They cleared the space between the berm and the forest as quickly as they could and started to crawl up it, catching their breath and stopping before reaching the peak. They crouched there in a line and waited for their slowest members to catch up, which turned out to be Skye this time.
He crawled up to Elli and Claire muttering something under his breath about balls and explosions and got low with them. Staying low and looking over the top they could see the whole town laid out before their eyes.
The biggest building was in front of them just like Nora said and stood out with its important archways and slanted roof. It was about three times the size of any other building there and the only one that looked to be three stories tall. The berm wrapped around the town and along the mountain, with its mouth opening directly to the east, creating a crescent indent that the town resided in.
Skye marvelled at how well protected this place would have been if this berm was a big wall rather than a hill that just tired them out. With some well placed archers, it could really do some damage as they tried to crawl up it. Enemies would have to attack from one direction and that could be fortified.
This most likely wasn't a town that needed to be protected anyway, just a mining village doing what they do best, digging.
On closer inspection Skye noticed that even the berm was man made, nothing more than loose gravel taken from inside the mine and laid here. Just how deep did it go?
"There, the door should be on that side, where it narrows. It's the only way in."
Elli pointed to the right hand side of the building facing the mountain.
"We'll have to get in and out before they notice us, that doesn't leave us a lot of time."
Claire said, knowing she would be the one who would have to break down the door. The pressure of doing it fast was already weighing on her mind.
"Who said anything about leaving?"
Elli let out a little laugh and swept her hand across the landscape.
"Welcome to our secret base number 1, where we'll train and farm for slivers all day long."
Skye and Claire looked at each other. They were already struggling with just protecting the one base, and now Elli wanted to split the force and protect a whole town? Have they placed too much pressure on her and now she was cracking under it?
Skye was the first to voice his objection.
"Elli, just, how? How could this work? We don't have the manpower to do this. We need to protect the Village tree or I think we like… Die?"
She put her hand on his back as they both laid low there.
"Look there, we can't move that forge. And see over there? That's where the skeletons are coming out of."
She pointed to the mining shaft, and she was right, they were marching directly out of there but not entering, two at a time with a few seconds in between.
"Claire you said you didn't see a single monster other than them until you entered the forest right? They don't come here. We can clear this place, set up rotating troops in front of that tunnel and get a steady flow of low risk slivers, increasing our strength and our troops. We move Kai's Smiths here and cut down trees to make a road. Can you see it?"
"Why didn't you tell us this before we got here Elli, the plans are changing too quickly, I cant make a judgment call this quickly."
Skye said in a serious tone, she was asking him to make a decision not knowing all the facts beforehand.
"I couldn't be sure before seeing it. I knew the skeletons had to be coming from somewhere, but to imagine it was the mountain, and so few at a time too? It's better than I thought."
There was a gleam in her eye, one that Skye didn't really like but couldn't argue against. It was like she was dreaming bigger than their capabilities could handle. A dog off a leash and just running, but unlike the dog, she had a plan and she was chasing it.
"Okay, but if it looks dangerous we're grabbing what we can and leaving. I'm not getting stuck in another god damn town."
Elli pulled Skye in for a sideways hug, her face closer to his now. He didn't notice the depth to her hazel eyes before, now giving him a wink.
"I won't let you down."
She smiled softly and let him go, turning her attention to Claire. Skye felt his breath catch in his throat for a second and his thoughts stuttered.
"When we get there I'll need you to break the door down. Wardens, set up a circle around the door, station warriors with spears behind you and keep them at a distance. They're slow and stupid, but they're sturdy. Crush their heads and they won't get up. Have a corridor open for the workers to move. One squad moves with them to the sleds and then head back here, the squad stationed with the sleds will head home with them. We're setting up shop in that big building and clearing this place out in the morning."
She was the first to cross over the berm, summing her bow into her hand and notching an arrow, taking off down the hill.
"Let's go!"
Claire followed, choosing not to summon her giant sword in order to be as fast as possible. She knew she had to get to that door and find a way to break it down quickly.
The rest rused over the peak of the berm, half sliding half falling down the face of it. The skeletons, still trying to crawl up the side of the building and facing the wrath of the Flower Boys unaware of their new guests.
Eventually one of the flat faced skeletons in the back turned around to face the noise, seeing the wave of bodies come down the hill. Well, if they had eyes they would see it, but they noticed one way or another. It turned its body and started to drag the club in its hand towards them. Like a slow tide, the others followed suit once they noticed.
