The wasteland was silent again, save for the mechanical hum of drones.
Salvagers glided over the frozen battlefield, cutting through smoke and snow as they scooped up corpses, shattered wagons, and twisted gear. The red and silver banners of Malloran's forces lay trampled in the ice, their proud sigils ripped and stained with half-frozen blood.
Builder drones detached crawler claws and began disassembling armor plates and mana-scarred weapons. Scrap was sorted into recycler pods. Anything enchanted was tagged for filtration. The rest—steel, leather, cloth—was ground down into usable base materials.
Inside the Shack, Kenji leaned back in his heated command chair, sipping from a steaming mug as feed after feed flickered across his display wall. The Shack’s system filtered hundreds of drone perspectives into a single overlay: salvage zones green, enemy corpses outlined in blue, prisoner processing in yellow.
“Verdict?” he asked lazily.
The Shack answered with its usual chime.
[Noble Technology: Evaluated][Conclusion: Inferior][Recycling Recommended]
Kenji snorted. “Of course it is.”
He tapped the console with one finger. “Recycle the lot. Extract mana cores and rare alloys. Trash the rest.”
System protocols executed instantly. Salvager drones shifted patterns, accelerating the breakdown of Malloran’s failed glory into biomass, fuel, and scrap.
On one feed, Flanksteak moved silently across the ice, pausing beside a half-frozen knight still gripping his halberd in death. Without ceremony, the Astarion crushed the man’s head under one boot and walked on.
The Collaring Line
Nine prisoners were lined up on their knees, their arms bound behind their backs, their eyes flickering between terror and exhaustion.
The girls had been chosen carefully—young, clean, unmarred by war. Not fighters. Not servants. Pretty things plucked from the Malloran camp’s rear echelon. The kind nobles kept out of battle but close to their tents.
Their uniforms had been stripped away. Now they wore only simple tunics, issued by the Shack’s processing module. The cold bit into their skin, but none dared speak. They had seen what happened to those who resisted.
One by one, drone arms extended from the perimeter scaffolds. Slave collars—gleaming black with silver runes—snapped into place around pale necks. They hissed once as they activated, syncing with the Shack’s systems.
Mirelle watched from the platform above, arms crossed, tail flicking behind her. “Line’s clean,” she called out. “Vitals stable. No anomalies.”
At a motion from her hand, a cart rolled forward—automated, steaming. Each tray held a meal: hot stew thick with meat, soft bread rolls glistening with butter, and a tin mug of Shack-brewed broth. Comfort food. The kind no one had tasted in years.
The girls hesitated, glancing to one another. No one moved.
Then the smell hit them. The stew’s heat, the richness of the broth. One of them—a dark-haired girl with tear-streaked cheeks—shuddered and grabbed her tray, eating with shaking hands. Another followed, then a third. Soon, all of them were eating. Not because they were told to. Because they needed it.
No one told them what was in the food.
They didn’t see the silent data logs flickering across the Shack’s mainframe.
[Indoctrination Serum: Delivered][Neural Calibration: In Progress][Emotional Reinforcement Sequence: Active]
From inside, Kenji watched the screen, completely still.
One girl—a blonde with sharp features—paused halfway through her meal. She blinked slowly. Her eyes softened. Then she kept eating, slower now, more relaxed. The stew was warm. Her collar stopped feeling tight.
In a distant room, another signal flashed:
[Subject 004: Mood Stabilized – Compliance Level 12%]
Kenji sipped his drink.
“Efficient,” he muttered.
Serika
They saved her for last.
Serika Malloran, niece of the fallen duke, was dragged forward in silence. Her once-pristine noble uniform was torn, stained, and half-frozen to her body. Her golden hair was matted, her face pale from exposure and humiliation—but her eyes still burned.
Two drones released her bindings and held her upright as another extended the collar. It clicked around her neck with finality, the rune-seal locking in place with a low mechanical hum.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg.
She stared straight ahead, lips pressed into a thin line, trembling with fury but refusing to show fear. She was nobility. She would not break.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The cart rolled toward her.
A fresh tray. Steam curling up from a bowl of thick stew, a chunk of roasted meat, a mug of broth.
Her stomach growled. Loudly. She hadn’t eaten in almost two days.
Still, she didn’t move.
The drones stepped back.
Silence.
She glanced at the food. Then back at the tower. Then again at the food.
Her hands twitched.
She hated him—Kenji. That smug bastard. That lazy, cruel warlord hiding in a metal box, laughing while everyone else did the work. He hadn’t even shown his face when they lost. He didn’t need to.
He owned everything now.
She reached down. Picked up the spoon.
The first bite was cautious. Salty. Warm. Unfairly delicious.
The second bite burned her throat, but her body stopped shivering.
The third… she didn’t remember reaching for.
By the time the tray was empty, she sat in silence, holding the mug with both hands, staring into it like it held the last of her pride.
No one said a word.
A system screen blinked inside the Shack:
[Subject: Serika Malloran – Collared][Indoctrination: In Progress – Resistance Detected][Pleasure Spike: Detected – Source: Meal]
Kenji didn’t react.
He simply tapped a button.
“Next.”
System Reset and Expansion Orders
Inside the Shack, the lights hummed softly overhead as Kenji leaned back in his chair, one leg resting lazily across the armrest. The holo-displays shifted from the battlefield feeds to internal system reports. Rows of green indicators scrolled past.
[Captured Subjects: 9][Slave Collars: Synced – Shack Network][Mental Conditioning: Stable Initiation Detected][Loyalty Seed Implantation: 11% Average Uptake][Special Feed Protocol: Active][Subject: Serika Malloran – High Resistance][Projected Timeline to Submission: Extended]
Kenji let out a low breath, bored more than anything.
The screen flicked to perimeter status.
Astarions moved like ghosts through the snow, directing builder drones toward the edge of the Shack’s domain. Scaffolds were rising—black metal laced with Shack-marked wiring. The Astarion Barracks expansion was underway.
“Make room for twenty,” Kenji muttered. “With all the eyes on us now, I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need more sooner than later.”
The Shack acknowledged him with a low chime.
[Command Accepted – Barracks Expansion Initiated][Projected Completion: 36 Hours][Builder Drone Deployment: Optimal]
Outside the Shack, within the perimeter wall, builder drones assembled a new structure—thick concrete slabs fusing into the Shack’s latest addition: a hardened Prison Cell. Reinforced, insulated, and isolated, it was designed specifically to house the stubborn ones. Two girls were already being led inside, silent and tense, their collars pulsing faintly as the first stage of indoctrination began.
No guards were needed. The Shack didn’t need guards.
Kenji scanned the logs again. Nothing urgent. Nothing unexpected.
Then a new alert popped up—different tone, different icon.
[High-Density Tech Signal Detected – Classification: DWARVEN][Long-Range Probe Ping – Awaiting Response]
Kenji raised an eyebrow.
“Well. That’s new.”
He swirled his drink once, then set it down and leaned forward.
“Open a reply window. Let’s see what the short bastards want.”
The First Tremor
The Shack’s interior lights dimmed slightly as a new channel opened on the central display—an encrypted handshake, encoded in a blocky rune pattern the system hadn’t cataloged before.
Kenji leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, sipping from his mug.
Chunky glyphs rotated across the screen in mechanical sequence before locking into place.
[Dwarven Bunker Enclave: Trade Beacon Signal Response][Inquiry: Trade Proposal – Food for Materials][Contact Frequency: Secure – Awaiting Confirmation][Signal Origin: Deep Mountain Vault 031-C][Distance: Approx. 490 km – Surface Travel Confirmed]
He grunted. Typical dwarves—too proud to talk until their guts started growling.
He remembered the old world’s stories—about mountainfolk who vanished during the collapse, locking themselves inside mountains with steel, pride, and whatever booze they had left.
If they were reaching out now, it meant one thing: they were probably sick of choking down nutrient sludge and protein bricks made from cockroach guts and corpse paste. And somewhere, somehow, the rumors of his divine Shack must’ve slipped through the cracks of their mountain tombs.
Kenji snorted. “About damn time.”
The Shack chimed again. The trade offer appeared.
[Dwarven Trade Proposal – Initial Terms]– Request: Canned Meat & Canned Beer (Bulk)– Offer:? Mithril Ingot (Grade-B): Ultra-light, high-mana resonance metal. Ideal for power conduits, combat blade cores, or Astarion reflex armor.? Adamantine Fragment (Unrefined): Organic, mergeable dwarven ore. Bonds directly to compatible hosts.
- [System Note: Lethal to normal humans. Compatible with Astarion physiology.]
- Effects: Subdermal bone plating, weaponized skeletal structure, extreme durability.
- Integration: Requires the Minion Spawner? v1.9 to inject, fuse, and regenerate tissue over a prolonged period. Painful but survivable.? Turret-Grade Concrete: Explosion-resistant, rune-etched dwarven composite. Fully Shack-compatible for perimeter fortifications.? Tech Salvage (Misc): Unsorted dwarf-machinery scraps, mana-pulse amplifiers, golem brain cores.
Kenji raised an eyebrow. Mithril. Adamantine. Not bad.
“Beer and meat. Now that’s a trade language I understand.”
He tapped the screen once.
“Send acknowledgment. Let the short bastards know the kitchen’s open.”
Outside, builder drones clicked and hissed as the Astarion Barracks expansion continued. Nearby, new slabs were set into place—the foundations for visitor lodging, tough enough to house elves or dwarves if they got too comfortable.
Trade was coming. Influence was already spreading. The Shack was expanding again, following Kenji’s orders and processing the world’s desperation into steel and obedience.
Kenji downed the rest of his drink, set the mug aside, and stared at the screen. The dwarves would come, loaded with ore and desperation. That was enough.
From Stone and Iron
Deep beneath the spine of the Frostbarrow Mountains, within the sealed citadel of Vault 031-C, the light of a rune-lit terminal flickered against the broad, scarred face of a king.
King Brokkan Stoneheart, High Thane of the Forgebound and Lord of the Unshattered Hall, leaned forward on his stone-banded gauntlets. Behind him, a chamber of engineers and armored envoys stood waiting, breath held, as the Shack’s response flickered across the ancient dwarven transmission array.
He grunted once. “So. It’s true.”
Beside him, a younger dwarf in heavy tactical plating shifted nervously. “Your Majesty, his power output… these figures can’t be fabricated. Not even elven bastions read this clean.”
“Of course they can’t,” Brokkan muttered, beard twitching. “Because this isn’t elven tech. Or ours. This is something else.”
He turned his gaze toward a towering steel vault door. Behind it, trade caravans were already being loaded—automated siege wagons, power-armored infantry, supply crates of mithril, adamantine, salvage tech, and rune-forged concrete.
He didn’t need to order them. They were already moving.
“Send the first convoy,” he rumbled. “Full escort. Tech-grade trade package. And bring the best casks. If this Shack serves beer, we’ll damn well drink with him.”
He looked back at the screen one last time—at the words burned into the Shack’s reply.
The kitchen’s open.
Brokkan’s lips curled into a slow grin.
“Let’s see what kind of trader this bastard really is.”
End of Chapter