I woke up and immediately got to work. I wasn’t sure what the situation would look like when we got there, so I prepared as many combat spells as I could reasonably get away with. Then I got to work.
First, I began working on Orik’s gun. He hadn’t gotten all the materials for me yet, but I wanted him to have some progress to show his boss if necessary. I owed him. With my geth assistants, I had worked through the materials I had for him in short time.
Then, I began working on some arrows for Paulie. He had requested fifty giant killing arrows, split thirty-twenty between normal and large arrows – the large ones were nearly the size of javelins. He’d wanted the large ones in case he decided to grow larger, since the magic that facilitates that stops working as soon as an arrow is loosed.
After that, I began working on some stuff for Lenn and Geo, basic improvements for some of their current gear. Afterwards, I crafted a dozen radios. The book stolen from the Technic League described commsets capable of transmitting audio and video in crystal clarity. Very advanced equipment to be sure, but they wouldn’t really do anything more for me than some basic Earth tech radios. Add in the time it would take to make them and the energy cost of running them and it was simply a much smarter choice to use the more boring, yet more practical option.
Once I’d expended the time in my workshop, I emerged and found the others waiting for me. They’d had just enough time to eat breakfast and prepare. With Paulie’s help, I Fabricated a bunch of Earth-tech fragmentation grenades. You know, the ones that look like pineapples. After that, Aurora used her armor to hostel Starbrite and I used the wand I’d acquired to shrink down our mounts and turn them into stone figures.
There were three others coming with us, which put us at our limit for teleportation using my secret weapon. Shalelu wanted to get back to town and Orik needed to report in to his superiors, so he and Belgren Blackhammer would be joining us. They’d help with the town defense and then head to Magnimar. Meanwhile, Magrim Emberaxe would command the forces remaining at the fort to assist Jakardros and the Black Arrows.
“It looks like we’re ready to go,” I said. “So only one question remains. Who is going in the hole?” I pulled a small, folded piece of cloth from a non-magical pocket – that part’s very important! – unfolded it and tossed it on the floor. Paulie, Geo, Orik and Belgren hopped inside the now accessible extradimensional space. I then picked up the cloth and refolded it. “Okay, we have two minutes.” I handed it to Aurora. “Open it immediately when we get there.”
The four of us remaining held hands and I teleported us to Sandpoint. We arrived in the center of the square in front of Sandpoint Cathedral. There were no signs of battle, which was good. Several of the villagers recognized us immediately and greeted us warmly. Others seemed a bit wary of me specifically, though I wasn’t sure why.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Katrine Vinder rushed through the square and threw her arms around my neck. “Beloved! You’ve returned to me!” she exclaimed before planting a kiss on me.
“Get away from him, bitch!” another voice yelled. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, but I knew the voice. Katrine was wrenched away as Shayliss yanked her hair. The two tumbled to the ground and began trying to kill each other in that way only two women fighting over a man can.
Several of the town’s young adults tried to pull them apart, but they were also clearly taking sides. Within moments, the square had devolved into a nearly twenty person brawl centered right on me. “What.”
Geo, fresh out of the hole, walked over and whispered something to Lenn. “QUIT IT!” the huge man roared. The fighting stopped immediately. Everyone stared at Lenn warily.
“He’s on the brute squad,” Fleur said.
“He is the brute squad,” I replied automatically.
Just then, as I thought it had finally died down, I was proven wrong. “You!” a voice boomed. “I’m going to wring your scrawny neck!” Venn Vinder charged at me. He was wielding some kind of meat mallet.
In a swift motion, Aurora stepped between us, swung her arm up and grabbed his thumb, disarming him and pulling his arm behind his body in a thumb lock. “Please, sir. I understand you may be angry, but I am his sworn defender. I highly recommend you use your words and, if he has truly done wrong, proceed with this using proper legal channels.” She smiled sweetly at him. “Or I could just break your thumb now. Your call.”
Venn’s face paled. “I’ll speak, then.”
“Good,” Aurora replied, releasing him.
He glared at me. “You seduced and got my little angel pregnant! I demand that you take responsibility!”
What. “Sir, there are so many things wrong with that statement that I’m not sure where to begin.” He growled at me. “Okay, how about we start with this. There are three women in this ever growing crowd I’ve had sex with, but neither of your daughters is one of them.”
“You dare accuse my daughter of lying?!”
“I’m not even sure which of them you’re talking about, but yes!”
“You know damn well which of my daughters you violated, villain! Unless you mean to tell me you’ve taken advantage of both of them!” Now he was snarling.
“I’ve done no such thing!”
He swung at me. Aurora grabbed his arm and took him down. She didn’t break any of his bones, as much as I would have found that satisfying. The melee began again, but now there were three sides – in addition to the Shayliss and Katrine camps, there was now the “Kyle didn’t do anything” camp. I was starting to get a pain behind my eye.
“THAT. IS. ENOUGH!” I shouted, punctuating my words by unleashing a lightning bolt into a nearby rock wall, sending chunks of stone flying. Everyone stopped what they were doing and started at me. Some of them really were stopped mid punch. “We don’t have time for this.” Sheriff Hemlock had arrived right around the time of my outburst. I looked right at him. “Keep every member of the Vinder family away from me for the next few days. And to the rest of you. If I hear of one more fight about this, I will turn everyone here into newts.”