Now the attention was split between the Flower Boys and the newest visitors, parting the ocean. Luckily for the group they were a slow moving force. They had at least a couple minutes before they faced any real danger.
The last of them slid down the hill as Elli and Claire reached the door, Skye shortly behind them. Skye took the second to summon Thorn and his Chestnut Warriors. They sprouted out of the ground in seconds and he began to spread his roots so they could move freely.
"I'm on it!"
Claire shouted as she rounded the corner to face the door, now towering above her. The whole of the building was three stories tall, and the door seemed to be large enough to cover two of them. It was made of a mixture of metals that Claire couldn't identify and careful carvings that depicted what looked like the birth of a king.
Each layer grew grander in scale until it reached the peak, where a man stood with a face too perfectly round to be a mistake, stood with his arms open and a crown resting on his head, smoke rising from behind him.
Claire put her hands on the door and planted her feat, dragging as much weight from the world into her body as she could. She made her body heavier, and denser, heavier and denser, over and over again. She pressed forward, driving with her legs and trying to shove her way into the door. The building cracked and groined, dust falling from the arch way that connected the doors.
The metal sounded as if it was bending and the joints were popping off their hinges, but still the door did not move. She took on as much as she could handle before it felt like she would collapse under the weight and released it, falling into the door, panting for breath. She used the door to prop herself as she gathered her strenght.
She was stuck in a weird zone, where her body felt both so light now it could float away while also feeling heavy with exhaustion.
Claire looked up at the doors, the crack in the middle only slightly parting. For all that effort it didn't even move an inch.
The clanking of bones and metal got closer, around the corner and down the long alley the skeletons were gathering together in their match.
"Change of plans. Find what you can, block off the side alleys, make them face us head on. Create a barrier."
Elli gave the orders and everyone sprung into action, there was a good chance they wouldn't be getting inside this building before the enemy was upon them. They would have to hold them where they could and buy some time.
Skye started to create roots and had them rush forward and crawl up the walls of the buildings on both sides of the alley. In the distance the blasting of the Flower Boys faded, and new Minions appeared across from each other. They danced into life and got to business.
Blasting into the marching skeletons indiscriminately they took out groups at a time. The blasts came slower and were weaker than before, they didn't have the time to build up mana and store it in the root system.
Skye took the chance to push his roots further and into the oncoming death march. He sent them jumping in and out of the ground creating loops in the ground like a sea dragon swimming.
That should cause a bit of a tripping hazard.
He did all he could for now, they only had a few minutes until the skeletons crashed into them. He joined everyone else in the task of finding things to block their paths.
Unlike the city in the forest everything seemed to withstand the passage of time much better, most things were made out of different kinds of stone rather than relying on so much wood.
Two warriors worked together to carry a marble table:
"Throw it there!"
Yelled the Warden with a large slab of stone on his back, smashing it into the ground so it stood upright. The slivers made each one of them as strong as a bodybuilder even though their frames stayed the same, well, for the most part. One Warden, who preferred to remain shirtless, was seeing some changes and wanted to make sure everyone else saw them too.
He stood there now, half carrying things, half posing. A barrel on one shoulder and his other arm flexed, pouting his lips and the sun made his new muscles shine.
"Get a fucking move on you melon!"
Another Warden said while running past to get more material for the blockade, slapping him in the back of the head.
"Damn it Gav I was looking really good there!"
His pout remained but he picked up the pace. They blocked off the smaller alleys completely already and were finishing up the large road in front of the building. The monsters could circle the building and attack from behind but they didn't have enough time to make it perfect. The platoon of warriors were going to create the corridor for the workers to make it up and over the berm, the Wardens were going to hold their attention on the main road. They were exhausted and were promised rest today, yet here they were, about to fight another battle. From behind them a large slam echoed off the walls like a shotgun blast.
Claire stumbled backwards, shook her head, and got ready to charge again. She picked up speed slowly and then launched herself forward towards the door.
Every step she picked up weight and density until her last, where she pulled in as much as she could and threw herself through the air and into the door. The force of each hit building up in her body.
Another loud bang, another centimetre it seemed to move, the middle splitting open slightly and indenting all around her. She was a one woman battering ram.
She was thrown back again, blood starting to trickle from her hairline, shoulder slightly out of place.
