Nobody wanted to admit it. Hells be damned, he didn’t want to admit it. Nevertheless, Commander Dahl was willing to concede, if only in the privacy of his meditations, that the army… no, that the entire city was unprepared for an enemy like the kobalds.

  From an early age, commoners and nobles alike had been taught that there was always a possibility that someone was watching. Whether through their interactions on the Thought Hub, or someone simply going out of their way to scry on them, people had become comfortable with the idea that everyone and everything in the city was being watched over by somebody. Their parents did it to them, and they did it to their children, and there was nothing wrong with that.

  That mode of thought had influenced the way they interacted with each other, the way they worked, the way they lived, and sadly… the way they fought.

  Nobles were probably the most caught off guard by not being able to spy on their enemy. They’d grown up being taught that the only way to hide what they were planning was to keep their schemes to themselves, and when necessary, to keep any evidence where no one would bother looking. Privacy screens and scry detectors could only do so much, and there was always a chance that somebody would go out of their way to look into what they were doing.

  Why else would a House like Dorchen hide an entire army in a mining town outside of the city when the point was to invade it?

  Almost every noble tactic revolved around the idea that their schemes had to be hidden by any means necessary because everyone knew that once they were suspected they would invariably be quickly exposed. It was simply inconceivable for a noble of Dorchester to attempt to hide something in plain sight. Yet, the kobalds had successfully done just that. They’d hidden themselves right next to the city. They’d taken over the abandoned mountain and spread out across the whole hells be damned mountain range.

  Glaring in anger at the information being displayed on the hologram hovering in front of him, Commander Dahl hissed in fury at the thought that he should have been told about a critical weakness like this.

  “Analysts are confirming the activation of at least three portals in the undercity. The enemy is evacuating their upper casts and filling the entire area with disposable troops. They seem intent on doing nothing more than just biding their time. They’re not even bothering bringing in reinforcements from their other cities through the connecting tunnels,” the subcommander on his left reported.

  “How long do we have until their… ‘plan’... for the upper city is ready?” Commander Dahl asked angrily.

  Across the table, a subcommander replied nervously, “Anywhere between three and seven hours… we think.”

  Growling in annoyance, Commander Dahl swiped his hand across the screen to find a better angle on the viewer.

  “If this… ‘linkage’ ritual, or whatever the mages are calling it is completed, what are the actual ramifications? You’ve said it wasn’t just a portal, it was something akin to a ‘reality hook’… what does that mean exactly?” he asked.

  The subcommander across the table replied evenly, the tremor in her voice fading the longer she spoke, finding some comfort in having an answer for him, “According to the mages who’ve been analyzing the ritual, they believe it is meant to act as a permanent portal much like a rift, but also much more than that. It will be self-sustaining just like a regular portal, but much more difficult to close. Standard means of disrupting it will not work. It will take a coordinated effort of multiple mages skilled in planar theory to even affect it. The tower mages also warned that the process would not be quick, and would be easily disrupted by enemy forces coming out of the portal.”

  Grunting in acknowledgment, Commander Dahl replied, “So what exactly makes this portal any different than any of the others they’ve set up?”

  Replying quickly, she said, “We, I mean my team, asked them the same thing. From what we were told, it seems that viable linkage sites require a firmly anchored essence connection to the region to support it, namely places or areas that have been imbued with meaning that acts as the core or basis for that region’s identity. The kobalds are using the former throne room where Dorchester was founded and run for millennia exactly for that purpose. The ritual is an attempt to tie the historical essence of what the founders of the city had done to remake this area of Oglivarch into their domain to the other side of the portal which will likely be a place equally important to wherever it is on the target plane. The mages believe that the kobalds on the other side must have prepared a site specifically for this purpose.”

  “So, they couldn’t make one of these ‘linkages’ in any of their own cities, because they haven’t been around long enough for the world to recognize their claim on the region?” he asked.

  Nodding, she replied, “That’s what I’ve been told. The explanation I received likened typical portals to monster incursions through an essence disturbance. That is to say that normal portals are just temporary linkages to another plane that over time could possibly turn into permanent linkages before ultimately pulling the entire area’s essence through the portal. However, that’s just one possibility of what they could become. Their true threat is that they spill out essence from the other side and affect the targeted region by altering its identity. However, controlled linkages like what the kobalds are attempting don’t do that. Instead, they skip to the worst-case scenario. They use the dense essence pattern which defines the area against itself. By attacking at the beginning of where we declared our presence here, they are attempting to remove our presence from the area’s essence. It’s only an option for them because we foolishly left what had been our center of power since our founding undefended.”

