Waking up from his deep slumber, he was met by the familiar darkness of the land. Not a trace of light to be found, not knowing whether it was considered day or night. He threw on a fresh Heaven's Hand uniform and stepped out into the hallway. Lenore was flipping through the pages of her spell book, familiarising herself with its contents for the upcoming siege. As he stepped out she approached him looking slightly annoyed for whatever reason.
"You were asleep for two days, you know. How lazy," said Lenore.
"Sorry. I used more mana than I estimated in my battle with Ellis." said Lucius, they walked together for a minute before reaching a balcony overlooking the castle grounds.
"The Heaven's Hand has been ready to march for a couple hours, Ellis was just waiting for you to wake on our own. Now you have, we can finally get going." exclaimed Lenore, apparently peeved by the couple hour delay. Impatient. Lucius gave another apology then headed towards the mesh hall of the castle, eating with Lenore who was as ravenous as ever. The food at Snow's Rest was a step up from the camps so her excitement had a valid reason, this time.
After their hefty meal they walked out to where all the Heaven's Hand was gathered, they were gathered in a square formation having each division sorted by their respected leader. Lenore guided Lucius over to where his unit was gathered. They were met by Cercil and Arlen.
"So sleeping beauty wakes, I have to give my congratulations that battle was marvelous." exclaimed Cercil.
"Glad to see you are in working condition, sir. We should be able to start the march now. Major General Ellis von Snow said she was going to give a speech before we left." stated Arlen. After saying this Snow stepped onto the newly built stage, making a big show of her presence. It was positioned in front of the whole army so everyone had line of sight on her. Lucius knew this would either be a great success or a miserable failure.
"We now march to capture Dragmere Castle from the hands of the Sunkissed Empire, I expect to see everyone giving this their all. If we succeed we will gain a great advantage on the Empire. We have been personally entrusted with this vital mission so let's make sure it is a decisive victory with zero casualties." shouted Ellis, her speech was followed by the booming echoes of cheering from the army below her. Lucius had to hand it to her, she was quite good at getting the adrenaline pumping. Even he was touched with vigour at her speech.
After her short but sweet speech, the Heaven's Hand departed for Dragmere Castle which would take the best part of a whole month with the constant interruption of dark entities and trying to stay under the radar of the Sunkissed Empire. As you get closer to the center of the Darklands, amply named the Seed Of Evil where most of the higher tier entities reside. Not one human has yet to venture into Seed because of its treacherous nature. The area around the Seed is where Dragmere castle is located. The chances of encountering a medium tier entity is increased with the majority of encounters being with medium tier entities such as Blinds, Shawls and Rofes. Higher tier entities can be encountered within this area, all higher entities are different and cannot be named as a whole. Being up to the mages who encountered or slayed the entity. The Heaven's Hand wasn't phased by this though as we could easily deal with any medium tier entity.
After a long month the Heaven's Hand arrived at Dragmere, they used the increased darkness to hide and gain vital information on the state of the castle. It took a couple of weeks before a meeting was called to discuss their imminent battle. All of the upper echelons of the Heaven's Hand were gathered together including Cercil, and Arlen.
"By the intelligence we have given over the past week, they number around twenty thousand in total. We are outnumbered four fold but it shall be no issue." reported a warrant officer standing at attention while speaking.
"How are their defenses looking?" asked Ellis, who was seated at the head of the table.
"If I may, Major General. They appear to have set up a moat around the castle so climbing the walls will be impossible. There are a total of three bridges with steel gates; we have yet to locate any alternative entrances. Also, there are heavy patrols of around fifty soldiers which kill entities so approaching unnoticed may be an issue." reported another officer in the room.
"Hmm. How many mages are there? Asked Ellis.
"We estimate there are around a thousand mages in total, the commanding officer of the castle is supposedly an extremely powerful mage but that has yet to be confirmed. As that information comes from eavesdropping on patrolling guards. The thousand mages strength ranges on sage class with some reaching archmage class by what the scouts have witnessed." reported the head of the scouting party which was set up at the start of their march. (The other officers who reported on the enemy are also a part of the scouting party.)
"I doubt this will be anything but easy. We have no time to wait for the scouting party to locate any other entrances. The men are getting antsy and food supplies are starting to run low. This is the rough plan I'm currently thinking of: I'll split my unit into three and distribute the troops to Heaven's Three evenly. That could account for 1500 troops each, I'll join corbin's unit. corbin and I will take the gate in the center while Felix's unit takes the left and Lucius' unit takes the right.
The formations of the soldier will be up to the discretion of their commanding officers." announced Ellis amplifying her voice so it reaches everyone in the room. The battle plan discussions went on for a while longer, we went through the logistics and important details of the siege. One of these details was the Heaven's Hand mage count which was around four thousand in total of Sages and Archmages. Heaven's Hand is the elite of the elite when someone is showing extreme potential or overall power they are transferred to Heaven's Hand. The remaining one thousand consisted of accomplished swordsmen.