by Jeff Sproul
"Oh crap, three? Again?" Aegis asked.
Another orange square appeared. Then another.
"Five?" Riley spoke up. "But I thought we were pushing it back? It has five behemoths up there."
"This isn't good," said Laura.
Riley glanced at the map again. "Even if we take the main chamber, we're going to have a hard time dealing with those things and whatever they might be carrying inside."
"The Crimsons and Royals are making progress," said Laura. "They're thinning Golem out. Golem seems to be having trouble reinforcing what it's losing at this point."
As Riley studied the map, he noticed something else unusual. His brow furrowed as he reached out to the map and pinched and pulled at the view, turning it so he could get a better perspective of The Crimsons and Royals. "Uh…what are The Pale Ones doing?"
At this point, Laura, Riley and Aegis were all standing together with the rest of The Brawlers around them. Laura and Aegis looked over to Riley's shifted map perspective.
"They're heading to the surface?" Aegis asked. "Maybe they're reinforcing the coalition and Thrashers?"
"Was this part of the plan?" Riley asked, glancing between Laura and Aegis. "Were the surface troops told to hold off and wait to see if behemoths appeared?"
With the video feed projected on the wall, it was easy to see the five behemoths in the sky. Now that they were all visible, they gradually converged toward the surface forces.
"No, that wasn't the plan," said Laura. "They're supposed to be hitting the base. They don't have a lot of range in their group."
The video feed on the wall lowered, just as the first of Taurus's Pale Ones reached the surface. They headed over to join The Thrashers and the coalition forces. Some of them looked into the sky and pointed to the behemoths, but none of them were attacking.
"The Pale Ones are up there too now," said Chase.
"That's it, Chrono needs to tell us what's going on if the plan changed," said Laura, as she quickly gestured with her fingers. "Chrono! What's going on with the surface forces? Why are The Pale Ones up there too?"
There were several seconds of silence before a burst of garbled static came from Laura's band. It lasted for five or six seconds, then cut off.
Laura and Riley exchanged looks, before Laura tried again. "Chrono! It's Laura! Respond!"
More static came over her band, then cut off.
"Crap, are we being jammed?" Laura asked as she glanced around, then looked to her rendered map. "It has to be those behemoths, right? They were jamming our long-range comms before, but…we were still able to use our short-range ones, even with three of them up there in the last battle."
"Maybe five of them can overpower short-range comms?" said Aegis.
"That, or something else is doing it," said Riley, as he watched the video feed. All of The Pale Ones had now joined the surface forces.
"Are we going to fight up in the tunnel?" Red spoke up from a short distance away. "The way is just about clear."
"I can run over to The Royals and try and talk to Chrono. He's probably managing them from the center or back of their group," said Ava. "Won't take but a couple minutes to run there and back."
"Go ahead," said Aegis. "Go over there and ask what's—"
Aegis's words suddenly fell short as something in the video feed shot up into the air above the surface forces. It came from the ground, but it was little more than a blurry figure as it spun. Lines, like some sort of cables, stretched out from it and loosely encompassed the now tightly gathered surface troops.
"What's going on up there?" asked Carla.
The object spun, like some sort of octopus with its arms stretched out.
"Is that…Taurus?" Riley asked, as he stepped forward, squinting.
Chase started to zoom in on the object, but before he could get a better view, there was a bright flash.
Everyone watching winced. A moment later, the surface forces were gone. Every yellow indicator for the coalition guilds, The Pale Ones, The Thrashers and even the thirty sky guards disappeared.
A few seconds later, another burst of static came over Laura's band. It stopped, then started again for another couple seconds.
"What the hell just happened? Where did they go?" Laura asked. "If anyone has any idea, please speak up!"
"Did they just abandon us? Maybe…they're invisible?" asked Aegis.
By this time, Glint had come in closer. "They're not cloaked," she said. "That looked like the same exact mass-transit ability he used in the last fight, when he took his forces and The Thrashers from the fight, leaving us vulnerable on that flank. I had a good line of sight on him at the time. It was quick, but it was the same exact thing."
"We can't win this fight without their forces," said Laura. "We have to get in contact with—"
A series of orange dots appeared on their maps. It wouldn't have normally drawn Riley’s attention if it hadn't been for the sheer and sudden amount of them.
Each of the behemoths deployed five units every three seconds; each time, twenty-five indicators were produced, which descended rapidly toward the surface. They looked as if they were going to land on the ground above their subterranean troops.
Without prompting, Chase shifted the camera feed, allowing them to see the amount of troops raining down upon them.
"We can't win this," Aegis muttered, as she stared with wide eyes at the projection. "We were already weak going into this fight…but…we just lost half our army!"
"What about the scorpions?" Riley asked, as he quickly glanced around the map.
"They took them all, along with the sky guards. We don't have any minions," said Laura, who was studying her map as well. "It's just us, the weakened Weavers and Sappers and The Crimsons and Royals."
"We're holding our own in the cavern though," Chase spoke up quickly. "Maybe we should push toward the others and try and hold out as best we can?"
