Good Timing

"It's starting to get bad." Donny had been thinking the same but hadn't said it because he was focused on clearing their area. "Would you mind going up into the air and telling me what's going on in the rest of the city?" Fendis could fly so using him to gather information made sense since he was the one who was killing all the phantoms and couldn't leave.

"No problem." As Fendis started to rise into the air Donny went back to clearing out the phantoms that were coming every few seconds now. A few seconds later Fendis lowered back to his side and started to tell him about the rest of the town. "It looks like it's bad but still under control."

"So you didn't see any giants?" Fendis shook his head no before turning and opening fire with his charged formation. As long as no phantoms got out of control no one would have to leave their assigned areas and the situation would stay under control but with how volatile this situation was he would be surprised if they made it through the night with perfect results.

"How do you think they planned on surviving this with just their guards?" Fendis' question made him realize that the situation was probably not what the mayor expected either. "I think something is probably wrong. There's probably more than they were expecting." He didn't know what caused it though.

"What should we do?" Donny had to think about this for a while before he said. "Use fly and go find the guard we came with. He'll tell us what to do." Donny was sure they would be told to hold their position but Fendis wasn't really doing anything so it didn't matter if he wasted his time. "Alright I'll be right back."

Right after Fendis flew away a person came running towards him from up the street while yelling something. Watching the way the man dodged around the phantoms without stopping Donny assumed the message was important and probably about the situation they were facing. After the man got closer Donny finally heard what it was they were saying and signed in relief.

"Help is on the way. In a few minutes someone will arrive to protect the city." Donny would have loved to hear more but the man was gone as quickly as he came so Donny just had to guess who it could be that the mayor had called to protect them. The Earth Domain was pretty big so if they were able to get here before the sun came up they had to be decently strong.

…

Seeing the town up ahead Lake was able to tell at just a glance the weird light that had been over the whole tone the last time he had seen it was no longer there. He wasn't surprised by this because the old man he was sure had cast the weird Light spell the other night had been chasing him around the Earth Domain for around a day.

"When we get inside the city follow me up to the castle so I can light the streets. After that is done I'll lead you and a few other people down to where the door we want you to get us through is." Lake started to nod but stopped when he was able to see what was going on in the city. "What are those things?"

Lake knew it was kind of weird that he could see inside the city from here but to him it looked like ghosts were swarming the city and he would rather know the answer to his question than hide how high his Perception was. "We call them phantoms. We don't know what they actually are though so that's just a name based on how they look."

Lake wanted to ask if there were other things like ghosts that these things had been named for looking like but decided he would rather not talk anymore. They were about to pass into the city and he didn't want to pay attention to anything other than dodging around these things. "If you're able to use Earth magic please refrain."

Lake hadn't even thought of trying to fight these things but hearing he shouldn't use a certain type of magic made him wonder why. He would find a chance to ask more about this later after he wasn't having to dodge around ghostly hands with every step they took. Once they reached the castle Lake saw the older man start to slow down and walk up to the gate.

He didn't understand this because he felt both of them were more than capable of just jumping directly to the top to the spire where the older man would light the city from here but it seemed the older man wanted to move through the gate for some reason. Lake decided to not ask because he was still keeping an eye on the closest of the phantoms to make sure none of them got too close.

"It seems there's no one at the gate. I'll just open it myself then." The old man didn't say this to Lake but with him right next to him he heard it and turned to see how the old man would open the gate from this side. All it took was a small wave of the man's hand which made lake guess the gate had been made so this old man could open it himself if he ever needed.

This or the old guy could move things that were made of wood using a skill or some spell he knew. Once they walked through to the courtyard Lake was able to see there weren't nearly as many phantoms here and after a second of looking he saw why. From a random place on the wall a beam of bluish light shot out and hit the phantom ripping it to pieces.

Lake guessed this was a defensive formation made by the old mage he was with to deal with any phantoms that came to the castle but he could tell by the speed that it was activating it had never been made to deal with this many. "Are there more than normal?"

Lake hadn't meant to ask this but it had come out on its own. The older man didn't seem to mind answering even if they were still in the middle of making their way towards the spire stairs. "Yes this is more than what came out the last night we had to deal with them."

Seeing as the man was now open to sharing a bit of information Lake tried his luck at another question he didn't think the old man would mind him knowing the answer to. "Why do people still live here if this happens at night?" He would have moved out the first day but he had seen a lot of people on the way here running around the phantoms like they were used to it.

"We originally planned to abandon the town but it was quickly discovered that if the phantoms weren't dealt with soon after emerging they grew in strength and spread to cover a larger area every night. It would have only taken about a year for them to make it to other towns and start causing problems there so I proposed we start to make it really cheap to live here for older adventurers who had retired. We also have a lot more guards than a town this size would need and most of them are mages, or at least can use a few spells."

With the older man still talking Lake decided to push his luck a bit with his next question. "Why are we moving so slow?" The old man was very fast earlier when they were running towards town so them now moving at a snail's pace up the stairs when the town was slowly being overrun made no sense to Lake.

"Mana." This was all the older man said leaving figuring out what he meant up to Lake. His first guess would be the movement earlier was from a skill or spell that cost mana to use and the old man was using the slow climb up the stairs at his real speed to let his mana recharge. If he was right he guessed the light spell used at the top of the spire must need a lot of power for it to last the whole night.

Six or so minutes later they were finally at the top and Lake was excited to see what this spell looked like. "Would you please turn away? I don't want someone like you to see my secret spell." Lake was a little disappointed after such a long wait but decided he didn't actually care since he wouldn't really be able to use the spell anyway by just seeing it cast once.

…

Seeing a blue light take over the whole city at once Donny was confused because this was Hamptons spell and he wasn't supposed to be here. It didn't really matter to him the reason or how he had returned early since it was already bringing the emergency to an end with all the remaining phantoms being pushed back underground at once.

"Let's go find the guard. He's probably going to see if we're still going to be paid or not now that it's over." They hadn't really done what they had been hired to do which was protect the city till morning with no one dying but at the same time they had done more than what they had been hired for since it had gone out of control and there had been a lot more phantoms than expected.

This made whether they had done enough to be paid now so they could leave indiscernible which would probably lead to a negotiation. He didn't want to miss this by standing here even though the phantoms were gone. "I'm still getting paid for this right!"

Looking up at the sudden yell from the sky Donny saw a man standing in the sky looking down at the city. "Who do you think that is?" Fendis' question made Donny snap out of his stupor and think. "It's probably the help that was on its way." Donny had kind of assumed the help turned out to be Hampton but now that someone standing in the sky was talking about still being paid that probably wasn't the case.