“You wouldn’t dare –” someone began, cut short by my glare.
After daring anyone to try me further, I looked over at Sheriff Hemlock. “We need to speak with Mayor Deverin immediately. There is an urgent matter that she must be informed about.”
“Alright people, move along. I will be forced to arrest every last one of you.” He helped Venn to his feet. “I know you’re upset, but I need you to go home. I promise you that once I find out what is going on, I will hear your grievances against this man and, if warranted, we can discuss legal options. But for now, I can’t keep the peace if you don’t. And please take your daughters with you.” Venn glared at me but did as he was told. The sheriff nodded to me and motioned for us to follow him. Once we were out of earshot of the crowd, he stopped and gave me a look. “You wouldn’t really turn everyone into newts, would you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.” It was, of course, a bluff. I didn’t have a spell to pull that off. But they didn’t need to know that.
“So tell me, did you sleep with either of those girls?”
I sighed. “No. I really didn’t.”
He groaned. “I was afraid of that. There’s no way I can get you to marry one of them anyway?”
“Sorry. Isn’t going to happen.”
“Yeah. Didn’t think so. I have no idea how I’m going to defuse this situation.”
“Why not get a cleric of Abadar?” Aurora asked. That was a damn fine idea. That church had some great magic for piercing lies. Hell, I’d even pay for it.
I just nodded, making a note to thank Aurora later. “That’s definitely on the table. But for now, we have bigger problems.”
“Bigger problems?” Sheriff Hemlock asked. “How big we talking?”
“Much larger than our friend here!” Paulie said a little too loud while pointing at Lenn.
“GIANTS!” Lenn bellowed.
The pain spread and was now behind both eyes. “We’ll explain further once we have assembled the mayor and the other nobles.”
We waited in the town hall for representatives of the city’s ruling families to be gathered. As we waited, a man I recognized as one of my adopted family’s business agents in Magnimar found us. “Milord, I have information on a matter you asked me to look into.” He was likely talking about finding Delek Viskanta, the man who had taken advantage of Nualia. I’d asked him to do a little footwork on the matter for me, telling him that the man owed me money and I wanted to collect personally.
“Tell me about it after the meeting,” I said.
“Of course, milord.”
The nobles all arrived within a few minutes, so I suspect that Hemlock’s men had impressed upon them the importance of the meeting. “So, what waste of time have you called us to this time?” Titus Scarnetti, asked, his tone dripping with contempt.
It was going to be one of those. I glanced around and it was clear that the others wanted me to deal with this. Shiny. “We’ve come across evidence that the town is going to be attacked. Soon.”
“By whom?” Mayor Kendra Deverin asked, startled.
“You’re not going to like it,” I said, motioning for Geo to hand over the letter from Mokmurian. He pulled out the hide. Several of the nobles were shocked by the sheer size of it as Geo laid it on the table before them. “Read it over. While you do so, understand that we obtained it from the possessions of a stone giant that had taken over a band of ogres and was forcing them to produce weapons and armor. Lots of weapons and armor. We estimate anywhere between one and three days before they arrive.”
The mayor stood up abruptly. “Sheriff, begin preparations. We have to evacuate the city before these giants arrive.”
“Wait,” Shalelu said.
“Miss Andosana?” Mayor Deverin asked.
“I’m not entirely certain that would be the best course of action. We believe that someone escaped the cave, a lamia named Lucrecia. Thus far, she has proven shrewd and dangerous. It is likely that she will anticipate that course of action and will prepare some kind of ambush, hoping to take out as many townspeople as possible while they’re at their most vulnerable.”
I hadn’t thought of that. In fact, I had hoped we could evacuate all but a small crew of people to defend the town. “She has a point. Lucrecia has taken advantage of every opportunity available to her.”
“Then what would you have us do? Let everyone stay in their homes and just hope the giants don’t grab them when they come?”
“Why not evacuate everyone to the chapel in the catacombs beneath town?” Aurora asked.
“Not entirely certain everyone will fit,” I said. “But if we split everyone between a few key evacuation points, we should be able to defend those places well enough. And the bulk of the people should be able to find refuge in the catacombs and smugglers’ tunnels.”
“And then what?” Scarnetti asked. “We allow the giants to take what they want, burn the rest of the town and leave unchallenged?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “My friend Lenn here would be unhappy if we didn’t kill at least a few of them.”
“How many is a few?” Ameiko Kaijutsu asked.
“All of them, Innkeeper Tightpants.” I smirked. “We’re going to kill all of them.”
Mayor Deverin was skeptical. “And how many citizens do you intend to sacrifice to do this?”
“As few as possible. Depends on how long we have before the attack. That said, if they give us three days, I think we might have fewer casualties than the giants do, assuming they bring less than a score of giants.”
“A big claim,” Titus Scarnetti accused. “But can you back it up?”
“We’re going to need the help of the townspeople to prepare. So, do we have your support, or are we going to have to convince everyone on our own?”
“I’m with you,” Ameiko Kaijutsu said after a moment, the first to respond.
The others agreed in turn, with Titus Scarnetti at last giving us a grudging “Do whatever you want.”
We spent roughly an hour hashing out the rough plan. We could refine it as the days went on, add layers to offset gaps in coverage. Then we gathered the entire town for a meeting. It went as well as one might expect, I guess.
