It wasn’t enough. Somehow, Taiven managed to smoothly transition from a single-direction shield to a full aegis before the beams managed to reach her. Zorian threw a couple of smoke bombs around the training hall to blind her, relying on his mind sense to tell him where she was, and started casting a complicated spell that wasn’t etched into his spell rod the moment his location got obscured by the smoke.
Taiven responded by casting several gusts of wind to disperse the smoke and hopefully catch him in the area of effect as well. She had just about stripped him of his smokescreen when he finished the spell and felt his mana reserves drain almost completely dry.
‘If this doesn’t work, then that’s it for this fight,’ he thought.
A bright beam of concentrated force shot out from his hand and slammed into Taiven’s shield. The shield flared at the point of impact, shattering almost instantly, and Taiven was lifted off her feet by the impact and thrown violently against the floor. She didn’t get up, rendered unconscious by the impact.
«Oops,» Zorian said quietly. «I think I overdid it just a little — that could have easily killed her if the wards hadn’t worked properly.»
After casting a few divinations to make sure she was mostly okay and not bleeding internally or something like that, Zorian allowed himself to smile. He would have to work on his restraint, but it was a victory. And she hadn’t been any gentler towards him in their previous fights, so she hardly had any right to complain about excessive force. He couldn’t wait to see Taiven’s face when she woke up.
«Come on, Roach,» Taiven growled. «Find those spiders of yours so we can be done with this mission. I’m getting sick of this place already.»
Zorian sighed and refocused on scanning his surroundings. This would be going faster if Taiven stopped snapping at him every so often — talk about being a sore loser.
«Hey,» a male voice whispered into Zorian’s ear, breaking him out of thoughts. «What happened between you and Taiven to get her so bothered, anyway?»
Zorian glanced at Grunt and considered how to answer for a second. He decided to be blunt and truthful.
«I beat her in a spar,» he said. «She thinks I cheated.»
Grunt gave him a considering look. «You beat Taiven in a spar? Aren’t you a third year?»
«Sure am,» Zorian agreed, before he noticed a familiar presence on his mental map. «Oh hey, there they are.»
After the initial introductions were done, Taiven immediately moved onto the reason they were down in the tunnels in the first place, only to get disappointed.
«So you don’t have the watch?» Taiven asked.
«Alas, I’m afraid the next group of attackers managed to break into our treasury and escaped with a great many of our artifacts… the watch we claimed from the thief being among them,» the matriarch said regretfully. «I do know where their base is, however.»
This was all a bunch of bullshit, Zorian knew. The watch was indeed somewhere else — specifically in one of the forward outposts that the invaders used to launch attacks on the aranea — but it was there because the aranea had put it there. The idea was for Taiven and her group to stumble onto the outpost, realize they’re stumbled onto something big — bigger than they could handle — and then report it to the authorities.
It was Zorian’s job to make sure Taiven and her group survived the encounter with the invaders.
«How convenient,» Zorian scoffed, «that getting the watch involves taking out one of your enemies in the process.»
«A happy coincidence,» the matriarch said easily. «We both get something out of it, after all — you get the location of the watch for free, and I get to deal with one of my problems without risking my Web. Now… do you want the location of the base or not?»
«Just who are these enemies of yours, anyway?» Taiven asked.
«I don’t know exactly,» the matriarch said. «The attackers consisted of a mage controlling two war trolls, but the base is guaranteed to have more forces than that.»
«War trolls!?» Taiven blanched. «Hell, that is way more than we signed up for!»
«The guy is definitely not paying us enough to confront a couple of war trolls with mage support,» Mumble said quietly.
«Maybe check it out anyway?» Zorian tried. «Like, from distance? I may be able to tell how many forces there are in the place.»
«Yeah,» Taiven said after considering things for a few moments. «Yeah, we should check it out at least. No offense to the matriarch here, but a bunch of guys running around the sewers with tamed war trolls sounds a bit… implausible. Maybe she saw something else.»
«I suppose it’s possible,» the matriarch allowed. «I haven’t actually seen trolls before, and wasn’t personally present when the incident occurred, but they sounded very much like the trolls humans speak of.»
«Right,» Taiven nodded. «Where did you say this base was again?»
The base wasn’t actually in the city sewers. That part of the Dungeon was somewhat patrolled and monitored, and it would have been impossible to hide a large mass of soldiers there for an appreciable length of time. For that matter, the aranea didn’t actually live in the sewers either, although they considered them part of their territory. Instead, both the aranean home base and the various invader outposts were situated in what was known to Cyoria authorities as the ‘intermediary layer’.
It was not particularly rare for mages to descend into the intermediary layer, but it was not a common occurrence either. The intermediary layer was too dangerous for a casual stroll by an unarmed civilian, but mostly devoid of anything valuable that would attract dungeon delvers and other adventurers. The city hired mercenaries to sweep through the place every few years and get rid of any obvious threats that had set up residence, and they usually also picked the place clean of anything valuable, leaving a great expanse of little value. For those who wanted to challenge themselves against the denizens of the Underworld and search the place for riches, there was the Hole and its direct access to deeper levels that hadn’t been picked clean over the decades. Most of the visitors from the city consisted of an occasional thrill-seeking student and an occasional patrol to keep an eye on things.
The invaders chose the timing of their invasion well. The city was so focused on the summer festival and its associated problems that it didn’t pay attention to what was happening in the dungeon at all. This would normally not be such a problem, as very few problems could spring out of nothing in a couple of measly months — especially with little to no indication that something big was happening — but now…
«Holy shit,» Taiven whispered, peering from behind their cover to look at the camp again. «They’ve got a freaking army there!»
«Get down, you idiot,» Grunt growled at her, pulling her down behind the rock they were using as cover. «Do you want them to see you? If they notice us, we’re dead. There must be at least a hundred trolls down there and at least 20 handlers.»
«Sorry,» Taiven said. «It’s just… so unreal.»
Zorian had to agree. He was expecting it, and he was still surprised at the scale of what they were seeing. Then again, this was why the matriarch had chosen this particular base out of the 12 or so she knew of. The others were smaller and much better hidden, but this particular base was situated in a large open cavern and had enough artificial illumination that a human observer could see the whole camp easily from a sufficiently high vantage… like the one they were using, for example. In fact, the vantage point they were using was pretty much perfect for observing the camp.