Dawn on the third day arrived with a heavy quiet. The air inside the dome felt still, waiting. Everyone moved through their routines with a tense focus. Ban prepared a simple, hearty breakfast of nut porridge, his usual booming commentary replaced by grim silence. Elder Leon led the morning training session, but the movements were sharper, more deliberate.
Kazuto stood by the entrance barrier, his hand resting on the cool, invisible surface. He was listening. Not with his ears, but with the faint, psychic connection to his pressure plates and marbles outside.
« PERIMETER ALARM SYSTEM: STANDBY. NO DISTURBANCES DETECTED. »
Mavis approached, her slate under her arm. "All non-essential tasks are suspended. Water is stored. Food is rationed. The people are as ready as they can be."
"Which isn't very," Kazuto said quietly.
"No," she agreed. "But they are not panicking. That is something."
The morning dragged on. The sun climbed higher, its light diffusing evenly through the dome. Lunch the lizard chewed its cud, oblivious. The goblins were unusually still, perched on the inner ledges, their large eyes fixed on the sealed entrance.
It was just past midday when Hat the goblin let out a sharp, urgent whistle. It was pointing not at the entrance, but up, at the section of the dome above the gully.
Kazuto and Mavis looked up. At first, they saw nothing but the pale sky. Then, a shadow passed over. Not a cloud. It was too fast, too angular. A second later, they heard a faint, whistling shriek.
« NOTICE: HIGH-VELOCITY PROJECTILE DETECTED ON COLLISION COURSE WITH SETTLEMENT CANOPY. »
A black dot grew rapidly, resolving into a heavy, iron-shod log, its tip glowing red-hot. It had been launched from a distant siege engine, arcing high over the Scablands to plummet down onto the dome.
It struck.
The sound was not a crash. It was a deep, resonant THOOM, like a giant striking a single, massive drum. The log didn't splinter. It didn't penetrate. It hit the perfectly curved, transparent surface of the dome and simply… stopped. The red-hot tip sizzled against the barrier for a second, then the entire log slid sideways, down the invisible slope, gathering speed before tumbling off the edge and crashing into the rocks of the gully outside with a distant, muffled crunch.
Inside the dome, the sound echoed, but nothing shook. Not a single pebble was dislodged.
Everyone stared upward, mouths open.
Balmond hefted his axe, a frustrated growl in his throat. "They're attacking from where we can't hit back!"
"That's the point of a roof," Kazuto said, his eyes still on the sky. "It takes the hits so you don't have to."
A second whistling shriek. Another projectile, this one a ball of burning pitch. It hit the dome, flared brightly for a moment, then slid off just like the log, leaving a smear of black soot that slowly faded as if absorbed by the barrier.
THOOM.
Then a third.
THOOM.
The rhythmic, futile bombardment was almost comical. Each impact was a loud, impressive noise that accomplished absolutely nothing. After the fifth one, the dwarves stopped flinching. After the seventh, a young dwarf muttered, "Are they just… littering?"
But Mavis wasn't watching the sky. She was watching the entrance tunnel in the gully, visible through the transparent barrier. "The projectiles are a distraction. Look."
In the gully, figures moved. Soldiers in the Black Phoenix's ash-grey livery. They were edging forward, carefully, weapons ready. Their eyes were fixed on the seemingly open passage, wary of the invisible wall they knew was there.
The lead soldier, carrying a shield emblazoned with a black flame, took a cautious step forward. His boot came down on the layer of perfect, smooth marbles Kazuto had left.
His foot shot out from under him. He crashed onto his back with a yelp, his shield clattering. The soldier behind him tried to stop, but his foot also hit marbles. He windmilled his arms, knocking into a third man. In seconds, the entire advance squad was a tangled, cursing heap of limbs and polished stone spheres.
From inside the dome, it looked like a silent, slapstick comedy. The dwarves, peering through the barrier, started to chuckle. The goblins chittered with glee.
The soldiers untangled themselves, their faces red with rage and embarrassment. They started kicking the marbles aside, but the spheres were impossibly hard and just rolled under their kicks, causing more imbalance.
