Chapter 220: Wind Formation
Looking at the food they had brought back on their first trip, Lake considered stopping here but decided it was worth going one more time. He knew he would regret being lazy if they actually ended up running out like he was worried about. Turning to Grandy Lake said. "Can you tell me when you're done organizing all of this?"
Lake didn't want to help so he was going to step outside and pretend he was doing something. Once he was outside he realized he was actually just being a lookout now and there was no pretending to it. It was still a better job though so he jumped onto the roof and sat on the box he had brought up there.
After a while Lake heard the door open so he jumped down and thanked Grandy for getting him. Walking inside he said. "Get ready to go for another round of gathering." He could tell a lot of them had thought they were done and were about to go to bed again. After he said this one of the dwarves from the temple walked over and asked. "Why are we gathering so much food?"
He was hoping they would have most of the food before someone asked so he didn't have to debate anyone who thought it was wrong to take all the food but Lake wasn't going to lie. "We don't know how long we'll be imprisoned here." The dwarf seemed to get what he was saying so Lake stopped there and waved for everyone to come with him.
On the way out the dwarf stopped him again and asked. "How much do you plan to take?" Lake had already prepared a way to make what they were doing sound fine so he went into his prepared answers. "I want us to have fifteen days of food because we should know who won by then and will most likely be out of the barrier."
Fifteen days of food for the twenty of them wasn't that much so the dwarf should drop it but if he didn't Lake had an explanation about why no one would miss the food they were hoarding. "You really think it could take that long?" It seemed one of the people behind them had been listening to what he was saying but he was fine with that because he would rather talk about what they had asked him.
"No, we should be out of here in a few days at the most but it's best to plan for extra time." It seemed no one had anything else to say to him so Lake just silently walked them to the market. Once they were there they gathered enough food that they would probably only need to come one more time to hit the fifteen day goal he had set.
...
Donny hadn't moved from Peter's side since they brought him inside because he couldn't get his eyes off of the wound that was slowly growing and eating through what was left of Peter's side. It was a weird feeling to know he could save Peter if he tried but that wasn't really what he was thinking about.
He was trying to figure out what they should do next. He had saved too many people that couldn't do anything because of the shape they were in and sadly the bag he had placed all his hopes on hadn't had anything that could solve their problems. This left them practically stranded and all that needed to happen for them to be wiped out was the Demon Worshipers noticing they were here.
It was too bad the metal mana was gone because he could have set a nice barrier of his own that could have kept them safe for a while if anything came to attack them. Formations were still their best bet even if he wasn't the one that would be making it. "Hey, can any of you set formations?"
Donny decided to ask the people he had saved if any of them could make basic formations. Even if they could only make formations of the first circle he would be able to have them help him by powering the formation he designed with a different type of mana. After asking all the people he had saved he had two beginners to work with.
He wasn't surprised that there weren't any people here who were even at the first circle but at least he had found someone that was close. "Alright, which elements can you two use?" Since they were both beginners they should only say one each. "I've been training in Earth." That was as useless as Metal at the moment so Donny turned towards the other person.
"Wind." Donny perked up a little when he heard this because Wind formations were usually used to move people around which was something they needed if they wanted to get these wounded to a healer. "And you know how to power formations with Wind mana?" When the mage nodded Donny said. "Ok come over here so we can start designing a formation."
Realizing they would also need a place to work once the formation was designed Donny told the other mage that was still standing there. "Could you make us a way up to the roof?" Right after starting Donny realized they really were just a beginner with him having to do everything other than the part to power the formation.
Donny was still able to design what they needed even without their help though and soon he said. "Alright let's go see how the path to the roof is coming." Walking out into the main part of the house Donny could feel the draft that opening a hole into the roof had created and followed it to the new staircase the earth mage had almost completed.
"Are you out of mana?" The mage nodded and Donny said. "It's enough for now but we'll need to be able to carry them up to the roof once we're ready." Donny wasn't ready to tell the others what his plan was in case it didn't go well but he would soon be breaking the news that they were going to try to get to the main fortress.
He wanted to get a look at the situation around the fortress before they headed out though. He thought it sounded like something he could do while testing out their new formation. After a few seconds of looking at the area they had to work with Donny said. "We need more room."
"We can conjoin the two roofs if we take that small wall down." Donny considered this and said. "It will be too loud if we smash it and the only person here that can use stone control with no Earth Mana is out of mana." This meant they were going to have to wait to start on the formation and Donny didn't think they could waste that much time.
That meant he would have to let them use the few mana potions he had gathered during the time he had spent saving people from the gargoyles. "We should ask and see if there's anyone else who has a skill that could help us with this." This was a good idea so Donny nodded and said. "Keep it to the awake people. There's probably someone who could help us in the wounded but they're better off staying asleep."
In the time since the fight had ended a few of the less wounded had woken up so they still had over twenty people to ask without bothering the people that were sleeping because they were close to death. "I'll be right back." Donny nodded and looked back to where the fortress that was his new goal was.
The light was gone now so it wasn't the beacon it had been when he had first started towards it but he saw this as a good thing. As long as they weren't discovered he would know when to set out by when the light came back on because that would mean the fortress was open to fight. He would be able to take their new flying Formation there at that time.
...
Three dark figures were slowly making their way down the stars that would take them down to the 42nd tier. "Hurry it up, every second we waste will take time from the gargoyles to do their job." The group they were part of had just finished off the defense forces that were in the tiers above this one so it was time to let the gargoyles out to do their work.
Stepping onto the 42nd tier the one in the lead took something out of their robe and set it in front of the imprisonment barrier. "That should tell every gargoyle in the city to gather here so we can let them out so get ready to take the barrier down." Right after he got done saying this he heard the first set of metal claws ripping across the stone towards them.
Turning to look into the barrier he saw a gargoyle land in front of the barrier. A few hundred more and they could open the barrier up to lead them up to the next tier. A minute Later another showed up and then another but after that over ten minutes passed with no more showing up. There were a lot of reasons something like this could happen but not being an idiot they said to the others. "There's something wrong, get ready to drop the barrier so we can find out what."
In war whenever something went wrong it was because someone you hadn't planned for had gotten involved and not knowing who it was would make him look bad in front of his superiors when he showed up with three gargoyles instead of three hundred. "Our orders are to bring the gargoyles back right away. We can ask to be sent to investigate what happened after we return."
Seeing the other two seemed to be in agreement the man sighed and said. "If we drop the barrier and leave, whatever killed all of the gargoyles will be able to escape. It's better we go in now to look or leave the barrier intact until we can go and tell the others what happened."
After the other two heard this one of them said. "Let's go and tell the others first. There's a chance whatever killed them will be too strong for the three of us or that there will be a lot of them so it's better to come back with numbers." Turning to climb back up the stairs the man sighed again. Bringing bad news to your boss was never a nice thing to do even when you had nothing to do with what had gone wrong.
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