Every skill, ability, and talent has its place in the theatre of war. Eventually, everyone learns that life itself is nothing more than a tapestry of combat. To walk your path is to fight against the things that wish to halt you, and your only tools to survive are those that you’ve taken the time to train.
Cathleen Averrett knew this. Unfortunately, she also knew that limitations couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard one struggled.
As such, she’d been forced to cede command of their assault force to Knight Angleton. With how much attention the rest of their forces required, she simply wasn’t able to pay enough attention to her surroundings to effectively lead their troops. So, while she focused on the overall attack, he’d manage the Wackos along with the few soldiers that had tagged along with them.
Splitting her mind to accomplish multiple attention streams had been part of her training, but not something she’d put enough effort toward mastering. In the future, if she wanted to be an effective Battle Leader, she’d have to remedy that.
Running through the tunnels behind alongside the Wackos, she took a moment to observe how everyone was holding up.
Even at a glance, she could tell that the Wackos were excited and filled with confidence. The ether made that clear as crystal through her senses. She could feel that Knight Angleton’s calm presence over the command channel had them all focused and attentive to the mission at hand. Their pace was good, and no one seemed to be lagging behind. Even the healers in the back were managing to keep up.
‘It won’t be long now,’ she thought to herself as she returned her attention to the 5 assault force command channels she was monitoring along with the private channel just for the commanders.
Due to their plan only needing the army to distract and contain the enemy, more commanders had agreed to participate than she’d expected. While they hadn’t been willing to waste the lives of their soldiers on a doomed assault, they were willing to engage with the kobalds and cycle their troops indefinitely.
She understood their position, and she respected it. It was one thing to fight a battle where their forces were able to be recovered through healing and careful resource management, while it was quite another to purposefully cut themselves off from reinforcement and rely only on hope not to be overwhelmed.
‘It’s fine. As long as they keep the encampments busy, we’ll be able to get the the former throne room without issue,’ she reassured herself.
Through the command channels, she was monitoring the engagements that had already begun. The troops from F.O.B. 3 had successfully pushed their way into their targeted chamber and were whittling down the enemy. While the likelihood of them breaking through was low, the plan didn’t require them to. All they needed to do was force the kobalds to focus on the main tunnel system F.O.B. 3’s forces were using for the attack.
The Wackos would be arriving through a much smaller side tunnel. One completely disconnected from the one F.O.B. 3’s troops were using. If everything went well, the enemy would never expect them. After all, the F.O.B. they were coming from wasn’t anywhere near here.
The only thing that made this plan possible was the combination of numerous unlikely factors. One, the engineers had been able to link the Battle Hub to the severely outdated relay systems in the city allowing everyone to stay connected. Two, the mages had finally figured out how to penetrate the kobald’s illusion techniques, allowing them to map the tunnel systems and giving the scouts an opportunity to plot their course. And finally three, Lord Walker’s encouragement which gave them all the excuse to act.
Even if they had wanted to, command had no way to convince troops to risk their likely death against such a slim chance of success. Not that they would have tried, as that would accomplish nothing more than a waste of resources they could ultimately use in the future battles to come. But, if Lord Walker and his house’s forces were going to try anyway? Why not aid them if the costs were this reasonable?
Through her link, she could see that the assault force she was with was almost at the chamber. While not anywhere close by, she could still see the fighting going on through the feed she was receiving from F.O.B. 3’s commander. They were taking heavy casualties, but the healers were handling it and no permanent deaths had occurred as of yet.
Gritting her teeth at the number of kobalds waiting for them, she couldn’t help but wonder how they would get back through them to safety on the off chance that this plan of hers ended up actually succeeding.
While having an exit strategy was the first rule of warfare, circumstances hadn’t allowed for one.
‘We’ll just have to overcome that obstacle when we get there,’ she thought to herself with a frown.
—--
Even knowing that he wouldn’t be able to use his sticky flamethrower spell, Nero had plenty of other options for the mass destruction of the enemy. His acid balls and personal spell-shell launcher had become second nature to him by now, and they would be more than enough to decimate the individually weak scaly little murder machines.
However, the problem was that there were too many damned friendlies around him. He couldn’t just start flinging area of effect spells around hoping that his fellow human’s essence fields could handle them… despite how much he wanted to chance it.
Audibly growling in annoyance, Nero jogged along with the rest of the Wackos as they pushed through the kobald encampment. With how quickly they were moving, he was forced time and time again to pay attention to his footing. The kobald bodies and miscellaneous gear were strewn about all over the place, and if it weren’t for his perception field he’d have had no idea what was going on outside of the one-foot radius he could physically put eyes on.
