Broken System Ch. 63-64 (Patreon)

Ch. 63 - Warpath

They left that plantation in flames before it was fully dark, though Benjamin had to spend the whole day in the back of one of the wagons rocking back and forth while he stared at the sky and recuperated. They had more people now, but they also had more horses and wagons to carry almost everything of value with them.

The mood was celebratory, but he wasn’t paying attention to that. Instead, he was focused on Carlos and the six other men who had been turned to corpses on his watch. Part of these thoughts were the guilt that had finally caught up to him on the trail after his near-death experience, but part of it was a desire to see the monsters that had inflicted so much misery pay.

He had no way of knowing what the life of any given person in his growing army would have been like before they’d been brought here against their will, but he was quite sure that most of them would have been better. He could see it in the scars, the missing limbs, and most importantly, the character sheets of those in and around his wagon.

Everyone had maxed out melee combat, along with various knowledge skills related to war and monsters, but precious few points were spent on crafting, agriculture, or anything that someone might be able to find meaning in. It spoke to the brutal, hollow lives of all of them.

That was sad enough, of course, but it broke his heart that he still hadn’t found a way to reverse that on a fundamental level. He wanted to try to work on crafting his first magic item. He wanted to make something that could hold the illusion spell that could make him look like whichever Summoner Lord he could learn the most about, but he was still too distracted by the pain and the weakness to start that complicated process.

So, instead, he started reading through the new batch of correspondence and trade logs that Raja had gathered for him. He learned how, just like the previous plantation, this one had quotas to ship hundreds of tons of grain and produce to Arden and that, from there, those goods went downriver to other larger cities. Benjamin’s head wasn’t in the best place, of course, but by his math, nearly all of what was produced here was eventually re-exported to the coast and from there to the capital.

That painted quite the picture in his mind. The paranoid letters that were translated from simple ciphers described the city as a place whose paranoia was only exceeded by its decadence. Those same letters gave very few details that were useful though. Instead they focused on gossip and drama rather than giving him a sense of the place’s scale. Only the trade logs did that, and according to their data, the capital was very hungry, and likely just as massive.

Unable to sleep, he read until he ran out of light, and then he lay there, attempting to weave his illusion spell into the ring. He would become Lord Darton, he decided. He would turn the man who had almost murdered him into a perfect mask and ruin his name among his own people. That was the best revenge he could offer Carlos and the other men who had been slaughtered so brutally for Benjamin’s mistake.

It was a complex puzzle, but as the moon reached high into the sky, he made good progress by studying the way other spells were woven into some of the simpler jewelry that hadn’t yet been handed out as prizes to the men that Matt decided had fought the most bravely. He might have succeeded, too, but instead, as he did his research, he discovered something even more chilling.

Benjamin spent half the night studying various items. It was interesting to him how different the weapon and armor enchantments were, for instance. It was also strange how the single-use items had little in common with either of them. They were like apps made from the same framework, but with purposes that varied wildly. It made for an interesting way to spend the evening, but after he studied the strange little amulets that they’d found several of, he reached a conclusion that was so chilling and mistakable that he was forced to wake Matt up just to have someone to talk to about it. His friend was irritated, but he listened to Benjamin’s crazy theory anyway. By the time Benjamin reached the end, neither of them could believe it.

“So you’re saying these amulets contain, what, their souls?” Matt asked.

“Well, backups, but, I mean, kinda, yeah. Souls is a fine way to put it.” Benjamin nodded. “I can’t open them to see what the data is, but I can’t think of anything else it could be, you know? Most spells take kilobytes. The systems they installed in us take a couple gigabytes, but these things? They’re at least a hundred terabytes of data right here. They keep backups of themselves so they can be resurrected in someone else’s body if worse comes to worst.”

Benjamin had found three of them so far. Two had belonged to Lords, and one had belonged to a mage, but he was willing to bet that if he kept searching, he’d find one for every Rhulvian. Somehow, these paranoid bastards thought it was okay to kill or kidnap everyone else, but they needed a set of golden dog tags to carry around that gave them a chance at eternal life.

The very idea made him sick. He’d hated them already, but this was monstrous. They were like devils, and the more he learned, the worse they got.

The two of them talked the strange idea over until Benjamin couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. It was only then that they went to bed and enjoyed a mercifully dreamless sleep.

The morning, he gathered up the rest of the amulets and studied them, but aside from the size and complexity of the data they contained, he found little because they were all locked by the same prohibition that still applied to Raja’s voice.

