Rimelion: The Exploiter

The fireballs left the line.

For three full seconds, the field belonged to them. Fifteen hundred trails of orange light arced across the gray sky in a single slow wave.

The wall saw it.

Luna watched from six hundred meters out as the entire crenellation rippled at once. Players she had been counting a minute earlier turned into blurs of motion, sliding off the wall back into the courtyard like spilled coins; Korven’s helm caught one flash of orange light and disappeared down a stairway that had not existed in her view of the wall thirty seconds prior.

The skeletons did not move.

The Death Knights did not move.

The fireballs hit.

Stone exploded along the southern face of the wall in a chain of orange blossoms; each detonation in the same moment, each one biting a chunk out of the structure or the things on it. Skeletons came apart in white dust. A section of crenellation collapsed inward, taking three more skeletons with it. A Death Knight caught a fireball to the chest and staggered three steps, plate glowing cherry-red, but did not fall. Two more beside it took hits and held.

The wall held.

“Damage assessment,” Mila said, in the tone he used to ask about the weather.

“Lieutenants compiling, sir.” Ostan’s voice was even. “Wall is degraded but intact. Approximately twenty skeletons down. One Death Knight visibly damaged. No necromancer guild casualties. They pulled before impact, sir.”

Mila looked at the wall for a long moment. His mouth thinned. “He saw it coming.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ostan’s eyes had not left the wall. “Doctrine,” he said.

“Sir?”

“That’s his doctrine.” The grizzled commander said. “He doesn’t post bodies he can’t replace. He posts the ones that can be reassembled; skeletons can be back instantly.” A pause. “If he weren’t ours to kill, I’d want him on staff.”

Luna’s right hand traced one small ghost-line through the air.

She made it stop.

“Return fire,” an aide called.

The wall was firing back.

Skeleton archers ranged along the inner walkway, drawn forward into the spaces the players had vacated, loosed in a single volley; three hundred shafts arced up through the sky. Behind them, eight or nine skeleton mages flickered at the same instant; lances of dark energy crossed the distance, slower than the arrows but harder to read.

“SHIELDS!” Ostan’s voice cracked across the line.

The Support Banner moved.

A hundred shield-bearers stepped up along the front of the formation, shields locking plate-to-plate, the wall behind them raising what amounted to a roof of overlapping iron. The first volley came down, and the formation shrugged most of it off. Some got through. A soldier in the second rank took one in the thigh and went down quietly; a healer was already kneeling beside him. Two more arrows clipped the residual ward overhead and dissipated.

The dark lances reached the line a second later. “Mine,” Lisa said brightly, and threw out a hand.

A counter-volley of fireballs intercepted them. Six precise spheres of orange flame meeting six dark lances, every collision detonating in a small bright crack of canceled energy. Two lances slipped past her arc; both hit the shield wall and unraveled against ward-laced metal. One shield-bearer staggered, recovered, did not fall.

“Eight for eight, Luna!” Lisa was bouncing on her heels. “Eight, did you see that? I’m gonna hug someone.”

“Please don’t hug anyone.”

“I’m gonna hug the wall, Luna.”

“Lisa, focus.”

“I’m focused.”

She was still bouncing.

“Second volley,” Mila said. “On your mark, Lady Lunaris.”

Lunaris nodded. “FIRE.”

Fifteen hundred staves rose. Fifteen hundred fireballs left the line. The wall took the second hit harder than the first; a section of merlon collapsed entirely. Two Death Knights this time staggered, and a skeleton mage exploded mid-cast, showering the walkway with dark fragments.

The wall returned fire.

Lisa caught most of it. Lisa was so good at this that made the Lieutenants behind her quietly take notes.

“Third volley,” Mila said.

“FIRE.”

Halfway through the third detonation chain, Ostan’s hand came up. “Sir. Movement at the gate.”

Mila and Luna turned.

The gate on the southern face had inched open further. Through the gap, emerging from the courtyard in a wedge that had clearly been forming for some time, came skeletons. Sixty, eighty, more behind them. Two Death Knights flanking the formation. Moving at a coordinated jog across the dead grass toward the army’s front line.

“Range four-fifty meters,” an aide reported. “Closing at twelve meters per second. They will reach our line in approximately thirty-eight seconds.”

Mila turned to Luna. “Lady Lunaris. Three options. First—we redirect two mage Columns to the wedge. We break it before it reaches us. Cost: two Columns out of bombardment for ninety seconds. The wall benefits.”

“Second—we hold our bombardment and let the wedge break against the First Banner. Cost: casualties on the front line. Estimated thirty to fifty soldiers. The wall continues to suffer.”

“Third—we send the skirmishers around the wedge’s flank and chew it from outside while the front line absorbs the front. Cost: the skirmishers are exposed, and we have no rapid recall option if a sortie comes out the gate behind them.”

Luna’s right hand traced a small ghost-line.

She thought about Korven on the wall. Korven, who would not commit his guild because his guild was finite. Korven, who was committing skeletons because skeletons were not. “He’s spending what he can replace,” Luna said quietly.

