Malcolm Tent
patreon
Wish upon the Stars chapter 699
🕑 Added 2024-08-26 20:59:10 +0000 UTCAbel and Bethy met me up on the battlements. The rest had been sent deeper into the fortress, where we’d set up escape measures. Teleportation circles keyed to fallback positions, traps, and defensive emplacements, all courtesy of Nats (and a few my own) wishes over the last few months.
“How did they find us?” Scowled Abel. “I thought we had anti-scrying wards on this place?”
I shrugged. “Probably just tracked our movements leaving all the different cities. If anything, the fact that it took them this long is impressive. This position was never meant to last forever. We’ve been making too many moves. They were bound to collate all that data into a lead eventually.”
Below us, dozens of Wendigos scaled the dark stone of the fortress, butcher knife sized claws slamming into the dark stone as the dragged themselves ominously up the walls. Even as we watched, waves of blue flame rolled over the walls, dislodging a few, and spears of stone skewered some more.
We’d put a LOT of work into this place. In fact, the whole fortress could be considered its own trap. This would thin their numbers even more. The best kind of trap: one the enemy couldn’t ignore. After I’d taken out their heavy in Rajak, there was no way Travis could afford to leave me to my own devices for long. And the best part was, this was a minimal risk for my people. The fortress was a combination escape route and meatgrinder.
“You know the plan.” I said as I stretched. “They’ll send the Wendigos first. The ones who get through will hit us in waves. Take out as many as you can up here, then retreat into the hallways when they overwhelm you. We have reinforcements waiting at fallback points throughout the fortress waiting to step in when you reach them. Oh, and whichever one of you kills the most enemies gets dibs on leading the strike on Wintervale while we spring the popsicles.”
Bethy cackled gleefully, waving her hands and calling her cats from the shadows and her dog from her Domain. “You’re going down Alamode. This is going to be so much fun!”
Abel grinned, bouncing lightly on his toes. “Been a while since I did anything like this. Hot and cold running fodder. Fun times. You might be a monster, vampire, but with my new Solid Path, I wont lose to you and your petting zoo.”
Bethy’s eyes went wide. “I WANT a petting zoo!” Her head whipped over to stare at me. “Shane, do you think I could wish for a goat? Like a cute demonic one with glowing red eyes? Oh! Or maybe a panda!”
“Why are you like this?” I complained to my mentor. “You know she’s not going to able to focus now. Bethy, we can talk about your petting zoo later. Kill the most Wendigos and we can discuss it.” Even as I watched, the first dinner plate sized grey hand crested the battlements, knifelike talons digging in as it hefted itself up.
Without hesitation, I triggered Belial. This was a marathon, not a sprint, so I didn't double up. I could fight longer with just one form, and Belial was made for group fights.
Stepping forward, I started slowly whirling my staff to prepare for my attack, closing in on the slowly growing crowd of Wendigos as the other two spread out, taking advantage of the wide open space as best they could.
The first Wendigo attacked, and I slipped effortlessly past, tripping it with my staff as I continued the movement around to smash aside a knife clawed strike at my chest.
I lost myself in the flow of battle. I'd gotten so used to using my bag of endless tricks to win, I'd forgotten what it meant to use what I had to best effect. In this case, I was learning to parse a sense I hadn't done much with. My Danger Sense.
In the past, the sense had gone off like a storm siren during battle, making it useless for anything except warning about ambushed.
Now though, I was paying attention to the direction, intensity, and all the other miniscule bits of data I hadn't been able to process before. Much like I'd learned ro parse my Impact senses to tell how far someone was in their rank, focusing on my Danger Sense let me gather more intel from the battle.
An attack from behind, no, back and left, no back left and low. Step right and deflect downward following the arc. It was a heady sensation, being back in combat like this. Not a desperate race to try to destroy the enemy, but a chance to shake the rust off and rebalance my actual battle skills.
State of Grace gave me the speed and fluidity to act on my predictions, and since I wasn’t meeting strength with strength the Might difference didn’t matter as much.
I ducked under a dinner plate size hand, snapping my staff into the wrist, and watched as the corrosion seeped into the claw, using the Wendigo’s own attack to drive Belial’s corrupt energy into one of its fellows. I caught another on the backswing, hooking it around. I felt a line of hot pain on my thigh as my dodge was just a notch too slow to avoid a glancing blow, then dipped under a charge, taking out the Wendigo’s legs and letting its horns hit the one that had caught me.
First one, then five, then ten. I tore through them, or rather, they tore through each other, Belial’s control of the battlefield combining with my speed and prediction abilities perfectly.
Sadly, all good things must end, and after about twenty five of the bastards, I realized that I was starting to get overwhelmed. A missed step here, a failure to land a finisher there. The Wendigos were getting bigger and more dangerous too, apparently having burned their weakest on the first wave.
“Retreat!” I bellowed to my friends, triggering Moonlit Night. Fog filled the area, but I made sure to let sound penetrate as I slipped between several of the Wendigos to head for the entrance to the lower levels. Behy and Abel, to their credit, started making their way back as well, using the fog for cover, though they each took more than a few potshots at the confused Wendigos, trying to pad their numbers.