"We have no other choice," said Laura. "We have no means of escape."
"Should I still head to Chrono?" asked Ava, ready to dart off.
"No, stick here with us. Chrono surely knows we're in a bad situation. If you run off, you'll get surrounded when those strike minions dig down toward us. We need to warn the others of the situation, if they haven't noticed already. Our comms are useless, we have to stick to voice range, but we can't spread ourselves out."
"Alright, I'll coordinate The Vigilant," said Aegis, as she gestured for Ava to follow her before heading off back toward the assembled Vigilant players.
"We don't have our trap-layers or fortification makers," said Riley. "They're all still back at Crimson City. There's a couple Vigilant, a few Crimsons, a couple Royals."
"We're just going to have to make do," said Laura. "Everyone! We can't escape this," she said as loud as she could. "Golem's got us cornered on its own turf. We just lost half our forces for some unknown reason. We're screwed, but maybe we can still make it. Stick together. In these tunnels, we're not as exposed as we were in the last fight. Just make sure that when those strike minions start tunneling down toward us, that we deal with them quickly and try to close up the holes so they can't drop more troops into our group. Now, let's move up with The Sappers and Weavers and try and push to the gate!"
With that, The Brawlers and The Vigilant pushed up through the tunnel again. They'd let a gap form while they were trying to figure out what was going on with the surface forces. It didn't take them long to close it and start piling into the space beyond the first broken underground wall.
With The Crimsons and Royals now in the chamber as well, they were able to push back the heavy wave of Golem troops that were in the underground.
The Sappers and Weavers made way for the paragons players and allowed them to push at the front of the group as they assaulted the inner wall that protected the central chamber.
Golem's troops flooded the tunnels from behind them. But most of Golem's new forces had arrived on the outside of the wall, which meant that they were
digging down and using the same tunnels that The Crimson Alliance had. Which also meant that they would be bottlenecked, just as The Crimson Alliance had been originally.
Even without communications, the individual leaders of The Crimsons, The Royals and the paragon players had managed to figure out the situation. A group of players from each was assigned to hold those breach points and keep the strike hands, scorpions, and new soldiers at bay.
Losses had been minimal for The Crimson Alliance. They were in a weakened state, but they knew better how to combat Golem's forces after the previous encounter. They were also able to utilize this base's construction against it. The inner wall let Golem’s troops pass through at specific points and the outer wall was no different. It just so happened that the spots they'd breached on the outer wall were the spots that Golem would've needed to use to get inside the space they were in now and defending.
The rest of the explosives that they had at their disposal had been used at a singular point on the inner wall. There were none left and the wall still wasn't breached.
Laura assigned Red Shotgun, Amber Impaler and Green Melter to 'tear a hole in the wall' duty, as The Weavers and Sappers spread out to fill any gaps in their defenses. Despite the majority of Golem's reinforcements being in the tunnel system behind them, some of the newest arrivals were making new passageways to get down to them. But luckily for them, the behemoths had already unloaded the largest portion of their held army and were only throwing new minions down at a rate of about one every ten seconds. Which was still far more reinforcements than they were getting, but it was something they might barely be able to manage.
Chrono finally reached Laura and Riley's location. His first words were, "What the hell is going on?"
"We were hoping you could tell us!" Laura said, as her eyes darted around the cavern. Even if they were able to hold the entry points, there were still large gaps within the 'inter-wall' area that Golem was filling.
"Comms are useless," Chrono said, as he positioned between Laura and Riley. "Everyone knows what they're doing, but I have no idea where the other half of our army is."
"Is there any chance that they got a message from Sage to come back to base?" asked Laura. "Maybe Crimson City is under attack?"
"Impossible," said Chrono. "Sage would've sent me a message and there's no way it wouldn't have reached me if it could reach one of them."
"Then we have to be prepared for the idea that they just abandoned us and have turned on us," said Riley. "They could be up to anything at this point."
"But why would they turn on us?" Chrono hissed. "We had this fight! Even now we're holding!"
"Holding, but barely making gains," said Laura. "And look at the number of troops just waiting for us once we crack this wall open."
Chrono looked down to his map. The inner area of the chamber that they were trying to get into was filled to the brim with orange indicators. There were hundreds more in the tunnels, with dozens descending upon them, while even more were pressing on the two sides of their force from within the cavern they were in now.
"The moment we breach that chamber, we're going to get overrun," said Laura.
"Like we have any choice! There's no exit strategy here," said Chrono.
"I know that!" Laura snapped. "Just realize that we're all probably going to die the moment we breach this wall. And if Taurus and Thrash turned on us, we might not have a city to go back to, if they're seeking to overthrow Sage or…whatever their plans are."
Chrono hissed. He looked around the cavern. Everything was covered in sludge, which was sapping their movement speed.
The paragon players were fighting above their usual capability, thanks to the blessing that the dragon Nexis had given them. But of course, the hellions had been given no such boon.
"The Weavers and Sappers are thinning out. They don't have the stats to deal with a prolonged fight like this," said Chrono. "I've lost some of The Royals, and The Crimsons are crumpling as well. Mostly the forces that we'd already lost once in the last fight. This isn't going well. We can't keep this up. Even if you paragons can, you're not going to have us hellions to back you up for much longer."
