Underkeeper

Bernt activated his thornskin amulet as something large and furry bowled into him, pinning him to the ground under its bulk. They hadn’t made it to the breach in time, and now the enemy was in the tunnels. Kustov shouted something, but Bernt didn’t understand him. He was distracted by the massive creature digging its claws into his chest.

It didn’t hurt very much, thanks to his protective charm, but he couldn’t move.

He squirmed, only realizing a second later that this was the exact kind of situation that he had an enchanted belt for. With an effort of will and a little poke of unshaped mana, he activated the infused leather.

For a moment, he thought that nothing had happened. Something big and smelly was still pinning him down, and his bones still creaked under the pressure. Frustrated, he flexed and pushed up against it as hard as he could. With an odd, low squeak of surprise, the huge creature rose into the air and rolled off to the side, landing awkwardly on its flank. It didn’t feel any lighter as he lifted it, but when he pushed, it had moved.

His assailant was a gigantic mole, or something like it, with huge digging claws and a creepy, star-shaped nose. Not a demon as far as Bernt could tell – just a regular animal, if unnaturally large. Behind it, though, he could hear the familiar sibilant and guttural tones of the duergar language as someone cursed.

A shadow fell over Bernt, and he saw a spear sink deep into the creature’s side as it scrabbled at nothing, followed by two more a moment later. There was a booming noise, followed by shouts and several smaller sounds of impact up ahead.

Still a bit dazed, he looked up to find Nirlig, who was working on the interception team today, offering him a hand up. He took it and got to his feet.

“Dibs on the hide!” the goblin called with a grin before squeezing past the still-twitching body to join the fight beyond.

Bernt blinked, shook his head and looked around for his staff. It lay several paces back, where it had flown when he was hit. He picked it up and followed.

By the time he reached the real fight, it was already over. Kustov had dropped the ceiling down on the party of duergar adventurers, killing several and injuring the rest long enough for the other underkeepers to take them out. They hadn’t come away unscathed, though. One of the dwarves had been some kind of marksman with a specialized weapon that fired small metal bolts at an insane rate and with incredible force. Two underkeepers were dead, three were seriously injured and Kustov himself had a bolt in his guts that had punched straight through his armored robe and skewered him.

The entire confrontation had taken less than ten seconds, but it was still one of the worst breaches they’d had since the start of hostilities. And all because they’d thought to bring a mole. Bernt wasn’t sure how quickly the thing could dig, but it had to be extraordinarily fast if it could get around the army’s lines and past their wards so quickly that they hadn’t managed to reach the right spot in time to do something before they broke through.

Josie, who hadn’t managed to contribute anything more than Bernt to the fight, dug out one of her own standard-quality healing potions for Kustov. A minor potion would fix the damage, sure, but it would take at least a day, and it didn’t completely eliminate the risk of infection with a gut wound.

By the time they got back to headquarters, the stoneweaver was doing much better, though his mood had turned dour. They hadn’t lost anyone since the first few days of the siege, and never under Kustov's command. He went to give his report while the rest of the team settled down in the break room to lick their wounds. The place was mostly empty except for Torvald, who sat off to one side with Fiora. The older woman pointed at an open page in a book.

“I think you’re taking this a bit too literally,” she explained as they began to pour into the room. “Ruzinia doesn’t require you to literally enjoy suffering or sacrificing yourself for others – it’s more about your general attitude or mindset. How do I put it?” She scratched at her graying hair and leaned back in her chair. “I mean, her paladins are supposed to be the sort of people who are happy that they made it in time so that someone else didn’t have to. It’s not about the suffering, it’s about saving people.”

Bernt shook his head at the odd discussion. He hadn’t realized that Fiora knew anything about theology. There was no reason that a mage couldn’t be religious, he just hadn’t really considered it.

He looked around the room, trying to collect himself. It seemed wrong to just sit down and wait for the next incursion, but that was the assignment. He’d barely known the two guards who died, but it felt wrong to just... go on with his day as usual. Was that really what they were supposed to do?

Shaking his head to clear it, he headed over to the small kitchen to heat up some water. Somebody would be along soon to start distributing tea. It was something to do.

He filled the stone teapot and turned to dig around for some of Lin’s herbal tea mixture, only to find Josie holding it out next to him and leaning against the counter. She’d followed him. They’d grown a lot more comfortable with each other over the past month of working together, but he wouldn’t go so far as to call her a friend.

“What’s up?” he asked, accepting the tea and casting a quick cantrip to boil the water.

“Do you think they’re testing us?” She shook her head, staring over. “I mean, do you think they’re just testing our defenses to see what’ll work to get through in a real assault? They’ve been at it for weeks already.”

Bernt shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah. I mean. That party today almost made it, and all because they had a giant mole. If they had a hundred of those, I don’t know how we’d stop them. We don't have enough people to stop ten simultaneous breaches, never mind what that would cause. It would be a disaster.”

