Chapter 55 - Fun and Games

One moment Julia was moving to the next defensive point, the next she was on her ass.  The wall shook, and even more chunks of it began to sheer off.  

“What happened,” asked Julia and SueLeeta pointed.  There was a crater in the middle of the Dark Overlord’s army where the weapons clashed again.  Powerful, artifact tier, weapons were not to be trifled with and the backlash of power every time they hit was awe inspiring.  Jim had wisely kept the fighting inside the enemy army, for the most part, but when the Dark Overlord slammed him into the wall people died.

There was a cloud of smoke, and a trail of destruction through the Dark Overlords army where he impacted the wall this time.  Jim couldn’t keep taking those sorts of hits, even if he was the Mayor.  The Dark Overlord was simply too powerful.   

“He’s not going to last long against that kind of firepower,” said Julia calmly.  

“I certainly hope not, I’d like to see him take a few more big ones,” said SueLeeta.  

“He just got smashed into the wall hard enough to leave a crater, how can you want Jim to get hit like that?” said Julia.

SueLeeta shrugged, “That wasn’t Jim.”

***

“That almost worked,” said Charles as he picked himself out of the debris.  

It did not.

“Well, shut up,” said Charles as he got back to his feet.  Jim was somewhere out there, so he best be moving.  He was pretty sure he clipped Jim with the hammer, but the new Mayor was proving surprisingly resistant to death.  

The wall on the other hand, was looking a bit battered.  A massive chunk of the front face had fallen off, leaving a path for his minions to advance up the wall and the top was again an ongoing battle.  

One more little push, and they would be in Windfall valley.  The Dark Overlord never made it this far when he was in charge.

You know that’s not true.

Grumbling, Charles saw an opening and he took it.  Flinging the hammer, he altered the trajectory and sent it into the passage filled with the most elite of the army of Windfall.  The hammer would gut them before smashing and blasting all the way to the other side.  

There was a mighty gonging sound and the hammer bounced out of the passage.  

Charles hated that shield.  Why had Jim made such good weapons?  How had he done it?  It must have been Michael.  Charles had to listen to Walker chatter on about the various methods of building magical equipment, but of course their new favorite got one of the Elders to do all the hard work.  

You could have made it better.

That was the rub.  Mojinir wasn’t the best possible piece of equipment Charles could have made.  None of the gear, even the treasures of Rule and the Crown was the best he could do, because Kevin or Michael could have turned it against him.  Charles couldn’t do his best, because if his best was turned against him it was all over.  

Not that Jim was aware of that limitation.  Of course, Jim didn’t realize the trouble he was in.  Kevin was a liar and you couldn't trust Michael.  Charles glared at the hammer, ensuring that the runes were blotted out.  “Not one bit.”

 ***

Fenris’ arm was getting sore.  The shield was great, but for some unknown reason that the warden was beginning to suspect it was a cosmic joke, ever since he got the thing everyone wanted to see how impervious it was.  

The answer was extremely, but also it still used a lot of stamina to do things like block what was presumably the most powerful weapon on Ordinal.  Also, having the shield meant that Fenris had to be at the very front of the battle line at all times, and being in the front was taxing.

Zorlando and Ashe could burst out when their stamina pools refilled, slaughtering the undead rank and files as they came.  Thankfully the bulk of the adventurers were focusing on the top of the wall, which was the more advantageous tactical position for adventurers.  

Fenris didn’t have the resources to hold this passage vs a horde of undead champions.  They had already been pushed back towards the courtyard and Fenris didn’t know if they were going to manage to rally a third time.  His forces were mortal, and already most of the clerics were mana crashing, a few had even become mana fatigued.  

If he pushed the undead back a third time, it would be at the cost of most of the dashing dandies.  His initial hope was that the supply of undead champions would run out and he’d get more support from the adventures up top.  That wasn’t proving the case though and Jim was mostly just occupying the Dark Overlord.  

Aside from a few big explosions and two blows to the wall that caused bricks to fall down, Fenris wasn’t even sure how that was going.  

There was the emergency plan, but even entertaining it was so terrible to the Falconian component of the army it had not been brought up.  

