Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 61 - Death and misery - 2 of 6

Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 61 - Death and misery - 2 of 6

Sebet’s description of the Spatial Breach Spell and its potential was enough to convince me it was worth a place in my Grimoire of Flesh. It probably wouldn’t be of much use in fighting the Liche directly. However, it would provide an emergency means of retreat if I still had the mana required to cast it.

“Unfortunately, it is somewhat countered by the other Spell...” Sebet apologised with exaggerated contrition, bowing at the waist and pressing both palms together to beg for forgiveness, “Dimensional Anchor prevents enemies from teleporting out of the area and draws in enemies trying to teleport into the surrounding area. It would make escaping with Spatial Breach quite difficult...”

“We would need both Spells to be certain,” Gric countered neutrally, “However, I would suggest taking the Spatial Anchor for another reason.”

“Making sure the Liche does not escape?” I knew Gric well enough to know where he was coming from and I was inclined to agree with his assessment.

Gric nodded, his refined Elven features set in a stern expression, “Even if it is performed by one of your champions, preventing the Liche’s escape should be a high priority.”

Dimensional Anchor would occupy the last of the currently available positions in my Grimoire of Flesh. Persuaded by the need for some form of contingency to prevent the Liche’s escape, I added Dimensional Anchor to my list of Spells.

Assuming that an Empowered Dimensional Anchor would be stronger than a regular version of the Spell, I figured it would be best to prepare the Spell while I still had my full HP.

To prepare for the possibility that the Liche might attempt a surprise attack with Spatial Breach, I decided that I would need to centre the Dimensional Anchor a decent distance from the northernmost wall. This would prevent the Liche from immediately damning every soldier present and allow the siege weapon teams to zero in on a prepared position.

The siege munitions might not do exceptional damage to the Liche, but they would hopefully cull off any of the other undead brought along for the ride.

As much as it was to test Ochrams assurances regarding an Empowered Shape Stone Spell, I decided to form the focus for the Dimensional Anchor into a stocky stone altar. On a whim, I engraved a nautical anchor onto the underside of the altar. No one would see it anyway and it brought a smile to my face, even if only for a moment.

The light grey stone taken from the mountain absorbed my blood like a sponge and took on a dark crimson hue. The original naturally occurring gradient in the stone gave it a bizarre pattern that made me think of waves in an ocean of blood.

Conjuring a mundane mace from Sanctuary’s treasury, I ordered Randle to use it to strike the stone altar with all of his strength.

Wielding the mace with both hands, Randle brought the head of the mace crashing down on the surface of the altar. The wooden shaft of the mace splintered from the force of the impact and the head of the mace was sent flying, narrowly missing a passing soldier.

“Perhaps a magical mace?” Randle suggested somewhat awkwardly while avoiding looking at his two snickering cousins.

I nodded and conjured a relatively high-tier magical mace.

Unlike the first mace, the magical mace was made entirely of steel.

“Try this one,” I handed the mace to Randle and waited.

Randle took a firm stance and raised the mace above his head, “Here goes...”

The soldiers in the immediate area fled from the path taken by the head of the previous mace.

The head of the magical mace crashed down on the altar with a deafening clang before falling from Randle’s hands. “Oof!” Randle shook his gauntletted fingers and hissed in pain.

The altar remained unmarked.

Picking up and inspecting the magical mace revealed that it too appeared to be undamaged.

The fact that the simple stone altar had been able to resist an attack from a magical weapon wielded by someone with high Strength and an extensive array of Synergies was impressive.

Unlike every other Empowered Spell I had cast up until this point, Shape Stone only consumed one point of HP. This suggested that its HP cost was probably influenced by scale. So if I cast an Empowered Shape Stone Spell on a larger object it would cost more HP.

Unwilling to cast the Empowered Anchor Spell while within the limits of the fortified pass, I dragged the altar behind me on a crude sled. While I moved the altar, my champions intercepted and destroyed any undead that drew close.

