Book 7 Chapters 22, 23, 24, 25 plus Map of the Southern Front (Patreon)

Small retcon... added more talk in previous two chapters about Carl not dispersing his Soul Energy.

Also, a bit of a cliffhanger.

This map is NOT to scale, and it is just of the battle of the Southern Campaign, the first major engagement of the war and of the battle that'll eventually become known as the Night of the Thousand Screams. 

Chapter 22

“The leeches are in place,” Colonel Boomer said, chomping on his unlit cigar. “Ready to pluck some cheese sticks.” I examined the man. He was a grizzled, old elf that had survived one of the earliest seasons of Dungeon Crawler World. He looked like someone had taken the world’s fattest bulldog, pickled it for about 5,000 years, gave him elf ears, and then shoved a cigar in his mouth. I would never have guessed he was an elf. He looked as solid as he was old. He had a voice to match.

Boomer. Elven Legate. Level 62.

Colonel in the Princess Posse.

This is a subordinate.

His class of “Legate” led to some confusion, but it allowed him to buff a large number of soldiers at once. According to Tipid, the old man had been an outspoken critic of the crawl for a very long time. He was a tenner, someone who’d bowed out on the 10th floor, and he’d survived as a merchant on the sixth floor for many, many seasons before finally escaping. He’d been banned from Crawl Con years ago after threatening to “Fist fuck” a female, orcish show runner to death during a panel. Porthus had publicly distanced himself from the militant, former crawler after that, but apparently, they’d been in close contact the whole time.

There was an active warrant for the old man’s arrest after a deadly, waystation bar brawl a few seasons back. A brawl that had started after an argument about the crawl. He’d killed someone and had disappeared into the ether. The man had become a legend after that.

Tipid had immediately put the old elf in charge of the 106th Bloody Leeches, and the soldiers all loved him. His weapons were a pair of war gauntlets similar to my Grull gauntlets.

Donut was oddly fascinated by the old elf. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and I had a running commentary in my chat from her.

Donut: HE LOOKS LIKE HE MIGHT STINK, BUT HE ACTUALLY SMELLS QUITE NICE. LIKE CEDAR MIXED WITH ACORNS. YOU KNOW, LIKE HOW A GIFTSHOP IN AN EXPENSIVE MOUNTAIN RETREAT WOULD SMELL. DO YOU THINK HE’D BE MAD IF I CALLED HIM ‘POPS?’ HE LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE WHO’D BE CALLED POPS. BOOMER DOESN’T FIT HIM AT ALL. BOOMER SOUNDS LIKE THE NAME OF SOMEONE WHO PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND NOW SELLS ALUMINUM SIDING. DO YOU THINK HE EVER LIGHTS THAT DISGUSTING CIGAR? BECAUSE THAT WOULD JUST RUIN IT.

She was nervous about the upcoming assault, and I just let her go on and on as we looked over the map.

The entrance corridor in and out of the Naga territory was relatively flat, but it gave way to a few small hills on the Naga side, just south of their own trenches.

“Their trenches are here,” Tran said, drawing the line on the map. He pointed to the hills. “According to Elle, the Dream’s artillery batteries are here. They have approximately 40 of the big trebuchets set up and dozens of the small ones. The big ones can hit anywhere in our territory and are what have been pounding our base. The smaller, more mobile trebuchets have less range but are still deadly and are what have been hitting our trenches.” To accent the point, we all ducked as a rock smashed just above our position, the sound like a car crash. The pounding was constant, designed to exhaust our mages. “I still don’t understand why they can have these things, but we can’t.”

Victory was also in the room. She crossed her arms. “As I’ve explained to you all a dozen times now, you can build as many catapults and trebuchets and ballista as you want. Manual-load, immobile, non-chemical war machines don’t count as armor. You are wasting your armor slots on those barely-mobile flame throwers you call spider tanks.”

“The spider tanks are only temporary,” I said. Another pang of pain rushed through my stomach. I tried to ignore it. “Three mages can build the parts in like twenty minutes, and they can be assembled in five or ten. We were going to buy some better stuff, but everything kicked off too quickly. They’re good for point defense.”

Victory grunted. “They’re good for exploding, too.”

Colonel Boomer leaned over the map, examining all the marks. Two of the trebuchet positions were circled with “Anti-air?” written on them.

“Most of those pasty cousin fuckers from the Dream are cowards,” Boomer said. “At least the ones with the bombardier class. Those are the guys who hump a desk when they’re not in here playing genocide. They’ll run if we get close to their chuckers. They’ll have ‘em surrounded with traps, too, so we gotta be careful. Your spy says they have cavalry in the area? Those are the cheese sticks you really gotta look out for, especially now the Epitome household guard is in here with us. The Epitome family ain’t stupid. Their security forces are all veterans of non-dungeon conflicts and are tough as gristle. Dunno if they’d toss ‘em to the front this early. Epitome Tagg likes to fight near the front, but he usually doesn’t have his honor guard in here with him. He’ll be with them, and they won’t be hiding. Speaking of cheese sticks. He wears the most ridiculous helmet you’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” Donut asked.

