Chapter 26

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region.

Expeditionary Camp Well.

It was chaos.

Corpses littered the ground as soldiers and commandos fired crossbow bolts at one another. Occasionally the odd spell was flung across the battle field as well, illuminating the madness.

Allya crouched behind a rock, her eyes scanning the area as Anders and his men filtered past her, automatically grabbing various potions from her pouches and downing them. The lieutenant's squad looked to have been almost completely wiped out, but they'd somehow kept the enemy pinned down. And now the cavalry had arrived.

She frowned as she saw the positions the remaining guards had taken, and how they were taking cover from the well and the mesa.

"Snipers!" She yelled out, and pointed to the mesa where the lookout post had been as Anders looked at her questioningly. The captain's face went grim as he took a second look at the remaining guards, and he firmly nodded.

Now that that's dealt with...

She contemplated the battlefield, and winced as she saw Anders and his troops take position, and begin firing. She could only see a handful of enemy commandos, periodically standing up to shoot, but they were clearly firing more rapidly -and with far better accuracy- than her own troops. And some of their bolts were enchanted with a variety of spells, making even taking cover of dubious usefulness. Not completely useless, just....dubious.

It was very clear that her and her forces couldn't win a ranged duel. They wouldn't 'lose' it either, but they would take very heavy casualties and inflict very few in return. And once their numbers were low enough, the commandos could withdraw from the field with virtual impunity, and probably before the flanking force arrived, or one of the ships moved in to support them.

Allya quickly made her decision. The only way to stop this in it's tracks was to engage them in close quarters, blade to blade. Their fire rate and accuracy advantage would be negated, and while she was pretty sure the commandos were individually more skilled than her men, their numbers should allow them to pin them down long enough for the flanking force to arrive.

In any case, it was better than just taking potshots at them while waiting to be picked off.

Besides, she was honest enough with herself to admit that she was itching to slit some of those bastards' throats. The attempted assassination, on her and Pyn, had...given her some anger to work out.

She turned towards her fire team of body guards, her smile definitely wolfish.

"You boys and girl ready to get some payback?" They firmly nodded, smiling back, even if a bit hesitantly. "Excellent then! After me!"

And with that, she rushed forward.

*****

Pyn looked over the edge of the mesa, laying on her belly, and winced.

She wasn't a tactician, but she could tell something wasn't going well when a lot of people on your side of the battlefield weren't moving anymore.

She heard the ruffle of clothing as Éclair laid down by her side. She looked at the bodyguard, her face perfectly clear thanks to her natural night vision, and saw the grim look on her face as she took in the battlefield.

"What's your take?"

"Milady?" Said Éclair, blinking, clearly confused.

Pyn sighed.

"Look, I'm not a soldier. What's your take on this? What should we do?"

The pink haired bodyguard looked at her, before looking at the battlefield again. Then she pointed at the opposite mesa, where there were the tarp used by the lookouts to hide from the sun during the daytime was still deployed.

"They're all positioned like they're expecting fire from there. There might be one of their snipers up there. They're the ones that will be the biggest threat to us....but we're also their biggest threat."

"Right." She winced. "I can't see where they are."

Éclair looked across to the other mesa, and sighed.

"I have an idea. But you're going to need to be fast. And watch carefully for them to make their move."

Pyn blinked.

"Excuse me?"

Wordlessly, and to Pyn's unmitigated horror, Éclair got up...and started incanting.

*****

"What the-"

Ruby's head snapped up from his sights at Lazulite's exclamation, and his eyes widened as he saw the person silhouetting themselves on the next mesa...and his eyes widened further as he started hearing the distant sound of an incantion.

"Casting mage! Next mesa, azimut 0!"

Ruby nodded, the information was superfluous -he could see the mage-, but Lazulite was only doing her job.

He reoriented his crossbow, and fired.

And his bolt simply vanished in a flash of lightning a full meter short of the mage. His eyes went wide as he reached for another bolt. He'd never seen anyone do that! He'd loaded a ward piercing bolt, as he was aiming for who he suspected was the noble he'd failed to kill in the assassination mission -the figure had the same ward of protection-, but it hadn't done anything. It was like no wards had been involved, but the spell had...shot down his bolt somehow.