The proposed location for the altar was roughly five hundred feet from the northernmost wall that sealed off the mountain pass. It would leave the anchor firmly within the range of ballistae and catapults, but outside the range of the trebuchets and more than half of the defensive positions of the bowmen.

The staggered layering of defences would hopefully provide enough destructive power to cull off or severely weaken any of the stronger undead before they had a chance to get close.

With the anchor firmly planted out in the open, I gathered my mana and cut the inside of my mouth in preparation for the Empowered Anchor Spell. Unlike my other Spells that took effect immediately, the Anchor Spell drained my mana for several minutes before taking effect. Of greater concern was the twenty HP it had also drained in the process.

I felt quite anaemic and fatigued by the loss of blood and was aware that morale would have taken another hit if I was seen staggering or leaning heavily on my champions for support. So I had to temporarily cease my mana regeneration exploit just so I could return under my power. All the while wolfing down food as fast as I was able to restore my missing HP.

Waiting for Sebet or Gric to complete tests on the Dimensional Anchor would have been the safer play to make. However, there was no guarantee that we had the time to spare. Furthermore, the costs made it clear that the Spell needed to be established well in advance or run the risk of leaving myself exposed to the same enemy I intended to entrap.

“HOLD! HOLD!” The cries of Sergeants echoed up and down the wall, their straining shouts competing against the groans of siege engines.

I turned toward the distant anchor just in time to witness a small group of cloaked figures disappear beneath a hail of javelins, boulders and displaced dirt.

“I think those were Confederates...” Faine commented in bewilderment.

“They must have tried to use a teleportation wand...” Jayne made a show of scanning the mountains while slowly shaking her head and snorting incredulously, “Were they trying to escape one of our patrols and were caught by the anchor by happenstance?”

“If they were trying to escape at all,” Randle added grimly, “For all we know, the range on this anchor could go for miles around. We may have snared a team carrying dispatches-”

“Or perhaps a high-ranking officer,” Faine agreed while staring at the mass of expended projectiles, “Although I doubt there is enough left of them to tell for sure.”

“Technically, they are our enemies,” I commented neutrally while doing my best not to overthink things and risk losing myself to the possibilities, “Whoever they are, or were, I suppose...” Spells and Abilities were incredibly definitive in that sense.

“You don’t think it could have been Duke Seminov’s scouts?” Jayne asked quietly, lowering her voice so the soldiers stationed on the wall nearby would not overhear. “The Duke’s self-proclaimed representative seemed especially keen on learning more about our capabilities...”

I shook my head dismissively, “It doesn’t matter. Read the description for the Spell. It only targets enemies.”

Whether it was because they perceive themselves to be my enemy, or I considered them as such, was unclear. However, it ultimately didn’t make much of a difference. If someone considered me to be their enemy, then it would be to my benefit for Spells and Abilities to take measures against them.

Similarly, if I already considered someone an enemy, I would have reasons for holding that belief and would want Spells and Abilities to take measures against them. Or at the least, exclude my enemies from receiving any potential benefits.

The deaths themselves would have once bothered me to a far greater degree, but I couldn’t afford to allow it. Defeating the Liche and ending the rampage of the undead required sacrifices.

If those sacrifices were borne by my enemies, the servants of those responsible for unleashing the undead in the first place, it was a far better price than almost every alternative I could think of.

“M-Erm, my Lord,” Jayne directed my attention away from the northern front and toward the Thorn Heart’s cave.

The Thorn Heart was already slowly ambling down the slope of the mountain before I realised why Jayne had pointed out his presence.

At some time between our last meeting and the present, the Thorn Heart had appropriated a motley collection of large ragged sheets of cloth, barrels with missing or broken staves or hoops, loose planks and a singularly large cast iron cooking pot.

In almost every respect, the distant shambling form of discarded and ‘borrowed’ materials resembled what the Thorn Heart intended. However, in a much more practical respect, the Thorn Heart looked like a child or folk hero playing as a soldier in an illustrated children’s storybook.

