Grand Game 278: Breach (Patreon)

I didn’t immediately head into the Marauder camp.

If the Hound could track me from the ambush spot to here—and at this point, I had to assume she could—then first, I had to lead her astray.

Which meant laying a false trail.

Not attempting to conceal my scent or mind, I headed due south until I reached the valley’s southern border. This is good enough, I thought, looking around. Let the Hound track me this far and no farther.

Extracting a pair of enchantment crystals, I crushed both.

You have activated a scent concealment crystal, masking your scent for 4 hours.

You have activated a mental concealment crystal, hiding your consciousness for 8 hours.

With my protections in place—and hopefully now invisible to the Hound’s senses—I retraced my steps north, traveling swiftly until I reached the trees bordering the Marauder base. Pausing there, I studied the crisscrossing weaves of magic encasing the camp.

The spellcasters who had set the wards had layered them in the shape of a dome—one that did not extend above the treetops. Naturally, the strands forming the dome were thickest at ground level and around the palisade, but up top, along the upper reaches of the trees, there were… gaps.

Not large ones, but big enough for an agile person who knew just the right angle to contort his body to slip through.

First, though, I had to get above the wards.

Setting my hands on the trunk of the ancient oak sheltering me, I got climbing. I didn’t stop until I reached the topmost branches. Stepping onto a slender bough, I bounced lightly. It bore my weight without protest.

Perfect.

Running across the branch, I launched myself into the night sky, forded the expanse of open air between, and touched down on a tree inside the camp. Crouching down on the quivering tree limb, I glanced down.

The camp’s wards were below me. This close to the wall, they were a densely packed mess, but I didn’t intend on dropping into the base from here. Slipping through the tree, I made my way to its far end.

Then leaped again.

As I landed, the next branch creaked alarmingly but did not give way. Heaving a sigh of relief, I inched towards the tree’s central trunk before looking down again. The wards had thinned.

But not enough.

Fixing my gaze on the next tree, I repeated my maneuver, then thrice more, each time flitting silently from tree to tree, until I was perched in the bosom of a redwood near the center of the camp.

Once more, I looked below.

Here, at last, there was a hole in the dome large enough to slip through. Moving slowly, I lowered myself down the tree until I landed on a branch a mere foot above the gap in the wards. I’d reached my chosen insertion point.

Peering into the lattice of magic, I studied the path I needed to take. There were five layers of spells to bypass, but they were stacked tightly enough that a single windslide would carry me through.

I paused, tense with anticipation. The moment of truth had arrived. Either I would sail through the Marauders’ defenses or… I would be caught like a fly trapped in a web.

Exhaling a slow breath, I mapped the windslide’s path with more care than was my wont. Then, tucking in my limbs, I stepped onto the ramp of air.

I was on my way.

✵ ✵ ✵

I zipped through the wards in a giddy rush and touched down on a stout branch before I realized it.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you! You are hidden.

A plethora of sights, sounds, and noise assailed me. The transition was so sudden that for a moment, I was dazed and left wondering if I’d not tripped the wards after all. Then sense prevailed, and I realized the wards did more than protect the camp.

It also hid it from external observation.

Safely nestled in the redwood, I craned my head from left to right and let information seep in.

Magelights were wrapped around the lower trunks of the trees and affixed to the inside of the palisade, brightly illuminating the Marauder base. The gate through which Tevin had passed was also clearly visible from my vantage point, and I noted it was the camp’s only entrance.

Everywhere I looked, players strolled, laughed, or caroused. Most were gathered around raging campfires that, for some reason or the other, the wards had not hidden entirely. Seen from inside the camp, though, they were more like bonfires.

There were ten campfires in all, but only half had been lit. Each campfire was set outside a large, rectangular-like tent, and through the open flaps of some, I spied rows of bunk beds.

Saya’s estimates were wrong.

The thought popped into my head unbidden. Examining it, I realized why. There were about ten dozen Marauders visible in the camp, and assuming none were already sleeping in the khaki tents, the enemy’s numbers were far short of five hundred.

