Chapter 152: Ammo Runners
Case after case of ammunition went out, but the kids reported that the bandage situation was under control for now.
The heroes had managed to hold the wall, and the nature mages were doing well at keeping the enemy back. It was a gruesome sight, one that would stick with the heroes for quite possibly the rest of their lives.
But they were holding the line.
The river flowed a deep crimson in the moonlight, saturated with blood, and Kalli was getting reports of sharks swimming up river to get at the Flatfoot invasion force.
The river flowed fast, so the bodies were being swept downstream to the ocean. But that was only attracting different kinds of monsters into the river that were hostile to everyone involved.
Kalli was beginning to lose track of time when the mages began to return again, turning in quests to get the points.
Another thousand kills, another ten points each for the Heroes.
That let them expand their skills, and diversify into skills that reduced the mana cost, or improved the area damage done by their skills. Both were effective at increasing their damage output, but neither had been a priority at the start when they only had a few skills.
The return of the mages brought Kalli another influx of points to Kalli’s reserve, and she rushed off to the other dorm building to put up a second {Standard Air Defence Battery}
That would keep the flying monsters from getting too close, she just needed to call a team up to operate it.
The runners were way ahead of her on that one.
As soon as she left for the dorm, they alerted a group of heroes, who left the front lines to come take some of the pressure off the air defence team.
The influx of the strange flying creatures with their dangling tentacles was not slowing, the mass looked like a thundercloud on the horizon. But they were coming in waves, which gave everyone on the roof a moment to breathe, and to aim the gun down at the open fields, wiping out hundreds of Flatfoot invaders per shot.
"This level of destruction is so mana efficient. Why is everything else so expensive?" One of the warriors asked as he took over the new gun.
"I’m not sure. But I will try to find out. If there is something that will cut down on mana use, I will try to find it."
Kalli left the group, and went to the other dorm to hand out the rewards for the gunners who had been on the roof longer.
They had certainly collected at least a few thousand kills each since the last time that she was up there. That was another influx of points, and Kalli’s confidence in their ability to survive this Trial began to surge.
Even if the ground around the base was a disaster zone of craters, where the plasma had turned volcanic ash and gravel into obsidian and glass, the number of enemies was dropping at an astounding rate.
"Come back in an hour, and both buildings will have a stack of completions again. We’re getting one every ten shots or so if we’re aiming at the ground," one of the gunners informed her.
"That’s insane. But great news. Alright, I will see you soon, and then we will be able to finish the air defences for the keep."
Kalli returned to her office and tried to find the reason that the anti-aircraft guns were so low in mana cost. She couldn’t make sense of it, when a simple pulse rifle took so much more than the massive explosion of the big guns.
The math wasn’t mathing.
Then, she noticed the power grid.
Every second or so, the power draw increased by nearly two hundred megawatts.
The guns were tied into the grid, through the building that she had placed them on as a permanent fixture. So, most of the power was actually coming from the power plant, and they only needed to use mana to make up the difference.
Which meant that they really could place a few more without too many worries.
But if she placed more than four, they were going to have to consider the total draw of the city when they were doing other energy-intensive activities.
Though, if the air defences could run mostly on electricity, it also meant that they could likely run underground power lines to the turrets on the walls and cut their mana cost down to an incredibly negligible amount.
Did she have any wire available?
Sort of.
There was electrical wire, but it looked like it was intended to be used for indoor wiring or extension cords, not for powering military lasers.
That didn’t stop the Air Defence Batteries from pulling a hundred megawatts each through the dorm buildings, though. So, perhaps the System would have mercy on their lack of infrastructure and give them a break?
"Hey, send an Earth Mage back when you get a chance. I need him to try running a power line from the transformer at the new power plant to the lasers at the gate. They should be the closest," she informed one of the runners.
"Okay, Boss. I’ll have him back soon."
And they were back quickly.
The earth mage came running, and Kalli handed him a huge roll of electrical wire.
"That’s a thousand metres of three wire cable, and I have a theory that the System will make up for the fact that the wire is generally too small for what we need. If you can connect one or two of the lasers and report back, or send a runner to report back on the mana usage change, I will appreciate it."
"Will do. If we can cut back on the mana usage, that will give us more warriors on the front lines. We’re starting to need them, as the bastards are pushing at the walls again. But we also need to keep the lasers charged, as they’re more accurate than any of our heroes.
Except maybe Sanchez and his team."
That sounded about right. They were the only ones with actual experience and training before the trials.