When Noah saw Sean enter the room, he got up from his seat, and he walked over to him. Sean was shocked when he saw Noah walking up to him and said, "Hello Noah, what are you doing here?"
"Hello dad, wanted to see what changed with the guards and thought I might as well join you for lunch considering the time." Noah responded, smiling.
"Well I see you saw our biggest change." Sean said, pointing at Jacob, "Other than that, it is the exact same as before."
"Yes I have." Noah said with a nod. "Would you like to sit down?"
"I will, once I grab my lunch." Sean responded, and Noah nodded in understanding.
It was a while before Sean came back with his lunch, and Jacob had left to go on patrol. Noah was still sitting at the table, and Sean came over and sat across from him. Sean's lunch was a potato stew that he had gotten from a restaurant. After Sean sat down and got his lunch ready, he asked, "Do you have anything to eat?"
"I already ate." Noah responded.
"That's good." Sean responded with a nod after eating a spoonful of his stew.
"So how is work going today?" Noah asked after a small while to let his father eat.
"It's the same work as yesterday, a week ago, and a month ago." Sean responded which caused Noah to chuckle. Whenever Noah asked how work was going for his father, he would respond with that saying as a way to say that it was the same as always.
"I suppose a better question would be if there are any new major problems that you can tell me." Noah asked with a half-joking, half-serious tone.
"There isn't anything new that you would know already." Sean responded after sighing, and with a completely serious tone. Noah nodded, knowing that he was talking about William, and they shared a moment of silence together, lost in their own thoughts.
"You know, I saw his mother today." Noah said, breaking the silence.
"You did? Where was she, and what was she doing?" Sean asked with a hint of urgency in his voice.
"She was in the town square, and she posted a bounty for someone to find William." Noah answered.
"I heard that from Zack." Sean responded.
"Oh you did? Then I take it you told him about the situation with William then." Noah exclaimed, slightly shocked. Zack Sharp was the vice commander of the guards, and he was the main person in charge of setting up the bounties. He rarely shared anything about them with Sean as Sean was busy with managing who was going on patrols and wall shifts.
"Yeah I did, I felt like it was a good idea to tell him in case a bounty got posted to find him, and look at what happened." Sean responded.
"I wasn't saying that you shouldn't, I can see why you did. I was more surprised at the fact that the vice commander told you about the bounty." Noah explained.
"Yeah, he usually doesn't tell me about bounties." Sean said. "So how was your morn-" Sean was suddenly interrupted by the sound of flapping wings. Sean and Noah looked each other in the eyes and quickly got up out of their seats. "Go to the house and get your equipment, it should take some time for Nightmare to get here. I'm going to stay and give out orders." Sean hastily ordered Noah. Noah quickly nodded in response before turning around and running out the door as Sean began to shout out orders to the guards that were in the barracks.
As Noah was running back to his house, he was looking over to Spearhead as everyone else was. Sure enough, there was a dark object in the sky that was heading towards Northspear. When Noah saw this, he began to run faster than he even thought he could. As he got closer to his house, he stopped looking at Nightmare and focused on avoiding running into people and objects that were in his way. After what seemed to be hours of running, he arrived at the house. He burst through the door into the living room, not bothering to close it behind him, and ran straight up to his room. Once he got into his room, he quickly got his armor on, grabbed his spear, and grabbed his book on dragon anatomy, sticking it into his bag, out of habit . He ran back downstairs before he realized that he didn't see his mother in the house, or out in front of it. He quickly ran out to the backyard to check if she was out there. When he got out to the backyard, he saw that his mother was standing out there with a basket of laundry, and she was staring at Nightmare approaching the town. She turned around, barely hearing the door slam shut over the near deafening wingbeats.
"I'm fine!" Lucia shouted over the noise of the wingbeats, guessing why Noah was here.
"Thank you!" Noah responded, shouting and turning away.
"What's Sean doing?" Lucia asked, concerned.
"He's staying at the barracks and giving out orders!" Noah answered with a shout, turning his head back around. He quickly ran back through the house, and he stopped outside the house. 'Where am I supposed to go, he didn't tell me.' Noah nervously thought, looking around to see if there were any guards heading somewhere. 'Just go to the barracks, someone should be there.' He sighed to calm himself down before running towards the barracks.
