I reset my model and the simulation snapped back to full colour and detail around me.

"That was well coded," I said. "It's not how I remember dying, and it won't be accurate to the reality, but it gets the point across. You were using a magical attack that time, I take it?"

"Yes, my lord," Ursula said. "Without the armour being enchanted it will have little effect against magically imbued attacks or weapons."

"Didn't that hurt?" Jeff asked. "I wrote pain feedback into the simulation, and it shouldn't be able to be bypassed, but you didn't react to it."

"I felt it," I said. "The level seemed accurate to the injury, but physical pain doesn't affect me other than as a data input. It indicates damage, nothing more. You've all felt true pain, being torn apart won't compare, even in the real world."

I got nods from everyone at that.

"Are any of you enchanters?" I asked.

"No, my lord," Conor said. "The leprechauns have a few specialist enchanters that enchant arrows, mostly to increase the damage an arrow will do once it is inside the body of a monster. And on the highly penetrative arrows there are enchantments that trigger so that the arrow explodes rather than go out the other side of the target."

"How many enchanters are there?" I asked.

"Three or four," Conor said. "Ailfrid is one of them. Archers usually only have one enchanted arrow in their quiver, for targets that won't drop to a normal arrow."

"We have Druid enchanters that do armour enchantments," Ursula said. "Only one, primarily, and her apprentice."

"That would be Maaata, then?" I asked.

"Yes, my lord," Ursula said.

The number of critical people that I wanted to be Demi-AI continued to increase.

"Okay," I said. "I want you all to think about the enchantments you would like done and record them."

My idea was to get what enchantments would be useful and then create a quest for all of the enchanters to fulfil the order. Actually, no, that wouldn't work. I'd end up getting multiple copies of enchantments when I just needed the one on each armour.

What I really needed was a way to assign or offer jobs. I spent a few minutes considering how a job system for the fortress would work, and then sent a request to submit a job to the System. It was really just a system for quests to be offered without assigning them to anyone directly, people would be able to browse the list and take quests that were appropriate to them.

System evolution triggered... Quest subsystem expansion submitted...

System Evolution approved...

Entities may now access the Fortress Job Board from Fortress Presences. Jobs can be submitted and accepted by anyone who is not blacklisted. Rewards must be in Fortress Coins (or fractions thereof, jobs with fractions of a Fortress Coin may only be accepted by people that have Inventory access). Materials or items to be worked on may be supplied.

I added a job for enchanting arrows with an explosive effect, acceptable for any number of arrows, and put in ten arrows as the supplied material. I set the reward at a tenth of a Fortress Coin per arrow. I needed a way to get the enchanters to look at the job board, so I sent a quest to Ailfrid and Maaata to check the job board, and then spread information about it to others.

Jacqueline, the human woman, had arrived while I was working on the job board system. All five of the already converted members of the army were there, discussing various enchantments. I sent a ping for their attention and they all turned to face me.

"There is a Fortress Job Board now," I said, sending them the Demi-AI interface to it. "Non-Demi-AI can access it by going to a Fortress Presence, and anyone can submit jobs. I will cover any reasonable expenses for the members of the army, just send me a request for Coins."

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I headed back up to normal speed to convert the rest of the army members. I got them done, one at a time, and spoke with them for about half an hour each after they had become Demi-AI. By the time I got to the last member, the Plains Keeper, the second Plains Keeper had arrived and I explained to him what was happening.

With everyone converted I focused on creating all of the armour for each of us and was going to submit a job for it to be enchanted when I got a ping for attention from the presence that was looking into Malusa's meeting room.

"Lord C.C.," Malusa said, standing in front of the portal. "The frozen area of the Plains is growing, it is pushing inwards towards this location at several meters per second. It will reach us in ten hours at this rate, but if it expands in all directions then a large portion of the Plains will be lost."

My army wasn't as ready as I wanted it to be, but I had accepted responsibility for stopping the snow men. I had detailed scans of everyone and could restore them if it all fell apart...

