Pit-pat. Pit-pat. Pit-pat.
"Please be safe! Please! Divines! Please let them be safe!" Eli was panting heavily from his desperate running.
His sprinting left footprints in the dirt road as he ran to his parent's house. Seth and Silver followed closely behind.
Trampled fields of still green grains fallen over covered the sides of the dirt road. Eli lamented the partially destroyed hard labor of his family. They still would have to pay the taxes, but at least it was based upon percentage of total harvest and not a quota.
The mage rulers of the Tyraid Kingdom knew they couldn't tax the new frontiers too high due to the instability and danger the citizens would face there. They offered sweet rewards of land, and policies with tempting discounts in the form of tax rebates to draw in desperate citizens.
Eli's family had been one of them. They were doing well so far. They moved right at the opening of the new frontier town on the planet, called Yujin, of this newly conquered plane. Eli had come of age as an adult when they took part in the kingdom's settlers program. This had been their second year here. They knew of the dangers, but usually the Guardians and mages kept them at bay, but for some reason there was no response the day of the attack.
The screams and panic of his father and fellow farmers rang fresh in his mind as he recalled his memories as he passed by the destruction and dead bodies. He believed his mother to be safe as she was already in town dropping off some of their harvest.
Getting close to his parents house, he saw the shirt and straw hat of his friendly neighbor. They lived on the other side of their patch of squash, and often their families had dinners and get-togethers.
"Samuel! Oh my gods! Samuel!" Eli collapsed, mourning over the dead body.
Eli was on good terms with the hollowed cadaver. Most of his flesh had been torn off. The pieces that were left had turned dark and emanated a ghastly smell.
He quickly got up afraid of the same fate for his father and mother. However, when he reached their cozy home, only ruins and shambles of broken wood and thatched straw laid about.
"Mother! Father!"
Eli rushed forward, but Silver held him back.
"What are you doing! Why are you holding me back?!
You broke your promise, you monster!"
"Shut it you stupid human! There's no person or body there."
"How would you know?!"
Silver glared at Eli, pointing to his glowing golden eyes. Silver had used his unique 4th class spell to examine the area, but there was no body, dead or alive in sight.
"Maybe they're in town? How long has it been since the attack?" Seth asked.
"I don't know. I'm not sure if it's been days or weeks."
Silver snorted. "It could have been hours, dimwit. I healed you with magic. I doubt with your injuries you would have lasted more than half a day."
Seth added in, "where was the last time you saw your parents?"
Now with some hope, he recalled his father running down the path to town.
"He should be in town! I drew away the Mokai, and I told him to get behind the barrier!"
With that, Eli ran full speed to town. He was panting haggardly, but he didn't stop.
Making his way down the dirt road, it turned into a cobblestone road. There was less damage and less dead bodies the more he traveled. Noticing none of the bodies on the road belonging to his father gave Eli hope.
The cobblestone path brought them to a heavily fortified wall, at least 5 men tall. It looked more like a fortress than a town. An enormous round and transparent blue dome of light covered the area above and around the town.
Eli was surprised by the little damage. But it made sense seeing how heavily the number of Guardians and mages paced around the entrance.
The Guardians were a unique force issued by the High Mage Council of the Tyraid Kingdom. The High Mage Council was a board of nine members, each representing an essence of creation except for chaos, which was part of the Divine.
Each of the nine factions had a certain number of trained military personnel assigned to be part of the Guardians. Depending on the mage faction of the High Council and their agreements, the soldiers from each faction varied. Negotiations over which faction controlled the new planes or if they were to be shared was hotly contested and fought over.
The High Council had a voting system. For decisions made on newly conquered planes and other decisions, every faction would get one vote on who or what parties or factions would take the majority of resources from that plane.
To balance out or give advantages, depending how someone wants to view it, the High Council made an additional 5 votes for every decision and rotated the 5 votes through every faction. The votes could be accumulated or sold and bartered.
Resources from newly conquered planes had to be split 80/20, with 80 going to the ruling factions and 20 going to the common fund to be redistributed. However, all factions desired to be the ruling faction as there was no given way to verify all resources and goods from a plane. The "20%" really was whatever the faction gave to look as if they followed the laws of the kingdom.
