PftA Book 5 - Chapter 29 - Town Defense

The ninth-floor trial’s challenge was a town defense scenario. Aside from the dungeon-spawned town members, some of whom could ostensibly provide a bit of assistance with the challenge, the setup wasn’t all that different from the wave trials I’d undergone on earlier floors.

In fact, making the challenge a town defense instead of a standard wave scenario made things more difficult since protection was a core part of the challenge.

[Protect the town and its people!
Diatown is under attack. Prevent the attackers from destroying the town and killing its citizens.
Note: Upon the death of the last town inhabitant, the challenge will end regardless of the challenger’s status.
Good Luck!]

Unlike previous trials, this one could end before my ‘death’ if all the town’s inhabitants were killed. It wasn’t simply a fight to the death on my part anymore. I had to actively protect the town instead of just fighting whichever opponents were closest.

Interestingly, the townspeople did not appear to be of any race that I was familiar with. While they appeared mostly human, albeit with larger eyes and a slightly different skeletal structure, none had what I would have considered a ‘natural’ skin color prior to the reintegration.

That was notable since even after the reintegration, most people, be they human, elf, dwarf, or gnome, had a skin tone that would not have stood out much on pre-integration Earth.

There were a few whose affinity affected their skin, but it wasn’t overly common, like how affinities tended to influence hair and eye color.

The fake townspeople, on the other hand, displayed a rainbow of skin colors, with none falling on the tan-brown spectrum. The closest was a little girl with pale yellow skin, but she was a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the citizens.

Most had skin in shades of blue, red, purple, and green. Even more strangely, the color of their skin did not relate to their affinity at all. The two factors seemed completely unrelated.

“Elder!” one of the red-skinned townsmen exclaimed as he ran toward me. “Enemies approach from the west! What are your orders?”

The trial had positioned me as a leader of the town, which was convenient. It would have been difficult to affect the town’s defense otherwise.

I extended Spatial Sense to get a clearer picture of the challenge. Not every challenger faced the exact same mobs, making some suspect that the dungeon modified the opponents based on the person challenging the trial.

To my surprise, I sensed a party of five humanoids approaching. From what I’d heard, groups of ‘feral races’ – the term I’d given to the dungeon’s versions of sapient races – normally didn’t appear until a few waves in.

Since much of the ninth floor was inhabited by feral versions of sapient races, I’d become well-acquainted with fighting the creatures, though fighting what appeared to be a full party was a bit different from what I was used to.

I’d gotten some experience fighting small groups during the Springheart war back on the fourth and fifth floors, but that had been so long ago, it was hard to draw from the experience.

Seeing the countdown at the corner of my vision indicated the enemy combatants would arrive in just under thirty minutes, I assessed the status of the town.

There was no wall, nor were any of the structures built to withstand a Tier Nine attack. Further, most of the town’s people were obviously non-combatants, including a healthy number of children.

Even without the notification, it would have been obvious that the weaker members of the town’s population would need to be protected.

The town had no Earth or Nature Mages, nor did they have anyone capable of quickly building a wall around the town. The fact that there wasn’t already a wall was a bit odd, but it was a dungeon trial instead of a real scenario.

After running a few calculations and making a few plans, I went to work.

Having a physical barrier would have been nice, but ultimately of little use since a Tier Nine entity could usually bypass such defenses without much effort. Instead, I quickly created a warding formation, relying on my older, more practiced Enchanting techniques.

It wasn’t that my new Master-level Enchanting abilities weren’t as capable of creating the ward; it was that I was still much slower at using the new technique, and I simply didn’t have enough time to use it.

I made the [Barrier] ward capable of blocking attacks from outside while still allowing the defenders to cast offensive spells. The barrier would also prevent anyone from entering or leaving the town once it was active, effectively sealing the town from outside interference.

It wouldn’t last forever, but it would help for a while.

When I finished crafting the ward, the countdown in the corner of my vision showed less than ten minutes remained before the first wave would begin. That time was spent convincing the non-combatants to enter a small dimensional space I’d created by casting the manual version of my Create Dimensional Space spell.

It was the same spell I’d used to create storage devices, and also the same method that most Space Mages created hidden living spaces for themselves. As long as the space was anchored to a physical opening – such as a doorway or a carefully hidden hole in a cellar, for example – the dimensional space was fully capable of containing living creatures without issue.

At my strength and affinity level, I could make a space large enough to house the entire town, but I didn’t want to drain my mana pool with an extended battle on the horizon.

My hope was that by hiding the non-combatants, I’d be able to focus my attention on killing the mobs and keeping myself alive.

One of the challengers I’d spoken with had done something similar. He’d assured me the approach was viable. However, he warned me that the dungeon would eventually circumvent the effort by sending Space Mages to find the hidden population. Hopefully, the dungeon would wait a while before targeting the non-combatants so directly.

As long as a Space Mage didn’t specifically search for the hidden citizens, I felt confident the people within the space would remain safe. Even if the enemies managed to raze the town completely and collapse the cellar in which I’d hidden the dimensional space, the non-combatants should be able to last for a while before air became an issue.

