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Core Defense
House Keeping

House Keeping

She looked to the body of the Green Brute and hesitated for a second. After a moment she bends down to examine the wounds more closely, likely trying to determine how many enemies there are and what kind of weapons they are using. Logan seizes the opportunity to launch an all-out assault while her guard is down. Normally he would wait but he doesn't like his odds in a fair fight seeing as he just barely took down the brute. Learning from his mistakes from earlier he immediately has them go for her voice box to limit her ability to scream for help, not wanting to have to fight someone every day. Judging by how spread out their arrival in his territory appear to be they must both be lone scouts, if they form groups at all that is. One thing at a time though, deal with the threat now, theory craft later. Unlike the male she has a pair of twin short swords. This would be very effective against my rats if not for the constant wasp stings keeping her on the defensive and apparently slowing her reaction time as he can see her getting more sluggish as the fight goes on. That could also be due to lack of blood, those dire rats are vicious. The mantises are of course doing their thing. She manages to kill all the wasps, but the damage is done, and she is extremely sluggish compared to when the fight started. In a panic she starts swinging her swords wildly in front of her actually managing to kill a fair number of troops that were not expecting the sudden change in tactic. With her voice box shredded, her throat gushing blood, and the wasp venom still taking its toll Logan has his troops take up a more defensive posture and wait for her to die. It takes a lot longer than he feels like it should have but eventually she slumps to the ground. Not taking any chances he has what's left of his rats attack her throat to make sure she is dead. After her death is confirmed, he relaxes and has everyone go back to what they were doing.

Checking in on the kid he sees that they are awake. Presumably awakened by the intense battle that took place just now. They seem bummed to not see their new rat friend although they aren't panicking like they were yesterday. Noticing the canteen, they appear to suddenly remember how thirsty they are and dive for it downing the whole thing in seconds. Then they begin to eat the berries. After a good long breakfast, they head down the stairs and pause when they notice the front door. They seem to be questioning whether or not it was there yesterday, but soon decide that they need to open it either way so it doesn't really matter. Reaching for the handle they are again surprised, this time to feel how heavy the door is. Once outside they do a quick loop around the house stopping when they spot the bodies. At first Logan is scared that the sight might be too traumatic but it seems those fears were unfounded as the kid walks over and begins kicking the corpses. The act almost seeming more therapeutic than anything as confirming they're dead seems to cheer the kid up. "I told you losers no orc is a match for the great Siobhan" the kid boasts in a display of mock bravery if ever there was one. Siobhan huh? So ... a girl then. After given them both another couple of good kicks she bends down and takes one of the short swords, well short sword for anyone else but it makes a decent long sword for her. She then begins rummaging through their belongings. Apparently finding nothing of use she pouts for a second and then takes off leaving Logan's territory. He hopes that she'll be alright but also knows that he wouldn't make her stay even if he somehow could.

With that big pile of mana he got from that fight he expands down again and immediately begins extending the stairs. Learning from his mistake from last time though he stops 8cm from the bottom so that the stairs lined up flush with the floor without having to shorten the bottom step making the whole staircase look off. He then proceeds to dig out a hole that is 2.5 meters tall and 10 meters by 5 meters wide. He'd like to make it 10 by 10 but he needs a few more expansions for that. Between the extension to the stairs and digging out the room itself it takes him the better part of 2 days to finish. When he is done, he strips the two orcs, apparently that is what they are called, of everything they own putting it in a pile in the corner of the underground room for now.

Now though he had a couple of big green problems to deal with. Namely how was he going to get rid of the orc bodies. He thought about just digging a hole and burying them. That was too much work however and he didn't want to have to keep burying people since he doubted that was the last of the orcs and who knows what else is out there. He also thought about dissolving them just like he dissolved the dirt and stone when digging the underground room. He decided that even if that would work, and it probably would, he would never do that. The only option left to him then was the least bad of a bunch of bad choices. He would have the rats and mantises eat them, simple as that. They don't seem to require food, the implications of which he made a conscious effort to ignore, but they can still eat. He also recalled that the mantises back on earth had a veracious appetite and figured it would probably be the same here.

