Two Worlds – Zrora And The Centennial

  The city of Zrora had never been attacked before, there had been small skirmishes, sure – outside of the walls, but the architects that built Zrora had a great defensive plan in place. The plan had kept the city and its occupants safe for over a hundred years, even before the World Eater came. Now though – the city burned.

  ---

  The night of the centennial was supposed to be a celebration, started out that way – in fact. A celebration of life under attack, of survival for a hundred years. Banners lined the streets celebrating those that kept everyone safe, entertainers on nearly every street corner in the eastern district. People juggled without using their hands, food cooked itself and was passed out to entertained onlookers. It was a spectacle, a wonderful and grand spectacle…

  Until the explosion, that is.

  That night, during the celebration while people were still drinking and being merry, the aurora around the World Eater changed. It darkened and deepened, extending further out than ever witnessed before. No one really took notice though, it was an aurora – no one expected it to be a portent of change, of the devastation that its darkening would herald.

  About half an hour after midnight the very ground shook, now – this happened from time to time, the jaws of the World Eater would shift slightly and the planet would tremble, but the city was prepared for that - it’s buildings reinforced to withstand the forces. This earthquake though? Far too strong for a lot of the buildings and many collapsed, prematurely ending the celebrations. Emergency services rushed out and rescue parties were formed. People dug themselves out or were dug out of precarious situations and lives were lost. Adventurer’s and civilians alike gathered and used all their knowledge and skills to aid the situation.

  Half an hour after the earthquake the great wall exploded.

  Half a mile north of the eastern gate, still well within the city proper and not very close to the much smaller northern wall, massive chunks of the hundred foot wall burst inwards with smoke and fire joining them. The chunks flew an impossible distance into the city, many of them hitting people and structures and left nothing but rubble, torn dirt, and pools of blood where they hit. Large grooves half a mile into the city were worn into the ground by these gargantuan chunks of no-longer-enchanted stone leaving streaks of ruin behind in many directions inward from the source.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  The breech was maybe 30 feet wide and it cleaved its way through the very top of the hundred foot wall. How the monsters had breached it was unknown, it had stood for almost a hundred full years without ever gaining more than a scratch, but now it was in tatters and shown to be unable to stand up to the onslaught. Monsters poured through the gap by the thousands, absolutely fearsome was their war cry. Civilians and guards ran westward, some north and some south, hoping that the secondary wall might hold if they were on the other side of it. Adventurer’s ran too, most of them beyond brave as they ran toward the invading horde.

  Clusters of adventurers formed in bubbles outside the masses of monsters and artillery mages had their chance to shine, having never expected to unleash their powerful spells within the city itself. Truly gigantic fireballs one hundred feet in diameter erupted from these mages lifting hundreds of feet into the air and then falling onto the hoards of monsters in sections of the city where no people remained, all slaughtered or fled. After a wave or two of intense fire the artillery mages were redirected to aim for the breech and the area just this side of it.

  Huge snow storms formed over the breech and massive whirlwinds could barely be seen inside the blizzard-like conditions. A huge white serpentine dragon, probably three hundred feet long, appeared shrouded in white mist. It breathed some of this mist over large chunks of monsters and most of those monsters never made it back out of the mist.

  A lot of magic was thrown around over the course of those first ten minutes, however, the artillery mages are bursty and not intended for sustained activity, they quickly ran out of oomph. Tens of thousands of monsters still poured into the city, thousands more already in. They had taken a big bite out of the attacking force but there were just so many monsters.

  Eventually the melee and closer ranged combatants stepped in. A wall of adventurers against tidal waves of monsters. For a while, the adventurers were pushed back – the monsters torching everything in their wake, no person or structure left standing in the ever expanding circle of influence they held. For two or three hours the monstrous hoard gained territory within Zrora, it was a bloody fight with many human casualties.

  Skills activated and spells flashed, monster abilities countered and the hoard overpowered the defenders – for a time. Around three that following morning the monstrous horde started to thin out, reinforcements slowing. The hoard pressed on, still gaining territory, but it slowed and fewer humans died. This state of slow territory loss lasted another hour before the reinforcements for the attacking side dried up completely.

  Four in the morning came and the onslaught reversed, suddenly the attacking force was being pushed back, their numbers dwindling without the constant reinforcements. The civilians in the north eastern parts of the city, having fully fled or died by now, had taken significant losses nearing seven thousand unclassed peoples, the party had been in full swing when the attack happened. The adventurer’s losses were higher at closer to ten thousand.

  Around five in the morning the city saw significant push back of the monsters and the hoard was mostly eradicated by eight. After eight the adventurers would continue mopping up the occasional monster that had hidden itself in the north eastern quarter somewhere.

  New stronger rune stones were found among the corpses of the attackers increasing the strength of the defenders as they went, rune stones were recovered from the fallen – helping to replenish adventurer numbers over the next months. The wall would be repaired and strengthened to best of humanities capabilities and it would be another hundred years before the next complete breach like the night of the centennial celebration, though – by then humanity was expecting it and ready to counter the stronger waves of enemies during the next phase change.

  The attacking forces, a count would eventually reveal, were in the sixty thousands heralding a change in humanities defensive postures. The Zroran defenders knew something had now changed and took those changes seriously after their tremendous losses.