What’s inside my brain? What does that mean? How about “It begins”? The battle?
Somehow, I don’t think Rumpr was referring to the coming battle. And then this armor.
The armor given to those two I can understand. But mine? “Changes to suit your body”.
Were they expecting somebody like me? Every powerful being in this world talks in
riddles. Even when they’re talking in plain sentences. Makes me feel I’m running around
with blinders. Like a horse.
Finally, Rumpr stood up. Torc in his arm, like a bracelet, he changed into a copy of
Habrok. The man’s eyes widened.
“Well, Habrok, with this, I can go visit all your girlfriends,” he laughed and then turned
to the two, “time to go, death-wish lads!”
A stone door appeared. The three entered at a fast jog. It took them just a few minutes
to reach its exit. Rumpr stopped.
“Close your eyes. We will be on the mound when you open them. But if you don’t close
your eyes, you will be blinded by the transfer from this hallway to the rise.’
The two closed their eyes.
“We’re here.”
Tyler opened his eyes. Rumpr was already busy creating the ditch. But the enemy was
already about a hundred feet away. The column must have moved forward or was
reduced by the commitment of forces to the attack. Jorund took a position on his left,
bow at the ready. No other enemies could be seen, everybody was focused on the
attack. On the positive side, nobody had noticed their arrival yet. Gripping his staff, he
activated its shield and cast a frontal barrier with an overhead cover. They could wait
until the ditch is finished and Habrok comes back.
The ditch was indeed child’s play for Rumpr. The channel formed itself. With Rumpr
standing there and guiding its creation without any ostentatious gestures. Tyler
observed that the trench quietly formed where Rumpr looked. It was an amazing
display of magical will. The ditch was wide enough, around eight feet wide and six to
eight feet in depth.
As Rumpr finished the back part of the trench, somebody from the enemy horde finally
noticed them. Tyler could see the commotion their presence created. A wall of
warriors, dokkalfr and ice elves by the looks of it, was forming while one dokkalfr was
running to the front of the enemy column. He didn’t notice Rumpr had disappeared.
Habrok arrived, laden with quivers, just as the warriors started to quick march in their
direction. The ranger gave some quivers to Jorund and took the position on his right.
“Not too far from me. Keep a distance of eight feet. Otherwise, the shield won’t cover
you.”
Tyler observed the formation. He could also see mounted ice elves on vargar coming
up. Nice of them to march in a such a packed formation. I don’t see mages. They must
be in the van of the town assault. He created three large fireball blades, infused it with
as much energy he thought he could safely release, and launched it against the
incoming mass. One in the middle and one on each side.
The ensuing detonations were ear-splitting. A kaleidoscope of colors attended the
explosions. He didn’t need to combine the fiery masses, the blasts and resultant fires
were enough to bloodily and messily shred the enemy. Roughly two companies’
worth, he thought, around two hundred. They didn’t even get to fire their bows.
With a detached eye, he looked at the result of his attack. The formation was indeed
destroyed, a lot of enemies were on the ground, dead and dying. As he expected, the
shrapnel effect of the explosions also accounted for a lot of wounded. Many of the
wounded appeared to be missing appendages. He didn’t waste time on them. What was
important is that they're out of the fight or will die soon. In the distance, he could see
more formations assembling. But the mounted ice elves were fast closing. They were
spread out, making it difficult to target them with a single area of effect spell. Arrows were now starting to hit the barrier.
The vargar were already past the assembling formations and had adopted a dispersed
arrowhead configuration. Tyler scattered numerous small orbs in front of them and
when they entered the area, exploded the shapes simultaneously. The smaller but
deadly blasts broke the vargar charge. Few were killed outright by the explosions but
large numbers of terrified or limping vargar leaving the area attested to their efficacy.
Their riders were not so fortunate. Many either crashed to the ground when their
mounts were hit by the small fireballs or were thrown off when their mounts suddenly
stopped upon seeing the exploding field ahead of them. It was like laying down a field
of grenades and igniting them at the same time.
Tyler looked up and could see the rain of incoming arrows. He knew the barrier would
stop them. But then again, the enemy was quickly organizing themselves. Whoever is
commanding the rear forces is good, as Jorund had observed. Yet he still could not see
where the commander was. Usually, there would be a command group somewhere. But
he knew he had to take care of those archers. Each hit on the barrier degraded its
defense. He estimated the distance and lobbed a number of large fire balls into the air,
arranged in a row, aiming at the enemy frontal ranks. He was guessing that the
bowmen were hidden behind the forming wall of shields.
After the explosions in the distance, he could see that most of the spheres landed in
front of the shield wall. Some hit the shield bearers themselves. Most were thrown back
while those hit directly were consumed by the magical fire. Blood and gore again
spattered the battlefield. He adjusted his aim and let loose another volley. This time,
when the fireballs exploded, he tried to merge their fiery gifts and then loosed a strong
AWAY! spell directed at the fiery confusion.
He counted on the sticky nature of the magical fire to produce more wounded and
induce panic. As the spell hit the dam of fire, it blossomed out in a bigger blaze directed towards the rear of the enemy. Tents and shelters burned. He could see many figures
on fire running around and the assembling groups were reduced to clumps of warriors
who escaped the initial blasts. From his position
