Board & Conquest 126: Moonscare

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The attack had begun well.

Combining his The Pack Provides Doctrine, which let him apply the effect of a single Rank 6 Revelation or below to all Champions and followers, in conjunction with Citystep had allowed Wepwawet to teleport nearly every combat unit capable of acting on Lune’s atmosphere straight onto Beelzebub’s doorstep. The others were piloting the fleet of saucers towards the two moons and bringing along the rest of their troops 

Sending so many soldiers into Beelzebub’s territory was quite the risk, especially considering the bug was likely to have prepared some last-minute booby trap and gathered many soldiers in preparation for the Incursion, but this would be their only chance to kick the bastard off their world and put an end to whatever plot he had in mind with Kronos.

All bets were off. 

Seeing the situation through the eyes of his Champions and summoned creatures gave Wepwawet a highly detailed view of the battlefield. The Overmind’s spire was at the center of Lune, Beelzebub’s Idol to its southwest, the main spaceport to the northeast, and the Gravitational Engine to the southeast. Each presented a different objective. 

“The goals of this operation are fourfold!” Wepwawet informed his Champions through his telepathy. “Destroy Beelzebub’s Idol, destroy the Gravitational Engine, subdue the Overmind, and disable the automated defenses to ensure our saucer fleet can land safely! Proceed at once!”

Castle Neigebleue had partly solved the last part by materializing near the spaceport and unleashing a horde of mimics, slimes, magmorians, and golems into the area in an attempt to quickly overtake the grounded lunarian ships before they could take off and intercept the incoming fleet. Defending slaves under the influence of lunarian taskmasters immediately intercepted them with a hail of laser weapons, telekinetic blackstone boulders, and other weapons. Bernard led a charge of brainsnatchers near-identical to Bernadette while using a makeshift rebreather item to survive the Lune atmosphere. 

“Onward, peasants!” Princess Treasure motivated the troops from atop the castle’s tower. “For princess and country!”

“Ugh… I have never seen such a dragon-deprieved wasteland,” Glatisant commented upon flying out of the castle and gazing upon Lune. Since dragon brains didn’t really need all that much air due to lack of use, she hardly seemed bothered by the local atmosphere. “No wonder these barbarians turned into anti-monarchists without one of us to teach them the way of things… they never grew knowing the joy of being minions. We have to enlighten them, for their own sake.” 

“And no other dragons mean no competition for treasures!” Insupportable rejoiced as he rained ice upon the spaceport. “All the moon’s gold for Insupportable!”

At least those two are motivated to help for once, Wepwawet observed. They swiftly began to dance in Lune’s sky, dodging its anti-air cannons and retaliating with their elemental breaths. More explosions soon rocked the city as war taged in its streets.

Wepwawet hoped to keep slave casualties to a minimum by taking out Beelzebub and the Overmind early while using brainsnatchers to extract any parasites they encountered, but that was easier said than done. Moreover, Beelzebub’s Providence caused more flies to spawn from anybody dying within the city, including the dead parasites, and while these bugs were weak, this allowed him to replenish his forces quickly. Hel’s Champions could channel her Providence to cause their victims to rise as undead under her control if she spent the appropriate mana, but this only slowed down the rate of reinforcements.

The sooner they knock the Lord of Flies out of the fight, the better. 

Chaos soon ruled Lune as everything descended into pandemonium. A colossal swarm of giant flies the size of a cumulonimbus cloud formed over Beelzebub’s Idol and swiftly spread across the city. Their lord began to summon more machines to assist his troops, like the flying saucer he used in Promesse and another battleship similar to the one that attacked Victoire’s forces in the Wyld. The ground also began to shake as mighty tremors struck the city. All blackstone along the crater’s edge shimmered at once, mana gathering in enormous quantities in the area. 

“Lord Wepwawet!” Sagesse called out to him, who had been moved to a secondary observatory near Narc to better observe the movement of the moons. “We are noticing abnormal movements in the sky!”

A god could multitask easily, so it didn’t take long for Wepwawet to gather a picture of the situation: the two moons’ ellipse had begun to noticeably bend in a way that hastened their newest alignment. 

The second set of Dragonstars had only fallen yesterday, so they were relatively close to each other. Still, to force the moons into close proximity again would demand energy powerful enough to violently alter their entire orbits. 

“The bug bastard is trying to smash the moons together!” Wepwawet warned his allies through their overlapping realms of Influence. 