Tran nodded. “They do have mounts. There’s 50 of the zebras, but it looks like the riders are all mercenaries, not the Dream household guard.” He tapped a hill further south of the artillery on the map. “Elle thinks they’re in reserve in case we break through. Not too many of the actual elves in the area that we’ve seen. Just a few running the larger trebuchets. And they have twenty tanks sitting idle here.” He patted another spot on the map.

“They haven’t moved since they were uncovered,” I said. “I wonder if they’re decoys like our illusionary Party Planner. Elle said she would take a closer look, but I told her to stay back.”

These tanks, if they were real, were considered armor, and they were all WWI style troop carriers with various turrets Tran said, “In addition to the several thousand NPCs and mercenaries they have filling the trenches, Elle. These were all owned and operated by a mishmash of the Bloc allies. I suspected if they were real, they were the same as our Spider Tanks. Temporary pieces of crap that would serve a purpose until they were either disassembled or blown to hell.

“And finally,” says she saw at least 100 of the Madness go invisible and disappear, so they could be anywhere. Likely sneaking in right now.”

“They all in robes and masks?” Colonel Boomer asked.

“That’s what she says,” Tran said.

“There probably ain’t that many of the real viceroys in here,” Boomer said, chewing on his cigar. “Probably a bunch o’ the regular cheese sticks wearing the robes. Still, we need to find those creepy fucks. The ones that go invisible and sneak in are called the Monkeywrenchers. A few seasons back, a group of 20 of them single-handedly took the Dreadnaught and Naga castles during the first few hours. The Madness as a whole looks like a particularly strong contender this season. They bought up all the war mage mercenaries before Carl here stuck his finger in the monkey’s bum.” The old elf turned his head and spit on the floor. Rend waddled over and started licking at the spittle before I could admonish him.

I had no idea where the term “Cheese Stick” had originated, but it had spread through the army like wildfire. It’s what everyone called the enemy soldiers. I’d seen a few “Fuck the Cheese Sticks” tattoos already.

Boomer ran a finger along the line of enemy trenches on the map. “Hmmm. These positions are less protected than what they got in the north. Are we sure they’re still set up like this?”

“Elle eyeballed them just a few minutes ago,” I said.

Both sides had fallback trenches. Ours were all connected with tunnels we could collapse on demand. The other side had a set of three trenches, each one about 100 meters behind the previous. If there were tunnels between the three trench systems, we weren’t aware of them, and in the past, they’d never bothered with tunnels. If they had to retreat, they’d have to pop up and withdraw over open land before they could jump into their fallback positions.

Do we have a good idea of who’s in the trenches?” Boomer asked.

Tran nodded. “Enemy fallback position three looks to be their officers and hospital corp. Trench two is mostly empty, but it has a few guards. Everyone else is in the first trench system, which isn’t anything like ours. It’s just a straight line with a few bunks. It’s manned solely by NPCs and mercenaries as far as we can tell. No inner circle officers from any of the teams. Most of the banners are Naga and Prism. It might be all of the Prism based on the numbers. There’s more of them than of the Naga infantry.”

Empress D’Nadia’s territory was just south of the Nagas, in spot number five, so it made sense she’d commit most of her force between us and her headquarters. But that also made me worry about where the rest of the Nagas were hiding.

Tran continued. “A smaller portion of Madness troops are also present, but the Madness mercs are really from the Lemig team they just took over. No orcs. No Operatics. Only a few Reavers, and those were the ones with the pets.”

I knew on the northern front, they faced more than twice as many enemies. This map in front of us now focused on the southern campaign, but it still had the northern line on it. I tapped it. “Florin and Katia say they’re mostly fighting the orcs, the blobs, the Dream regulars, and more of the Madness along with a smattering of the others. So it looks like we have accounting of most everybody’s forces except the Reavers and some of the Naga team.”

“The Reavers are the ones with the flying machines usually, so we gotta be on the lookout,” Boomer said, pointing up in the air with his cigar. “Speaking of, where’s our boy?”

“He’s here,” I said, pointing at the woods. “He’s on the ground now, hidden in the middle of nowhere. He’s not gonna remain hidden for long, which is why we gotta get moving. We ready?”

“My boys and girls all had their breakfast and are ready to tear it up,” Boomer said. “We’re just waiting for the ‘go’ order.” He eyed Tran. “Your magic slingers ready for this?”

