The migration doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it takes a bit of convincing from Nek, Mirzayael, and the guards for people to even risk venturing their first trip out to the Catacombs. Centuries of enervation carry a weighty momentum.
But the sight of the Catacombs—no, Fyreneth’s Fortress—is impossible to dismiss. Even from just outside the Keep, its distant light fills the caverns with an unearthly glow.
The first time Beryl catches sight of the city, she stops midstep, absorbing the details in silent awe.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I say. The lights in distant windows, spiraling up the full height of the great cavern, twinkle like stars in the night. It looks lived in. Bustling. Thriving.
“It is,” Beryl agrees. “But it sounds like a graveyard.”
She’s right. The quiet that fills the cavern, when one would otherwise expect to hear the uproar of city life, tinges the scene with an eerie undercurrent.
“That’s the sound of potential,” I say. “A city waiting to be filled. What do you say: Will you help us fill it?”
“I cannot make the people of the Keep do anything,” Beryl says.
“But you’re their leader,” I start, however Beryl holds up a hand.
“I cannot make them do anything,” she repeats. “But I will happily walk this path myself. I should like to see Fyreneth’s vision with my own eyes. Should others follow in my footsteps, then so be it.”
Glancing over Beryl’s head, I meet Mirzayael’s gaze with a grin. She offers a small smile in return.
“Come,” I tell Beryl, helping to guide the ancient woman up the path. “There’s so much I’d like to show you. There’s an entire heated wing of the city—devoted to dracid, I think. Oh, I can’t wait for Nek to show his wife and kids. And Ollie’s cavern opens to the south side of the city; I’m thinking of building a path up to the palace for him. There’s pavilions so large, it seems like they were designed for lounging dragons. And of course, the main palace is where you should live, as the leader. Although really, the entire town could probably fit in there.”
“Hm.” Beryl grunts. “Sounds a bit too roomy.”
“Room to grow,” I insist. “Give it a chance. I think it will surprise you.”
Nek and his family are the first to follow. Though, bless him, I suspect he would have moved here if I’d asked even without Beryl’s endorsement. The rest of Mirzayael’s guards are the next to follow, as they’ve already helped clear the place out of most of the creatures that lived there. A few adventurous souls come to explore the city in the next few days, each huddling together in small groups, wide-eyed and whispering excitedly like a bunch of tourists. They return with more friends and family, the groups growing each time. A family of ten dracid is the first to officially make the move, carrying all their belongings into a heated section of the palace over the course of half a dozen trips. After that, the flood becomes inevitable.
“Food is the next issue to address,” I say, brainstorming with Mirzayael, Beryl, and Nek over dinner in the palace’s main kitchen. There’s technically a dining hall designed for such a purpose, but given the communal nature of the Keep, when mealtime comes everyone gravitates toward the kitchen. There’s several giant stone cauldrons set up along the walls, designed for a feast it seems. The glowing red-hot runes beneath each pot provide a fire-less, smokeless source of heat for the simmering stews.
“Fuel needed for fire is solved,” I say, nodding to magic runes. “And heat for the dracid. Clean water for the city. Plumbing for sewage. Shelter overhead. Fyreneth’s Palace meets all our basic needs, save for food.”
“What are you talking about?” Nek says, setting his bowl of moss stew down. “We have plenty to eat! We just need to relocate the fungi farms over to the Palace pastures.”
To my merit, I don’t grimace. “The mushrooms are certainly convenient to grow but they don’t provide a lot of… variety.” At least I’ve recently been refining table salt out of the minerals the Core has collected so far. That’s helped. “Besides, as the community becomes more active—especially the dracid, who won’t have to brumate nearly so long—we’ll be needing more calories to make up the deficit.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“We can relocate the stinger corrals into the Fortress,” Nek suggests. “There’s enclosures in the lower levels of the city that appear to be designed for agriculture, and can be altered to accommodate stinger physiology.”
“Perfect,” I say. “Not to mention, we could even potentially find some different wild animals on the surface to bring back and breed as livestock. Mirzayael, you said before you were interested in organizing some hunting missions. Has that begun, yet?”
The circle goes quiet.
“It has not,” she admits. “After the ice wolf attack, I suspected the Jorrians might follow; I have refrained from organizing any hunting trips out of caution.”
“That was weeks ago.” I shrug, trying to appear less concerned than I feel. “If the wolves were intended as scouts, and the Jorrians really do intend anything malicious, shouldn’t they have followed up by now?”
The others exchange uneasy looks around the circle.
“Not on us to know the minds of zealots,” Beryl says, stirring her spoon through her bowl. “The best we can do is assume malice and prepare for it.”
