Charrs plan
Rurik stopped in front of the gate and explained the other party members that the lever is on top of the wall.
Aidan volunteered to go up and open the gate.
"Well, I think that I'll be able to climb the wall down from up there." Aidan said thinking carefully.
"I'll be able to close the gate and prepare some kind of system by which we could open the gate from the other side." He continued.
"Well then. Get going already. It's a long way up there. And we still have to wait for you to prepare your systems." Cynn said obviously anxious to get some Charr blood on her hands.
Aidan went on his way and left the other party members to discuss about the plan.
"What are we supposed to find there anyways? Do you have some assumption why you want to go there or do you just want to kill some Charr?" Devona asked suddenly after Aidan had left.
"The amount of Charr fighting at the gates of Ascalon have decreased lately. They are the ones attacking, so I'd guess that they wouldn't just use all their power to slowly be destroyed at the gates. If they would have done that, they would have done it with one big attack. That means that they must be planning something." Rurik answered guessing that Devona likes to plan things ahead. He couldn't have been more wrong. Because of this guess, Rurik decided to tell the others his plan in detail.
"I have it all planned. I even have an old map of the Charr territory, which I found in the library. We'll search seven places in total. We may not find anything, but at least we'll have some kind of evaluation of the Charrs forces..." Rurik continued his briefing long after. The only one who truly listened was Mhenlo.
After a while Aidan yelled to them from the top of the wall.
"I'm here now! I'm going to open the gate and after you pass I'll close it and do some preparations!"
"Okay! We're all set here!" Rurik yelled back.
Eve crossed her arms and quietly asked Cynn "What do you think. If I'd curse Aidan right now, would he fall down from the wall."
"Now, wouldn't that be hilarious" Cynn answered chuckling As Cynn and Eve continued their conversation Aidan managed to get the gate open and told them to hurry up.
After everyone had passed Aidan started to close the gate.
Just when Aidan finished closing the gate, a nearby Charr patrol spotted them and started to run towards the party growling insults at them. Mhenlo quickly told Rurik and Devona to lure the Charr to fight them, as Eve, Cynn and Aidan could inflict injuries to the Charr. Mhenlo himself started defending Devona and Rurik, who were swallowed by a bunch of charrs. The Charr on the lead tried to hit Devona with his mace, but Devona dodged the hit and struck the Charr in arm. The Charr shrieked and tried to hit Devona with its left hand, but suddenly the Charr freezed still and Devona glanced behind herself and saw Eve grinning as Cynn yelled to the petrified Charr "Here! Catch, furball!" and threw a fireball at the poor creature. The Charr instantly burst into flames and burned to ashes.
"One down, many to go!" Rurik yelled next to Devona trying to block the attacks of Two Charrs at the same time.
One of the Charrs were just about to hit Rurik into the head with a hammer, but by a miracle the hammer just bounced off of Ruriks head, giving Rurik a chance to shove his fiery dragon sword into the abdomen of the Charr.
"Thanks, Mhenlo" Rurik yelled quickly while trying to desperately pull his sword out of the Charr. The other Charr was busy with Devona at the moment, but a third Charr appeared and was about to hit Rurik when Aidan shot an arrow right through the Charr's head.
"Be careful down there!" Aidan yelled with a ghost of a smile in his face. Rurik smiled at him and was able to get his sword back from the charr's abdomen and instantly he jumped to the next Charr. After he had only hit the Charr twice, both non-lethal strickes, he heard Cynn yelling from behind "Take this you weaklings!" as she slammed her both arms to her body releasing a shower of fire upon the Charrs.
Rurik and Devona backed out from the spot and watched how the three remaining Charrs changed into a lump of foul smelling and pitch black something.
"What did you just do?" Rurik asked horrified by what he just saw "Released a fire shower on those beasts." Cynn said smiling.
Rurik didn't want to hear more so he just continued to go along the plan, but staying a little farther away from the gate until Aidan were done with making them a chance to open the gate.
"Ah! Finally. Okay, I'm all set here. I'll just have to get down there somehow." Aidan yelled at the party after a while.
"Jump. It's the fastest way down, you know?" Eve said wryly.
"It'd hurt, you know?" Aidan answered as he started going through all the possibilities in his mind.
"Don't be such a crybaby, Aidan!" Cynn joined in the conversation.
"Shut up you two! I'm trying to think here. So that we'll get moving before we'll get more Charrs rampaging around."
"Maybe you could descent using that banner over there!" Mhenlo yelled as he pointed to a blue banner, which had a round golden image in it.
"Well, it's worth a try" Aidan muttered to himself as he walked towards the banner. As he reached the banner he looked down trying to find a good spot to start the descending. After he had looked at the banner for a while he grabbed it with both hands and jumped over the cap. Then he took his knife and started to systematically rip the banner so that he would get all the way down. Once he had descended from the wall, he looked up at the mess, which used to a banner.
"If the guards don't notice that someone was here, it would be a good time to change guards..." Aidan thought to himself. Then he turned to see how others were already going forward and he quickly catched them.
They had already checked two places, avoided dozen of Charr patrols and gotten into three fights with the Charr,
before they got to a steep uphill "Behind that hill is our next target. Hopefully we'll find something." Prince Rurik informed the others while applying pressure to the bandage on his left arm. He got an injury when a Charr suprised him from behind and shot an arrow through his arm.
"Yeah. It's getting boring trying to be in the shadows. Allow us to at least kill the Charr we see." Cynn complained "We can't. It'd launch an alarm and we'd get killed." Rurik said in passing and started to climb the hill. At the top of the hill he hid into a bush and peered through the leaves. "Hmm... Let's see..." Rurik stopped at the middle of a sentence and was petrified by the sight.
"What? What's up there?" Cynn said impatiently and peered through the bushes as well.
"... What is that? It seems like they're calling the fire gods to aid them. There's thousands of them! We'll never be able to defend ourselves against that many!" Cynn yelled not believing in what he saw even herself. What they saw was thousands of Charr waiting anxiously and looking towards a stand which was erected to the highest point of the huge plain covered with Charr. In the stand was four Charr, all of which had red pieces of cloth at their hips.
At the center of the stand was some kind of altar made of steel, which flamed with a bright red fire.
"Calling the fire gods? What are you talking about? Fire gods... They can't have the gods on their side, can they?"
Rurik sounded a little desperate.
"Yes. Like they would be summoning something unbelievable. I've never seen anything like that before." Cynn said sounding serious probably for the first time in her entire life.
"And by the looks of it, I'd say that they're ready soon. I mean real soon." She continued.
They didn't have much time to think what it could be that the Charr are summoning, before they heard a horrible rumbling from the sky. All five of them immediately looked up to see skyful of meteorites, which were rocketing towards Ascalon city.
"There's just no way the wall will endure that without breaking!" Rurik yelled.
"We need to run and tell my father that we have to act!" He continued while already running back.
"It's too late, Rurik. The wall is going to crumble like a house of cards in only a few minutes. There's nothing we can do to stop it." Eve interrupted Rurik's running and looked at the sky a little melancholic.
"There's nothing we can do. Ascalon is lost. Even though I don't care about it so much, it's still my home and I hate to lose it..." She continued.
They all just stopped for a while to reminisce all the good things that they experienced at Ascalon. Now it's all going to end. Fairy tale just turned into a horror story.
Author's note:
I didn't feel like putting in too much drama. So hopefully you'll forgive me if you find it disappointing. Feel free to review. I'll appreciate every bit of criticism. Hope you enjoy!