The mage finished their spell before he finished reloading.

*****

The spell tesla field was an odd one. Rather than being casted once, and then staying up until it's mana was exhausted or it was distrupted, like a ward of protection, it was instead continuously cast. Of course, it had a setup period, but it was rather short. That meant that as long as the mage continued incanting, and maintained their concentration, they were effectively invulnerable to most projectiles. Well, as long as the amount of incoming projectiles didn't overwhelm the spell itself. It also acted by destroying the projectile via a lightning bolt, effectively annihilating any ward piercing enchantment, then intercepting whatever remained with a lower power ward.

Of course, there were counter measures, but the spell was rare enough, and required such knowledge of lightning spells to use without harming nearby allies, that it was generally relegated to an interesting footnote in magic books.

Pyn's eyes widened as the lightning flashed, intercepting the bolt...but she saw the origin of the projectile, and saw the movement caused by reloading that her enemies' invisibility cape couldn't quite hide, due to the slight delay in its camouflage pattern shift.

The elf snarled, and took a knee, drew her bow, and in one smooth movement, notched an arrow, drew back the string, and fired. She didn't even wait to see the result of her first shot, her hand already halfway to her quiver as the arrow hit it's target.

*****

Pyratite stifled a cry of pain as the arrow hit his shoulder. His eyes widened as he looked at the wooden shaft next to his face, his teeth grinding together.

How? M-My wards! He thought to himself, shaken, then reason reasserted itself.

If he had ward piercing ammunition, there was no reason his enemies couldn't...for whatever Gods-damned reason a fucking security force packed that kind of thing!

He heard more than saw Lazulite pick up her hand crossbow, aim, and fire, as he struggled to finish reloading. He closed his eyes as another lightning bolt flashed, taking out Lazulite's shot. He could see the shooter, a second silhouette. He'd loaded his one and only magic disruption bolt, the only one his superiors could afford to provide to their best sharpshooters, and if he could just finished reloading-

His thoughts ground to a halt as he heard the twang of a bow....and a horrible crunch.

He looked to his side just in time to see Lazulite go limp, an arrow protuding from her head, and felt the rush of essence.

Fuck fuck fuck- He thought to himself as he fetched a smoke bomb from one of his pouches. He wasn't supposed to have those, but he'd...come to an agreement from some of Saphire's men to trade him a few. He did NOT want to repeat the assassination clusterfuck.

It looked like it was going to happen again anyway.

He lit the fuse by thumbing a runed spell of flame on the side of the grenade, and pushing mana into it, before throwing in front of himself, and rolling to the side to grab his spotter's body.

The bomb detonated just in time, hiding his dodge as an arrow whizzed where he had been a second ago. He knelt by Lazulite's side, and try to hoist her over his shoulders...before the arrow embedded in one of said shoulders reminded him of it's presence, and he dropped his comrade's body.

He looked quickly at the arrow shaft, and calculated his chances. He might not be the best assassin, saboteur and general ner-do-well in the world, but he had a knack for estimating his chances at getting away with things. And his gut told him that if he tried to get out with his comrade's body...he wouldn't make it.

He bit his lower lip, and quickly scavenged Lazulite's body, before moving his hand to her torso...and pouring mana into the metal disc embedded in their light breastplate.

"Rest in peace, my friend." He said, and slammed his fist against his heart, before picking up his crossbow and running away, narrowly dodging the arrow fired by the other sniper, who had waited for him to exit the smoke to take his shot.

A few seconds later, Lazulite's body disappeared in a ball of fire, consumed in an instant.

*****

Pyn cursed as the enemy managed to dodge her arrow, and notched another one...but he had already dropped off the mesa. Then her eyes went wide as the other mesa disappeared in a flash of fire, instantly dispersing the smoke in a massive shock wave.

Éclair stopped incanting, and dropped to the ground by reflex, dragging Pyn down with her.

They stayed down for a second or so, before the bodyguard let go of Pyn, and looked cautiously at the other mesa.

