<h4>Chapter 221: Hank''s Story</h4>


    Lake was leading the people back from their third trip of gathering food when he saw a gargoyle running away from them. Looking down at the food in his arms then at the gargoyle that didn''t seem interested in them at all he decided to just mark it and go look for itter after he dropped off this food.


    The people in the group were probably going to try to sleep again because he kept waking them up after like an hour so he was going to have some alone time to walk around the city by himself and this would give him something to do. They only had like another five minutes of walking so it wouldn''t be too much longer before he was able to go and destroy maybe thest gargoyle in the city.


    ...


    Watching the mage that could use stone control conjoin the two roofs they were going to use to make the wind formation Donny moved over to the edge of the roof so he could look at the street below. Stone control didn''t really make any noise but there was still a chance something would notice what they were doing up here.


    After a few minutes of waiting the Earth Mage was done and Donny said. "Alright time to get to work. I''ll do everything but the mana absorber so just focus on your part." Setting the first circle on the ground Donny filled it with everything that a floating tform would need before giving the other guy the chance to do his part.


    With that done Donny started to check it to make sure it would actually work once they activated itter. He wished he could just test it but the amount of mana it would be using to power itself might draw someone who could use Wind magic here. A lot of people forgot that a lot of Demon Worshipers could use other types of magic if they were normal humans because they never did during fights.


    The formation would probably make some noise too so that was another reason he couldn''t just switch it on and see if it worked right. Once he was done checking the formation Donny Set another circle around the formation and said. "It''s stable, you can back off." They could now just wait until the fortress light came back on to head out but Donny wanted to see what was going on over there.


    He wasn''t going to go there right now though he wanted to wait a few more hours so he would have an urate grasp on what was going on closer to the time they headed for the fortress. If he went now there was a chance what he saw waspletely different by the time they got there.


    Walking downstairs with the other mages Donny looked at them and said. "My name''s Donny." In a time like this Donny felt like getting friendly with people that could die wasn''t a good idea but they had hours to pass so this was better than just sitting in silence looking at the wounded people all around them.


    "I''m Fendis." The wind mage that helped him make the formation reached out his hand for a handshake after he said this and Donny shook his hand while waiting for the other person to introduce themselves. "I''m Hank, and we''ve actually met before a few years ago." Hearing this Donny raked his brain for this guy.


    "I''m not surprised you don''t remember, I wasn''t a major part of what happened." Donny had to know what they were talking about so he asked. "What happened?" It had to be something important if this guy remembered him after all this time. "It was a few years ago on the road out of the Metal Domain. We were attacked by a group of bandits from one of the mountains and you killed them all before they even got close to us with this flying metal disk."


    After Donny heard this he remembered what Hank brought up but not Hank but that was probably because of what happened after the attack. All the people in the caravan had offered him drinks as thanks and Donny had gotten hammered because while he had stopped drinking at that point he didn''t have the best self control when he still had his shield.


    He had stopped drinking a few days after he heard the Demon Lords voice the first time because he was afraid he would agree to something while he was drunk but when fifty something people were trying to get you to drink with them it was hard to say no. "Did we drink together?"


    "Yeah for about five hours until you punched yourself unconscious." Donny had done this sometimes in the early days when he heard the Demon Lord if he wasn''t in the mood to listen so that must have been one of those times but he was sure it had been crazy to see for everyone there. "That was why everyone treated me so well for the rest of the trip."


    They must have thought he was unstable after seeing him punch himself in the head and didn''t want him to freak out again. "I''ve always wanted to ask why you did that. To this day I think about it once or twice a week." Donny didn''t know what to say so he just started talking. "I don''t remember it but I must have been having a great time to do something like that."


    "See I always wondered if someone had rage poisoned you or something with one of the drinks to steal the disk but when you seemed fine and woke up after a few hours it put a real dent in that theory." Donny could see why he would think this because the shield was constantly drawing people''s envy but what probably happened was the Demon Lord started talking to him and he had knocked himself out to be safe.


    "Who knows, I don''t think I''ve done that ever again so maybe you''re right." It was weird to think this guy had been there the day he left for the Holy domain and was now here with him again while the Metal Domain was being destroyed. "So how long ago did you get back from the Holy Domain?" Donny wondered if they had alsoe back just a few days ago to help.


    "Around a year ago. My wife wanted toe back because her dad was acting strange." Donny wanted to know what they meant by that but hearing the word wife made him think of the guy that he saved that was looking for his wife. He still hadn''t seen him after all this time and Donny was pretty sure they hadn''t made it here.


    Snapping back to his conversation Donny asked. "How did you know her dad was acting strange without being here?"


    "Her and her mom write to each other so after about five letters where my mother-inw made it sound like her father had gone off the deep end she said we had toe home." That was a good reason toe home. "So what ended up happening to her dad?"


    "He disappeared about a week ago but for a while after we got home he was acting pretty normal to the point where I thought they had made it up to make use home before we had our first child. Now I think he was actually a secret Demon Worshiper with the timing of his disappearance. That, or he was killed by them."


    It was hard to say what the truth was but Donny wanted to know what this weird behavior was to see if he could figure it out. "What kind of weird things was he doing in the letters?"


    "Disappearing for hours and saying weird things." Donny didn''t know but that sounded like a Demon Worshiper to him. This made him think that the Demon Worshipers had been recruiting from the people here instead of them all sneaking in with the immigrants that moved here.


    Well the first few had probably snuck in but after that depending how they were recruiting they didn''t need to worry about getting anyone else inside. He wondered how long it had taken them to get enough people here in the Metal Domain to pull this off. It had probably been in progress when he had left for the Holy Domain.


    He was sure the Demon Worshipers had at least a few people in every domain but they didn''t seem to be doing anything like this anywhere other than here and the Dark Domain in the past. He wondered if they were working towards it everywhere or there was something they wanted here and the Dark domain that the other domains didn''t have.


    Donny was about to end this topic and start another with Fendis since he had been left out of the conversation up until now when he heard someone yell from the other room where most of the wounded were being kept. Running into the room he saw it was someone that had been in the room watching Peter slowly die from the spell he had been hit by.


    They were now holding a sheet over Peter''s side and by the amount of blood that was soaking into the sheet Donny could tell the wound had opened to a deadly degree. Donny didn''t really think there was anything they could do about it but he still grabbed the Health potion that was on a dresser near him and ran it over to Peter to try and stop the bleeding.