Chapter 197: Forced Attendance

Caddock rested his chin on his fist as the bad news kept flooding in like a broken sewer main.

No.

A tidal wave of shit.

“Captain Rutherford is refusing to take his men out on patrol. He says, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘my job isn’t to get my men slaughtered.’” His lieutenant said.

“What part of it was paraphrased?” Caddock asked.

“I took out the cursing.”

“Ah.”

That was the fifth captain today to ‘request’ a safer assignment.

I think this is about as far as we can go with these people.

Morale was well and truly screwed. The outer forts had already been close to cracking with the constant pressure from the Tangled.

Seeing her swarm over the walls at the drop of a hat had given them the unfortunate realization that they were being toyed with.

A lot of the boys on the walls had died last night.

In his primary fort, things were even worse. Caddock had been aware of it, but his men had been utterly shocked by the Tangled’s ability to use their own faces against them.

More than one man had been found stuffed into a closet or under a bed while their killer had paraded around for who knew how long, sabotaging them with impunity.

And now, nobody trusted each other.

There were ways to verify each other’s identity, and Caddock’s cursemongers, contractors and logisticians had come up with clever ways to verify large groups of people for low Charge cost…but still, the seed of distrust had been sown, and wild accusations sprang up like wildfires.

Caddock tapped his fingers on his knee.

William Oh wanted to buy time. This much was clear. He wanted Caddock to painstakingly reassemble the pieces of his broken army and back off while he ran out the clock.

Caddock didn’t know for a fact that he had the timing right, but he was willing to bet he was close.

Their Nuker is out of charge. The Tangled is riddled with psychic damage. Will’s missing his kit. His illusionist has to be nearly dry as well. What does he have left? Alicia the insta-killer, her Tank isn’t going to do much. A basic scout.

…Loth the luminary.

The kobold hadn’t been heavily involved since a few early ambushes. Saving her Charge.

Jason Salazar. The prophet.

I need to deal with those three.

Loth’s weaknesses: Her insects are vulnerable to crowd control. Her traps are vulnerable to terrain disruption. Hinges don’t work if they’re melted. She also collapses if her kit is removed.

Jason is a child.

Caddock glanced back up at his lieutenant, who had seemingly been continuing his report.

“-running low on leather, and without the civilians to replace i-“

“Get me Orev and Maybin, please.” Caddock said, “Along with any of our Advanced Classers who still have the spine and wouldn’t mind the glory of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.”

“The crazy ones?”

“Yeah, the crazy ones.”

“Right away, my Lord.”

Caddock drummed his fingers.

You wanted to throw me off planning a fruitless meeting?

I’ll bring it right to you.

***William Oh***

Will and the rest of the Party backed off, hard.

Brianna wasn’t looking so good. After being hit by the cursemongers twice in two days and the extended battle to keep her out of Caddock’s hands, she was pale and poorly coordinated, her limbs shivering when she thought nobody was watching.

She needed time to recover. Physically and mentally.

“He should be cleaning up that mess for a while,” Loth said.

The lightning-quick shift between offense and defense should hopefully leave Caddock reeling just long enough for Will to get the last two days he needed before his new Relics finished overwriting the previous ones.

“Let’s get way out of Caddock’s territory. Loth can set us up a defensible position and we can actually hunt some monsters,” Will said. They needed XP and Will needed replacement gear.

The constant patrols by Caddock’s men had made the Floor unusually bare of monsters. June and Travis had found next to nothing in the two days they’d been on their own.

“There’s a monster over there…I think would be good.” Jean said, pointing. “Ria stumbled into it when we were spreading out…yesterday.”

“Seriously, you need to sleep.” Will said.

“Too tired…to sleep.” Jean said, shaking her head.

“Loth, could you…”

“Sure.”

Flying spiders created a hammock and scooped Jean up, carrying her alongside the rest of the Party. Jean struggled feebly against the silver threads for a moment before falling asleep in seconds.

“Flying. Spiders.” Will said, watching the nightmare fuel carry a muttering Jean alongside them.

“I know, right?” Loth said with a sharp-toothed grin.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The monster Jean had pointed out was a mirage. It was a gangly creature that controlled the air around it and made natural-looking mirages, erasing its presence and ambushing unsuspecting Climbers.

Alicia pointed it out when they were within a hundred yards, and June killed it in a single strike.

Beyond that, they came across their first basilisk, a native of the tenth floor whose gaze could paralyze.

Travis took care of that one with his living illusions. They didn’t have real flesh to be paralyzed, and made swift work of the nasty beast.

The basilisk’s corpse was that of a lizard with comically large eyes that would’ve been silly if it weren’t for the way they numbed the body when looking at them, even attached to a corpse.

Alicia debated using it on her Penetrating Gaze Primary, but finally decided against it. She was holding an upgrade slot for a rumored subtype of basilisk on the 13^th Floor that rotted the flesh rather than paralyzed.

They came across sand-dunes that seemed to be made of crushed ruby, and dark deposits of minerals that appear to have erupted straight out of the ground.

Running his finger along the dark mineral spikes, Will could feel the miasmatic energy pulsing through them, and couldn’t help but wonder what they were used for.

They ran into living sand-dunes, which turned out to be collections of small insects that imitated sand. Loth took a sample and fed the rest to her swarm.

They came across a desert snake the size of a house with some small control over the earth, and gemstone scales. It dropped a rather nice pair of Dunewalkers.

Dunewalkers

+5 Strength

+8 resistance

+3 Kinesthetics

Terrain Manipulation Abilities are 20% more potent.

Sand and other unsteady terrain provide more support and take less energy to traverse. Scales with Resistance.