"What the hell was that?!?" Asked the elf.

"Fireball." Éclair frowned. "With a lesser explosion. I think. What were they firing at?"

Pyn frowned as well, then her eyes widened.

"The body!" She returned Éclair's gaze. "There were two of them, but only one left the smoke cloud. I think...I think he might have destroyed the other's body." She looked distinctly ill as she processed the implication. "Gods, he murdered his ally for, for...."

"To avoid capture." Éclair awkwardly patted the elf on the shoulder, clearly uncomfortable with having to reassure her. "It happens. Some of the more...hardcore group do that from time to time, to prevent their members from being resurrected."

Pyn gulped, and slowly nodded. She'd met some cold hearted bastards. Hell, she'd slept with a pirate captain during her travels, but this was a whole new level, even for her. It wasn't so much that they wanted to prevent the resurrection of their comrades that troubled her so much as the lengths they were willing to go through for that. There wouldn't even be ashes to bury with this method!

She took a deep breath. She could think about it later. Right now they had people to save.

"Alright. Now that they're out, where the rest of the enemies?"

Éclair looked down, and suddenly leapt over the rim of the mesa, cursing like a madwoman as she fell down towards the ground.

Pyn's eyes widened, and went even wider as the bodyguard's belt flashed, and she slowed down right before hitting the ground, and started running straight towards the well, unsheating her gunblade and starting to fire as she ran. She'd explained to the elf that her weapon wasn't exactly the epitome of precision, hence why she'd opted to find targets for her to shoot with her heavily enchanted bow. But apparently she wasn't worried about announcing their presence with gunshots, or missing anymore.

Then she looked where the bodyguard was going, and started cursing herself.

Why couldn't her girlfr- ally keep herself out of trouble for once?!?

*****

I probably should have thought this through more thoroughly, thought Allya as she dodged beneath her opponents blade, and slashed at her legs, causing the other woman to jump back, a new scar in her armor, slightly bleeding, proving that she'd at least pierced through this time.

Since her ranged combat potential had been...not that great, at least at such distances, she'd decided to rush the enemy first, with her bodyguards covering her until she managed to engage in close quarters combat, letting them follow her afterwards. And to be fair, she was still seeing a bit red at the time.

What she hadn't expected was for her enemies to get backup right as she engaged. Which she definitely should have. Myskaros, her, Pyn, 4 2-man teams. 8 people in total, but of course that wouldn't have been their entire force. True, she hadn't expected them to have their backup so close at hand, but still.

Said backup looked more lightly armed, but they were lead by one tall bastard that had been yelling orders ever since he entered the battle. It was clear that they were attempting to pull out, and while she would rather keep them pinned and finish them off, she understood the fact that it wasn't going to happen anymore. At least unless she was willing to order a general charge, which would probably fail and end up in a bloodbath anyway.

There was just one problem. She was the only one in close quarters combat, and they couldn't really pull back as long as she was there to throw daggers at their backs.

She stepped back, and parried in-extremis the short sword aimed for her neck. There were only two of these bastards on her, but they were tough. If she hadn't had some of the most brutal training in combat one could imagine, courtesy of the Erisian Imperial Guard, she'd already be dead. She was pretty sure she'd already be down without her potions either.

She jumped back again as the one whose leg she had slashed attacked again, and hissed in pain as she dodged a split second too late, and her enemy's blade drew a bloody line across her side.

This isn't working, she thought to herself as she started stepping back.

Then, she heard a somewhat familiar voice in the distance...and the unmistakable roar of gunfire.

Her opponents flinched as bullets whizzed past, and Allya took her chance. She dropped one of her daggers, and pulled out three of her charmed kunais from her belt, and threw them right between the legs of the one she had gotten a hit on. The charms activated, and the conflagration spell roared behind the commando, pushing her forward...right into Allya's reach.

The baroness' blade licked forward, and her opponent stumbled back, gurgling as she reached for her slashed throat. She stepped forward to finish her off, but stopped as her second opponent rushed her, screaming madly.

