The secret is apparently my suffering. And not spending my time at things like “jobs” to earn this stuff called “money” so I can “live.” Because that's totally overrated. Anyway, here's Blessed are the Simple XXXV, or, How You Want the Author to Suffer and Don't Even Realize It.

And before you ask, no, there will be no Patreon, or even a Pay-Pal. Because BatS will be free until the servers containing this text melt or something.

Previously, on BatS

BatS wiki

The elves’ demands were simple, yet taking their orders put Private Brisbaine in a sour mood, according to Takiko’s observations. It was probably because she was an adventurer and he was a human and both had come to the city as a group with Donovan the dwarf, but at some point she became the official liaison between the human soldier and the rest of the elves. It might have also had something to do with the fact that she wasn’t particularly useful beyond being a courier at the moment – it seemed to her that the woman who first “conscripted” the three of them was intent on keeping her under her thumb. The idea that she was being – manipulated probably wasn’t the word for it – but used in such a way for such reasons grated on the female elf’s mind, although she had to admit that not being sent to the front lines or out doing physical labor made it a worthwhile trade.

It wasn’t as if Takiko was left to do nothing, however. Ever since she and Brisbaine arrived in the Governor’s Hall – Donovan was co-opted into some other task before they even made it through the doors – she had spent most of her time running papers and files between the different corners of the old wood and stone building. A year in the Free Territories gave the short woman experience in preparing towns for oncoming assaults, however running about the Governor’s Hall felt strange to her – that air of panic wasn't quite there yet, and there was still this sense of distance instead of impending emergency.

Over the past few days, Takiko found herself racing through wide halls with vaulted ceilings, with rooms dressed for comfort and tall windows for natural warmth, decorated with furs and tapestries and comfortable chairs – all the things needed in the name of politics and civics but only liabilities at best when the fighting came here. Opulence and comfort took priority over utility and defense here, which spoke of the long peaceful history of the city in comparison to those of the keeps in the Free Territories, where warfare and skirmishes were a part of life. The atmosphere was only slightly more appropriate in the large third-floor room that was being utilized as a tactical room – and that was because the wide windows were meant to provide a panoramic view of the city below the hill that the hall stood on, in addition to the very large city map spread out over a large table surrounded by the city knight commanders.

“Awww fuck.”

Takiko looked up from the strategic map sprawled out on the large table dominating the center of the room to look at the human, who had spent nearly all of his time since coming to the city tucked into a darkened corner of the room, glued to his strange little device that emitted strange flat images. Several of the city officials and knights sent questioning glares at Takiko; the adventurer returned their glances, challenging them to be the bearers of bad news for once. After several silent moments of this unspoken debate, one civil servant decided to speak up.

“Is there something the matter, Milord?” asked one overly-dressed elf who clearly had ulterior motives in speaking to the sole human in the room.

“Someone locked me out,” growled Brisbaine, who was now frantically moving his hands around the little floating frames, calling and dismissing them at a dizzying pace.

“What do you mean?” asked Takiko as she approached the human, noting that he was perhaps too engrossed in his work to differentiate between herself and the other elves in the room. “I thought you said you were able to monitor the enemy movements with those sky-spy things of yours?”

“I can – or rather, I could,” answered the human soldier with a frown. “Someone cut my connection to the system. Hold on, let me try contacting the guys at the relay post.”

Brisbaine began “tapping” furiously against the glowing frames that sprung to life around him. Takiko watched in fascination as the human navigated the inputs and outputs of the strange human device. It soon became apparent to the adventurer that the usually apathetic human's frustration was mounting – more and more of the little frames continued to pop up, drawing hisses and muttered curses from the human user. As the little frames began to create a solid arc of light in front of the private, every single frame suddenly flashed red, before disappearing simultaneously.

A moment passed where everyone in the room stared, wide-eyed, unsure as to what had just happened. Just as the ambiyious civic official inhaled to call out to Private Brisbaine, a large, disembodied head of a bald man, along with his hand, appeared before the human like some towering god.

“Ah ah ah,” the head said in a jovial tone. “You didn't say the magic word,” it continued, wagging its finger in a disapproving manner.

