Just like in Cotanaku, the roar that filled the air was sudden and sourceless.

Kaldalis realized that he had to break into a run back to the gate.

Last time, the enemy had seemed to appear at the gates, and he expected the same now. He couldn’t afford to waste time. The quest accompanied it just as expected.

Bad Medicine: Final Raid

Save the town from the third Infernal Horde attack.

As expected, the Panbu main gate was a flurry of activity, audible even before it came into view. He rounded the last corner to see that every archer on the walls and in the towers was furiously firing, a continuous stream of arrows filling the air. The inner gate was still open, and people were just milling about, even as the outer gate started to visibly shake.

“Adventurers!” Kaldalis yelled, pushing his voice out from his diaphragm, projecting as loud as he could. “Stack up! Gather with your parties! Solo players to the back, small parties in front, larger groups to the killbox!”

Whether fueled by authority or by volume, the crowd jumped to obey. A lot of people moved to the back. Even as Kaldalis approached, he got a party invite from Balrim. Accepting it showed that they were joined by Myrin, Reno, and Ess for damage, Yosini for healing, and Martok as another tank. Courbois was also in the party, rounding it off to a reasonably-sized raid group, but Kaldalis knew she was at her post back with the diplomats.

“Healers!” Kaldalis barked at the group of solo players. “Start inviting people to join you. As many as you think you can support at your current level. You don’t need a tank, I just want everyone to have heals to keep them safe! You can work with tanks without being in a party with them, but if you aren’t partied with a healer, they’re never going to know if you need healing. Everyone’s first priority is to protect the town, but I want people staying alive out here! A dead adventurer does zero damage. I don’t want to see any heroes trying to tank the floor!”

He stepped through the shifting crowd as people started to move and gather as groups were formed. The closer he got to the wall, the louder the rattling of the outer gate became. More than that, it was joined by a thunder of fists against the wooden walls. By the time he reached his party, he worried he would have to yell not to be treated as an authority, but just to be heard.

“What are we looking at?” Kaldalis asked when he reached his friends.

“A mess,” Myrin said with a big smile.

“An army,” Balrim clarified. “Two types of Infernal Horde, as we expected. We aren’t sure what we’re looking at, but it’s kinda nasty. Maybe between one-fifty to two hundred of them total.”

“Captains?” Kaldalis said, looking around the group. “Majors, even?”

“Captains yes,” Balrim confirmed. “No Majors yet. But unlike the Cotanaku siege, the Captains are among the ranks, not hanging back.”

Martok grunted and gestured at the nearby ladder up to the archer tower. “Head up and take a peek. It’s worth the trip.”

With a grimace, Kaldalis mounted the ladder and clambered upwards.

The archer tower was full of the thrum of bowstrings, but as he reached the summit, he started to see the army arrayed against them. Every rung revealed another rank of them, until he was above the wall, looking down at them all.

Balrim’s guess had been a conservative estimate, or his information was out of date. There were at least two hundred monsters out there. It looked like a literal tide crashing against their walls.

They had to move fast, or the enemy’s raw numbers would soon break through the walls.

Xorn were by far the majority, their huge metallic fists hammering at the walls wherever they could reach. Unlike the fight in Cotanaku, the captains all appeared to be Xorn as well, and they were wading through their numbers, trying to reach the walls in the press of bodies.. While the normal Xorn were ten feet tall, the captains were head and extra-shoulders above that, at thirteen feet. They were just upscaled in proportion though, with the same four arms and vase-like head.

Kaldalis didn’t know what he was looking at for the new Infernal Horde type. They were less numerous, and with no captains of their variety. They were also short, relatively speaking. Though they were dwarfed by the Xorn, they were likely still six or seven feet tall.

As expected, they were humanoid, and appeared to have roughly normal anatomy. Two arms, one head. He suspected two legs, though he couldn’t see from here.

The oddest thing about them was that they superficially resembled the Malum. They appeared to be made out of opaque blood-red goo, thrumming and pulsating with a gentle glow. Unlike the malum, their surfaces shifted and flowed like liquid.

They also didn’t look huge and imposing. These new creatures didn’t cut a muscular silhouette. They weren’t scrawny, but their appearance was much softer, like someone at a more ordinary level of fitness, rather than an MMA fighter.

