The Insider System

Chapter 195: A Bunch Of Bad Choices

Walking into the Temple, Lake found the Temple Head was nowhere to be seen so he walked over to one of the people he could see and asked. "Hello, would you be willing to let the Temple Head know I\'m here?" The dwarf nodded and said. "I saw you earlier so you can just follow me. I know he\'s waiting on you."

Lake nodded and followed the dwarf deeper into the Temple, reaching a staircase and going up it he was faced with a door he didn\'t think he would be able to get through without crawling, so he asked. "Is this really the way?" The tiny dwarf nodded and said. "If you would prefer I can go in and get him."

Lake shook his head and said. "No, it\'s fine, I can manage." Under normal circumstances he would never do something like this unless he actually wanted to but he didn\'t want to stop the Temple Heads work just so he could avoid crawling. "Alright follow me." The tiny man opened the door and headed inside so Lake got down and walked on all fours behind him.

After a while they exited the hallway they were in into a room that he could stand up in that seemed to be some kind of library or possibly the Temple Heads study. The fact that the Temple Head was the only person here made him think the second option was actually the truth but he guessed the Temple Head might have asked everyone to leave so he could focus.

"Temple Head, the one you sent to look for the other half of the formation is back." Lake took the opportunity of the person talking to the Temple Head to look at the formation they had floating in the room. He saw the Temple Head had gone ahead and made the other half of the formation attached by the part he had called the bridge formation.

This made it look like there was a glowing cylinder in front of the Temple Head instead of the flat formations he had seen previously. "It\'s good you got back so quickly but it doesn\'t really change the problem we\'re in. Whoever made this formation is more knowledgeable than I am and this leaves us in a situation where we are going to have to guess a little when deciding where we should attack first. I need you to go ask Masters how many groups we have at our disposal before I can make any more progress in deciding the best way to destroy this formation."

Lake was ready to do what the Temple Head had asked but he went ahead and said where the other half of the formation was before he turned to crawl back out of the Temple. "It\'s on tier 42." Lake didn\'t get a reply from the Temple Head after he said this and just started to crawl towards the exit of the temple.

Once he was back outside he ran towards the Fighters guild to see it packed with people. Masters was at the front of them and was organizing them into larger groups. Lake was walking towards the front so he could talk to Masters when he heard. "Lake over here." Turning he saw Freed waving towards him and Lake waved towards them and continued towards Masters.

Masters saw him coming and stopped what he was doing and said. "In my office." Lake nodded and followed Masters towards the stairs. It made sense that Masters wouldn\'t want to discuss something like this in front of so many people because even if one spy was in the room it would give away the fact that they had found the Formations.

Once the door was closed Lake said. "The Temple Head wants to know how many groups we have so he can start planning where we are going to attack first." Masters sat at his desk before grabbing some paper and pen. "Here are our exact numbers and what roles they are. Tell him I was planning to split us into three but we could probably stretch to five well balanced teams if need be."

Lake didn\'t even take the time to look at the information Masters had handed to him and started back towards the Temple. Once he was back at the Temple he crawled towards the Temple Heads library and handed him the paper. Lake saw that since he had been gone the Temple Head had busted out a few books and was trying to decipher the intricate parts of the formation for any secret traps that might be inside.

"Tell him to make at least eight groups and four of them need to head down to the 42nd tier but I\'ll be sending out some of the Temples forces to follow each group so they won\'t be by themselves." Lake nodded and started back towards the Fighters guild when the Temple Head stopped him. "Half of them are going to die during the first attack if the formation is able to form no matter if we are successful or not because one of the places we have to attack first is in the middle of the attack formation."

"Wait even if they\'re successful?" Lake didn\'t like the sound of that and the Temple Head had said half of the people not just one fourth which was the amount of people they would be sending into the attack formation or at least that\'s what he expected because they had to attack the same place on each half of the formation at the same time for it to be effective.

"We aren\'t destroying any of the parts of the formation that we attack, just destroying the parts that are hooking them together that make them do weird new things if one of them is destroyed or damaged. Once these four lines are down." The Temple Head pointed at a few lines that went between the various parts of the formation as he said. "We can move on to these four points to start destroying the mana siphon with the half of us that survive the first attack."

"Why are you saying half instead of a fourth?" This was the last detail he wanted to know before he went to tell Masters what the Temple Head wanted from him. "Well just because the others aren\'t being sent into an attack formation doesn\'t mean they don\'t have a tough road ahead. They will still be in the center of the other formations as they come on, so I figure some of them will die as well meaning we\'ll have about half of us left for the next rounds of attacks."

Lake guessed that was solid logic and said. "That makes sense but what about the summoning formation won\'t that make an army of monsters we have to fight? Why are we going after the mana siphon first?" Lake couldn\'t help himself, he had to ask. "The summoning formation and the attack formation are one time only so once the formation is laid they will activate and then be useless so we don\'t really have to worry about destroying them or the imprisonment formation. That leaves the bridge which we can\'t touch and the mana siphon and most of us won\'t be able to fight whatever was summoned if we cant use magic."

Lake nodded, he understood now that it was truly the only option they had because apparently you couldn\'t destroy the bridge formation for some reason. "Ok, I\'m going now." Lake waved bye to the Temple Head before he started to crawl again. On the way out he couldn\'t help but think even with the fact that he had found the formation they didn\'t really have a very good chance.

...

As Tiff was walking up the stairs to the Light Temple in the middle of the Light Domains capital she couldn\'t help but wish the one she had lived in for a good part of her early life was as big as this one and above ground. Even with the light inside the Temples that makes it seem you aren\'t underground hiding from the Demon Worshipers you still started to miss the actual sun.

That was part of being someone with the holy affinity though, you had to stay in the Holy Domain as much as possible to be able to train in Holy magic because it was the only place with any Holy mana really left and all the small Light temples that had been build there were mostly underground so you just had to deal with the fact that you were trapped inside.

"Tiffany we have been expecting you. The God of Light is waiting." Looking at the light mage who had spoken to her, Tiffany couldn\'t help but start to get nervous. This would be the first time she was actually going to meet the God of Light so she couldn\'t help but worry what he would see during their conversation.

Tiff wasn\'t dumb enough to think she would be able to keep any secrets from a god so he would definitely know that she had been trying to run away this whole time. Tiffany took a deep breath and remembered she wouldn\'t be the only person he had ever met that had less than perfect goals.

She was sure even other members of the 23 he had met so far had been less than perfect. Putting on a calm face Tiff answered. "Lead the way I\'m ready." The Light Mage smiled and said. "You don\'t have to be so nervous, he\'s very nice." Tiff guessed that was a good thing to hear about the god you worshiped and smiled back as they walked towards the oracles sanctuary.