11 – They are here

A cold wind swept through the dark and abandoned streets of Farcall. Inside the guild building where everyone was huddled together, be it in search of physical warmth by the fire or the warmth of company, Edmund was restless. The chill air was seeping into the building through the cracks and the broken window by the door, and the peculiar scent of rain was heavy and foreboding. It smelled of mold, sweat, and tears inside, the last coming from the quiet sobs of a young mother who had lost her two children, surrounded by the comforting presence of the whole village that couldn’t, however, soothe her pain.

Toora and Lisa were inspecting their equipment. Toora had managed to get her hands on a new staff and was trying some light incantations to see how it felt, while Lisa was polishing her already shining armor with religious zeal. From here, Edmund could see the gems, glowing a deep golden yellow, encased in the deepest reaches of her armor. He took a mental note, aided by Praetor, of how many there were that he could see so that he could compare her growth to how many gems she acquired.

The fireplace felt cold and distant in the tense silence of the room, only broken by the loud gusts of wind. Edmund got up from his chair, which creaked as it slid on the floor audibly, and made his way towards the window. He felt some stares, but then everybody got back to what they were doing. The icy cold air brushed his face and sent a shiver down his spine, and he heard the first drops of rain start to fall on the unknown darkness outside. They were loud, huge drops of chill water from the sky. A far away thunder rolled through the ghost town.

“It’s the bloody tower!” a lone voice rose from the silent crowd, and Edmund turned his back to the window to look at the speaker.

“Yeah, we always knew the tower was an ill omen.” Another said.

“And now, it finally opened to reveal is darkest secrets.”

Huh, he scoffed internally. That would make me its darkest secret. I wish.

Maliketh was silent, looking at the floor with a stern expression of suppressed anger. He was, as he said earlier to Edmund, using the anger to fuel himself for the upcoming battle. He was not going to be consumed by anger and loss just yet, not where there was work to do. The ones speaking were the other three elderly men, now engrossed in a pointless conversation about the tower and how it had always been a foul presence around Farcall. Curious, Edmund thought, because from what I gather Farcall was built next to the tower, not the opposite.

He briefly locked eyes with Toora, who shook her head lightly. He bit his tongue and held his words back. To be fair, he couldn’t be sure that these people were wrong. The tower, the Pylon, had undergone severe and unknown changes over the years.

“What do we do?” a woman, and Edmund noticed she was the same one who was sobbing earlier, said in a low voice. “We can’t escape. We can’t hide. Our walls will not hold long against the monsters.” She cried.

“The walls will hold.” Maliketh’s voice was low and powerful. “The lads made a hell of a good job repairing them. Now they are even stronger than they were. We dug trenches, traps, built palisades… they won’t pass through this time.”

The woman was still crying, and her words were of a hysterical chill. “And then what? We stay in here for how long? How long until hunger, illness or an attack kills us all one by one?”

Edmund sighed.

“One thing at a time young lady. We have faces worse odds, trust me.” The words ran hollow.

“It’s the fucking Tower.” Someone said somewhere.

A howl seemed to echo from the forest below, down in the crater. The wind swept the dark streets. Then, a crash of thunder and in the brief flash of light the lone sentinel at the walls saw the horde. As darkness came again, countless pairs of red, hungry eyes stared from the carpet of black of night. He gulped, and bolted for the illusory safety of the guild, repeating in his mind that he was only doing his job, he was not abandoning his post, he was going to warn the others and come back here, where he would die; a honorable death.

***

“They are coming.”

Edmund and Toora were once again standing on the walls. This time not to oversee the repairs, but to witness the coming massacre. The rain was pelting them, pooling on the ground below in huge pools of muddy water, streams and rivers sliding down the incline towards the forest, filling the holes and craters, sliding into darkness. The few torches lit a small area around them, islands of light in the black.

The eyes stared.

Thunder roared.

Edmund took a deep breath, analyzing what he saw in the brief flash with maniacal precision, aided by his AI. Beside him, Toora was apparently doing the same, aided by her magical means, and she was restless. She was gripping her new staff tight, the wood under her white knuckles under so much pressure it was splintering into her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice.

On the ground below, at their stations and positions, almost every single soul left in Farcall was gathered with held breath, weapons in hand. This was going to be their final battle, and even the aloof guild clerk was here, holding her twin battle axes like a Viking thirsty for blood.

The monsters were hidden by the natural stone formations, but they all knew they were waiting for the right moment to attack. The wind and rain were sucking the warmth out of the dozens of bodies amassed on the battlefield, waiting for the violence to come, shivering and thinking of a sunny past.

The cold was unnatural, penetrating, overbearing. It was coming from the forest itself in waves, despite the warm season, and white crystals of brine were growing on the wet fortifications. The water and mud were gelid. Edmund felt horrible, but a part of him was grateful that his contribution to the battle would not require him to step foot on the battlefield.

