Master of the Hoard - Chapter 35 (Patreon)

In the mornings, I was usually left to myself. I didn't need much sleep and mostly relaxed, planning out the day in peace and going over my hoard, checking whether any new items had gained magical attributes. Today, however, Aelis, Roth, and all three shamans interrupted the peace, marching united towards me. From the satisfaction oozing out of the group, however, it was not a negative occasion.

"Good morning, Sire."

Heh. So she wanted me to ask. "Good morning, Aelis. How nice to see all my favorite people gathered in one place. Any special reason for joining me this fine morning?"

"There is. There truly is." She looked at the others, bouncing a bit on her feet. "We did it!"

"It? Could you be a *little* more specific?"

She burst out. "We completed our first harvest!" Now the words spilled from her, like a dam had been opened. "We only harvested half of the Jungle part of the chamber, but it should be enough for four or five days for everybody. The second half should be ready in a couple of days. Also... it should be enough!"

I perked up at that. "Please tell me that you mean what I think you mean."

Arthor's dry commentary interrupted. "What our excitable scout is trying to say is that, yes, by now it looks like we should be able to be self-sufficient as regards food to everybody, excepting you carnivores."

The jet-black scout stared daggers at Arthor. "I did the estimations, Arthor. I deserve to tell him.” Her smile lit up the room again as she addressed me. “Ahem. Milord, Arthor is not wrong. We have done as you asked in regards to the soil in the first third of the area. It was a much bigger task than we expected, but daily sessions to search the soil and remove rocks and crush gravel did the trick. As asked, we have also mixed the soil with manure, watered it regularly and added all the useful plants and seeds we have been able to locate.” She reined in her smile a little. “To be fair: to begin with, we will still have to harvest continuously from the surrounding areas. From my discussions with Laive, I can conclude that this is not beyond our capabilities. In conclusion, from now on, we only need to gather flesh for the Clenchers and yourself now, which is about a third of what we used to need."

I blinked. Sometimes, sifting through the deluge of words from Aelis took a little time. Still, the result was a lot better than I had dared hope. "Have you had a chance to check the stores after finishing off the Tainted Shamblers? How are we on meat? You guys will still need a little meat in your diet now and again." Probably. I mean, who knew?

She didn't even look down. "We have sufficient amounts for a full month, maybe more. We will have to look further into how best to ensure that the flesh doesn't go bad, but that's not an issue yet. The long and the short of it, Sire? We did it!"

I grinned and raised a fist in celebration. In your face, stupid, new universe! This was a weight off my heart. I must admit that the battle for simple survival had been the cause of dark thoughts over the past weeks. My grin stretched at the possibilities of the coming weeks, when a mental voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Oh, get to it already. Annoying lizard." I blinked. Arthor stood right below me, arms pointedly crossed over his thin chest. "You heard me. You've been dying to get on with the expansions ever since you got here and now you're just sitting there, smiling? Spill, already!"

I glanced contemplatively at the ceiling for a while, just to tease him, when I felt something - a tiny pinprick.  Disbelieving I looked down and bursted out in laughter to see the brown-and-white-furred Talpus retracting his leg to kick me again. Good to see that they weren't so afraid of me anymore. "Alright - here’s the deal." I expanded the map of the dungeon onto the wall nearby. "Up until now, we've expanded only giving thought to which functionalities we need from our rooms. We have not thought much beyond the simplest logistics and not at all integrated defense into our planning, except for my Shadow Towers and the traps out front in the tunnels."

Roth nodded and drew a line in front of him with a foot. "We need a good defense. Right."

I shook my head. "Wrong." At his confused look, I elaborated. "It is a good idea, and we will need a defensive front at some point, complete with hardened walls, a tough gate, Shadow Towers and whatever else we can come up with. However, at this point, we are still expanding. Creating a defensive front would mean that all further expansions would be defenseless, and that any enemies who made it past the defenses would be allowed to run amok without check. Besides, we've already discussed this. Our best strength lies not in facing enemies straight on, but in delaying, whittling down and cheating. And that's exactly what I want! My plan is for every single room from the center outward to have defensive capabilities of some sort. Heavy doors to delay their approach. Layered ceilings and false walls where we can attack with impunity. Traps, obfuscation and methods to divide any enemy and set them up for counter attacks. Also, an escape tunnel. This is what I want, and I need your help to create the most efficient machine to grind our enemies apart."

The group stood gathered, gaping. Roth spoke first. "That’s a lot of work."

