Runebound Reverse Tower of The Dead

The battlefield continued emptying while Kael stood atop the northern wall and watched the retreat with a growing sense of unease.

Goblins fled first, pouring across the scorched plains in disorganized masses. Orcs followed in tighter groups, occasionally shouting at the smaller creatures or shoving them aside whenever their paths crossed. The surviving trolls lumbered after them, some still burning and others carrying wounds severe enough that Kael had no idea how they remained upright.

None of them looked back. The goblin archers did not unleash a final volley, the orcs issued no challenge, and the trolls made no last furious attempt to reach the gates. They simply abandoned the fortress, leaving behind a silence that felt far stranger than the hours of constant screaming that had preceded it.

The burly climber rested both hands upon the pommel of his oversized sword and breathed heavily. "So...what now?"

"Maybe we won," the spear wielder suggested as she wiped blood from the side of her face.

"No notification," the mage replied.

Everyone looked toward the center of the fortress. The crystal remained active, the scenario had not ended, and the magus was still preparing the evacuation portal. Nothing about the mission had changed except for the army retreating from it.

Kael dismissed the mission window. "It doesn’t matter. We don’t know why they retreated, so guessing will only waste time."

The Leonard glanced toward him. "Then what do you suggest?"

Kael turned toward the soldiers gathered along the battlements. "Repair everything. I want every gate and damaged section of wall restored. Reload all artillery, remove the wounded from the battlements and replace any crew that can’t continue."

The nearby officers immediately began relaying his orders. When the burly climber asked what the rest of them should do, Kael gave him the same answer.

"Check your sections, repair whatever was damaged and build as much artillery as you can. There’s no reason to stand here debating whether the monsters surrendered, regrouped or went to fetch something worse. Whatever the answer is, a stronger fortress will help."

That got everyone moving.

Kael opened the defensive interface, intending to purchase the next round of upgrades, only to frown when he discovered that nearly everything was already complete. The railgun on his wall had reached its highest available level, and there was nothing beyond the monstrous weapon currently extending over the rampart.

[Maximum Upgrade Reached.]

He checked the ballistae, lightning towers, cannons and wall emplacements, but each produced the same response. Even the number of structures permitted upon the outer walls had reached its limit.

Kael slowly scrolled through the interface a second time, searching for anything he might have missed. There was nothing. Towering ballistae occupied nearly every suitable position along the walls, while railguns extended over all four sides of the fortress with their metallic rails slowly replenishing their charge. Lightning structures rose between them, and reinforced firing platforms, ammunition stores and cannon emplacements filled almost every remaining space.

There was nowhere left to place another weapon.

Kael checked his contribution currency and felt his eyebrows rise. He still possessed more than a hundred thousand points, and the exact number continued increasing as retreating enemies succumbed to burns, untreated wounds or delayed damage from the earlier fighting.

He remained first in the rankings, but the second-place climber was no longer absurdly far behind him. The others had earned enormous amounts during the final stages of the battle, especially after Kael reinforced their walls and freed them to concentrate almost entirely upon killing. Every climber still possessed a ridiculous reserve of unspent contribution.

The spear wielder appeared to reach the same conclusion. "Uh...Redhead?"

Kael looked toward her and found her staring at the interface before her. "What?"

"What the hell am I supposed to do with all these points?"

"No idea."

"You were the one who told us to save them."

"That was before we bought everything."

The mage approached while scrolling through her own menu. "I can’t place another ballista."

"Neither can I," the burly man said. "My cannons are already at their maximum level."

"So are mine," the spear wielder added before looking toward Kael. "Did you expect this?"

"No. I expected the opposite." Kael shook his head as he examined the interface again. "I thought the Tower would keep unlocking increasingly expensive defenses until we ran out of contribution."

Instead, they had reached the upper limit. Kael had hunted so relentlessly, earned so much contribution and reinvested so heavily into the battlefield that the defensive system had run out of things to sell him.

That bothered him almost as much as the retreat. The Tower had given them more resources than they could currently use, and there was usually a reason for that.

"We can reinforce the inner city."

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Everyone turned toward The Leonard, who stood several paces away with his battle-axe resting against one shoulder.

Kael stared at him until the golden-haired climber frowned. "What?"

"Nothing. I’m waiting for the stupid part."

"Fuck you."

The burly man laughed, but The Leonard ignored him and pointed toward the fortress behind them. "We filled the walls, so we stop putting things on the walls. Build inside."