Tran nodded. His metallic crab legs moved up and down, telegraphing how nervous Tran was.

“And the NPC team?” Boomer asked.

Carl: Britney. We’re almost ready. Are your guys in place?

Britney: They’re ready. Waiting on you.

I wasn’t exactly when and how this happened, but Britney had pretty much become our main liaison with the NPCs. Originally, we were hoping to use one of their massive diggers for this, but the geography of the Naga territory made this difficult. So instead, we were using just a pair of changeling spies. We couldn’t talk to them directly, so instead everything had to filter from me to Britney to either Juice Box or Arief of the Semeru.

I slid my finger across the map. From the border to the Blood Sultanate castle, it was just about eight miles. According to Juice Box, the Nagas had deliberately built their castle on rocky ground to stop anyone from tunneling in from below. Still, their headquarters was built strangely close to the edge of Shanty Town, unlike everyone else who’d placed themselves equidistant from all borders. On my shoulder, Donut had gone stiff. She, too, was looking at the Naga headquarters. I reached up and gave her pat.

Historically, despite their protections, this Naga castle was almost always the first to fall. But every single time, by the time the invaders reached the Whore’s inner sanctum, the leader of the naga would be gone. The team would still lose because they’d lost their throne room, but the naga leader had never been captured or assassinated. Not once since the Sultana took over. She’d disappear and reappear at the end, laughing and joking with everyone else, having stayed hidden the whole time. Nobody knew the secret as to where she’d hide herself during the majority of the conflict or what she was doing.

If we wanted to get to her, we’d have to be very careful with how we did it.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

Boomer produced a lighter and lit his cigar. He took a long, single puff that seemed to go on forever. He let out a long stream of smoke that filled the room.

“Fuck yeah,” he said.

Chapter 23

<Note added by Crawler Ossie, 18th Edition>

If you want to create fright amongst an otherwise stalwart enemy, confusion is always the key.

~

We stood in the trench, Dong Quixote to my left, Holger to my right, and Donut on my shoulder as mages heaped protection spells on our group. Across from us, the spine of dirt that had protected us from the rot sticker attack was slowly, slowly getting eroded away by the enemy artillery. We could have the mages fix it, but we needed it worn down for our assault, and we needed it kept down should we have to retreat.

You have been Titivated. Projectiles do less damage.

I had never had this many stacked shields on me at once. I had Rend in his carrier because he was too slow. Mongo was out and tense, ready.

Imani dropped into the trench, landing next to me. Donut, still on my shoulder, gave her a headbutt as Mongo let out a screech.

“I didn’t think you’d get here in time,” I said as she spread her ethereal wings out. The wisps filled the tight channel, glowing as a new line of buffs added themselves to the pile. All around me, people sighed with pleasure at the warm feeling of calm that washed over us. I felt the rush of power.

“Now that’s something,” Holger said. He was in beaver form. “Ain’t never felt a buff like that before.”

“I was buffing people down the line,” Imani said. “And before that, I was helping with the trebuchet. I buffed the guy aiming the thing. He’s ready to go.”

We only had one trebuchet of our own. It was one of the smaller ones. Donut and I had looted it on the sixth floor from some Dream elves. The original plan was to have more of the weapons, but the confusion about whether we’d be allowed to even build these mixed with the early end to the ceasefire had led to us only having one. The weapon was loaded with about 50 contraptions called Dazzlers, and they had a pile of almost 200 of them sitting nearby. They were basically a combination of an alarm and a spotlight trap. They would only shine toward the eyes of the closest enemy soldier, strobing powerful beams of multi-colored light right into their faces. And they’d all play the same song at the same time. It was one of the few types of trap modules Victory would allow us to load into the trebuchets.

Speaking of the adjutant, she cracked into existence just behind us, like I’d summoned her with my thoughts. I was finally getting used to the orc’s constant comings and goings.

But this time, she wasn’t alone. Mongo squawked in surprise and would’ve lunged if a quick shout from Donut hadn’t stopped him. It was Drick.

The sight of the Dream elf adjutant for the NPC team suddenly appearing in our trenches caused a few moments of bedlam until I shouted everyone down.

The wormhead held up a hand in greeting, smiling sheepishly at the chaos his appearance caused. “Sorry, folks. Since Team Retribution is taking a small part in this assault, I’ve decided to come watch from the best position.”

“You won’t see anything from here,” I said.

The elf shrugged. “If you prefer I zap to their side and warn them something is about to happen, I can do that instead if you’d prefer.”

I was about to say something else, but I held up my hand as the message came in. I turned back to the periscope screen.

Louis: We see the target, lowering for the bombing run now.

Carl: Not too low. In and out. Get into the fog as soon as you drop.

