Time to check the todo list again. Stew moved his attention back to the Temple on the Fifth Floor and Bossy. "What can we clear off of the list?"

"Since we last discussed it, you have completed, 'Charge admission', 'Finish the slime level and pick a boss', 'Build an undead level for the necromancer and her zombies,'" Bossy paused in a way that implied she wanted to say something here, but she continued instead, "'Review upgrade notices for the golems', 'Replace the lost [Natural Light] view previously available from this level', and 'Find a way to generate more mana, faster.' I would add, you have also found a way to generate more actions, though that was not strictly on the list."

"And what's left?"

"You placed 'Learn. Grow. Build.' and 'Make myself too tough to kill, even if they try.' at the top, followed by 'Make myself more valuable alive than dead.' I would say that you've made progress on each, but you haven't asked me to remove them."

"Yes, leave them for now. What else?"

"Level-up Big John and send him prospecting again, Level-up all the monsters and minions, Find out more about the Battlemage King called 'Merlin'. You also mentioned something about 'steam powered siege weapons' and building an army, but did not elaborate."

"That's it. I knew something was bothering me. It's Merlin."

"Do you know this mage?"

"No, but I've heard the name before. The only problem is, if it's the Merlin whose name I've heard, he shouldn't even be born yet."

"You say the most interesting things. You will have to tell me more about your past life."

"Maybe sometime, but right now I need to make sure of a few things. Garrik might know the most, but Eira works for me. I'll ask her."

"About that." Bossy paused again.

"You don't like her," Stew said.

"I don't know her very well, but she is a necromancer and she did kill me the first time we met."

"Right. We haven't had a chance to talk about that." Stew switched gears. Ancient mysteries could wait. "How did that feel?"

"Oh, it wasn't my worst fatal experience. It was quick and painless. She just withdrew all of the life in this body at once, and I failed to exist for a short time."

Stew was still thinking about that when he created a new false core and sent Femur to meet with Quintus to talk about Aqueducts.

"With trolls, you say?" Quintus looked up from a stack of large scrolls spread across a makeshift table in the middle of what would eventually be the baths. "And they agreed to this?"

"Ready to get started tonight if you let them. But we'll need some…" Femur reached out and picked up a carved stone lion Quintus was using to weigh the plans down in the morning breeze. "lions in payment. Healthy breeding pair, good teeth."

Stew was about to interrupt Femur and tell Quintus he didn't need any such thing, then stopped himself, curious to see what Quintus would say.

"Lions? It will take a few months to get them shipped this far north, and you'll have to talk to Raek about the budget."

"Pitiful, in this day and age you can't get a lion sooner than that." Femur shook his head sadly. "But the boss really wants this aqueduct, so I'll be willing to let you start if we make it four lions, one male, three female. For the wait, you see."

"For the wait." Quintus stared at Femur for a few seconds. "This isn't just a prank, right. If I go tell the others we're going to have troll earthmages build an aqueduct by night, and it will cost us four lions, you aren't going to stand behind me and laugh are you?"

Femur put a big knuckled finger to his chin in thought. "I will likely laugh, but it will be about that haircut, not about the lions. Lions are serious business."

Quintus hung his head for a moment, and Stew had to admit his hair did look like it was cut under a bowl. "Right. I have to take this to Raek, but assuming he says yes, when could the trolls start? We haven't properly surveyed the–"

Just then a shout went up in the camp and people were pointing to the south. Stew tried to look through Femur's eyes, but the goblin was too short to see over the treeline, so he switched back to Drinking Bird in his core room and used the panopticon provided by [Natural Light] to look out from a higher vantage in the hillside.

At first he thought he saw clouds, but then his mind adjusted to the sight and he realized he was seeing a massive blue ship, flying high above the trees. Huge paddle shaped appendages stirred the air on each side beneath massive, square sails marked with SPQR and laurel leaves in gold. There was a faintly glowing ramming beak in front with two giant blue eyes on each side. The eyes looked flat and painted, then they moved to look down at the trees passing below.

Dozens of smaller ships of different sizes sailed around it, all with the same general style.

Stew switched back to Femur just in time to hear Quintus say, "...finally arrived. They'll have the lime and ash for our cement."

The fleet was just peaking over the treeline now and Stew could see flat, railed platforms were dropping like leaves from all of the ships. Each was full of soldiers in Legion armor.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Stew was careful not to take control of Femur's expression because he would just be gawping. He had known, in a general way, to expect a legion to show up at some point, but he hadn't expected them so soon, and he hadn't expected flying troop carriers.

The big ship drew slowly forward, then stopped when its shadow covered the site for the new settlement. About half of the smaller ships passed the big one, moving fast and curving around to form a line over the hillside. More troops landed there.

As each platform touched the ground the rail in front dropped, and the soldiers marched forward in unison until the last rank stepped off. Then the platform, empty, rose back up to its ship.

It took only a few minutes before rank after rank of soldiers stood in perfect lines. Their armor and shields were bright polished steel, and each held multiple spears perfectly straight and vertical.

The eeriest part is that none of them made a noise except for the sound of marching feet as they took their position. No one called out any orders or beat any drums. They just kept perfect time and moved to their places. It reminded him of his golems, but these legionnaires were mostly humans with a few orcs. He didn't see any Fae or trolls, but that made sense with all the iron and daylight.