The red ones didn’t appear to be doing anything to contribute to the siege yet, and he feared what that meant. Were they some manner of caster? Would they unleash destruction on soft targets that they couldn’t against solid walls?

Regardless, he couldn’t just sit up here on a ladder speculating. They had to get to work.

When his feet hit the ground again, he could see that the mob of adventurers had loosely organized, sorting themselves into groups of various sizes. He just had to hope they could withstand whatever was coming.

“Alright, everyone!” Kaldalis yelled, belting out so that everyone could hear. “I want the big raid groups in the kill box. At least three of them. Four if we’ve got it.”

The larger groups were already in the killbox. More than that, there were five separate groups. After a moment’s thought, Kaldalis pointed to one - the tank at the head of that group was someone Kaldalis didn’t recognize. A Suyon with a greatsword. His instinct was to pull the man in black armor so that he didn’t fuck everyone over, but there was a sense of vindictive thrill to the idea of him being the first to die. It also looked like Gabriel was with his group, and the alpha healer was the best chance they had to endure whatever the new Infernal Horde monsters threw at them.

“You four,” Kaldalis said to those who remained, “are going to hold the line! We need to open that gate. If the Horde is trying to force their way in through the gate, they’re not hammering the walls. Thin their numbers. Hold them in place for the archers. And ultimately, send them running! None of them breaks through the line!”

“This is where we fight!” the man in black armor yelled back. “This is where they die!”

Kaldalis pursed his lips in irritation at the cheer that earned from the group. He didn’t like the man, but he couldn’t afford to disrupt the camaraderie his joke was building. Personal opinions weren’t more important than the integrity of their defensive line.

Instead of dealing with that, he turned his attention to the Suyon he’d pulled out of the killbox. “You’re the last line of defense,” he said. “If the wall is breached, I need someone to hold the line there. That’s your duty. Me and my group will be your backup, but you’re on point for that.” He raised his voice to address all the smaller, more scattered groups. “Anything that gets inside needs to be controlled! Tanks hold, and DPS cut them down! The Infernal Horde can’t be allowed to run amok in here!”

“Archers!” Kaldalis called up at the nearest archery tower. Despite the authority in his voice, not one of them stopped firing wildly into the crowd beyond the walls. “Yeah! Yeah, keep doing that!” Kaldalis yelled. “Keep up the good work.”

A rumble of chuckles went through the crowd at that. Having successfully lightened the mood, Kaldalis made his way to the nearest ladder, which would put him on top of the wall above the inner gate. As he climbed, the adventurers below moved into positions.

“Close the inner gate!” Kaldalis yelled as he reached his perch over the gate, where he would be able to see the fight unfold.

With a creaking crash, the wooden gate slammed shut, leaving the four groups on the inside to take positions, tanks at the front and healers at the back. Martok, Balrim, and a handful of other adventurers worked together to lift a giant wooden beam into position to bar the door, protecting them from breaches. Kaldalis took this opportunity to retrieve the censer from his inventory, planting it next to his feet. The hope was that he could hold off on activating it until they were fighting the captains, but having it ready would give everyone a confidence boost.

They couldn’t be overcome with all their preparations in order, right?

“Prepare to open the outer gate,” Kaldalis called. “Mobile DPS please open them, so your tanks can be ready to receive them!”

Each of the four groups sent one person ahead. Three had daggers on their hips, while the fourth had a spear.

All would have the ability to outpace the first charge and return to safety, just as Kaldalis had asked.

Kaldalis raised a hand, ready to signal to them when to open the gate, when the wood started to make an uncomfortable crackling noise.

“Hold up,” one of the DPS moving towards the gate said. The four pulled up short with visible nervousness, watching the gate as the creaking and cracking sound continued.

Kaldalis wanted to ask what was wrong, but he knew the answer. And their fear was proved right before he could even get out a word.

The bar on the outer gate split. Like a stale breadstick, it cracked, bent, and broke unevenly, flinging splinters everywhere. The adventurers scrambled in a panic to get back to their respective parties.

The Infernal Horde had breached the gate.

It was lucky that they’d been ready for it, but Kaldalis shuddered to think what that meant.

First and foremost, it meant that they couldn’t reseal the outer gate again. It also meant that the inner gate wouldn’t hold for long if the group within were overwhelmed.

And beyond that, the monsters still hammering at the walls had a very real chance of creating their own breaches in turn.