Claws scraped against the stonework as Qek howled their fury at the defenders. Thousands of them pressed together meant the cacophony was deafening, and it was everything Erin could do to make herself be heard over the shrieking. Soon, the archers developed into individual shooters. Each of them simply reloading and firing into the heaving mass, while Erin did her best to spread fire through the ranks nearby. More than once she saw qek trying to stand atop another to reach the lip of the wall, and she switched spells, throwing down a binding point behind them, and dragging the impromptu pyramid of qek off balance and causing those on top to crash into those below. This led to brief struggles among the monsters as they snapped and snarled, but the fighting quickly ended with the qek turning their attention once more to the village.

Again, Erin was struck by the absence of the pale qek. Previously, the smaller variety had barely been controllable, even in the leader caste's presence. On more than one occasion Erin had used their naturally heightened aggression to turn them on one another, and she knew that the sheer numbers of them should’ve made that a viable tactic, and yet she could not turn them on one another now.

The training with her spells was paying its returns now as she unleashed more spells than she’d ever been able to before, even so. She knew if she carried on, she’d exhaust herself, and there was no telling how long the fighting would last. So she switched to a more mundane approach. Helping the villagers toss heavy stones into the swarm of monsters.

“They’re on the wall!” The words hit her like a bolt of lightning, and she took off at a dead sprint along the platform. She could see where they had formed a ramp of bodies, and the monsters were now struggling against a group of defenders that were quickly being reinforced from either side. Erin pulled a spear from her inventory and pushed herself into the defenders, standing shoulder to shoulder as she jabbed out, wounding the monsters and forcing them back toward the edge of the wall. Erin’s shoulders burned as she lunged out, repeatedly. Ignoring the notifications, Lisa delivered whenever her spear struck a lethal blow.

Eventually she worked her way into position along the edge of the wall, able to see down to the ramp the qek had created. Runes flooded her skin, twisting and turned as he leveled her hand. She channeled magic through her body, using the spell runes as a channel, and forcing the magic construct to its limits. Energy straining against the bonds of her Binding Point. She unleashed it just beyond the qek’s point of approach. Qek were ripped away from the wall, their makeshift tower of monsters lost as the individual qek were pulled inexorably towards the center of the spell.

Erin froze, looking on in disbelief as she watched the force of the spell pile them one atop the other, until the mass of qek were crushing each other under their combined weight. For a moment, this section of wall became bizarrely peaceful as the potency of her spell disrupted the attack.

[This is no time for gawking. Send everyone back to their positions before more start to break through.]

Lisa jolted Erin out of her wide-eyed stare, bringing the reality of the fact she was in the middle of a battle crashing back onto her.

“Get back to your positions! Go!” she bellowed, delivering a similar jolt to all the villagers who had stopped to watch the macabre pile of qek being broken under the force of her magic. With some shoving, and some shouting, everyone dispersed back to their assigned sections of wall, and Erin wanted nothing more than to sink to the ground and take a moment to catch her breath.

“Qek on the wall!” another voice called out, and she gritted her teeth and set off at a run.

“Now thrust, all at once” Kiran yelled out, as the press of qek sought to overwhelm them. His band of villagers firmed their underhand grip on the spears and stabbed altogether, driving the points into the wall of monsters. Some qek screamed in pain, while others howled their fury and tried to push back against villagers, but Kiran kept the steady flow of direction coming.

“Pull back, and again!” He lunged forward with the spear in his hand, driving the end directly into a monster's face. Snout destroyed, the qek gurgled and wheezed, powerful lambs slammed against the spear’s haft as the monster tried to dislodge the source of its pain. The spears jerked from side to side, inflicting more damage and pain. Kiran ripped the weapon back and gave the creature, who stood just above his waist, a firm boot to the chest and sent it flying back down into the heaving mass of monsters below.

For him, the battle had devolved into an endless series of skirmishes broken up by the brief windows of calm once they had thrown back the attempt to climb over the wall. Everywhere around him the scene was repeated, and in his gut he knew the monsters would break through somewhere. He had even seen Liam briefly, as the Mage leapt in to assist him with pushing back a wave of qek that had nearly broken them. Remnants of the spears made of stone still poked out of the ground near the base of the wall. Dozens of qek bodies still hanging off them, shredded beyond recognition by the continued combat. Barely time for a nod of appreciation and the Mage had been gone, off to prevent the defense from cracking elsewhere. He regretted not getting the chance to ask after Erin before Liam had run on, but everyone had more pressing concerns. Kiran would just have to have some faith that the red-haired Mage could hold her own.

