Disorder.

The start of anarchy that would give rise to full-blown chaos.

A start that would never come if Eric had anything to say about it. And he did.

With the rising of a second wave of fireballs on the horizon, the crowd finally began to understand what was going on, panic quickly settling in as that understanding grew.

The levels of sound in the area rose like a wave, not yet near the level of a full-blown chorus of screams, but rapidly approaching it.

As Eric looked on from his plateau atop the wagon he had climbed up, he watched as the magical orbs sailed through the open, early-morning sky, an assortment of counterspells shooting out from the central area of the makeshift encampment behind him, a plethora of abilities that the adventurers had long since learnt would cause the siege spells heading towards them to disrupt and detonate early.

He, himself, cast out a severing slice of telekinetic energy towards one of the magnificent golden orbs that had managed to slip past the home-team’s counter barrage, a blast of heat and light sprawling outward as the two spells collided, the effects nearly blinding him.

As he stared up towards the sky, ignoring the now present screams of the masses bellow, he watched as the two opposing forces met high above him, marvelling at the brilliant display of light-work that resulted from the clash. A beautiful sight that only he and his fellow Earthers seemed to take delight in as the crowd of locals below him began to stampede. Most heading towards him and the others in the centre, but some, he noticed, heading outward, into the surrounding forests.

A few also took the opportunity to hide under or in the more-sturdier of the wagons that littered the field, probably hoping to be able to hide until things worked themselves out, which was idiotic to the extreme as a single successful hit from one of those siege spells just in the general vicinity of their hiding place would have resulted in them roasting alive within their hiding spots.

A truly horrible fate, one he had witnessed far too many times.

But the more pressing concern was the people heading towards him. His perch on top of the open-lot styled waggon was far from being secure at the best at times and a panicked mob could easily topple it in their efforts to flee oncoming danger.

Thankfully, the shouting of several people behind him had put such concerns to rest as Eric turned to confirm what he had already suspected.

Bards, seven in total, from Jessie’s lot, he assumed, began ascending any nearby structure that could hold their weight. Once raised above the crowd, the each let out a cacophony of sound as they let the [SYSTEM]’s abilities flow through their instruments.

Crowd-control, in gaming terms, it referred to abilities and strategies that helped deal with large numbers of enemies, but in real life, their powers were best utilised in dealing with friend rather than foe, actual crowd-control in this instance.

Eric watched as the crowd of over ten thousand people who, but moments ago, were on the verge of mass hysteria began to calm down with disturbing alacrity, their emotions, not minds, soothed by the powers washing over them.

As the bard’s magic radiated out, the stampeding horde began to slow; the fear-driven locals now docile, still moving forward, but at a casual stroll as if they were doing no more than going for a walk in the park.

It wouldn’t last.

“Bandits?” another wagon-master asked as he passed by, jumping from waggon to waggon like some mutated kangaroo.

Eric did not reply, just giving the woman a look that said: ‘Take a fucking guess!’

She responded by flipping him the bird.

Eric chuckled, then turned to look as another salvo of counterspells shot up, this time not to the north, but to the east and west.

The pattern continued for a while, the enemy randomising their pattern of attack along the way. They seemed to put all effort into a full-on bombardment that came from all three sides before their attempts petered-out.

Eric and the other adventurers waited, the dulled locals still shuffling forward like dim-witted cattle.

Some of the waggon-masters began organising towards the south end of the camp in expectation of the bombardment or surprise attack to come from that direction, the pattern of their unseen enemy’s assault more than obvious by now as it followed the local militaries’ go-to strategy for large scale assaults. The use of which also confirmed the origin of these bandits.

But the expected attack did not come.

An unsteady silence began to resettle upon the area. An uneasy and false peace.

Eric kept looking round for the next sign of assault, the bandits unlikely to have simply given up on their pay-day.

“Incoming!” a shrill-voiced echoed out from behind him.

Eric’s eyes raced about as he looked for whatever had been the cause for the shouter’s alarm. His eyes eventually settling onto a small series of dots coming in from the northern direction.

‘Arrows? No, too quick and they showed no rate of ascending or descending,’ he thought.

