Two days after my children had discovered the vein of hematite ore, the Archmagus informed me it was time for him to leave, and it was good timing. The bulk of the reinforcements the Queen had promised had arrived the day before, nearing dusk, and the siege engineer, an alchemist specializing in architecture, a man by the name of Nikol Venn, had already begun reorganizing and directing the construction efforts, both inside the mountain and not.
We were on the clock, now; there was no possibility the cult hadn't noticed some forty men and women marching through the forest towards us.
There was no time for the listless introspection that had consumed me the previous week, and I preferred it that way. No amount of idle self-reflection was going to aid in our preparations, so I refused to let my mind drift like it had been, practicing my telekinetic threads, drawing arrays, and claiming new territory as Fera and their siblings cleared more and more of the area.
I still couldn't call myself truly competent yet, but I could control three mana threads, each two centimeters or so in diameter and three meters long. It was enough to reach the door to my chamber, but I needed to reach the camp and its walls outside.
Even over the night, I had pushed my limits constantly, experimenting, training, learning, pausing only to receive further instruction or direct my children towards their next goal. It used an enormous amount of mana, but I had no qualms about spending it now.
If I hesitated to pay this cost now, then I might pay a much greater one during the coming battle.
Besides, Callahan was due back in a week or so with mana crystal sufficient to completely recharge my pool and see me through the fighting on the horizon, and the more I claimed, the faster I recovered to begin with.
"Lycoris," I heard Markus say, holding a piece of paper up as he entered my chamber. "Good news. The Queen sent word that your denizens are free to hunt in the forest around here. The villagers of Blacklake have been made aware of them and this decree through planted rumor, as well, so there's no need to hold back anymore."
[That is good news,] I replied, pausing my practice for a few moments to look in on my children, hard at work clearing enough space for the newly-arrived witch-hunters and warmagi to sleep. [Carna, Chrys. You are cleared to hunt and forage outside of my territory. The Captain will assign a magus and witch-hunter to show you the ropes and protect you. Take a break, and begin as soon as you're ready.]
They looked at each other, a sparkle of joy and wonder in their eyes, and scurried off to gather what little possessions they had. Loaned water skins, small satchels of travel rations, a borrowed crossbow and dagger.
[Thank you, Captain,] I told him, returning my attention back to him. [If you wouldn't mind, please assign Bann and Davyn to accompany them. I know her Majesty only requested they be watched while excavating and building, but...]
"I understand, Lycoris. I'll have them meet the little ones at the entrance," he said, and put the letter on the desk before turning to leave, speaking to me as he moved back outside. "Don't expect them to find any game their first few tries."
[I don't. I'd just like them to learn and grow accustomed to it as quickly as possible.]
He nodded and barked his orders as soon as he left the relative darkness of the mountain, and only a few minutes later, the two men were escorting my youngest children outside of the encampment, and into the woods.
To my delight, I could still see a little around them, not much, and it was somewhat blurry, and they seemed to slip from my sight if I wasn't paying attention, but they appeared to carry a small piece of my territory with them, for lack of a better phrase.
I could keep watch over them while I practiced and directed their siblings.
Worked inside the mountain slowed for their absence, but it didn't matter much, as several of the magi and witch-hunters had been assigned to help the Kobolds, using tools bought from the village on their last trip.
Good, good... Another week, maybe two, and we'll be ready.
It was an optimistic estimate, of course, and there would likely be a few things left undone when the day came, but there always would be. No reasonable amount of warning or time to prepare would have allowed me to implement every change, every strategy, and every fortification I could imagine.
As an experiment, I attempted to push one of my mana threads through the door separating me from the outside world, and found I couldn't. Something about the solid nature of the thing disallowed my threads from simply phasing through it. I could likely drill a hole through it with the threads, if I kept at it long enough, but I could not bypass it directly.
I see why Tesha said it required line of sight or exceptional mana senses to use properly...
