Chapter 315: Nevermind
Seeing the door open and a person climbing in Lake wanted to make room for them to sit down but when he was the only one who scooted over he didn't think it was going to happen. "Oh I can stand, it's fine. I probably won't be here for long anyway." Lake shrugged and said. "It's up to you."
After their brief interaction the person who came in looked at the Temple Head and waited for her to ask him anything before he started to talk. It took her a second but eventually the Temple Head had her first question. "Is it good news?" Lake could understand why this was her first question because he remembered how unsure all the people they had sent to take the barrier down were.
He had watched them try to decipher the formation for hours and every time one of them opened their mouths it had been bad news. "A mix, when I left the barrier was down but the things in the city were moving into a new formation that we think will be completely different." When Lake heard this he pulled out his arrow and started to spin it because he saw this as his chance to fix his mistake of bringing them to the Metal domain.
This was something he had thought about before but had abandoned it because he wasn't going to be there when the Barrier fell so he wouldn't know when to say Jon was on the move. After a while he saw everyone in the cart looking at him and when he knew they understood what he was doing he said. "It's on the move."
It didn't take long for the Temple Head to ask. "Which direction is it headed?" Lake just used his finger like always and started to point slightly to the left of where they were heading. "That's still inside the Metal Domain I think. It's too bad you can't tell how far it is from here." Lake knew if they were tracking a real thing it was possible to get an estimate of how far something was by changing the description to include a minimum or maximum distance but he was fine with not giving a real distance since he was lying.
The less details he gave the better because he never knew when his opportunity to pull off his disappearing act would show itself so them not knowing how close Jon was would be good for him. This did make him realize the guy next to him was another problem he might not be able to predict.
He should have put it together that another person with skills that were useful in tracking people would be a problem a little sooner but now that he was thinking about it he wondered if maybe he should just kill them at the first chance he got. They were heading towards a warzone still so it wouldn't be hard to kill someone without being blamed for it.
He knew it was a little silly to kill someone who was clearly important to the Temple just so he could get away with the stupid lie he was caught up in but with him here the guy next to him was unnecessary. The Temple would lose nothing from him dying and then they would actually be able to talk while in the cart on the way back to the Temple.
"Well keep us informed on which direction it's in. So how hard was it to drop the first barrier?" Hearing the Temple Head ask the next question to the scout after telling him to keep an eye on the arrow he listened as well so he could hear how tough the barrier ended up being. He had thought there was a chance he could have taken it down but hadn't done it because he was afraid of retaliation from the barrier.
The small one he had broken had destroyed all of his gear and the one around the Metal Domain would have been much worse. "It took us longer to get to the weak spot than it did to break the barrier once we were there." Hearing this, Lake guessed Helain had been the one to bring them to the barrier's weak spot.
He had originally planned to do this himself but had kind of forgotten about it when the Temple Head had sent that person to bring him back. It was good Helain had been with the group because they wouldn't have known where to go otherwise. "So even if another comes up they should be able to break it as well as long as they are able to find the weakness?"
The scout nodded to this before saying. "Yes, Temple Head. It seems the barrier is just big and not that much stronger than a normal sized one when you find the weakness and know what you're doing." Lake was about to ask why the Temple Head of the Metal Temple had failed in bringing down the Barrier if that was the case but then quickly remembered the fact everyone inside the barrier were unable to use Metal or Earth mana which was what dwarves like the Temple Head relied on.
...
"Looks like they're back." Hearing what Keel said Donny opened his eyes to get a look at the scouts that had just been sent out to see if the barrier was still up. "I think we're about to be moving out." Donny knew he should wait for the announcement before saying this where a bunch of people could hear him but the looks on the scouts faces said everything and he wouldn't be the only one who could see it.
"Let's wait till they tell us to get up." Everyone which included him and Keel were starting to feel the effects of not enough water and food so he could understand Keel not feeling like getting up but he still did though. Other people could decide what they wanted to do but he wanted to be on his feet now so he would be ready to walk right away once Rigbis said it was time to move.
He had been dehydrated before and knew it was going to take a few minutes to get himself moving and if the barrier was down this wasn't a good time to be slow. He knew well just how fast a barrier could be replaced since it was usually the role he had been taking in fights since he had lost his shield.
There was a chance the tentacles that were making the formation wouldn't be smart enough to do this but they were probably being controlled by someone in the city somewhere so he didn't think they would be that lucky. As he was doing a basic stitch he heard Rigbis yell. "We'll be moving in a few minutes. Get up or be left behind."
It seemed Rigbis understood how fast they needed to be to get out of the city and planned to just leave behind anyone who was too slow. Realizing he could help with this if he was given just a few minutes Donny started to head towards the stage. As he was getting close enough to actually speak to the people on the stage some of the guards got into his way and asked. "What do you want?"
"I wanted to ask if Rigbis would be ok with me using a formation to move some of us faster out of the city." He couldn't make a formation big enough to carry everyone but he could probably carry around 80 people if Rigbis gave the go ahead. "We'll go and ask him." As he was waiting for his answer Donny looked around to see how the people were doing and to look for some candidates for people to carry.
"He said it would be unsafe to move in the air." Hearing he was shot down Donny was about to walk away when he heard the rest of what the guard had to say. "He did want to ask you about something else though so come up here." Donny guessed he should have expected to talk to Rigbis when he came up here but thinking about the fact he still didn't really fully trust him he didn't want to.
He didn't feel like he could say no though so he climbed up onto the stage like the guard asked and let himself be led to talk to Rigbis face to face. "Hello Donny. How many people would you be able to carry if you were to make the formation that brought you here again?" Donny wasn't surprised by the fact Rigbis had heard of the formation they had arrived on and wondered if he had actually seen it.
There was a good chance Rigbis had been in the command room when they flew to the fortress and had been able to see it. "Around eighty. I'll need help from my friend Fendis if you want me to make it again though since he's the wind mage that powered it." Rigbis seemed a bit disappointed with his answer and Donny guessed it was the amount that was causing this.
"That's too bad. The scouts said people are trying to escape the city and the roads are littered with wounded who didn't quite make it. I was hoping you would be able to do something similar to what you did in the past and save them as we were leaving the city."
Donny understood what Rigbis wanted from him and said. "Eighty is better than nothing." Rigbis started to shake his head hearing this before saying. "It's not worth making ourselves so slow for eighty people who probably won't even survive without healers available." Donny could tell their conversation was over when Rigbis turned and started to say something to someone else.
Feeling the guard who had brought him to Rigbis start to lead him away, Donny let it happen. It was too bad that he hadn't been able to meet Rigbis' requirements for saving people on their way out of the city but Rigbis was right about it being too much hassle for just a few heavily wounded people.
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