Bonded Summoner

Jake was surprised to learn that there were two souls, and not just two personalities in Berri, now Bloodberri’s mind. Jake was no psychologist, but he had guessed a form of multiple personality disorder based on what he had seen, and the hints at the usage of ‘we’ and so on. That they gained a skill which proved they were in fact two-entities was interesting, and Jake also noticed changes to his bond. Now, he could tell that he was bonded to both of them, where he had only previously been bonded to the one.

All those times where he thought that Berri was going to understand empathy or just caring at all for others, it was the other soul that convinced her against it. They had come from a place where one needed to always watch their backs, so showing weakness was not something that could be allowed. Jake would need to spend some more time with this Blood, so that he could get to know her better.

For now though, they had a job to do. After Bloodberri’s episode and waiting a few hours for the final rift closures, they have moved out to the location. Weeks of preparation have culminated into this final showdown, this [Fortress Assault]. They were now in a valley that led to the mountain fortress, and this valley had Jake nervous. Wasn’t this place the perfect place for an ambush, or pincer attack? The path their battlegroup took was winding and full of small hills that could easily hide the approach of the enemy.

The goddess had mentioned that there could be thousands of enemies, a number that exceeded the size of their battlegroup. In a siege type situation, usually the defenders were favored, on top of that. Still, it probably depended on the type of creatures that would be defending, as the casters in the battlegroup could use group-based spell-casting. If their enemies could too, then they’d be in a lot of trouble.

Jake did his best to observe the battlements and wasn’t overly surprised by what he saw. Over the course of the dozen rift closures, there was something in common with all of the foes that appeared: they fell within four different types. There were the kobolds and the spiders that Jake’s battlegroup faced, then there were reptilian people that were anthropomorphic lizards, snakes, and even crocodiles. These people had the face of their species and often had a tail, and were covered in scales from head to toe but stood upright.

The last race were a sort of jackal people, once again with the head of a jackal and covered with fur, that wore what Jake thought was an egyptian motif. Jake guessed that these were the followers of Apophis, and he tried to think of what that might mean with the other races. As he was thinking this, he noticed that Ophelia had both conflicted feelings and expression.

“What is it, Ophelia?”

“It’s just… When I heard that they were reptilian, I hadn’t thought much of it, but seeing them reminds me of the ones we had in my world. They really looked like them, and had the same varieties. Even the style of equipment is similar.”

Jake furrowed his brows. The multiverse was vast and this could merely be a coincidence, but this particular revelation was making his valkyrie depressed. Ophelia continued, “Before I had died, there was a rumor: that their race was helping the invaders. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but seeing them here, I can’t help but believe it was true.”

Jake sighed. He was about to encourage her, but he was beaten to it when Fhesiah spoke. “Isn’t it fine? Either way, they are betrayers, does it matter if they are your betrayers or not? If anything, this a good chance at vengeance. It was so nice of the outsiders to give you a target to pierce with your spear just a little bit harder, don’t you think?”

Jake couldn’t help but feel that she was right, and Ophelia’s depression quickly turned to determination, and excitement. Jake laughed and shook his head, he should have known focusing her on the battle at hand would have been best to turn around her fugue.

Looking over the battlements, he couldn’t help but feel that the spiders were mostly missing. There were some, but the amount was far less than the kobolds, jackals, and reptilians. Jake supposed that in a siege the spiders would not particularly be useful, but this solidified what Jake thought was the most likely possibility: that there would be a pincer attack coming at some point, it was more a matter of when, not if, in his opinion. Jake would want to build his own defenses with walls of his own, but would that really be any use against giant spiders? Any additional range on the melee creatures could help, Jake supposed.

Berri said, “Wow, isn’t it just like that movie with the little people with no shoes? The second one! Ahem,” she coughed, and took on a deeper voice, “At dawn, look to the east!”

Ophelia laughed, and said, “Oh, but aren’t we the attackers instead, sister? Don’t we not want enemies coming from behind us?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess not. Still, the keep doesn’t look that impressive.” Jake watched as she raised herself high, until her humanoid body was almost ten meters in the air, well above a two-story house. Trying to compare herself to the keep, Jake guessed, she was able to reach around two-thirds of the height.

Around the fortress and a decent way out was a magical dome of energy, and Jake guessed that this was the point of no return for his battlegroup. Once they entered, they would be unable to leave until the first stages of the challenge was completed, or they died. The forty members of the battlegroup entered, and the challenge was triggered.

Fortress Assault Stage 1 has begun.

