Elsewhere

Duke continued his meandering flight, searching for signs of Chopie’s army. He got closer and closer to the capital without seeing any sign of activity which both concerned him and raised his spirits. It was when he was about twenty kilometers out that he saw the first signs of activity. It was not an army on the move, but rather, it was hundreds of refugees trudging down the road, away from the capital. He could see, even from this distance, that there was a level of panic amongst the people as they kept looking back over their shoulders.

Duke poured on some more speed, following the road and the path of refugees that traveled along it. The people flashed by quickly until he came upon a thick, black, low-hanging cloud layer. He slowed down, not wanting to punch into the cloud without any sense of what lay beyond. What he did see was that the few travelers on the road were not carrying any possessions like the others had been and they were running forward desperately. Duke was certain that Chopie’s undead army marched under that cloud.

Duke cautiously moved into the dark cloud, skirting the base layer with his DUNGEON SENSE fired up to its full sphere. He thankfully saw nothing lurking in the cloud ahead of him, but what he did see was alarming enough. There were undead moving below, shrouded by the blackness of the cloud. He could easily spot masses of skeletons, zombies, and vampires. He had to IDENTIFY a number of other undead to figure out what they were and none of it was good news. Ghasts, ghouls, and wights were among the more common of the different undead. There were some horrific creatures that were apparently called bone oozes that were a mixture of rotten grey flesh and yellow bones that flowed over the ground consuming nearly everything they came into contact with.

His first instinct was to attack the horde to slow it down and give the people time to flee but he knew that would likely be a poor decision. I just can’t let all these people die and expand the army but if I fully engage the entire army here by myself, one mistake and I’m done. In a flash, an idea occurred to Duke and he set it into motion. He flew down to the area between the fleeing people and the army, using every stealth and concealment skill and Ability in his repertoire.

Once he was in place, he channeled as much LIGHTNING as he could handle into a single ball the size of his head. He concentrated nearly 200,000 Mana into the ball and then began to seal it in ICE. It took another 200,000 Mana to seal the LIGHTNING within the ICE, but he hoped it would hold long enough for the horde to arrive. He left the construct in the middle of the road and took flight again. Most of his Mana was tied up in the construct, but he wasn’t going to stick around to get into combat with the horde. He flew back up wishing the refugees luck as he TELEPORTED back home. It chafed at him not to be able to rescue everyone, but such was the nature of war.

Upon arrival, Duke used the Jewel of Whispers to contact his leaders and bring them all together for an “emergency meeting.” It was not long before they were all gathered around the command table, anticipating what Duke had to say. Aurelia was the last to arrive, placing her hand on his shoulder before taking her seat next to Duke.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I have seen the army and it’s better organized than I had expected. They are about twenty kilometers outside of the capital and moving at a steady pace. Which means we have roughly ten days before they arrive. That’s a bit longer than I had originally feared but it is how they are travelling that is the newest concern.”

Duke could see the tension at the table but thankfully, he did not see any particular fear being shown. He continued. “They travel under the cover of a massive cloud of darkness. The cloud covers them, blocking the sunlight entirely so that even the vampires can travel during the day as well as the night. They are also killing everything in their path and reanimating it. There are zombie squirrels in the horde. There are also things called bone oozes that are horrific flexible masses of flesh and bone that seem to be able to squeeze through small openings. I also saw ghouls, ghasts, and wights. There’s no telling what else they might have in there.”

“Likely spectres too”, Baslin added. “They will bypass many of our physical defenses easily. We must be prepared for them.”

“Good point. Get them included in our training. If there are any special immunities we should expect to face, I want counters for them created and distributed. Aurelia, how are our troops doing for gear? Do we have enchanted gear available yet?”

“We are doing well from a basic standpoint. Everyone is outfitted with good armor and weapons, but enchanted gear is still rare. No more than 10% of our troops have anything enchanted or otherwise magical.”

“I have trained a subset of the mage corps to be able to enchant gear.” Baslin added. “I can have them produce upwards of 500 enchanted weapons a day. That will only get us to roughly 8,000 enchanted weapons overall which would only cover about half of the melee troops.”

“That’s still something. Maybe I can get Sam to increase the output of magical weapon rewards in the dungeon.” Duke mused. “Here’s the next thing. Grat, I need an area about 500 meters square cleared inside the walls.”

“Glad to do it, but might I ask what it’s for?” Grat asked.

“I am relocating a farming village here. I can’t save everyone in the path of the horde, but this village brings with it something special.” Duke continued, pausing for effect.

“Well, don’t leave us hanging by a thread, Duke. What does it bring?” Elaine asked.

“A Guardian Spirit.” Duke responded. He received several blank stares but Grat and Baslin both reacted.

“How powerful has the spirit grown?” Baslin asked.

“I don’t think Seshwashi is terribly strong yet, but when he integrates here with all our populace, I expect he will be a force to be reckoned with.” Duke responded.

Baslin smiled. “I think I can help that growth along. What form does this spirit take?”

“If you can help him grow, that would be beneficial. He is a giant white serpent right now.”

“Oh, yes, there are some great evolutionary possibilities for a guardian serpent. Get him here as soon as you can. I’m going to go get started on the ritual Spells right away. Aurelia, I am going to need every one of your people to come to the ritual circle when we are ready and accept the serpent as the guardian of this area. That will grow his power quickly.”

