CC 11: Thunderplump ~ Nine!

The overstressed ritual towers whined ominously as they geared up for another blast, causing Joe to flinch as an incandescent, staticky ball of flames shot forth and engulfed a group of screaming Penguins. He didn't like the fact that his eyes and thoughts were on the tower, instead of the creatures below. “Don't blow up until I'm past you, don't blow up until I'm-”

“They're everywhere!” Came a scream from below, although that particular voice was cut off very quickly.

Looking ahead, Joe could see that paper-thin sheets of ice had arced up and over the outermost walls, the hallmark of Verglas Leaping Leopards. Members of the Legion, as well as various volunteers hunting for experience, were already hard at work smashing the reflective surfaces, stemming the tide of Penguins and Salamanders swarming up and over them.

“Message! Heartpiercer Mcshootypants! Are you seeing this? Where are you right now? I have a new bow for you.”

Moments later, his Archer friend’s mental voice sounded in his head, prickly and sharp as though his brain was trying to hug a porcupine. “Joe? Look, I'm pretty busy. If you're talking about the battalion of oversized Penguins waddling toward us like they own the place, kinda hard to miss that. What's this about a new bow?”

“Yeah, there's been some misconceptions, and now I have a weapon for you that's apparently better for your level and skills.” There was silence from the other end for a few moments, then Joe was given a quick synopsis of where she could be found on the walls.

He felt the connection cut off, and altered his path to meet up. Omnivaulting over the large gaps in the killing corridors made him nervous; not because of the height, or his fear of slipping, but because the paths closest to the Town already had the front-runners of the Beast Wave moving along them.

“Ice Leopards, Penguins, Salamanders, Hoardlings… it's like a menagerie down there.” As he threw himself over another gap, Joe sent his Ritual Orb of Intelligence spiking down into an oversized lizard that looked like an elite. By the time he reached the apex of his jump, his weapon had gone through the top of the surprisingly soft creature's skull and nailed it to the ground. A bubble impacted nearby it, sending a wave of acid over the creature as the Ritualist retracted his weapon. “One down, a bazillion to go.”

Even with how clustered the defenders were along the top of the wall as he got close to the entrance, it was easy to pick out Heartpiercer. She was in a league of her own, sending a constant stream of arrows at creatures and scoring critical hits with almost every single attack that landed. Unfortunately, some of the beasts were either fast enough or moving in a chaotic enough pattern that the arrows that went wide missed completely. Joe spun in a forward roll, landing on his feet next to her a moment later. “Yo. Have a bow.”

He dropped the weapon from his codpiece, and she caught it in her off hand. For a moment, she seemed confused, but that wasn't Joe's problem. He pushed off again, this time aiming for a tower that wasn’t sending out Dark Lightning Strikes like it should be.

“Oh, abyss yes!” Heartpiercer’s voice echoed through the air, and the Ritualist chanced a glance back to see her drawing her bowstring and releasing it over and over again. Unfortunately, he couldn't see the arrows that she was projecting at the enemies. She would let go of the string, and a creature down below either stopped moving entirely or staggered heavily.

“‘Kay, that was a worthwhile pit stop.” Joe murmured as he arrived at the base of the tower and jumped to the top. A quick glance at the ritual told him all he needed to know: it was almost completely out of power and was in energy conservation mode, set to target already-damaged beasts that would be taken down in a single hit. “It's not broken, just needs a good recharge. Easy enough.”

Pulling his tablet—actually an Expert-ranked Ritual of Remote Activation—out of his codpiece, Joe pressed a few areas and the tower in front of him was swallowed by a quick-moving ritual circle. He grunted as mana flooded out of him, but in only a few seconds was ready to bring in the replacement. Tapping three different buttons after adjusting the image of the tower—so that it would align with Socar’s Formation correctly—another ritual circle appeared at the top of the wall and zipped upward, leaving behind dense stone and metal that resolved into a ritual tower moments later.

Static electricity crackled over the top of the tower itself, and a blast of power lept from its peak and began moving along the ground. Joe stared up at the tower, looked down at his tablet, and scratched the back of his hand out of sheer annoyance. “Who put the Tower of the Crawling Storm in the Dark Lightning Strike slot? Pure laziness, that's what it is.”

It was nearly impossible to tell what sort of ritual was on top of what tower, which was why they’d come up with the various arrangements in the first place. He shook his head and sent a quick message to the person who was supposed to be in charge of the structure storage yard, then moved on to the next tower that needed maintenance.

As the final twenty percent of monsters were slowly whittled down, Joe was panting for breath as he switched out yet another tower. He looked down in the killing corridors with longing eyes, watching as the Legion practically screamed with laughter and glee at having a target-rich environment. “Well, at least the Dwarves are having fun.”

Every once in a while conversations from down below would float up, and were mostly ignored. But Joe had to chuckle at himself as he heard, “No one can understand their language! That means there's no one to report war crimes against us!”

“Yeah! I have a canister of thermite-infused napalm I’ve been dying to try out!”

