The Siege of Arconia: Chapters 33-35

A severe flood might be worse than even the threat of the dryad invasion - because there was at least something that could be done about the dryad invasion from a Liberomancer’s perspective.

A flood however, was more difficult to deal with even with magic. I hadn’t seen a spell that was the reverse of [Create Water], and as for changing the weather, such spells did exist but even at Rank Three their effects were very limited, often only affecting a small area. Many Liberomancers didn’t even bother with such spells for that reason.

At higher Ranks, it was possible to do something that might actually make a difference when it came to the weather - the Ruler of the Astral Winds, for example, had been said to have once completely buried an enemy army of forty thousand soldiers under a massive sandstorm all by himself.

But there was little that people like us could do with just Rank Three magic when it came to a flood. Maybe better engineering and city design could’ve alleviated the problem somewhat - but it wasn’t like places didn’t flood back on Earth either. And there was little use bemoaning any issues with infrastructure when there was an enemy army at the gates.

Turns out that many of these worries were for nothing as the rain soon cleared up to give way to fresh blue skies and even a tiny rainbow.

Two days afterwards, a large group of the dryads separated from their group - at first there were cheers of joy at the thought that some of them were splitting up or retreating, but it turned out that they were not heading away from the city. Instead they followed the Arconia a few miles further down the shore, but didn’t seem to be going that way in order to circle around and get to the city from the other direction.

Instead… they were building something. Or at least, it looked like they were digging up something, but no one could really tell what it was. People were just glad that they weren’t pointing their weapons or claws at us for now.

It was only when it rained again a few days later that it seemed to click with me what they were doing, as they kept going at it even in the rain.

“They’re trying to flood the city,” I told Drake, almost certain of my conclusion.

“What?”

“Branches of the Arconia go through the city and around it as well, so if they block one of the larger branches out there with a dam or something like that, it will cause it to back flow through the other branches into the city. And it’s already raining,” I said.

Drake, for better or worse, seemed to have trust in my judgment after all this time swapping ideas with each other but still looked somewhat unconvinced.

“Here, let me draw it out,” I said. I picked out a piece of paper and drew a circle. “This is the city.” I then drew the major branch of the Arconia which winded along part of the city before draining into the ocean. “This is where the Arconia goes into the ocean. If they block it off here somehow…” I traced the branch back to its source and then drew a few lines into the city. “Where does the water go?” With the city already somewhat prone to flooding, and it raining every few days, I had to admit that it was a pretty decent plan.

I also had to admit, upon looking at my drawing, that it was pretty bad. It kind of looked more like a ray diagram you would see while studying optics in physics than any kind of map.

Thank god Liberomancy did not involve drawing, otherwise I would be much worse off than I was now.

“I see what you’re saying…” Drake said. “And it could work… but are the dryads smart enough to pull this off? They don’t seem to have much more organizational skills than wild animals, and this seems far too complex an idea for them to come up with.”

“Ah… I don’t know,” I admitted.

The technological attainment of the dryads weren’t great - I had heard of some of them making small mud huts, and their siege weapons were limited to very rudimentary ladders. They had nothing like catapults or the like, and their sorry excuse for a battering ram had fallen apart rather quickly earlier.

Did they even have the capability to make something like a dam and block the river?

I didn’t know the level of technology that was required for such a feat, but it did make me wonder if there were giant beavers in this world that built proportionately huge dams to block out river. ‘Eh, it wouldn’t surprise me if that turned out to be true.’ With giant spiders and frogs, giant beavers didn’t seem like anything too far-fetched.

“It looks like they are trying though,” I said. “And doesn't it make sense to stop them then?”

Drake smacked his tail across the floor. “Tell you what, let’s send a scouting party and see if what you’re saying is right, and then we’ll see what to do about it.”

Their scouting party was a tiny rowboat that they sent out into the shallows along the shoreline, which was able to sail out into the waters far from the city to avoid falling victim to the clutches of the dryads, but did not venture too far into the deep water for it to be dangerous.