With that rather macabre work started he intentionally looked for something to divert his attention. He decides to expand while he has both the time and the mana for it. He also hopes to get more material to work with. With that in mind he expands east for the sole reason that he hasn't expand east at all yet. Sure enough he sees the wall of another house about 6 meters from the one that he already worked so hard to claim. It appears to be the same style as the first house as well, although he can only see the one wall at the moment so it's kind of hard to be certain. What he doesn't see is a spawner. He also hasn't located the door yet so although he can go inside just fine, as not having a physical body does have its advantages, he can't send anything else in their for pest control. He also can't take materials out of that house without any kind of opening to send them through. Then it hits him, two houses this close together must mean he is in an abandoned town or village of some kind.

For the first time since he got here Logan turns his attention towards strategy. If whoever brought him here intends for him to protect this one specific village, and it looks more and more like they do. Then he is going to need a plan for how to do that. He is still way too small to be thinking about walls or anything like that. Besides, for all he knows this place already has a wall that just needs repaired. What he decides to do instead is make a cover for the underground area, the only problem being he isn't sure how. He spends the rest of the day trying out various designs, but nothing seems to work. He simply doesn't have the material he needs. Then he has another idea, the rats. With a thought, he sends some of the rats out to collect metal and wood.

One thing is clear he needs to focus. He feels like he has been bouncing from one project to another since he got here with no real plan. Focusing on strategy will hopefully give him an anchor point and keep his attention from bouncing around so much. He decides the best way to hide the stairs is to not hide the stairs. Instead, he is going to build a small shed around it made of stone walls. Honestly, he would rather use wood to help it blend in, but he doesn't have a ready supply of wood without destroying other things. With that in mind he sets to work carving out more of the underground area but this time instead of dissolving it he transports it up to the surface and molds it into the shape of a wall. He works through the night and by morning it is mostly done just needing a door. The question for now is stone door or wood door. Ultimately, he decides to go with a wood door because it would look like a door. It wouldn't be smart to hide it from those he is meant to help. Plus, he discovered while playing with the density of the wall that by stuffing extra stone into an area he could make it stretchable. The practical application of this is that with just a little forethought and some extra stone stuffed into the right places he can make the stairs disappear. At least from the point of view of people standing on the surface. With a bunch of little holes too small to be noticeable for air humans could stay down there for a while.

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That set he decides to examine the pile of resources the rats have been bringing. The metal being mostly plates and cups and the wood being mainly branches and sticks of various sizes, apparently chairs were a bit too bulky even though they managed to drag home a whole berry bush not long ago. He isn't complaining though as he wasn't going to destroy them anyway. He has the rats focus on wood since there doesn't seem to be much actual scrap iron just laying around. He puts the metal plates and cups in the underground area which has unofficial become a storage area for now. Then he focuses on gathering up all the wood that was brought in and forming it into a lump of wood. He can already tell he doesn't have enough to make a door yet unless he makes it super thin.

While waiting for the rats to bring more wood he checked on the spawners to see what he could upgrade. the only one he had enough mana to upgrade was the wasp spawner so he went ahead and got the level three upgrade for it. As soon as he did the wasp spawner increased in sized and a large wasp came out. Learning from past experience he quickly focused on the large wasp. As he does he notices that the large wasp is called an assassin wasp. Curious to see what this new creature could do he had the Assassin wasp attack the broke sword leaning against the wall. To his surprise instead of stinging the sword as other wasps would the assassin wasp just threw its stinger at the sword. Somehow each time he did another one appeared ready to go almost as if by magic. "Magic can't exist though can it" he thinks to himself. After a few seconds he has to admit that it's possible. He is a sapient bit of territory after all.

