Chapter 169: Fire Falling From The Heavens
“Do you know where there are more gravel?” Anse gazed into the distance and spotted several undulating hilltops.
“The nearest ones are Fire Stone Mountain to the northeast and Gravel Slope to the east. The stones at Fire Stone Mountain are quite large and hard to mine. Gravel Slope is full of small stones…” Illyas pointed out the two locations to him one by one.
Anse observed through the telescope and decided to prepare some of both types of stones.
Affected by factors such as gaze, wind force, stone shape, etc., throwing stones from high altitude hundreds of meters up makes it hard to aim at targets; only coverage strikes are possible, which rely heavily on luck.
Large stones are heavy and highly destructive, but their attack density is too low.
Small stones are the main strike force, densely scattered with a large strike area; pebbles the size of dates can be lethal, fist-sized rocks can dent and deform plate armor, with astonishing lethality.
In his previous life, Anse had seen an experiment on high-altitude falling objects: an egg dropped from the eighteenth floor, about fifty meters high, had enough impact force to crack a skull, causing brain injury or even death.
Toril’s gravity is similar to Earth’s; replacing the egg with a stone would make the lethality much greater.
“Do you have fire oil?” He looked at Illyas.
Illyas thought for a moment: “The castle should have pine oil, tallow, whale oil, vegetable oil, and candles, as well as fire gel.”
“Those are too expensive. Do you have that smelly lamp oil used by common households?”
“Probably not much; that stuff is toxic.”
Anse said helplessly: “I’ll have the federation help prepare some.”
The smelly lamp oil he mentioned was actually coal tar, also called black oil or tar locally; initially obtained through wood dry distillation, it could be used as fuel, waterproofing, and preservative coating, and some used it to disinfect wounds.
Later, an alchemist in Waterdeep learned to produce coal tar from bituminous coal, opened a factory for large-scale production, and greatly reduced costs.
However, though coal tar is not expensive, it smells extremely foul and its smoke is toxic, so only poor households would use it as lamp oil.
Anse teleported out Finn and Greyhawk, having them cooperate with Illyas to monitor the Amn people’s movements.
He himself flew from high altitude to the Durag Union, arranging for Graham to help procure a large quantity of tar, then hurried to Fire Stone Mountain, hiding on the other side of the mountain to start collecting stones.
The sky was clear today, so the Amn people could see his movements, but they showed no special reaction, still setting up their camp.
Anse thought they probably couldn’t guess his plan for now; after all, if the quantity of stones thrown was insufficient, it would indeed be hard to threaten them.
He sped up his actions to launch the operation as soon as possible; delays could lead to changes.
The stones at Fire Stone Mountain were black with a reddish tint, hard in texture, and indeed difficult to mine. But he had the cantrip mold earth, so it wouldn’t be too laborious.
Large stones could be directly stored in Hollewen; stones smaller than one foot in diameter were bundled into large packs with canvas, then stored.
Because storing items in otherworldly space requires marking them, with a maximum of 200, small stones were too scattered; without bundling, they would be inconvenient to retrieve.
After mining dozens of packs of stones, he flew to Gravel Slope; the stones here required no mining, all gravel, with few rocks as big as a person’s head.
He simply notified Brat to bring a group of people out to help pick them up, bundling them in large hemp sacks or canvas.
Dozens of people worked for three hours, packing over three hundred packs of gravel; each pack weighed up to two or three hundred kilograms or at least a hundred or so kilograms, all small gravel, mostly one to a dozen centimeters in diameter.
Packing tools were used up, and dragonhide pouches were stuffed full; he sent Brat and the others back, then hurried to the federation headquarters to pick up the tar.
Graham had procured two hundred barrels on behalf of the federation, fifty pounds per barrel, costing over four hundred gold coins in total; the price was a bit high, but with sea routes cut off, it was good that someone was willing to sell.
Anse had Graham continue acquiring more; after storing the tar in Hollewen, he hurriedly returned to Jacqueline Castle.
Illyas had not left the city wall; seeing him return, she immediately came over: “How much have you prepared?”
“Nearly four hundred packs of stones, large and small, quantity-wise… probably tens of thousands at least.” Anse estimated, “And two hundred barrels of tar.”
