You are Summoned

Chapter 307. Take the Objective.

All my minions were on the battlefield, and we moved as a unit toward the enemy trench line in the distance. The remnants of the 3rd Prisoner Regiment were still fighting their way to the trench and were less than a hundred yards from it. Their approach seemed to cover the summoned beings well, as most of the enemy’s attention was focused on them.

That wasn’t to say we weren’t targeted at all, as an occasional fireball or lightning bolt would streak out from the enemy lines and hit our assault team. I was reminded how powerful my new, but diminutive, minion was when a bolt of lighting flashed out from the enemy trench and hit Digbaz. Instead of turning him into a crispy kobold, the bold reflected away from him and returned right back to the enemy caster.

The caster had already ducked back behind the trench, but the bolt hitting right where his head had been was probably enough of a deterrent to buy us some time. We had covered a quarter of the distance to the trench when I watched the survivors of the 3rd Prisoner Regiment reach the trench line and jump down to attack. Last to climb down into the trench was the lieutenant who had remained at the back of the force.

With the first trench under direct attack, the enemy in the trenches further back shifted their attention on us. I wasn’t sure how many mages they had, or if they had been reinforced with consumables, but their rate of fire seemed only marginally less than it had been at the beginning of the attack.

The ground sloped uphill, and I could see there were a total of three main enemy trenches, with smaller ones branching off all the way to the objective, the Temple of Unending Conflict. Most of the fire was coming from the second trench, and a fireball blasted Elida and a couple of imps that the human wizard next to us had summoned.

“Digbaz, can your Tornado spell hit the second trench line?” I asked. The kobold nodded and was ready to cast, but I held him back. Tornado would kill off the minion and I had a feeling that I’d need more from him during this assault. Instead, I cast Duplicate on Digbaz, and then ordered his duplicate to fire off Tornado.

I had been excited to see the spell in action and it didn’t disappoint. The duplicate Digbaz stopped his advance, and I could feel mana build around him. The spell consumed all his spell slots, his entire mana pool, and his entire health pool. Just as the duplicate died and turned into mana vapor, the spell was unleashed.

A storm cloud hovered over the second trench and began to swirl, taking on the distinctive shape of funnel, the bottom of which touched down inside the trench. I wasn’t sure if it was luck, or if the kobold mage had total control of the spell, but it began to walk its way down the trench line. Bodies of our foes were torn to shreds from the force of the wind, and were flung, along with gear and debris, all over the nearby battlefield.

The tornado cleared a hundred-foot gap through the enemy trench line directly in front of me and forced many of the enemy not caught in its path to retreat from the force of nature. Given that my duplicates took additional damage, I wondered if the real Digbaz could have kept the spell going for even longer since his lifeforce would have depleted at half the speed of his duplicate.

Incoming fire on the summoned beings slackened, and the fastest of us began to close in on the first trench. A glance behind showed the 42nd Assault Regiment was joining in the assault. That reminded me that we were just fodder in the fight, bodies and abilities to throw at the enemy lines to soften them up for the actual soldiers.

Fodder or not, I had no desire for my summoning to end early, so I slowed the advance of my team slightly, letting the other summoners and their minions pull ahead. About the only one slower than me was the human mage. I had to admit, his staff was a pretty awesome piece of kit.

As he strode forward at the pace of a brisk Sunday stroll, the wizard glowed with a red light. Every few seconds, a portal opened in front of the staff, and a small imp emerged. The flow of imps didn’t stop, and I had to guess that he had summoned at least thirty of the things so far. At first, the imp’s kind of freaked me out, their squat, red bodies looked too much like Gary.

Even though they were supposedly on our side, I was glad the imps didn’t seem remotely close to Gary in terms of power. In fact, they just sprinted for the trench line and jumped inside, using claws and teeth to do their damage. The other, faster minions were also hitting the trench, and I needed a plan for when we arrived there.

The defenders in the second trench line would get their act together and resume fire on us soon, and as dangerous as the first trench was, I’d rather be inside it with my minions before the lightning and fireballs picked up again. I ordered the drone and the goblin trio to charge forward and clear a section of the first trench wide enough for us to occupy.

As my minions charged, a blast of flame erupted from the ground in front of them, turning Glem into barbeque before he disappeared into mana vapor. The others made it into the trench, and we followed them inside a few seconds later. Behind us, the 42nd was closing the gap, assaulting forward at a brisk pace. Occasionally, a squad of about ten would kneel and fire the odd weapons they used. How effective they were against the target I couldn’t guess, as I had trouble picking out the individual enemy soldiers in the next trench line.

Inside the trench, it seemed almost like a mirror image of the one we had emerged from. Glurk had his bow out and was covering our right, which was clear up to the point where it curved out of view. To our left, the drone was chopping down a pair of enemy soldiers. Their dirty, red uniforms made them easy to tell apart from our allies.