When they returned their report seemed to confirm what I had said - that they dryads were attempting to make a large mud wall to block off the river.

The issue was whether or not they would be successful. Creating a dam the size of the main branch of the river was something that even the Arconians would have some difficulty with if they didn’t use magic to assist with the project, could the dryads really achieve the same?

Great Claw oversaw the construction of the dam. It had taken some time, but he had convinced the other dryad lords to see the wisdom of his plan. Truly, their call to the spirits had not gone unanswered! They had bestowed upon him the inspiration for this plan right when he had cursed them for abandoning them.

Raindrops fell from the sky, meaning it was more than likely that when they were finished, their enemies would drown, the great river consuming them and allowing them to fish out the survivors before gorging upon them.

They preferred fresh blood, but even blood from two or three day-old corpses was acceptable.

Yes, his plan was going along swimmingly. If they continued to make great strides like this, his name would echo in the new tales that his kind would tell their children and grandchildren. They had no writing system, but that didn’t mean that the deeds of great dryads who had made themselves known for their wit or valor were not passed down through the generations verbally.

And his name would soon join theirs - the tale of how he, Great Claw, had harnessed the force of a river to drown his enemies would resonate for generations.

Once this was successful, he might even be elevated beyond the mere title of dryad lord - a dryad king!

There had been a few such individuals throughout their history - dryad lords who had been exceptional even by the standards of dryad lords. These individuals were no different from the other dryad lords in terms of their anatomy or physiology, they were not true magical beast kings, but they could wield authority over great armies of dryads like this one. Right now, Great Claw was not their leader, just an influential commander, but that would all change with the success of his plan…

However, his daydreams of glory and fame were broken as he noticed something was wrong. He got up to see what the fuss was about - a small leak had appeared in a section of the base they were constructing. They were about three-fourths done with the base of the dam already, which stood up about two feet in height. They had attempted to patch up this flaw in its design using fallen logs and sap, but nothing they did truly fixed the problem.

The increase in rainfall was what had given him the idea in the first place for constructing the dam, as it was what made the city so vulnerable to flooding during this time in the first place. However, the rainfall had also caused this branch of the river to swell as it overstepped its banks, making their construction of the dam difficult as well. Still, they had persevered, the wet soil functioning as excellent muddy building blocks for the foundation of the structure they were making.

For all his intelligence, Great Claw had not been able to find a solution for this sudden break in the dam. Even as he contemplated another way to patch things over, he was interrupted as there was shouting at another part of the base. There was another hole somewhere else - the immense pressure from the river putting great strain upon what they were constructing.

And then, before he could do anything, and so swiftly that it was nearly instantaneous, the rudimentary construction they had been working on broke. The small holes that had popped up suddenly expanded to cover the entire base of the structure as cracks spread like cobwebs all throughout the base. The water, now freed from its confines, angrily swept away the dryads in its path into the sea as if they were no more than leaves in the autumn wind.

The entire dam had collapsed, with only the faintest trace of its base remaining. The dryads who had been swept out too far into the sea were now lost, left to the mercy of the tides and whatever creatures slept below the ocean’s surface. The ones who were scattered closer to the shore would eventually manage to find their way back to camp, but one thing became clear - the idea for the dam would not work.

Great Claw’s ambitions, dreams, and hopes were swept away with the rain just like everything else.

“Looks like I was worried for nothing,” I said as I heard about the latest report.

The makeshift dam the dryads had been constructing had collapsed and been swept away by the rain without us even having to lift a finger.

“Yes, hehe, looks like you were worried for nothing,” Drake said. “I mean, it was difficult to imagine that they would succeed in the first place, but it was good that you noticed regardless.” He looked up at the clear sky. “After all, in the future, there might be a slightly smarter and more capable enemy who could use this strategy against us. We’ve had peace with our neighbors for a long time, but any adept ruler has to keep the possibility of war in mind. The dryads though - heh, ”

The issue of flooding was mostly out of everyone’s minds now - the rain had thankfully petered down and any flooding that might’ve happened would be minimal. And it did not look like the dryads could make something that could flood the city, even if they were given ten years to do so.