Allya braced for an attack, but instead her enemy simply bashed her to the ground, and prepared to administer the coup de grâce.

He just had the time to raise his sword before an arrow shaft appeared in his side...and his head exploded from the 12.7mm caliber bullet fired from Éclair's gunblade.

Allya felt the rush of essence, and barely had the time to push herself up before her bodyguard rushed over to her.

The baroness opened her mouth to thank her bodyguard...and instead let out a 'oof!' as Éclair tackled her to the ground.

A split second later, night became day as a massive beam of energy swept the area at waist level.

They waited a few seconds, then, as Allya shifted slightly to try and get a look at what was happening, Éclair slammed her back into the ground.

Allya locked gaze with Éclair's azure eyes, and a shiver ran down her spine as she saw something...cold looking back.

"Listen to me. You, are going to stay there, laying down. I'm going to go get help so we can secure the area, and get you back to camp, hopefully without more harm coming to you. If you even look like you're going to try and get up before that happens, I will lightning bolt you to stun you and keep you still. Am.I.Understood, milady?"

Allya gulped, and meekly nodded.

"Good."

Éclair got up, took in her surroundings quickly, and dashed off.

*****

"What were you THINKING?!?" Yelled Pyn, a split second after sealing the door, and making sure the noise dampening enchantment was on, to prevent anyone else from hearing the conversation.

Allya sighed, and sat on her bed, wincing. Unlike last time, she wasn't heavily wounded enough to warrant having the healers prioritize her. So she'd gotten bandaged, a bit of balm applied to the wounds, drank some particularly foul concoctions, and sent off to rest in her room.

"What, no, 'I'm glad you're okay Allya'?" She joked.

A second later, she rubbed her cheek.

"Okay, I deserved that one." She held up her hands as Pyn drew her hand back for another slap. "Stop! Stop." She sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I...miscalculated. I had expected my bodyguards to be able to follow, but..."

"But the reinforcements arrived, pinned them down, and isolated you like an idiot. Gods woman! Couldn't you have thought this through?"

Allya was tempted to point out that she'd realized her stupidity halfway through the fight...Then took a single look at her friend's face, and decided against it. She enjoyed breathing, after all.

"I...I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Allya leaned back a bit as Pyn walked straight to her, and nearly shoved her face against the baroness'.

"Damn right it won't, because next time you'll be dead! Damn it! The only reason we got you back alive was because they were more preoccupied with leaving than fighting us!" Pyn stepped back turned around, taking a deep breath, before turning back, and once again almost shoving her face against Allya's. "Promise me you won't do that again." She hissed as Allya opened her mouth. "No excuses, no nothing, just promise me."

Allya froze, and slowly nodded.

"I promise."

Pyn closed her eyes, and sighed.

"Good."

She started drawing back...then stopped, and quickly leaned forward, kissing Allya...before withdrawing, and walking out of the room.

It took a good 15 seconds for Allya to get out of her frozen stupor. And another minute to stop touching her lips every few seconds.

*****

LOG UPDATED

Alexandra angrily dismissed the notification and turned off log updates. She'd been bombarded with alerts on 'unusual activity' in the camp ever since something first kicked the hornet's nest, and they'd brought the dead dark elf to her. In the end she'd simply opted to have every other alert logged for her to look at later, and set the golem standing guard outside to alert her directly only if someone was headed for the entrance. She simply didn't have the patience to run back to the command center every 15 minutes due to the constant alerts, and she was too focused on the second floor to rewrite the alert system either.

"We're going to need to filter it eventually." She commented.

"I mean, you could just absorb it and create it again." Pointed out Emilia.

"Fair, but that would be...intention intensive."

She felt, more than saw, the vampire girl nod, as she contemplated the waterfall.

Originally, Emilia had wanted to have the floor dedicated to water. Since, you know, desert, so an underground oasis/paradise could be nice. Conscious of some of the difficulties involved (and wanting to try out her architectural project of making an underground city), Alexandra had convinced her to relegate that concept for the third floor.

