Siege of Altariya (Lorica)

Siege of Altariya
With the founding of Altariya University - the second reiteration of the college - in 3842 AL, local Order members were called back into action as it became immediately obvious that the Order of Holders could not subjugate the revelationist school. At first only a few Keepers were sent.

This time however the University's leaders, Altair and Qura, had drawn upon their knowledge to build up a sphere shield with many wards to protect the university grounds, and a new form of mana generation that could generate tremendous amounts of energy. The Order's mages were not able to negate the wards and had to work on developing new spells to counter those particular wards. The Altariya sect however worked diligently to craft additional wards, layering them one after another upon the university's grounds, thereby resulting in a technological stalemate. Over the course of the next few years, the Order drew more and more of their members to participate in the siege as Altariya continued to thwart the Order.

The continued siege by the Order and the presence of the guild mages offered the Altariyan sect many changes to steal guild secrets - either by observing the effects of the guild spells or by using their own spells to analyze the guild mages' spells. As the siege progressed, the guilds were not able to overcome the University's head start in warding spells, but the University certainly was able to catch up to the guilds across many other types of spells, so that by the time the siege ended, guild mages and Altariyan mages fought on approximately equal terms.

The suppressed Detariyan kingdoms, after their humiliating defeat by the guild mages, saw in Altariya a common hope: that of overthrowing the guilds, as they had done the Second Detariyan War several centuries ago. Only this time, they would do it with the aid of powerful mages of their own, rather than with the manasappers. As the University continued to withstand the onslaught of the Order of Keepers, the kingdoms began to secretly subvert guild activities - such as by destroying guild-owned leys, severing leylines, and downing leyline towers. As a result the Order began to run mana and moieta shortages in the later years of the siege. When the Order of Holders was dispatched to hunt down the troublemakers, they were sent running by Altariyan mages, forcing the Order of Keepers to dispatch their own mages, as only the Keepers could face Altariyan mages at that point.