Chapter 57  - Darkest Hour

There were so many, Julia blasted wave after wave of undead as they rushed the top of the fortress.  The waves were full of regular undead as well as the champions that were proving so difficult.  Each wave pushed them further and further back until they were very nearly sitting on the portal.  

“The southern wall has fallen.”

Julia realized that the section of wall with the easiest access for the undead was completely overridden.  The small hospital camp at the battlement where the wall met the mountain was swarmed over.  

“We have to cover the northern battlement,” she said confidently, seeing the Duke’s banner still flying almost on top of the field hospital.  There were so many undead and they were coming from everywhere.  Three more champions rushed the gateway and she went airborne as Badgelor staggered back from a powerful shield blow.  

He was already back on his feet, tearing into two of the champions when Julia spotted a caster aiming at the gateway.  She flung a sawblade at the freshly dead caster and then two more at his follow ons and tried not to think about whomever she had been.  

The blades all were deflected and Julia winced.  Even with her new equipment, she was so tired from fighting all day that her mana pool was greatly reduced.  Without Jim’s rod in her hands, Julia was confident she would have fallen in the last push.

She flung a wind’s saw at the caster even as she completed her own spell.  The blade sliced the caster in half, but not before the magical blast struck the gateway.  It wobbled slightly, but still held.  

Julia searched around and spotted four score undead and seven champions rushing towards them.  They were being overwhelmed, and there were still more out there.  

***

“I want to apologize about your girlfriend,” said Arnold as he floated next to the Nosebleed.  

“Fiance,” said Andersen continued scanning the water with his looking glass as they continued to float against the current.  “And you are just saying that because she gave you a hand that transforms into a trident.”

“... Yes,” replied Arnold as they floated patiently, the occasional flash of light from the battlefield north of them enough to   “Are you sure we shouldn’t be on land?”

Andersen snapped the glass shut suddenly and pointed, “No.”

Hundreds of undead were marching across the shallow coastal waters south of the western gate fortress in a rather nice little flanking maneuver.  The Nosebleed could never have held them off by it's lonesome, not even with the ships provided by the Queen of the Inner Sea.

Arnold shrugged and pulled out a conch shell.  

“I guess that’s why you brought the army with you,” he said, dipping the horn under the water and blowing loudly.  The water stirred as every mer person that could wield a trident swam towards the undead that were already being peppered with ballista bolts and ranged spells.  

***

Batista slammed the autoinjector into the man’s stump and watched his eyes shoot open.  While he squirmed, she took a moment to check the other patients in the northern battlement trying to pick someone else she could get back onto the field quickly.  There were precious few of those, so she was going to have to gamble.  He stopped screaming and glanced down at his arm and started screaming again.  

They were all screaming, which gave her a headache.  

She slammed the cyberarm onto the man’s elbow and watched him seize up as the mechanical connections worked.  A moment later his hand stopped squirming and he snapped it together a few times.  

“It will be regenerated later,” said the tired woman as he got back to his feet.  She didn’t know his name, she didn’t want to.  There were a pile of people’s names that she’d memorized and she just couldn’t do it anymore.  She just needed to get to the next patient.  

The man stood there, gripping a rod in his organic hand and looked at her with pain filled eyes.  

“We need to go,” said the Duke.  She hadn’t realized his banner had been pushed this far.  Her fathers was still up and moving in this direction, so they must be winning.  

“I need a nap, we all have things we want,” she replied dryly.

“This hospital will be overrun,” said the Duke.  

“There are still patients I can save,” replied Batista walking to the next horribly injured woman.  Her face was just gone and most of her armor was destroyed.  

“We can’t hold them,” said the Duke, gripping his rod in a bloody hand.  He was missing two fingers on the organic one.  Part of her felt pity for the poor man, most of her was exhausted but she couldn’t quit.  

“My father’s banner is close.  He will be here to relieve us,” Batista replied coolly.  “And he’d be positively upset if I left people I could save.”

The Duke’s eyes met hers for a long moment, and he nodded before moving to hold the hospital area.  There were a few ropes down that were to be used in emergencies, and if everything really went into the pot she would have time to jump clear.  

