The groups had been decided as being Kurt, Talia, Fredrick, Hank, Tom and Joe. Jerry would be driving the carriage, Fredrick would ride outside on his own horse, to make sure they appeared as what they were. The three goblins would stay in the background covering their features up with a heavy robe. They would also try to stay in the carriage whenever possible. When they started to see Dakota Spring the siege was already in full effect as a mass of men and weapons had made a perimeter around the city. Obviously the gates were closed and the walls still stood. But nothing would be getting in or out.

They had been stopped by a guard on their approach, but after some discussion the guard started leading the carriage to a large tent. There were guards and crews of soldiers making ready. Sieges didn't have much in the way of action, it was mostly a waiting game. There were engineers starting to make trebuchets and siege towers though.

Fredrick had gotten Kurt and Talia and led them into the main tent, there was a table with a map and markers on it. Four men were in a discussion, Kurt didn't recognize any of them. One of them turned to see who had come.

"Lord Fredrick? You're here already?" said one man.

"Yes, we are here to help if we can, may I introduce Lady Talia and Lord Kurt. This is General John from Hamlet, and General William from Midas, I am unfamiliar with the two lieutenants."

"This is Barry and Mike, but don't worry we are glad you are here."

"Is there a problem?"

"Well this siege is vastly different from normal ones?"

"Why is that?" said Kurt.

"Well the point of a siege is really for us to starve them out and for them to wait for reinforcements, the problem is neither of those two things are going to happen, they don't have the allies, but what they do have is access to food from the other side of the gate. The siege is at a standstill indefinitely."

"Which means something has to break," said Fredrick.

"And there is no reason to wait, as you normally could stay around for a week or more and then push the siege engine against people that don't have enough energy to push back," said General John.

"So what's the problem?"

"The fire clan can take out the towers before they reach the walls with their blasts," said William.

"Which is where we can help."

"I'm actually here for an extraction though," said Kurt, "I have someone on the inside of the city I want to get back."

"I don't see how you get into the city without getting noticed," said William.

"What we would need is a distraction," said Talia.

"Why just a distraction? If you want to extract someone, but help us make a hole in the wall, our attack would cover anything from another direction," said General John, "and if you can do that that's all we will need. If we try to go all in and throw as many siege towers at them as we can we will take heavy losses. Do you know where they are?"

Kurt looked down at the map, he wasn't used to reading the map, but followed the path he would take to get to Jacob's parents place. And pointed at a section, "they should be around here, if they are not they might be on the other side of the gate."

"Then either way you'll need a push inside the city, and we need a way to make that push," said William, "so what idea do you have about punching through the wall."

"We have a way," said Kurt, "we can blast through the wall basically anywhere."

They began discussion on the exact placements. Kurt, Talia, Hank and Tom would use Kurt's water boots and Talia rock platforms to scale the wall from one side, close to Arthur's place, while in the opposite direction, Joe and Fredrick would blast the walls through. After discussing it with Joe they decided it would be better to use a series of heavy fireballs, with the new staff, and the coins they made Joe was certain it would be enough, the other massive aether blasts that was used before would destroy too much behind the wall, and innocent people would die.

"It is still going to be tough, getting in is only the start, there will be resistance, and I don't think you will just slip by, even in the chaos. How likely do they know you after this person?"

"Somewhat high," said Kurt, "one has ties to the Fire clan. But she isn't a member herself."

"Then I would expect them to be there. If they have any awareness."

"Hopefully they have been so messed up it's been overlooked. Do we know how their leadership fared?"

"Not very well by most reports, we haven't seen the Clan Leader and many other top officials we were expecting, it's not completely gone but they are definitely missing some of the top guys, if not most. They are noticeably a smaller force than a week ago."

"That should help us," said Fredrick.

"Certainly, but it can also mean they have a big grudge and are more dug in to their position because of it, revenge can be a powerful motivator. Lack of leadership also makes their surrender hard to accomplish in totality, like we will have groups fighting and groups giving us," said John.

"It's going to be a huge mess isn't it?" said Fredrick.

"These things always are, the trick is to point it in the right direction, then try to contain it to a minimum," said William. "Once we establish a foothold inside the city, it will fall, they will see it eventually. But getting that foothold is going to fight no matter what we do. We will be in range of their more powerful attacks."

"Do you know anything about who took down the castle? Are their troops on the other side of the gate?" said General John. "They really did a number on those bastards."

Kurt looked at Fredrick, who looked back. And Kurt after a moment spoke, "The troops on the other side retreated back."

"Damn, but. You know what happened? All we saw was the opportunity here."

Kurt was giving a teeth smile, and rubbing the back of his head, "They attempted to capture me, and another, and we struck back."

"Huh?" said General William looking at Fredrick, who put up his shoulders and hands giving a look of, I don't know.

"We were very clear with them how they shouldn't do that, before then."

"But why would they do that to the Valentine clan?"

"I'm not part of the Valentine clan, we are negotiating an alliance, and though this would make coming here easier on you.", making a motion towards his robes.

"So this is all because of you?"

"It's a long story, the fact is they captured us illegally inside Hamlet, after we had been given a pass by Prince of Hamlet, they had no right to do that."

"If you had a seal from the kingdom it would be seen as attacking the crown directly," said John, "but I still don't understand. How did you get troops to their side of the gate?"

"Is that important now?"

"I guess not."

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