Limitless Lands Book 4: Opposition (A LitRPG Adventure)

by Henegar, Dean

  “Oh, he’s just been upgraded. I can totally change the colors of his shell and stuff now. Doesn’t it make him look cuter?” Yendys asked. I had to think fast; the crazy kid actually did that to Crunchy on purpose?

  “Sure . . . He’s . . . cute as ever? The only concern I have—from a strictly military standpoint, of course—is that this newfound level of cuteness . . . Well, it might, umm . . . That’s it! It might draw too much attention from the enemy. He needs to go back to his original color while you’re out adventuring. You don’t want poor Crunchy to attract fire from the enemy, do you?” I stammered out, waiting to see if the kid took the bait.

  She folded her arms and looked at me, her gaze boring into my soul. There was someone else long ago that looked at me like that when she were trying to decide if she wanted to be mad or not . . . the memory skittered away, not taking hold.

  “I hate to say it, but you’re right. We’ll need to upgrade your color scheme to blend in better, Crunch-Crunch. I know! Mr. Ty, you know how to do this camouflage stuff. You can help me color Crunchy. Raytak, can we use your weird clown tent to work on Crunchy’s upgrades?” Yendys asked. I sighed when she reminded me of the garish tent. I waved them toward it.

  “Always knew you Army guys were a bunch of clowns, Raytak. Nice standard field-grade accommodations you have there,” Ty said, laughing at my hated tent. Blevins was going to pay. Maybe I could hire that assassin lady. But no, I’d probably end up back in prison.

  “Laugh it up, Ty. Have fun painting giant bugs. Should I get you some crayons to color him with or have you already eaten lunch today?” I taunted back, glad my best friend was back around and happy to see the other friends I had met in the game. We hadn’t played as much together since I was imprisoned a while back and my class requirements made team-ups like this a rare occurrence. Sometimes I envied Ty and the others, but at the end of the day, I knew I was where I belonged.

  I was a commander, simple as that.

  My friends laughed and joked as they walked to my tent. They would start their quest when they were ready. I needed to get moving now. The walls and gate seemed sturdy and I only had a pair of catapults to attack them with. I wanted to soften them up and create a breach before attacking with the siege towers. Being able to threaten two sections of the wall with towers and a breach in a third spot would divide up the defenders, giving us a better chance.

  Back in the fortified camp, Tavers was having his crews load the first stones onto the catapults. The camp defenses were well underway, with the bulk of the scorpions facing the walls, though they were out of range for the time being. I could push them closer and into range once I knew if the enemy had any siege engines of its own or some magical means of counterbattery fire.

  “Sir, we were about to start, though I might lob a few at the walls and gate to see which makes the better target,” Tavers told me.

  “Carry on, Sergeant,” I confirmed, watching the first round being fired. The stone arced up and over, crashing into the wall near the gate. The rock bounced off, but I could see the whole section of wall flex when it was hit. The next round hit the gate square in the center. Chunks of the stony tree planks that made up the gate cracked, but the overall structure was sound.

  “Sir, Tavers has some of his engineers ready to help assemble the siege towers. It’s best if we build them across from where you want them employed. Where shall I have the boys start?” Brooks asked. We were facing the main and only gate to the city. The city wall was essentially a large square. The petrified logs making up the wall stood eleven feet high, and towers standing twenty feet tall guarded each corner.

  “How tall are our siege towers going to be once they’re done?” I asked.

  “Tavers says they can be adjusted all the way up to twenty-five feet if we want, although he warned that the shorter we build them, the more stable they’ll be,” Brooks replied.

  “Let’s go with twenty feet tall. We’ll use them to assault the towers at each end of this wall. That will divide the enemy and keep the archers in the towers focused away from the main assault at the breach once Tavers knocks one open for us. Pick a company for each tower and leave the rest of the men along with the ogres here in the center, opposite the gate. Pull a pair of scorpions from the line to support each tower and have the assigned companies dig in where the towers are being assembled,” I ordered.

