Bai Ping pushed down the road. He checked on his squad. They were all around him, with other squads mingling in.
“We’re heading to the left!” Bai Ping yelled.
Bai Ping grabbed the Fire wand he’d tied to his saddle.
Arrows rained down from a rooftop, catching several mounted guild members.
Bai Ping activated the wand. The red formations along the metal bar activated the red gem at its point. It projected flame into the thatched building.
Archers screamed as the burning thatch collapsed on them.
“Healers!” Bai yelled out.
They rushed out from where they were hiding behind another building to help the wounded.
“Come on!” Bai’s mount moved forward, leading the group, moving to catch up with the forward elements.
“One, two, three, four,” Bai counted the roads to his left side.
“This is our road! Start lighting it up, buildings farthest away from the road!”
Bai used his wand, leaving a trail of flame across the buildings, adding to the fire spreading across Meokar.
“Were they lying to us, or are they just idiots!” Elder Dean grabbed at his hair.
The council chambers had changed completely from a few hours ago. Most of the elders and their aides were there, and messengers were running to and fro. Light illusions banished the darkness.
Flames danced outside the windows as fire spread through the city, assisted by the attackers.
Dull thumps told of more sections of wall being torn apart.
“It looks like the Adventurer’s Guild is taking part in the attack,” Elder Tsi said, sitting down, fatigued from the healing she’d undergone over the last few days.
“We need to stem the tide,” Elder Rei said.
“Do we try and hold the outer wall or pull back to the inner wall?” Elder Dean asked.
All eyes turned to Mendes.
“If we pull back from the wall now, we will have lost all momentum. The fires are a distraction. We don’t have to worry about them. Let the city burn. Reinforce the walls at once! We can trap the Adventurer’s Guild here and take a chunk out of their flesh! Send out the mounted fighters; they’ll meet the sects as they try to gain entry! We’ll use the Area of Effect spells. If we can get the sects bunched together, it will be a perfect target,” Mendes said.
Hope filled the other elders’ eyes.
“Send the messages!” Mendes yelled at the aides, who had fallen quiet.
The room returned to movement, determined and driven once again.
Mendes heard a wet noise, and something dropped.
He stared at the entrance to the council chamber. A masked man threw a formation plate that tore mana out of the surrounding area.
Mendes opened his mouth as the doors to the room shut. The elders’ and aides’ eyes went wide as they stared at the formation plate.
Niemm drank from his canteen, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Yawen, Deni, and Setsuko were holding bows at the ready.
“Let’s go.” Niemm pulled his mask down and used the dungeon core to destroy the supporting pillars it had created.
The ceiling fell, the pillars shrinking underneath it like an elevator.
Yawen and Setsuko jumped into the room, their bows scanning the area.
Light peeked into the underground tunnel.
“Clear!” Their voices came through sound transmission devices attached to the masks.
Niemm jumped up with Deni right behind.
The treasury was cleaned out; doors were open, and the shelves of the warehouse-like building were bare.
“Let’s go.” Niemm had his bow ready as they advanced down the shelves. They got to a side door. Niemm checked outside. Seeing no one, he pushed out.
There were no attacks on the mana barrier, and a red glow was rising from the outer city.
Attack is underway. Just need to do our part.
They creeped toward their target, slipping between shadows.
The treasury was in the inner compound, close to Meokar’s headquarters.
“Target spotted.” Niemm hid in the shadows. He prowled forward to get a better view of the entrance. There were people coming, talking to riders who rushed off on the side away from Niemm’s approach. The whole building sat on a raised stone square with short half-walls between short half-staircases that led down. Where the riders and messengers were, the stairs fanned out.
Niemm traced a path to the building’s nearest wall, jumping from planter to abandoned cart and stack of crates.
“Cover me,” Niemm said.
Setsuko moved to a better spot and stood up.
“Got you covered.”
“Moving.” Niemm ran for the stack of crates.
“In position.” He looked around the crates, ready to stand and draw.
“Moving!” Niemm ran for the cart. While slumped down, a wheel had broken.
“Moving,” Yawen said, running for the crates.
“In position.” Niemm watched for movement.
“In position,” Yawen said.
“Moving.” Niemm ran for the planter when he saw a man walk up to the short wall atop the stone platform, not three meters from the planter.
The man had spotted him. Niemm drew his arrow back, but he was too slow.
Setsuko’s arrow took the man in the neck.
“Moving!” Niemm kept running. Using the planter as a half-step, he jumped over the half wall and onto the raised stone square around the headquarters.
Niemm scanned, but there was no one else.
Yawen was next over the wall with Setsuko and Deni afterward.
Deni grabbed the body and tossed it over the wall.
They moved toward the headquarters. Yawen reached the door first, and they stacked up on it. Yawen opened the door.
Niemm entered a kitchen with four people sitting at the long table that took up the middle of the room.
Niemm released his arrow as he cast Breathless.
