Walking down the aisles proved to be incredibly boring. Aside from two-foot-long rats that he killed with a single acid arrow spell, there were no mana twisted beasts jumping off the ceilings at the people who were shoving large amounts of canned food into the carts that they were preparing for the convoy north. Drew wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. But he was glad for the extra functionality he’d already acquired from the xatherite upgrade. Another cooldown and a big jump in damage, especially the linked version.
After about ten minutes of circling those gathering food without any further incidents, Drew headed back to the front of the store. It looked much the same, although Katie had created a series of walls hanging from the ceiling. He ducked under one and realized that they were a great defense against the Troll’s jumping ability.
Seeing Sarah, Bill, Katie, Robbi, and Daryl all circled discussing something, he headed in that direction. Sarah and Katie both nodded to him as he approached. Sarah continuing what she had been saying before he got there, “We’re in pretty good shape here, but I don’t like the idea of being pinned in.”
Drew frowned, and Daryl mentally updated him, “I found the shaman, but he teleported before I could attack him. Odds are we’re going to have a significant invasion force here soon.” That was just about the worst possible situation Drew could think of.
“We’ll need Katie to block the other entrances, so we don’t get flanked, the employee entrance like the side doors and the loading dock,” Drew said, and Sarah nodded.
“Good point, Drew. Why don’t you take over for JP in a minute and we’ll send him and Katie out to close off the other entrances.” Sarah said. Drew wanted to protest but knew that was probably the best option. “We’ll keep most of the combatants close to the front door and have all the noncombatants ready to move if we need to.”
“JP and I could go and hit them as they come out. We’d be able to see them from quite a ways away,” Drew said, glancing at the fortifications. He didn’t like the idea of being stuck in here while the trolls slowly ate away at their nerves.
“If we knew how they got around us in the first place, I’d agree with you, but since they got around our ambush once, we have to assume they’ll be able to do it again. For all we know, they either found or made some tunnels that they used to get out somewhere in the housing area,” Robbi said with a shake of his head.
Drew frowned, “I don’t think turtling is going to keep us safe, this is just going to delay our doom. Our sight lines aren’t good enough, and if they can tunnel from the DIA building, they’ll be able to tunnel in here.” Everyone else looked around, but no one had a rebuttal to that. “I think our best bet is to get out into the open; they only seem to have one person that can do ranged attacks.”
Sarah shook her head, glancing behind him to where a few of the more injured and scared people had gathered. “I don’t think we can move them again so soon after that attack. Maybe we could break out first thing tomorrow morning?”
Drew glanced at the fortifications, “We always knew we would have to deal with at least one night…but if we delay until tomorrow to leave, that will only give us about 10 hours of daylight to rescue everyone and get them up to Nat’s Stadium before the mana storm hits tomorrow evening.”
Sarah bit her lip, but it was Bill who answered. “You’re right; we need to get into position up there today. Katie can build some walls to keep everyone safe, but if we sit here tonight, we’re never going to make the stadium before the storm. Which means we’d need to put off rescuing everyone until the day after… And deal with whatever retaliation the trolls are going to send. I have a feeling this next attack is going to be a doozy, too. We’ve beaten them back twice now, so they’ll most likely send everything they have at us.”
Chapter Thirty-Three — Calm
The group was silent for a few heartbeats as everyone considered the implications of Bill’s words. Odds were good that everything the trolls could send at them would be sent at them soon, and they were going to meet them on the open field.
“Also, if anyone has upgrades to be done, now is the time to do them. I’m not sure how much experience you all got from that skirmish outside, but I know I got at least one upgraded xatherite,” Drew said, trying to keep everyone’s mind off the fact that they were going out to kill a bunch of trolls, “Daryl, did you find any xatherite on the trolls outside?”
“I didn’t look. I came right back as soon as the shaman disappeared,” Daryl said with a frown.
“Alright, head out now and look, we’re gonna need anything we can get for this I think.” Drew considered this for a moment, “Also, if you do find some, don’t harvest it. I have a theory and I want to give it a shot if it’s growing on an arm or something that is easy to cut off, do so. Also, harvest as many of their corpses as you can, but you only have ten minutes. Priority is the xatherite.”
Daryl nodded and then disappeared, hopefully, to go harvest the bodies of the trolls. Drew turned to Bill and Sarah, “I need you two to get everyone ready to go in ten minutes, grab as many shopping carts as you think we can easily move, but tell everyone that the second they aren’t keeping pace, they need to abandon the cart. Their lives aren’t worth a little bit of food.”
“JP, I need you to refill as many magazines as you can, I don’t want anyone else to be shooting; the trolls aren’t going to be hurt by anyone else’s shots. Recruit some people to carry magazines or guns and reload for you. Hopefully, we can get something automatic.” Drew gave his orders to JP, and Robbi went with him to collect all the firearms and magazines they could. Drew turned to Katie, “I want to get as much flammable stuff as we can, hopefully, things that will burn for a while. I’m going to try and cut off their lines of approach as much as possible. When we do finally settle down, I’ll need you and as many people as we can creating fire barriers that will hopefully deter them from coming at us from all sides.”
“When we do start fighting, I want you to start making a barrier around the noncombatants. If you can seal it off from above do that, otherwise just make it at least four stories tall. I don’t want them jumping behind us.” Katie nodded her head, and everyone dispersed off to do their various tasks.
Drew was left to himself for a few minutes, prepping for what was bound to be the largest single conflict he had been in since Advent. He tried to think of anything he might be forgetting. He could feel the weight of all those lives on his shoulders, not just the hundreds at stake here, but the trillions or quadrillions that Ares had told him depended on him surviving.
Drew could escape right now, he could probably fly across the bridge without worrying about the squid ever trying to attack him. It would mean abandoning Katie, Sarah, Bill, Jholie, and all the others to die though. He could take some of them with him maybe… Katie for sure. He could take all the people he knew. That group, smaller and more capable, would be able to fight their way to Nat’s Park. They would be safe, and it would just be the other 15 people or so he condemned to die.
He wished he hadn’t thought of running, that he was the kind of person that wanted to do the heroic thing and stand between the invading trollish army and his people. That was why he had joined the Coast Guard. During boot camp, they had made them recite the Ethos of the Coast Guard. “I will protect them. I will defend them. I will save them. I am their shield. For them, I am Semper Paratus.” Semper Paratus, the coast guard’s motto, always prepared. He did not feel prepared.
Was he obligated to save these people here? Or should he save himself, so that he could save a lot more people down the line? He could sense that if he ran away today, no matter if it was the more strategic requirement, he would always feel like he betrayed these people. They had depended on him. He didn’t even stay and fight but ran away and used their lives to buy time for his own survival. He thought of General MacArthur being forced to flee Corregidor in the Philippines after the Japanese surrounded it, following the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor.