Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 50: Preparing for Battle (Patreon)

Sam’s attention locked onto Krana as his thoughts raced, trying to figure out what could have scared a pack of Ivory Scale Pythons so badly that they’d fled from it rather than fighting. Whatever it was, it had to be more terrifying than they were, since the pythons had attacked them instantly.

He should have figured that getting out of the tunnels wouldn't be that easy.

“How far away is the first pack?” Jeric asked, moving forward next to Krana as he looked down the tunnel, searching for the enemies that were approaching. His eyes were narrow as he tried to assess the danger.

A moment later, Sam was there as well, his senses sweeping out through the tunnel ahead of him as he joined in on the search. The star on his hand was silent, which suggested there was no flaw nearby, and he couldn’t feel any sources of essence, but he didn’t know what the limits of the star were.

On the way here, Ayala’s party hadn’t encountered anything like this, which meant something had changed. The only thing he could think of was that the flaw had attracted something. If monsters were the remnants of Outsiders, they might still have an instinct to be drawn to essence, which had been radiating out from the flaw.

If that were true, it meant that any flaw was going to be a lure pulling monsters towards it, as if something in their souls were stirring them to return to the place from which they’d come. It made a flaw even more dangerous than they were already. The rest of the party crowded around, looking toward the Seer and then into the distance of the tunnels as an uneasy silence spread across the area.

He couldn’t feel anything in the tunnel except silence now that the pythons were dead, but his aura also only extended about forty feet. His range wasn’t anywhere near as effective as Krana’s. She could actually see into the distance, which meant they were going to have to rely on her for advance warning unless something with essence appeared. If anything like that got close enough, he should be able to sense it.

“It’s twenty miles away, or maybe a hair more,” Krana replied, her frown deepening. “It should be here within a day or two if it keeps up the current pace. I knew I had a bad feeling about those pythons. Whatever’s behind this movement, it’s definitely something we need to be cautious about. Beasts like these don’t scare easily, so it’s going to be something dangerous.”

“We can prepare an area to meet them,” Sam spoke up at last, breaking the tension as he tried to come up with a plan. “A series of barricades here. I’ll need a day or so to enchant Yeres and Lesat’s armor with some sort of barrier, and they’ll need to work on their ability to charge it.”

He’d discovered that most adventurers had some form of Mana Control, or at least a lesser skill known as Mana Infusion, which allowed them to use enchantments. He hadn’t asked if the guards did, but if not, they would have to figure it out. At the moment, they were the weak link in their group.

“A barricade is good. I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to avoid them,” she agreed, nodding slowly as she looked into the distance again. “There might also be more than one of the things at the back.”

“You said there was a cavern that these pythons were using?” Jeric turned towards Krana as he scanned over the tunnels, searching for where the pythons had been gathered. “Perhaps we can barricade it from the inside.”

“A small one, about a hundred feet ahead on the right,” Krana agreed as she gestured ahead. “It might be too small for our purposes. I’ll look for another.”

The silence of the tunnels echoed around all of them as a sense of danger thrilled across their spines. There was no good way to avoid what was coming. Even if they just tried to block off a cavern and stay out of the way, the monsters here were used to tunnels and could probably dig straight through the walls to get to them.

All they could do was try to prepare. This battle would be the judge of whether or not they made it out alive.

---

The cavern the pythons had been using was little more than a narrow cave that went back about a dozen feet into the stone. It wasn’t suitable for their defense, so they moved on to the next larger one that Krana could find, which was about an hour’s walk ahead of them.

When they got there, the opening was a broken gash in the wall to their right that led into a cavern about nearly ten times the size of the one that had held the mana pool and much taller. It was an oval that was easily two hundred feet deep, fifty across at the widest point, and about twenty feet from ground to ceiling. There were jagged stalactites hanging from the ceiling over one half, along with the usual luminescent mushrooms and lichen decorating the walls.

There was also an old beast lair on one side, filled with scattered bones and fur, and a thin rivulet of water that ran down the back wall. It was too small to be easily gathered, but it might provide some liquid if a beast were desperate. It looked like a tunnel boar or some other large animal had lived here, not too long before. Most likely, the pythons had eaten it.