Ostan’s eyes flicked to her. “Then we don’t let him spend it for free.” Luna’s voice steadied. “Second option. Front line absorbs. The bombardment continues. We'll make the wall pay for every minute the wedge buys him.”

“My lady.” Mila turned to Ostan. “First Banner, brace position. Wedge inbound, thirty seconds. Pikes set.”

“Sir,” the order rolled down the line.

“Fourth volley,” Mila said.

“FIRE.”

A detonation chain erupted along the southern face. Korven’s archers and mages were firing back from cover. Lisa intercepted most of it, her arms tracing patterns Luna had stopped trying to read. Shield walls absorbed what got through.

Healers were moving along the file.

The wall was visibly degrading now. Two full sections of crenellation were gone. They destroyed at least a third of the skeleton garrison. Three Death Knights down. The wall would not hold forever. Korven knew the wall would not hold forever.

The wedge reached the line.

It hit the First Banner. The pikes set. The skeletons impaled themselves. The two Death Knights with the wedge cut into the front rank and dropped four soldiers in their first exchange before the second rank closed and overwhelmed them through sheer mass. Soldiers died. The line did not break.

Luna watched it from where she stood. Her hand was on the rapier's grip again. She did not remember putting it there.

Ian was beside her with the bow.

She had not registered him drawing it. He had been carrying it for the entire march; the quiver strapped to his belt opposite the daggers, and now he had it nocked and was sighting along it with the careful, slightly desperate concentration of a man who had been practicing for two weeks and was about to find out exactly how far that had taken him.

He loosed.

The arrow went wide. By a lot.

“Ian—”

“I know.” He swore quietly, nocked another, loosed again. Wider.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know, Luna.” He nocked a third. A skeleton archer had crawled onto a half-collapsed section of merlon to find a better angle. Ian’s third shot caught it in the throat; a clean, almost surprised hit, the skull tumbling backward into the courtyard while the rest of the bones came apart against the stone.

“Oh,” Ian said.

Behind them, Katherine was making a noise. It had started as a low, restless hum about thirty seconds into the bombardment. It had grown into intermittent muttering by the second volley. “Cute commander. Now?”

“No.”

“Cute commander, NOW?” By the fifth it was a full-body pace, three steps in one direction and three steps back, the greatsword swinging on her shoulder, the streaming icon over her head still on, narrating to an Earth audience.

“No.”

“I no good at standing! Standing very bad! Worst skill!”

“Kath, no.” Katherine smacked the shoulder of the soldier next to her, who was a First Banner Lieutenant, and who absorbed it. “Friend! You also bored?”

“Lady Knight. With respect. Please.”

“Bored together. Solidarity.”

He was professional. “Lady Knight.”

Luna felt Mila’s eyes on her. “Sixth volley,” Mila said.

“FIRE.”

The wall took the sixth detonation hard.

A quarter of the southern face simply came apart. Stone slid outward in a long, lazy collapse, taking another stretch of crenellation with it, exposing the inner walkway and the courtyard beyond. For a single second Luna could see directly into the heart of the tower; the scattered remains of the skeleton garrison, the surviving Death Knights repositioning along the inner keep, the players in cover behind the wall’s interior buttress.

Korven was visible for a moment. Helmet on. Greatsword across his back. Calling something to a Lieutenant beside him.

He looked at the breach in his own wall. He looked at Luna’s army. He turned his head, said something Luna could not hear, and a runner peeled off into the keep. “He’s adjusting,” Ostan said quietly. “He’s still working.”

“Yes,” Mila said.

Luna’s right hand traced one small ghost-line.

“Lady Lunaris,” Mila said. “We’ve reached the inflection point. The bombardment can continue, but diminishing returns are setting in; the wall is now degraded enough that further fire is mostly hitting through to the courtyard, which is largely cleared. He’s pulled the rest of his living forces deep into the keep.”

“How much longer until the wall comes down on its own?”

“It won’t. The structural damage has stabilized at the buttress line. He’ll hold what’s left of the wall as cover for ranged units and force us to come to him through the gate.”

“Then we'll go.”

“Three options. First—First Banner advances now under continued bombardment. The engineers move with them, breaching the gate when they reach it. Cost: the engineers are exposed for the full advance. Second—First Banner advances under the ward, no engineers, we go up the breach in the wall instead of through the gate. Cost: the breach is narrow and high, and we’ll funnel into it, and Korven knows we’ll funnel into it. Third—”

“First.”

Mila paused. “My lady?”

“First option. First Banner advances. Engineers go with them. Bombardment continues until they reach the gate.”

“Engineers will take losses on approach.”

She visibly gulped. “I know. It is the best option.”

“Acknowledged,” Mila turned. “Doan-Commander. First Banner—advance order. Engineers attached. Second Banner maintains fire on the wall. Skirmishers wide on the left to discourage sortie.”

Ostan saluted and was already moving.

Luna turned, and Katherine was right there. Katherine grinned and said, “yes.”

“Kath—”

“YES, Luny.”