  Brooks waved alpha toward the northwest tower and bravo toward the southwest one. A pair of engineers drove the wagons with the siege tower parts to each location as the assigned companies marched out to join them.

  “I submit my soldiers to your command, Raytak. You appear to have some experience in this type of warfare,” Stench said, the ever-present shaman at his side.

  “Thank you for your trust. I plan to employ your warriors here when the wall or gate are breached. You’ll fight alongside charlie company,” I advised the Goreaxe leader.

  “We don’t need a breach, Raytak. The wall is but a small obstacle for my warriors,” Stench said.

  Looking between the wall and the ogre chieftain, I wanted to smack myself. I had completely overlooked the size of the ogres. They could reach a fourteen-foot wall just by raising their arms. A small hop and they could haul themselves over with little difficulty, given their immense strength.

  “Thanks for reminding me. Wait for my signal during the attack. I’ll have your people attack on either side of the breach once the enemy is focused on repelling the legion,” I ordered, wanting to hold the ogres for later in the attack. They lacked the heavy armor and shields that my men carried, and despite their enormous health pools, they would be vulnerable to missile fire as they approached. Once the enemy was engaged with my men, I reasoned they would face less ranged fire during their approach.

  Charlie company along with Ignominia would assault the breach. The size of the breach would have to determine how many troops I could funnel into the city at a time. It was foolish to have too many just milling about and getting in each other’s way.

  An explosion turned my attention back to the wall. Tavers had decided the gate was the weak point. The exploding rune and the earlier shots had left a pile of broken boards on the ground. The gate was several layers thick and hadn’t been breached yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  Two of the remaining five runesmiths hovered around the catapult, using their explosive runes to add their punch to the catapult shots. Along the top of the wall, the bobbing heads of the elves and their allies appeared occasionally, keeping watch but so far doing nothing to respond to the catapult chipping away at their gates.

  Work was progressing quickly on the two siege towers. The towers were quite a feat of game engineering. The design even incorporated the wagon the parts were stored in. The wagon formed the base of the tower and then the rest was built up from the bed of the wagon. The walls were built on three sides, leaving the back open to save weight. There were two ladders inside, allowing a pair of soldiers at a time to ascend.

  Only having two soldiers at a time reach the wall led me to assign one of the remaining runesmiths to each siege tower. The plan was for them to hurl explosive runes to clear the top of the tower they were targeting. Once the top of the tower was cleared, they would support the initial assault with their elemental and spike runes. The strategy should buy enough time to establish a foothold in each tower.

  Once the top of the tower they were assaulting was secured, the soldiers would attack down the wall, moving to join up with the main assault at the gate. When the top of the enemy tower was secured, I would send a squad of scouts up to provide overwatch fire. That left me with fewer eyes watching for any approaching foe, but it was a risk I was willing to take if it helped ensure a quick victory.

  Another rune-enhanced stone crashed into the fortification. The gate began to groan, and the right door visibly sagged as the hinges began to pull away. The next shot did similar damage to the left door. With a crash, the next volley collapsed the right door, which fell
outward, dragging the left one with it as both were pulled from the wall and landed with a thump .

  “Door’s open, sir. Shall I move to phase two?” Tavers asked. I nodded in his direction while checking the progress of the towers. Tavers gave the signal and the scorpions were wheeled into range. The ones guarding the towers focused their fire there while the bulk began to engage any target that showed itself on the wall. The fire wasn’t accurate since the scorpions were at extreme range, but any closer and they would be within bowshot of the walls given the height advantage the enemy held.

  “Soften them up until the towers are ready,” I ordered. With the two extra resupply runs I had ordered in addition to our starting ammo, there was more than enough to fire at the enemy for quite a while. The catapults just needed a big rock, but the scorpion ammo was finite, and a reserve of shots would be held back if the battle happened to last all day.

