The Tree was situated directly in the city's center and in the middle of a mana zone of its own creation. It wasn’t unusual for a group of monsters to seek the mana zone out.
Normally the guardsmen made short work out of them. That changed a few months ago when monster groups of unprecedented strength started appearing.
The defense of the city walls didn’t turn bloody yet but it was only a question of time before the first casualty in a long time would be claimed.
It was not that monster-related deaths were not unusual, they simply happened to the fools searching for riches behind the cities’ protections, not to its well-trained defenders.
Kerek took his trusty pistol with him everywhere he went since the first bigger attack, that day the battle concluded before he got back from his run to the armory.
He wasn’t on duty then, but he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself if someone died in a defense where he could’ve helped.
The attacks got unpredictable enough that being armed even on his off days was warranted.
These thoughts made him stop at the side of the road and take his weapon apart, double-checking the mana crystal powering it. It was a sphere with a rough surface that glowed a light blue and while the bright color made his eyes hurt, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to let that interrupt his work.
His quick check-up didn’t reveal any deficiencies, so without further ado, he resumed his march. Only to pause and facepalm. He forgot to take the rebreather with him, one of the newer inventions designed by the "bright" minds from Arkana, the college of arcane arts.
Returning was slightly annoying, but not outside of the realm of expectations. It wasn’t Kerek’s first and it wouldn’t be his last time to forget something important.
Some rummaging through the house revealed the metallic apparatus sitting on his bedroom table. Its two pistons and unmistakable metallic sheen which made the masks so popular at costume parties led to its fast discovery.
With the rebreather hanging around his neck, Kerek left his house in the direction of the gathering.
The further he went the more decrepit grew the houses. He heard from the merchants that having the city center be the poorest part of the city was highly unusual, he couldn’t say he felt the same way.
He found it logical that the paranoid rich would try to give the Tree as much of a berth as possible.
Ironic then that it was their paranoia that paradoxically made them the most vulnerable if the city walls ever got breached. To be fair, that didn’t use to be a real possibility. Until it was.
Maybe the citizens elsewhere acclimated to their Trees faster, so the wealthy built right next to their Tree?
It was a rare occasion when they got a caravan. Currently, no traders were staying in Korgadar and he didn’t feel motivated enough to find which of his gossipy neighbors knew this particular piece of information.
Resigning himself to ignorance Kerek continued on his way.
He knew that his thoughts were wandering, but he didn’t fight it as it was impossible to get lost while following the silhouette of the Tree. It was the tallest landmark far and wide.
The second highest structure was the central tower overseeing the defense of the main gate. Comparing the two of them was like saying a newly sprouted sapling and an aged oak were in the same height category.
It was not even close.
Behind the last set of hovels stood a small stone wall, closer to a fence than a wall if he was being realistic. The obvious state of disrepair hinted at the truth of the matter.
The wall was built in the past when people still felt skeptical about their Guardian, the foolishness of constructing a stone wall to protect against a mana beast didn’t discourage their efforts.
The growing faction of Tree sympathizers decided to jokingly help out, which ended in the creation of an extremely unserious stone barrier in some places.
The citizens soon found out how expensive such a defense truly was and gave up on its creation. Most materials had to be either imported or created from mana, both costly endeavors.
The sympathizers stopped with their humorous efforts soon after.
This led to the creation of wall segments which differed in size and sprung up seemingly out of nowhere and ended just as abruptly.
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It wasn’t until much later that the First Gathering decided to repurpose the stone from the defensive wall segments for the completion of the sarcastic low wall.
The decision wasn’t made out of fear, neither was it born of ridicule.
The First Gathering was more practical, it decided to set an obvious border to the Tree’s territory and subsequently give it to it as a reward for sheltering them from the imperial army and helping the subsequent Freedom siege.
Walling the zone was an easy way to set a clear boundary, while also taking advantage of the already existing infrastructure.
Yes, theoretically speaking, the Tree was the biggest landowner in Korgadar.
The passage through the low-wall was protected by a gate, not surprisingly, it was more of a reinforced wooden door. However, what this checkpoint lacked in defensive infrastructure it made up in personnel.
Waving people through and distributing comfortable sitting mats was no other than Samantha, the infamous 8-foot-tall crystalline golem.
He speculated that her body was made out of mana crystal, the familiar roughness, the blue glow. He was however not brave enough to ask.
Her muscular frame combined with a height that forced her to bend down while walking through doorframes cut an imposing image.
