Tiberius frowned at the latest System ssage hanging before his eyes. A hostile entity? Did that an there were still holdouts sowhere in the town? That seed unlikely. If any significant resistance still persisted, then he doubted that the System would have declared the place—Stonewake, apparently—as "seized" in the first place. No, Tiberius suspected that sothing else was at play here. What exactly that "sothing else" was, though, was not imdiately clear.
He looked around at his Legionnaires. Swarms of n bustled about the area, continuing to clear and canvas the city, while others stood watch over the prisoners and townspeople. A glance toward the town's periter revealed red-clad figures manning the walls as well. Past them, he knew that the majority of their forces remained outside of the town.
Since he didn't hear or see any signs of alarm from the wall, Tiberius was confident that they weren't being attacked from the outside. The lack of fighting within the town suggested that the conflict wasn't coming from here, either—soone would have reported about it or at least shouted for backup. Even if the threat was hidden enough to evade his n and take them by surprise, it would've had to make itself known to beco a tangible threat. That only left one option.
Tiberius turned to Lucius, who stood at attention to his right. The golden eagle, the symbol of the Legion's honor, stood tall atop the staff in his hands. "Lucius. Why hasn't Quintus arrived yet?"
Lucius shrugged. "I don't know, sir. The last I heard was that he'd gone to handle one last pocket of resistance in the mines. Not a particularly large one, though."
Tiberius cursed. He resisted the sudden urge to stomp in frustration—he was no child to be ruled by his emotions. Instead, he spun and roared at the nearest centurion. "Centurion Titus!"
The man jolted into action, running up to salute his Legatus. The urgency in Tiberius's voice drew more than a few eyes. Several plud officers turned inquisitive looks his way to see what was going on.
"Sir!" Titus reported.
"Gather your century and follow . Prepare for battle."
"Understood, sir!"
Tiberius was already striding toward the mines at nearly a jogging pace, alarm bells roaring in his head. He hadn't felt anyone die since seizing the city, which was reassuring. It ant that perhaps he was overreacting to the threat, especially considering Quintus's competence. However, he wanted to be ready for anything. His instincts told him that caution was well warranted here, and they had yet to lead him astray about such things.
Already, this wasn't a good start to their occupation of Stonewake. But then things got worse.
[Your town of Habersville is currently under attack from a hostile entity. You have seven days to successfully repel the attack, or the territory will enter a contested state.]
Tiberius bit back another curse. It felt like everything was going wrong at once. Still, there wasn't much he could do about the Habersville situation at the mont. Not without turning his n around and weakening their new foothold here. No, whatever was going on back there, he'd have to trust Gaius to deal with it. For now, he had more imdiate concerns.
He adjusted the sword strapped to his belt as the mines ca into view. It had been a long ti since he had actually drawn his blade in battle. But he wanted to be ready—especially if his Primus Pilus was in trouble.
***
Quintus' head jarred back as a sudden impact shook the door. Surprised, he stepped back, his hand automatically darting to the poml of his sword.
There was a mont of pause, a pregnant silence as he and his n turned to stare at the door. Then, sothing scread.
The ear-piercing screech filled the small room around them, sending shivers down Quintus's spine and goosebumps along his arms. Despite the thick wood standing between them in the source, it sohow managed to sound like it was coming from right next to his ear. The sheer volu and shrillness of it made him flinch and reach up to block it out instinctually. A thrill of fear ran through him despite himself.
Quintus looked around, taking note of his n. They had gathered around him to encircle the door a bit more actively, their faces set in pale grimaces. He saw their hands tremble slightly on the hilts of their swords. Belatedly, he realized that his was doing the sa.
The screeching continued, redoubling as the sound was echoed by many throats. More impacts ca, stronger than the first. He could swear he heard the sound of heavy timber splintering. Quintus looked around, stifling a rising sense of panic as he searched for sothing to better bar or blockade the door as it shook again. The strange symbols around the door remained dim.
Quintus glanced around again as the impacts continued. The Legionnaires around him continued to grow more nervous as the screams persisted, the sound echoing through the narrow space and surrounding them. So of the freshest n were even starting to back away.
"Ah, fuck," he muttered.
He spared a look for the three dead enemies lying on the floor. Suddenly he began to understand their presence a little bit better. They must have been stationed here to guard against whatever was on the other side of that door. But whatever knowledge or techniques they had to keep the threat in check, it was too late now—it had been lost when they'd been felled by the Legion.
Quintus's eyes darted around the space has he evaluated the situation. Sothing—or multiple sothings—were coming up that tunnel, and one of the doors that had held them back was now in ruins behind them. As for the other one—well, he didn't have a lot of faith it would hold for long. Not with the sounds it was making.
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Suddenly, a new sound cut through the din. The sound of a voice.
"O Phoebus, Diana queen of the woodlands…"
Quintus felt the trepidation that had filled him dissipate like fog in the morning sun. In its place swelled a font of vigor. Glancing over, he was surprised to see one of the n singing, its almost mystical quality suggesting so sort of skill was at play. Its notes seed to not only embolden him, but the rest of the n as well.
But he had no ti to inquire about that. Not when the door was about to give way.
He could hear the tal that wrapped around the door rattling against the surrounding stone as it shook from near-constant vibrations. The sound of claws ripping out chunks of wood on the far side confird it—there was definitely more than one creature back there.
