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The great city of Petra used to be considered a calm and peaceful city which lived off trading mineral resources and a great amount of high-quality, yet cheap food; visited for its beauty and wealth. These words could still be used to describe it, however, in order to survive the world of danger that the Godmodder had brought with him, they had to become a sturdier version of themselves.
And sturdier they became: three concentric walls (like SnK's, but smaller due to being a city's districts and not a country's layers) shine in blue on its layout, two meters thick and twenty tall, of a cerulean, metallic tone. They are called by their hue: the Cerulean Walls, made of an Orichalcum-Mythril alloy, were nothing but a huge metallic block for each wall, molded and homogenized as well as enchanted over the course of nearly a decade of neverending efforts until it had been finally completed. These beautiful walls separate the three "inner, middle and outer" districts of Petra, each with one function: commerce, mining and farming respectively, and mobility magic is blocked by wards in them.
The inner district is the wealthiest and, in a way, the "face" of the city, however located at the innermost layer of the city, were where great auctions, sales and trades with other cities and among locals and travelers, locals and locals and even travelers and travelers were made. The economic epicenter of Petra, the innermost district contains several popular as well as wealthy malls, gourmet restaurants and small dinners, as well as the quarters where the legions of soldiers sharpen their fangs and the guilds where magicians sharpen their wits. It is a region that welcomed the wealthy and the poor to trade together in a beautiful place, where the rich hold their large businesses and give the peasants the wastes, as well as where the peasants sell their produced goods to the aristocrats at high prices — but still cheap compared to what these men could acquire — yet dirt cheap for their own class. It is located at a plateau, at the center of which is a mountain sixteen kilometers tall atop which is the castle where people only live because of the magic that allows the air to keep pressurized and climatized at such insane heights and protects people from the unfiltered radiation of the sun.
The middle district is, itself alone, armor and shield to the city, as well as one of its greatest sources of income. This is because going from any of the other districts to it, all one finds is an abyss. That abyss is an enormous bed of important mineral and its bottom used to be far away, but visible from the surface, which due to human interference itself it is no longer. One cannot possibly cross the ravines through a bridge and flight and teleportation outright precluded by wards: it is necessary for most to go down large ramps and cross its internal maze of caves and mines to reach the ramps that go up once again and into the other district. The regions of the ravine which hold residences and allow for crossing through districts are very well maintained, lighted and signalized, but because they are not too large and exactly due to the good maintenance, an army which tries to cross this district it will be horribly bottlenecked and maybe even divided if it tries to "avoid" that one fate. The district is a huge death corridor for the enemies, however open it is for the citizens. This is were most workers live, as well as do their jobs of mining.
The outer district is filled with very few humans and so many powerful undead. To replace human labor, the citizens of Petra applied most undead forces they could trade with allies and placed most of them in the region that already used up the smallest portion of their population, and thus that district is loaded with undead with power in the middle between foot and elite soldiers from the city itself, who work continuously and forever to aid all works done in this region. There is little mining in the outer district, but the few gold beds in it are mined by undead which also serve as guards against any danger. With a rapier and a great longbow as their defense weapons for situations of need, these beings can work or fight for all eternity if the situation so requires, and undead horses as well as wraiths which can detect the chemical composition of air and mineral are also used to carry weights and verify the safety of a cave. Some of these horses are also present in the inner and middle districts, and some of the wraiths are also present in the middle district. They all irradiate an intimidating aura, to which the citizens are already adept and find comforting, while an outsider or enemy would be frightened by.
The city is defended by four classes of soldiers: the foot soldiers, the elite, the noble soldiers — which weren't always composed by noblemen and noblewomen, although these were more frequent — and the noble elite. These groups are decided by, indeed, power and skill, as well as wealth which funds their individual equipments, but mostly also by stamina. The infantry of Petra always receives training in two powerful techniques called "The Wasp's Sting" and "The Turtle's Shell".
