Robin grimaced as he looked down at the city through Rerebos’s eyes. He was currently crouched in an intact home of some kind, next to Savra. He’d deliberately joined up with the diviner, expecting that he’d need access to her insights before this was over, if they were going to have a chance at coming out on top.

Rerebos was currently focused on the closest—and largest—of the hobgoblin groups. The one that had both the general and Gis at the centre of it.

‘They have definitely noticed the loss of a fifth of their forces,’ he muttered to Savra. ‘They’re all being much more cautious.’

‘They’re drawing closer to one another, aren’t they,’ Savra asked, her eyes distant.

Yes. Ruprecht confirmed. And they are communicating back and forth much more regularly and with increased efficiency. I do not know that I will be able to draw any of these groups into one of the larger pitfalls I’ve prepared. We shall have to risk our desperation gambit.

‘Easy enough for you to say,’ Robin muttered. ‘You’re not facing untold waves of wild magic, capable of literally anything.’

There wasn’t much venom in the bard’s words, however. How could there be? There was that little voice inside his head that actually welcomed the prospect. More magic? Possibly the greatest, wildest explosion of magic that he had ever seen? Possibly more wondrous than he was capable of imagining?

It was a thrilling—if possibly deadly—prospect.

Robin had to question the effect this world was having on his sanity.

‘We’ll need to key then to a fever pitch of fear,’ Savra noted clinically. ‘Though we probably want to draw them closer to one another before pushing one of them to the breaking point, if possible. There’s no telling what the reaction might be, nor the wild magic effect. I doubt a single manifestation will solve the entire problem. We want as many of them spooked into action simultaneously as possible.’

‘Drev was saying he’d noted a few warding and protective magics amongst them,’ Robin said. ‘If we’re lucky if we set off one or more, the rest might attempt to limit the damage with their own protective spells and set off more or wider effects.’

I shall begin making some terrain changes to funnel them into position, but I’ll have to leave the actually trickery to you, Robin.

‘You’ve set the tinder, I’ll do my best to strike the flint and steel,’ the bard answered. Then he looked to Savra. ‘Any tips?’

The seeress’s eyes went pale and misty. For a long minute she didn’t speak, but her head moved and her eyes searched among things unseen.

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘Not really. This place is too shrouded. I can feel their tension, however. The loss of a fifth of their compatriots has them on edges, as does never having seen the beast. Perhaps you can use that?’

‘Possibly.’ Robin grimaced. What he wouldn’t give for some more range right now! ‘Though I think I’m going to need some help from the rest of the party. I just don’t have the reach I need to pull this all off by myself.’

‘What do you need?’

I will pass the message along to the rest of the party.

‘Pressure,’ Robin said. ‘Pick off stragglers at the edges, or snipe targets of opportunity. None near enough to the mages to really prompt them into trying to respond with spells. One or two small traps. We want them a little bit bloody, but confident that they’re going to eventually wear us down, ferret us out, and win. Ruprecht, if you can alter the terrain so everyone has a nice escape route ready, with plenty of fallback positions to keep up the pressure as the hobgoblins pursue that would be ideal.’

‘I will continue to look,’ Savra offered. ‘I cannot find much, but the mists that shroud my vision are not insurmountable. Occasionally glimpses slip through.’

‘We’ll take whatever we can get. Be prepared to fall back and heal, though, in case something goes wrong.’

Drev has the most range, followed by Jhess. There was a rumble as a couple buildings suddenly shivered and shed stones from their construction. I have made them some blinds, with escape pathways, as you suggested.

‘Let me get into position,’ Robin said. ‘I’ll want a retreat corridor right into the centre of your demesne. We won’t be able to lure them into a large open space, so something near your core with a lot of streets. I’ll lure them with illusions of the beast. Oh, and can you arrange some spots with monster blood? Something you can reveal as I retreat so it looks like they’ve wounded the beast? That should help get their blood up too.’

Give me a moment.

Robin could sense Ruprecht working. He exchanged a few more words and plans with Savra, then moved out as soon as he got the word from their dungeon ally.