"Form up!" Quintus yelled. Freed of the fear that threatened to paralyze him, he acted on the threat that [Battlefield Intuition] was screaming at him to prepare for. And given what he was hearing, they had precious little ti to do so.
He shouted the order, though he suspected that many of his Legionnaires wouldn't be able to hear him over the racket. Luckily, [Voice of Command] seed to help get the point across. Within a few monts, he had gotten their forces arranged out in the tunnel. They moved into a tight semi-circle, two layers deep. They stood ready with shields and swords to hold the door and kill anything that tried to co through it.
With a quick gesture, Quintus sent two n running further up the tunnel as ssengers. He wasn't sure how dire this threat was. But considering how they'd already sustained damage without even seeing their foes face to face, it wasn't sothing he wanted to take lightly. He wanted reinforcents, miners, and soone to help collapse the tunnel if need be.
tal groaned as it rubbed against stone, the sound barely audible beneath the cacophony of screeching, song, and scratching. In an instant, the far door was ripped from its hinges and pulled deeper into the tunnel. A spindly, clawed hand erged from the darkness and wrapped around the edge of the opening. Then, it pulled itself forward into the dim light of the room beyond.
The creature was humanoid in shape, with dull grey skin pulled taut across the protruding bones of its emaciated form. Rather than walking, it crawled, the spindly claws of its fingers making the motion resemble that of a spider—though it lacked the sa kind of grace. Its smooth, featureless head bore a single horizontal slit for a mouth. As Quintus watched, the mouth opened to reveal a veritable forest of far too many needle-like teeth.
The creature jerked forward awkwardly, raising its head towards the Legionnaires. It chittered unnervingly for a mont, the sound grating like stone on stone. Then, it scread again and charged.
The wall braced for impact. At its center, Quintus received the creature's charge directly on his shield. The impact sent vibrations up his arm, jarring his shoulder, but he held firm. The thing bounced back a short distance as its claws sank into the wood of his scutum, refusing to let itself be pushed away. It looked as though it were about to start climbing up his shield, but swords slid out between the wall's gaps to et it, impaling the creature half a dozen tis. The second rank stabbed out with their swords, finishing the creature off.
But that was just the first one.
Quintus looked over his shield and saw four more of the eyeless creatures fighting to get through the doorway. A half-second later, two slipped through and skittered forward. The first was t with a flurry of stabs, but the other began rushed to the side of the formation, where there was a small gap between the last man's shield and the wall. With a few shouted orders, the second rank shifted targets, stabbing out down and ensuring that the shields were in place so that the creature couldn't get over the wall without many more wounds.
Another pair of spindly creatures appeared out of the darkness. However, these ones had a different idea. Rather than charging out to their deaths like their abominable brethren, they crawled out onto the ceiling, their claws sinking into the rock as though it were clay. Quintus shouted a command and two of his soldiers flung their pila at the things.
One struck ho, impaling one of the creatures through the base of the spine. Its body ragdolled and fell with a sickening thud just behind their formation. The other spear missed. The middle of the pilum's shaft shattered as it smacked into the rock next to the creature, causing it to jump but not entirely lose its grip on the ceiling. It hardly slowed as it skittered past the Legionnaires and up the tunnel beyond.
Quintus cursed. He didn't like the idea of having to watch their backs for these things. But they didn't have ti to chase it down. There were already several more creatures coming out of the doorway, half of which crawled along the ceiling and walls. It was too many.
"Fall back!" Quintus ordered. His n backed deeper into the mines, retreating further into the tunnel as the creatures sward up in the opposite direction toward the surface. There was no way they could properly bottle them up in the room, especially not if they could climb along the ceiling. Instead, the n hunkered down and ford a wall where they would hopefully only draw a portion of the creatures' attention. Their swords and shields ford a barrier but not tall enough to reach the ceiling, and the tight space ant their pila would be awkward to yield.
As the swarm poured out of the room, the Legionnaires continued stabbing out endlessly into their midst. A few n managed to hurl pila from behind and skewer multiple of the things with so lucky throws. But they only had so many of the spears on hand, and given how they were designed to shatter on impact, using them posed a very real tradeoff.
A pile of grey bodies began to form in front of their position, which seed to discourage the faceless gray creatures swarming up the tunnel from heading in their direction. For the mont. It seed as if they were looking to escape to the surface anyway. So number of them continued to pursue the Legionnaires as they retreated, but it was only a subset of the forces that they saw pouring out from the chamber beyond. Even then, they had their hands full fighting the things off as they continued to pull back.
Quintus racked his brain for any way to warn the others. He'd already sent ssengers up, but they hadn't seen the severity of the problem—nor could he be certain that they'd survived the trip. Sending more n to the surface amidst the tide would be a death sentence. At this rate, the first sign of trouble would be the creatures erging from below. Unless…
He almost ordered his n to cover their ears, before realizing the futility of the effort. By this point, the screams had rendered all of them functionally deaf—to everything but their fellow Legionnaire's song, that is. Throughout all of the battle and chaos, the man had never stopped singing.
Taking in a deep breath, Quintus bellowed as loud as he possibly could, activating [Voice of Command] at the sa ti. "Enemies! Enemies in the deep!"
His words bounced dully up the mineshaft. Hopefully, it would reach the top before these things would. Otherwise… Well, Quintus and his n wouldn't be the only ones in over their heads.
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