After taking an indulgent fifteen minutes to enjoy the peace and quiet of a headache-free morning without the goblins, Len reluctantly admitted to herself that it was time to get a move on the day. She took a few minutes to get herself back to baseline presentability then made her way out of the tent. She glimpsed Moe chatting with one of the miners, and assumed that Larry was doing his part inside the barracks that she’d be touring later. Asking around, she learned that Valkar would be at the main gate standing watch at this hour, so she headed over to greet him.

  “Morning, Valkar. Any great and terrible threats looming on the horizon?”

  “Just boredom and frostbite,” he grunted. “Same as always.”

  “Well that’s good, I suppose. So, I’d like to apologize for being a bit short with you last night. It’d been a long day and I probably could’ve handled things better. Sorry ‘bout that.”

  He grunted again, but was otherwise silent.

  “Soooo…” she began. “What can you tell me about the Hovel? Why is it even here? It doesn’t seem like this place gets a lot of support.”

  “It was first built as a punishment for Grenus the Humiliated. He was a general that rose up against the Demon Lord and got crushed. After his defeat, he was banished here, given a handful of useless peons, and left to rot.”

  “They didn’t kill him?”

  “Nah, Lord Malachai was an odd one. Thought it would be more amusing to have Grenus waste away in infamy rather than outright killing him. More fun to let him live with his shame, ya know? In fairness, he was right. Grenus ultimately went mad.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, probably two hundred years or so. Since then the place has seen its share of idiots who try to make something of it, but it’s cursed. No commander has been successful at this post since its founding. Congratulations on being the next in line for humiliation.”

  “Delightful. I figured that Astrid was screwing with me, but this… well, I suppose it’s exactly what I expected, I just didn’t think there’d be a proper curse involved. That’s neat. So what’s your deal?”

  “My deal? I’m the only trained warrior in the whole camp. Tasked with keeping our enemies from getting in, and the grunts from getting out. Not like anyone’s foolhardy enough to try and go out into that. It’s nothing but miles of empty white out there, and that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, the Kelvachians will get you.”

  “The what now?”

  “Kelvach Clan. Bunch of human nomads. Used to be pretty constant competition in these parts but they’ve scaled back their troublemaking these past couple years. Our main mission, in theory, is to wipe them out and claim the land for our own. That’s never worked before, and frankly isn’t worth the effort if ya ask me.”

  “So our entire purpose here is futile, our enemies are more formidable than we are, but don’t care enough about us to wipe us out, and there’s nothing but snow to guard?”

  “That’s about the sum of it, yes.”

  “Well shit.”

  She surveyed the land around them. The forest was filled with evergreen trees that looked like some sort of pine, The trees were scattered and scrawny, generally not good for much and she knew from personal experience trying to burn fresh pine how noxious that could be. The rest of the terrain was fairly flat, with no real landmarks, and just looked dreary.

  “What do you mine here?”

  “A bit of coal, and when we’re lucky some iron. Mostly we just barely keep the furnaces fueled throughout the night. Not enough manpower to keep up and most of the grunts refuse to work them after all the accidents.”

  “So what DO they do?”

  “Gathering, hunting, keeping us above water and trying not to die. We’re all stuck here and we’ve learned to accept it.”

  “That’s less than great. Well, my three can help with the mining, at least. They’re not terribly skilled, but they can at least swing a pickaxe and haul stuff. We’re gonna need to do something about those folks that outright refuse to work the mine, though. We’ve gotta do better than basic survival here.”

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  “If you say so,” he said, unconvinced. “Good luck selling them on it, but you’re the boss, I’ll support you ‘til you either quit or die.”

  “That’s encouraging. Anyway, thanks for the chat, I’m off to the next step of this exciting inspection.”

  He grunted again and went back to staring at snow in the distance.

  She headed back into the Hovel, not exactly feeling discouraged, but keenly aware of the fact that she’d been set up to fail yet again. She decided to check out the building opposite the barracks now, she’d not quite made out what it was supposed to be and curiosity got the better of her. That curiosity was somewhat disappointed when she discovered that it was just a mess hall. One large eating room with a smaller cooking area separated from it. This was not an impressive operation, but it wasn’t her place to judge, merely to improve upon.

  “Anyone in here?” she called as she entered.

  There was some clanging and she was pretty sure she heard a yelp, and a flustered looking younger orc male stumbled out of the cooking area.

  “Ah, er… hi there, boss,” he said guilelessly.

  “Hello…” she said, not quite sure what to make of him. “And who would you be?”

  “Cookie, miss. The… ah, cook.”

  “Your name is Cookie,” she said dubiously.

  “I wasn’t called anything but “Hey you” until they gave me this job, and then it was Cookie, miss. I decided to take it to heart rather than fuss over it.”

  She had the oddest instinct to ruffle the lad’s unruly hair but clamped down on it as that really wouldn’t do as far as leaderly behavior. Instead she just soldiered on with the conversation.

  “Well, like I said earlier, I’m kind of getting the lay of the land here. Valkar seems to think that I’m doomed from the outset, but I’d like to disappoint him on that front. So, what exactly are our supplies?”

  “Not great, I’m afraid. Marble does what she can, but it’s tough to grow anything here, we don’t get many trade caravans, and even when they show up, we don’t have much to offer. Mostly it’s just mushrooms and gruel, as far as foodstuffs go.”

  “Marble?”

  “Oh, right, you probably haven’t met her yet. She tends to the crops, keeps the goats. You know, the basic stuff.”

  “Gotcha. So, exactly what stockpile do we have? How long can we last if something goes wrong with Marble?”

  “Two, maybe three days tops.”

  “Are you kidding? How the heck does that work?”

  “Oh, right! She’s an herbimancer. Uses magic to grow the stuff. Not a whole lot of options and it wears her out, but she’s just barely able to keep up. Gonna be rougher with four more mouths to feed, but I’m sure she’ll manage.”

  “Our entire camp is reliant on one girl’s magic? That seems… unsustainable.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s terrible. Every once in a while she gets sick and there’s every chance in the world that we’re doomed. Stuff of nightmares, truth be told.”

  “And you’re just okay with that?”

  “Well, not like there’s any other option. We do what we can to keep her safe and healthy and we spend a lot of time praying to anyone who’s listening that she doesn’t die on us. It’s not great.”

  It wasn’t the most terrifying thing that Len had every heard in her life, but it was up there. The entire camp was screwed without this one girl and they somehow hadn’t made any plans to sustain themselves without her. She wondered how things had gotten this bad, but remembered that this camp had apparently been a punishment location more than anything and realized that there really wasn’t any desire for it to do better. This wasn’t exactly a great place for her to be starting her military career but she figured she’d be able to make do eventually.

  First thing she’d have to do is figure out how to improve this Marble’s ability to produce food. A proper stockpile was the absolute minimum that any encampment required. The other problems were numerous and glaring, but without food, they wouldn’t matter long at all. She had more of the camp to tour just yet, but she was really not liking what she was seeing.