A sigh escaped Lord Arwain very much like the one Dan would expect from a parent dealing with a petulant child. Dan didn't much appreciate it. "Because the shield on the outside is linked to the two that surround this fort," Lord Arwain answered. "The ones that surround this fort stay up only as long as the ones that are on the outside are up. So the second Eldraen breaches the outer shields, believe me, we'll know," Lord Arwain explained.
Dan was silent for a long while. "Do you think they are okay?" He posed a bit more quietly. "I don't even remotely expect that everyone just simply accepted magic as just another part of reality. We are a scared species. People fear that which they do not understand. It's part of our nature," Dam said. "Chances are very high that they met resistance even downright opposition from both the magical and non-magical community as they tried to prepare the world for what is coming. Maybe they still are," Dan stated thoughtfully. His mind had completely left their present surroundings and was now fully focused on the ones who'd sworn loyalty to him and he had sworn to protect. Lord Arwain remained quiet allowing him to continue. He could quite clearly see that this wasn't something that anything he said could help with.
"Knowing how much each one of them is loyal and dedicated to me," Dan said quietly. "I don't even want to consider what they might have had to do to carry out my orders," He said.
"It was my plan, remember?" Lord Arwain rhetorically posed though he doubted it would do much in the way if alleviating his guilt.
"It was my duty, remember?" Dan returned calmly a sigh escaping him.
"You haven't exactly been in here lounging and taking it easy all this time Dan," Lord Arwain spoke in a calming tone.
Dan's lips pressed lightly into one another as he conceded the fact. For the past eleven months since the shields went up, he had not for even a second rested. He had started his training the very second he'd teleported back into the fort and closed the two ash and salt like rings around it creating the shields that now protected the fort. Even when his mind retreated to wherever in his mind this was, his body kept on moving, fighting the endless hordes of enemies, both conjured and imagined. A good amount of time he spent consciously in training. At other times he allowed his own body to take over, he moved purely from the ingrained muscle memory of all the maneuvers, moves and skills he'd learned that far. On rare occasions Lord Arwain took over and then simple training took a whole different turn and became... art.
His training in the initial stages, began with him fighting unthinking minions of every kind limited only by the imagination of both Lord Arwain and him. At a certain point however he had began fighting Lord Arwain himself. His ancestor found a way of 'possessing' the mindless beings he conjured for Dan to fight. When he did, the difficulty of Dan's fight increased a hundredfold. To begin with Lord Arwain was an extremely skilled fighter and magician. But aside from that, even while he took over the minds of the beasts and creatures he conjured, Lord Arwain was still very present in Dan's mind. Knowing his every move even before he made it. An advantage he used to the very maximum.
The advantage however, wasn't shared. While Lord Arwain could read his mind, he somehow kept Dan from doing the same with him. What he thought, planned and did, remained known solely to him alone. How does one fight an enemy that knows his every move before he even makes it. That was the lesson Dan was still trying to learn. The lesson became even harder and more painful when Lord Arwain created a hive mind with all the conjured creatures and attacked using all of them. More than once, Dan had suffered near fatal injuries, even for a Phoenix. Lord Arwain however, hadn't at any point allowed him to stop. No matter how bad it got, he didn't have the option of stopping let alone backing out.
Chapter One
Start from the beginning