Heck, Hansa made her a parachute if she got really desperate though she might not want to use that.  That was going to be a last resort though, daddy was almost here.  She might not be his best daughter, but she was no quitter.  He hated quitters and no one ever accused her of quitting when it mattered.

And it mattered a whole lot right now.

Searching through her pouches for the emergency stuff, Batista pulled out a mirror like mask before flipping it over and covering the underside with Engineering healing goo.  

“This will have to do,” said Batista, slapping on the mask and dumping three doses of the good stuff into the poor girl.  The faceless girl’s body shuddered violently for several seconds and Batista wondered if she would have a heart attack.  

She did, and promptly died.  

Not that this stopped Batista.  She pulled out the device from her storage causing several people to wince.  It looked a bunch like her sister’s hat measuring device because of course it was, just modified.  Pulling out an apple sized artificial heart and placing it into the chamber, Batista pushed the button and prayed.

But not to Grebthar, he was busy summoning more undead.

The device growled, chopped, cut and ejected the spent heart after replacing it with the artificial device.  Then came several more doses of the good stuff, and the electrical shocks.  Batista didn’t understand how electricity worked, but it seemed to restart hearts which was a good thing.

The device vanished into her storage and the young woman sat up, sucking in a massive breath.  

“Batista,” she said groggily.  “I have to get back into the fight.”

“Margwal?”  Batista took a moment to recognize her sister, there simply had been too much damage.  Margwal was trying to get back to her feet already, but most of her equipment was damaged and her sister, despite being horribly wounded, was trying to get back into the fight.

The undead were not ten logs from them now, and the Duke was desperately fighting against several of them at once.  Where was daddy?  She needed to get Margwal to the ropes and if they didn’t move quickly that wasn’t going to be possible.  The undead were going to push through and there was no way her sister was going to be able to rope down.  

Batista looked at the mirror that was her sister’s new face and made up her mind in an instant.  She grabbed her sister in a fierce hug and moved her from the bed.  “I’m so glad you are alive.”

“How bad is it,” asked Margwal.

“Not bad at all, you can fix everything with enough time,” smiled Batista as she pushed her sister over the back edge of the wall.  Margwal fell for nearly ten logs before the parachute engaged and she floated gently down to the defensive army where they were under orders to get badly wounded adventurers away from the front.  

An undead charged her, and Batista engaged her thorn.  The metal blade fired out of her gauntlet and solidified, giving her something to fight with though against an undead champion she probably shouldn’t have bothered.  She was tired.

Then the undead exploded, bits of corpse raining down over the wall and the Duke reached her.  “That rope is damaged, we can move to the next spot, everyone else is overrun.”

Suddenly she was being dragged by the only other living human towards more of the ropes.  The Duke blasted and destroyed, blowing through his mana in the desperate few steps to make it to the rope.  As they crossed the final few paces it looked like they were going to make it when she spotted something.

“Puma check!” she screamed.

The Duke failed his puma check and a massive undead creature launched itself at hist back slamming both into the wall.  The rod of power flew from the Duke’s hand a moment before the puma tore out his throat leaving Batista as the only living human surrounded by undead.

Maybe Daddy’s banner wasn’t that close, after all.  

***

Jim was getting hurt, badly.  Badgelor growled, tracking his destructive gaze across the oncoming line of undead until his insides hurt.  Then he did it again because he was Badgelor.  No matter what he would not fail this time.  The entire upper wall was on the verge of collapse and everyone who could flee from the wall was already down.  

Plus, Jim was somewhere in that mass of undead fighting Triblade by himself. 

“So, how much trouble are we in,” asked the zit.

“Enough,” said Badgelor.  Losing the wall was going to hurt and he was going to have to call it because that twit Julia would stand here until Jim defeated the Dark Overlord or died trying.  That’s what he wanted to do, but Jim had been adamant and he might even have been right.  Badgelor understood tactics, but strategy was more complicated and Jim seemed to have a positive knack at it.

And pissing people off.  