"Those behemoths are still laying down reinforcements and more troops are pouring from the portals in the main chamber," said Laura. "But we have to keep fighting."
"How are we going to hope to hold the main chamber, even if we clear it out?" Riley asked. "What if Taurus and Thrash are seizing control of Crimson City? We won't have any line of reinforcements, ever!"
"He's got a point, Chrono," said Laura. "Even if we win this fight, we've lost the war."
Chrono looked out across the chamber, studying the battle. Players were slowly turning into particles as the minutes passed. They were killing a great number of Golem forces, but their own were steadily dwindling.
"We have to do this," said Chrono. "It's our only option."
The wall to the inner chamber broke open.
Red, Amber and Green were quick to lay down heavy attacks to quell the new onrush of Golem troops. It was hard to see much farther into the chamber itself, but it appeared to be filled with more of the same. Foot soldiers and scorpions. But somewhere within were at least four portal minions. Four portal minions with at least 18,500 hitpoints that they had to kill, if they had any hope of making this fight go in their favor.
Riley had taken Silver Shooter's powers. He wanted to remain close to Laura and Chrono while they discussed the battle and potential plans. He also had Amber's powers if anything got close, but for now, he was sniping enemies that were around his friend, Aaron. Aaron was tearing into Golem's troops on the four o'clock position of the cavern. Currently, they were holding the space between four o'clock and eight, but even as they killed Golem, they were getting squeezed in. Soon, they were only holding five to eight, and then, five to seven. Their troops were thinning out and Golem's onslaught was almost limitless.
"We have to push into the chamber and destroy the portals!" said Chrono. Every so often, he engaged with a loose foot soldier or two. His powers didn't lend him much in the way of being a good skirmisher. He was better suited for infiltration, distraction or assassination.
"We've been trying ever since the wall broke!" Laura said, as she diverted more of her own copies to assist Red, Green and Amber. Her troops were punching and shooting, trying to make any progress they could. But now that the inner chamber was breached, they'd done nothing but lose ground and players.
"We're losing this fight," Chrono hissed. His movements were becoming more frantic as he looked around, as if he was trying to discern some strategy that might alter their outcome.
As Riley scanned the battle for himself, he knew that The Weavers and Sappers were all but wiped out again. They wore different colors to their forms than The Crimsons and Royals. But even The Crimsons and Royals were heavily thinned out. The Vigilant had lost a few players as well, but The Brawlers were managing to keep up, even if Laura had lost a significant amount of copies.
Soon enough, their attack group was really only covering the six o'clock position.
Riley continued to fire, but the situation was increasingly hopeless. Two of Chase's bots were on either side of him, firing torrents of bullets into the mass of enemies around them. If you were a ranged combatant, it was impossible not to hit Golem's forces.
Riley looked through the wide-eyed scope of Silver Shooter's rifle. He was about to take another shot to critically hit a Golem foot soldier in the head when an intense light lit up the cavern. It was so bright that Riley had to initially squint as he looked up. Looking at the source of the light made it impossible for him to discern anything through the goggles. He pulled them up from his eyes.
In the space of the cavern—practically filling all of the available space that there was above them—loomed an elongated pinkish crystal. The color shifted from purple to pink, slowly, fluidly. It was roughly the size of several two-story houses put together. It was long and came to a point in what Riley
had to imagine was the front.
From the base, a beam of light shot out and hit the floor of the cave, a small distance from Riley. The proximity of it had him standing and backing away as Laura and Chrono turned to it.
The ray of light vanished. No damage had been done, and there was no explosion or fire.
In place of the beam of light, a figure stood, wearing the same armor that Riley last saw her in. The figure reached up and removed her helmet, revealing herself.
Gella looked at the nearby gathered players, then to Riley. "Who is the leader of your forces?"
Riley blinked and pointed over at Chrono. He didn't know why he pointed out Chrono so readily. Perhaps it was her tone, or perhaps it was already the hopelessness of his situation. He never thought he'd see Gella again, since he hadn't heard from her since first seeing her back at Outpost Rose.
"I'm in command, who are you?" Chrono spoke up and stepped forward, as if he wouldn't be intimidated by the new arrival.
Gella immediately held out her hand. "Give me command of your forces, or die here in this cave and gain nothing while Sigil Online burns around you."
Chrono stared at Gella, then turned his head to Riley.
"She's the one I mentioned," said Riley. "She told me about Golem, back at Outpost Rose. This is Gella."
Chrono hissed and shook his head. He then held out his hand and took Gella's in his chitinous one. "Can you help us?" asked Chrono, as he then lifted his other hand to what had to be a holographic window that only he could see. He tapped at it with those pointy fingers of his.
"I can," said Gella.
Chrono tapped his finger one last time and lowered his hand as he released Gella's. "You have command of what's left of us," he said, even as the battle raged around them. "How many troops do you have? How can you help?" he asked quickly, as time was most definitely ticking away for their survival.