The Siege of Arconia: Chapters 30-32

Drake contemplated my question regarding spirits. “Personally? No,” Drake said. “The humans-” he began before remembering who he was talking to. “I mean, the humans of this city seem to think that all the spirits, at least most of them, left the mortal realm when Goddess Serragnin ascended thousands of years ago and ascended with her. Only the evil or malevolent ones were left behind - my people think differently, but everything has a spirit, you know. Any concept can have a spirit - whether it be rivers, deserts, mountains, or even cities. You’ll occasionally hear stories of people getting lost in the mountains when a young girl suddenly appears out of nowhere and tells them where they need to go to get to safety before vanishing the moment they turn their backs. Was that a hallucination? Or a friendly forest or mountain spirit helping them out? But no, I’ve never seen one and never met anyone firsthand who claims to have seen one. At least, no one who’s account I trust.”

I thought of bringing up how the lizardmen and humans viewed the reverse waterfall differently, but then decided against it. I didn’t know if it was a touchy cultural point for the lizardmen being they had a famous epic surrounding the place - while it seemed little more than a tourist spot from the human perspective. As it was, it ultimately mattered little to me whether one side was right or not. I already had a feeling regarding who Drake would side with if I asked him.

Our conversation moved to more mundane topics - Drake offered me some more wine which at this point I had to say ‘no’ to as I was pretty sure that I would fall asleep if I had another glass. The blanket was making me a bit too comfortable… and the urge to just bury myself into it instead of just having it wrapped around myself and then falling asleep was almost overpowering…

“Master Stefan?” he asked, forgetting what I had asked him at the beginning. Likely these manners had been drilled into him since birth and he found it hard to break them.

“Yes…?”

“What are you aiming for in life?”

“…” That was an odd question to spring on someone, but given that it was nearly midnight, I guessed, and nothing was happening, as if time was frozen in this tiny corner of the world, weird questions were expected. “Not sure. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just saying,” Drake said. “You told me you were still living in a rented room, right? Or sleeping in your office more nights than not from what the guards tell me. But you’ve been a Rank Three Liberomancer for some time now. A normal man would’ve bought a house by now, and would be looking for someone to settle down with. Started a business that would start to bring in reliable income with minimal input from himself, had a few children to inherit those businesses, all those sorts of things. But you haven’t done any of those things. At first I thought it was because you loved Liberomancy so much that you didn’t care about anything in the world other than making new grimoires… but I have a feeling that that isn’t true.”

“Well you’re right, I do like Liberomancy, but not that much. I kind of don’t see the point in doing those things or moving out of my rented house,” I told him. “I was planning on hitching a ride on the merchant caravan and leaving Chipker this year, but look where we are now…”

“Ah, it looks like you sailed right into a storm then. If you were planning on leaving why didn’t you just go last year?”

“I was waiting for something, but…” I wasn’t sure how to preface what I was going to say next. Drake seemed to have suddenly taken far more interest in the topic now though.

“For something? What were you waiting for?”

“Someone from my country… was supposed to meet up with me. Or at least, I thought that they would. It doesn’t matter, because they never came,” I said. “I’ll just have to see if I can find such a person myself somewhere out there in the world.”

Drake seemed to be expecting more elaboration on that, but I didn’t give it to him and he didn’t press me any further. “How about you?” I asked, instead hoping to turn the question on him.

“Well,” he began. “The obvious thing was that I was expected to inherit my father’s position - though my brother seems to be the choice for that, not me.”

It was so obvious that was the case I didn’t even bother trying to reassure him that no, perhaps he still had a chance at winning that spot.

He knew it too - unless his older brother died or got kidnapped by aliens, he wasn’t getting that spot. And hey - that was also important to know that there was a backup in case the current heir died or not. Also, because there was a clear line of succession, it could grant some protection to the current heir. Anyone who wanted to assassinate Zeke would have to bear in mind that Drake would inherit the position afterwards, and the thought of what that might lead to could be deterrent enough against an assassination.

That was one of the main utilities of having a vice-president back home, after all.

“Now though,” he said. “I guess I just have to support him. And work for the city - even if I can’t become governor, I do want to show people that I am as capable as him… at least in some aspects…”

I turned towards him - he was definitely significantly drunk, else he wouldn’t be blabbing about these things.

“Hey - don’t be so down on yourself,” I said. His voice sounded somewhat melancholic, which is why I felt like I needed to say at least something to cheer him up. “You’ve gotten further than most people ever will. And I’m sure your time will come eventually.” Everything in his life had basically been set up for him - which was a blessing in that he had gotten further than most people ever would’ve while putting in only a fraction of the effort. At the same time though, it could be seen as a curse. He had been expected to follow the path carved out for him with little room for him to deviate from it. It was a gilded prison - but a prison nonetheless.