“What the fuck!” snapped the human as dove into his strange little device once again.

Takiko exchanged worried glances with the others gathered around the map. Meanwhile, copies of the head, complete with the wagging finger, appeared, adding their voices to the first and overlapping, building until the cacophony drove their words nearly incomprehensible and their grinning visages terrible. Just as the elf was sure that one of the more hot-headed knights in the room was about to snap at the human, the floating heads suddenly disappeared, leaving Private Brisbaine sitting tense and unmoving.

Nobody spoke – not while the human sat there, darkened by his tool unlit. Finally, his shoulders slumped, and he released a sigh of resignation.

“This is not looking good,” muttered Brisbaine as he pushed himself away from his little artifact and sluggishly stood up.

“What happened?” asked Takiko meekly as she floated over the soldier’s shoulder.

“I’m cut off,” he growled. “From everything. Nexus, command, the relay post. I don't know who, but someone locked me down.”

“So you can’t see any more?”

“Only through the local network set up by the big guy,” answered Brisbaine as he casually stretched his arms behind his back. “But aside from that?” the human worryingly threw up his hands in defeat. “I got nothing. Can’t hear, can’t see jack shit, Takiko.”

“So what exactly happened?” asked the ambitious civil servant as he made his way towards the two.

“I got cut off,” answered Brisbaine as he drew his smoke wand from his shirt pocket and stuck it into the corner of his mouth. “It doesn’t look like my permissions are gone, just...”

“Permissions?” parroted Takiko with a tilt of her head.

“The right to access those resources,” replied the human after sucking from his smoke wand. “Normally, I can ping – err, talk to them – you know, send requests for information.”

“Normally,” stressed the short elf.

“Normally,” affirmed Brisbaine with a finger pointed at Takiko. “But I’m not even getting rejection messages back.”

“So your requests are being intercepted?” asked the rat-faced official with a pale face.

“That appears to be the case,” answered Brisbaine nonchalantly. “Not sure who or why I'm being blocked, but since it's all on my end, nobody's gonna know until I miss my check in time.”

“Can they fake your, uhh, ping thing?”

Brisbaine nodded sagely. “You're getting it. I didn't think you'd make that jump.”

“So why are you so calm?” questioned Takiko, willfully ignoring what was likely a snipe at her intelligence.

“Because it’s not my job to tell those heads that there’s an advanced third party who just killed our early detection methods,” answered the human smugly.

Takiko blinked in confusion, giving her mind time to fully digest what the soldier had just said. When she realized the implications of Brisbaine’s words – that it would be up to her to deliver the bad news, she reflexively looked to the other participant in their conversation.

“Whoops, it looks like there are things I need to do over there, very busy, yes,” said the Lamproan official hurriedly.

Brisbaine sat back in his chair and made a small huff of derision, while Takiko frowned at the wholly expected behavior.

“Was that supposed to happen?”

Lambda made no move to answer the elven soldier’s question. Instead, he stared at his hand, the surrounding space in the armory, and the weapon that failed to digitize into realspace. He had given Gamma Two-Four-Two’s words considerable thought, and realized that there was no merit to handling everything on his own – after all, he had already trained and armed the Royal Scouts. He had no legitimate reason to not provide additional assistance to the city’s defense forces in the form of heavier armaments – after all, doing so would simply be the most effective action for him to take in accordance to his primary objective.

However, reality seemed to have different plans for the myrmidon. Sporting a frown, Lambda attempted to de-digitize his M41 Portable Artillery Rifle once again – only for the human to feel static in his mind.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?” spoke the elven soldier nervously.

“Quiet,” ordered Lambda as he donned his typical featureless helm.

Something wasn’t right; there had only ever been a few times in his life that accessing the Nexus armory through the Multi-Dimensional Mass Digitizing System had failed. When it did, the full interface and additional processing power afforded by his closed helm was needed to determine the cause of the problem – it simply was not possible for him to diagnose all the components of the MDMDS that he could access using his connection implants alone. Despite all attempts to make the MDMDS robust, there were just so many ways for it to fail, as any system involving the reversible transformation of matter to data to execute a multi-dimensional shift would be incredibly complex and thus had many points of failure.

