Chapter 460 460 Home With News
The head maid led them to the small garden that had once provided the food for the entire Lumix Family at this location. It was the size of a single field at the Den, hardly suitable for a whole household with thousands of people unless they had incredibly powerful Witch Magic feeding the area.
From what Cassie could tell, there once had been, but it had faded so much over time that she wouldn't be able to reactivate it now. She was going to have to start over.
"I'm afraid too much time has passed to salvage the Witch Magic in the room, but I can cast new spells, and the stasis spell is still active, so none of your seeds should have rotted or withered with age," Cassie informed her.
"Marvellous news. We won't need the services of a Rank Five Witch for quite some time with the entire Family gone, and you seem to be getting close to Rank Three. I am certain that no matter how many guests we receive, your magic will be more than up to the job." The maid replied happily.
Cassie took a second to recreate a garden charm and placed it on the pedestal where the inactive one from the ancient past still sat, then fed it mana and deactivated the stasis spell.
Green sprouts began to show in the soil as Wolfe linked the Garden Charm to the Mana Gathering Arrays, ensuring that the spell would remain active until it was deliberately shut off again.
"There we go. You are all set, and you should have the first batch of crops within the month," Cassie informed the magical construct in the maid outfit, then turned to Wolfe.
"We really should get going so we are home before it gets dark. It can be a real pain to find the proper landing spot in the twilight." She reminded him.
"Of course. Thank you for your hospitality, Head Maid. If you wouldn't mind leading us back to the front doors, we will be on our way. But fear not. I will come back to visit in the future."
The head maid led them back through the corridors to the main hallways, where Wolfe noted that everything had been brought back up to pristine standards by the staff awakened by the first construct he had activated. It almost looked like someone still lived here, without a speck of dust or a bit of faded carpets to show for hundreds of years in storage.
The doors closed behind them, and the spells sealed them against intruders, awaiting Wolfe's return or the arrival of a survivor of the Lumix Family.
Wolfe saw a few small animals in the treeline looking curiously at the plane sitting on the runway, but none of them had come out into the clearing, and he already knew that these ones weren't openly hostile to him.
They were to everything else, but to a Magi, they didn't seem to care much about his presence unless he threatened them or their offspring.
A gentle shove turned the aircraft around so it was facing down the runway again, and the pair climbed up into their seats.
"So, what do you think? Will it be suitable for the purposes of supply runs?" Wolfe asked.
"I think that it will. The mundane army already knows the location, so they might come looking for it, but that won't lead them back to us unless they follow the boats back down the river.
It's not close, but the boats can make it in only four or five hours, which is acceptable for a round trip to deliver supplies without having to be out in the dark.
All it needs is some work put in to create storage bunkers underground to go with the containers aboveground, and we will be able to make an excellent fort out of this place.
I'm not sure how we will keep the nonmagical occupants safe, though. Those squirrels and other creatures might like you, but they treat everyone else as food." Cassie reminded him.
"I will put up a barrier to keep them out of the yard once we start working here. They're smart enough to know that it will hurt them to try, so they should leave everyone alone and not try to charge the barrier." Wolfe suggested.
That was no guarantee of safety, but most of the time, the occupants of the base would be in the underground bunkers, which would be heavily warded against attacks, and they would send both armed scouts and a Witch with every trip, so the small forest monsters wouldn't be too big of a threat.
Certainly no worse than the places where most of the locals had been living up until recently. Perhaps he should arrange hazard pay for them, just in case.
The flight over the river back to the corner of the Fae Forest didn't show anything too concerning, only a few spots where the river was running fast, which shouldn't be a problem for the boats. n((o)(v))e(-l.-B.)1..n
So, once they got back, they would just need to find volunteers and set up a construction schedule to get more planes made to do all of their deliveries.
Wolfe landed the plane on the river and let it glide to a stop near the guard shack, then hopped down to tie a rope from it to the small dock that the Witches had made for loading purposes.
"Welcome back. Did everything go well?" The witch on duty asked.
"Indeed it did. We have an agreement to bring them supplies to one central village, and then they will distribute it from there. I suspect that we are going to need more planes very soon, though. Either a much larger one to make the distant deliveries, or more of these ones to do them more frequently.
The Grand Dutchies are trying to expand into the Frozen Wastes for resources, and it's in everyone's best interest if they never get the chance." Wolfe explained.
"In that case, you should go talk to the design team. I heard that they have been working on a number of new things lately, and some of them might be just what you need."