Mullam consistently held everyone back. They'd begun running from Kamado very late at night and they'd gone down south, almost directly towards kanam.
They crossed the Navon-Aku'anda border near Hiyagara around an hour after midnight and kept running, a four hours after midnight, they arrived at Tayinaadar and Mullam was already gasping for breath and sweating profusely. Every other person in the group was barely even panting.
"Wow Mullam, you are terribly out of shape." Segi said sternly. "This is embarrassing."
"Yeah.." He gasped. "Let me just rest for a minute."
"Yeah I think you're going to have to stay behind." Segi said. "We're not even in Pirun territory yet."
"I agree." Kalum said. "We've got a long run ahead of us. Just stay here and recuperate. You can join us later."
"Seriously?" Mullam asked.
"Guys, let's go." Segi said, and with that they shot off into the darkness. He threw his hands up and headed to one of the inns at Tayinaadar.
Segi's remaining team continued to run south, getting past Dogonu by morning. They went by the entire village in an instant, with only their slipstreams in their wake as evidence of their presence.
After a few more hours of running they finally got to Kanam. They stopped at the hill opposite the town on the other side of the Chawbig river.
They were extremely exhausted and had to stop and catch their breaths. Every bone in Segi's body felt like it was on fire and she could notice her companions grimacing as well.
"I'm really proud of you guys." She said. "let's rest here for a few minutes and enter later."
From where they were they could see the gates of Kanam, and they noticed over time, various mages entering the city. Lara was the first to speak up.
"Aren't those mages?" She asked.
"Yeah I've been thinking that too. I'm pretty sure those are all Mages." Deyion said.
"What the hell is going on in there?" Segi asked under her breath. She waved to Lakan. Who picked up almost immediately.
"Hey Segi!" He laughed. "Where are you guys?"
"I thought you said Ganz was in Kanam?" Segi asked in annoyance.
"Well, he is." Lakan said.
"Then why are you laughing so loudly?" She asked. "Also we're at the gates and mages have only been entering. There's literally no battle noises or lights, What are you guys doing?"
"If you can see the gates of Kanam, then you can enter yourself and see." Lakan said. "I'll see you on the inside."
He cut the wave link, confusing Segi even further. She didn't like this at all.
"Brace up guys." Segi said. "I don't know what's happening in there but it doesn't seem good at all."
They activated their armors and crossed the bridge... The gates were wide open, there were no guards... They looked at each other and walked in slowly.
Eventually some guards came to meet them.
"Are you mages?" one asked.
"Yes." Segi said.
"Right then." he said. "You'll want to go to the governor's office."
He gave them the directions and left.
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As they got closer and closer to the location he'd pointed them to, they began to hear sounds of partying and merriment. Segi began to walk faster and as she turned the corner into the street where the governor's house she couldn't believe her eyes.
The entire street had been blocked off with a massive festival like gathering of mages from all five kingdoms. There were tents, tables of games, barrels of rum and wine, and even sellers from the villages were doing business.
"What the hell?" Kalum asked no one in particular.
Segi immediately noticed Lakan near the edge of the festival, singing a beer song with a bunch of mages with stringed and horned instruments.
She walked to him and grabbed him away.
"What the hell Lakan?" She asked angrily. "Where is Ganz?!"
"Oh, Ganz? He's in there!" He said. pointing at the governor's building.
"Then what is this? Let's attack now!" Segi snapped.
"Why don't you try firing a blast at it?" Lakan replied.
"What?" Segi asked.
"No, seriously." Lakan said. "Fire a white blast at the governor's office right now."
Segi looked at Lara in confusion, then she invoked a white blast and fired it directly at the governor's building.
As it hit the building, the previously invisible armor flicked visibly for a few seconds as it absorbed the impact. A cheer rose up from the mages.
"Another try my friends!" A mage shouted. "Applaud!"
Cheers and claps arose from the group. Segi was flabbergasted.