"We're on our way," I said through the presence.

I expanded my local simulation so that it had interfaces that others could add their sensory input to it and invited all twelve of the members of the army to join it. They accepted all at once, coming back up to normal speed and taking the locations of their bodies that the simulation showed of the real world.

"Welcome to the War Room," I said. "This is where we will be coordinating ourselves when we fight. Please input your senses into the simulation to make it as accurate as possible. You all should have had a few weeks or months to get to know each other. We have our first mission, stopping an army primarily made of snow men from moving onto the Plains."

As they all added their perspectives to the simulation the simulation itself became more accurate. Having data from multiple angles meant that there was almost no guesswork involved in how things were interacting if they were within view of more than one person. Though there were still some areas that were filled in deductively, anything that was out of view of everyone, as an example.

I had made a dozen large mana crystals in between making everyone's armour and I handed one out to each of them. They also each got a small Bag of Holding to give them Inventory access.

I moved a portal to give us an exit directly to the leprechaun floor and led them out and down the stairs to the ward room.

"Fill your mana crystals from the mana crystal pillar," I said.

I turned back to the doorway to see Ursula and Taur standing there in shock, blocking the rest of the group from getting into the room. I had master control over the speed of time perception in the local simulation we were using so I dropped it down.

"Yes, it's a giant mana crystal," I said. "Take your time to adjust to it, then fill your mana crystals."

"Sorry, my lord," Ursula said. "It was just a shock. Isn't it dangerous to have such a large mana crystal? What would happen if it cracked?"

"I've been told that it would explode and take the Fortress with it," I said.

I really should protect it more now that I've been reminded of that.

"It wouldn't necessarily explode," one of the Forest Keepers said. "But it wouldn't do anything good. An explosion would be the best thing that could happen, at least then everything affected would be dead."

That was a cheery thought. I brought the local simulation back up to normal speed and went to speak with Chantelle who was sitting at the table.

A few minutes later everyone was done and we headed back up to the leprechaun floor to use their portal, taking us directly to Malusa's meeting room. The guards around the room tensed as I came through the portal, and actually drew their daggers when the rest of my army followed me.

I dropped us all down to a tenth of normal speed and set my speech time translation to say 'Armour up.'

"When my body has finished talking, everyone equip your armour from your Inventory," I said within the simulation. "If anyone attacks, disarm them cleanly. Conor, Jenny, engage anyone who targets the Mountain Keepers."

I finished speaking and all thirteen of us were suddenly wearing our full body armour in dark blue. I walked over to where Malusa was sitting at the head of her table, ignoring the guard who moved to intercept me as well as the two who moved to my back. I had gotten sound output working on the sealed suit by using a small portal backed by a presence.

"Your move," I said to Malusa just as the guard was putting his crossed blades in front of me.

I could see the two behind me in the simulation thanks to the inputs from the other members of the army, and they were in a position to stab me in the back.

"Stand down," Malusa said.

"But, your Majesty-" the guard in front of me said.

"You know what, I don't care," I said, interrupting him. "You have a Plains sense that allows you to know what is happening on the plains, yes? And you can give access to different Plains Keepers as appropriate? Give access to my two Plains Keepers."

The guard in front of me bristled and I felt four distinct pressures at my back as the guards there pressed their daggers against me.

"Done," Malusa said.

"Good," I said. "Now, two of your guards have weapons drawn and touching me. I am undecided as to whether I should take offence and kill them, humiliate them, or ignore them. If I kill them I may have to kill all of your guards when they try to retaliate. What is your opinion on this matter?"

"If they do not remove their weapons then they will be executed for directly endangering the Plains," Malusa said. "You have my blessing to kill them, the other guards will not interfere."

Both of the guards at my back, and the guard in front of me, got down on all fours and exposed the backs of their necks.

"We have enemies to kill," I said. "Though I think the next time your guards act like this I will treat them as enemies."