They’d been working to unlock that for almost a year, and Benjamin had upgraded his brute force spell several times in the interim. It did over a trillion calculations a day now, but even with all that time and effort, they still hadn’t tried even 1% of the combinations involved. He’d have to do better.

Benjamin would have happily spent the next month devoting himself to that problem, but he couldn’t. They had a war to fight, and like it or not, he was a key part of that.

So, by the time they reached plantation 127, he was ready with a paper-thin face to hide behind and the same old plan. This takedown went better than the last one, though it wasn’t perfect. One of the mages still had time to summon an ethereal demon to fight for it. The monstrous jellyfish fungus erupted behind them, glowing with eye-melting shades of pink and purple as it lashed out with its phased tentacles to rip the souls out of several people who hadn’t moved away fast enough.

The beast was terrifying, but unlike the bone version they’d fought previously, it was entirely offensive and did nothing to protect its master from the arrows that quickly murdered him. Raja took him out with a new ability called shockwave that he’d gotten when he reached level 7. The thing hit the man like a truck, though a rocket or a grenade was probably a better metaphor. When it struck the mage’s chest, it didn’t just cave in his ribs like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer instead of an arrow. It also created a shockwave that fractured the cobbles beneath his feet.

Shockwave (10 mana/level): 40 damage per level at the center of the blast. This falls to 10 damage at ten feet. Armor is ineffective against concussive damage.

The mage collapsed into a puddle of liquified organs, and his fearsome jellyfish of doom or whatever it had been dissipated before he’d even been aware that he was injured. It was a beautiful attack, but Benjamin had to ask Raja to show some restraint in the future unless it was necessary because the blow shattered the strange amulets they all seemed to carry.

Raja saluted him dismissively, which Benjamin wondered at but ignored for now. He didn’t want to be the boss. Truly. He let Matt handle as much of it as possible when it came to tactics and logistics.

As it stood, he knew more about that stuff now than Benjamin ever would. It was Matt who decided where they would sack next, who would enter the plantation while they pretended to be refugees, and where the rest of the men would stage to prepare for the worst.

He was the general. Benjamin was just the court wizard or something. He would have gladly passed that burden on to someone else, especially in the thick of things. If he could just be left alone for a month or three, who knew what he might be able to figure out on the system’s front.

It was not to be, though. They only picked up speed after that. They sacked plantation 125 and were making their way to 126 before they finally ran into the first real resistance. Someone had finally spread the word, and even before they reached the place, they could see the gate was barred, and there were guards on the walls.

This time, Matt judged that a frontal assault and trying to play pretend was just too risky. “If we walk in there like we own the place and try to talk our way through, what are the odds they just shoot first and ask questions later.”

“So what’s the alternative? We sneak in with a few people, dodge the guards, and kill the mages in their sleep?” Benjamin asked. “What about the wall? We know it has alarms.”

“Actually, I’ve been talking to some of our recruits, and they have to turn most of those alarms off if they have people patrolling the wall because otherwise, they just set them off constantly, so they shouldn’t be a problem,” Matt said. “We just have to kill a few guards quick and quiet, and then scale the wall and—”

“Listen to yourself, man,” Benjamin admonished his friend. “We can’t kill those people. They’re victims here, just like everyone else.”

“It’s a great sentiment,” Matt agreed with a shake of his head, “Save as many as we can for as long as we can. It doesn’t mean saving everyone, though. That only happens in movies. Nicole already died, and you almost died. I’m not letting you or Emma walk into a trap full of suspicious people to be obliterated. It’s not happening.”

They debated it further, but eventually, Benjamin was forced to concede the point. Really, it was a portent of things to come. Now that the Summoner Lords knew there was something hunting their fortress farms one at a time and burning them to the ground, he was sure his other secrets wouldn’t stay so secret for long.

How long would it be until someone figured out the basic bitch security hole he was exploiting and patched it? What would he do then? He hadn’t even started working on countermeasures for that, which was a stupid mistake. Because as soon as things changed, they’d go from rescuing a farm full of broken men to being forced to slaughter them, and Benjamin would blame himself for that, too.

None of these doubts or concerns stopped Matt from executing his attack as he planned. This time he chose ten people he thought could keep up with Emma and sent them just after moonset at the south wall, where there were only two defenders keeping an eye out.

It turned out his friend had been right. All four mages that called this plantation home died, in their sleep, and all it had cost were the lives of 11 innocent guards. By the time Benjamin was on the scene to cast data leak and lift the terrible curse that was bound to serve, the danger was all but passed.

