Grim continued to plan until the first new council member arrived to take their preliminary orders. There was a knock on the door and Grim used a force spell to open it revealing Amelia.

Grim immediately started writing out orders in the air for her, "I need you to halt all non war related building activities. Start stocking up on resources to repair buildings and defensive structures. We'll start reinforcing shelters and bunkers for civilians, in case something goes wrong, tomorrow. In the meantime, stock up on resources and split your builders into teams with simple names so we can separate and deploy them. I'll make sure there are casters and soldiers assigned to protecting them as well."

Amelia nodded without saying a word and left. Grim continued to plan until someone else showed up, a tall individual in a full set of plate armor who was completely bald save for his long red beard. He spoke with a gruff voice, "Commander, reporting for the casters."

Grim didn't even question the fact that he wore a full suit of plate armor, he'd heard of much weirder, "I need you to organize casters into small groups that can be deployed. Organize them based on mana capacity. Those with low capacity will be assigned to help defend builder groups or to support soldiers. Those with a high mana capacity will be on siege duty. I have some spells I want them to learn. They don't all need to know all of them, but they should have at least two per squad. Organize the squads today and give them simple memorable names. I'll give you the spells at tomorrow's meeting."

"Yes, sir. Excellent sir." The man saluted, nodded then bowed. If Grim could have sighed, he would have. The man left and the next person to arrive was actually 3 people at once. The one of them that wore a full suit of plate armor managed to start talking before Grim had a chance to write anything.

"Hey John."

Who?

When Grim didn't respond the man continued, "You uh…" then he whispered the man next to him and the third one giggled. The man turned back to Grim, "Ah, sorry 'bout that. I thought you were somebody I knew. I'm Benjamin, this is Will and this is Alan. I'll be leading the melees and Alan will be leading the archers. Will is going to be my second in command and he'll be on the walls while I maintain the ground."

"All three of you, find and recruit anyone who can fight. Send them to this warehouse and split them up once you're there. Set it up like a pyramid scheme, promise them pay and they get more the more they recruit. Everyone who is joining though must show up at this building by 2 hours left on the countdown for the day. Will and Benjamin, you guys split the forces into two groups. I want the best of the best to start on the walls. They'll be guarding against the enemy forces that make it on or over the walls, which we have to assume will happen."

"The rest of the melee will be backup for the walls and will defend against anything that makes it's way past the walls. I want them split up into groups of 5 and they will mostly be guarding builders and healers at first. I'm also going to assign at least one caster to each of those groups once we get closer to the siege. For the next week though, everyone is training on their own to get up to snuff."

Grim continued with orders for Alan, "Alan, once you have your archers ready I want them to start practicing with longbows if they haven't been already. If they happen to have something with better range, that works too. Split them up based on aim and endurance. The archers with the best aim will be special units for taking out specific people or firing off flaming arrows to take down a structure. The high endurance people will be on volley duty, I want them taking out as many people as they can and fire as fast as possible. The more arrows in the air, the harder it will be for them to move about freely. They can also switch out with reserve units on the ground. I'm having the crafters stock up on arrows and bows now so if anyone is running low, they can go there."

Finally Grim wrote, "Any questions?"

Will spoke up, "Why can't you speak?"

"Magical experiment with a potion, should be fine in a couple weeks or so. Any relevant questions?"

They all shook their heads then took their leave.

Who is John?

The next person to walk in was a tall thin woman with blonde hair, "I'm Jen. I'm a farmer, not exactly sure what I'm doing here but Noah asked me to so…"

Grim wrote back, "You speak for the other farmers and are comfortable handling logistics for food and water storage?"

"Yeah sure, I can do that. What does that have to do with a war though?"

"One of the best ways to fight a war and take a castle is to cut off their resources. Then they can either starve or surrender. I want you to make sure that never happens."

"I see, I guess I ca-"

Grim interrupted her by writing, "I need you to start harvesting and collecting as much food as you can from the farms. Take all of the livestock and either slaughter them or move them to a warehouse in the city. Anything left outside the gates will be taken as spoils of war. I also need you to find some way of storing as much water as you can. There is always a chance we'll need it. If you can get enough water for us to survive a month, that should be enough."

"Uh, alright I can do that, I'll get on it."

She turned and opened the door to reveal another woman standing in wait in the door. They awkwardly shuffled to let each-other pass and Jen walked down the stairs. The other woman said, "Name's Susan. Here to represent the merchants."

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"I don't need a representative for the merchants, you can leave."

"Excuse me? The merchants are one of the most important factions in this town. We run on craf-"

Grim didn't bother listening to the rest, "You can report to the representative of the civilians if you'd like. You can wait until they show up if you'd like."

"Why would the civilians be above the merchants?"

"Because in a war, neither of you are fighting it. You will both be sheltered and protected when the time comes. You will both be treated the same."

After some inaudible grumbling to herself, Susan said something barely audible, "Alright fine, I was sent to be the representative of the civilians."

"Excellent, I need you to get people ready. What that means is, anything particularly valuable needs to be stowed in your inventories at all times or placed into one of the bunkers we are reinforcing. If you don't trust it there, and it is particularly valuable, they can store whatever it is in my tower and I will watch it. Every single civilian in the city should know the location of every shelter and bunker we are creating. At any moment they may need to run to one and that better be whichever they are closest to. If they want to plan for their own provisions, they should have it in their inventory at all times. We are planning a worst case scenario of a month. We highly doubt it will ever last that long, but we are planning for that anyways to be safe. Everyone should be ready to move at a moments notice. Make sure no one goes outside the gates unless absolutely necessary because we may close them at a moments notice."

