Chapter 289: Dungeon Attack Plan

“Alright, so here’s what I’m thinking,” Alex was stooped over, drawing a diagram on the granite. He’d drawn little hills to represent both dungeons and a few blobs to stand-in for the expedition’s forces. “So, this is the enemy. And this is us…and speaking of us—”

He looked up at the Heroes. “—mind if I include you guys in my plan? You three represent a lot of power.”

He looked in Hart’s direction. “I’ve literally met demons,” he paused. “Like, a lot of demons,” he paused again. “...actually, an unhealthy amount of demons, now that I really think about it, but that’s besides the point. The point I’m trying to make is that you fought more ferociously than all of them put together: you must be a nightmare down in the dungeons.”

Hart stood a little straighter with each word.

Alex looked at the Sage next. “Your magic was…nothing short of breathtaking. I mean literally, as in your hurricane spells could probably suck the breath out of an air elemental. A poet should be describing your magic…I’m no bard, but I’ll just say it felt like a seismic wave when you were casting.

He looked at Cedric, who was raising an eyebrow. “I can’t believe you’re more powerful than when we first met. I didn’t think that was even possible. I can see why—despite all of y’know…this—” He gestured toward the masses of dead Ravener-spawn covering the fields and hills, “—you’ve been holding the Ravener back. And you’ve all been facing this kinda stuff everyday for like a year; seriously, all of you, my respect.”

Murmurs of agreement went through the gathered Generasians as they took in the smouldering battlefield and destruction littering it.

“I don’t know what I was imagining exactly,” a grad student said with a quick nod of her head. “But I know I didn’t imagine coming to Thameland would be like this. You have my respect too.”

The Heroes glanced at each other, as a number of Generasians echoed the same sentiment.

But, some of the wizards remained silent, and their body language showed a level of dissent; Alex made a mental note of who they were. He would have to account for different opinions when it came to people risking their lives.

And speaking of dissent…

He looked at Hart and Drestra. During the battle, both the Sage and Champion had—to put it charitably—gone their own way. If they acted like that in the dungeon, lives could be lost. No matter how much damage they could each do to Ravener-spawn, they could also do a lot of harm by striking out on their own. They had to work together.

For the sake of the group, they needed to work with the group.

Drestra drew a breath.

“We were given this task,” she said. “We do what we have to do, and we’re…equipped for it.”

There was a catch in her voice.

‘Is that reluctance?’ Alex wondered. ‘Dissatisfaction? Is that why she acted on her own?’

That might be something to explore later.

“Well, I appreciate what you’ve done,” he said. “And with your power rolled in, we’d be able to make one hell of a battle plan. If you want to do your own thing, I’d get it, but we’d love to include you.”

The Generasians looked at the Heroes, waiting for their answer.

There were a few heartbeats of silence, broken only by the wind blowing over the hills of Greymoor. The stench it carried must have been inconceivable; with so many dead blood-draks and chitterers out there.

The expedition teams would be taking some of the bodies for study, but getting rid of the rest and healing the ground of diseased blood, would mean a lot of clean up.

But that was a later problem.

“Count me in,” Hart said. “You’ve got the largest force here: I’ll follow what you’ve got to say unless it’s stupid.”

“Yes,” Drestra said. “I’m curious to see what ideas the wizards of Generasi might have.

“Aye, I don’ mind you directin’ us,” Cedric said. “Let’s see what y’come up with.”

Alex smiled. “Thanks. Hopefully that’ll make raiding those dungeons easier on all of us.”

Mentally, he made another note: ‘Drestra and Hart made their own decisions: they didn’t consult each other, or wait for Cedric’s choice. …there’s a leadership problem among them. And that’s odd.’

He thought back on what he’d learned about Uldar’s Heroes at the church school so long ago. The Chosen was supposed to be their leader; that’s what the historical records said. The Chosen took charge of the others, leading them both on and off the field. Alex recalled the text from the holy book of Uldar.

And so did Uldar grant each Hero a divine role in His plan. The Sage is the artillery: able to strike enemies, strengthen allies and wreak havoc on Ravener-spawn. The Saint is the holy balm: able to heal the most grievous of wounds and crush foes with divinity.