One hundred and twenty Marauders in camp. Twenty-three dead. Fifty searching for me in the woods. And another fifty in the village, blockading the tavern.

That put the Marauders’ full complement in the sector at nearly two-hundred and fifty.

Still a lot, I thought wryly as I considered the ten rectangular tents. They were barracks, and I judged each large enough to house about two dozen players—which matched my tally of the Marauders’ numbers.

But there was also an eleventh tent. Dirty-brown, circular-shaped, and significantly smaller than the others, it sat directly beneath me.

A command tent? For the Marauder boss?

It seemed likely. The interior of the tent was not visible from where I perched, but I had other means of seeing. Unfurling my magesight, I scanned inside.

A single mindglow shone within.

Hmm… I let my gaze drift away from the tent. None of the players in the camp were shielded, and other than the two guards at the gate—the same two who’d greeted Tevin—there were no sentries. No one looked up either or appeared concerned about a lurking assassin.

This was not a camp on high alert.

I can probably get away with analyzing the players, I decided. Even if I was detected, they might not think anything of it. Refocusing on the mindglow in the round tent, I cast analyze.

The target is Yzark, a level 148 orc blood-drinker. He bears a Mark of Lesser Dark, a Mark of Greater Shadow, and a Mark of Kalin.

I smiled beatifically. Got you.

✵ ✵ ✵

I spent another twenty minutes carefully observing the Marauders, analyzing each in turn. I’d been right, none of them, not even Yzark, was tier four. Level-wise, it put me and my foes on equal footing. Factoring in my scion traits, unusual Classes, and rare traits… well, then, the advantage was squarely with me.

One-on-one, at least.

My biggest challenge was the Marauders’ numbers, but I’d known that coming in and had a few ideas of how to better the odds.

My observations revealed something else, too. The number and size of the tented-barracks were not a coincidence. Each tent housed a single team of Marauders—twenty-four by my best guess—and their commander.

By and large, each team remained a tight-knit unit, eating and making merry at their own campfire. Occasionally individual Marauders would drift to another group, but they would always return to their fellows.

The commanders were invariably the highest leveled player in each team and notable by the deference the other Marauders paid them. I counted five commanders in the camp, including Pitor. He and his team must’ve returned from the village while I’d been dealing with Hurin’s party.

Oddly, Pitor and Yzark were the only two Marauders who bore Kalin’s Mark. Pitor was also the second highest-level player in the camp. Did that make him Yzark’s second-in-command?

Probably, I decided and turned my thoughts on how to deal with the Marauders.

My initial idea was to poison their food. I still had the three vials of viper’s venom I’d looted from Wengulax, and using poison was a strategy that had worked well for me against the Fangtooths in the Erebus’ dungeon.

But the Marauders had five pots cooking at the moment, one at each campfire. The other five campfires were unlit—courtesy of the teams out in the field. Still, five pots were four too many.

Unlike the goblins, the Marauders were players and would be alerted the instant they were poisoned. Which meant I either poisoned all of them at once—an impossibility in the current circumstances—or none at all. I couldn’t risk losing the advantage of surprise while some of my foes were still unincapacitated.

The same reasoning applied to the use of my traps. Never mind that I didn’t have enough to deploy against ten dozen players.

Which left only…

… slaying the Marauders in their sleep.

It was a strategy not without problems of its own. I would have to remain hidden until the camp settled down for the night—and then hope no one awoke at an inopportune moment.

Not to mention, I ran the risk of the Hound returning before I was done. Yes, my scent was masked, and yes, my mind concealed, but I had no certainty those measures would suffice against the tracker.

But on the plus side, the longer I waited, the more intoxicated my foes would become. None of the Marauders looked like they were rationing their drinks.

Killing my foes in their sleep is the best strategy open to me.

Bracing my back against the stout trunk of the redwood, I closed my eyes and settled down for a long wait.