As the dwarves marched into the Sanctuary confident in their ability to deal with a handful of unarmed and unarmored humans, they would soon get a rude awakening. Instead of the frail, cowering, weaklings they expected to find the dwarves suddenly came face to face with fully armed and armored warriors who appeared to be both well trained and well feed. Not only that but there appeared to be a lot of them. Realizing their mistake, the dwarves turned to flee only to find more humans. No matter which way they turned they found humans, they were surrounded. As the dwarves bunched up the fire mages stepped forward and began roasting them from all sides. Some of the dwarves managed to leap out of the way in time. Sadly, for them, that only resulted in each of them entering into combat with two or three humans. The four amigos in particular were all too eager to get their 'point' across. They couldn't match the dwarves in strength, but they had long since learned to use their small size to their advantage. As the dwarf swung the shield bearer jump allowing herself to be knocked back rather than trying to tank the hit. This caught the dwarf of guard as he was expecting more resistance leading to him being slightly off balance. It didn't take long for him to recover but he did lose track of one of the four girls. A fact he became painfully aware of a few moments later when he blocked an attack from a club wielder only to find two spiked clubs buried in either side of his neck. As the clubs were removed blood began spraying from the neck like two identical fountains painting everything red. As much as they wanted to celebrate their first victory in a real battle the battle itself was not yet over. The rest of the battle went pretty much the same though. Towards the end the Dwarves just wanted to escape, and if he didn't think they would just immediately return with reinforcements Logan might have let them.
This fight didn't even give much mana unlike the hundreds of enemies he had gotten used to facing. There was also the fact that them being killed by something not directly created by him gave slightly less mana. Still, it was enough to get an expansion and leave him close to another one. He also got a bit more scrape iron in the form of dwarven swords, shields, and armor as well as some axes that were the perfect size if a little heavy for some of the residents to use. It was only a matter of time before the dwarves began to wonder what happened to the group that they sent out and come in even larger numbers, but he would be ready.
As he was waiting for either recon team to make it back, he managed to buy another 5 expansions. Finally, alpha team arrived and reported that they hadn't found anything. This was disappointing despite being exactly what he thought they would find. He knew that finding humans which had already managed to escape would be rare, but he still held out hope knowing that it was a possibility each time he sent out a recon team. This time after letting them rest he sends them down to check on the elves. Once again, he sends a lesser wolf with them just in case. As they're leaving, he buys another expansion and then waits for beta team to return. Beta team did not return when they were expected to, however. In fact, it takes so long that he finds himself ready for yet another expansion while waiting for them to return. The question is, in which direction should he expand? He is still 27 meters short of being a perfect square as far as surface land area, yet he has expanded far enough west that with a few northern expansions the humans will actually be able to start using the town hall building. Not that they can't already but it's still too close to the edge of his territory for their liking. Specifically, the northern wall. After weighing his options, he decides to buy expand north. A small part of him protests, wanting to be more symmetrical. He suppresses that part by reminding himself that he'll never be completely symmetrical for more than a few days at a time. He can cope with being a little asymmetrical, especially if it's a human thing and not a dungeon thing.
A few days after buying the expansion beta team returned. It seems they found a scouting party from a group of humans attempting exactly the same thing Logan's human community was doing but without the aid of a sanctuary. The reason it took so long was that they were trying to get beta team to join their group and didn't believe beta team when they told them how big the sanctuary community is. They agreed to allow a few of their people to return with beta team to get an idea of where they were and how much they had to offer in trade. Cid was all too happy to show them around taking care to point out the farm, the houses complete with furnishings, and the blacksmith, as well as several other noteworthy buildings. He ended the tour by introducing them to all the new babies that had been born inside the sanctuary, some of whom had an older sibling who was also born in the sanctuary. Of course, he made sure to introduce them to a few of the women who were currently pregnant. By the time they were set to start on their return trip Cid had, not so subtly, convinced them that having their group moving here was for the best.