“You work so fast.” Illyas said in surprise, “When do we act?”
“Right now!” Anse opened his pocket watch; it was already past five in the afternoon.
The Amn people’s tents were all set up, six in total, distributed around the base of the mountain, with simple wooden stockade gates erected and teams of warriors patrolling back and forth.
Smoke rose from the camp as they started cooking.
At this time, with the enemy gathered together, the stone-throwing effect was second only to nighttime.
Moreover, he worried the Amn people might have some secret plan at night, so he decided to strike first, doing it openly in broad daylight.
“Let’s go.” Illyas waved, signaling him to get on the flying carpet.
Anse got on the flying carpet; wind whistled in his ears as the two rapidly climbed, soon reaching an altitude of four to five hundred meters.
“How should I cooperate with you?” Illyas hovered above a camp, her eyes somewhat excited.
“Let’s fix the position first.” Anse took out several stones of varying sizes and casually threw them down, watching them plummet and finally smash into the wilderness soil.
Illyas instantly understood, maneuvering the flying carpet to adjust position.
“The first wave is crucial. If I scatter gravel, you slowly move the flying carpet to cover the entire camp as much as possible. If I throw oil barrels or stone packs soaked in tar, you use flame arrows to ignite and scatter them…” Anse instructed.
“Understood.” Illyas’s expression was serious.
Anse stood up, waved the teleport staff, and teleported out a large pack of gravel; the flying carpet dipped, then steadied.
Stones are dense; over two hundred kilograms of gravel was just a small pack, a little over half a meter in diameter.
His hands turned into dragon claws; one claw tore open the thick canvas, then he gripped one side forcefully, flipping and flinging it outward, dumping the entire bag of stones in one second.
Meanwhile, the flying carpet kept moving.
Anse immediately teleported out a one-hundred-pound barrel of tar and threw it down hard, chasing after the gravel.
“Whoosh—”
A flame arrow caught up to the oil barrel, instantly exploding it; black oil burst into flames, like fire falling from the sky, enveloping burning gravel stones as it plummeted toward the camp below.
Due to height, explosive combustion, and scattering force, the stones spread out more as they neared the ground.
Anse didn’t focus on those but quickly scattered barrels of tar and packs of stones; soon Illyas’s flame arrows couldn’t keep up, so he helped by firing a few sorcerous bursts, also scattering the stones a bit.
The camp below was already in chaos; dozens of barrels of oil turned into fire from the sky, igniting wherever they landed, burning relentlessly: tents, soldiers, stockade gates, supply wagons…
Half the camp was shrouded in smoke and fire; acrid black smoke drifted with the wind, obstructing vision and choking people so they could barely open their eyes.
Soldiers who ran out still faced falling stones from above; by the time they heard the whistling, it was too late to dodge—running didn’t help, nor did not running; survival depended on luck.
【Target Death, gain 7 combat experience】
【Target Death, gain 12 combat experience】
A series of combat notifications flashed in Anse’s mind, intermittent but nonstop.
Soldiers had military training and were generally stronger than commoners, with most combat experience over ten points. But since it was cooperative combat, he only got a portion of the experience from those burned or crushed to death.
Soldiers in the camp scattered and fled; Anse felt throwing more would waste resources, so he waved: “Let’s go, next camp.”
“Good effect.” Illyas smiled with her eyes and drove the flying carpet straight to the adjacent camp.
Actually, the stone hit rate was extremely low, and fewer soldiers were burned to death than imagined, but the coverage was wide, destroying massive supplies; the chaos created and the blow to morale were even more important.
Next, the two repeated the tactic, flying over and throwing chaotically, not giving the Amn people much reaction time.
However, before they finished the fourth camp, the rocks and tar were almost depleted; Anse was exhausted, drenched in sweat, back aching and arms limp.
This job was no light work!
But the results were brilliant: camps billowing with thick smoke, corpses everywhere, many wounded with no one to treat them.
Soldiers all fled into the wilderness, crouching in corners, shields over their heads, alarmed and uneasy.
Most soldiers were experiencing an air raid for the first time, feeling a deep sense of powerlessness.