“H-he can’t do that!” Ganesha protested, his voice heavy with concern. “He’ll blow himself up too!”

“He cannot succeed, not so soon after only two revolutions,” Horus replied, his astronomers having closely monitored the situation. “He can probably force another early Dragonstar bombardment, but the energy required will tear Lune apart.”

“Alongside everybody inside,” Sun Wukong guessed. “Gee, sore loser much?!”

“I can only see two reasons why Beelzebub would risk his Idol like this,” Wepwawet replied, scowling. “Either he thinks he’s doomed and he wants to take us down with him, or he’s confident his Miracles will let him survive.”

Thoon and an army of undead advanced onto the Overmind’s spire while avoiding lasers it blasted at them with its single eye. Meanwhile, Sultana Alexandrite and Ishtar’s demon mages bombarded Beelzebub’s Idol to no effect from atop a bridge, with Filou’s forces and other Champions protecting them from lunarian golems trying to dislodge them. The forcefield surrounding the statue proved impenetrable to attacks. 

“I’m afraid our spells cannot pierce the barrier, Your Godliness,” Sultana Alexandrite apologized as she prepared to make another attempt at blasting the forcefield open, before she spotted something on the spire that caused her spell to fizzle. “What the–”

“Bernie, no!” Filou shouted through his own respirator as Bernadette went off-trail to climb her way up to the spire on which Beelzebub’s Idol stood. “Come back! It’s too dangerous!”

“Bernie eats big cricket!” the brainsnatched replied defiantly, unbothered by the offensive spells thrown her way, nor the forcefield. “Bernie will not be denied!” 

“We can’t break through Beelzecuck’s forcefield!” Wepwawet warned his allies. 

“My followers got this!” Ganesha replied as greenish, bestial colossi with fanged faces, claws, and rough greenish hides stormed out of his colosseum with bombs, maces, and pickaxes. 

Most giantfolk required too much, well, oxygen to fight well in Lune’s thin atmosphere… with the very notable exception of trolls, who were hardy enough to thrive in caves or difficult environments. These creatures were something of an underclass who mostly worked as miners or bridge toll collectors—a market which they aggressively cornered—in Megaloria and made excellent sappers. They quickly began to attack the spire’s foundations to tear it down. The building’s destruction should send it spiraling into the depths. 

I could also use Antimagic Lock to suppress the field for a second, but Beelzecuck will likely cast the Forcefield Miracle again if I do, and it’ll deprive all of my troops of Miracles or magical effects for at least ten minutes, Wepwawet thought. The Lord of Flies wasn’t as aggressive with his Miracles as his enemies had expected either, having only cast a few summon-focused Rituals so far. Is he hoarding mana for one last-ditch defense? 

“Guys, my troops have broken into the Gravitational Engine!” Hel informed her allies. “But they say the complex stretches far underground, quite possibly all across the moon’s surface!”

“Can they access the command center and disable it?” Wepwawet asked. 

“How?! They haven’t even invented guns yet, how do you expect them to manipulate telecomputers?!”

“Just wait for my Kaijucaller to do his work in,” Artemis gloated in anticipation, “three, two, one…”

One of her shaman Champions completed a prayer, and buildings collapsed all around him with an earthshaking roar.

A massive, pale blue alien worm materialized southeast of Lune, its body longer than roads that connected cities, its pallid flesh so thick no mortal weapons could penetrate its insides, its flower-shaped maw opening to reveal rows upon rows of hungry teeth oozing acid saliva. The beast had no eyes, and it didn’t need any. Its pseudops vibrated upon detecting the mana in the air, and it screeched upon digging its way into the crater’s depths, hungrily consuming blackstone and devastating an entire district on its way down. 

“Behold, Skitter, Mother of the Worms!” Artemis boasted. “She’ll eat away that underground engine in no time flat! And she’s immune to mental effects!”

“I love it when you summon a kaiju to solve all our problems,” Wepwawet complimented his girlfriend. 

“No fair!” Hel complained, having already fielded giant worm creatures herself in the past. “Mine are prettier!” 

“Yo, lovebirds!” Sun Wukong cut in. “Thoon says he senses something wrong with the Overmind!”

Wepwawet focused on that side of the battlefield. Thoon and the Overmind had engaged in some sort of telekinetic battle, their overwhelming mental energies clashing in the sky above Lune to the point they had become visible. Psychedelic colors filled the air alongside flashes of light and half-formed telepathic images while objects floated in midair between them, neither being able to overcome the other. 

