When the bolt was released from the ballista, it travelled the length of the battlefield in an instant. Following in its wake was a golden trail which drew the eye towards its target - namely, the cluster of thralls Lieze was hiding in. There wasn't any time for her to reposition.
As soon as the bolt struck the ground, a great fountain of soil was dislodged from the plain, sending thralls flying through the air from the force of impact. Seconds later, the enchantment coating its metallic length discharged, causing a wave of golden light to spread over Lieze's thralls. The weakest were disintegrated instantly by the blast, whereas the more durable thralls suffered traumatic damage to their bodies. Flayed skin and scorched bones were left smoking when the light dissipated, having destroyed well over 200 thralls in one fell swoop.
But, with that said, Lieze was nowhere to be found among the victims.
"Hahaha!" Alberich's hoarse laughter dominated the tower, "What did she think was going to happen, exposing herself like that!? And this is the woman who conquered the Sovereign Cities!? Let it be known that it was Alberich and Mime who slew the Order's leader on this glorious day!"
Meanwhile, Lieze was standing, unharmed, within the relative safety of her Portable Home.
She couldn't perceive anything outside the extradimensional space, but the fact that she was still alive told her that the cube - at the very least - had survived the ballista bolt. The silent comfort of her home away from home almost made Lieze forget that she was still technically in the middle of a raging battlefield.
"It looked like that bolt was enchanted with holy magic…" She thought, "I'd be surprised if any of the thralls caught in the blast are still alive."
Alberich had most likely been surveying the battlefield for her presence. The bolt was powerful, but she could only assume that there was a hefty mana cost associated with it. She couldn't allow herself to be intimidated by one setback.
"Now…" She sighed, "How am I supposed to know when it's safe to exit?"
Reappearing in plain sight of the siege weapons would only paint a target on her back. She needed some way of repositioning the Portable Home to a more strategically sound position.
"The Manticore…" She said, "I wonder…"
It was a tossup whether her influence could travel between planes of existence or not, but there was no harm in trying. Lieze formed an image of the battlefield in her mind's eye, attempting to communicate with the Manticore. She could feel an alien presence in her skull - the sensation of a psychic connection between worlds and minds. She couldn't say for certain that the attempt was successful. Time would tell if she was simply screaming into the void or not.
While she bided her time, the battlefield unfurled. Drayya, Lüngen, and the Deathguards continued to force their way into the Dwarven legions which spilled from the mountain's belly like water. As corpses were passed by the undead horde, Skeletal Necromancers lingering at the rear guard replenished the army's losses with fresh Gravewalkers. Where one undead was vanquished, another would step forward to replace it. From the perspective of the defenders, it appeared as if their enemies were unending.
Drayya wasn't as conservative in her approach as Lieze. She preferred to linger near the vanguard, manipulating the battlefield's abundance of death to fire [Blood Spikes] at any unwary defenders. Whenever a Dwarf became too confident and lunged through the horde in an attempt to take her life, the Void Beast would leap out of the shadows and bisect the attacker with its razor-sharp tail.
A brilliant flash of light blinded her just moments before her feet left the ground. Another golden bolt had been loosed from a ballista lingering overhead, bathing the army's overconfident left flank in holy magic, disintegrating thralls into ash. Drayya scrambled to her feet and assessed the damage, thankful to see that Lüngen's unit was beyond the bolt's effective range.
"We're taking some losses…" Her breathing quickened, "But we're almost to the gate! One good push will get us through the worst of it! Where's Lieze!?"
The answer to that question was more complicated than Drayya could hope - or want - to understand. Unbeknownst to her, the Order's leader was sitting comfortably in the chair of her study, functionally immobile but simultaneously hovering a few hundred feet above the battlefield. The Portable Home was being held in the Manticore's paw, freeing Lieze from the risk of exposing herself when she left the cube.
"Mm… am I being taken somewhere?" She folded her arms, closing both eyes to focus on the faint connection with her thralls, "If I leave now, I'll just end up falling to my death… I'd better command the Manticore to drop me somewhere safe."
It was tempting to have herself deposited on top of the gate where she could stage a surprise attack on Alberich, but her chances of killing him without any backup were middling at best. Instead, she had the Manticore drop the Portable Home into the centre of her army, where she would be able to command her thralls with more finesse.
To avoid getting herself killed, she pushed away all delusions of sensation and emotion, focusing her mind on the subconscious connection she shared with every thrall under her command. When the Manticore released its grip on the cube, she could feel its presence disappearing into the void as she plummeted to the ground, replaced with a burgeoning, parasitic presence in her brain when the Portable Home landed in the thick of the horde.
She opened her eyes, "There!"
One thought was all it took to evacuate her from the cube's interior. The pleasant quietude of her personal room was replaced by hollow moaning, distant screams, and the linen tear of metal against flesh. She craned her neck up to the gate's towers, seeing if she couldn't catch a glimpse of Alberich manning the ballista. Pitifully, he appeared to have already departed from the battlefield, leaving his soldiers to contend with the Bonecrawlers scurrying up to the battlements.