As soon as he was in position, he passed word to Drev via Ruprecht to set things off. Via Rerebos’s eyes in the sky, Robin saw a spray of magical missile, comprised of pure force, lance out and slam into several of the advance guard.

There were shouts and a scramble to shore up the defensive edges of the line which had begun to fray as the hobgoblins advanced. Good enough.

Robin unleashed a terrible screeching roar, like something out of a child’s nightmares of the closet, pumping his [Lesser Phantasm] to it’s maximum volume. He followed it up with a flicker of movement and a massive form in the shadows, situated at an angle that allowed him to send a [Lesser Witchbolt], unsculpted, out of the shadows, as if it had come from the mouth of the beast.

A few hobgoblins screeched back and advanced, only to be yanked back by shouted orders from their superiors. Together, as one, the hobgoblin patrols advanced.

From either side Jhess peppered the ranks with stones as Vance fired hobgoblin arrows—scavenged from earlier patrols and reproduced by Ruprecht—into the throng.

Something about the latter, in particular, seemed to inflame the hobs. There was a lot more surging amongst the enemies struck with those arrows.

Good. Whatever worked to keep them advancing. And advance they did, like an inexorable tide. Then they found the blood and a ragged cheer went up from the hobgoblins, and their pace redoubled.

They were solidly hooked now.

The party continued to harry the edges as Robin taunted them with glimpses of the beast. It was brutal, exhausting work, interrupted with mad sprints as he and his party members had to fall back and back before the advancing groups. Slowly, they neared the final position, the streets becoming closer and the groups growing closer and closer until they were nearly one giant mass, separated only by the space of buildings between the tightly knotted streets.

I think this is as close as we’re going to get.

‘Tell the others to fall back, then. I’ll give them a good scare.’ Robin squinted at the massed group, calling mentally up to Rerebos to find him the biggest concentration of mages.

There.

Robin primed them with another few screeching roars, followed with decentralised screams, the sound of hobgoblin after hobgoblin dying, crying out to their mothers, crying out to their god, in their own language.

The death-cries were fake, but the effect they had was very real. The atmosphere became tense and Robin could see weapons raising, lines firming up.

Time to hit them from a direction they least expected.

Above the group of mages Rerebos had spied out for him, Robin conjured the form of a terrible, three-headed flying chimera. He made it as horrific as he could, to startle and inspire fear. [Lesser Phantasm] gave it a voice and shouts of alarm went up from the assembled host.

There was a flurry of movement. Light glinted off of metal and the bard prayed it was glancing off of a host of unsheathed wands.

‘Come on,’ Robin whispered to himself. ‘Come on.’

Just one of the mages needed to break. Just one. Or all of them. All of them would be good too, Come on luck, come on wild magic perk, do your work!

Robin didn’t see who first raised their wand and channeled desperate, surging magic through it. He did, however, see the effects. It burned itself into his mind’s eye.

A pillar of crimson flame flowered amongst the hobgoblins, sparking panic and answering magic, desperate warding gestures that they themselves erupted. Orange flame and yellow, emerald, cerulean, and a pillar of violets made of sparking, flickering, fire. A conflagration of magic, wild and devouring, the pillars of flame coiled about one another and swept across the area, a rainbow of death and destruction.

Hobgoblins screamed as they burned to ash or were transformed to a twist of roses made of living scarlet flame. Others were turned to stone—jet and carnelian, granite and green marble. Transformation rippled across the assembled forces, and those that did not die from the titanic forces twisting through their bodies went mad with the strangeness of it all and fell onto one another biting and clawing like the monsters they had become.

Some vanished, some stumbled away, their touch turning the stones they fell against to gold or lead or something that looked suspiciously like strawberry pudding.

Robin had no idea what happened with Gis and his party. He had now ay of seeing through the varicoloured mayhem.

Mere chaos was unleashed upon the world and while some benefitted, most died.

And where there was death, there was experience. Certainly for Ruprecht. The dungeon likely had never gorged on such a tsunami of energies before.

Oh fuck me that is good!