“They’re kidding right?” Asked Deacon.

“No they are not.” Answered Lord Desentes.

“They have like two hundred troops. You’ve easily got three times that in King’s Knights. You’ll mop the floor with them.” Deacon replied.

“The slave soldiers they employee will not retreat. That’s one thousand lives we will have to take. It destroys morale on a fundamental level. Even now I’m contemplating if it’s a mercy to kill them or not. That plus whatever magical working they are preparing. If their plan succeeded and the city was in chaos they could have walked right in and assumed control. Now they will throw everything they have at us.” Replied the Knight Commander.

“So what’s the plan? How can I help?” Deacon asked.

“You’re already helping just being here. They may not be trained with them, but every free spell gives us a significant advantage. The guild master of the Tower has already taken some of the more useful people to hopefully counter that war magic they are working on down there. We’ll take it from here.” Answered the Knight Commander. He then jumped down off the parapet and began barking orders.

“Don’t they need to come up either of the roads to enter the city?” Deacon asked.

“That’s where we will hold them. Thanks to you and your party they won’t have civilian bodies to hold the southern district. Very fortunate you ran into that little scheme. When this is all done, we will have to clear the bodies off the road with a plow.” Replied Lord Desentes.

“What if they couldn’t make it all the way up the road? The roads in and out are pretty steep. Does it ever snow here?” Deacon asked.

“Not often. What are you getting at?” asked Lord Desentes.

“Just an old proverb from back home. Some mother fuckers are always trying to ice skate up hill.” Deacon said.

They all huddled together and got a message out to Verus of the Tower. Shortly after the Knight Commander sent a two separate squads of knights out to the roads. The plan was to get every Knight and town guardsmen that had and ice spell of any kind. They were going to make the road as treacherous as possible just before the first level that split off into neighborhoods. This would force the enemy to climb the cliff face and buy more time for there reinforcements from the north and east to arrive. Walls of Ice as well as long patches of ice and even some localized snowstorms started plaguing both roads to the city. The hoard of slaves was slowly moving south to where the Ascent and Descent Road met with the King’s Road. At their current pace they should arrive just before daybreak.

Deacon was about to leave the keep and meet up with Armand and the others when they all heard a deep bass moaning coming from over the wall to the west. The knights up on the walls just stood there with shock plastered all over their faces. Deacon ran back up the stairs to peer over the wall. There was a gargantuan ogre easily eight-stories tall bellowing into the night sky. This had to be it, their trump card. It had a slave collar around its neck with eerie red and black light coming from the mages beneath it. A tattered loin cloth was the only thing hiding its shame. If that creature made it over to the cliff it could just swipe its arm across the plateau killing thousands. The plateau being only six-stories from the ground level would give it plenty of clearance.

“Ok now what?” Deacon asked Ralph who was pacing back and forth. Just then the Knight Commander yelled to make the catapults ready.

“It’s too large for any of our weapons to make a dent. I’m including the catapults in that estimation. We need to take out the casters.” Ralph replied with worry in his eyes.

“Well I have an idea but no I don’t know how to implement it.” Deacon said stuffing his hand in his satchel and pulling out a potion vial.

“What is that?” Amanda asked.

“It’s a shrink potion. I haven’t tested it yet but if we can get it in his big mouth, we would be able to buy at least two hours before…oh my god what the hell is that?” Deacon shrieked when we saw what looked like the top of a wagon come out of the woods. The problem was it was on the back of a giant half ant half roach. Immediately he began breaking out in goose bumps and chills ran up his spine completely distracted. He then heard Knight Commander ordering them to fire on the elephant sized carriage bug.

“What is wrong with you?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t like roaches. They creep me out.” Deacon said absentmindedly wiping his arms down.

“Get a hold of yourself, back to what you were saying about the potion.” Amanda demanded grabbing and shaking him.

“He has a point, that thing is disgusting.” Ralph replied giggling a little.

“If we can get him to drink it, he should shrink back to normal size. I don’t know how to do that though.” Deacon said.

“We’ll find an archer to fire it into its mouth. Simple.” Amanda said.

“The arrow would never make it. It would be too heavy. We’d have to wait until it was right on top of us.” Ralph responded as he watched large boulders bounce off a magical shield around the carriage bug.

“Deacon, why are you starring at the catapult?” Amanda asked.

“It has the range…” Deacon said as he trailed off into thought. He then sat down and assumed a meditative posture. He then reached out to Zageracks within him.

“Ok what are my chances of surviving a spectral dash all the way to the ground?” Deacon asked.

“Madness. You would throw your life away just to get a potion in the ogre’s mouth. Impossible. What if it moves while you are being flung across the gap? If you die all these people lose those spells. Don’t be stupid.” Zageracks said.

“I say you go for it!” Came the voice of Cheshire crashing into the conversation.

“NO! I will not converse with the gods.” Zageracks exclaimed.

“Come you just need to get along for a few seconds while I work this out. So come on answer my question.” Deacon said.

“You’ve got a twenty percent chance of surviving, but it will cost you.” Cheshire said butting in.

