by Domino Finn
I kicked Bandit into a gallop and raced around the circle again.
"The saints do not live here!" I screamed. "WE live here."
The silence that had fallen over the crowd broke. The people muttered and cried out. Gladius swiveled his head to them.
"LET US SCREAM LOUD AND LONG!" I bellowed. People hollered. "LET THE SAINTS HEAR US FROM THE HALLS OF THE PANTHEON!" More applause. I locked eyes with Saint Peter as I lapped the clearing. "THIS IS OUR HOME! THIS IS OUR FATE!"
Bandits hooves were drowned out by the crowd. The legionnaires had all lowered their weapons. Even Gladius' fire blade was at his side. In the distance, Saint Peter retreated indoors.
I turned to face the west gate. "TODAY WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!"
The city erupted into fanatical cheers. I charged the gate and the city watch broke freely before me. The renewed vigor of the people filled everyone with hope. With the spirit to act. We would do it—we could do it—because Stronghold was strong together.
The crowd broke into a chant. "Talon! Talon! Talon!" I raised my spear to the air.
Centurions screamed above. "Fortify the gates!" Soldiers went into double-time.
At the foot of the winding stone steps that led to the battlements, I hopped to the ground and approached the guard. "My friends are up there and I need to help them."
Gladius stopped beside me and nodded to the guard. We walked up the stairs together.
"Orik's coming hard and he's going for that door. We should prep the ground before it's too late."
"What do you need?" he asked.
"Archers. Torches. Skilled men."
He nodded. "You'll have them."
My party waited for me at the top of the wall.
"That was awesome," said Kyle.
Izzy just studied me with an arched eyebrow. I walked right up to her, placed my hands on either side of her neck, and kissed her.
Amidst the cheers below, it was a wonderful two seconds. Then Izzy pulled away, slapped me, and asked, "Are you crazy?" She didn't look mad.
"I just might be," I said.
I moved to the battlements. "Kyle, how much of that flame gel do you have?"
He scoffed. "What kind of brewmaster would I be if it was only a little?"
"I love it. We need to coat the ground in front of the gates. This is the weak link in the chain. The pagans will do anything they can to break it."
Dune and company joined us on the battlements. "You are crazy. The gate is made of wood. What good are heavy double doors if they're on fire?"
"Izzy?"
Her face flashed recognition. "I can mitigate that. It's not a permanent solution, but fire only lasts so long."
We got to work.
0480 Warcraft
Pagans stormed the wall. Arrows flung both ways. Legionnaires dropped heavy rocks on clumps of goblins. Their bodies littered the foot of the wall. The crazed soldiers climbed over their fallen dead and advanced. Ogres hefted smaller goblins upward, some of them actually reaching the summit of the battlements. They cried in victory for the last seconds of their lives before the city watch cut them down.
No longer a distant threat, Orik stomped through the crowd. Scores of imps hopped excitedly at his presence. Ogres and trolls beat their chests. Quite a few enemies were trampled by their very savior, but it was a drop in the bucket. There were plenty of greenies and grays to go around.
Gladius made good on his word. He provided me with what and who I needed. Kyle's flame gel was in place and Izzy was hardening a sheet of ice on both sides of the wooden gate.
A deafening cry made my blood go icy. The titan was upon us.
Up here on the battlements, we were only half his height. The cyclops was up close and personal now. More frightening than ever. His skin was the color of red rock. His gargantuan body was made up of boulders and glued clumps of grass and dirt. A ring of long hair circled his bald crown, rocky beads swaying with every approaching step.
In the center of his face above a broad nose was the giant's eye socket. It dominated his appearance for being both solitary and vacant. A no-eyed cyclops. The titan was blind.
"So much for the eye being the window to the soul," I muttered.
Above the gaping hole was the large horn protruding from his forehead. The obelisk of Blind Man's Peak. The ruby glow from the soulstone glimmered at the tip.
Kyle fired precise shots at the gemstone. A flare of red magic exploded the glass bolts a few feet before impact. The splash of the corrosive didn't seem to have any effect.