“Ashe, prepare the charges,” said Fenris as she pulled behind him.  The young woman looked about to protest when she noticed another wave of undead running in to reinforce their attack.

“Sir,” she replied, turning down and pulling back to the midway point.  

***

“Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes,” growled Sir Dalton as he brought his sword around in another powerful cleave, carving two undead in twain.  Cute little Hansa was next to him, helping.

“Die you feckers,” screamed his daughter as she fired her wrist mounted dragonlings into the undead.  Even his chin had to admit those things were effective as rocket propelled bolts slammed into the mass of creatures.  The first undead she hit exploded, and the ones behind it were wreathed in flame.  

Ears heard movement and HarDragon cleaved a regular zombie in half.  They had been starting to climb the wall as well now that it was easier to get up here.  Rose stepped out from behind him and fired a double blast of metal fragments into the faces of another group of undead.  

“Where is Batista,” asked Sir Dalton.

“She’s iz holding near ze recovery point with ze Duke,” said Rose.  Brain was not sure where she got that accent from, no one else had that accent, but brain tended to consider those strange things like a weirdo.  That meant Batista was in the field hospital they set up on the other side of the wall.  If an adventurer could be healed quickly enough, they could be brought back to combat but they were burning through supplies on that front too quickly.  

The Duke was trying to get the camp to run more efficiently, and even left ankle knew he should be busy fighting.  Eyes spotted another threat and Dalton was thankful for the anti-puma training he had received.  Little buddy’s constant checks for danger seemed silly to a mighty warrior like him, but his little girls needed to be protected.  

“The gateway,” asked Dalton as he took the arm off of another undead champion.  Excalibur 2 was easily the finest sword he’d ever possessed.  Little buddy had really done an excellent job, though it was Sir Dalton’s skill that allowed it to be utilized so effectively.

“The Princess is still guarding it,” said Hansa.  A handful of undead had broken through and one group had even moved to strike at the glowing portal.  If they damaged the framework the portal would collapse and Sir Dalton did not fancy using the backup method of retreat.  

He didn’t fancy retreat at all.    

There was one major breach point up top, and as long as that remained they should be alright.  The massive chunk of the wall that had sheared off hadn’t killed as many as eyes initially feared, mainly because ears and feet were able to tell him something was wrong.  He trusted ears and feet.

By the time the section broke free, nearly everyone was off of it, and most of the rest managed to get to the edge and jump onto the intact portion of the wall which was thankfully quite climbable.  

Unfortunately that was a double edged sword.  The missing section started below the effect of the spider climb spell, and that meant the undead could climb up a pretty broad section of the formerly intact wall.  

Worse, many of the undead who couldn’t make it up the wall were pounding at the base with skills powerful enough to actually damage the structure now that it was starting to break down.  That’s why big walls were so uncommon on Ordinal.  Any group of adventurers could easily break one down given enough time.  

This wall had a self repairing enchantment on it, and Rose assured him that as long as it was marginally intact it would repair itself in time.  The problem was in time seemed to be taking forever, he hadn’t seen any improvements on the section that was missing.  

“How is it going down there,” asked Sir Dalton as Hansa spared a moment to look over the wall into the courtyard.

“The tunnel is clearing out,” said Hansa, “And they are pulling back.”

“Inconceivable,” hissed HarDragon.  Sir Dalton felt the same way, but gut convinced him not to say anything.  He was still on the outs with gut, but sometimes there was still good advice there.  

SueLeeta bounded over, putting a bolt into an undead champion’s skull as she summoned up another hound.  Hansa scratched the dog behind the ears before strapping a suicide bomb to it.  The dog obediently hopped off the ledge towards a large concentration of undead.  It exploded with a happy yip.

“Those aren’t real, right,” asked Sir Dalton.

“I hope not,” replied SueLeeta as she took aim and fired at an undead archer as she summoned Jim the forty fifth.  “Fenris is planning to pull out of the passage.  He’s about to activate case brown.”

“That bad down there,” asked Hansa.

“Half the dandies are wounded and nearly all the adventurers, quite a few of them will recover if we pull back,” said SueLeeta.  “When the courtyard clears, the plan is still a go.”

“Ze Organized pull out to ze camps,” stated Rose.  The camps were behind the fort, and out of the direct path to Windfall.  

