NOVEL SIMPLE Stand Out Cattle – Chapter 198
They don’t get much time though, as the cattle stampede into the alley. Not by chance though. It is a little hard to hear, but Jim is certain that some of the kobolds had guided them to attack.
He isn’t wrong either. Out in the plaza, the four remaining kobold goatherds have taken charge of the animals and created enough distance for the cows to have an actual run of it. More than enough for the cattle’s teamwork skill to kick in and allow for an actual stampede and not just a simple charge.
In front of the party, Sammy and Jay are hard pressed to hold the line. If not from timely assistance from Zach and some wooden tripping hazards they would have been easily thrown back by the herd. As it is, they are still forced backwards a good few paces, forcing those behind them to retreat as well.
Good thing Jim had positioned them further forward or else they wouldn’t have had the room. As it is though, Doctor is quite close to the false wall and the party can’t really afford to retreat again. Then spells start to come down on the wood lattice above their heads.
The wooden lattice manages to hold off the attacks as only two of the remaining kobold mages are using fire. Though the one volley of stone shot does quite a bit of damage as well. It won’t hold forever sadly as none of the magic users in the party know any water magic. At least none that would help in this situation. Ace had made certain that all of the town’s core members knew the basic quality of life spells such as being able to create drinking water and detect common poisons.
Such survival spells aren’t much help against the napalm like magical fire which is currently eating away at the wooden lattice. About the only good news is that the magic is contained. While it looks like it is dripping off the wood, any drops vanish before it gets even halfway to the group.
Sammy and Jay of course don’t have the luxury of noticing such details, having to instead focus entirely on the herd of cows trying to trample all over them. At the front of the over 40 cows are the six earthen cattle who all alone would be a problem. Their tough hides turn most blows into glancing hits.
Not only that, but their skill heavy foot makes it nearly impossible for the two front line fighters to throw them back. Still, the two aren’t alone and so what might have been impossible becomes reality. Through a combination of Zach battering them with wooden spikes from below and Susan nipping in to strike at their joints, Sammy and Jay manage to drive them back.
Then Jim releases an arrow and one of the earthen cows falls, an arrow through the eye. This opens up the entire fight as it allows Susan to get in deeper and cause some real damage. From there it is a slow grind as the earthen cattle die and the normal cows dwindle until only a cow that smells heavily of herbs remains.
Well, it would be all that remained if not for the gaggle of goats and ten wolves that came right after. Though after the cattle, they aren’t exactly the most effective. That one remaining cow however is more than pulling its weight. Susan is still doing work, cutting into all kinds of locations.
The biggest problem she is having is that the cow seems unphased by her poison. Though even ignoring that, the cow seems designed to be her nemesis. The way things would normally go without poison is she would cut a few important blood vessels and soon enough the enemy would bleed out or be forced to attend to their wounds.
The herb cow however ignores such things. While the wound itself isn’t instantly healing or anything, even the most dire wound soon clots up as some form of innate healing easily deals with what would have been an unfortunate amount of blood loss.
Susan can remember fighting this cow previously and it takes her a moment to figure out why this time is so much tougher. Then it hits her, what is one of the most classic tropes for how to stop rapid healing? Of course the answer is fire and the last time they had two mages throwing around the stuff willy nilly.
Without a fire mage the herb cows above average Constitution score and fast healing makes the thing an absolute nightmare to take down. So much so she can only give up on taking down the beast and move on. Though if anything, this made it easier for Sammy to handle the cow as she no longer has to worry about hitting Susan.
On the backline Jim is a bit worried about the herb cow. The enemy mages had almost broken through the wooden lattice at this point and Zach was going to have to focus more actively on countering them. If the herb cow wasn’t taken care of soon, things could start going badly.
Worse yet, he had already tried applying some pointed force to the cow’s eyes and it managed to fend off his attack. This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened, though those occasions were rare. What it did say was that the cow wasn’t fully engaged with Sammy and was able to keep an eye out for itself. So as the wolves approached the front line, Jim worries and decides to focus on them instead.
A smart decision as while dangerous, the wolves lacked a lot of the oomph that the goats and cows had behind them. This difference in ability shows clearly how levels aren’t really all that important, but rather the paths you’ve taken. With three shots, Jim is easily able to take down three wolves. Something he wasn’t capable of doing even against the goats, let alone the cows.