Of course, most people would consider it an excellent deal - there were so many people who had to trudge every single day of their lives in order to make a living who would’ve gladly swapped places with Drake.

But, that would do little to cheer him up. What made it worse was that the goal which he was being led towards was no longer attainable - he had been trained to become governor much like his brother, but he would not realize that dream. Sure, he would still have more than a comfortable life, but that hadn’t been why so many resources had been invested into him now then was it?

It must feel terrible to have been groomed your entire life for a singular goal - for that goal to be everything and your only aspiration, only to be told much later that there was no chance of actually attaining it.

He still had a function of course - to be the ‘spare’ so to speak in case anything happened to Zeke - but what happened to the spare when he was no longer needed? When Zeke would have his own children?

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was not in an easy position - and if he spiraled down further, he might end up an alcoholic, given he was already about a quarter of the way there.

He nodded. “You think so?”

“Yeah, the future’s not written in stone - who says you won’t get your heroic moment sometime in the future?”

The night went on, and finally the sky started to lighten up as our watch ended. Things were not done though, we were expected to stay on the wall until around noon simply because an attack was more likely at this time and they wanted more hands on deck - I just wished they could give us some time, maybe just two or three hours, to get some shut-eye before then.

Then again, I was sure that if there was an attack, all the fatigue would vanish and be quickly replaced by the adrenaline of battle. Still, it was probably not a good idea to have sleep-deprived people who could function as human rocket launchers in charge of your defense.

Even when it was past noon, my job still wasn’t done as I had been called to some other section of the wall as a fight had erupted between a group of lizardmen and humans, all of them draftsmen.

I was afraid it would turn into yet another situation which had caused all this problem in the first place - though thankfully it had been nothing more than a small brawl and the matter didn’t spill over.

The moment I arrived, and they saw a Liberomancer, both sides calmed down immediately.

I listened to both sides, and really came to the conclusion that they had both overreacted, fined both of them, ordered some healers to heal what minor injuries they had - and then told everyone to go back to what they were doing.

After this, nothing else happened to interrupt my sleep, and I ended up sleeping straight from the afternoon to early next morning - I would’ve guessed it was around four in the morning when I woke up because the sky was just beginning to lighten up.

I went to my office - it looked like there was some paperwork stacked on top of it from last afternoon, but most of it must have been non-urgent as no one had woken me up for it.

I looked through it all, and wanting to get an early start on the day, signed them all where indicated.

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that without reading them, but I couldn’t read them as is - I’d need to wait for my secretary to get here to read them aloud for me, and she could do that after I had signed them too. If it was something I didn’t want to sign, I’d just shred it.

The next few days fell into the same routine, with nothing much happening regarding the siege aside from some very small skirmishes.

My next night watch was also unremarkable, until dawn began to break.

The sky was a bit lighter, but still a few hours away from a proper sunrise when I noticed something on the horizon.

I found a small stack of crates to stand atop of while I strained my eyes to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things - I wished I could fly to get a better look at things, as well as for a whole different variety of reasons.

“Everyone! Wake up! There’s some sort of odd movement on the enemy side!”

No one responded to what I had said, so I shouted it out again, louder this time.

“Do you see something?” someone asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I got off the stack of crates. “Everyone! Wake up and sound the alarm! The enemy’s making a move!”

At the sound of my voice, the entire wall burst into activity. Drake also came up running five minutes later from wherever he had been. “There’s something happening on the enemy side,” I said.

To someone who didn’t have [Night Vision] it was almost imperceptible - but I could now more clearly see something advancing towards the city. It would become apparent in a few more minutes when the sun finally came up, not to mention it looked like there were other areas that were mobilizing and heading towards different parts of the wall. However, every minute was precious in a fight like this, and it was better to sound the alarm as soon as possible.

“Can you see what it is though?” Drake asked. He sounded slightly exasperated and was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had [Night Vision] as well but I was standing on a pile of crates.

“There’s a bunch of them crowded around something, and they’re headed towards the gate,” I said. “And not just that, but there are some coming this way and the other side as well.”

By the time it was more clear as to what we were facing, the morning team had already begun to trickle in, and it was now bright enough that the others could see what I had seen.

About ten thousand dryads were moving towards either end of the wall, while twice that number were advancing towards the center.

Of the group that was advancing towards the gate, there was a large crowd walking in front of a group that was carrying something - a large amount of fallen trees tied together with vines.

