Rivacheg

Part Six of the Valkyrie Six



Valeraine, Anduin and Alendria plotted their plan of attack in the command tent.

"Anduin you will be in charge of the cavalry forces. Alendria, you will command the archers, as we have discussed. I will lead the infantry in charging up the ladders and into the town. Andiun, your Cavalry will be in reserve during the actual siege, to provide a second wave if the infantry starts to falter."

"Understood," Anduin said. "What of your Six?"

"Sophella will go up the ladder first, and disrupt the defenses at the immediate position on the walls. Melara will follow her up and then go invisible and get behind the enemy defenders. From there she can send her force attacks to fling defenders off the walls or whatever else.

Isseria will stay with Alendria's archers until the paladin wave starts and join them. Aliaga will go up with the infantry and provide healing and disruption.

And Anduin, your priests can stay with Alendria's archers until the paladins go up and then follow them and provide healing and spell attacks.

"If the initial push goes badly then what?" Anduin asked?

"Sophella will hold out until everyone can get back off the walls, and archers and ranged attacks will concentrate fire and take potshots until we make a final decision to try again or leave."

"May I make a suggestion?" Alendria asked.

"What is it?" Valeraine said.

"We've got the ranged firepower. If we keep the Six back off the wall, we can focus everything on taking potshots. Weaken the enemy. Aliaga's spells only need line of sight, not targetting, so she can use Shadow Word Pain, and Mind Control to disrupt things. The archers, myself and the priests can lay down firepower as well.

Melara can use force power, Valeraine, you can use backdrafts and fire shards, Anduin, I'm sure you've got some good holy magics. Let's force them to retreat off the walls entirely, or charge out at us. Keep the cav in reserve and if they do come charging out at us, we can spring them then. Once we wipe out their own ranged attackers we can do whatever we desire."

"And then, after they are all hiding under cover, Sophella can get up there, provide a landing zone for the rest to reach the top of the ladders safely," Valeraine said. "If there are no objections, I think that would be a safer plan against an unknown force."

Anduin said, "Here is another wrinkle. I didn't think about this until you make me realize we should look for every advantage. I know my father would have done so, but the Paladins usually prefer a straight fight. Until we know just how strong the orcs are fortified, we should do so.

Have the Six go to Rivacheg, just outside the range of the enemy's archers. And wait for the enemy to come storming out from the walls.

Meanwhile, I will take the rest of the armies, and stay close to Rivacheg, and when battle is joined we will ride in and overrun the defenders who are now out of position, greatly weakening their defenses."

"Alright, organize the forces under your command, we will trick these orcs and then reform into the commands we already mentioned," Valeraine said. "Thank you for the ideas, Alendria, Prince Anduin."

-o-


The arrows dropped a mere ten yards in front of them. The strongest archers, firing from the enemy wall, got that far. Throwing spears were scattered on the ground much closer to the walls. How stupid could they be, thinking they could throw spears far enough to hit the Six.

Sophella stood there, suited up, ready to activate her mud pots ability to slowly wound her enemies.

Alendria tried firing a few arrows but couldn't get them to reach the wall with enough height still on them to hit anyone.

The city gates were opening in the distance. Dismounted Orc cavalry were running towards them on foot. Where had their wargs gone, Sophella wondered.

The dismounted cav and infantry had gone first without their supporting archers, who were still leaving the wall row by row behind their melee compatriots.

That meant Alendria could shoot without being shot at. Then Aliaga's smite spell hit the closing in orcs.

This was a lot more orcs than Sophella expected to see. Valeraine started lighting the enemy up with fire shards. Isseria started shooting. Sophella was accustomed to guns, having fought many a criminal who only had a pistol against her. She threw a boulder at the first Orc to get into her sights and then surged forward blasting an orc in the face with her fist.

She heard the hiss of Melara's double-sided saber and battle was joined, and they quickly became overrun. Sophella activated the mud pots. Melara fought viciously. Isseria and Valeraine formed the other two sides of a square that formed up with Alendria and Aliaga in the middle. Alendria switched to her mandolin, and Aliaga switched to healing spells.

Sophella lost track of time and individual movements as her attacks and defenses became part of her and she flowed with the battle, manipulating and manuevering to stay alive, unaware of the horrendous damage she was taking and the tremendous healing Aliaga was pouring into her. Unaware that she had used her taunt ability instinctively to take the heat off of Isseria and Melara.

