Chapter 278: The Long War

Chapter 278: The Long War

Ozzy awoke to the smell of pancakes and strong tea. He normally only needed four hours of sleep a night, but drinking rum with his fellow captains had strained even his metabolism, and he'd slept in. He was surprised he didn't have a hangover. As he rolled out of bed, Suzette put two plates on the table, heaped with butter, strawberries, and pancakes. Hers with three, Ozzy's with over a dozen. "You made breakfast; bless you."L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

"Breakfast? That was at 7 am, just after you went to bed. This is lunch. It would be best if you had something in you to soak up the last of the rum. The stories about you three drinking the inn dry and eating all the food are already reaching epic proportions."

"Well, I appreciate the food and the company. Hopefully, our late-night party helped."

Suzette rolled her eyes and laughed. "Helped? You should have seen those two drag into the meeting. They were so hungover they could barely move and smelled like they had slept in a pig sty. Rolly scared the hell out of them after we got the signed papers. They must be halfway to the capital by now. And they think they were partially successful in disrupting our trade deals. Yes, you three helped. I wish I could have been there instead of sneaking around with McTeeth."

"How did that work out? And what happened to the third guy?"

"He got scared of the shadows and left early. We have a lot to sort through now, but the picture is clear. You three got some names of Barons we've never heard of who doesn't like Billy and want to see him fail. There were some notes in the paperwork as well. Rolly got the information from the horses that tell us where Theordis spent some time. And surprisingly, Alwyn sent over a lot of information."

"Hmm, Alwyn the Summer Lord? or Bob?"

"Alwyn. He wished to announce that he had taken three mortals into his household. They used to be imperial scribes. His letter said it was willingly and with no more magic done than showing them how to achieve their dreams. I'll try to talk to them, but I don't see him lying. One will even be running back and forth between him and Billy."

Ozzy finished his breakfast and grabbed his bag. "Well, good. I'm curious to see what gets figured out. I'm off to start clearing more farmland and start another Hamlet. Woodrat is going to bring most of the crew to help out. Some of the gophers got big yesterday."

"My brave gopher slayer. I'll have dinner packed, and we can eat at Rowan tonight after you return from playing carpenter's helper. I need to work more on the runes, and you have some heavy lifting to do for Jorges."

Woodrat yelled to Ozzy as he left the tavern. "Awake? Good. Get up here. No reason for a captain to walk when we have a ship that can be there in a minute. The second group of farmers is all ready there." Ozzy smiled and climbed to the ship. Ben was at the ship's wheel and looking pleased with himself. As the Splinter began to move, even Woodrat was surprised at the speed. "What the bloody hell are you doing to my ship?"

Ben laughed and yelled back. "I'm a Courier. Anything I ride or steer goes faster."

They passed over the top of North Farthing. The road ran past one side of the Hamlet, with five long fields taking shape on the other side of the road. The thorn barrier was a thick green line surrounding the Hamlet, already growing. Once a front gate was constructed, the little town would have some basic protection from wild animals, bandits, or any of the other creatures that inhabited the area. The ten houses and tavern surrounded the town square, with room for gardens between the houses and thorn barrier.

Children ran below, waving at the ship, and Ben used that as an excuse to circle the town slowly before heading to the next Hamlet. Some of the inhabitants of North Farthing were heading that way, following the wagons that had gone by before.

Five miles flew by in less than two minutes, and the Splinter settled slowly until its keel was only ten feet off the ground, a hundred feet from the second Hamlet. Ben turned over the helm to Derrick. "Thank you for the chance to be at the helm of this fine ship." He scorned the chain ladder and leaped from the edge of the ship.

Woodrat looked at him as he landed perfectly. Turning to Ozzy, he said, "That one has had a ship of his own before, you can tell."

Ozzy nodded. "Several. And wrecked as many ships as I have. "

"Really? Maybe we'll take him along the next time you and I travel the Smoke."

Ozzy gave his speech like he had the day before. Living near Sedgewick had a steep learning curve, especially if you had Dryads, Fae Lords, and Unicorns for neighbors.

North Farthing veterans taking part in the war: 30/30, with 30 surviving. 3 CSP awarded, and 500 experience in a weapon used in the battle, and corresponding stat.

Contract Workers taking part in the war: 12/12 with 9/12 surviving. 2 CSP if Tier 1, and 1 CSP if Tier 2.

Ships Crew...let's be honest, they cheered you on and drank rum.

Additional building awarded to West Farthing: Choice of a Quaint Tea Houseor Small Pub.

West Farthing is awarded with increased crop growth and a Wagonload of copper and cast-iron cooking gear.

