I am happy to announce that I have completed seven of the ten spells that are required to achieve minor completion of this formation. (Minor completion of a formation means that I have inscribed everything except the final spell in the formation.)
Achieving minor completion is of vital importance to me. At this stage, I will be able to make use of formation control to activate the formation forcefully if it comes down to it. (Without the class eight spell.) With my skill with formation control, I will be able to use it at least half strength. This will be enough for me to hold my own against any Snowlord they send my way.
To speak of the particular spells that I have already inscribed. First we have the three spells of the formation base. Then we have the water spear spell and the quiver spell to store it. After that, I have completed the two spells to form my ballista.
Before I knew it, I have already reached this far. To complete the class eight formation doesn't seem so difficult now. I must admit I am excited to see a class eight formation in action. I don't get to see a lot of them in action. (The most basic formation that my master uses is at class six. Even those he has to use carefully to ensure that it doesn't get destroyed with a slightly stronger shove of his will.)
Based on the few times times that I have taken control of a class eight formation, I have to admit it is a powerful feeling. Such a formation is significantly stronger than any class nine formation I have. There is no way that somebody in the foundation stage can challenge a class eight formation. (Maybe if they were at the peak of the foundation stage.)
I guess that I should speak about the remaining spells that I still need to inscribe (I am still quite a distance from completing the formation.) There are three class nine spells left, of which two don't have any real combat utility. They can still be considered to be vital spells that will greatly boost the defenses of this place.
The first spell is a known as "Earth Pack". The spell uses earth mana to compress (and reinforce) the ground under the fort. Much like the Ironskin, though, it is a spell that takes time. With enough time, though, the spell will be able to compress earth to make it undiggable.
The druids had added this spell to ensure that when the Copper Bark does take root, the ground in that area will be able to handle its weight. I do agree that It is not particularly useful in our present fight with the Snowlords.
It will eventually show its worth. After all, the Dwarves did manage to dig an entire labyrinth of tunnels under the ground right next to us. It won't take them much to enter the fort from below if we leave it as it is. This spell will solidify the earth to a point that even their legendary bombs will not be able to leave a dent here.
The second spell that I have to describe is the iron bubble. How do I describe the iron bubble? The spell can be considered to be very similar to the ironskin spell. My master describes this particular spell as an aurified version of the former. I don't understand what it means exactly, but I do know that it is going to create a bubble of Iron mana around the fort, which will act as a barrier.
The bubble is going to be useful, if my understanding of the spell is accurate. I must admit that it is hard to believe this until I can see it in action. It can barely stop a few enemy arrows in its present form. It is a bit of a gamble, but it will show its use eventually, I am sure. (My master rarely misclassifies the utility of a spell, after all.)
That leaves me with my final class 9 spell and the class 8 spell, neither of which I will talk about now. The final class nine spell is related to the nasty surprise, and the less I record about it, the better. As for the class eight spell, I have no real way of describing it now. Explaining the theory behind a class eight spell will require a dozen logs at least.
Shamon has been busy all this time. At the moment, he has thirty soldiers who are still able to keep fighting. These soldiers are not even enough to maintain vigil at one of the gates.
That is why at this moment we have no patrol to warn us of an enemy. It is a bit of a gamble as it leaves us exposed to a sneak attack. We are hoping that they don't have more troops to throw our way. They have already sent so many troops to attack us. They shouldn't have anymore, right?
The injured soldiers are the ones who are having it worst at the moment. All of them are not even able to leave the storeroom with the formation core. If they try to do so is immediately going to worsen their chill. (Which naturally becomes worse the colder it gets outside.)
Of the ones that can still act, most have been stationed at the southern gate of this fort. This is the wisest move he can take at the moment. The most vulnerable point of the fort is the gate. I can't really blame anybody but myself for this. I destroyed the gate personally after all. (Hey, don't blame me. It was the only plan that would have worked.) The problem is that I have no idea how to fix the damage I have done to it.
It took me all of my creativity to make the gate fall in the first place. Spells like the Ironskin tend to have runes in them that describe the exact region in which mana has to be applied. These dimension runes are something that you must never get wrong. Getting it wrong might lead to deadly side effects such as metal mana gathering inside your skin rather than on it. (Imagine a sword growing under your skin. That is how this will feel like.)