Elle: They don’t see him yet. Man, I wish I could cast my Graupel spell.

Carl: You’re up, Elle. And for god’s sake, keep moving.

Elle: I have the first anti-air gun targeted. I hope this missile launcher of yours works as advertised, Carl. Firing the moment Louis drops.

Carl: Britney, send ‘em in.

Britney: You have incoming.

I patted Donut. “You ready?”

Donut nodded. Imani reached over and cast a spell. A bubble appeared around Donut’s head, similar to a Desperado Club privacy shell. Imani had it as a spell, but Mordecai had also mass-made a potion that did the same thing. The potion was simple enough that he’d managed to make gallons of the stuff with his cauldron attachment at his upgraded table. Still, there wasn’t enough for all of us, so those of us with regular ears had to use old-fashioned earplugs that were enchanted with a buff ominously called This Thingy Works Slightly Better Than It’s Supposed To.

Imani reached down and patted Mongo, and she cast the spell on the dinosaur as well.

The spell was called Total Ear Protection.

“Do it,” I said.

“WHAT?” Donut asked, shouting. “OH, OKAY.”

General Donut: OKAY EVERYONE. AS SOON AS THAT FIRST BOMB DROPS, TAKE THE EAR POTION OR PUT IN YOUR EARPLUGS. WE MOVE TO CHAT. DRINK THE INVISIBILITY POTION WHEN YOU CAN, THE MAGES WILL CAST OBFUSCATION ON US, AND WE GO UP AND OVER. DON’T STOP RUNNING UNTIL YOU’RE IN THEIR TRENCHES. THE SOLDIER WHO BRINGS ME THE MOST DEAD CHEESE STICKS GETS A PRIZE. I BELIEVE IN ALL OF YOU.

“A prize?” I asked as I continued to peer through the periscope, waiting for the first explosion.

“WHAT?” Donut asked.

Carl: A prize?

“YES, CARL. SOME OF THE VETERANS WERE TELLING ME WHEN THEY WERE CONSCRIPTED DURING THE LAST TIME THEY FOUGHT IN FACTION WARS, THE OFFICERS WERE ALWAYS THREATENING THEM WHEN THEY GAVE ORDERS. WELL, MY ARMY IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT IS A VERY GOOD MOTIVATOR. IT WORKED WITH MONGO, AND IT’S GOING TO WORK HERE.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if you still think that in a few hours,” I muttered as I continued to watch. Come on, Louis.

I couldn’t see anything. Roiling clouds filled No Man’s Land, hugging the ground. And above, a low ceiling of black clouds hung heavy over our heads, giving the impression that we were getting crushed from above. Night was falling, and it would soon be dark, which was good for our plans. Still, the clouds occasionally gave way to rocks that whistled through the air as they landed around our positions. Only some of the rocks were explosive, or contained fog, or poison, or a hundred other things that weren’t “offensive” magic or magic at all. A strange, ozone-like scent filled the air as it was filtered out by one of the hundreds of concurrent protection spells.

The plan had many parts, but each individual component was simple and straightforward. Most every soldier only had a single objective. The failure of one part did not mean the rest of the plan would fail.

I hoped.

The assault part of this plan had not come from me, but was one of many contingencies that Tipid and Rosetta had brought with them from the outside, which was part of the reason why we’d been able to put this together so smoothly. It was only the second part that I’d planned out. Me, Donut, Katia, Imani, Elle, and Mordecai had put it together with some input from Baroness Victory. Katia wouldn’t be actively participating since she was needed on the other front, and I found myself missing her dearly. I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since we’d separated from the dreamworld.

The enemy was expecting us to defend and try to hold out for a full week because we would be much stronger once the offensive magic ban was lifted. Their plan, meanwhile, was to soften us up with their artillery and try to overwhelm us as quickly as they could. They would soon push in on us with their full might, probably from the north and south at the same time. If they could breach and get in now, they would easily sweep in to victory.

Bam! The first, distant explosion wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough to crack across the battlefield, the concussion slapping me right in the chest.

The bombs were strong, but their main purpose wasn’t to simply blow stuff up. The enemy trenches, while not as protected as ours, were still covered with layers of anti-explosive fortifications. The bombs Louis dropped were not targeting the enemy trenches. Instead, Louis was aiming the Party Planner in a straight line right in front of their position. The bombs would do three things. One, they’d leave a deep crater in the unprotected land just in front of their trenches; two, they’d shower dirt over the defenders, which their mages would have to clear off; and three, the bombs would clear any traps and protection enhancements set up right there in front of the enemy line.

I gave Donut a quick pat and then a thumbs up.

General Donut: GO, GO, GO!

Multiple things happened at once.

“For the Posse!” a veteran to my left shouted. He downed an Invisibility potion as he launched himself up and over the trench.

