Ch 196 – The Eastern Gate
Appearing with twin flashes of white light, Deacon and Bonehead found themselves staring out at a large marsh stretching before them as far as they could see, nothing but murky water and tall reeds and weeds rising from the muck in every direction, with only a scant few trees scattered about.
Turning around to see what was behind them, they found themselves looking at a weathered stone fortress that was barely holding itself together, with crumbling sections of wall that had been hastily patched with whatever materials were available and wooden scaffolding propped up against areas that looked ready to collapse entirely.
From what they could see of the garrison, rugged-looking humans averaging somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age, wearing muddied and torn armor, had taken positions along the wall and were aiming their crossbows forward toward the marsh, while only about thirty soldiers stood on the ground beside Deacon and Bonehead, wielding swords and shields that had clearly seen better days.
Atop of that, Deacon could see that the way a few of them were holding their weapons, they held no stance or fluidity in the way they were holding themselves in the knee-high marsh.
A Quest notification appeared in front of both of them not even a handful of seconds after they'd taken in their new surroundings and processed where exactly the Tower had deposited them this time.
Floor Eleven – The Eastern Gate:
You have arrived at the Eastern Gate, a frontier fortress standing alone at the edge of contested territory between the Human Kingdom of Eld and the Lizardkiin Tribes. It is the last stronghold remaining on the Eastern Front capable of preventing the Lizardkiin Tribes from breaching deep into Eld's territory.
Two days ago, the Eastern Gate was struck by a devastating ambush that caught the garrison almost entirely unaware, with the fortress alarm going off a full ten minutes after Lizardkiin assassins had already slipped through the magical barriers protecting the Eastern Gate and entered the fortress proper.
Of the original two hundred and twenty-three soldiers stationed at the Eastern Gate, only thirty-one survived the ambush. However, all of the Lizardkiin assassins involved in the attack were killed during the defense. Even so, the survivors knew that this ambush was merely the beginning of something far worse.
This morning, a raven arrived from the Duchy of Von Dilling carrying urgent news: every major gate protecting the Kingdom of Eld faces the same crisis, as all the non-human races have declared war simultaneously against humanity. Reinforcements and supplies are en route to the Eastern Gate, but they are still four days and three nights away from arrival.
Desperate to prevent the Eastern Gate from falling before reinforcements could arrive, General Corvin declared Martial Law across all neighboring villages and towns within a day's march, conscripting every able-bodied man and woman to bolster the fortress's defenses, bringing the total number of defenders to eighty-nine souls.
You and your Party are among the conscripted soldiers who must defend the Eastern Gate until reinforcements arrive.
Floor Completion Criteria:
▸ Assist the garrison in repelling the forces threatening the Eastern Gate.
Time Remaining: 239:00:00
Just after Deacon and Bonehead dismissed the floating Quest panels hovering in front of them, a loud, booming voice echoed from somewhere above, atop the massive wall behind them, just as it simultaneously began lowering its portcullis.
"Lizardkiin have been sighted!" General Corvin shouted from his position on the wall.
Squinting, Deacon frowned and looked slightly taken aback at the General. Even from ground level, he could see that the man’s armor was clean and unblemished, practically gleaming compared to the filthy equipment worn by every other soldier present.
He also had a well-maintained beard that looked like it received more attention than the fortress’s defenses, though his pale skin appeared sallow and unhealthy in the afternoon light.
Is he being for real? Deacon thought to himself in confusion, narrowing his gaze at the General as he saw that he had no intentions of opening the gate to allow them in. If we’re fighting against an army and we have a fortress, we should be in siege mode.
“Stand at the ready!” General Corvin shouted as hundreds of multicolored figures, their scales glistening in the rays of the sun, appeared in the distance from beneath the shallow waters of the marsh.
“Bruh,” Bonehead said in complete disbelief as he looked around at their surroundings, noticing that the marshes grew much deeper the farther they were from the fortress. “What the fuck am I supposed to do down here? I barely have 40 points into Agility.”
Deacon could do nothing but agree with Bonehead in questioning why he had been positioned out in front of the fortress, and not just because everyone should be inside the walls during a siege.
On Floor Six, Bonehead had been able to use the sheer number of allied undead soldiers around him, combined with the rocky terrain and the general chaos of large-scale warfare, to operate as a field medic while lobbing bomb after bomb at the enemy from relatively protected positions, essentially by staying near Sam and Esmerelda, who covered him from incoming projectiles, while Deacon and Jass prevented anyone on foot from getting close to him.
Along with having only Deacon to cover him, the terrain was a marsh, with the only area offering any real protection being the fortress behind them, which had just sealed its gate and cut off any chance of retreat. Being stuck on the front lines like this, surrounded by people who looked as though they were holding their weapons for the first time, would prevent him from acting as a combat alchemist medic or give him any real opportunities to lob his alchemical bombs.
All in all, Bonehead's usual support role was going to be nearly impossible to execute safely.
