4.16

“Near the later stages of the Siege of Frost Wall. Bracktor the Daring charged his company of a hundred heavy dwarf infantry through the surrounding forces of over seven thousand undead to reach the Frost Wall Fort. Reinforcing the fortress militia, allowing them to last another four months before greater reinforcements arrived.” - Excerpt from ‘The Historia’

Rapidly I stood up, jerking Greenie as it was drawing faces on the spare fungal body. “We found them,” I said aloud.f

Damn, they were in a bad situation too.

“They’re currently surrounded,” I quickly relayed.

There were nine other people who entered, “Two are down, probably still alive.” Their bodies were being protected by those still standing. “One is missing, the remaining six are backed up against a wall.”

I eyed backward, towards my party.

“Shit,” Noam muttered, catching onto my unspoken question. “That bad?”

Celine quickly stumbled up, “It sounded bad enough just from the-”

“No, no,” Noam interrupted. “When he’s giving that look it means he needs a decision made.”

“In the next few moments ideally,” I replied, my focus still firmly on Yellow’s side of things. “The majority could probably survive until we get there, but the longer we take the more casualties they’ll have.”

We only had two effective options. Rush to assist or double back and try to get support from the force outside.

“I’m going,” Noam answered immediately.

“Does the group have the dragonborn within it?” Naukoth asked.

“Yes,” I answered quickly. Wait, shit. “Mistake.” I quickly swapped back to my own vision, seeing the complicated look on his face. I should’ve thought that through, did he still have enmity with-

“Even if he is abhorrent no creature deserves to die honourless,” the orc said with a solemn look. “I’ll come.”

He glanced at the lizardfolk, “You too Utoqa.”

“I- I’ll come as well!”

“There may be a problem with that Naukoth,” I replied. “There is a constant flow of chimeras towards their location, Yellow is scoping it out but it looks like we’ll have to fight through the chimera waves to get to them.”

I wasn’t sure of Naukoth’s direct fighting strength, especially when he was carrying that piano, but the practicalities of bringing that thing safely inside was… “You’ll have to ditch the piano.”

“No matter how good your wide scales buffs would be once we met up with the other group, it would be moot if we can’t get through safely.”

Currently he and Celine were the two people we could afford to cut. Utoqa and Noam were both close range fighters who’ll be needed for breaking through and I’m required as an AOE damage dealer and crowd controller, but Celine’s worth were largely in her consumables which we could just carry ourselves and Naukoth was simply too impractical to get through with his grand piano unless we focused solely on defending him. Not only that, he would only be useful if we were stuck in a drawn out battle, when we should be aiming for a quick extraction.

The orcs face scrunched up into a grim expression. “I cannot fight without my piano.”

“It is fine,” I replied, bringing him would only be plan B, “return to camp and get the message back. Tell them we require-”

“How durable is your piano?” Noam suddenly asked, his hand thoughtfully stroking the instrument.

“It is dwarvishly enchanted and enhanced for structural integrity and durability,” he answered quickly with a hint of pride. “Other than the fact I have to regularly tune the strings it won’t break from a few scuffles.”

“Do you suppose we can all fit behind it, if we flipped it?” Noam casually asked.

Huh? Oh. Noam wanted to use it as a blocker. That could work. Naukoth still needed to carry it, but it could effectively turn the thing into a benefit instead of a liability. Nullifying one attacking angle would do wonders. Yes, instead of him being a burden on the off chance we fail the better plan, he could contribute while retaining his worth as our plan B.

Naukoth’s face was contorting, going through dozens of expressions at once.

“Huh, so that was what true horror and rage looked like.”

“No, no and no. By Ilneval’s cataract filled eyes! I did not spend a dwarven fortune for it to be used as a…”

Golkean Torrin wiped sweat away from her horned forehead. Flame spewed forth from her raised dragonhead staff, burning away another row of monstrosities. There was cheering behind her as the creatures burned, yet the spell took its toll. A fresh burst of pain stabbed into her head, worming its way through a mind already racked with pain.

‘Remember the numbers,’ she thought. ‘Two. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen. Seventeen…’

Prime numbers. Like a dragon, solitary, divisible only by itself and one. They gave her strength, and her headache worsened, but she had mana now. Mana was a byproduct of thought, and so only such can restore it.

‘Nineteen. Twenty-three…’

Clawed hands prepared to weave another spell, only to let out a pained gasp as she tried to draw on already depleted mana reserves.

‘Twenty-nine. Thirty-one. Thirty-seven…’

Not fast enough. It was not a method for combat.