While Noah was running towards the barracks, Nightmare was getting close enough to see his claws. Noah was weaving through the people who were watching Nightmare. There were quite a few people that were going on with their day as they normally would. There were also some people that were panicking and running around, Noah assumed that they were going to their houses. Even though the vast majority of the civilian population were calm in this situation, the guards were running around like mad to get into their positions in case something happened with Nightmare and they had to fight him. This was why Noah and Sean were so scared as the fact that Nightmare was heading towards their town ment that William had failed in trying to kill Nightmare. As Noah was reaching about halfway away from the barracks, he saw Sean running towards the town square while looking around. Noah began to run towards Sean, and Sean saw Noah running towards him and stopped. Once Noah got to Sean, Sean said, "You're with me, we're going to the town square and meeting Zack there."
"Alright, that's what I figured." Noah said while nodding. Sean resumed running towards the town square, taking the lead, and Noah joined him, following from behind.
"Be prepared for anything to happen, and I mean anything." Sean said to Noah. "This is going to be anything but normal."
"Yeah, I know. This is probably going to turn sour fast, if it doesn't start out that way first." Noah responded with a grim expression.
"I know, that's why Zack is going to be with us." Sean said, also having a grim expression on his face. At this point a few people that they had run past had heard their conversation, and they were confused on what they were talking about. But they didn't stop the two and question them about it because, in the case that this was something serious, they didn't want to prevent them from getting to their positions in time.
When Sean and Noah arrived at one of the entrances to the town square, Noah grabbed the arm of his father to prevent him from going in the town square. Sean looked back at Noah, confused, and Noah said, "I have a very bad feeling about this. It looks like Nightmare is heading to the town square and if he starts breathing fire, that's the place that would turn to ash first."
"Then that's even more reason to head in there to help them." Sean responded, trying to pull his arm out of Noah's grip, but Noah kept his grip firm.
"You can't help anyone if you get turned into charcoal if Nightmare lets his fire loose." Noah argued back. Sean had a conflicted look on his face as he was thinking about what to do. "If anything happens and Nightmare starts breathing fire, I'm not saying not to help anyone in there. It's just that if we are the first people to get lit on fire, we would be unable to help ourselves, nevermind helping other people."
"Alright then, let's stay back here." Sean said, stopping his attempts to pull his arm out of Noah's grasp. Noah let go of his father's arm when he heard this, and Sean put it back to his side.
It was at this point when Nightmare reached the town and flew straight over to the town square. Owen, his son Reyn, and Zack were all standing together in the town square. As Nightmare arrived at the town square, Owen shouted, "Why are you here this time?"
"I think you know why I'm here this time." Nightmare said with a threatening voice.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. We've been paying our taxes, and I can't think about any other reason why you would be here." Owen responded, annoyed. Noah was confused by what he said at first, but after thinking about it, Noah came to the conclusion that he was trying to hide the fact that he knew about William.
"I don't take kindly to people sending people to kill me and then denying knowledge about it." Nightmare responded with an expression that resembled a scowl. Owen's eyes went wide with shock for a split second, and he started to sweat heavily.
"What do you mean, I didn't send anyone to kill you. That would just be a waste of men." Owen responded as calmly as he could in this situation.
"Are you sure about that?" Nightmare questioned threateningly. "What if I have someone who said that you knew that he came to kill me." Noah looked at Sean confused, and he met the eyes of his father, who was also confused by what Nightmare just said. 'He surely would've killed William, he has too much of an ego to keep him alive and question him right? Why would he phrase it like that' Noah thought, trying to figure out Nightmare's decision making.
"How does knowing that someone is going to kill you make me guilty of anything? And who would even say that?" Owen asked Nightmare.
"This person would." Nightmare responded with what Noah guessed was a smirk, and he dropped something from his claws. The person fell onto the roof of a building, and then they slowly got up and walked to the edge of it. Noah's eyes went wide with shock as he saw who the person was, or who he thought it was.