I withdrew my mana to avoid wasting it, and took a small break to check in on Carna and Chrys. They seemed to be managing fine, though Chrys kept tripping over exposed roots and getting their tail or horns caught in bushes, distracted by the outside world as they were.
Their eyes were full of curiosity and sparkled at every new thing they saw, and often things they'd already seen, and constantly pestered their escorts with questions about things in their only somewhat broken speech.
[Chrys,] I said, focusing in on the child. [Focus, child.]
The scaly little creature started at my voice, and shrank into themselves sheepishly. "Sorry, Lord."
[It's alright. There will be plenty of time to explore later. For now, you must learn to hunt.]
My youngest nodded, and stood a little straighter, doing their best to listen to the witch-hunter when he found tracks or signs of animals.
Satisfied, I let them slip from my attention, and looked back over the wall being built. It was coming along quite nicely, already at knee height all around, with a gap for the gate-to-come, with the stone stacked in an interlocking spiral pattern. The architect of the design was hunched over a table, various alchemical tools and materials around him, as he mixed and brewed... Something.
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Whatever it was, it acted almost like quick-setting cement, and bound the rough-made bricks my children had carved out with their partners together, ensuring at least some measure of stability in the structure.
Inside, my eldest three quarried stone as fast as the witch-hunters ferrying it back outside could carry it with the help of their earth sprites. They were already two or three times as effective at their work than they were the day they started, and only getting better, it seemed.
At this point, the Humans in the mountain had been relegated to support roles, like smoothing the walls after the Kobolds had passed through, or setting the support beams in place, which allowed the three to focus on clearing more, and faster.
There would be no shortage of stone for the wall, at least, though even I knew that brick-making was better done from scratch, with clay, ground stone, and other materials cast into the shape required. Natural stone was simply too heterogeneous, with microfractures and differences in material strength running the length of them. It made it unpredictable in the worst ways.
Still, we did not have time to set up such a process, much to Nikols annoyance, and mine, truth be told. We would just have to rebuild it later, when the threat had passed.
There was very little conversation throughout most of the day. With the promise of more mana on the way, I spent it recklessly, focusing on improving as quickly as possible rather than any form of conservation, and between that and constantly checking, rechecking, adjusting, and directing the Kobolds and their work, there was little room for me to speak to others.
It felt... Comfortable. Familiar. The kind of busy that I was used to as a Legate. The last time I'd had as much free time as I did lately was when I was in my fifties. Even my personal leave rarely lasted more than two or three days.
This, however... This was right. This is what I had done for nearly three centuries, the exact thing I had craved since I died, and every meter of stone and ore my children cleared only allowed me to increase the workload I put on myself by increasing the space available for me to draw energy from.
Is it the increase in territory allowing me to split my attention more, or am I growing into my capability as a Core?
It could be that it was both, I couldn't tell, and it didn't really matter all that much, I supposed, not right now. Later, perhaps, when I had the time to test it.
What mattered now is that I could attempt to draw two separate arrays as well as two mana threads, more, if I made them shorter, but number of threads was not what I was after. Distance, control, strength enough to carry ammunition to the walls, those were my goals.
I still failed to cast the two arrays even when I focused only on them, but the fact I could even attempt it while doing other things was a great stride forward for me.
If nothing else, it would allow me to focus on multiple things at once during the battle, and the utility of such capability could not easily be overstated.
When it came time for Tesha to tutor me on barriers, we found that my sight had developed enough to be able to see the chalk trails on the chalkboard. I still couldn't read ink on paper, not yet, but it at least let Tesha save a little energy by writing with mundane chalk, rather than the imbued sort that we had been using until then.
"That's great news. I am awful at imbuing objects," she remarked, wiping the test letters and runes away from the board.
[You seemed perfectly adept at it to me,] I offered, and she shook her head.
