Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Tactics to Defeating Monster Hordes

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Tactics to Defeating Monster Hordes

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“You’re either very brave or very foolish to come back here without crawling on your hands and feet and begging me not to expel you on the spot,” Mistress Lorelai spoke in an icy tone that was far more intimidating than the many threats she’d messaged me.

I glanced warily in Red Beard’s direction, but the middle-aged swashbuckler was whistling a happy tune into the air as if me getting chewed out for being proactive was none of his business.

“Well?” Our dökkálfar instructor’s glare made a chill rise up my spine, and that was a rare experience for me. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

“Um, well, as you can see”—I pointed a thumb at Red Beard—“we’ve brought—”

A silver spear embedded itself in the ground right between my legs.

“A little help here…” I nearly squeaked, but just barely managed to keep my voice low. “…she’s not listening to me.”

Liara, who’d been content to let me take the lead in this meeting—because I was crazy enough to think I could negotiate with the dark elf—stepped forward with a face that exuded calm, but the slight widening of her eyes suggested she might be faking it.

“We’re sorry to have caused so much trouble for you, mistress, but we”—she glanced briefly in my direction—“felt that time was of the essence for a situation like—”

“A dungeon break…?” Mistress Lorelai raised a long, thin eyebrow at Liara. “Do you expect me to believe this far-fetched story of yours without proof?”

The dark elf raised her arm forward, and Gin flew back to her hand.

“Do you even know when the last true dungeon break happened?” she asked.

“Eighteen-sixty-four, during the Gettysburg Crusade,” I answered quickly.

Obviously, our dökkálfar instructor didn’t have to know that she’d been the one to give me this answer during the previous run.

Both she and Liara eyed me darkly, but it was Liara who said, “No one likes a know-it-all, Wisdom…”

“Indeed,” Mistress Lorelai agreed.

“But… isn’t it my ability to gather relevant intel the very reason you trusted me with the maenad raid’s strategy and the queen’s crown, ma’am?” I reasoned.

“And just how did you acquire this intel, Mr. Wisdom?” Mistress Lorelai raised an eyebrow at me. “Will you tell me the truth or shall you insist on the lie of Star-Spangled Sight?”

Yep, I was about to lie to her face again, but this time she’d caught me red-handed.

“If you truly knew the spell, then you would also be aware that such magic requires a cooldown before it can be used again,” she explained.

Well, Hel, I didn’t know that. Vargr.

“I…” For the first time in my many lives, I didn’t know what to say. “Well, the thing is…”

Yep, I was floundering. And that’s when Liara chose to jump back in with a tale even taller than me using Star-Spangled Sight more than once in one day.

“Wisdom has visions,” Liara revealed in a conspiratory tone. “He’s a prophet… right?”

“Wait. No. I’m not a—”

The she-elf elbowed me hard in the gut to shut me up.

Liara wasn’t looking to me for assistance. She was appealing to Red Beard who was yawning in front of Mistress Lorelai looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I’ll vouch for the boy’s ability to sniff out trouble, L,” Red Beard conceded. “I wouldn’t be able to tell you how he does it though, but I reckon trouble just gravitates toward him as it does with Divah.”

Mistress Lorelai frowned at him. “Red Beard… I see you’re still alive. I suppose even luck is a skill.”

“And I see you’ve still got a stick up your shapely arse…” Red Beard walked over to Mistress Lorelai with a smug look plastered on his face. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he took a strand of her silver hair in his fingers and then sniffed it. “You’re still using that shampoo I like when we used to rump and fight and rump again.”

“Perhaps the most unmemorable years of my life.” Mistress Lorelai’s frown deepened as she pulled away from him. It was a frown she trained on me next. “And you thought bringing my ex for reinforcements would ingratiate yourselves with me, hmm?”

“No. Freaking. Way.” I glanced from Mistress Lorelai to Red Beard and then back to my dökkálfar instructor. “You used to date?!”

“Aye.” Nostalgia flashed on Red Beard’s face. “Two blissful years that was.”

“You and I have very different interpretations of what ‘blissful’ means,” Mistress Lorelai scoffed.

Mistress Lorelai wasn’t just miffed with me for bringing her ex to within range of her spear either. She was also annoyed that I’d contracted the Crimson Corsairs on the Academy’s behalf without consent.

“Did you believe I would ignore this blatant disregard for the rules just because you did well in the pop quiz?”

“The boy meant well, L.” Red beard scratched his head. “He’s trying to save lives.”

“Good intentions are no excuse for foolhardiness,” Mistress Lorelai argued.

“He’s also paid the bill in advance so you don’t have to worry about paying me, you greedy dark elf temptress,” Red Beard added.

Suddenly, there was a marked change in Mistress Lorelai’s demeanor when she heard that bit of news.

“How could an apprentice afford—”

“He’s Divah’s apprentice,” Red Beard cut her off.

Liara and I shared a glance at each other after hearing Red Beard’s lie, but neither of us said anything about my blood oath. Better Mistress Lorelai assumed I’d inherited some sceattas from Divah—which I hadn’t—rather than learn that I’d given in to a single round of indentured servitude.