Considering his less-than-impressive physical height, looking anywhere other than the ground in front of him was pointless. The wackos ahead of him were all tall enough to block his view, and the mages to his left and right weren’t any shorter.
Through his perception field, he was able at least able to track how the edges of the formation were doing. Which was ‘well enough’, by any definition of the word.
Even with the kobalds packed together like sardines in the encampment, the Wackos were rolling over them like the tide destroying a child's poorly built sandcastle. It was honestly kind of sad. The kobalds had bet everything on their exterior defenses, and now that the enemy was inside their gates, they were getting absolutely wrecked.
Ironically, the one major obstacle stopping Nero from contributing to the massacre was also the only thing keeping them all alive. That was the mage shield over their heads.
A little fewer than a third of their number had been tasked with maintaining their shield, some of whom weren’t even primarily mages. But seeing how much spell-fire was raining down on them from the kobald shamans and casters, Nero couldn’t argue with the results.
Even with how loud the sounds of screaming, hissing, slashing, and stabbing were, the roar of exploding fireballs and who knew what else hitting their shields drowned it all out. The prolonged spell fire colored the entire area over their heads crimson and bathed everything around him in red. Had Nero’s sense of sight been limited to his eyes, he’d probably be panicking by now.
But, it wasn’t, so he wasn’t. Instead, he was forced to just huddle together with the rest of the troops as the entire formation rushed through the encampment in a rapidly progressing circular crowd of death and destruction toward their destination at the end of the chamber. Considering the size of the kobald encampment, the plan was for them to avoid the majority of the enemy by simply skirting across the edge of their defenses. While there were still thousands of kobalds to deal with, most of them probably weren’t even aware the Wackos had made it through one of their walls.
That didn’t mean the Wackos weren’t taking casualties, because they were. Nero could see them… all of them. His perception field allowed him to witness one after another as the prolonged running combat took its toll on their assault force. One after another, a human body was pulled back from the fighting line and carried by someone closer to the middle. He could see the healers working their asses off to keep whoever they could still fighting.
Stuck in the middle with the shield mages, Nero felt more and more stifled as there was nothing he could do to contribute. Balling his fists by his side, he maintained his hold on the spell forms he’d attached to his Mage Armor waiting for an opportunity, any an opportunity to do ANYTHING.
He’d wanted to be part of the fighting, but he’d been assigned his position and hadn’t argued against it. Now, even if he wanted to disobey his orders and get over to the fighting line, he couldn’t. He and the rest of the Wackos were simply too packed together to allow him to slip through.
‘I swear to all that is holy that when we get to the damn tunnel I’m going to leave them a present they will spend the rest of their worthless lives having nightmares about,’ he promised himself as he watched another dead body being thrown over someone’s shoulder to hopefully brought back before it was too late.
Seconds turned into minutes as the formation raced through the encampment. Over the command channel, Knight Angelton’s voice remained calm and steady as he encouraged them every step of the way. All the while, more and more fighters were being dragged away from the fighting for healing.
Nero could see that the healers were struggling. They fought their own little war to keep the people in melee alive as they didn’t look like they were able to resuscitate anyone at a run. Even looking at how they were healing, Nero could tell most of them were limited to physical contact to cast their healing spells. While knowing that ranged healing was possible, he couldn’t fault them for not knowing how to do it. Hell, he’d read about it extensively and still hadn’t been able to pull it off.
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Of course, he also hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to practice, but that was on him. Realistically, He’d had plenty of opportunities, he’d just never taken advantage of them. Most of his skill with healing spells had been from repairing his own body during training. The fact that it worked for others was just a happy coincidence.
Given that he was thirty or forty feet away from the closest edge of the fighting, he knew for a fact that there was nothing he could do at the moment.
Like a light at the end of a tunnel, Nero saw their destination appear on the edge of his perception field. Instead of a small tunnel like the one they’d arrived through, the one they were heading toward was wide enough for multiple wagons to pass through and tall enough that a double-decker bus would have no problem making it through.
Seeing as the kobalds didn’t expect anyone to attack from this side of the chamber, there was no wall in place to stop them. Nero had to admit that the fact that they had been able to scry the place thoroughly had made all the difference in their success. He’d known from movies and books that intelligence on the enemy was a primary factor in any battle plan, but seeing it in action was somewhat different than he’d expected. This entire plan had been thought up and executed in less than an hour, and it had only been possible because Cathleen and the commanders knew what they were getting into.
