“To start with the reason this even happened… The attack back then was the first time this world suffered a serious invasion by the Phageid, since then it has happened once more, around five hundred years ago. And it will surely happen again, relatively soon. Optimistically, we might have about forty years,” Jennifer explained seriously, completely losing her accent.
“So they attack every five hundred years?” Saria asked.
Does it have anything to do with the ‘True Solstice’ from the trial? I’ve been calling it an eclipse because it looked like that but the solstice shouldn’t be an eclipse…
“Sadly it is not that easy to predict exactly when they come. At best we will know two or three years in advance, but it will happen on the summer solstice, when the sun is furthest from us; when Sun’s influence is at its weakest.”
“Wait… To clarify, they attack on the solstice because Sun is weaker at that time of year?” Sofia asked.
“Yeah,” Jennifer casually confirmed, ”At any other time, Sun would be able to prevent them from reaching us, but her power to affect our planet varies greatly depending on the distance of the actual Sun. In fact, even during the solstice, she would be able to stop them, she does just that every year, actually. Sun is the entire reason we haven’t been overrun yet. The elves in general are slaughtering Phageid any chance they get.”
“This is looking like a bigger issue than I even thought it might be…” Sofia commented.
“That lich you spoke about seemed to take them pretty seriously,” Saria chimed in, “I asked Zephir but apparently he was told by the older Dragons to worry about growing stronger before bringing that up again…”
“And they’re right, this issue is something for the old folks like me to deal with. The system is also always bolstering its forces to be able to fight back. I’m explainin’ so that ya can understand how it goes but yer a bit too young to help.”
“So… If Sun is able to prevent them from attacking every solstice, how did they still manage to invade twice?” Sofia asked.
“Because, twice now, something massive in space has eclipsed the sun during the solstice for a few minutes. It’s truly gigantic, larger than our planet itself, and yet we can barely perceive its presence when it draws close, and can only really know exactly where it is when it’s hiding the sun.”
Some kind of big planet hidden in the void? I can see how it might be hard to keep track of, just finding our planet from the sun wasn’t easy despite how bright and colorful it was, wouldn’t have known where it was or how it looked without Aphenoreth pointing it out.
“And we have no idea about what it could be?” Saria asked.
“Absolutely none. No one even noticed its presence the first time, from what I’ve heard, and everyone’s attention was turned to the sudden invasion,” Jennifer confirmed.
Sofia asked another question, “From what you’re saying it sounds like they attacked everywhere at once. Were there more than one Alphageid?”
“Several of those, a few bigger ones, and countless smaller,” Jennifer answered, “And to continue on the subject of the thing in space, we noticed it when it came again last time, because a lot of the higher level people were expecting the attack. The Phageid did not attack cities on their second attack, they targeted the system’s towers. A few of them fell and had to be rebuilt since.”
“So whenever that thing obscures the sun again is when they will launch their third assault…” Saria mumbled.
“In about forty years, if the time between the attacks is consistent. An old Dragon named Avross and the two celestial Gods are keeping track of outer space, on the lookout for the object. They are confident to be able to find it a few years in advance this time, depending on the situation, there might not be another Phageid attack. There are people preparing to destroy the thing when it shows up, very strong people. Lets just hope they succeed,” Jennifer explained, finishing with a sigh. Then going back to her story, “Now you know the how, somewhat at last, the exact origin of the phageid is still a mystery, then again, I ain’t the best informed on the subject, as for the why of the attacks, it’s simple, they want mana to reproduce. And that’s exactly what the Alphageid came for on that day. I was just outside of the city when it happened…”
Jennifer stopped to summon a glass of water, after downing the entire thing, she continued, “As I said I was just outside of the city walls, waiting in line to enter, quite the lucky timing… Fox was already far in the countryside, and Nyse was in the city, drinking at some pub. For the other people you want to know about… Aurelia was still in Armand’s capital house, Armand himself was away on some errand, and baldy was at the Church. Just like that you have almost the entire list of survivors…”
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“Out of those only Aurelia died…” Sofia noted.