The spell ripped away the air around the four men. One collapsed with an arrow in his neck. The others made to shout, grabbing their necks with the lack of oxygen, the temporary vacuum stealing their air and voice.
Setsuko came in behind him, killing a second.
Deni came in, releasing as one of the men dove for a door leading inside. Her arrow pierced his body, nailing him to the ground. The Silence spell on the arrow stopped him from making a sound. Setsuko reloaded faster than Niemm, killing the fourth man.
Yawen moved into the kitchen. Four new tombstones filled the room as Niemm released his spell.
“Setsuko, cover the main door. Yawen, cover the door to outside. Deni, help me find if they have maps.”
A few minutes of searching later, Niemm had stored the bodies and used the dead men’s maps to update his own.
“Deni, I think we’ll head to this second stairwell and take it up to the same floor as the council chambers. If we take these corridors, that should get us to the offices next door. We hit the council chambers, toss in an exploding formation, then we take the same route back out, through the treasury.”
Deni followed him, tracing through the map plans.
“Got it.”
“Let’s move. Deni, you’re on point. Setsuko, second. I’m third. Yawen, you take the rear.”
They got to the stairs. The headquarters was a massive building with multiple stairwells, offices, even kitchens and dining rooms.
The team reached the top of the stairs and moved into the administration corridors.
Deni crept down the corridor toward the offices that led to the council chambers.
“All of the council is here.”
“What’s left of it, you mean.”
“Hey! Yo—” The guard’s words cut off. Deni’s arrow pierced through his armor. She moved to the side, clearing Setsuko’s line of sight as she hit the second guard.
Niemm had his bow up as Setsuko moved to the side. He advance
d past them, Yawen trailing.
He reached the two dead, storing them away.
“Good to go?” He looked around, pushing next to the office door they needed to go through.
“Good!” Setsuko and Deni replied.
Niemm opened the door, and Yawen flowed inside.
He heard the twang of bow strings being released, feeling mana gathering.
Niemm prepared his spell as Setsuko, the last person, went through the doorway. Someone screamed as Niemm cast Chains of Silence.
There were four people in the room. Two were captured with the chains; another was dead; the last had an arrow in his side, not long for the world.
Niemm shot one of the guards wrapped in the Chains of Silence. Yawen got the second.
“Go for it! Now!” Niemm stored his bow and drew his sword.
The door opened. Deni released her arrow, and the guard slumped and dropped to the side. Setsuko moved around Deni and toward the door. She released another arrow.
“Formation!” Setsuko yelled.
Niemm stored his sword and pulled out the formation. He ran out of the office. To his left, there was a big open doorway; golden light shone through it.
Yawen and Deni ran out. Niemm turned the formation, activating the mana blast formation.
Inside the office, there were people sitting around maps. He tossed out the formation. Yawen and Deni pushed on the doors, slamming them closed.
“Let’s make like trees and fuck off!” Niemm yelled, turning and running toward Setsuko, she pushed out of the office door and covered them.
He ducked through the doorway as the formation went off. The doors were blown apart, windows shattered around the headquarters, and sections of walls collapsed.
Niemm and his team backtracked to the kitchen and sprinted to the short wall. They made it across the street in a blur. They drew melee weapons. People were yelling around the headquarters, with others rushing in from other locations.
They reached the treasury and jumped back into the hole they’d arrived through. Niemm took out his dungeon core. The pillars grew again and pushed into the opening above. Deni opened her storage ring, dumping out dirt.
They worked quickly, covering their tracks. Niemm compressed the dirt into supports and then returned them to dirt after the special team had passed.
“Can I do the honors?” Yawen asked as they paused, holding out a formation clacker.
“Do it.”
She pulled on the clacker, and they felt a rumble in the distance.
“And then the city cornerstone was no more.”
Gudriksson and his forces had made entry into Meokar. The fighting had been sporadic, but the Institute was pulling their people back together.
“Tell the other sects to keep up! Otherwise the Institute’s fighters will get between us!”
There was an explosion from the headquarters building in the middle of Meokar.
“The hell was that?” No one had answers.
“Get me Commander Stuart!”
“Your leadership is dead. Your elders will not rescue you. You will die here without the Willful Institute ever caring about your great sacrifices. Surrender now so you might live tomorrow instead of with a sword in your gut today!” A woman’s voice played through Meokar, repeating her message.
“Our people have secured the eastern command tower!” an aide reported.
“Good. Have the Rekichi clan’s fighters move to support them and push into the city. I want to control the eastern wall!”
“I have Commander Stuart!” An aide handed Gudriksson a sound transmission device.
“What the hell is going on?” Gudriksson yelled.
“I’m winning the battle, Commander.”
“Did you really take out their elders?”
“Yes.”
Mana fluctuated through the area. Gudriksson felt as if his compressed body had been released, his Strength returning to him.