We were having other problems now though.

It had now been several weeks since the siege had started, and though we hadn’t exactly run out of supplies and were not in danger of that happening for a while, rations did have to be severely tightened. And it wasn’t just about food - there were a dozen other things that people were running very short on which I hadn’t even thought of, like oil, which was nearly impossible to buy currently.

Food prices, already at an exorbitant high, had gone up another twenty percent as the city continued to be deprived of its usual harvest. Since the merchant caravan had not come this year, and the siege made doing business impractical but for a few, there were several families who found themselves suddenly broke on top of everything else. Pets, which were a luxury even in good times, were the first luxury to be crossed off when budgets needed to be slashed.

I saw several axolotls wandering the streets, and by the way they behaved, it was clear that they were once domesticated and had been cast out of their homes. Unaware and unused to living on their own, they would wander around looking for anyone kind enough to give them even the tiniest of a morsel - which, during this time was a small miracle in and of itself. I guess it was better than them becoming food, which is likely what would happen if the siege went on for even longer.

The rain had also made the housing situation worse, as it was no longer feasible for many people to simply sleep out in the open in some areas, leading to a lot of discontent. It could’ve been a lot worse had we gotten heavier rainfall or if the dryads had succeeded, but even as it was, it made living in the city a miserable experience combined with everything else.

The roads were muddy and hard to navigate - most of them were not paved with stone, and this made transporting things even harder as they had already been congested before.

I also think that it was at this point the overcrowding issue had gotten to the point where it was causing actual problems. I wasn’t the only person who had nearly ten people occupying a space meant for far fewer people, and while it had been tolerable to an extent as the siege went on and it was clear to people that they weren’t dying tomorrow, moods had shifted.

I thought that a good number of fights and brawls that occasionally broke out were because of this. There were also increasing incidents of domestic violence - though they didn’t call it by that name here in Arconia, it was what many of these ‘household issues’ as they were instead filed under would’ve been termed back on Earth.

Law and order had also broken down to some extent. For one, there were far more desperate people willing to do basic crimes just to get by, and secondly, most of the people who would usually be enforcing the law were guarding the city and stationed atop the wall.

There were problems that I wouldn’t have even considered beforehand that could be an issue - several alcoholics had to stop drinking as the supply of booze dried up or was out of reach of their pocketbooks, and they ended up going into withdrawal. Given how preoccupied people were with the siege, these people were sometimes left on the street for hours until someone checked up on them. Some of them had sadly not been found in time and had passed away; from epilepsy or exposure, and even a few from choking on their own vomit.

“Is everything alright?” I asked Granny Qi another night when I had decided to drop by to check up on her.

The mood was considerably worse than the earlier times I had visited, though this was probably the same in other parts of the city as well.

The stress level of the city was something intangible. No instrument could measure it, but I could feel that it was rising quickly now. It was only the immediate threat of death hanging above their heads that was keeping people in line, but it all felt like a shaky house of cards waiting to topple with the right provocation.

“Good as things can get,” Granny Qi said. “At least we are not low on food, if that’s what you’re wondering…”

I was. I didn’t want her going out to get something and getting jumped by some hoodlum who saw her as an easy target. That was why I had brought the ingredients for this dinner with me, but it was good to know that I needn’t have bothered.

“How much longer will the siege last, Master Liberomancer?” Suki Tang asked with a sigh. She looked far more depressed than usual - but I knew why.

For someone like her, who was used to living in wide open fields, it must’ve been quite depressing to not only be cooped inside the confines of a city, but inside a small house with so many people as well.

“I can’t say for sure,” I told her. “In a month or so forces from the capital should arrive, assuming the dryads don’t fall apart from a lack of blood.”