“Fall back Torrin!” Elucidatium Swindoobly Vulgopopopot yelled, her shortsword parrying a claw aiming for Torrin. “Get your mana back! We can’t have you dropping now!”

“I can’t wait!” she replied to the gnome. “There’s too many!”

They were barely keeping up with her slinging spells. Two have already fallen, and she was not the only one tiring. She was a dragonborn, it was her duty to lead. To be the better one here, to be the last to fall, to be-

“What is that sound?” Mehens said from her side. The human eyeing the singular entrance to the cavern.

“Does it matter!?” one of the mercenaries yelled as he stabbed another chimera with a spear, “Focus on the fight!”

“Shut up!” Torrin yelled at the mercenary, having learnt a long time ago not to dismiss Mehens’ senses. “What do you hear!”

The human’s face scrunched up in focus. “Many footsteps, flesh crashing onto wood…”

“Wood?”

“It’s coming closer,” he answered.

Soon enough, Torrin heard it too. Under the constant rush of dozens of monstrosities, was a slowly rising sound, of something heavy crashing and pushing. The sounds of crashing slowly rose.

Thump.

“Is that some kind of beast?”

Thump!

“No, some heavy kind of shield,” Mehens answered.

THUMP!

A horrific roar echoed through the caves. Dozens of small, dog-sized chimeras were forcibly pushed to the wayside, as a huge chunk of carved, polished wood slammed through!

With a great pained cry, Naukoth pushed through.

“We’re in!” I yelled, Yellow’s vision having sighted us a long time ago.

Utoqa and Noam ran at the left and right side respectively, taking pot shots at the passing beasts. Celine had her eyes closed, her face terrified as she simply held onto the orc’s large back as we ran forward. I finished my first part as I dropped another poison sporage on the trail.

Yellow dropped down from the ceiling, landing deftly on the rim of the piano. “Look ahead!” I yelled.

“Twenty metres,” Declan measured for me. Twenty more metres of monsters to push through, but Naukoth had something those things didn’t. Over five hundred kilograms of pure muscle, polished wood and ivory keys.

Chimeras that did not get out of the way slammed into the front of the piano and like water freshly parted, many were hit with enough force that they were thrown to the side or overhead.

Naukoth easily shoved through the remaining few metres, before I yelled, “Slow!”

Like we discussed, he braked. Slowing down and turning to the side with great difficulty. Now came the deciding part.

Noam split to the side, Utoqa following soon after a moment’s hesitation. Celine let go of Naukoth and threw her foam bombs, while I threw all my remaining sporages in a wide arc. Screams, wails, chirps, growls, you name it, they sounded off in multitude as green and yellow spores mixed with pink foam in a series of colourful explosions.

“CC set.”

Noam and Utoqa hunted the remaining chimeras that were in our small circle. The six mercenaries, seeing us, were shocked for a moment, but swiftly doubled their efforts to help them.

We got our brief respite.

“Get on!” Naukoth yelled to the six mercenaries.

“We need to get a final push out!” I yelled, eyeing the small pathway of poison spores I had left, “It’s now or never!”

There was a moment of pause in them, but thankfully that dragonborn was halfway competent and recovered quickly. “We cannot! Not while someone is still trapped!”

“Sure we can!” another mercenary yelled from behind him. Earning a dirty look from the dragonborn.

“We can’t just leave her!”

I spat acid towards a chimera that made it through the dust. It was thinning too quickly, I didn’t have time to get a good stash. If I had a few more hours… Further past the wall of spores was an empty trail of carnage that we had left. Every few metres was a single poison sporage I left on the ground. A clear path, that was ever shrinking.

“The window is closing,” I told them, I spent my entire stash for the screen and to create a trail we can push through later. Naukoth didn’t lack strength but like a bear he needed space to build momentum. Space that was shrinking.

“Just hurry up and run!” the human beside the dragonborn yelled.

The dragonborn’s face scrunched up in a tense expression. Despite not having any human features, I could tell he was tense.

“... I will stay,” he finally answered, “leave and get help.”

“Are you insane!?” the female gnome beside him yelled.

“Great! See you later!” the mercenary from before said before getting behind Naukoth.

I paused. In the midst of this active battlefield, as the people we were saving devolved into arguments, I stared at the dragonborn. He did not have human facial features, but Eve herself said that insight was Wisdom based, and at this moment, I felt he was serious. A glance towards Noam confirmed it. He nodded, and I felt a bit of relief as he reached the same conclusion I did.

