As expected, the demons under the demon lord Malagord refused surrender. Overnight, we'd made makeshift defenses on the beach and prepared to fight. When the news made it back to us on the ship, we loaded in the first of the artillery shells, and began firing. The distance to the fort was less than 2 miles, so we were able to easily spot our misses and dial in to hit the fort. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the stone of the walls of the fort quickly began to crumble under powerful artillery. It was, after all, pretty much the main reason that castles and stone forts like this became obsolete on Earth. Even our old cannons, and the black powder cannons on ships used on the mainland are already capable of dealing significant damage to walls at ranges where they could deal direct hits, and really mark the transition away from older fortress style fortifications.
The result was that within an hour, the fort was largely reduced to rubble, and the demons inside fled. Initially, they seemed surprised by what was happening, panicking and looking out over the walls for whoever was dealing the damage. As sections of the seaward wall collapsed, they started to try to set up further in the fort for an attack, as if we'd storm the walls at any moment. As some areas of the fort broke, we saw some imps flee into the wilderness as well, which will be a problem that we'll have to deal with. As shells continued to rain down though, and a few larger demons caught shrapnel from rocks shattering, the remainder fled out of the fort.
At that, we used flags to signal to the army on the shore which way the rogue demons fled, as it wasn't toward the coast. We'd prepared for the chance that they would chose to flee instead of fight, so the army began their hunt. From the safety of the ship, we did more scouting using extra telescopes we'd brought along to not only keep an eye on the fleeing demons, but to begin spotting out other camps we could see on the island, and compiling a rough map of where they were.
We're supposed to periodically receive updates from the army as to how things are going on their end. If we get the clear signal, indicating that they've managed to engage the bulk of the fleeing demons, then we'll send someone to shore with a copy of the improvised map, along with other strategic info. If any of the camps seem particularly large, we might try to shell them first before opening up the army to attack, just to sow chaos.
It wasn't until late the previous evening that the army came back and gave us a signal. It seems that they're running into some difficulty. The demons who fled from the fort quickly split up and spread out. The army was capable of catching up to a few dozen of them, mostly goblins who seemed very low level who we suspect were summoned on this island as imps, but a few higher level demons were also killed.
By nightfall it became clear what was happening. The demons who fled had run to the other campsites. Most of the campsites were empty, or at least seemed to be through our telescopes, no fires were seen anywhere outside of our beachhead. Well, at least from what we can tell on this side of the island there aren't any camps, and we don't see smoke rising from the far side of the island. I'm not sure how much they've figured out yet, but it's possible that they've realized that our boat is the primary culprit, and they've moved to the other side of the island to try to regroup.
I believe that, all in all, we outnumber them, but more importantly, we out-level them. The biggest concern I have is how many enemy demons have the ability to summon imps. If it's limited to a small number, then we should be able to easily root them all out. This island is probably between 200 and 300 square miles. With a few hundred soldiers, even while keeping in decent formations for safety, it shouldn't take more than a few months to thoroughly search the island. Ideally, we figure out where they're hiding first and take out the main force, then we can focus on clearing everything out after. If, however, they've decided to go full guerilla on us, then the battles might be tougher and things could take a while.
We've now been clearing the island for eight days so far. The way things are going is kind of weird, though not in a bad way. The enemy demons seem to be attempting guerilla warfare, but without much preparation. Ambushes and hit and run tactics for the most part. It reminds me of our tactics when we were invaded, except they haven't done the prep work to make it extra effective. In essence, it seems that after their main defensive position was crushed, they ran about alerting the other camps, and then decided that they'd have to hide and take opportunistic fights.
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We've been able to mitigate their effectiveness, but it has slowed down our ability to root them out. The method to mitigate the small ambush tactics is to proceed slowly in large numbers. That means we can't easily fan out to clear swaths of land, and we have trouble keeping cleared sections secured. The upshot is that we have minimal casualties in comparison to our opponents, though the amount of injuries is slowly accruing. The good news is that the only attacks that actually do any damage are ones involving higher level demons, so even if they're managing to summon new imps and make goblins to fight, the effectiveness of those goblins is practically non-existent, and it would take months for them to gain the necessary prestiges to cause any harm.
We're in the process of revising our tactics though, since we've had multiple attacks come from areas that we had previously cleared. The plan now is that we'll clear cut large, straight paths through the forests in the valleys. I'll go with the ship crew back to the mainland, and we'll try to convince Zeb that we need a construction team in the military, and I'll also try to talk to Zaka about borrowing thirty or so guards.
The construction team will become an engineering core in the military, and we'll have them build watchtowers in those straight crossroads. We can station guards in those towers, and also have the engineering team build out more fortifications in other places to further secure the island. Overall, we're expecting this to reduce casualties while also speeding up the process of clearing the island of invaders.
We devised a decent system for returning to the island, though it's a bit annoying for us on the ship. We have our own siren, which has a few adjustable sound settings. Basically, when we use the siren, it can produce a few distinct sounds that tell the mainland what the situation is. The reason for this is that we still want to remain in the safe waters and wait for a few bait barges to be floated out before we travel into the bay. So, we played the siren sound indicating we were ok and requesting docking. A different siren could be used to indicate that the ship had either taken damage, was in critical condition, or was currently being held hostage. In this way we could prepare for all number of situations.
We parked about ten miles off the coast from the island and played the siren sound for a while. In the bay, we've put a parabolic wall to allow an individual at the focal point to hear audio from a significantly further distance than would otherwise be possible. On the ship, we have a functional, if rough, unfoldable wooden version that we can use for return listening. After a few hours, we go the faint return siren indicating it was safe for us to return to the bay.
Of course there was some confusion why we were back so soon. After a short explanation as to the situation with the dock workers, I made my way back to the city to talk with Zeb and Zaka about the ongoing situation. Both of them made some good points as well. They both were concerned that any sort of infrastructure we build on the island has the potential to be used against us in the future. Cutting down trees and making spotting posts would weaken our own ability to perform guerilla tactics in the future on that island. I made the counterpoint that it if we replanted the trees and removed the watchtowers, then in a few decades it'd be back to a semblance of what it was before. There would have to be an invasion on a pretty short term for that to be a concern.
Another point was brought up, was that we should bring over some extra laborers along with wood processing tools, and ship the wood we cut back to the main island. Honestly, I was planning on just burning it to save time, but if we bring some of our own low level laborers along to process the wood, it'd help us preserve more of our own forests.
I was somewhat surprised that Zeb was as willing as he was to let us take another construction team away for military purposes. We'd already taken quite a few individuals to help man the ship, so him not objecting to taking more was surprising. It isn't even on a temporary basis. They'll be a permanent feature in the military. Though he did voice that he doesn't want to be bothered as much with military construction projects moving forward. If the military has it's own construction team, it's expected to rely on it.
Which, honestly, I get. If military construction is off his plate, it lets him focus more on the urban aspects of his work. Most of the military projects take place in fairly remote areas, so it's a bit of a hassle to administrate it. Not that all the other projects are actually centered in the city though, quite a few are in other places, but I suppose most are purposefully in easy to reach places. By comparison, things like remote watchtowers, ship docking, and coastal forts really do require some travel to get to.