An uncomfortable feeling crept into Lambda’s gut as he dove into the Nexus information network. That uncomfortable feeling morphed to dread when his first action in attempting to diagnose the problem was met with unfamiliar error messages, and, not long after, messages conveying connection timeouts. His face furrowing into a grimace, Lambda reached out once again, this time slowly, trying to ascertain just where the connection was failing; if he could do that, then it might be possible for him to reroute his connections, or even run a trace to locate the cause of the interference.

Executive Code Omega 22? I am unfamiliar with this code. Is there a hardware or firmware upgrade ongoing at a critical Nexus node? Lambda hummed in silent thought when his sensor picked up the familiar signal of his commander as she rapidly approached his position.

“Lambda! We got a problem!” announced his elven commander as she entered the armory where he had moments earlier been de-digitizing his equipment.

“Yes,” he said dully. “We do.”

The young woman frowned. “So you were in contact with Brisbaine already? You could’ve told me beforehand, you know. I don’t know how to link my TCM to his-”

“Brisbaine?” asked Lambda, taking a pause from his fifth attempt to find a workaround. “No, I have not spoken with him. Has he uncovered intel on the enemy?”

Lambda turned and stared at the face of his commander, and found her own brow furrowed in curiosity, while her eyes were squeezed shut in thought. He'd seen her do this many times in the early days when she had requisitioned him – exasperation was her state of mind. Going by past experiences, Lambda deemed it necessary to be as direct as possible with his responses to avoid misunderstandings that were all too common between the two.

“Why don’t you tell me your situation first?” she said, slowly.

“My connection to the Nexus network is being blocked,” Lambda answered tersely.

“Meaning?”

“That is all we have,” answered Lambda, pointing to the weapons lying next to the elven soldier who had been tasked with assisting Lambda. “I unable to request anything else.”

The young commander chewed her lip as she took stock of the weapons and ammunition that had been laid out on a nearby table. “This isn’t a lot,” she muttered.

“We’ve handed out the, uh, ess-em-jeez, I think they were called?” offered the soldier. “In addition to the – grenades?”

“Grenades,” affirmed the giant.

“Right, those,” the soldier said with a nod. “We handed the four ess-em-jeez to squads that are stationed at critical junctions in the interior of the wall. The grenades - those boxes went out to the guys on the topside of the wall. But as for these...” The soldier gestured towards the larger weapons resting on the ground.

“… That’s hardly enough to decisively swing this in our favor...” muttered the lance officer. “Recommendations, Lambda?”

“The M10,” he said, pointing to the railgun, “we give to Private Kinsley, and perhaps pair her with Private Logan or Marek as a sniper team on one of the higher towers.”

“That was the plan,” said his commander with a nod. “What about the one that looks like smaller version of the underarm repeater that you like using?”

“The M327?” asked Lambda as he hefted the weapon that was sized for soldiers of his physique.

“Yes, that. Any suggestions?” asked the commander as she rubbed her chin.

“Along the wall, perhaps with the M53 to protect the soldiers operating the machine gun from any aerial attacks. Our enemy will undoubtedly focus on trying to take them out once they start firing.”

“Do you think we'll have enough ammo for that big thumper you used to bail us out at Sangiovurde?”

Lambda sighed, and stared at the cans of ammunition that he was able to requisition. It would be enough for a typical siege scenario – but the numbers being deployed in this engagement was at least one magnitude larger than what the soldier usually dealt with. Massive clashes of large forces only occurred in space during the opening stages of a planetary assault, or when planetary forces defended against planet-bound invaders while space above was still being contested. Even then, the involvement of infantry was limited to small-scale engagements in both situations; even before man left Earth, massed infantry tactics had become obsolete in the face of advancing weapons technology.

“It depends on how they use it,” the giant finally said. “If they focus their fire on critical targets, then perhaps...”

“So we make sure that they know we’re not getting anymore cartridges for that thing,” muttered Lambda’s commander. “We’re gonna need a good team on that turret to make sure the operators don’t get nervous and try shooting down the aerial cavalry. Private!”

