Chapter 192: The Expert
With the actual plan identified all Lake needed to do now was bring this map to Masters and he was sure Masters would know what the Demon Worshipers planned to use to form and power this massive formation. Running back to the guild with the map, Lake slammed it down on Masters desk.
Lake didn't even need to say anything for Masters to realize what the shape on the map was but he didn't seem to understand why Lake had put it on his map. "Why did you draw all over my map?" Lake guessed a formation of that size wasn't something one saw every day so he could understand why Masters had missed the point.
Before Lake could say anything to explain what it was, Masters said. "Are you saying we should make a ward for the city or something?" Lake could tell Masters was reading the formation he had set on his desk so Lake didn't correct him right away and said. "Are you saying this would form a ward if it was made and powered?"
"Well that's what this part would do but there are a few other places in the formation that I don't recognize. Listen, it's not the worst idea but it really isn't something we could do with just a few hours of time. We also would need more resources than we could request from the guild to do something like this."
Lake stopped Masters here and said. "This already exists, the Demon Worshipers set it using buildings to hide it and this isn't the full thing but I didn't go over the whole city because I wanted to bring it to your attention as soon as I realized what it was." Lake could tell Masters was shaken by what Lake said but he seemed to have a problem with what Lake was telling him.
"We would be able to tell if there was a formation this big being set in the city. We would all be able to feel it." Lake was about to say more details that might help Masters answer his own doubts but he was cut off by Masters asking. "How were you able to see it if it's under the houses? You weren't gone long enough to go into every one of these building basements."
Lake was kind of hoping that Masters would just take his word at face value because of the fact that he had saved his life yesterday but it seemed what he was saying was too far out there to accept with no evidence. Lake didn't think they had time for him to convince Masters with a made up method so he just chose to tell him the truth, or close enough to the truth.
"I have two Legendary skills both are used in gathering information. I don't like to tell people that but we're going to have to trust each other if we hope to stop them. Look just come with me and you'll see I'm telling the truth." Lake had done his best to make masters remember that Lake had saved him and therefore he could be trusted without saying it because he knew it would be more effective than saying, 'I saved your life.' to him.
It seemed to work like he had hoped because Masters was too smart to think something like, 'this is a trap if I go with him he'll kill me.' This made no sense because if Lake wanted him dead he would have just let him die yesterday. "Ok Let's go to this place here first." Lake saw Masters was pointing at a place near the center of the city near the Metal Temple.
Lake had no qualms with this plan so he said. "Let's go." He and Master ran out of the guild's front door in less than a minute after they had decided on where to go, and it had only taken that long because Masters had to put on his gear. After some running, Lake started to wish he could just ask Masters to let him carry him but he didn't think Masters would like the sound of that plan.
It would probably come off as rude since the reason Masters was slow was his short legs. "Alright we're here. What's the plan?" Lake was sure there was a reason Masters had wanted to come here first. "We need to go to the temple first to talk to their Temple Head. He's a Master of formations so he might be able to tell what the formation does and the easiest way for us to destroy it without going to every place marked on the map."
Lake liked the sound of that and followed behind Masters as they headed towards the front gate of the Metal Temple. Climbing the stairs Lake wanted them to run but it seemed to be ingrained in Masters that running in the temple would be rude. Looking at the guards on either side of the doorway Lake expected them to say something since guilds weren't exactly in the best of terms with the Temples but then Lake remembered that might just be the Alchemist guild and the Light temple.
This was the Metal Temple so there was no way to know if they had good relations with the Fighters guild unless he asked. He didn't really need to know though because it seemed the guards understood the Fighters Guild had been hired by the Metal Temple to Clear out Demon Worshipers and It wasn't surprising they knew since the whole city probably did at this point.
Once inside Lake was able to feel the amount of metal mana was even higher here compared to deep underground. There was also less earth mana inside the temple so it really stood out as the highest by far. Lake saw that Masters was looking towards a center pillar and when Lake looked towards it he saw why.
There were about ten or so people on ropes suspended from the ceiling working with chisels on the pillar making some kind of statue out of the metal. Lake's guess would be they were making a statue of the God of Metal to place somewhere inside the temple but they were too early in the process to say for sure, but he probably couldn't tell even if the face had been done because Lake had no idea what the God of Metal looked like.
After looking for a while a dwarf about have the size of Masters on one of the ropes started to descend towards them and Lake asked. "Is that the Temple Head?" Masters nodded and said. "Yeah, it seems he knew we had something important to talk to him about because usually when you come while he's working you have to wait till he's done. I was hoping he would be more willing to compromise since it's so bad outside."
Lake guessed this behavior of the Temple Head had to do with the extreme work ethic he had seen from all dwarves and most people here in general. Lake wondered if Masters would have waited for the Temple Head in a situation like this. He said he had been hoping the Temple Head wouldn't pull the making people wait thing but the way he had said it made it sound like it would have been worth it in the long run.
"Masters what is it? We're kind of busy right now." Masters didn't start talking till he had handed the map to the Temple Head. "We found what the Demon Worshipers are planning. It's some kind of giant formation and we were hoping you could help us destroy it by painting out key parts of each part of the formation."
Lake had to say, the tiny dwarf took the news quite well or at least he didn't change his face much and just started to look at the map. Around ten minutes later Lake started to wonder what was taking the dwarf so long but eventually the tiny dwarf did look up from the map and say. "What idiot drew this? It's not even complete. Look here this is an imprisonment formation but because it's incomplete it looks like a ward."
Lake didn't mind being insulted like this because he hadn't been able to go around the whole city plus he wasn't an expert on formations or anything so his ego wasn't wrapped up in this like someone who thought they had done a perfect job and was proud of their work. He was really just trying to do the bare minimum as fast as he could and he was pretty sure he was killing it if you were to judge him based on that.
You couldn't really dispute this fact either since this tiny man had been able to identify what the one part of the Formation did. "You can still help us though right?" Lake found it nice that Masters didn't say Lake had been the one who had drawn the map and had just moved the conversation along like nothing had happened.
"I can but I would recommend you get your forces ready before we start because there's no way the Demon Worshipers will just let us stop them. As soon as we move in on the first location every Demon Worshiper will try to lay the formation before we can destroy it or stop them. We also need to worry about the fact that any good plan has some redundancy and that's also true for formations so the formation is probably set up to still do something if heavily damaged."
"Are you saying we should hit multiple places all at once?" The tiny man nodded and said. "That would be for the best but I need time to try and decipher all of the effects this formation might have hidden in it and to do that I'll need the full thing so send out whoever got this information again to finish the job."
Lake didn't care if the dwarf knew it was him so he said. "I'll get on it right away but I'll need the map back so transfer what I already have to a new sheet." Lake was expecting the Temple head to use paper but instead he just wove it out of mana in front of them and then handed the map back to Lake.
"Good luck Lake, I'm going back to the guild to start to organize the strike teams." Master waved bye to him and started to run for the door and Lake was on his heels when the Temple head stopped him. "Try and get more information than just where it is this time. Knowing what they plan to use to lay it is very important. If it turns out to just be a few powerful mages it will be easier to just kill them."
Lake wished he knew more about formations so he would be able to identify the Demon Worshipers chosen method of laying the formation easier but he still said. "Yes, Temple Head." Even though he didn't really know if he would be able to meet this request.
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