  Unhappy with the fact that nobody considered this type of attack as a possibility, he asked, “Did nobody from the Tower of Magic think to warn us before we abandoned the mountain city for the surface?”

  Her expression making it clear that she was just as unhappy as he was, she replied, “According to them, they did. However, the council of leadership at the time believed the risks were minimal as the likelihood of something like this happening before our new center of power permeated the area seemed impossible to them.”

  A commander who’d been silently watching up until now spoke up, “To be fair, they did leave ample defenses in place to watch over the mountain city… the kobalds just bypassed them and fooled the people checking on them.”

  Sighing in understanding that the situation was a result of multiple things going wrong, Commander Dahl took a moment to reign in his temper before asking, “Do we have enough troops in the area to push through the defenses they’ve set up and stop the activation of the ritual?”

  The room sat in silence for a few uncomfortable seconds before the subcommander who’d been monitoring the situation replied, “It doesn’t seem likely, sir. I’ve ordered volunteers in the area to be deployed anyway, and at this point, there isn’t much else we can do. I’ve already arranged a secondary line to set up in the main tunnel system when… I mean if those that make the assault fail.”

  Commander Dahl nodded in acceptance. “We’ll have to pause our push into the lower city and regroup. While the portals down there will allow them to reinforce their position, they are much less of a threat than having the entire city pulled through a portal like the one in the upper city if it manages to usurp our control.”

  Speaking quietly, the subcommander said, “It’s much worse than that, sir. If we don’t fail to close that portal, the entire region under Dorchester’s control could be lost from this plane of existence. If the kobalds set up the linkage correctly, in less than a week we’ll begin seeing the effects. At first, the environment will change outside our walls, then the essence will begin streaming through the portal and reinforcing the other side. While we’ll probably survive the transfer, the edges of our control range will begin suffering essence storms which will quickly become impassible. By the end of the week, we’ll no longer be in Oglivarch… we’ll be on whatever plane the kobalds are trying to get back to.”

  Slumping his shoulders Commander Dahl said sadly, “Three days. If we can’t close it in three days, we’ll have to ask for assistance from the capital. They’ll send in the Populators and they’ll handle it.”

  The entire table of military commanders and subcommanders stood in silence as they thought about what that would mean for the city… and for them. The ladders would be discarded, and the city refounded. They’d have to practically start over from the beginning. And this time, with the density shift happening, the likelihood of any local house staying in power was practically zero.

  —--

  Nero stood near the back of the team, surprised to hear how serious the situation sounded. While he didn’t understand everything Natalie was saying, he got the general idea. The kobalds were strip-mining the local reality and using the former throne room to do it.

  While Natalie was speaking quickly, and likely only repeating what she’d been reading from the briefing she’d been given, Nero was able to glean a lot of answers to questions he’d had about the world. In fact, hearing her explain how an area the size of what was basically an entire state back home could be transplanted between planes of reality made everything he’d been taught about essence come together and subsequently somehow make much more sense to him.

  He’d always struggled with the idea that areas had ‘identities’ and could repopulate themselves with local beasts and plants. But, if the world under his feet was more like an area on a gameboard that was defined by who was in control of it, then everything clicked together in his head like a puzzle.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  If essence in an area had its own history and identity, and when the humans took over Dorchester and founded the city, they took control of it. It made a certain kind of weird sense that the former throne room acted as the control node for the region. He’d played tower defense games before, so he could understand the concept.

  If the kobalds took control of the square on the metaphorical board then the humans were no longer in control of the region and the kobalds could then do whatever they wanted with it. Which, apparently, was to take the essence, material, and everything else back to their home plane. Even though he didn’t understand the mechanics of how they were doing it exactly, and according to Natalie, neither did she, he still was able to wrap his head around what they were trying to do.

  Unable to help himself, he smirked and asked, “So, I guess we should have just pushed through and interrupted them before they kickstarted the local apocalypse, huh?”

  Natalie, hearing her lord’s rebuke, firmed her spine before replying, “Yes, my lord. You were right to have recommended that we push forward with the attack. While we may not have been able to overcome their defenses on our own, there were plenty of other teams in the area that could have supported us. At worst, we could have discovered their plans much earlier, giving command the time to mount a better-prepared assault to stave off this disaster.”