SueLeeta frowned, “I don’t like giving up the wall, but with the dragon and undead I don’t see how we can hold it.”

“We will just have to fight until the Dark Overlord is slain,” said Dalton.  

“Assuming we live that long,” said Hansa, cutely.  

Sir Dalton nodded.  Brain told him this was going as well as could be expected, but heart hurt.  Too many people had died so far, and this was just the opening act.  So many undead had been killed, but there were countless more.  Literally.  Who could count to thirty thousand?  It wasn’t even a real number. 

“Now we wait for the signal and get ready to run,” said Hansa as she looked over the battlefield.  “What’s that?”

“The dragon, it is coming back.”

***

Badgelor slammed into the mountain top hard enough to cause an avalanche, not that the Lord of the War Badgers minded.  He had business with this particular asshole.  

“We meet again, for the last time, cupcake,” said Badgelor.

“You’ll find my flesh rotten, you monster,” said MegaDevastator as he picked himself up and shook his head.  He too had slammed into the mountaintop at high velocity.

“I thought you were supposed to be good at this, it looks like he’s beating your ass,” commended the zit.

“That was intentional,” thought Badgelor.  It was not.

The mountains were north of Windfall, that was all Badgelor was certain of.  They nearly had to be part of the range of mountains that surrounded Windfall, but they had been flying for a bit.  

MegaDevastator was bigger than Badgelor remembered, probably because treachery empowered dragons.  Not that the lord of the war badgers was worried, he’d learned a few new tricks as well.  

“He wanted the Crystal, I wanted the Crown,” growled MegaDevestator as Badgelor blasted the mighty dragon’s chest with laser vision over and over.  The dragon’s wing blocked some blasts, and others failed to pierce the dragon’s scales.  They truly were very magically resistant.  

“You tricked us both,” yelled Badgelor.  “Look what you did!  He’s gone mad!”

“He was always mad, you were just too blind to see it,” spat MegaDevestator.  He fired another blast of shadowbreath towards Badgelor.  The wiley old badger dove into the earth, exploding out near the dragon in Ultimate form.  

MegaDevestator swung his tail around in an arc, the Thagomizer on the end brushing off Badgelor’s fur even as the warbadger closed and slashed at the dragon.  Dragon scales were nothing compared to War Badger’s claws and MegaDevastator was forced back.  

“He wanted that Crystal, I wanted that crown for my collection.  I see you don’t care about what you did to me,” bellowed the dragon.  

“I did less than you deserve,” spat Badgelor.

“I’m like this because of you!  The Nothing practically devoured me,” said MegaDevastator.  

“Pity,” said Badgelor.  “But I love leftovers.”

Badgelor tore into the dragon’s shoulder, tearing out a huge hunk of muscle and swallowing it in one bite.  Then the war badger, who routinely swam in guts, gagged.  The amount of shadow permeating the dragon was overwhelming.  MegaDevastator had attempted to outsmart him by making his body too nasty to consider eating.  

“Consolidated Sadness,” said Badgelor, swallowing the bite.

“How,” spat MegaDevastator.

“The foul taste you’d put into your body is nothing compared to the abominations I’m forced to eat for breakfast every day,” replied Badgelor.  

“Seriously, EsterSasha’s cooking is worse than that, it looks rancid,” said Shart, causing Badgelor to growl.

“This is like eating candy by comparison,” said Badgelor.  “Are you going to help me?”

“Nope, Charles might be able to see me, so I have to hide, and this is the only place,” said Shart, poking around in Badgelor’s mindspace.  “Get me somewhere that he can’t see me and I’ll help you as much as you want.”   

Tearing free another mouthful of dragon flesh, Badgelor gulped it down.  This dragon tasted terrible.  It was heartbreaking.  He’d been waiting centuries for a good meal, and there was an ancient dragon that he always wanted to eat but was never allowed to.

But Badgelor had unwittingly been training for just this occasion.  

Charles had initially contacted MegaDevestator when the dragon was much smaller than this, and persuaded the dragon to help him because the Dark Overlord made a flying castle.  Badgelor, at the time a much smaller and more agreeable scamp, agreed to not eat the dragon then.  