“Fuck the cheese sticks” someone else yelled as they, too, propelled themselves onto No Man’s Land before disappearing.

A second, then a third, then a fourth explosion walked its way across the enemy lines. I couldn’t see the detonations through the fog, but I could hear them, and I could feel them in the ground.

At the same moment, Elle reported she’d hit the first anti-air battery with a missile, but there was a protection spell around it. Still, the device had fallen over and hopefully would be unable to fire for some time. She would now be moving to the second one.

Our one and only trebuchet fired its first of four salvos, spreading the Dazzlers in and around the middle section of Louis’s craters.

The announcement came, louder than I was expecting. Much louder, even this far away. Justice Light’s tips on enhancing these things really worked. And there were 50 of them so far. I slipped my earplugs in.

They barely helped.

Peaking at Number 3 on June 20, 2020 – Wait, really? Huh. – Anyway, Peaking at Number 3 on June 20, 2020, despite first coming out in 1992, It’s “Killing in the Name Of.”

The Rage Against the Machine Song echoed, powerfully loud, literally shaking the ground louder than the explosions.

Anyone within a few hundred meters of the things would experience immediate, painful hearing damage. Combined with the flashing lights, it wasn’t going to be fun for anyone in those trenches.

Britney: Enemy spies are reporting that they have breached the second trench.

Louis: Holy shit that was scary. I got hit with a few spells, but the shields held. Circling around to the rendezvous.

All around, people screamed as they continued to pull themselves up and over the trenches. Flashing lights filled the dark as pulse rifles fired into the dark, mostly bouncing up and off various shields.

I downed the Invisibility potion just as Donut did the same. I smashed another Invisibility against Mongo’s backside as Donut jumped onto Mongo’s back. Despite the invisibility, she glittered with all the shields and protection spells. Thankfully, we had several illusionists with us who were also casting spells, making illusionary doubles of everyone, along with a few illusionary war machine tanks, so to focus their fire.

Our squad was to wait a few moments before we went up and over. Our objective was not the trenches. We had to slip past them in the chaos.

Carl: You scared?

Donut: Of course I am, Carl. But I think I’m used to it now. It’s more numb than anything. I think nowadays it hits me more when it’s done than when it’s happening.

A strange swell of sadness hit me. I wanted to pat her, but my own hand was trembling too much.

Carl: We’re up. Stay next to me, and keep your shield up.

Donut, still astride Mongo, leapt up over the edge, followed by Imani.

I put my hand on the handhold built into the top part of the trench. I felt myself shouting, and I didn’t even know what I was saying. I pulled myself up and over into No Man’s Land, joining over two thousand members of the Princess Posse as we engaged our first head-on assault into enemy fire.

Chapter 24

Chaos.

I couldn’t see more than two or three feet in front of me. The music blared, painfully loud despite the earplugs. Lights strobed everywhere, and even though none were pointed directly at me, it still made my stomach lurch. Donut and Mongo’s dot was just to my right. I couldn’t see them. Dong and Holger had veered off in the dark, combining with a group to our left. It was like a dream, one where you ran and ran, but you didn’t move.

I came to the remnants of the dirt spine from the rot sticker defense, and I scrambled over it. We had to watch out for the corpses, as they could still be dangerous.

Plink. Plink.

Each sound was a casualty notification for the current battle. Each notification was like a stab right in my chest.

The flat land had turned into a wasteland. Rocks littered the battlefield. The gleam of resistant traps glittered, undisturbed by all of this. They were all ours. Pulse lights occasionally ripped from the enemy side, cutting through the fog like scythes. One sparked against the edge of my shield, and it would’ve taken half of my head off if I hadn’t been so wrapped in protection. I caught glimpse of the translucent form of Imani to my left, stopped, hovering over a veteran who screamed, his arm now gone.

Don’t stop running. Don’t stop running.

Plink, plink, plink, plink.

A group of poison-infused rocks crashed around us, cracking, breaking, rolling, trailing fumes. The smoke took on a green hue. Shrapnel showered. The shrapnel pinged against my shields like fireflies.

I thought of my grandparent’s house in Texas. They had fireflies there, and we didn’t have any in Washington. Why would I think of that now?

Plink. Plink.

I ran. I ran.

Thwoom. Thwoom. New, orange-tinged explosions rippled all around us. I couldn’t hear the strange detonations, but I felt them in my chest. Grenades. These were of some high-tech variety I’d never seen before. They were tossing them at the tanks. The tanks which didn’t really exist.

My stomach lurched with pain. I physically staggered. For a moment, I thought I’d been hit. It was the soul poisoning. Almost there. Almost there.

Crack! A big fireworks exploded in the air above us, again more felt than heard.

