I hear screaming. I tear myself free from my covers, my thick woolen sheets pull me down, but I tear myself free anyway. I clamber to my feet in a daze spinning, before hastily strapping my armor to my body, and pulling my sword from the table.

  I tear open the door of my hut, and sprint through my fields. With a clicking noise I transition from dirt to the cobbled bridge passing over the river, and into the city. As I run, other adventures stumble out of their houses, and I hear yelling coming from the walls. A minotaur barrels down the street headed towards the walls. I follow him.

  In no time at all, we've arrived at the walls. I pull myself up the ladders, and up the stairs, before bursting up, and onto the walls. I glance down, to see a small force of zombies being annihilated by a far larger group of Orcs. They draw closer, slicing through the walking corpses with ease.

  I grit my teeth, “Adventurers! To the gates, we must repel them if they break through!” I turn to rush to the gates, then, someone steps forward. A tiny wretch of a woman, she must barely be five feet tall, and truly a horror she is. Thin, and malnourished, her face looks sagged, rough, darker than the rest of her body, and twisted. Her body is thin, and her skin hangs off of her bones, with no extra meat, and yet, she carries a presence.

  She sighs, and begins to chant. A purple glow appears on her, then thick red mana seeps from her torn skin, and she groans, but continues to chant, with a sudden crack, a tear is torn into the sky, and from that tear a hand climbs free. A deep disgusting obsidian color that seems to be swirling. Big enough to crush the entire wall, it lands amidst the Orcs, and crushes a thousand of them in an instant, before it melts, and its inkiness is spread. The ones who were not actively crushed, but were affected spin, and they turn on their friends. Their axes swing with vigour, and their skin slowly turns a deep shade of black, until every single one is dead. Little more than a thousand dead in a night. Quite the win for us.

  I turn to talk to the woman, but she has collapsed. Other women tend to her, not as wretched, but by no means what would be considered attractive. With a burst of the same red mana, the girl used to activate the spell, she stirs, and snarls up at them. “Take me back to the house already, im fucking tired you whores.”

  The others flinch, and respond in unison. “Yes Via.”

  I recoil backwards at the words, but stop myself from saying anything.

  She glares at me, but doesn't say anything, and her friends carry her off.

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  As she is carried off, Alistair begins to speak. “That would be one of those artillery mages I was talking about. I basically had to promise to let her, and her coven get away with doing some more… Unscrupulous activities, as well as some pleasant tax breaks. I'm not quite sure what she's getting up to, but I must believe she hails from Avarelle.”

  I flinch at the mention of that country. “I see. No wonder she's so wretched looking.”

  Alistair nods. “Wretched on the inside as well. No morales whatsoever as far as I can see.”

  He shrugs, and flashes me a smile. “Better have her than not. Want to get a drink? You’ll be buying of course.” He says with a predatory grin.

  I chuckle. “I've heard too many horror stories of people going bankrupt trying to get a ranker drunk.”

  Alistair clicks his tongue in mock disappointment. “Disappointing. But understandable.” He switches back to his comfortable grin. “Well, I am going back to my apartment now, I would like to sleep. Technically anyone above B ranks doesn't need to sleep, but it's still pleasant.” He flashes me a grin, and heads on his way.

  DC

  There haven't been a lot of people inside of me lately. I wonder why? Am I just not as pretty as I used to be? I chuckle at my own joke. Im so fucking funny.

  But seriously, I wonder where everybody went. I mean, the mines are still active, and everything, but no adventurers running about, and the adventurers that used to haul the coal to the surface aren't there anymore so it's building up on the floor. I mean, everytime a coal vein dries up I just refill it so, if this keeps going for long enough they could possibly fill up the whole cavern, which would obviously break the illusion I have set up to make it look like they aren't in a cavern, with a fake sun, and everything.

  I checked the eleventh floor as well, but it looks like nobody made it that far yet. I guess it makes sense since I've been setting up those mana walls which slow people down a lot.

  I turn my attention down to the Evolution Floors where the rats under Talons command have commandeered one of the Irons mines. Talon has figured out how to work it on a mass scale, and has started to produce more cannons, war trains, and muskets, on an industrial scale.

  He’s employed slave labour in large assembly line style factories which have been pumping out more machines. First he has been training the most skilled smiths he can to work the metal into the pieces required, which are then cooled, and put on the assembly line, where each worker adds another piece.

  The only people who are paid are the smiths, and the enforcers. Most of the enforcers stay on rafters above the workers, and have specialized muskets that fire small sandbags, or they fire small canisters filled with powdered bloodstone, which explode, similar to a flashbang, but they also fill the air with the bloodstone powder which causes excessive coughing, vomiting, and long term effects similar to cancer.

  I think it goes without saying, but the troublesome workers don't tend to live very long. Or their neighbors on the assembly line.