Soon after they left the injured refugees, they were able to see the 100-foot wall along the mountain pass on the horizon. Their elevation had been increasing, slowly but steadily, ever since they left Domino Hill. The mountains were getting cold, but the exertion of running was keeping Wager warm, and the Trio’s enchanted hot/cold armor was keeping their body temperatures at a comfortable level.

“Did you hear that?” Jen asked as they were about five miles from the wall.

The last 5 miles looked to be almost straight uphill. Sam was getting short of breath, and he noticed Captain Wager looked like he was about to pass out. At Jen’s question, Sam messaged Jen and Tamako, “Give me a second, I’m going to toggle my Elvish hearing and sight on.”

A few seconds later, Jen called out, “Pick up the pace!” as she received Sam’s AI message with the video and sound of the battle that was in full swing up on the wall.

Sam had to quickly toggle off his Elvish hearing and sight sense, it was just too intense an input for him to handle for much more than a few seconds.

Everyone noticed Captain Wager immediately fall back as they increased the pace. Tamako turned around and said to Captain Wager, “The battle on the wall has started. Hang on! This is not going to be comfortable.” She then picked up Captain Wager and hung him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“You O.K.?” Tamako asked Wager.

Wager’s face was red from either embarrassment, or the blood running to his head as he hung upside down, but all he could do from the odd position, was grunt, “Yes….ug…thanks!” as he bounced on her shoulder.

Tamako was so short, and Captain Wager was…not really tall, but around six feet, his arms and legs nearly touched the ground almost covering Tamako like a blanket, as he was carried on her shoulder. Sam snickered, and sent a “meme” to Jen and Tamako of a picture of her carrying Wager that said, “Short Girl problems on the battle field”.

“Not the time for jokes, Sam!” Jen called out as she was trying to hide her laughter.

“That’s not even very funny!” huffed Tamako, causing Sam and Jen just to laugh even more.

Captain Wager didn’t know what the trio were laughing and arguing about, but he put helping his City and his fellow guards far above any embarrassment from being carried by the tiny blonde woman.

The pass-wall was 100-foot high, about 100 yards long, and 10 feet deep. However, the massive wall looked tiny compared to the sheer, 5,000-foot-high cliffs rising up through the clouds on either side of it. The pass-wall was the only thing that separated the valleys on either side of the mountain range. On the Domino Hill side of the pass-wall, another shorter wall, only about 25-feet high extended out and around the guards’ barracks and military buildings.

As the trio and Captain Wager approached the shorter wall, they could see and hear that the battle atop the pass-wall was fully engaged. One of the guards, shielded behind the battlements on the rear wall, called out, “Hold! What’s your…,” and then the guard recognized Captain Wager as Tamako set him down. She then called out “Open the Gate! Let them in!”

Captain Wager was sore from being carried and stiff from the freezing wind chill caused by the run, but he ran forward through the gate as they opened it only a sliver, and called out, “Where can I find Captain Bingo? She’s in charge right?”

Jen, Tamako, and Sam followed behind Wager entering through the gate. As they did so, they noticed there were only a few guards securing the rear entrance.

To be heard over the sounds of battle above them, the guard hollered her reply to Captain Wager, “YES, SHE’S IN CHARGE. SHE’S SOMEWHERE UP ON THE WALL. THE FIGHTING JUST STARTED ABOUT 10 MINUTES AGO!”

At that moment a two-ton boulder came flying over the pass-wall in a collision course with…something. Tamako saw the terrified look on the guards’ faces, but she didn’t hesitate and ran to intercept the boulder, pulling out the shield Sam made for her, and “catching” it just before it smashed into a small building. Tamako immediately fired the boulder back out of her shield, up and over the pass wall in the area of the main pass-wall gate.

The guard said to her team, exactly what Captain Wager was thinking, “What in the Seven Decks is the ranking of her reflection attack! It must have cost her every bit of her stamina!”

Another of the guards replied, “But look at her. She’s still running with Captain Wager to climb the ramps up the pass-wall!”

As the trio and Captain Wager neared the ramps to ascend the pass-wall, they could hear the boulders smashing against the far side, and could see small cracks starting to form near the gate.

Sam called out to Jen and Tamako, “Keep going. I’m going to see if I can reinforce the wall.”

The few guards near the base of the ramps started to intercept Sam, but Captain Wager ordered, “Stay out of his way, and give him anything he asks for!” Captain Wager wasn’t concerned about the loyalty of the trio after seeing Mistress Jenasta heal the wounded refugees, Master Slam enchant his shoes, and especially after seeing the short blonde, Make-it Take-it, reflect the boulder back over the pass-wall.

