The last week had been hell. Not because of any danger, or really any major change in the reality of the situation. Mayor Varrarg was easy enough to work with, her single request, besides seeing the map Robert was slowly assembling of the surrounding area based on information from Miss Silene and the hunting parties was strange and dangerous, but he could pass it off easily enough to Sergeant Trip and Private Sharts, as their resident woodland experts. Besides hunting game and gathering plants either for Miss Silene to identify, or which she had identified and they wanted more of, they were also to figure out how to trap and retrieve a wolf, alive and unharmed for her and the goblins, as they allegedly had some historical connections to the beasts, which she wanted to test.

  Usually, this would have been an absurd request, but the [Sleep] spell should let them put the beast to sleep, if they could corner one. Unfortunately, it only lasted for a minute, which meant they’d need to be quick about tying it up. If not for the prevalence of healing magics, he might have balked, but as it was, he gave the job to Trip and Sharts, they grabbed some of the spellcasters with the [Sleep] spell and fucked off to do the job. It wasn’t going fast, as they were extremely short on rope, even if some of the men were figuring out which local plants could be used to make simple ropes and teaching their fellows. Traps without ropes were possible, but apparently were more usually deadly, if he’d understood Shart’s stammered explanation. So, their plan was simple, keep dumping offal and off cuts near where the wolves had feasted on the vultures, then keep an eye and [Sleep] them when they returned and save the ropes for restraining them.

  But the Mayor was being reasonable about the time it was taking. Having to brief her daily on the activities and get her involvement was annoying, but the woman wasn’t stupid and she knew what the goblins had and needed. As soon as he mentioned needing lodestones for the [Mending] cantrip, she managed to get two small ones from the blacksmith, who apparently used a larger one to hold small finished products while he was working. She made sure the goblin tanners worked with the small number of men who had experience in that field from the regiment and so the hides and furs from the many animals disappearing down their gullets weren’t going to waste. The tanning process wasn’t done on any of them and it massively stunk up an area right outside the wall, but the men would be glad of it once winter came, or if they found someone to trade with.

  And despite her obvious reluctance, when her grandson had volunteered to be one of the handful of goblins to join, she had not objected, even as the squad of seven volunteers began to go through the long and painful process of training. Robert was glad he wasn’t watching. The company officers had recommended Wilson for promotion to First Sergeant, which he’d duly done and then dumped the problem of training on him, along with his sole copy of Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics.

  It was somewhere between funny and heartbreaking to see men the size of children double timing it around the town, marching, trying to keep up with the large man. Trying to learn the bugle calls, even as the buglers were trying to learn them was no easy task. And many of the rules didn’t really apply, as long arms were just absurd on their small frames. Of more immediate concern was that just equipping the seven of them with pistols would consume more than half their store of gold and that was without considering ammunition.

  There was also the issue that if more men came through, and more men would come through, he was confident, even if they never saw combat again, men died on campaign, mostly from disease, that would put them over their 120 man cap. But it could be raised at the next meeting, if that were to happen, or a man could be released to serve in a civilian capacity. Mayor Varrarg would probably be thrilled to have her own healer on hand, though Russel was smart enough to make sure several were at the guard post in the main cavern, so if any goblin was injured they wouldn’t need to be taken far (or call far) for aid.

  The excitement down below when they’d seen lights coming through the firing ports in the door they’d successfully mounted to block access to the Underdark, which had proven to be some strange glowing giant beetles hadn’t been a problem. The men had shot one, the rest fled, but it continued glowing, which was strange. They recovered the corpse and found that it had two strange glowing organs, which were still glowing down below. The goblins had recognized them from old stories and been deeply sad that they’d been chased off, so the next time they came back, a few were captured by use of the [Sleep] spell and quickly brought into the rat nest. Apparently, they’d historically had both, but the beetles had been lost in their escape. The light did not improve that place, but the beetles apparently ate the rat dung? Which did make it smell better. Robert had considered attempting to claim the dung in there, but the place was deeply creepy and would not help morale, nor would it help relations with the goblins.

  But that wasn’t the problem. The goblins weren’t the problem. Mayor Varrarg wasn’t the problem. The outside world wasn’t really a problem. Miss Silene was a bit of the problem, for by now officers were breaking up arguments amongst the NCOs about her favors and Robert had even had to have a quiet conversation with Simpkins and Russel about the matter. But that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was his own men. The solution the town meeting had come up with for the lack of pay was, in retrospect, the obvious one and one the United States had used frequently, paying in land rather than specie, given the presence of the former in rather greater abundance than the latter.

