BT - Book 1 - Chapter 98 (Patreon)

“I expected more out of Westmarch.”  Jo glanced around the dreary rolling hills, unimpressed.  “Seriously, back in Basil’s Cove they constantly talked about how it was a massive fortress, the last bulwark between us and the Northern Wilds.  Here’s it’s just… a stone wall and a tower.”

Micah looked back at Westmarch.  The wall was almost twice his height with square guard towers every hundred paces, and the citadel at the center was tall enough that it must have been constructed by an earth mage.  Jo was certainly exaggerating things, but on the other hand, she wasn’t entirely wrong.  Westmarch was really just a wall around a small town and a tower.

Still, even at a distance he could make out some of the wards and enchantments inscribed in the wall.  It might not stop a warrior of the Khan’s level, but most of the inscriptions would flash fry a lower level blessed.

“It’s still plenty to stop the average Durgh raid,” Micah replied with a shrug, turning his eyes back to the road leading from the fortress toward the Great Depths.  The grass around the edges of the path was beaten down from repeated trampling and the track itself was rough and muddy from repeated use.

He frowned, chewing his lower lip.  They’d been watching the fortress for two days now, in between Micah enchanting a new item to get them past the guards, and at least once a day Westmarch had dispatched a heavily armored patrol in the direction of the Depths.

In that time, only one group had returned, armor torn and bleeding.  Jo had snuck closer, she wasn’t able to recognize any of the soldiers from a previous expedition.  Whatever was happening in the Depths, it apparently involved frequent well armed teams of blessed fighting something.

“But these are the Durgh.”  Jo huffed back.  “Sometimes they send out small raiding parties to test us, and other times they wash over the countryside like a horde of locusts.  If we actually wanted to stop them, Preston would build a chain of fortresses staffed with Knights and equipped with siege equipment.”

“Sounds expensive to me,” Micah replied, ears pricking up as a trumpet from the citadel announced the changing of the Westmarch guard.

“But Basil’s Cove pays so much in tariffs,” Jo complained.  “Why even have a trading hub on the coast if you’re going to leave it half undefended.”

“Never mind that.”  Micah raised a hand to cut her off before pointing at Westmarch’s empty walls.  “Guards are distracted.  We need to move.”

The two of them stood up, throwing off the grey green blanket they’d been hiding under.  Micah’s father had dyed the length of cloth based off of his descriptions, creating a mottled surface that almost perfectly resembled the rocky hills outside of Westmarch from a distance.

They began moving at a fast jog, covering the uneven scrubland at a quick pace.  Micah knew from experience that they would only have about five minutes before Westmarch’s defenders were back in place and watching the countryside, but that should be enough.

Jo and him had made it halfway during the last transition, and this burst should be enough for them to escape the tower’s easy lines of sight.  True, a patrol could still happen upon them, but at least they wouldn’t be spotted as they traversed the countryside.

As much as Jo complained about Westmarch, Micah suspected that those lines of sight were its real strength.  Any attacking army would be visible for ten to twenty minutes before they slowly marched into position, giving the defenders plenty of time to send word to Basil’s Cove.

Of course, there were ways around that.  A proper ritual formation could disrupt the tunnels that messengers used to travel through Elsewhere, spilling them into the dimension’s corrosive mists.  As best he could tell, that’s what the Durgh used in their first invasion.

Still, that meant sneaking around the fortress and setting up camp between it and Basil’s Cove, something that was almost impossible to do without being discovered.  Now that he had a couple years of experience, it was just such a stealthy march that Micah suspected of spawning the rumors about Durgh around Westmarch that led to his team being dispatched to investigate.

The two of them ran down the final big hill before the plateau that led up to the Great Depths.  Jo doubled over, heaving for breath while Micah checked their surroundings, ensuring that he couldn’t see any part of the Westmarch citadel.

“You doing all right there buddy?” He asked, a half smile on his face as he rubbed Jo’s back.

She glared back up him, but Micah struggled to take her seriously through her hacking coughs and desperate gasps for breath.

“You cheated,” she wheezed.  “You’re like nine levels higher than me and your class gives you points in body.  This is like bragging about outrunning a nine year old.”

“And I bet I could beat the crap out of that nine year old.”  Micah chuckled.  “Let me know when you’re ready, we still have about a half hour to the actual gateway, and then we’ll need to deal with the guards.”

“I’ll be all right in a minute or two.”  She straightened her body, chest still heaving rhythmically.  “It didn’t help that your casual jog is just about as fast as my all out sprint.  Those body points really start to add up after a while, don’t they?”

“They do.”  Micah nodded, his smile fading.  “The problem is that the Khan is over twice my level.  Even with a better class, fighting him is going to be a stretch without enough time to finish leveling up.”

“Cheat.”  Jo shrugged.

“Thanks for the advice.”  Micah rolled his eyes.  “I’ll get right on that.  How does one ‘cheat’ in a deathmatch with an entire army of honorable but violent high level blessed watching on?  I’m asking for a friend.”