A battering ram!

It was rather primitive, but still looked pretty heavy. It was covered with what I guessed was leather in an attempt to shield whoever was carrying it from arrows.

The dryads, while advancing, were diving into the river water, in an attempt to coat themselves with water before their assault.

I didn’t know if that would do anything to protect them from fire elemental spells, but it might do something against actual fire.

“Wake my father up,” Drake said to one of the other Liberomancers. “We’re going to need him. Master Stefan, there is a huge mass of them, please start off with your combination spell. No wait - summon that spider first, I think there’s something I can do to help out…”

I didn’t bother correcting him this time, but used [Summon Tyrant Arachnea], bringing out the huge spider on the ground below us.

This time, I didn’t light it on fire, but Drake did.

I could see his line of reasoning - his fire spells were far more effective, and hence, this combo was more effective as well.

The reason being was that the Tyrant Arachnea got stronger the more powerful the fire spell was cast on it - it could truly be said to be the nemesis of any fire elementalist! There was a limit to its fire resistance though as it only went up to Rank Three, a Rank Four spell from Lance would still end up roasting it.

On top of the flames, several Rank Two and Rank One Liberomancers began casting various buffs on it.

Even from this distance, the spider, with the huge cloak of flames coiling around it must’ve been visible to the dryads, and they seemed to balk the moment it appeared - which only got worse as the spider ran towards them.

The dryads were not exactly marching in tight formation, but there was still a loose structure to their organization.

This nearly crumbled the moment that they saw the Tyrant Arachnea.

I lived in modern times, so I’d never seen an actual cavalry charge, of course, but I had heard of the principle behind them. As with most things in war, it was about fear rather than actual threat.

Horses, no matter how well trained they are for war, will not willingly ram into a line of spearmen and die. Likewise, those riding those horses will also not willingly ram into the spearmen and forfeit their own lives, even though they would certainly take a portion of the spearmen with them.

But that’s all assuming that the spearmen remained in formation.

The people holding the spears might know, instinctively, that it was better to stay in formation. And that as long as they remained in formation, the advancing cavalry charge would stop and turn.

However, it was here that fear came in. There was something that awakened a primal instinct in the hearts of people when they saw an animal weighing several times them charging right at them - and with an armored soldier on top to boot, let alone several hundreds of them. Logic? Reason? Both would usually go out the window upon such a sight, and when people were in larger groups, it was easier for them to panic.

Why should I remain on the front line? I don’t want to die! And if I surrender, what’s the worse that will happen?

These thoughts would run through the minds of those people holding the spears. Depending on the time period, those who were defeated would become slaves, in which case they would hope for a kind master or for their freedom to be bought. Or, they would return to becoming peasants and tilling their fields, and in the case of nobility would be ransomed off. Fates many would prefer when compared to dying.

And even if you were brave - were the people around you the same? All it took was for a few people to drop their weapons and your formation was suddenly less effective, meaning it would incentivize even more people to desert.

The line of spearmen would usually break, and the cavalry would then ram their weapons into their fleeing backs, which is when most deaths in ancient battles occurred. Not with two sides clashing at each other (such things did happen, but were rarer than you’d think) - but when one side broke formation and was mowed down by the enemy.

There was a reason that veteran soldiers were considered superior to conscripts, even in this world. Experienced Roman legions could operate at half their usual capacity and still be completely functional, simply because veteran soldiers were less likely to break formation than their younger counterparts.

Arachnophobia is quite common on Earth. Most people were already scared enough of regular spiders - I couldn’t imagine that they would handle the sight of one the size of a truck running at them at about a truck’s maximum speed enveloped in flames with no regard for its own life and only bent on causing as much damage as possible, very well.

And all of that not considering the fact that they were even more flammable than humans, being dryads.

Understandably, they tried to put on a brave front, but their barely-kept formation collapsed almost immediately.

Those of them who had rudimentary ranged weapons used them - the arrows were nearly useless as the flames burnt them to a crisp before they could even make contact, and while the spears fared better, they could barely scratch the surface of its chitinous exoskeleton before the wounds rapidly closed up thanks to the flames.

Ten thousand dryads - the Tyrant Arachnea was no match for them, even with its improved coat of fire armor from Drake and buffs. But it didn’t need to be - because the panic spread faster than the flames would.

It was actually a bit of an issue if they ran away - as long as they had been in a tight group, the flames would’ve spread rapidly from one dryad to the other, but this would not nearly be as effective now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement - a speck that was moving through the horizon above the city. Something came out from the direction of the palace, moving through the air towards the dryads carrying the battering ram, much like a helicopter. It looked like Lance was flying out to deal with the dryads and their battering ram.

