Tec Mage Chapter Forty Six: War, Resources
Sitting on the city wall, Atlas was again surrounded with fire. Each flame increased his mana regeneration, and at this moment he needed it. With his illusion spreading out on the wall and Atlas fog ball being constantly cast, Atlas needed every little help he could get.
Atlas concentration meditation skill allow for him to do other things besides meditation. Normally mediation would need a person to stay still and concentrate on the job, but as long as Atlas was around flames he could gather mana.
While Atlas was working on some golem cores, he felt disturbed. Earlier Atlas was approached by some gnolls, who had heard that Atlas was defending the city wall.
The gnolls wanted to help Atlas but Atlas didn't except. He had spent to much time developing the gnolls just to throw them away in a war.
While thinking and making golem cores, Atlas looked out to the city. Echoing screams could be heard though out the city as people tried to rob what little food was left. The prices of a single piece of bread was just to high for the normal people.
People were becoming unhinged as they slowly starved. Water wasn't a problem but there was only a certain amount of times a person could fill there belly with water.
Atlas couldn't leave the wall. He was vital to hiding the city wall forces from the attacking army. Instead he put the gnolls in charge of it.
Hidden within the forest, deep with in a mine was the thriving crafting gnoll clan. It had been a tough journey from wild blood thirsty gnolls to the crafting gnolls.
In there underground town, on the town square amassed tens of massive enchanted earth pots. Each one had a weak looking soup boiling away.
In each gnoll house there was gnolls busying them self with bread making. The bread was a mix of floor water yeast and grounded down fish bone.
The soup was made from boiling down the fishmen bones to make the stock. Then when the bones held no more flavour, they were turned to dust and added to the bread mixture.
With the food stocks the gnolls had they could easily make the most delicious food with their special gardens and the growth lamps but this would bring unwanted attention to them.
People would start to question where they were getting the food from. This would lead to the four jack shop being raided and attacked.
Instead conman unwanted food would be turned into nutrias healthy food.
For example, the humble potato was a god send. By far the most plentiful crop the gnolls had, it could be planted three times in a year and bore plenty of potato from a single potato. This was only in a normal field. With the gnoll fields they couldn't harvest the potato fast enough.
Mashed, roasted, boiled, cut, fried, there was a huge amount of choices for the potato. Not only that, the skin on the potato could be flavoured and baked to make a nice side dish. The leaves on the plant were poisonous but made good fertilizer. Nothing was wasted.
To stop anyone from talking about where the food was coming from, the four jack shop opened up and announced that they would buy any piece of food, even if it was rotting. In exchange for the food the shop offered a bowl of soup.
The shop never bought anything more than bones or rotting bread but the people were thankful to the food that they could eat.
All the preparation were meet. When dawn came, the gnolls wandered the city in groups of ten. A group of people in full steel armour was already eye catching but they also pulled a cart that carried a massive pot behind them
A small crowd surround the gnolls as they set them selfs up. No one knew what the gnolls were doing.
When the lid was lifted off the pot everyone knew what it was without looking. The steam lifted off the pot like a cloud and each person around the ten gnolls took a deep breath of air. Their nostrils flared as they recognised the smell of food.
Mouths watered and a hungry look sweep the surrounding people. With out a word the crowed moved in and crowed the gnolls. This was why the gnolls needed ten of them to guard a pot.
Before any one could grab the pot the gnolls started to hand out bowls of soup. That wasn't all, a piece of bread, a jacket potato and a slice of fruit was given freely.
Soon the crowd increased many times bigger. Each person that took some food received a red dot on their hand, so that no one would receive more than their fair share.
Hungry slurps could be heard though out the crowd, when some of the people stopped eating they started to ask questions
"Who are these guys"
"Is it truly free"
"I didn't pay anything"
"Aren't they priests from the shine in the forest"
"Yea, I think they worship the goddess of.....survival and the wilds. I can't remember her name"
"Goddess Demeter.. that's her name"
"Why are they doing this"
"Isn't it obvious, survival is their creed, they are helping us to survive"
"With their full metal armour and white cloth hood, don't you think they look like paladins"
The conversation carried on this way until the giant pot was empty and all the food was gone.
