Bastions

by Jeff Sproul

  Seconds later, booms and hisses came from farther up the tunnel as The Sappers and Weavers had reached the perimeter of the underground area.

  Chrono's voice came over Laura and Riley's band. "Moss is reporting that there are definite signs of Golem here. We're at the right place. Keep moving. We're now engaged above and below."

  It didn't take long before Riley and the other paragon players reached the back of the gathered Sappers and Weavers. There were a number of them still blocking the tunnel, keeping them from progressing through.

  "What's up ahead? What kind of troops are we seeing?" asked Laura over the band.

  It took a few seconds for messages to be relayed through Chrono. But then, his voice came up again. "We're seeing a lot of foot soldiers, mixed in with scorpion variants. The Sappers have hit some kind of defensive shell around the underground area, and are trying to breach it."

  A couple seconds passed by as Chrono said this. Then, a loud explosion came from up ahead in the tunnel, where The Sappers were.

  A gust blew back through the tunnel, but it wasn't severe enough to knock anyone down.

  "The Sappers are in," came Chrono's voice. "Actually, let me…change…something here." Chrono trailed off a little before a light static flickered on Riley and Laura's communication lines.

  "This is Moss, we've broken through the first barricade, we've got a lot of resistance up here, mostly foot soldiers." Even though the game was supposed to be able to clear out some of the surrounding sounds when players talked, it was easy to hear the screeches, groans, and explosions in the background.

  "We're pushing in," Moss continued. "There's another wall in the distance, we're fighting toward it now, but this inter-wall space we're in is filled with enemies."

  Despite having been wiped out in the last engagement, Moss had retained his name on his new character and remade The Sappers guild, even if they were only at a fraction of what they'd been, player-level wise. Their guild still had plenty of possessions such as powerful demolitions safely hidden back at Crimson Alliance HQ and other spaces, which were now being utilized in this fight.

  Riley and the others had slowed to a walking pace, now that they were crammed in with The Weavers in the back of the assault line. They hadn't detected the first wall, let alone a second. It was severely hindering their hard push into the space that held the gate. Riley checked his map, watching as the red dots held the above-ground forces at bay for now, while the previous circle-shape of the scattered underground forces were forming more of a small crescent, down toward where The Sappers were breaching the underground base.

  Despite the fact that the The Weavers’ name referred to arachnids, the vast majority of their number were no longer arachnids. There was some sort of slime-like entity, along with several insect hellions and a few quadrupeds that resembled lions, wolves, and bears. The Weavers had mostly been reduced to a hodge-podge assembly of various hellions with no clear cohesive aesthetic. The Sappers were similarly disadvantaged. Their previous talents had allowed them to be great saboteurs. But now, they were mostly using what few powers they'd been able to muster that could be highly destructive, while also using a number of hellion-centric devices that Chrono was able to make to help them with any shortcomings that their own supplies didn't cover, since they'd all died in the previous fight with Golem.

  "Is there any sign of unique Golem entities? Portals or otherwise?" Laura called over her band. "If you want us up there, we need space!"

  "There is no space!" came Moss's sharp response.

  Now that they'd closed the distance on the underground section of the base, their scan range was more effective. There were prominent signatures showing up, detailing that there were structures past the second wall. But more noticeable was the fact that numerous orange dots were appearing, coming from at least four different points within what was probably the main chamber. Whatever the 'wall' was that was keeping the hellions out was allowing Golem's troops to move through it at various points.

  "They're getting reinforcements from the central chamber," Riley spoke up, looking over to Laura.

  "Yeah, I see that," said Laura as she was trying to see over the hellions in front of them. "This is such a mess!" She gestured with her fingers. "Moss, get us another door into there! They're reinforcing!"

  "We don't have the materials for three breaches! We used half our supply to break through the first wall," said Moss, with increased sounds of fighting coming from his side of the comm.

  Aaron turned to Chase. "That thing you did a while back, with your bots being able to see for you. Can you get one of them into the tunnel and project the video back here?"

