Vitmori POV

Well, those snake wolves turned out to be a great addition. So far, they've settled into the cavern at the entrance of the other core below my mountain. So if anything does happen to come up, they'll be the first line of defense while also preventing anything or anyone else from wandering down there. Not to mention how great they've been so far at patrolling the woods; while Jack and his birds can undoubtedly cover more ground, Legosi and his wolves have been more impactful in a way. They were able to cover the ground much more thoroughly and hit stray beasts with dramatically more force and strength than the birds. That's not to say that the wolves are outshining the birds; no, the two teams mesh beautifully and coordinate extremely well. The birds act appropriately as scouts, calling out the threats while the heavy-hitting wolves rush in to deal with the targets.

Speaking of threats, the creatures I've observed are somewhat unique in nature, at least compared to the nature that I know of. I've seen things like blue praying mantises the size of watermelons and bigger—spiders or maybe tarantulas the size of German Shepherds and nearly as fast. There also seems to be a hyper-aggressive species of gray and black squirrels that formed a rivalry with Jack's scouts, thankfully there have been no casualties on Jack's side so far, but the squirrels have escalated combat to the point where several have had to be put down. I've left Jack to determine what will be done with them, but I am considering trying to recruit a number of them to reduce how much fighting the scouts have to endure.

On other fronts, now that we have Legosi's wolves doing more of the fighting, it has freed up Jack's birds to perform their duties as scouts and more thoroughly survey the woods around my mountain. Mainly starting with those two anomalies that Oururu spotted several days ago.

First is the webbed-up trees; there seems to be a considerable amount of activity going on there. Based on the mental imprints and other estimates I've gotten from the scouts, the trees seem to cover a substantial chunk of land, I'd say nearly five city blocks with slowly expanding borders. There were a considerable variety of species from the limited reports the birds could give me. Still, they could only see so many between the spiders weaving the webs and the thicker armored spiders protecting their borders. Jack tells me there is something called an Evertree in the center of it all, whatever that is. Though if it was important enough for Jack to remember from before his time with me, then it is something worth looking into. Thankfully, this spider infestation is on the opposite side of the mountain compared to where the longhouse is, so there is no immediate danger. However, the fact that we're even seeing spiders on the side of the mountain with the people is something to be worried about.

Moving over to the next anomaly, it seemed to be some kind of pond that turned rancid or something. Whatever it was, it appeared to be alive. Based on reports between the wolves and the birds, the pond gave off a sickly sweet smell. Those who gave the reports mentioned that they were even tempted to approach and drink from the pond itself. Thankfully their heightened intelligence and instincts allowed them to keep their wits about themselves, and thus they were able to return back home safely. On the other hand, the scouts witnessed various other creatures approaching the pond and drinking from it; however, the moment they did, the pond reacted and ensnared the creature with a viscous ooze before dragging them into the depths. The only thing I can compare it to was the ooze that nearly killed Dread and Gluttony, but from what I know of that thing was that it was supposed to be clear, almost like water and not the gnarly purplish black like the pond on the surface. For the time being, the surface ooze seemed to behave like some sort of flytrap; it wasn't actively searching for prey and only attacking those that touched it. That would be fine for now since I don't think I have anything that can deal with such a large threat at this point, so I'll have to mark this area as a general quarantine zone to keep anyone important from stumbling in.

Over the last few days, I had managed to flesh out and find a use for some of the rooms I carved out before. The main one had been the forge I prepared for the Blacksmith in my service. Mainly I had gone about thoroughly smoothing out the floors and walls, though I went back around and carved up the floors for the sake of footing and traction. I don't want her slipping after all. Afterward, I carved out the ceiling, shaping it like a pyramid, before digging a chimney out of the mountainside. For the sake of ventilation, I essentially punched a hole through the mountain stone, connecting the once fully interior room to the outside. Then it was just a matter of carving out and reinforcing some stairs along the outside of the mountain, connecting it to something of a hub of staircases at this point. I probably ought to make some kind of patio or landing... Maybe a mountainside observation deck...

