PONon-Bee 341.2 - Bee-hold the General
Another hour passed. Starami finally stopped deploying his Tower Guard…and yet, riderless wyverns continued to attack the general and his dragon. General Rippotis’ bad feeling only grew…at this point, the number of riderless wyverns Starami had already reached implausible territory. Had he sent his wyvern riders into a Tower assault dismounted? Or had they gotten ambushed in the Underway? The general was starting to run out of possible explanations.
It was then that Starami changed his approach altogether.
“General! The Tower Keeper’s scouts say something is coming from the Underway! They don’t have eyes on it but say the vibrations indicate a lot of small objects!”
“Understood.”
General Rippotis narrowed his eyes. Starami was finally making a move. This would inform him of what Starami’s intentions were…and perhaps shed some light on the composition of his army…
As the scouts reported, General Rippotis began to feel a wave of mana approaching from below. It quickly approached the tunnels and burst onto the surface a moment later.
And even General Rippotis paused at what he saw.
A huge mass of small, three-foot tall humanoid reptiles with red scales scrambled over each other to reach the surface.
“Kobolds…so, that’s it, then. Starami has been raising monsters.”
General Rippotis didn’t know how it was possible. Starami had been thoroughly investigated by the Censors after losing Belissar’s Tower. A monster army like this…he shouldn’t have been able to hide it.
But however he had managed it, Starami had a horde of monsters right now, so General Rippotis had no choice but to accept it as reality. Moreover, many of the kobolds below had wings, dragonblooded-variants most likely, and were now taking to the sky. He now had dozens, maybe hundreds of fliers streaming towards him…not to mention the wyverns, which General Rippotis now knew were dungeon monsters that never had any riders at all, continued their assault as well. All the while, kobold mages on the ground began to cast spells, while the other wingless kobolds began setting up siege engines, anti-air ballistae from the looks of it.
He and Raklasi let out a dragonbreath into the horde, clearing the skies for but a moment. But General Rippotis furrowed his brow. With the blessings and perks of Fire he possessed, he could easily penetrate the fire resistance of a red kobold. But…it took a bit more mana to do so, which would add up given the sheer number of kobolds. General Rippotis’ mana was vast, but not endless, particularly not this far away from his Tower, where its ability to replenish him was diminished.
Worse still, Starami clearly sent out this horde as expendable. He still had his regular Tower Guard, along with his own dragons, and could absorb any casualties the general inflicted on this horde. He could now reasonably wear down the general with bodies and still have enough strength left to fight Tower Keeper Belissar and his allies.
General Rippotis began to heat up, glaring down at the flying kobolds approaching once more. He took a deep breath and unleashed another wave of dragonfire, consuming them whole.
He was General Rippotis, commander of the Dragon Banner Army, disciple and Tower Lord of Fire! He was not one to back down from a fight! If Starami wanted to wear him down, then the general would let him! He’d show the rogue just how long his fire could burn!
If nothing else, it would be nice to let loose after all those negotiations with the fey. And so, General Rippotis and his dragon charged back into fray…
Raklasi beat his wings to pick up speed, then spread them wide while angling his body to make a sharp turn. The wyverns on his tale overshot him, then the six wyvern riders supporting General Rippotis dove down on them from above, driving lances into their sides. The riders then quickly break off and climbed high into the sky, wary of getting caught in the middle of the kobold horde.
Raklasi then dove down and sweeped over the horde below, unleashing his breath to engulf yet another set of ballistae before they could begin attacking. General Rippotis gathered Raklasi’s flames and condensed them before launching a fireball into their midst, creating the critical mass needed to turn them into a firestorm to continue burning the horde below.
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Raklasi then swung up and began to climb as kobold mages launched spells at him, while General Rippotis turned his attention to the flying kobolds behind them. He created a wall of fire, not hot enough to burn the kobolds to ash entirely, but enough to set their thin wings ablaze. The kobolds that passed through the wall screamed as they fell from the sky.
“Come on, Starami, you’ll have to do better than this!”
General Rippotis glanced below and grinned. The number of kobolds on the ground had grown truly great. Raklasi wouldn’t be able to stop all their ballistae and group spells anymore.