“Yes ma’am!” answered the soldier as he straightened his back.

“I need you to relay a message to Knight Captain Sharpaura. Tell him that I need a team of bowmen – his most disciplined, trusted men – to use these weapons. Tell him that they will be crucial to our defense, but they need to be men who can trust one another to defend each other. Do you understand?”

“Ma’am! Yes ma’am!” the soldier shouted once again.

“Good,” the lance officer said with a nod. “Tell him to send them down here ASAP so we can show them how these things work. Now on your way, soldier.”

The elf gave a swift salute, before jogging out of the armory, leaving the giant and his comparatively tiny commander alone to their corner of the garrison armory. The young woman sighed before addressing her familiar once again.

“So, Lambda. Are there any other weapons you have?”

The human tilted his head as he considered the request. He mentally called forth the standard shoulder-mounted pulse cannon built into his suit. With a smooth whir, the module unfolded from its housing on his left shoulder blade, the cannon barrel rising over his shoulder and synchronizing with the reticule that appeared in his HUD.

“But not the big one?” asked the girl with a frown.

Lambda shook his head as he cycled the various weapons built into his gauntlets, igniting the tip of his wrist-mounted flamethrowers briefly for his commander to see. He tried to access the MDMDS again, but to no avail; he would be only be able to use the scant weapons that he currently had.

“Well, that’s fine, I guess,” the young woman said dismissively. “When the quartermaster gets back, ask him if you can borrow something. Maybe a halberd or one of the bigger crossbows they use for monster hunts.”

The human nodded once again. Certainly his strength and physique would allow him to operate some of the larger weapons alone; however the idea of wielding a spear and shield in a shield line like the mythical soldiers that he was named after excited him in a way that seemed almost unreasonable.

Just as he mentally smiled at the image of him holding the center of the line alongside the elven warriors, his commander cleared her throat.

“Commander?” he asked.

“The other problem – Brisbaine said that he got ‘cut off,’ and that he couldn’t see anymore. Do you have any insight into this problem?”

Lambda held his tongue for a moment before answering. “I presume he said that he tried everything that he could?”

“It was implied by Takiko, who relayed the message to me.” The young soldier sighed and shook her head in frustration. “I’m guessing there’s nothing you can do about it?”

“Perhaps, but I highly doubt it,” he answered. “It seems that we are both suffering from the same thing: someone is interrupting our outbound connections.”

“Thus leaving us blind and unable to make full use of what both of you can offer,” concluded the lance officer, sighing once again. “I can’t imagine any elf who can actually pull this off. Lambda, do you have any ideas on who did this?”

“Just one,” the giant said after a ponderous pause. “But we have neither the power or time to go after him.”

The young woman made a small, defeatist chuckle. “So you also think they'll be here soon?”

“Soon,” answered the myrmidon with a nod. “Very soon.”

Perhaps it was because of how early it was, but the battlements of the North Wall were relatively quiet. The dominant sounds in the air were that of soldiers moving to their positions, their boots crashing onto the ancient cut stones and the sounds of crossbows being cranked and loaded. The shouts of the officers were few and far between – the Lamproan defenders were as ready as they could be. The dawn's early light combined with the fog made it seem all the more somber, and in the final hours to battle, it did little to assuage the fears of the many elves who had never thought that they would see the day that the North Wall would be manned again, let alone that the ones holding the line would be them.

Despite the number of battles that he had experienced, Lambda's mind was as clouded as the air surrounding the battlements. There was no time to think about his commander’s words from the previous night, how she questioned his decision not to visit Veela in the hospital, but ultimately made it clear that it was his decision to make. In the back of his mind, he had secretly hoped that she would order him to go to the hospital; he couldn’t bring himself to do it, and he felt all the more ashamed for it. Even now, as he charged up the stone staircase, with the over-sized crossbow over his shoulder and the barrel of bolts under one arm, he thought of the elf woman in white. What would she be feeling, knowing that the battle was soon to start? Did she resent him for not visiting every day? Would she hate him for not going to her side before the battle?

Was it better for her to come to hate him?

