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Storming the castle
Throughout the day farmers, villagers, and messengers have come and gone, passing the encampment, and not a single one as taken notice. The camouflage netting, along with Amy’s and Osa’s concealment spells, successfully fool everybody, even one of their scouts who travelled up the road too far failed to find the camp even though he knew where it was.
Around dinner time, the camp starts to awaken. Cooking food with logs Osa drew the moisture out of so they didn’t make smoke, and gearing up for a quiet invasion. Soldiers and Archers getting dressed for battle. The leaders gathering for one last meeting before the battle.
In the command tent Adunbi, Amy, John, Osa, and Quivina are going over last minute details. John says, “Amy is going to lead the beast man in the castle after dark and set him lose on an attack, while Osa is summoning Ekina and the Dragon to attack any reinforcements. During the distraction, Amy will help Quivina and her archers climb up and take the wall, while Adunbi and John will lead the ground forces threw the tunnel and on to the castle grounds. Adunbi and his forces will hold the courtyard and gate so nobody can escape and reinforcements can’t enter. I will fight my way into the inner part of the castle and capture the noble family. Everybody understand their doing?” Everyone nods or speaks in agreement, then John says, “First things first, I want everybody to get a meal, but make it quick. Afterwards, get the bast man and go, by time you get there it will be dark. Get that dragon here. Then well get our troops ready to move out when we hear the alert raised from inside the castle.”
They all go to their assigned locations. Quivina has the archers put on blackened leather armor and rub char on their hands and faces. Adunbi and John go to the warriors separating them into two groups, the smaller group of spear men from the southern continent to fallow Adunbi, and the larger group of ax and sword fighters to follow John deep into the castle. Amy and Osa to the tree to release the beast man and lead him to the tunnel, from there Amy leads him to where he has access to the court yard well.
Once at the end, Amy grows some vines for the beast man and the warriors to climb up. When she has finished, the beast man slips into the well and waits for the best time to slip out and begin his stealth attacks. Amy turns and runs back as fast as she can.
While Amy was gone, Osa went to her tent, opened the crate that holds her egg, and focuses on using it as a medium to contact the dragon who should be on his way back to his cave, along with Ekina. When she is sure she has successfully made contact, Osa heads for the tree and waits for Amy.
When Amy emerges form the tunnel, Adunbi leads his forces in, followed closely by John and his forces. Amy meets Osa at the tree, they help each other up and make their way to Quivina. Holding hands, Amy and Osa are able to propel the tree at a quicker rate, acting as additional camouflage for Quivina and the archers.
They are not even halfway when the alert horns single the castle is under attack. The gates are sealed, and forces are doubled. Nonetheless, they continue with their plan, because that is what they expected.
Adunbi is at the well first, uses he magic to shift the bricks to make for more quick and easy climbing when combined with Amy’s vines. Adunbi is the first into the well, at the top he finds a wooden lid as been placed on top, but it is easily lifted. Lifting the well cap slightly, he peaks out to see the court yard nearly empty. Some guards at the outer gate and some by the castle door. More than a few archers on the wall, but he and his man should be able to teal with those.
Adunbi quietly slides the wooden cover over until there is enough room for him to slip out. He then eased to lid off to one side to act as concealment. He motions for the next man to come up and send him to a small rose garden nearby, from there they press against the wall and slowly ease their way towards the main gate. When John comes out of the well, Adunbi joins his men on the wall, while John has his men waiting in the well.
Adunbi has all of his men activate their stone skin amulets, then he leads them in a charge to the front gate. At the gate they encounter four guards men dressed in chain mail shirts and coifs, and armed with pikes. They are led by a sergeant who has plate shoulder pads and a metal helm with a nose guard, and is armed with a long sword. At the top of the gate are four Orangemen who run the gate mechanism.
Twelve of Adunbi’s men form a semicircle, using their shields and defender spears to block in coming arrows from the archers on the wall, Adunbi and six of his men easily over power the normal gate guards, before the four Orangemen reach the bottom of the gate towers.
With Adunbi’s distraction in motion, Amy uses her tree to rapidly lift Quivina and her archers up to the top of the wall, where they surprise the castle archers that are distracted by Adunbi and his men fighting with Orangemen.
As soon as John sees Quivina’s archers fighting with the castle archers, his men pour out of the well, some headed to the towers to aid the archers, some headed to the servants quarters, and following John towards the main entrance of the castle. Amy is the last person to come over the wall.
From the top of the castle, more guards with mounted crossbows and Orangemen with ballista appear, the angle then towards the invading archers along the wall. The rapidly load their projectiles and begin to take aim, when out of the darkness a scorching cone of flame lights the night sky revealing the shapes of two dragons, one breathing a gout of fire onto the rooftop as it swoops past, the other with a silvery glistening rider unleashing a smaller fiery spray as she and her dragon land on top of the castle. That second dragon shifts into the form of a female quite similar in stature to the rider. Osa and Ekina stand triumphantly atop the castle keep extinguishing the flaming stone and bodies before any serious damage is done to the castle structure.
