Chapter 86 - New Horrors

Notes :

Nothing much to say about these last few days honestly, just chilling, playing far too much The King is Watching. Trying to rest up and get my sleep schedule back in order, which is easier said than done.

Oh yeah, book 1 will be up on Tuesday ! That'll be fun. And probably spark a wave of 0.5 stars on Royal Road. Some people get pissed when a story is stubbed.

Chapter 86

Starborn Mountains, Firmament Hills

Wilderness

Sapphiria leaped out of the snowpiercer, and had her plasma gun tracking the monster before she even landed.

Something was off. Everytime the slap guns hit its skin, there was a slight burst of exotic radiation.

She pulled the trigger.

The plasma bolt screamed through the air, hitting the creature.

And exploded.

There was a wall of steam that rapidly turned into fog as the plasma bolt turned into a bomb, turning the snow around into vapor.

Well. That explained the anomaly. And given the screeches of pain, that monster was still alive.

The squishies disembarked behind her, taking cover beneath the wheels of the huge vehicle, lining up their guns, patiently waiting. One of the advantages of them being used to single shot weapons was that they wouldn't just blaze away with suppressive fire unless they needed to. They were trained to carefully place their shots, because they might only get the one.

They had lever action carbines in their arsenal, true, but the gendarmes were trained as soldiers first and foremost, and the premier weapon of the Magistracy infantry was still a good old bolt action rifle.

The junkbots followed suit, hopping out of their racks, though they placed themselves further forward than the squishies, to draw fire.

The enraged monster screamed out of the fog, clearly out for blood.

And straight into the concentrated fire of seven carbines, two from the slapguns, another couple from the junkbots, and the three squishies.

Its spikes were gone. The upper layer of its leather was burnt and seeping fluids Sapphiria's censors failed to identify, far beyond stopping anything more threatening than a rock.

The AI didn't even need to pull the trigger again. The hail of gunfire ripped the thing apart.

"Interesting." She said as she looked at the corpse slithering down the snow, which was turning black from its strange blood.

Then she received a ping from her sensors.

Oh hell.

"Second wave, incoming!" She yelled out, and the squishies immediately snapped back into readiness. Though, to give them credit, they hadn't relaxed a whole lot, still staying in cover, just taking the time to swap their magazines for fresh ones and keeping an eye out.

Three more of the things crested the hill, and immediately attacked.

Fortunately, they attacked what they saw as the most immediate threat, also known as the giant metal brick with the automated guns already shooting at them, the slapguns reacting far faster than the squishies and being fed targeting data from her armor.

One of the slapguns was completely rent apart by the volley of spines and the second one threw a bunch of damage alerts, but kept operating.

The snowpiercer on the other end...

Alarms were blaring. Steel hull plating bent. In some places, it was pierced.

There was a second layer, and it's not like the atmosphere was poisonous, but the squishies inside were still screaming like the world was ending.

Sapphiria fired, aiming straight for the middle of the pack.

The bolt exploded, just like last time. But interestingly enough, the energy dispersion effect replicated itself with the monsters flanking the middle one, and it worked. With much less energy to disperse, they came out singed but not cooked through like the other.

The central one tried to retreat, clearly deciding that discretion was the better part of valor. Sapphiria made sure to unsling her gauss rifle and nail it before it could get over the hill.

It's the ones with a survival instinct you had to worry about after all.

The other two came down the hill, clearly realizing they had no chance in a ranged duel and their only hope was to close into CQC. Sapphiria tried to shoot one with the gauss rifle, but they clearly had some defenses left, as the tungsten darts were met with burst of exotic radiation. They tore chunks out of them, but didn't achieve much beyond surface penetration, their impressive kinetic energy dispersed.

The monsters turned towards her, and Sapphiria suddenly realized she should really be somewhere else, and leapt out of the way as spikes filled where she had once been.

She almost fell, the armor's forward power distribution hub still a mess from the previous fight, and much the remaining capacity going to fueling her weapons. Fortunately, the stumble saved her, as the second monster actually waited for her to finish her leap to unleash its own attack.

Several of the spikes scratched her armor, one snapping but leaving its point embedded into her pauldron. But the vast majority missed her outright.

She whirled around, and let go of her gauss rifle, pulling out the plasma gun again.

The smarter one tried to hide behind its brethren.

That only further put it at the top of the squishies' list.

The stream of bullets distracted it long enough for Sapphiria to nail it with a medium power bolt.

This time it wasn't dispersed much. A bit was, causing the other to screech in pain again as its own energy dispersion failed in turn. But most of it hit, and half of the creature was simply vaporized.

The final monster tried to let loose a final spinal volley, but Paul put a solid burst into its head, closely followed by the junkbots, and Sapphiria followed it up a few seconds later with a low power bolt.

Silence once more descended upon the hills.

Nothing else tried to pounce on them, and the AI sighed.

"Well...shit." She nodded towards Paul. "Establish a perimeter. I'll get Ramina." She looked at the snowpiercer, now having spikes on its back like some oversized, metal and bone hedgehog. "We have a lot of work ahead of us."

This was going to delay things.

At least no one got hurt.

For now.

*****

"Well?" Asked Paul as Sapphiria entered the cockpit again, Ramina in tow.

"it's not as bad as it looks." Said Sapphiria as she flopped onto the pilot's chair. "We can actually continue on our way. We'll just arrive a bit later in the morning."

"Really?" Paul's eyebrow rose.

