impossible to get fifth-tier class that had insane requirements. Someone had been told he was a ‘Battle Tyrant’, and people just accepted that since it was the only rumor that seemed to fit the feeling the Monarchs exuded.
With the addition of the Army and Mages, there was no longer space inside of the town, and less effective defenses were quickly erected outside of the walls of the town. No one who was shuffled into this area was happy with their new assignment.
All too soon, it was time to sleep; then it was their shift for guard duty, sleep again… and the day of the battle had arrived. As the first sliver of sunlight crested the horizon, a single wolf howl shattered the still air. That howl was joined by another and another until there were so many Wolfmen howling that the buildings around town began to vibrate. Then, continuing to howl, the Wolfman army in the distance began to march together… and the ground started to shake as hard as the air.
~ Chapter Forty-six ~
“Brace yourselves!”
“Prepare to launch artillery spells!”
“Archers forward!” This command was one that Joe had been waiting for because it was his guild’s archers that were about to fire. He–along with a good chunk of the guild officers–was standing on the walls to watch the opening salvo. Joe watched as quivers were rushed forward and handed off to the waiting archers. The commanding voice rang out once again, “Use the black arrows first and as often as possible! They have temporary bonus effects! Three… two… one! Fire! Fire at will!”
The first volley flew away, arching into the air and falling as a black cloud. Not a single arrow missed. Not due to any great accuracy, simply due to how densely packed the Wolfman packs were clustered. The volley worked excellently because as the arrows came down, spikes shot up. At the speed the Wolfmen were charging, it had the same effect on their ranks as a cavalry charge. That is, the first rank stopped dead as the trailing Wolfmen hit them, driving them harder into the spikes that only lasted a second. Those Wolfmen took a bit of damage, but the really helpful portion was that the line was broken. After that, the Wolfmen were staggered and easier to counter as they got closer.
Joe received a notification icon to tell him about earned experience and grinned. He ignored it for now and watched with hungry eyes as more and more of his ensorcelled arrows were used. Spells were being launched as the Wolfmen came within fifty yards of the wall, and more empty pockets were appearing in the wave of onrushing animalistic beings with each blast. The Wolfmen were continuing to howl, full and deep wolf howls that seemed to be making them more powerful as the sound continued.
“Why don’t we get a racial buff?” He snorted as the first of the Wolfmen reached the wall. They were apparently expecting to be able to sink their claws into the stone of the wall and climb it because they barely slowed down as they jumped and scrabbled to find purchase. Instead of racing upward, they slammed into the black and twisted wall and fell with a yelp. Joe chuckled at the shocked looks on their elongated faces. Unfortunately, this only slowed them slightly, as there were plenty of cracks that the Wolfmen could work their hands and claws into. They were able to scale the wall, just not as swiftly as they wanted. Most importantly, not fast enough for the humans to be overrun at the start of the battle.
Seeing an opportunity, Joe used his manipulation to create a thin lattice of shadows that looked very similar to the regular cracks the Wolfmen used to climb. Unlike actual cracks where a handhold was expected, behind these was only a dense wall. Claws snapped and Wolfmen fell with surprised howls as they bounced off the unexpectedly smooth surface. Joe was hoping for the Beastmen to take some damage from falling, but the creatures below caught their falling brethren.
“Hey, bub, keep doin
’ wha’cher doin’.” A burly man stepped forward with a barrel on his shoulder, tossing it down at the thickly clustered beasts. There was an oily rag on the barrel that was burning, and Joe was able to witness the use of the largest Molotov cocktail that a human had ever been able to throw. It hit the group and shattered, *whooshing* into a cracking inferno that stank of burnt hair and skin. “Awright, a few more like tha’ and I’m good.”
“Thanks!” Joe looked down the wall and saw that scenes like this were playing out all over the place: oil being spilled, poison being dumped, and channeled spells all creating huge swaths of Wolfman corpses. Joe decided to get off the wall at that point and get back to his team. This turned out to be a great idea, enough so that he was shocked that his luck stat didn’t skyrocket, since right after he was back on the ground… the Wolfman Shaman counterattacked against the defenders. It became obvious why the Wolfmen didn’t seem to mind their losses. An utterly devastating spell was unleashed that used the collective death energy of the Wolfmen that had fallen thus far, and a thin scythe of energy slashed over the battlements in a straight line. Anyone caught in it was sliced in half through whatever protections they may have had.
