After the 10-day walk around one of the mountains that lie between the fort and the expanse of conquered territory between the human settlements and the elves' territory, the party of five found a river a short distance away from the only road that leads into the fort from the direction of the elves.

Latif had another chance to show off his mage skills by causing a few trees to grow very quickly to obscure where they would be building a temporary bandit fort from the sight of either the road or the fort.

For the time being, the plan was to ignore the supply cart and build up their base. Laurentius originally built it to be 7 feet high so it wouldn't arouse too much suspicion but thereafter put Latif to work digging out a basement in the tiny shack where they could house a small army if they desired to do so. while they were doing that Lagina and Mia were hunting again.

They caught a few wild boar and brought them back so they wouldn't impede their construction. While the boys dug into the earth and helped Latif furnish their underground base, Mia began hollowing out a tree and building an inconspicuous lookout in one of the trees surrounding their shack. She built it to look like an abandoned tree house. Similarly, they decorated the outside of their shack to look like an abandoned hut so it wouldn't look too out of place in this war zone.

After sufficiently making their dwelling place look more like it was fled from in fear Latif began making secret doors that could only be opened when a certain password was spoken. His chants had become commonplace in the fort.

The second the war room was finished being furnished Lagina and Laurentius cooped themselves up in there and argued about strategy. Every now and again Laurentius' impatience would leak through the walls as Lagina advised they wait just a bit longer.

Towards the latter few days of their construction, Mia had to take Lahahana with her hunting. Because of his inability to hide his presence their combined hunting strategy was comprised of Lahahana chasing or being chased by creatures and leading them to Mia. Like a shepherd with her sheepdog.

When all was said and done they got together to inspect their work to see if any final additions needed to be made before they could call it a day.

The first floor of the fort on the ground was a small family-sized house built with dwarves in mind. The door clearance was four feet tall and they had to limbo to get in, the roof was only six and a half feet high so there wasn't much room to stretch or jump.

The interior only had one room with a kitchen set and a dwarven queen, think a twin-sized bed but four times as wide, and a small bed in a loft by the window. There was little space between the bed the door and the kitchen but between them was a small coffee table hiding a trap door.

Beneath the trap door was the same wine cellar you'd see in any dwarven house though the barrels were all abandoned and it looked as though the wine was all drunk and what barrels were left in a rush were already chewed open by rodents. Behind one particular wine rack was a secret door to a ladder leading down. It went down twenty feet at which point the building starts to look more like it was made with humans in mind.

The antechamber to the sub-basement's first floor is an octagonal room with four doors and four arrow-slit windows. a small rug with a compass rose pointing in the wrong direction sat at the base of the rope ladder.

Within the antechamber were a few chairs nightstands and a tiny bit of decor to make it look less dreary than the underground bunker it is. On the nightstands were four lanterns lit with candles that recycle their wax into new candles.

Through the northern door, marked as the southern door, was a hallway leading to the underground barracks the, mess hall and the adjacent two arrow rooms that were filled with quivers fletching and tools to produce more arrows the arrows in the room were made in the elvish style of eigth fletch with 4 short and 4 long feathers. The arrowheads had four hooks to make them harder to pull out as well.

Arrows made with left-hand feathers were kept in the left-hand room and arrows made with right-hand feathers were kept in the right-hand room. The barracks were made with bunk beds, three beds high, with enough room to house at least fifty soldiers in each room comfortably. There were 4 rooms with such beds marked with red doors on the left and blue doors on the right. At the of the hallway was the double-wide door to the mess hall.

Through the southern door was the war room, which connected to a storage room where they were currently keeping all their maps and cartography tools though in a small corner near the door. The storage room was built with the field rations of the stolen fort in mind, there's not much else that can fit in this area.

The southern door also leads to the other two arrow rooms the same as the first two about a thousand arrows in each room. Latif made the arrows while he waited for further instructions on the furnishings of the buildings.

The western door led deeper still. on the second level, deeper into the sub-basement was a large living area equipt with artificial magic lights made to imitate the daylight. There were a couple of recreational things built into this room: a billiards table, a dart board, and an empty bar.

Besides the door leading into this room was a room Latif built for himself as a medical room. A few beds here and there, some quick easy made remedies. and some everyday bandages and rubbing alcohol.

Laurentius also has a room on the second level hidden behind a bar shelf with his own double-wide bed and a closet. The third door led to another storage area, its ceiling however was up to the eastern door from the first level where the floor just drops out into this storage area.

Mia's tree house was built to look childish from the outside, a wooden box with a rope ladder, not much in terms of a lookout; but the interior of the tree was a ten-foot circumference space with a spiralling staircase leading up to the tree house.

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The interior was decorated fairly minimalistically, with a bear skin rug, candles on shelves and a few extra weapons here and there. There was a small bed in the tree house itself and a small hidden door both to get into the tree and to get into the tree house from within the tree. At the top was a large net hanging from a few hooks with a few blankets laid over it. Small vent-like cuts in the tree were carved into the bark both above and below the net. Above the net, it was clear this was to be Mia's bed.

One morning after decidedly not having much else to do as the next supply cart wouldn't arrive for another few days by their best estimate, the building was finished and the food stocked up for the time they'd need it. Mia stretched her weary limbs at around half past noon and climbed down from her bed to get some breakfast.

As she stepped out from her secret door she noticed the feeling of grass beneath her feet and was about to step back inside to put some shoes on but halfway into her turn she shrugged and just continued onwards.

Ducking down past the short doorframe she entered to see Lahahana cooking using the little dwarven kitchen they'd built to disguise the place should anyone come to investigate it. For it was the only kitchen he could leave messy and not worry about someone berating him for it, as it made the hut seem more lived in.

"Morning, Lahahana."

"We're well beyond morning now."

He put his eggs on his plate with his toast and sat on the floor next to the table. he held onto his plate and looted at Mia, she looked back in curiosity and he began to grow impatient.

"Are you going down or not?"

"Ah... sure why not."

Mia Moved the table just enough that she could crawl down into the trap door and get into the cellar and Lahahana fixed it after she went. As she reached the antechamber to the subbasement with the intent to go to the mess hall and grab some breakfast, she overheard Lagina and Laurentius arguing from the southern door.

"Why do you insist on damning up the river? are you trying to get us found out immediately?"

"Even if they do find out by the time they reach us they'll be too dehydrated to do anything."

"You think they don't have water in their storehouses? at least wait for them to deplete their resources a bit first."

"This is the only water source they have aside from rain and magic, neither of which are all that reliable in making water for such a large number."

"But it's still an option for them for all we know they have a lot more mages than we do. Their magic could be much more reliable than ours. Don't look down on your opponents, always expect them to be smarter than you, especially when it's you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Mia thought better of disturbing their quarrel and walked through the northern door and headed down to the mess hall. Latif was there cooking some fresh-caught fish and preparing a second plate.

"Oh Mia, you're up early... for you."

"Mhm."

She sat down at a table near the kitchen and waited for Latif to come out. when he did he brought her a plate of bread and fish with a glass of lemonade.

"How'd you sleep?"

"I slept well."

As she sat at the bench beside him in her usual way with one foot flat on the bench and the other leg crossed with her ankle over her ankle, elbow on her knee, slightly hunched over her meal. Latif noticed her lack of shoes.

"Why aren't you wearing your boots? Do you want another snake to bite you?"

"Honestly if I was barefoot that day I'd of probably noticed the snake tracks from the feel of the ground. It's my boots that were impeding me the leather didn't help to stop the bite at all."

"Why do you always insist on wearing the least amount of armour possible. do you enjoy making my work harder?"

"I'm a swift person with swift reflexes, as long as I don't get hit it's not an issue. I just have to be faster than my opponent."

"You always come home scratched up like collecting scars was your hobby."

"Master said when your body heals from the damage it takes it makes itself harder to injure and I should collect whatever minor injuries I can handle to prepare myself for more major injuries down the line."

"Of course he did."

As his face dropped his hands reached up to catch it with his elbows on the table. he let out a deep sigh and Mia tried to stifle her laugh. He raised his head up, a bit red in the face. Before the silence could get awkward, he tried to continue the conversation.

"Will you be back for dinner as well? Or are you going hunting again?"

"I was just going to take some smoked boar up to the lookout and see if they're coming yet. It should be any day now."

Laurentius and Lagina walked into the mess hall they were looking away from each other but standing together at the door scanning the room as if they just came back from making a reluctant compromise.

"Mia, good news, we're attacking the next supply shipment, sorry Latif your workload may increase soon."

Mia smiled while playfully picking up and eating her breakfast while Latif just sighed and ate his food mirthlessly.