“All at once?” Aurelia asked, concern etching her face.

Baslin shook his hands in dismissal. “Oh no, one at a time. Small groups are fine too. It would be too much to try and channel everyone at once.”

Aurelia nodded. “One squad at a time. I can work that into the training schedule.”

Duke started again. “One more thing for you, Baslin. I need bombs.”

“Bombs?” Baslin asked confused.

“Yes, bombs. I need things that I can drop from above the undead army that will explode upon impact with the ground. I want to shell them into oblivion before they even get here. We have time while they march, why sit back and wait when we can take them out on the march?”

“I can make alchemical concoctions that are wildly unstable so that they explode on impact, but they will be, as I said, wildly unstable. I don’t think you would want to carry them that far.”

“I’ll have them in my INVENTORY. It should be fine.” Duke responded. “Get to work on them after the ritual is set up. How long will it take to make them?”

“Unstable concoctions? That’s the easiest of all alchemical creations. It’s the first thing all apprentices inadvertently learn to make. They are really failed creations so not usually made intentionally but with enough ingredients, we can make a ton of them.” He paused briefly. “OK, I’ll make a ton of them. Let the others work on the weapon enchantments for the troops. I’ll make a few of my own before the week is out, but for now it’s all failed concoctions.” Baslin had a gleam in his eye that Duke hadn’t seen in a while. It seemed Baslin was having fun again.

Duke smiled at the prospect of being able to bomb the approaching army. He sent everyone on their separate ways but followed Grat out to watch the clearing. What he saw still was a wonder to watch. The trees and other plants uprooted themselves and walked back from the edge, working their way into the extremely dense forest that Grat had made.

“Grat, with all the trees and other plants crammed together, how do they all get enough nutrients and water to survive?”

“I have enriched the soil for nearly ten kilometers around the Inn and the plants all share some root connections which allow them all to get enough to thrive. It’s quite nearly like they are all part of one singular organism.”

“That is quite impressive. How long until the area is clear for our new village?” Duke asked.

“Give me two hours and the site will be all ready.” Grat absently replied, his focus on the moving forest before him.

Duke decided to go back to the village and see how their preparations were coming. One quick TELEPORT later, he stood in the village square and was greeted by Grandma Ruth.

“You’re early, young man.”

“I was once told that if you’re not early, you’re late.” Duke replied.

“I see. Well, there is some wisdom in that approach. I suppose it is just as well. We have called everyone back in from the fields. All should be packed up and ready to leave in the next few hours.” She responded.

Duke looked around the village, committing the layout to his memory. It wasn’t that difficult a task as there were only about forty buildings in all if you excluded things like outhouses. His Reason was high enough that committing such details to memory was just a matter of a few minutes of concentration.

When he was done, he took a tour of the village helping the villagers get packed and ready to leave. Most accepted the help, but a few were insistent that they do it all themselves. Duke accommodated them. As he saw them getting close to ready, he TELEPORTED back to his room at the Inn. Once there, he went into his storage area and emptied most of what he had stolen from Chopie into a storage room. He kept anything that his SENSE MAGIC indicated as magical in his INVENTORY, including the phylactery. I really need to sort through all this stuff at some point and see what is useful from it all. Never enough time to do everything. Gotta keep moving. From there, he checked on Grat’s progress and found his work complete – the new section of open area was complete.

Duke once again returned to the village, greeting the gathered villagers. “Hello again. Your new home is nearly ready. Are you ready to depart?”

Grandma Ruth stepped up to Duke. “On behalf of all of Rahmfar, thank you for saving us from the horrors that are coming. I’m not sure everyone was really believing it until Jelorca received the vision of what was coming. She screamed for nearly a half hour and when she was done, she told us all what she saw. Folks started really moving after that. We are ready. What do we have to do?”

“Gather everyone in the square and I’ll take it from there.” Duke replied.

“Done.” Grandma Ruth replied, looking over at the gathered villagers, fear and trepidation cemented on their features. They had all filled the square already.

Duke smiled and spoke loudly. “People of Rahmfar.” He activated TELEPORTATION, bringing them all along with him. “Welcome to your new home. Please stay here for a few minutes. I will return shortly.”

Duke TELPORTED back to the village and began pulling buildings into his INVENTORY. Once his INVENTORY was full, he TELEPORTED back to the new location and dropped the buildings back out of his INVENTORY in the proper layout. The buildings came out as piles of rubble as they were just not sturdy enough to survive being uprooted. It took Duke seven trips before he had all the piles of building remains laid out around the confused villagers.

Grandma Ruth came up to him with several other villagers. “Are those our homes?”

Duke smiled. “Yes and no. It’s not like you could live in them in the condition they are in right now, could you?”

“Obviously not.” She replied and agreement was rumbling through the crowd.

Duke nodded and moved to the center of the villagers in the central square. He raised his voice loud and spoke. “Please stand away from the piles. This will only take a moment.” He waited for the villagers to stop trying to go through their destroyed houses and then activated a sizable RESTORE, rapidly bringing the houses back to perfect condition.

The villagers lost control of their emotions as they saw their entire village restored at the new location. Tears flowed freely even as Captain Slevin came over with a number of troops to help the villagers get settled.

Duke left them with a final message, “Come into the Inn when you are all settled. We’ll have a meal ready for you.” He headed into the Inn to get to Baslin’s laboratory. He had bombs to gather and an army to devastate.