With the most recent push thrown back, Kiran waved at his band of villagers to rest for as long as they could. He’d lost three of them as the day had worn on, which left him with barely a dozen, and looking beyond the wall. Kiran felt the situation was becoming truly hopeless. He’d long since lost count of the qek he’d personally killed, let alone his squad, but it made no difference. The monsters kept coming, countless in their numbers and entirely undeterred by the slaughter of their fellows. Blind aggression removed all fear of death or pain as they threw themselves on the spears of the defenders.

Kiran leaned over the wall's edge, his vision sweeping back and forth along the base. The qek directly in front of him had moved back and was standing oddly still as they prepared their next rush. He’d seen that behavior a few times after a group was thrown back. They’d retreat a few yards from the base, and stand almost entirely still for several minutes before rushing back up to try and climb over. As if they were making a plan, but none of them seemed to be speaking to the others. He dismissed the odd behavior, whatever it was. It was beyond his station in life to worry over it. Figuring out what the little bastards were doing was Tooms’ job. Keeping them out of Dangole was his only responsibility.

Tooms had a white knuckle grip on the edge of the table as he looked over the map. Shifting the little wooden pieces that represented their defensive line. Most of his scouts had stopped reporting the situation, all of them pressed into service along the wall, but a few kept coming to bring him news and carry back his orders, along with some of the older children who had snuck out of the bunker to help.

“Sir,” a young boy said, giving him a Monster Hunter salute. “They’re all around the walls now.” Tooms had been waiting for this, but expecting the bad news never made it more pleasant to hear. It had been nearly impossible for his men to get a proper count of the qek as their force had approached Dangole. They marched in chaos. They had no regiments, no squads. Their camps were little more than a series of haphazardly disturbed bonfires around which the monsters slept. So Tooms wasn’t surprised to find their original estimates were off, but the sheer number of them was staggering. As if summoned by the direction of Tooms’ thoughts, the mayor stumbled in. The round bellied man was usually quite chipper, but today he looked like a snowman halfway through its first day of summer.

“There must be every one of them in the entire valley out there.” He said as he stumbled to the table, leaning against the edge for support. His clothes were torn in several places, and he bore many scrapes and cuts, including one above his brow that was continuously bleeding in his eye.

“More I think,” Tooms said, looking back down at his map before turning to the young boy who was waiting for the orders he was to deliver. “Tell my men to get into the final formation. We need to cover every point, and then you need to get back to the bunker.”

“But what if-”

“That's an order, now go.” Tooms would join the battle himself once the last of his people had been given their orders. If the wall fell, they had organized a couple of fallback points, closing off alleyways to create choke points they would attempt to hold. Everyone knew the plan, and now that the siege had entered its final stage, there would soon be no more orders left to give. They would repel the invaders or be overrun. The Mayor seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he spoke up.

“I sent a rider to the Outpost almost a week ago.”

“Did the rider carry a message saying we expected to be besieged by thousands of monsters in a week’s time and desperately needed Mage reinforcements?” The Mayor sighed heavily, hunching his back and shoulders, creating an even greater resemblance to the half melted snowman.

“No, but I reported the appearance of a couple Mages, and repeated what they told me about the qek attack villages. They seemed pretty insistent on finding them when they came through last.”

“So they might show up today, in a week or maybe a month.” The rider would’ve only just arrived on the far side of The Gap, and it was unlikely the Mages would be in a hurry to send anyone to investigate. As far as he was concerned they were on their own.

Sigrid moved between groups, working her way back towards the town's gate. She had followed the leading edge of the qek army. Reinforcing attempts to breach the wall as the qek had slowly encircled all of Dangole, but now that the Monster’s threat loomed on every side, she had set her sights on what she saw as the most vulnerable point in their defenses. The thick wooden gate was sturdy, and Tooms had seen it reinforced before the battle had begun, but it was still made of wood and could only hold out for so long under the endless assault the qek could seemingly maintain.

She charged into the fray, a jet of water slicing through a pair of qek as they crested the wall. The group of villagers here were looking ragged and tired and the Monster Hunter, who was meant to be serving as their commander, was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s your officer?” She called out to a pale-faced woman next to her, as they shoved the monsters back down the ramp they’d made of their own bodies. Wordlessly, the woman pointed down below to the writhing mass of fur and claws, and Sigrid grimaced. If he’d fallen down, or been pulled in it didn’t matter. Landing amongst the creatures down below was always going to be a bad way to go.

I hope your second life treats you better than mine has.

She says a silent prayer for the fallen man, before looking further down the wall. The other groups seem in better shape than this one. At the very least, she can see the brown leather armor of the village's fighters amongst them. With a sigh, Sigrid reached into her inventory and extracted a spear and shield, folding herself into the line of bedraggled villagers, most of whom looked on the verge of throwing down their weapons and crying.