Heartened by this, Jim soon manages to finish off the rest of them, beating the enemy mages in their attempts to breach the lattice. This doesn’t stop the breach from happening of course, but it does allow Jim to be ready to help Zach fend off any attackers trying to get the high ground on them.
A good thing too, as the only remaining ice mage had decided to do just that. He wasn’t exactly allowed to join in on trying to break the wood lattice, ice being a bit of a counter to fire, and so had decided to sneak into the nearby building to try and rain down icy death from above. Jim gladly introduced him to pointy death in return.
That didn’t stop the other mages from raining down the damage, some of the goats and the herb cow even ended up in the crossfire. This ironically is what finally opens up the herb cow. A fireball skirts a little too close to the beast and singes its side. Thus distracted, Jay was able to get a powerful skill assisted swing in, lopping off a horn and cutting deeply into the skull.
Jay’s poleaxe does get stuck in the bone but he considers the trouble well worth it compared to finally being able to lay low the beast as even fast healing can’t fix that much brain damage. At least not with the skill level the herb cow had.
Sammy in turn steps forward to protect Jay as he wrestles his weapon free. Though she isn’t completely on the defensive, her sword is doing fine work on the enemy goats. Then from around the bend five more goats, four of which are being ridden, show up before they are even a third of the way through the current batch.
The kobold mages that had been lurking just around the corner make way for the goats and specifically the goats. While the four kobold goatherds might be riding the beasts, it is clearly the goats that are important. Not that the party wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were special. Compared to the other goats, these five are all a good few inches taller than the rest with a much more muscular overall appearance.
Then with a snarl from one of the goatherds, the unmounted goat charges into the herd with the other four following closely behind. As it makes its way towards the party the normal goats split apart from them without even looking back. This allows the four to easily reach the battle.
Though not before Jim manages to lay low one of the goatherds with an arrow to the heart, the kobold’s leather tunic not up to the task. The big goats ignore this change and barrel into Sammy as she braces with her shield.
One of the goatherds manages to get a good thwack in with their shillelagh, but Jay isn’t standing around like a lemon and comes in from the side with a grand sweep. Not prepared for this response, the three goatherds are all swept off their mounts and back into the herd of goats behind them.
It is only through a combination of skill and incredible luck that none of the three end up trampled before the goats notices what is up. As it is though, they aren’t doing too hot and their presence has caused a disruption in the herd. A fact that Jim easily takes advantage of as goat after goat falls prey to his arrows.
All the while Zach and Doctor are hectically holding back five kobold mages. To say this was a challenge would be understating things. Even if it had been five normal kobold mages, two spells a person would be a difficult proposition. When you include mages learned in your group's counter, that spells trouble.
Even though none of them have been ensouled, they are still able to make excellent use of the baked in spells that the System provides. Whether it is the simple fire shot, the devious napalm burst, or the more powerful fireball. The only lucky part is that they never have a chance to figure out Ruby’s fire ribbon. A truly dangerous spell that proves Ruby is more than just a normal magic user. All that aside though, the basics are still deadly.
Zach is trying his best, making use of what is left of the wooden lattice to reflect what shots he can. Doctor on the other hand, is trying a more aggressive tactic. After all, no matter how much they block, it might only take one missed shot. To solve that, sometimes the best solution is to remove the source of the danger and that is exactly what Doctor had planned.
He might not have any real spells, but it is amazing what can fit under the auspice of healing magic. In particular and of incredible use at the moment, he has managed to develop a spell that detects foreign magic and applies pressure back towards the source. A useful ability if one had to deal with a curse or harmful spell that was still being fueled by someone else.
Or as in this case, adding a bit of a kicker to an enemy mage’s spell. While not capable of killing the kobold mages, it did give them a massive headache and cause their spells to no longer feature the incredible accuracy commonly seen in simple bullet spells. Taking what was essentially a hitscan spell and adding the need to focus on aiming causes all kinds of problems for a being not used to it.
Of course with just a minor amount of mental defense would protect against this ability. A wonderful thing that the kobolds are completely lacking in. Not the hardest thing to believe, when until now all spell disruption had been happening right before the spell hit and not before it was even cast.