Unconquered Tower

THIRTY-NINE

With a thought Roan had the lines of mobs break apart and form a defensive position around their impromptu meeting. Darren pushed his way to the front of the lines and stood staring down Grace with his arms crossed over his chest. Taoya took up position right behind Darren’s shoulder while the two girls spaced themselves apart.

“Tyler is making room to use her ability without killing all of us. Moira to escape the backlash of Taoya moving all out.” That left Roan with nowhere to go that wasn’t in a crossfire or in someone’s backblast of power. Aside from right besides Taoya next to Darren.

Grace’s dark eyes tracked them like a hawk, a curved smile on the corners of her lips. She didn’t object to them moving around, nor did her floating javelin twitch away from pointing at Taoya.

“Well? Are we gong to behave?” Grace asked when they finally finished rearranging themselves.

“You’re the one pointing weapons at us,” Darren reminded her.

“I’ll lower it once we have an accord.”

“Then let us be at peace for these next few minutes while we discuss our victory on this level,” Darren offered. Grace looked back and forth between them, the javelin falling to clatter to the ground without another word.

“Better?” Grace asked.

“Very. Now, tell us what happened and why you have a bunch of hostages tied to a hill,” Darren said.

“We attacked last night. Pieced the clues together from our mobs at my village, but we fell that night after losing our instructors. Spent the next day searching for allies and planning out our attack. Found my little brother and some other disgruntled climbers. Weren’t too happy being relegated to a Support Guild?” Grace made the name of the guild a question, her words filled with mockery.

“Explains Deacon and how she has so many bodies after losing her allies when they were attacked.” Darren rolled a finger through the air to tell her to keep going.

“We figured they’d come out of the caves during the night to attack you. Leaving their general defenseless. Or at least with fewer guards. So we rigged some explosives on the entrances we found. Our best fighters went in and we had it out down there,” Grace explained.

“You thought you could fight the general when the hobs were that challenging?” Darren asked incredulously.

“Challenging for you lot, not for me and my brother. We went down there with a good plan.”

“Obviously didn’t work,” Darren muttered. Grace stared at him blankly for a second before continuing.

“There were lots of goblins still down there and a few ogres, but nothing that really exhausted us. Our vanguard cut through them until we got to the depths of the caves. That’s where we found the general,” Grace said after a long moment of silence.

“What of the other hobs? The ones who aren’t released at night?” Roan cut in.

“Never saw them, but didn’t see the shaman reserves either. The only one down there was the goblins and the general,” Grace insisted.

“What was the general?” Darren asked, shooting Roan an annoyed look.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelPhoenix. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Looked like a hob honestly. More muscular than the others and he was a damn sight faster as well. It was able to dodge mine and Nash’s attack. That’s when I knew we had to run.” Grace paused for a moment, grimacing as the memories hit her before continuing.

“It’s a warren down there. We marked our path, but in the dark we got mixed up. The general kept sounding this horn and goblins were coming out of everywhere. We got split up. Me and my team made it out of the caves, but Nash and his squad got split off from us.”

“And when they started pouring out of the cave you blew the explosives and dropped the entrance on them,” Darren finished.

“Yeah. When the sun rose we found all these little entrances all over the hills and them strapped to the poles.”

“Smart and industrious. And has all of their best fighters back now,” Darren muttered, rubbing at his chin. Roan already knew the answer.

“We should run. This is going to be a bloodbath and not anything like we had planned for.” From the look on Darren’s face he was realizing it too. But there was naked greed there as well.

“You got credit for detonating the explosives, right?” Darren asked.

“Yeah, I got credit for the initial blast. Nothing for the subsequent cave ins though,” Grace said.

“Cave ins?”

“Yeah, the entire area was shaking and we could hear the ground collapsing in the area we had entered through. Had to have been caves ins,” Grace said.

“So initial kills but not subsequent ones. If we had a way of mapping this out we could collapse tunnels and force them to us the way we want,” Darren muttered. Roan felt his stomach drop and realized what an idiot he had been.

“There’s a map maker ability. It’s a level specific skill,” Roan said woodenly. He’d been ignoring the skills he could buy here to focus on the growth of his current skills and working on enchanting.

“We need that skill. Do any of your people have the ability?” Darren asked, looking around. Grace grimaced and shook her head.

“We haven’t been able to enter the villages except for brief intervals. Didn’t really have the money for it,” she said.

“Roan, what was the skill exactly?” Darren asked.

“Use mana to map your surroundings. Level unique skill, cost fifteen thousand for the skill directly, but only a thousand available,” Roan said.

“Fuck, that’s not a lot of slots and it sounds valuable. I bet you some of the supports have it,” Darren muttered.

“They’re all long gone. I can run back and see if there’s one available. Won’t take long and I have the money for it,” Roan offered. He was still kicking himself for not buying it or at least getting the manual when he had the chance. There had been just so much going on he’d lost track of it.

“You don’t have a ton of mana to use the skill,” Darren said.

“None of us do, but I have my second temper. Means I got plenty of mana in my body in comparison to you,” Roan countered. His rings were also packed with cooked mana infused steaks if he needed a quick bite.

“Alright. You run back and get the skill. We map out the tunnels, blow the weak points with shaman staffs, and then lure them up and out of a primary entrance,” Darren said.

“Forgetting something?” Grace asked. She’d been waiting while they had their hurried discussion.

“The prisoners? No, but I think while we’re doing all that it’ll be a perfect time for you to go and rescue them,” Darren said.

“And keeps us away from any points to be earned from killing the horde,” Grace said.

“It’s your brother tied to a stake being held prisoner,” Roan reminded her. Taoya rumbled, his laughter held at bay. Grace glared at them before sighing and nodding.

“Just designate the mobs to protect us while you go. I don’t want them standing around while I get shanked,” Darren whispered. Roan was able to mentally command the mobs to protect the four others.

His fourth weapon sold, less than the others still, but more credits piling up into his bank account. The fifth automatically entered the lists and the bids started coming in, slower than before, but still at a steady clip.

“Next level, the first thing we’re doing is securing the damn unique level skills,” Darren muttered, but Roan was already racing away from them.