At least we managed to stop the panicked exodus before anyone was trampled.
“So what? You want us to remain here and just wait for our deaths?” one man asked. The crowd rippled with murmurs of agreement.
“NO! I WANT YOU TO STAY AND KILL GIANTS LIKE A MAN!” Lenn roared.
The crowd looked ready to try to bolt again, so I stepped in. “While my big friend here is essentially correct, I want you to understand that no one is asking you to go toe-to-toe with the giants. What we need most of all is for everyone to pitch in and help us construct preparations. If you do not wish to tangle with the enemy directly, then we won’t force you. Your contribution could be little more than digging a hole, or gathering scrap materials just lying around. Maybe you help stockpile supplies for those hiding from the giants, or maybe you do nothing more than find a place to keep watch so you can alert the town.
“If you want to help out further, but still don’t want to engage the enemy, then you can volunteer for the fire brigade. And if you do want to engage, we will need a number of volunteers to perform hit and run strikes. No one is going to be putting themselves in more than a minimal amount of danger.”
“And you think you can really kill giants that way?” some woman yelled.
“Yeah, you can’t beat giants! They’re too big and too powerful!”
I could see this needed a different approach. “You’re wrong about that.”
“You deny that they’re too big to stop?!” another voice asked from within the crowd.
“Were the goblins too small to harm you?”
“What?”
“The goblins that attacked the town. They killed a number of people. To them, you might as well have been a giant. So tell me, were the goblins too small to harm you?”
“Well, no,” someone said. “But the goblins lost a lot of their warriors.” The crowd murmured with agreement. “Yet you think we can do better?”
I grinned. “I am much smarter than a goblin. And so are you. Stick with me and I think we can do this. I can’t absolutely guarantee no one will die, but our dead will be a small number. Much smaller than we suspect trying to evacuate will lead to. So, are you with me?”
The first man to object stood again. “Let’s do this.”
After the meeting, I set aside a few minutes to speak with my agent from Magnimar. “Okay, so what news do you have on Delek Viskanta?”
“He’s dead, milord.”
That was actually a relief to hear. I felt like I needed to find and punish him, but someone beat me to it. “Truly? Are you certain?”
“Yes, milord. We used magic to speak with his spirit and confirm it. He did not recognize your name, nor did he have any fortune stashed away to make good on the debt. I apologize.”
“Don’t worry about it. Did you happen to ask who killed him?”
“He said it was a woman named Nualia. An ex-lover of his, it seems.”
I actually smiled. “Good for her,” I said.
“Milord?”
“I was actually attempting to collect the debt on her behalf. It seems she managed to beat me to it. Go ahead and consider this matter closed. Now, tell me, is there anything else I should know?”
“There have been several patrols of giants spotted all around the region. Lord Mayor Grobaras has already begun preparing both the city’s forces and several bands of hired mercenaries to deal with the threat. In truth, however, there is talk among the commanders that they simply cannot keep up with the giants and fear that a larger attack is coming.”
“There probably is,” I said. “Do you know a way to get back to Magnimar while avoiding the main roads?” I already knew he would know several. All merchants know of a couple smuggling routes in their territories.
“I believe I can make it back to the city without being spotted,” he replied without actually confirming what I was asking.
“Excellent. Prepare to depart. I need you to deliver two letters for me.”
“Of course, milord.”
I wrote two notes. The first was to the Lord Mayor, apologizing for and explaining my actions from the second. The second was to the leader of the Potent Rainbow Lions, explaining our suspicions about Lucrecia’s ambush between Sandpoint and Magnimar. In it, I asked that he send a couple squads out to deal with it. Orik wrote a letter more or less confirming mine.
The next few days blur in something of a montage as we did a ton of preparation. We dug holes, set up trip wires and rehearsed ambushes. Anyone with any blacksmith skill helped make giant caltrops, which we set up in the shallow river. People scoured the local junkyard for usable scraps, which were either used for improvised traps – the caltrops and swinging spiked log traps, mostly – or got turned into magicite for me to make into more useful things.
The local apothecary prepared more vials of acid in those couple days than he had in any two years ever. Guardsmen tipped their crossbow bolts with an ingenious poison Geo gave us – I’m as shocked as you are that he whipped up any kind of potions – that had originated in his village. He called it “giant dazing venom”, and, as far as I can tell, it works by temporarily disrupting neurotransmitters in a stone giant’s brain. Thankfully, the primary ingredient is a plant found around Sandpoint abundantly.
I fabricated grenades for the trained soldiers and guardsmen, then made tanglefoot bags and bottles of liquid ice and acid for the volunteer militia we had recruited. I could have made alchemist’s fire, but I didn’t want to risk catching any buildings by accident. We trained the soldiers with dummy grenades and the others with water balloons. They got pretty good at it fairly quickly, though I knew this wouldn’t necessarily translate into smooth action during the heat of combat.
Speaking of water, we had some citizens fill barrels and other containers with water and set them near flammable buildings to make the jobs of the fire brigades easier. We then set up a number of watch positions, all of which I set up with a radio, which I taught the watchmen to use.
There were a number of interesting events that occurred during preparation.