We had been saying the same line over and over, and I could tell people were tired of hearing it - but what else could we do? The forces from the capital would arrive when they arrived, and there was nothing we could do to expedite that.

The adults, at the very least, were giving the pretense of being optimistic, but the stress was clearly showing through the kids. Their eyes were downcast in a manner I hadn’t seen before as it was harder for them to hide their true feelings.

The end of the siege, however, came far sooner than anyone had anticipated.

Two days later, the dryads started making their move. And this was not a simple skirmish as they had done occasionally beforehand, no, it looked like the entire dryad army was getting into position.

Their first assault was likely them just probing our defenses, while the second assault had been the more serious one designed to succeed. This one though, it looked like it would be their last desperate attempt to break through.

“It looks like they’ve had enough waiting,” Drake said. He was trying to remain calm, but I could hear the tension in his voice. “And it seems they’ve decided to throw the dice and see where it lands.”

It was likely the lack of blood had weakened them to the point that they could not continue further, and they had realized that they could not retreat without being struck from behind or dying along the way.

Or maybe they were just tired of waiting - they were said to be little smarter than animals, after all.

Hopefully they had been weakened by the weeks of not having fresh blood…

The wall, and the city, immediately jumped into fervent action.

The dryads were extremely large in number, to the point that it took them several hours to ‘form up’ so to speak - not that they were much good at doing this. The lack of an overall centralized command structure, which would have been the cornerstone for any army, was clearly evident here when the organization of even greater numbers than before were involved.

Draftsmen were moved to the wall in large numbers, and the sea-facing side of Arconia was stripped down to its bare bones for the incoming attack. The dryads did not look like they were going to attack from that side anyway, and if they did, it would be overwhelmingly obvious by the time they reached that side when a defense could be arranged for that location.

“How have you been?” Master Jiah Pei asked me as I saw him walking up to where I was stationed. He slapped me on the shoulder and gave me a weary smile, strolling around as if he was enjoying a nice scenic walk in a garden.

“Master Jiah Pei - well, I’ve been alright, all things considered,” I said. “Are you going to be fighting today as well?” I did not want to offend him, but I wasn’t sure how to suggest that he stay out of the fighting for his own sake. It looked like it was really going to get intense this time around. We hadn’t been in too much danger beforehand, but who knows what was going to happen today?

“I wouldn’t miss this for all the gold in the world,” he replied, “I thought I’d drop by to say ‘hello’ to an old friend, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed elsewhere,” he added, dashing off to reinforce another part of the wall.

I really hoped that he would make it through this… nearly twenty thousand ordinary soldiers now manned the walls, prepared to form a living wall between us and the dryads if need came be. Our magic and skills would likely run out before the enemy’s numbers did - and in that scenario, we would be relying on them to hold the enemy off until we could recover our mana.

The Liberomancers prepared in any way they could - mainly by having buffing magic cast upon them, while others were praying for victory in the upcoming fight. The ordinary soldiers were preparing all kinds of non-magical methods for dealing with the dryads - ranging from catapults, to arrows, to large cauldrons of boiling sand and water. Oil was likely too expensive and rare for them to use for the purpose of pouring it on their enemies, though if we had something like a large supply of kerosene it would’ve been good to pick on the dryad’s natural weakness to fire.

Drake was extremely busy now, and I wished him luck as he wandered off.

As time went on, it was clear that our initial assessment and fears were correct - every single dryad seemed to be mobilizing now.

This was it - the final clash between the dryads and the defenders of Arconia was at hand!

A gentle breeze drifted over from the sea. The sky was cloudless and the weather perfect; nature completely unaware and uncaring of the predicament we were in.

What was I thinking at that moment - knowing that death could very well be coming for me that afternoon?

Initially it was thoughts of what would happen to people in the city who would no doubt die gruesome deaths. It was incredibly hard for them to flee by the ocean, though they’d try if push came to shove. More likely than not though, death would await them at the hands of the murky depths of the sea if they tried.

