Chapter 35 Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

Matt took in a deep breath of the refreshing morning air. The undead beast he was riding tilted to one side and snapped to the other, righting herself as it headed into the central tower.

He shifted the scratchy new outfit.

Need a few more clean spells to smooth out the combats.

The beast flapped her wings, slowing their speed as they passed through arches that cut off the external wind, allowing a smooth landing on one of the two landing platforms at the top of the tower.

“Thanks for the ride! Go wait off to the side.” Matt jumped off the mount. It moved to the walls where undead aerial beasts and mages waited like statues, ringing the room.

“Identification,” a guard asked as he approached the door that would allow him into the tower.

“Here you go,” he presented his medallion, it was checked in a formation as the formation under his feet scanned him.

“Thank you sir.”

Matt nodded about to walk past them.

“Ahh!” He looked at the panicked man clinging to the undead beast as it landed. He kept screaming for a few more moments before he realized he was on the ground.

He leapt from the beast, laying on the ground, as if he wanted to sink into it.

“Get up Mister Kolsson,” Matt said.

He looked up at the guards and Matt.

“Come on, we have work to do,” Matt turned and walked through the doors.

He went down the stairs to the observation and formation floor. The massive formation that controlled the Vuzgal mana barrier lay waiting. Matt walked to the bannister, formations stopped the wind from whipping through the tower floor.

“Okay, so, defenses. Going to need to change up everything outside the gate. We have plenty of barbed wire traps and shovels,” he took out a map of the front of Vuzgal. It showed only a small section in front of the gate, but had detailed information on where traps had been set up and ways to prepare for a defense.

“Domonos and his people are thorough.” Matt turned at the sound of staggering footsteps.

“Kolsson, I didn’t know that you were so scared of heights.”

“Just, adjusting,” Kolsson said.

“You and your construction company have worked on plenty of projects in the past. I want to hear what you make of this,” Matt moved to the stairs and pulled out a table and put the plans on it.

Maybe best not to have him too close to the edge.

Kolsson was shaky but he calmed down looking at the plans.

“Slit trenches and barbed wire?”

“Interconnected network of traps as well.”

“Not all that complicated. Get a few earth movers making the trenches, some laborers pulling out the barbed wire. Do you have forms you want them in or just do it as we go?”

Matt pulled out another piece of paper.

“These are rough designs of how to lay them out.”

“Triple Concertina wire. Basically just posts nailed into bed rock, with these coils of wire with razor sharp barbs, two on the bottom and one ontop, link them all together.”

“That is the best, with the dungeon core, our enemy won’t be able to mess with anything more than a meter deep.”

“Okay so excavate down to the dungeon level, that’ll be a pain but we’ve got a few thousand reservists right?”

“I didn’t think of taking out all the dirt,” Matt admitted. “Yeah all the reserves if we need them. Taking out all that dirt, then they won’t be able to use spells on the ground, take away a weapon. Harder to fuck with the posts and defenses. The mortars and artillery would strike stone when they explode, so more of the force would blow out to either side.”

Kolsson had an expression that told Matt he hadn’t been thinking that far.

“Good idea, keep going.”

“Okay, so yeah, down to dungeon level, can the dungeon extrude stone and metal posts?”

“We’ll have to go deeper, make it three meters, the dungeon can help with the lower two meters. We’ll just make sure no one is watching and grade it into the rest of the ground.”

“Trenches by the dungeon?” Kolsson asked.

“Yeah that should work. We’ll have a series of thin but deep ankle breaker trenches. Piss off the infantry and stop the mounts from charging forward.”

“Throw in some random ones for good measure?” Major Hall said as he walked down the stairs.

“Sir!” Matt said, coming to attention and saluting.

Major Hall returned the salute.

“Seems you’ve started already,” He looked at the map section and the concertina wire.

“If you can add traps to the posts and the wire that would be best. Someone hacks the post down and a spell goes off.”

“Can it handle the traps and artillery, won’t it get blown apart?” Kolsson asked.