She felt the words of encouragement from Valeraine and her speed and enduring strength reached another level, and it was such a blur of vicious survival that she didn't even notice a paladin crashing into the enemy she was just about to punch.

She held back her punch a moment before it would have struck the paladin.

A way of healing flowed over her as Anduin's regiment of priests healed the battered and almost wrecked Six.

Valeraine had fallen, the pool of blood was flowing across the ground from all of them and Anduin stepped off his horse, going over to her. He channeled some kind of Holy magic for half of minute or so, and then helped Valeraine up.

His fellow priests immediately began to heal her as she stood up.

"What took so long?"

"Your position deteriorated faster than I expected. And I don't think they appreciated your rallying response. I've seen magic like that from a few of the best paladins in our world's history, it was shocking to see it from an off-worlder," Anduin said.

"That almost seemed like bardic magic, Valeraine. Very impressive. And Sophella, I couldn't even keep track of where you were. I thought my mandolin was going to snap in two, twice. And I didn't have time to switch to my bow. I'll have to tell you the story of the bard who destroyed his instrument and then tried to sing sometime," Alendria.

"Sophella," Anduin said, pausing, "In my world, there are those who specialize in their durability and controlling the anger of the enemy so as to take on everything themselves. Where you say tanker we say tank. But instead of a class of tankers as your world's heroes have, we find tanks in several classes.

Indeed, Paladins often choose either to become healers or tanks. These paladins are specialists of retribution, which is a less frequent choice for paladins. My point, distractions aside, is that among all the tanks I've had the chance to observe, the best of our alliance's finest guilds, I have never seen one take on so many enemies, and deal with so much aggro going the wrong way. We ask tanks to maybe handle a small group of minions, or at most 2 bosses, but you were handling 12 to 20 enemies at a time, instinctively taunting to regain control of anyone who wasn't focused on you.

And Aliaga, I can see you have grown to greater heights as a healer. Even without the full healing specialization you did a great job.

Is it common for tankers to be so durable?"

"My taunt ability can force up to eighteen enemies to pay attention to, and attack me. And often we would gather to fight notorious Archvillains in groups of eight. And I would be the only tank amongst the group. Some of the fights would be full of dozens of enemies surrounding me. Often one to three scrappers would help clean up the enemies I couldn't control, and massive aoe spells would be constantly cast by the blasters or defenders. My favorite were Dark / Dark defenders because they could be a potent offensive threat in addition to supporting our group. The pure healers were nice, but often with a better trained group of defenders and controllers I didn't need much healing.

In my world, healers were least frequently experts, among the defenders. I understand that in your world, there are many great healers, and support - defender sort of people don't exist as much."

"Uh guys, we might want to reform ranks, and get moving," Valeraine said.

"Apologies," Anduin said. "Although I would like to hear of these controllers at another time. I'm sure Azeroth would have really appreciated their help.

"Archers and Priests, form up on me. Isseria, Aliaga, to me," Alendria shouted.

"Alright, we've rested a moment, Vaegir foot soldiers, to me! Sophella, Melara, follow me," Valeraine said.

"Vaegir cavalry, Paladins, to me!" Anduin shouted.

The infantry formed up and started marching towards the ladders. The archers and priests followed behind.

The best orcs seem to have been defeated in the initial rush, but goblin muskeeters and troll spear throwers remained on the wall.

"Take positions here, lets' shoot these punks off the wall!" Alendria said.

The Vaegir archers fired, as the musketeers blasted back at them.

"Take out the goblins first," Alendria said.

"So tiny!"

Alendria fired her short bow, hitting two goblins in succession. The priests healed a few who were hit by enemy guns.

"Aliaga, Isseria, Priests, advance to spell ranges."

They moved forward, while Alendria and the archers stayed back.

Aliaga took control of one of the goblins that was about to take a shot at Melara. She had the goblin shoot anyone who noticed Melara trying to hide until she was able to help Melara get into hiding.

Sophella had cleared a path for the rest of the infantry, and a fierce fight was on between Sophella with the arriving Vaegir foot men against the enemy reinforcements.

"Lets follow up the ladders after the last of these footmen," Aliaga said to Isseria. Priests, lets get up there and heal those who are hurt."

So they took to the ladders, ascending under the cover of archers. Aliaga stepped out of the way of the ladder and started healing the hurt Vaegirs. Melara was attacking a group of muskeeters and spear throwers that she had found behind the main enemy force. They fell rapidly to the close range assault.

