Chapter 199: Before the storm
Hera and Rose stopped by every single clan, and by the end, Hera never wanted to ride a wolf again. The high speed and weird movement of its body made her feel nauseous. Riding a horse could be bumpy, but at least it was a constant motion. The wolf would keep shifting the way it ran. At times it would be as smooth as a car, and others, it was worse than being in a boat during a storm.
"Do we need to do this every day?" she turned to Rose.
"Yep, if not, we don't get the update on the army status."
"And do we have to use the wolf?"
"We don't have to, but if we don't, it's going to take three times as long to make all the rounds."
"I'm not sure if my stomach can handle that every day," Hera sighed.
"Yeah, if you learn how to ride it by yourself, it's a bit smoother. These wolves are not made to carry humans, much less two of us. I can teach you during the evening. Shilo gave us this wolf for anything we need. If someone had pets, we could probably even use it during fights, but for now, maybe just for scouting trips," Rose suggested.
"I'll take those lessons. We have more free time in the night, right?"
"Yep, we still can do some quests, but they are smaller or are not supposed to be completed, like repairing their gear."
"We can't complete that? I was thinking about doing that one."
"It's still a good idea, but there are way too many weapons to repair. We are talking about a 20 thousand strong army, after all. I don't think even a full team of crafters could fix all their weapons every day."
"Oh, yeah, that's a valid point. But is it worth it doing that one?"
"Well, if you take care of a good amount of gear, it is, but you need to repair at least 100 pieces per hour for it to be worth it. That's just if you don't have a skill. If you have, it's worth it to do it just for the practice. That's what I'm going to do at least."
"I do have a weapons maintenance skill. So you might have company."
"Oh, even better. I have a way to rebalance weapons, but I can only use that one if they were just repaired. We can make a factory line of sorts. I never had the chance to practice it with so many supplies," Rose seemed really excited about that idea.
They arrived at their tent, but no one was there. They all had spread out to do some quests. Hera and Rose were just the first ones to return. Now they had time to kill before the start of the battle. There were several quests they still could do, but those would take too long and hinder their ability to help during the war. Alan had explained that even though they could help with many things in the morning, their contribution during the actual battles was much more valuable.
Hera lay down in one of the hammocks set up for them and opened her map. There were hundreds of small blue dots surrounding her. As she zoomed out, those dots became larger, but their position shifted. Instead of each blue marker representing a single kobold, they represented 10, then 100, and lastly, 500. When seeing a bigger scale, the dots were not moving and just showed their overall position, but their movements would be tracked almost perfectly at a small scale.
"This is just cheating," she mumbled.
"Not so much. It's just our allies. If the Dragon Kin would send some assassins or something, we could have some troubles, but they won't, so at most, we can find some traps if we use the information correctly," Rose was putting some grass, moss, and dirt in small pouches, tying them on her waist when each became full. She noticed Hera staring at what she was doing and approached her, "This is what I can do."
Rose made a small flourish with her wrist and used two fingers to call something from the pouches. A small stream of grass and dirt followed her motion, each coming from a different colored sack and gathered in the palm of her hand. The materials started to gather and turned into a little green and brown ball in just a second.
"This one is called Vine Hold. When I hit something with it, small vines will try to wrap around the area where it hit. This one only has a small effect, and at most, could annoy someone, but I can make them bigger. The effect will always depend on the materials I have available, so I try to stock up."
"I see. Can you do something with poison? Or water?" Hera asked.
"Yes, and no. Water is too fickle. Every time I try to use it, it ends up just nullifying the rest. Poison is good, but it's hard to get a constant supply."
"What if you use magic?"
"I mean, I already am using a spell. Adding poison to it might up the cost too much."
"No, no. Like this," Hera walked to a corner of the tent where there was no grass and used her poison spray on the ground, letting the orange liquid soak in the dirt.
"Oh, I didn't know there were poison spells like that. All the ones I found and had enough mana for were projectiles or gas."
"Really? This is the first one I found. The only one, actually."
"Weird, anyway, can you sell me the code? Or is it a formula? If so, Alan can help me translate it."
"Oh, sorry. I'm a conceptual mage."
Rose slumped back into a chair, "Of course you are. It's just my luck," She looked back at the poison-soaked dirt, "How long does the liquid last?"
"Honestly? I don't know. I never stuck around to check."
"Well, let's test it," Rose grabbed another pouch made of plastic and placed the poisoned dirt inside it, "I'll check every half an hour or so. If it lasts for a while, do you mind making some more before the fights? My poison bombs can do some damage."
"Sure. I'll do what I can."
A few minutes later, Tiffany's group arrived. They had set up some barriers around the camp and marked a few lines on the ground so the kobolds could see when they were in the range of the Dragon Kin artillery. Blue and the girls spend the morning helping carry the armor and weapons around the clans and tell them the orders Ferunir gave. Alan was the last to arrive. He was once more with the clan alphas, discussing strategy and what they should expect from the enemy.