Though out the city the same thing happened in many different spots. The word spread that the mysterious paladins of the goddess Demeter was giving free food.
People soon found out that the food they had sold to the four jacks had been converted and freely given back to the people.
There were times when people would make money off the suffering of others. They would make huge amounts of gold but end up being hated and avoided.
This wouldn't do. Atlas wanted the people to see the gnolls as saviours, now wasn't the time to make money but rather earn loyalty.
To help with the food, more enchanted pots were created and the space in the grocery, restaurant and four jacks shop was completely full with food manufacturing.
Most of the time things went smoothly. The people of the city didn't push to get the free food. Some would even freely give what they had.
Only once did the grocery and restaurant that Atlas crew had built got robbed. All the soup filled pots that had been stewing over night went missing.
Some one had robbed them out of desperation. It was hard to hate a person that need food and only wanted to survive. Before Dracken could use his information network and find who had stole the food, the pots turned up empty out side the four jacks shop with a note.
All the note said was sorry. It was latter found out that some kids had stole the food and sold it but the people of the city had found them and returned the pots.
It was one thing to steal from a person that was greedily making money off others misery but this wasn't the same. They had stole food from the peoples mouths, the people had quickly put a stop to it.
Besides that one instance, no one tried to steal food from them again.
Because the food that was prepare was mostly water based, no one questioned it, especially because no one knew truly how many people were being fed and how many stations the gnolls had set up.
People within the city started to calm down. Less and less fights happened and few instances of munging, arson and break ins were reported. The people were still hungry but they no longer starving.
When ever the gnolls left with their giant pots people would form orderly cues and wait patiently for food. The people were still scared but now they looked at the gnolls with respect and love, even though they didn't know that their saviours were gnolls but little would change if they did know. After all the world held dwarves, elf's, humans, orcs, undead and many other sentient people, one more race added to that would mean little. Only the love and care that the gnolls showed would be remembered.
The love of the gnolls was increased when construction of a bunker was started. Land was bought near the four jacks shop and construction quickly proceed. It wasn't anything special, just a single stored building. Each brick was enchanted with seal to give added protection.
Witnessing the gnolls working on this building, the people also joined in. Anyone could see that this was a building to protect the people. If the walls fell then this would protect the people from the clashing army's.
Anyone that help with construction would receive some flavoured rice and bread. With this the people flocked to the site and helped with the building. The ground was cleared and stone was shaped to fit, even though the gnolls did most of the skilled work, there was always something that needed to be done.
In record time a massive single storey building was erected. The building was at least five times bigger than the four jacks shop. It needed to be big enough for many people to fit. It was nowhere near big enough for every one to fit but still a lot would be saved.
Mean while, down in a cellar, in a dark room sat a person with a hood over his head.
This was a player that had been kidnapped by Atlas. When the player had tried to storm the city, Atlas tied them up and gave them to Dracken to interrogate. At the moment this player had been tied down and cuffed. The cuffs were specially made, each cuff was fixed to the arm rest of the very sturdy chair. Also a gem was grafted with mana absorbing magic.
This stopped players from breaking free by using skills. The hood on their head stopped the players from giving any information leading to where they were being kept though private or guild chat.
The person in the chair wasn't scared. Torture and pain wasn't the same for players in Royal Road. They would only feel a slight numbness, at most it would be an annoyance. At the moment he was very annoyed. He had tried to log out and then logging back in to the game, only to find him self back in the same spot. His time was being wasted. Time that could be spent raising his level and skills.
Shaking and pulling at his shackles, the player tried to free him self. Suddenly the hood on his head was pulled off.
Eyes blinking from the change of light, the player tired to see. Standing opposite him was a mass of shadows that weaved in and out like a piece of fabric coving what looked like a person.
"Wh.." the player was angry and was going to say what the hell is this, but was interrupted by the shadow man.
"Listen, don't talk. I'm going to ask you some questions and if i don't get the answers i want, one of two things will happen" the shadow man was Dracken and it was his job to find some answers from the players.