He regretted that now.  Back then the dragon would have probably tasted great.  Now Badgelor struggled to appreciate the dragon’s tart, yet savory flesh while it was coated in shadow slime.  His stomach could handle it though, it handled those bright purple eggs so this was nothing.  

Then MegaDevastator slashed at Badgelor again, “You insipid badger, I will smite thee!”  

Badgelor ducked back, preparing to strike when the dragon leapt off the mountain and started back towards the battlefield.  Fortunately, an experienced badger knew that dragons were runners and was already ready with a powerful leap that landed him securely on the dragon’s back.  

MegaDevastator did another barrel roll, which was just sad.  The first twelve didn’t knock him free, why would this one.  Maybe the dragon figured that since Badgelor had ripped off most of his chest scales he needed to do anything he could to keep Badgelor away.  It was a stupid trick but it was a dragon, the admins did not bless them with brains.  

“Time for the old razzle dazzle,” chuckled Badgelor, moving from his spot on the dragon’s back to near the dragon’s thigh.  The great beast snarled.

“I have you now!” The dragon reached back with his claw, and Badgelor bit off one of the massive talons as it reached for him.  The dragon roared again, yanking back the mutilated hand.  

The dragon’s head swiveled back to breathe shadow on him, again, and finally Badgelor saw it.  Focusing his laser vision, Badgelor blasted the small gland at the back of the dragon’s neck that secreted mucus, burning it away.  Then the dragon belched shadow over the war badger.

Except for this time, his throat partially dissolved as the magical substance that prevented the dragon’s own breath from hurting it was gone.  The dragon coughed, attempting to shake his head clear of the corrupt phlegm giving Badgelor his moment.  The war badger ran up the dragon’s chest and slammed into the dragon’s adam’s apple with a powerful headbut.  

Shock and horror filled the great beast as the pooled contents poured back down into his lungs, which were also bereft of the magical mucus designed to prevent damage.  The dragon would be dead in thirty seconds and everything had gone to plan.

Then the dragon came out of his shock and grabbed Badgelor with both claws.  

“If I die, I’m taking you with me,” gurgled the dragon, belching shadow.  

That was new.  That was a way more human sentiment than Badgelor was used to from a dragon.  It was probably the shadow energy.  It did strange things to people.  Not that Badgelor was worried, he was Badgelor after all.  The dragon would need something pretty hard to ram him into to do any real damage.

Like the damn wall.  

“How’s it going up there,” asked Shart.

“Shut it ye wee demon,” hissed Badgelor.  

“Jim and Charles are going at it, and I’m bored,” said Shart.

“You are always bored, and never shut up,” growled the badger, who had other things on his mind.  

Badgelor expanded to ultimate size, giving him the mass of a frickin elephant.  Frickin Elephants were one of a dragon’s favorite meals.  Unfortunately, Dragon’s were used to carrying them, so the added weight didn’t do much.  Badgelor attempted a badger-fu maneuver to get out of the dragon’s grip, but the prey animal had him gripped around the throat.  

“Are you losing,” asked Shart.

“I don’t lose,” hissed Badgelor as the wall got perilously close.  

Expanding further into Kaiju form, Badgelor grabbed the shocked dragon by the claw and spun him around so the dragon hit the wall first with a colossal boom just as an explosion sounded underneath.

“Bad day to be a wall,” said Badgelor as he shrunk down and ran up the dragon’s corpse to the top of the wall.  

***

Fenris slowly picked himself up from where he’d been knocked too.  “That was more than a firecracker.”  The entire passage had collapsed, but not before blasting all of the dandies standing at the edge of the passage flying.  The explosion was just supposed to collapse the tunnel.  

“WHAT,” yelled Zorlando, who’d caught the front of the blast.  His glorious helmet had been blown entirely off his head.  

“I told her it was too much,” mumbled Ashe who was covered in so many cinders, Fenris had to hear her voice to tell who she was.  

“Rose or Hansa,” groaned Fenris.  It was not Margwal.  

“WHAT,” yelled Zorlando.  

“Rose,” said Ashe as she likewise struggled to her feet.  “But she was using the powder made by the new alchemist, Ella.”