“Yes,” Jennifer confirmed with another sigh, “It was as if fate was against her. She escaped death’s jaws only to fall right back in. Armand’s house was close to the tear in space the Alphageid appeared from, Aurelia was likely one of the first to die… I would love to have an heroic tale to tell about what comes next, but there is no such thing. I was lucky to be outside and could escape. Nyse teleported out as soon as things started looking bad, the few people able to fly also fled, one of them being Gabriela, one of the Church’s heroes back then, she escaped with baldy’s kid, making him the only child to survive...”
Wait… I saw her! A woman flying away with a kid!
“I think I saw her escape in the trial as well,” Sofia told them, “Are they still alive?”
Jennifer made a weird face, “They… Gabriela should still be alive, though no longer affiliated with the Church, haven’t heard of her in about two hundred years though, so who knows… Orvod’s child passed away later, I think, but I’m relatively sure he had a few kids too…”
Hmmhmm. Well, I killed one of them. Several generations down the line probably, but still. I wonder how his daughter’s doing now. I’m pretty sure I got rid of all her soul parasites. Let’s hope she managed to flee the country. It’s interesting to think that some heroes of the Church from back then are still around… But it also makes me wonder how many hero pawns Scripture might still have under his control… Maybe the elf from last time… No, it wasn’t a hero…
Jennifer then described what she saw from outside the city, which was essentially the exact same as what had happened during the trial. The main discrepancy was the presence of Armand and Orvod.
“Baldy protected the Church with his stone magic,” Jennifer explained, “It was the last standing building after the attack. Barely, but still standing. Armand reached the city relatively soon after the attack started, and after realizing Aurelia was already gone, he attacked the thing directly. He died, overwhelmed by the tentacles of the phageid, but had some sort of magical protection which brought him back, that cleared his mind a bit and he joined forces with baldy to try to at least save the few remaining people hiding in the Church. No one inside made it through, despite their best efforts, the Alphageid’s tentacles managed to pierce the defenses and snatched them. When baldy and Armand realized they were the last two survivors inside the city, they fled, and this is when an angel showed up to destroy the thing with lightning magic. As I told you, no heroic tale. As for me, I was busy trying to survive against the Phageid outside the city. Mostly big squid types, called larvae; it wasn’t glorious.”
“So the survivors were you, Nyse, Gabriela, Armand, Orvod and his son? That’s really not much…” Saria enumerated.
“A few more who were able to fly or teleport made it out… After all of this, Armand as the highest ranking survivor of the nobility took the title of King and gathered the willing survivors from all over the country to build the new capital. Once he felt that his duty was completed and the kingdom saved, he killed himself in the memorial chamber he had built for Aurelia. The remains of the old capital were flattened by blady and left for nature to reclaim. And there you have it, the first Phageid attack and the creation of the Skyreach kingdom…”
“I have one more question,” Sofia told Jennifer when she was done with her story, “Why did Armand choose to build the new capital on that mountain?”
“Humm… Give me a minute, I think he told me about that once when we were havin’ a drink…” Jennifer told her, deep in thoughts.
“I remember!” she finally exclaimed after forty long seconds of reflection, “ ‘twas the Church’s Oracle who gave the idea, the bloke survived the attack ‘cause he was away on his second trial. When he came back he actively helped rebuild the kingdom, and he found this location for the new capital. We have to give it to him that the mountain is a great natural defense, tha city is still standing to this day.”
As I suspected.
Who knew Scripture would want to build his church right on top of a pit full of undead, right? As if he had been planning something for a long while… Something relating to a certain Recessed…
“Was that the same Oracle who is still in charge?” Sofia asked.
“Still tha same guy, far as I know, never care much for him. Think he failed a trial, stuck at level 299 or 349 if my memory’s correc’. Think his name was… Jeffrey?”
The name made Sofia’s blood run cold. It was like a sudden hit in the back of the head.
No…
No no no.
No no no no no.
Absolutely not.
Jeffrey.
Like…
Orphanage Director Jeffrey???
Surely not. Not so obvious. He wouldn’t even bother changing his name?
No, that can’t be right.
I saw his dead body right in his office! He was just…
WAS IT HIS BODY?
“Sofia are you alright?” Saria’s worried voice brought Sofia out of her stupor.
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