Unchosen Champion

Coop identified one of the red-tinged Prowlers as they snuck across the sandy battlefield.

[Marauding Prowler (Level 40)]

[(Agility)]

[Minion of the Primal Constructs]

These monsters were ten levels higher than the Enraged Defenders. The difference in levels was consistent with the regular variants found on the island, but Coop could immediately recognize a major contrast between the Ancient and the Marauding Prowler’s behavior. Instead of being in consistent groups of five with one visible at a time, these Prowlers weren’t grouped at all, or really, they were in one much larger group with no real distinction for smaller parties. There also didn’t seem to be any pattern to determine which were cloaked and which were not. Some were even alternating between both states. It effectively masked their numbers and caused Coop and the others to be caught off guard when the first wave of invisible monsters reached the walls.

Coop was dragged back into an all out fight, burning his mana on extending the range of his Fog of War so that he could detect cloaked Prowlers with Presence of Mind, and following their detection with spear throws and mistjumps. It was an impossible pace to maintain, but he was trying to give the defenders inside the walls a chance to regroup.

The first Marauding Prowlers had made their presence known by scaling the walls and entering the arched windows on the second floor, catching cannon crews off guard, and causing the first real injuries for Ghost Reef. The shouts of danger and combat drew everyone else back into the fight. They only had a few brief moments of blissful decompression before they realized there wouldn’t be any lull in the siege.

The walls may have been routed before the defenders could respond if not for Jett. The Sentinel of Shadows rejected the presence of the invaders on the entire eastern half of the exposed wall. She seemed to be in every shadow, picking apart the monsters as soon as they climbed through the windows, even before they allowed their invisibility to fall off. There was no getting past her ability to detect pests within her domain. Jett completely relieved half of the pressure that the monsters had applied to the defenses.

Shane was stifling any panic while rearranging the melee and midrange fighters to defend the second floor windows with Jett. The main gate had been slammed shut, and the casters on the roof had resumed their casting, trying to pick off the monsters that approached the fort even if not all of them could be seen by blasting the battlefield with area of effect spells.

Rear Admiral Gideon was leading a full division of phantoms in retaking the second floor of the western wall. The mass soldiers made sneaking through nearly impossible. They had recovered enough to fully secure the third floor windows, but would need to go room by room, hunting down agile enemies with invisibility on the second floor. Coop was doing his best to prevent the monsters from being able to reinforce their position in the western half of the walls, defeating as many monsters as possible, not bothering to pace himself for an extended battle. There was no point in conserving resources if they were defeated before he could use them all.

Coop quickly identified a major problem with their consolidation of forces and abandonment of the outer wall. The Enraged Defenders were still coming.

Even though a new wave had begun, the previous wave wasn’t complete, and now the Enraged Defenders were unimpeded in their efforts to chip through the walls. Dozens of the monsters had already climbed their way out of the moat and started assaulting the reinforced stone brick of the outer walls. Their numbers hadn’t let up at all.

Coop was the only person that remained in a position to clear them out, but he had to ignore them for the time being. The integrity of the walls wouldn’t matter if they lost control of them, and the Prowlers were a major threat to their position. He continued mistjumping from Prowler to Prowler, impaling them with spear throws while they slunk across the battlefield and clobbering others with shield throws when they attempted to retaliate, thinking they could ambush him while he attacked their peers.

The Prowlers were slow while stealthed, and with his gentle fog providing unparalleled detection, Coop was able to pick them off as they moved. The slight pressure they applied to the sand with each footstep was enough to tip him off to their locations.

The more dangerous threats were the uncloaked Prowlers and the Enraged Defenders. They aggressively fought when Coop got in their range, keeping him wary of biting off more than he could chew. Coop couldn’t afford to stack up Vulnerable debuffs, so he had to fight carefully, with the added complication of leaping Defenders masking the Prowlers' more subtle movements. Whenever a Defender leapt at him, he could count on a Prowler following up. The Prowlers remained excellent at feigning teamwork when they were really just baiting their comrades.

