It was worse than that. It felt like I had pulled five consecutive all-nighters during finals week, chugged twelve Red Bulls, and then been thrown into an industrial washing machine on a full spin cycle for two hours. My vision was a fractured mess of blue data streams and grey static.
“...Heart rate 110. Pupil response is sluggish.”
A cool, detached voice sounded in my ear, accompanied by the sharp, medicinal tang of crushed herbs and... was that catnip?
I struggled to focus. Through the double vision, I saw Ela’s pale green eyes hovering above me. The Cat-kin priestess held a glowing green fluorite stone against my temple. The magic felt like an ice pack pressed against a burn—painful, but soothing.
“Awake?” Ela withdrew her hand, her tone carrying the weariness of a medic patching up a recurring idiot.“Your mind is currently a tangled ball of wet yarn. If you do that again, you won't wake up.”
“The wall...” I rasped, my throat feeling like I’d swallowed a handful of dry sand. I tried to sit up, but the room spun. “Did it hold?”
“It stands.”
The answer didn’t come from Ela, but from a figure crouching on the high stone windowsill like a gargoyle.
Zayla.
She was still in her tattered leather armor, stained with dried dark blood—none of it hers. She was peeling a strange green fruit with her broken blade. Seeing me awake, she jumped down, landing without a sound, light as a shadow.
“Brad is patrolling with the men below,” she said, her voice unusually soft. “The Wolf-kin were terrified by the defeat. They think we have a legion of sorcerers. They won’t be back for a few days.”
She shoved the peeled half-fruit into my hand. “Eat. It is a Sour-Berry. You need the strength.”
I looked at the wrinkled green thumb-sized fruit, then at Zayla’s golden eyes. There were dark circles under them. She hadn't slept either; she had been guarding me.
I took a bite.
An explosion of acidity assaulted my tongue, potent enough to strip paint. My face nearly imploded.
“Thanks, Your Majesty,” I wheezed, forcing myself to swallow the vitamin bomb. “Very... wasteland chic. Does it come in any flavor other than ‘Battery Acid’?”
A faint, rare smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Only for those who survive.”
10:00 AM. Silvermoon Rift, Council Hall.
“Council Hall” was a generous term. It was a drafty enclosure made of three large boulders leaning against each other, with a leaky tarp stretched over the top.
The air was thick with the suffocating cocktail of smells: old cured leather, woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and the unique, musky scent of a hundred crowded felines. It smelled like a poorly ventilated pet shop.
Aside from Zayla, Brad, and Elder Karl, there was a new face: Lucas, the Captain of the Guard.
He was a scarred Cat-kin warrior who looked like he carried the world's grudges on his shoulders. A jagged claw mark ran diagonally across his face, missing his eye by an inch, making him look like a professional pessimist.
“Your Majesty,” Lucas’s voice was grating, like sandpaper on stone. He slammed a piece of parchment onto the makeshift map table. “Last night's victory was a miracle. I grant you that. But miracles aren't edible.”
He pointed a claw at the inventory list. “If we let that human giant, Brad, eat freely, our rations will last seven days. With strict rationing—meaning half-portions for everyone, maybe ten.”
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Brad was leaning in the corner. Hearing his name, he rolled his eyes.
“Hey! I’m maintaining combat mass here!” Brad protested, flexing a bicep that was thicker than Lucas’s thigh. “Do you know the caloric burn rate of a linebacker? I’m burning 4,000 calories just standing here! And that jerky you guys give out is so hard I almost broke a molar, and I didn't even complain!”
“Then don't eat!” Lucas snapped, his tail lashing behind him. He turned to me, his eyes full of sober, cold despair.
“And you, Architect... do not think a small victory changes the outcome. Those Wolves were a scouting party. When Ironfang Garza’s main force arrives, can this three-meter wall stop five thousand troops? We are throwing eggs against a rock.”
Lucas was a classic pessimistic realist. He was the type of guy who would do the work, but he’d sigh until everyone’s morale was in the dirt.
“Eggs against a rock?” I adjusted my position, fighting through the lingering migraine. “Captain, in physics, if the velocity is high enough and the contact area is small enough—meaning the pressure is infinite—an egg can penetrate steel. Besides, we aren't eggs.”
I tapped the table. “We are the rebar inside the concrete.”
Lucas stared at me, clearly lost in the terminology. He opened his mouth to argue, but movement silenced him.
Zayla stood up.
The room went instantly quiet.
Zayla walked to the main seat at the head of the table—the position of the Clan Leader. She placed her hand on the back of the chair, looked at it for a second, and then... stepped aside.
She gestured for me to sit.
Under the shocked gaze of everyone in the room, the proud Queen of the Sun Clan turned to me. She lowered her head, bending her knees, and bowed deeply. It wasn't a nod. It was a formal, courtly submission.
“Alex Reed.” Her golden eyes pinned me to the spot, burning with intensity. “I, Zayla V. Solaris, heir of Valsalia, formally appoint you as Lord Architect and Supreme Commander of the Silvermoon Rift’s defense.”
“Wait!” Elder Karl shrieked, raising his bone staff. “Your Majesty! Tradition! You cannot! He is an outsider! Entrusting our fate to a hairless human with no tail... this is blasphemy!”