“Even if you chain enough souls to make it to the ground, you’ll be right in the midst of an invading army with no way back. This is dumb and I want no part of it.” Zageracks said with finality.

“I can get back. I’ve got this air elemental wind necklace.” Deacon said.

“What makes you think those actual soldiers won’t shoot you out of the sky?” Zageracks asked.

“I’ve got that Phantom shield ability now. You know what, I’ve got this go back to sleep.” Deacon said exiting his meditation.

“…We have to move!” Ralph yelled into Deacons face as he came back to the real world. Arrows were being fired from the Vasilly soldiers being aided by some magic to make them fly twice as far. They were trying to clear the skies for the ogre gigantea’s approach. Amanda was bent over Deacon with the lid of a barrel to keep him from the volley.

“Sorry I needed to check something. I have a plan.” Deacon said.

“Can we talk about it somewhere else?” Ralph asked half dragging him away from the wall.

“What is wrong with you?” Amanda asked checking the barrel lid to find one arrow.

“That’s a long list and we don’t have time. What are the mages doing?” Deacon asked.

“They are preparing a barrier spell to protect the city but it’s not a quick process. I think I heard Verus saying he needs another ten minutes.” Ralph replied.

“He’ll be here by then. We need to commandeer a catapult, aim at the ogre, and fire me at it.” Deacon said looking at the three closest catapults.

“What?!” said Ralph and Amanda at the same time.

“Trust me.” Deacon replied. Amanda moved first, she walked right over to the nearest catapult and told him to aim at the approaching ogre. Ralph was trying to talk Deacon out of it as he climbed the catapult to sit in the cup. Lord Desentes ran over to stop them screaming something about it being insane and to wait for the shield, but Deacon lined himself up and gestured to Amanda to fire. She asked the knight to fire, and he was told to stop by Lord Desentes. Amanda reached over and pulled the lever with everything she had as a figure from out of the shadows jumped at Deacon sitting in the cup. Both bodies rocketed forward into the sky it was only then that Deacon noticed Efimeo had his left hand latched around his ankle. The boy wasn’t ready for the g-force that launching from the catapult would come with, but Deacon was crouched down as tight as possible. The boy must have had a death grasp on his ankle because he was clearly unconscious. Not knowing what to do about it Deacon focused on the plan and noticed a very large source of light to the south of the city. Deacon didn’t have time to worry about that as he was approaching the now moving ogre at an incredible speed, as he reached the apex of his arc and began descending Efimeo started to cling to his leg changing his trajectory. The boy was going to ruin everything and kill them both. With less time than he imagined Deacon threw the glass vial as hard as he could. He watched it sail through the air and smash against the nose of the ogre whose eyes now rolled from the walls of the plateau to the now free-falling Deacon and Efimeo. A shadow quickly came over Deacon and looking up he could see the ogre was going swat him like a fly.

The only thing Deacon could think to do was throw the Adventurer’s die at the hand before spending a charge on his new necklace ordering the air elemental to bring him safely to the ground. The die hit the hand on the number one. Immediately the ogre closed his eyes and began to fall backwards. It was like watching Chrysler building tumble backward. His butt squashed half of the Vasilly soldiers and his back and shoulders crushed the still chanting mages. He began to shrink almost immediately but Deacon had bigger problems. Efimeo pulled a ruby dagger in his right hand if it wasn’t for his specific choice of words when giving commands to the air elemental, he would have been stabbed to death already. The air elemental was spinning both of them to the ground in a controlled fall. There was so much wind whipping back and forth that Efimeo couldn’t fight against it to stab into Deacon.

They hit the ground with a thud that separated the two men. The air elemental bowed to Deacon and flew off. Efimeo got back to his feet and glared at Deacon. Obviously, he was hoping for sneak attack to avoid a straight up fight. Deacon stood up and started stretching and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He could see behind Efimeo was a devastated enemy camp that had a huge ass print in the middle of it. Deacon chuckled reflexively as the remnants of the Vasilly soldiers began to rally and charge his position.

“You think this is funny!” Screamed Efimeo psyching himself up for a fight.

“Actually, I do. You realize with no witnesses I get to kill you now, right. I should be able to do it before they get here and look at that, you’re all alone.” Deacon said with an evil grin on his face.

“You arrogant piece of shit. I’m going to gut…ack!” Efimeo began to rant and Deacon spit right in his mouth then he punched the kid right in the face earning a crack from his nose.

“Got anything else to say?” Deacon asked as he saw the kid wobbling on his feet struggling to breathe as his nose gushed blood. Efimeo began to open his mouth only to receive a fierce backhand under the chin lifting him clean out of his boots falling flat on his back. Deacon then turned to the approaching troops reaching up to his necklace before he heard a loud slurping sound and it turned from a dim early morning to bright noon. Looking around he could only see a long corridor in a hedge maze with a single familiar chair laying on its back followed by getting beaned in the forehead with softball sized rock.

“Oh shit, Philo’s Wandering Maze swallowed the whole city.” Said Deacon under his breath.