For a moment, everything cleared. It was a magic diffusion spell. A big one.

You’ve been Deshrouded. Your War Protections are gone! Like, all of them!

All the illusions disappeared. The smoke dissipated. Everyone was visible. All of our temporary protection spells snapped off, including the ear protection.

The lights and music from the Dazzlers spells did not turn off.

To my right, Donut and Mongo both appeared to be screaming with pain. Mongo reared up at the sound.

For just a flash of a moment, we had a non-obscured view across the dimly-lit battlefield. I could see them, right in front of us, closer than I expected. Most of the enemy line looked as if it was a dirt mound. It was still covered with the dirt from Louis’s bombs. But there were some clear spaces, and in these spaces, I could see them. Bugbears, gnolls, dreadnaughts, humans, nagas, saccathians, and dozens of other aliens, mixed in with dungeon-born NPCs. I could tell the difference easily, as the mercenaries all held guns. They wore armor that glowed with electric light. They were out of place here, in this world. The NPCs were armed with bows and spears. They were covered with furs and armor.

Not all were facing us, as several had turned away from the painfully-bright light. Very few actually had their weapons up. Most had their hands over their ears or their eyes.

Still, in that moment, I could see a few with full helmets, undisturbed by the lights and the music. They held steady as they fired directly at us, the lights of their weapons punching directly into the onrushers. A group of three directly in front of us had what looked like a large, .50 caliber heavy machine gun, and it shot a constant, whipping stream of light in our direction, cutting through us like chaff.

Grenades and missiles also streaked in our direction, exploding up and down our assault.

Plink. Plink. Plink. The sound had turned into one constant hum, and I had to mute it.

I shouldered to my right, knocking Mongo and Donut behind a rock as I also hit the deck as the heavy pulse gun arced past our position, silently ripping and sheering through boulders. Burning heat flashed over as us we ducked.

I pulled a full-strength hoblobber, and I tossed it in the direction of the heavy gun. I saw a flash, but I received no experience notification. Still, the gun stopped firing. I patted Mongo on the top of the tail.

Both sides were refilling the area with more smoke, and my view of the enemy trench faded away. even as I continued to rush toward it, dodging rocks, and now, bodies.

Imani was suddenly beside me, flying a foot off the ground. Donut’s ear protection reappeared, followed by Mongo’s. Donut was shouting something I couldn’t hear, but I saw the tell-take glow as she healed the pet. Imani disappeared into the fray, angling toward a fallen soldier.

I tossed a Troll Smoke Mantle in front of us, in the direction of the gun. We had no idea how long it would be down. Illusions started reappearing around us. Buffs started stacking. Debuffs also started to appear and disappear from my list. My Emberus burned.

General Carl: Go. Forward!

I hadn’t meant to send that in the war chat, but to Donut. The message flashed across everyone’s screens. They complied. I returned to my full height, and I ran.

Seconds after standing, a bolt crashed into my shoulder like a sledge hammer. My tech shield fizzled out. The next hit would take me down. I hadn’t re-taken my Invisibility. I kept running.

Your Soul Poisoning is worsening. You will now suffer from Post Coital Blues.

What the hell does that mean?

Far to my right, another rock hit the ground and rolled, flaming though the smoke. Screams. This was a new type of weapon. More flaming rocks spun toward us. I swerved as the rock blurred in my vision, disappearing into the smoke.

Colonel Boomer: Hitting the craters.

General Carl: Do it!

The moment after I sent the command, the ground under me gave way, and we fell into the wide crater in front of the trenches. Mongo landed deftly next to me. Imani landed to my left. The rest of our squad was scattered. Imani had two soldiers over each shoulder, and she dropped them heavily. One was dead. A Crest veteran. The other, a crawler woman with arm blades was at 2% health and was unconscious.

We were not protected in these craters. We were going to have grenades raining on us at any moment.

I clicked from Full Assault Band to Near Proximity Band in the war chat.

General Carl: Keep Back. Reading the scroll.

I pulled up the scroll, and I clicked on it. This took about 10 seconds to work. A translucent line appeared, along with a map in my interface.

Build Trench has activated. I turned the line 90 degrees so it intersected with the existing enemy trench, making a T symbol. My hands shook, and my stomach lurched, again, with pain.

This Trench intersects with an existing trench. Do you wish to enjoin?

I clicked Yes.

Warning: Your elevation is lower than the existing trench. Do you wish to proceed?

I clicked Yes, and then Dig.

A channel appeared right in front of me. And at the end of the passage, a Saccathian soldier slammed into the ground, not twenty feet in front of us. The soldier, who had just been standing, facing north, suddenly had the ground underneath him disappear. His helmet cracked in the fall, and his rifle went flying.