In this regard, the Ironskin is the worst inscription to mess with. Any change done to it will lead to disastrous consequences. The Ironskin is literally like a second skin that sticks to the wall of the fort. Any damage done to it will reflect on the wall that it covers. (If I am really unlucky, I can even bring down the entire wall with a move.)
As a formation mage, it is possible for me to change the runes even after they are set. (You could say that this is one of the core of my powers.) It is a very risky process, though. It is like trying to remove a card from a castle of cards.
This is what I had to do to open up the southern gate. I essentially removed the hinges of the southern gate from these dimensional runes I spoke of. With a weakened hinge and the mass of corpses putting pressure against the gate, it came down like a piece of paper.
Now, I have no idea how to reverse this particular change. I could try and change the formations to make it go back to its usual state. That is a risk that I do not want to take, though. You see, you don't want to risk collapsing the entire fort to return one card back to it. I might end up burning the entire slot if I mess something up. (Which is something I don't want to risk after coming so close to completion.)
I think that Shamon has understood that point by now. He did not bother to ask me to fix the damage to the gate. He has taken more mundane methods of reinforcing the southern gate and I must say that his soldiers are doing a pretty job of it.
They have been reinforcing that gate with everything that can be spared in the fort. I have seen old furniture be dismantled to shore up the gate. Old spears, old barrels, and everything that is there in the stores have been used for this.
I honestly don't know how effective it is going to be, but at the very least, it should be able to do something. I would have accepted even shoddy work, if I am honest. This has kept the soldiers busy and distracted from the imminent attack. At the moment, that is enough, I guess. The worst thing that the soldiers can do now is to panic.
Speaking of soldiers, I should tell you that Shamon has not gotten any reinforcements. I was not expecting any from the Frozen Peak anyway. That fort is useless at the moment, as with the start of winter, the Snowlords will attack the peak with all their hordes.
The soldiers in the fort must be gathering all of their forces to form a defensive line around the fort. It is going to be a long and exhausting few months for them as they kill as many of the creatures as they can before they can enter into the Draken Vale.
Other than the Frozen Peak, the only other place to get reinforcements are the other temporary forts. (Which are significantly closer to us.) They can do more to assist us. Based on what I have been hearing, the other forts have not been attacked as intensely as they are usually attacked.
Since the Snowlords seem to have focused their troops here, Shamon has been trying to get soldiers from the other forts to here. Not that he has been particularly successful at this. He has been sending letters through messengers for the last couple of weeks. The only thing that he has gotten from all the forts is empty promises, with no physical movement from any fort.
This bit of politics I understand at the very least. The other forts are trying to save their hides. They have more than enough soldiers to spare for us, but they are not going to do so. It is simpler to keep their soldiers with them. It would be quite risky to commit your soldiers to some random fort whose success would not even help you. (At least in their perspective.)
If they were to commit their troops to help us, it would be their strength that would be reduced. If their fort came under siege, it would just make their work that much harder. After all, they will be rewarded or punished based on the state of their fort. Why would they waste their time fighting for my fort?
They are also not willing to help us just because we are their allies. Almost everybody here has come from different corners of the Snowwind Empire. I am sure that half the folks fighting here have never seen each others faces before. This certainly dampens a man's wish to help his fellow soldiers.
Now, the Commander has a pretty good strategy to counter this. At least a single noble family is usually given control of the forts. This way, there is a clear chain of command in these set of forts. If the enemy does end up focusing on a single fort like they have now, then the nobles can just force troops from one fort to move to another.
The Commander goes a step forward and usually gives this control to two or three families. It means there is competition among the nobles and that means they are busier fighting each other. They are not going to waste their time bullying the commoners.
Nothing like that has happened here this time around. The lack of nobles mean that every fort is fighting for themselves. The lack of nobles has also led to another problem, which is the lack of powerful mages in these forts.
Based on Shamon's estimate, there are only seven mages in total here, including me. One for each fort. (Of which three are here in my fort.) That is an abysmal amount. Every fort, at the very least, needs four to five mages in the first circle stationed at their respective forts. I am something of an exception because I have the formation to support me. As long as the formation is completed, I will be able to manage the defense of this place on my own.
The other six forts are not in a pretty state, if you see things that way. From that perspective, their actions are certainly justified. Well, the only thing that I care about at the moment is this fort of mine. As long as it lasts and the ruin is protected, all the other forts can fall for all I care. It is not like these forts are going to last beyond the season, anyway.