Ch. 64 - Out Riders

That became their new rhythm as they set out again the following day with their ever-growing caravan. It was becoming almost routine, but that didn’t last for very long. Almost as soon as the sun was up, an alarm was called. At first, Benjamin feared that the mages had found them, but the truth was almost as bad.

The centaurs had been sighted again, but this time, they were much closer, and there were more than two dozen of them. Everyone was awake with weapons in hand when they heard that news, but after a tense standoff, where the horse warriors moved no closer, Matt decided they should start moving again.

There was no chance that they could outrun the monsters, of course. Even if he had his friends unlimbered the horses, left everyone else to die, and rode off as fast as they could, he doubted they could outrun them, and he’d never do that.

“What are they waiting for,” Benjamin asked.

“The right moment, I suppose,” Matt answered with a shrug. He had a sword in hand even though no enemies were visible within half a mile of where they stood. “We just have to keep moving until they make up their mind. We still outnumber them five to one.”

That was true, but it wasn’t as comforting as he thought it would be. Benjamin had hoped to use today to talk about their plan of attack with the next plantation, but he decided against it.

Some of the freedmen with them had pulled guard duty going between plantations. Some, like Jeong, had even gone as far away as Arden, which was the largest city in the area. He said, “The horse lords fear the Summoner Lords. Whole herds have been wiped out by coming too close, so while they hate us, they also know what the cost would be for trying to strike us down. Plus, this group is a lot bigger than they’re used to seeing, so they are extra wary.”

“So does that mean we’re safe, then?” Benjamin had no real interest in gaining the reputation of evil brainwashing slavers as a rule, but in this one instance, it might be useful.

“If they are loitering near the edge of their range, then they are waiting for reinforcements,” Jeong answered with a shake of his head. “If we reach the next plantation before that happens, then we’re home free. If not, well…”

They traveled for several more miles over the next few hours as the groups shadowed them, and the tension grew. Finally, that tension was shattered when Raja signaled that they were making their move shortly before noon. From the updates he’d been getting, he knew there were over fifty of the eight-foot-tall centaurs now, but Benjamin hopped up onto the lowest rung of his friend’s perch and watched as the giant mob moved as one and began riding closer to them.

The wagons were stopped as soon as the alarm was sounded. Instead, they drew up their vehicles, circling the wagons and bunching up the people at the center of the tight formation. Normally, that would have been a terrible way to handle the storm of arrows that was no doubt about to rain down on them, but Benjamin had a plan.

Benjamin doubted the thin wall of the vehicles would do much to stop the arrows after he’d seen what they’d done to the steel body of Matt’s SUV, but he wasn’t too worried about them getting here. One of the main reasons they stopped was so he could try to fit everyone in as he cast gale shield. Still, he waited until the first few centaurs had launched their missiles from almost a quarter mile away before he unleashed it to conserve mana.

This time, he cast it on the second level rather than the first as he’d done against the bone monstrosity, and he watched as the powerful winds flattened the grass in front of them for dozens of yards as the magic radiated out with the fury of storm winds. It was a nice added benefit, and he expected the visibility to help Matt, Emma, and everyone else who would have to fight these monsters soon enough.

Only that never happened. It was more like a bombing run than an actual attack. The centaurs rode single file in a long race track formation at some predetermined distance near the edge of their longbow range, and they proceeded to send volley after volley of arrows at them. It was strangely anticlimactic, at least until the arrows started falling all around their group.

Level one gale shield would have been more than enough to scatter any normal arrows based on his experience, and level two might have been enough to send even Raja’s magical shots astray, but as pool cue sized weapons began to rain down, Benjamin realized it was not enough and ramped the spell up to level three.

The winds were truly fearsome now. They had to be at least hurricane force, and he could feel them buffeting him from here. They were enough to flatten another fifty yards of grass and deflect the objects before they ever got close.

However, it was a bad trade-off because he was now spending 9 mana a minute, and he had less than two minutes of mana at that burn rate, thanks to the soul scar that still crippled him in a variety of ways. He compensated with his own life to make sure he didn’t run dry, but after several minutes, even that started to get a little low, and the centaurs still hadn’t given up pelting them with death, which struck him as more than a little strange.

If they want us dead, and this clearly isn’t working, then why not charge us? He asked himself. Are they really that afraid of the Rhulvin?

“A little help!” he yelled to Matt, but no one heard him over the roar of his own storm.

That could prove troublesome since he couldn’t even drain the life of those around him while he was maintaining the spell. Fortunately, the party interface kicked off a low health warning just as it was supposed to, and at that moment, Matt came over and solved his problem with a couple of small healing spells.

