George felt that everything up ‘till now could’ve been handled a lot better than it had been. Of course, it’s hard to explain what you’re thinking to people when you can’t exactly speak up about what’s on your mind to get people’s attention.
Garrus was right about the fact that pissing off the royal guard was probably not the brightest play. They’d killed for less, in fact, the only reason there hadn’t been a summary execution then and there is because of Lillian and Castella. As strong as Raylith is, he’s not strong enough to take on either one let alone both.
At the same time, George understood where Garrus was coming from in distancing the group from Alex. Even with doing this, it might come through that the royal guard will associate us with him and drag us into whatever fiasco Alex finds himself caught in. To George, that was an acceptable outcome. Alex had gone above and beyond for them in circumstances that he never would’ve been in on his own.
If anything truly surprised him was that Penny didn’t split from the group instantly after what had happened. George expected her to be stuck to Alex’s side the moment that happened, George was pretty sure Garrus expected that as well. So it came as quite a surprise when that didn’t happen.
Penny had decided to stick with the group, not answering any questions on the matter either.
Well, George would have to see what the next few days would hold before coming up with a plan of action. He would do what he could to fix this if he even could. George prayed that it would work out.
Well, this would certainly put a damper on any plans, George thought to himself as he listened to the tolls of the warning bell.
Three tolls.
Enemies at the gate.
George turned to look at Garrus next to him, raising an eyebrow. Garrus just returned it casually.
“What? Just because I used to be a soldier doesn’t mean that I feel the need to go running whenever the bell tolls.”
Karif spoke up from his spot next to Garrus, “So what is our plan? Do you want to get involved or stick back?”
Garrus thought for a moment before shaking his head, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to get involved right now. Given the short notice of what’s happening, I’d think the guard is going to pull something pretty shitty to give themselves a chance to pull the upper hand.”
Karif frowned trying to work out the potential strategy in his head.
George settled back into his seat realizing what Garrus was saying.
Right now there was a force, assumedly, coming from the north. Alixia then. Currently, the guard hadn’t received any time to prepare, how they had gotten this close without the alarm having been raised beforehand was a mystery. Especially given that both magic systems worked with communications between operatives in separate towns across multiple organizations, not just the royal family and their operations.
On top of that, some runners went back and forth between the cities. And yet not one of the ones that had come in from the north today had said anything about seeing an army. Something wasn’t right there. All of this added up to a situation where the guards weren’t ready to repel any invaders and were caught completely with their pants down.
Garrus’ thoughts were that they were more than likely going to conscript the adventurers and then throw them at the opposing forces as a meatshield while they rallied and were given sufficient time to counterstrike.
George had to agree that this was the most likely thing to happen if they were to join the volunteer force. It would see at least half the adventurers dead, if not more. The biggest concern in George’s mind was if Alex knew any better. The man was intelligent but also wasn’t the most aware person.
George snuck a glance at Penny, she’d been uncharacteristically quiet. She seemed to be somewhat lost in thought. Well, the most George could really hope for was that Alex didn’t get involved, in the meantime they’d probably move to the guild hall and rest there before planning their next maneuver.
George prayed that it would work out.
The guild hall in the capital was enormous, it housed thousands of adventurers regularly. There were plenty of jobs that happened inside the capital. Bodyguard contracts, excavations, manual labor, etc.
There were also options to go traveling out of the country for a number of reasons, some people wanted some rare plant that could only be acquired from some small town in the dukedom, or maybe they wanted some religious text from the theocracy.
Any number of reasons really.
All of this is to really say that the guild hall saw a lot of traffic from a lot of different people. Yet despite that, George didn’t think it’d be that hard to spot Alex if he was here. Standing roughly 6’2” and being an elf tends to make you stand out. Sure there were people taller, but given that average height was around 5’10” or so tended to make anyone taller than that really stick out.
He looked around for several hours but wasn’t able to find him. And so George was left with the assumption that Alex joined the volunteer force.
George let out a soft sigh, he had definitely been hoping that he’d avoid doing that. Now he could only hope that he wouldn’t die, if he wasn’t with a group then George didn’t have high hopes for his chances of surviving, especially since the initial forces would all be a higher tier than him and have more experience fighting.