When we reached the stairs down, I made sure we made enough noise to lure them down the steps, though I left the fog in place even as we entered the more narrow corridor and they were funneled into a straight line as they approached.
“Fish in a barrel.” Grimaced Abel as he posted up next to me. “It’s not even fun at this point.”
Bethy nodded solemnly. “I usually like fish.” Her eyes widened in horror. “Wait, no, I mean, I’m not a cat!”
“To be fair, sometimes you’re a bunch of cats.” I said wryly. “What’s your thing with cats anyway? Like you seem to like them, but the few times I’ve heard you making cat puns by accident you get super weird about it.”
She sighed dramatically. “My mom likes cat puns a lot. I do it on accident sometimes, and it really freaks meow-t.” She flinched, slapping herself on both cheeks and shaking her head. “No! Bad Bethy! Don’t go into the darkness! Be cool like daddy!”
“Yeah.” I said with smirk. “Gotta nip that in bud. I have to say though, that’s quite a yarn. Are you sure you’re feline okay?”
“No stop” She wailed, covering her ears. “Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out!” She hurled herself forward, ears still covered, and slammed into the first advancing Wendigo with a brutal falling axe kick, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she attacked the enemy.
Abel laughed. “Should we stop her?” He said with a grin. “I mean it’s probably not safe to fight with two of your senses impaired like that.”
“Be my guest.” I said as my vampire friend demolished the first few Wendigos. “I’m not getting in her way. If she can’t see them she can’t see us. I don’t want to survive all this time in an occupation just to die with a platform heel shaped dent in my skull.” My face went grim. “Besides, we’ve taken a huge bite out of their forces. They should be running out of fodder any minute. Once the real fighters arrive, that’s when the retreat begins in earnest.”
“How far back until we hit the first blockade?” He asked casually. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t paying that much attention when you explained.”
I gestured behind us. “Around that first corner. “They’ll have to trail us, one of the first defensive measures was strengthening the stone here. No chance they can punch through it in a reasonable amount of time. They’re playing our game. Shit, wait, hold on.” I triggered Double Trouble, grabbing Bethy and bodily swinging her around to toss her toward Abel.
I’d been wrong, she hadn’t attacked me, implying she was much less impaired than we’d thought. She just yelled “Wheee!” As she sailed down the hallway, Abel catching her and turning to take off.
We could have just done that from the start, but putting up a fight and showing them the funnel made it seem like this was our whole plan. If we made it too clear this was a trap they might break pursuit. I triggered Double Trouble again, appearing just behind Abel as he turned the corner, and following him around the bend.
We leapt over the blockade, and as the horde of pursuers came around the bend, they got pinned down between our reinforcements and the traps on the wall across from the blockade itself, ten of them being torn apart in an instant.
I did some calculations. I’d taken twenty five or so, Abel about thirty and Bethy forty five, with the ten that had just gone down that was a hundred. Of course, they’d been the weakest hundred, but still, with only about seven hundred fifty E-rankers on world for Travis to tap, any evening of the odds was a win.
Based on my rough count, he’d sent two hundred fifty or so fighters, but only about fifty actual members of his crew. The other two hundred had been Wendigos. Something about that was bothering me. I suspected he might have some means of empowering them, because he was being way too liberal with their sacrifice, but that was a problem for another time.
While the reinforcements chipped away at them, I dropped the fog, letting them see me (their orders were to prioritize getting me above all else) and then we began the run and gun. Our fighting retreat ground down the monsters as we went, whittling down their numbers one by one, until we finally reached the central chamber.
In the middle of the room, a glowing circle sat below a rift in space. An escape portal (we’d kept costs down by having a pair of beacons that could be placed on either side) Benny was waiting there, with Chelsea next to him, her hands wreathed in a horrible black energy.
The twenty or so E-rankers we’d picked up along the way headed for the portal, and I saw the huge force of still living E-rank invaders enter the chamber. The fifty enemy Ascendants were all still alive, driving the Wendigos before them, and my sister unleashed a burst of Enshrining Darkness at them to drive them back as our people fled through the portal.
Once they were gone, I stepped up to the exit, smiling behind my mask at the small army of enemies. “Hey, if it’s not too much trouble, can you all deliver a message?”
The leader, a large man in blood red plate male, snorted, the sneer obvious in his voice. “Sure. Why not. Wherever that goes, you’ll be in our clutches soon enough. Go ahead and make things worse for yourself. Who should we deliver this ‘message’ to?”
I shrugged. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just do me a favor. When you get to hell, tell whoever is the highest ranking member of your forces down there that you guys really need to stop falling for this.” Chelsea vanished into the portal, and as I stepped through, I announced loudly. “Cascade!” The portal was already closed by the time the fortress imploded. Weirdly, I felt a lot less conflicted about the mass casualties this time. I guess practice makes perfect.
Comments
JJB4345_80_815
Thank you for the chappy! Friendly possible edit: Quote: Behy and Abel, to their credit, started making their way back as well, using the fog for cover, though they each took more than a few potshots at the confused Wendigos, trying to pad their numbers. Behy ==> Bethy
