Death's End

Chapter 21 - Strategy

Jerius watched the small jewelled statuettes scattered about the wall map in the strategy room with fascination.

Apparently, they represented every living being in the Guild, all of whom were now automatically tracked by the Cabal Network and their locations reflected in real time. The human mages were coloured in red, while the golems and animals green.

As silly as it was, Jerius tested it by pacing from one end of the small strategy room to the other, his eyes never leaving the tiny statuette marked in red on the map where the Administrator's Hall was marked. The statuette he eyed shifted slightly in its position, delighting him. He could not imagine the untold value to planning a siege defence with such information available at his fingertips.

Before Jerius split off with Mirayoung while heading to the strategy room, he was told about the several enhancements the Lockdown Protocol provided to the Guild. The map was one of them, the enhancement of which had led to every major landmark like the Dome, towers and other buildings, along with the denizens within, being animated on the map in explicit detail.

Another effect of the Lockdown Protocol Jerius discovered was tied to what he remembered deducing when he first stepped foot into the Guild. He deduced that the strange trees and floras that grew about and around the outermost wall of the Guild were part of a bigger array.

Since the protocol's activation, the trees had morphed, knitting tightly together into a hardened shell. They also spread over the Guild, darkening the sky as if forming a shield ceiling.

As the sky had been completely blotted out, no doubt by design to protect against any aerial attack like an artillery bombardment, so did most of the sunlight. In its place, the trees sprouted strange flowers that dispersed artificial light over the Guild, which again, marvelled Jerius.

All man-made buildings and towers he walked past also gave off a faint pulsation that revealed the wards inscribed on them.

Mirayoung had not gone back to her home under Fermand's insistence. In the administrator's words to her and Jerius, "With everyone gathering indoors, the wraith will grow ravenous, furious and desperate, becoming hypersensitive to the silly few who roam the streets alone or even in pairs. I'm not willing to take any risk with the both of you. Recover and get the strategy out first."

He was sitting alone admiring the map, as Mirayoung had instructed him to wait in the room. She had gone off to meet another archmagus called Holz the Warper, whom he remembered was the appointed guardian of the two Gatekeepers. Holz, along with the two mages in his care, was mandated to stay in the Administrator's Hall as well, where protection reigned supreme.

He did not need to be a denizen of the Guild to hear about the legends of Holz the Warper. Known for his love for battle, Holz the Warper was a warrior-mage-for-hire, a mercenary who had sought the pinnacle of ferocious war magic and fought in many wars across the centuries.

Jerius remembered reading the scrolls on the Kush'Tar Expeditions Nox undertook during its belligerent past, some of which talked about a gigantic 'man-demon' whom the Noxarian generals had in reaction, passed down a retreat-on-sight command. If he were to guess, Holz the Warper was the figure described in the 'man-demon' legend.

He saw little surprise that he was the guardian to the Gatekeepers. Being in hundreds of battles would have honed his instinct for danger and malice to a phenomenally unnatural one.

Hearing two pairs of footsteps, one heavier than the other, Jerius turned in time to see Mirayoung coming in with a giant of a man that made the lady mage look tiny in comparison. He could barely fit into the strategy room. Man-demon!