The hours until dawn passed quickly, with sporadic attacks two or three times an hour, as the farmers from the surrounding area, and those who had been on the run in the area, had all come to them after the second bellow by the Royal Rank Minotaur.
His effort seemed much more effective than the first attempt, and Karl wondered if there was something about the voice of Minotaurs that changed with their Rank.
Now, they had nearly a hundred Minotaurs in place and as the sun came up they were making plans to fortify this farm, so they could fall back to it as an emergency resource in the future.
“A trench line with a rake fence of spiked poles would slow down even a Giant Boar for a few minutes before it smashed them all apart.” One of the farmers was suggesting.
“And where would we get thousands of trees to make it from? We could do a low wall of dirt and stones with a trench on the other side, but that would still mess with the runoff for the fields, and we would risk drought on the farm.
Or we could do just the yard.” The Matriarch of this farmyard insisted.
That would be a pain for them going to and from the fields, but they could put bridges over the wall, and pull them in if there was danger.
The defensive fortification didn’t need to stop an enemy forever, much less actually hurt it. It just had to slow it down enough to give the defenders the advantage.
As the sun came up and everyone could see properly, the extent of the devastation became clear.
Hundreds of house fires poured black smoke into the air, while Karl could see ten different red smoke streams, similar to the green ones that had been deployed when the patrol unit called for reinforcements against the Orcs.
But worse, there was a massive plume of black smoke to their east. A pillar of smoke that marked a freshly sacked city on fire. The size of the column made the source unmistakable.
No matter where they looked, there were signs of destruction, and the further into the distance they looked, the worse it got.
The Naga General gestured at Dana and a Satyr guard. “Mage, how strong are you? Can you use that air walking to carry a guard into the air where they can see further? We need to know how far this extends and if there are others we might need to help.”
Dana nodded. “It’s not a problem. At my rank, carrying a Satyr with me as I [Wind Walk] isn’t a problem. I will take them a hundred metres into the air to scout the area, and we will report back in a minute.”
She picked up the smallest of the Satyrs and stepped up into the air, running as if climbing stairs.
That was the great drawback to her skill. She still had to walk, so climbing into the air took a lot of physical effort, like running up a flight of stairs or a hillside. But she had been practising hard, and while she was slowing a lot at the end, [Eternal Lightning] gave her enough stamina regeneration that she made it to her chosen viewpoint with enough reserves to run in a circle and scout.
The Satyr looked shaken as they reached the ground, but Dana had already known what was going on. Not only had she been attacking from the air, but the fact that it was a monster spawn was much less unthinkable to her than to the farmers.
“General, I have your report.” The Satyr informed them in a shaky voice.
“Go ahead, Sergeant. What did you see?”
“The fortress is under siege, though the battle appears to be close to finished. There are more than ten emergency calls for overrun units active, everything in sight from one hundred metres elevation was either destroyed farmland or hordes of Cyclops and their Giant Boars.
At least fifty kilometres in every direction.
The city of Mitford appears to be lost. The whole city is on fire, and there are hundreds of groups of Giants and boars moving away from it to attack nearby farms, which appear to have already been attacked last night.
At least two thirds of the force from the Fortress is deployed in the area, but there is no sign of the guard force from Mitford.
There are a few visible groups of farmers still fighting, but unlike our area, which has been fairly well cleared of threats, they are not faring as well.”
His voice was as neutral as he could make it, clearly trying not to cry.
Then it dawned on Karl. They were visiting the Fortress and returning to Mitford. His family was likely from Mitford, and the city appeared to have been lost in a single night after the attackers appeared inside the walls.
Lotus was faster to the important parts than Karl was, and by the time that he realized, she had already pulled the small man into a hug, so he could hide his goat-like face.
All the beasts were back in their spaces now, except Thor, who was napping near the gate. Only the two bodyguards were left outside, so that the soldiers and farmers didn’t notice anything was off when morning came. However, they were all rested now and ready to fight as soon as they were needed.
The General looked stunned by the analysis of the situation.
There was nothing in his training or protocols that covered this situation. He didn’t have enough of a force to even try to make it to the city. And he certainly didn’t have enough allies left to rally a force to take it back if it was being occupied.
It might not be, as the smoke cloud suggested that most of the city was on fire at the moment, but that didn’t change the fact that he was half a day’s travel away, and had no resources.
While the General was unsure what to do, back in the fortress, the Oracle had a much better idea of how to handle this situation.
He was seated on a cushion in his scrying room with a stack of notes on one side and a nearly empty bottle of rum on the other.
“His arrival marks disaster and great danger for the Fortress. Gods dammit.” He muttered, casting bleary eyes up at Leafa, the Haint tree woman Overlord.
“Do you think that he’s cursed? Could it be a side effect of pulling a System User through time? He has a powerful presence, far beyond his Royal Rank. It is possible that these incidents are occurring near him simply because he exists.” She suggested.
“So, we send a team to kill him?” The drunken Oracle asked hopefully.
“And leave the focal point of the anomalies permanently located next to the fortress? I think not. If he is the focus of the instability, it’s best that he takes them somewhere else.
But there is another possibility.
We have reports that he might have been with the Yellow Tusk Orcs when the Dungeon outside Halsearing first opened.
We know that he speaks Orcish, so the reports are plausible. It might be a side effect of that anomaly, in which case we have to worry about the Orcs and every other person who entered the Dungeon that first day spreading the instability.”
“Aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine?” The Oracle slurred.
“I do try. But I can confidently say that he does not know. He didn’t have the aura of malice on him when he was here. If he had known that his presence could trigger this disaster, I would have seen it.”
The Oracle finished the bottle of Rum. “Just be thankful that it happened after he left. If not, we could have been Mitford, with our walls full of enemies and an army surrounding us at midnight shift change.”
Leafa nodded. “I will check the reports to see if there have been more incidents in the west that we have not had an opportunity to review yet.”
They normally only went over the important parts of the reviews, so small attacks, or incidents in rural areas might not have been noticeable enough to form a pattern in the reports yet.