  "I'm on it," said Chase, as he reached out toward one of the spider bots. The digital green veins glowed throughout his hand and arm. The spider bot transformed and shifted until it had a camera instead of a turret. Then, it quickly skittered up the wall and over their heads. Next, Chase modified the configuration of one of the other bots into the projector setting that then displayed on a nearby wall, allowing them to see what the spider bot with the camera could see.

  "Do you think you can use your monster-stride ability on Golem's units?" Riley asked.

  "If I can find a target big enough to spit me up," said Aaron. "If I have any sort of sight on the creature, I'll get a 'sense' for being able to do it or not. Usually, I'd set up remote activated cameras that only last for a while, but obviously when it's a situation like this, things are different."

  "Can you take any of us with you?" Laura asked.

  "I uh…no, pretty sure I can't," said Aaron. "It really doesn't work that way. But I can help them out and try and clear us a path."

  "We need to make our way to the portal spiders in there," said Laura. "Just clear out what you can."

  "That's the plan," said Aaron as he kept a close eye on the video being projected on the nearby wall of the tunnel.

  Their group was only inching forward a small amount as the seconds ticked by. The maps on their arms were only showing a small trickle of troops being able to make it through the breach that The Sappers had created. Golem's orange dots had swarmed to the site and were now blocking them.

  It was only now that The Royals' attack group had reached their point of the outer wall, with The Crimsons reaching their own roughly ten seconds later.

  "Can the pincer forces breach the walls?" Laura asked over her band, speaking to Chrono.

  "We didn't see the wall in our scans, so we didn't fully prepare for it. We have some demolition devices we can try before we start hitting it ourselves," said Chrono.

  "Well, we had the element of surprise," Riley grumbled.

  "The Crimsons have some as well, so they're going to follow suit," Chrono continued to speak over their bands. "Taurus, split your forces into two groups and take the tunnels to join us and The Crimsons, it's already too packed there in the spearhead.”

  "Affirmative," came Taurus's voice, as apparently Chrono had opened communications between all the guild leaders at that point for ease of communication, even if things might get hectic dialogue-wise.

  "Their defenses are proving harder to break up top than we thought," came Thrasher's voice from their bands. "Once we break in, we'll swarm in from above, but it's a slog right now."

  "This isn't good," Laura groaned. "We're giving Golem too much time. Just look at those signatures!"

  Riley couldn't do anything else but watch all the new signatures arrive. The orange indicators were becoming more and more numerous. Even as they were taken out by The Sappers and the front of The Weavers’ forces, more dots were flowing in, gradually filling the chamber between the two defensive walls.

  "Man, there's a lot of soldiers in there," said Chase, who was watching the video feed along with Aaron. "And they've got scorpions coming in from the sides."

  Hordes of Golem soldiers were packed together, forcing back their advance. It was nothing but a mass of black scales and sludge.

  At first, Riley thought the i
magery on the wall was becoming almost life-like and three-dimensional. But with another glance around, he realized that it was actually something more disconcerting. Golem was gradually expanding its sludge down into their tunnel, and apparently had been since the first moments of the attack.

  "We got sludge," Riley said as he stared down at the ever-creeping goopy blackness that was seeping past their feet.

  "Crap, well, it wasn't like we were running anyway. Good thing this is all or nothing. No room for retreat," said Laura.

  The ground and walls trembled. Then a few seconds later, they quaked again.

  Riley checked the map and looked at both the points that The Royals and Crimsons had been gathered at. Neither group was pushing into the outer chamber. Their demolitions hadn't breached the wall.

  "Have we lost anyone yet?" Riley asked, as he glanced between his map and the footage from Chase’s skittering spider bot.

  "I haven't seen any of our indicators blip off," said Laura.

  "Man, I just wanna get in there! Why weren't we at the head of the fight?" said Red Shotgun from up ahead. "Let me blast things!"

  "And melt some things," Green added with a sigh. "Is this really going to work out at this rate?"