-And he wasn't the only one leaving, as it turned out. Enlightened to the true horror of facing an undead army, many of the Dwarven regiments skirmishing with Lieze's army were staging tactical retreats, sacrificing their vanguards in an attempt to preserve manpower for another battle within the belly of the mountain.
-But Lieze wouldn't allow them the pleasure. As soon as the plate-clad Dwarves turned their backs, she commanded the Manticore to land right in front of the gate, plugging the enemy's only route of escape. The beast took some damage from behind as a few lucky Dwarves delayed their retreat to catch its attention with wild axe swings, but the Manticore's HP pool was so large that even enchanted weapons could barely graze it.
The undead army's crescent encirclement ensured that none of the trapped Dwarves could slip through. As the metaphorical noose tightened around their necks, Lieze delighted in the terrified expressions of those who had expected an easy victory. She wandered to the back line along with her allies, loosening her influence over the thralls and allowing them to attack indiscriminately. The chorus of anguished screams pouring from the chaotic scene that unfolded was music to her ears.
"Lieze!"
Drayya sprinted over, wearing an expression of equal parts disbelief and elation. "We won!" She exclaimed, "We actually got all the way to the gate!"
"Don't let it go to your head." Lieze warned, "This may have been the most difficult part of the siege, but there's still more to be done. These mountains won't belong to us until we've purged every last Dwarf from their depths. I wouldn't be surprised if Alberich was planning for this eventuality all along."
"Did you see those golden bolts earlier?"
"I did more than see them - the first one nearly killed me." She replied, "Alberich has been smart about his enchantments. Most of the Dwarves' weapons were infused with holy magic. We may have won this battle, but we've suffered quite a few losses as a result of that."
Drayya lowered her head, "...Do you really think he's a Scion?"
"I was only suspicious before. But I'm certain now." Lieze nodded, "The Scion of enchantment… it's no wonder he's rumoured to be invincible. But the fact that he didn't fight on the front lines means that he must have some sort of weakness."
She watched as the Bonecrawlers flooded into the watchtowers. The ballista poking over the edge was still infused with an incandescent light. If she could acquire the power of enchantment for herself, there would be no limit to how powerful her thralls could become.
Drayya awaited the end of her daydreaming. "...What's next on the chopping block?" She asked.
"We'll regroup before we do anything else." Lieze answered, "Some of our formations are lacking in numbers, so we'll perform some quick rearrangements before entering the mountains. We can't afford to waste too much time with this momentum we've built up, so don't think about resting quite yet."
"To think we'd ever get a shot at pulling off something like this…" Drayya didn't try to hide her amazement, "If you told me we'd be marching on the Dwarven Mountains a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed you. No - I wouldn't have believed you about anything, come to think of it."
"-And we're not stopping here, either." Lieze said, "After this, we'll take the fight to Akzhem. I'll raze every inch of this world if that's what it will take to find the other Scions."
She'd been gifted a purpose and the means to see it through after so many years of torturous mediocrity. The 'Lieze' of years past and the 'Lieze' of today couldn't have been further apart. She'd sipped from the great font of life - an act that would have driven her to obnoxious self-loathing in the past - and grown accustomed to the taste. Her heart was unrestrained and fearsome, no longer choked by factors beyond her control.
"...But for now, we have to focus on the battle in front of us." Lieze wandered in the direction of her army, "We'll need to plan our next steps carefully if we want to avoid being outsmarted."
Quest 'Anthill' Completed!
Reward - 10,000xp
Level Up!
You are now level [53]
HP+5 MP+50
MIND + 1
A mighty explosion shook the mountain, causing Marché's boots to tremble. He and Roland were sprinting through the labyrinthine corridors, descending into the belly of the earth.
"Sounds like the Deathguards are doing as they're told…" He spoke between pants, "Those barrels we placed should sow some chaos through the soldiers' ranks."
"Is this the right way!? I don't remember coming by this tunnel last time…" Roland looked from side to side, "How does anyone get around in this place!? I could swear we've been running in circles for the past few minutes!"
Their paces echoed through the rugged mineshaft. Marché could feel the heat boiling up from below staining his brow with sweat. The mountain had no shortage of abandoned mines to explore, and this one in particular was being used as the storage space for every thrall they'd accumulated over the course of their short stay.
The passage opened up to a cavernous chamber near the bottom, where a half-finished rail stopped just short of the bubbling magma pools. The sulfuric air combined with the stench of rotting carcasses to create a uniquely intolerable fragrance. But Marché couldn't have been less interested in the stench - not when there was a war to be won.
"I have to admit - my stint as a respectable citizen of the mountains came dangerously close to enjoyable." He said, "But it's time for us to cast off these masks of ours."