Geo caught up with me the first afternoon. He returned my observation journal from when I had been changed into a woman the first time by the cursed belt. I had recorded a number of data points and all of my experiences. “I apologize for borrowing it without asking, but you were busy in your magical workshop and I didn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s cool. I don’t really mind.” I was a bit terrified as to why he needed it, but I decided to take the ostrich approach. If I didn’t ask, hopefully he wouldn’t tell. Then I could assume that he was simply trying to understand women so he could better woo Shalelu.
And it just kept coming. That evening, Paulie asked me to join him in a trip to a local tavern, the Hagfish. Apparently it had been his dream as long as he could remember – not that this was very long, mind you – to take the Hagfish Challenge.
If I had known what that entailed, I would have found a reason not to go.
The mascot of the bar was a hagfish called Norah. If I remembered my biology class from high school, she was a specimen of the species Eptatretus cirrhatus, the broad-gilled hagfish, but we only spent a day talking about them, so I could be wrong.
Look, my teacher was originally a marine biologist but he retired after an illness. We spent a lot of time talking about sea critters, even if they weren’t part of the required curriculum. He found the damn things fascinating.
If you don’t know much about hagfish in general, they exhibit a behavior when attacked where they exude a slime or mucus from nearly a hundred glands on their bodies. When mixed with water, this stuff expands, turning up to twenty liters of water into a gill-clogging slime.
The Hagfish Challenge involves drinking a stein of this slime and not throwing up. So that’s what Paulie did. To the chant of, “Chug! Chug! Chug!” from the inebriated crowd. Just watching, I dry heaved several times. Aurora looked green around the gills, but managed to hold down her lunch.
The challenge completed, Paulie got to carve his name in the rafter and took the prize purse, containing eighty silver pieces – not much for us, but a huge sum for the locals. He bought a round for the house and made a good number of friends.
Aurora and I left to return to our rooms at the Rusty Dragon. As we walked, Aurora broke the stunned silence. “I don’t think I ever want to eat again,” she said.
“I’ll see what I can do about that,” I promised.
Ameiko was waiting for us. She had a couple glasses of something to calm our stomachs. News had traveled fast that Paulie had completed the challenge. “Careful,” I told her. “You don’t want me to seduce, lie and impregnate you, do you?”
Ameiko laughed. “Don’t worry about the townsfolk. They’ll come around.”
“I hope so,” I said. I had spent the whole day working with people giving me looks when they thought I wasn’t looking. It was clear they assumed that I had done it. “By the way, which girl did I supposedly impregnate and which did I just seduce?”
“Katrine’s pregnant. To the best of my knowledge, she has been mooning over you since you brought her back to Sandpoint. Truth be told, I actually doubt she’s been sleeping around. She only has eyes for you, apparently.”
Yeah, that wasn’t helping my case. “And you really believe I didn’t do it?”
She shrugged. “You’ve been trying to get in my pants since you came here. What she says you said doesn’t match your style. If she had just said you’d slept with her, then there would be plenty of reason to believe it, but to say that you promised marriage just to have sex with her? I doubt it.” She looked over at Aurora. “Right?”
Aurora considered it. “True enough.” It meant a lot to me that they believed me. I respected both of these women and it would hurt if they thought the worst of me. On the other hand, I really did want to marry Aurora. I’m not sure that I like her thinking that about me.
The next morning, I got to work early and continued making required supplies. When I finished, I delivered things to the different ambush points. Despite the early hour, people were working hard to prepare. They realized that lives literally depended on our preparations.
I ran across Paulie, who looked none the worse for wear, at the third site. He was lucky he had a spell to end illness, otherwise I was fairly sure he’d be puking his guts out. He held up a green piece of volcanic glass. “Hey, do you think you can synthesize this stuff with your magic? I’d love to have a bunch of arrows tipped with this. Would probably be really good against giants.”
I refused to touch the stuff. “That’s viridium! That’s going to make you really sick!” The toxic trace minerals in viridium can impart a leprosy-like wasting sickness on anyone that handles them unless stored in a magical bag.
“Really? I’ve had it in my pocket for weeks.” That didn’t make sense. He should be violently ill. Unless…
That would make sense. Aurora’s body rejected his healing magic sometimes. His ancestors looked human. And viridium didn’t affect him. “You’re not a catfolk,” I said aloud as I realized it. “You’re a tiefling! One of your ancestors was a rakshasa!”
He looked surprised. “I thought you knew, bro.”
I didn’t! I had made assumptions based on faulty knowledge and had ended up making a mistake. I would have to keep that in mind. As smart as I was, I wasn’t immune to making mistakes. “Okay, in that case, I think I can make your arrows, but you’ll need to use magic to cure me afterwards and promise to keep them in your magic quiver when not using them. They’ll be a danger to every one of us. Only Aurora might be able to handle being near them.”
I fabricated the arrows, including a couple javelin sized ones. Then Paulie cured both the disease I had likely contracted and the damage using my blood had wrought on me. Then I got back to work. I had a lot to oversee.
Later, I ran across Orik chatting up Arika Avertin, one of the twin daughters of the owner of Sandpoint Savories. She and her sister had been running the place for a while, but rumors told me that she was getting bored of the job. Considering Orik’s previous taste in women, I made a note to keep an eye on her. She was probably a Hastur cultist or murdered hobos for their kidneys or something.