When he finally arrived, he came with a basket full of fruits and baked potatoes, "Hey guys, I brought lunch if anyone is hungry."
"We should eat a little something. Especially the bananas. They help us with our stamina," Rose replied, already heading towards the basket.
Alan slapped Rose's hand away, "Don't you dare take all the strawberries like last time."
"Ouch! You were not that violent when we started dating," Rose shook her hand.
"And you were not such a glutton. Leave some for the kids," Alan scoffed, placing the basket on a table.
"Fine, can I at least give you your present first?" Rose put out her closed hand in front of him.
"You got me a gift? What is it?" Alan got his face closer to her hand. She opened it, and a plume of black smoke jumped towards Alan's head. He started coughing and trying to wave it off while Rose grabbed five strawberries and dashed out of the tent.
"The happy face of your beautiful girlfriend after she eats her favorite fruit," Rose chuckled as she left.
"Come back here, you little," Alan dashed after her with a big smile on his face.
Bonnie watched that display in awe, "Aren't they… supposed to be older than us? Why are they behaving like teenagers?"
"Leave them be. Sometimes it's nice to act like a kid with someone you feel comfortable with," Chloe said while looking at Peter. At the same time, Kenji and Tiffany shared a glance.
Alex didn't wait around, quickly headed to the basket, grabbing some fruit while leaving, "I'm going to find someplace to eat this, maybe there's a palm tree around, and I'll get lucky enough for a coconut or something fall in my head and knock me out."
Hera looked back and decided to leave as well, with Bonnie and Blue following right behind. Alex had found a tree to the side and was eating an apple.
"Hey, are you ok?" Hera sat down beside her.
"I'm fine. I just don't want to stay close to people who are all lovey-dovey today," Alex bit down on the apple.
"Did something happen?" Blue asked.
Alex kept eating in silence, but after three more bites, she finally replied, "My ex texted me just before we came inside. No, I don't want to talk about it. Yes, I'm fine. No, not really."
"Ok, just don't do anything reckless, please?" Hera passed the only strawberry she got to Alex.
"Thanks. I won't," Alex took the fruit.
Understanding that it was better not to press the subject any further, they just talked and waited for the fight to start. After about 40 minutes, the sound of horns resonated throughout the forest. At the same time, a notification appeared in front of them.
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The war between the Wolves of the Night and the Dragon Kin has begun.
Battlefield Quest
Aid the Wolves of the Night's advance while hindering the Dragon Kin strategy. The more quests you complete, the less effective the Dragon Kin tools will be.
Talking with the alphas and betas can give you missions that will reduce the Dragon Kin strength.
Victory conditions:
Defeat every Dragon Kin kobold.
Have more than 1 000 surviving canine kobolds.
Ferunir must survive
Four clan alphas must survive
First-time completion rewards:
25 000 gold, Random Advanced Kobolds Supplies
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"Guys, it's time! Let's go," Rose yelled.
Everyone gathered quickly and headed to the fields. They watched as the thousands of kobolds marched to the sound of drums. It was an impressive sight and being on the opposing side would be terrifying. The team headed to their position at the left flank of the army. This is where the traps were most numerous, and the ballistas would be set up on that side. Their job now was to intercept the squad bringing that equipment. Shilo had sent a small detachment of Omegas to help them with the endeavor. Among them was a kobold mage that could create an illusion to hide them from the Dragon Kin army.
They met up behind the Thunderfury clan and meet with both Azura and the Omegas that would accompany them. With that, there were two new quests for them to deal with.
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Azura's first request
Thunderfury's alpha requested your assistance in identifying the traps created by the Dragon Kin. Localize the traps before her clan suffers too many casualties.
Expose 50 traps
Failure conditions: Lose three battalions to the traps before completing the quest
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Sabotage tools of war 1
The Omega squad has to attack and destroy the ballistas set up by the Dragon Kin, aid them before the weapons can fire 5 times.
Destroy or sabotage 3 ballistaes
Failure conditions: allowing the ballistas to fire a total of 25 combined shots
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"Ok, now we split up. Alex, Kenji, Tiffany, Hera, and Blue, you are with me. The rest stay with Rose and finds the traps," Alan said.
They all nodded and headed out. Bonnie had spells that could make a lot of impact, unlike Hera and the others. Her fist type of spells would be more than enough to make the fake ground collapse. The same could be said for Peter and Chloe. On the other hand, those who would venture deep into enemy territory had to be sturdy or good at hiding. Hence, the fighters and assassins would be the best bet for the job.
The mage created an illusory wall in front of the group, showing a still image of the area they were passing. They made a wide arc with the distraction set up, moving away from the main army so they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. About halfway through their crossing, another horn blew. With a roar, arrows and spells started to rain across the battlefield, covering the clear sky with a deadly cloud of iron.
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