Antelligent Design

96. Hatching a Plot

[How many people did you bring?] I lead with.

Isaac draws himself up. [I’ve got eighteen o’ the village’s finest, as well as some of me old guards back from Midum. They’ll give a good account of themselves, no doubt about it.]

[That’s great, Isaac, just fantastic. So, your thought is to form a spear wall with less than twenty people against a horde of a hundred thousand monsters?]

[Well, uh, not exactly. You see, uh… How many?]

[Did they tell you anything before they sent you out here!]

[Miss Morrelia did try to explain the details of the threat but I was a little… distracted, at the time.]

This guy… I hope he wasn’t staring at something he shouldn’t have. I don’t think he’d have any eyes left if he did.

[Alright, look. We’ve got a powerful Ka’armodo Wizard with a cadre of its slave people assisting a crocodile that looks so thick it shouldn’t be supported by the surface of the freakin’ planet. I’m talking about a reptile so massive it should have its own moon! Surrounding those creatures is a horde of monsters almost 100,000 strong. So, let’s think about some hit and run sort of jazz, ok?]

[Y-Yeah,] Isaac stutters. [Sounds good.] He pauses, shuffling from foot to foot. [We are deep in the plops, aren’t we?]

[All the way up to our necks, Isaac. Not going to be easy to dig out of this.]

[S’all right,] Isaac chuckles. [I’ve been shovellin’ most of my life. You couldn’t have a better man along for the job.]

[Good stuff.]

We sit down under the watchful eyes of the villagers and begin to plan our strategy. With such a small number of fighters, we can’t hope to engage the horde directly in any form, not even using the methods the colony has adopted thus far. That goes double now that the Ka’armodo began to take a direct hand in the conflict. Everything has become far more fraught with peril, and the risks we can take have to be minimised.

In those sorts of conditions, it’s unrealistic to expect that this small detachment will be able to inflict meaningful damage on the enemy. We should instead turn our goals to more reasonable objectives.

[What would those objectives be?] Isaac asks.

[Levels,] I tell him firmly.

[Levels?] he asks, puzzled.

[Absolutely. Don’t worry about killing the entire horde, just worry about killing. There’s literally thousands of monsters out there. That means thousands of XP sacks waiting to be harvested. As long as we’re gaining XP and Levelling our Skills, then we’re winning.]

Isaac strokes his chin as he thinks through the idea. [Inflict some damage, and power ourselves up for the final conflict.]

[Exactly.]

I wasn’t about to tell him that gaining XP is extremely critical for me, in order to ensure that I can evolve. That is secret colony-only information. This just happens to be the best strategy for him and his people to adopt. If it works out well for both of us, then what’s the harm?

I spent an hour talking to Isaac and having him pass my words on to the rest of his group. I tell them about the scrying magic at play, the way the last ambush panned out, and the best methods we can use to attack the enemy without endangering ourselves.

Satisfied that we’d ticked all the boxes we could, the humans load up their gear and we move out. As we march, I notice it was quite easy to work out which of the humans in the group have come from the ‘old school’ villagers, as I think of those who’d been here in the early days, and those who had come in the latest wave, the people Morrelia and I liberated as we moved through Liria.

The OG villagers are super respectful, almost reverent in their attitudes as I walk along with them. The newcomers are more distrusting, their eyes often flicking toward me and my pets and their body language betraying their nervousness.

Not that I’m surprised or unhappy with that. If anything, their response was the more natural one. I fear that in time, these new villagers will adopt the same attitudes as the old ones. Perhaps more exposure to Beyn and his preaching will make this inevitable. That guy must have some seriously high Levels in his preaching Skills. Like rank four at least. When he opens his mouth, every person nearby goes slack-jawed and vacant-eyed until he’s finished. It’s crazy to see.

It takes our group long hours of quick marching to get close to the front line. The horde is closing the distance to the nest and village with every moment that passes. I can feel it in the diminished time it took to reach them. The humans set up camp in a concealed location in a copse of trees, and I take it a step further and dig out a tunnel for Crinis, Tiny and myself to rest in.

When the morning comes, the humans spread out and begin to move more cautiously, scouting the road from a distance for signs of the enemy. It’s close to midday by the time we find them, a thick carpet of monsters that blankets a ridiculous amount of ground. We creep through some low hills, flicking our heads over the top to monitor the progress of the monsters following the road.

It’s interesting. I know for a fact that the colony had covered that road in traps, pitfalls with spikes and even more shallow traps designed to break limbs and inconvenience, anything to slow their approach.

But it doesn’t seem like they care at all. The horde continues to push down the predictable path, generally following the road around the forest to the south, and the front ranks of monsters simply fall into the traps, impaling themselves on spikes only to be pushed farther into the pit as the monsters behind them pile on top. With the pit trap filled with their own bodies, the monsters continue on and crunch their own members under their feet.

It’s bizarre. I can’t make out the details at this distance, but it seems as if the traps may cause more casualties than anything else we’ve done, which feels cheap in some way.

As we draw closer and begin to engage our sneak Skills, we take care to ensure we have eyes on the horde at all times. Due to the scrying magic of the Ka’armodo, it’s possible it knows exactly where we are, but so long as we keep our eyes open for monsters heading our way, we believe we can manage.

I even make Tiny crawl, something he isn’t particularly happy about. The closer we get, the clearer I’m able to make out the finer details, and begin to notice something happening on the edges of the horde…