I have been scaling the tunnels and the area around the fire altar. The reason is that I am trying to find the optimal route for patrolling the area. There are three areas to breach the fire altar. The tunnels that connect these three paths are pretty complicated in their own right.

  I need to set up a proper patrolling route through these areas. Such that I can cover the place securely with my limited soldiers. I guess that I could have left this particular responsibility to the soldiers under me. Alfred mayfire and Amelia mayfire certainly have the better mana sense. (Only for a little while though.)

  The problem is that I am the only person here who knows how exactly all the traps have been placed. Alfred or Amelia would have inevitably set off all the traps here if I were to give them this task.

  I also don't want them to be finding out about a couple of surprises that I have hidden in the forbidden tunnel. It is nothing special, but I don't know how they will react to this tunnel being damaged.

  Another problem is that relying on them for such a thing will certainly be a hit on my authority. I barely can command these people as it is. The only reason that they are bothering to follow my commands is because I am the formation mage.

  If Alfred or Amelia were to start questioning me, it would lead to a rift. When that time inevitably ends up coming, I want them to have as little authority as possible.

  I will be honest. I think that I am being a bit paranoid about this. None of the people here have yet to challenge my authority. Still better to plan for the worst-case scenario.

  Figuring out something as basic as a patrol route is something that would have taken me half an hour. That is with my intact mana sense though. I am being forced to physically map out a route because I cannot rely on my mana sense to do it for me.

  I guess that I should explain to you why I am being forced to focus so much on patrolling. One of the major flaws with the defenses of this place is that it is heavily reliant on the traps and things that I have to manually activate.

  The problem with such a type of defense is that traps can be deactivated. If the enemy were to sneak up on us, I don't have a lot of tricks to deal with them. We cannot let them get even a small foothold in the fire altar.

  Without my mana sense, I have to rely on my soldiers to come and wake me up when the attack begins to make sure that I am ready. Even that might not be enough in the heat of the moment.

  That would require that my patrolling troupe is not caught off guard. Even a minute wasted might be enough to catch us off guard.

  That is why this is something that I want to keep a particularly keen eye on. Anyways, I don't know what else I am supposed to be doing. Inside I would have been forced to remain in my room.

  After all, The patriarch is going to be leaving on this attack of his within a couple of hours.

  Right now inside, every soldier is preparing for this attack with mad energy. Even the young ones that are going to remain behind here with me are helping the soldiers pack.

  I wish that they would have allowed me to observe this preparation of theirs. I would have learned so much. There is a limit to how trusting the mayfires will be.

  I am sure that they are preparing every single trick that they have for this attack. If I could just observe them I would be able to learn quite a few of their secrets.

  Well, trying to enter back into the fire altar would be pretty stupid. The soldiers will find a convenient excuse to leave me on the other side of this room.

  Why increase my work and theirs by trying to pull it off? After all, I need these people to succeed as well. I guess that I should make use of this time to discuss what they are even planning to pull off here.

  To explain their plan of attack, I will first have to explain what the fuck is even going on here. It has mostly been Trevor that has learned most of these things.

  The soldiers are just too alert around me, Jacob and Andrew for us to learn anything.

  Everything that we have learned here comes from what Trevor has learned by gossiping with these people. So there might be a possibility that some details are not true.

  You see at the beginning of this mess, the necromancers had managed to catch the mayfires by surprise. They quickly managed to conquer large chunks of the fortress. (How exactly they made it in here is something that we haven't managed to learn yet.)

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  By the time the mayfires managed to react, they had lost most parts of the fort. Still, they retreated to the fire altar and quickly set up the barrier. Right now it is separating the necromancers from the rest of the city. This was the only thing that gave them a fighting chance against the enemy.

  The fire altar is acting as a makeshift mana battery powering the barrier. If they had not managed to put up this barrier, the mayfires would have all been defeated in a matter of a week.

  A populated city is the worst place in which you can fight a necromancer after all. The mayfires did a pretty good job restricting them like this. After all the Soldar Plains is a pretty heavily populated area.

  A necromancer army here would have been a threat that could have harmed even the hexmountain.

  The necromancers managed to take control of the southern part of the fort though where they had a base. This is the area in which all of the formation arrays of the mayfires are present.