Seeing how many people were being carried, and how many were fighting hurt, Nero was both impressed that they were pulling it off while also feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that he’d thought it was going to be easy. He’d expected a glorious assault, not a meticulously planned fight that stacked their slight advantages while exploiting the enemy’s strategically determined weaknesses.
The moment the front of the formation arrived at the tunnel, Nero could see Knight Angelton and the more elite fighters spreading out to defend the entrance. The whole thing looked like a practiced flash mob taking their places in a crowd before shit went down. The coordination in play was on another level.
While a majority of the troops pushed through to make sure the tunnel was clear, a ring protecting the entrance began to take form.
In no time at all, Nero entered the tunnel alongside Merrick and the other mages. Luckily, the plan called for the mages to stay near the entrance and shift their shield to protect it. That allowed Nero to take advantage of the maneuvering troops to stay near the entrance himself. Soon enough, the last of the troops would be though and he’d be able to finally unleash hell on the vicious little bastards nipping at their heels.
Yet, he found himself frowning at the sight of the healers struggling to resuscitate the multiple dead bodies that were being carefully laid out along the side of the tunnel. There must have been 50 or 60 of them. There simply weren’t enough healers to handle them all, not with the people who still needed healing and the continued fighting happening at the entrance.
Over the command channel, he could hear Knight Angelton’s firm presence shouting, “Get whoever you can up and ready. We won’t be holding this position long. It will be a fighting retreat until we get to the throne room. We’ll need every able body to make it there before the portal opens!”
Nero, standing next to the mages as they shaped their shield to cover the upper edges of the entrance, growled in annoyance at the sight of the kobalds spread out in front of the melee fighters. He could see Knight Angelton and the 60 or 70 odd Wackos holding back the tide of scaly madness while piling up bodies under their feet. He felt a burning need to join them.
The soul stuff in the ether was dense enough that could make some truly destructive spells that would surely make a difference. It wouldn’t even be that hard. The shield gave him a good two to three feet of height above the melee line to send out his spells. He could light the entire place on fire with sticky flames that would effectively cut off the kobald’s assault.
All of these thoughts raced through his head in seconds, his perception of time having seemed to slow down to allow for his decision.
Muttering swears at the universe for always being a good-time-ruining dick, Nero stomped over toward the healers.
Approaching a healer who was panting in exhaustion and looking pale, Nero said, “All right, I need you to point me to whoever’s been dead the longest. Let’s get these poor bastards back in the fight.”
The healer looked over at Nero in confusion, before his sense of recognition caught up with him. “Of course, my lord. But… um, we don’t have them arranged in any particular order. We’re just trying to resuscitate whoever we can. If you’re willing to help, you can start with any of them. Although, the ones over there on the left have already been deemed to have suffered soul death.”
Nero had learned that he seemed a bit better at resuscitation spells than the average healer so he wouldn’t be taking the healer at their word. His talent was something he chalked up to his weird soul or maybe his messed-up stats. But either way, he refused to have these dead assholes on his conscience. This whole dumb-ass plan may have been his idea, but it was supposed to be an adventure… not this.
The dedicated planning, the coordination of multiple forces all attacking their assignments, and the losses. It was all too ‘real’.
When he’d been fighting above ground, he hadn’t had the perspective he did now. With access to the command channel and his improved perception field, he was forced to see the bigger picture. He couldn’t just focus on his own little world of combat and let everyone else handle the other stuff.
What was going to do, just go start killing kobalds while these poor bastards who’d agreed to follow him into battle lay there dead… their souls slowly departing their bodies?
Stomping over to the bodies that had been deemed too long dead to bring back, Nero cracked his neck and got to work.
Sadly, he could see that the bodies had been stacked on top of one another like piles of logs. Each one of them suffering from mutilations of varying degrees. One or two he could see were missing limbs, while all of them had gashes and cuts that were covered in drying blood. It was quite literally a ghastly sight that churned his stomach.
Not wasting time, Nero pulled the first body off the top of the pile and dropped it gently onto the ground. His hard work and improved body stats made him stronger than he should be, but he’d not yet reached superhuman levels that made things like this effortless.
Sighing at the sight of the woman’s terror-filled eyes, Nero reached down to close them like they did in the movies. He really didn’t want her dead body staring at him while he did this. The moment he felt her eyelids close, he whipped his hand away and shook it like he’d just accidentally touched something gross.