“Well, today has got to be the most miserable day of your lives.” Sigrid called out, looking back and forth. “Because you’re all in my squad now.” She grinned at them, her face covered in dirt and flecks of dried monster blood. The villagers looked at her, as if she’d gone mad. “I know you think you’ve had it bad.” She continued, “but I’m here to tell you, you don’t know the first thing about bad.” Below the qek were regrouping and getting ready to make another push on this section. Sigrid suspected that they had sensed the weakness of this group, and were now planning to hammer away at them until they broke.

“Shields up!” she snarled, raising a shield of her own, summoned directly from her inventory. Runes suffused her skin, and she didn’t know it, but her eyes took on an amber glow as she activated the Bronze State. Power flooded through her body, driving the ache from her muscles and even subduing her fear and anxiety. She had been relying on the state periodically since the battle began and regretted cutting it out of their training in favor of improving under more normal conditions. She hoped Erin was not holding back, and had been looking for a chance to speak with her since she’d started using the ability, but they had yet to cross paths.

She turned her focus back to the task at hand as the qek surged forward once more.

“Shields up," she called again as she hefted her own to her shoulder. The villagers on either side of her did so as well, though they struggled. Exhaustion was setting in. It had hit this group harder than many others so far, but Sigrid knew that was the real enemy. There simply weren’t enough combatants to rotate them out in shifts so that those fighting could rest. Eventually, exhaustion would crack the defenders and the monsters would spill over the walls into the village. It was just a matter of time. Sigrid didn’t hope for a victory at this point. There were simply too many, and what's more is the leader caste had yet to make an appearance. She didn’t let any of that despair show in her face as she shouted encouragement at the men and women around her. After a brief clash and struggle, the humans battered the qek invaders back down the wall. A few well-placed spear thrusts and slicing jets of water saw the ramp of qek dismantled.

Sigrid looted the bodies of the qek she’d been able to slay, which worked even from a distance. She could not retrieve the contents, but the bright light of the bodies vanishing threw the qek into disarray momentarily, buying her group a few more precious seconds of rest.

Erin was exhausted beyond anything she’d ever experienced in this life or the last. If she had only herself to worry about, she likely would’ve just collapsed to the ground and given up. Once she was dead, she could get a few moments of peace, but it wasn’t just her life. Everywhere she went, she found people holding on desperately. People without the advantages of her reborn body, magic or even the persistent awareness of Lisa. The Liaison could be obnoxious, but Erin would’ve been dead a dozen times without her.

One fight blurred into the next, and Erin had dipped into any reserves of strength she could find. Including the Bronze State that Sigrid had seemed wary of incorporating into their practice. It was as if a divine being had stepped in, and soothed her muscles, given her thoughts clarity and given upon her a sort of invulnerability to emotion, a way to block out her fear. The effects of the new state had waned dramatically in the time she’d been fighting. The Bronze State took its own toll on her stamina and as they fell low in the sky, and afternoon threatened to turn to evening. She was spent, unable to even activate the Bronze State anymore.

The thought of trying to pull the runes up to the surface so she could channel through them made her want to throw up. So she used a spear and a shield and fought alongside the villagers, clumsy with exhaustion. The qek’s pushes against the defenders had the tone of an awkward shoving match between drunks than a proper fight, and the defenders held out just barely, time after time. Each win coming a little harder than the last.

When the defense did finally break, some part of Erin was just glad it hadn’t been her that had broken first. Still near the front gate, she heard the wood crack, the sound like a gunshot, and everyone along the walls nearby turned to stare as the gate bulged, the wood splintering under the force. Then all at once it burst, splinters cascading up the street like a bomb had gone off on the far side. Qek surged up the street, and the small force who’d been charged with defending the gate rushed to meet them. From where she stood, Erin could barely hear Tooms sounding the retreat. The order filtered through the Monster Hunters, who heard it being passed down along the wall.

“Fall back!” Erin cried out to those around her. “First barricade, let's go.” She feared that the retreat would turn panicked, and they’d be routed before they dug in at the barricades the Monster Hunters had set up, but everyone was simply too exhausted. Too many times already had they experienced the adrenaline of near death for this one to evoke more than a half-hearted jog.

Too tired to be disorderly, the retreat went much more smoothly and quickly than if everyone had been sprinting this way and that. The order going out, everyone withdrew, making for the choke points further in. Erin moved at the back of the groups, shouting for them to keep moving and offering words of encouragement. She turned back as the last of the people in her area funneled between the buildings, just in time to see qek crest the wall in several places. The monsters ignored the stairs, and instead leapt straight to the ground, charging after the escaping humans. Erin turned and ran along behind, healing for the barricade, and hoping she'd be able to regroup with Liam and Sigrid before the Monsters broke through the line. She didn’t want to die before she got the chance to apologize for dragging them into this.