Chapter 174 - We’re from Omniversal Solutions
Dust kicked up in swirls around Aoife's boots and under Tim's wings as the two entered the crumbling outskirts of the village and made their way toward the center. The air stank like burnt rubber, scorched flesh, blood – both human and beast, shit, fear, and a dozen other scents far too familiar to Aoife.
Villagers scrambled around them, dragging what they could carry, strapping crates on their backs, and packing their belongings into all manner of mounts and vehicles: magical, non-sapient, metal, and flesh.
Most of the buildings stood half-collapsed or barely reinforced with whatever scrap was available – metal, bone, stone, wood, occasionally all three. Children cried. Adults shouted – some barking orders, others just barking to be heard.
But none of them stood still.
"Looks like we got here in time for the final countdown," Tim muttered from her shoulder, his small draconic form curling slightly against the wind. His scales shimmered faintly gold in the evening sunlight.
Aoife kept walking forward, her boots crunching on gravel and scorched soil. She glanced at a group of villagers loading up a Gravellok: a seven-foot-tall, hump-backed pentapod made of shifting stone and sinew – eerily similar to a giant stone spider.
"They're not running fast enough," she murmured. "The smoke columns we saw this morning showed them to be at most less than an hour away, considering how long it took for us to get up on this mountain."
"They never are," Tim replied quietly. "This is like the seventh village horde quest I've taken and its always the same."
They made their way through the chaos, following a simple arrow sign marked in red, "Mercenaries and Outside Help Follow." It led them to a central plaza, where the only structure that didn't look completely destroyed to high hell was a squat brick building reinforced with wards and metal.
A pair of militia guards stood at the entrance. They looked tired and under-equipped, but they straightened up when they saw Aoife and Tim approach.
[Dwarf Lv 56]
[Human 55]
"We're from Omniversal Solutions," she said, pulling a matte-iron guild card from her Pouch of Holding, flashing it to them. "Responding to the beastial horde request."
The taller of the two guards leaned slightly toward her partner and whispered something in their ear. He nodded in response, and together they opened the door behind them, gesturing for them to enter.
Inside, Aoife and Tim stepped through the side entrance of the village mayor's garage. The space was cramped and falling apart – worn maps of the surrounding region were spread across a central table, held down by chipped mugs and shards of mana crystals and brick.
Three people clustered around the table, murmuring in low tones. At the head stood a weathered man in a baggy shirt, his back slightly hunched, cybernetic legs fully exposed and gleaming under the dim light.
"Name's Arkon," he said, turning toward them. "Mayor here. Are you the mercenaries?"
"Omniversal Solutions. Aoife, and this is Tim," she replied, raising her hand to gesture to her Dragon Sprite teammate.
Tim gave a casual flick of his wings and landed atop the map-covered desk edge. "We were told you've got beast trouble."
Arkon's eyes went wide before narrowing at Tim as he identified him. "You got anything to prove that? Last I heard, Omniversal Solutions took in C-Grades."
"For fu-" Tim said before Aoife covered his snout with her right hand and took out her guild membership card once more before giving Tim a knowing look.
"There are exceptions," Aoife answered.
Tim rolled his slitted eyes and took out his own guild membership card, flashing it to Arkon.
Arkon nodded in confirmation before his expression turned grim. "Scouts just came back this morning. Kobolds from the quarry paths, gnolls from the east ravine."
"I thought I smelled a wet mutt," Tim muttered under his breath.
Pressing his lips into a thin line, Arkon gave a slight shrug of agreement as he reached for the bourbon bottle anchoring the bottom right corner of the map.
"Normally, we'd only see small bands of 'em, comprised of around ten or twenty at most. But our scouts are saying they number in the hundreds now."
He took a long, much-needed swig before continuing. "I don't know why they're attacking in such large numbers, or why they're so hell-bent on reaching the town. We're just a normal village. Most of the men and women here aren't fighters by choice; they've been forced into it because of this invasion. But right now, we're just being slaughtered."
Tim paced along the edge of the map, tail flicking with agitation. "You're absolutely sure there's nothing here? No artifacts, no old ruins, no hidden vaults under the village? No mentions of unnatural deaths within the village? Or cursed items?"
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Arkon took another long swig of his bourbon, then let the bottle thunk back onto the desk with a dull clunk. He shook his head slowly. "Nothing. We've been here for decades. No mines deeper than a cellar, no leyline intersections, no ancient prophecies carved into the outhouse walls. We are a boring people who just want nothing more than to take care of our crops, livestock, and be left well enough alone from everyone and everything."
Aoife frowned, arms crossed. "Are you sure that you aren't harboring something that they are looking for? Some sort of artifact in your village's history? Or having done something to gain their ire?"
Tim's wings flared slightly. "Or both."
"…No," Arkon sighed and rubbed at his temples. "We've sent messages out for help. Most guilds didn't respond, but a few did. Smaller ones, mostly local. Good people, but they're not you lot. They don't have the manpower or the gear to hold a full-scale horde back."
"Names?" Aoife asked.
"Horizon Seekers. The Black Hounds. I think one of the Mantleblades is here too. Got a handful of independents as well, mercs, bounty hunters, a couple of oddballs. They're spread out across the eastern ridge and quarry pass, doing what they can."