  "It has to," said Laura. The frustration was evident in her voice. "It'll work out. We just need to breach the sides and thin out this grouping of enemies here," she said as she used her finger to indicate the pile of orange dots that were blocking their advance.

  "I'm not seeing anything other than soldiers and scorpions," said Chase. "None of those special kind that were larger, like those in Death's Chasm."

  "I wonder how it determines if it needs them or not?" Aaron pondered. "Was it doing anything special when you were all in that cave?"

  "Not really. Maybe scouting, or hiding. Not really sure," said Riley.

  Aaron spoke up as he crossed his chitinous arms against his chest. "It could be that it only had a few of them. Maybe it uses them sparingly. Perhaps it didn't make those? Maybe it infested them somehow? Or maybe they required resources that it doesn't have access to anymore? Regardless, if all it has are scorpions and soldiers, I'm not going to be able to jump in there."

  Seconds ticked away rapidly. They were practically at the front door, but Golem was keeping them out for the most part.

  Riley glanced all around the rendered map on his arm. It was easy to see the flow of Golem troops.

  That was when he noticed it. Something strange about the flow of the battle.

  All of the reinforcements were flowing into the tunnel to stop their underground advance. But surely there was some sort of passage or conduit that allowed Golem to reinforce the surface? There were no indicators heading to the surface.

  Riley watched the dots of their above-ground forces. They were moving around, but mostly stopped at the surface wall. All of the red indicators were mostly positioned on the top of the wall or just behind it. But as far as Riley could tell, none of them were disappearing. None of them were dying. Did the surface forces have poor line of sight on them?

  Riley looked over to Laura. "Laura, ask Thrash how the fight on the surface is going."

  Laura had been staring intently at the map on her own arm. She glanced over to Riley, then looked back to the map. With a gesture of her fingers, she spoke up, "Thrash, we're bottlenecked down here. How're things going up there? We could use another avenue of reinforcements."

  A few seconds passed before Thrash's voice came over their bands. "Getting a lot of resistance up here. We're having trouble progressing."

  Riley kept an eye on his map. "Laura, doesn't Thrash have charges to breach the surface wall?"

  "I imagine he does," said Laura. "They're probably keeping him from placing them."

  "But their force has barely moved at all. They're practically at the wall and Golem's forces are barely moving up there."

  Laura gave Riley a strange look but looked back at the map. "I'm sure the above-ground wall is pretty strong. They might've already used their charges."

  Riley stepped closer to Laura and pointed at the orange indicators on the top of the wall. "These are ranged fighters of some sort," he said. "Thrash and his crew are mostly brawlers and skirmishers, but I know for a fact that Iron Spine is up there. He's an excellent shot. He could easily pick off some of these targets. They also have Hydracid up there. She can easily lob acid bombs over that wall, but none of the signatures are moving to indicate they're trying to get out of the way or anything. And if that isn't weird, why are all the sky guards sitting up there in the sky and not engaging targets on the wall?"

  Laura shook her head. "The base probably has defenses that can shoot down the sky guards. They're expensive and we can't afford to lose them at this phase. We need them in case a behemoth shows up. What's on your mind, exactly?"

  "I don't know, it just…feels off. I can't explain it," said Riley as his brow furrowed. "I don't understand what's taking them so long up there. We should be able to detect any defenses that they might have, right? We should see them on the map. We have aerial scanning to detect their inner-base defenses. We can easily see their buildings, right? But there's no defenses being picked up. Do you see any?"

  "No, I don't see any," said Laura with a sigh. "They might've been destroyed in Golem's initial attack of whoever owned this base, meaning that they wouldn't be able to be infested."

  "So if there are no base defenses, why isn't Thrash and the coalition breaking in?" Riley then looked to Chase. "What all can your bots do?"

  Chase glanced over and blinked a few times. "Uh…turrets, mortars, flames, healing, stealth, video, scan, project, acid…"

  "Ok ok, can they tunnel?" Riley cut in.

  "Yeah, sure. Why?"

  "Can you get one to the surface to see what's taking Thrash's forces so long?"