The Champion is the protector, able to tear enemies asunder with superior physical strength, speed, agility, and the skill of all preceding Champions. In places where magic cannot help or cannot be used, the Champion is the Heroes’ main force.

The Chosen is the leader: by bearing lesser incarnations of all the others’ gifts, they are able to solve problems, bridge gaps and achieve synergies that would require all the others working as one. The other Heroes look to the Chosen for guidance, as they know each of the fields in which the others are masters.

‘Funny how the Chosen didn’t get a lesser version of the Fool’s gift,’ Alex thought. ‘And none of the Heroes seem to have any of the downsides the Fool does. There’s another reason why people think of the Fool as the ‘odd person out’.

Not for the first time, Alex thought about how the Mark of the Fool was a strange choice for Uldar. He promised himself that the time would come when he learned more details, and more of the truth about his Mark. It was a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. But, that was for later.

What was important now was how Drestra and Hart didn’t seem to look to Cedric for leadership, even though he was their leader by divine decree. That didn’t necessarily mean their group was unhealthy: Alex’s group had an arrangement where there was no designated leader.

Despite what Thundar kept pushing.

But, the role often just naturally fell to Khalik or Alex, and if another member of the cabal had different information or expertise in something, then they’d be the one giving the orders or advice. The cabal and his other friends always worked in collaboration, which made them more successful than if they acted like a bunch of lone wolves. Their way had developed out of trust: each member of their team had enough experience together to trust each other’s judgement.

The Heroes though? The Heroes seemed to be doing the exact opposite of working as a team.

They didn’t exactly scream ‘trust’ or ‘fellowship.’ It didn’t seem like they actively hated each other or anything like that, as far as Alex could tell, but things weren’t exactly warm between them either.

More information to file away for later.

For now?

Plan time.

“Right, so here’s what I’m thinking,” Alex said. “We wait for the rest of the survey teams to arrive then post anyone that feels like they’re low on mana out here.”

He threw a quick glance at those who’d shown dissent earlier.

It was subtle, but he’d given them an out while still making use of them.

“Their job will be to watch the dungeons to make sure nothing comes out or goes in behind the strike teams I mentioned earlier.  With them-”

He looked across the hill where Vesuvius stood watching the dungeons with those intelligent eyes of his.

“-we can leave Vesuvius. He’ll have to stay out here anyway…cuz, y’know, he’s enormous.”

“Yeah, he is,” Tyris said proudly. “He can keep a lid on those monsters.”

“Great,” Alex said. “So anyone that’s feeling low on mana—” he repeated. “—or…indisposed, like they wouldn’t be able to give their all, should stay out here. Anyone feeling off would probably get jumpy down there, and if anyone gets jumpy walking around underground through the unknown? Things could get ugly, fast.”

Again, he gave the reluctant ones an out as he cast another quick glance at them. They were mainly less combat-oriented members of their survey teams anyway: the map-makers and scouts. Now, they had a way to contribute without creating resentment or even worse, disaster.

Some of them looked at each other then nodded. Others—mostly the combat-oriented surveyors who’d been reluctant earlier—didn’t. They were probably too ashamed of being thought a coward to stay outside.

“Good, we’ve got that settled. For the rest of us? We're going in,” Alex continued. “We keep each survey team the way it is: no breaking teams up or switching people around. Most of our force here comes from the survey teams, so they’re used to working together: if we switch people up, that’ll break cohesion. As for the reinforcements? I think we can break those up.”

He looked at the Watchers and the Heroes. “You all are the most powerful resources we’ve got.”

“Your golem counts for that too,” Watcher Shaw pointed out. “He’s a force to be reckoned with.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to argue with that,” Alex said. “In any case, my suggestion is, we break the experienced members of the reinforcement group up and put one or two of each of you on a survey team. At least one Watcher or Hero to each team. That way, every team has someone more powerful and experienced to act as a leader, vanguard, or back-up: whatever that team needs.”

He looked at the Heroes. “This means we’d be breaking you up. Are you three used to working apart from each other? I know Cedric did some fighting alone before you all got together, but…”

Letting it hang in the air, he watched them carefully. If he was reading them right, they’d probably be just fine with—

“Yeah, we go our own way all the time,” Hart shrugged. “I don’t need nursemaids.”