As soon they were inside, Jeric and Krana began to divide up tasks, putting the guards and themselves to work as they started to plan how to fortify the area. After a moment, Ayala joined them, offering her Earth skills to create new walls and a maze.

“We’ll need a sort of maze to slow things down, with some traps, deadfalls, and escape routes,” Krana summarized as she looked at the area in front of them. As a dwarf, defending underground was something she was very familiar with. Even if she hadn’t done too much of it herself, she had grown up seeing dwarven defenses. The idea here was to slow down the monsters, to block them from reaching the party while killing them, and to have an escape route back to the tunnels if needed.

It would be easier if the monsters decided to just move on past, but that was unlikely. If they were chasing essence..., Sam frowned as he debated whether or not he should leave the group. Then he shook his head. His father, and Krana as well, would never allow it. At best, it would only break the group in half and make each half more vulnerable. Besides, he didn't know if the monsters were actually after him or not.

The best thing to do was to make this cavern as defensible as possible, and that meant he needed to get to work. Instead of feeling frightened by the oncoming battle, he felt excited. He could feel the desire to tear apart the challengers in his blood. After a moment, he pushed the thought aside. It was just an instinct to deal with, like any other, but it did help to put him in a more confident mood.

While the others started on the plan for the defenses, he turned to enchantment. There was a lot to do before the enemies arrived.

“Lesat,” he called out, as ideas started to run through his mind. “Let me see your armor.”

The guard came over and, after a moment, obediently removed his breastplate, shield, and sword, setting them down on a stone that Sam had chosen as a work table. It didn’t take Sam too long to measure them and to get an idea of how to proceed.

“I’ll need a couple of hours,” he announced, as he handed the sword back. “Leave these two here for now, and I’ll start working on them. I’ll do the sword after, if there’s time.”

He only had three auras left, and he didn’t plan on using any of them on the guards’ armor. Instead, he was going to add a simple, temporary enchantment for a mana barrier. It wouldn’t take him too long to engrave it, and if he infused most of his essence pool into it, it would have enough energy to last for a while, probably a couple of months.

There was a stark difference between his early enchanting efforts and his current skills. The idea of engraving a mana barrier as a defense would have baffled him once. Now, he recognized it as one of the simpler things he could do. It wasn’t much different than a spell scroll.

He was planning to use the same triple-linked spiral at the center as the amulets had, along with one containment circle. There was a lot of space on the shield and armor, which gave him a wide area to cover, but he couldn’t make it too big. The bigger he made it, the more mana it would hold and the stronger it would potentially be, but he doubted the guards had enough mana to charge something that covered all of it.

Instead, he’d make an enchantment diagram that was about two hands across. That should result in a decent barrier. He could even add some of the crystallized Earth mana that he had in a pouch, which should help to empower the enchantment. At the very least, it should make it last longer and turn the formation into something that could hold a charge of its own.

Ten points or twenty points maybe..., since the base material itself wasn’t magical. Whatever the result, it would be something to help keep the guards alive.

Without saying anything else, he sent Lesat back to help the others. Then he took a moment to scour the work table’s surface with his crystal flame and smooth it out, so that he could sketch on it. He set the armor to one side as he began to draw a diagram on the center of the table, his mind filling with runes that spiraled through his consciousness, striking bolts of crystal light from one another.

All around him, the cavern began to hum with activity and the slow thrummm of earthen walls rising from the ground.

---

The next day and a half passed in a blur of activity as the party readied the cavern for the oncoming assault. There was always a chance that the monsters would bypass them, even if it wasn’t very likely, so the first barricade was a simple stone wall that blocked the opening to the cavern. It was moderately reinforced, but thin enough that Ayala could remove it in an instant if needed.

None of them thought the monsters would do that though. It would be out of character for them. Whenever a wave of monsters attacked a village, they ripped through everything in sight. They even dug through the ground and tore everything they could find out of the cellars. Hiding from them was futile.

If someone was too weak to fight, the only thing they could do was run and try to put enough distance between them that the monsters wouldn’t bother. That was also why monster hordes were so dangerous. They left nothing behind, as if they had a vendetta against the entire world and wanted to consume it.