Then someone else had the temerity to jump up on his back.  Badgelor could barely tolerate Julia, this new person was about to get tossed into the undead.

“So friend, where is Jim,” asked a familiar voice. 

“Fighting Triblade over the wall,” said Badgelor, calm washing over him.  

“That sounds dreadful, how about you help him and we’ll protect this for a while, we both know Jim is in over his head,” said King Twinkle as he backflipped off Badgelor, holding Princess Julia in his arms.  She was not pleased.

Badgelor didn’t care as the hundreds of fresh elves charged through the gateway.  Undead who were pushing towards the gate suddenly were getting kicked so hard they exploded, lit on fire, or speared depending on which elf they pissed off.  

And the elves were pissed.  

Not that Badgelor cared, without anything to hold him back he rushed towards the high battlement in the center of the wall and scanned the field.  Charles was nowhere to be seen, unfortunate because Badgelor would have liked to blast him at least once.

Time for that later.

Finding Jim was easy.  Triblade and him were busy killing everything around them while Jim tried desperately to get away from the undead horror show.  Badgelor frowned, Grebthar wasn’t trying to be perfect with his general.  That version of Triblade wasn’t nearly as skilled as the real deal, but still he was still overwhelming Jim.  

Lining up his shot, Badgelor blasted Triblade with a full blast of destructive gaze.  As expected one of the legendary triblades blocked the shot, and then a second one blocked enough of the follow up blasts that Triblade himself was only marginally scratched by the attack.  

“Jim, I chose you,” grumbled Badgelor.

***

Charles watched the battle unfold and wondered when he should get back into it.  Even as a god, there were some limits to his divine body that required him to hold back especially if there was someone here who could actually threaten him.

And Jim certainly could.

He had no idea how Jim had built the perfect magical god hunting build.  It was like he took the features of a half dozen classes and merged them together into something terrible.  All in all, it was beyond comprehension.  

Charles was usually forced to remort to deal with the Dark Overlord who always liked picking a new form that was incompatible with whatever his old build had been.  When he was a warrior, the Dark Overlord had been a high-level paladin who could fight almost as well as him but heal up super quickly.  That forced Charles to remort to Zealot as a counter.    

When Charles defeated that Dark Overlord, the monster’s next champion had been a Wizard specializing in Mental Manipulation, a discipline he always loathed.  A calm Zealot is a useless Zealot, so Charles had been forced to remort again.

Each remort had been it's own special version of Jersey.  Hell.  It's own version of Hell. That was part of the fun for the Dark Overlord, each time Charles won it was just a temporary reprieve to the next terrible journey through the worst places on Ordinal with everyone demanding he do it just a little bit faster.

Of course, that wasn’t how Jim managed things.  Jim managed to luck on the exact right build to take the Dark Overlord on the first try.  

That’s not true.

“Shut up,” growled Charles as a smoking Triblade walked back into the tent.  The ancient warrior shook his head.

“The false mayor has convinced the Mighty Badgelor himself to stand with him, and that is not all,” said Triblade.  “We nearly secured the wall, but it looks like the false mayor managed to talk the elves into assisting him.  I will fight with you until my dying breath, but I think the battle may have shifted.”  

“Go big or go home,” hissed Grebthar.  

“What, my lord,” asked Triblade.

“It is time to show these fools what I really can do,” said Grebthar.    

***

The elves were fresh, that’s why they were doing so well!  Julia told herself this over and over again as the elves ran screaming into the fight, yelling something about avenging their honor against the evil bad buddy.  

She had no idea who that idiot was, but he apparently picked a fight with all of the elves and they wanted revenge.  Julia felt naked without Ashe here, but she was still down below, organizing the troops while the undead dug through the destroyed passage.    

The elves were fighting much better than she expected, given their lack of combat experience.  They had pushed forward to the central battlement where the Mayor and Badgelor rested, watching the Dark Overlord like the ancient Bat Man of legend. 

The stories of the ancient detective, Bat Man were impressive enough but Julia never considered that a man holding a baseball bat could ever keep crime at bay over all of the vinelands.  Now she stood corrected, and the Mayor sat calmly watching the battle unfurl.   