Even as he slammed the crossbow – a particularly large variant the locals called a “siegebow” - down and positioned it right at the edge of the tower, his mind wandered to that woman. His woman, his wife. As he grunted and pulled the drawstring back and locked it place, his mind thought of the “advice” the fett gave him. The words struck a chord with him, yet he wanted to reject them.

He chastised himself; the supercommando ought to be paying attention to the battlefield, especially since of the Lamproan forces, he was one of the few who could clearly see in the chilly pre-dawn fog.

“Do you see anything?” asked the nearby garrison squad leader as he poked his head out through a gap in the battlements.

“Heat signatures in the forest,” answered Lambda as he fit a bolt into the siegebow. “I’m not picking up the flying lizards.”

Several elves in shiny new armor came thundering up the staircase, two carrying the long M53 while another came up hauling the ammunition for the machine gun. Lambda watched with mild disinterest; the soldiers looked oddly anachronistic in their steel-made armor as they clumsily set up the M53. As Lambda reached over and pulled the charging handle, eliciting embarrassed looks from the two men assigned to operate the weapon, he wondered how effective the new armor would be against the locals’ psionics. The man who brought it in – he claimed to be Helen’s father, though Lambda was unsure if that was truly the case – said that the new scale-like armor was meant to protect against musket shot. Looking down onto the field between the wall and the forest, where huts crowded around the edge of the river, Lambda wondered if the inspired mechanism behind the supposed protective powers of the scale-armor would be useful in this battle – the defenders had quite the height advantage over the attackers, and it was questionable whether or not the enemy’s muskets had the accuracy needed to actually hit someone on the wall, let alone the power to reach them from a distance that the M53 couldn't reach.

*Blip*

In the corner of his HUD, contacts appeared on his motion tracker, approaching from the north and the west. Frowning, Lambda boosted the gain on his thermal sensor as he stared out over the forest. He saw them – or rather, he saw the riders - the beasts themselves were difficult to make out over the ambient temperature, and were sensible only because he knew to look for the heat signatures of the riders instead of the cold-blooded ectotherms. Still, he wondered briefly why his sensor range was so poor, but the answer came to Lambda immediately.

“Sergeant.”

“Yes?” answered the squad leader in a hoarse whisper as he scanned the horizon.

“Can psionics make a fog that can reduce the capabilities of sensory equipment?”

“What?” the elf said, sparing the large human a confused look. “What do you – your artifacts!” he cried, eyes wide. “How many and which directions?”

“North and west. Numbers uncertain, but increasing. Contact in approximately two minutes.”

“The mind's eye sees through all falsehoods,” said the sergeant as he pointed his wand to his head. “I see them. Phew, that's a lot,” he muttered as he moved his wand from his temple to his throat.

This is North Tower to all forces, we have incoming contacts, north and west, up high. Get ready everybody, they’ll be here soon.

Lambda flinched at the whispered words he heard both in his ears and in his mind. If he didn’t know that it was thanks to the reality-defying psionics, he was sure he would find the experience much more disturbing. But he had no time to entertain such thoughts – thanks to those same psionics, his sensor suite was operating at sub-optimal levels, affecting everything from his suit’s temperature regulation to the tracking function on his shoulder-mounted pulse cannon. He shook his head as he overrode the weapon tracking in lieu of manual aiming combined with his natural predictive abilities. He once again had to admit the fearsome potential of psionics, and briefly wondered how the Battle of Sol would have fared if psionic technologies back then had been fully realized.

“Commander,” said Lambda as he opened a communications channel to his charge, “did you hear that?”

“Yes Lambda,” came the girl’s voice, slightly degraded thanks to the psionic mist. “Orders are to fire at will – Lambda, you make sure those guys on your turret don’t get wiped out in the first wave.”

“Orders received, Commander.”

Lambda stared at the lead rider as it approached. It wasn’t close enough for him to fire yet – plasma bolts were significantly slower than traditional ballistic munitions, and as a result, were that much easier to evade. But the elf carrying the M327 seemed to have forgotten that in his excitement.

“I see one!” the elf cried out.

“Wait, don’t-!”

