V13: Chapter 11 (Patreon)

V13: Chapter 11

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Interlude: Celia

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I ran the Ascendant Champion through with my blade and embedded him into the mountainside.

With a quick retreat, I called upon the souls of those who pledged themselves to me for all time, and as a flurry of phantoms, they came forth from my shadow. They took up rocks, rubble, and more in their path, and with sheer mass and speed, they smashed the Ascendant Champion into naught more than goo.

After I was sure it was dead, I turned to look upon the rest of my companions.

Catherine’s suit of armor was broken, so she was back at the Citadel and will be back within a day. Her armored form was destroyed saving Mallory. We almost lost her and Christine both in retaking the fortress, but with but a thought I found them still alive thanks to being their sire. The mercenary champions we brought on for the seizure of the pass fared far worse, and I counted eight of ten dead around the battlefield.

We had thought there would be four Ascendant Champions here to face.

Instead, there were nine.

Fifteen Champions and the Divine Engine of War against nine, and our victory was practically pyrrhic.

Still, Catherine, Mallory, and Christine were all alive, as were I and Zenith.

“To me.” I declared, and my retinue came forward. We were with the vanguard, and it was savaged. A force of a thousand elite soldiers and mages came with us, and barely half their number remained. They fought with us against the nine, slowing them down as much as they could and keeping reinforcements away. Many were mortals aspiring to become vampires or liches, and now I knew I could not deny the survivors who fought with me here their dreams. “We are retreating and leaving the rest to the main force.”

The main force was swarming the Ascendant fortress like an inexorable tide. Without the strength and might of their champions, the more common machines could defend their gateway.

A massive force of chimeric titans armored in metals augmented by the ancient crystal formed the frontline. They were a recent creation, but their strength and power were integral to our siege. They endured the rapid-fire cannons of the Ascendant and even passively healed from the damage. Their claws were enough to tear apart anything that they reached. With a thousand of them and tens of thousands of undead acting as riflemen, the fortress floundered as its walls were smashed by artillery brigades manning truly immense cannons in battalions.

The cannons resounded, battle raged,

Mallory and Christine came forward together, each one sporting burns that were slow to heal and with most of their armor rent and broken.

I was in a worse state, with all my armor and equipment destroyed save for my sword, and most of my form covered in wounds and burns.

“My lady, you appear more like ground meat with a tuft of hair than yourself.” Mallory spoke bluntly, and I couldn’t help but chuckle while she wrenched what remained of her cape and threw it upon me. I was steadily healing, as I could now call upon my phantoms to assist in my recovery instead of using them to attack. “If you’re to join the battle, you’ll need a volunteer to exsanguinate. There are many willing volunteers amongst the survivors. It would also raise morale.”

I shook my head.

“No. They should be rewarded properly at the capital. Not forced to fight more now. Zenith has this.” Zenith had assisted me with my final foe and, once she saw that I had it in hand, went to aid our main force and take the fortress. Our role in this fight was over, and I could rely on her to finish it. A knight came forward with three reformed horses, and his gaze was obvious through his helm. He was without his arm, and his armor was badly rent. Necrotic flesh was attached over deep wounds. He was prolonging his life by taking control over his own dead flesh to hold himself together. Thankfully, I could stand tall in his presence. I lost more mass than he did, and I had been set alight, too. He gave me a dutiful bow, and I gave him a nod before dismissing him. “We deserve to withdraw.”

I thought that would be the end of the matter, but Christine spoke up.

“Lady Celia, you may give Zenith too much glory by doing this. We’ve surmounted nine champions with her, but the public will attach it to her victory in this battle. Ninth is there with our banner, but he is new to our people.” I turned to my champion. Half of her face was blue flames over a skull, along with her left arm and chest. Slowly, along the edges of the flame, her flesh was being reconstituted. Through the pain of reformation, she still stood strong and ready to advise me. “Send everyone back, but let us go to battle together. The three of us, after you take blood from one of the worthy.”

I understood why she proposed such things.

She did not understand how much control I had over Zenith through the sigil on my hand.

The Divine Engine of War was under my complete control, just as Life and Death was under Jack’s, and that was difficult for Catherine and the others to believe.

Life permitted a nation-spanning cult to gain more followers by the day, while Death killed all whom he commanded her to. Despite all their strength and power, he did not fear them as potential usurpers, because he had their sigils, as I did War’s.

So, I could be more than just a ruler and be a good leader to my people.

“That is not needed. Zenith is under my control, and so I do not fear her gaining more fame and strength. She needs it, after all.” Christine frowned but bowed at my words, and Mallory gave a nod in turn. The twins usually had similar ideas, so I was not surprised to find Mallory reticent as well. I did not intend to punish them, however. “I thank you both for your consideration and care, but this sigil grants me much control over her, and I do not wish to be a tyrant. She deserves praise and the people’s love. It serves her and us in turn… especially with results such as these.”

If we came here without Zenith, then we would all be dead. Her might had been essential for killing the enemies swiftly. If the battle had lasted any longer than it did, then we would’ve surely all died.

She deserved the honor of being known as a hero.

With that in mind, I turned to the remnants of my forces.

“Take all the bodies of the deceased. They will be honored heroes. Those willing to return shall have their desires granted and their contracts fulfilled. They may go in peace to civilian lives with full restitution and more for their services rendered here.” I made my decision, and the twins relayed it to their underlings. I looked at my hand as it reformed, and I cast my gaze on the battle beyond. We were securing the continent by taking the Ascendant’s foothold. After this we can fortify, adapt, and then deal with the Sahuagin and the Stymphalians. “Let us return to the forward operating base and send what reinforcements could be spared Zenith’s way. Our part in this fight is over.”