As the rest of the priests got to the top she started wiping out more and more of the enemy infantry. The battle was turning into a rout as the archers started climbing up the ladder.

Then a huge wave of orcs arrived from the inner portion of the fortress. There were warlocks, mages, shaman, warriors and Tauren paladins even.

Aliaga took control of one of the warlock's with mind control, and realized what she had discovered. The Orc had access to the dangerous demons that could harm the warlocks group when they backfired.

She deliberately summoned the greater demon and switched to a shaman, depleting a lot of her mana in the process. She set up several fire totems which started firing at the group.

The priests laid down a torrent of smite spells, as Aliaga sat down on the wall, and drank some water to recover her mana.

The demon was causing huge troubles for the enemy force, and though some shots came their way, a lot of the mages and warlocks were fighting this demon. By the time they killed it and the totems, the infantry started swarming down against them, and the archers joined in firing into the interior from the wall.

Aliaga had enough mana to fire again on the enemies with her smite spells, and then she ran down the incline towards the melee, "follow me priests!" she shouted. They got into range just in time as many of the vaegirs had taken heavy damage from the group of powerful orcs.

She started healing the group, and Valeraine rallied the infantry force as alendria came up with the archers and ran towards Valeraines group while pulling out her mandolin.

While the archers fired for effect, the priests desperately tried to keep as many alive as they could, including Valeraine who was fighting an Orc Death knight.

Aliaga tried to overwhelm the Death knight's mind but could not. He must have been the leader of the defending group here.

Sophella was obliterating mages and warlocks left and right, and finally Melara was able to rejoin the fight with the death knight and help out.

The Death knights attacks and debuffs were obnoxious for the two of them.

Aliaga made sure to apply and reapply Shadow Word Pain on the Death Knight, and the reinforcements dissolved as many Vaegir infantry men died as well.

Finally, Anduin arrived with the dismounted paladins and cavalry and gave Valeraine and Melara a reprieve.

The paladins surrounded the Death knight and spells and arrows buffeted him. The others fell one by one and then Sophella personally smashed a fist through the still fighting orc's brain.

It appeared the Death knight had brought everyone he had available, as the inner sanctum of the town's fortress was unoccupied.

Then Bodahn somehow showed up again, and he had the flag ready, and in the place where the Horde flag had flown, the new banner of the Alliance of Worlds was hoisted up.

It was blue with large gold and silver stars. There were eight stars for the worlds of Azeroth, Paragon Bay, the Old Republic, Isseria's Earth, Sapphiron and Dragonrealms, as well as Bodahn and Sandal's Dragon Age and the Calradia they were currently in.

"Now that you have a sovereign possession, I will stay in the fortress of Rivacheg, unless you decide to make some other possession your headquarters.

I will execute your instructions in diplomacy, recruitment and vassalship. Lords who have been banished from their own lands may wish to sign up with your Kingdom, remember, however, that the lords of these lands expect to have the right to raid and pillage the villages of their enemies. If you wish to excise this practice you may want to hold off.

As it stands currently, Anduin Stormwind, you are the King of the Alliance of Worlds, and Valeraine Sapphiron, you are the marshal of the Alliance of Worlds. Valeraine, you may issue a call of arms to gather what forces are currently abroad and led by other lords of your alliance. Currently, the only other lord who can lead armies is Anduin himself. You may make members of the six into Lords, but remember, once you do that, they will lead armies and operate on their own recognizance except when joined together during a call to arms."

"What else should we know about Rivacheg?" Valeraine asked.

"You can establish new crafting rooms and workshops to produce products based on the raw materials received by trade caravans that will come and go. Alliance of Worlds will soon have its own caravans

This fortress will be provisioned with a force of Alliance of Worlds soldiers within the next two days. These will include archers, foot soldiers, cavalry, and a smattering of priests, since you have united with the priest commander himself."

"Lets get some rest and then decide what we want to do next, and how we want to handle the people in this town."

The fortress had cots and a few beds, and so they were sorted out, the Six and surviving paladins, priests and Vaegirs.

Many of the people of Rivacheg had come to the fortress by the next morning.

They brought food and booze, animals and clothing. Offerings of thanks.

"The Orcs were worse than our old masters," one said.

"The worst."

Anduin came to the gates were the fortress opened to the rest of the town.

"Prepare a feast with what you've brought. We don't deserve tribute. We should share these good things. I will bring what I can to this feast, bring what you can as well."