So we were covered from two positions, but that still left Zeke’s side.

“Is your brother going to be alright?” I asked Drake. With our side relatively safe, I was wondering if we should’ve sent some forces over there. I doubted that he had finished the grimoire I had given him and could perform the same combo as me in such a short period of time. I had only finished about a quarter of mine up till this point. And if anything, he was sometimes busier than I was.

“He can handle himself,” Drake said after clicking his tongue, a verbal tic of his that I realized he did whenever he was under stress or annoyed. He did however, ask for a portion of those stationed near the seaside to move towards that side of the wall. The dryads were not launching an amphibious assault, and given how slow they moved through the water, we’d have more than enough time to reform if they switched tactics.

The dryad’s plan was to distract the rest of us with two separate forces while they tried to batter the front gate down - it was a solid plan on paper.

But as I saw the spell [Inferno] kick up a massive wall of flames even from my position, I knew that whoever was carrying that battering ram was probably nothing but ashes now.

I couldn’t help but turn my head to try and catch a glimpse of what [Inferno] looked like - I had heard a lot about it but never witnessed it firsthand until now. The dryads before us had scattered, so I felt that I could afford the distraction right now.

The pillar of flame was quite apparent even at this distance, as it rose above even the height of the walls of the city. If I was closer, I might’ve even felt the heat of the explosion.

Rank Four magic truly was incredible! Not only that, but [Inferno] was boosted by the rest of Lance’s build and any other buffs he might’ve had cast on him before he had flown out. I didn’t doubt that the sight of his figure flying among the clouds was probably even more frightening to the dryads than my Tyrant Arachnea was.

After several more uses of [Inferno], Lance flew back towards the portion of the wall over the gate, descending and disappearing from my line of sight. He had likely either run out of mana completely, or like me, was making sure he had enough of a reserve should the situation deteriorate further.

My Tyrant Arachnea chased the dryads where it could - when some of them broke off and tried to circle around it to strike at us, I would urge it to turn around and chase whichever group was nearest to the walls.

After that the dryads seemed to have wizened up and realized that their only hope was to take it down. This was easier said than done given how the majority of them were deathly terrified of it. Despite them trying to put up a brave front at points, their formations tended to melt like butter the moment the Tyrant Arachnea drew too close to them.

Attempts were made to slowly whittle it down by some of the dryads, but it took them far longer than a properly organized military force would’ve.

In the end, though they did take it down, half of their forces were in disarray, over a thousand of them had been killed or wounded to the point that they could not fight, and it took them a while to pluck up the courage to regroup and begin to assault this side of the wall even with the Tyrant Arachnea gone.

After all, they didn’t know if we had a second one.

If I had the skills [Second Summon - Rank Three] and [Recall Summon] I could’ve brought out it again, but I hadn’t been able to find either of those skills in Chipker. If I did want to specialize as a summoner in the future, those kinds of skills would be essential.

Still, it wasn’t like we were defenseless. Once they got close enough, [Grand Fireball] rained out over them, and those that survived that were few enough to be shot down by arrows.

The lack of blood seemed to have caused their normally hard skin to become brittle and flaky as the arrows were having far greater effect than they had previously, and upon realizing the futility of what they were doing the remaining dryads fell back.

The fighting on the other side of the wall lasted another hour, but at the end, when all was said and done, the enemy had been repelled.

At that point I felt so tired I thought I could just fall asleep right there on the wall. I tried to force myself to stay awake though - and it was only when it was three hours past noon and it looked like the enemy wasn’t going to make a second attempt that I dared to leave to try to get some shut-eye.

Hr

Great Claw stood still. Nearly perfectly still - as if he were an actual tree.

He had been like this for several hours, standing motionless, not only conserving energy, but hoping to find something.

And suddenly, he felt it.

There!

He felt movement as something jumped over his feet, likely thinking of them as nothing more than tree roots.

And in a flash, he had caught what it was in his hands.

A rabbit - which he promptly beheaded and let the blood spill over onto his roots.

This had been one of the few morsels he had received in the past few days - but for a dryad his size, it was no different from a man being fed a single slice of bread after going hungry for three days.

This could not continue.

As it was, their recent assault upon the human city had failed. Their first attempt was essentially planned to have failed and had only been a fight to test the waters and gain information to plan the second attempt, actual attempt to break through the walls. The second attempt, however, had failed almost as miserably as the first one did.

What else could they do now?