John and his men force their way into the front gate of the castle, fighting their way threw a hundred guards and dozens more of Orangemen. Despite the loss of two of his men, Adunbi takes the gate and orders eight of his men to hold their location, the other eight are to aid on the walls while he makes his way inside to support John and his men. With Quivina firmly in charge of the battle on the wall, her archers bows able to fire all the way across the battle field with mystical accuracy, Amy makes her way to the ground and follows Adunbi into the castle.
John’s forces push threw the castle guards, over whelming them with sheer numbers, taking many of them captive, until they get to the noble lords inner sanctum on the upper level, where they are met by three Redmen and five dozed Orangemen filling a secondary thrown room, blocking the entrance to the living chambers of lord and his family.
John orders his men into a defensive position, two rows of shield men, forming a shield wall, two rows of pike men jabbing at any Ornageman that get too close to the shield wall. Then John has his men all move forward at a slow crawl, forcing the Orangemen backwards, and seizing more and more of the room as they move forward. Anytime a shield or pike is broken, it is immediately replaced from the ranks behind them.
Adunbi is the first to arrive at John’s location, by the time John’s men have taken about 20% of the throne room. John looks at Adunbi even as Adunbi is assessing the enemy forces. John asks, “Do you thin we can take them now that you are here?”
Adunbi tells him, “They have poison claws. The last time I fought this many, I almost died. Their claws don’t dig deep into my skin, but enough scratches and they poison can seep in. My sister had to save me. If we force them, they will rip threw your men like a pack of bears tearing threw a group of children. We will kill many of the orange men, but the Redmen will destroy what the Orangemen do not.”
John orders the slow progress forward to stop, “What do you suggest we do?”
Adunbi looks at John, “The Redman are obviously under orders to hold their line, probably until reinforcements arrive. We wait until my sisters get here.”
Just as he says that Amy enter the room, “By all the forces of nature, this is not good.”
Adunbi says, “Glad you made it, we are going to need all the help we can get.”
The Redmen begin to talk among themselves at the sight of Amy dressed in her Bark and Leaf armor, and a cloak of living grass, which is obviously magical, and disturbing to them.
A few minutes later, when Osa and Ekina enter the room, all the Orangemen seem startled and turn to look at their Redmen leaders, who seem to be equally troubled.
From above, threw one of the open air windows, there is a roaring howl as the beat man leaps from the darkness and onto the group of Redmen. Startled, the Redmen are unable to react into to defend themselves, the Beast man manages to sink his claws and fangs into the back and neck of one of the Redmen, blood gushing everywhere.
John shouts the order to advance while they Orangemen are distracted and their defence is down, his forces push their way into the wall of startled Orangemen, impaling several of them in the process. Adunbi leaps over the wall of madness and lands on one Redman, while the other engages the Beast man.
Amy reaches under her cloak and pulls out a nest of hornets, closes her eyes for a moment to commune with them, then tosses the nest into the mass of Orangemen causing the hornets to swam and attack every thing that is orange and moves. Then she pulls out her vine whip, coats it with fear inducing sap, and sprinkles some pain pollen on that for good measure. When she is ready, she screams a battle cry, as she snaps her whip at any Orangeman in her line of site.
Osa forms wings with her Zentai, and Ekina uses her powers to launch Osa over the battle and to the back of the room, then dose the same for herself, while more of John’s forces pour into the room, taking out wounded and filling in the skirmish where ever they can.
Osa and Ekina make there way into the living chamber of the noble family. There they find the lady and her children cuddled in a bed, but the castle lord is nowhere to be found. Osa says to them, “We will not harm you if you surrender and cooperate. Where is your husband?”
The lady of the castle says, “I do not know where he is, he said he was going to go get help. That is all I know.”
Osa asks, “Which way did he go?”
Before the lady can answer, Ekina says, “Osa, out there” she points out of a window. Osa moves over with her and can hear the sound of horse hooves for a moment then she spots the movement of a horse and rider in the darkness. A moment later they both see the starts go black as the shape of the dragon swoops down and grabs both horse and rider, lifting them up into the air and dropping them to their deaths, then landing and eating their corpses.
Osa and Ekina look at each other, then the lady asks, “What? What is it? What did you just see?”
Osa answers her, “Your husband is dead, he was just eaten by my dragon.”
The lady and her young daughter start crying, the 11 year old son pulls out a small paring knife and charges at Osa, screaming, “Liar! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!” Before he can even get close to Osa, the boy is picked up by a gust of wind and tossed back onto the bed. Osa looks at Ekina and nods, “Thank you.”
Osa then notices on a small table are two golden urns filled with a golden liquid. The golden Zentai’s of a married couple. Osa grabs Ekina’s hand and says, “Come with me.” Osa drags sister to the table and begins transferring her silver Zentai to Ekina while taking control of both of the golden Zentai’s. As the silver leaves Osa’s body it is filled in by gold, until both urns are empty.
