Apinsig
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Chapter 177 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-03-03 19:18:15 +0000 UTCI was running towards the village, but I was distracted by Goose. He was flying so low that by jumping I might catch him, and this was something that he hasn't ever done. I wanted to give him time, but we won't have it anymore. I need to know what was going on, so I stopped and called him down. Which he did with utmost happiness which made me frown. I used our bond to start asking some pointed questions. He didn’t answer but what I got in return was shame and fear.
I relaxed myself trying to also convey that to my bonded companion. I also needed to just slow down as rushing was probably the worst thing I could do right now. My sincerity helped Goose to be a bit more open and while it was hard to understand his feeling and images as we communicated, he helped me finally understand what was wrong.
I had noticed that the wind was starting to support him, but I never imagined that he didn’t understand that and thought that something was wrong. He was so afraid that something was trying to attack him or influence him. Every time he flew the air around him would no longer act like it used to. I took my time and explained what was happening and seeing the fright turn to confusion and then amazement was quite wonderful to see.
As soon as he finally understood what was happening, he was up in the air at the next moment. His joyous mood made me happy as well and I finally started to run towards the village again. I was constantly bombarded with new discoveries that Goose was making which made him fly faster or make him able to turn quicker. It was amazing to see how fast he was learning and I couldn't even imagine what he might be capable of in the future.
Coming towards the walls of the village was different this time. I could feel the members of the military through the trait that we had. This was incredible. No one could fake this feeling and I could understand the general location of every military personal close to me and they could do the same to me. This was incredibly good news but also a bit sad as I would no longer be able to tortur… inspect their readiness. Perhaps there is still a way but I will have to leave that for a later date.
I was let in quickly and I was glad to see that extra supports were already being placed for the strengthening of the gate. This was good news and will be incredibly useful in the coming months. I was still quite certain that there would not be any armies crossing our borders within one month but after that who knows? I’m just glad that this world seemed to be an incredibly large one giving us another form of defence, distance.
The village was already waking up as life moved with the sun unlike back on earth where we made our own time. Perhaps there are some cities in this world that keep their own time with magical lights so they can work at whatever hour they want. I was running through all the things that we need and the most glaring issue was food. I reached the meeting room, but no one was in it, so I decided to start doing some calculations.
The two knights were the first to make it to the meeting room most likely coming here after they heard that I was already in the village. I gave them a nod, but I went back to my notebook where I kept listing out things needed and calculating how many of those things we need. I briefly looked up when they sat down and asked, “Has everyone vowed the military oath?” I didn’t keep looking at them as went back to work but soon I got my answer.
“No not yet, I believe you wanted to gather everyone outside for the final ceremony so of course, everyone hasn’t.” I could hear the extreme confusion in his voice, but I didn’t even look up while answering. “I am afraid we cannot do the ceremony as it would be too risky and also start preparing a mobilization order so we can recruit everyone capable into the military.”
I finished one calculation which I hope that I did wrong, but I redid it and cursed out loud, “son of a fucking, fuck.” We just simply didn’t have the food needed. The military will need to start hunting and foraging as much as possible. Perhaps we could stop the village wall guarding as technically we won’t currently need them. I looked up and saw a few more people had sat down talking to each other in hushed tones.
“How many of the guards can hunt?” I asked them but even before finishing, I figured it wouldn’t matter. “Never mind they will learn.” This would give me some leeway but we won’t be moving any armies outside our borders anytime soon. Perhaps the goblins might have some more food and what about the town that's closest to us perhaps they have some reserves but even then, we weren’t going to supply any army for long.
“What was our water-carrying item supply? Was it 60-something?” I asked one of the knights after a moment of silence he nodded and said, “67 currently.” That was so bad. “Son of a bitch. And if I remember correctly, we don’t have a lot of materials to make many more. This is unfortunate perhaps we can supplement that with barrels.” Oh, I like that that’s a good idea that might fix the water problems at least for a little while.