And that meant it was time.
“Ask the Tower Keeper to pull back his Underway scouts, I’m going to use a big spell.”
“Yes, General!”
General Rippotis flew around for a bit more while he waited. Once his liaison confirmed the Tower Keeper’s forces were out of the way, General Rippotis raised his hand high.
“God of Fire, let your wrath blaze and burn my enemies to ash! Let your fires brighten the heavens above and scorch the very ground below!
The sky burst into flames above him as a blazing meteor appeared overhead. The kobolds below began to scramble but their sheer numbers turned against them, the masses collided and tripped one another as they turned to run. General Rippotis and Raklasi did not watch idly either, swooping around the edges of the horde to pick off any who managed to flee the area of impact.
The meteor struck the world with a crash, sending a rumble through the ground and shockwave through the air. The ground itself, weakened by the tunnels Starami’s forces had dug through it, collapsed as the meteor slammed through it, landing all the way down into the Underway. It not only crushed the kobolds on the surface, but buried those coming up from below. A pillar of fire shot into the heavens as the new hole in the ground channeled the meteor’s blaze.
General Rippotis flew around the impact site, gathering up scattered flames and sending them towards the center as not to burn down the Tower Keeper’s forest entirely, then hunted down the surviving kobolds on the surface.
He took a deep breath, then shook his head. Starami should have known better than to let a horde that size gather, all he did was give the general a big enough target to justify larger spells. But, well, kobolds were never the most disciplined or cooperative of creatures…and they were facing a dragon. General Rippotis imagined Starami was having a hard enough time getting them moving and fighting against him.
“Inform our allies that we have a moment. I’ll return to command area to rest and confer with them while I have the chance.”
“Yes, General!”
In any case, he had bought himself a moment to breathe and so steered Raklasi back towards Belissar’s Tower. Starami’s forces would have to dig new tunnels now that he had collapsed the section of the Underway they had been using, further complicated by the firestorm still raging over the impact site. And now that he had settled down, it was time to consider the wider implications of Starami’s treachery.
So, Starami had gone fully rogue. He had broken the restrictions of the Conclave, assembling an army of monsters. General Rippotis could now understand Starami’s tactics and the number of wyverns he had available. He could even understand why Starami was targeting him now, Starami was probably hoping that defeating a High Councilor would be a sufficient show of force to delay the Conclave from subjugating him. Maybe he even hoped to take the general hostage. It wouldn’t help him, but Starami might believe that it would.
What General Rippotis could not understand was how the Censors had missed a monster-breeding operation of this scale. The Conclave might not allow monster armies, but they understood enough about the spawners to know they had a maximum limit and did not spawn that entire limit all at once. It would have taken time and a vast quantity of mana to raise a monster army with spawners alone. The monsters spawned could breed naturally to supplement their numbers…but that also took time. Starami could not have created an army of this size in a mere day or two, not unless he stripped his entire Tower of its rooms and features.
And Starami had not only been investigated recently, he had remained under scrutiny since. Both his Tower and his conduct during the Grand Subjugation were observed by the Censors. So, where and when did he manage to hide a monster army of this size?
General Rippotis thought over it again and again…but he kept coming to the same conclusion. A Censor must have seen what Starami was doing…so the only reason that it had not been reported must have been that the Censor investigating Starami chose not to. Or the Censor in question was entirely incompetent, or Starami had found a method to hide anything he wanted from the Censors.
But no matter the reason, the conclusion was the same: at least one Censor was not as reliable as the general believed.
A chill ran through his body despite the heat of his mana. The question was…was this limited to one Censor? Or were there more? It couldn’t be all of them. Heigiosa and Konilias surely would have noticed, they selected some of the Censors themselves. But the uncertainty now threw all of the Censors’ reports into question. There would have to be a thorough review of the Censors and every report they had made to determine just how much of their work was affected.
And in the worst case…the High Council might have a completely inaccurate idea of what was going on in the Conclave.
General Rippotis wrestled with dark thoughts as Raklasi took him back towards the Tower…