{Church pov}
A lot of procedure was waived during the last awakening, with so many heroes awakening the seekers meant to find out heroes hiding, was confirming heroes instead. Now the church doesn't know if any forbidden class slipped through. Since the ones who have a skill with truth and lies were used there should be very little who managed to get out.
Seeing the listed few is missing, every cadet should be here in the academy. Yet a lot of the kids are missing none important but still disturbing. 20 of the normal class were either killed or sent somewhere to be recruited by the traitors. Every year they seem to be getting bolder and bolder.
{Liam pov}
3 months in, the heroes and warriors managed to push the lizardman back three towns over and it takes a week on foot to get back to camp which is why we're moving forward.
Same operation still hid myself as a puppet stand stayed somewhere safe, on the roof unless you see my puppets moved deliberately, we look like ornaments up here. The next camp area was the wall of an old castle ground it's 2 weeks on carriage as the castles should offer best defense even if we are technically moving behind enemy lines
I also managed to create the spirit fairy thing, it helps people by gathering mana and purifying it. Also made it help a tree as an experiment and it managed to help it grow. A straight branch that is just 5 cm in diameter and 2 feet long drops from the tree as if the thing which I will now call a wish from warcraft is giving me tributes every day. It's enough for my campfire to keep burning, making me self efficient as long as I'm near a tree.
We reached the castle grounds and the only thing I can say is it's very big. The new campgrounds are around the castle with one side on the wall which would hopefully give protection rather than defending all sides; only three sides need to be dealt with.
This time my two campfires are going on the front where the carriages are ready for escape even if the supplies were not unloaded. Now that there are enough puppets and with the guards accustomed to my puppets leaving camp I think it's time I explore this mess, sir Edward won't mind if we borrow some bows and swords.
exploring the ruins gave perspective to this castle's design. It's the typical square and circle but with 5 circles. Like how the Olympics logo is designed, with each circle harboring a facility that help each circle. According to others the reason the castles was taken was because of ratman tunneling under a wall and a castle collapsing the infrastructure letting the lizardman conquer the castles.
Entering the main throne room, you can see that plants and debris have already claimed this area. There's trees and dirt to plant something, I will claim this area and just pack up if the heroes manage to reclaim the land.
The throne is near the back of a long rectangle room, braziers in the middle, the walls are intact, the only thing is the tunnel's need to be patched and the door watched.
Trees are scattered near the throne, with the light perfectly hitting it scattering the light around the room.
Putting up the campfire, it gave me the needed upgrades.
Campfire: upgrade 0/4
Tents: will help citizens recover fatigued faster.
Cooking pot: any food cooked will have increased satiety.
Crafting bench: let's citizens have access to craft basic necessities.
Armour bench: let's citizen tan and craft leather armor.
Completing the upgrades will level up the campfire to bonfire.
There are 5 puppets with me while the other 5 are back at the base. 3 wisp is now tending the trees and 2 are attending the potatoes.
The crafting bench and armor bench can made with the supplies I got plus the woods from the tree.
I need the puppets to either try to clear lizardman camp and get their tents or kill lizardmen and get some leather. I guess for the next week I need to gather the things and turn this into a real camp.
{Sir Edward pov}
What kind of command is this to push forward and reclaim castle Maribel is a good choice if there are more men at the ready. If not for the five heroes basically exterminating the lizardman we would be dead by now.
Not to mention the kids I was suddenly given, farmers, campers, and artisan what will they do on the front make a statue to scare away the lizardman. It's not like they hadn't helped temporary battlements and provisions they provided were a welcome change, I think I'll write to lord renwick about this.
Speaking of campers, that kid is weird. He hardly ate and his form of skill is a campfire, while I'm thankful for the safety zone the totems create having to sleep while there's a hum or thud every minute is annoying at times.
Sadly the kid is still low leveled and barely helped with his zone, aside from slowing down enemies it doesn't seem to do much.
Ring,ring,ring
Three rings monster attack, time to step up and make sure everything is safe. “Soldier to arms, civilian class get to the carriages and be ready to…..”
{3rd pov}
Sir Edward was shouting orders before he had fallen and dragged into a hole. The carriages are burning and the safe zones slowly disappear one after another. All except for two campfires steadily burning against the dark, only 4 carriages are saved thanks to the campfires.
Children in dark hoods are now holding lanterns in their left hand and swords on their right. Defending the retreating soldiers from ratsman tunnelers and lizardman attack. Hurling fireballs, lighting and ice spike to the chasing monsters.