"Yes, I can… I can do that. I'll get people ready."

"Update me at tomorrow's meeting on how it's going and we will adjust from there. If possible you should run drills so people know how and where to run. I don't want a stampede if the time comes to shelter, I don't want anyone to die or get pulled by a crowd to an incorrect location, got it? Everyone sticks to the right side of the street and doesn't lay a toe on the other side, clear?"

"Uh, yes sir. Don't you think that's a little dramatic?"

"No. If someone get's stampeded in a crowd, how are you going to feel? Let's make sure there isn't even a chance of it happening."

"Yes… sir." With that, Susan left appearing a little shell shocked.

With all that complete, Grim headed up to the kitchens to find Felix's impromptu guest. He found Mike in the kitchen cooking something on the stove. Grim couldn't taste or smell, so it just looked like soft goop to him. He used a very light force spell to tap on Mike's shoulder than wrote out in air, with a brief pause between due to spell casting cooldowns, "Mike, I've got a job for you if you're up for it."

"Sure man, what do you need?"

"I'm going to be having daily war room meetings in the lobby, where the feast table is now, every morning when the tutorial countdown reads 16 hours."

"You mean 6AM?"

"Yes. Would it be possible for you to make breakfast every morning for the council? I'll pay you a thousand credits each meal."

"Woah, I mean sure? I don't mind. I kinda just like cooking man."

"Excellent, first meeting will be tomorrow. Also, you are welcome to join us for the meal, it's not like the war preparations are super secret. Just try not to divert or delay the meeting too much if you do."

Mike nodded and Grim floated back down to the lobby.

Grim's next order of business was to go and find Noah, he had forgotten about one representative who was likely to be the most important of them all. He figured Noah would be at the walls as his orders were to make sure no one test fired anything. He found Noah standing, as he expected, atop the walls helping to organize things.

"Noah, I forgot the most important council member of all, I need you to find a representative for the medics. Healers and doctors and anyone that wants to help on that front."

"Oh yeah, I can see how that would be important. I think I know someone who fits the bill, follow me."

Noah led Grim to one of the houses in the residential district and knocked on the door. A few moments later a tall man with a neatly trimmed bear and curly blond hair opened the door.

"Noah, how are you?"

"Good thank you, this is Felix. We are arranging a war council to organize the defense of the city, should it come to that. I thought you would be perfect to organize the medics."

"I see. As of now though, the war might not even happen, right?"

"Correct."

"So this is just preliminary preparations?"

"Correct."

"That's a lot of managerial work, I'd much prefer to be a medic than to organize them."

"Probably."

"Don't you want someone with magical healing powers?"

"Nope."

"You want someone with knowledge? Who knows which injuries are urgent?"

"Exactly."

"I can recruit anyone I want to do the actual micro managing of people?"

"Of course, entirely at your discretion."

"This is the mythical creature that oversees this city?"

"Hell no." Grim shot in, "Noah does all the overseeing, I'm just a figurehead, and very much not mythical."

"Alright, what do you need me to do?"

Grim wrote, "I need you to recruit as many healers, doctors and nurses as you can. Anyone who wants to join should be welcome. Split them into threes with at least one healer and one traditional doctor per trio, if possible. We will be setting up three buildings for medical treatment. I need you to send everyone experienced to gather medical supplies, just charge them to the town. Anyone with no experience but who is willing to help, train them in the basics or find someone to train them. Also make sure they aren't squeamish, don't want them vomiting when they see a wound for the first time."

"I can do that."

"There will also be daily meetings when the tutorial countdown reads 16 hours in the lobby of my tower. If you have any issues or concerns or just need help, that's where you can address them. Noah and I will try to help whoever needs it and keep everything running as smoothly as possible."

"Will breakfast be provided?" He said jokingly with a smirk.

"Yes."

"Really?" Both Noah and the medic representative said in unison.

"Yup, I have a chef living with me right now, so I might as well put him to use."

"Alright, I'll be there. I'm Anthony by the way."

"Pleasure."

Grim and Noah left. On the road Noah asked Grim, "Should I be at these meetings as well?"

"Yes, you are the most important person in that meeting, above even me. You both have the permissions for everything in the city and you know the most about the people and infrastructure. If there are problems, you are going to help resolve them. If people need help or have issues, I will have them come to me directly then I will delegate the most important ones to you. Anything of lower priority I might ask for your advice, but largely, I will handle those myself. For now, stay near the walls and deal with the people setting those up, as of tomorrow you will report back to the lobby in my tower when you don't have any tasks, then you can wait there until someone comes asking for help."

"Alright, I will be there. Thanks."

Grim didn't continue the conversation any further and they parted ways a few blocks later where Grim headed to the tower and Noah to the walls.

Grim spent the rest of the day planning out the siege in the lobby of the tower. He ran through as many possibilities of how the enemy could attack and formulated the best responses to each of those. Then he trimmed down the list of answers the city would need to prepare by focusing on the answers that addressed multiple problems and removed the more specific options that were too niche. Some specific solutions, like cannons and grappling hooks on winches, would stay as taking down siege engines was essential to their winning the battle. . . . . .