Rastel was quiet throughout the rest of the journey back.
They landed on the wall facing the area most likely to be heavily attacked and old Ferud perched on the battlements allowing them to drop off.
Their presence attracted a lot of attention, mainly because of the massive size of old Ferud that cast a large shadow on that part of town. The soldiers in charge of that section were a bit unnerved even though they were familiar with the large bird.
Not long after, a small group of soldiers approached them, led by a middle-aged man with large round eyes and a serious countenance. They were all dressed in the dark brown uniform of the town's army.
"Archmage Sacha sir!" the man gave the archmage a stiff salute to show his respect.
"Commander Traver? Was it?" Sacha gave him a warm smile.
"I am honored to be remembered by your excellency." The commander's expression didn't match his words though, stiff as a board.
"How are the preparations going?" Sacha asked directly.
"We are almost done with the initial preparations, all the soldiers have been assigned to their tasks and all sides of the walls are manned. The mercenary association has sent all of its grade D and C members to fill up the ranks. There are also three grade B members present including the branch head." The commander started giving a report.
"We have elite rangers at every few meters looking out for signs of the first wave and we estimate they should be here soon from the information gotten from our scouts. All outside personal have been called in to minimize our losses. We will only go out to battle them when the initial bombardment is over."
Sacha nodded quietly as he listened.
Vars and Rastel were standing quietly by the side, their jobs at this point were to serve as aids to the grandmaster.
Old Ferud was busily pluming his chest feathers without a care in the world. But occasionally, his fierce eyes would light up and he would stare into the horizon.
"So the grandmaster���s cannons are ready?" Sacha asked after the commander finished his initial report.
Turning to look down the wall, the commander replied.
"They are being brought up as we speak."
Rastel turned his head to see massive metal contraptions being hauled upwards using conveniently placed cable lifts on different sections of the walls.
This was Rastel's first time noticing the lifts and their large twisted metal ropes and sturdy metal parts would have garnered his curiosity at any other time but now, the glaring sight of large square-shaped cannons that glistened even under the moonlight was too dazzling for him to notice something else.
The large 'cannons' looked more like long rectangular metal boxes and were had a dark silver sheen. They were sitting on a thick tripod stand that was placed on a platform that looked like some form of stone.
When the lifts reached the top, a soldier tied a single rope to a part of the tripod and to Rastel's great astonishment...…... casually pulled it over to the other side of the wall!
'Oh fuck, oh heck. I can now see just how weak I am. These soldiers must have enough physical strength to literally smack me to death!'
The sight of those huge metal contraptions being dragged away so casually nearly made him want to spit out blood.
As if noticing his distress, Vars called out to him with a whisper.
"Those cannons were made with an alloy so heavy they can smash through a building's wall if they casually bumped into it. If not for the floating metal placed underneath them, no number of people can push them for even half a foot." He spoke with a slightly proud tone.
'Floating metal?' Rastel was perplexed as he had never heard of that.
Looking below the cannons, he finally noticed that the stone-like platform was not touching the floor and was instead, hovering close to the surface.
'Ah…. So like a hoverboard then?'
This stone was like a magical counterpart of the hover technology used to create hoverboards and it filled him with fascination!
'This made more sense.' He nodded to himself.
Whispering back to Vars while trying to suppress his excitement, he asked him.
"Can I get a bit of those floating metals later? I just want to try something." The first thing that came to his mind was to make a hoverboard.
Having a hoverboard for mobility around here would make things much more comfortable and knowing there was something that could give it to him made him feel a longing for his own hoverboard and itching to recreate one here.
Vars turned to give him a weird look.
"Only my father has access to them and the only way you can get it is if you can beat it from him."
"Wait.... Ah... " Rastel could feel as all his dreams were shattered into pieces.
The commander had been giving Sacha more reports while the two were busy and Sacha was satisfied with it.
"Sir, may I represent the troops in thanking you once again for the help you are extending to Eadon. We know you don't have any reason to so we can only give out our earnest thanks to show our gratefulness."
All of a sudden, the commander and all the soldiers behind him gave Sacha a solemn bow.
"What are you saying, commander Traver?" Sacha said with a small smile.
"It might be unknown to most but I actually have roots in Eadon. There is nothing weird about me defending it." He patted the commander on the shoulder and had him raise his head.
"Yes sir." The commander nodded solemnly.
Getting the help of an archmage was a big deal, especially someone from the 27 mage towers. Archmage Sacha was a real bigshot and under normal circumstances, normal people like him should have no contact with people at his level at all. So the commander naturally felt reverence and gratefulness towards the archmage's help.
"Oh right, have the people from the mage's association showed up yet?" Sacha asked him.
At this, the commander's face showed a small frown.