Say what you will about his stats, but there’s only so much distance between him and the people above him that they can cover. In a fight against a tier 3 that was expecting him to be strong and fully prepared for it, Alex wouldn’t stand much of a chance. He could probably get a good attack or two off, but wouldn’t have many options for overcoming that steep of a cliff.
Well, at this point, George could only pray that it would work out.
The volunteer force had apparently made it back inside according to the runner that had come from the front walls. They were also asking if there were any healers in the group who would be willing to volunteer their services. There really weren’t any here at the moment given that they had all taken contracts to get paid for their services with the military. They’d heal the soldiers that made it back.
There really weren’t any to go heal the volunteer squad that came back.
In the meantime, the runner also relayed that a mighty blow had been struck against the Alixian forces that were invading. They dressed up the words more prettily than what the reality more than likely was, but essentially the adventurers had gotten used as meatshields, as he had predicted, and the Seltan forces wrapped around from the sides by using the forested area to the northeast to sneak around their side and hit their backlines.
A simple, yet effective plan. As such this skirmish would be wrapped up in one clean swoop and hopefully there wouldn’t be many more casualties.
George could only pray.
George nearly swore out loud as he heard the earth-shattering roar that shook the entire city.
He just had to jinx himself with his thoughts. Just his luck, he prayed that things would work out for the best and instead, they got the absolute worst outcome possible, it was bad enough that they had been invaded by Alixia, but now this?
If there was any saving grace in this situation it was that two of the spell-blades were in the city. They might be able to keep casualties in the low tens of thousands. If they were lucky.
Another roar shook the world, completely disorienting everyone around George, including himself.
Several minutes too late to truly warn anyone, the warning bell started tolling.
Two tolls signified war declared, three tolls signified that it was at their front door, four tolls indicated their current issue had been sighted in the nation, and five tolls said that it was here.
No shit, George thought to himself as they heard the fifth toll come.
At this point, it was no longer a matter if people wanted to be conscripted or not. Everyone who could fight was expected to. Survival of the non-combatants was dependent on them pulling through.
The Earth Raiders glanced at each other before Garrus gave a firm nod. They all stood up from where they were sitting, being one of the first to react, they made it out of the door with little trouble.
From there they got their first clear look at their opponent. It was quite easy to see them, no matter where you were. The only reason one would normally not be able to see it was because they were hiding inside.
It stood roughly 400 feet tall, easily eclipsing the Titans of Vernah. Dwarfing the Dragons of Kril’koth. And making humans seem more puny than ants. It had a body that looked like it had broken out of a clump of obsidian, a rocky and jagged black exterior. Three orange glowing eyes were embedded in its skull, two occupying the normal space for a human with a third like that of a cyclops. Its head was adorned with two horns similar to that of a demon lord’s horns. Its hands and feet ended in three-pronged claws that looked deathly sharp. It had digitigrade legs that gave it an awkward gait as it made its way to the walls of the capital.
“Harbinger…” George heard Garrus whisper.
The Harbinger. George thought to himself. An alien beast that roamed the world, causing disaster wherever it went. No one knew what caused it to appear, just that it could show up wherever it wanted to. No one knew where it went after causing enough chaos that it felt satisfied. Just that it left to then turn up later.
Whether that was several weeks or several years. It was hard to say. Any attempts to follow it had been failures, no known magic was able to track it, none able to follow it, and none had been able to kill it. As evidenced by the fact that it was here currently.
From here they could see the spells that were pelting it, doing absolutely nothing to hinder its movements as it slowly, inexorably, made its way towards the walls of the city.
“Alright, we’re not going to be able to-”
Garrus was interrupted by another roar from the Harbinger causing them all to cover their ears and wait for the sound to fade.
As it ended, there was a soft ringing in their ears. Anyone closer probably lost their hearing from the powerful blast of sound.
“Not going to be able to make it in time to stop it from getting to the wall, we should try and gather up with other groups and wait to make a coordinated strike. That’s probably happening closer up as it is.”
The group nodded before following behind Garrus on their way to see if they could find anybody trying to lead a concentrated effort.
It took them several minutes to find what they were looking for, but they did find it.
They got near the base of the wall just as the Harbinger broke through just in time to hear a commanding shout, “FIRE!”