Which they did, based on everything Sam had put together so far about the history of Aster Fall. He shook his head as he looked down at the armor in front of him. He had finished with both breastplates now and he was adding the final touches on the two shields.

He had considered for a long time if there were anything around the cavern that he could enchant instead, which would help them more than this, but in the end he’d decided that there wasn’t. All of his enchantments were item-based, which meant he’d have to enchant individual stone spikes or maybe a single wall at best, and it would only eventually break.

Ayala’s earthen walls and his own Essence Shield were just as good and much more efficient overall, so there was no reason to waste the effort. If there were time, he might consider enchanting the final defensive wall, but it would still be a much larger project than what he was doing now. Regular stone didn’t take enchantments well, so he’d have to pour a great deal of crystallized Earth mana into it too, which would be a huge waste.

Instead of that, what he really needed to do was to try and create better weapons for everyone, some more armor for his father, or defensive artifacts. Some more grenades would be good too, but he’d have to change the pattern on them if he wanted to do that. The umbral fireball he’d made before had been incredibly unstable. It wasn’t something he wanted to store.

When these shields were done, the guards would be able to create two barriers for themselves. One would come from their breastplate, which was focused on magical defense, and the other would come from their shields, which were focused on physical defense. Everyone else already had mana shields of one type or another that did the same thing.

He took a break from infusing the shield in front of him to glance over at the enchantments on the breastplates that he’d completed earlier. The name that the World Law had given his work wasn’t anything complex, but making both of them had been enough to level his Enchanter profession to 17, and using the crystallized Earth mana as part of the runes had worked out better than he’d expected.

Breastplate of Earth Shield.

[Enchantment: Earth Shield (Advanced).

This enchantment is designed to deflect magical attacks. At will, the wearer can summon an Earth-aligned mana shield in a sphere around themselves. The pattern is inlaid with crystallized Earth mana, which helps it to hold an independent charge and raises the tier to Advanced.

Mana Charge: 25 / 25.

Estimated Duration: 2.5 months.]

The enchantments on the breastplate were designed around three runes connected in a three-armed spiral: one for mana, one for shield, and one for Earth, which gave it an elemental alignment to match the crystallized mana. They runes were surrounded by a binding circle that linked into the end of each spiral, which was itself filled with mana storage, stabilization, and activation runes.

This type of temporary enchantment was much simpler than his amulet or anything designed to operate on its own. Part of the binding circle around it simply linked it to the will of the person who activated it, which meant that it didn’t need anything complicated to tell it what to do.

It was simple and straightforward, even less complicated than the first spears he’d made. Those had been creative, resulting in more unique items and ones that had some elemental qualities of their own, as well as a more comprehensive runic pattern that covered the item and improved it in many ways, from durability to force.

His understanding of enchanting had improved a lot since then, allowing him to more quickly put down these enchantments, but they weren’t as efficient or as effective. They were basically enchantment patterns slapped down forcefully onto the items, and as a result they would probably create stress points across the armor or warp them over time.

He chose not to tell the guards about that, since he wasn’t sure it would happen, but he still felt slightly annoyed by having to create these items so quickly. He would rather have focused his attention on improving his craft, even if it resulted in slower experience.

The mana charge on the breastplates came from using the crystallized Earth mana, which he had melted into every rune when he engraved it, almost like a type of ink. It hadn’t taken him too much effort to pour his essence into it after that and to give it the initial charge. It should work to defend the guards against several attacks, however much 25 mana could do. It was quite a bit, so hopefully it would hold out for a while, even if it weren’t as strong as him using essence directly.

The shield he was working on now was similar, almost an exact copy except that the mana rune was replaced with force, which would help to focus the enchantment toward more physical attacks, even if it was still powered with mana.

It didn’t take him too much longer to finish the enchantment and to charge the runes. When he was done, a small surge of experience hit him, followed by the shield’s prompt.

Congratulations, Enchanter. You have created an Enchanted Item at the Advanced Tier.

You gain 2,700 Class experience.

A moment later, the description of the shield followed.

Shield of Earthen Defense.

[Enchantment: Earthen Shield (Advanced).

Mana Charge: 27 / 27.