The next morning, I woke up early and got back to work. When I had finished my work in the magical workshop, I went downstairs to give the day’s tasks to the supervisors I’d appointed. Downstairs, I found Aurora playing with a little girl. They were playing with dolls, believe it or not.
Aurora had no idea what she was doing.
“So, what is this one supposed to do?”
“She’s the princess. She has to wait for the knight to save her.” The little girl had to be about five years old.
“But, why can’t the princess save herself?”
“Because that’s not what princesses do!” The child was getting exasperated.
“Want some advice?” I asked.
The little girl looked surprised to see me. “Mommy says I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“Oh? Well, then I’ll talk to Aurora and you can’t help it if you hear.” I turned to Aurora. “Switch the dolls. Make the female doll the knight.”
“That’s not how it works!” the little girl said. “Girls can’t be knights!”
“Aurora is,” I replied.
The child was shocked. She looked at Aurora. “You’re a knight?!”
“Yes,” Aurora said.
“And you’re a girl?!”
“Yes,” my friend said again.
“Have you ever saved any princesses?”
Aurora turned to look at me and gave me a mischievous smile. “Once or twice,” she told the little girl. I feigned offense and tapped my magic hat, turning it into a tiara, then ‘stormed off’. A few seconds after I’d left the room, I popped my head back in and stuck my tongue out at Aurora. Her silvery peals of laughter filled the room.
Later that morning, shortly after showing one of the ambush teams the proper way to throw a water balloon, I ran across Lenn. He was out in front of the local brothel with the full contingent of prostitutes. And he was teaching them how to fight.
Badly.
“Just swing as hard as you can!”
One of the women struck one of the poles they were using as a practice dummy with a wooden cudgel. I cringed inwardly at the sound, since I knew just how much that would hurt your hands to do that. She cried out in pain and dropped the club.
“Don’t let go!” Lenn bellowed.
“But it hurt!” the girl complained.
“That’s because you aren’t swinging hard enough. Look!” He picked up the club and swung with all his might. The blow ripped the pole from the ground and sent it flying through the air. It embedded itself in a nearby wall. “Just like that.”
To my great surprise, the women renewed their attempts. I would have run away and signed up for some other job immediately. But for some reason, these girls really trusted our slightly psychotic warrior.
After I left Lenn and the doxies, I ran into the retired paladin, Jasper Korvaski and his not-entirely-secret lover Cyrdak Drokkus, owner of the local theater. “I wish to join one of the major ambush teams,” the paladin told me.
“You can’t!” the bard protested.
“I have a duty to help defend the people.”
“You retired from that life long ago! Please, you can’t!”
“I can and will!”
“Fine,” Cyrdak said dangerously. “If you’re going to join a team, so will I.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“I will and you can’t stop me.”
I cleared my throat. “Gentlemen, please. There is no need to argue. If you wish to join the efforts, I could use more ranged and spellcaster support. The role would be minimally dangerous to each of you, but a great help to us in defending the town. Would you each be able to live with the other functioning in that role?”
“That is acceptable, though I have no spells to aid you with,” Jasper said.
“You can heal people?”
“A few wounds per day.”
“Good enough. Also, there’s a special target to take out, try to save your holy wrath for that one.” He nodded.
That night, before bed, Aurora and I sat in front of the fireplace in our room, filled with the campfire bead rather than normal logs. “Thank you for your help,” she said.
I cocked an eyebrow. “What help was that?”
“The little girl. Apparently she learned about the giants coming and has been terrified ever since. Her mother left her with Ameiko for a few hours while she tried to get some sleep. Ameiko asked me to watch her and I wasn’t having much success calming her.”
“She seemed pretty calm to me,” I said.
“She was focused on the dolls, but she was still pretty scared. After you left, she really started calming down. I think you telling her that I was a knight really helped.”
“Oh?”
“A few minutes after you left, she crawled in my lap, asked me to tell her a story and fell right asleep.”
“And what story did you tell her?”
“The first minute or so of the story you told me about the princess who gets put to sleep by the evil fairy. She seems to like princesses.”
“Good call,” I said. She still didn’t realize that her name was the same as the princess from that story, since I left out names when I told that one. “I am a bit jealous of the girl getting to sleep on your lap.” I winked.
She rolled her eyes playfully and smiled. “Come on, let’s get some sleep. Long day ahead of us tomorrow if your guess is correct.” Despite having separate rooms in the suite, we climbed into the same bed. She faced me and pressed her head into my chest. Okay, maybe I can get past my jealousy.
Over the couple days, I didn’t have any further trouble with Katrine Vinder. She had taken my threats of newtification to heart and left me alone. Shayliss, on the other hand, kept bothering me. I found her naked in my room both nights I returned to the inn. I ended up having to have Sheriff Hemlock throw her in a cell for a couple hours to make her get the hint that I didn’t have time for her bull crap.
By the end of our third afternoon of working – second full day – I was fairly certain we had done all we could in the time we had. It was possible that they would take even longer to get to Sandpoint, but I wasn’t counting on it. Still, if they did, I could make a bunch of muskets for the town and we could really stick it to those invading a-holes.
And, of course, if we had another week and tons of materials, I could probably have set up a number of machine gun nests and a surface-to-air missile battery. But we didn’t have that kind of luxury. So no sense in worrying about what we didn’t have.
