His head throbbed. He didn’t know long he had been knocked out, but he didn’t get the impression that it had been for long.
As he lay there on the steps, he felt the back of his head which was sticky and wet. He pulled that hand of his from the back of his head to see it covered with blood. He had hit his head pretty good by the looks and feel of it. It didn’t appear to be gushing out any longer though so it couldn’t have been as bad as it looked. Or at least that was the reasoning he used to try to not overreact.
Smoke filled his nostrils with every breath taken. It smelled of not just wood burning but also with the smell of flesh mixed in.
He pressed his palm to his forehead and squinted real hard. The situation that was developing made his mind recoil as he tried to make sense of it. A part of him wanted to not think about it and how their plan obviously backfired. The consequences were undeniably unfathomable. How many innocents had perished and shall continue to perish? The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want any answers to those questions.
He only saw a glimpse of the initial destruction due to their location before being knocked out. He imagined it must’ve looked far worse if he stood up on the outer wall surrounding the city. But he could get a good enough sense of the destruction from where he lay. Enough fire raged within Liall, that the dark sky above was filled with an orange glow. Yorais’s mansion didn’t appear to be as affected as other areas as far as he could tell, but plenty of debris littered the ground nearby and gathered around everywhere, especially on the mansion’s rooftop and nearby rooftops from surrounding structures.
Rather than lay there any longer on the steps, he pulled his torso upright and pushed his palms against the ground to push him up onto his two feet. His body wobbled a bit and it appeared he was a bit more dazed than he fully realized. He put his hands against the railing on the side of the steps leading to Yorais’s residence to keep himself from falling over as he got his bearings.
He looked over to his right spotting Juna walking over to him. “Are you alright?” she asked full of concern and worry on her face.
“I, uh, could be better. How about you?”
“I’m fine physically. Mentally, that’s a different story. But I’m glad to see you’re finally awake. I tried waking you up for a few minutes but you wouldn’t wake up no matter what I’d do did to ya.”
“Where’s everyone else?” He eyed more people gathered near the front of Yorais’s mansion. The front glass windows were broken with shards and pieces on the ground.
“Rinas and a few others went back inside to gather everyone. They should all be out here soon.”
Speaking of others, they ended up walking out of the mansion meeting the two of them outside. Abigail and Yorais walked by his side with concerned looks on their face. A slew of other coalition members followed from behind as well.
“Kiran.” Rinas came up close to Kiran and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you feeling well enough to walk?”
He let go of the railing. “I think so.”
“Follow then.” With Rinas taking the lead, he began to follow the dozen or so people with Juna at his side. They walked down the steps together battered and bruised. As he observed the others, it appeared that he wasn’t the only one hurt by the event that caused him to hit his head on the steps. Others appeared with scrapes on their arms and dried blood on their faces.
They exited past a metal gate and began walking through the street. The streets in this part of Liall were quite nice and a fair bit easier to walk on than other areas. In the state that the city was in right now, however, even they were not undamaged as debris had landed and broken them apart in some places.
“Does anyone know what exactly caused this?” he said loudly enough to Juna in particular. He knew that their meddling had in some way caused it, but the reasons behind it were a mystery. Were we foolish to think we could power such a powerful object in the first place?
She shook her head. “Everyone has their opinion. No one can say for sure. The question that no one can say for absolute certainty is whether this was an accident or purposefully done. All we can do for now is locate Noreko to try to get an answer from him. If anyone knows it’s probably him.”
The central pillar was what kept this place relatively safe from the world outside of it by preventing large swaths of monsters from spawning in the fifth domain. With it gone, and the destruction to the outer walls, their struggles truly were just beginning as swarms of monsters could begin to spawn and begin an assault against a city that was in utter chaos.
Kiran felt that tonight was going to be a long night the same way the day had been quite long as well.
Their journey to Rinas’s place was not an easy one. Entire areas were either blocked by debris or flames consuming entire areas that would keep them from daring to enter those places.