  These arrays contain all of the more violent defenses that the mayfires have. The things that they can use to attack the enemy and get rid of them quickly.

  Thankfully, the mayfires have protection present against the activation of these formations. Only authorized people can activate them. Thankfully, the necromancers have yet to break through these defenses.

  Still, by taking over the place, they have managed to make the mayfires weaponless in this fight. Even the mayfire's move of restricting the enemy to the inner keep cannot be maintained forever. After all, the mana present at the fire altar is not infinite.

  They estimate that they will not be able to power the barrier in about half a month more. That is why there is a desperate edge to the people here.

  Anyways, even if they could maintain the barriers for long enough. It is not like they would have been able to hold against the encroaching undead. Fighting a battle of attrition against a necromancer is stupid. Every soldier that you lose means that they gain a soldier.

  The necromancers had started this fight with only the corpses of the servants in this place. Slowly and steadily though, they have been growing their army from the soldiers here.

  Right now, we have not managed to confirm just how many people have been lost here. We just know that it is a significantly large number.

  This means that the mayfires won't be able to hold on for long. Right now the only option they have left is to attack the enemy and take back the fort before they are decimated fully.

  That is where their plan of attack comes in. The mayfires are betting their survival on a single attack which will allow them to take over the enemy stronghold. It will also help them get back their weapons.

  The main problem that the mayfires are facing while trying to attack this base is the barrier. The necromancers have covered their base in some kind of toxic miasma. You can barely resist it by channeling your vital mana. When you have to face a group of necromancers you cannot handicap yourself in this manner. Trying to fight them near this miasma is stupidly dangerous.

  With their abilities, they should be able to quickly take over the enemy base, otherwise. The goal of the patriarch is to simply burn through this miasma.

  The plan is simple if you were to think about it. The attacking forces are going to split themselves into two groups. The first is the patriarch and the formation mages. The second is the remaining mayfires.

  The second group must attract the attention of the enemy. They will essentially be making noise and forcing the necromancers to divert their undead to fight them.

  Then the first group is going to be getting close to this miasma while sneaking through the undead. They will then make use of the mana in the fire altar to power some kind of a powerful spell. They theorize that it should be able to burn through the miasma.

  Once that happens, the second group is going to attack the undead along with the first group. With all of the necromancer's army stuck in this pincer, they should fall pretty quickly. At least that is the hope.

  It is a pretty risky plan, but I think that the Mayfires have no other option right now. Even this last gamble of theirs they are trying out because I have come here. After all, this plan of theirs is forcing them to commit all of their resources to attack.

  If the enemy were to attack the fire altar during this period the place would be left defenseless.

  On top of that projection is always a risky process. Even if the formation mages somehow succeed in controlled projection there is always the chance that something will go wrong. The sword could get overloaded with mana. Then who knows what will happen? It could simply explode. It could cause the entire fortress to melt. There are so many things that could go wrong.

  I can see why they are taking a risk though. If they succeed with this plan of theirs they will be able to quickly take back their weapons. Once they do that, the necromancers will be pretty easy to get rid of.

  Then they can ambush the pirates in the outer keep as well. With the guard corps coming it would let them take back the city with minimal damage.

  If they fail though, they will be hunted like deer in their fort. As if that wasn't enough, the move that the patriarch is planning will completely drain the fire altar of mana.

  It won't be able to maintain the barrier anymore. The necromancers will be allowed into the city and they will slaughter them all to raise their new soldiers.

  With the archer holding back the reinforcements, the necromancers will quickly carve a niche in the fortress.

  The guard corps might finally be forced to give up their mission to the legion. I don't want to imagine the destruction that they will be bringing to this place.

  Well, my work is cut out in all of this. I don't need to think about the patriarch and his success. My thinking about it will not help me in any way.

  Instead, I should be focusing on making sure that nobody will manage to breach the fire altar or damage it in any way.

  If they manage to breach the fire altar during this process there is a pretty good chance that the entire plan will fail on the spot.

  If that were to happen, it does not matter whether the patriarch succeeded or not. We all will die.

  Well, there I go working myself into a panic again. I am shutting down this log for now.