Logan buys another northern expansion shortly after beta team leaves to go meet up with the other community and hopefully convince them to come here. This gives them enough space between the town hall and the sanctuary boarder to start using it. Forming a government will take time but for now they can at least start storing things like excess clothing, potions, and anything else that isn't needed right away. Logan doesn't really try to influence the form their new government will take although there are a few forms of government he'd prefer to not see. As he listens to them debate different aspects of the government it soon becomes apparent that monarchy is the only system of government that has ever been tried by the humans in this world. While he still does not want to interfere, he feels that he would be neglecting his duty if he didn't at least give them options. With that in mind he gives Cid the basics of what he can remember from his high school government and civics classes as well as what he remembers of the various forms of government throughout history. He is also careful to import to Cid that the choice is theirs and that he was just presenting options that perhaps they hadn't considered. With this new information the debate will likely take a long time. Logan is also aware that choosing a form of government is just the first step to actually creating a new government from scratch. Personally, he is happy maintaining the status quo but he understands that the humans will eventually need to start governing themselves. "Better to do it now than when there are thousands of people trying to voice their opinion" he thinks. "Less chance of it devolving into a shouting match".
In an effort to avoid unintentionally influencing them he makes a point to ignore all discussion about politics. Not that he made a habit of eavesdropping on conversations normally. Eventually enough time passed that he was able to buy an expansion. Alpha team returned shortly after yet another expansion and still no consensus had been reached about what form the government would take, although several possibilities had been ruled out. The recon team reports that the elves have begun construction of a wooden wall around the camp. Beyond that they couldn't tell much more because of how far they had to stay back to avoid being detected. Deciding that They can't afford to let the elves finish the wall he sends 50 of his three headed wolves with orders to kill anything that isn't human. Along with them he sends a group of 10 melee fighters and 3 mages to rescue the slaves while the elves are distracted if they can, and to report on the results of the battle regardless of whether they are able to rescue the slaves or not. He emphasizes that they are to avoid direct combat but does tell the fire mage to try and burn down as much of the wood wall as possible while avoiding open combat. As for the recon team he sends them south by southeast after allowing them to rest for a while.
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Shortly after alpha team departs, he buys another expansion. This gets him part of several buildings and he is grateful that most of them appear to be largely if not entirely intact. He is sure that at least a few of them will turn out to be entirely intact but can't say that for sure until he actually has the entire buildings. A few days after purchasing the expansion he sends 50 stone wolves down to the elven camp. He intends for them to stop anyone pursuing the rescue team back to the sanctuary or to inflect more damage on the camp if the rescue team is not being pursued. Ordinarily he wouldn't be so reckless, but he is tired of waiting for the elves to do something. That doesn't mean he's willing to risk sending an army of humans. He hasn't ruled that out entirely, but he wants to get the elven camp a bit more manageable before sending in the human army if and when he needs to.
A few days later, after buying another expansion, he is informed by Cid that they have come to an agreement. Logan thinks that was a bit quick, but Cid explains to him that they wanted to at least have some form of leadership established before the leader of the other community can come in and take over. Logan can only nod as it dawns on him the one thing he hadn't considered when inviting that other group to join them is that people in charge rarely give up being in charge willingly without a good reason. The form of government they have settled on is something they are calling a democratic monarchy were the king or queen is elected and then they serve until they die or until the people choose to vote them out at which time another king or queen is elected. The king/queen would have the authority to appoint people oversee different aspects of government as needed. Knowing firsthand how power corrupts even the most well-intentioned Logan implored them to add in safeguards to prevent this in the centuries and millennia to come. One thing they did accomplish was naming Siobhan the first queen of the human settlement. This was surprising because Logan was sure that they would choose either Cid or Joel to lead them. It seems they would rather Cid play a more advisory role though. To them Siobhan was the only choice since she is the one who found the sanctuary. Eventually, in an effort to create safeguards against corruption, they settle on a set of rules that can't be changed by anyone including the king/queen. First is that the King/queens family has no more right to the throne than anyone else. Second is that anyone can call for a vote to remove the current king/queen at any time without fear of reprisal. Third is that no one is allowed to offer favors in exchange for a favorable vote nor can the queen/king accept favor in exchange for making certain royal decrees. Fourth is that all vote counting must be done in clear view of the public. These rules will be carved in stone and displayed in front of all public buildings. Logan isn't sure those four rules will be enough but without anything constructive to offer he doesn't say anything. He also doesn't think he has anything to worry about with the people in the settlement right now. In the future he hopes to create however, a generation will be born that knows only luxury. It is for their sake that these rules must be made now and must be unambiguous.