The enemies did not build their trenches as deep or as wide as we did. That made sense, since despite their head start, they’d had to dig these manually.

All around me, in other craters, soldiers were now using their Build Trench scrolls to do the same, building entrances into the enemy trenches, enjoining the tunnels and thus passing right through most of the protections.

This was a long-existing exploit with the Build Trench scroll. The scrolls were craft magic, so it pretty much ignored most protections, as they weren’t meant to be used offensively. The scroll didn’t care who was casting it. According to Tipid, this was something that had been pointed out years and years ago, but it had never been fixed. Just one of thousands of possible exploits that the viewers liked to talk about on the galactic internet. The Build Trench scrolls, despite being handed out like candy to us crawlers during the last floor, were rarely used by the Faction Wars participants because they were expensive, and as such, possible exploits were rarely used since there were dozens of other, more spectacular ways to break into trenches.

A trap module, already blasting the music landed in the crater with us, and it rolled to a stop, facing the Saccathian. The squid-faced soldier had torn his shattered helmet off, and he had his tentacles up, trying to cover both his ear holes and his eyes as he writhed on the ground. The light was so bright, his wet, dolphin-like skin started to smoke.

I grinned at the Saccathian soldier as red dots appeared all around on my map. These were soldiers running to protect the dozens of new breaches in their defenses.

I activated Daughter’s Kiss on my right foot.

General Carl: Take cover, folks.

I ran toward the struggling soldier, I jumped into the air, and I landed hard onto the enemy’s chest.

Chapter 25

Donut: CARL, CARL GET UP. IT’S WORKING. THEY’RE RUNNING.

I coughed, shaking my head. What had happened? I’d conked out the second I’d killed the guy. My interface was a wall of notifications. I’d gone unconscious, but not for too long. Maybe twenty, thirty seconds.

I’d gone up a level. I had another message, something I’d been expecting for a while now, but I put it aside for the moment. Donut was going to be pissed the moment I chose my next stat point. I scrolled messages.

“What happened?” I asked before I realized nobody could hear me.

Mongo stood next to me, completely covered in dirt. Donut sat astride the dinosaur’s back, also covered in mud and blood. Happy shouting and cheers filled the battle chat, but I still couldn’t see or hear anything. Smoke was everywhere. All of our guard were missing from the area, but a quick check of the roster showed they were still alive. I blinked at Dong Quixote’s level. He’d gone from 45 to 51. As I watched, it blinked up another spot.

Carl: What happened?

Imani: The second you did that attack, you had a notification called Post Nut Clarity. You were out for 25 seconds. You buried us in dirt. Don’t do that again when we’re that close. We gotta move. You blew apart their trench. Now’s our chance.

Carl: What the hell?

I looked around. We were surrounded by dead enemies. Any semblance of order was gone. The third or fourth salvo of Dazzlers soared over our heads, landing, as planned, between the first, now-captured trench and the enemy’s fall-back position. For a moment I thought my earplugs were working better, but I knew from experience, what was really happening. My hearing was shot and wouldn’t repair itself until we were out of range of the music.

The Post Nut Clarity was, apparently, a debuff from my soul poisoning that knocked me out once I activated my Daughter’s Kiss. That was dangerous as fuck. I needed to make certain I used the skill from now on before the debuff activated. I pulled myself up.

Elle: The second anti-air battery is down! Louis, hurry your ass up! The first one is almost back up. I’m running my ass off. They have a pair of mages on my ass.

Imani: Get the hell out of there!

I moved to the warlord menu.

The command of this assault has been transferred to Colonel Boomer.

Colonel Boomer: Quit yer celebrating, all. Nobody fights harder than someone that’s trapped. Only a few of them will be dumb enough to jump into that second trench. I need you to form up. Don’t push too hard. We don’t want them surrendering. We want them thinking it’s a stalemate. Generals, you guys have maybe a half of an hour before they either escape or we gotta kill all of them.

Louis: I’m landing now at the rendezvous.

Carl: We’re heading toward your position now. Give us thirty seconds.

We turned away from the fight and started jogging back north, headed the way we’d come just as Party Planner appeared on the map. It landed awkwardly on the ground as we rushed up.

I blinked at the sight of Bonnie the gnome standing at a position behind a door gun. The tiny gnome girl wore an oversized Dallas Cowboys jersey and a helmet much too big for her as she stood behind the giant gun, which appeared to be a belt-fed ballista hybrid.

Carl: Louis, what the hell? I told you not to let the kids onto this thing! How is she even here?

Louis: Talk to Donut. She’s the one who let Bonnie take the last scout spot while you were doing your dream therapy.

Donut: SHE’S OLDER THAN I AM, CARL.

Bonnie gave me a salute as Donut jumped into the air vehicle.

