Once the group passed by Twin City they totaled over 700, nearly all of these were warriors too. Twin City had fully integrated into the Pangean culture. Every person there was both a soldier as well as some other job.
A citizen of your territory has reached Tier 1. Reward: 20 gold |
This notification wasn't a surprise either. Now that his nameless daughter had been given an inferior advancement stone it was only natural she would breakthrough.
Now that she was a Tier 1 mage she became a lot stronger then she used to be. And so, she was sent to the back of the group, in order to defend from anyone trying to attack them from behind.
When he thought of First City he didn't feel all that confident though. Right now the only defenses First City had were the golems. He had even sent the golems that were in the ruins to help defend.
Icy City was a bit better off as, aside from the golems, they still had about 50 troops that stayed behind. They were to man the newly built ballistae in case of an attack.
It was logical for Jay to worry about First City, and in reality, so did many of the others. He could only be glad this event happened this early on, before he made too many enemies. Otherwise, he would have no choice but to stay in First City, even if half of it was destroyed as a result.
Then there was still Twin City. Currently, they were the only city without any golems, luckily since it was situated inside of a valley finding it was somewhat hard and Jay could only hope nobody would stumble into the area.
He was obviously very unhappy about how much hoping there was in his plans this time around. Right now his biggest defense was the forum post he put up. Instead of simply going north to head for the Icelands and potentially stumble onto one of his cities, he hoped most of the Lords would come to the mountain instead.
As for how many people they would be protecting, Jay estimated there to be 100 initially, probably mostly non-warriors and once the event started and cities were having trouble he expected this number to go as high as 700. Equal to the number of troops he brought.
After a long march, the army was nearing the mountain. This mountain could be seen even from First City and was extremely impressive. The reason this mountain seemed perfect for defending was its easily recognizable top. It was completely flat.
The climb wasn't easy but there still weren't too many problems getting up. The 'path' they took circled around the mountain, every here and there they had to jump from rock to rock but there weren't any situations where the climb felt impossible.
The gradual incline even made Jay suspect there was once a proper path there, it was possible the flat peak of the mountain wasn't a natural phenomenon but was man-made.
On their way up, the large army actually encountered a couple of individuals, when these spotted the army they sped up and quickly got out of their sight. Jay couldn't help but smile at the sight. It was rather natural for someone to start running when they saw an army but the fact they were here meant they were intending to hire this very army to protect them.
Entertained by this thought, he continued climbing the mountain. After a few hours passed they finally got to the end of their journey. When he took the last few steps and looked over the large peak that was over 500 meters diameter, he was somewhat shocked.
The size of the peak wasn't a surprise for him, this was already expected, but the number of people on the peak was another matter. On the northern side of the peak, a large mob of over 500 people was gathered. These were mostly gathered in small groups and it was clear that many small Lords had brought sent their civilians here. Less then half of the people there had a weapon and the weapons that they did have were mostly ungraded.
On the southern half of the peak, a very different group existed. A group of 300 warriors were standing there with tents behind them. When Jay saw these his eyes widened. For someone to have 300 warriors meant they were surely a top power, furthermore each of these warriors seemed to have graded weaponry and armor, making them many times more dangerous.
Other then his own men there were 800 people on the mountain at this point, many times more then what he had expected. 500 of these could be dismissed as unimportant, they would protect them as promised but there was no reason to have any interaction beyond that point. What worried them were the other 300, they were a great threat.
Why would someone with so many troops come here to be protected by them?
Jay immediately felt something was up and so he, general Green and Geralt walked over fully emitting the aura of a Tier 1 warrior/mage.
Behind them, the army of 700 consisting of both men, women, and Iceborne followed them closely.
As soon as they got within 50 meters of the other group a figure could be seen walking out of the ranks. Unlike the people behind him the person that came out wasn't wearing any armor. Despite looking around 50 most of his hair had already fallen out, leaving only a small number of white lingering hair. He had a crooked nose and had a thin frame.
At the very least Jay was sure this man wasn't a warrior, despite this he didn't underestimate him.
"Who are you?"
Jay spoke loud and clear with a faint oppressiveness within his words.
"I should be asking you that!"
The man looked at Jay with a genuine frown confusing him somewhat. Had these people not come here because of his notice? After thinking about it this really wasn't too surprising. A mountain was a great place to defend if you didn't want to have your city wrecked but still wanted to participate in the event.
But now that another strong faction had appeared so did some problems, there were already 500 people here for him after all and he had a group of 700.
When the event started more and more people would come, enlargening the risk, it was unlikely this group would agree with this.
And so, he would have to either negotiate or attack them. But if he attacked the other people might see him as a threat instead of their defender.
What an annoying situation...