"They finally did, after much persuasion. But they said they will only send out array masters to create arrays to help in the fight but will not send out anyone to fight directly." The commander was clearly displeased with this group of people.
"Sigh, those people are always like this." Sacha let out a helpless sigh.
"No matter, it will be enough. Lead me to one of the array masters." Sacha called out.
"Yes sir!"
The commander sent off the officers behind him to attend to different tasks while he personally led Sacha to another section of the wall with Vars and Rastel following closely behind.
Rastel was curious about arrays as he had heard a bit about them before. Arrays were supposed to be high tier weapons and most players had only encountered them before from a distance.
In fact, the only record of arrays from the forums was from players who had seen it being used in a city defense mission. Until this year, most players were not high leveled enough to partake in beast horde defense missions.
When they reached their destination, Rastel saw the array master from the mage's association.
He was a fresh-faced good looking high elf with bone-white hair tied up in three long braids behind his head. He was sitting on a small chair and was going through the contents of a bag while muttering darkly to himself with a blank expression on his face.
When they approached him, he looked up at them with an angry gaze but when he met Sacha's eyes, his mood turned mellow considerably fast and he stood up in a haste.
"Archmage Sacha. It is an honor to meet." He said with a small bow.
The hierarchy among mages was taken seriously and higher ranked mages were respected almost to the point of worship.
"I heard you are one of the array masters sent by the association?" Sacha asked him after a casual greeting.
"Yes sir. I am one of them." The mage replied but it was obvious he was displeased with the idea.
"That's good." Sacha nodded after confirming this and turned to look behind him.
He turned to look at Rastel and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something but then paused and a weird expression appeared on his face.
"Young muan, remind me of your name again?" Sacha asked with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"It's Rastel sir." Rastel gave a small chuckle when he realized the situation.
"Rastel ehn? Nice name." he smoothened his mustache gently.
Turning back to the array master, he gestured towards Rastel.
"Rastel here would be the head of this array, work with him and hand it over when you are done." He said casually.
"Ehn?"
"Sir?"
Both Rastel and the commander spoke up at the same time.
"Sir, the teams from the army are supposed are already prepared to take control of the arrays and they are well trained to do so. This is... " The commander wanted to object but couldn't find it in himself to really argue with Sacha.
"It is okay, commander. Since I said it then I naturally have my reasons." Sacha waved it off.
Hearing that, the commander couldn't speak up anymore.
Rastel on the other hand was getting excited!
'An array formation head. I wonder how that feels like.'
"Hey! Noob!"
Just as he was fantasizing to himself, he heard a distinct soft voice shouting in his direction.
'This voice…' he naturally recognized it.
Turning around, he saw Roxanne walking towards him with a smile on her face. Her grey eyes twinkled brightly as she waved at him.
And just behind her was the huge figure of a brown-furred bearman.
"Baluu!?" Vars yelled in delight.
"Haha! Little viper! I heard you were crying like a baby! I always knew you were a softie." Baluu's boisterous laughter was heard.
He was looking very healthy and although the wound on his neck was covered with a few bandages, he didn't look bothered by it at all.
The two sides met happily, Rastel felt it had been ages since the night they fought the wolf pack under the storm.
"Where were you all this while? Grandmaster Vulcan said he sent you on a task?" Rastel asked Roxanne with a smile.
"Heh! This young miss has already formed connections. I was sent to go pick up a bunch of ores from the mine nearby. Did you know? There is an ore vein with a special type of ore around Eadon, that's why the grandmaster decided to settle here. The mine is huge!" Roxanne talked excitedly.
"Ah wait, have you ever been to a dungeon before?" she suddenly stopped and asked him.
"No, not really." He wanted to say he had as his class change quest took him to a dungeon but he felt that wasn't really what she was asking about.
Hearing this, she smiled.
"Perfect! After this, we should go over to the mines. There is a system dungeon there and it's really good. We will form a party and raid it together."
Rastel's eyes lit up when he heard this and he was also eager to see the dungeon.
But before he could reply, an exploding sound was heard and a ball of flames was shot into the sky.
BOOM!
"That��s the signal!" the commander suddenly spoke up with a grave face.
They all hurried to the edge and looked over the walls. Although it was night time, the blood moon still gave off enough light for them to see the signs.
Trees at the outskirts of the forest were been thrashed around violently and low roars were carried towards them by the night wind.
A deep sense of apprehension filled everyone present as the walls were instantly filled up with soldiers and mercenaries. A lot of the bobbing heads had arrows above them signifying the players.
Rastel watched the signs of the approaching horde with Roxanne on one side and Vars and Baluu were on the other, all their faces looking solemn.
'So it begins.' he felt a trace of excitement beneath all the apprehension.
A battle against a beast horde!