The first of these sacrifices a soldier's life in exchange of strengthening a single attack to great extremes, adding to it many sorts of elemental, chemical and death-hax/poisonous damage, negating enemy durability and circumvent the third law of motion by reflecting the reaction of any force back into the target, thus any resistance would be overwhelmed. This attack allows even swords to fire projectiles, but any foot soldier which uses it will die right after one blow, whereas an elite soldier will be tired, but still be able to fight and won't be able to repeat it within three days, a noble soldier will be able to use it within the same battle after a few minutes and a noble elite should be able to repeat that attack several times. It is called that way because of its deadly result to the user, but also because it is considered that it should cause some degree of damage to even the Godmodder, "even if it's at the level of just a painful wasp's sting". Archers and swordsmen as well as users of all weapons will wield that technique against the Godmodder or as a last resource, and it's said to always kill its target and often overpenetrate even through the strongest giants. The only one who can spam it is the strongest woman in the city, a swordswoman who wields two bastard swords as weapons.
The Turtle's Shell creates a temporary — initially two seconds, but up to one second more per each of these ranks of strengh — barrier around the soldier which is reflective like Dead End, although finite, but huge in power, which is said to be an absolute barrier capable of blocking absolutely any attack, and uses a mana storing jewel at their armors to fuel itself, but then a foot soldier won't be able to use it again and only noble soldiers and above can reliably reacharge the energy with their own once it runs out. It can even be used as an absolute shield ahead of their bodies, which allows a Testudo formation with them to be unbreakable if made by several noble soldiers or noble elites. There are ten times less soldiers in each category than the weaker one, and a total of 20 000 soldiers making up the defensive forces of Petra. Soldiers above the foot soldiers in rank will use armor that heals their bodies when they're wounded, and all forces have at least basic magic protections against hax such as death abilities and time stops.
The magicians are more versatile, and also extremely useful: through controlled falling of spellshots they managed to become a defensive force as useful as the archers, as well as allow for slaughtering animals in such a way that, with the death of every cell inside the body through a death spell, it will take extremely long to rot and the meat will not harden with the adrenaline. This is less effective against soldiers as they will often block such spells with their armor, but might also be used if a clear path can be traced towards an exposed part of the body. With bulkier explosions as a slower but stronger "rain of death" method and the possibilities of healing and enchantments, they are an important part of everyday life and the defenses.
((Sorry I took long, lol. Wasn't my intention but I had to stop to eat something. I also lost the entire text once.))
Tiers:
Trainees and apprentices: Tier 8 and below.
Foot soldiers: High 7-C. 10 000 mages, 20 000 warriors, 10 000 archers and 10 000 healers throughout the city, although not all of the mages and healers belong to the army, but might still be made to fight for it. The wealth of the city is in part demonstrated by how few people have permanent scars in their bodies.
Elite soldiers: Low 7-B. Healers of this level can regenerate lost limbs or extremities, and there are 1000 in the entire city, but they ask notoriously high fees since it's so tiring for them.
Noble soldiers: Baseline 7-B, this is were rezzers start to occur among magicians, but ressurrection of this level applied on a foot soldier will disintegrate their body or make them undead.
Noble Elite: Baseline 7-A, and these can use higher tiered magic to ressurrect even foot soldiers but won't because it's not worthy as such magic is tiring and better used to ressurrect important people without weakening them too much so that they can recover in a short span of time.
Strongest warrior, archer and magician: Baseline High 7-A+, higher due to the spamming of special attacks (can therefore deny durability, haxy and has very concentrated power output, being able to damage people throughout Tier 6). The strongest healer is a fourth individual that can ressurrect anyone, for a higher price, and does not belong to the army but to a hospital where he uses his spell several times a day, controlling the intensity to always ressurrect a person with the minimal strength left not to destroy them without succeeding, and thus reverting many deaths.
The special attacks of magicians are comparable in power to the life-sacrificing attacks from people of their tiers, but these also have huge cooldowns and casting times, and might be only used once a battle, result in fainting or... you get the frequencies. Magicians are natural powerhouses and can use money to make scrolls to reduce the cost of powerful spells, so they can do this with less of a strain. Special attacks like that only appear on elite and beyond, though.
The city walls need 7-B power to crack (208 petajoules/cc for fragmentation, 570 for violent fragmentation, 1exajoule/cc for pulverization, 60 for atomization... and use the steel values times 1e15 to be able to break through the anti-heat enchantments and melt or vaporize) and took almost 10 years to build. The castle atop the mountain also has walls of this level, although half as thick.