My thoughts then shifted to my family back home.

To Cheddar, and to my parents.

If I died here - would I be transported back home? I had thought of that at times while thinking of how to return, but had not resorted to trying to kill myself yet. I was too afraid of what the alternative would be. That I would just be dead, and my parents would never find out what had happened to me as my corpse lay in a different dimension or reality, or whatever this place was.

I still had absolutely no answers, even now, on what this world even was, how I had gotten here, or why I was even here. These questions were far from the forefront of my mind though as I thought of what my family would go through if I’d never return.

I had heard several stories of missing people where their families were left distraught as to where they had suddenly vanished off to. It had been over a year - unless there was some weird time dilation thing going on between worlds, what would my family be thinking about right now?

After a year, it wouldn’t surprise me if they thought I was already dead.

Did Cheddar still look outside the window expectantly, as I had been told he so often did after I moved to college, hoping that he would see my car pull up or another sign signaling my return? Would he continue doing so until the end of his natural life, waiting for someone who would never come home?

I could imagine him eagerly running towards the door anytime it opened, hoping that the person who walked through was me.

He was a dog and I knew that he was already getting on in years, if I didn’t return back home quickly enough, I would end up going back only to learn that he had passed away while I was stuck in this world…

I could imagine my parents calling my number on their phones over and over again, hoping that one day I would pick up only to get a message saying that my number was out of reach - and how distraught they must have been while wondering what was happening to me.

The police would have been called, though after months of no progress and no leads, I’d imagine that the case would eventually get dropped.

My folks wouldn’t understand what happened - but how long would they pursue trying to find me? Not even understanding why I had vanished like that must have been torturous. Did they think I had thrown myself off a cliff or something? Or that it had something to do with drugs or human trafficking?

If I died here, they would never get an answer to any of their questions. At every holiday or family function, they would be constantly reminded of my absence as they saw the other happy families around them.

Did they blame themselves, thinking that they had done something to drive me away? I really hoped that wasn’t the case, but I could see that happening. If only I could reach out to them for even a second to let them know that I was alright…

Eventually, they would go to their graves not knowing what had happened to their son - their only child.

“Are you alright?” Drake asked me, pulling me out of my reverie. “I’ve been calling your name for the last minute but you weren’t responding…”

“Uh, yes,” I said, trying to collect my thoughts. Yes, I could very well end up six foot under today - but the likelihood of that would be much higher if I didn’t get my act together right now and focus during the upcoming battle.

“Listen,” Drake said, keeping a scaly hand on my shoulder. “I know the fighting’s going to get intense, but we’ll get through this - we have the advantage here.” It sounded like he was convincing himself more than me, but I nodded. “Hey - here.” He handed me an extra helping of fish.

This was quite common in lizardmen culture - rather than gifting something like flowers or a bottle of wine, they would usually gift a rare or exotic fish. It was also a way of apologizing or trying to cheer someone up - for the lizardmen, fish were perfect gifts for all occasions. It was a bit unfortunate that the haul one could get near the city had diminished with overfishing being rampant because of the siege, but fish was still the most common food item to be found in the city.

“Eat up,” Drake said. “I know it’s hard, but once the fighting starts, who knows when our next meal is?” I definitely felt nauseous, but knew that the fighting would likely go on for hours, possibly until daybreak tomorrow or longer, so he had a point. But Drake seemed to realize there was something else going on beyond just the stress of the siege. “Um… is there something else? You look kind of… different…”

“Do you have five or ten minutes to spare?” I asked him.

“Hmm? Um, sure, there are some things I have to go over and I can do that while we talk - why what happened?” Drake asked.

I took him aside where I was sure we wouldn’t be overheard - with the general chaos that had occupied the wall, I didn’t think anyone was listening in on us anyway.

