Chapter Four-Hundred Eighty-Three (Patreon)

They’re going to make their move soon.  The classic time for a sudden attack would be in the middle of the night, or maybe just after sunset, but the darkness doesn’t affect me like it does the delvers.  Since losing light would only hinder them, I think they’re going to strike around noon, maybe an hour after.  Give them time to have lunch and digest a bit before working off those calories.

They’re being subtle about it, but subtle only goes so far with this many delvers.  If it weren’t for how quickly my denizens respawn, there’d be lines like an amusement park to get into encounters with how many people are around!  They’re still making a show of searching the labyrinth and world fruits for keys, but I think they’ve given up on finding the last one for the moment.  But looking in those areas gives them a convenient staging area to launch proper assaults on the known locations.

I can even tell where the groups are probably going to go, based on their extra gear.  The ones that will go after the gauntlet are easy to spot, what with all the extra ropes and such they have.  I don’t even begrudge what I have to assume is their plan.  It’s an out of the box idea for how to get around an obstacle course, and I try to encourage that.

Sure, in training, it’s a valuable tool to push one’s limits.  But in real life, if you need to get through difficult terrain, you adjust the terrain to suit you.  Why go across a rope swing one by one when you could make a bridge?  As I understand it, military engineer squads specialize in turning difficult terrain into something everyone can march across, and in turning nice marching places into impassable barriers.  I imagine their assault on the gauntlet will be similar in concept, if smaller scale in execution.  At the minimum, there’ll probably be fewer explosions.

The ones going for the roots are also easy to spot, having plenty of extra torches.  They’re also going to be basically not playing anymore.  With so many people, they’ll be able to keep everything lit enough that surprise will be harder for my denizens to use.  The poppers might be more effective with so many people, but I have to assume they have something to clear or outright prevent the stun.  Without surprise disorientation, there’s not a whole lot else the ravenkin can really pull off in the roots.

I think the fortress siege is going to be the more interesting one to watch, though.  The delvers have definitely come up with some good counterplans for the other two keys, and countering their counters would basically require a full redesign of the areas, which they’re not going to give me.  And I wouldn’t want to do anyway.  The gauntlet and the roots aren’t designed to be staunch defenses.  If they were… I’d basically put fortresses in them, too.

I’m interested in watching the fortress battle because I bet they’ve come up with some counter for it, too, and figuring out that will be crucial to sieging the Betrayer.  It has to have some kind of counter for a siege, so I need to figure out what it is and have a counter to that, too!

The classic counter to a siege is thicker walls and more provisions, as well as things like arrow slits, boiling oil, and other attacks like that.  To get in, the delvers need to find a weak spot and open it wide enough for everyone to pour in.  The gate is a classic, which is why things like portcullises and airlocks exist.  Over the wall is also common, with siege towers basically being armored ladders for guys to climb up and over.  I don’t think I’m going to see anyone actually trying to blast down the walls, at least.  I’m a fan of a good trebuchet, but it takes one heck of a shot to knock down a wall in a way to actually allow people to flood inside.

The last standard way into a fortress would be going under, either collapsing a wall that way, or tunneling up inside the walls and then running around and doing invader things.  That’s the one I’m least worried about here, partially because going underneath isn’t really an option.  The closest parallel would be boring through the bark and wood of the Tree of Cycles, and the sprigs aren’t going to let something like that happen.  So I think they’re going to get around the walls with magic.

My first inclination would be them using metal affinity to tear the walls open, but distance plays a role in how easy it is to move something.  The defenders are a lot closer to the walls than the delvers are going to be able to get, so I don’t see that particular tactic being used often here.  The next idea would be to use opposing affinities to mess with the wall.  With one made of bricks, either wind or water to erode would be a good siege method, but metal is a bit more resistant to that.  Fire might be an option, but water from the defenders should be able to keep the wall from melting or otherwise weakening enough to be taken down.

So if those are the magical trebuchets to bash down the walls, what are the magical ways around the walls?  Earth affinity would be the classic way, but no earth here, and trying to use life or something to walk through the tree would run into the sprigs again.  As I figure it, there’s only really two options for the delvers: spatial or shadow affinity.

Teemo has repeatedly demonstrated that walls are a suggestion to him, so he’d have little trouble getting into a fortress.  But I think even he’d have a hard time getting past the spatial vines all over the place.  So I don’t think any spatial delvers are going to be a problem.  But shadow on the other hand, is a lot harder to keep out.

Shadow affinity people seem to be able to step between shadows, and though I’ve seen them take along passengers, it’s usually not many.  The fly scion from the Betrayer was able to send a few Harbingers through shadows, but it had tons of experience.  It also only moved a few Harbingers, not an entire army of least, so even it had limits.  So my best guess for them getting into the fort will be a few delvers sneaking in through shadows and then trying to open the gate.

I don’t think they’ll have much hope of getting in undetected, but delvers shouldn’t be underestimated.  They specialize in going into difficult places that want to kill them, after all.  I figure they’ll need to have a distraction to slip in, and if one shadow affinity can get inside, why not a whole bunch all at once?