  The problem with it was that once they’d sorted out who got what (and how that had ended up being his problem, he still wasn’t entirely sure, but Mayor Varrarg was a tricky one), everyone suddenly wanted to work their own land, rather than focus on the things everyone needed. The men who could cast [Mold Earth] were suddenly flush in beer rations and others eager to cover their patrols in exchange for saving them days of back-breaking labor cutting out house foundations with five minutes of spellcasting.

  And then Robert had somehow been sucked into a surveying question, which meant he had to stop everyone until they could mark out each plot, which had somehow needed to involve him, until he’d managed to offload it onto Corporal Robinson, as the town judge. But now the property was marked, which meant everyone was interested in improving it. And interested in both what crops would be available and, for those without farming experience, in learning how to farm. Which meant men kept trying to ‘help’ Merriman as he worked on the farms within the walls.

  Which meant keeping people focused on the work that needed to be done, and the drills which still needed to be done, especially as they couldn’t spare any ammunition for target practice, everyone’s favorite part of the drill, was torturous. He heard more grumbling than he liked, that wasn’t just the standard soldier’s complaining.

  And then Thomas got the mill working and started turning the woodcutting into a streamlined lumber production engine. Which got people all excited about using that lumber for houses, without even considering that they didn’t really have much in the way of nails, or other fasteners. Rawlins could make them, but only 10 at a time (thankfully costing 1 copper piece each, which seemed very low, but the pricing was absurd as far as he could tell). Given the time taken, it was better to get a smithy set up, but for now, the cost wasn’t worth it, as there was already one in the mesa. So, they were’ providing the goblin smith with metal to be recycled and charcoal to do it and he took a percentage of the metal in exchange for the work.

  In the long run, they desperately needed a source of metal, which was the one point of disagreement with Varrarg. The most likely place to find metal was underground and they had a big tunnel into the ground, they should check it out. But she was adamantly opposed and they weren’t desperate yet, though once the goblins graduated to weapons practice (well, pistol practice, as they were doing some basic training with their own weapons, which was all poor Wilson could manage as he was no expert in combat with a pick, or a big knife, especially by people who were so small, but he was smart enough to recognize that they’d probably be deployed as skirmishers, given their height, they could easily hide in underbrush, so tried focusing on that), they’d lose a lot of their gold. Even a few nuggets of gold would replenish their stock and they could hardly expect to just keep getting attacked by people carrying coinage. The quest rewards also included such, but they seemed strangely focused on combat, as nothing which simply improved matters gave a quest.

  He’d hoped that some of the town goals would, but that had not proven to be the case. But the point was, things were getting tense, especially as men realized the advantages of various spells and that Sharts had gained the ability to cast spells when he reached the second level. The reversal from the earlier fear of such things was amusing, but not helpful. Sharts and Trip were actually making the most progress, as they were the best hunters. But two others who had earned experience from the other encounters were brought up to second level by dint of volunteering for hunting missions and being assigned to kill Giant Rats, when the goblins decided to do so.

  It was strange that a deer brought only 10 EXP, while a Giant Rat brought 25, but he wasn’t complaining. Though he was somewhat complaining about what he’d gotten. The Bard had gained two abilities, and a third 1st Level spell slot. The first ability allegedly allowing them to add half their ‘proficiency bonus’ whatever that was to checks that they weren’t already proficient in. Given the phrasing, it seemed clear it was intended to make them more generally skilled, as it was called Jack of All Trades. But it had no visible effect as far as anyone could tell. The second skill allowed people to heal more when they took a short rest, which was the first indication that they could heal during a short rest, which seemed absurd, it was an hour long break for a meal, how could anyone heal during that? But it wasn’t something they tested. They had plenty of magical healing available, especially as the Bard was allowed to change one of their spells, though not their cantrips, upon leveling up and had chosen to replace one of their spells with a healing one. More usefully, they also were able to choose an additional spell to know. Which was also useful, though no sign of any ‘2nd Level’ spells, which was unfortunate. The only other benefit was that they could use one of their ‘bardic inspiration dice’ to empower their spells, which was the only use that had been figured out for the things thus far. As far as anyone could otherwise tell, they didn’t have much effect.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  The Sorcerer was...stranger. Like the Cleric, he’d apparently been denied some choice he should have been able to make the prior level due to the nature of their arrival, but instead of being a clerical domain, it was a ‘bloodline’ which empowered their magic. The choices were opaque to the point of being worrisome. Aberrant Mind, Shadow Magic, Draconic Bloodline, and Wild Magic were obviously out. Lunar Sorcery seemed too pagan for the poor man, and frankly, for Robert. That only left o options Storm Sorcery and Divine Soul. Without hesitation, the man went for Divine Soul, which seemed fair enough to Robert. The boxes then asked him to choose an ‘affinity for the source of divine power’ offering ‘good,’ ‘evil,’ law,’ ‘chaos,’ and ‘neutrality.’ It took no prompting for the poor man to choose good.