Those who survived brightened at my words, and they were quick to do as I’ve asked.

The weight of Zenith’s sigil on the back of my hand used to be an immense burden, but now I find it to be a column upon which I could lean. If she were not here, this attack would have been a disaster, and the entire army would have been routed, with much of our force lost to cover the retreat of the survivors. Her presence also allowed me to retreat in good order with my beleaguered troops, rather than force them back into the fight and sacrifice those who survived.

That Jack had two Divine Engines under his control was worrisome, but if I could remove one from the board, I was sure that Zenith could win us control over the continent after this war is over.

I simply needed to look for a way to do that with the resources I had on hand.

Even though most of those resources were being curtailed by the machinations of the crisis.

Though my mood was increased by our recent victory, the knowledge of what was happening back home soured it almost immediately.

…

Thankfully, though the Stymphalian Disease Event gave me a scare with some more cases popping up as time passed, there wasn’t a massive outbreak like with the first wave. Deployments of medicine and supplements were enough to solve it, and we didn’t lose massive chunks of the population. Those who were close to death’s door were fine after a quick dunk in the healing tanks, and the hospitals had enough capacity for the rest.

Still, I kept an eye out for the other events coming our way after it popped.

The Demons tried infiltrating years ago. Just like in the flavor text of the game, they started small with hidden cults in little towns. Those we disrupted early since I had Iterants everywhere keeping track of things. Even with our coverage over the borders, it was impossible to patrol every nook and cranny. So, I supplemented the Iterants with the village militias.

They were trained to go from door to door, just to assure people as they passed by. Iterants kept corruption from taking hold, and they were usually in charge, or at least second in command. Militias had a habit of attracting people who wanted to consolidate power, and I didn’t want to deal with rebels, so embedding agents into them was a must. They were trained to fight from defensive positions with cannons and rifles, and they knew how to use their land to their advantage. Not having people I trust in their ranks was just stupid.

Anyway, for the most part, I called on them to just do visible patrols in uniform in groups of ten. They were tasked to hand out some supplies, check on basements, and visibly prepare shelters and take stock of emergency supplies. Their officers were told to look for anyone new or unregistered who was rapidly gaining fame and to keep an eye out for people who were suddenly healthy or more beautiful despite never visiting the Citadel. It could easily turn into a witch hunt, so I kept an eye on things, but for the most part no blood cults were popping up.

It was probably due to Morgan and the others going around and rampaging across demon territories, but I was still going to keep my guard up just in case.

Anyway, the Stymphalian’s first event was handled, and the Demons were unable to foster a fifth column in my lands.

That left the Ascendant’s first event, and though I hoped that I wouldn’t need to deal with it since I kept them out of the continent, that just meant that only my outlying regions got hit with their weapon.

Blood Thorns.

They came from long-range missiles. In game lore, it was said that the Ascendant could only manufacture very few of them, so they were limited to very potent payloads. Since the Ascendant warred most often against the Stymphalians, they went with a bioweapon that could trim back their forests and withstand their diseases. That came in the form of a bio-engineered plant with an extensive root system that leached nutrients from the soil, from corpses, and from living plants and turned them into ready-to-use pustules of bio-slurry underground. Above the pool, they were living tendrils that were slow-moving but capable of snapping out like whips to grab prey, strangle them, and bleed them out with their thorns.

They seeded areas ahead of their advance, killing flora and fauna, so that they could have supplies underground when they arrived. They suffered far less attrition on tiles that were fully infested with the Blood Thorns, and losing battles on Blood Thorn-infested tiles lessened their casualties. The Ascendant had few armies compared to other crises, but they were almost impossible to attrit and even chase down once they’ve played their entire hand.

Thankfully, I was ready to dedicate a lot of time and effort towards using fun chemicals to destroy the weed, rather than wasting unit turns burning it down when it’s found or dedicating city actions to purging the region. Both were inefficient methods of solving the problem, since it would raze the tiles and require everyone on it to be rebuilt, unlike with the optimal method of just creating a defoliant to kill it.

Everyone on the forums called it Agent Red, and since it was said to be deployed in mass quantities through air drops, I saw the resemblance.

Anyway, once the first missiles hit the ground, I ordered samples of the Blood Thorn to be collected and for a chemical composition to be composed to counter it. The sooner that it was completed, the sooner I’d take away the Ascendant’s key to the continent.

The Blood Thorn was just the start of a supportive ecosystem to their whole war effort. It changed the soil and supplemented other plants that they’d bring along. Plants that made parasitic bugs that killed and took over the bodies of people for their bio-furnaces or legions of thralls. If there were enough Blood Thorns throughout multiple regions, they'd start bio-forging massive monsters like the Legion Amalgam, and those were a massive headache to deal with sans nukes.

Oh, and tiles that were infested with the Blood Thorn had halved yields for everything except food output.

Food output was completely lost.

So, yeah.

The Ascendant’s event was a massive headache, and burning it down and then digging it up while razing tiles and losing improvements was a waste of time. Better to bite the bullet and go straight for the massive research expenditure required to kill the stuff before it strangled and strip-mined the whole continent for the Ascendant on its own.

Honestly, I thought about not sharing the defoliant with Celia once it was produced, but with how things were going over there?

I’d like to earn some points with Zenith, who’ll be replacing Celia in a year or two.