“An interesting turn of events…” Her scrutinizing gaze moved over from Red Beard to me and Liara. “This does not excuse your behavior, but it does buy you a minute to convince me why I shouldn’t have you drawn and quartered this very night.”

Convincing Mistress Lorelai that we did a little wrong to achieve a lot of good was a task Liara left to me as I was the only one who knew all the nitty-gritty details of events about to unfold. However, even as I floated the possibility that this dungeon break might have an artificial origin, I didn’t think our dökkálfar instructor had been swayed. At least not until Dess and my other teammates from Apprentice Team Six arrived to corroborate my story.

Baldr’s balls, talk about perfect timing—Dess, who was among a group of novices who’d been ordered to scout the nearby hills, strode through the crowd of onlookers who’d come to watch my public whipping only to turn the tide in my favor. She reported that there was indeed a monster horde rushing to the basecamp’s doorstep coming from the direction of Lugh’s Lament.

In that one statement, Dess not only proved me correct, but she’d also cleared the fog of doubt I’d been having about the origins of this monster horde. If, as the fairy reported, they had indeed come from Lugh’s Lament, then my theory about Lorias Löwenthal and the Golden Bow being involved in this unnatural disaster just became a lot more probable.

“They’ve got hobgoblins and lizard men and empousa and even ogres… it’s horrible, mistress,” Dess reported.

“Did you see any maenads?” I asked.

It wasn’t Dess, but Brunhilde who nodded.

“I saw a few maenads in the horde,” she answered in her softly spoken voice.

Gasps reverberated across the gathering as maenads appearing outside Lugh’s Lament just made my theory of a dungeon break more credible to everyone’s ears.

I couldn’t help looking smug.

Liara elbowed me in the gut again to wipe that grin off my face.

“We do apologize for our rash behavior, Mistress,” Liara reiterated. “But, as you can see, we were only trying to help…”

“And I’ve already said that good intentions are no excuse to act like mavericks, Ms. Lockwood.” Mistress Lorelai spent another second giving us both the evil eye before she let out a heavy sigh. “However, I will concede that you may have just given us a fighting chance.”

You are reading story Adventure Academy at novel35.com

She glanced haughtily in Red Beard’s direction.

“Assuming our new ally here isn’t just blowing steam out of his ass like he’s prone to do,” Mistress Lorelai challenged.

“You used to think I had a cute arse, L,” Red Beard flashed her a flirtatious grin. “As for my guild’s competence…”

He pointed upward.

Floating on a stray cumulus cloud was a two-hundred-meter, three-mast frigate with fifteen visible gunports on both its port and starboard side. And, waving at us from the deck were about forty hardened adventurers, some of whom were recognizable faces from the top five-hundred adventurer charts.

Red Beard grinned. “How do you like me now?”

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“Are you alright, Will?” Dess asked sympathetically.

The fairy in her shabby steel breastplate was crouching to the right of me. She kept both her spear and round shield low to the ground and out of sight.

“My ears are still ringing,” I admitted.

Despite my good intentions, Mistress Lorelai continued to lecture me right up to the moment one of our scouts came back to report that the monster horde was closing on us. Our dökkálfar instructor then told everyone to proceed with the plan—a plan I’d cooked up, by the way—which is how I found myself crouching next to Dess.

“Let’s just be thankful that our ears are all that’s hurting,” Liara chimed in.

The she-elf was crouching to my left with her spell-saber unsheathed on her lap.

“Easy for you to say… she didn’t chew you out as much as she tore chunks out of me,” I grumbled.

I wasn’t at all surprised that Mistress Lorelai, with assistance from Lieutenant Doyle, had already set up basecamp based on the strategy I’d laid out in my text message. Moreover, the plan was ready for execution by the time we’d shown up with the Crimson Corsairs, but Mistress Lorelai had felt the need to yell at me before telling me she’d approved my ideas already.

“You have a gift for battle and strategy, Mr. Wisdom,” she’d conceded. “I recommend you try to make better use of your talents rather than emulate your master’s penchant for mischief.”

As part of my strategy, Liara and I—with Apprentice Team Six lined up to our immediate right and Liara’s journeyman team of mages led by a living, breathing Zen Goremonger lined up to her left—were crouching behind a second hastily-erected iron barricade that the defenders had placed at a five-yard distance from basecamp’s original iron fence.

“I still can’t believe they managed to build your ditch in time,” Liara whispered.

“I can,” I replied.

Back during my previous regression, I noticed a couple of things. Particularly, the number of adult adventurers who were present during the time of the attack including what species they were. That’s how I knew there would be five cave dwarves in camp tonight.

Now, for those in the know, cave dwarves differed from their much bigger mountain dwarf and hill dwarf cousins, not just with their choice of habitat, but also in the way that they’ve evolved since the first days of Nidavellir. Unlike mountain dwarves who worked the anvil and forge or hill dwarves who grew special rocks and minerals from the soil, cave dwarves—these three-foot furry creatures who looked more like fat, hairy badgers with humanoid faces—were extremely talented diggers. It was well-documented that they dug underneath the earth as quickly as a dolphin could swim in the sea.