Descending the wall, I slowly made my way over. The sheer strangeness of the sight had gathered a sizable number of soldiers, making the final leg of my approach take somewhat longer.

Enamoured by all the attention, it took making direct contact with the Thorn Heart to acquire its undivided attention.

<Follow.> I commanded and pointed back toward the mountain.

<Obey. Follow.> The Thorn Heart’s lower facial tendrils writhed in a strange accompaniment to each telepathically transmitted syllable.

Once we achieved a decent distance from the soldiers, I conjured a generic magical helmet and offered it to the Thorn Heart. <Its size can change with mana.> Without changing form, my accompanying demonstration was somewhat limited. All the same, I was confident that the impressions sent through the link were sufficient to convey the core concept.

The Thorn Heart eagerly accepted the helmet and I could sense its mana circulating as it lifted the helmet toward the mass that served as its head.

Despite the Thorn Heart’s best efforts, the helmet remained unchanged.

After trying several other pieces of armour, I suspected that the Thorn Heart’s anatomy was likely too different for the magic items to conform to.

“It seems...sad?” Randle commented with appreciable uncertainty as he stared up at the Thorn Heart attempting to balance the helmet on one of its large thorns.

The Thorn Heart’s Necrotic Resistance was going to be integral to fighting the Liche. By extension, the Thorn Heart’s protection and survival was an incredibly high priority.

Similar to the circumstances shared while in my true form, armour wouldn’t provide much additional protection for the Thorn Heart without coming at the expense of mobility, visibility, encumberment and other considerations. However, the Thorn Heart’s bizarre anatomy and Racial Abilities were also capable of offsetting those same considerations, provided they were suitably accounted for.

Releasing a deep sigh, I gathered a full third of my mana and concentrated.

The Thorn Heart didn’t need conventional armour to weather enemy attacks. The Thorn Heart just needed barriers it could bring to bear as needed.

Despite my intentions, the final results of my labour held an entirely familiar collective form.

“Is that?...” Faine’s voice wavered as he glanced at his cousins for support and confirmation.

“Stone armour...” Randle choked incredulously.

“Looks like it to me...” Jayne confirmed with a hint of confusion, “But what I don’t underst-oh...OH!”

Before Jayne had the opportunity to fully explain herself, I bit the inside of my cheek and willed my blood to seek out and bind with the spine and hook-covered stone plates laid out before me on the mountainside.

By the time I was finished, I had reduced my total HP by half.

With the uncanny dexterity and fluidity of an octopus, the Thorn Heart pooled its body beneath the dark crimson plates. Vines and roots twisted and knotted themselves through the crude hooks and rings on the rear surfaces as the plates migrated around the Thorn Heart’s body.

Individually, the stone plates each strongly resembled the rounded kite shields carried by the Asrusian soldiers. However, the Thorn Heart wasted no time in shifting the locations and overlapping matrix of the plates to imitate a rough approximation of conventional plate armour.

By the time I had recovered my HP, the Thorn Heart was already testing the limits of its newly confined form. Although initially clumsy and prone to temporary collapse when overextending himself, the Thorn Heart quickly proved itself capable of adapting at a truly astonishing rate.

“Why does it choose to look like us?” Jayne asked curiously, “Moving as we do can’t be as efficient as other alternatives...Right?”

“I don’t know,” Faine replied warily while watching the Thorn Heart make another lumbering pass across the uneven and debris-scattered plane of the mountainside, “I don’t think it’s trying to look like us at all...”

I felt the silent gaze of all three champions shift from the Thorn Heart and onto myself.

“You’re right...” Randle commented quietly, “It reminds me of Dani when she was little-”

“I remember,” Faine interjected with a nostalgic chuckle, “She would stomp around the courtyard in front of all the servants.”

“Inspecting the troops,” Jayne corrected, slowly shaking her head and snickering faintly in amusement.

Despite the levity of their words, I could feel a mounting tension in the air.

Looking toward the distant anchor, I felt a sudden surge of expectation and danger.

The Liche was coming.