*PraPraPraPraPraPraPraPraPraPraPraPraPra!*

Perhaps it was luck that the young elf managed to strike one of the flying cavalry at the fore; it was thanks to that that the shroud encompassing the enemy aerial forces fell, revealing to the defenders a horizon crowded by Luchjiken Sky Knights. Lambda narrowed his eyes as he briefly estimated the enemy’s numbers – with this many in the air alone, the Luchjiken army was undoubtedly carrying out a do-or-die ploy, he reasoned. It was either death at the walls, or victory; retreat meant falling back into the forest and starvation during the winter. The alternative was that they simply had that many resources to expend, which was unnerving in its own right.

Casting a glance over his shoulder at the forces gathered in desperation, Lambda wasn’t sure if the side he found himself on would hold. And with the second wing of attackers coming in from the west on their flank, it seemed as if the enemy had properly estimated the forces needed to break the defenders and take the city.

While the incoming riders from the north began to dodge and weave in response to the premature attack, Lambda began to visually track one of the lead dragons, waiting for his targeting suite to report an optimal firing distance. At the same time, he kept half his mind on his radar, calculating the estimated time of arrival for the flanking forces who were still shrouded by their stealth psionics.

It would be a hard fight, and Lambda would have to rely on the local forces to repel the invaders. Stripped of his more choice weapons, the myrmidon would use everything at his disposal to bring victory to the Lamproans.

The old soldier licked his lips in eagerness; he'd have to work hard for this one.

Eagerness battled anxiety through the mind link between Jarek and his drake as the two flew low, nearly skimming the treetops as they hid within the shadows of the lancers above. With luck, their lesser-trained comrades would draw the defenders' attention with their high altitude attack, giving Jarek and the other hunters of Blackhide Wing the opening they needed to locate and isolate their prey. Already he saw blue bolts streaming from one of the towers – while evidently they were beyond its effective range, it nevertheless promised death to the advancing riders, as well as a likely place where their prey lay.

Jarek, you'll be within range in ten seconds. The target is not firing the stream of magic bolts; I repeat, the Black Beast is not firing.

Got it, thought Jarek as he sent his telepathic message to Oreyn, the wing's relay and de facto leader.

Blackhide Wing was arguably the best monster hunting team in Luchjiken, thus perhaps making them the best in the world. It was then only natural for General Hollanburg, commander of the assault on Lamproa, to solicit their assistance in hunting the so-called “Black Beast” of Sangiovurde – the same beast that had injured the archduke and wreaked havoc on the occupying force as it escaped with the Aurequeran saboteurs. According to the survivors, it was some kind of construct – several heads taller than an elf, it was strong, unbelievably fast, was armed with some kind of massive artifact shooter that pulverized masonry and elf all the same, and was able to shrug off most physical attacks and spells thrown at it. According to rumors from the soldiers, the Black Beast took a burning skystone, summoned by the archduke and a battalion of mages, straight to the face unflinchingly, then laughed at him before cutting him and his mages down.

It was much like the walking disasters that the Blackhide Wing were accustomed to hunting, overblown rumors included – save that their prey this time wasn't the size of a drake or building. And just like those mega-beasts whose skulls now decorated the Wing's feasting hall, this one undoubtedly had a weakness of some sort. Through finesse or brute strength, Jarek and the others would find it's weakness and take it's head – even if they were only asked to remove the Black Beast from the battlefield and destroy it “if possible.”

The Luchjiken Sky Knight Squadron shielding Jarek climbed into the air in preparation for their attack run. One was immediately hit by the stream of magic bolts; Jarek and his beast thought nothing as the flailing drake fell past them.

Climb, Garrok.

Jarek's drake tucked its wings in and tilted its head downwards, exchanging what little altitude above the trees that they had for a minor boost in speed. As they barreled toward the ramparts of the city, the veteran hunter leaned forward into his saddle, just as his mount spread its wings wide and pointed its nose towards the sky. Excitement roared through Jarek's mind as the two ascended the side of the tower, protected as they were by the sheer proximity to the stone walls and the swirling battle above them. Blood pounded in the elf's ears while his drake beat its mighty wings, creating a strange, arrhythmic beat for the two as they rose above the edge of the tower turret and landed on the crenelations.