This enchantment is designed to deflect physical attacks. At will, the wearer can summon an Earth-aligned physical shield in front of themselves. The pattern is inlaid with crystallized Earth mana, which helps it to hold an independent charge and raises the tier to Advanced.

Estimated Duration: 2.7 months.]

The description of this one was slightly different and it held two more points of mana, which Sam chalked up to his increasing practice and perhaps a bit more crystallized Earth mana. Unlike the other, this shield looked like it would create a wall-type barrier, or perhaps extend the edges of the shield into a physical defense. If his guess were right, both the magic and physical barriers would be a glowing, yellow shield similar to what Krana and Ayala could summon.

He nodded as he set the shield aside and moved on to the next one. If it gave him the same amount of experience, it should be just enough to level his Enchanter profession to 18.

---

A fortress of walls had formed in the front half of the cavern, creating a maze that blocked the path from the doorway. The walls of the maze rose up to the ceiling, closing as Sam turned to watch. The idea was to slow down anything coming through the entrance, hopefully confusing it. Their various perception abilities would let them sense what it was before it arrived, so they could prepare for it. Just on the exit to the maze, there was a wide-open killing field where a number of traps and drop pits had been constructed, all of them covered over at the moment.

The back half of the cavern, where Sam was working, had been turned into a more fortified structure with three layers of walls around it that were about twelve feet tall, including some walkways on the backside that acted as ramparts. There was enough room to fight from the top of each wall, and Ayala would be standing by to raise them the rest of the way. She had struggled to raise so many walls over the last day and a half, with many pauses to meditate and recover her mana, but she had managed it in the end.

“The first wave is nearly here,” Krana announced as she looked into the distance, her eyes shining with power. “It’s a group of Horned Water Lizards, all around level 15 to 25 again. That seems to be the average level of most adult monsters here. There’s only ten in this pack. About two hours behind them, there’s another wave of Grey Shard Stalkers, and that’s going to be a lot more difficult.”

“Grey Shard Stalkers?” Jeric spoke up before Sam could ask the same question, frowning. “What are those?”

“Think of...lizardmen, basically, about five to six feet tall,” Krana replied. “They’re a wide-spread monster race underground with classes that focus around hunting, archery, and stealth. They often use poison on their weapons. It looks like there are some Seekers with them as well, which will definitely have bows.”

“We’ll be ready for them,” Jeric replied, his knuckles turning white as he wrapped one fist into the other and squeezed. “Nothing else to do here except fight.”

His words were accompanied by the dour expressions of the two guards, but they only gave a slow nod of acknowledgement. Whether they liked it or not, they were trapped here and the only way out was to fight as hard as possible.

“Your armor is ready,” Sam announced, drawing the attention of Lesat and Yeres as he walked towards them. “Try it on.”

They looked at it with doubtful expressions as they accepted, but when they saw his encouraging nod, they started to put it on. They didn’t trust it yet, but they’d seen his amulet and some other work, so they didn’t hesitate much either.

Krana looked over to the guards, as they were working to buckle the armor back on and nodded. Then she turned to Ayala, a smile across her face.

“Did I ever tell you the story of the Siege of Torinfast?” she began, as she drew the girl’s attention, working to change the mood. “Arbalests the size of wagons lined the towers there, facing off against a horde of Ruby Inferno Scarabs that were even bigger. The battle went on for three weeks and left half of Runekeld’s farming caverns in ashes before the legions and the Battleguard managed to bring down the last of them....”

Her voice was calm and confident, speaking of victories of the past, as she drew the attention of everyone in the cavern. The guards couldn’t help but turn towards her, pulled by something in her voice, as illusory images began to fill the air above Krana’s hands, growing stronger and more vibrant as she spoke.

Krana smiled as she gestured more widely and the illusion became even more real, spreading across the air to fill half the cavern with vibrant colors, marking out the shining ruby forms of the scarab queens and the long lines of grey-armored dwarves.

There was no dwarven Skald present to sing the battle or sound the drums, but she wouldn’t be her father’s daughter if she let this battle start without something to stir their hearts.

Monsters had threatened Aster Fall for time beyond memory, from one Breaking to the next, but for now, the walls still held.