"Everybody ready?" Commander Manga shouted while standing at the threshold of the palace. He had little 53 warriors and 19 mages. The few who had been in and around the palace during the time of the attack. They were all in formation, 3 hooded figures taking the lead.
Lady Arnea had been escorting 10 new mages to defend the city in case of an attack. As luck would have it, they had not yet left the palace after reporting in, still lingering.
This was mostly for the sights, a captured palace under the hands of warriors was always a sight to behold. These mages were also curious about the outside world.
They had lived their lives secluded among their own, hearing monstrous stories of what these people would do to innocent mages. To say there were trust issues would be an understatement.
However, with the unification of Tristan, something new was happening. A new era where mages did not have to live in fear. Whether it would last remained to be seen?
After confirmation that Barda was indeed a mage, many people who had had a dim view of mages began to change their opinion, however, this was only because mages were still relevant.
Once their relevance came to an end, They would begin to look like monsters or freaks at best or threats that needed to be locked away or put down.
With these concerns, they were not looking forward to mingling among the people, just watching from afar. The palace had the best views until a dark cloud came down.
On the other side, by now, Manga had already realized there was no way to burn these things out completely. You take one out, they just respawned. They were not actual bugs, but conjurations.
Their small bodies would dissolve soon after their death. That perhaps was the one weakness of the mage, that the bodies were not instantly respawned but lingered for some moments.
They planned to take out the problem at the source. To do that, they needed to get to the ship, fly it to meet the enemy, and then kill the enemy. What was that phrase Barda says in situations like these? Maximum effort!
"Let's go!" The moment the command came, Lady Arnea stopped thinking about all those concerns and braced herself. She was at the very from, the tip of the spear.
Her magic would repel the bugs from the path of the warriors. That and the other mages, either fire or wind mages, would deflect or burn any bug that came their way.
The moment the gates were opened, the swarm swooped in like a fist, but the mages had been ready. Despite that, Lady Arnea still felt the strain of the wave.
The mage on the other side was good, far better than she was. However, she was not alone. 5 other wind mages were backing her up. With that, she was able to clear a path for the group.
The match was slow, every second they spent exposed to the bugs felt like an eternity. In the case of clusters, Manga had brought grenades, crossbows, and ordinance-tipped arrows, not to mention the human casters that were living turrets.
The worst part was that they couldn't even see where they were going. The shipyard was barely 700 meters from the palace, but that was 700 meters of hell.
Just as they were 300 meters from the ships, the area cleared up. All the bugs seemed to be lifted. Suddenly, they could see the carnage of what had happened to the city.
Men, women, children, normal folk, civilians, soldiers, no discrimination. Everyone not indoors had been beset upon by the creatures. They though the warning had come soon enough, but not for thousands, probably in the hundreds of thousands.
Before they could even get the time to enjoy the scenery, a dark shadow befell them. Looking up, they saw the cloud of bugs had coalesced to form a massive pillar that was coming at them.
"Everybody run!" There was no way the formation could survive that. The best they could do was slow down the attack. Having faced such an attack, Manga knew not to face it head-on.
As they ran, they threw their grenades and shot their weapons, desperately trying to buy themselves time.
100 meters.
50 meters.
10.
Only 23 made it into the ship below deck, and of those, only 2 were mages. Luckily, Lady Arnea was a healer, and the burning men would receive their cures, but she had expended a lot of her power and could not tend to them now.
Just as she was gasping for breath, she heard the commander request one of the wounded soldiers to hand him their armor. Shocked by the request, she wanted to find out what he was up to.
He wrapped himself with the armor, leaving only small slits for him to see. He was going up to try and steer the ship.
"You can't!" she spat, alarmed at the boldness of this man.
"I have to, we cannot stay here!" Manga replied as he continued to wrap himself. She had to grab the clothes before looking at him in the eye.
"YOU CANNOT!" She shouted.
"I will not ask another to risk their lives for me!"
"Respectfully sir," Lady Arnea was trying to reign in her temper at the man, "If you go down, we all go down!"
"I will go!" A young man reached out and took the kevlar in the commander's hand. "I am a coxswain of a ship, I know my way around."
"I will go with you, I still have some juice left," a young man waved his palm and fire came out.
"You need one of these to get by," someone with a flamethrower volunteered.
"Hey, don't forget me, I am better with the thrower," and just like that, the whole group was ready. They had suffered severely, but seeing their commander ready to get back in the fight made them want to get in themselves.
"If I'm not going, then you're not going either," Manga said to Lady Arnea. He handpicked 12 people to go out. The soldiers could see the look of guilt in their commander, but they mostly saw the look of pride and respect.
***
It would have been a long night even for someone who could sleep. For Barda, it was pure torture. Needless to say, he had a ton of questions to ask. After receiving a piece of intelligence like that, the next step was to check the credibility of the source.
A butler was led Barda as they made their way down the hall of the excellently ornamented mansion that Rowan had brought him. Some servants were milling around in and about the castle.
"Ah, my friend, how was your rest?" Rowan was having breakfast in the garden when Barda joined him, "If you are anything like me, which I know you are, then I can guess the most obvious question of all: How do I prove all that I just told you?"
"Yes, now that you've mentioned it, I was wondering that, among other things," Barda replied.
"The real answer is I cannot. The best that I can do is present some arguments and tell you all that you need to know at this point. From there, you will decide on the way forward. I cannot hold you anymore, by all accounts you've passed whatever test that brought you here and get back to your people at any time."
"So where is the key of Thogodan?" Barda had to ask.
"What's that?"
"You telling me you don't know who Thogodan is?"
"I do know quite a great number of people with that name. Even one of my many disciples had that name, but of an item called Thogodan's key? I do not know it.
Although I will say this. There are many ways to get into this dimension. Curiously, many disciples are supposed to leave a way to guide someone else to this location once they succeed in their mission in life.
Perhaps, this Thogodan could be the same disciple I am alluding to."
"So Thogodan was also like us?"
"No. I have many different disciples, but never once have I called you a disciple. To you, I am just a guide, nothing more. You must understand, this is a very high level and multi-faceted plan, and you have a major role to play."
"I can't wait to hear this."