The way they were arguing revealed two sides. The two that stood with the dragonborn before stand with him now, a bit apprehensive but willing to stay. The remaining three wanted to grab the bodies of their comrades and escape.

Two options once again. Run and leave a few behind or stay and hope help gets here in time?

“Cowards,” Naukoth spoke, revealing his tusks in a predatory manner. “Cowards, you lot are.”

Noam smiled, the decision made, “You heard the orc,” he shrugged. “He’s the only one who can carry the piano, so if he’s staying ya’ll are staying.”

“But-”

Naukoth gave the mercenary a hard look and she stopped talking.

“You can still take your chances,” Noam suggested with a devilish smile, his thumb pointing towards the shrinking path.

Gruffly, Naukoth set the piano down.

“Around him,” I said to them. The barrier was shrinking rapidly. “Our best hope to survive is to keep the bard playing.”

“Can he really do it?”

“Yes,” Noam said with a chuckle as Naukoth shifted his instrument closer to the wall. “Yes he fucking can.”

“How well can you six still fight?” I asked as we turned outwards.

“Fine-” the dragonborn began, before her human companion cut him off, “She’s mana empty.”

She? “Then stay back, do you have any way of quickly regenerating?”

An OOM mage was pretty much useless. Though that applied to any resource based build that ran empty.

“Decs,” Noam interrupted my thoughts. “They won’t be able to do it.”

“Nonsense,” the dragonborn interrupted, “I am still perfectly capable of…”

I ignored her. Taking a good look at the six-man group.

They were bedraggled, I didn’t need a fancy sight power to recognise that. They weren’t that damaged but the state of their armour was incredibly poor. Slashed, crushed and broken almost everywhere. They had a single healer, a man wearing white robes that had been stained with blood. He stood behind, his eyes closed and hands clasped in what I assumed was prayer. I knew due to Yellow that he’d been doing an extremely good job up till now, but judging from the wounds the two lying on the ground suffered, he cannot fix death.

“Healer,” I pointed, “how long can you keep going?”

The man’s eyes fluttered open, “I am almost out of prayers to give, but War is my god’s domain, so I will last the battle.”

“Good enough,” I said as parts of our CC screen were starting to get bypassed.

Noam grinned, his smile excited with anticipation, “He’s going to do the thing!”

A few questions were thrown out, but I wasn’t paying attention to them.

“You can’t seriously be thinking about this,” Declan said. “You know our max is five people.”

“But there are two of us now,” I answered. “And my mental stats are theoretically twenty percent higher.”

I felt him blink, before letting out a sigh, “You don’t know if stats scale linearly, for all we know they are logarithmic and you are barely smarter than I am.” He shook his head, “I need to grab snacks.”

“Hurry up,” I said as I turned my attention to the slowly encroaching horde.

“Until we get out of this, I require all of you to follow my orders to the best of your ability.”

More questions, spoken over each other.

“We’re Travellers,” Noam said, his face still carved in a smile. “We’re probably the most battle experienced here.”

For the first time since I gained Observe and Analyse, I fully stepped back from my vision. Instead of being immersed in a singular perspective, I now viewed all of them as if they were many different screens placed in front of me. Greenie, running to the entrance of the cave to get reinforcements, Noam, convincing the rest of the group, slowly easing them into the idea of accepting my command. He was always better at that stuff than I ever could be. Yellow, still sitting on Naukoth’s piano, silently watching the proceedings, and finally, my real world half, ripping open our house’s snack draw, and shoving four chocolate bars down his throat.

They were always present at the back of my mind, and there laid the true value of my Analyse passive. It was near worthless if I used it actively since if I was actively gauging the stats of an enemy, Analyse would only show the exact same things I was measuring. Its strength lay in the fact it measured everything I saw as if I was paying full attention to it, even if it was the peripheral of my vision, or say, a different perspective that was at the back of my mind.

Declan shifted his perspective with mine, I already had a good idea of what everyone in this group was capable of thanks to Yellow and he was quickly reading all that it had learnt.

“You take half, I take the other,” I softly whispered to him.

“I don’t know if our snack stache can last the fight.”

“At least you have one.”

No one knew me as well as I did, and I knew perfectly well what I was good at. It wasn’t mechanics, physical skill, reactions or split second decision making, Noam had that more than covered. No, one of the very few things I excelled at, was figuring out optimal party usage, positioning and long term macro strategy.

The greatest thing Observe gave me was enabling me to have an overhead view of every field.

The chimeras finally broke through and Noam laughed, “Strap in! You’re about to meet the shot caller who beat pre-nerf mythic Vek’Na!”