"Not bad," boasted Dune, "but you're not a crack shot like I am."
He pulled his bowstring back, a silver arrow notched between his fingers. The specialty projectile streamed through the air like a bullet. It, too, shattered before touching the enemy.
"Huh," said the ranger.
Stigg, the red-robed berserker mystic, ruffled his black beard. "That barrier won't be taken out by force. What is that thing?"
"It's a soulstone," said Izzy. "The Eye of Orik."
His eyes widened. "The soul of Orik."
"It's nice to see you magic types putting your heads together," I noted. "It would be nicer if you generated some useful ideas."
They glared at me. "We can speak in muted admiration too," murmured Izzy.
Ranged attacks were getting nowhere. Orik lumbered to the west gate and slammed a gargantuan fist forward. The blow was off target. It glanced the wall and rattled the door. The heavy stones absorbed the worst of it. I wondered how blind Orik actually was.
"You wanna admire something?" I taunted. "Smother him, Kyle."
"Danger," he said. "Contents are flammable."
The brewmaster heaved his vials skyward. They fragmented against the giant without exploding. Oily flame gel blanketed portions of Orik's body. Next I signaled to the soldiers holding torches. They tossed them to the ground at the foot of the gate. As the cyclops readied another hammering blow, the earth detonated into a fiery inferno around him.
This time, the cyclops didn't miss. His closed fist smashed into the gate proper. The sheet of ice blanketing it fell away without leaving much structural damage. Izzy immediately went to reinforce her work.
The area before us lit up like Friday-night lights. Flames cut a swath in front of the west gate. A wall of fire roared upward. Pagans shriveled under the sorcerous fire. The giant growled at the growing heat but locked his eyeless head on the gate.
"Archers," I called out.
Five men dipped their arrows in fire and let fly. Several hit the giant but missed their mark. One caught a spot of yellow gel and ignited it. Orik flinched and pulled back for another punch.
Dune, ever into one-upmanship, tried his hand at it. He found the spot of oil on Orik's chest and nailed it with a bull's-eye. After another round of archery, the god himself was aflame.
"Kill it with fire," I growled.
Orik's third attack against the gate never came. The titan bellowed in pain and reared away. Large hands swiped the ground before him as if feeling the fire at his feet for the first time. The cyclops scrambled backward, crushing scores of pagans that had been readying to breach the gate.
I flashed a wicked smile. "How long will the fire keep up?"
"I'm almost out of flame gel," answered Kyle. "But what's on the ground should burn for a bit."
My eyes met Izzy's with concern. "I can handle it," she assured me through gritted teeth, freezing the melting ice on the doors. "The gate will hold."
I was pleased with the countermeasure, but Orik's health bar had barely budged. The small patches of fire made up a very small part of his surface area and hadn't affected any critical body parts. The titan swatted the flames away. While the ground burned beautifully, Orik himself was only lightly smoked.
With their god rebuffed, the pagans began resorting to more conventional tactics. Catapults in the distance flung heavy rocks at Stronghold. Some missiles sailed over the walls and caused damage and chaos within. Others fell short and b
owled through countless friendly soldiers. I was grateful that an especially daunting troll had his head clean knocked off by a boulder. The pagan army corrected its aim and hit the city's walls with a barrage.
I was impressed with their tenacity, but Stronghold's walls proved too mighty. No doubt a direct hit against the wooden doors would yield better results, but I wasn't sure the pagans commanded that kind of precision. Not only that, their attempts to smash the gate were obliterating the line of their army. Between the projectiles, the fire, and the raging cyclops, a large clearing opened in front of the gate.
The horde's overconfidence in the god-giant's rebirth had made them careless. They'd rushed forward wildly instead of taking more strategic measures. Now it was too late. There was no calling this army off. No sating its frenzy.
The good news was, the continuing fire was making Orik think twice about approaching the main gate. The bad news was the pagans had other means of scaling the walls.