“What the…?” Joe froze in place as pandemonium erupted around him. Dozens and dozens of Wolfmen poured over the top of the wall.
“Get some defenders up there, now!” Aten roared over the din. He had come down a bit before Joe had, luckily for the guild. “If you lost your squad leader, the assistant leader takes over! Get moving!” Not giving anyone a chance to follow his orders, Aten sprang into action by himself. A sickly green ring of light shot out from him, coating everyone in his guild. A quarter second later, the light had returned to him, now bright orange. Everyone the light had touched was moving slowly or not at all in the cases of the heavily armored. Aten shot up the stairs at far above human speeds and began holding off the entire wave of beasts by himself. For fifty-five seconds, he pushed back the entirety of the invading group, killing dozens of Beastmen and shrugging off blows as though they hadn’t landed. He jumped backward over the stone wall, landing solidly on his feet in the courtyard just as the orange light faded from him.
“What are you all standing around staring at? Go, go, go!” Aten shouted at the assembled humans.
“Hey, Alexis!” Joe had to almost shout at her to be heard over the sounds of combat restarting. “You’re promoted! You are second in command. Sorry, I didn’t know it was a thing!”
“Make it retroactive so I get back pay, and I accept!” she shouted back as they moved into position.
“Better watch out, Bard!” Joe got out as they ran to return to the battlements. “Give her an inch, and she takes a mile!”
“He’s given me more than an inch, Joe!” Alexis called back thoughtlessly, face instantly going crimson as she realized what she had said. “Oh my gosh.”
“Oh, really?” Poppy started to make a joke at their expense, but his levity failed as more of the Wolfmen hopped over the wall. They were almost to the top of the stairs, but the trickle of opponents had become a flood. Poppy’s rapier was suddenly in his hand, the tip slicing through the air into a neck to claim the first kill for the party.
Joe stumbled as a huge paw slammed into him, his Shell working overtime to keep him alive. Jaxon stepped under the extended limb and released a flurry of blows into the Scout, moving back and snapping his fingers after a moment. Sickening *snaps* filled the air as the Wolfman was twisted. He crumpled, blood leaking from multiple wounds where bones had pierced the skin.
“Still bothers me a bit to be using my craft to hurt instead of heal.” Jaxon sighed as he stomped on the Wolfman’s head to finish him off. “Ah, such is life. Quoth the raven: *Caw!*”
“What the abyss, Jaxon?” Alexis was firing her crossbows as fast as she could, and the Wolfmen she hit tended to drop to the ground twitching, spasms locking up their muscles and making them easy targets for others. A volley of black arrows screamed over the group as the guild worked to regain control of their defenses. A series of pained howls drifted over the walls as those arrows found their marks, creating secondary damage as their shadows drove spikes into allies.
“Move!” was all Joe heard before he was shoved to the side. A massively armored man holding two shields got in front of his group, crouched into a starting position for runners and bellowed, “Juggernauts’ Sprint!”
“Is that Dylan?” Joe watched as his old teammate began to lumber forward, picking up speed until he was moving far faster than someone carrying that much weight should be able to. He held his shields as a wedge and let the Wolfmen in his path bounce off of him. The ones he hit were either thrown off the wall the way they had come or tossed into the courtyard where they were torn apart by the defending humans. Dylan vanished around the bend, barely able to make the turn with his insane momentum.
Their section of the wall was not clear, but they had a far more likely chance of retaking it now. Bard’s axes were whirling in time with the continuous howl, and a chant was spilling from his lips as he methodically chopped at the Wolfmen in his way. Joe felt energized, his stamina and mana returning faster than it should have. He used the boost–and the sudden loss of pressure from his enemies–to start shifting the shadows on the exterior of the wall.
Shadows of thorns grew from the wall, foot-long spikes covered in smaller spikes to prevent grasping them. Spikes were easy for him as they were the most common direct damage-dealing magic he had used while in the game. With the sacrifice of the majority of his mana, he solidified the shadows in the area, creating a downward facing wall of barbed spikes that the Wolfmen unknowingly threw themselves into. They had appeared so suddenly that dozens of the climbing Wolfmen had skewered themselves and fallen, some of them taking fatal damage from the fall this time around.