Beta team arrives with the members of the other community while they are still working out the last few details. They had managed to create a community of thirty-two people over the past year which was impressive seeing as they didn't have a sanctuary to protect them. They accomplished this by never remaining in the same place for very long and by taking advantage of the kobolds reduced numbers to slip in and out of their camps without being spotted. They had gotten pretty good at distracting the kobold guards before eliminating them from behind. Now it was time to try and integrate them into the community. For starters their scouts seemed to be very good at what they did so Logan saw no reason to make them stop. He did however combine their two 3 man scouting parties into one 6 man recon team which he named recon team gamma. He has them spend a few weeks doing sweeps of the perimeter to familiarize themselves with the area immediately surrounding the sanctuary. The rest turned out to be presorted into warriors, hunters/foragers, and cooks which made things a lot easier. The hunters/foragers became butchers and farmers, but the rest just kept doing what they were doing. The warriors were excited to finally get some actual gear as well as some formal training, while the cooks were delighted to have an actual kitchen to work with.
While they were getting settled, he buys another expansion. Shortly after which the rescue team sent down to the elven camp returned. It seems that between the three headed wolves and the stone wolves they were able to push the elves back far enough for the humans to get to where the slaves were being held but although just barely. The team believes that the elves may soon attempt to reclaim their 'stolen property'. Logan isn't too worried though, aside from his creatures the humans now have an army over 200 units strong comprising both melee fighters and mages. This is especially true now that every single one of the 36 people rescued chose to become warriors. He had figured most of them would choose to be warriors, they usually did after all, but usually at least some will choose mage, and some will choose noncombat roles. He is quick to temper his optimism though, thinking that the human kingdoms likely had standing armies in the thousands, and they still fell. True they fell because every single other race was united against them but still.
Deciding he isn't likely to find anymore wandering human groups towards the east for a while he sends beta team west by southwest in the hopes of finding a few humans that managed to escape the dwarves. As they were leaving team alpha arrives and reports not having found anything. They were surprisingly not as shocked by the changes that took place while they were gone as Logan had thought they would be. So, as they rested Logan worked out an official agreement with the new human government. It would basically be business as usual for the foreseeable future only now the human government, in this case Siobhan, would 'officially' be in charge of the recon teams as well as sending out the occasional rescue team with the sanctuary giving advice. Unofficially though it was very much business as usual, at least for now. Having everyone believe that a flesh and blood human was in charge of the town was good for morale, so he didn't mind having to go through Siobhan to give instructions to the various groups of humans. He does intend for them to actually have control at some point, but you don't just give a kid a bike and expect them to know how to ride it. To that end he plans to spend a few years letting her ease into the leadership role with the ultimate goal of them being completely self-reliant eventually. By then he hopes to have a territory so big it's all he can do to organize his creatures defense of the boarder. He is looking forward to not having to micromanage the settlement itself.
He was able to buy an expansion while waiting for them to rest up, and another shortly after they were sent out south by southwest. Adam gets to work, while the recon teams are gone, carving the rules into little statues and placing them around town in front of the public building currently in the sanctuary.
One bright spot for Logan is that all the new people have drastically reduced the amount of time needed for an expansion from just under five days to just over three. Something he plans to take full advantage of eventually but for now he decides to finally bite the bullet and get the spider spawner upgrade. He has grown several meters since the last round of spawner upgrades after all. To his surprise though, instead of the literal house sized spider he was expecting all he got was a spawn rate increase. He actually decided on the upgrade because of the extreme likelihood of the elves attacking soon so this works out perfect. Also, due to the sheer number of spiders of a particular size required to create a swarm the largest spiders to form a swarm have been the giant spiders and he has two sizes larger than that already. He really wants to know what a monstrous spider swarm would look like.