Knock Knock!

After sitting around for around 20 minutes, our carriages set off once again towards Uragas’s hideout. I guess Kalth isn’t coming. Not only is this my first felony warrant service in this new world, but my men’s, too. Everything rests on whether my son can get this Slime to comply. The carriage’s front window slides open. It’s Calyx, with an AR-15 in hand. She hands it over to me by the sling. A quick rack of the weapon, and I realize the safety is off. I click my tongue. We went over this! Oh well. I’ll talk with her later, if she’ll listen. I hand my son a Laios Order of Police T-shirt with a big smile. I figure he may as well get deputized for this. He groans and rolls his eyes when he sees it.

A few blocks down from the hideout, we park up and disembark. One by one, my new warrants squad hops out of their carriages, dressed in full tactical gear. Body armor, helmets, zip tie cuffs, the whole 9 yards. The Orcs have been given giant, upsized tactical batons, the Dwarves have rifles, and I split the human teams into three groups, with Patrick at the head of them. He looks positively exuberant.

One Dwarf comes running up to me. He’s got a great big backpack radio on him. What is this, from the Vietnam war? It’s got an old school telephone-style microphone. I gently turn him around and studied the little data plate pop-riveted to the top. It reads “RADIO REC-XMTR RT-176/PRC-10-G. Siemens Corp”. PRC-10? It’s positively ancient. The Dwarf calls one of his buddies over. Every man had been given a smaller handheld radio, and they’d carefully set up and tested the system. I pick up the telephone-style receiver and give a radio check.

“Radio check. Teams ready?”

One by one, the team leaders report in. We’re ready.

“Skyhawk. Sitrep?”, I ask.

Munin chimes in on the line.

“Target is enclosed with a forcefield. Approximately 50 subjects are stationed around the perimeter of the building. Assumed hostile. Conditions within the forcefield are arctic, snowing. Expect resistance. Out.”

Can’t be helped. Let’s roll. In neat columns, my men jogged down the street towards the objective. Civilians and passersby ogled us from many shops and market stalls. Finally, we rounded a corner and laid eyes on Uragas’s terrifying-looking domicile. A massive, dome-shaped, pitch black building with numerous sharp protuberances.

I bark into the radio.

“Form a perimeter! Call out movement when you see it. We’ll deal with the barrier when we’re set up. Don’t let any suspects escape!”

In a neat single file line, my men’s groups encircled the property. I took my place up at the front, near the entrance gate, steps away from the barrier. The wind inside the property must be 40+ miles per hour. It looks damned cold in there. I peer through it, and see a black-robed figure running towards the Slime’s front door. The radio crackles.

“Skyhawk. One subject just ran into the building.”

“10-4, Skyhawk, we see him.”

Munin is perched way up on a neighboring building with a powerful set of binoculars. His dark elf compatriots are similarly positioned around the property from every angle. Next to him, laying prone on a rooftop, is Maahnn, with a (comparatively) large, bolt action sniper rifle. His long beard stretches under him, a big smile on his face. They’re working as a well-oiled sniper team, calling out ranges to targets.

Time to do announcements. I give my son the signal. He hands me a megaphone. A couple taps on the end confirm it’s working.

“This is the LAIOS ORDER OF POLICE! URAGAS THE FIFTEENTH, WE HAVE A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST! YOU ARE SURROUNDED! SURRENDER PEACEFULLY OR FORCE WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU!”

Man, it’s been a long time since I did that. Feels weird. Up on the roof, Maahnn is watching Uragas’s cultists carefully through his rifle scope. One of them picks his hand up to his ear, glancing at the guy next to him. They shrug.

Munin chimes in on the radio.

“Chief, it looks like the barrier is blocking sound.”

I glare up at it. Stupid barrier. I point at it, gesturing my son to break it. He takes a few steps forward and plants his feet. Extending his palm and turning it upwards, he imagines copying that analysis spell he’d seen used on the Dowsing Rods by the Elder Mages. A matrix of spinning magical circles appears and plants itself on the barrier, then a screen appears, showing its composition.