Of course, I didn’t expect any of the town’s denizens to ultimately survive. I was merely hoping to extend their lives for as long as possible. They only needed to outlive me, after all.

The timer at the corner of my vision started blinking, letting me know that the enemies had started their attack. Not wanting to miss anything, I quickly made my way back to the west side of the town where the defenders were gathered.

The dungeon mobs attacking the town appeared to be a normal adventuring party, though I knew that wasn’t what they truly were. Though they appeared to be normal people, dungeon creations were without true sapience.

“That doesn’t make them any less dangerous,” Lisa chimed in from within my mind.

“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed silently. “However, it’ll be interesting to see how they fight. The feral races of the floor have been shockingly realistic in how they act. I wonder if the trial opponents will be the same.”

I watched as the party of five attacked the defenders arrayed within the defensive ward with cold calculation. When their spells and arrows were immediately rebuffed by the invisible dome of mana, the attackers rushed forward with far less restraint.

Instead of intervening, I observed as the town’s defenders responded to the attack. They appeared flustered and scared, and their spells and arrows hit with less force than I would have expected from Tier Nine entities. However, they still managed to injure the enemies when their attacks managed to connect.

When the first attacker fell, I smiled. It was nice knowing that I wouldn’t have to do all the work on my own. In fact, with the ward protecting them, the dozen or so townspeople didn’t need my help at all with the first wave.

I deactivated the ward when the last of the attackers fell, directing the defenders to quickly gather any loot before the next wave began. The lull also allowed me to recharge the ward – a task that took far less mana when it was inactive than when it was in use.

I reactivated the ward as the countdown reached a minute. This time, I’d help the townspeople defend the town instead of merely observing.

= = =

The difficulty of the town’s defense rose quickly.

After the initial attack from a group of five false adventurers, the town was attacked by more than a dozen individuals of various races from across the realm. From there, the number jumped to a little over twenty attackers, followed by almost fifty.

Without the ward, the town’s defenders wouldn’t have lasted past the start of the third wave. Even that was being generous, given how poorly they fought.

The enemy attackers were obviously meant to be more experienced when it came to combat, and that experience really showed when the ward eventually fell during the fourth wave.

Though I’d recharged the enchantment between each wave, the consistent bombardment was simply too much for it to handle. It should have lasted a while longer, but I suspected the dungeon had somehow nerfed it to make the challenge more difficult.

I was tempted to pop into my demesne and craft a few additional items to aid in the town’s defense, but I got the feeling that doing so would be very bad.

Though the dungeon surely knew I had my own personal dimensional space by now, I couldn’t know how it would react to me using it during a trial. It was entirely possible that the dungeon would register me as having left the trial as soon as I entered the space, even if I left a portal to the outside open.

Ultimately, I limited myself to what I had on hand. The strongest defenders got a talisman or two to help them stay alive longer, but even with the added assistance, the last of the defenders fell during the fifth wave.

I was the sole exception.

Using Direct Casting, I created a floating platform of Space mana and hid myself using a [Stealth] talisman. From my elevated position, I bombarded the attackers with an array of offensive spells and spell effects.

It was something I’d been unable to do with ‘native’ defenders on the field. But once the last one died, there was no reason for me to hold back.

I wasn’t overly worried about destroying the town since the requirement was only to keep the people alive for as long as possible. Even so, I was trying not to engage in wanton destruction.

The next wave had at least one Space Mage among the attackers. The enemy mage had little trouble locating my platform, even with my ability to move it at will. I didn’t think they could sense me since the stealth I was using was created using Arcane mana, and I’d specifically designed it to prevent spatial detection. However, they could definitely sense the mana platforms I was using.

As I played cat-and-mouse with the enemy Space Mage while also randomly attacking the rest of the enemy’s forces, I discovered another surprise.

The newly expanded force also had a Time Mage among them.

It was like the dungeon had specifically stacked this wave to counter my strongest abilities, which was a surprise this early in the trial.

Had Cin’Specter’s attack not prompted me to start carrying a charm that prevented outside Time magic from affecting me, I would have been defeated as soon as the enemy Time Mage made their move. Instead, the action only alerted me to the other Time Mage’s presence, causing me to shift my approach.

With the dungeon upping the pressure, I had no choice but to counter in kind. I was glad that I’d put so much time and effort into learning the intricacies of Direct Casting my spells. Because of that effort, I was able to manually create a domain and cast an AOE Pause.

The enemy Time Mage resisted the effect, but the rest of the attackers froze in place. Seeing her movement, I teleported behind the other Time Mage and attacked while under Haste.

My opponent had also cast Haste, but her spell was not nearly as effective as mine. It was likely a representation of her weaker affinity for the pseudo-element.

It was still enough to avoid my strike and grant her enough time to disrupt my spell, which made things harder on me since the attackers immediately shifted their approach, sending half of their number into the town to attack from behind cover.

The enemy Space Mage continued harrying me as I attempted to kill the Time Mage and everyone else in the vicinity. It wasn’t until everything froze and a notification appeared that I realized there had been another Space Mage among the attackers.

[The last of the town’s citizens have perished. The challenge has now ended.]