  While the rest of the team stood in silence, and the dwarves who’d come out of their little stone house watched from the side with grim faces, Natalie hung her head in shame.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, for my failure. I should have listened to your counsel. I, in my ignorance and pride, may have doomed us all. Command has made it clear what we’ll be facing, and they have very little hope for our success. Teams that aren’t willing to risk the attempt have been allowed to fall back. A more concerted force will be coming to close the portal when this assault fails. There just isn’t enough time to bring in a strong enough force to stop it. It is my recommendation that we, as a house, fall back with them. Cathleen has already begun pulling back the few teams we have in the field with the survey teams. She and I both agree that there is very little point in dying pointlessly,” she finished with a sigh.

  Crusher, the dwarven head of his little contingent stepped forward, “I’ll have to be speaking with me king. He’ll need to know about this. It may take a few days, but I’m sure he’ll be sending a force that will shake the mountain to close this thing. We’ll not be founding a clan on some gods-forsaken plane full of lizards and fire.”

  Nero, feeling everyone’s sense of defeat radiating off of them in waves, winced at how hurt Natalie felt. He could tell that his words had basically emotionally gutted her. With his ability to observe her essence field, he could SEE it. She was broken… and it was heartwrenching.

  He felt awful.

  Granted, he’d just been kidding… trying to lighten the mood with some humor. But, she’d taken it as an insult to her very being. She was standing there like a wound in the essence, just looking at her made him feel like he was standing next to someone on a ledge contemplating suicide.

  Nobody else on the team was much better. They all felt like they’d been defeated. While they weren’t as bad as Natalie, their essence fields made it perfectly clear how they all felt.

  Part of him didn’t believe that he should feel guilty for her being so sensitive. Yet, seeing how badly his words had affected her, he couldn’t help it.

  ‘Is this what being emotionally aware of those around you feels like? This is some bullshit,’ he complained to himself with a grimace.

  Striding up to Natalie, he reached out to grip both her arms with his hands and forced her to look at him. The change in position had him in the center of the group with everyone staring at him.

  “You are NOT to blame. I agreed with your decision, and so did everyone else. It was the smart move at the time, and you shouldn’t second guess yourself. You’re a great leader, and everyone here respects you. So, hold your head high and don’t worry about it. I was just making a joke… a rude and poorly thought-out one… but a joke just the same. Never let anyone’s opinion, even mine, affect how you see yourself. Remember who you are. You’re Natalie god-damn Keening, head of House Walker’s whatever department and leader of this team of fine upstanding wackos. Granted we’ve only been on one mission, but that one mission led to Nick figuring out the thing that he did which is probably pretty important, and also resulted in us getting some free time to train which is awesome. None of what the kobalds are doing is your fault, and you couldn’t have done anything to stop it,” Nero said firmly, staring into her eyes hard while silently demanding for her to cheer up.

  Both seeing her resolve strengthening with his eyes and his perception field, Nero nodded up at her from his measly 5’ 4’’ height.

  Considering that Nero didn’t understand exactly how the portal thing the kobalds were building actually worked, or how long they had before it would take to drag them all across the planes, he wasn’t keen on waiting for the powers that be to get their shit together to close it. Maybe they had it handled, and maybe there were contingencies that he was unaware of, but none of that mattered to him at the moment.

  This was the kind of thing that adventurers lived for, and his center was practically screaming at him to run off and shit-stomp the kobald’s plans into oblivion. So, that’s exactly what he was going to do.

  While still locking eyes with Natalie, he ordered, “Tell Cathleen to gather the wackos… all of them. Tell her that I’ve got something to say.”

  Turning away from her, he said to the dwarves, “You all can go call your king and let him know what’s happening and to gather his troops. But you should know, by the time he gets here, the kobalds are going to be dead and that bullshit portal is going to be wrecked. Us wackos don’t sit on our asses while people go off acting all heroic… that’s our thing. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got some ass-kicking to do.”

  Without bothering to wait for a reply, Nero glanced at the faces of his team, happy to see them all standing a little taller.

  “Come along boys and girls, we’ve got a pre-battle speech to attend and some murderous humans to convince,” he said while storming off to the command tent in the center of the massive chamber.