Turns out the ‘things he had to go over’ included taking out a flask and taking a big sip. Dutch courage? Couldn’t blame him really considering this might be the last drink he had.

“I’ve not been entirely truthful about where I come from…” I began. That seemed to draw his attention immediately - it was kind of surprising to me how attentively he seemed to be listening to every single word I said as I told him about Earth, that I had come from another world and had been dropped here in this other world I called Libraria in my head without any explanation and how I had been hoping to get back home.

It was extremely abridged and I couldn’t even get half of what I wanted to get across in such a short time, but I think that Drake got the gist of it. Or at least, enough so that it would suit my purpose.

“Stefan…” Drake began, forgetting the ‘Master’ for once. “Is this some kind of joke that you’re hoping to cheer me up with before the fighting begins? Because if so-”

I shook my head. “It’s true. The reason I wanted to tell you is because… in case I don’t make it out of this fight alive, and by some miracle my family or someone else from my world comes looking for me… I just wanted someone to know and be able to tell them what happened to me.”

Drake still looked unconvinced until I hadn’t broken into laughter for a full minute, after which he said, “Fine then…”

I didn’t think he had fully believed what I was saying, but he likely had other things to do and quickly disappeared.

Had I made a mistake by telling him? It felt like we had just started to become friends, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to tell, aside from Granny Qi, but I couldn’t very well run back to her house right now could I?

My main worry was that he would think I was a lunatic, which, was something that I would have to worry about only if we survived - so I’d reflect on it more if we got through this battle. And if someone from my world did, as a matter of fact, appear after I’d died, he’d know then that I was telling the truth.

It had taken until the afternoon for the dryads to get organized, after which they finally launched themselves at the walls.

Our first line of defense, and also the strongest, were the Rank Three Liberomancers. Most of us knew [Grand Fireball] and cast it out in waves at the incoming forces.

Master Jiah Pei, interestingly enough, was an ice elementalist. Maybe I had been told that at some point and forgotten - but it did shock me a bit to see him use [Grand Iceball] which caused a huge number of dryads to turn into treesicles. They were weak to fire, but that didn’t make them immune to ice thankfully. It just meant that ice was not as useful as fire when dealing with them.

Then again, that was to be expected. One of the advantages of Liberomancers working like this in large groups, was that we could have different people specializing in different things - one person focused on healing, another on defense, etc. Certain specialties were better than others at dealing with the dryads, but nearly everyone had one or two offensive spells they could unleash to try and tip the scales.

I, of course, had another trick up my sleeve.

It was getting kind of old at this point - but if it wasn’t broke, why fix it?

“[Summon Tyrant Arachnea]!” I yelled out as Drake did the honors and lit it on fire.

Fear was still deeply ingrained into the minds of the dryads, who hesitated greatly upon seeing the creature. This hesitation cost them as they were very close together for this assault, and they quickly fell prey to the spreading flames.

It was here that something like oil or kerosene would’ve been very useful to pour over them, though I supposed even if we did have something like that, how would it reach them at this distance? It was thanks to my summon that our side joined the battle far later than other areas of the wall, as eventually, even after it had taken down over a thousand of the enemy directly or indirectly, my summon fell to their attacks.

After that, my only strategy was firing [Grand Fireball] over and over until my mana ran out.

The dryads seemed to be committed to make this their final attack, and were employing human wave tactics - also known as ‘we have more soldiers than our enemy has bullets’ strategy.

Drake was the last of the Rank Three Liberomancers to run out of mana - he likely had several grimoires that allowed him to cast a number of fire-based spells for free, and some which reduced their mana cost.

But, the gaps we had made in the enemy formation with our spells quickly closed. I knew it couldn’t have been instantaneous; we had definitely been able to hold them off for at least an hour, but it sure felt like it had been over nearly instantly.

It was the first time that this line of defense had been breached up till now, and the dryads rushed in at us with renewed vigor when they saw that we were no longer casting Rank Three spells at them.