Mages of each faction supervised their Guardian forces that were to protect the new settlements. Guardians were trained in the school of evocation, divination and adjunction magics as those schools focused on attack, healing and defense respectively.
Both Guardians and mages were categorized by their mana capacity. Guardians typically used spells focused on enhancing the body or internal techniques. Whereas, mages focused more on manipulating the external world. Many overlap when learning spells and were more of a hybrid, rare were sole practitioners that were not of both types.
The stages of mana capacity determined the class of spells they would be able to use and thus also determined their rank. From stage 1 to stage 10, each stage was further broken down to phases that varied depending on the stage. The higher the mana capacity, the more power and destruction they were capable of.
Mage society deeply respected the powerful, while looking down on the powerless.
New frontiers of conquered planes would usually have a large force, a mesh of Guardians and mages protecting them from danger.
Eli knew something was wrong. For such a large force to allow an attack on the settlement and make no retaliation was strange. However, he ignored the thought for now and ran toward the open gate to find his parents.
"Halt! Identify yourselves!" A Guardian dressed in heavy bronze armor with a long metallic spear in hand shouted.
The evening sun made the sharp blade of the spear reflect with its sharpness. The Guardian was wary of the three who came from the Forest of Sardon, but he saw their poor and worn out clothing and relaxed a bit.
"I'm a villager on the outskirts of town. We were attacked! Why was there no one who came to fight the monsters?! So many people died!"
The Guardian was not concerned. Rather, he was offended by Eli's shouts.
"Filthy Peasant! You dare raise your voice at me?!"
Eli was struck in the face, sucker-punched by the Guardian. He was knocked back and bled profusely from his broken nose. Pain pulsed through his face and tears formed in the corner of his eyes. He covered his nose trying to catch the blood.
Silver was about to rampage and tear the Guardian apart. However, Seth stopped him. Their owner knew the mages and those that served them well. Nothing well would come out of making a scene against them.
"I'm sorry sir Guardian. My brothers do not know any better. We are searching for our family members, lost during the chaotic raid."
The Guardian looked down at Seth and his appeasing.
"At least one of you knows your place! You all know the dangers coming here! Don't blame us for your own stupidity! If you can't defend yourself then you belong in the bowels of those damn monsters!"
Seth held in his contempt to not let it show on his face. "You're right, great Guardian. We will go look for our families now. They should have made it to town."
The Guardian huffed in arrogance. "Pathetic. Get out of my sight!"
Taking his slaves, he pulled them, taking them to an deserted alley.
"Master! How could you…!"
Seth covered Silver's mouth, shaking his head.
"Please, put up with it for now. It's best not to draw any of their attention."
Silver grumbled in protest. "The "town" sucks. This is no fun at all. A bunch of human shit."
Seth kind of agreed. "I don't like being here too long either. I'd rather not be here if I didn't have to. Let's find Eli's parents and then I can pay them and get some supplies. I need some special items I've been saving up for. We can't go back until tomorrow, so we'll have to stay the night."
Looking at Eli and his hands dripping in blood, he hurriedly asked Silver for help, "it's getting pretty bad. Can you heal him Silver?"
Silver grunted, still thinking about how Eli rejected him.
"You owe me a blowjob for this!" Silver used his unique eyes to again see Eli's broken nose, before casting a healing spell.
"Aqueous heal! Cleanse!"
Touching his miraculously healed nose, Eli no longer felt pain.
"Aren't you going to thank me?" Silver snickered.
"Thank you master Seth." Eli didn't even bother looking at Silver.
Silver eyes were burning in anger, but it became a devious look. Silver would always get even. Ignoring Silver, Eli missed the sly look.
With a foxy grin, Silver walked up to Eli, grabbed his chin and stole a kiss while groping his private area.
"I'll be taking payment this time, human Eli."
It took a moment for Eli to realize what happened. He vaulted at Silver, and they chased each other like cats and dogs. Seth just sighed at his rowdy slaves.
The sudden voice of a young girl broke them out of their fiasco. She was in ragged clothing and her hands and fingernails were dark with soot. Her face and bare feet were smeared with dirt.
"Excuse me!…" The three large men looking at the little girl gave her fright, but she couldn't give up.
"I saw you used healing magic! Please help me!"