~~~

  “BRACE THOSE SHIELDS!" General Maximus roared as the rampart was once again pelted by a rain of arrows.

  The attack had begun with zero fanfare or warning. One minute Princess Fluffy was enjoying tea time with the ever accommodating general, the next a guard had stumbled in with a few arrows sported on his back, barely staying conscious as pixie dust and blood loss dragged him mercilessly closer to his final rest.

  Now fully armored with additional face covering in case of further dust or other deadlier powders, the Princess stood close to the general, letting him dictate his troops as he had more experience and trust between the two of them.

  The forest all around the fort teemed with hard-to-see activity. The fey all had naturally strong nature affinities and they used it effectively to hide their actual numbers, scattered around from treetop to forest floor, and potentially under the earth as well.

  “Accursed tree-spawn!”

  “Cover!”

  “Archer’s located to the southwest!”

  The feeling of being slowly caged in by the fey over these past 2 months had heightened the stress and aggression many of the beast folk soldiers had been feeling.

  Fluffy watched keenly as the fey began their next assault.

  A massive horde of goblins and red caps emerged from foliage near the trail and rushed towards the fort's front gate.

  “Hold the gate!”

  “Don’t dump tar on them, they love the stuff! Get an acidmanser over here!”

  To the side of the fort, trees began to move on their own, bending out of the way as much thicker trees, moving on four thick roots and shaped like siege equipment, lumbered closer to the wall.

  “Siege trees?! How did they get it that close without any of our patrols noticing?!” General Maximus proclaimed with genuine bewilderment.

  Siege trees were particularly powerful living constructs made by the fey. They were similar in general appearance to timburns. That however, was where the similarities ended. Instead of a magic flame in their hollow, each tree had a type of siege equipment shaped from their trunk, such as ballistae using regenerating branches as ammunition, trebuchets using willow looking trees, and siege tower trees that were mostly hollow inside thanks to the fey’s expert plant shapers. There were many more kinds to cover every type of siege equipment known, but thankfully it stopped with the aforementioned ones approaching the fort’s left side.

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  As the living constructs thumped out of the tree line and into range, General Maximus’s voice boomed out once more.

  “Well?! Are you just gonna let them walk right on over?! Get the flamethrowers over here!!! And where the heck is Smith?!?!”

  “He was last seen going to check on the rumbling felt under the town, sir!” A soldier quickly replied.

  The fort’s two fire mages quickly rushed over and began casting spells like ‘flame bolt’ and ‘fire ball’ to keep the siege trees back.

  Yet, when new cries of pain erupted from the distracted and thus less defended right side of the fort’s ramparts, the first two attacks proved to be a diversion.

  “Elves! Elves have snuck up- Guwah!” A beastkin shouted in warning before being swiftly cut down.

  “Filthy kidnappers! You shall pay for stealing our young!” An imposingly muscular elf shouted as he brandished his bloody sword at the princess and the general.

  “What the heck are you even talking about?!” Princess Fluffy snarled before charging towards the apparent lead elf, her armored claws angled to be ready to slit his throat the moment they were within range.

  ~~~

  Fishyscales is crazy! Wyrmwood thought to himself as the two wrapped around each other and bit.

  Wyrmwood had simply murmured agreement to what Veronica had told him, yet the sea amphiptere had apparently heard him, because he’d looked at Wyrmwood with a weirdly blank expression before springing at him with a roar!

  Gloriosa had quickly shielded Bixxy from the two of them, making Wyrmwood wonder how strong his new little friend was.

  Well, she is small enough to be squished if we’d accidentally rolled on her. He idly considered.

  Less pointless thinking and more fighting back, dummy! Veronica hissed loudly in his mind. She had pulled her antennae in and was using her banded closed head in a physical sense as she tried to smack down on Fishyscales over and over. This was actually rather difficult thanks to an unexpected advantage Fishyscales had.

  Wyrmwood was easily longer and stronger than Fishyscales. Also, Wyrmwood had two big, clawed hands, unlike Fishyscales and his two wings/flippers. However, similar to his name, Fishyscales was just too slippery to get a proper hold on!

  Wyrmwood couldn’t seem to grasp Fishyscales, and whenever he tried to wrap around and hold him in place in his coils, Fishyscales easily slid right through and continued biting him!

  In just a short time Wyrmwood’s upper half was littered with dragon bites oozing dark red blood. Changing tactics, Wyrmwood balled up his fists instead and started trying to punch and smash Fishyscales.

  He’d tried using his ‘breath’ attack at the start of the fight, but Fishyscales had instantly sprayed water into his mouth the moment it opened, nearly choking him for a second!

  Gloriosa and Bixxy were shouting something at them, but Wyrmwood and Veronica were too focused on retaliatory bruising Fishyscales that neither of them paid the excess noise any attention… until an angry, overwhelming presence made itself known by violently slamming into the two and flinging them into the distant wall where they slumped dazedly.

  “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU BRATS TO KEEP IT DOWN!!!” The giant muscular quilin roared in rage as it tunnel-visioned on the little whelps that had disturbed its rest. An aura of rage and flames seemed to emanate from his dark scales. He looked ready and all too willing to dish out a beating or two for the hatchlings keeping him from his one hobby in life… sleeping.

  Yet, before he could do so, a magic portal opened up above them, near the top of the central pillar. Every dragon looked up at the sudden spectacle they’d never seen before as a figure hopped through and danced lightly in the air.

  “Who goes there! Leave now, or I will scorch you to the bone and stomp on your ashes!” The quilin demanded.

  ??“Sorry to show up so soon little cuties!”??The entity said in a feminine sing-song voice. ??“I didn’t expect my new friends to break in so soon! Please, help me finish off this amazing prank I set up for all of them.”?? She sang as she danced and sprinkled some kind of mana intensive dust onto them.

  ~~~