So they sold a lot of the orcish equipment they scavenged from the fallen orcs, goblins and trolls, and bought out Bodahn's supply of food completely. They rooted through the fortress' kitchen and brought everything and everyone to the center of town.

Sophella was wearing a new dress, with no stone armor in sight, she had Sandal make a granite ring as her symbol.

 Isseria had bought new holsters for her guns and a hat with eight stars on it that Sandal made.

Valeraine wore her Sapphire pendant proudly, and had Sandal make sapphire earrings and a silver ring.

Alendria had a new gnomish purple dress made, and brought her spoons, mandolin, as well as a flute that she had purchased. She had bought some song scrolls that Bodahn mysteriously had.

Bodahn was like that, they all started seeing more items from their worlds in his catalog.

Aliaga was wearing a new set of deep blue primalweave robes. Sandal was able to use the very tailoring techniques from Azeroth that she had lost when she came to this world.

Melara was holding a toy model of her old Republic ship. It wasn't a fierce fighting ship but it was sure nice to have.

The towns people had set up tables and cookers and a keg of ale and another of brandy in the middle of town.

While the Six got ready, Valeraine had been speaking with the other five. She asked Anduin to grant them all Lordships, so that they could gather troops of there own and form seven armies in total, without having to call upon any local lords who might decide to do something evil like raiding villages.

Bodahn brought more food to the table. Anduin had obviously found some formal robes from Bodahn's inventory as he rode in to the town center surrounded by his paladins, the Vaegir horsemen and the Stormwind priests.

"Fine Folk of Rivacheg! I don't come to your town as a ruler, but as a servant. Not to abuse you, but to help you find new lives and new ways that are unknown to you today. Each of you has a potential to be more than you are now, whether you are a farmer or merchant or craftsman or soldier. My goal is to serve you, to be your assistant in protecting this town from all those who would wish to hurt you.

"I am a peaceful man by disposition, born as Prince Anduin of Stormwind, a place you have never known or been to. One month ago, these men, these Paladins and Priests of Stormwind were conducting an ordinary patrol of the Dark Portal which normally leads from my world to a world we call Outland.

"The portal was glowing with white radiance, unlike its usual properties. We believed we'd be able to go back through the portal, but we went through, and we ended up just north of this town. There was no way back, so we could only press forward.

"Something unknown and mysterious is taking place in this world. These Six who have joined together with the forces of Stormwind, and with your town, are from Six different worlds.

"They are all heroines of their own worlds. The way villagers and townsmen and women are treated in this world is something that concerned all of us.

"We are for an end to all pillaging and abuse. For an end to any inequality between men and women. Between nobles, merchants and peasants.

"We have to work within your system for now. And so I have declared that each of the Six will lead their own armies, so that we can begin to patrol these borders, and hunt down raiders and bandits and betrayers of the Light.

"I am a peaceful man, but this world is not a place of peace. I will be your avenging prince, for such a time as circumstances dictate. Please, bring up to me any items of concern you may have. I will be staying in the fortress for the next few weeks, so please come to me.

"Valeraine Sapphiron is the first of the six, and your new marshal of the Alliance of Worlds. She lead troops in the lands she hailed from, and she had potent spells, but do not be afraid, for you are not the target of her magics. Valeraine has told me she has an avid interest in history.

"Sophella is not a gargoyle, nor a monster, that appearance, of a mighty stone golem, is just her armor. Sophella, show them, your fighting form, and your normal form!"

A gasp rose up as Sophella transformed into the granite armored gargoyle that was her fighting form.

"Sophella can stand against the mightiest of men, and she comes from a world filled with battles and with incredible people who can jump as high as a mountain or fly around on their own. Some of you may have seen her stand and fight against dozens of orcs at once. Despite the fact that she's often in armor, she loves fashion and trying out new styles".

Aliaga is from my world, a priestess with a balanced ability to both defeat our enemies and heal people. Go to her if you need medical attention. Don't be afraid of her spells, for even the shadow magics she uses are only targeting our enemies. Aliaga is an avid tailor and seamstress, but she is still looking for the appropriate materials in this world.

Melara is from a world vastly unlike any others I have heard about. She has a ship that can travel between stars, or had it really. She wields a weapon which glows in a strange way, and she can disappear as needed in battle, so as to set up a surprising strike. I'm not sure if Melara has a hobby or not.

Alendria is a musician, she plays multiple instruments and sings. She can heal with a special lilt on her mandolin, and she is a great archer as well. She's going to be after dinner entertainment. She loves to make up and improvise new songs and tales, so you tale tellers, go to her.