I think Leo and Poe are of a similar mind, and the ravenkin make sure to patrol inside as well as flying overhead, ensuring any attempted chaos inside will have a hard time spreading.  However, it seems that’s not what the delvers are going with.

The tension in the air suddenly skyrockets as everyone in the forest converges on the fort.  It takes them a good ten minutes or more, but the first people there already start attacking the walls and defenders.  At the same time, the assaults on the gauntlet and roots form up, too.  At a glance, they’re going about how I’d expect, so I keep my focus on the fort.  I take a quick peek at the final key, and it seems to still be undetected, so I keep an eye on the burgeoning siege.

It looks like the delvers are hoping to go over, using ropes and grappling hooks to try to get up and relying on numbers to get a foothold somewhere.  Their plan is already hitting a snag, though.  Most of the hooks don’t even make it halfway up the wall before my ravenkin crank up the gravity to send it back down.

I take a look inside, wondering if they’re trying to zerg some shadow affinity around while people are distracted with the wall, but I don’t spot any, at least at first.  My ants and plants start raising an alarm, and though a lot of them are quickly killed, there’s just too many to be quietly dealt with.  At least by someone like Karn.

I get the feeling that he’s not called Slight just because he’s pretty thin.  He’s popping in and out of shadows at an incredible pace, giving my denizens only a slight opportunity to try to stop him before he’s gone again.  I think he knows he’s spotted, so he’s not trying to kill any denizens that spot him anymore, and is instead trying to get a layout of the fortress.

I track him as best as I can, even as he shadow-bamfs all over the place.  He makes his way toward the gate, and even tries to cut a chain for the portcullis, but he abandons it pretty quickly.  Not only is he starting to get pelted with gravity and even spatial attacks, but severing the chain wouldn’t raise it anyway.  No, I made sure any mechanism failures would fail in the direction of security.  No magnetic locks that are useless without power here, thank you very much.  The portcullises and gates are weighted to close quickly and stay closed without input.

Karn seems to pick up on that pretty quickly, and quietly swears as he slips back into the shadows to make my denizens play whack-an-orc over the entire fort.  My vines and ravenkin don’t make it any easier for him than they do for the delvers outside, either.  At least the ones outside have a lot of friends to start making progress.  It’s slow progress, but they have the numbers and raw strength to pressure the defenders.

I keep an eye on Karn, though, especially as I feel him make his way toward the key room.  He barely gets to poke his head in before he has to beat a hasty retreat from the ravenkin and a pair of drakes they’re using to help guard.  They don’t get to see the forest very often, but with the metal fortress, they can actually act without burning everything down.

He curses again, and I expect him to teleport outside to join the siege proper, but he apparently has one more thing he wants to look at.  If I could, I’d grin as I feel him step out of the shadows near the magma chamber.

I nudge the denizens away, encouraging them to let him pass, and to try to entrap him in there.  I’m sure he notices the lack of opposition, but his curiosity keeps driving him forward, and soon he steps into the bare chamber.  It’s a simple square room with a pool of magma in the middle, illuminating the entire space.

He carefully creeps forward, peering into the pool from a safe distance, trying to figure out what it’s doing there, before the voice of Enara causes him to whip around to face her.

The leader of the winter ravenkin smiles, her beak parted slightly in amusement.  Karn gives her a wary look, before he frowns.  “Wait… you’re in charge of Winter, aren’t you?  This is the Summer key.”

She caws in laughter and feints forward with a dagger, making Karn jump to the side… and not come down.  He swears one more time as he floats there, unable to dive into his own shadow to escape.  He can’t even use Enara’s shadow against her, as she uses gravity to nudge him over the magma pool.  Getting her to drop him now would be a very bad thing.

He sighs and slumps, and magnanimous in victory, she decides to sate his curiosity.  “The Summer key is back in the room with the guards and drakes, remember?  No… this is the path to get the Winter key.”

Karn frowns at that, looking at the magma once more.  “What?”

Enara caws in laughter again.  “We’ll all need magma protection for the raid, right?  So why not check it before we’re knocking at the Betrayer’s gate?  Though there’s a lot more than magma in that shortcut,” she explains, even as a pair of wyrms poke their heads out to look at the floating orc.

He shakes his head at himself.  “Of course…”

She nods and holds out her hand toward him.  “Now then, how about one of those daggers of yours?  Lord Thedeim has his tax for defeated delvers, you know.”

Karn snorts and slowly takes a dagger from his belt, sheath and all, and lobs it for her to catch.  “Yeah, yeah, I know.  Set me down and I’ll leave on my own.  I know when I’m beat, fair and square.”

She smiles and gently sets him down away from the pool, and he quickly slips into his own shadow and outside.  I watch him step through several more as he makes his way out as Enara fastens the dagger to her own belt.

I return to watching the siege, eager to see how the delvers do.  Getting in and getting the Summer key will only be part of what they have to do.  If they all brought their magma gear, they could probably take the Winter key, too.  But they didn’t.  I hope they won’t be too mad when they get back and Karn tells them they’re going to need to siege the fort again to get the last key.