The great city of Petra used to be considered a calm and peaceful city which lived off trading mineral resources and a great amount of high-quality, yet cheap food; visited for its beauty and wealth. These words could still be used to describe it, however, in order to survive the world of danger that the Godmodder had brought with him, they had to become a sturdier version of themselves.
And sturdier they became: three concentric walls (like SnK's, but smaller due to being a city's districts and not a country's layers) shine in blue on its layout, two meters thick and twenty tall, of a cerulean, metallic tone. They are called by their hue: the Cerulean Walls, made of an Orichalcum-Mythril alloy, were nothing but a huge metallic block for each wall, molded and homogenized as well as enchanted over the course of nearly a decade of neverending efforts until it had been finally completed. These beautiful walls separate the three "inner, middle and outer" districts of Petra, each with one function: commerce, mining and farming respectively, and mobility magic is blocked by wards in them.
The inner district is the wealthiest and, in a way, the "face" of the city, however located at the innermost layer of the city, were where great auctions, sales and trades with other cities and among locals and travelers, locals and locals and even travelers and travelers were made. The economic epicenter of Petra, the innermost district contains several popular as well as wealthy malls, gourmet restaurants and small dinners, as well as the quarters where the legions of soldiers sharpen their fangs and the guilds where magicians sharpen their wits. It is a region that welcomed the wealthy and the poor to trade together in a beautiful place, where the rich hold their large businesses and give the peasants the wastes, as well as where the peasants sell their produced goods to the aristocrats at high prices — but still cheap compared to what these men could acquire — yet dirt cheap for their own class. It is located at a plateau, at the center of which is a mountain sixteen kilometers tall atop which is the castle where people only live because of the magic that allows the air to keep pressurized and climatized at such insane heights and protects people from the unfiltered radiation of the sun.
The middle district is, itself alone, armor and shield to the city, as well as one of its greatest sources of income. This is because going from any of the other districts to it, all one finds is an abyss. That abyss is an enormous bed of important mineral and its bottom used to be far away, but visible from the surface, which due to human interference itself it is no longer. One cannot possibly cross the ravines through a bridge and flight and teleportation outright precluded by wards: it is necessary for most to go down large ramps and cross its internal maze of caves and mines to reach the ramps that go up once again and into the other district. The regions of the ravine which hold residences and allow for crossing through districts are very well maintained, lighted and signalized, but because they are not too large and exactly due to the good maintenance, an army which tries to cross this district it will be horribly bottlenecked and maybe even divided if it tries to "avoid" that one fate. The district is a huge death corridor for the enemies, however open it is for the citizens. This is were most workers live, as well as do their jobs of mining.
The outer district is filled with very few humans and so many powerful undead. To replace human labor, the citizens of Petra applied most undead forces they could trade with allies and placed most of them in the region that already used up the smallest portion of their population, and thus that district is loaded with undead with power in the middle between foot and elite soldiers from the city itself, who work continuously and forever to aid all works done in this region. There is little mining in the outer district, but the few gold beds in it are mined by undead which also serve as guards against any danger. With a rapier and a great longbow as their defense weapons for situations of need, these beings can work or fight for all eternity if the situation so requires, and undead horses as well as wraiths which can detect the chemical composition of air and mineral are also used to carry weights and verify the safety of a cave. Some of these horses are also present in the inner and middle districts, and some of the wraiths are also present in the middle district. They all irradiate an intimidating aura, to which the citizens are already adept and find comforting, while an outsider or enemy would be frightened by.
The city is defended by four classes of soldiers: the foot soldiers, the elite, the noble soldiers — which weren't always composed by noblemen and noblewomen, although these were more frequent — and the noble elite. These groups are decided by, indeed, power and skill, as well as wealth which funds their individual equipments, but mostly also by stamina. The infantry of Petra always receives training in two powerful techniques called "The Wasp's Sting" and "The Turtle's Shell".
