[First day back in the Pigmen City, Lucian's POV.]
The giant blue shimmering waygate swallowed the whole ship and sent them all in an instant back to the place Lucian didn't want to admit but was quite close to her heart. The reason was embarrassing, but well.. She was just glad she could still feel such simple emotions.
She had to clear her mind of such silly thoughts and focus before they entered the battlefield.
Looking forward, out of the front glass, the familiar, enormous stone shrine was revealed once again. It was still mostly covered in snow, but now there were thousands of bustling lives around it. Unbelievable as it was, the base of the whole massive stone shrine was covered in various kinds of wooden and stone structures. A city spreading in all four directions, keeping the shrine in the middle.
The open giant gate revealed the brightly lit hollow shrine inside, which was the most crowded and fancy area of the whole city. Shops and inns, and pigmen constantly walking from here to there.
Lucian did not miss the enormous wall built around the whole outer city, pigmen walking atop it with bows and weapons in hand. There were also some weird steel structures that could be runic weapons. The north side of the shrine was purely dedicated to a ginormous army camp, soldiers in armor and civilians helping them or carrying the injured, clear for everyone to see.
Elias — not Reize — landed the Dreamlight slowly atop the giant base step of the stone shrine. Even here, many structures were built and pigmen were roaming around, but the north side was mostly empty with a few steel runic weapons placed there. The open space was enough for the Dreamlight to land without any problem. The whole pigmen city had seen the huge metal ship entering, and cheers of the crowd could be heard through the iron walls.
Lucian was surprised yet glad to see the progress this one small village had made in a century. She wondered if humans in their world were also capable of doing such a thing or not. From all she had read about a century before their time, there was not a single thing different. Just barely a few things had changed. Guess having no fear of enemies had made them complacent to move forward and progress.
Lucian's lips rose in a quiet smile. That guy loved to talk about progress and innovations — God, he wouldn't shut up once he started about how things needed to change and what people could do if they only did this or that.
Lucian stood up, unlocking the safety belt and went back inside the larger seating room where the others were. The others from control room followed behind her after turning all the parts of the Dreamlight off. Sam, Grace, Maelor, Sariel, Alex. They all looked at each other, preparing themselves, and then opened the mechanical door with the steps and walked down.
They were already surrounded by many pigmen, all shouting in a foreign language. Soon, some armored pigmen soldiers came, and the crowd made a way for them. They had come to pick them up. Lucian, along with the others, followed behind. They were led to the hidden stairs of the base step — each step of the shrine had them. When they had climbed it from inside with Damian, they had already seen it.
The inner city had totally changed with bright lights all around, the warmth in the snow region was something otherworldly.
Lucian's eyebrows rose, seeing the fancy palace built with perfectly cut stones. It was decorated like a royal residence — which it actually was. With a war going on, they had time to do such things? Well.. it could be said it was necessary to keep the morale of the civilians up and to have everything work as normal.
They met with more pigmen in fancy clothes, all bowing to them and showing the utmost respect. Soon they were all given a place to stay. After some time, they were called to a meeting. Fortunately, Mindseer was there, and she met all of them with warmth. She had been here for over seven years now and had learned the pigmen language — finally, they could understand what the pigmen were asking them. Grace could somewhat translate, but she wasn't fluent. She said the language itself had changed quite a lot.
The king.. The chief from before, entered the room, all pigmen bowing their heads. He did not stop to acknowledge any of them, though. The king, to the surprise of every pigman in the room, walked up to Sam and held his shoulders tenderly with his giant hands. Their reunion after 100 years was quite touching.
Heather also met up with Maelor and Alex, Grace met the king's family — the lady she knew from her stay in the pigmen village. It was a very emotional scene, but Lucian had had enough of it. It was too much for her, so she ignored them and sat near Mindseer.
"How is the situation?" Lucian asked.
Mindseer pried her eyes from Sam and the others and looked at Lucian beside her, her face losing color slightly. It was hard to say if she had aged — her appearance was still like that of a girl not much older than Lucian herself.
"Damian?" she asked. Mindseer nodded.
"They went to find the Sun God. I don't think we'll see him or the other Highswords anytime soon.." Lucian answered.
Mindseer exhaled and replied,
"We won't be enough. The pigmen force is barely 80,000 — 40% second-rankers, and we five third-rankers. Two of us have already engaged the advanced party sent by Bloodedge. He alone commands over ten million of them, and then there's the main force of these black pigmen behind him under Shadecastor's control.."
Lucian sucked in her breath and muttered,
The two, lost in conversation, had not noticed that the whole room had turned towards them, paying full attention to their words.
"Over 50 million.." Then, looking down from Lucian's face, she added, "We need the boy's monstrous spells if these people are to survive. They're too stubborn to leave this place."