A few of the prisoner unit soldiers were still milling about the trench, and I could hear the lieutenant shout for them to rally on him as he blew his whistle to signal where he was. Only one prisoner was alive in the trench section I could see. He bent over, picked up a brightly polished sword from one of the fallen foes, and ran to join his unit. The man gave me a brief nod of appreciation as he passed by, my minions arrival had probably saved him from the final pair of enemies that my drone had just shredded.

Summoning compulsion began to exert itself after I tried to linger in the trench. I wasn’t going to be able to wait for the other summoners to take the lead, so I ordered my team up and over to assault the second line of defense. Glamb and Glurk were knocked down by the enemy’s magical rifle fire as soon as they climbed up, and Khurr soon joined them in a mass of mana vapor.

The drone took a pair of hits, but they both were deflected off his armor. Using the drone as a shield, I followed behind him, with Digbaz, then Blieek taking up the rear. Other summoned beings and minions joined us as we continued the assault. To my left, a small knot of thirty or so members of the prison regiment remained alive, and the 42nd was almost to the first trench.

Our numbers had been thinned in taking the first trench, but we seemed to have enough mass of troops remaining to take the second. The duplicate Digbaz had torn through a wide section of defenders, and they would have needed to thin their ranks to fill in the gaps. More fire hit us, and a lightning bolt slammed into the drone.

His Spell Reflect ability started to trigger, but the lightning resisted, probably cast by a mage with a higher tier and rank than my minion. Though the Spell Reflect failed to send the bolt of lightning back at its caster, the secondary effect of greatly increasing the drone’s spell resistance did kick in. Instead of turning my minion into slag, the lighting blew off the minion’s right arms.

He was still mobile, so I ordered the damaged minion to charge and jump into the enemy trench. With a burst of speed, the minion closed the distance to the enemy’s second trench, taking a few shots that further damaged him as he moved. Just as the minion hit the trench line, I activated my Ring of Final Sacrifice on the drone.

He jumped down into the trench, and I could see movement as defenders closed in to stop him. A few moments later, a blast threw several enemy bodies out of the trench, clearing a section wide enough for us to enter without any further casualties. We jumped in after the drone, and I took a look around. To my right, an enemy mage staggered into view, glowing wand already pointing right at me.

I activated my Summoner’s Reflection Orb as a bolt of lightning flew from the wand. Unlike the drone, my magic item seemed to work as intended, and the bolt of energy flew back into the face of a very surprised opponent. I tried to wait for the rest of our summoned being forces to enter the trench before we went in, but I felt the summoner’s compulsion start to kick in.

Trying to delay it, I began to use some items. That seemed to do the trick as the system determined my actions constituted supporting the attack. First off was Rodney’s Bag of Beasts. I got lucky this time, no small mouse or useless pigeon appeared. Instead, a big fat yak stood next to me, waiting for a command.

“Clear the trench of any enemies that way,” I said, pointing it toward the right where the mage with the wand had just emerged from. During the advance, and after the losses we took, it seemed like I was now the far right of our assault, at least until the 42nd caught up with us. There was no way I could haul the yak out of the trench, so better to send it off to make sure nobody was going to attack us from that side of the trench.

The yak grunted and began to trot down the trench, and I expected it to be quite a surprise to any enemies trying to sneak up on us. More imps jumped down into the trench to my left. After crossing the trench and climbing up the other side, the imps continued their assault but seemed to get picked off almost immediately. That confirmed my tactic of using items to delay our attack was probably the right one.

After a few Imps, the human mage fell into the trench. I was impressed that he didn’t drop the summoning staff or even interrupt his casting. Another imp emerged and the old man turned and looked at me. Terror was etched on his face as he caught his breath while continuing to summon.

“We’re almost to the third trench, hang in there, I think we’re winning,” I told the man, trying to bolster his spirits as I activated my Portal of the Cackle to summon a team of gnolls to pad our numbers. He ignored me, and instead walked across the trench and climbed out, his staff still spewing out an imp every five or so seconds.

“Get moving, summoner, no time to dawdle,” a sergeant of the 42nd ordered as the unit began to enter the second trench.

“Just summoning a few more before I continue,” I said pointing toward the small portal that I had just set up. A gnoll stepped through, causing the sergeant to nod his approval. Thankfully, he had no idea that this portal was an automated item, so I kept up the show, pretending to hold my hands out like I was controlling it.

Each gnoll was uncontrolled by me and immediately climbed out of the trench to head toward the nearest enemy. With a gnoll would appearing every thirty seconds until the ten charges were spent, giving me a bit of time to prepare for the third, and final, trench assault.