The scene before the veteran monster hunter could be described with a number of words; “brittle” and “burning” were Jarek's words of choice. The defenders, despite that magical output displayed before, were struck hard by the Sky Knights. Not enough to be completely broken, but enough that they would be fully occupied with the mounted knights, provided that their obviously weak line wasn't destroyed in the next attack run. He had to give credit where credit was due; not all of them were looking in his direction when Garrok landed, and some were actually pointing their weapons at the lancers swirling above them.

But that was none of Jarek's concern.

It didn't matter to Jarek that the huge Black Beast, which was holding a spent siegebow like an over-sized crossbow, was likely the only thing holding the defenders together, though he did briefly acknowledge it. It didn't matter that one defender actually had the mind to fire a crossbow bolt at Garrok – a futile effort, considering his drake's thick scales. But rather, the only thing in his mind was how he and his drake had little time to remove it from the battlefield – they needed to move fast, or else those near-broken defenders would realize that the massive drake that had just landed on the lip of the turret was also one very big target, and that while handheld crossbows were mostly ineffective, siegebows and magic could injure Garrok. At the very least, he needed to engage the Black Beast, lest he load his siegebow and put a bolt through him or Garrok – not that he intended to let him do that.

He's bigger than I thought. He might be a little heavy for us... no, we can do it. Garrok, get him.

Summoning his willpower, Jarek stabbed out with his modified assault lance in his right hand, firing off a bolt of lightning that the Black Beast avoided with a well-timed roll to the side. At the same time, Garrok, mind-linked with his rider, knew where the beast would land, and snapped him up in his powerful jaws before it had time to re-establish its stance. With the beast in his drake's maw, Jarek tapped his heels against the drake's shoulders, signaling to him that it was time to leave.

Just as the drake began to lean off the side of the tower, the defenders had started to recover, with the more quick-witted among them raising their crossbows and wands.

Too slow, Aurequerans!

Before the defenders had begun to recover from the initial Sky Knight attack, before he and his drake had even landed on the tower, Jarek had already drawn a fist-sized ceramic jar from one of his saddle side bags and had begun the process of infusing it with his mana. Injecting the last bit of mana needed to prime the jar, Jarek took a fleeting moment to check the carefully etched lines across its surface glowing a ghostly blue with magical power. His mental check complete, the hunter lobbed the little jar covered in glowing runes towards the defenders, just as his drake kicked away from the tower's edge.

His timing was almost perfect; rider and drake turned their eyes away just as the jar shattered against the stone floor of the tower top, unleashing a blinding, eye-searing flash that would precede the debilitating arcs of wild mana, but not before Jarek heard the characteristic \twang\ of a crossbow being fired.

The mental feedback from Garrok was akin to an unexpected jab to the side; it was painful, but not something to worry about, thought Jarek. Instead, he counted the seconds of nearly unrestrained free fall as his drake, having pushed off from the tower top, was now hurtling towards the ground like a dart at the end of its arc. No instructions were necessary; training aside, Garrok, while perhaps not quite the smartest of drakes, instinctively knew what to do, spreading his wings at the last second to level off before climbing once again. With the defenders distracted by the Sky Knights, Jarek was sure that, the intentions of his captive aside, escape would be easy. However, luck was not on his side.

Ouch. Small sharp pain. Move wing hurt. Annoying big hard black elf. Annoying. Hurt. Annoying. Crush crush crush!

To think that it would survive the jaws of Garrok... well, we expected this, so... thought Jarek as he turned in his saddle to check his partner's wing. “Fuck, you gotta be kiddin' me!” the hunter spat aloud as he saw where the crossbow bolt had hit. “Of all the places...” he continued. Oreyn! My mount got hit by a lucky shot to the base of the wing, and the mark is much more stubborn than we thought! I might have to put down-

“ROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”

“What now, Garrok?!?” growled Jarek as he pulled on his reins in an effort to bring his beast under control.