To say the city was in a bad state was a mild way to describe it.
One structure they walked by began to collapse as its supports broke apart due to the overwhelming flames. Wood crackled and continually fed the fire so that its flames would grow in size and begin to spread to nearby buildings.
Plenty of people were out in the streets in a rush to flee. Where they were to go, was entirely unknown. Madness certainly existed in many of their eyes as panic set in. Some were injured, some less so.
One person on the side of the street that they began to walk by grasped onto a cold limp body of someone whose youthful face was completely pale. Tears covered their face and no matter how tightly they held onto the lifeless body, the soul that previously occupied that body would not return to them.
Misery set foot in every street, alley, and corner they walked by. Their path took them closer to where the central pillar was, although they were still quite a bit away from whatever remained of it.
More damage began to appear and corpses littered the streets. They began to walk across an area that a strand of energy had paved its way through. Anything in its path was no longer there instead just being a smoothed-out line of dirt and rock. Several corpses on the outer edges were caught in it as it ran through with some of their bodies being split in half. Some bodies had heads missing and others arms or legs. Their deaths were likely instant at least for many of them. Others weren’t so lucky as it appeared they bled out from having entire parts taken from them in a blink of an eye.
One moment they were just walking and minding their own business out at night. And then a moment later, a wild strand of energy would fling itself out from the pillar and indiscriminately kill or maim them.
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Though there was plenty of carnage and bloody sights to behold, he tried not to fixate on them too much as they continued onward to Rinas’s mansion that Noreko was supposed to be.
In time, he began to see his mansion from afar. Thankfully it didn’t appear to have been destroyed. This particular area mostly appeared unscathed in fact.
They walked through the open gate reaching the entrance to his mansion. Before they could go inside however a couple of children ran out in a hurry.
“Father!” The two twins Reginald and Regina rushed to their father wrapping their arms around him.
“Are you two alright?” he said hunching down towards them.
“W-we are father,” Reginald muttered with a hint of fear in his voice.
“Come on then,” he said. “Go on back inside where you should be safe.” Rinas turned back around to face the dozen or so of them as his children went back in. “Abigail, Yorais, Kiran, and Juna. You four come with me inside. I want the rest of you to secure this location outside. Nobody comes in or out around here without me knowing of it.”
“Regina,” Rinas said as they went inside to the foyer. “Do you know if Noreko is here?”
“I don’t know father.”
“Have you seen him here today?”
“Uh-huh. He was here earlier. I never did see him leave though.”
Knowing that the person they were seeking hadn’t been seen leaving made it more likely he was still here. He was supposed to be here to work towards powering the pillar with that device beneath his laboratory. However, Kiran was getting the impression that the level of destruction was not some mere accident. He didn’t want that to be the case, but if it was only an accident, that didn’t make it seem much better. Accidental or not, Noreko would have to answer for this one way or another as it was his responsibility.
We were too hasty weren’t we? To expect one person to power it themselves…
As the five of them reached the door to Noreko’s laboratory, a ward rippled as Rinas tried to open the door.
“Here,” Yorais said stepping more towards it, “I’ll remove it.” She pressed both of her palms onto the ward. Shortly after doing so, the ward disappeared.
When they went inside, the sorcerer did not appear. He could be in the room beneath this laboratory that they hadn’t checked yet. Before they went down there to check, someone came walking in.
“If you’re looking for Noreko,” Lar said, “you won’t find him here.”
“You saw him leave?”
His companion chose to lean up against a table covered in alchemical glassware since it appeared that she struggled a bit to stand. “Yeah. He left maybe an hour ago. I was just relaxing out here and saw him walk out in what looked like a bit of a hurry.”
If he had left an hour ago, then that suggested that he hadn’t been trying to power the pillar. But perhaps there was a way to power it preemptively.
Kiran sighed to himself feeling a bit frustrated trying to make sense of it. He simply didn’t understand magic well enough to make any significant assessments on the matter itself.