“We practice for hours each day,” said King Twinkle standing next to her, the longest haired elf Julia had ever seen.  His hair was so much more immaculate than hers that Julia was desperately trying not to be jealous.  

“We practice as well,” said Julia, but realized they didn’t really.  Julia’s people engaged in play fighting.  They had for centuries, probably as a result of some clever manipulation by the Sphinx.  Level for level, the provincials were a much more effective force than her family was however between the two the Falconians had better gear.

Not as much better given that Jim just handed the stuff out like samples at a tasting, but still better.

With the elves, she couldn’t even claim that.  They were equipped as well as if not better than her people and trained rigorously.  Plus they were not tired and apparently had a pretty good idea of what was going on here when they showed up.

“Jim added you to the command group,” said Julia.

“Yes,” said King Twinkle watching the field.  “Me and Diddle actually.  He’s actually got about as much experience in mass combat as the mayor, and he can use Jim’s army perks.  The mayor spent heavily on anti-undead perks.”

“He is very wise,” said Julia, trying not to be jealous.  

Twinkle nodded, gesturing as the north battlement was retaken and groups of elves started cutting more deeply into the southern areas.  The undead were growing shaky, and some of their number were actually falling apart as the elves pushed forward.  

“What’s happening,” asked Julia.

“The new Fist of the Bad Buddy style,” said Twinkle.  “Jim likes to counterspell his primary opponent the entire time a fight is going on.”

Julia knew that well.  “So?”

“They’re undead, there has to be a Shadow Weave holding their forces together, and a great number of elves are attempting to counterspell that,” said Twinkle.  “It only works locally, and only if there aren’t too many undead around but I think we are pushing towards those numbers.”

More humans were emerging from the gate after being subjected to even more healing.  They were forming a second wave to follow in the elves and push the undead off the upper part of the wall entirely.  

Julia laughed, they could do this.  She yelled out, “Is that the best you got!”

“NO!”

She had to stop doing that.  Massive fireballs formed above the Dark Overlord and Julia dutifully raised her barrier.  Even weakened, she was glad to see that hers was by far the strongest barrier on the wall.  

One of the fireballs exploded in mid air, then another, then another before a wave of hundreds blasted towards the wall.  Julia spread out her barrier, trying to cover as much of the wall as possible while the other Falconians did the same.

The elves had other ideas.  Dozens of them were well trained in counterspell and while The Dark Overlord’s display of power was grand, it also had a flaw.  None of the fireballs were particularly stable.  

As everyone with counterspell skill started working, the fireballs started popping in the dozens.  By the time the greatly weakened wave got there, her own barrier was barely necessary to stop it.  

Then she saw a flash in the heavens.

“A trick,” she whispered as the horror dawned upon her.  The stories mentioned this, but it couldn’t be true.  

A star tore down of the heavens and fell towards the wall.  Season 9, Episode Two, the Darkest Hour, spoke of a time where Grebthar was certain to lose to the Dark Overlord so he called upon his great power to break down a lone star and drop it onto the abomination and obliterate him. 

So great was the feat, that it was said that all the stars in the sky went out for a week afterward and a prayer was required to the Elder Demons to get them reactivated.

Plasma blasts and immovable rods shot out from the Falconians even as the Elves focused their counterspell skills onto the object.

“My barrier is going to be useless against that,” said Julia.

“Our counterspells aren’t working,” said Twinkle looking back towards the gate.  “From what I know, I don’t think counterspells work on stars.  They are physical objects.  You’d nearly have to be able to unmake something at the Mana level to stop one.”

Julia wasn’t even sure a divine tier counterspell could pull that move off.  The wall was lost.  She was about to signal the retreat when she noticed the Mayor sitting there unmoving.  The star was dropping towards him and he didn’t care.

She stopped, and forced herself to calm down.  Twinkle looked over at Jim and likewise stopped.  Then the mayor spoke, his voice rebounding over the whole battlefield.  

“COUNTERSPELL.”

And the star exploded.