“Captain Wager, I’m going to need those bracelets back,” Sam called out, as he was thinking of all the mana he was going to need.

Without hesitation, Captain Wager removed the bracelets and handed them to Sam, “Thank you Master Slam!” and then Wager turned to follow Jen and Tamako up the ramps.

Sam approached the base of the wall near the gates, and the guard standing there said, “Mr., no need to worry about the gate. It is two-feet of solid steel that extends 10 feet below the ground, and 10 feet beyond the sides and top of the opening. The wall will fail before the gate does.”

Sam replied in confusion, “Then why aren’t you and the others up on the battlements?”

The guard tried to look innocent as he pointed to the top of the wall, and replied, “I bet you a silver that I can kill a goblin from down here with just my sword.”

Sam couldn’t believe the man was trying to make a bet in the middle of an attack, well…actually he could believe it. He started to look up at the cracks forming in the wall where he figured there had to be a hollow section where the steel gate would be raised up and out of the way when farmers were passing through.

The guard was grinning inwardly as he mistook Sam’s thoughtful look as one of considering his bet, then he hollered, “By the Seven Decks! The worst timing ever!” and he ran out away from the wall and beheaded a goblin that had been kicked from the top of the wall, falling to the ground breaking half its’ bones, but still partially alive.”

Sam laughed good-naturedly as he realized the trick the guard had tried to pull on him with the bet, and said, “I don’t think I’ll be taking you up on that bet!”

“Guess you wouldn’t!” the guard replied, as Sam watched the guard quickly loot the body.

“Wait! What happened? Didn’t you loot it? Why is its’ body still there?” asked Sam.

As the guard removed the goblin body and threw it in a dumpster to keep it out of the way, he said “Never fought the little buggers before, have you? It’s one of their innate traits. The System doesn’t take their bodies right away, but waits until the battle they are involved in, is over. They have a large enough force, so they will keep sending goblins forward to be killed, until they’ve built a ramp of dead bodies to the top of the wall. Then they send in their stronger fighters, but…”

The guard’s explanation was interrupted by two more goblins crashing to the ground, and Sam watched as the guard ran out and ended them quickly. The guard called out, “I think it’s about to get a little busier, but at sundown, we’ll get a short rest…sort of.”

Sam was curious about how the goblins were expected to siege the wall, but he was also glad the guard would quit distracting him from inspecting the gate and wall. He turned back to where one of the larger cracks could be seen forming, placed his hands and an ear against its rough surface, and toggled on his dwarf senses for hearing and touch. With a slight tap on the wall, the vibrations through the stone gave him a mental image of the interior of the stone. His mental image didn’t extend all the way to the exterior of the wall, but it did go far enough for him to sense the location of the cavity where the steel door would slide into, and it didn’t “look” good.

Sam toggled off his dwarf senses to allow his mind to rest, and messaged Jen, “If you don’t stop the boulders that are bombarding the wall just above the gate, it’s going collapse any minute now. I’ll need…maybe an hour to carve some reinforcement and durability runes into the wall.”

Jen replied, “I’ll see what I can do. You start working on the enchantment.”

Jen and Tamako had both found the battle to be somewhat distasteful. The attacking goblins were all level 5 or less she guessed. They were four-foot tall, green, bulging eyes, floppy ears, sharp teeth, and naked. The goblins didn’t have any weapons, and their level was so low, that their claws and teeth didn’t even break the skin of the guards. The goblins were attacking directly at the middle of the wall around the gate. They had the ability to climb straight up the rough surface of the wall, but a simple jab would make them lose their grip and fall to their death. Captain Wager had explained that the goblin horde was sending these "fodder" goblins forward to tire out the guard force, and to build a ramp of the dead, in order to make it easier for later forces to reach the top of the wall. The guards were simply using the butt end of their spears to knock the goblins back down off the wall, but more just kept coming. If the goblins weren’t so completely wild and vicious as they tried to attack, Jen would have felt like the evil villain killing defenseless kids.

The only injury that occurred so far, was when a bunch of goblins all made it over the edge of the wall at the same time overwhelming a guard, causing him to trip, and a lucky goblin was able to poke out one of the guard’s eyes, before he could close them. The other guards near him quickly killed the goblins and got him back to his feet, but he was moaning in pain from the lost eye when Jen and Tamako had first reached the top of the wall with Captain Wager. Jen had quickly cast a healing spell, but she only used enough mana from her enchantment tattoo to deaden the man’s pain and to stabilize the injury. She intended to try and help him more, but only after the battle.