"Yes, Segi. That's right." Lakan said. "Ganz strikes again. He has the entire building under armor, and he's doing all of this under the heaviest spell dampener I've ever experienced."
Segi realized the spell dampener was heavy indeed. She hadn't noticed.
"Wait isn't that the same magic we use for body armor?" She asked.
"yep that's exactly it." Lakan said.
"But you need skin to hold up the—"
"Well clearly not!" Lakan interrupted. "We're laying siege. Here, have a mug of beer."
Lara burst into laughter.
"Ganz... wow." She chuckled incredulously.
Binko and Hark noticed the group and came to meet them. They exchanged greetings and Binko suggested a board game. Segi reluctantly took her on her offer, still trying to wrap her mind around the absurdity of it all.
Every hour the governor would come out and chide them for behaving like children, tell them to leave and give up trying to get to Ganz, and they would boo him away. Every half-hour, some mages would try a new attack spell to see what would degrade the armor, It would fail but be cheered regardless. Every hour on average a new mage would come, someone from their kingdom would explain what was happening, and then they would join the siege.
Not a single mage left, Ganz was too important, and too interesting to be left alone.
---
Mullam woke up with a start in his room at the inn around early afternoon. His body ached like hell.
"Fuck!" he groaned as he rolled out of bed. Joining the exploring war mages was a terrible idea. He dragged himself into the bathroom where he had a bath, then he went downstairs and ordered for some tea and breakfast.
After a few bites, he felt the energy returning and his vision became a little bit clearer. He decided to at least wave to Segi to learn what had happened. He was flabbergasted when she explained the situation to him. Now he definitely HAD to go.
He waved to Roska.
"Hello, Mullam. How's the journey been?" She said cheerfully.
"You seem happy." He said. She laughed.
"What can I say, my major source of annoyance left for Navon a few days ago."
Mullam rolled his eyes. Then he told her what was happening at Kanam. She was extremely fascinated.
"I definitely want to see that. I think I'll go to Kanam." She said.
"it'll take you days to get there." He objected.
"Not if I use speed." She said.
"You can use speed?" he asked, shocked.
"the speed spell was literally invented by Sir Kalorn, an academic." She said. "We invented this. Why wouldn't we be able to use it?"
"So all of you nerds can use speed?" Mullam asked in surprise.
"Er... no." she said, slightly embarrassed.
"Yeah that's right. I didn't think so." he gloated. "Anyways I'm heading there myself. Last to get there buys drinks." She laughed and cut the wave link, then she told Lord Daron, who had been sitting opposite to her the entire time, what Mullam had said.
"that's incredible." he said slowly, concealing his emotions. "But why did you invite me today?"
"Well, we figured out how to make a multi-link wave spell." She said casually, shocking Lord Daron again.
"What??" He gasped. "Are you serious?"
"Yes." She said. "After weeks of hard work and research, Early this morning, my colleagues and I performed a six way wave spell. Each person on the wave could hear all others."
Lord Daron's jaw remained open for a few seconds.
"Mage Roska you are incredible." He said.
"The largest contribution did not even come from me, Nor the second largest." Roska said. "A while back, Mage Mullam himself discovered a strong way to intercept wave links. That led to a series of significant breakthroughs from me and my colleagues, Korad and Shiro. Then when Mullam left us to go to Navon, a young academic named Auran Kellan joined us to work on the problem. Yesterday he solved the final obstacle."
"I noticed you didn't mention that to Mullam." Lord Daron said.
"It would be a disrespect to tell him that over a wave link." She said. "I want to explain it to him in person, And we have even more good luck, a great deal of mages are clustered in Kanam. I will go there and teach them all how this works all at once."
Lord Daron nodded slowly.
"You mentioned you could use the speed." He said.
"Yep sure." Roska said. "obviously I'm not as fast as professional users, but I can run pretty quick."
"Can you carry a man?" He asked. "Me, specifically."