I bite my tongue before I say anything I might regret. It seems such a pessimistic, isolated way to live. And given their history with the Jorrians, I can hardly blame them for clinging to that mindset. But I also don’t want that fear to suffocate them and stifle their potential for growth.
“I doubt we will be caught unprepared,” I say. “Ollie’s promised to let us know if he sees anything. And we have your scouts, right?”
Mirzayael straightens, and I can see the pride in her posture. “Yes. Nothing else from the ice will catch us by surprise.”
I nod in agreement, and leave it at that. Maybe the Jorrians will simply never try to make contact, and we won’t have to know which way the cards will fall.
Even I’m not optimistic enough to believe that.
----------------------------------------
I don’t bring the topic up again, but within the week, Mirzayael organizes her guards for their first expedition out onto the ice. Gathering the handful of fraying fur-lined coats they have available, they strike out for the surface, accompanying Ollie for his daily expedition—and return that night with a slain arctic bear.
The mood skyrockets after that. Meat for meals, bones for tools, and a hide for better clothes all have young members of the colony clambering to sign up for Mirzayael’s next hunting trip. Pleased to find new recruits, she takes the opportunity to begin training them in the way of the spear. She claims it’s for hunting, but I suspect she has a different enemy in mind.
A family of dracid has taken it upon themselves to develop the agriculture, transplanting and nurturing the mushroom fields, along with a variety of mosses and ferns. I’m desperately hoping Mirzayael’s missions out on the ice will find some more variety of plants to bring back, too.
Ollie is delighted with Mirzayael’s expeditions. He even offered to let her ride on his back, which she politely and firmly declined. Despite the communication barrier, however, he’s still happy to fly ahead and signal to Mirzayael when he finds more animals for her to hunt. He’s even joined in, a couple times, but the creatures he catches suspiciously never make it back to the Fortress. Quite the mystery.
I’ve thought about attending some of these outings as well. I can’t say that riding along on Ollie doesn’t appeal to me; the ability to fly, even by proxy, calls to me. But then I recall I’d have no way to stop my inevitable death if I slipped from his back, and that instinct is quickly quelled. Besides, I still have so much to do in Fyreneth’s Fortress. Always more buildings to fix, logistics to plan, and small, daily problems to solve. Maybe one day I’ll devise a harness. Until then, I can dream.
I’m in the midst of clearing a new pasture for agriculture, using the Dungeon Core to remove the dust and replace it with some of the Keep’s soil, when Ollie’s voice bursts into my mind.
I jump at the sudden noise; I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to it.
“FYRE!” he cries. “FYRE THERE’S PEOPLE OUT HERE.”
I pause what I’m doing and glance over at Mirzayael. Even when she’s not around, she still has one of her guards following me—typically Nek. I should probably be offended that she still distrusts me, even after all this time, but I suspect at this point she might be more worried about me hurting myself if left unattended than me hurting someone else.
“Can you tell who they are?” At the same time I turn to Mirzayael. “Do you have any hunting groups out?”
“No,” she says. “Never without me. Why do you ask?”
“I DON’T KNOW,” Ollie admits. “I DON’T RECOGNIZE THEM. I THINK THEY’RE STRANGERS.”
Frost runs down my spine. “Ollie says there’s people out on the ice,” I relay. “Strangers.”
“Jorrians,” Mirzayael hisses, her hand tightening around her spear. “Quick, tell him to get back here. Do not engage. I need to assemble my guards. How far away are they?”
I repeat Mirzayael’s message to Ollie. We’re both already making for Ollie’s lair. Mirzayael barks orders at any guard she passes, but I’m just focused on what Ollie is saying.
“UMMMM IT LOOKS LIKE A LONG WAY. AT LEAST AS FAR AWAY AS THE ONE HUNDRED ACRE WOODS,” he says.
I blink. “As far as what? One hundred acres?”
“IT’S THE PARK AT MY SCHOOL,” Ollie says. “IT’S CALLED THE ONE HUNDRED ACRE WOODS.”
“Like Winnie the Pooh?” I ask, baffled.
“I DON’T KNOW. IT’S PRETTY COOL! THERE’S ALL THESE TREES WITH LOW BRANCHES WE CAN CLIMB, AND SOMETIMES WE PLAY LIKE WE’RE LOST IN THE WILDERNESS AND HAVE TO EAT BERRIES TO—”
“Ollie, how far away,” I say, trying to wrangle him back on track. “I don’t know how big your One Hundred Acre Woods is.”
“ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS THE PLAYGROUND, I THINK” he says. “MAYBE TWO PLAYGROUNDS. OR ACTUALLY MAYBE FIVE. NO WAIT, THREE.”
I pass a hand over my face. “Can you at least tell which way they are coming from?”
“OH YEAH, THAT ONE’S EASY,” Ollie says. “THEY’RE COMING FROM THE CLOUDS.”