The battle finally started to stabilize when Charlie’s tornadoes manifested once again, reducing the number of monsters that could even survive crossing the island. Her tornadoes weren’t nearly as large as the storm she had summoned in Empress City, but the concentration of the twisting wind’s energy made them more deadly. And she was summoning five of them at a time, letting them build up from a ropey column of wind and sand into a V-shaped wedge of tearing winds that only faded away after destroying hundreds of monsters each.

The eastern wall was brought further under control as the casters moved to the windows and set traps for invisible intruders. Giant snowflakes waited at the openings, triggering when a cloaked enemy touched them, revealing frozen Prowlers that were easily dealt with. All the windows on the east were eventually defended by magical traps. Lightning arced across openings, flaming spikes jutted from the bordering stones, or golden barbed wire covered the edges.

The western half remained a work in progress even after Charlie’s tornadoes gradually faded. The windows nearest to the main gate were the first to be recovered and those openings were manned and protected by melee fighters that had joined Coop in defending the bridge previously. Coop recognized Mikey B’s Honorguard shield wall abilities being utilized to block the first window with translucent clones of his real shield. Sharkbait appeared in the next, with his scarred and tattooed stomach leading the way and gleaming brass knuckles smashing monsters back without even the slightest concern for debuffs.

Further resources were deployed from the ramparts. Sojjah provided alchemical ceramic grenades that phantoms tossed against the walls. They contained an oily liquid that coated the stone surfaces and wherever the liquid touched a monster, it would glow like they had been thrust into an infrared heat map. They didn’t have enough supplies to use indefinitely, but they helped the defenders start taking back control.

Coop continued to focus on the western side, still ignoring the Enraged Defenders that had made it to the base of the walls. Once the tornadoes were completely gone, the cannon portals that were defended by the casters started a barrage of cannon fire. The scrubland erupted as magical cannonballs landed among the invaders, throwing sand in giant plumes along with the remains of defeated monsters.

One barrage of just half the cannons of the southern wall was enough to leave the battlefield pockmarked with craters. The remaining visible stragglers were easily picked off long before they reached the moat. The first floor pillbox windows periodically thrust polearms out, randomly catching the slower cloaked Prowlers in between deliberate attacks on visible enemies. The few monsters that managed to climb to the second floor windows were dealt with mercilessly by the waiting casters and their traps.

When half of the western windows were retaken and protected by residents or phantoms, Coop eased up on his use of mana. He had burned through far more than he would have liked, not even leaving enough to protect himself through Mind over Matter. He opted to consume a bit more mana to switch to his glaive and fight the Prowlers the old fashioned way while his mana recuperated.

He let more monsters through, losing a massive amount of his mobility, but he made sure to cut down the cloaked ones first, prioritizing the sneaky invaders over the visible threats. Even at a reduced speed he was a massive presence on the battlefield. His Fog of War had settled into a centimeter thick sheet all along the western half of the moat extending forward enough to have him responsive to the slower moving invisible Prowlers.

They barely reached an equilibrium that felt manageable. Coop had thought they would be able to hold out against the Enraged Defenders for the entire duration of the event, but if it went any longer he thought attrition would definitely eat away at them. With the addition of the Prowlers, he was worried they would struggle to last even until the next wave.

Captain Kayla had suggested he was the lead by example type, and he took her observation to heart. He continued to fight, unceasingly defeating the monsters that he could put into range of his ethereal glaive. He wasn’t exactly someone that shied away from an extended fight and it seemed like this settlement event was the time to prove his mettle. Once he got into the grinding mindset, his speed naturally escalated. No longer fighting desperately, he settled back into the efficient techniques that had already carried him through tens of thousands of individual battles.

When Charlie’s tornadoes finally returned after she rejuvenated her mana, Coop turned his attention to the Enraged Defenders that were successfully attacking the walls. He cleaved his way up and down both sides, calling out to the soldiers on the inside of the first floor so that they wouldn’t accidentally attack him as he went by. In the hours that they lingered, the monsters had chipped large areas of the reinforced stone away, creating scars all the way across the southern wall, but the walls were thick and not in any danger just yet. It would take the monsters a week of digging through the stone before they made it into the interior, and Coop wouldn’t let them have more than a few hours at a time.