“Aye, it makes sense,” Cedric said. “Normally, we stay together to concentrate power in one place when we’re divin’ into a dungeon, but…your force is pretty bloody strong itself. It don’ have experience with dungeons, though. There’s a sense in breakin’ us apart now. We can show yuse the ups an’ downs o’ them.”

“Yes, I agree,” Drestra said. “With your magic…and the combat experience you’ve shown, we could use this as a chance to teach you how to dungeon dive for any future raids that you do.”

“Brilliant,” Alex said, looking at the rest of the group. “So, first we’ll send Wizard’s Eyes down to scout things out, and after they’ve had a look around, we send a wave of summoned monsters down. The people staying outside; if any of you can summon some monsters for us: it’ll be a big help with any fighting we need to do down there, which’ll also preserve the mana of surveyors who are going in.”

There was a series of nods.

“Once Wizard’s Eyes pick out the routes to a dungeon core, the summoned monsters can pin the Ravener’s monsters in tunnels they’re lurking in, which’ll keep them from attacking from too many places at once. Then we can go straight for the dungeon cores from a couple of different routes.”

He glanced toward the dungeons. “Just a suggestion, but I think we should send more teams to raid the chitterer dungeon than the blood-drak one. We did a good job cleaning up the blood-draks, but there seemed to be less of them than chitterers to begin with. So, there’ll probably be less resistance and maybe less of them left in their dungeon. Plus, we know we killed a blood-drak commander; there might be another blood-hydra down there, but we know for sure that we didn’t kill any of the chitterers’ commanders.”

“There were some pretty big ones,” one of the surveyors said. “With finer weapons and armour: we killed plenty of those.”

“Aye, but they ain’t the really big ones,” Cedric said grimly. “Trust me, if you saw one o’ the chitterer leaders y’wouldn’t mistake it.”

“I know,” the surveyor said. “I’ve read the Thameish bestiaries, but the dungeon core might not have had time to make a commander yet, otherwise they would’ve been sent out, wouldn’t they?”

“That is not true,” Drestra’s voice crackled. “Dungeons almost always make a  commander for their forces early, as soon as they establish themselves, and most of the time they keep them in the dungeon to guard the core. It’s when they’ve gathered enough power to make more than one that they start sending them out. Blood-hydras are a little different: dungeons that make flying creatures usually send their commanders out on raids or attacks. A flying beast is less useful sitting in a cave underground, which is why it’s a bit easier to break the cores of flying dungeons: they’re a little less well-guarded. Cores that make land-bound monsters, though? They keep their strongest close, unless the dungeon has gathered enough power to make more than one.”

“That makes sense,” Alex said. “So I’m guessing that something big and nasty’ll be waiting in the chitterer dungeon. What does everyone think? Are we all good with this plan?”

“Works for me,” Watcher Shaw said. “It’s solid enough, and probably the best way we’re going to break these bastards’ backs.”

He looked around at the surveyors. “I’ll be assigning the teams since I know my Watchers and I’ve studied each survey team: I’ll know best which weaknesses to patch.”

Murmurs of agreement spread through the group as he gave them an appraising look with his experienced eye.

“Right, here’s what we’ll do.”

He divided the Watchers quickly, assigning them to different survey teams, then he turned to the Heroes.

“Hart Redfletcher, was it?” he said. “I’m putting you on Team 5: without Vesuvius they could use someone to handle a lot of the heavy lifting.”

Hart glanced over at Tyris, who glanced back. Her eyes slid up and down the Champion appraisingly. The big man raised an eyebrow.

Watcher Shaw moved on. “To Team 3, I’m assigning Drestra. Your team is mostly melee oriented so you could use the extra firepower.”

Lastly, he turned to Cedric. “And you, I’m putting you on Team 8. You and Roth showed good cohesion earlier, and I think you would do good work on the same team.”

“Aye, I’m fine wit’ that,” Cedric said.

Alex kept his face relaxed, but he’d been hoping this wouldn’t happen.

He glanced at Claygon.

It was the first time he’d be taking his golem—with his core made from dungeon core remains—into a dungeon. He’d also be fighting a dungeon core for the first time since the Cave of the Traveller.

Since he’d accidentally controlled one.

And he had no idea what to expect…or what the Chosen might see.