“Go. With the First Banner. Front of the advance.” Katherine slammed her gauntlet against her chestplate, said something in a language Luna did not speak, and was already moving. “FOR LUNY!” she bellowed, and at least four hundred soldiers within hearing range answered.

Fty stepped up beside Luna.

“I’m going with them.”

“Fty—”

“Death Knights don’t die without front-line healing.” His voice was flat. “And the engineers will need help.”

Luna nodded. She did not say stay safe, because it would have been rude.

He went.

The First Banner advanced.

Twelve hundred soldiers moving in disciplined block formation across six hundred meters of dead grass, the engineers moving in the formation's heart, shield-bearers along every flank and the front, Katherine somewhere in the second rank and visibly fidgeting. Fty at the rear of the formation, staff up.

Korven made them pay for every step.

The wall’s surviving archers fired in coordinated, aimed shots at the Banner’s flanks. Skeleton mages contributed dark lances at Lisa’s intercept range, and Lisa caught most of them, but she could only be in one place at one time, and the Banner was a moving target.

A Lieutenant in the third rank went down.

Two engineers in the heart of the formation went down; one to an arrow that found the seam of his armor, one to a dark lance that the shield mages were a fraction late catching.

Lisa was no longer bouncing.

Her hands were steady, and her eyes had gone molten gold, and she was working, picking targets along the wall. Three skeleton archers in two seconds. A fireball through a half-formed dark lance. A precision shot that caught a Death Knight on the lip of the wall and sent it tumbling forward into the dead grass below.

The Banner reached the gate.

The engineers moved up under the ward. Five of them, working fast, packing something Luna could not see at the gate’s hinges and the wood of the gate itself, while the shield wall closed around them and the first wave of arrows hammered down on the locked iron above.

Fty was at the front of the engineer’s circle, healing in real time as fast as the engineers were taking hits.

“Lady Lunaris,” Mila said. “Engineers will breach in approximately forty seconds. The moment the gate falls, the courtyard is open. Korven will have his remaining forces concentrated in the keep, his guild in cover, surviving Death Knights as a forward line, whatever skeleton reinforcements he’s been holding back.”

She bounced on her heels, thinking. “Mm.”

“Three options when the gate falls. First—First Banner pushes through immediately, full assault. Cost: heavy. Second—we hold the threshold and bait them out. Cost: time, and Korven gets to choose his moment. Third—”

“Lisa.”

Mila stopped.

“Lisa,” Luna said again. “When the gate falls. The courtyard. Wall of Fire. Not the two hours one, her ultimate.”

“She’s been holding it. The courtyard is the right shape.” Luna’s right hand traced a ghost-line. She did not stop it. “The First Banner pushes through after. We don’t need them to fight a clean courtyard. We need them to fight what survives.”

“Good idea!” Lisa grinned at Lunaris and barreled into her for a hug.

Mila’s eyes were on them for a long second. “Lady Lisa—”

“On it!”

Mila gave Luna amused smile, as Lisa was already moving.

The gate came down.

A clean collapse, the wood and iron of the southern gate fell forward into the dead grass with a sound that rolled across the field like a struck bell.

The courtyard was open.

The First Banner stood at the threshold. The defenders in the courtyard saw what was about to happen and did not have time to do anything about it. “Fire in the courtyard!” Lisa screamed, and her hands came up.

The ground in the courtyard ignited.

A rolling crescent of fire, a tide, surged forward through the broken gate and into the courtyard, expanding as it went, climbing up the inner walls of the keep, eating skeletons and players and the surviving Death Knights and the last reserves of the Necromancers’ garrison in a single sustained roar.

The fire sang, and for ten full seconds the courtyard was a furnace.

When it broke, when Lisa let it go, and the orange light dimmed and the smoke climbed, the courtyard was black. Stone scorched, walls slumped where the fire had eaten the mortar, and the bodies of skeletons lay in dust along the ground, and the loot from dead players in cover that had not been deep enough.

The First Banner moved through the threshold.

Katherine was at the front of the advance. Greatsword drawn. Her own aura flared up and became visible, red against the scorched black of the courtyard, sparks curling along her blade. The shield wall reformed at the threshold and pushed inward.

Luna and Ian and the command file moved with them. Mila beside her, Ostan a step behind.

The smoke parted.

A figure stepped out of it.

Black plate, scorched and cracked along one pauldron but holding. Half-helm, the violet of the eye-sockets burning steady through the haze. Greatsword in two hands.

[Ashenvault Sentinel (Death Knight) Lv.43]

Type: 4-exceptional HP: 2,500/2,500

Behind it, a second figure resolved out of the smoke.

A third.

A fourth.

[Ashenvault Sentinel (Death Knight) Lv.41]

[Ashenvault Sentinel (Death Knight) Lv.42]

[Ashenvault Sentinel (Death Knight) Lv.40]

Four of them. Standing across the threshold, in a slow line, between Luna’s army and the keep.

The First Banner stopped, and the courtyard fell quiet.

Katherine, somewhere in the front rank, let out a low, delighted sound. “Oh,” Katherine said. “GLORY!”

Luna’s right hand traced one small ghost-line through the air.

She did not stop it.