Another cannon barrage, this time from the entire wall, marked his return to the front of the moat and the fading of Charlie’s spells. The residents of Ghost Reef settled into another pattern, with Charlie’s tornadoes and the cannon fire establishing a clear cadence. Coop battled through it all.

The night was darker, with less spells creating firework displays, but it was louder, with the boneshaking cannon barrages. The stability of the defense was precarious, with the occasional mistake resulting in frantic shuffling of their forces.

The tricky Prowlers managed to get past or sometimes through the defenses, and they tried to do whatever damage they could once they had the opportunity. Coop spotted the angelic illumination of Madison more than once as she chased the problem areas with the determination of a truly dedicated first responder.

Olani’s runes were also being used defensively on the upper levels, sealing the entrances with large singular runes of orange arcane energy. Cloaked Prowlers that triggered the runes would be stabbed by five bone colored spikes and be pinned like they were flies in a spider’s web, then they would curl up into desiccated husks as if they had been drained of their mana. Olani would eventually return to refresh her runes, keeping the upper floors secure, and gradually expanding her coverage.

Coop alternated back to his spear and shield whenever his mana recovered, swapping to the glaive when his mana pool dipped below half. His mistjump cost was down to 28 mana by the time he noticed that the Enraged Defenders were completely absent from the battlefield.

Morning had come and gone with a red sunrise that would have made superstitious sailors nervous. By midday the defenders of Ghost Reef were only fighting the Marauding Prowlers. The first wave lasted three full days.

Not a lot changed for the defenders battling on the walls, but for Coop, having just a single enemy type, was a massive deescalation in tactical danger. He didn’t need to interrupt his battle-state with clearing the walls and he only needed to concentrate on the single enemy moveset.

Coop once again rose to another echelon in his grinding speed. The Marauding Prowlers were still the ambush fighters that baited their allies in order to get a decent attack off, but not being coordinated in packs meant Coop was able to isolate them from each other a lot more easily. He could also bait them into disadvantageous positions when they thought they were getting a proper sneak attack, but were really falling for his feints. It seemed like the lack of a specific formation, like they had when they were in groups of five, made them more desperate to lunge into Coop’s blind spots. They didn’t know they were inside of Coop’s Fog of War. The combination of fog and Presence of Mind meant his blind spots were a lot more difficult to reach. It would take a more sophisticated camouflage than what these simple monsters employed.

The rest of the residents also entrenched themselves against the Prowlers. During another night, the darkness was once again interrupted by the flashing of spells as the casters were more comfortable in their positions and could spare a spell or two in between managing their traps. With just the one enemy type, Shane was better able to manage their fatigue, allowing the residents and the phantoms time to take breaks, rotating on and off duty. Coop, Charlie, and Shane himself were the only ones that never stopped, though it was a safe bet that Camila didn’t rest while Charlie couldn’t.

The loud beeping echoed across the island again, but barely anyone even reacted to the completion of another countdown. They were firmly entrenched in their positions, as ready as they could be for the next wave. Coop didn’t bother to observe the timer, as singularly focused as he was on defeating as many Marauding Prowlers as he could. Whatever came next would arrive with or without his anticipation. If the pattern held, they would need to fight the Prowlers until the following day anyway.

Coop dialed himself in for another hectic 25 hours after the buzzer sounded. A few minutes and no new monsters seemed suspicious, then an earthquake struck Ghost Reef. Coop stumbled in the sand, unsure what was happening. He looked back at the walls where nothing was obviously amiss, at least any more than they were before with the threat of monsters climbing into the windows.

The cannon portals were still protected with traps that occasionally triggered when cloaked Prowlers managed to scale the walls. A few moments later and the casters returned to lobbing spells into the battlefield. The residents of Ghost Reef had already become disciplined enough to not let an earthquake break their concentration.