  While the team filed in behind him, he could see that their essence fields had calmed down and were now radiating hope and determination like beacons in the ether. They were even doing that weird blending thing which meant they were functioning as a group.

  All around them, hundreds of soldiers were packing up their things and running around like crazy. It was nothing short of controlled mayhem as their team leaders shouted out orders like lunatics. Wagons were filled with messily tossed supplies as if they were running against some imaginary clock.

  ‘Why in the hell is everyone in such a rush? It’s not like the kobalds are even going to be attacking. Their entire plan hinges on the defense of their stupid portal. Even if the army is falling back, it’s not like the kobalds are going to interrupt them. Idiots,’ he remarked to himself with a judgmental look on his face.

  As they made their way through the camp, Natalie was walking a little behind him on his left. “Battle-Leader Averett has sent out a call for House Walker to gather in one of the mustering grounds. All but two of our teams will be there. The two that are missing are still en route from the tunnels with the survey teams they were escorting.”

  Nero nodded. “Good, did Cathleen mention how many of the army forces are willing to attempt the assault?”

  “Sir, she’s been trying to contact you through your link. However, for some reason, the Battle Hub is replying to her with a message saying that you’re ‘Out to Lunch’. Do you need a replacement link? Yours doesn’t seem to be working correctly,” she said sounding utterly confused.

  Chuckling, Nero replied, “No, I just turned it off because that alert pissed me off. It’s not all that hard to fiddle with the settings if you work at it. I honestly didn’t think changing the automated response like that would work. It’s good to know though. I’ll be sure to have some fun with that in the future. Anyway, don’t worry about it, we’ll be at the command tent soon and I can just talk to her there.”

  “Very well, my lord. I’ll let her know,” she replied quickly before going silent.

  Nero glanced over his shoulder with an amused expression on his face as she was obviously currently in contact with Cathleen, and probably suffering an auditory beatdown for not putting him on the ‘phone’.

  Most likely Cathleen had decided that they should evacuate with everyone else, then take part in the planned assault after the current one fails. She no doubt expects the portal to open, and to have to have some big epic fight to close it.

  Nero could see the cliche coming a mile away. However, he also thought that it would end up being both a waste of time and lives. If they could just stop the damn thing from opening, it would save everyone the headache of having to deal with whatever would be coming through from the other side.

  For that matter, he also doubted that it was all that wise to chance the ‘three days’ they had to close the portal.

  A lot of things could happen in three days. Letting the portal open could end up with them all stuck in another plane of existence having to fight endless hordes of kobalds for the chance of returning home. He’d read that storyline so many times that he could practically already guess what was waiting for them on the other side.

  It would be a kingdom-building arc that would have them aligning with other cities and peoples who’d been stolen from their own planes by the kobalds. Jennings, who conveniently had studied planar mechanics, would work with other species' powerhouses to get them all back home. They would, of course, fail.

  Then, predictably, they would all end up somewhere else with all the species coming together under one banner to work together. Vera would end up running everything, and Nick would combine all the inter-species knowledge into one super-research center and offer their new mega-city a tech uplift. Somehow, Nero expected he’d end up emperor or something after having to kill off some traitor nobles who’d aligned with the kobalds or whoever they were facing wherever they ended up.

  It would be all epic and character-building for everyone involved. Vera would probably end up pregnant to demonstrate that life would go on. Or more likely City Lord Cosgrave would end up falling in love with some elf or something from one of the acquired allies to show that they could all successfully live together in harmony under his banner.

  Nero could practically see it all happening in his head like a prophecy.

  But, honestly, was he willing to go through all that? Absolutely not. It was much easier to just go all pre-emptive with the violence like a good American and end the threat decisively. After all, as long as they fought the kobalds before they opened the portal, all they’d be facing were clones… and those things were just begging to be ripped apart by spellfire.

  ‘The damn things aren’t good for anything else than fueling spells… even kobalds are smart enough to know that,’ he said to himself confidently as he and the team arrived at the command center.

  Standing there in front of the ridiculously large tent was Cathleen. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest with an uncharacteristically angry look on her face. The situation must be serious if she was forgoing her typically blank ‘none-of-this-matters’ expression and actually showing an emotion.

  Waving nonchalantly with one hand in greeting, Nero smirked and asked in greeting, “Hey there good lookin’, what’s cookin’? You look pissed, not looking forward to a heroic charge into the enemy and our subsequent victory against all odds? I figured this kind of thing would be right up your alley?”