There are two problems with the water spear spell. The first is the range of the spell. A water spear does not have any way for it to propel itself as I explained before. The water spear has barely any range due to this. I have to be right next to the damn creatures to even be able to hit them accurately. (now that they know of the spear, they will not get close to the fort.)
The water spear is a kind of conjuration spell in that regard. It is not exactly one but it has clear elements of one. That means that I have to be the one to throw it. Even enhanced with all of my vital mana, I cannot throw the spear particularly far. (Hey, my cultivation is not that strong.)
Thankfully the druids had a solution for this problem of theirs. They have a pair of conjuration spells, which together make a ballista. The ballista is powered by earth mana and is strong enough to launch a water spear on a target five kilometers away.
Sadly, I am nowhere near capable of creating the ballista. It will take a lot of earth mana to manifest, and I have nowhere near the amount that I need right now. I need to inscribe the spells to create the ballista in the first place. Conjuration spells are something that I struggle with a lot. There is no way that I will be able to inscribe two of them any time soon.
That leads to the second problem of the water spear and that is the problem of its stability. Water spears are volatile by their nature. (As most temporary conjuration spells tend to be.) A water spear will start to dissipate in a couple of hours once manifested. Within ten hours, the entire thing will disappear. (quite explosively at that.) When you plan to use hundreds of water spears in a battle, manifesting them like this is pretty risky.
The druids are the ones that provided a solution for this again. The only way that a water spear can be stored is with a corresponding spell to keep it stable. That spell is called the quiver spell. The spell creates a quiver location. Any water spear stored in this quiver will retain its stability until it is brought out. This storage location will be mobile. I will be able to change its location whenever I want to, as long as it is on top of the ironskin.
This is something that I will achieve soon. If possible, I had wanted to have the quiver spell inscribed before I had to activate the formation base like I did. That would have saved so much of the mana stored in the core.
Shutting the formation base took a while after the battle. It is not easy to control an incomplete formation. Many people in my place would not have been able to achieve even this bit of control that I have achieved. I would still say that a majority of the saved mana has already bled away into the surroundings. The only thing that is still safe would be the metal mana which is safely bound to the fort in the form of ironskin. (To make metal mana move is an absurd little task in and of itself.)
The other two types of mana are at a critically low level, especially water mana. At the moment I am not even sure if I have enough mana to even activate the water spear spell inscribed in the core. It won't take too long to recharge the formation base (maybe a week or two) but it is still wasted mana. (Even an elemental node doesn't have infinite mana.)
I guess it does have its uses. After all, the leaked mana has temporarily decreased the ice mana concentration in the storehouse. This has made recovery much easier for all my injured soldiers. This excess mana will dissipate soon, though. (The much abused environmental formation is doing a very good job of holding this mana in.)
I need to be much more careful of my mana reserves. The mana requirement to fully activate this formation is a headache in and of itself. This is a problem with all formations that run continuously. While running, such formations don't tend to consume much mana. (They wouldn't be used if that was the case.) The cost of that is that it takes a lot of mana to start such formations. The amount required to start this one can be considered to be pretty absurd. (I am thankful I don't have to power this formation personally.)
Other than the work that I am doing to make the quiver formation, I have been observing Shamon. The man has been quite busy since the last week. The Ice Beasts have given up on their systemic attacks. Now they are attacking us with their full force. At the very least four troops of the creatures (which translates to 320 beasts) are attacking us.
They attack us like a horde, in a mostly formless manner. (it seems like that to me at least.) This continues for most of the day with the creatures trying to breach the fort in various positions. It is like fighting an octopus with a hundred limbs. The creatures never attack a single location as well. They spread out in a manner that makes predicting their actions hard.
I am surprised that the beasts are even able to maintain this level of order. It takes a certain kind of organization for an army to be able to attack like this. It is not something that I would have expected the troop leaders to pull off. Also, how are the minion Ice Beasts able to follow such instructions? (Even most humans can't be this precise.)
The creatures have managed to do it. I at the very least am not able to notice any major mistake that could be exploited. (then again, I am no strategist.)
Their goal is clear to me, though. The creatures want to keep up the pressure on us. They are making use of their numbers to keep harassing us. It is sad to say this, but they are winning in that regard. Most of the soldiers have had to forgo their rest to keep vigil at the wall and push off any creature that comes up. No rest makes making mistakes easier and mistakes mean injuries and deaths. The more the soldiers are injured the fewer the soldiers that can be fielded at the wall. Thus we are stuck in a vicious cycle here.