Jen was now staring at the squirming mass of goblins near the gate and also at those slowly climbing up the wall, and said to Captain Wager, “Tamako and I have to go down there. Slam said that the boulders will collapse the wall above the gate any minute now.”

“How can that be…” Captain Wager started to ask. He stopped when Jen interrupted him by raising her hand and her index finger. He knew she wasn’t being rude by the gesture, but must have something time sensitive to say.

“I can’t explain any how’s or why’s right now, I just believe Slam’s right.”

Captain Wager nodded, and said, “It’ll only take a few minutes, but I can have the guards clear the wall using arrows, so you can climb down with a rope.” Captain Wager was a senior captain with the authority to take command from Captain Bingo, but he’d left Captain Bingo in charge, and said he would only interfere with her command in an emergency.

Jen replied, “Too slow, just get a rope ready for us.”

Captain nodded, and then said, “Private Ringer! Get me three wall ropes tied off over here ASAP!”

As the private raced to get the ropes and tie them off for deployment down the wall, Captain Wager watched as the small blonde, Make-It Take-it, leaned out over the wall and cast a spell causing a blast of air to flow out of her arm. He looked on in amazement as she moved her arm left and right clearing a section of the wall about 20 feet wide, and all the way down to the base of boulders and bodies the goblins had created.

As she finished tying off the three ropes, Private Ringer said, “The ropes are ready Captain!”

Wager noticed Jenasta looking at the third rope, and he said, “I’m coming with you.”

Jen shrugged at Wager, and said, “Fine, but get back up the wall if you become a liability.”

Captain Wager nodded, and without comment followed the two women over the wall.

Private Ringer was stunned at how the woman talked to Captain Wager, and she said quietly to her best friend, PFC Two-Dice, “Captain Wager is the most powerful person here. Why would he let her speak to him that way?”

Two-Dice said, “You haven’t heard? Those two women, and a man somewhere down in the camp, are deck-droppers!”

“Why are they helping us?” asked Private Ringer.

In response, Two-Dice just shrugged his shoulders in similar confusion, and the two guards returned to jabbing goblins off the wall, while gossiping in speculation as to why the deck droppers were helping. Their gossip helped keep their terror off what might happen to them after sunset as a distant thought, for the time being.

******

Tamako was the first to hit the ground, and she used her spear in a sweeping motion to clear a small circle for Jen and Captain Wager. She squinched her face in disgust as she fully realized what she was standing on, a mound of dead bodies over 40 feet high and around 60 feet wide sloping down to the ground around her. The goblins were charging up the mound to attack her and they were also easily killed with the swipe of her spear, but the goblins further away, on the actual ground, were throwing and stacking all the dead goblin bodies onto the mound to continue making it higher. After Jen and Wager arrived, they soon created a perimeter to keep the swarming goblins back.

Tamako called out to Jen, “What should we do? Every swing of my spear just helps them to keep building this mound of bodies higher and higher.”

Jen replied, “That’s not our problem. You just stay ready to intercept the boulders they are catapulting into the wall around the gate. The steel gate is already covered up by all these dead goblins, but Slam says the wall above the gate, the area behind us is in danger of collapse.”

The goblins would try to climb up behind them and use their ropes to scale the wall more quickly, but every few seconds, Tamako would grab the ropes and shake them vigorously, throwing the goblins in all different directions. This would also clear the wall behind them from any goblins climbing directly on the wall.

“Incoming!” Jen called out.

Tamako replied, “Got it!” as she used a rope to assist her jump to intercept the boulder with her shield, and then she immediately released the boulder back into the crowd of goblins that were constantly pushing forward. The boulder smashed and crushed a five-foot trail through the goblins for close to 50 yards.

The fight continued this way for about 20 minutes, with a boulder being launched towards the wall about every 30 seconds. Eventually, as the sun started to set, Captain Wager said, “We’ve got to get out of here soon. After the sun sets, they’ll bring in the trolls and their archers.”

“What about the catapults?” asked Jen.

Jen and Wager had made a horrific wall of dead goblins in front of them by this time, and it was slowing down the goblins trying to climb over it. Plus, the goblins charging the wall also appeared to be finally thinning out. Wager batted one off the top of the wall of gore, and replied, “They sent the fodder in to be killed, to save them the energy from doing it themselves. They’ll still use the catapults, but they’ll be careful not to strike their archers. The boulders won't hurt the trolls, but will only make them more angry as they rampage.”

Jen messaged Sam, “The sun is about to set. How much longer?”