“Tradition got us slaughtered in the forest,” Zayla cut him off. Her voice turned into a blade of ice. “In this valley, regarding construction, defense, and resource allocation, the Architect’s word is my word.”
She scanned the room, her gaze daring anyone to challenge her. “If he orders the sacred altar torn down to build a latrine, you will move the bricks. Do you understand?”
Dead silence.
I felt a bit unnerved. The ‘altar-to-toilet’ metaphor was a bit extreme, even for me.
Lucas looked at Zayla, then at me. He gritted his teeth, his pride warring with his duty. Finally, he slammed his fist against his chest in a stiff salute.
“As you command... Supreme Commander.”
I read the subtext in his eyes: Since you want to be a madman, I’ll follow you to the grave.
“Good,” I sighed, rubbing my temples. “Construction Order Number One: Captain Lucas, take the able-bodied warriors and start digging pits at the leeward edge of the camp.”
“Pits?” Lucas paused, confused. “A trap zone? Punji sticks?”
“No. Latrines.” I looked him dead in the eye. “Toilets.”
The room went quiet again. Even Brad looked confused.
“You want to waste precious combat power and calorie expenditure on... toilets?” Lucas asked slowly, as if I were mentally deficient.
“Captain, do you know what killed more soldiers in the Civil War than bullets?” I didn't wait for an answer. “Dysentery. Cholera. Bacteria.”
“In a place without penicillin, dysentery kills ten times faster than werewolves. You guys are living in a petri dish. If you don't want your warriors dying of dehydration from diarrhea before the enemy even arrives, go dig. Deep ones. Downwind. This is a non-negotiable sanitation regulation.”
Lucas opened his mouth to argue, saw the cold look in Zayla’s eyes, and swallowed his words.
“Fine,” he muttered bitterly. “If we are going to die in a few days, at least we will leave clean corpses.”
BANG!
The rickety wooden door was slammed open, nearly tearing off its hinges.
A blood-stained Cat-kin scout stumbled in. A black-feathered arrow was buried deep in his shoulder—Ironfang’s mark.
Zayla moved instantly, catching him before he hit the ground. “Report!”
“The Wolf King...” The scout spat blood, gripping Zayla’s arm with trembling claws. “He... he didn't take the main road! The main force isn't coming through the canyon!”
“What?” I stood up.
“They found the shortcut...” the scout wheezed. “Through the Old Mine! The goblin tunnels!”
“The Old Mine?!” Elder Karl shrieked, his face losing all color. “Impossible! That place is cursed! It's full of choking sulfur gas and mounds of bat droppings deep as a man's knee! No army can march through that poison!”
“They have... masks... shaman magic...” The scout coughed violently, his grip on Zayla's arm tightening like a vise. He forced his head up, locking his fading, terrified eyes on his Queen.
"The shortcut... it bypasses the entire mountain range. They aren't two weeks away..." He choked out the words with his last ounce of strength. "Ten days. They will be here in ten days."
The scout's eyes rolled back, and his body went limp against Zayla.
My mind raced, the internal construction schedule I had built for a two-week siege violently collapsing. Ten days. They will be here in ten days.
The room plunged into an icy silence.
Ten days.
We had unfinished latrines, a prototype wall that only covered the front, and a ragtag army. And now, the enemy was bypassing our main defense.
Brad stopped polishing his shield. The playfulness vanished from his face. “Alex, we’re down thirty points with two minutes on the clock. And they just intercepted the ball.”
Lucas let out a hollow laugh. “I told you. The egg breaks.”
My heart was hammering, but my brain was locked onto two words.
Sulfur gas. Bat droppings.
General Chemistry 101 flashed in my mind. Sulfur. Bat Guano meant Potassium Nitrate. And we had plenty of charcoal burning in the fire pits.
I turned to Ela, my eyes burning with a dangerous light. "Ela, your purification magic. Can you isolate specific minerals from waste? Say... extract pure crystalline salt from those droppings, and bind it flawlessly with sulfur dust and charcoal?"
Ela blinked, taken aback by the bizarre request, but she closed her eyes, her fingers glowing with a faint, analyzing light. "The essence of earth, fire, and decay... Yes. I can force them to bond. But the resulting mixture would be... aggressively unstable. It would crave ignition."
"Perfect." A cold, jagged grin spread across my face.
I walked to the map. I snatched a piece of still-smoldering charcoal from the fire pit and slashed an ashen ‘X’ over the Old Mine.
I pushed up my glasses, the lenses reflecting the firelight.
"We’re going to do some illegal blasting."
Blow something up.
Question of the Day: What is the most essential facility in a base?
(Click to prioritize construction)
?? A) The Armory.
Result: Gamer Logic. You have big swords, but empty stomachs. An army cannot march on ammo alone. You look cool until you faint from hypoglycemia.
?? B) The Kitchen.
Result: Morale Booster. Zayla approves. The smell of bacon keeps the troops happy. Just hope the enemy doesn't smell it too. Morale +50.
?? C) The Latrines (Trust Alex on this).
Result: The Engineer's Wisdom. Dysentery has killed more armies than swords ever did. A clean base is an alive base. Disease Risk: 0%. Survival: 100%.
Follow and Rate to see if they can finish the fort in time!