Immediately spells began hitting it from all directions, explosions lighting up the late afternoon sky. Karif immediately joined in letting out dozens of cutting wind blades at a time doing his best to hit the same spots over and over again in hopes of creating a weak point in its armor.
Nothing seemed to be particularly effective against the beast, however. It slowly marched onwards.
And then made its first counterattack.
Missiles of pure magic formed around its head before lancing outwards to counterattack against everyone who had attacked it. Karif among them.
Penny tackled him from behind causing the beam of magic to go over their heads and melt through the solid stone going deep into the ground and out of sight.
George and Garrus quickly yanked them both up as Garrus yelled, “Keep moving, we can’t stay still or it’ll step on us!”
They began running to try and avoid its stride. When you’re 400 feet tall it’s quite easy to cover lots of distance quickly. On top of that, you have large feet that make it quite easy to squish unsuspecting opponents that are maybe 1% of your overall height.
They managed to get out of the way with plenty of time to avoid being crushed underneath the Harbinger and continued launching attacks. At this point with its foot close to them, people like George and Garrus could counterattack.
They definitely didn’t let the opportunity slip past them and neither did the group around them hearing multiple call out, “CHARGE!”
George heaved with a powerful blow into its foot and did his best to carve into it. Yet he barely left a gash into its armor, in fact, he was fairly certain any damage that he had dealt was completely superficial and had done absolutely nothing to it. He doubted the attack even tickled.
Several more minutes of this passed before its foot slowly started to lift up and out of reach. George watched it as the foot carried over and through some buildings, as it continued its march.
He looked at its projected path, which would take it straight through the palace. Or up to it depending on what its motives were.
George let out a sigh, there was only so much he could do currently. He glanced over at Garrus who was staring at him.
Garrus gave him a subtle nod.
George returned it before he knelt down planting his sword tip down in front of him. He then reached under his armor and pulled out his religious icon, and for the first time in a long while, that wasn’t a complete accident, he spoke.
A choir of voices accompanied his prayer.
And for the first time since he’d broken his oath, his prayer was answered.
George felt that everything up ‘till now could’ve been handled a lot better than it had been. Of course, it’s hard to explain what you’re thinking to people when you can’t exactly speak up about what’s on your mind to get people’s attention.
Garrus was right about the fact that pissing off the royal guard was probably not the brightest play. They’d killed for less, in fact, the only reason there hadn’t been a summary execution then and there is because of Lillian and Castella. As strong as Raylith is, he’s not strong enough to take on either one let alone both.
At the same time, George understood where Garrus was coming from in distancing the group from Alex. Even with doing this, it might come through that the royal guard will associate us with him and drag us into whatever fiasco Alex finds himself caught in. To George, that was an acceptable outcome. Alex had gone above and beyond for them in circumstances that he never would’ve been in on his own.
If anything truly surprised him was that Penny didn’t split from the group instantly after what had happened. George expected her to be stuck to Alex’s side the moment that happened, George was pretty sure Garrus expected that as well. So it came as quite a surprise when that didn’t happen.
Penny had decided to stick with the group, not answering any questions on the matter either.
Well, George would have to see what the next few days would hold before coming up with a plan of action. He would do what he could to fix this if he even could. George prayed that it would work out.
Well, this would certainly put a damper on any plans, George thought to himself as he listened to the tolls of the warning bell.
Three tolls.
Enemies at the gate.
George turned to look at Garrus next to him, raising an eyebrow. Garrus just returned it casually.
“What? Just because I used to be a soldier doesn’t mean that I feel the need to go running whenever the bell tolls.”
Karif spoke up from his spot next to Garrus, “So what is our plan? Do you want to get involved or stick back?”
Garrus thought for a moment before shaking his head, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to get involved right now. Given the short notice of what’s happening, I’d think the guard is going to pull something pretty shitty to give themselves a chance to pull the upper hand.”
Karif frowned trying to work out the potential strategy in his head.
George settled back into his seat realizing what Garrus was saying.
Right now there was a force, assumedly, coming from the north. Alixia then. Currently, the guard hadn’t received any time to prepare, how they had gotten this close without the alarm having been raised beforehand was a mystery. Especially given that both magic systems worked with communications between operatives in separate towns across multiple organizations, not just the royal family and their operations.