“Right.” Josie nodded. “But how will they know? I mean, if nobody ever survives to tell them what worked, how can they know which strategies are the best?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Bernt replied, counting in his head to make sure the tea steeped the right amount of time. “As long as we keep killing all of the ones who get through the lines, they’ll have to keep trying.”

“You're not thinking it through.” Josie said. “Did Jori tell you about the party we helped Dayle intercept yesterday? With the other imp?”

Bernt nodded. He’d heard about it, though Jori had been light on the details. She didn’t seem in much of a mood to talk last night.

“Well, that imp is going to be able to report what it saw when it reforms back in the hells, won’t it? It’ll be able to tell them that they got through, and about Jori, me and Dayle – probably Lin and Rindle, too.”

“Right.” Bernt said slowly. “Yeah, that’s not great. But that still only gives them useful information for parties that have demons in them, and only those that live long enough to see anything. We stop most of them before they even breach into the tunnels.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she said quietly. “It probably helps, but there are shades in this city, and other incorporeal demons. I’ve seen a few on the surface, and I think it would be very optimistic to assume that they’re not down here, too. They’re almost certainly getting more information than anybody thinks.”

"Did you tell Ed?" Bernt cursed as he realized the implications of what she'd just said. “That’s not something we can just ignore. If that’s what they’re doing, they actually might come tunneling in with a bunch of these mole things. Or some adaptation of everything they've tried so far, most likely. They know far more about us than we do about them.”

Josie grimaced. “That’s what I was worried about. The solicitors are doing something about the demons, but I don’t think they’re cooperating with the city’s defenders, and we’re not prepared at all to handle a larger attack if they actually had a way to get past General Arice.”

Bernt picked up the pot, and began pouring tea into cups. “We’ll take it to Ed at the end of our shift. I doubt he’s going to take this lightly after what happened today.”

–-------

“How many have you seen, exactly?” Ed asked, sitting back in his chair. “We know there are spies in the city – Radast has been warning about them for some time, as well as the problem with the demons. So far, there haven’t been any indications that they’ve been able to learn very much about what happened to their incursion parties, though. It’s one of the reasons we’re so careful to wipe them out before they get into the tunnels.”

“Three in the past few days,” Josie said, shrugging. “But that doesn’t mean very much. Jori told me she’s been sensing things out there as well. Incorporeal demons are sneaky. If they see me coming, they can just step through a wall or something – my senses don’t go through obstructions. For all I know, they drop down into the street. I imagine down here they could probably just conceal themselves in the tunnel walls. We’d never see them.”

Bernt cleared his throat. “I think it could be a problem. The general is making a mistake, only fighting defensively, right? If he thinks the enemy isn’t getting very much intelligence, he might just be hoping that they run out of low-ranked adventurers dumb enough to try these probing attacks.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Ed said. “The general’s been wanting to go on the offensive since all this started. My guess is that he got orders from the king, and he’s been too worried about his reputation at court to take the initiative.”

Bernt scowled. "That’s crazy! Doesn’t he know he’s risking an entire city full of people?”

Ed rolled his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. Attacking means risking an entire army of soldiers as well. And if he lost, the city would fall right afterward. Being a general isn’t a simple job. He has to weigh the risks to everyone involved. The smart play in most sieges is just to hold out until help arrives.”

“And is help coming?” Josie asked, raising an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard anything. The rumors say that Yetin’s Harbor is being attacked as well, and nobody mentioned any relief forces anywhere.”

Ed grimaced. “No. There have been raids on all four major Beseri cities from below, though we’re the only ones that have duergar knocking on our front gates, too. Teres also lost contact with the garrison at Rimehorn Pass last week, which leaves the kingdom’s northeastern border exposed to invasion by the orcs. We’re not at war with them, but they’re not exactly famous for ignoring opportunities like that. Worse, none of the diviners saw anything leading up to the attacks, which sounds like they've been actively interfering with their work for quite a while now. They could just be trying to draw forces away from us here, or maybe they're working with the orcs. Or, of course, the orcs just happened to independently think this year would be a fun time to test our borders. That would make it an entirely separate disaster – there’s just no way to tell. Whatever the case, nobody is coming to save us any time soon.”

Bernt blinked, stunned at just how bad the situation really was. Josie just nodded, as if she’d expected nothing less.

“I expect you to keep this quiet.” Ed added, eyeing them sternly. “We don’t need this getting out to the public. Beseri armies have faced and beaten more dangerous and more confounding opponents than this. I’ll take my concerns to Count Narald and see if we can’t get the general to adopt a more aggressive posture.”

Scowling to himself pensively, he began stuffing his pipe. He heaved himself up and paced for a moment as he lit it and, as the room began to grow hazy, he turned back to them.

“Check to see if Kustov is still here before you go. I’ve got a project for him to manage, and maybe Janus from the adventurers, if we can get a hold of him. A specialized abjurer would go a long way.”