  "Sure thing, gimme a minute here," said Chase as he directed his attention to one of his other spider bots. He shifted its configuration to a drill simply enough and then sent it to dig into the ceiling. "And then we'll modify this one." He reached out to his fourth spider bot and configured it to a camera and sent it up after the other one.

  "You think Thrash is slacking off?" Laura asked. "He's a good fighter, he knows the plan. He also likes to fight. I thought you and him were pals? I'm sure he's trying to reinforce us."

  "We'll find out here soon," said Riley as Chase shifted the video feed on the wall to the spider bot that was heading to the surface. At first, all they could see was the bot ahead of it, digging into the ground above and dropping dirt back on the bot with the camera. It took a good thirty seconds for the drill to reach the surface. A bit of light shone through the hole, down to where they were gathered and still being held up by the slow progress of the assault.

  At this point, all the nearby Bunker Brawlers were watching the video feed, except for Amber and Glint, who were a little farther to the right, with The Vigilant a little farther to the side of them in the wide tunnel.

  The bot with the camera crawled its way onto the surface and peered around before looking in the direction of Thrasher's forces and those of the various coalition guilds that made up The Crimson Alliance.

  Riley pointed at the projection on the wall. "See, there are the sky guards, just hovering around," he said as he indicated the fleet of thirty sky guards looming above the surface forces. "And Thrash and the others, they're just…"

  "Standing around?" Laura spoke up, stepping closer to the projection.

  It was easy to discern even from a distance, but Chase triggered his spider bot to zoom in on the gathered players.

  Thrasher's forces, which were mostly metallic and robotic, were looming around, except for when they were dodging haphazard attacks from Golem's grenade-lobbing units on the wall. Along with Thrash's forces, all of the coalition hellions were milling about, keeping an eye on the attacks being thrown at them. None of them were attacking the wall or the troops positioned on it.

  "The hell is going on!" Laura yelled. She
looked around, then pointed toward The Vigilant forces. "Somebody grab Aegis and get her over here."

  Carla was the first to rush off.

  Their subterranean forces had progressed another ten feet or so, but the BBs were no longer pushing at the backs of The Weavers to try and get into a place that had no room for them.

  It didn't take long for Aegis to come running over with Ava at her heels.

  "What's up?" Aegis asked with a worried expression on her face as she glanced around to the other paragon players.

  Laura pointed to the projection on the wall. "See for yourself."

  Aegis glanced over and watched the video feed. "What am I seeing?" she asked at first, but before anyone could answer, her brows lifted. "Is that the surface forces? What are they doing? Why aren't they attacking?"

  "That's what we're trying to figure out," said Laura. "We just realized it."

  "They've been doing nothing this whole time?" Aegis asked. "Does Chrono know?"

  The ground quaked beneath their feet. Everyone glanced at their maps. Chrono's forces had just breached the first underground wall at the four o'clock position. The Royals flooded into the chamber and caused Golem's forces to divert partially from The Sappers and The Weavers. But even so, more of Golem's units were coming from the main chamber, where it probably had multiple portal minions.

  "Crap, he's engaged now, we need to tell him!" Riley spoke up first.

  Another series of tremors rumbled through the tunnel. Seconds later, The Crimson forces breached the eight o'clock position and entered the fray, drawing more of Golem's troops away and giving The Sappers and Weavers more space to spread into.

  "The Crimsons are engaged now too," said Laura.

  An orange square appeared on their maps. It loomed high in the sky.

  "What's that?" Aegis asked.

  "I'm on it," said Chase, as he directed the spider bot to look up into the sky.

  Riley watched as the camera view shifted, but he already had a terrible feeling that he knew exactly what it was.

  As the camera panned into view, two more squares appeared in the corner of his gaze, as he watched the spider bot look into the sky, revealing the identity of the 'square signature' to be that of a Golem Behemoth. Just like the ones they'd fought before. But while one was fully visible, two others were slowly shimmering into view. They weren't in formation like they had been in their last encounter.