It was nothing compared to the intimidation factor of seeing her fight, Samantha, as elites usually did, preferred cold weaponry to the arcane rifles.
They were often both stationed on the southern wall and he must say that seeing her split monsters in half with a battleaxe bigger than Kerek’s whole body made for one hell of an impression.
She was at the forefront of every battle, leading every charge. The berserker of Korgadar was not someone to be trifled with.
She must’ve caught him staring as her pale blue eyes locked with his, breaking into a cold sweat Kerek hurriedly dropped his gaze. Defending the same wall didn’t magically turn them into best friends and if he was being honest, she scared him.
The line moved fast and soon he was having his identity verified. He put his hand on the orb Samantha held in her hands, and after a few seconds, it started shining a pleasant black proving that his mana signature was in the database.
Done with the formalities he received his sitting mat and continued onward.
The same breathtaking scene that greeted him at every Ekklesia presented itself, a plain of vibrant green stretching for as long as the eye could see, only the great Tree in the distance disturbed the otherwise homogenous environment.
It was a sight like no other in the desert and stood in stark contrast to the desolate environment of black sand and harsh wind that one could find behind the walls.
When he focused he could see blue streaks racing through the Tree's enormous trunk, Its mana pool was so big that it produced mana currents when The Tree moved Its mana around.
Kerek didn't have a good eye for estimates, but the Tree must've been miles tall. Its glowing branches stretched again as far.
He saw a couple of work acquaintances beckoning him to sit with them and he saw no reason not to. The conversation was pleasant enough, if much less professional than he was used to.
He talked to these people mostly during their guard shifts and except for the occasional hello in the street or a random Ekklesia meeting didn't have much contact with them.
The green plains were slowly getting fuller and fuller with citizens trickling to the gathering in the thousands. While taking part was by no means obligatory, only a few people voluntarily gave up their right to governance, time dilatation, and effective cultivation.
Like this, more than 80,000 people met here every week to decide the future workings of their city. Yes, the Executive committee took care of the day-to-day goings, but this was where the important changes were made.
With all the citizens concentrated in one place, many measures needed to be implemented.
During the week-long period leading to the Ekklesia the city’s shield generator was greedily sucking in ambient mana, the city-wide energy dome it provided during each gathering was an insurance that their city wouldn’t be overrun during the absence of most of its defenders.
To preserve law and order in the city The tree provided its famous wooden constructs, the Ents.
During Ekklesia’s they served both as a policing force for the few who decided to not partake in the gathering and a caretaking one for all young ones below the age of 18, as they were deemed too young to take part in their gatherings.
The Reform tried to sink the required age of participation to 16, or at least enable the young ones to visit as spectators, but while it was gaining momentum, proposals of this change still ended up short of the three-fifths of votes that a core change required.
His thoughts on the topic were interrupted by a mana beam of monstrous size shooting into the sky, its brightness forcing him to avert his eyes.
When the light became manageable once more, the breathtaking sight of the mana dome spreading from the center of the beam greeted him. No longer was the dark sky visible, instead a crimson-red barrier blocked the sky.
As if on signal groups of Ents started departing from the Tree’s location.
They were mostly in pairs, where one was a hunkering nine-foot-tall behemoth covered in a glossy black plate armor inscribed from head to toe with arcane script. While the second member of each pair stood in stark contrast to the first one.
It was a slim dryad with androgynous features and a warm motherly smile. This way the children would be both comfortable and protected.
The rest of the Ents split into five-man fire teams. Though it was slightly paradoxical to call them such, each Ent may have carried a mana blaster on their belt, the melee however was what they excelled at.
Two of these teams again merged into a squad, which merged into platoons and then companies, until finally four battalions of tree soldiers stood gathered in front of the sitting people.
They stood eerily motionless, entirely unnatural, and unlike what he would expect of even the most disciplined army.
Their hulking forms were armored in the best Korgadar’s forges could offer and they were towering above even the tallest of residents. Their eyes, hidden behind two slits of their medieval-looking helmet, glowed an eerie gray.
He imagined that in the past this sight would strike fear into even the most fervent of the Tree’s supporters, today no one seemed to even notice how terrifying this force truly was.
The moment of stillness soon passed and for a few minutes, only the sound of boots stomping could be heard as each battalion departed to defend its allocated wall section.
Now that they were both protected and isolated from the outside world, the guardsmen currently on shift would soon change their positions with the wooden constructs and instead head for the Ekklesia.
As soon as the last wall guard joined them the citywide meeting would begin.