The first of these sacrifices a soldier's life in exchange of strengthening a single attack to great extremes, adding to it many sorts of elemental, chemical and death-hax/poisonous damage, negating enemy durability and circumvent the third law of motion by reflecting the reaction of any force back into the target, thus any resistance would be overwhelmed. This attack allows even swords to fire projectiles, but any foot soldier which uses it will die right after one blow, whereas an elite soldier will be tired, but still be able to fight and won't be able to repeat it within three days, a noble soldier will be able to use it within the same battle after a few minutes and a noble elite should be able to repeat that attack several times. It is called that way because of its deadly result to the user, but also because it is considered that it should cause some degree of damage to even the Godmodder, "even if it's at the level of just a painful wasp's sting". Archers and swordsmen as well as users of all weapons will wield that technique against the Godmodder or as a last resource, and it's said to always kill its target and often overpenetrate even through the strongest giants. The only one who can spam it is the strongest woman in the city, a swordswoman who wields two bastard swords as weapons.
The Turtle's Shell creates a temporary — initially two seconds, but up to one second more per each of these ranks of strengh — barrier around the soldier which is reflective like Dead End, although finite, but huge in power, which is said to be an absolute barrier capable of blocking absolutely any attack, and uses a mana storing jewel at their armors to fuel itself, but then a foot soldier won't be able to use it again and only noble soldiers and above can reliably reacharge the energy with their own once it runs out. It can even be used as an absolute shield ahead of their bodies, which allows a Testudo formation with them to be unbreakable if made by several noble soldiers or noble elites. There are ten times less soldiers in each category than the weaker one, and a total of 20 000 soldiers making up the defensive forces of Petra. Soldiers above the foot soldiers in rank will use armor that heals their bodies when they're wounded, and all forces have at least basic magic protections against hax such as death abilities and time stops.
The magicians are more versatile, and also extremely useful: through controlled falling of spellshots they managed to become a defensive force as useful as the archers, as well as allow for slaughtering animals in such a way that, with the death of every cell inside the body through a death spell, it will take extremely long to rot and the meat will not harden with the adrenaline. This is less effective against soldiers as they will often block such spells with their armor, but might also be used if a clear path can be traced towards an exposed part of the body. With bulkier explosions as a slower but stronger "rain of death" method and the possibilities of healing and enchantments, they are an important part of everyday life and the defenses.
((Sorry I took long, lol. Wasn't my intention but I had to stop to eat something. I also lost the entire text once.))
Tiers:
Trainees and apprentices: Tier 8 and below.
Foot soldiers: High 7-C. 10 000 mages, 20 000 warriors, 10 000 archers and 10 000 healers throughout the city, although not all of the mages and healers belong to the army, but might still be made to fight for it. The wealth of the city is in part demonstrated by how few people have permanent scars in their bodies.
Elite soldiers: Low 7-B. Healers of this level can regenerate lost limbs or extremities, and there are 1000 in the entire city, but they ask notoriously high fees since it's so tiring for them.
Noble soldiers: Baseline 7-B, this is were rezzers start to occur among magicians, but ressurrection of this level applied on a foot soldier will disintegrate their body or make them undead.
Noble Elite: Baseline 7-A, and these can use higher tiered magic to ressurrect even foot soldiers but won't because it's not worthy as such magic is tiring and better used to ressurrect important people without weakening them too much so that they can recover in a short span of time.
Strongest warrior, archer and magician: Baseline High 7-A+, higher due to the spamming of special attacks (can therefore deny durability, haxy and has very concentrated power output, being able to damage people throughout Tier 6). The strongest healer is a fourth individual that can ressurrect anyone, for a higher price, and does not belong to the army but to a hospital where he uses his spell several times a day, controlling the intensity to always ressurrect a person with the minimal strength left not to destroy them without succeeding, and thus reverting many deaths.
The special attacks of magicians are comparable in power to the life-sacrificing attacks from people of their tiers, but these also have huge cooldowns and casting times, and might be only used once a battle, result in fainting or... you get the frequencies. Magicians are natural powerhouses and can use money to make scrolls to reduce the cost of powerful spells, so they can do this with less of a strain. Special attacks like that only appear on elite and beyond, though.
The city walls need 7-B power to crack (208 petajoules/cc for fragmentation, 570 for violent fragmentation, 1exajoule/cc for pulverization, 60 for atomization... and use the steel values times 1e15 to be able to break through the anti-heat enchantments and melt or vaporize) and took almost 10 years to build. The castle atop the mountain also has walls of this level, although half as thick.