Even with a third of the enemy's numbers, Shamon has been giving an equal fight to the beasts. Granted we have the benefit of the wall. Still, I don't think I would be able to pull it off if I was in the same position. It needs a intuitive understanding of how the creatures think.
The wall is also a very important reason for us being able to fight these creatures. They can climb it quite easily. By the time they reach the top, though, they will exhaust themselves. Then all it will take is one push to throw them to the ground. (where they will most likely fall to their death.) Before that, though, these creatures are more than capable of taking lives. For every two beasts we kill, one person is injured (or worse.)
With the strengthening that is provided by the ironskin, the wall is holding its own at least. There are more than a few spots where the enemy has damaged the wall. Still, the wall is nowhere near collapsing. Only the troop leaders will be able to do that now, but I am here to hold them back. They have not returned since the last time that they faced of against me, by the way.
As for what is Shamon's strategy, I lost track of it weeks ago. The only thing I can tell is that the man seems to be ordering the soldiers on the fly, changing their positions on a hourly basis. He has been monumental in ensuring that we don't all die immediately. The only thing that the man has not been able to prevent is that we are steadily losing. (Even I can tell that things are getting worse.)
The morale in the fort is pretty bad due to this. The soldiers are professional enough that they don't let it affect their actions too much. Even then it is starting to creep in. (However well-trained, they are ultimately human.) Even in the Hexmountain, not many troops are capable of being so steely in the face of a challenge like this.
I think that I will be able to help the soldier's morale at least. Building formations has always been the best way to boost the morale of a place. I can imagine the ballista would be enough to calm down even the most tense soldier. A powerful weapon on your side is the most relaxing thing, I find.
I am certainly not completing any inscriptions today. Still, looking at me work they should feel like some progress is happening. Also, I can play more of a role in combat once the quiver is complete. Other than this I cannot think of anything else that will be able to boost the morale of the soldiers. Let's hope that it will be enough for now.
On to more positive news, I have finally begun work on expelling the chill. Even now I can feel the insidious chill wax and wane like the moon in my body. It is not being expelled as quickly as I would have liked it to be but it has certainly gotten more easy to manage.
It is a torture to remove this. Pulling out the ice mana feels like I am actively freezing my insides. This is even more intense than the chill at its worst. The problem is that right now this is the only solution that I have to handle it.
To remove the chill painlessly would require me to enter meditation. During meditation, I would be cut off from the world and my senses. The chill is intense enough that I would have felt it even in meditation. Still, it would certainly have been more manageable in that state. I can't enter into meditation, regardless of how much I want to.
The walls are the ultimate target. If the bastards manage to bring down even a section of the wall, we are screwed. All they would need to do then is to send their underlings after us. Without the wall, even I will be able to do little to protect myself.
I can fight these minions as long as there are not too many. With ten minions, I don't think that I will even struggle. With twenty minions, I can still put up a fight. With thirty or forty minions, even I will die. So, right now, no matter what happens I cannot let them bring down the wall.
That means that I simply cannot meditate. It takes me about half an hour to leave meditation. (don't judge me, I have never needed to meditate much.) That is enough time for the creatures to bring down the wall. Even without the meditation, I am already cutting it close going from the storehouse to the wall.
The four troop leaders have not been present on the battlefield since my last log. All they have been doing is circling the edges of the battlefield directing their soldiers. Until they move closer things are going to remain in this stalemate.
Trevor has given me a reason for this as well. The control that the troop leaders have over their creatures is supposed to be limited. With a troop leader injured, they must be struggling to keep their underlings under control. (The creatures seem to be under the control of some kind of magic.)
That doesn't mean that they can't attack us. It just means that they won't be able to attack us as frequently as they can. I would say now is actually the perfect opportunity to ambush them. I can't take that risk with this chill though.
I blame the chill for all of this. The damn thing has made my life a torture of the highest degree. It is not allowing me to work properly. It is not allowing me to fight the creatures properly. The fucking thing isn't even letting me sleep properly. Have you ever fucking tried to inscribe a formation while you are half a zombie yourself. I am lucky the formation core has not exploded on my face.
Normally, we formation mages don't need to take such an active role in the combat. The Commander should have sent a combat mage with me. I don't even need somebody stronger than me. Even Eric Starfall would have been enough. It would have cut the pressure on me by half at the very least.
Having to focus on so many things is not letting me do anything properly. Screw it, complaining about my situation is not going to help me in any way. It is better that I just keep working. (Better to call it torturing myself, to be honest.)