On top of that, some runners went back and forth between the cities. And yet not one of the ones that had come in from the north today had said anything about seeing an army. Something wasn’t right there. All of this added up to a situation where the guards weren’t ready to repel any invaders and were caught completely with their pants down.
Garrus’ thoughts were that they were more than likely going to conscript the adventurers and then throw them at the opposing forces as a meatshield while they rallied and were given sufficient time to counterstrike.
George had to agree that this was the most likely thing to happen if they were to join the volunteer force. It would see at least half the adventurers dead, if not more. The biggest concern in George’s mind was if Alex knew any better. The man was intelligent but also wasn’t the most aware person.
George snuck a glance at Penny, she’d been uncharacteristically quiet. She seemed to be somewhat lost in thought. Well, the most George could really hope for was that Alex didn’t get involved, in the meantime they’d probably move to the guild hall and rest there before planning their next maneuver.
George prayed that it would work out.
The guild hall in the capital was enormous, it housed thousands of adventurers regularly. There were plenty of jobs that happened inside the capital. Bodyguard contracts, excavations, manual labor, etc.
There were also options to go traveling out of the country for a number of reasons, some people wanted some rare plant that could only be acquired from some small town in the dukedom, or maybe they wanted some religious text from the theocracy.
Any number of reasons really.
All of this is to really say that the guild hall saw a lot of traffic from a lot of different people. Yet despite that, George didn’t think it’d be that hard to spot Alex if he was here. Standing roughly 6’2” and being an elf tends to make you stand out. Sure there were people taller, but given that average height was around 5’10” or so tended to make anyone taller than that really stick out.
He looked around for several hours but wasn’t able to find him. And so George was left with the assumption that Alex joined the volunteer force.
George let out a soft sigh, he had definitely been hoping that he’d avoid doing that. Now he could only hope that he wouldn’t die, if he wasn’t with a group then George didn’t have high hopes for his chances of surviving, especially since the initial forces would all be a higher tier than him and have more experience fighting.
Say what you will about his stats, but there’s only so much distance between him and the people above him that they can cover. In a fight against a tier 3 that was expecting him to be strong and fully prepared for it, Alex wouldn’t stand much of a chance. He could probably get a good attack or two off, but wouldn’t have many options for overcoming that steep of a cliff.
Well, at this point, George could only pray that it would work out.
The volunteer force had apparently made it back inside according to the runner that had come from the front walls. They were also asking if there were any healers in the group who would be willing to volunteer their services. There really weren’t any here at the moment given that they had all taken contracts to get paid for their services with the military. They’d heal the soldiers that made it back.
There really weren’t any to go heal the volunteer squad that came back.
In the meantime, the runner also relayed that a mighty blow had been struck against the Alixian forces that were invading. They dressed up the words more prettily than what the reality more than likely was, but essentially the adventurers had gotten used as meatshields, as he had predicted, and the Seltan forces wrapped around from the sides by using the forested area to the northeast to sneak around their side and hit their backlines.
A simple, yet effective plan. As such this skirmish would be wrapped up in one clean swoop and hopefully there wouldn’t be many more casualties.
George could only pray.
George nearly swore out loud as he heard the earth-shattering roar that shook the entire city.
He just had to jinx himself with his thoughts. Just his luck, he prayed that things would work out for the best and instead, they got the absolute worst outcome possible, it was bad enough that they had been invaded by Alixia, but now this?
If there was any saving grace in this situation it was that two of the spell-blades were in the city. They might be able to keep casualties in the low tens of thousands. If they were lucky.
Another roar shook the world, completely disorienting everyone around George, including himself.
Several minutes too late to truly warn anyone, the warning bell started tolling.
Two tolls signified war declared, three tolls signified that it was at their front door, four tolls indicated their current issue had been sighted in the nation, and five tolls said that it was here.
No shit, George thought to himself as they heard the fifth toll come.
At this point, it was no longer a matter if people wanted to be conscripted or not. Everyone who could fight was expected to. Survival of the non-combatants was dependent on them pulling through.