"Yeah, really. Most of the damage was superficial." Ramina made a strangled sound, and Sapphiria smiled. "For some value thereof. These spike things were made to embed themselves into flesh, tear people apart. Not penetrate steel. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to take this back into the Convergence, but there's really no reason not to continue on our way. If nothing else, stopping here for full repairs would put us more in danger than just finishing the trip and putting it back in the workshop. It'd take less time, get better quality repairs, and be safer."

"Alright. I'll take you word for it."

Unspoken was also the fact that Sapphiria was running out slapguns, with the last two now deployed on the hull. And one of her junkbots had taken a hit. Not directly, but one of the spines had ricocheted on the hull and nailed it in the leg. It wasn't going to hop back out of its deployment rack anytime soon, though it could still fire from it if the door was kept open.

"Good." She gazed at Ramina, who nodded.

"I concur. And I would love to be home."

"Alrighty then. Let's get to it." She powered up the engine, and got the snowpiercer going again.

They'd shattered the spikes they couldn't remove, but the vehicle still looked battered as hell as it rolled forward, and back up the hill.

If there was one good thing that had come out of this, it was the samples. None of the monsters had condensate, despite Ramina taking them apart quite thoroughly, but Sapphiria had acquired a broad range of readings and physical samples stored away safely, alongside the tendril she'd taken from the panther.

Hopefully, combined with the mana crystals and her scans of aberrations, she would be able to get some actual answers on magic at long last.

Maybe even use some herself.

She would be lying if she wasn't giddy at the idea of casting spells. She wouldn't have a damned plasma gun if she didn't dream of throwing fireballs around.

One step at a time. First, get home.

*****

Click click click click, reverse.

The Hand listened as the night was once again awash with noise.

Clearly, the Nineteenth had decided that a new approach was necessary. Especially with having lost their artillery.

Zombies were digging trenches, building forward field defenses. In short, making a secure position to fall back to and station troops in the pass on a more permanent basis.

The Hand would have started with that, but perhaps the other side had been trying to hold on to the hope of avoiding a conventional siege for as long as possible.

They'd taken great care to do their work outside the range of the ballistae of course. And this time they were done relying on subtlety or trying to set bait.

There was at least a couple maniples of legionnaires out there. One archers, one heavy infantry, would be the Hand's guess.

They could do a sortie. Inflict a lot of damage. But...

Magic could compensate for a lot. Tip the scales of battles and even wars. It couldn't win them by itself though. The Hand would lose a lot with that maneuver. And they could ill afford a single legionnaire down, not when they were already stretched to the breaking point having some troops on the second defensive line to serve as a buffer for the third.

Thankfully, they'd guessed the other side would do this. Though they had bet on them trying it with the first defensive line.

Oh well. A surprise laid for later. The other side would probably try to advance their fortifications as the battle went on. After all, it wouldn't be wasted until it was used.

The Hand left the parapet, which was getting more complete by the day. In a few more sunrises, the wall would be complete, and work could begin on additional features. A couple towers for archers behind it would be most welcome. Maybe one made to accommodate a couple of ballistae, instead of having every one of the siege engines set on the wall itself, and thus liable to be neutralized the second the enemy made its way up.

Even now, there was activity in the pass. Stone being quarried and prepared. Patrols, though limited in scope, did move around the slope leading down into the valley. Both to prevent monster attacks and make sure the rebels didn't get any ideas.

The Hand stopped, as the first lights of morning appeared above the peaks, and the valley moved out of the shadows.

They weren't entirely immune from the world's beauty, natural or otherwise. They had seen the City of Spires during its heyday, back when the Empire was young and vigorous. The waterfalls of Kenekaya, forming endless rainbows as the water drizzled down into the sacred ancestral pools below.

The vestige of The First City. Shattered towers of metal, partially melted by energies they could barely comprehend, yet still standing, ever defiant.

They preferred the accomplishments of mankind, but this, unspoilt, beautiful valley, as if carved out of the mountains by a sword from the sky, was something you rarely got to see.

They stood there, watching the light progress across the valley, slowly banishing the darkness.

Then suddenly, there was a flash. A reflection.

The Hand squinted. There was something metallic. Something huge. Moving hellishly fast. On some kind of road?

No. Not road. The trail of destruction left by the rebels.

A trail that went north. Out of the valley.

Whatever construct they'd made for this, it was returning in a hurry. Maybe with its tail between its legs, but...

The Hand remembered the weapon, washing the maniple in energy as their own dispersion spell backfired. The abomination, utterly devoid of humanity, wielding it.

Perhaps the rebels could have done something.

They took a step forward...

And came to a halt, as a trumpet sounded. The Hand looked up, at one of the observation posts on the wall, where a soulless centurion was gesturing frantically.

They sighed, and retraced their steps.

The rebels were a sideshow now. A problem for later. Even if they got mana or some condensate from the Convergence, so what? They couldn't be dealt with now, and if the Hand held out until reinforcements arrived, they would be obliterated.

The Hand ascended back onto the parapet, and froze as they saw the pass, where the light had finally percolated, illuminating it.

Ah.

Those forward field works weren't just a base to fall back to.

Rather, it was more of an assembly site.

Their gaze went to the ropes, the long beams of wood. The start of the gigantic counterweight. Traitorous Risen engineers wearing scale armor, followed by three legionnaires apiece, clearly ready to cut them down at the slightest hint of duplicity.

They were building a siege trebuchet.

Wonderful.