14
The fight went well. The scout team cycled through the night, manning the single scorpion on top of the keep. My own team slept or ate, Agatha standing vigil in the kitchen. She cooked what remained of the meat, prepping more bread that the keep allowed us to generate. Busy work to keep her mind off of the thought of finding her granddaughter. Of being so close, yet so far.
I took a nap myself.
Sleep was welcome. It had been a long day; ten miles over rough terrain, the fight with the carnivorous mutant rabbits, finding survivors from a different region. Enough to make anyone tired. Still not tired enough that I couldn’t stop to admire the keeps and all of the fort's abilities to generate food and clothes. We had a wide range of body types, and yet every time I opened a closet in a dorm there were clothes waiting for me that fit. Of course, I kept a close eye on the energy levels of the keep, slowly draining as we used more and more of the resources. Not my problem. That would be for those who followed behind us tomorrow.
I had known that another full sized fort was nearby. Now armed with the tenuous knowledge that the other faction could be dead, having fallen fighting the fish mobs. That was a fort free for the taking. A quarter of this region’s forts in my hands without fighting anyone, and another bunch of humans added to my forces. Wholly reliant on me humans who had no connection to Dan. It had been a good day, and a nap while the scout team was grinding levels out above me was nice. A few hours of sleep at minimum.
In the morning, we were a cheerful bunch. Devouring the meal that Agatha put out for us, Miguel, Bobby, and myself were happy at least. All seven members of the scout team looked a little ragged, and Agatha was already packed and pacing by the front door. The scout team showered quickly, grabbing fresh supplies of bread from the kitchen, and new clothes. The energy level of the keep was at sixty percent, a drastic drain on resources. If all the keeps were this energy inefficient, powering them would become a major problem. Resource management. The tutorial was efficient, teaching us and challenging us.
Region NSR-7 Occupied
5% Experience Boost inside NSR-7
The alert caught me off guard as we were standing to leave the keep. My team had also stopped, staring into space as they looked at the alert. At least I assumed they were staring at the alert. I smiled at the notification. It was a good incentive to secure areas, the boost for experience would speed the slowing leveling that some of the more experienced fighters had already been complaining about.
“We all get the alert?” Miguel asked. Bobby and Agatha nodded, Agatha didn’t seem to care as she was already out the door. Bobby had a contemplative look on her face, then shrugged as she grabbed her pack and then we were leaving. The team coming to occupy should be heading toward the keep already and I didn’t want to run into them yet.
Coming free of the gate of the keep, I got a full look at the carnage that had happened last night. The scout team had slain several scores of the fishmen, their bodies broken and cut open from the heavy shrapnel from the scorpion. Several had crossbow bolts riddling them. Two of the oversized crabs were laying slain on the slope of the beach, killed before they could get close to the walls.
“We need the mana hearts from them,” I said pointing at the two crabs. My team looked at their new clean gear, and then as one looked at the scout team. Bobby took delight in teaching them how to cut the crabs open and extract the hearts, wrapping them in towels and having Paul and Mia carry them in their packs.
Monica and Paul took the lead, keeping the sea to our left as we pushed further up the coast. I advised them not to stray away from the beach and into the long grass of the plains. The last thing we needed was a fight with more of the native wildlife. Hunts could come later, after we had secured the refugees.
It took most of the day before we reached the next fort. It was identical to the original fort we had found. Large oily stone in a square, scorpions ringing the walls. The gates were sealed, I could see from here. The only difference I noticed was a copse of trees to the West, just barely in eyesight. Thin and skeletal trees with little coverage. To the North, the sea was frozen solid, the water closer to the fort filled with floating chunks of ice. The chill was harsher, the exertions of the last few hours had kept us warm, but with night approaching I wanted to be in shelter.
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“Monica, we are going to open the fort first. Take Agatha to your camp and have them meet us in the fort. We only have a few hours until the next attack and we need time to prepare,” I ordered the older woman. I surged ahead of her before she could counter me, my longer legs stretching as I headed to the locked gates.
The beach was filled with skeletons. As usual the fishmen and crab corpses decomposed magically fast, their weapons breaking apart and leaving just hints of the nightly battles that took place. These skeletons must be of the other faction, the one that hadn’t managed to enter the fort, that had stopped and fought the endless horde head on. Their death, my gain. The gates yield easily, just touching them causes the same old prompt to appear.
North Sea Fort: Unclaimed
Open: Y/N
Entering the fort, I finally bothered to look who had followed. The scout team minus Monica were following along with Miguel and Bobby, looking around the wide open courtyard. I was glad that the gate hadn’t been breached like ours had, it would save us some of the energy reserves. We would have just enough to get food and weapons tonight, and then have to try to hold the wall with an undersized fighting force. It was going to be brutal, if we could survive it ,though, the gains for the survivors would be massive. Enough to make up for their lagging levels, and more in the bank for me and my team.