  For now, I was happy to expend ammo to score the occasional lucky hit. Being under sustained artillery fire also had a detrimental effect on enemy morale, especially when the enemy couldn’t hit back. At worst, we would annoy them and suppress the fire against the men when we charged the breached gate. The best possible outcome would be if the barrage somehow goaded the enemy into launching a hasty attack against the legion.

  The towers were assembled more quickly than I would have thought possible, the in-game mechanics lending their aid. Once complete, they were ordered forward, creaking slowly toward their targets. I waited for them to reach the halfway point before I made my play for the gate.

  “Charlie company, form Testudo! Ignominia will follow charlie, keeping a one-hundred-yard spacing between the two,” I shouted, the company smoothly moving into formation. “Forward to the breach!” I said as the formation moved out. We passed the scorpion batteries, which picked up their rate of fire as more and more elves revealed themselves from behind the wall to fire at my soldiers. I placed myself in the center of the formation with the two dwarven runesmiths at my side.

  I left one runesmith and the understrength reserve platoons behind to cover the siege engines. The continuous reinforcements that tricked in were used to bring the three regular companies and Ignominia up to strength. For the time being, I neglected the other two reserve platoons I had unlocked when I leveled, seeing them more as a replacement pool or a force to guard the siege engines.

  Arrows began to thud into our shields. The formation and our shields kept most of the arrows at bay. The strong armor we wore deflected the few that found their way through gaps in the shields covering the formation. We had a few injuries but no KIAs as the now-open gateway grew closer.

  The first two ranks suddenly fell over, writhing on the ground. I watched as their health began to slowly dip; one of the painweavers was on the wall and at work on my legion. The elves on the wall took full advantage, renewing their fire on the fallen, unprotected soldiers.

  “Close up, continue the assault, runner to me!” I commanded. It hurt to have to leave my men on the ground like that, but to stop in the middle of the field to help them was tantamount to suicide. A messenger made his way to me as charlie company closed up and continued toward the gateway.

  “Tell Stench he may begin his assault once charlie company hits the breach,” I told the runner. He repeated my orders and made his way back to the waiting ogres; thankfully, the archers were too focused on the advancing troops to notice one soldier running away from the fight.

  Ten steps from the gate, enemy forces charged from where they were sheltering behind the wall and formed up in ranks. My heart sank as I recognized that the Shield Brothers were the ones trying to stop us. Their wall of spears formed and marched to plug the gap in the wall, the forest of steel points a more formidable barrier than any gate.

  Throwing out all stops, I summoned my Goon Squads, then the corrupted wolves. The wall of spears made short work of all my summons. Our front rank met the spears and the fight began in earnest. I was in the third rank now, having moved forward to use my abilities. The front rank of legionnaires went down quickly, the men having trouble getting into sword range before the spears stabbed into them. The second-rank soldier in front of me fell to the ground, wounded, and I stepped into the gap, shield raised to deflect the spear blows that hammered away at me.

  “He’s their leader. Take him down,” a voice shouted from behind the line. I readied myself to activate Honor Guard when a wave of pain froze me in place, opening me up to a half dozen spear thrusts.

  You have been hit by the spell Word of Pain and are taking damage over time. Stunned for 4 seconds.

  I caught a glimpse of the painweaver that cast the spell. He was hiding behind the second rank of Shield Brothers and concentrating on keeping the spell on me, a task made more difficult due to my innate magic resistance. Another half dozen spears impaled me, dropping my health down to twenty percent as the warriors wielding them twisted before withdrawing the weapons and opening a series of bleeding wounds.

  The spell holding me expired and I raised my shield to deflect the incoming spears. Locking the caster in my crosshairs, I unleashed a blast of acidic sap from Tessel’s Promise into the painweaver’s face. A gurgling scream escaped the caster’s lips as he struggled to escape the sticky substance eating away at his flesh.

  You have died. Respawn in 5 minutes, 24 gold dropped. Next death within a 24-hour period will result in a respawn time of 10 minutes and a loss of 100 experience points.