"You can't do shit to me. When I'm free of this...wait what are you doing"
Dracken gagged the player and replaced the hood. Shacking with anger, the player could only mumble his anger.
Leaving the room, Dracken remarked on how hard it was to deal with freedmen. In the next room a new player was sat in the very same position as the first player.
Everything was the same as the first room except the person sitting in the chair had small dents and cuts all over his armour.
Dracken pulled off the sack from his prisoner head.
"Have you thought about what i said" asked Dracken.
"You go straight to hell" yelled the prisoner.
Dracken pulled out a knife and slashed against the amour the prisoner was wearing.
The prisoners health went down, but all the player did was sneer at Dracken.
"What was that, your mother hits harder than that" said the prisoner. He was trying to bait Dracken in to killing him. At least then he would be able to respawn in a different place and free him self.
Dracken twisted the knife in his hand and then slashed out with a fresh new blow.
"You will live, but your armour looks like it will break soon" Dracken wasn't going to be fooled by the taunts of his prisoner.
"Just how much effort did you put into your equipment, it would be a shame if it broke" Dracken explained.
"I W..I..L..L G..I..V..E Y..O..U N..O..T..H..I..N..G" the prisoner was very stubborn.
Dracken gave the prisoner a new slash and then replaced the hood.
The third room held the same situation, only this time the person was logged out and so an empty chair was all there was.
The forth and fifth rooms were the same, but the sixth room had real development in it.
The player sitting in the chair already had his hood removed but instead of a scowl a happy look was on his face.
Dracken had made some good progress with this freedmen. For some riches he was willing to tell all kinds of things. The only problem was Dracken wasn't sure if what he was say was true.
The seventh room had a small development in it but it was just what Dracken needed. The person that was trapped, new to keep his mouth shut about the war but apart from that he was very chatty. Dracken was able to confirm some of what the person in room six said.
For instance the greedy man in room six described how much and what kind of food the camps had, while the chatty man in room seven told Dracken how sick of rice he was.
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The saying loose lips Sink Ships, was true. Any small amount of information could lead to destruction.
When Dracken gave this information to Atlas, he sent his mana mouses to recon the camps. It didn't take long for the mouses to report back with what they saw.
When night fell, Atlas sent out his complete mouse wave. Waves after waves of mouses poured out of Atlas mouse bag. By the cover of night the mana mouse sneaked in to the camp and found the food stores of the west camp.
Guards were station all around the food store but with the long grass a single line of mana mouse wouldn't be seen.
When the mana mouses entered the food store they ripped into the sacks and took a mouth full each. With a mouth full they retreated back to the city. A single mouse mouth full would never be missed but with thousands and thousands of tiny little bites being taken, the full sacks quickly shrank.
The enemy's food supple was now going to be the food supply for the city. The same thing happened to all the surrounding camps. Only in the morning was anything found out. the camps well stocked food had been cut by 50%
In the four jacks shop, Mary was carefully putting the finishing touches to her work. Atlas had asked Mary to make golem bodies. In front of her stood twenty, three metre high earth golems and four three metre tall metal golems.
Each one had a simple frame and a simple face. Mary was wondering what Atlas was going to do with these puppets.
Just then from under a table a cry could be heard.
"Stop it, stop struggling"
Under Mary's work top table was where Midnight the giant black wolf lived. Midnight had grown from a simple black wolf to a giant cow sized wolf. His fur was as black as night and as hard as metal but right now Midnight was in trouble.
Midnight had been tied up and was being pulled out from under the table by the giant rainbow spider called Princess.
Even though Midnight was level 78, he was no match against the battle loving spider. Princess level was 115 and she was consider a special monster, almost a boss monster.
With her silk, princess managed to tie up Midnight and had started to weave silk bows in the black wolfs hair. Midnight had escaped many times but Princess had found him every time.
Each leg of Midnight had been tied together and his maw tightly shut with silk. Only muffled yelps could be heard coming from his mouth.
If Midnight had his special armour on, that Mary had made for him he still wouldn't be able to compete with Princess.
"Don't struggle, I've got loads of plans for you" Princess pulled on the silk and was dragging Midnight.
