"Get them inside!" Elizabeth shouted, casting a blinding light that halted the attack of shadows.
She followed it up with an arrow of light. Piercing the creature's side. It shrieked and fell back. Allowing the citizens to safely make it past the border. Where they were escorted under guard to the central temple.
After organizing all the information, the guild leaders had split the players to cover as much ground as possible. Each guild moving to help a section of the nearby city and forming their own safe grounds around a cluster of temples.
Elizabeth was currently at the location that Ilmadia and the others had fortified. It acted as the headquarters for Phoenix, Starfire, and Faekin.
The three guilds together barely reached 300 total players. However, that was no problem. By now, they had well over a thousand NPCs also helping and fortifying their encampment.
Several players were also dispatched to contact the mayor. Once one of the players made it, they would act as a relay for the mayor, allowing instant communication with all players in the city.
Elizabeth and the others were waiting for this. Once they got communication going, they would be able to expand their range of operation to help more of the city.
After all, currently they were blind regarding how the city was responding to this attack. Their focus was only on helping the citizens survive.
Not dropping her guard, Elizabeth kept the ball of light floating over the rushing players and citizens until they all made it past the barricades. Observing their actions in the glimmering light of the nearby fires.
The fires were the biggest factor in allowing them to actually secure the temples and surrounding grounds. None of them had considered the priests and clerics of the temples when making their decision to make this their base.
These priests and clerics were a game changer. Their help in erecting a barrier, or rather, setting up the fires that kept the terrors of night outside, proved invaluable. A barrier of light.
While it could not ensure that no devil made it inside, it at least kept all the Night Terrors from chasing them further. Elizabeth doubted if it could give pause to their strongest enemies. But for now, only weaker Night Terrors were attacking them, and they all stopped at the edge of light the fires gave off.
Confirming that the Night Terror had retreated like the ones before, Elizabeth finally canceled her spell and moved back into the protection of the fires.
As she was pondering what Eldrian was up to and when he would unmute his chat, Ceph landed nearby. Having spotted her thanks to the spell she had cast.
"Where did he go?" Elizabeth asked. Already getting a headache that Eldrian was no longer with Ceph nor in contact with them. All she could do was send him a message to remind him to unmute the voice chat he was connected to.
Currently, Elizabeth was hearing the occasional update from the other leaders. They all muted themselves and unmuted when they wanted to share something.
"To take control of a magic tower." Ceph replied after returning to his elven form.
"Of course he did..." Feeling her strength leaving her, Elizabeth moaned. Moving on after throwing a few curses at Eldrian for being so terrible at communication, she asked, "Can he even do it?"
"I doubt it. The safeguards around magic towers aren't weak by any means."
"Why didn't you tell him that?"
"He's aware. I guess he's going to do something stupid."
Hearing that, Elizabeth sighed again. "Well, in any case, we've rescued most of the nearby citizens. We're actually running out of space. Luckily, the number of capable citizens was higher than expected. We are expanding our range of operation faster than expected."
"That's good." Ceph smiled, following Elizabeth as they climbed atop the barricade made of destroyed houses. The players from Phoenix had grown accustomed to making use of anything nearby. It almost resembled a wall.
Every twenty meters a magical fire burned, fueled by a special powder the priests had mixed with wood—taken from nearby buildings.
The special powder gave the fires a brighter glow, and apparently, was what kept the evil at bay. Sadly, they had limited amounts of both wood and this powder. Wood they could manage somehow, but the powder was the real problem.
The priests had assured her it would buy them a few hours. Hopefully, by then, help would have arrived.
"Did Eldrian tell you when we can expect their reinforcements to arrive?" The question hang in the air as several people rushed towards them, or rather, towards the light of the fires.
Seeing the group, the nearby priests readied their spells for if a Night Terror arrived, the players meanwhile moved forward to halt them. Allowing any group of people to barge in without restricting their movements would be the height of stupidity.
"Stop!" a draconian shouted, her towering frame causing the humans and demi-humans to freeze. The centaurs, however, looked her straight on. Challenging her to move out of their way.
"If you force your way in, we will be forced to attack." She spoke with confidence, hefting her massive battleaxe as she did and swishing her tail back and forth, causing the nearby rubble to fly to the sides. "If you understand, put down your weapons and form a single file. Do not step out of line!"
Unlike the group Elizabeth had stepped in to help, this group was not under attack. As such, they were told the rules before being let inside. The previous group was having their weapons confiscated and being forced to swear oaths inside the central temple as this was happening.
As things had come to this, anyone who fought swearing an oath of loyalty to the kingdom would naturally be suspected of being a devil.
They already had three cases of this happening. Luckily, the trained bows on the citizens as they swore their oath had brought those three down before they could cause any damage.
'Really, why couldn't the king just declare it a must?' Elizabeth had moaned when hearing Judith's proposal. Such an oath was so simple and should have little to no restrictions.
Ilmadia had given a believable reason. It would, in fact, restrict everyone. No longer would illegal acts be possible without divine punishment. Which might sound like a good thing, but many nobles and merchants would, and likely had at some point, apposed this.
Loyalty was also a subjective thing, and no two people's idea of it would be identical. Thus, such an oath wasn't perfect. One person might think illegal activities such as tax evasion were perfectly fine, with a crude way of thinking. Another wouldn't.
Yet, the oath would protect both equally. After all, by enforcing it, the king had to also give something in kind to his people.
Questioning their loyalty after they swore an oath would be an exceptionally difficult thing to do. It would be equivalent to questioning their faith and honor. It could even be construed as questioning the god they swore their oath to.
The group before them moved forward slowly, but Elizabeth frowned. Noticing the fidgety nature of several people in this group.
"Ceph?"
"Yeah, they're giving me a bad vibe."
At this moment, however, the sky turned bright. Temporary daylight returning to the world.
"Eldrian..." They both groaned, Elizabeth preparing her spells to contain these suspicious people. Ceph, on the other hand, vaulted over the barricade and landed beside them. Using the temporary daylight to observe everyone clearly. Seeing a number trying to hide their weapons.
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