  Which meant he gained the [Cure Wounds] spell. Besides small things, it was one of the two main healing spells they used, it was more powerful than the other [Healing Word], but you had to touch the injured man to cast [Cure Wounds] while [Healing Word] could be cast at a distance of thirty feet. Which had gone into their new formations. At least one man with [Healing Word] every 30 feet, to try to keep people hale and in the fight. The Sorcerer also gained an additional spell and was able to choose to replace one of his others, but this was in addition to the new spell, which seemed unfair to the poor Bard, but the boxes were under no obligation to be fair and given the choices they offered included evil and chaos, he was unsurprised by their lack. He also gained some strange power to roll more dice, which again, seemed thoroughly irrelevant. But for his second level trait, he gained some ‘Sorcery Points’ which could be used to regain a spell slot, and he gained an additional 1st Level spell slot.

  None of that was as critical as what the Clerics or Artificer had gained. Robert was curious what the Druid would gain, as they were the other class blessed to be able to choose their spells every day from a large list and the Wizards, who seemed quite unique. Indeed, one of the wizards had overcome his concern about the name of the spell [Find Familiar] and had asked about actually casting it. But since they lacked the brass brazier that was part of the material component and their charcoal supplies were very limited, so Robert wasn’t willing to sacrifice 10 gold pieces worth of the materials in order to experiment. Unfortunately, both groups had relatively few people with serious experience, as they skewed more intellectual and were not eager to go running around in the woods, especially after the bird attack and the news of the Giant Spiders in the north.

  Fights about EXP and the various stats, as the men had heard their squadmates telling Simpkins what their intelligence, wisdom and strength all were, which no one had cared about at the time, but now were making use of, were breaking out. Not physical ones, thus far, but men were starting to believe the boxes, about the capabilities of their fellows, as well as about the skills the boxes gave. And those men with better statistics were strutting, while those with lesser were ashamed. It was easy to say all men were created equal and understand that that coexisted with some men being strong and others weak...but having explicit numerical rankings didn’t help people believe that truth.

  The fact that none of the officers had leveled up didn’t help matters, but Robert refused to use any of the boxes at this point, until he knew what was needed and what the next threat was. Fortunately, the new chaplain had leaned hard on the everyone equal point, and after a conversation with Robert had mostly managed to shame the men into focusing on the needs of the town, at least until a church could be built so they could all give thanks to the Lord for their salvation. But that had just pushed it subsurface and caused the men to focus on the design and construction of the church (which Robert sure wasn’t letting be build until they took the small hills they called walls and gave them proper ramparts for firing down that someone couldn’t just run up) which had brought forward the disagreements between sects, which he had managed to dump in the Mayor’s lap for a change, as it surely wasn’t a military question.

  The Mayor didn’t understand the underlying issues and was confused by her involvement as they’d all agreed at the town meeting that everyone would be free to worship as they pleased, but she managed their dispute quite well, Robert had heard, if mainly because she viciously forced them to explain the cause of the concern, then stared at them in total confusion until their attempts to justify how different they were and how important those differences were faded to naught in comparison to her own heathen ancestor worship.