I just shook my head and turned to Imani. She wasn’t coming with us. She was tasked with saving as many injured as she could.

I put my hand on her shoulder. The thin woman and I held eyes for a moment. She nodded before she turned back to the battlefield. We didn’t exchange any messages beyond that.

I pulled myself into the low-ceilinged aircraft. Mongo hesitated, but he jumped up after I unleashed Rend into the passenger compartment.

Louis: Hang on, folks. We are going to move to full speed and then we’ll hit the deck. We’ll be at the enemy castle before they know what hit ‘em. Elle says our path is clear of anti-air guns, but we’ll see. I’ll shout if we have to do some evasive maneuvers.

As we rose into the air, we moved through a thick, choking cloud of smoke. It was fully dark outside now. As we hovered over the broken and surrendered enemy trench, I could see nothing but smoke and more flashing lights on the ground where our soldiers held the fleeing enemy in place. We didn’t have long before they built a retreat back into the third trench. We needed to hurry this up. I sent one last message to the assault message group.

General Carl: Break them all.

~

Party Planner flew fast and low. Our target was just under thirty miles away, and we had to take a very specific path to make it there. We rode in silence. I was keeping tabs with both Colonel Boomer and Florin, but mostly I watched Donut, who didn’t appear to be speaking with anyone. She sat against the wall of the fuselage, her eyes closed. Mongo lay on the floor next to her, cramped against the now-empty bomb racks. Donut appeared to be asleep, but I could tell she wasn’t.

Louis’s crew was himself, Bonnie, and a changeling scout that was suspiciously thin for an adult. It listed his name as Gangue. We were about halfway to our destination when I finally realized this was actually Skarn, also a child I’d met on the fifth floor. He’d learned enough about his shapeshifting that he was now able to hide his age.

They shouldn’t be here, I thought. As soon as we got back, I was going to rip a new one into Louis and Donut for allowing children to go into battle like this. But not right now. Right now, it was too late.

Louis: I see the enemy castle. Landing now before they spot us.

~

There had only been three guards outside the small castle, and Donut and I sneaked up on them and killed them before they even knew we were here. Still, I knew if one of the officers was paying attention, the death of the soldiers would chime on their interface. It was a flaw in this whole system. It made this sort of subterfuge difficult. Still, nobody else came charging out the door.

“I can’t believe there’s so few soldiers around here. There’s no protections. Nothing,” Donut said. “She’s very trusting for such a back-stabbing bitch.”

“They made her commit all of her troops to the front line,” I said. “Rosetta said she spent every penny getting here, and once the quarantine went into effect, the officers she was expecting refused to come, so she only has a few friends.”

“Do you think she’s in there?” Donut asked, peering at the ramshackle “castle.” It was more like a small warehouse. A few meager protection spells glittered over it, which would protect it from bombardment. There was nothing that would stop us from simply stepping inside.

“God, I hope so,” I said as I disabled the landmine trap near the door. I took it into my inventory. Then I stole the three alarm traps. I examined the final trap at the door, a simple guard summoning trap. There was only one, and it would—normally—summon four guards to the location. The trap was a waste. It wouldn’t work right now because of the teleportation ban. I took it.

I pulled up the map of the headquarters supplied by Juice Box. Of all the enemy team headquarters, this one was the smallest, as she had the least amount of time to build and prepare.

I pushed at Rend. “Go ahead, buddy.” I gave the beachball a little shove, and he rolled right through the front door of the castle onto the stone floor. The pet bounced a few times, rolling to a stop against a wall with a familiar pattern painted upon it. The tummy acher looked up at the painting and let out a low, menacing chuckle.

Nobody said anything or came out to greet us. Nobody attacked.

I stepped inside.

Entering the headquarters of the Prism.

“Oh, Empress,” I called as I formed a fist. I started dropping hunter seeker automatons on the floor, and they scattered off into the small castle. There were only a few rooms in here, and already, the dots of the castle’s occupants appeared on my interface.

Three guards and one large, female saccathian.

Empress D’Nadia of the Prism. She was in the throne room. Right ahead.

A fifth dot suddenly appeared on my map, also into the throne room. An adjutant. Then another, appearing right next to me. This was Baroness Victory. She had a somber look upon her face. She shook her head sadly.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Carl,” she said. “You guys slaughtered them back there. Do you know how many blindly jumped into that acid pit? The scout for Team Retribution went up almost twenty levels.” The normally stoic orc looked shaken.

I ignored her. I pulled out the Ring of Divine Suffering, and I placed it on my finger.

“Oh, Empress,” I called again. “You have visitors.”


~~

I hope you all had a great holiday. Happy New Years everyone. The next chapter is something, all right. I can't wait for you to read it.