Just then Siobhan returns with two other people both older than her but not by much. One looks to be between 14 and 16 and was very obviously female. the other was around 17 or 18 and his broad shoulders indicated that he was male. As they spoke this was confirmed. "Is this the spot" asked the Male in the deepest voice Logan had heard in years. "Yup this is where I spent the night when I was gone that one day" replies Siobhan. "Well technically it was on the second floor over there" she says pointing to the house. "And you're saying that while you slept food and water just magically appeared" says the older female. "Yes, Lulu that's exactly what I'm saying" Siobhan snaps back. "Food and water don't just magically appear" retorts Lulu. "They might if uh ... if this were a human sanctuary" the male, who had mostly remained quiet said. "Could such a thing even be possible" Lulu asked with hope in her voice for the first time. "Well, something in this area killed the orc who was chasing me when I got separated from you and Cid, and the one that showed up the next morning" she said pointing to what are now skeletal remains. "That's where I got this sword" she says gesturing to the sword on her belt. "It's too bad their equipment isn't still around; I would have loved to have gone through it" Cid remarks. "They didn't have much on em." "Just weapons and a scrap or two of armor between them, not even any potions" Siobhan answers back quickly. "So, potions are a thing here then" Logan thinks as he sends a dire rat to greet the group. The other two look nervous when they see it approaching but Siobhan is able to reassure them that it won't hurt them. At a certain point it stops and waits for Siobhan to approach and start petting it. After an anxious few seconds, the two others realize Siobhan was right and begin to approach. As they do though the rat starts moving towards the not so secret staircase. Logan has it stop every few seconds to let them catch up and to make sure they are following. It takes a few tries but eventually they catch on that they are meant to follow it. As they descend the stairs Lulu holds her hand out and a ball of light appears. "So not only potions but magic as well huh" Logan thinks to himself while the rat leads them over to what is left of the orc's stuff. At first, they are excited but as they search through it their smiles turn to frowns. "The armor is way too big; the swords should stay together if possible, and that other weapon is much too unwieldy for anyone but a tank, and a large one at that" Cid bemoans dejectedly. "What about the cloth" Lulu asks trying to find something positive. "Well, someone skilled enough could probably use the cloth and a good Armorer could probably recycle the armor" Cid adds also trying to stay positive.

"So is there really such a thing as a human sanctuary" Siobhan asks suddenly. Seems she has been thinking about it since the idea of Logan being one was first brought up. "Well, ya" says Cid "I mean at one point we must have had just as many as any of the others if not more or else we would have been wiped out long ago." "So, what does this place possibly being a human sanctuary actually do for us" Siobhan asks her interest clearly having been peeked. Logan listens as well because so far, he's just been bumbling around, and he knows his luck won't hold out forever. "Well first off if this is one the core will probably be around here somewhere" explains Cid. "That is the heart of the sanctuary and the source of its power." "Huh, I knew that little gem was important" Logan thinks to himself. "They do not allow any but their own creations and their chosen sapient race to be within their borders" Cid continued. "They can manipulate anything within their borders, with but one exception." "That being that they can't manipulate living beings directly that they did not create themselves." "They can also deconstruct things and put them into their inventory." "Wait wait wait, are you telling me I've had an inventory this whole time." Logan mentally facepalms but is really glad he decided to pay attention. He makes a mental note to figure out how to access his inventory later. "Their greatest feat though is accelerating the growth rate of things by pouring mana into it" beams Cid happily. "It is said that a strong enough core can bring a field of plants from seeds to harvest ready in just a few days." "The truth is though I do not know all of their secrets, this is just what I heard from the old ones back at camp."

"We should try to find this core and confirm whether or not this is one" announces Lulu suddenly, surprising everyone. They soon agree though and start looking around. After a few seconds they decide it's not in the underground room. "I doubt it'll just be out in the open" says Cid "or else we would see it." "It can be very small depending on how much territory it owns and how upgraded its spawners are" "I wish we knew what to look for when it comes to spawners" says Siobhan wistfully. "Let's just check that house over there for now" answers Lulu trying not to get sidetracked. Logan doesn't really mind if they find his core or not since they, specifically humans, are the reason he is here. Siobhan checks upstairs while Cid and Lulu check downstairs. It doesn't take long though and Lulu soon finds it. "I think I found it" she says questioningly, never having seen one before. "that's got to be it" Cid confirms. "Unless you know of another gem like that" he adds quickly. The core by now is about Cantaloupe sized. There is still a little time before Logan needs to think about moving it.

"You two stay here and start getting things organized while I go round up as many people as I can" Cid says before racing off. Logan is happy about this new income since his passive mana generation has skyrocketed with just those three being here.