“You’re taking a very Durgh approach to this.”  She crossed her arms, shaking her head at Micah like he was a misbehaving puppy.  “Honestly, how many of your problems could you solve with consumable enchantments and mana batteries?  Half of the noble wizards have a gem for each mana type that they can use as an emergency mana well.  Sure, it costs attunement to refill them, but if you’re about to fight a climactic battle with your life on the line, an extra five hundred mana might be what saves your life.”

He turned to Jo, ruminating over what she was saying as he tried to square it with his original plans for facing the Khan.  She ignored his pensive expression and kept talking, obviously trying to get something off of her chest.

“It’s the same thing with consumable enchantments.” Jo blew a shock of hair out of her eyes.  “You said it yourself when we were making the rod of sleep.  They don’t last long enough ‘to be cost effective,’ but they provide a tremendous amount of burst power.  If I were you, I’d spend every last point of attunement on mana batteries and talismans.  You might not win with style, but at least you’ll win.”

“Huh.”  Micah frowned.  Honestly, he wasn’t really sure why the concept hadn’t occurred to him.  Mana batteries and disposable enchantments made a ton of sense.  There was a finite limit to how much they could help a blessed, but the Khan was within reach.  It would be a near thing, but unless Luxos had found some way to empower the Durgh warrior, Micah would have a chance.

The fact that it hadn’t come up worried Micah.  The Luoca breaking free had been a bit of an epiphany.  He’d spent the entirety of this iteration convinced that he had the answers.  Reconvene the party, train them up to the appropriate level with the help of the daemon, and confront the Khan.

It had all seemed so simple because it WAS simple.  He was desperately searching for an easy answer to a problem that was almost impossible.  There was no good way to earn enough levels to fight the Khan, but it was absolutely stupid of him to ignore advice from his friends along the way.

Drekt had a point when he brought up the dangers posed by the daemon.  Jo had a point now when she brought up the possibility of leveraging his skills as an enchanter to even the odds.

That instinctive urge to dismiss them both, to claim ‘I’ve done this before, listen to me.’  That was the mistake.  Outside of Trevor behaving like a regular human being rather than the training golem that Micah was trying to morph him into, every misstep in this run had been Micah’s fault.

He had grown arrogant and inflexible, and it had almost cost him Esther.  Again.

Micah closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath as he tried to center his thoughts.  He knew exactly why he’d fallen into those patterns.  Even with the power to reverse time, from the moment he received his blessing, Micah’s life had been completely out of control.

Whether it was the unknown ambush of the Durgh, literal slavery to the Royal Knights, or the vaguely malevolent interference of the gods, someone else had always been the moving force in the direction that Micah’s life had taken.  Deep down, this iteration had been his attempt to undo all of that, to put himself in charge of what was happening to him.

Somewhere along the line, he’d let himself become the team’s taskmaster rather than its strategist.  He became so focused on his vision for the future that he never stopped to question his original plan, even when it was obviously in error.

“I think you’re onto something there.”  Micah agreed nodding slowly, his mind ruminating over the mini-epiphany.

“Sometimes you just get your mind set on something and never let it go.”  Jo laughed.  “Like that crazy wizard lardy.  I don’t know why you didn’t just set a trap for her once you realized she was hunting you.  A little poison at the right time could have solved anything, but you were obsessed with living linke monks out in the forest training, so that’s what we did.  I mean, it was kinda fun and all, but-”

He stared at Jo as she kept cheerfully babbling.  She was right.  About so many things.

“Jo.”  When Micah looked at her, she wore the same face of the young girl he’d loved, but she wasn’t the same person.  He’d spent years apart, pining for her, idolizing her.  There was no way that it was healthy.

“Mmmhm?” She replied, not really looking back at him.

“I don’t love you.”  The dread he’d been feeling over finally saying the words evaporated.  He’d known it for months, but something inside of him just didn’t let him say it.  As if stating the truth would be admitting defeat.

“Took you long enough.” She stuck her tongue out at him, but a softness had replaced her usual joking demeanor.  “You’re a sweet boy Micah, but you get inside your own head sometimes.”

“I loved a different version of you.”  She nodded along as he spoke the words slowly, tasting them as they rolled off of his tongue.  “I tried to force myself to find her in you, but when I look at you, all I see is a close friend.”

“Same.”  Jo smiled back warmly.  “I think I can see what my past selves saw in you Micah.  You’re witty, driven and handsome.  It’s just that you don’t know how to let go.  With you, everything has a place and a timetable, and you tear your hair out when things don’t go to schedule.  I can’t live like that, and I think you know it.”

“It’s what drove you away the first time.”  Micah’s heart gave a bittersweet flutter.  “You’d think I could take a hint.”

“I’m not sure it’s a hint if someone literally tells you it’s not going to work out.”  Jo chuckled, her eyes twinkling.

“Cut me some slack.”  Micah rolled his eyes.  “I’m trying to save the world or something.”

“Anyway,” he continued extending his hand to her.  “Friends?”

“Friends.”  She gripped his wrist and shook it.  Two quick pumps, and then her voice returned to its usual mischievous lilt.  “Now let’s go break into the Great Depths.  I want to try out this sleep beam you’ve made.”