“Well, Ashe, we are covered in cinders.  Ella and I will have words when this is over,” grumbled Fenris, picking up his shield and helmet, both of which had been blown clear by the explosion.  

“Oh gods,” murmured Ashe, as she pulled up Zorlando and started brushing away the cinder from his face.  Tears started streaming down her face.  

“What, I Zorlando am fine,” said Zorlando as he reached up to straighten his mustache, only to find no mustache. 

***

“Did the wall just rock,” said Julia uncomfortably.  She was exhausted from fighting, the waves of undead had been relentless for the past ten minutes.  That was after an entire morning of taxing her mana pool far greater than she ever had before.  Her forces were boarding on exhaustion.  

“It couldn’t have, it's the Western Gate Fortress, this wall was written of in stories and legend for centuries,” said Angela.  

Lance pointed to the nearby landmark.  “If we aren’t swaying, that mountain is.”

This was not a good time for the wall to collapse.  Julia considered no time to be a good time for that, but this was particularly a bad time as Jim and The Dark Overlord were busy cratering the landscape, and the gate she was protecting needed Jim to open it.  

“Do you know any portal magic,” asked Julia, realizing that just over half of her remaining extended family was on top of this wall.  

Lance shook his head, “It is highly proscribed at Zentarim academy.”

“Auntie, what’s the plan,” asked Cole, uncomfortably.  

Julia was keenly aware she didn’t have one for the wall falling over.  There were some ropes for ziplining, stupid term, to the rear wall, but many of those snapped when the wall started tottering.  She was pretty sure the Dalton girls could do something, or they could try the stairs, which Julia noticed had just erupted a large cloud of dust.  

They needed a miracle.  

Nearly a dozen undead champions took that moment to charge her position.  Cole and Angela intercepted them, but at least a few of the champions were higher level.  Cole barely blocked an attack and Angela stumbled, falling back with an arrow in her throat.  Julia erected a barrier but not before one of the undead managed to blast a shadowbolt into her chest, the dark power sapping her mana.  

Lance blasted their caster with a Plasma bolt that blew right through their barrier, but that drew down too much of his own Mana and her cousin finally went into Mana crash.  He clumsily drew a charged wand for their last stand.  All around her, her family was being pushed back to the gate and the number of undead had increased.  

Julia knew a few proscribed prayers of her own, but they had to hold.  She needed a miracle.  

Then an advancing party of undead exploded as an angry War Badger barreled through them.  Badgelor got right into the undead’s battle line and fired off his destructive gaze, the eye blasts were as powerful as any plasma bolt and carved straight through dozens of undead champions.  

He continued forward to Julia, pausing momentarily as he bit down and yanked out the arrow from Angela’s throat causing the woman to gasp.  She rose, the wound healed.  Julia struggled to avoid the instinctive need to kneel as Badgelor turned around majestically to face the foe unflinchingly just like in the stories.  

“Re reed to ropen ra rate,” he spat out in plain tongue.    

It was just like one of the stories.

“We can’t, Mighty Badgelor,” said Angela.  “Only the Mayor has that magic.”

Badgelor glanced at the gate and suddenly it flared to life, causing the other Falconians to shrink back.  Lance stared through the gateway in open amazement at Badgelor.

“His power knows no bounds,” hissed Lance, nearly collapsing as he stepped through the gateway.  Other wounded and drained adventurers began marching through.      

Julia knew his power though.  Jim’s invisible familiar was sitting on Badgelor’s shoulder, an affront to the dignity of all adventurers everywhere.  Riding on Badgelor was reserved for the Mayor’s companions, and rarely rewarded at that.  

“Shart,” hissed Julia, not willing to use the demon’s name in front of others.  If they knew the Mayor’s familiar was an elder demon they would have … shart.  

Oh… I get it now.  

Badgelor shrunk down to his War Form, “Get Roving, Ri’ll rold rhere.”

Julia shook her head, “My place is at your side.  I’ll go through with the last group.”

Badgelor nodded as a massive undead champion charged him.  He drove the creature to the ground and tore off it's arm while another cut around to get to Badgelor’s flank.  It erupted as the demon lit it up with hellfire, and every undead behind it in a cloud of burning agony.  

Maybe not so much an affront.