Joe dropped to the ground gasping as his body worked overtime to restore his drained mana. He shouted to the others about the spikey defenses he had added, and Alexis perked up. She pulled a large bottle out of her bag and popped the cork, drizzling the poison over the edge of the wall without looking until it had emptied. A few drops landed in the eyes of Wolfmen that were looking upward, but the spikes, for about seven feet, now had poison glistening along their barbs. The increased difficulty of climbing the wall deterred a few of the attackers, but others were not stopped and used blunt weapons to start smashing the spikes out of the way.
Looking around the battlements, it was easy to see that breaches had occurred all over the place. They weren’t the first to clear off their spot, but they also weren’t the last. Alexis was now firing blindly over the wall, mumbling about skill increases with her crossbow and chuckling at the ‘loophole’ she had found to do it instead of learning to be accurate. Joe was still recovering, but he got to his feet just as his instincts screamed at him about something hidden. His eyes snapped to the side, locking onto a Wolfman a good distance from the wall that had a ball of grey, misty light forming above him.
There were other Wolfmen surrounding him and, apparently, channeling mana into the spell, but that one was the key, Joe just knew it. “Listen up! We have a new target! That nasty scythe spell is building up again, and I’ve got the caster in my sights. I need ideas on how we can take him down at range, and I need ‘em now!”
“Do we have anyone that could throw me at them?” Jaxon intently inquired. “If I could just get close enough-”
“Ah’ve got an idea!” Bard barked, interrupting the inane line of reasoning from the Monk. “We need ah really good archer. Lexi, you got that special arrow ready ta go?”
“You want to use that now? This early in the battle?” Alexis seemed shocked for a moment but nodded as he stared into her eyes. “Alright, but it can’t be me. I’m still only in the Beginner ranks for crossbows, and we need someone with a bow.”
Joe knew the perfect guy. If Dylan had been here, then Chad was sure to be nearby as well. Cupping his hands, he yelled over the wall at the defenders below, “Chad! Chad! Get
over here, right now!”
His voice was entirely lost in the cacophony of noise that was suffusing the air, so Bard tapped him on the arm and stood forward. He grunted, pointed at his neck, and bellowed, “Chad! Get yer butt over here!” His voice, enhanced by magic, echoed like thunder around the enclosed space of the town. A few fights stuttered, allowing the more experienced person in each battle to quickly gain the upper hand or paw, in many cases.
Joe saw a familiar face running up the stairs to them, though he was impressed by the archer’s new look. Chad was wearing light armor, a thin winged helmet framing his face. His bow had blades at each end and was glowing slightly. Seeing Joe, a tired smile appeared on his face. “Hey, man. Good to see you. What’s going on, and please tell me it was worth abandoning my post or I am going to get a lot of grief later.”
“I’ve got a target for you; it’s the Wolfy casting that nasty spell that almost got us overrun. Big gray scythe?” Joe saw the recognition on Chad’s face and continued, “We apparently have a special arrow to take him out, but we need someone that can make the shot. Are you our guy for this?”
“Let’s see the arrow.” Chad continued speaking as Alexis pulled out the projectile, “I specialized as a Royal Sniper. Tiona felt bad about leaving the group, so she hooked us up with some great contacts. Apparently, I only ‘show promise’ as a Journeyman archer, but they still took me in.” Joe chuckled at that; it was unsurprising that the best snipers of the Kingdom had high requirements.
Alexis handed over a very strange arrow. The tip was beveled, the shaft was slightly corkscrewed, and there were no feathers on it. Joe had the feeling that it had been designed as a bolt for a crossbow, but Chad didn’t seem to mind it. “Great, what effects are we looking at on this thing?”
“It has a strange flight path. Every ten feet it will have drifted a half foot to the right, but the corkscrew shape keeps it floating high. That means it’ll drop only a half foot per twenty feet, so don’t aim as high as you would with a normal arrow. When it hits, it’ll go through magical protections like they aren’t there unless they have anti-arrow wards specifically.” Alexis took a deep breath and continued, “I call this a Screaming Sore-cerer because it’ll be loud as it flies. The arrow should arrive before the noise does, and it has a silencing component as well as poison that applies a mana burn effect. If this hits a Mage that is currently casting a spell… I highly doubt they’ll survive it.”