She stumbled and fell, getting back to her feet with a slight groan. She wasn't as tall as Elli or Nora, and was the skinniest out of everyone. This power of hers didn't seem to fit her personality at all. She was a creator, someone who liked to build and tinker, someone who wanted to help and protect not stand on the front lines and hurt. She didn't want this, she would never want this.
She was suddenly struck across her face, the sting of a hand print now visible on her cheek. Her eyes were wide in shock, even more so to see that it was her own hand that hit her.
No one wants this you idiot, but there is a job and only you can do it. So put on your big girl panties and break that fucking door.
The voice raged at her inside her head, unlike anything that has ever come out of her own mouth. She didn't know what part of her consciousness was speaking to her but they were right. This door had to come down one way or another. With slow steps she picked up speed like a steam train, and once again launched through the air.
The Wardens heard another slam echo off the walls but didn't have time to investigate. They also had a job to do and it was now upon them. The first skeleton reached the barrier, which came up to around their chest in height in some places, others higher or lower but only slightly. The Wardens stood just about shoulder to shoulder and got ready to fight.
As soon as the first monster tried to climb over the makeshift barrier the shirtless Warden gathered all his strength and brought both his fists down like a hammer on its head, shattering it between himself and the hard stone. The explosion of bone casting shadows upon his toned skin
"Nothing can stop my muscle smash!"
He cried as he punched another to his right, pulling a skeleton that was trying to climb over and stomping on its head. He picked up its club like it was always his and the monster was just returning it.
"It's muscle hammer time!"
The other Wardens let out a sigh of embarrassment but followed his lead, secretly motivated by how easily he was dominating these monsters. Some of them had spears, some had swords, and only 2 had shields.
But luckily for the Wardens, they were being hand delivered new weapons by very slow postmen. All they had to do was pull them over as they tried to climb and take them.
"Check out this massive sword!"
"I got a hammer!"
"With this pickaxe I am unstoppable!"
The fear left their bodies and the atmosphere turned into that of Christmas, little kids showing off their new gifts. The bodies began to stack up on the other side as they slashed and smashed every skeleton that approached, creating a ramp of bones leading up to the barrier now.
It wouldn't be long before the smashed bodies of these skeletons would create a ramp on both sides of the barrier, letting the monsters get to the high ground before the Wardens could reach them.
For the moment it was working and that in itself was a miracle. The Wardens fought on, picking up whatever gear they could find and throwing whatever they didn't need backwards to the platoon of warriors offering support.
The door was now slightly ajar, just enough for Elli to peek in, and that was all it took for her to teleport inside. Once she was inside she was instantly swallowed by the dark of it all, the only light coming from the crack in the door.
The air was dusty and hard to breathe, a sick moisture clung all around. Damp and dark, it was the caves all over again but this time with the distinct smell of decay.
Elli ran towards the light of the door and yelled to Claire;
"Hold on! I'll feel around for a latch!"
She ran her hands over the door and quickly found what was keeping it shut, a large solid object was running across the doors. She couldn't tell if it was metal or wood, but it was now bent and stuck in place.
She placed her shoulder underneath it and tried pressing with her legs, and even with her new stronger body, it didn't budge. The bend to it must have leveraged it against whatever was holding it across. She tried with all her might but couldn't lift it.
"I can't move it Claire, you have to keep going! I'll try to find another way!"
At that moment she wished she had Nora's torch again, but Enchanted tools seemed to rarely drop for her. Out of all the slivers she's broken, she received nothing. She was lucky she got the bow and quiver at the start or she would have been left defenceless this whole time.
She ran her hands across the walls, feeling their wet cold stones for anything. A button or lever, a latch for a window, anything. She stumbled over something slumped against the wall and landed directly on her side.
"Ophf"
She hit the ground and rolled.
Feeling around like she was looking for her glasses she ran her hands over whatever tripped her. It was soft and somewhat slimy, and very much shaped like a human. It was easy to tell that this was a corpse, but unlike the skeletons outside, this one didn't try to grab her. Whoever they were, they were dead-dead.
Her hands shot back with the sickening realisation of what she was touching, the sliminess of it now so much worse. She whipped her hands on her clothes, which were equally as dirty already, and felt back up the wall. She kept going until she found what she was looking for. Just as she did two things happened.
Another slam rang out against the door, which vibrated the whole room in an almost deafening manner, and the cries of the Wardens could be heard.
"Fall back! They'll over run us! Move together!"
They needed to get inside now.