A goblin riding a saddled lizard rallied the flailing line. [Azzyrk - Goblin General]. He directed the army to part. Siege towers wheeled forward, pushed from behind by teams of ogres. I stared at the wooden contraptions. They were huge for siege towers, fifty feet high, and they were still only half the height of the wall. I wondered what the pagans planned to do with them until goblins at the top began loading ballistae with spikes attached to lengths of rope. Maybe they could actually scale the walls after all.
I wished we'd reserved more flame gel on the side, but it didn't help second-guessing the strategy now. Keeping Orik out had been the first order of business. We'd already won a huge victory on that front. The towers would just need to be dealt with another way.
At my order, the archers changed their focus from Orik to the siege engines. Some used fire against the wooden towers. Others let loose at the ogres pushing them, somewhat protected behind wooden roofs. Neither tactic found immediate success.
Izzy materialized cannonballs of ice that hammered the meager protection over a group of ogres. Sections of the hasty roof collapsed. Kyle used the opening to hit the big uglies with corrosive. As the rest of Stronghold's army piled on, one of the towers stalled its approach.
But even if an ogre or two dropped out of the charge, others emerged from the horde to take over. The sheer size of the pagan army started to win out.
After Dune pinned a silver arrow into an ogre's eye, a fireball rose from the crowd and bowled him over. "Ouch," he cried. He looked around. "OUCH!"
Caduceus was immediately at his side. I ran over.
"It actually hurts," he said.
"Don't be a pansy," she returned.
"No, I'm serious. I actually feel pain."
I clenched my jaw. "Yeah, that's probably my fault. I have a feeling no one has any pain filters anymore."
"What? That's awful."
"The price of freedom," I muttered.
As Caduceus attended him, his eyes went lax and he forgot about me. I stomped away, concerned. I'd started to build my own fan club, but some of these changes were bound to upset people who'd liked Haven perfectly fine the way it was. Pain was an element I wished wasn't part of the beta flags. It shouldn't have been, really. Unless pain was part of the original programming. Hacked out by the devs after early focus tests.
"Fucking sloppy programmers," I cursed.
More fireballs rained upward, doing serious damage. They strafed the organized lines on the wall, creating havoc and stymieing all resistance. The goblin warlocks also targeted the ice on the gates. Izzy chugged a spirit potion and doubled down on her countermagic, but I could tell it was draining her.
Out of nowhere, a fireball barreled toward her. Kyle jumped in the way and blocked it with his mirror shield. The magical sphere bounced and landed in the crowd below.
"Hey," he said, "I'm getting good at this. Watch."
He waited for another and intercepted it. This time he pitched his shield at an angle. The fireball deflected right into one of the siege towers, instantly setting it ablaze. The wood burned fast, causing the ogres underneath to scramble and abandon their cover. They made easy targets for the archers.
"Keep doing what you're doing!" I yelled encouragingly. But I was at a loss for what to do with myself.
These guys didn't need me up here. I didn't have ranged weapons and they'd taken my lead just fine. I spotted Gladius at the battlement steps, funneling fire mystics into position. The men on the opposite side of the gate were well commanded. Everybody was chipping in. I mean, we were still pretty much trapped in a burning house while surrounded by rabid wolves with laser teeth, but damn if we didn't figure out how to make some s'mores on our way out.
I scanned the closing battlefront and stopped on the closest siege engine. It was almost against the wall now, and the soldiers at its welcoming point were triaging from fireball wounds. Grapples fired from the tower hooked onto the battlements. I grabbed one of the last glass vials Kyle had readied, rushed closer to the exposed area, and vaulted off the battlement. A few of the soldiers forgot how to breathe as I leapt forward into the air. Scores of hungry pagans beamed from below, licking their lips. At the height of my jump, I triggered dash and flew forward onto the top of the siege tower. My momentum kicked one of the goblins clean over the rails. The other two standing at the top were easy work.
Pagans made for the inner ladder. I speared them with brutal efficiency.
"It's over, Anakin," I screamed melodramatically. "I have the high ground!"
