Heart of Dorkness

Scourge Seven - Boom

I don’t expect the monsters to do much here. Sure, they outnumber the guards on the wall by a lot, even counting the guards that haven’t arrived and the adventurers and caravan guards that are still inside the city.

Most monsters don’t really have an answer to walls. They can’t exactly scale up the wall, and there aren’t that many weaker monsters with any sort of ranged ability.

The slimes might be able to ooze up, and the flying monsters won’t have a problem, except that they’re pretty small and I’m sure the average adult can kill something like a monster pigeon with a bit of effort.

“This is going to suck,” I say.

“We should consider returning to the inn,” Bianca says.

“And miss out on the show?” Felix asks.

That guard that screamed at us earlier half-turns, though he doesn’t leave his post. “Get back down!” he screams. “You’re going to--”

I never learn what we’re going to do. A huge noise, like an avalanche of stones right after an explosion, hits me like a rolled up newspaper to the face.

Ducking down, I bring my arms up to cover my face just as a small rain of little pebbles and dust come splattering down around me.

The dust shakes, and I almost lose my footing as the wall shifts the other way. There’s another explosion, this time way off to my left. It’s further though, or weaker.

“Are you okay?” Felix asks. She has an arm around my back. I don’t remember her moving there.

“Yeah,” I say. “What happened?”

The dust is quick to clear, and I can’t mistake the faint tinge of Joy magic to the air. Not Felix’s, hers has a particular feel to it. This is just some local mage moving things along to make it easier to tell what has happened.

The wall has collapsed. Two sections of it, at least. The one to our right has a part at least a dozen metres long that’s fallen out and into the field surrounding the city. The tower nearest the hole looks like it's starting to lean as well, and I can’t imagine its being all that secure.

To the left, a smaller tower is missing, though there’s still some wall left. I think someone could climb through the hole, but it would require some work to climb up into it and across.

The monster horde roars, a friendly reminder that a whole heap of hungry cuties are rushing over.

“Shoot shoot!” someone screams, and bows are loosed, though not with the kind of precise timing that I think those firing wish they have. A few monsters stumble and fall, but they’re still far enough away that a lot of those arrows just miss them outright.

The guards start to reload while calls go up and down the length of the wall. There are some people rushing over to the holes to save those that were there when the wall collapsed. I see some guys with shields and spears trying to form a spear-wall over the hole too, while what look like Vigilance mages start to work their magic and build up a barrier to cover the gap.

“That was sabotage,” Bianca says. “I suppose the monster horde really was a trap.”

“Yeah,” I say.

I know I shouldn’t just stand here and watch, but there’s something incredible about seeing hundreds of monsters rushing towards the walls. Flying monsters start to dive down and harass the guards. It means that their next volley will take that much longer to be fired.

Felix places a hand on my shoulder. “We should go,” she says.

“We could probably help,” I say.

“That’ll mean someone might notice who you are,” she says. “I’d rather they didn’t. All these people are going to be thinking like they’re in a fight, and that means they might think you’re an enemy.”

“Watch out!” Someone screams nearby just before one of the guards is swept off the wall by a large goose monster. It spread its wings and hisses, pleased at its victory. Then it turns our way and stares for a moment, obviously quite confused.

“Shoo shoo,” I say.

It takes a moment, but it eventually turns around and waddles after some guards who threaten it with spears until it flaps away.

“Okay, you’re probably right,” I say. “Let’s head back to the inn. But I do want to see what all of this is about after.”

“Are you not worried that the city might fall?” Bianca asks.

“Not really, no,” I say. “There aren’t enough monsters here for that... actually, we kind of need that caravan, don’t we?”

“We do,” Bianca says.

“Oh, in that case we might as well help. We can be subtle about it though. C’mon.” I turn around and walk back down behind the wall. It sounds as if the faster monsters have reached the holes in the wall, at least judging by all the screaming and roaring.

A few crack-bangs sound out, and I imagine that there are some surprise mages working hard to take out any of the bigger monsters.

While the attack is concerning, there’s almost no chance that the monsters will win this, even with holes in the walls that they could sneak through.

Which begs the question: why?

Someone blew up that wall. Sure, there are some monsters that could poke a hole through a wall like that, but I didn’t see any truly big monsters out there. The most powerful were some terrors. If there are some banes in the horde, then they’re being very quiet, and not listening to mom’s orders.

So, someone has purposefully set a bunch of monsters on a path to attack a small city, and they’ve sabotaged the city walls.

I glance at the sky, searching for smoke, but I can’t spot anything obvious. No big fires, then.

If this was part of an invasion, and I were in charge—and not allowed to use stronger monsters—then I’d probably light the city’s granaries on fire, maybe some of the fisheries too. It would weaken the whole town.

“This is strange,” I say.

“It is,” Bianca says. "I suspect that the young man that warned the city of the oncoming horde was, if not an actor, then at the very least left free to warn the city.”

“Oh?” I ask.

“This attack isn’t nearly great enough to bring Vizeda down, not if the people rally at all.” Bianca gestured ahead, and I followed her gaze to see a group of fishermen running down the street. They had paddles and big knives, some had ropes with weights tied to the end, and more than one was carrying a net.

“If enough people show up, they’ll match the monsters one for one,” Felix says.

I nod along. “And with the warning, the attack wasn’t as big a surprise as it could have been.”

I move to the side of the road to let all of the angry fishermen pass. There are a couple of them that are rallying the others, shouting encouragement and stuff to get them all worked up. I imagine that at least a few of them are cultivators. Monotonous jobs are their own form of meditation, after all, and there’s plenty of time to practice while doing simple tasks like farming.

“Let’s get back to the inn,” I say.

Felix walks up ahead of me, leading the way as if she knows this city like the back of her hand. I guess, from a faint feeling in the air, that she’s pushing her joy magic out to its limits, feeling out around corners and ahead of us.

We navigate through a couple of alleys and across some roads. A few normal citizens are out again, some of them moving big buckets of water around as if preparing for fires, others boarding up windows and doors, and one group we pass has a couple of bigger guys looking over two people that were beaten to a pulp and who are tied to a fence. Looters that were caught, I guess.

It doesn’t feel like Vizeda will suffer all that much.

I can’t shake off that constant nagging ‘why’ though.

Why would anyone attack this place the way they have?

Maybe I’m going about it the wrong way. The question might be ‘who’ is attacking Vizeda, and specifically this way.

I can rule out Heroe and his church. They’re a bunch of no-good jerks, but they’re very serious about hating monsters, and I don’t think they’d ever use monsters like this. A few other gods can be ruled out too. Too many of them depend on people worshipping them, a few genuinely hate monsters and don’t like associating with Mom at all.

“Bianca,” I ask. “You know about local politics, right?”

“I do.” Bianca says. “Though I am only as informed as someone in my station can be.”

“Uh, alright,” I say. “Does anyone jump to mind for this attack?”

“My first guess, were I not associated with you, would be the Dark Goddess or one of her servants. But, seeing as how you’re here, then I can safely rule that out.”

“Huh,” I say. I didn’t expect that answer, but I guess it makes sense. “Well, if we rule me out, then who?”

“That is a rather complicated question, and to answer it, I think you may need a small primer on Caselfellan politics.”

***