We came back, and the few wounded we had went to the medical tent on the fort, my father and I went towards our household the next day the troops were going to stay at the fort and receive whatever reinforcements we could find, and they would prepare for a second expedition to try and see what we could do about the dungeon.
Suddenly on our way back I felt something, and I looked down the window of the carriage we were using, and my eyes rested on the church, I felt like something was calling me.
- Dad I think we need to go to the church.
- Really? Did you get a message? – He asks me.
- No but I feel something, and I think its calling us from the church, I wish my skills were higher to be able to identify what it is – I say
- Hey maybe you do not have the right skill, you may need a priest one to be able to track this - say my dad, then he opens the door and lets the driver of the carriage know to stop at the church.
We both sit in silence for our trip, and we do not talk to one another until we are at the church, we get down from the carriage and move into the church, we see there is a file of people that are going for their awakening, my dad bring us towards there, but it does not feel okay.
- Dad, not that way, let’s go this other way – I point towards the main room of the church where the mass is ongoing.
My dad looks at me and follows me, we enter the main area of the church and sit down in one of the wooden pews, I feel like whatever was calling me is done, so I pay attention to the mass and what the priest is saying, he is talking about kindness, and helping one another, it reminds me of my own religion in my previous life, after a while the mass ends and I look towards my dad, his face is tense, and he is thinking furiously about something, I look at his face and it’s like I can see the gears spinning out of control with how hard he is thinking.
- Dad, let’s go home? – I say half in question.
- Yes son, let’s go – He says and then he gets up from the pew, and do a salute towards the statues of the gods then he turns and we go out of the church, at that point I understood that the gods had summoned both of us because they had to say something to my dad, I was not going to ask in public.
We arrive at the household and my dad goes towards his office, I follow him and he does not look like he minds, when we arrive at his office he takes some parchment and start writing, I see him extremely focused, my own curiosity is keeping me here, I want to know what is happening.
- Alexander!!! – my dad calls and after a couple of seconds the door opens – we need to send this parchment to the king, also call Selene and Katherine to my office and summon both of my brothers also we need to send word to my sister Clementine. – my dad finish his orders and the butler just nods and takes the parchment for the king and I see he moves fast, something on my father tone let him know the orders are to be done now and not later.
My dad sits and he smiles at me and point towards one of the chairs, less than 5 minutes later both my mom and my second mom enter the room, they came in a hurry.
- Selene, Katherine, how are you? – he says and for the next couple of minutes they talk a bit about what my mothers have been doing and how my brothers and sisters are, It looks like my sister Caroline has a boyfriend, and Desmond looks like he wants to courtship a lady, after a bit uncle Richard enters the room and then my father pulls the orb of privacy.
- Richard you will be staying in the fief with powers as my representative, we got a mission, our expedition appear to have discovered something important, we are going to need dedicated mages for our troop Selene, but also we are going to need you to train your Mana Sense, how far along are you towards the Yellow level? – ask my father.
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- I’m close, level 92, but why the urgency? – Ask my second mom.
- Because whatever we did caused a disturbance with the demonic gods, and when I came back with Carter we stopped at the church, there was a message for me from the God of War himself, we do not know how important is what we discovered but the demons are not happy and are going to try and block us, the good news for us the demonic gods moving that way gave enough leeway for our own gods to move, they kept their own movement small but we need to go and investigate that dungeon core, so we will be moving in strength from the fort, I expect a big battle and we are going to need everything, I already send word to the king so they send reinforcements for the Fort. – Says my father.
At this point even though the conversation was interesting I fell asleep on my chair.
I woke up the next day and I was in my bed, Dina came into my room and told me today there was no practice and that I would have the day for myself, I think my dad knew I was still going to go investigate on the library, so I went down for breakfast, I saw my second mom and I asked her to talk after we had finished our meals.
- Mom, during the expedition dad said that if we wanted mages we would need to talk with you, why is that?
