Invent ~ 23!

As his Ritual Orb returned to its standard icicle shape, notifications began trickling into Joe's combat log. At first, it was indeed a trickle, but it rapidly became a flood of notices telling him the same thing: reputation had been gained with the Dwarven Oligarchy.

He was too far away to hear anything directly happening with combat, but a rumble—followed by the vast majority of tunnels beginning to spew lava into the chamber itself—told him everything he needed to know.

“I'm going to have to give that engineer a bonus if we survive this.” Joe muttered to himself, watching the other tunnels that were supposed to remain unaffected. There was a chance that, even with the assurances of the engineers, the tunnels would directly collapse due to the tunnels falling around them, or melt down thanks to the influx of new lava flowing nearby. He held his breath as he waited: so long as they had at least five tunnels remaining, they had options.

With the ambush out of the way, and no way to see how many Dwarves, Elves, and humans were currently in combat, Joe shoved the Major’s arm out of his way. Against her protests, the man started sprinting toward the still-sounding alarm. Knowing he was moving too slow, especially since everyone else—including a disapproving Dwarf—had already caught up to and passed him, Joe began using Omnivault as rapidly as he could without draining his mana and stamina.

Even with as nervous as he was—his budding town was at risk—Joe was still excited to test out his upgraded weapon, as well as the defenses that he had put into play. “I hope Herr Trigger is somewhere out there. He and I have a rubber match to settle. He's won, I’ve won, now it’s time for me to establish dominance.”

“Down!” Major Cleave grabbed Joe out of the air by his ankle and slammed him to the ground. He bounced once, but managed to avoid the crescent of force that had left someone's sword swing a few dozen meters away. Joe managed to turn and see as the crescent lost momentum and crashed to the ground—where it impacted like a truck hitting the side of a building. A miniature volcanic eruption occurred at the point of impact, with molten rock springing into the air and splattering across the group.

Shield damage taken: 15 Environmental.

“Celestial avocados, what level of skill with a sword do you need in order to do something like that?” Joe whispered so softly that he did not expect an answer thanks to the din of battle.

“If it isn't a spell? Expert at the absolute minimum.” Jaxon was the person to inform Joe, his ever-present smile slipping slightly. “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but that wasn't a sword. That was a knife.”

“Jaxo~o~on!” A man bellowed as he stepped out of the rising cloud of dust. “You ruined everything! Come here so I can kill you!”

“No, but thank you for your interest in my existence. I like life!” Jaxon called out, even as he stepped forward and began working through the motions that Joe recognized as the ‘serious combat warmup’ his friend always did before a major battle. “You know, I think there is that fundamental difference between us that sets us at odds. How about you and I start over? Hello, my name is Jaxon. I like to help people’s spines stay in the position that they should be-”

“You know better than anyone that I am planning to rip your spine out!” The man shifted to the side, somehow breaking Joe's line of sight and vanishing in the same instant. Jaxon swept down into the side, his hands coming up with open palms and slapping away the man’s wrist and elbow in a clean block.

“Backattack, you predictable brat, why you always gotta attack the back?” Jaxon taunted the man. Joe felt his jaw drop, he had never seen his friend acting this way toward any enemy before. Jaxon had always been polite, and offered Chiropractic services the entire time he fought; often ending combat by passing a self-made business card into their hand if his enemy remained alive. “If this is the way it's got to be, that's just fine. Also, if you still have anyone in your guild… I'm going to charge them ten percent more than anyone else for the same care!”

Their fight devolved into fluid motions, rapid swings, and taunting back and forth. Joe had no faith that he would be able to intervene without damaging his friend. In fact, he was almost certain that he had seen Jaxon literally wrapped around his opponent at least twice so far. If their combat had not been so brutal and bloody, especially when the T-Rex head hands popped out and sunk their teeth into Backattack’s shoulders, their closeness and motions would have looked intimate enough to make him blush.

“I'll take care of him; you guys get going!” Jaxon cheerfully announced as Lefty tore off a chunk of flesh and swallowed it with a happy *Nyah!*.

That left Joe, Cleave, and strangely enough Kettlebell to their own devices. The three of them hurried to the front lines, where a bare handful of Dwarves were fending off a much larger group of humans. Joe recognized most of the defenders, but his eyes were drawn to Bauen as a large caliber bullet slammed into his stocky arm—taking it off at the elbow in a spray of blood and gristle. Something about the injury screamed ‘piercing enchantment’ to Joe’s magical senses, but he didn't stop to think as he vaulted forward, caught the falling arm, and reattached it to the Dwarf with a rapid Mend. “Couldn't let you stay in battle disarmed!”