“Its resilient and nasty shit. You can bomb it, mortar it, throw spells through it. You have to use a lot of mana and explosives to open a gap, or time with something to cut it apart,” Hall said. “Our first layer of defenses will be the open ground. It’s been seeded with traps all over the damn place. Though that doesn’t mean we can’t use the dungeon to move more explosives and spell traps after attacks. Imagine a force retreating only to find that the path they’d cleared isn’t.”

Matt felt the cold stroke at his spine.

“That’d be nasty.”

“So would sticking our strongest mana gathering formations right under their feet.”

“Spells would cost several times as much, mana fatigue would come about faster,” Kolsson said.

“And we just use it all to charge our barriers.”

Matt let out a low whistle.

“The more people they throw at us, the more spells, they use the faster we gather power.”

Hall snapped his fingers and pointed at Matt with a nod of approval.

“Turn the dirt into mud. It’s not going to burn them out or fatigue them, but it is a pain in the ass to wade through mud every damn day. Churned up and a puddle can be as deep as a lake?”

“We’re thinking about removing the dirt under the barbed wire defenses.” Kolsson said.

“Good thinking.”

“Could we tunnel under the battlefield and have some undead mages casting spells to turn the ground to mud. They wander around randomly making sure that it’s a soupy mess. Then if the enemy mages cast hardening spells they have to do so every time?” Matt asked.

“I like it. The more devious, the better! We have a few rain formations. We can stick that under the advance, just rain and lightning day or night. Sure takes mana but how shit would it be having to go through a lightning storm in every attack?”

“Throw in some spells for the mages to attack the enemy with earth spells?” Kolsson asked.

“Yeah and with them casting new trap spells.”

Matt pulled out pencil and paper as he started recording.

“The second line of defense they hit the trenches and terrain obstacles. If it is connected to the dungeon, then there is little chance in hell they’re going to be able to fix that. Create chasms under the ground so they have to create bridges to cross them and thin sheets between so they have to be a damn cat to not fall down. Add spikes in the bottom and razor sharp protrusions on the wall. Have the dungeon maintain them as well. Make them progressively deeper as they get close. Put barbed wire on the spaces between the pits.”

“Traps inside the chasms?” Matt looked up.

“Link them to the razor walls or the floor?” Hall paused and nodded.

“Why the hell not?”

“It will take time to do that up to the wall,” Kolsson said.

“Anything we link to the dungeon will have a power cost as well,” Matt added.

“That’s just parts one and two. Just have the dungeon on maintenance, that shouldn’t be too much. Also we’re going to be putting mana gathering formations on top of the other dungeons.We’ll have all four dungeon cores gathering and storing power for us. What about alchemy poisons? We could toss those on the barbed wire and any pits. Turn any scrape into a potentially lethal wound.”

“We’d have to have your regulars do it, they tempered their bodies with poison,” Kolsson said.

“Fair,” Hall nodded.

“So we have the first line, the mud, roving mages and traps, two the random potholes, chasms and trenches,” Matt said.

“Three, a field of barbed wire. Reaches to the mountain walls on either side of us, semi-circle around our defenses, out three and a half kilometers. I want fields of it. Posts, trap enabled, chasms hidden underneath, traps, roving mages underground. Everything. The whole thing should follow the incline up to Vuzgal. Again, it’s not going to tire them out much, but will wear on their mind and piss them off. Hell, maybe they will burn some extra calories,” Hall chuckled.

“To add in randomization, we could just sow squads all over the place, have them take care of different areas. They just update and repeat, butt up against other squads doing whatever they have thought up,” Matt said.

“That’ll make it a damn mess, I like it! Give them time to improve, update, talk to one another and come up with more devious traps. I know that a lot of my people have had their mind on defenses for a while. Let’s see if they can come up with some gems.”

“I’m starting to feel a little sorry for the bastards.” Matt said.

“Why, we’re just warming up, they haven’t seen shit yet,” Hall said.