The lady says, “Those are mine and…” Osa interrupts her, “No. I am now both lord and lady of this castle. Cooperate and you will be treated with dignity, refuse and your children will get to watch as you are forced into submission.”
Just then, Amy walks into the room, “The fighting is almost over, only a couple Orangemen left, they are going to need a lot of healing out there. Where is the castle lord? Hey your Zentai turned gold.”
Osa says, “The dragons ate him as he tried to flee. I took both of theirs and gave mine to Ekina. There should be two children size silver Zentai around here if you can find them, they are yours otherwise, I’ll give them to Adu. But first we need you to extract some information from this woman. Ekina stay with Amy, I’m going to go see what I can do abut healing the wounded and extracting any poison.” Osa points at the former lady of the castle.
Amy looks at Osa and says, “Getting people to cooperate is my speciality.”
As Osa leaves to go help the wounded, Amy pulls out a bag and ask Ekina to hold out her hand. Amy pours special mix of pollens into Ekina’s hand and says, “Make sure this only goes to the children.”
Ekina summons a genital breeze as she blows on the pollen, using the breeze to direct it just to the children, causing them to fall asleep with a minute.
The former lady of the castle says, “What have you done to my children?”
Amy tells her, “WE put them in an enchanted slumber. I can wake them, but will only do so if you cooperate with us.”
“What do you want from me?” asks the lady.
“Where is the southern command post? The one lead by a giant from the lost lands.”
“I don’t know precisely, but it is on the maps in my husbands study. Unfortunately, he had the only key on a string around his neck.”
“Show us the door and I will allow your children to awaken.”
The lady climbs out of bed, and puts on an over coat, then leads Amy and Ekina back towards the throne room. Bodies are everywhere. Uninjured men are carrying out the bodies of the dead, Osa and John are tending to the wounded. Adunbi comes up and asks where they are going, then decides to join them, and brings one of John’s fighters with him.
Down the hall, in another section of the castle, on the same floor, Adunbi, Ekina, Amy, the soldier, and the lady are standing in front of a large wooded door, that is locked. First, Amy attempts to warp the door, although she manages to distort the door, the hinges and lock remain firmly in place. Next, Adunbi tries to slam into to door several times, although he manages to crack a few of the planks that comprise the door, the metal bindings hot it together. Finally, Ekina decides that they should all combine their magic to warp the stone around the door until it falls off. Ekina and Amy each grab hold of Adunbi’s hands while he commands the stones to rotate inwards until the door falls over.
Inside the large room, on the largest of several tables, is a stack of maps. On top is a map of Prince Rindell’s territories, below are several maps of neighbouring territories both to the west and to the south. On one of those maps, the find the location of the giant general’s camp on the southern shore of the northern continent. Over four times the distance away than Prince Rindell’s castle, and in the opposite direction.
Adunbi says, “Osa is going to be disappointed when she learns that the giant is so far away. Amy can you take the lady back to her chambers, and bring John and Osa back with you. Soldier, stay with the lady, and grab three more people to help you make sure she doesn’t try to escape. She and her children are not to be left unobserved at any time.”
Amy leads the lady out, while Adunbi studies the maps, and Ekina searches the room for other useful items. In his desk, Ekina finds the noble lord’s official seal and a purple wax candle, a set of master keys, and she is able to detect a draft coming out from behind a book case on the wall behind his desk. Before she can say anything, Amy, Osa, Quivina, and John arrive and eagerly start asking about the maps.
Adunbi and Osa argue about which way they need to go, with John taking Adunbi’s side I the disagreement, and Amy taking Osa’s. Quivina finally says, “Let Osa take the dragon and two warriors to go after the Giant, while the rest of us march to the princes palace. It will take us 3 days to march on the place, that should give her enough time to get there, destroy the camp, kill the giant and get back.”
John says, “Even at its best speed, that dragon will still take two days just to get there, and two days to get back, plus however much time they take to complete her mission. We will need her here for the attack. There just won’t be enough time.”
Osa says, “Actually, there might be. There was a pool there that the giant used to talk to the prince. They somehow got me from the southen command post to the Palace in less than a day. I suspect that some pool is also some sort of portal that allows for limited movement of people, possibly only people of a magical nature. I can use it to enter the castle as you are attacking, surprising them from the inside. If I am correct, the soldiers won’t be able to use the pool, and the dragon is too big to fit, so I’ll take Ekina as support instead of the soldiers.”
While the others talk about the best approach to Prince Rindell’s castle, Ekina is searching for a way to open the passage to the concealed room. Everybody stops to look when Ekina finally finds the opening mechanism and the bookshelf slides aside.
In the hidden room behind the bookshelf, they find the lords chain mail shirt and leggings, with a chest plate, metal arm braces and leg greaves, and a metal helm. Mounted to the wall is the lords war sword and shield. All f it is made of the highest quality steel, and has a slight mystical incantation to make them all harder to damage. Since John is the only one of the leaders without some sort of special protection, the others all agree that he take the armor.
As john is examining the armor, a runner comes in and informs them that Becka and the supply wagons have just arrived.
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