Woodrat had been prepared to help, but he hadn't been needed with the additional farmers from North Farthing helping out, along with the Courier. Instead, he put the crew to work making chairs and stools for the new Hamlet. After the final battle, they retired to the town square, where a large amount of food was already set out on newly made tables. Discussion started as to the benefits of buying different skills. The veterans of North Farthing drank beer and gave their advice with the wisdom gained from the first great battle of the war.

Ozzy left them to it. He took his leave and headed for Rowan Keep to meet with Suzette. It was going to be a long week, he could tell. He fully expected to be fighting Lemming Shock troops the next day. The reason for such a useful magical artifact being in Leroy's bad was becoming apparent. He hoped to hell the plow didn't start acting up.

Layla and Billy sat atop the ACME building, reviewing McTeeth's reports on the new Hamlet. Billy was excited about how fast the farmers were being integrated. "This is going way better than I'd planned for. The farmers have all jumped one or two levels, and we're barely starting. Ozzy had some crazy idea to start a war with gophers. We'll have to head out to the last fight, congratulate folks, and let them see the nobility up close. Shake hands, kiss babies."

Layla had no use for babies. "Kissing children is all up to you; I'll complement the victorious fighters. But as to Suzette, yes, she does her best work when she's under pressure. If you had said, "Do your best." you might have had good results. But challenging her with making a profit and tossing all the responsibility on top of her, and she excels. Plus, it makes sense right now to keep expanding Sedgewick. Gadobhra needs more infrastructure first. And we need to finish the Keep. Think of the trained workforce we'll have when that's done. We can start immediately, rebuilding the central part of the city."

"But first, we need to solve some problems. I want to start dropping some economic bombs this week and stir up some shit." Billy pulled out a list and handed it to Layla. "We dump all of this on certain markets. It won't affect their profits for long, but it will make them scream. Then we drop the big bomb."

Layla looked wistful. "I only wish we could be there to watch it happen."

Billy winked. "Don't worry; I'm sure they'll want us there damn quick. Maybe we should pack bags and sit on the teleport stone up at the keep."

"Dinner now? Or get to work and eat under the stars?" Suzette had met Ozzy as he jogged up to the keep, his bag slung over his shoulder.

Ozzy could already see Jorges walking his way, a smile on his face. "I think it's going to be a starlit picnic. Probably best if I'm not tossing around ten-ton slabs in the dark. I'll give him a few hours and then we can take a break."

Suzette headed off to her own work, after leaving her basket in the shade of a wall. A minutes work put a small hermetic seal around her food that would keep out ants and picnic thieves of all types. Today she was working with Aliester. He had his portable alembic and crucibles set up, heating the molten silver they used in the runes. Carving a rune in the stone was good. But filling the rune with molten silver was more powerful. It created a channel for the mana to quickly move from one part of the seal to another so that even if an army put all of its efforts into attacking one wall they never found a weak point.

Filling the runes took as much time as carving them in the first place. A set of crucibles burning charcoal melted the silver, the molten metal flowing through ceramic channels to the alembic which separated or burned off any impurities. Silver coins from dungeons were purer in content than the silver coins made by the empire. With multiple dungeons, there was no shortage of the high quality silver they needed, provided the Baron had enough gold to exchange for it. The hunting expeditions to the Menagerie had provided a large amount of gold at first, even if the novelty of the hunts were wearing off and fewer and fewer of the rich Fae Lords were returning. The parties were always full, but Bob was charging a lower price to Fae who didn't have bags of gold to throw around.

PHzero and Zephyr were in charge of the alembic and crucibles. Aliester and Suzette took turns pouring the thin streams of metal with steady, dexterous hands. As the silver cooled it began to glow, as the mana held in the finished runes flowed into the new ones. Foot by foot, the line of runes and magical script entwined with the symbol of Hermes, advanced around the perimeter of the fortress. The perimeter of the walls protecting the ten acre fortress was a little over a mile in length.

Each foot that the pattern advanced took 100 cubic inches of silver. Silver coins were common from dungeons, but it took 2096 coins to make a cubic foot of silver, weighing 650 pounds. Each foot that the pattern advanced took 100 cubic inches of silver. Every 17 feet took 1 cubic foot of molten metal weighing 650 pounds. To complete the entire perimeter of the fortress would take over 300 cubic feet of metal weighing 100 tons. Half of the silver came from coins from the dungeons, the other half Billy had to purchase through the Kallveks, teleporting the silver bars to Rowan Keep. The entire cost came to a little over 8000 gold coins.

As Billy looked at the mounting costs of the fortress, he grimaced. "Remind me why we just didn't pay the taxes again? This may end up costing more."

Layla reminded him. "We didn't have the money. You hate paying taxes. We want to train a group of people who can rebuild a city. And we want to become rich supplying the Legion with buildings. The next one is going to cost them a lot more."