Tim leapt from the desk to Aoife's shoulder, curling slightly around the side of her neck. "Then we'll need to coordinate with them."
Arkon nodded. "Agreed. You want to meet them?"
"Later," Aoife said. "First, we will scope out the village and its surrounding terrain in order to theorize their potential approaches and angles they might take."
Arkon gestured toward the door. "Then I'll walk you to the border. Best place to see where this whole shit storm's gonna hit."
They stepped outside into the midday haze. The sun filtered through layers of dust and exhaust smoke, casting long amber shafts across the ruined main street. Aoife's cybernetic arms gleamed in the light, the plates humming softly as they shifted with her stride.
The village's border wasn't marked with walls so much as makeshift barricades made out of whatever they could find, burned-out carts, enchanted fenceposts, crates of sand, and alchemic sludge with runes scratched into the sides.
Children peeked from behind reinforced homes, watching the trio with quiet curiosity. Pointing at Tim with fascination.
As they reached the edge of the eastern quarter, Arkon pointed past a bluff of crumbled stone. "That ravine there, that's where the gnolls will come from. Kobolds'll be scaling the quarry wall over to the north. We've got about a few hours before they come into sight... Maybe even less, I don't know."
Aoife crouched slightly, scanning the terrain. "Elevation's horrible, enough so that the height advantage here is barely worth anything."
Tim grunted. "And if they're coordinating, they'll press both flanks until something breaks."
Arkon nodded grimly. "Agreed."
Aoife turned back to him. "Get us a map with the guild positions. And send runners to the other groups, tell them we'll be–"
Aoife was cut off mid-sentence by a sharp blaring of a horn, echoing off the hills that were adjacent to the village. Another followed it, higher-pitched and shrill, from the northern quarter.
Tim snapped his head toward the sound. "Well, speak of the devils."
Boots pounded against the packed dirt as a scout burst through the barricade line. His leather armor was torn, soaked with blood, both dried and fresh. Cuts ran across his face and neck, one eye swelling shut. He stumbled, nearly collapsed, and was only kept from hitting the ground by Arkon rushing to him and catching him beneath the arm.
"They're here!" the scout gasped, voice raw and hoarse. "They're here!"
"They had something leading them!" the scout added between shallow breaths. "Gnoll bigger than the others, armored, carrying a bone-white banner, stitched with red glyphs. I – I didn't recognize the symbol."
Arkon's face paled a shade. "A warleader."
Aoife helped lower the scout gently against a stack of crates and turned to Tim. "We're moving."
"Right behind you," the Sprite replied, wings flaring as he leapt into the air, trailing a faint line of embers in his wake.
Aoife sprinted, leaping over a collapsed cart, dodging a panicked mule, and made for the northern quarry first. Tim kept up with her with no problems.
At the ridge overlooking the quarry, she slid to a stop and dropped into a low crouch. Her eyes narrowed.
They had arrived.
The battle cries screamed through the air as Aoife leaped from the ridge, the hydraulic hinges in her half-cast legs hissing as they transferred the shock of the impact to the ground.
Her right arm shifted mid-run, plates locking and whirring as the Deepiron Scutum formed into its shielded, serrated configuration. Her left split and folded out into a lance of humming Deepiron, the edge flickering with energy from her internal core.
She plowed through the first wave of gnolls like a living storm.
The first one fell with its spine severed, the second impaled through the sternum, lifted, then flung into a pack of its kin. With each strike, Aoife carved a bloody path through the battlefield, precise, efficient, brutal.
"The warleader," she muttered, eyes scanning for the towering brute the scout had described. There, past the broken wagon barricades and a half-toppled stone kiln, stood a hulking gnoll clad in mismatched plate armor, its bone-white banner swaying behind it, stitched with ominous glyphs that seemed to squirm if stared at too long.
Behind her, the skies roared with fire.
Tim wheeled above, golden wings catching the light as he dipped and twirled through the air. His claws glowed with inner flame, and with a sweep of one wing, he released a burst of Solarfire that consumed three kobolds in a spiral of searing light.
"Watch your seven!" he shouted down.
Aoife turned just in time to catch the edge of a charging gnoll's axe on her Scutum, the blow ringing out like a gong. She retaliated instantly, her lance flashing upward through the creature's chin and out the top of its skull.
Gnolls howled and scattered around her, momentarily stunned by the sheer force she exerted. She took that moment to surge forward, eyes locked on the warleader. He had had his sight on her now. His stance hardened, and he slammed his chest with a great fist, emitting a bray of a roar.
"Come on then," she taunted, trying to think of something to enrage the warleader and make him leave his post.
Channeling her inner Archie, she shouted, "Come at me, you two-bit, discount goblin!"
Above, Tim's flight faltered for a brief second as a gnoll archer loosed a black-fletched arrow at his wing. He veered – but a second threat came from the side: a gnoll leaping through the air with a jagged spear, jaws wide with bloodlust.
He turned too slowly.
CRACK!
The gnoll's trajectory was violently interrupted mid-air as a crowbar slammed into its ribs, sending it spiraling to the ground in a heap. The weapon's wielder landed a beat after, dust kicking up around his boots.
"Hello there," He was a wiry man with short-cropped, brown hair, scuffed armor, and a fresh scar across his left cheek that healed a second later. He twirled the crowbar once in his grip, giving Tim a quick nod. "Thought you could use a hand."