So, putting two and two together, I formulated a section of my strategy to use a cave dwarf’s natural digging prowess to our benefit, which is why Dess happily reported, “We were lucky members of the National Irish Dwarven Digging team were in camp for some outdoor training.”

Delphine, who was crouching on the archer’s mound behind our side of the fence, chimed in with, “They dug the ditches around camp in less than twenty minutes, which makes me think they’re real contenders for the world cup this year.”

“I didn’t know there was a world cup for digging…” I said, sounding mildly curious. Who wouldn’t be?

“There’s a world cup for everything,” Liara answered wryly.

Now, about these ditches, Dess and Delphine were referring to the narrow but deep channel on the ground within the five-yard distance between the first and second iron barricades. That wasn’t all either. I’d gone the extra mile and recommended that several ditches be created along the surrounding landscape that might help to trip our enemies while they marched toward camp.

“We’ve filled the bottom of the ditches with the blessed oil the LEPRCON agents stored around basecamp like you asked, but Lieutenant Doyle was also super curious how you knew about their secret stash, Will,” Dess explained.

Well, I remembered that Doyle’s flare gun in the previous run had signaled his fellow agents to burn the camp in a conflagration of blessed fire. So, I assumed they stashed the blessed oil nearby.

Liara, who’d been staring at the ground between the two barricades, noticed that the ditch was concealed by a carpet of moss that Dess further explained had been the creation of the druid novices who were part of Liara’s journeyman class.

“I only suggested you cover the ditches up with tarps. The moss is a nice touch,” I admitted.

“First the raid against the maenads. And now this… I didn’t know there were any smart humans out there.” Delphine gave me two thumbs up. “You know, if you were a dwarf, I’d have lain claim to your hammer and made you smash against my anvil by now, Will.”

“Um…” I wasn’t sure, but I think the redheaded dwarf just complimented me. “Thanks… I guess.”

To be fair, this portion of my plan was hardly original. There were several movies on Realmsflix that had the very same idea of using a burning pit to hamper an army’s path forward. And, even with some of our targets being fire-resistant monsters, everything burns when they’re soaked in blessed oil.

“Caw-caw!” came the fake cry of a bird from somewhere beyond our iron fence. This was met by another fake cry of, “Coo-coo! Coo-coo!”

“Seriously”—I frowned—“couldn’t they agree on just one signal?”

Nope, this was evident in more cries of, “Ke-caw, Ke-caw!” which were met by a rooster’s crowing.

“Alright, these scouts are just messing with me,” I grumbled. “Why in the Hel would a rooster crow in the middle of the night?”

“Focus, Widom,” Liara chided. “We have more important things to worry about than lackluster warning signals.”

Incidentally, that last rooster crow had come from directly in front of us, suggesting that the monster horde was about to come into view near the rear gate of basecamp, which is where we were positioned.

“Freyr’s pox… Of course, we’d be the ones to see some action before the rest of the camp’s defenders,” Scaredy Cat complained. “It’s like our team’s cursed or something…”

Oh, if he only knew the truth. To be fair, I never thought I’d hear Bart’s voice ever again so his whining was something to be thankful for… I guess.

Along our line, novices were handing out metal canisters to each other so that we’d each have enough salt grenades and iron shrapnel to lob over our enemies’ heads. Sage lamps and lavender sprays were also passed around to ensure we had a modicum of protection against evil things.

“Care for some lavender perfume?” Liara asked.

I nodded and then closed my eyes while she sprayed me in a lavender and alcohol solution, which had the double effect of warding off evil and germs. And, soon enough, our entire line smelled like a field of lavender.

“Enemy sighted,” someone whispered.

We could all see the horde of monsters that had just arrived in numbers that stretched from one end of the horizon to the next while miasma clung to their feet and darkened the field of battle. From a quick observation of their numbers, I assumed that we were facing a much larger horde than in my previous life, with a lot more variety too.

I frowned. “Are those trolls?”

Several large, thick-skinned beasts nearly as tall as the Irish ogres that shepherded them toward camp let loose a couple of spine-chilling roars from wide mouths that had two ivory tusks protruding out of their lower lips.

“Cave trolls,” Liara corrected. “This is bad, Wisdom.”

Well, yeah, the Norns screwed me over yet again, but I wasn’t overly worried. This wasn’t like the previous massacre which we were sorely unprepared for, and we had reliable reinforcements now too.

“Shouldn’t you be readying the flare gun?” Dess asked.

As the mastermind of our strategy, Mistress Lorelai had given me the honor of signaling the start of the battle. However, I refused to move things along without first finding my main target.

Luckily, the blue-eyed man with the patchwork cloak wasn’t hard to find in that horde. All I had to do was look for those horse-sized wolves—and that’s when I found him surrounded by them.

“There are six of them now,” I grinned an impish grin. “I guess that evens the odds a little.”

Finally, I waited for the monster horde to get close enough to the first of our hidden ditches, and then I raised the flare gun and fired.

“Groovy,” I whispered.

A second after a glowing four-leaf clover lit up the night sky, the sound of cannon fire exploded from above the clouds to rain Helfire down on the unsuspecting monster horde.