  Which was actually a source of some discomfort with many. The goblins didn’t proselytize, obviously, but the humans sure did, especially to their new recruits. And, to be fair, the good Lord could offer rather more than the goblin’s ancestors, who could only offer a mesa home which had now been subjected to plague, famine and war. And certainly death, which completed the quadfecta of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  And then there were constant, endless, complicated problems. How to get various things to the right places? Who had right of way? Who got to use the horse and the mule? Who got to use the axes? What was highest priority? What was highest priority for wood? For clay? Can we build earthen ovens, or should we focus on bricks? Who got what assignment (especially the potential EXP earning hunting/slaughtering assignments)? Could men switch assignments? Could men cover for one another if they were off? Could men go hunting on their own? What should the squad on duty in the field waiting for more arrivals be doing? Did they really get to just lie around while they were there? Shouldn’t they be making improvements too? Didn’t they need a midpoint watchtower that should be placed...hmm...right by Miss Silene’s tree? Didn’t they need a gate? How could they get more varied food? Why couldn’t they swim in the river? Why did they have to keep so many men on guard duty? Why was the blacksmith focused on nails rather than more axes?

  With that in mind, he was actually pleased to be summoned to the top of the mesa to deal with some sort of actual military issue, rather than playing peacekeeper and problem solver and deputy Mayor. He really wished he could offload those decisions onto Mayor Varrarg, but she was clearly uncomfortable giving orders to humans and, frankly, didn’t know enough about how surface towns work to make sensible decisions, which left...him.

  But now there was some actual problem. He was pleased right up until he got to the top of the mesa and looked to where the sentry was pointing. The river was broad and the figures weren’t even at the river, but it was obvious that there was movement towards the river, and not the occasional individual fisherorc or orc seeking water the goblins had reported in the past, this was hundreds of figures. A small herd of some sort of herd animal, might have been sheep, or goats, or something altogether new, he couldn’t tell. They had carts which were being pulled by people and maybe horses, or some other draft animal. At this distance, he was just assuming they were orcs based on what Varrarg had said. And, he reminded himself, he had no basis for believing all orcs were the same as the Storm Claws.

  There was no way to hide the village and the smoke rising from cooking fires, or the obvious walls, or the waterwheel rising above those walls. That didn’t mean the orcs would put in the effort to cross the river, but looking past them to the hills that rose, rocky and rough and the obvious difficulty, even from this distance, they were having getting the carts down towards the river suggested they were going somewhere and putting a lot of effort into it.

  That didn’t mean they would cross the river, rather than simply traveling along the riverbank. Though that wasn’t the easiest travel route...regardless of the orcs intent, there was only one course of action, prepare. He considered for a moment and glanced at his watch, Sharts and Trip shouldn’t have headed out yet this morning. And the sniper had by far the best eyes in the company. A quick messenger retrieved the young man, who was still nervous to be in his presence, which was endearing.

  “C-C-Colonel, sir, you called for me?”

  Trip was also there, smirking at the stuttering boy, which was unfortunate, but Robert let it go. “What do you see, Private?” he asked, gesturing.

  Sharts followed the line of his finger, then took a few steps forward, caught by Trip a moment before Robert moved to catch him, and two steps before he walked off the edge. Robert really needed to get fences put up around all the steep falls in town. A man had actually fallen down one of the wells two nights back. Fortunately, they’d hauled him out and healed him up in moments, and that’s how he’d discovered there was a gray market in mushroom beer, which the goblins apparently brewed. Which at least let him make a deal for that, swap the Alchemy Jug for a second set of Sending Stones and send one out to the field and the other out with hunting parties, rather than trusting the field force to handle itself.

  He watched the man’s face twist and Trip looked as well. Trip didn’t see what Sharts did, anymore than Robert did. “What do you see, Private?” Robert repeated.

  “Cages,” the boy’s voice was cold and for once he didn’t stammer over his Cs.

  “I need more information.”

  “Orcs, lots of ‘em. Horses. Sheep. Some goats. One b-b-big goat. C-c-carts. Some have cages on ‘em. Humans too.”

  “Armed?”

  “C-c-can’t tell.”

  “Anyone in the cages?”

  “Not now.”

  Robert’s eyes flickered as he considered. “Private Sharts, you’re on watch. Sergeant Trip, step up the hunting. If we need to withstand a siege, I want to be fat and happy.”

  Both saluted and Robert went to put Simpkins on the other jobs which needed doing. Building a blind up top to shield observers and getting more sharp eyed men to support Sharts, as well as a signaler, in case of weird magical nonsense. Then he went to talk to Mayor Varrarg. There were few options and not enough information, but they had to prepare. So prepare they would.