The last night before the attack came was fraught with nervousness and very little sleep for most people. I got my two hours, but I may have been the only one who got a full night’s rest. We believed the attack would come at any point in the night. But it didn’t. It came at dawn.
Cocky bastards, giving up their main advantage.
The first group of giants showed up at the town’s only wall, which covered the road north. I actually spotted them from the air during one of several patrols in a three hour period. So we had plenty of time to get the townsfolk to their designated shelters. Three of the four noble families served as shelter leaders, tasked with keeping people calm and safe as the rest of us dealt with the giants. The fourth family’s only living representative, Ameiko, was stationed up top with one of the ambush groups. When the hit and run squads retreated to their fallback point, it would be her job to keep them safe and prepare them if we needed to use our secondary ambush points.
We had three main ambush points and had setup makeshift barricades and a few traps on the other routes. The first ambush point was on Church Street, in the northern section of town. That point was manned by Lenn, Orik, Balor Hemlock and Shalelu, who would join them after scoring a few hits on the giants and falling back from the north gate. She would lead them into the trap and then they would face those three, two members of the town’s watch and four volunteer flask throwers as well as the traps we’d put in place to soften them up.
It was our most secure position. We figured that if the giants came en masse, they’d come through the open terrain, planning on overwhelming us rather than using subterfuge. So we’d put our strongest front there.
I used magic to turn invisible and took up my position on the top of the Scarnetti manor. Only Aurora knew where I would be and I had whispered it to her so none could overhear. From there, I could keep an eye on everything using a spyglass, coordinating efforts via radio.
I tapped the microphone on my throat. “Enemy units approaching north gate. Movement spotted in the trees to the east,” I reported. “All squadrons, report.” Each unit confirmed that they were reading me, which I heard in my earpiece. Each of the nobles had a radio, as did Aurora, Paulie, Geo, Shalelu, Orik, Hemlock and one of the guards we’d stationed on the roof of the Valdemar manor, posted to keep an eye on the four noble households on the peninsula south of the city – they were unaware that I was nearby, but had been commanded not to engage any threats without my go ahead. At Geo’s suggestion, we’d left Lenn without a radio. We didn’t want him shouting directly in our ears.
I kept an eye on the situation. When the giants reached the gate, I once more tapped the microphone. “All units. Commence operation.”
The giants broke down the gate and two of them followed Shalelu’s retreat. A third took a parallel road and moved to flank the defenders, almost as if they knew what we were doing. Their wizard had done his homework.
Of course, we had planned for this possibility. The giant stepped on a trigger and set off a trio of what I call “Springing Flaskthrowers”, specialized landmines I’d created that acted like old German S-mines, shooting up into the air and exploding. But instead of a damaging explosion, they launched a number of flasks of acid and liquid ice in all directions. Yowling in pain, the giant stumbled over one of Geo’s tripwires. He slammed into the ground hard, which is where the second component of the tripwire found him. He was crushed under a massive log embedded with steel spikes.
The remaining two giants found themselves injured and wandering right into range of Lenn and the others, where they didn’t last long. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
“More coming from the east,” I said. “Crossing Tanner’s Bridge. Geo, you’re up.”
Two giants and a trio of massive bears rushed over the bridge. Geo hit them with a grenade and ran them towards his ambush point at the intersection of Undercliff Way and Soggy Alley, where Ameiko and Jasper waited with several watchmen and a few volunteer flask throwers. The bears didn’t make it past the five deadfall traps Geo had prepared along the cliff above. That once again left two giants to meet the meat grinder. Once more, they didn’t even last long enough for the volunteer flask throwers to need to rabbit away.
“Be careful,” I noted. “Big Red incoming. Paulie, get to cover.”
The dragon was coming from the north. He flew over and breathed fire on the Sandpoint Garrison, a mostly stone structure just across the road from the town hall, where Paulie had taken up a sniping position. After the dragon passed, Paulie peeked his head out. “I’ve got the fire, bro.”
Meanwhile, another pair of stone giants had tried crossing the river just south of Mill’s Pond, but found the caltrops to be too painful to navigate. They headed north and crossed Tanner’s bridge. “More incoming, Geo,” I warned.
“We have a problem,” Orik radioed. I quickly looked over and saw Lenn leaving his position and running towards Geo’s.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked.
“He heard there were more giants that way.”
“Who told him?”
“That red-headed girl, Shayliss, just showed up and told him that Geo would need his help with the giants over there.”
I cursed. “I fear your position has been compromised. Fall back to the secondary ambush site at Shell Street. Balor, take Shayliss into custody. I don’t know if she’s just trying to be helpful or if the enemy used her to compromise your position, but we don’t have time to sort it out now.”
The dragon flew over and hit the cathedral. The north wing, which was predominantly wood, caught fire, which Paulie quickly dealt with. Geo and his team managed to get to cover before the dragon could get close enough to attack them. It somehow missed spotting Lenn running by. Once it had passed, Lenn and the others dealt with the giants heading their way.
Meanwhile, I radioed that another pair of giants was heading across the Lost Coast bridge on the southeast side of town. The lingering smell of beer drew them to the Two Knight Brewery, where they began demanding tributes of beer to the empty building. Aurora hit them with a grenade to get their attention and then rode straight towards the ambush at the corner of Salmon and Market streets, where Cyrdak and Daviren Hosk waited with more guards and flask throwers. The giants, once more severely weakened by landmines – these being directional anti-tank mines – were easy pickings for the defenders.
