Chapter two, Fortifications
Connor silently stared at the fountain in the town square. The fountain was erected in honour of Connor’s brother Jeremy after he became a Magic council commissioner. The fountain was carved to look like Jeremy in his commissioner uniform, water spilled out of the statue’s outstretched hand.
“Who are you and why did you want to meet with me?” a commanding voice said.
“I wanted to meet with you in order to warn and help you, a bandit invasion led by a powerful dark wizard is going to attack Culumnus town soon. I overheard a couple of dark wizards talking about it.” Connor responded, turning around he added: “I would tell you who I am, but that would complicate some things. For now, refer to me as Jet.”
“And why should I believe you ‘Jet’? Dark wizards working together with bandits is preposterous! Unless you have some sort of proof of this attack I cannot just order everyone to drop what they’re doing and prepare for an invasion that might be fake!” Jeremy replied.
Connor grabbed a diary that he found on one of the dark wizards, “here, have a look at this. The date and information of the invasion is on pages 43 and 45.”
Jeremy flipped through the book, noting how one of the pages is stained crimson where the entries end. “Well, this is definitely the journal of a dark wizard… and the handwriting is different from the note you sent me… Alright, I’ll hear you out stranger, but if you try something funny then you’ll rot in the silent tower for the rest of your life.”
“Fair enough. Alright, as you now know, the invasion will be taking place 3 days from now, so we need to be fast. I propose that we rally the townspeople and start preparing defenses on days one and two, for day three we will train some volunteers to help defend the town. Sound good?” Connor said.
“There are a couple things wrong with that plan. One, we will need to convince the mayor to hear our plea. The townspeople respect him and will follow his wishes, they will not be spurred to action if we don’t get the mayor on our side. Two, we can’t just call villagers to fight. We can hire bounty hunters, wizards and mercenaries. But I will not send townsfolk to fight, even if they are volunteers.” Jeremy answered
“Yeah, I can understand the thing about the townspeople, but either you or the mayor are going to have to cover the costs of hiring help. Speaking of the mayor… You could probably get him to our side right? You are his only son after all.” Connor said, grimacing slightly at the end.
“Yes, I could probably talk to the mayor and hire some help. But you will need to oversee construction of the defenses, I don’t know the best defensive structures and how to build them” Jeremy replied as a plan started to form in his head.
“It’s a deal then, I’m staying in the Singing Angel if you need me. If you can rally the townsfolk together then we’ll get right to building tomorrow morning.” Connor said
The next morning, Connor got up early and went downstairs for breakfast before the day’s toils. During his meal, Jeremy came in and sat down next to Connor.
“Hey Jet, I’ve convinced the mayor to help us. He’ll make an announcement at 10AM. You’ve got 2 hours to come up with a plan of what defenses to build. We currently have sturdy stone walls and two unmanned guard towers at the gate. Waddya think?” Jeremy asked.
"We could start with digging a moat. If we have lot of people helping us then we should have enough time to fortify the gate and maybe make spikes for the pit. If we have enough time after that then we can make traps along the outside of the moat. Say, does anyone have any bear traps? We could cover those in snow to hide them. " Connor said.
“I could tell the mayor to ask in the announcement” Jeremy suggested
“Good” Connor answered, “We could get some wizards or archers to man the guard towers and get others to man the wall whilst the melee fighters wait behind the gate in case the dark wizard blasts it open”
“Looks like you have it covered” Jeremy said “I’ll leave you to work out the details while I go update the mayor.”
Three hours later, the mayor made the announcement. There was some panic amongst the crowd but as soon as they were told that Jeremy had it all figured out; they calmed down a bit. Connor was given a ton of workers to help him build the defenses.
“Alright. First, we are going to dig a moat around the perimeter of the walls! There is a cart of shovels near the gate. The moat should be at least 6 feet deep. You will receive regular breaks, so no slacking off!” Connor ordered the workers. He was never much of a leader, but since the mayor told the townspeople to listen to him; they did.
Connor got to work along with the workers. He had higher endurance and strength than the regular townsperson, so it was only natural (in his eyes) that he should help too. They worked throughout the day, stopping every hour for breaks. Until eventually, at the end of the day, the moat was dug.
end of chapter two
The next one will be better, honest. I’ll write it next weekend.