“And my people just took out the city’s cornerstone. I would suggest holding back your people at the eastern command tower. They could lose the support of your western side. I have heard there’s a group of Willful Institute mounted that are ambushing ground fighters around there.”
Gudriksson choked on his words. He handed the sound transmission device to the aide numbly.
“Have the Rekichi clan hold their position, get the Thordsson clan’s riders to reinforce them, and make sure that they don’t get separated from the western flank.”
Just who the hell is the real commander here?
Gudriksson stared at the headquarters that was now burning with the rest of the city.
47
Slight Problem
Egbert put his book away as he checked the formation for the Water floor. “All right. Well, that looks correct.”
He waved his hand. A mana blade appeared, and he finished the last inscriptions off.
The different rings of the formation lit up. Water mana drifted toward the formation.
In the distance, secondary formations lit up with power. Light appeared on the ceiling, illuminating the ground below and revealing the rolling seas and islands of the Water floor.
Lines of mana power traced through the ice-covered mountain Egbert stood on, entering the outer rings of the massive master formation.
The dungeon core that rested above purified mana as it entered through the mana-gathering formation and powered the formation, altering the floor and linking it with the other floors and with the main dungeon core.
The mountain rumbled. Ice broke off in places, dropping into the cold sea below.
“Crap!” Egbert ran backward and then started to fly away from the center of the formation.
A pillar of mana shot up. The blue light from the Water-attribute mana colored the entire floor as it pierced through the heavens. Doorways opened ahead of it as it charged upward.
Egbert viewed the other floors. The Water mana reached the Wood floor. Blue and green mixed together as the Water mana was being utilized by the Wood formation. Plants opened their leaves, growing faster than before. The green-and-blue pillar disappeared, hitting the Fire floor. The dominating Fire mana had to bow to the Water and Wood as the pillar passed through, reaching the Metal floor. Black, red, green, and blue pierced upward; the Earth floor bloomed anew with the energies passing through. A kaleidoscope of colors filled the pillar, each time refined by the secondary dungeon cores at each level.
Then it hit the dungeon core on the living floor. The power was too much for the dungeon core to handle, and mana leaked all over the place. Formations activated, draining the different elemental mana out, pushing it to the crafting workshops and utilizing the training dungeon cores to purify the mana.
The ceiling glowed as the mana stones grew at a rate visible to the eye.
“Wait a second!” Egbert felt something was wrong. The formations on each floor turned and started to rotate, taking a new position.
==========
Quest Complete: Restoring Beast Mountains Dungeon Part 1
==========
Congratulations! You have taken control of the Beast Mountains Dungeon. Its condition isn’t the best, and it will require work to repair. I hope you brought a hammer! Or crafters.
==========
Requirements:
Repair the main Mana Gathering formation
Repair the secondary Mana Gathering formations (10/10)
Repair the Metal beast-controlling formations (3/3)
Repair the containment formation
Repair containment formation sub-arrays (0/12)
Repair the Metal floor’s main control formation
Repair the Metal floor’s secondary control formations (12/12)
==========
Rewards:
Up to 200 ore per day
+100 Mana per day
+1,200,000 EXP
==========
“What the hell is happening?”
The power seemed to reverse, and a be
am of pure mana shot down through the different floors.
==========
Quest Complete: Restoring Beast Mountains Dungeon Part 2
==========
Congratulations! You have taken control of the Beast Mountains Dungeon. Its condition isn’t the best, and it will require work to repair. I hope you brought a hammer! Or crafters.
==========
Requirements:
Repair the main Mana Gathering formation
Repair the secondary Mana Gathering formations (10/10)
Repair the Earth beast-controlling formations (3/3)
Repair the containment formation
Repair containment formation sub-arrays (0/12)
Repair the Earth floor’s main control formation
Repair the Earth floor’s secondary control formations (12/12)
==========
Rewards:
+1,200,000 EXP
==========
==========
Quest Complete: Restoring Beast Mountains Dungeon Part 3
==========
Congratulations! You have taken control of the Beast Mountains Dungeon. Its condition isn’t the best, and it will require work to repair. I hope you brought a hammer! Or crafters.
==========
Requirements:
Repair the main Mana Gathering formation
Repair the secondary Mana Gathering formations (10/10)
Repair the Fire beast-controlling formations (3/3)
Repair the containment formation
Repair containment formation sub-arrays (0/12)
Repair the Fire floor’s main control formation
Repair the Fire floor’s secondary control formations (12/12)
==========
Rewards:
+1,200,000 EXP
==========
==========
Quest Complete: Restoring Beast Mountains Dungeon Part 4
==========
Congratulations! You have taken control of the Beast Mountains Dungeon. Its condition isn’t the best, and it will require work to repair. I hope you brought a hammer! Or crafters.
==========
Requirements:
Repair the main Mana Gathering formation
Repair the secondary Mana Gathering formations (10/10)
Sixth Realm Part 2: A litRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 7) Page 55