The Earth Raiders glanced at each other before Garrus gave a firm nod. They all stood up from where they were sitting, being one of the first to react, they made it out of the door with little trouble.
From there they got their first clear look at their opponent. It was quite easy to see them, no matter where you were. The only reason one would normally not be able to see it was because they were hiding inside.
It stood roughly 400 feet tall, easily eclipsing the Titans of Vernah. Dwarfing the Dragons of Kril’koth. And making humans seem more puny than ants. It had a body that looked like it had broken out of a clump of obsidian, a rocky and jagged black exterior. Three orange glowing eyes were embedded in its skull, two occupying the normal space for a human with a third like that of a cyclops. Its head was adorned with two horns similar to that of a demon lord’s horns. Its hands and feet ended in three-pronged claws that looked deathly sharp. It had digitigrade legs that gave it an awkward gait as it made its way to the walls of the capital.
“Harbinger…” George heard Garrus whisper.
The Harbinger. George thought to himself. An alien beast that roamed the world, causing disaster wherever it went. No one knew what caused it to appear, just that it could show up wherever it wanted to. No one knew where it went after causing enough chaos that it felt satisfied. Just that it left to then turn up later.
Whether that was several weeks or several years. It was hard to say. Any attempts to follow it had been failures, no known magic was able to track it, none able to follow it, and none had been able to kill it. As evidenced by the fact that it was here currently.
From here they could see the spells that were pelting it, doing absolutely nothing to hinder its movements as it slowly, inexorably, made its way towards the walls of the city.
“Alright, we’re not going to be able to-”
Garrus was interrupted by another roar from the Harbinger causing them all to cover their ears and wait for the sound to fade.
As it ended, there was a soft ringing in their ears. Anyone closer probably lost their hearing from the powerful blast of sound.
“Not going to be able to make it in time to stop it from getting to the wall, we should try and gather up with other groups and wait to make a coordinated strike. That’s probably happening closer up as it is.”
The group nodded before following behind Garrus on their way to see if they could find anybody trying to lead a concentrated effort.
It took them several minutes to find what they were looking for, but they did find it.
They got near the base of the wall just as the Harbinger broke through just in time to hear a commanding shout, “FIRE!”
Immediately spells began hitting it from all directions, explosions lighting up the late afternoon sky. Karif immediately joined in letting out dozens of cutting wind blades at a time doing his best to hit the same spots over and over again in hopes of creating a weak point in its armor.
Nothing seemed to be particularly effective against the beast, however. It slowly marched onwards.
And then made its first counterattack.
Missiles of pure magic formed around its head before lancing outwards to counterattack against everyone who had attacked it. Karif among them.
Penny tackled him from behind causing the beam of magic to go over their heads and melt through the solid stone going deep into the ground and out of sight.
George and Garrus quickly yanked them both up as Garrus yelled, “Keep moving, we can’t stay still or it’ll step on us!”
They began running to try and avoid its stride. When you’re 400 feet tall it’s quite easy to cover lots of distance quickly. On top of that, you have large feet that make it quite easy to squish unsuspecting opponents that are maybe 1% of your overall height.
They managed to get out of the way with plenty of time to avoid being crushed underneath the Harbinger and continued launching attacks. At this point with its foot close to them, people like George and Garrus could counterattack.
They definitely didn’t let the opportunity slip past them and neither did the group around them hearing multiple call out, “CHARGE!”
George heaved with a powerful blow into its foot and did his best to carve into it. Yet he barely left a gash into its armor, in fact, he was fairly certain any damage that he had dealt was completely superficial and had done absolutely nothing to it. He doubted the attack even tickled.
Several more minutes of this passed before its foot slowly started to lift up and out of reach. George watched it as the foot carried over and through some buildings, as it continued its march.
He looked at its projected path, which would take it straight through the palace. Or up to it depending on what its motives were.
George let out a sigh, there was only so much he could do currently. He glanced over at Garrus who was staring at him.
Garrus gave him a subtle nod.
George returned it before he knelt down planting his sword tip down in front of him. He then reached under his armor and pulled out his religious icon, and for the first time in a long while, that wasn’t a complete accident, he spoke.
A choir of voices accompanied his prayer.
And for the first time since he’d broken his oath, his prayer was answered.