Longtooth, who I could now tell was a juvenile red dragon, breathed flames on Sandpoint Theater. Cyrdak rushed over to assist in quelling the flames. With his help, Paulie managed to save the mostly wooden structure.
While all this was happening, I didn’t notice a trio of giants stalking into the area below my vantage. My first notice was when the building shook. They bashed their way into the Scarnetti manor and began tossing out loot. I tapped my microphone and whispered, “Post Epsilon, assistance incoming. Hold fire until enemy is distracted.”
I looked over at the path onto the peninsula. The enemy had managed to miss the mines. I quietly flew over to the other side of the house and conjured a Bralani – a type of celestial creature with wind and lightning powers that also looks like an attractive elf.
“Hit the three giants with a lightning bolt and lead them over to the point on the road with the rune on the ground. Fly the whole way, but stay near the ground. Once you’re ten feet past the rune, turn and engage with everything you have.”
She nodded and took off. Meanwhile, I conjured a trio of lantern archons, which I also ordered to engage the giants, but to stay out of reach. “Epsilon engaging,” came the call over the radio. Between the celestials, the guards and the mass of mines, the giants fell extremely quickly.
I looked down and the pile of loot. A fair number of valuables, but mostly nothing of note, except for the overturned desk. It had a secret drawer under the normal drawers. Curiosity drew me over to check it out. No one could see me as I carefully popped open the drawer and grabbed the document inside. I scanned it quickly and was amazed at what I found. But I didn’t have time to worry about it, the battle was still ongoing. So I pocketed it and got back up on the roof.
The dragon breathed fire on the Hagfish, catching the bar, the docks and a small boat moored there – the “Wistful Widow”, if you’re wondering – on fire. I conjured a pair of small water elementals and sent them out to deal with the fire. I didn’t speak their language, but they got what I meant when I pointed at the flames.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something on the roof of the Kaijutsu Manor. I looked over and spotted the winged creature I had seen before. But she wasn’t looking at me. I followed her gaze and found what she was looking at. Katrine Vinder was just standing there on the sand near the Hagfish. And we weren’t the only ones who saw her.
The dragon landed on the beach, licking its chops. Its attack had been completely devoid of anyone to snack on thanks to our preparations. I cursed again. “Aurora! The dragon’s on the beach! Move quickly! Anyone with a clear shot, take it now!”
The last thing I’d said to the poor girl had been after losing my temper. If she survived, I promised I would be kinder. But it didn’t look likely. She was done for.
Then I heard hoof beats and saw my horse – completely riderless, mind you – barreling down onto the sand between the dragon and the woman. She stamped defiantly and glared at the dragon. A. HORSE. GLARED. AT. A. DRAGON.
The dragon paused, somehow cowed by the equine’s death glare. I shook off my amazement and took off like a bolt.
The horse and dragon would probably have still been at a stalemate when I reached them, but someone threw a grenade. It overshot the dragon and landed between the two. The dragon weathered the painful blow, but the horse didn’t fare quite as well.
I’m fairly sure they’ll be finding pieces of Fluttershy in the sand for years to come.
Aurora struck the dragon in the side with the full brunt of her lance, shattering it into almost as many pieces as Fluttershy. Meanwhile I swooped down and grabbed Katrine. “Hold on!” I commanded. Unable to see me, she did her best to grab on tightly as I flew her back across the harbor and deposited her on Valdemar Manor. “Don’t let her out of your sight!” I told the guards.
Still shaken from the horse’s actions and injured from Aurora’s lance, the dragon took off into the sky once more. More out of pique than anything, it breathed fire on the buildings over near Salmon Street, catching the Sandpoint Mercantile League, the Fatman’s Feedbag and several other buildings on fire. I conjured more water elementals to send out to deal with the problem.
Meanwhile, Paulie hit the dragon with a magical dragon-killing arrow he had managed to find at a local shop. There were more powerful versions that I could make, but I simply hadn’t had time.
The dragon roared in pain and wheeled north. It tried to grab at Paulie, but ended up merely striking him, sending him off the roof. Already flying in that direction, I heard him land. It sounded very painful.
I landed on the roof of the town hall and looked down where Paulie fell. He was still moving, but he looked dazed. I looked at the fleeing dragon and scanned the town. We had won. The giants were dead and the dragon was fleeing. Deaths were minimal, if anyone had died at all. All that was left was to clean up the damage and figure out where to go from here. But there was a little girl who would live in fear, always wondering when the dragon would return to eat everyone.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Everyone find positions near the town hall. The dragon is probably coming back our way,” I said softly over the radio. “Someone get Lenn. Paulie, I need you to get up. This will be a great chance for glory.”
“We’re with you,” Aurora responded.
“Let’s do this,” Geo said.
“The town is with you,” Balor Hemlock said.
“Just tell us when to attack,” Shalelu said.
I dispelled my invisibility and cast the spell to allow me to shout extreme distances. “We are victorious, my friends! Look and see as the cowardly dragon Longtooth flees from our might! Laugh! Laugh with me at the coward!” Everyone did as I said and laughter rang through the town.
It wasn’t enough. The dragon wasn’t turning around. I was going to need to sing. I didn’t really have time to make something up, so I just sang the first thing that popped into my head.