Still, for the final area of the second floor, she'd decided to blend in the theme of both floors, with the final area being a massive building sunk into the wall, sort of like a temple, overflowing with water, and surrounded by a moat. And overflowing, as in literally, there were waterfalls cascading from the sides and front of the temple, as well as some pipes, feeding the moat, which then had it's water pumped out and back up into the temple.

Mmmhhh, I can't keep calling it the temple, we already have a temple challenge room...I know! I'll call this one the water temple, and the other the sunken temple. She thought to herself.

"So, what do you plan to use as defenders to, well....defend the place?"

Alexandra frowned, and slowly stroked her chin. She'd had a few ideas, but they were...not appropriate. It would be easy to simply stick scorpios and golems on top of the water temple, but that would be too easy...and cliché honestly. She needed something water themed, like piranhas or something.

She lifted her head up as an idea came to mind.

"Emilia, are the spider golems waterproof?"

The vampire girl frowned.

"I think so? All of their components are inside the metal, with no way for water to get through, so yes? As long as they aren't damaged. But they aren't going to be able to fight very well in the water. They aren't exactly made to swim you know."

Alexandra smiled, as she created one of her spider golems prototypes, and held it up for Emilia to see.

"They won't need to." Her eyes gleamed as the light reflected off of the runes of leap on the golem's carapace. "They'll just need the adventurers to get close enough to the water...."

Emilia slowly nodded as she processed what the Earth-born was implying.

"Sort of like...hidden predators in the moat?"

"Precisely." Alexandra smiled. "Lots and lots and lots of predators waiting for the poor adventurers to get too close."

Oh it had been far too long since she'd designed a drone swarm. This would be fun.

*****

"Report." Simply said Diamond as he sat on a rock.

Saphire gulped.

"Not...good sarge. Ruby is still out of it. Lazulite is dead, Firatite activated her suicide device himself. So is Sphalerite. Spinel made it back, somehow." He shook his head, admiration clear in his tone. "She got her throat slashed, but she managed to retreat either way." His tone turned grimmer. "But she confirmed Sphalerite's death. Headshot, from what she said, from the maniac with the gunblade."

Diamond slowly nodded.

"I see...Was his suicide device triggered?"

Saphire shook his head, and Diamond swore softly.

The suicide devices, essentially a disk of copper containing a fireball and lesser explosion enchantment, were made to completely dispose of their bodies if they were to fall at a time or place where their bodies couldn't be retrieved by their comrades. They already had an automatic, soul sealing enchantment in the suicide devices, that could be turned off if someone had the right magic signature -namely him, his corporals and the healer-, but it wasn't completely reliable.

"Alright. Wounded?"

Saphire winced.

"About everyone has taken some form of wound sir. We only have a couple of heavily wounded, thank the Gods, but...everyone's pretty beat up. Ruby's people took the worst of it, honestly."

Diamond sighed.

"It's their job. Well..." He thought for a second. "What about the other side's casualties?"

"We don't know for sure...but between the original squad and their backup, we think we killed at least 8 of them, and probably heavily wounded another 8." He winced. "We took down a few in their flanking force, but thankfully we pulled out before they could close their trap. That probably means we only heavily wounded them, however. We didn't have enough time to make sure they were dead."

Diamond nodded. He had been waiting back in the wasteland, watching for potential surprises, and seen the flanking force coming for his men. He'd immediately taken the saboteurs, heck, even Onyx, with him, and rushed forward to get everyone out of there. If he hadn't, he was fairly sure most of the ambush force wouldn't have made it back.

"Alright, that's...good enough."

"Beg your pardon sir?"

Diamond smiled. His smile was particularly cold.

"We did this to kill their guards, remember? Well, we did just that, even if we did lose more people than we expected. Get your team together. We're going to make them regret what they did...and I know exactly what target we should hit."

That seemed to breathe some life and enthusiasm back into Saphire, who straightened his spine.

"Which one sir?"

"The warehouses. Take our incendiary and explosives. Turn it all to ashes."

Saphire returned his CO's cold, wolfish smile. He knew as well the sergeant did that an expedition like this would die, painfully, without those supplies in the wasteland.

It was time for some payback.