Understanding this immediately, Deacon wrapped his left arm around Bonehead's torso and said "Hold on," before kicking off the ground and launching both of them forty feet straight up into the air, reaching roughly halfway up the fortress wall before he kicked against the air itself with his right foot and propelled them another forty feet upward, landing heavily on top of the Eastern Gate's battlements much to the visible shock of every soldier and the General who witnessed it.
"You can air walk?" Bonehead asked in genuine surprise once Deacon had set him down. “When the hell did you learn to do this?”
“Just recently figured it out,” Deacon answered, though his tone made it clear he wasn’t entirely confident in the ability yet, which was further shown by the pinched look of concentration on his face. “But it takes a lot of focus to maintain.”
“I still need to practice Air Stepping a lot more before I can properly use it when fighting,” sighed, annoyed that he could not implement it properly yet, as it would have been invaluable with their current surroundings. “But, at least with this place, it’ll give me the opportunity to figure out how to run on water.”
Ignoring the shocked and panicked shouts from the soldiers below them on the ground and those nearby on the wall, including some very loud yelling from General Corvin, Deacon unstrapped the Soul Bottle containing Esmerelda’s soul from the belt loop of his new Leggings of the Barbarian, which were part of the Barbarian armor set he had received from his uncle and equipped before coming to Floor Eleven. He then carefully passed the glowing Soul Bottle to Bonehead.
"Keep her safe," Deacon said to him with a pointed look, briefly looking over his shoulder to see that the number of Lizardkiin charging at the fortress was well over a hundred, severely outnumbering their eighty nine.
"You! You there, conscript, what in the name of—" General Corvin's voice was getting louder as he marched toward them across the battlements with a hand raised and a shaking finger pointed at the both of them.
“With my life,” Bonehead said, as Deacon watched him properly secure the Soul Bottle by strapping it around the lower right rib of his ribcage beneath his alchemist robes that looked to Deacon like a bathrobe before wrapping the fabric back around himself and tightening the knot to keep everything in place.
Deacon also noted with some interest that none of the soldiers were reacting at all to Bonehead being a very obvious skeleton, which led him to come to the conclusion that the Tower was somehow causing the humans of Eld to gloss over, or simply not register, that Bonehead was not a human.
As General Corvin's hand reached out to grab a fistful of Deacon's armor, probably intending to physically shake him while delivering a scathing tongue lashing, Deacon's arm shot forward faster than the General could react and his hand wrapped around the man's throat before lifting him completely off his feet and up into the air, his grip tightening just enough to make breathing difficult without crushing anything important.
Sputtering and clawing at Deacon's hand with both of his own, General Corvin struggled to draw breath, but Deacon made absolutely no movement to release him or ease the pressure.
"He stays on top of the wall," Deacon said plainly, his tone carrying no emotion whatsoever as he ignored how the soldiers around them were stepping backward in fright while a couple adjusted their weapons to point in his direction, and somewhere off to the side, a soldier stationed in the watchtower shouted down that Lizardkiin were closing in onto the Eastern Gate.
"And if you or anyone else here tries to do shit to him, like pushing him off or attacking him from behind, I will tear you apart limb from limb," Deacon continued, tightening his grip around the General's neck just enough to emphasize his point while remaining completely unbothered by the man's increasingly frantic kicking at his chest and torso. "Understand?"
Sputtering and beginning to turn an unhealthy shade of blue from lack of oxygen, General Corvin nodded as rapidly and painfully as he could manage, given the circumstances, and Deacon immediately dropped him onto his ass on the stone battlements before turning his back on the man to look at Bonehead.
"This is your one and final warning," Deacon said, directing the words at the coughing General who was scampering backward on his hands and feet to get away. “Focus on the Lizardkiin in front of us instead of prancing about with your dick in your hand and throwing people needlessly to their deaths.”
Taking his eyes off the General and returning his full attention to Bonehead, Deacon's expression softened as he gave him a look of incredulous disbelief. "Holy shit, we are so fucked if we have to deal with this piece of shit for four days.”
“Let’s see if we can finish this before tonight,” Bonehead chuckled. “We got level advantages over them.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said as he raised his fist toward Bonehead while his other hand pulled up a filtration mask to cover the lower half of his face. "Keep your head on a swivel up here and keep her safe."
"You as well," Bonehead replied, meeting the fist bump solidly before turning to look at the General and pointing at himself with his index finger. “I’m an Alchemist bitch, not some meat shield grunt.”
Giving one last pointed look at General Corvin, who was being helped back onto his feet by several of his soldiers while still coughing and massaging his throat, Deacon turned away from all of them and walked to the edge of the battlements before launching himself off the Eastern Gate and straight down toward the charging Lizardkiin army that was now visible emerging from the marsh.
While falling through the air, Deacon unsheathed Echoform Reliquary in its dual short sword form from where it had been strapped across his back and cast Flame Armament across both blades, wreathing them in orange fire as he dive-bombed directly into the center of the army of hundreds of Lizardkiin warriors whose levels ranged between 19 and 23.