Isseria uses some weapons you may have never seen before. They are sort of like crossbows, but much louder and quicker firing. In my world they are called boomsticks or firearms.

I'm also thankful for the locals who have already enlisted in the army and fought in the field and in the battle for Rivacheg."

With that said, the eating and drinking commenced, Anduin played it cool, and enjoyed the night, but stayed away from the booze.

Isseria and Alendria were both having a great time with the locals, dancing, singing, drinking and hooting it up.

Valeraine was sitting with some elders, talking about local history and her own world's history.

Anduin went to sit down at the table where Melara and Aliaga were chatting. He wasn't sure what Sophella was up to.

"Most priests are pretty disciplined. It takes spiritual discipline to connect to the Light, and it takes mental flexibility to connect with the shadow."

"Why didn't you stick with just the Light? You seem to want that and yet something keeps you halfway into shadow?" Melara said. "I've seen some Jedi who have come back from the Dark Side, who still struggle with it. Obviously, I don't know how it was in your world?"

"Some sources said shadow magic was bad. But it was all about Warlocks being bad in general, and yet the alliance has warlocks, and the Horde has paladins, and undead priests who specialize in the light. For a long time I tried to go through my trials as a Holy Priest but it was very slow going. Most priests were Shadow priests during their leveling trials and then changed afterwords."

"What do you mean by trials?" Anduin asked.

"I mean, I'm sure it was different for you, your highness, but for adventurers like myself, we had to go on a series of journeys from province to province, learning to help out in increasingly difficult situations, but we weren't really considered worthy members of the community until we reached our maximum level. After listening to Melara's trials, to become a padawan, to become a knight, I started thinking of that leveling journey as my trials.

And I tried to be a Holy priest. But being a healer for a group day in and day out was just too much pressure. The siege was starting to feel like the old days when I was a healer at Karazhan."

All the weight goes onto the tank first, and then the healers. The group I was part of wasn't really ready for all of the foes we faced in Karazhan, and that meant frantic healing and failure, and I wasn't fully as geared up as I needed to be."

Anduin said, "In this world I can't really tell who is an adventurer. I was an 8 year old for six years, and then all of a sudden I'm a teenager, and then a young adult. Just at random times when father was involved in some big events I would grow up somehow. I don't remember ever going out on patrol before this time. Do you remember anything before showing up at the Northshire Abbey?"

"No. It was before the portal was opened to Outland. I think I showed up there about six months before the portal opened. It took a lot of patience early on. Shield up and just keep smiting. I had a bunch of close calls and even died several times early on when I got swarmed by too many wolves. But the resurrection spirits kept me coming back. I think I went out to the Elves after my early days in Elwynn forest, and helped them out quite a bit before coming back to Eastern Realms."

Melara piped up, "Ok, now I'm confused, but also not. I had levels too. I started out on this planet where these native people were attacking explorers and colonists who had just arrived. The natives were sadly vicious and didn't have a lot of intelligent thought to them. I had to excavate some ruins for my master, and we had some interesting discoveries. I don't think the fighting was too bad, but it was a lot more focused on my force abilities than it is here."

"Yeah, back on Azeroth, I could switch back and forth from a purely Shadow set of powers to a purely Holy set. I didn't have the holy gear I needed to do well, but I could do ok. Here I have a weird mixture."

"I haven't noticed any differences between what I could do in Azeroth and here," Anduin said. "Although I am very curious where and how there is both the Light here, and this Force of yours Melara, and the elemental magic that Alendria draws on."

"The force pervades the whole universe. Or at least my universe. but I admit my perception of the force has become much dimmed since I got here."

"Uh, guys!" Sophella said, standing, ludicrously, on top of a shop roof nearby. "I think some people are very angry that we declared our own nation. Here's the letters we just received at the fortress.

Anduin stood up as Sophella, in full armor, jumped off the roof.

He collected the letters from her.

"Kingdom of Vaegirs declares war on Kingdom of Alliance of Worlds: Personal Dislike"
"Kingdom of Swadia declares war on Kingdom of Alliance of Worlds: Personal Dislike"
"Kingdom of Rhodok declares war on Kingdom of Alliance of Worlds: Personal Dislike"
"Kingdom of Nords declares war on Kingdom of Alliance of Worlds: Personal Dislike"

"That leaves what, the Kerghit Khanate and the Sarranids not at war with us?" Anduin said.