The pagans didn't get the reference. Monkey-like imps climbed the outer frame. I cut them down as well. An ogre angrily banged the base but the tower was way too high. The monster attempted a foolish climb, stepping onto the wheels to boost him upward. Corrosive bolts and other arrows fended him off. He snarled at the wall before a silver arrow embedded in his eye and put him down for good.
I gave the thumbs up to Dune, fully healed now. It was a good start, but more siege engines were on the way. I cut the ropes attaching the current tower to the wall as another rolled past me, now in the lead. I splashed Kyle's flame gel into it. The archers took the layup. Another tower went up in flames, a pyre for the screeching goblins who had almost reached the gate.
Trembling below jarred my foot loose. I slipped and barely caught myself. My tower of death began swaying violently. Below, four ogres were treating my vehicle like a police car in the middle of a riot. I rocked wildly back and forth.
Arrows once again came to my rescue, but the ogres were tough. Shafts of wood speared their backs and still they raged on. From my wildly sweeping view, I noticed the ice barrier on the gate wasn't doing so hot. Or maybe hot was the problem. Izzy turned her attention to me, for the first time noticing I was outside the walls.
A barrage of icicles pacified the two ogres on one side. For a moment, the lurching of the engine slowed. I pulled myself up by the railing when a twisted gray creature with a hundred warts and orange hair grabbed the wooden frame. A troll. Not as stout or solid as an ogre, but just as strong with a bunch of magical abilities to boot. He snarled at me and heaved the tower backward. The whole thing listed toward the horde and fell over. I slammed to the ground and had my breath knocked out of me.
Damn. Trolls are a lot stronger than ogres then.
Howls converged all around me. I lifted my head and reached for my spear a few feet away.
The siege tower was smashed to bits, having flattened an ogre and several goblins. I'd fallen away from the wall, deeper into the enemy ranks than any human being had a right to be. I searched for friendly archers but the line of converging pagans was too thick.
The gate, the wall, the siege. That was over for me. I was now part of the battlefront.
0490 Battlefield
The mass of enemies danced all around me. Too many goblins to count. Sneering, spitting, cursing, poking. I swung my spear in a horizontal arc to keep them at bay.
"Pagan killer!" they spouted hungrily. "Tricksy!"
I hadn't checked my pagan faction
reputation since this mess started but figured there wasn't a point anymore. They didn't like me and I didn't like them. 'Nuff said.
I scanned the battlefield for a way out of this. It was hard not to notice Orik climbing to his feet. The fire had frightened him. That gave the Stronghold defenders a lot of reason to celebrate. After all, what kind of god is gun-shy?
But Orik was unharmed overall. Back at it. And, by the looks of it, angrier than ever. Instead of going for the gate he went for the section of wall he was closest to, somewhat further south. Understandably, most of the defenders on the battlements focused on the giant.
I was on my own.
A tiny goblin lunged under my guard and swiped at me with a curved dagger. I kicked her away, my leather keeping the blade from finding my skin. The pagans jeered.
This wasn't sustainable. I had to start making examples or they'd make me one.
I swept the spear in defense again, only this time I followed the action with a swooping thrust. The unlucky goblin I'd picked at random got a surprise poke in his gut. I wasn't wielding blacksteel anymore so the damage notification disappointed me. I had to pull back before killing him to parry another attack. They laughed brutally.
Experience points flooded my notification window like the winning pull of a slot machine. I hadn't done much, but this was all-out war. Our party was sharing experience.
Not that it would help me. The goblins moved in.
A pop of glass made a few flinch. Another pop. Black corrosive ate at two unfortunates. Kyle's attacks weren't area-of-effect anymore, though. He couldn't take them all on.
"Close in!" commanded a snively voice. "Tear apart the pagan killer!"
It was Azzyrk. I focused on the goblin general snaking behind them. He was easy to see for his height and the fact that his mount was something like a giant komodo dragon. Light green with pine-colored stripes, a snake tongue slipping between shark teeth. It was the closest thing I'd ever seen to a legit dinosaur.
The general was my ticket. Maybe it was a one-way ticket, but I'd accomplish something.