“Do you have any idea how many times I have heard that joke over the years?” Bauen shouted back in mock anger, “Thanks for the assist, but I don't think we're going to be able to hold out.”

Since he was now able to see where exactly the combat lines had been drawn, Joe rolled forward and dug his fingers into the dirt and ash. A moment later, a ten-foot-long barrier tall enough to reach Joe's chest popped into existence, giving the Dwarves a much-needed fortification. The pitiful number of remaining dwellers stacked up behind it, able to see through it on this side, whereas a bright light was blinding the people on the other side.

Bauen looked at Joe questioningly, but the human kept his eyes on the situation. “Dark Lightning Strike!”

A large group of people shuddered involuntarily as their muscles spasmed, and a half dozen bullets slammed into the barrier mere millimeters from Joe's face. He stared at the enchanted metal as it attempted to drill through the protection; clearly this had been designed with breaking enchantments in mind. If his barrier had been an enchantment, it would have worked. Happily, the ritual barrier was slightly different. Not only would it not last for even a fraction of the amount of time a proper enchanted barrier would, it was also constantly refreshing itself—similar to a computer monitor with a huge frame rate per second.

All together, these facts meant that this barrier was absolutely going to fall, but only to time. The bullets did reduce that amount of time the hard-light fortification would continue to exist, but that was more than enough: they only needed it to remain in place until the enemy was defeated or fled. Joe pulled out a Ritual of Mending, which he had intended to use during an exciting outing with Havoc, and activated it as quickly as possible. A moment later, the damaged Dwarves within range started rapidly healing to full health. “Don’t let any Elves near, that thing heals anyone in range.”

“As if they’d be foolish enough to enter melee range.” Bauen chuckled along with anyone else that heard his words. Finding a moment to breathe, Joe pulled out his Aspect Inscriber and rapidly drew a circle in the air.

Novice ritual circles took him anywhere from ten to twenty seconds in total to draw if he wasn’t triple checking his work, which was a huge amount of time in combat. Even so, Joe took every single moment that he needed to form the diagram correctly. He looked up and noted that he was under the Daylight section of The Shoe, factoring that into the fractal that he used as the focus of the circle. “They only made it twenty meters out of the entrance. That means I need to activate sections one and two over here…”

The first circle was completed, so Joe rapidly devoted enough mana to activate it. A moment later, three rituals activated at the same time and began sending lines of compressed and sharpened air at the attackers. He had used this type before to defend a breached gate back on Midgard to great effect, and so found himself rather disappointed at their effectiveness against higher leveled and skilled people. The blades were enough to slow people down, but they were still able to push through while taking little to no damage.

“I suppose most people won’t be taken down by Beginner-level rituals going forward, note to self has been made.” He grumbled even as he worked with all the speed and efficiency he could muster. Even though the auto-wind-claymore ritual wasn't heavily damaging the enemy forces, it was still pushing them back through sheer force of impact. It was also kicking up huge clouds of dust and ash into the attacker’s eyes, giving the defenders some much-needed relief from the hail of spells, arrows, and much more rarely: bullets that were zipping through the air.

As Bauen had pointed out, very few of the attackers were making the mistake of engaging the Dwarves in close combat. At this point, the only people Joe could see that were still fighting man-to-man were clearly of exceptional skill with the weapons they were using. Joe finished his second Ritual of Remote Activation, with the slightly altered fractal that worked almost exactly like a radio antenna had back on Earth. As he activated this one, Joe felt a large sense of satisfaction.

Eight barriers popped up, slicing the combat zone into three distinct areas. Even so, Joe was looking at the new additions. He was staring straight up. The attackers were forced to funnel into one of the three areas if they wanted to continue the battle, and just as they regrouped the effects of other rituals became noticeable. The stone above the battlefield became almost liquid for just a few moments every five seconds, which delayed the end result of his stealthy placement. Just as the attackers were getting back into their battle rhythm, thousands of pounds of oddly-shaped rock collapsed from above and devastated their formations.

Then there was a sound that Joe had been waiting for, a demand that came just in time; as he was already out of tricks.

“Retreat!”