Once every platform had unloaded and returned to the sky, a single, smaller platform lowered from the main ship. Where the other platforms had been plain and white, this one had purple banners and a square formation of soldiers in more ornate armor and longer spears. There were four trumpeters, one at each corner of the platform. It paused halfway between the ship and the ground and the trumpets sounded together in a complex pattern.

The legion soldiers below reformed into an open rectangle like a marching band going for a national championship.

The platform lowered into the middle of the open space.

The guards on the platform separated and one man walked out on the grass. He was dressed in the same armor as the rest of the legionnaires, but his helmet was more ornate and had a purple crest.

Behind, followed two columns with a dozen soldiers each. These soldiers looked different from the others. They wore lighter armor and didn't carry swords or shields. Each carried a staff with a large, glowing gem. The only break in the uniformity was that each gem was a different color and size. Stew wished Stat-o-Vision worked outside the dungeon. Maybe he could find a workaround somehow. Raek seemed to have an [Evaluate] skill, maybe there was something similar for measuring potential opponents.

The guards came last but double time marched to bring up each side of the others until they were even with the columns behind their commander. Stew didn't need Stat-o-Vision to know it had to be him.

The entire time, the workers and settlement were as silent as the soldiers. Apparently this wasn't something they saw every day.

The command group marched to the center of the space facing the legion. They were there for several minutes, reviewing the troops in silence. Then the horns sounded again and the soldiers broke ranks and gathered around the platforms which were now lowering again, loaded with cargo and supplies.

The silence lifted now and the sound of thousands of voices and even shouts back and forth carried to Femur's ears. The legionnaires went to work setting up tents and barricades. They used string to arrange streets and space the tents perfectly using almost exactly the same techniques Stew had seen the builders using to layout the town.

Theus, Garrik, Raek and Ba'Rush gathered with Femur and Quintus at the drafting table.

"They're good at straight lines." Stew muttered. There had been a feeling of a show about the whole thing and he finally put his finger on it. He kept expecting them to start marching sideways or forming an eagle or something. At first he thought it was just his experiences from a different place and time not matching the reality here, but it was something more. His subconscious was trying to tell him something. This hadn't been a military exercise, it was a show. That meant it had to be for him.

Theus raised an eyebrow. "Not impressed?"

Stew shrugged Femur's shoulders. "I'll have to get a few hundred golems out here and show you what I mean. It won't be the same without drums and tubas, but we could maybe form an eagle or a sword or a big Pac-Man. Um, that's a kind of monster that's all mouth." Stew had played drums for two seasons in the marching band. His sometimes girlfriend played the clarinet. Badly. He quit when she switched to orchestra and started dating a cello player. It turned out she was much better at violin and rich kids, and he hated marching in a giant que-tip hat in the sun. That made him think that armor had to be hot on a warm day like today, and they were setting up camp without stopping to change. Where do they get enough water?

He looked up at the massive ship casting its shadow over the construction of both the town and the camp.

Theus noticed his gaze. "Yes, that has to be at least a little impressive. It takes an extraordinary amount of time and money to even build a standard air galley. The Minerva Semper Vigilans took up most of Rome's military budget for a decade."

The Minerva looked as big as a battleship to Stew, but wider, like a container ship, though he had never seen a battleship this close.

Garrik stared like a kid at an airshow. "When I was very small, I got to tour the ship while it was under construction. The Minerva is faster than a galloping horse, can carry an entire legion plus their supplies, and her siege weapons can annihilate a force just as large. Or a whole city." Garrik glanced at Theus and Raek then down at Femur. He closed his mouth, and looked down, not meeting anyone's gaze.

"How's it at digging?" Femur offered without Stew''s prompting. The goblin chuckled. "Makes a great target up there."

Garrik looked irritated, and Theus frowned. Stew was afraid the goblin might be about to start a fight with the whole Roman Empire. well Republic. Caesar. The goblin might pick a fight with Julius Caesar. Stew was going to need more golems. Maybe the trolls had some ideas about better defenses.

Raek chuckled, breaking the tension. "You make a valid point. This ship is a fair copy of Carthage's ships of the line, specifically our Venture class trade ships, though ours are defended by griffin riders for exactly the reason you mentioned, and are more for trade than battle. Then, we have been building them for over one hundred years." He gestured at the ship. "Romans are as nervous in the sky as they are on the waves, they'll never trust anything but hobnail boots on solid ground."

One of the first tents to rise was a large pavilion. Caesar went inside with the officers and battlemages, and part of his retinue crossed the field toward them, his eyes on the group by the drafting table.

The elapsed time was less than thirty minutes from when they had first appeared to having the camp well on its way and Caesar's HQ setup. Stew was even more impressed and worried by that than the big ships in the sky.

Suddenly, huge plumes of white vapor jetted from the ship in all directions with a rushing sound Stew could hear from the ground.

Raek pointed and smiled. "See they're venting the steam ballistae as a show of their peaceful intent, and here comes a herald now with a greeting, I'm sure."

I knew it! Stew thought. "Bossy, move steam powered siege weapons to the top of the todo list."