Time Limit for Stage 1: 2 Hours

Enemy Level: 15-18

Condition for Stage completion: Breach the Gate

Jake looked over at the gate, and he smiled. He had brought a battering ram in a storage bracelet, but he brought a second one, too. It was in the shape of a giant snake woman, though. Bloodberri was filled with excitement, of getting to smash something so large with her giant club. He looked over at her, and found her taking practice swings, getting warmed and psyched up. Judging from what he was feeling, Blood enjoyed smashing things with their club at least as much as Berri did, though for different reasons. Berri thought it was fun, but Blood certainly enjoyed exerting her monstrous power over others.

The battlegroup moved in formation, heading towards the keep. They had a clear path leading up to the keep’s door, but it was surrounded by rocks and mounds in each direction. Jake guessed the walls of the fortress were almost fifty feet high from the ground on the hill, and realized that this was probably necessary. He could probably leap and reach about twenty feet high himself now or higher. What more if he was an agile type like a rogue, or a warrior with some sort of leap ability? The giant spiders can probably go up and down the keep walls freely.

The fortress was a half-star shaped keep, up against the mountain as it was. With the gate in the center, there were two star points jutting off to the side, full of arrow slits that would allow the defenders to target Jake’s battlegroup while they pounded on the gate. They filled each wing with archers of the three races, and Jake spotted casters and shield wielding classes as well.

There were hundreds up on the battlements, and Jake couldn’t help but wonder about this Fortress Assault. Even without the impending pincer attack, Jake wondered about how a standard party could really influence an enormous battle like this. It was because it was a challenge for a Champion’s party that it felt fair at all, Jake supposed, but this was also a common Tier 2 challenge for non-champions. When rifts were left untouched for long enough, they could spawn such a challenge, among others.

The enemy archers started raining arrows down on their formation, and the [Sons of Rome] tightened up their movements with their shields raised. Dozens of arrows struck shields or people in the battlegroup every second. A few of them struck Bloodberri, but none of them could find purchase with her [Armor of Faith] ability, especially with Jake’s recent addition of enchantments to improve durability. Still, Jake thought the armor had finally reached its limits. While it was well-forged, they forged it using lower tier 1 materials, likely the best available in a world where the inhabitants hardly raised themselves above the earlier part of their tier in terms of strength.

Without the Framework, most creatures would never raise themselves above the equivalent level of where Jake and his party were, their racial limits not allowing them to surpass that amount of magical power without the assistance of a god’s strength or some other method. The magical density of the world would influence this to a degree, and most worlds were around Tier 1. Without higher magical density and without the Framework, most would not be able to persistently improve themselves to the peak of their Tier and enter the next.

The Egyptian armor-wearing jackal spellcasters began casting, and Fhesiah scrunched her nose in disgust. While there were some beams of necrotic energy that washed over the battlegroup causing damage to their formation, they also summoned locusts. They had an aura of green energy, and Jake guessed they would drain or spread disease should they reach the battlegroup. Jake cast a cone of fire runic spell, and with a wave of her fan, Fhesiah spread and enhanced the flames further towards the battlements, wiping out the magical locusts.

Just when Jake thought their wave of fire would reach the enemy spellcasters, some kobold spellcasters had cast a shield and blocked the flames. Fhesiah tsked. It looked like they would need more than a half-hearted attack to really cause some damage to their casters. Ophelia and the battlegroup’s healers were hard at work restoring the damage of the necrotic beams, but Jake could tell that the battle of attrition had only just begun.

Jake came up with a plan and gave it to Antonius using their headsets. They were not far from the gates now, but when they reached them, they would start their counterattack. While they had not yet had any losses yet, arrows had constantly threaded their way through the formation’s shields and scored damage that needed to be healed. Without Jake and Ophelia healing, the battlegroup’s healers would already be stressed to the point of breaking within minutes. With the formation moving, their own archers had hardly launched many attacks of their own, only taking shots here and there, very few finding purchase.

They arrived at the gate, and Bloodberri smashed into it going full speed. While Jake could feel the reverberation in his bones, the gate held, and Jake could see that it was protected by magic. Looking with his [Arcane Eye], he could see that many of the casters were increasing the defenses of the gate itself. Bloodberri continued to smash the gate with powerful blows, making some headway with the magical protections with each blow.

Jake now initiated the plan. He and Ophelia started building a small wall using the spell-rods that would reach up to or above their waists near the gate, allowing the shield formation to raise their shields and block the attacks from only the higher angles. After only a few moments, they had significantly increased their protection. Their own archers now returned fire in earnest, and their spellcasters started casting their group spells against the incoming onslaught.