After wiping his hand on his pants, he firmed his resolve and pressed his hands against her waist. He could feel the cold metal studs from her armor under her blood-covered tabard. While it wasn’t skin contact, it was close enough not to matter for what he needed to do. There was plenty of soul power in the ether at the moment, so at least he wouldn’t have to focus too hard on efficiency.
The first thing he had to do was repair her body. Dragging her soul back would be pointless if it was just going to die again.
His healing spell shunted part of his mind into her flesh and blood. He could see each and every bit of damage that had killed her. She’d obviously put up one hell of a fight. There were multiple claw marks all over her legs which had shredded her armor, and several cracks ribs which her gambedson hadn’t protected her from, but what had ultimately killed her was the artery that was shredded in her arm. Nero could tell that someone had tried to heal it but hadn’t made it in time. The flesh around the wound had been mostly closed, but that hadn’t stopped the blood from filling the surrounding tissue like an ugly whole-arm bruise.
She must have realized she was dying, which would explain the expression on her face.
One after another, he closed the worst of the wounds. He didn’t have time to fix everything, as the mental weight of the remaining bodies metaphorically pressed down on him. All he needed to do was get her alive and he could deal with the rest of it later… or better yet, some other healer would.
Nero felt his mage armor dissipating as his mental focus turned all of its attention to what he was doing. He didn’t even bother to recover the center from the spell-forms he’d been pointlessly maintaining. Next, he closed the connection to his link, as Knight Angelton’s bitching about hurrying up was becoming a distraction.
Finally ready, he cast the resuscitation spell and mentally dove into her soul space. He could feel the emptiness clawing at his mind like the remnants of a bad dream. Almost immediately, he located the soul tether which connected her body to her soul. The damned thing was practically non-existent. It was so thin that he could only liken it to dental floss. If the other bodies were this bad, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to save them.
Putting that cheery thought aside for the moment, he focused on bringing this one soldier back from the other side. With the resuscitation spell, he could empower the soul link and drag her soul back to where it belonged. She would NOT be dying today.
While part of his mind was focusing on collecting and imprinting his identity onto the soul stuff from the ether, he channeled as much of his center into the spell as he could. In her soul space, it was like a flood of HIM reaching out to infuse the tether with strength. While externally, his expression remained blank, inside, he was grinning like an idiot.
Despite how much he’d rather be out on the front lines playing the part of a badass war mage, he couldn’t deny that this type of magic was still cool as hell.
He felt it the moment the tether shifted. Instead of pulling away, her soul began tumbling back to her body like it had been yanked by its collar. In less than a second, she slammed back into her soul space. For a moment, Nero could see the shock on its glowing face. She looked somewhat like an androgynous spirit with flowing motes of light standing in for her clothes, while also at the same time resembling a night light in the darkness.
Luckily, either due to her own soul’s presence or simply the nature of the spell form he still didn’t fully understand, Nero was promptly kicked out to find himself back in his own body.
Gasping awake, she began shivering in shock at what had happened. Her fingers clutched at Nero’s robe like he was her last chance at getting backstage at a Beiber concert.
While she was mumbling incoherently, Nero patted her shoulder and tried to explain, “It’s OK now, you’re fine. You did great, and we made it to the tunnel. Take your time getting your bearings. I have more people to see to, so just sit tight and someone will be with you shortly.”
Ignoring her mumbling thank you’s and requests for more information, Nero gently disengaged her hands by her wrists with a smile.
Turning away, he huffed to himself, thinking about all the annoying customers back at the store he’d used to work at. Some people just needed you to know that they appreciated your help. While it was nice and all, it was also kind of annoying. But, he couldn’t exactly tell her that he was just doing his job, now could he?
Sighing at the dozen or so bodies that were stacked up like refuse, Nero gritted his teeth and returned to what he was doing. Hopefully, he’d have enough time to save them all and still get a chance to unleash some spine-chilling death by firestorm on those cloned iguanas from hell. While saving people was nice and all, that’s not what he’d come down here for.
‘Just remember, by stopping the stupid portal, you’re avoiding spending years of your life stuck in some red skied hellscape filled with asshole kobalds that want to eat you. Eyes on the prize big guy,’ he reminded himself.
Dragging the next body off the top of the pile, Nero grimaced at the sight of the man’s half-eaten face. He supposed that was the downside of having superpowers. Being hard to kill made it hurt like hell when someone did finally manage to kill you.