Soldiers once humanity's pride now leaderless routed quickly. As the carriages begin to leave alongside running soldiers, Kristian's injured hero watches as kids no more than 10 year-old hold down line letting them escape.
“Saved the kids” bellowed Kristian pain can be heard in her shouts as little by little the kids holding lantern light slowly got put out. While the soldiers screamed and ran.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“My Lady you're too injured to help, just let them go” Kristian looked at the lady healer, stunned to accept this lady who supported her with fanatic admiration would just leave kids to their death.
The retreating soldiers meet the vanguard who is also getting ready to leave. Many of the campers were assassinated to the point that humanity's front is now pushed back by another town. As the other races are getting restless on the sudden surge of heroes amongst humanity's power.
{Liam's pov}
I was sitting on the throne pretending to be king as one should be when I lost connection to my dummy. I quickly began making more puppets, ordering them to watch the tunnels and block the doors with ice magic.
Right after recreating my 10th puppet it happened banging on the door. My puppets formed a two man line In front of the throne. My wisps came towards my lantern while the last wisp went to the campfire letting it burn brighter. I instantly feel the increased in my stats along side the boost in regeneration and rejuvenation.
The lizardman, lizard they may be, was not the idiots I was hoping for. They broke down the door using the hinges, the door creaked as it felled creating a huge bang and smoke envelops the room.
I look at the lizardman witch, as it looked at me sitting leisurely on my claimed throne. ”fire” I whispered which was totally unnecessary considering theses guys are my puppets doing my orders.
Fireball, lightning and ice spike pelted the would be chargers alongside their witch and shamans. Instantly my level rose both from the ones outside and ones in here. As I reached another level, another puppet gets spawned going forward to assist in the formation.
It's a good thing I managed to fully commit theses process into my subconscious otherwise it'd take me minutes just to create one. The battle now shifted as the 5 new puppets moved forward meeting the lizardman. Honestly the lizardman don't seem to notice that my puppets would kick their weapon back to be picked up by another puppet.
I know I look good just sitting here but hey do you think, maintaining and controlling this many puppets are easy it's a good think my brain got trained during my endless hours of StarCraft otherwise my puppets would just be stupid and continue thrusting swords.
Sweat is literally running down my body, who knew fighting for one's life is hard. Hearing the ground rumble I knew the stupid rats are going to up out soon, it's a good thing this thorne is over a metal surface and my 10 puppets are on the metal too, the only ones who are in danger are 5 that's blocking the door, I should ready more spells to hit this stupid rats.
The rats stupidly jumped out of their holes only to get pelted by magic. Letting shrieks of pain before rolling and dieing.
{Sir Edward pov}
Damn rats fully capitalized that we don't know they were here. Four of the heroes are with him alongside the other civilian class and some soldiers. They begun separating them when he woke up.
A ratman approaches Edward “ah the captain is awake don't worry you will be last to be sacrificed alongside your heroes enjoy the lowest of the pits.” The ratman taunted Edward it even pushed its snot through the bars fully mocking the knight whose body was still numb.
He fully expected to hear their drums and gongs initiating their ritual for their gods. But a day later still nothing, instead more and more of the rats are going somewhere.
{Liam pov}
It's been a day now since their original charge, a lot of corpses are in this throne room. I should turn their skin into leather, as for the meat I'll probably sell to other towns. The locals might not have scruples in eating another sentient life but not me.
As for desecrating a corpse, these guys routinely kill, skin and eat humans. If they see us as animals , why should I give them the dignity of being equal. With the leather I should have enough to upgrade this camp with tents, I should just not think that I'm going to sleep on my enemies dead skin.
The potatoes got trampled but because of the wisps I have boxes of those. Until I get to trade I guess it's a vegetarian life for me. The rats seemed to have captured some people. I'm going to reset the campfires on the outside first, that way it would like I'm still there.
The tents provide a 30% increase in stamina regen and 10% on mana regen. With a wisp enchanting the tent it increases by two folds, the cooking pot lets me “cook” meat. I mean putting near the corpse in the zone is enough for the camp to process it into dried meat. This only works if I do it otherwise my puppets need to do it the normal way.
Outside I let my puppets cut down some trees and turn it into a palisade. This way the new camp has some sort of walls to protect it. The layout now is an infinity sign with intersecting sections as gates. While the other sides are protected by wooden palisades, my puppets managed to follow some tracks leading to a lizardman camp. Tomorrow I'm gonna try and free the 5 men captured.