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Going back around to the room set aside for the forge itself. I ended up relying on specifications drawn up by Trisha, so very few creative decisions came from my end. Ultimately I was glad for it since the only forges I had experience with were all too modern for something I could easily try and make here in this world. I was able to prepare some tools with a bit of effort, refining the iron ore I pulled from the mountain; a few hammers of different sizes were made easily enough. I remembered something about the hammers needing different faces, so I made sure to prepare a couple of hammers with flat and rounded faces. However, if anything needed to be corrected, I could always reshape them easily enough. Smithing tongs were simple enough as well with casting the tools with iron, and a hinge was also prepared with ease to make the tongs properly functional. Finally came the anvil, a basic iron block being designed for most of the general smithing work. I felt a few things may have been missing for this to be a proper forge, though this is, unfortunately, one of the blindspots in my range of knowledge and experience, so I'll likely be informed about what's missing when she comes and looks things over.

The room across the hall from the smithy was turned into a storeroom for materials. After all, Trisha needed to have access to my collection of materials, and it would be better for her to access things freely if she were to be fulfilling my commissions. I built some stone shelving units, stocking them with refined iron, copper, and tin ingots for easy use. Though since she had me make her a crucible, among other things, I figured she could also refine her own ores and make her own alloys, so I made stone boxes and filled them with raw ore. I knew what half of them were, but there were quite a few ores that I didn't recognize; at this point, I wasn't too sure whether or not I could chalk this up to simply lacking knowledge in this field or if this was just due to it being minerals from another world that I would have never come across regardless. I even made sure to leave plenty of bones for the carbon; I do hope she knew how to properly combine them with the iron ore in order to make some crude steel, though I did also leave some decent cuts of wood, leather, skins, and feathers around the place, after all, I didn't have a good read on what use things had or the value of these materials. Though I'm sure I'll learn soon enough with Trisha and the others around.

In more personal news, I've finally decided on some names for the remaining two cubs. I had to think long and hard to make sure they suited the cubs. After all, I watched them come into this world, and they had their whole lives ahead of them. These names will be how they are known to the rest of the world, and I don't want them getting bullied over it. For the young white cub, I settled on the name Freyli; with her affinity for light and friendliness I couldn't help but think of her as a literal ray of sunshine. She's already gotten up to the level of small phrases and small conversations on the level of the younger children within the community, which was an impressive feat outright between her age and the fact she probably didn't initially have the means to speak naturally. Nonetheless, she was the first of her siblings to get to this point without any magical assistance, unlike many of my other beasts and birds.

On the other hand, the black-furred runt was relatively anti-social. Preferring to watch from the literal shadows and practice stalking the people of the community without them even knowing it had happened. All in all, he was a real momma's boy, keeping close to her over everyone else. What that meant is that he ended up getting the most direct training out of all his siblings; in fact, he had been the only one of his siblings to have actual kills in his book, having gone up from small rodents and tiny insects to rabbits and those colorful turkeys. The cub was really taking after his mother, the son of an Executioner. I was actually a little embarrassed naming the cub, of course, having held a private little ceremony between myself, the cub, and Basti so she could observe the naming process. I named the cub Basmori, and I genuinely couldn't think of anything else that seemed more appropriate for the runt, though the cub seemed clearly delighted by the name. Basti, for her part, gave me a curious look, though she appeared to be pleased as well as she strolled closer to my pedestal and laid along my steps. Basmori hurried out of my chamber rather excitedly, seeming eager to share his new name with his siblings.

Basti seemed to smile warmly at me after we were alone, her thoughts swirling around on the idea that her son had a name that shared features of her name and my own. I didn't really have more of an explanation; it just seemed right; Basmori followed after her path and would no doubt be an agent of death once he matured, thus the name Basmori. Regardless, she still seemed extraordinarily pleased as her tail tip flicked side to side before slumping into a relaxed position on the steps and shutting her eyes.

After a good ten minutes or so, Jack flew in, interrupting the moment as he skidded in to a stop, panting excitedly. "Vitmori! We've got a captive, and I think they have information you're going to want to see." He gushed, letting his wings flutter with his excitement as he tippy-tapped with his clawed feet.

'O-oh? Well, alright then, bring them in, and let's see what you got.' I responded, glad for the interruption, as Basti was watching Jack curiously as well, her tail curling and flicking as her ears perked up high. I wonder who could've managed to let themselves be caught by birds…