If he had known that something would try to eat him today, Lambda would have equipped his heavy armor permutations. He thought that by avoiding the first strike, he would have been able to draw the attention of the attacker – and whatever wide-area attacks he had – away from the other soldiers, who were shaken from the first wave of dragon riders and had to recover before the next wave of attacks came. He thought that the beast – perhaps some kind of larger variety of the dragons that he'd seen before – would spit fire at him, as had many others. He had planned to go on the offensive after avoiding the initial attacks – then use the dragon's corpse as a way to rally the troops with him.

Now in the jaws of the grey-blue monster, Lambda realized the folly in not considering that a dragon of that size wouldn't try to eat him. He had become too complacent after noting that the locals of Endellis 6 often thought of him as an exotic combat drone – surely any responsible soldier would not push his mount to eat something indigestible – was the logic he used to excuse his poor judgment.

Though as he strained against the jaws of the dragon, Lambda briefly considered that perhaps being eaten wasn't its goal. His current awkward position in its mouth gave credence to his hypothesis. Lambda was sideways in the monster's mouth; his right leg was painfully pinned at the ankle between its teeth, while his left leg was somehow fully inside the monster's mouth and pushing against the roof of its mouth. His arms were outside of the dragon's mouth, pushing against whatever he could find purchase on – whether or not he was accomplishing anything through that act of defiance was something that the myrmidon didn't want to think about. If the creature was intent on eating him, it was currently doing a rather poor job – or, he considered, it and its rider were looking to land somewhere safer to have it tear him to pieces.

Lambda pushed such extraneous thoughts from his mind – whether or not the dragon was going to eat him ultimately came second to his immediate situation. Alerts and warnings flashed across his HUD, while his armor indicator highlighted the increasing damage to his power suit. Lambda grit his teeth as he squeezed out all the power from his suit's subsystems and redirected it towards the power assist functionality. Shields, sensors, communications, air scrubbers – anything and everything to keep the dragon from crushing him between its teeth was disabled.

It was clear that he wasn't winning this contest of brute strength. If that was the case, then he would have to find a way to make the dragon give up voluntarily. Looking at his armored hand pushing against the dragon's lower jaw, desperate inspiration struck.

“I... will... not... die... HERE!”

Lambda released his hold on the dragon's jaws, gritting his teeth as he felt the sudden increase in pressure on his body. He then raised his right hand towards the creature's eye, and his left to its nostrils, before letting loose dual streams of fire into the damned lizard's face. The beast roared in pain, opening its mouth wide, and giving Lambda the tiny window he needed to tuck his knees to his chest and dive into the maw of the dragon. Sliding into the dragon's throat, the myrmidon was slightly disappointed that he could not find some kind of gland-like structure responsible for the dragon's fire breathing abilities; he was hoping to rupture it and spill whatever caustic fluids it held into the dragon's throat. Unfortunately, Lambda saw no such fleshy growths – not even something akin to a uvula for him to grab onto. And thus, after sliding down the dragon's throat, Lambda stuck out his legs and arms, halting his descent into the beast's belly.

Before he could celebrate, the surrounding walls of flesh began to convulse and twitch violently. At the same time, Lambda could feel violent movements – the dragon was moving erratically, although whether it was its head or entire body, he was unable to tell. Was it landing? He had no way of knowing, but he did know that he could make it happen faster as he carefully withdrew one arm to draw his knife.

This would go a lot faster if I could deploy my chainblade, thought Lambda irritably to himself as he sank his knife into the flesh surrounding him. Just as Lambda experienced the pained roar of a dragon – from within its mouth with his air filters off – a message on his HUD caught his attention.

Connection to Multi-Dimensional Mass Digitizing System re-established.

WARNING! Limited bandwidth available.

WARNING! Multi-Dimensional Mass Digitizing System connection unstable.

The myrmidon opened the MDMDS interface in his HUD. He noted that most of his preferred equipment in this situation – his photonic weaponry in particular – required too much bandwidth to digitize properly. Changing the filter to what he had the necessary data allocation to download, a scowl formed on the soldier's mouth – the vast majority of it were things that were of no help to him in his current predicament.

Scrolling down the list while repeatedly stabbing into the dragon's throat, Lambda's eyes fell upon one valid entry that gave him pause.

His lips split into an eager grin as soft blue lights encircled his knife-wielding arm.

Continued in the Comments