I'm with 7 puppets; the two will serve as my protection while the others will attack the camp. I wish I could just do this remotely like when scouting but these wooden puppets get easily killed if I don't order them.
One flash of fireballs for the guards and my puppets charging later and the camp is clear, the men are grateful they got freed apparently there should be more prisoners. They were kept alive as sacrifice and food, they would rest for the night then 3 of them would scout the way back. I don't have the heart to say I'm staying here.
Scouting for the other led me to some lizard man camps. I'm gonna attack it one by one. Each camp has 5 to 10 prisoners, most of them soldiers. The civilian class was taken by the ratman as they are easier to keep they were gonna kill the soldier quickly that is why they remained topside.
I now have 50 soldiers with me, some scouting and killing lizard men while others are getting ready to assault the underground to free the heroes and civilians.
The scout's for a way back should be here in a few days so everyone will return. I also managed to make the benches and pot for the all the campfire which means upgrades.
Campfire= Bonfires => forts
Bonfires are bigger, two or more campfires together will merge and increase further the size of the zone. Each campfire upgraded into bonfire grants the user an additional 5 campfire limit.
Achievement: first steps ; village limit increased to 1.
Bonfire
A place of rest for the weary, start of familiarity and home. Lanterns lit from the bonfire can extend the zone for a limit.
Upgrades: 0/10
Lodge: a building with at least two floors and a capacity of 10 rooms.
Inn: needs to have two or more floors, the first floors is for alcohol while rest are for rest.
Carpenters lodge: home to carpenters and woodworkers.
Weaponsmith hut: where weapons are made.
Armorer hut: where armor is made.
Blacksmith hut: tools and nails, tools and nails.
Church: where you are worshiped {grants resurrection if there's enough faith gathered}
House: where families begin.
Watch tower: where scouts start.
Works house: miners and loggers houses and storage.
Village => hamlets => specialized village.
A cozy village starts with a nice mayor house and square with a small brazier.
Upgrades:
House: it's a house man? Four sides and roof.
Fields: you know the piece of land you call a garden for some reason.
Blacksmith: tools and nails.
Store: I got wares if you have coins.
I guess I'll start with a watchtower. The soldiers don't seem to mind the tents for now. I need more time to think about what I want to do in the future.
Two days later just when I was finishing the scaffolding for a watch tower the scouts returned. It turns out the big camp was also pulled back; there are also bodies there everywhere.
There should have been a major retreat and that means everyone is now behind enemy lines. That means they can just get back; they would be swarmed if noticed.
Looks like I need to rescue the knight and heroes, which means I need to upgrade my puppets from nimble puppets to iron puppets that way even if overwhelmed I should be able to hold back and control how the battle will go.
This also means no more little puppets. I need my puppets to be bigger and switch from dancing around the target and stabbing to proper sword and shield tactics. Bash, kick, stab or slash. Formations will now change from loose to tight, distancing and stamina should be prioritized but puppets don't need stamina.
During puppet creation the wooden joints were made from wood and were ball type joints easy to break but allowed for extraordinary movements. Creating a locking joint will give the puppets better support when getting bombarded by attacks.
There's not enough iron to upgrade all of my puppets. I can only do 5. Using wisps as an enhancer should give me enough mana while on the move, some of the people want to come with us. They should be helpful if there's rubble on the way.
Me with my 10 puppets 5 wooden 5 iron and 5 wisps, with 20 soldiers on my back as reinforcements we enter one of the tunnels. These tunnels are made from the rats' sharp claws and teeth you can see scraping from the walls. With wooden puppets on the front serving as guards and wisps as lights we slowly descend into the tunnels.
The tunnels still give some way for movement to change or reinforce. The first few meters of the tunnels are nothing but air and creepy feeling. The rats seem to have dug these tunnels in a way that they would crumble if re-dug by others.
Drip drip drip….
A few more meters and we see the first open area, a connecting tunnel where several tunnels are connected. The soldiers are arguing to which side we should take. Their shouting seems to have disturbed the warren as I hear the earth slowly reverberate with a rhythmic sound.
“Stop shouting, get ready in a fan formation. Two line formations are ready to change when the man in front is tired.” I position my iron puppet facing the northern tunnel as I can feel the shaking there slower. My wooden puppets position themselves to circle me.
As if being called by a knight commander the soldiers took positions getting ready…..