The Second Fortress (1/2)
In the end, the old Brancotte dynasty had been replaced quite peacefully. Of course "peacefully" isn't entirely accurate, since the members of the previous royal family was either driven off or slaughtered. However, considering that replacing a dynasty usually entails bloody wars and suffering peasants, the people themselves are quite satisfied with the way it was done.
Naturally, after this big news, the only thing anyone can talk about is what their new emperor is doing. There are rumors about immortality, but most people completely dismiss these idle chit chats.
However, what is strange is that Emperor Fisco had his entire palace vacated. He's also been having his enchanters slowly build a giant spatial barrier around the thing.
What on earth is he doing?
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"Ah," Fisco sighs when he gets the news. "It's finally done, then."
"Yes, your majesty," his attendant bows and says. "We're ready for your order."
"Good." Fisco says as he swivels in his chair to look out the window. "Just have all the enchanters step away from the palace. Tell them their work is done and that they can go back to their families now."
Once the attendant is gone, Fisco takes one last look at the palace before he leaves himself. "Happy, birthday, Haalfrin."
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When you wake up, you never know if you'll live to see history be made that day. The citizens of the imperial city certainly never thought they'd see the day a powerful green light enveloped the imperial palace.
They never thought they'd watch, agape, at a giant grey Soul Gate that had opened up over the palace and slowly descended over the great building - slowly gobbling it up.
The mages in the capitol were especially terrified, as none of them had ever seen a grey Soul gate before. Weren't black and white the only kinds of souls? Does this grey soul belong to some otherworldly demon?
There was panic in the city that day, as many thought the empire was under attack by some enemy. Many others thought the palace itself had been plucked out of the ground by the gods. Certainly, nobody thought that Fisco had sucked the entire thing into his soul Realm and moved it to another world.
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"Be careful," Fisco says to Haalfrin, "it took about half an hour for the palace to enter my Soul Gate. You won't be able to defend yourself or move at all when you're opening your soul gate, so you might have a hard time bringing the palace out without getting killed by the Queen."
"Half an hour, huh?" Haalfrin muses. "That'll change a few things. Don't worry about me. I'll figure something out. Just focus on ruling your empire or something. I'm sure it's a lot more complex than you thought."
"No, Haalfrin. It's just how I thought it would be."
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"Mother!" one of the Ants screeches aloud, "the demons are attacking the maze!"
Ever since some of the Ants had lived long enough to get ideas, some of them had started to come up with nicknames for their enemies in their own, clicky language – hence, why the Ants started to call the pointy ears "demons".
The Queen, of course, doesn't bother responding to her children. Instead, she wonders, "Why would they attack the maze now? – and with so many too!?"
Suddenly remembering how her foe has Name powers too, the Queen suddenly believes that Haalfrin had discovered a new power and gotten a large enough advantage to take the maze again.
Still, the Queen has many new tricks up her sleeve by now. For one, she's mastered the Master Key in just a few years. Other than that, she's learned a bit of practical magic through studying the enchantments in this fortress.
Mana blasts are just about the WORST way to throw mana away, and explode-spawning Ants is too weak to really hurt Haalfrin much. So, learning some offensive spells was quite welcome!
With all this in mind, the Queen is sure she can hold onto the maze, regardless of whatever Haalfrin has to throw at her.
Either way, she knows things would get pretty bad if she allows him to get a defensible position again.
"Move half of our forces to the Threshold!" the Queen orders, while she, herself heads there. She'd like her army's spawn point to be where the battle is, after all.
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A pointy eared woman floats several thousand feet in the air, and her eyes are glowing purple as she uses Scrying magic to enhance her vision. Directly below her is an endless, ashy plane, and behind her is the mountain the Threshold is buried in.
"They're retreating," the scout tells Haalfrin through the Far-speak medallion he's given her. "They're vacating the planes and funneling into the mountain."
Her commander's husky voice answers back almost immediately, "Tell me when they're all gone. If the Queen leaves any sentries behind, I want you to take your squad and wipe them out."
He doesn't want the Queen to have any eyes available upstairs on the planes. The whole point of drawing her down below was so that she wouldn't see him summoning the Time Locked Imperial Palace, after all.