They chose to go down into his basement. Nothing appeared unusual or disturbed. It appeared similar to how he had seen it when Noreko had shown him it the other day.
The crystal array was all there along with the etchings on the ground linking it all together. The unused appearance however perhaps was a sign of things.
“Do I even need to state the obvious?” Abigail said while everyone stood around.
Rinas looked over at her. “You think he in some way orchestrated this to happen the way it did?”
“I do, especially with him not being here. Unless any of you have any other ideas, I’m fairly confident that this was all intentional.”
“If that’s the case,” Rinas said, “then how is it that we didn’t suspect him? Noreko’s one of the most highly respected sorcerers in the city. Although his reputation would’ve been lessened dramatically if the public knew of his involvement with our coalition, he is truly loved for his multitude of talents. Am I to truly believe he’s at fault?”
“You can make that argument for so many other notable people. Including the now-dead queen. If he’s not at fault, then I would love to be proven wrong, but with the way I see things and the fact that he’s now miraculously gone, I can only see him being complicit in the central pillar and outer pillar’s swift demise.”
“I believe her observation is accurate,” Yorais said in agreement.
Rinas didn’t appear convinced. He didn’t want to believe that someone so close and high up in his own coalition would do such a thing. Kiran could tell just by the look on his face.
“I’ve known him for quite some time,” Rinas said. “This is unlike him. He wouldn’t betray us or the people of Liall. It’s certainly possible that he is at fault in some capacity but not with malicious intent. That would explain why he has decided to disappear. He can certainly be flawed, but an outright mass murderer? I find that unlikely.”
Yorais didn’t appear willing to give Noreko so much leeway. Her brows lowered and her glance intensified. “This is no mere accident. You can fill your mind with delusion but I will not.” Her words struck like daggers piercing through his heart. She was willing to outright say such words to their leader without hesitation. “Listen to my words Rinas. If he realized that his methods would not work in powering the pillars, he should’ve and would’ve warned us earlier. He had plenty of time to, except he didn’t do that, did he? He ran off instead. These are not the actions of a coward. These are the actions of a malicious fraud. These actions Rinas, are purposeful. He is no idiot. And I hate to admit, that I too was fooled by him. We all were. And now we must accept the reality that our blindness to him has led to how things are. We simply trusted him too much with this responsibility.”
Kiran didn’t want to believe that Noreko would facilitate these developments, but he struggled to think that he hadn’t carried out some form of ulterior motives that he kept hidden from them this entire time.
“Abigail,” Rinas said.
“Yes?”
“I need you to contact all of your agents and people. The city may now be in chaos, but it is important that we apprehend him despite how things are out there. Send everyone you can to try to locate him.”
“We may not find him.”
“We have to at least try.”
“Alright, but I can’t make any promises.” Abigail walked off in a hurry to do as requested. If anyone could find someone in this city, it was going to be her and her particular faction within the Human Familiar Coalition.
They all left the basement and laboratory making it back to one of the hallways. He kept up with Rinas’s relatively fast walking. They reached the meeting chamber that was quite dark inside. Light poured in from the tall back windows. He gripped the table and looked up at them. “I don’t know what all we can possibly do considering everything that is going on. But we must work towards a plan of action that will see to our survival. We must also be relatively quick about it. Yorais, how long does the city have until we can expect an assault on it from the outside?”
“No more than a full day from now if we’re lucky. Half a day is more likely our best-case scenario. With the pillars destroyed, the fog is likely mostly dispersed by now so monsters are most certainly already spawning.”
Rinas let out a long deep sigh. “We undoubtedly have a long night ahead of ourselves. Let us get to it then.”
The queen hadn’t even been dead for a full twenty-four hours, and already, everything was crumbling apart. Kiran’s fear that his actions perhaps were the wrong ones to take, really began to set in as he stood there contemplating his recent actions and what it meant for everyone’s immediate future.