Retreating was not a viable option - though he knew that many of his brethren were considering it and wanted to run to seek greener pastures. But the wisdom of the ancestors had been passed to him through stories, and he had been attentive enough to listen. If they turned around, their enemies would realize how weak they were, and strike them down even as they fled. Given how malnourished some of them were, they could not advance much further as it was, and would find nothing but death beyond.

No, it was do or die here - they needed to find a way into the city. Their last tactic had failed, what more could they do but throw themselves at the walls with all they had?

Around him, there were the occasional moans of pain as some of the ordinary dryads felt their bodies breaking apart without a source of fresh blood. They were not creatures of flesh and blood, but what kept them together still needed nourishment, and without it, they would slowly be chipped away until nothing of them remained.

All throughout this ordeal, no further inspiration from the shadow that had guided them here in the first place came. Many of them had searched for a trace of it, yet it had been fruitless. Now, they cursed the shadow as an evil omen - one which had left them in this situation with no further aide or advice.

In these situations, the dryads had their own methods of trying to reach out to the forces of nature - what humans and lizardmen would understand as spirits.

One among them would be chosen by lots, and would be thrown upon a bed of spears at sunset after they had been told the message the dryads wished to tell the spirits. If the dryad in question did not die by sunrise, they were considered a sinner and killed and the process repeated.

Despite having done this for the last three nights, no help at all had come from the spirits, shadow or not. It looked like the spirits had truly abandoned them.

As Great Claw ruminated upon this, a rain droplet hit his head. And another. And another.

As he gazed out at the Arconia, even though he did not know the name of the river, inspiration struck.

I barely even remembered what had happened after the fight was over, only that I was soon in the warm comfort of a bed.

I was woken up far too soon, at least, that’s how it felt like - I looked out the window to see where the sun was to get a good idea what time it was, only to see the sky shrouded by a mantle of gray clouds.

It was raining. This was sort of good I guess - from the point of view of getting fresh water. Not that we had much of a problem with fresh water to begin with, but I saw people holding up pots, pans, and whatever to collect the rainwater, so at the very least if there wasn’t a supply issue there was definitely a distribution issue.

It was to be expected though, now that the cold season had ended that we were going to be braced with a few weeks of intermittent showers. Libraria seemed to have seasons somewhat similar to those back on Earth, though I hadn’t seen a proper autumn season and it looked like the trees just lost their leaves overnight. Additionally, though it had been cold, it had not snowed an inch and I had been told that it was rare to get snow at all, meaning I guessed that this was the tropical area of the world.

Still, that meant that eventually summer would be back after all this, even if we had to deal with the rain for now.

Which made sitting on the wall even more annoying. Umbrellas and rain coats were a thing in this world - but that didn’t stop the other annoyances. Like how the stairs were muddy and wet and easy for people to slip on, or how water fell from any overhangs above onto your unsuspecting face if you weren’t careful.

I had never liked the rain, even back on Earth, for these reasons.

But there was something else that worried me.

“Does the rain make fire elemental spells less effective?” I asked Drake. It seemed like a stupid question - and also one that I, a a Master Liberomancer, probably should’ve known the answer to, but didn’t.

“Not really,” Drake said. “The initial cast, like with [Grand Fireball] goes through uninterrupted, and the immediate explosion afterwards is unimpeded, but the small flames afterwards might fizzle out.” He looked up at the rain. “But it shouldn’t matter, that last part is only a tiny fraction of what the spell does. Maybe some of them might survive a bit better - but it won’t change much.” He then turned towards me. “What about your skill though- with the spider and the fire?”

“I… I think the water would put it out,” I said. The flames that coated the Tyrant Arachnea were not its own, it was just manipulating them and fanning them out. I couldn’t be sure without trying, but I had a hunch that it would not work as well as it would otherwise.

From this distance, I could see a few of the dryads heading towards the walls. [Unobstructed Sight] was actually great in this context, because my vision would’ve been very badly impeded by the rain drops otherwise. With its help however, I could ignore their motion and obscuration completely.

Their movements were sluggish - I thought initially that the rain would’ve given them a slight advantage against us, but it also made the soil moist and extremely difficult to navigate. Dryads weren’t the fastest creatures around to begin with, and with so many numbers the ground would’ve turned into a big pile of mud quite soon if they would’ve tried to assault the walls. They would be left stuck, unable to move, while we rained down projectiles upon them. “I’m more concerned about the rain for another reason,” Drake admitted. “If we have another flood, it’ll be a problem.”

A good portion of the city was at sea level, and as such, flooding was not unheard of. It had been a decade since the last major flood - though Granny Qi had told me all about it and how the first floor of many people’s houses at the time had been uninhabitable because of it. It was this thought that was worrying most people now.