This whole situation had started when Princess and Midnight had first met. Midnight had sniffed Princess, only for her to push him away.
Midnight didn't like this and had sneezed at Princess in an a annoyed way. With in a second, Princess raised her feet and pounced at Midnight.
It was weird seeing a spider the size of a torso attack some thing as big as Midnight.
The fight that happened was quick and bloodless. With her speed Princess jumped on Midnight. On her front legs was a silk web that she used to tie up Midnight.
Midnight wasn't a push over it was the fact that Princess was just overpowered. Princess along with Forge had killed monsters above level 200. They had used tricks to win but they still managed to level up and eat their prey. While Midnight had levelled up from captured blind fish men, the two ways couldn't be compared.
Mary was shocked and scared when she first saw Princess. A giant spider has that effect on people, but she trusted Atlas and had welcomed her to the fold.
"No.. you can't be doing that to Midnight" Mary rushed over with a knife and started to slice at the silk.
The silk was amazingly tough, thanks to Princess skill, she was able to infuse a copy of her stats in to her webbing.
White eye of Tolerance 100%, the full stat of Endurance can be copied to the webbing.
A single slice of the knife wasn't enough to cut the webbing and with Princess trying to stop Mary from cutting her web, made the job much harder.
"No, no, no" Princess legs kept on pushing Mary's hand away from the webbing. "He likes it" said Princess.
"How did Atlas ever tame such a creature" thought Mary. Every time Mary's hand was batted away, increased her anger with Princess.
When the final piece of silk was cut and Midnight was free to dash back under the table did Princess reach out with some more web to recapture Midnight.
Mary had enough, this was the third time she had to free Midnight from Princess webbing. When Princess reached out again, Mary slapped her leg away.
It would be difficult to say if this slap had hurt Princess. Technically, Princess wouldn't of been hurt by it but by the way she acted it would suggest that it did.
Retracting her leg, Princess placed her leg in front of her pincers. Carefully her massive pincers rubbed her slapped leg.
"Why did you do that" Princess multi coloured eyes looked up at Mary's face. Each eye looked shocked as to say that any second Princess would cry.
"Mummy wouldn't do this to me" quick as lightning, Princess ran out in to the court yard and jumped over the wall surrounding the back gardens.
The way Princess moved shocked Mary. Before Mary had a time to react Princess had disappeared from Mary's sight.
Mary was scared. She was supposed to look after Princess. Mary knew that an unattended monster would likely be hunted. It didn't matter if the monster was a pet, if it was alone then it could be a wild monster.
People were more forgiven if the pet was something like a bird or dog, even a wolf was begrudgingly acceptable, but a spider was different.
Mary quickly left too, it was only a matter of time before Princess was discovered.
In the streets a black blur jumped from roof top to roof top, this was of course Princess.
As she travelled, her anger with Mary increased.
"Mum never hit me" Princess thought "wait until i tell on you"
Princess had spent all of her time in the four jacks shop, when Atlas had dropped her off at the shop. Princess had refused to go anywhere else. She was waiting for Atlas to come back, so she didn't know of the underground town of the crafting gnolls.
Now she was searching for Atlas to tell him what Mary had done.
"Mummy......mummy..... mummy" Princess called out with her telepathic voice.
As she passed roof top from roof top she started to take notice of her surroundings. Princess had never before seen a city and it was all fascinating to her.
Running down a side of a building, Princess called out again.
Princess telepathic voice rang in the minds of passing people. Princess voice sounded just like a little girls voice, this was what attracted a group of thugs to come down the ally way that Princess was in.
These guys were the type to push their own mother over in to a ditch to get some gold and now that a war was on and food was rare they would go so far as burying their own mothers to gain some bread.
The war had been kind to them, each one had amassed a small fortune from robbing, extortion and any thing they felt they could get away with. Each one had a bag of booty filled with gold and silver, when the war was over they would be able to live comfortable.
As they moved down the ally way they all could hear the sweet little girls voice calling out for her mummy. Only bad thoughts of extortion came in to their minds.
Holding this little girl to ramson could bring in a good sum of money depending on where she was from.