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"Why is this so easy?" the Queen grumbles as she watches her children slaughter the Arkin 'demons' trying to invade HER fortress.
She expected the Arkin to try something new – some devastating strategy. However, they're doing the exact same thing they had done for decades at a time – Form walls in the maze and attempt to take territory.
Despite the Queen easily running them out of the maze last time with her Captain Ants, perhaps the Arkin have realized the reason the Queen was able to surround them so suddenly and mysteriously last time?
Realizing that the Arkin are already dead, and that they can't die again, perhaps they're just throwing their expendable lives away in order to poke at her defenses?
The Queen is content to rest on these thoughts… until she realizes that her watchful eyes on the surface are getting killed by sudden mana bolts to the faces.
"Why are the Arkin killing them off?" she wonders. "Are they hiding something up there? However, if I divert too many forces away from the maze, or worse, go to check it out myself, they might take this opportunity to retake the maze for good. I'll just send more scouts up."
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The next round of Ant scouts to the surface all get killed, as if the Arkin are waiting at the tunnel entrances. "No matter," the Queen thinks, "I still have many tunnels prepared."
In all her years building the tunnel networks across the underground, she was sure to have many tunnels unused, but sealed up. That way, they could have extra paths the Arkin didn't know about.
And so, a few minutes later, the Queen gapes in shock when she sees through her surface scouts' eyes. "A soul gate!?" she screeches. "HOW DID A SOUL GATE GET THAT BIG!?"
All of the Queen's children next to her pause and look at her in shock; they're not used to her suddenly TALKING.
Indeed, the Ant Queen doesn't understand how Contracts work – how Haalfrin's soul Gate and Soul realm is significantly larger than hers. All she knows is that some VERY powerful arcane magic is being used above the Threshold plains.
Of course, she realizes at least by now (after studying some of the Threshold enchantments) the existence of illusion spells. Perhaps Haalfrin is just making an elaborate light show outside in order to trick her into investigating it personally.
After weighing her options, the Queen comes to believe that even if it were a trick, her army is currently stronger than the Arkin AND she has the Master Key. She can retake the maze if she wants.
What she CAN'T take back is the opportunity to stop whatever Haalfrin is doing… in case he's doing something serious.
So, without hesitation, the Queen has her remaining forces in the maze focus on at least holding their positions and securing the exit points while she personally goes to the surface.
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"Commander!" another scout reports to Haalfrin through their medallions, "The Queen is leaving! I think she's headed your way."
"Got it." Haalfrin lets the Far-speak medallion drop back around his neck. He then turns to Kaalhyme, who is levitating next to him. "All right. We managed to keep it a secret for 5 minutes. It's another 20 minutes for her to run over here. So… You think you can delay the Queen for just 5 minutes with your forces?"
"About half of our forces have been slain," Kaalhyme starts to say, but he stops suddenly as his mind starts to think – considering every factor in this battle he can think of.
Yes, half of the Arkin were just slain in the maze, and it DOES take an Arkin about an hour or two to come back to 'life'. So, for the purposes of THIS battle, they're effectively gone.
Kaalhyme also considers the fact that Haalfrin is in plain view high in the sky while he's summoning the castle; the Queen will be able to easily target him down without having to run around like she's had to do this whole time.
How would they manage to distract the Queen if the only thing they can do is throw their bodies in front of her line of fire and make her expend a bit of extra mana? As it stands, the Queen still has more than enough mana to obliterate their entire army many times over.
A light refraction (illusion) spell wouldn't work very well because the Queen is a Rehkin, and she has Spiritual sight; she'll know exactly where he is, even if they try to hide him.
If they cast an illusion spell (the mental kind) on the Queen herself, they MAY be able to successfully insert false images into her head – make her think their commander is in a different spot so that she misses him with her shots.
However, even if the illusion spell is successful on the Queen, the Queen is also able to see through her Ant's eyes. Truth be told, the Queen relies on her children's millions of eyes for her scarily accurate aiming, so unless they can fool her entire army, casting a mental illusion spell is completely futile.
"What to do then?" Kaalhyme thinks.