I nodded. "It will be. But it will be a work in progress where we can improve a room at the time. Every single room will improve our defensive capabilities, instead of resting our hopes on a single point of entry. Tell me, Roth, would a defensive front stop you?"

He laughed. "Of course not. We'd dig past."

"Exactly. We have been blessed with stupid and reckless enemies so far, but that will not continue. We need to ensure that we can do damage even against those who use their minds and fight dirty."

A pregnant silence followed, before I noticed Creziel moving towards the map, his lips moving while he scrutinized the overview. After a while, he spoke. "I... may have some ideas."

I could feel a huge smile growing on my face. "I was hoping you would say that."

We got to work on the planning. I really hoped at some point that I'd be able to manipulate the map in order to account for planning further rooms and things, but for now, we moved the map to the floor and resorted to drawing and scribbling on top of the overlain image.

"Alright. I've been working on this for a while, but nothing is sacred. If you see a way to improve it or see something that doesn't work, tell me. Also, this is the initial idea. We can always add on to it later, though I'll sum up the most important parts to begin with, right? Okay, first, we work on an escape tunnel, coming out right here in my room. Both entry and exits will be hidden by a Shadow Door, and my room already has a Shadow Door. What we need is a convenient exit nearby that won't have us tunneling for ages. Any ideas?"

Aelis nodded. "Yes, Sire. There is a good location a bit further up into the mountain where the tunnel can exit. It is a bit off the beaten path, with no larger carnivores nearby."

"Wonderful. This is by far the most important part. As long as we can run away and return to build another day, everything else is secondary." I tapped the image of the throne room on the wall. "Then we move on to the throne room. This will be the place for any final battles. If we have been forced back this far, this is where we will have the chance to pull a few last surprises if we decide to fight instead of running away. To begin with, we already have the tunnel on the Eastern Wall running from the Clencher cavern to the Throne room, right here, hidden behind the Shadow Door. That gives us every possibility for a nasty flank attack by our Clenchers." I grinned. “That's just the start, however. While we have the enemy facing me and distracted by the Clenchers and Crawls, they will be attacked by the four Shadow Towers I’ve erected." I held up a claw. "That doesn't allow for one of our most important resources, though - you Talpi." Pointing at the map, I continued. "Putting you in the same room as an invading army is a horrible idea. That is why we will create a tunnel on top of the throne room, replete with holes for spellcasting and ranged weapons and a murder hole right here where they enter from the corridor."

Creziel interrupted, "If I may?" At my motion, he continued, "A single tunnel, leading straight over the center of the ceiling, like you're indicating, might stress the ceiling unnecessarily - especially if we put several people up there. Besides, the throne room is wide and we might create dead angles, where we cannot reach the attackers. I believe we should create twin tunnels and run them on top of the walls to avoid collapses." He tapped his thin chin before continuing. "I believe I have a way to ensure that weight is divided equally over the floor of these tunnels, avoiding unnecessary tension, but it will take some experimentation."

"That is great advice. I would like to hear your ideas before you start experimenting. Hmm. And you still believe that murder holes right here over the entrance would be feasible?"

Creziel nodded, eyes fixed on the map. "Yes. As long as we only need one person to activate whatever surprise we leave up there."

"This is going to be incredible. Let's see, Jazinth, you've had your fair share of working with Laive, right?"

The apprentice shook her head. "What? Oh, sorry. Yes. I've spent a good number of hours working with her on the Farm."

"Good to hear. I would like you two to put your heads together and come up with the nastiest concoction possible that we would be able to pour down on intruders from these murder holes. I don't care if it's boiling, itchy or poisonous... as long as it's really horrible to be on the receiving end of it."

"O-kay."

"Thank you. Now. Death from above. Shadow Towers from the corners. Clenchers and Crawls from the flanks-"

Arthor interrupted, "If you manage to finally train them."

"Agreed. You have seen the progress in Ursam, though. And I believe I do not need to fully train them, as long as I can lead them to the enemy and let them run amok, they can still turn a battle in our favor."

"That's still a big if." Arthor was not convinced.

I just smiled. "True. But then, I also need to have something to work on while you toil, don't I? Now, Aelis, how long would you say these constructions would take?"

She looked down, fidgeting with her paws. "Maybe a week for the tunnel. A little less. The throne room... what do you think, Creziel?"