  I had bled out while taking down the painweaver. Hovering in place, invisible to those around me, I waited as the respawn timer counted down. At the end of the five minutes I would spawn back in my tent. Luckily the tent was not too far from the fight. Instead of releasing back into the tent to wait, I had my “spirit” remain here to observe the battle.

  I needed to figure out how we would handle the Shield Brothers; if I couldn’t do that, we were finished.

  Chapter 30

  “Get it off him!” Ty yelled as he tried to figure out what to do to help Nitor.

  They had found the sewer entrance several hundred yards from the city wall, where it emptied into a small creek. The foul stench had helped Ty locate the opening, but none of them had wanted to begin the crawl down the four-foot-diameter opening the waste of the city was pouring through. Finally, Kathala had chastised the group and taken the first plunge. Embarrassed that their healer was the bravest of the bunch, the rest of the party began the long crawl through the stream of filth.

  The passage they crawled through eventually linked to a larger room in the sewer system. The party crawled out of the small tunnel and into the larger—and fouler-smelling—chamber. Nitor had been at the end of the line, and when he started to exit, something dropped from the ceiling and landed on his head. Nobody noticed at first as the creature covered his entire head and shoulders, preventing him from screaming . . . or breathing.

  Sewer Slime, Level 12: Feeding on the filth and bits of refuse that are found in a city’s sewer system, the sewer slime is not averse to adding fresh meat to its diet. Sewer slimes move slowly and are hard to spot in the dark, preferring to drop from a height onto its victim.

  “Ahhh, that burns!” Ty shouted as he tried to grab onto the slime. The creature’s acidic body burned through his gloves and into his hands. Ty ripped off the dissolving gloves as the party tried to figure out what to do. Snapping into action, Kathala fired off an AOE heal. Yendys followed suit and used her less powerful Nature’s Mending on Nitor.

  “You have to use fire or something like that to kill it,” Smashem said, desperately trying to ignite a torch he had pulled from his inventory.

  “Don’t hit it with your weapons. It may destroy them,” Jacoby added, also pulling a torch from his pack.

  Ty followed suit, equipping the ubiquitous torch every game seemed to provide an adventurer with as Kathala poured healing power into the poor skald.

  “My heals aren’t doing anything! He’s suffocating and I can’t heal that,” Kathala shouted out
. The rest of the group tried to attack with torches. Ty held his torch into the mass of slime covering Nitor’s face. The slime hissed at bubbled at the spot the torch hit, but the damage was minimal. The health bar of the slime was slowly increasing despite the fire damage they were applying; the damned creature was growing and healing as it devoured their friend.

  Nitor’s health dropped to zero and his body fell into the shallow flow of refuse that covered the floor. The slime grew and spread over the poor skald, enjoying its meal and only slightly annoyed by the pitiful damage the torches were causing. Normally they would try and grab anything that dropped off Nitor’s body so they could return it to him, but nobody was willing to get near the slime-covered corpse.

  “Everyone up the ladder. Get out of here now!” Ty shouted as another slime splashed into the water next to him, barely missing the half orc. At the far end of the chamber, rusted metal rungs had been hammered into the stone wall. The crude ladder led up to a small wooden hatch in the ceiling of the cavern. Ty led the way, pushing his way out of the thankfully unsecured hatch above them.

  Climbing a ladder was an awkward affair when you had only one arm, Ty realized. He fumbled his way up into what appeared to be a storage area. The door they had used was the garbage chute for the kitchen. Spoiled produce and various bits of trash lined the floor or spilled from broken crates. A single door stood on the far side of the room, and thankfully, no foes had responded to his noisy entrance.

  Kathala and then Yendys climbed out behind him as Jacoby and Smashem struggled to haul Crunchy up. The constantly growing beetle barely fit through the hatch. Ty was angry at losing Nitor in such a cheap way but couldn’t help but smile as he looked at Crunchy. He had not been a happy half orc when Yendys dragged him into Raytak’s command tent to help with coloring Crunchy. It turned out the process wasn’t too bad, and he had a fun time creating the perfect color scheme for the big guy.