At its core, the barrier is merely sheets of ice, but they’re specially interlinked with mana bonds akin to carbon fiber, weaving in and through itself with thousands of layers. What would break this? An ice pick? No. A fire pick, rather.

He raises his hand up to the barrier.

“Fire Pick.”

A tiny, ice-pick-shaped tool materializes in the air, winds up, and crunches into the barrier. A terrible, groaning, cracking sound fills the air, and the entire barrier shatters at once. I’m primed and ready to go on the microphone, gently pulling my son back to my side.

The instant the barrier broke, that cold wind blasted in all directions, swirling up into the air like a tornado. When it hit the surrounding air, it condensed into water droplets, showering the area in a light, misty, freezing rain.

I repeat my announcement.

“THIS IS THE LAIOS ORDER OF POLICE! WE HAVE A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST! SURRENDER PEACEFULLY OR FORCE WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU!”

Now, they can hear me. The radio crackles again.

“Movement! Movement! They’re taking cover.”

A bald, lanky figure in a black robe, carrying a staff, pops up from behind a culvert. He points it at one of the human teams, and the end of his staff glows red. It fires off a beam of magic which scarcely misses Scarface and Conan.

Above us, a gunshot rings through the air. The cultist falls limply to the ground. A headshot. Maahnn racks another round.

Pandemonium ensues. In a coordinated effort, the cultists began firing beams at us, causing the men to dive to cover. Gunfire erupts all around the perimeter. The radio is filled with cries of “Suspect down! Taking fire! Behind the wall! Behind the wall!”

Like General Patton, I stand and peer into this mini warzone. We’d knocked out a ton of them in front of us, enough to make entry.

“BIRU, NOW!”, I shout into the radio. All around me, the Orcs bust down the gate and charge in, sprinting towards the cultists who were still cowering. One Orc takes a beam to the chest, which punches a small hole clean through him. It doesn’t faze him. He continues sprinting at the unlucky cultist with his baton raised. The suspect tries to scramble away on his hands and knees. The Orc catches up. With a nasty crunch, he delivers a tremendous blow to the suspect’s back, who collapses, howling in pain.

“BREACH TEAMS, GO!”

The perimeter teams split off and send in the cavalry. The Orcs are running around like barbarians, clubbing the cultists, zip-tie cuffing them, and making short work of things. The light drizzle of rain had turned into a proper storm.

We’d had a few casualties. I had a team of healers on standby from the College; every time an officer fell, an Orc picked them up and sprinted them towards the medics. The gunfire comes to a piecemeal stop. Munin reports in.

“Chief, that’s all the outside subjects. The grounds are clear. We’re a go for entry.”

Biru approaches me.

“RAM READY.”

He’s carrying a massive, oversized door breach ram. It looks like something you’d need a crane to lift. My men assemble around the massive, icy-black entrance door, stacking up in a proper formation. On the one hand, there’s only one entrance to this creepy-looking dome, so whoever’s holed up inside has nowhere to go. On the other hand, it’s a textbook definition of a fatal funnel. It makes me proud to see my men adjust to this tactical possibility.

Biru and another Orc approach the door, his compatriot holding a massive, oversized ballistic shield. The big guy glances back at me. One more round of announcements.

“THIS IS THE LAIOS ORDER OF POLICE. URAGAS, WE HAVE A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST. SURRENDER PEACEFULLY OR FORCE WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU!”, I bark into the megaphone.

David, standing next to me, cranes his head around, looking up in the air. His eyes go wide. His hands suddenly shoot above his head, and he shouts at the top of his lungs.

“INCOMING!”

A massive, sharpened pillar of ice had formed in the sky and was barreling down towards us. Not just one pillar, but multiple, a hellish rain of icy artillery. One by one, David caught them in a sort of elastic barrier magic and shattered them. A few got through, incapacitating a team of three men stationed at the perimeter.

“We’ve got to go, Dad.”

I’m in full agreement. I turn to Biru.

“BREACH!”

With an affirmative grunt, he began launching this massive ram against the door. The door looked like it was made of wood, but with each strike, it gave a metallic, pounding ring, vibrating and shaking.

It only took a few hits, and the massive, heavy door fell off of its hinges, slamming to the ground in front of us, taking chunks of stone with it.