Chapter 30 Part 2 of 2 (Patreon)

***

"Move it!" The Artillery Platoon's Second Lieutenant Couto yelled as everyone started streaming out the rear of the Kestrel.

Rugrat and the special team ran out of the Kestrel into the forest breaking up into individual sqauds and spreading out. They started to mount up, getting ready for the second part of their journey.

"I remember the first time we did this all," Han Wu said.

"Yeah I do too, you were practically humping Rugrat's leg to find out more about explosives," Gong Jin said as he got on his mount.

"It was strange," Rugrat agreed.

"Hey I never knew about it before then!"

"Then he blew up half the damn road to Vuzgal. He learned fast," Rugrat said.

"And maybe turned a little redneck in the process. The bigger the explosion the better."

"Heh," Rugrat half shrugged and grinned as he whistled.

George came shooting out of the sky expanding into his full size as Rugrat jumped on his back.

"First Mages Squad move out!" Second Lieutenant Couto ordered.

The Platoon shook out as the mages led the way, as they did so they used tree moving spells, clearing a path.

"Seems almost peaceful," Simms said, riding with the ease of someone that had done it most of his life, his eyes scanned the right side.

"What, other than all of the people that are rushing towards us to kill us?" Tyrone asked looking over the left side.

"Well, that's just part of the job," Han Wu said.

"Everything is nice and peaceful, until it isn't. Peace and chaos," Rugrat snapped his fingers. "Just that close to one another."

"Like Hurrying up and waiting?" Gong Jin asked.

"Smart ass," Rugrat laughed.

"Halt!" An officer called out as the convoy came to a stop. Mages dismounted and used their spells. They were standing on top of a large hill that had commanding views over the land infront. The remote hill was only reachable through flight.

Spells pulled back the vegetation that covered the hill, natural and purposefully placed. The remote and wild hill turned into a series of mortar pits and interlocking trenches.

"Shit these are a bit big," Rugrat said.

"These are newer, built to not only house mortars but the new artillery cannons," Han Wu said.

"Too much time around explosives," Gong Jin sighed. The squads set to work clearing out the pits and preparing ammunition.

"Lets get working on the most important stuff, rooms," Gong Jin said.

They moved away from the guns.

Rugrat jumped down into a trench and reached his hands out to the side, as he walked forward the ground ahead of him and beside him compressed down and to the sides, creating another trench on the same level.

Rugrat created the trenches while other members of the special team moved trees and bushes away.

Rugrat reached the plots where the first squad would be staying.

"I've got this one, just want to test out my limits," Rugrat said.

"Alright, Tyrone, Simms watch him, rest of you with me," Gong Jin walked off.

Rugrat increased the trench width.

Compressing the dirt makes it nearly as hard as stone, but still porous to take water.

Rugrat turned to face the cleared ground, there were three cleared sections of ground creating three ten by twenty meter outlines.

Rugrat reached out with his domain into the ground, he felt through the dirt, deep into the ground.

Those streams will be useful.

Rugrat looked deeper into the ground, passing through the dirt into the stone of the hill.

He fused the stone together checking the clear patches of ground above ground.

"Up you come."

Twelve stone pillars as thick as a tree shot up through the rubble and the dirt.

Rugrat stopped ten meters below the surface stone spread out between the pillars, creating a fifteen centimeter hypercompressed slab of stone as strong as unenhanced iron.

Rugrat pushed it up on the pillars, causing the dirt above to mound over.

In the space underneath Rugrat created walls with A frames creating zig zag patterns down the walls.

The dirt was falling everywhere as Rugrat compressed the dirt into three sets of stairs and an entrance.

The stone walls of the bunkers appeared. Rugrat compressed the dirt in bands, creating cushions of dirt to disperse the kinetic forces, while the compressed bands gave greater cover.

He stopped rising the three rooms and formed the floor.

I'll add in a pitch to make sure that the water and much has somwhere to drain. I'll cover the A frames reinforcing the walls and ceiling.

Stone covered the walls, making them smooth.

The floors were slightly pitched into the front right corner.

Pipes that go down and connected, I'll hook them up to the smaller stream to take away the waste water.

I'll block off the other stream.

He cut off the other larger stream and guided it into another pipe, with the pressure the water went up the pipe, ending up in the rear of the middle bunker. He created two more stone pipes that went to the other bunkers.

"Lets check it out shall we?"

Rugrat went to the first of the bunkers he conjured mana blades cutting through the stone, they turned into hands pushing the slab in and grabbing it before it fell.

Rugrat took out light formations and stuck them to the ceiling. He saw the simple grey-flecked room he'd created.

"Need to make a bathroom, pull that wall out a bit, have the showers in the right, shitters in the left.

The wall on the right grew out, creating a dividing wall as the entrance section flew opposite, fusing with the floor and wall before growing into another dividing wall.

"Stalls, and more drains. Connect them to the waster water chute and stream."

The walls and pipes grew unseen.

Rugrat checked the showers they had holes on the wall and drains.

The bathrooms were a series of holes in the ground leading into the unknown.

"Simple, but effective. Always get a better dump squatting. Feels more natural," Rugrat said to Simms who was admiring the bunker.

"If you say so."

"Got bathroom, sleeping area," Rugrat altered the area around the steps,.creating a trough leading to the drain. "If it rains then the water will drain away nicely. Just need to repeat it on the other bunker, and make sure that the other bunkers don't use my waster water stream for their showers, that would suck!"

Rugrat walked for the entrance Simms followed him. Rugrat created a switch back entrance so they wouldn't need a door to protect them from the elements, growing it from the floor, ceiling and walls.

"Not even a dent in my mana pool. Shit I wish I could have done this in some of the places I had to fight. Damn hooch hotel around here. Get all that gucci shit."

Rugrat saw the plan of the first bunker with his domain, sky, ground, stone, air, it didn't matter with his domain as the bunkers walls started to grow and reshape according to the first bunker's layout.

"Coma back here plants."

The trees and bushes moved, their roots entombed the bunkers, creating another layer of defenses as they grew over the trenches infront of the bunkers, creating a kind of camo net from vines and bushes, hiding them from above.

"Okay now I've done it once should be easy to repeat it!"

***

Rugrat had finished creating all of the bunkers, impressing the artillery platoon who'd sighted in and readied their mortars and formation plates. Cold wind kept most of them in their new bunkers, waiting. Sentries watching the hill top, scanning with their binoculars. Rugrat had a sheet tossed out, his custom railgun broken down into parts.

The parts altered slightly as Rugrat used his mana-smithing abilities to alter them ever so slightly. Enhancing them slightly more, decrease their size slightly, reinforce the threading a bit more.

"That's just plain weird," Gong Jin said as he walked up.

"With my domain increasing I can sense things more clearly than before. Seeing that everything isn't perfect would annoy me to no end. I'm sure that later on I'll want to change it all again. For now, she's the best I can make her."

Rugrat picked up his cup of coffee and drank from it, looking out over the mountains.

“Are you sure about this sir?” Gong Jin asked.

"Sure about what?"

"Being out here, you're the lord of, well Alva, everything."

"I ain't sitting in the rear with the gear. I know that I shouldn't be on the front lines. Simple matter of fact is that I ain't built for command, I'm just built to be where the metal meets the meat. Commander Glosil, the Silaz's, they're better at that officer shit than I ever will be. Damn I don't think I could be them, holding back, coordinating, watching and planning. That's one hell of a burden to carry and hold."