“Brave dragon Longtooth ran away
Bravely ran away away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave dragon Longtooth turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Longtooth!”
The dragon roared and wheeled about. “I will make sure you never sing about me again!” he snarled in draconic.
“Oh, I think I’ll sing this song in all the great cities of the land. Everyone will know of you, o dragon! Unless you think you can stop me.”
“I will enjoy watching your life fade from your eyes!”
“If you want it, come and claim it!” I shouted, turning my body to a duelist’s stance and drawing my gun. I heard the sound of something hitting the walls of the building. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t want to look and risk tipping my hand.
“And you get mad at me for MY plans?!” Fleur asked.
“Your plans don’t usually involve you jumping out of the way at the last second,” I responded.
“Fair enough.” She got bored waiting, so she began singing.
“Oh it’s been getting so hard
Living with the things you do to me
My dreams are getting so strange
I’d like to tell you everything I see.
Do you see the man in the black as a matter of fact
His eyes, focused on his gun
And the girl in his corner let no one ignore her
Cause she thinks she’s the passionate one
Oh yeah! It was like lightning
Everybody was fighting
And the music was soothing
And they all started grooving”
The dragon was almost in range to breathe fire on me. But I had to wait a few seconds more. “NOW!” I shouted at last as the dragon breathed in.
And the man in the black said everyone attack
And it turned into a Sandpoint blitz
I squeezed the trigger and unleashed a barrage of bullets at the dragon’s face. Arrows and crossbow bolts flew from every direction, slamming into the dragon’s sides. I heard Jasper declare the holy wrath of Abadar upon the dragon and a massive crack was followed by another one of those practice poles Lenn had been using came in flying through the air, smacking the dragon in the wing and causing it to choke on its breath.
But perhaps the most important projectiles came from below the dragon. A trio of javelin sized arrows connected to cables made of interwoven strands of steel and mithral slammed into the dragon’s underbelly. “ON-WARD!” Paulie sang out. “TO GLORY!”
I jumped from the roof and flew off west towards the Sandpoint Garrison. From there, I watched as the cables went taut and the dragon slammed into the side of the town hall. It disappeared down the side and I heard it strike the ground.
I got to a better vantage and began summoning more lantern archons, but it was unnecessary. Geo dove from the roof of Savah’s Armory. As he fell, he drew his dagger across the dragon’s wing, shredding it. His tentacles grabbed onto the large bone in the wing closest to the body and snapped it right in two. Aurora rode up and impaled the dragon with another lance, pinning it to the home across Tower Street from the town hall.
Lenn charged in, axe raised high, aimed at the dragon’s head. I smirked at the dragon as I stopped my casting. “Looks like you’re about to get pwned.” The dragon’s skull offered almost no resistance to my friend’s mighty blow. Its brains splattered all over the street.
Relief washed over me in waves. I began to laugh. It started out small at first, but within a few moments, I was roaring with laughter from on top of the building. Everyone else joined in. We had done it. Against all reasonable expectations, we had slain the giant invaders and a freaking dragon. And even crazier, we had done so with no reported casualties.
I probably would have laughed for ten straight minutes, but a projection appeared before me, that of an attractive ebon-skinned woman. Her face was one I had never wanted to see again. “I warned Teraktinus not to underestimate you. His people paid for his mistake.”
“I warned my friends we should have killed you when we had the chance, Lyrie. So I guess we’re even there.”
She actually laughed. “True enough.”
“So, come to offer your surrender?”
“No. I just wanted to see the look on your face when I told you that we got what we came for. And I wanted to thank you for killing the dragon. Lucrecia wasn’t sure how we were going to manage that.” My look must have betrayed confusion. “Take a look at his left hind leg.”
I didn’t need to look. I had a feeling I knew what I’d find. We’d just given the dragon’s soul to power whatever they were claiming souls for. “We gonna let that stand?” Fleur asked.
“No,” I subvocalized, reaching into my pocket.
Lyrie continued ranting about how we would lose and should give up now. Fleur began singing again as I drew the device from my pocket.
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with
Luck be a lady tonight
I began to smirk and Lyrie trailed off. “What is that?” she asked. I didn’t answer. You see, I knew the spell she was using. She was nearby, but she wouldn’t risk this from inside the city. That meant she was likely in one of maybe half a dozen spots. She couldn’t be invisible, not for the spell to work. So I could narrow it down to four spots. Four spots I had earlier suspected would be useful for the enemy wizard to use as vantage points. Unfortunately, I had only been able to prepare against two of those spots, which meant I only had a one in two chance of this working.
I could live with those odds.
Luck let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been with
Luck be a lady with me
I hit the button on the detonator. Even as far away as we were, I felt the shockwave as two charges of C-4 exploded. The image of Lyrie reacted in shock and faded. I grinned. A few moments later, another projection appeared before me, slightly bloodied.
“You! I will make sure you pay for this! Teraktinus and I live, but soon you will not. I will meet you again, but next time will be with the full force of Mokmurian’s armies!” The projection faded.
I looked around quickly, spotting them just in time to see them teleport away. Damn. Oh well, nothing to be really ticked about. We’d done well. Better than well. I had no idea how this would affect the greater war, but we had won the battle with a decisive victory.
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