Chapter 39: For Irisgarth!

The view outside, overflowing with people, is astonishing. On such short notice, we have managed to amass even more people than what we had back at Draka. I’d dare say we double, even triple, our numbers.

“Wow, guys! Look at this; it’s unbelievable!” I say to my friends, who I have just spotted and gotten closer to.

“And there are more people constantly arriving,” Dorian says while pointing to the far end of the street. I’ll have to trust his sight, as I can’t see anything across the colossal multitude.

“We should better get to work then!” I say, with the intention of classifying people into groups. “Everyone!” I raise my voice to reach them. “Hello!” I insist upon seeing that nobody pays attention. “PLEASE!” Once more, I shout as loud as I can.

Some heads here and there turn, looking for the sound source, but mostly either ignore me or simply haven’t heard. Off to a good start. I let air go through my nose in pure frustration.

“SILENCE!” Rand’s shout makes the ground, and everyone’s body tremble. Just like a subwoofer would if cranked to the maximum. “That’s my new ability, Draw Attention. It’s mostly used to draw monsters to me, but I guess it can work this way too?” When did he get a new skill? I suppose he didn’t have the opportunity, nor need, to use it against ogres, and that’s why I didn’t know? We are growing too fast to even keep note of it all.

Either case, now, with everyone clearly focused on us, I can speak and be heard. I just hope they are actually interested and not just scared or freaking out due to his shout. “Hello everyone! Some might already know me from our battle at Draka; I’m Mark.” Just saying this triggers a series of ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ sounds from the audience. Of course, the occasional ‘Who the fuck are you’ also pops up.

“Either way,” I continue, “the governor has assigned me to distribute all of you into squads formed by the army’s soldiers.” I scout everyone’s faces, and as I somewhat anticipated, not everyone seems happy by it. “I know some of you come in groups, but we need to protect the army and battle together with them. We all have to make the effort.”

Some faces relax, but the opposition is still evident. In my mind, the Governor’s words start repeating in a loop, ‘they are not trained’, ‘they lack discipline’, ‘they are a rogue element’... Please, don’t make it be true… I know humans are unpredictable, but I am really hoping they will work together just this time.

“I need you all to stand in a row according to your class. Ranged classes with physical attacks here,” I point to my left. “Wizards, except for those that can yield the water element, here. Those that can use water, there. Healers in front of me. Melee classes, either magical or physical, to the right.” I say as I point to different places around our privileged position.

Last time, at the town, they attacked with fire arrows and set the whole village aflame and, of course, we can’t allow this to happen here. My plan is pretty straightforward. Should anything burn, water mages will put it out. Ideally, we would want to avoid the fire, but damage control is not a bad option. Like Draka, Irisgarth is made of pretty much wood, so it is crucial to keep it from burning.

We lack healers… whereas each row, water mages aside, already has upwards of a few hundred, healers are almost nonexistent. Which, sadly, seems to correlate with what the Governor told me a few minutes ago.

“Hey, sorry to bother you,” I say to the one closest to me. “Would you mind sharing your class with me?” It’s common courtesy not to ask, but the situation demands it.

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“Sure thing! Life element wizard. My friend here,” he says While pulling the person right behind him, “is a Shaman.”

I take a quick look over the queue only to confirm there are no religious outfits to be seen. “No priests…” I murmur primarily to myself. The church must have threatened them of excommunication, even the adventurers.

“Your classes are not mainly based on healing, right?” I ask more in general, to whoever hears me.

“Not mine; I wanted to be a mage.”

“Nope, buffs in general.”

“Just secondary perks, I guess.”

Everyone around me starts answering with the same negatives. Jonas seems to monopolize all true healers for the church… which will be a huge problem.

“What’s your class? It’s only fair that you tell.” The first person, the Life Wizard, asks me.

The incident where I got called heretic must already have transpired. Plus, everyone saw me fighting in the town. Maybe there are even videos of it. I genuinely don’t think giving my class name would do any further harm to me.

“Inquisitor. This is my class.”

“Inquisitor? The hell is that?” He looks at me while squinting his eyes.

I have to admit that it’s a somewhat non-traditional class. Most games conform to a set of standard classes and rarely move from there. And mine, at least that I know, is unique to this game.

“It’s mostly about healing and physical resistances,” I tell a little white lie. I do heal, and my specter form has physical resistance, along with other things. And there’s no way I’m revealing my trump card here and now, spirits and souls.

“Oh ho! So that’s how you avoided those arrows back in the town?”

“You were there too?”

“Nope, seen the video tho.” Ha! Who would have guessed? I knew I wouldn’t go unnoticed.

“Of course… ok, back to the row, I’m gonna start assigning you all.” I cut the conversation before I’m forced to reveal anything else.

I head back to my friends and ask Rand for a little tiny favor.

“ATTENTION, PLEASE!” His loud spell gets the job nicely done and lets me take the word seamlessly.

“Thank you all for coming and complying! I will begin assigning you to squads, but before that, I would like to have some quick words.” Good, they are listening—time for some harsh reality.

“They think we are wild and won’t follow orders,” I chose to be honest with everyone. “They think we will mess it up. Help me prove to them how wrong they are! Help me make them realize how much they need us! Trust your squad leader as you would trust your party leader. Follow their orders, and when the time comes, go wild on our enemies!”

“But, above all, remember why we are fighting. We’ve been here for barely a week, yet I already call this city home. I won’t let them take it away. I will see this city grow into an empire. Hell, I’ll erect it myself if I have to!” Unconsciously, I have clenched my hand real tight. It’s up in the air. My body is arced towards the multitude. “So remember what we are fighting for. We are fighting for Irisgarth!”

“For Irisgarth!” The cry comes from my sides; all four of my friends have shouted it.

“For Irisgarth!” An overlapping cacophony of voices, shouts, screams, and whistles erupts, deafening me and everyone near it. But far from stopping the intensity increases.

“Let the city know we have their backs!” I take the moment between chants to raise the bar.

“For Irisgarth!”

“Let the enemies know our might!”

“For Irisgarth!”

“For Irisgarth!”

The party goes on for a good 10 more minutes. With even the Governor’s guards and the soldiers standing by nearby joining us.

“Let’s start distributing.”

With all the tactical information in the papers laid out, I end up assigning two to three rangers to each squad. Mages close to the gate, to make better use of their shorter ranges, and archers and alike distributed evenly.

The healers are positioned a bit further in the back, strategically organized such that they can quickly move to assist the front—each covering a different subset of squads.

Melees will be mainly on standby by the gates. Of course, some of them will defend the walls against enemies who try to climb up.

And finally, water mages are placed along the arc that contains the east gate and most of its buildings. Ready to out off small fires or to group when necessary.

Everything’s set up for our part. Now we just have to wait.