Chapter 3: Opening Gambits
At first look, the outpost seemed almost impregnable.
Rather than walls around a few blocky white buildings, it was a thick fortress built into the side of the cavern, with heavy Alum-rank walls wrapped all the way around the outpost like some kind of shell. The only entrances were a pair of gates, each one halfway up the walls and on opposing sides of the protective stone. Nothing that was merely physical would stop anyone at Bismuth or Azoth, of course, which was why there were blindingly brilliant essence protections worked into the stone to keep people from simply teleporting through.
A straight assault would be difficult, especially if there were any built-in defenses — as there probably were. But the outposts were designed to be taken, so Raine didn’t think that it was quite as impossible as it seemed. There was probably a way inside without hurling themselves against the fortress walls.
“Spot anything useful?” Raine sent to Leese, the Cato-provided communication sufficient for the few dozen miles of the cavern. Massive hanging plants provided light for the entire underground pocket, clusters of glowing berries thirty feet across casting a warm glow and providing pockets of deep shadow for the sisters to hide. Dyen didn’t need anything so mundane as darkness to hide, but he was accompanying Leese simply due to the rather confusing inability for the two of them to speak with him through Cato’s method.
“Only what’s obvious,” Leese sent back. Raine wasn’t discouraged. The two of them were feeling out the defenses with their essence senses and keeping surveillance on who was actually holding the outpost. Between their own experience and the powerful analytics of Cato’s combat algorithms, she was sure they could find the slightest crack. That was ignoring the potential of Dyen simply letting them in, though he wasn’t sold on a plan that required to expose himself while in enemy territory.
Raine circled around closer to one of the gates, being careful not to expose herself too much. Unfortunately, her movement Skill was not particularly stealthy, so she had to simply walk, traipsing through massive fungi and climbing vines. The few low-Azoth creatures – barely even worthy of being called proper beasts, this close to the outpost – were dispatched with a flex of her Domain, not even needing to bring out her weapon to turn them into smoldering ashes. Despite its usefulness, she kept her Domain close, careful not to broadcast her presence as she walked.
At a closer range, she could sense that there were only four Azoths inhabiting the outpost, their Domains glaringly obvious — and even as she waited, one of them vanished, presumably teleporting away to somewhere more interesting. The low population wasn’t actually surprising; aside from specialty building somewhere inside the outpost itself, there was little reason for anyone to stay there. The three that were hanging around were probably waiting either to enter said dungeon, or for someone to emerge from it. If she had to guess, the four she had sensed were simply in line for the high-value dungeon, meaning the outpost didn’t have any dedicated defenders.
She studied the defensive wards and traps and other essence patterns, letting the combat brains crunch through the complexities. As she had expected there were gaps, small areas where the wards didn’t quite overlap as they slowly changed and shifted in their patterns. Not something she would have been able to easily spot herself without far more experience, but the brute force abilities of Cato’s tools did a decent job of standing in for real knowledge.
Raine sent what she’d noticed over to Leese, who replied with a similar set of observations, transmitting impressions over the link rather than actual words. Between the two perspectives, Raine was fairly certain they could bypass the wards and slide their way in with their movement Skills. The only question was how confident they were about overpowering the quartet – now trio – inside.