- Oh Carter mostly because the whole group of mages I have are a bunch of crazy people, after you gave us those unique spells, we decided to investigate more, checking the forge, checking with the alchemist learning a lot more about the different elements, let’s just say there is a group of around 20 mages that are right at the end of the orange level most of us are at around orange level 90, I think this is the group your father wants to take in, but if what you call simple scientific knowledge was all that was required for us to go from red to orange, then what could be the requisite to go from orange to yellow? – She tells me.
- I don’t know mom we will have to test my own levels are also close but they are not at your level.
- Yeah leveling things up takes time, but your younger sisters are advancing faster, I do not know why – she says.
- I think is a bit like being the trailblazer, you are not only discovering new things you are creating the trail to reach those, So I think while we may be slower, when we teach the next generation we teach them better and they can learn faster and actually go faster, my dad commented the other day that the new recruits with the new teaching of both the beginner level and the novice level, a lot of these new recruits even if they do not dedicate themselves will be able to reach beginner level 100 in 5 years, those that dedicate themselves will be a lot faster, we went from people sometimes not completing the beginner skill in 10 years to be able to complete it in 5, just by us learning about the next level and how it works. – I tell my mom, then another question occurs to me.
- Mom about what you were talking last night, I fell asleep, what is dad going to do? – I ask her.
- Oh we are going again I will dedicate this week to work with you so I can try and finish leveling up mana sense, and your father is preparing around 3000 Soldiers for the next foray, we have to go for it, we are trying to go in 2 weeks, your uncle Dylan is coming while your uncle Richard will be in charge of the fief.
- Why 2 weeks? – I ask.
- The enchanters from the capital, whatever was said to your father it gave us urgency, but we cannot be reckless, at least that is what your father said. – She says
- Have the gods ever given instructions like these?
- Sometimes, mostly they communicate with the heroes or the priests, it is rare for them to connect to normal citizens, even if they are Nobles, I think it has to do with faith, but again having you in the family, let’s just say our generation, I think is the more faithful one in a very long time. – She finish and then comes and gives me a kiss on my forehead and goes away, I know she is going to go train, I will join her later.
The 2 weeks passed fast, I tried to find info in our library but I found nothing, my second mom was successful and now had mana sense at the Yellow Level, with me explaining how it worked, what to look and how to feel it was easier and she did level up fast, and well my mom started going around with her mana sense active just to try and take everything around her, my own mom had to put her foot down and limit her use of mana sense because using it that much was putting a lot of strain on her eyes.
Also the king had sent an old alchemist and an alchemist apprentice, I talked with my dad and told him I did not mind teaching my way of designing new enchantments, there was always work for enchanters so even if I wanted later in life I could still work on the field if I wanted, and making it a family secret, well I think the more you spread some knowledge the better it is for everybody.
The old alchemist was fascinated with the sewer system, and he took several of our spare enchantment tablets to study and see how the system worked, a lot of things he did not understand and I had to explain some biology, and what we were trying to do, if you did not know what you wanted you were not going to be able to make the enchantment accurate.
We also got word from the king reinforcements from the royal army were incoming, so 2 weeks after we went on our way back to the fort, 2 days later our entire army of 3000 soldiers started to march, this time it was going to take us more time to reach where the entrance to the Dungeon was.
My father grabbed some soldiers that have been training with us and set them up for my personal protection, the mages had protection too, and we brought Healers, since this was so important my mom insisted, so we were all here.
Finally we reached the place where the dungeon is, and the tension was palpable, we have found some goblins running around but those were easily killed, the mages started to create some defenses but they could not dig too deep they could not pull the earth if they dug more than 2 meters, it was the first effect we saw from the dungeon, the terrain atop of it was different, I kept checking every 5 minutes by activating my mana sense, and then I saw it, an illusion was coming at us from the west, I called it and my second mom confirmed it, immediately everybody set themselves ready for battle and then we saw what my dad have been warned about.
A demon army, a big one, and it was a nasty one, the numbers did not appear too big only around ten thousand but I could not see a simple goblin in sight, the lowest was goblin warriors, hobgoblins, several goblin kings, and orcs, lots and lots of orcs, but since both my mother and me had seen then and they were still a couple of kilometers away, I hoped we had a chance, my dad was thinking and ready to give orders, we were all waiting for the battle to start.