The first indication that something was wrong was a round of cannons fired from within the fortress. Then the warning bells started ringing from all the way around the fort. Coop noticed a plume of smoke rising from the center of the settlement, like a bomb had gone off. He swapped to his spear set and threw it over the main gate. The Marauding Prowlers were under enough control by themselves for him to leave the battlefield for a moment at least.

In the air, he could see a giant gaping hole had formed beyond the north end of the inner bridge. It was like a massive sinkhole had formed in the center of where the northern town circle would have been. The ground had been swallowed up and he couldn’t see the bottom from the angle or distance.

Coop landed above the main gate, among the many resting people. Almost two thirds of the defenders on the wall were resting while the rest fought in the windows and along the edge of the wall. They were rousing themselves, sensing that break time was over, when a second volley of cannons fired from The Eye of the Storm followed by Windchaser’s significantly smaller volley. The ships blasted the crater with bells clanging an urgent warning. They were still in the canal, protecting the civilization shard. Pirates that had been on shore were rushing back to the ship, generously applying their ethereal teleports to cover ground.

Shane was yelling a series of orders at the top of his lungs from near where Coop had landed. The field commander was sending the midrange fighters to the courtyard to set up a loose perimeter defense while the frontline melee fighters held the bridge to protect the civilization shard along with phantom divisions two and four. Everyone else was to maintain their positions on the southern wall, preventing the Prowlers from getting in. All of the off-duty fighters were needed to cope with attacks on multiple flanks.

Charlie and Camila were among the many resting fighters on the ramparts. Coop waved at them and Camila hopped up to join him while Charlie gave a weary thumbs up. If there was one person that could manage their mana over long periods of time, it was definitely the timid Aeromancer with all of her sailing experience, but she was clearly pushing herself to her limits. She looked like she was fighting off the exhaustion with a cocktail of fear and anxiety even though she tried to put forward a brave face. She chugged a mana tincture and chewed on some kind of herbal root as she rested.

Camila, on the other hand, retained her regular confidence and was as composed as ever. It would have been impossible to tell that she was going through the same ordeal as the rest of them if it wasn’t for the loose strands of hair that had escaped her ever present ponytail.

“There’s always something, isn’t there.” Camila commiserated.

“A fact of life.” Arthur added as he joined the pair. He addressed Coop directly. “Would you take a moment before joining us in the courtyard to explain all of the different invaders to Shane. He believes we will be seeing waves of each of them.”

Coop only knew of five more variants and Shane had been with him to discover two of them, and had arranged for the quarantine of another. They had more waves than five left, which meant they had incomplete information if Shane’s theory was correct. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Excellent.” Arthur turned to Camila and offered his arm. “Shall we?”

“Of course.” Camila concurred, appreciating the gentlemanly etiquette even in the middle of a harrowing battle. She angled her head back to Coop to waggle her eyebrows as they descended the stairs.

Coop picked his way through resting casters and other fighters as they waited for their turn among the battlements or prepared themselves to join in the courtyard. He reached Shane, finding the lanky man looking absolutely terrible. His long hair was disheveled, he had dark bags under his eyes from the stress, and he slouched as he rushed between casters, getting updates and sharing timings for their next wave of attacks. Even before Coop reached the field commander, several messenger wraiths came and went, passing information with practiced agility.

Coop didn’t waste too much of Shane’s time, sharing what he knew about the Ancient Devourers and the Primal Serpents after reminding him of the Primal Kites, Ancient Piercers, and the quarantined Ruin Excavators. Shane seemed to absorb the information and immediately started planning counter-measures. He was already anticipating that the disturbance in the courtyard was the start of the Excavator wave, but he wanted to try and predict the order of the rest of the waves as well.

Before Coop left Shane, he made sure to praise the man’s efforts so far. He really was doing a much better job than anyone could have expected from the former plumber. Shane waved off the compliments, insisting that even though he was nominally captain of the guard, his primary contribution would always have come in times like this.

Besides, he reminded Coop, it wasn’t over yet.