He checked his Hume reserve. 112 Humes. Not much.

“Here, give this to Lisa.” He said suddenly. “We’re going to need it. The grand finisher.”

He took out the hammer and gave it to her. It was so light as to almost be a feather, engraved with golden arcs and runes that seemed to grow out of its handle and head. It was dark, as if made of a smoked and burnt wood ashen in color, and yet it felt stony and cool to the touch.

“What is it?” she felt the item in her hands, savoring the burning feeling it gave her where the reality bending field met her magic. Its field was thick and compact, the same taste as Edmund’s but much, much stronger. It was different than the artificial flavor of Axiom, she could tell. And somehow, the making of this item had managed to compress and multiply Edmund’s power. Just like a school of magic would do to mana.

“My latest creation. It’s just an experiment. I call it… Marika’s hammer.” He said, and she noticed that he winced at the name he himself gave to the weapon. “tell Lisa that after at least five minutes of battle, she can activate it and slam it to the ground, creating a large destruction area ahead of her that will then explode after a second, more or less. It has only three uses, after which it will become useless, but each strike will be more powerful than the previous.” And they will stand before the Elden Ring! His mind recited with joy.

She nodded and disappeared into the night. She reappeared down below, briefly lit by the light of a torch, already taking position after giving the item to Lisa.

Alright. Preparations time. Praetor, prepare and delay the following: Night vision, Projectile shield, Enhanced kinetic vision, Enhanced targeting, Optimized Hume Flow, Heuristical Neural Network.

“Yes, sir. Estimated Hume cost: 10H/second.”

Alright. Only activate them when needed, I give you total control.

“Understood.”

Edmund took out his weapon. It was but a crude looking bow but, unable to use his power for any actual reality-bending, it too like the hammer had been modified to the extreme of Edmund’s current capabilities.

The rain was an incessant hammering of cold water running down his cheeks. His eyes shone in the darkness with the orange glint of reflected torchlight.

Finally, after tense minutes, a howl and screech cut through the rain. It was an alien, incomprehensible sound full of hatred and hunger, and with it came the sound of a hundred stomping feet, charging through the mud, hidden by the veil of night.

“They’re coming!” yelled the scout.

A large beam of light illuminated the battlefield, shining from somewhere behind Edmund. For a moment, everyone could see the beasts: boarts charging by the dozen, monsters like oversized lizards and dinosaurs, bears, scaly creatures slick and slimy under the downpour, their scales and slimy hides a sheen that reflected the lights of men.

Then, darkness. The charge continued, and now the men were raining arrows of fire, shooting firebolts, invoking destruction. Lisa disappeared into the fray, towering shield in one hand and hammer in the other and started bashing at the enemies with her huge slab of metal, breaking their lines. Her hammer was a golden beacon of light, around which rallied the men of Farcall, who joined the battle amidst shouts of rage, pouring their all into the counter offensive.

Toora was shooting rapid fire bolts of flames and magma, projectiles that appeared above her head or from her staff and shot at great speed towards the enemies in front. Archers beside her rained arrows incessantly upon the lines of monsters, a rain of wood and stone that under some undisguised magic, for a moment surpassed the incessant downpour of the storm.

Edmund stared. The night vision came online for a brief moment, allowing him to save his Humes while Praetor processed the image for him. He frowned. The bombardment was barely enough to stall the first lines of enemies: the smaller and weaker foes among the many monsters that had come out of the forest. Behind them, burnt into his vision, towered the gigantic monsters whose name he didn’t know. Those were his targets.

He knocked an arrow and held it. He felt his energy drain into it, and the tip began to glow a sick purple, brighter and brighter as more and more energy was dumped into it. After a while, staring down the shaft at one of the towering monsters, he felt the reality-bending come online from the AI he released the arrow. He dismissed the tracking enhancements, allowing himself a moment of rest. The arrow flew through the air towards a many headed hydra, plunging into its slimy hide, then burst into tentacles of purple that sunk into its flesh and consumed it from within.

The beast fell, never to rise again. Edmund felt the brief rush of adrenaline and satisfaction, but soon a lightning strike nearby illuminated the field again with a brief flash. The afterimage in his retinas made his stomach sink. There were dozens of hydras, huge bird-like monsters, and others that looked like misshapen dinosaurs coming out of the forest. He prepared another arrow but knew very well he didn’t have many more left in the tank. He aimed and shot, nonetheless, a small blue shield protecting him from incoming attacks when needed, magic of an alien make flowing through him and enhancing his eyes and senses. The Humes ticked down, incessant. He resisted.

***

Lisa charged at the straight line of boarts, holding her tower shield aloft. Her mind was one single thought: battle. Hammer in one hand, she braced for impact as she let all her strength and momentum slam into the enemies, adding a little bit of personal magic to empower the shockwave even further. The impact was like a meteor, sending the first two lines of boarts into disarray.

