The battle had moved away from Hark. Soon it was a bright but silent event far off in the horizon and everywhere around him had turned silent.

“Well I’ll be damned.” he remarked after waiting fruitlessly for the battle to circle back around. He decided to drop down into the city to find any interesting activity to engage in. He walked along the streets but everywhere was empty. Shops were closed, houses were locked shut, Pirun on the street level looked abandoned.

He brought out an acoustic spell he made a few months prior and ignited it. Soon he began to hear the voices, hushed and afraid, in some of the houses. They were hiding in their houses. Probably under tables. Hark sighed. He went and knocked on one of the doors where he was hearing a voice of a mother and her children. The moment he knocked they went silent, he re-tuned the spell to heartbeats and started hearing their heartbeats thump faster.

“Hello there! I mean you no harm!” He ventured. “My name is Hark, I am an Elite mage from Aku’anda.”

There was silence from inside the house, and then a chair shifted, then footsteps, Then the door opened slowly and a timid woman in her 30s peered out. He smiled at her.

“Elite mage?” She asked softly… “What occupation?”

“Warfare.” He said, her eyes widened in horror, he quickly assured her he wasn’t fighting, bringing up how Aku’anda was a diplomatic nation and all that, Eventually after much convincing, She let him in and introduced him to her children, a boy of eight named Sama, and a girl of six named lanta. He turned off the acoustic spell and greeted the children, taking a seat in the living room.

She gave him some tea and sat opposite him.

“Will you protect us if the battle comes here?” She pleaded. Hark was taken aback.

“Well…” He said. “I don’t have any battle ready spells, but I can grab your entire family and flee.” She was silent for a while.

“That’s good enough, I suppose.” she said eventually. “I knew I should have left after the first invasion.”

“Why didn’t you?” Hark asked.

“I don’t know anyone anywhere else.” She said, “My whole family is here. Ever since my husband died, I’ve been struggling to survive.”

“I can help you relocate to Aku’anda.” Hark offered. “What do you do for a living?”

“I used to be a seamstress,” she replied. “but my shop at Pikran was destroyed in the first invasion and my landlord raised the rents after he rebuilt it. I can’t afford the new rent.”

“I guess Pikran is a location inside this city?” Hark asked.

“Yes,” She replied. “It’s a large market Just north of here.”

Hark thought being a seamstress couldn’t be that expensive. He could probably set her up in Aku’anda using a fraction of his weekly income.

“How much magic do you know?” He asked.

“Everything I need to be a good seamstress. Not much more than that.” She said, “Oh I recently learned how to wave to people.”

Hark smiled, finding it quaint how she thought a trivial spell was worth mentioning. Kids as young as ten learned this in Aku’andan schools.

“Do many people in Pirun know how to wave?” He asked her. She shook her head.

“Apart from the wealthy people, most people just don’t have the time or energy to learn how to wave,” She said. “it got worse after Ganz blocked waves going out of Pirun. I learned how to wave because my shop was destroyed and I had a lot of time on my hands.”

“Ganz made things worse huh?” He said. She shook her head vigorously.

“Actually he made things a lot better.” She said, “Of course I don’t like him because his goons destroyed my livelihood, but his rule has been far better than the queen’s.”

Hark raised an eyebrow. “That sounds interesting. Tell me more.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well he’s giving us free supplemental food, free schools for our kids, he’s having way more hovercoaches made and phasing out the ricketies much faster, He’s giving money to people to start enterprises with.”

“Oh? He’s giving people money? What about you?” Hark asked.

“I didn’t qualify.” she sighed. “I have kids and no other job. They said my kids would be a temptation.”

Hark laughed. “What the hell is that?”

“Yes, They said I would be tempted to spend the money on my kids instead.” She said, “So he’s an asshole for that, but otherwise I think he’s better than the queen ever was.”

“Wow,” Hark remarked. “That’s so interesting.”

--

Lakan was in a far more interesting situation, Albeit significantly more dangerous. He was less than a kilometer away from an extremely dangerous field spell.