That little dance needed to be repeated one more time before they finally charged after almost ten solid minutes of bombardment. They never reached them, though. Everyone stood, bracing for a cavalry charge, but even as they got in Raja’s range, he stopped drawing his bow and stood down.

‘Feint,’ he typed. ‘Hold.’

Matt relayed his order, and sure enough, that turned out to be the case. For a terrible moment, Benjamin thought that they were going to break over them like a wave, and their thundering hooves were loud enough to make his teeth shake, but they never got within a hundred yards of the wind-blown grass before they turned aside, and galloped off.

Benjamin held the spell a few moments longer before he released it and watched the rising dust plume of the retreating centaurs. “What the hell was that,” he asked Matt.

“No idea,” his friend said with a shrug. “Bait us into a trap? Trying to get us to play our hand? Counting coup? I have no freakin idea.”

“Being pelted by over a hundred arrows didn’t get anyone killed. There were a few injuries, but several other people had healing magic in their caravan beside Matt at this point, so he didn’t have to exert himself any further. Within twenty minutes, they were off again, heading west.

That didn’t stop them from keeping a careful eye out for more troubles the rest of the day, though. If those terrible archers had wanted to kill the hundreds of humans that were trespassing on their territory so badly, then he had no doubt that they’d be back at some point to try again. Honestly, Benjamin wouldn’t be surprised if they had some magic of their own, too.

The fact that they outnumbered the centaurs four or five to one didn’t really help, he thought wryly. Honestly, in terms of mass, the two sides were probably just about equal, and though he expected they’d triumph in any fight, it would make for a bloody mess that would kill an awful lot of people.

“Why don’t you just light a brush fire like that prick Ethan did to us?” Emma asked at one point while they were discussing how they might shore up tonight’s defenses. “They’re somewhere downwind, aren’t they? That would buy us more time, at least.”

Benjamin thought about correcting her, noting that they weren’t sure it had been Ethan who had laid that trap but decided against it. It wasn’t worth the fight in the fight in the same way that burning down dozens of square miles on purpose wouldn’t be worth avoiding a fight.

“This whole world is riddled with fae and nature spirits, Emma,” Benjamin explained, even though he felt like he shouldn’t have to. “The last thing we want to do is aggravate them or really even attract their attention.”

“Why not?” she asked, “Maybe they’ll help us fuck these mages up.”

“Maybe they will,” he agreed, “but probably not if we start burning down everything in sight just because we feel like it.”

They argued about it at length but reached no firm conclusions. So, it was ironic when two of their scouts ran back to report what they’d found in the road ahead near dusk. Despite doing their best to keep a low profile, it would seem that just mentioning the magical creatures had been enough to attract the gaze of the fae.

Matt and Benjamin conferred for a few minutes before letting someone approach the mystery figure. From this distance, in this light, only Raja could see any details about the person, and he described her as a ‘kindly old woman with strange skin’ standing in the middle of the road. That didn’t seem too threatening, of course, but he’d long since learned that in this world, looks could be incredibly deceiving.

As their scout cautiously approached the hooded figure in the road, everyone was on edge, but nothing happened. Instead, he came back a few minutes later with a scroll, which he handed to Matt. Matt opened it up and glanced at it briefly before he handed it off to Benjamin and said. “We’re being invited to dinner by the Throne of the sky sea.”

“Shit,” Benjamin said, quickly breezing through the missive to look for any hints of what it was their messenger might want as he read it out loud to his friends.

“I was warned that you might one day trouble me, but I did not believe that the Arboreal Throne could possibly be correct, and yet here you are. As the first manthings to tread my trackless paths without the veil of darkness, you intrigue me. You are oddities, but even when my beloved children lashed out at you, you did not seek to slay them. This requires an explanation, and you are required to give it.” he said, digging for the important parts as quickly as he could, “Therefore, you shall be allowed to attend the sacred fire tonight, where we will trade songs about how this has come to be and what will happen next before your fate is decided.”

He quickly saw that it wasn’t a request. Just like last time, it was an order, and for some reason, he felt the headsman’s axe lingering above the final line of the short missive.

Benjamin crumbled it in his hand as he remembered the weeks-long walk back that he and Matt had endured. This time, he was giving the messenger a piece of his mind; there was no way he was listening to another one of these fae courts give him orders without at least the guarantee that they wouldn’t lose weeks of their time.

We just can’t spare it, he told himself as he stormed forward. We have a war to fight! We don’t have time for any more fae bullshit!