Oooh - interesting. First Arthor and now Aelis, too. They were starting to see the value in Creziel. The tiny Talpus took it in stride. "It depends a lot on the current construction of the ceiling and walls. I will need to see them to be sure. However... well, we need to make the escape tunnel dragon sized, don't we? These tunnels, on the other hand, need only be our size and be made to carry our weight. That reduces the task a lot. I'm assuming the tunnels should all converge on the escape tunnel so we can run straight to the exit if we’re overrun? Let’s call it three days for the digging and two more for strengthening the tunnels and creating murder holes, maybe? Maybe less. The builders can dig one tunnel first, and get to work on the second while we strengthen the first one."

I shook my head in amazement.  "If only I had a company of Talpi back in my old world. I could have outpaced all competitors. Okay, moving on. Once the tunnels leave the throne room, we want them to move alongside the western wall of the corridor, with frequent holes for hidden attacks." I paused, frowning, my claws clacking on the floor in contemplation. "Roth. We need some ranged weapons that work inside this limited space. The usefulness of spears here is not optimal. Mostly because we would need a lot of space inside the tunnel to use them efficiently, but also because it would be relatively easy to discover our presence."

The squat beast looked lost for words, frowning. "How do you propose I do that? I'm no inventor."

"I know. You are, however, great with weapons and know exactly how Talpi fight best. I will tell you everything I know about ranged weapons, but I'll warn you, it isn't much. Now, moving on, we do want to use spears in two places. One should be a single spear, right... here."

Arthor squinted at the map. "At the entrance to the corridor? Are you planning on using-"

"That spear of yours? You'd better believe it. Widening the tunnels enough to use spears all the way along the corridor would be a lot of work for little gain. Especially because any enemies are likely to be stronger and tougher than most of us. With this single focused space, that amazing heavy spear of yours and a hole where the far end of the spear can rest, a Talpus or two should be able to cause significant damage to large monsters, stabbing at them through the hidden opening." I tapped the map right in front of the corridor. "Finally, right here, in front of where the decline toward the entrance hallway starts, we'll create a new and improved pit trap."

Jazinth frowned at me. "Are you just making things up now? New and improved? You want to poison the spears at the bottom too?"

"That's... actually a great idea. You’re in charge of that from now on!" I ignored the affronted look on her face and continued. "Hear me out. You guys are already experts in pit traps, right? Spears at the bottom, jagged edges of rock where they want to climb back up, the works. However, it's still a one-use affair. Anybody arriving afterwards will be able to fill in the hole or jump over it. Instead, what we do is this: We create a huge, plane rock that's as wide as the tunnel, smooth it out until it can slide over the surface - then we make it the ceiling of the pit trap. Create a hidden hole into the wall that the floor can slide into. Then, all it takes is a shaman to push the floor into the hole when the enemy arrives and slide it back over, once they've dropped through. Bam - reusable pit trap!"

I didn't need to feel for their senses to see their skepticism. The frowns were answer enough. Arthor, as usual, was the one to speak up first. "Now, I can tell that you love your own idea, but it's just stupid. First, there's the amount of time necessary to find a rock that's large enough and smooth it down to the point-"

Creziel interrupted, musing, "Actually, I think I know just the rock. And if-"

"Enough, Creziel! Even if you'd take the time to do this, you would be able to create half a dozen excellent pit traps elsewhere in the same time, and ones that don't take a shaman to activate. That's not even taking into account how you'd get rocks into that hole of yours. Also, if you get more than one or two groups to fall in, they won't get hurt anymore."

I waited for a moment. "Was that all? First off, it needs to be created right. I will help with the theoretical part of it. Also, yes, it will take longer to create than a regular pit trap. But you can't walk safely over normal pit traps, now can you? As for the creation of the rock we need: I will have to trust your opinion on what's feasible, but it sounds like Creziel has some ideas. Finally, I never got to show you the best part. Because, this hidden tunnel down here that runs along the entrance tunnel? We're going to continue that one until it's right next to the pit from the pit trap - and we'll be sure to have plenty of spear holes ready on the other side."

The silence stretched, seconds ticked, until Arthor finally, grudgingly said, "...I don't hate it."

We rounded off the planning session there, agreeing that every section afterwards would also be constructed with defense in mind and that we would introduce purely defensive rooms now and again, allowing plenty of space for traps. For now, the Farm was far enough away that we would leave it unprotected. Guesstimating wildly, it would only be two to three months before we'd get around to expanding further in that direction and that wholly based on how many collapsed rooms still remained inside the necromancer's lair. I wanted to see if he'd left us any further interesting surprises. Also, the rooms inside his lair were of a construction quality we couldn't entirely match still.