Ganz had defined a large field that, Lakan guessed, was over 2 kilometers. From that field, he was pulling heat into two energy balls. The temperature was dropping rapidly as he did this. Sungan Mages, aware of what he was trying to do, launched deadly spell after deadly spell towards him, only to be thwarted by Ganz’s men who seemed to have gained new found organizational skills in his presence.

Lakan decided to wave to Lara. She didn’t respond, He waved to Hark, and the latter responded.

“Hey Hark, Have you spoken to Lara?” He asked. “She isn’t responding to me.”

“No I haven’t.” Hark said. “The battle moved away from me. I’m currently talking with a citizen of the city about what happened when Ganz took over.”

Lakan laughed. “Not sure this is the best time for that, I have ganz in my field of view now, He’s doing a starblast spell.”

“Oh fuck” Hark said over the wave.

“Yeah,” Lakan said. “The temperature is almost at freezing, I’m guessing he’s going to go below that, maybe ten more degrees.”

“Wow, and how are the Sungans countering that?” Hark asked.

“He has a team of defenders preventing the Sungans from Disrupting the spell.” Lakan said. The temperature continued to fall and the white hot balls of energy floating on ganz’s palm began to flare out and spin as they gathered more energy.

“Ooooh…” Hark said. “It’s over for them.”

“Not if they flee.” Lakan said. “But knowing the Sungans…”

“Were you able to check out their armoring?” Hark asked.

“Yeah,” Lakan replied. “Standard issue shifting hex armor. It’ll withstand the blast but they’ll all be knocked out at least, if Ganz sucks in enough energy. That gives him enough time to round them up and have them executed.”

There was a short silence.

“You’re sure you want to be around there?” Hark asked.

Lakan laughed. “Well he’s not aiming at me. I created a makeshift bubble armor out of a speed spell so the shockwave won’t really bother me that much.”

“Yeah but what about the cold?” Hark asked.

“Yeah it is cold as hell.” Lakan said as his breath began to frost. “Ganz has gone below freezing. Damn this guy is pissed.”

“Should I come join you?” Hark said.

“No, stay where you are. I’m pretty much hiding here.” Lakan objected. “There’s a chance they will find you before you find me if you come looking.”

“Okay, stay safe.” Hark said.

“Oh hey, you could go check on Lara. She won’t respond to my waving.” Lakan said.

“There’s a chance she’s outside the walls,” Hark replied. “That's why it won’t work. Ganz disabled the waves in and from here, and we didn’t get to set up our own.”

Lakan thought about it,

“Doesn’t seem like something she’d do.” He said finally. “Just find her.”

“Alright.” Hark said. His voice faded away when the wave ended. Lakan ended the call just long enough to see Ganz launch the spell at the defiant Sungans who had thrown up multiple defense spells.

The white hot balls suddenly launched extremely bright beams that rushed towards the Sungans and clashed against their purple and yellow defense shields, causing a minor shockwave, the beams continued to bear down on those shields, and rhythmic shockwave blasts emanated from the clash as both spells interacted, their defense shields started to crack. They retreated and threw up more defense spells.

Ganz saw this and increased the power of the beam, shattering the first defense spells and cracking the subsequent ones. General Makon decided to taunt Ganz. Lakan couldn’t hear him at all, but his body language made it very clear he had no respect for Ganz, Lakan personally thought that was an insane move.

Ganz apparently had the same thought because he decided to double the power of the beam, which, while it would make the stored energy run out faster, made the beam able to blast through the defense spells and knock back several Sungans, one unfortunate Sungan didn’t have an armor spell on, and lakan had to watch half his body get vaporized as it got caught in the beam. The rest of the Sungans were blasted into several buildings, breaking through multiple of them. Ganz went after them. Running rapidly with the speed as his starblast beam flung the Sungans backwards like ragdolls.

After a few more seconds the star blast dissipated and Ganz’s men moved quickly into action. Descending on the depleted Sungans and knocking out, gagging or otherwise subduing them. Ganz looked at the destruction it took to win and shook his head. He turned around and left the scene immediately, leaving his men to round up the remaining Sungans alive.

Lakan realized he hadn’t breathed throughout the entire blast. He took a deep breath, lost in awe of Ganz.