Kael looked across the broad streets below, hating how reasonable that sounded.

The Leonard pointed toward the four enormous roads leading from the gates to the central keep. "If one of the walls falls, everything we built on top of it becomes useless. We should create another defensive line along the roads. Put ballistae on the rooftops, cannons at the intersections and lightning towers around the central plaza."

The spear wielder slowly nodded as she understood. "So if anything breaches a gate, it walks into another kill zone."

"Exactly."

Kael looked toward the center of the fortress. They had already discussed placing emergency turrets inside the city if a gate fell, but they had never needed to commit fully to the idea. Now, they possessed enough contribution to transform the entire inner fortress into another defensive layer.

"That actually makes sense," Kael admitted.

The Leonard’s expression twisted. "You sound surprised."

"I am."

"Asshole."

"I’m still waiting for the catch."

"There is no catch!"

"You already robbed us once."

"I didn’t rob you."

"You convinced everyone to give you a thousand points each and spent all of it around your own position."

"That was strategy."

"That was theft with additional vocabulary."

The spear wielder snorted while The Leonard pointed his axe at Kael. "You’re really enjoying this."

"A little."

Kael looked toward the empty battlefield again, and his amusement quickly disappeared. "Before we spend anything, I want to know something."

The Leonard lowered his axe. "What?"

"You’ve apparently studied this floor. What happens in the fifth wave?"

The Leonard hesitated.

The pause was brief, but Kael noticed it. So did the mage.

"You know something," she said.

"I know several possibilities."

"Then start talking," Kael replied.

The Leonard sighed. "The final wave changes. There is no single guaranteed version."

"That’s useful."

"I said there isn’t one guaranteed version. The most common possibility is another army."

"Bigger than that?" the burly man asked.

"Usually." The Leonard gestured toward the retreating forces disappearing over the horizon. "Everything attacks at once. Goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, trolls and whatever else the scenario generated. There are no separate waves and no pauses between them, only one massive assault."

The spear wielder frowned. "How massive?"

"Enough that the strategy becomes simple."

"Which is?"

"Kill them faster than they can reach the crystal."

"That isn’t a strategy."

"It is on this floor." The Leonard looked toward the repaired gates. "That version usually appears the most because it is one of the easiest ways for the scenario to overwhelm a strong party. It doesn’t matter how upgraded your walls are if enough bodies begin climbing over the bodies underneath them."

Kael understood what The Leonard meant. A million weak monsters could eventually accomplish something that a hundred elites could not. They did not need to destroy the fortress if they could simply bury it.

"And the second possibility?" Kael asked.

"Elites. Several powerful monsters are assigned to each entrance, usually creatures far stronger than the trolls. Sometimes they’re commanders, and sometimes they’re specialized siege monsters."

"That sounds worse," the mage said.

"It usually isn’t because all our defenses can concentrate on a limited number of targets." The Leonard pointed toward one of the maxed railguns. "We wouldn’t need to kill fifty thousand enemies. We might need to kill ten, twenty or perhaps thirty. Every turret, cannon, spell and climber can focus upon the same elites."

The burly man nodded. "That sounds manageable."

"It normally is, especially with defenses like ours."

Kael continued watching The Leonard. Something had changed in the golden-haired climber’s posture when he first asked about the final wave. The shift had been subtle, but it was enough to make the omission obvious.

"You skipped one."

The Leonard looked at him. "No, I didn’t."

"Yes, you did."

"There are dozens of possible variations."

"You gave us the two that matter."

"They’re the ones worth preparing for."

Kael folded his arms. "Which means there’s another one."

The Leonard remained silent until the spear wielder looked between them and asked what it was.

"It won’t happen," he replied.

"That wasn’t the question," Kael said.

"It hasn’t happened in years."

"How many years?"

"I don’t know."

"Then tell us what you do know."

The Leonard’s irritation grew more obvious. "It’s a rumor. There’s no point in discussing it."

"Good. Tell us the rumor."

"There’s no point."

"Dude..."

Kael pointed toward the empty plains. "We just watched three different armies stop attacking a nearly broken fortress and retreat without a system notification. Something that apparently doesn’t normally happen just happened, so stop deciding what’s impossible for us and tell us."

The Leonard’s jaw tightened before he finally sighed. "One enemy."

Nobody answered at first.

The burly man was the first to frown. "What?"

"One."

The spear wielder stared at The Leonard. "One what?"

"One enemy. That’s the entire wave."