“Wrong how?” Wepwawet asked. 

“Some strange interference with its telepathy!” Sun Wukong replied. “Methinks the bug put a Miracle to bolster its mental strength or something.”

“I could have neutralized it if Wepy hadn’t stolen my Antimagic Lock!” Hel complained. 

“I won it fairly, but you have a point,” Wepwawet replied. Bernadette was almost within reach of the forcefield protecting Beelzebub’s Idol, which presented an opportunity if he could strike all targets at once. “I think I can neutralize the Overmind and Beelzebub’s Forcefields, but that will suppress the effects of all my Champions’ magical effects and items for a time, including the rings protecting them from mental influence. If we don’t take out the Overmind in one blow–”

“Do it,” Epona insisted. More of her and Hel’s soldiers continued to pour out of her Sword of the Crossroads. “We have enough forces in place to restrain them should they fall under telepathic influence, and the potential benefits are too great. We can’t let the lunarians reorganize.”

“My boy Thoon just needs a little push to win!” Sun Wukong added. 

“My trolls are almost ready to blow up the spire too,” Ganesha warned Wepwawet. “I’m just waiting for your signal.”

The die is cast, then, Wepwawet thought as he contacted the Hood. “Merlin, I want you to fly straight at the Overmind,”

“The giant brain?” the Hood replied, being busy cutting down flies bursting out of the corpses of a lunarian he had torn apart with his fiery sword. “What’s the plan?”

“Ram into it at full speed,” Wepwawet replied, the demon choking at the proposal. “I need one of my Champions to grab it, and you’re both the closest flyer and the only one likely to survive what will follow. I’ll bolster your speed at the last moment.”

The Hood grumbled, but wisely followed through with the order. “This better work,” he complained out loud upon breaking formation and flying towards the Overmind. 

“It will,” Wepwawet replied as he telepathically warned all of his Champions that their magical protection would briefly fizzle out for a time. “Geyser Tribute!”

“Wait, what’s going oooooooooon!!” the Hood shrieked as a potent stream of boiling water erupted beneath him, transforming his steady flight into a missile cruising through the air. He crossed the distance between him and the Overmind in an instant, hitting the telekinetic barrier protecting the giant brain with enough force to bend it. The Hood crashed into the Overmind without fazing it, like a mosquito ramming a whale. 

“Antimagic Lock!”

A pulse of mana coursed through all of Wepwawet’s Champions the moment he cast his Ritual, neutralizing all Miracles affecting them and suppressing all magical effects within range. Rings went inert, enchanted weapons became useless, buffs ran out, and Beelzebub’s forcefields fizzled out that instant. The psychic energies around the Overmind lashed out violently, causing the giant brain to shake and send electric pulses in all directions. The Hood was flung across the landscape while Thoon was briefly repelled by the backlash. 

“Now!” Wepwawet signaled Ganesha.

His friend answered with a boom.

Explosions rocked the foundations of Beelzebub’s spire, causing it to collapse under its own weight as the forcefield failed it. Bernadette lost her grip and fell, but Igor managed to catch her in midair before she could crash upon the ground. Tons of blackstone crumbled beneath Beelzebub’s idol. 

Yet it didn’t fall. 

Wepwawet watched it float in the air through dozens of blinking eyes. His shock turned to horror as his enemy’s statue shone with mana, untouched and unblemished. Its four stony arms unfolded, its mouthpiece elongated and started spitting acid. 

It couldn’t be…

“What’s the matter, bastard?” Beelzebub spoke through his Idol’s horrifying mouthpart. “Did you really think we would slip this Miracle into the System just so you and Whiro would be the only ones to obtain it?”  

Flies rising from the corpses of the dead gathered behind the Idol and formed two great swarm-wings black as night. Beelzebub’s eyes glowed red, a weapon appearing in his hand as his anchor became alive. 

Wepwawet finally understood why the enemy had been so cautious about spending his mana, and what Miracle he needed to fuel with it: the ultimate trump card which inspired dread in the divine and profane alike. 

“Here comes a true god’s power!” the Lord of Flies declared as he raised a skull-topped wand the size of a castle’s tower. “Tremble before the Divine Avatar!”

A god had taken the field, and with only mortals to oppose him. 

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