Their group chants would launch a large fireball or shard of ice every minute, and these were not able to be blocked entirely by the enemy’s magical shields. They broke through the shields, and often took out several of the casters and their protectors on the battlements. The archers started making headway too, able to fire under the protection of the shields and low walls.

Jake now activated his [Runebound: Aegis] ability, and used his enhanced runic shields to block the necrotic beams where he could. Now that there was a sort of equilibrium on the battlefield, Jake took out his battering ram from one of his storage bracelets, and a party pushed it towards the gate. While the ram with Jake’s enchantments wouldn’t do nearly as much damage as Bloodberri against the gate, it should add up to reduce the magical protections to help smash through.

With that, Jake thought they were ready for the next stage. Jake had two flyers in his party. How could something like battlements matter to them? Jake cast Runic Empowerment buffs, which were now getting close to the effect of [Einherjar] thanks to his skill proficiency, on both Fhesiah and Ophelia, and they took to the sky, one to each of the ramparts.

Some casters and archers tried to stop Ophelia in her approach, but using a [Sacrificial Barrier], she stopped all of these attacks with ease and landed atop without issue, her speed surprising. She sent a runic cone of fire attack to blast the shield users away, and immediately started taking down archers along the arrow slits maintaining her speed. She stabbed her spear and lanced through archers as she went down the ramparts, hardly slowing down as she cut down archers and avoided the shield users.

Meanwhile, Jake supported Fhesiah’s arrival on the battlements with his own sacrificial barrier, while a mostly ineffectual sacrificial barrier from Ophelia’s chosen specialization covered him. She then repurposed this fiery barrier when she arrived with her own wave of flames, and began cutting down archers and fanning flames over the area in her Dance of the Sun in earnest. She went straight for the enemy casters, allowing their own archers and casters to focus on cleaning up her rampart.

Once the rampart edges were starting to clear, Alisara shadow teleported onto Ophelia’s rampart, and started cutting down the casters on their side. Jake could tell that the magical protection for the gate was weakening, and it wouldn’t be much longer before they would breach it, the battering ram and Bloodberri repeatedly crashing into the gate. Jake wondered what the next stage of the assault would entail, as he could tell with his [Arcane Eye] that within the courtyard was yet another gate. At the same time, there were no visible enemies, so he thought there was a strong chance that they would spawn or storm out of the upper sections of the keep.

Jake used this downtime to deactivate his [Runebound] ability. When the next phase starts, Jake wants to have the flexibility to act as needed. He also took out a mana-infused drink and did his best to recover from healing and shielding the battlegroup. Several of the other casters did the same, as Ophelia, Fhesiah and Alisara finished clearing the wings of the keep, and returned down to the battlegroup.

At the end of the ramparts of the keep side, there were towers with locked gates that lead to other wings that could hold defenders that would rain down attacks on the battlegroup in the courtyard, and Jake wondered if it was worthwhile to break through them or not, as Ophelia or Fhesiah could easily just fly around the gate, potentially. Jake could probably get Bloodberri up there, either by buffing her and allowing her to ‘jump’ herself up, or by having Ophelia or Fhesiah bring him up there and using [Call Summon].

Jake could even ‘run’ himself up there, using his new enchantment on his greaves. He could create small platforms underneath him for a small mana cost, even as fast as he ran or could jump. Jake tuned them to his weight with a full equipment set.

Jake looked down over the valley. There was still no sign of an ambush or pincer attack, and he thought that if it was coming, it should be after they entered the courtyard. Just where would they come from? He looked up at the ramparts, and thought that they could be useful in their own defense. Getting himself and his summons up there would be easy, but the other 35 members of the battlegroup would be somewhat of a challenge. Many of the casters were very much not like him, having physical attributes that were not much better than an Earth human.

Most of Jake’s preparations were for himself and his girls, so he didn’t have things like rope ladders, just ropes. Still, Jake thought he had an idea that just might work. Bloodberri sensed that the end was near, and she activated her [Mace of Hestia]. It smashed into the gate with tremendous force, and the gate finally buckled and was flung back, leaving a gaping opening for the battlegroup to enter.

A flash of light occurred, and Jake could tell that something had changed without seeing anything from where he was.

Fortress Assault Stage 2 has begun.

Time Limit for Stage 2: 2 Hours

Enemy Level: 15-18

Condition for Stage completion: Breach the Inner Gate