Sam normally needed to be able to see the gear he was using to be able to define the area covered by his “enchanter’s boundary” technique. However, with his dwarf senses active and his mental image of the location of the weakened cracks along the inner wall cavity, Sam was able to carve his reinforcement and hardening runes on the inner wall, and use his enchanter’s boundary runes to expand their coverage to the cracks within the wall cavity. Unfortunately, his dwarf senses only let him “see” so much of the interior of the wall, before he had to move and do the enchantments all over again for the next section of the wall around the gate. The enchantments actually made the reinforced area significantly and permanently stronger than the undamaged portions of the wall, but each enchantment needed to be charged with mana to make those changes.

Sam replied to Jen, “I’ve finished the enchantments, but I’m having to wait for my mana to regenerate to charge them. I’m 80% done, but it’s going to take me probably an hour to charge the rest.”

Jen replied, “I’ll be there in a few minutes. We’ve got to get this wall reinforced before the sun sets. Once that happens, Wager says we won’t be able to stay out here blocking the boulders, dodging goblin archer arrows, and fighting trolls all at the same time.”

Jen continued to knock the goblins back, she had been impressed with Wager’s strength, dexterity, and stamina. She’d underestimated him, and he’d held up his side of their little perimeter admirably. Jen was confident he could help Tamako hold out longer, and she said to Tamako and Wager, “I’ve got to go help Slam. Stay as long as you can, but DON’T stay so long you can’t get out alive.”

Tamako wasn’t worried, with the decrease in the number of goblins aggressing on them, she was sure they could hold the position and block the boulders without Jen's aid, and replied, “Yes, Boss!”

Jen stepped back to climb one of the ropes as Tamako and Wager adjusted their perimeter, and then scrambled up a rope in a matter of seconds.

*****

Sam was standing against the wall with his hands pressed against the enchantments he'd carved into it. There were mana gathering rods on the ground all around him, and his arms were covered with filtration and mana gathering bracelets. Jen could sense the veritable tornado of mana that was swirling around him, and said, “What do you need me to do Boomer?”

Sam’s body was pouring sweat, even as his armor wicked it away with its’ space ring enchantments, and he said, “There’s no encryption, just link to the enchantments and feed them mana. There’s plenty of pure mana in the air, but my body can’t process it, and then direct it into the runes quickly enough. I feel like my body is about to burn up from the inside out.”

Jen did a quick scan of Sam and his mana channels, and yanked him away from the wall and the tornado of mana he’d created. She pulled him to a nearby crate and sat him down, then said, “Rest and recover. Your mana channels look like they are on fire. ‘Chill out!’ That’s an order!”

Sam had a dazed look on his face, but then smiled, and said, “Ha! Good one millennial, ‘Chill Out’” and began to chuckle to himself as he closed his eyes, and leaned back against the wall to rest.

Jen took Sam’s bracelets and headed over to the enchantments that were left to be charged. She didn’t just start pouring mana into them, but tested each rune of the enchantment with different size and density of mana input. Her AI helped her make short work in determining the most efficient density and flow of mana that was needed for each rune.

After about 10 minutes, Sam felt like his body and mana was cooling down, he opened his eyes to see if Jen had made any progress, and said, “What the hell! How did you do that in 10 minutes! It would have taken me at least another hour! Kelly would be so proud of how amazing you are, girl!”

Jen beamed with pride, and said, “You’re not the only one that got a fancy scroll, remember. Stay here until you’ve rested and recharged your mana pool. You over did it. We need to keep strong enough to get out of here if needed.”

“True dat!” replied Sam as he continued to rest against the wall.

“Boomer!” Jen said rolling her eyes at Sam’s ridiculous comments, and while pointing at the wall, said, “Well, at least it's now harder than ever.”

“That's what she said!” Sam snickered.

“Oh my god! How did Kelly ever put up with you!” Jen exclaimed as she just turned and left.

Sam messaged Jen as she was heading back to the top of the wall, “And it’ll stay hard all through the night too!”

As Sam was laughing, a giant Mohegan Sun flying overhead took a huge crap that landed all over his head. “Ohhh my god! What the hell Jen!” Sam hollered to the world in general.

The guards around Sam didn’t know what in the Seven Decks happened, but they sure as heck got a laugh out of a giant bird taking a crap on the strange man that had been hugging, enchanting, and mumbling to the wall for the last half hour.

*****

Over 500 feet above the pass wall, Slim was bathing in the setting sun on top of a barrel, that was placed on a slight protrusion sticking out from the sheer wall of the mountain. Every now and then, he would smirk at Captain Bingo's look of frustration, as she would use her magnify skill to look at the cat sitting on the "boom dust" Lady Domino had placed there after the last goblin invasion.