Going down the ramps, the scout team marveled at the warmth as we got lower, of the multitude of gates. Their fort in the Mountain Region had been smaller, with just a wall and a series of small buildings rather than one central fortification. They hadn’t had to deal with the extreme amounts of cold though, the cavern they were in had been cool and damp. I led Paul and Mia down to the furnace entrance while Bobby and Miguel started scouring the fort for skill stones covertly. We had told the remnants of the scout team to start prepping the kitchen for food after Bobby raced through it, looking briefly before bolting to the library.
It seemed my time as the only holder of information was fading. I couldn’t stop her, she was determined not to have power held over her. Miguel couldn’t care less, looking for more skills that would aid in fighting. I had told him to bring any to me that he found before assigning them, in case there was one there that would benefit Agatha, Bobby, or my own burgeoning fighting style. I really needed to start being more selfish, my stats and skills were lagging behind the others. I would have to take a big part in the upcoming fight tonight besides just leading and coordinating.
With both mana hearts deposited in the furnace, I assigned the energy reserves to producing food and weapons. Heat started seeping up, the fort slowly waking up from its dormancy. Climbing back up to the main hall, I set down my heavy pack, most of it unnecessary. I felt a slight annoyance of carrying it all around and then not needing the vast majority of it. Better safe than sorry though. Bobby hadn’t emerged from the library, when I ducked my head in I saw her with a stone in her hand, eyes vacant. It wasn’t the skill stone, but rather one of the larger information stones. She hadn’t wasted a moment.
Miguel was running around, his sword bouncing off his hip, smiling wide as he raced from room to room. His abandoned pack and shield were dumped in the middle of the main hall. I was getting curious looks from the still silent Paul and Mia, but I decided to play ignorant.
“Let’s go up top and check the scorpions and the weapons. We won’t have long once your people get here before the fishmen come. It’s going to be close, you'll have to send them in directly to the wall and battle positions,” I informed the two as I started climbing the staircase to the wall fortifications. They voiced their agreements and soon we were standing atop of the wall, staring down at the beach.
The beach was smaller, the distance from the end of the sand to where the fort was positioned less than a hundred yards. The frozen waste to the North seemed close enough to touch, there would be a keep out there that got the bears. The bears that I most desperately wanted. It was hard to tell if this fort would get the full sized horde that our original fort got, or if it would be a mix of that and monsters from the wastes. I was leaning toward a seventy-five to twenty-five split of sea to land monsters. At least most of the weapons on the wall pointed toward the sea.
“Hey, Agatha is coming back already,” Paul said, pointing at the plain between the trees and the fort. That was fast; I turned to look and saw he was right. Or at least I assumed it was Agatha, the pink blob was fairly distinct though she herself was too far to make out. They must have jogged to get there so fast to find her granddaughter. Behind them I could see a line of people trickling out of the treeline and following behind them. I glanced at the sun, slowly sinking behind the horizon. Then the sea, the tide rising and eating up the distance between the beach and the fort. There’d be less room than I had originally thought.
“Go below right now! Find Bobby and Miguel and tell them to get up here. Get the rest of your team, we need to start arming these scorpions right now!” I was certain now, looking at the distance between the line of refugees and the sinking sun. They weren’t going to make it in time, or at least not all of them. The fish would surface too soon, the falling sun and rising tide were an hourglass we wouldn’t beat. I was already moving over to grab one of the large bolts the scorpions used, grabbing it and moving to load the closest weapon. Paul and Mia were running below, already yelling at the others to come up.
We would have to hold the gates open. Hold them open long enough for everyone to get in. These would be the oldest and lowest leveled people from the mountain. They were slow, even Agatha, who I could now make out as she was jogging across the distance, pulling her granddaughter along, would barely make it. I’d send Agatha to the wall to lead the scorpion crews. Agatha and Miguel. Bobby and I would hold the lower area. Miguel’s speed wouldn’t be as useful trying to hold a small area, Bobby would be restricted with her hammer’s movements but I couldn’t hold it by myself and I didn’t trust any of the scout team to stand fast.
As everyone came rushing up, I outlined my plans to them. I got several acknowledgments, while a tired looking Bobby eyed me warily. We would only have enough people to man two of the scorpions when Agatha got here, but with all of them armed we would be able to fire at least one heavy volley. I told Miguel to save the preloaded scorpions until the crabs arrived, to only use the two stations we could normally man to hold back the fishmen. It looked like I was going to get my chance to earn levels the hard way.