"Mummy... is that you" called out the sweet girls voice.
"Heh heh heh, I'm not your mummy but i can help to find her for you" called out one of the gang members.
".... i don't like you..... you smell" called out the girls voice.
The grinning gang member that had spoken, face turn to stone, behind him the other members started to laugh.
Angered, the man pulled a knife out.
"Come out of the shadow or we will get rough" The knife wielding gang member had dropped his pretence and his true colours were showing.
"Ohhh, you want my belt" said the little girls voice from the shadows.
"What belt?" thought the gang as they looked at each other.
Anyone outside the dark ally would have their toes curl up in horror when they heard the screams that come from the ally way.
Pleading, screams, high pitched wails. Crashing and banging and then silence. Princess slowly walked out of the ally way with eight bags on her back. She looked back to find all eight of the gang members tied up or knocked out, some were even hanging from the walls.
"Trying to take my belt, you don't know who your messing with. You can call me Champion, damn punks" Princess kicked dirt at the unconscious gang members and left.
Princess now was on the move at ground level. She passed uninteresting house until she came across a shop. Princess had only seen a shop from inside. This was the first time she had seen one from outside.
A shop window showed it best items to show case the store.
"What's this" Princess jumped over to the store and push her face against the glass, her many legs taped on the glass excitedly.
This was a tailor shop, in the front of the shop was a beautiful elegant dress that had ribbons. In Princess eyes the dress sparkled. Princess legs rapidly taped the glass as she grew more and more excited.
In the tailor shop a women was sowing at the counter, a soft tapping was coming from the window. She briefly looked up from her work to meet with the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. A giant spider had it's face pushed up against the window and it's legs looked like it was pointing at her.
In her mind she heard the spider talk
"I want that, I want that"
The colour drained from her face. The tailor thought that the spider was talking about her. The tailors mind blanked out and her eyes rolled back into her head. She fainted without a scream leaving her lips.
Out side Princess was still tapping on the window and asking for the dress, when from behind she was picked up and dragged away.
"WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOUR GOING" Mary had found Princess by the screams of the gang members.
"Let go, let go" Princess waved her legs in the air as she tried to resist Mary's hold.
Mary carried Princess all the way back to her shop. It was fortunate that the war had made the streets barren. In fact the only time that people regularly came out of their homes was when the gnolls gave free food.
If anyone saw the two, they would think that the giant spider was attacking Mary.
When Mary returned Princess back in the shop she gave her a massive lecture. Mary pointed out that Princess was behaving badly and was bulling Midnight. With each passing word the finger of Princess shrank. Right now Princess had forgotten why she had left.
In Princess mind was only the beautiful dress she had seen. Her front legs rub each other as she thought of a plan.
"I understand, older sister" Princess started off with a little flattery.
Mary was a little taken back but that didn't stop her from telling off Princess for a further 10 minutes.
After that 10 minutes, Mary leaned against a table. It was hard for Mary to read Princess, those legs twitched and danced but what did it mean. Princess face was hard to read, the front legs were rubbing each other. If Mary saw this from a human or any humanoid creature, it would instantly seem odd and devious but on Princess, it looked like a spider cleaning its self.
A sudden idea struck Mary.
"You can't be left alone, and its obvious that you can't stay here" said Mary.
If Mary couldn't handle Princess then she would pass her on to some one that could.
"I'm sorry but you will need to stay with the crafting gnolls" said Mary.
"NO, no, no, I will stay here until Atlas....." Princess was going to flatly refuse but that was until she heard the word crafting gnolls.
"Crafting gnolls... like making things" asked Princess.
"That's one thing they do" answered Mary.
Princess couldn't believe her luck. She had planed to butter up Mary with sweet words and gifts over some time, but now she was going to a place that she could learn to make dresses like the one she had seen.
"Oh well if i must" answered Princess.
Mary noted the speed of Princess changing her mind but what stood out the most was that Princess was rubbing her front legs even faster than before.
If Princess was in the silver era of the movies, she would be twirling a moustache as she tied down a young maiden to train tracks.
End Of Chapter Forty Six
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A new chapter for Christmas
Happy new year everyone