“Welp, I hope their commander is keeping an eye on them. That would go right through any wall it got splashed on.” Joe stared down at the group that was yelling so boisterously, letting out a sigh as he recognized the markings on the armor of the Dwarf holding an oversized canister. “O~o~of course. That is the commander.”

On the plus side, the last of the beasts were mopped up enough that the Dwarves apparently decided trying out their experimental weapon would be wasteful. Joe breathed a sigh of relief as the notification came in.

Beast Waves cleared: 1/100! Next wave will arrive in 03:45:24.

“Not even four hours to get everything in place?” Joe took a deep breath, slowly letting it out like an air compressor being drained. “That means… when the twenty-fifth wave hits, we're going to have maybe one hour between waves, and by the fiftieth? It’ll just be a constant, unending stream. Abyss, no wonder only one city has ever managed to form here.”

“Joe!” The Ritualist turned as he heard a voice, but didn't see anyone. The voice sounded again, and he realized that it was coming from the ritual of communication that he’d tethered to his Hoardling-hide belt. “Are you there? Come in, Joe. How does this blasted thing work?”

“Aren't you a Mage? You should be able to figure that out.” Joe chuckled as he spoke into the device of his own making. There was a half-joking concern that his party member wasn’t actually a wizard; but instead was simply adopted by a magical cat who allowed him to play pretend. “What do you need, Socar?”

A few moments later, the voice on the other end of the ritual came through much louder, “People are panicking in here, Joe. Lots of Penguins got into Town, no one was expecting such a brutal Beast Wave. Where are you, the council is convening and no one knows how to get a hold of you.”

“I'm on my way. I was doing tower maintenance for the whole wave.” Joe was already racing toward the center of the labyrinth, but kept the communication device in his hand as he went. “What do they think I can do about this?”

The Ritualist could practically feel the shrug that he knew his party member was performing at the moment. “No idea. I think they just want to look like they’re doing something. Keeping people calm, and all that.”

“Right, well, I'm actually doing something.” The bald man grumbled, carefully not speaking into the ritual. “I'll be there in under five minutes.”

As Joe approached the entrance to the Town Hall, he could hear someone shouting above the noise of the chattering crowd. “-at least a dozen more bunkers inside the walls, a high-powered bow on loan to any archer, regular maintenance crews walking the killing corridors and fixing the walls. Don't worry, people of Novusheim! The council hears your concerns, and we’re working to ensure your safety. Go back to your work, and hunker down as needed.”

Joe felt a powerful hand wrap around his elbow, and he was pulled smoothly through the crowd and into the Town Hall. The concerning part was that he couldn't see anyone holding him, and from the way he was moved through the press of people, it had to be some kind of Mage hand spell. Grandmaster Snow nodded at him as the door opened by itself, closing as soon as Joe was inside. “We are declaring a state of emergency, and martial law is in effect. I don't suppose you intentionally kicked off our settlement advancement?”

“Of course not.” Joe brushed off the space where he’d been grabbed, not sure why it had made him so uncomfortable. “I had no idea we were approaching a hundred thousand residents already.”

“I have your assignments ready.” Snow stated to the room at large, flicking a half dozen folders through the air. Each of them glided smoothly along and landed in the hands of their intended recipient. “If we’re going to make it through this oncoming storm, we need to put aside all of our differences and share one unified goal for the short-term. You all have two options when I tell you to do something. You can act, or you can argue.”

Her gaze swept around the room, meeting each of theirs in turn. “If you agree with me, act immediately. Complete the task, or at least move on it to the best of your abilities. If you don’t agree, argue. Tell me what needs to change, and why. At the point where I agree with you, you should agree with me. That means you act. What will kill us faster than anything else, is letting me assume that you do agree, then not doing the job. If you think I'm wrong, and you don't say anything, it’s on your head if the task fails. Do we all understand?”

The group responded, some of them surly, some of them with perfect military bearing. However, everyone voiced some version of, “Yes, Grandmaster.”

“Good, then here’s what we’re going to do.” Speaking incredibly rapidly, Grandmaster Snow laid out her vision for the next fifty Beast Waves, and Joe could only stare on in silence as she went through detailed schematics, tactics, and strategies that they would be employing. “-and the enchanters are at work on the walls right now. As soon as the final section has been altered to fit with the rest, we’ll begin phase three in that operation. Joe.”

The human was so astounded that he was practically dazed, and the Grandmaster had to repeat herself before he snapped out of it. “Yes! Grandmaster!”

“Havoc tells me that you might have a solution for our mana issues. Fix them. You have until the twenty-fifth wave, if you take any longer than that, things are going to get decidedly dicey. The resources of the entire Town are available to you. Get the job done.”

His mouth fell open as he realized he’d just been given carte blanche to pursue a goal he had been racing toward practically since he’d arrived on this world. Regaining control of himself, Joe gave a sharp nod and ran toward the door.

“The conditions are right. It's time to get the Mana Battery recharging stations operational. Abyss, yeah!”