She spun on her back, kicking the muddy ground and got up on her feet. The rain was cold and thick, and she was immersed in darkness this far away from the torches, the only light being that of her golden hammer. Five minutes, she had been told. And five minutes she would fight, until she could bring the finisher to the battle.

A flash of lightning, and she saw a purple arrow flying overhead. She felt the sick vertigo of its magic, different from any other magic she had ever seen. It plunged into a beast, corroding and consuming it, until it fell. She remained focused. Overhead tens of arrows and a constant stream of fireballs took down the small fries one after the other.

Her assault had been the spearhead, and already the villagers were streaming in through her breach in the enemy lines and cutting down the enemies. It wasn’t enough. It took two or three people to take down a boart, and she knew these were only the first wave. The appetizer.

She charged into the depths of the enemies without hesitation, even as the villagers retreated to fight back at the fortifications. Her armor was taking hits, but the magic within it was holding. She tanked them all, trusting her gut and her hard-earned gems to keep her safe, and the hits slid off her armor like distant thunder, like a war drum beating in her ear; she fell in a trance of battle. She swung the hammer, hitting like a savage beast. She bashed her shield, like a ram against a wall of monsters.

However, as time passed she found that the rhythm of her trance was getting increasingly difficult to maintain. The occasional stronger monster capable of hitting her hard enough to make her head rattle had become a normal occurrence she had to avoid, dance around, dodge. She needed to be mindful, study what to hit and what to run from. Dozens of dangerous threats populated her mind’s view of the field, with increasingly little space to maneuver.

Another arrow flew overhead, but this time the vertigo made her lose her focus. A huge, deformed bear slapped her with its oversized paw and sent her flying, and she rolled in the dirt enough times to be thoroughly confused by the time she came to rest, soaked and heavy from the liquified ground seeping in her armor. Not a moment of rest, though, for she felt the stampede of enemies above her, enough to make her amor begin to dent.

She pushed up with all her might, and desperately asked Toora how much was left until she could use the hammer that was supposed to save them all.

***

“Two minutes!” Toora yelled, so to speak, into the mind link she had temporarily formed with Lisa.

Toora had started off the battle on the ground, uncaring of the mud and icy rain, casting fireball after fireball at the enemy. What was a fast incantation at the beginning, by the time she had cast it a hundred times it had become lightning quick, stronger and more efficient, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the monsters away.

Now, she was surveying the battle from above, having joined Edmund at his location. She was running dangerously low on mana and had to switch over to using a few but very powerful and optimized spells from above, like a true magical artillery. To be fair, the situation down below was getting too dangerous for her, with many monsters now slipping past the breaking line of defense.

Fewer and fewer villagers were left to hold the line, with more falling by the minute. The captain of the guards had joined the battle as well, after receiving a dose of healing that would certainly kill him soon, if the monsters don’t kill him sooner. She concentrated, letting the outside world slip out of focus for a moment. A more optimized spell meant that she could fire it more, more often and with more power.

The ground shook, and sharp dark stones jutted out of it, wet and slick with a glint of red from the torches on the ground and on the walls, soon to be joined by the red of blood. The trenches churned, the walls came to life and speared with their stony life everything they could touch, under the direction of her magic, and many monsters fell there only for their place to be filled with twice more coming from who knows where.

One minute.

Edmund was firing arrows more slowly now, and his arrows were not killing the behemoths in the back anymore. They were advancing, inching closer and closer.

Forty seconds.

She gathered all her magic for one last, desperate attempt at buying Lisa enough time to use the hammer.

Thirty.

She watched Lisa struggle against a living stone formation, huge and towering. She saw her eat a granite fist in the face, but she didn’t react to it, instead bashing at the monster with her hammer. With every hit, she was chipping away pieces of rocks and dirt, exposing a glowing inside that hissed and churned. Hot magma poured out of the cracks and doused her and got into her armor, and she cried out in pain, losing focus just for a moment.

Twenty.

The explosion went off, illuminating the skies to day. After it, only silence and the ringing of ears that invaded her mind. She had given her all, after casting countless magic more and more powerful as the battle went on, this was her closure, her last act for today’s show. She, a simple high D-rank mage, had delivered a show worthy of a siege mage from the academy, but now her time to shine was passed. The monsters had all turned to ash, and Toora collapsed, drained out of all her magic. Edmund caught her before her head hit the ground and stared at the empty battlefield.

Ten.

Countless, more powerful and bigger monsters rushed in.

Five.

Lisa lifted the hammer up, solemn, the last bastion of defense against the incoming tidal wave of monsters. The hammer started glowing brighter and brighter, even more so than Toora’s final, siege-class, magic.