"Perhaps it seemed that way to you as a novice, but it's extremely difficult for me," she told me, quickly drawing several different barrier arrays with only somewhat crude depictions of how they worked underneath. "Anyway, you already know that domed and slanted barriers are substantially more effective than flat, static ones."
[Yes, armor and shielding worked similarly in the Imperium. It helps redirect the force rather than attempting to outright stop it.]
"Exactly. What do you imagine the best way to counter a strong barrier is?"
[For our shielding, the most efficient way was to hit it with as powerful a weapon as you could manage, preferably kinetic ones, repeatedly until the shield generator overloaded. Is it not the same for magical barriers?]
"No, it is not," she said, indicating one of drawings that depicted a layered barrier. "A barrier has to compensate for every attack, drawing more and more mana as it's struck, so, ideally, you would use a contingent of archers with moderately strong or enchanted bows.
"This spell here was developed as a counter to that counter. It's not perfect, but this honey-comb pattern pressed between two layers of thinner-than-normal barrier seems to have the most durability. Personally, I'm not entirely sure of the physics behind the process, but it's very mana efficient."
[I believe I can enlighten you on that, Magus Tesha,] I said, and she raised an eyebrow at that. [The hexagonal pattern, the 'honey-comb', likely helps absorb excess force. I would imagine it compresses slightly, like a cushion supporting the outer layer of barrier, while the inner supports the 'cushion'.]
"That... makes sense. I think. It would explain this descriptor rune here, at least," she replied, tapping the one in question. "Regardless, as you can see, it's a complex array, so it's not easy to cast. In fact, I cannot do it quickly enough to matter in a fight."
She might have been understating the complexity of the array somewhat, as it had over a dozen runes aside from the key-rune, the most of any spell I'd seen thus far, including the healing array she had taught me.
"It's most often used by warmagi during large battles, or so I'm told. Spellswords and other disciplines that blend martial and magical skill use a different method, however," she explained, and indicated a different array, just as complex, and sporting two key-runes. "This one is a hybrid spell utilizing detection and barrier runes to create small, accurate barriers across an area in response to incoming attacks without further input from the caster."
[And how does that work? Is it anything like the enchantments on a Core? 'Semi-aware', Callahan called them...]
The young magus smiled at my guess and nodded. "Yes, exactly. A two thirds of the descriptor runes are dedicated to controlling that. The small barriers it creates are relatively weak and only slightly curved, but it's used by people that wear armor and expect to be outnumbered, so its function is largely to slow a great many attacks enough for the armor to deflect them by itself without drawing too much mana."
[I see... Are you able to cast this one yourself?]
"If... you give me a few moments, yes. Did you want to see it in action?"
[Yes, of course, if you're willing.]
Upon hearing my answer, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly, methodically constructed the spell, and it collapsed into being not long after. I could see the swirling colors of her mana in the air around her, but no other indication the spell was active.
Curious, I probed at it with one of my telekinetic threads, but no barrier rose to block me.
"It will have to be forceful enough to be considered an 'attack', Master Lycoris," she chided me, eyes still closed in concentration.
At her instruction, I began a real assault on the spell, starting with just one thread and slowly multiplying them as much as I could. Each thread slammed against a small, hexagonal barrier a hands length in each dimension, the barriers dropping as soon as I pulled the threads back for another 'attack'.
Eventually, I was hammering away at her spell with as much force as I could muster in the threads, but I only succeeded in making the magus sweat a little in exertion. Not one of the barriers so much as cracked.
[I thought you said the barriers were weak? I understand that I can't put much more force than a punch into these threads yet, but...]
"I said relatively weak, Master Lycoris," she reminded me, and dropped the spell. "A punch is actually weak, at least from the average person."
I spent the rest of the evening, and much of the night, considering the implications of the demonstration while I practiced with the more basic barrier spells. Tesha wasn't even a warmagus, and I couldn't get past that adaptive barrier spell with six of the telekinetic threads.