As precious seconds passed, the dots grew, and what he had hoped was not, was. Beasts, winged monstrosities, were flying towards them. A multitude of greyish things with horse-like heads, thick and muscly to the extent that, by all rights, they should have found it difficult to jump let alone fly.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, where the hell did they get those?” he asked to no-one in particular. His harsh but gentle words followed by a shout as he warned the rest of what was to come; “Summons,” he screamed, the message soon being repeated and passed along to those on the other sides of the camp.

Summons. The bastards had their own summoners. Not people from Earth, he noted, the creatures barrelling towards them bearing actual collars. A sign that they had been, at least in part, tamed through physical means rather than through the magic of the system.

“The bards,” he screamed, “Protect the bards!”

It seemed the logical conclusion; remove the bards and the crowds would return to their stampede. Maximum death, minimum effort.

His words proved unnecessary as that fuckwit Jessie, in an unprecedented bit of foresight, seemed to have already ordered some people to support the exposed musicians. The bards now flanked by two or three adventurers each.

Eric was about to have some of the local boys provide further backup, mostly to keep the untrained fodder from doing anything foolish, but also to help ensure that he would not lose any of his people by keeping a meat-shield between them and the incoming threat.

His orders were, however, caught in his throat as he was momentarily blinded by several spells that shot out from the centre hold, probably from people with a sniper build.

‘A waste of mana’, he thought; Magic, or at least the system’s magic, was not suited for long-range attacks, spells losing most of their power as they destabilised during travel. The only reason the siege spells worked at all, was that they had so much mana pumped into them, and that they relied more on consuming all the air in the area or igniting any flammable materials to deal with the enemy.

‘And…spells were too slow’, he remembered as the spells that raced off into the distance were easily dodged by the incoming beasts, the creature drifting lazily to the side as the tiny orbs flew past.

He and the others tensed as the creatures approached; the bards playing on with all effort despite the visible fear in both their voices and the look in their eyes.

The short moment of time that passed as they waited for the creatures to arrive spread on into eternity. And then…

Despite their expectations, the creature fell far short of coming within reach of the self-styled musicians and their never-ending quest to destroy peoples hearing, the beasts producing a heavy fwump as they slammed into the ground far in the distance, just beyond the back of the still moving crowd. The people closest to them still too mellowed-out to respond accordingly.

The monsters held nothing back as they laid into them, the people mercifully and blissfully unaware as they were torn to shreds by creatures far more powerful than them.

Some of the locals, the ones that had joined his camp guard as well as some of the newer, younger adventurers made to confront the beast assailing the rear of the crowd, their weapons drawn or their hands busy mid-cast.

“Hold!” Eric yelled, “I said hold, god dammit.”

Most paid heed, but a few ignored him, racing to their deaths with not even the slightest hesitation or thought in their head.

“Run out there and they’ll pick us off one-by-one!” Eric screamed after them. he turned to the smart of the lot that had obeyed his command, “Form a wall; Hold the line; Once those bastards reach us, well give them tenfold what they dished out.”

He saw a few of the local boys that understood him translate for the rest. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘people worth keeping, for once.’

“Eric!” Gavin yelled out.

Eric looked towards the fool who seemed to be pointing to the other waggon masters.

He saw some waving to him, though he could not make out why, the distance between them too great for them to properly hear each other even when screaming, they seemed to be pointing to the floor.

It was then he began to notice the rise of a vibration, a steady beat strong enough that it worked its way up from the ground and through the wood of the waggon that he stood atop. A tremor that he recognised, a rhythmic pounding that both stirred and stilled the heart and caused men’s legs to quiver.

Almost as one, the people of the caravan, foreigner and local alike, stilled as they became aware of the rumbling beneath them. All that had their wits about them then turned to look off into the distances, east, west, north, and south, as a wave of beasts ridden by men began ascending the hills in the horizons, forming a colossal circle that began closing in on them; A grand cavalry, not of any bandit group, but of the army proper raced towards them.

As Eric looked on at the oncoming stampede, he could only think to say one thing.

“Well…” said he. “Shit.”