« PERIMETER ALARM: DISTURBANCE AT ENTRANCE GULLY. »
"They're clearing the marbles," Mavis noted. "They'll reach the wall soon."
Kazuto nodded. He watched as the frustrated soldiers finally cleared a shaky path and approached the main barrier. Their commander, the one who had fallen, drew a wicked-looking curved sword. He glanced back at his men for courage, then swung the blade at the empty air with all his might.
CLANG.
The sword rebounded so violently it flew from his grip, spinning over his head to land point-down in the dirt behind him. He stood shaking his numb hand, staring at the unmarked air in front of him.
He tried pushing. He threw his shoulder against it. He ordered three men to charge it with a battering ram they'd brought up. The ram hit the barrier and stopped dead, the shock nearly dislocating the men's shoulders.
They couldn't get in.
A messenger came running down the gully, dodging marbles. He spoke hurriedly to the commander, pointing back the way they came. The commander's face fell. He barked an order.
The soldiers began to retreat, leaving the marbles and their battering ram behind.
"They're falling back?" Doom asked, confused.
"To Plan B," Mavis said grimly. "The overseer said they would try from below."
Minutes later, a new vibration began. A deep, grinding thrum that came up through the soles of their feet. It was centered just outside the dome, near the base of the gully wall.
"They're tunneling," Kazuto said. "Trying to go under the dome's foundation."
"Your barrier goes underground," Mavis said, but she sounded unsure. "It should hold."
The grinding continued. It was an unnerving sound, a mole of unknown size chewing at their doorstep.
Kazuto closed his eyes. He focused on the spherical matrix of the dome, feeling its shape extending into the earth. He could sense the disturbance, like a pest pushing against the bottom of a glass bowl. They couldn't break through. But they could dig a trench right up to the edge of it, maybe trying to find a seam or weaken the ground.
An idea, both absurd and simple, came to him. He couldn't attack them. But he could… rearrange the furniture.
He focused on the earth just above the tunneling point, outside the dome. He imagined a single, massive slab of barrier material. Not as a wall, but as a flat sheet. He visualized it forming horizontally, about ten feet below the surface, directly in the path of the tunnel.
« ACTIVATING [DIVINE OMNI BARRIER] – SUBSURFACE IMPEDIMENT PROTOCOL. »
The grinding sound changed. It became a jarring, metallic SCRUNCH, followed by the distant, muffled sound of shouting and the clatter of tools dropping.
Up on the rim, a goblin scout waved excitedly. It mimed a shovel hitting something unbreakable and shattering, then held its head as if in pain.
Kazuto allowed himself a small smile. They'd just hit an indestructible bedrock that hadn't been there a minute ago.
The deep thrumming stopped. An angry silence settled over the gully.
Inside the dome, the mood had shifted. The fear was gone, replaced by a giddy, disbelieving relief. The mighty forces of a Seat had just been thwarted by a slippery floor, a wall that wouldn't budge, and a surprise sheet of impossible rock.
Ban broke the silence. "Well! If the excitement is over, I believe it is time for a late lunch! Fear burns calories!" He stomped off toward his kitchen, muttering about siege-induced appetite.
The dwarves began to talk, laughter bubbling up. The goblins celebrated by throwing their grass hats in the air.
Kazuto didn't relax. He looked at the overseer's cube. The creature inside was watching him, its expression one of deep, profound shock. It had seen its master's standard tactics fail completely, not with magical counter-fire, but with humiliating, trivial tricks.
Mavis stood beside him. "They will report this. They will call it impossible. They will call it an anomaly. And then…" she looked east, "...she will come herself. To see the anomaly that broke her tools."
Kazuto knew she was right. This wasn't a victory. It was a postponement. The Black Phoenix wouldn't send soldiers next time.
But for today, the doorbell had rung, and they hadn't answered. The delivery—their safety—was still intact.
He turned to his people, who were now eating Ban's lunch with gusto. "Alright. Show's over. Everyone, finish eating. Then we have gardens to tend and tunnels to expand."
The dome had held. The real test was still coming, but for now, the only thing falling from the sky was the quiet, satisfying sound of nothing at all.