I was thinking about the problem of what equipment we needed when I heard my name being repeated multiple times. “Rich can you hear me, Rich.” I looked up and saw that David was trying to get my attention. I looked around and saw that every seat was filled, and even more, people were around the room than I have ever seen here. “Uh sorry David, I was a bit distracted. Did any of you possibly feel an intrusion into our territory this morning?” There was a moment of silence before people started to slowly nod.
“Yeah, this one was a bit stronger, but we have all been feeling them quite constantly. What is this about?” Ask David now with a lot more worried voice. “Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. Two scouts that were hostile at least to my ability cross the border but soon retreated when they noticed my attention on them.” I could see the disbelief in people’s eyes. “Yeah, I know I fucked up, but I won’t make that mistake again.”
I got back to thinking about what kind of strategies we could use with the current equipment. There were only shit ones. I was interrupted by David again, “we don’t think that you fucked up. Could you please explain things a bit better? We don't really understand what's happening.”
I looked up and had to sigh out loud. I hope that I could give them concrete answers and solutions but there was too much to think about. I looked down at my notes and I wasn’t even half done yet on the most important things let alone all the others. Working without assistance and computers is a bit different.
“A hostile force sent scouts. It means that we will most likely be at war quite soon. I will personally go and scout the closest town to us and see what I can find out, but we have a lot to do and we can no longer wait.” I could see the panic in their eyes, and they all wanted to start doing something but I slapped my hand on the table so that everyone would calm down.
“There is no need to panic. While there are some important things, we must do fast everything will take time. I have already seen that you have started to reinforce the gate, which is excellent, but the army will take months to get here.” I paused for a moment to let that sink in which did relax some of them just a bit.
“What we need to do right now is think about food, equipment for fighting and finding out what forces we are against. The next big thing that will happen will be the refugees coming. I have mentioned this before, but have you figured out how many can we support.” David was the one to speak and I appreciated the steadiness and steel in his voice.
“We can easily take 200 but like you said food will be the biggest problem but after that 200 anything more gets a lot more difficult. We just don’t have the raw resources to build more buildings and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to fit them inside the walls without compromising security.” When David stopped speaking, I took a few minutes to think everything over.
But before I could tell them my idea on how to fix this, I was a bit shocked but pleasantly so about what has happened. A small smile came to my face, and I looked up to address everyone. “I have some good news did I just learn. It seems that the horse herd has joined us. They are quite close to the stables, and I will soon need to go and welcome them.”
This news brought everyone some happiness. It meant work animals, fighting mounts and more importantly the possibility to breed some more useful animals. “Now that that’s over here are the things that we must do. First, we have to declare a mobilization we need more troops. Our new and old military will start to gather more food and start making required equipment. During that, we will also train them to the best of our ability with the limited time we have.”
I paused as I needed to think things through one more time before continuing. Others wanted to speak but I hold up my hand so I would have some more time.
“We also have a big problem with the town that’s close to our border. We cannot take it over and use it as a defensive structure as we do not have the manpower or the food to defend it.” I could already see multiple people starting to speak against this, but I hold up my hand silencing them.
“Yes, I know if we don’t take it then our enemy will use it as their base and we would never have a moment of peace if we do not take it for ourselves. I have been troubled by this problem for quite some time and no matter which way we lean it's not good for us. But I have come up with a solution.” The mood had gone down quite a lot, but in the end, I gave them some hope.
“This solution will also help with the refugee problem and also with expanding our village. We will go and take that town apart stone by stone and log by log. We will then bring all those resources back here which will solve many of our problems.” After my statement, it went so quiet in the meeting room that only heartbeats were heard.
Calling me an absolute lunatic started only a few moments later but I just let them be and waited in silently for everyone to let off some steam. It was needed as this was a tense situation. But even I had my limits and after three minutes I hold up my hand again which made everyone go silent and settle back down. “I never said that this was going to be easy, and we will need the help of even the people who are not in the military and yes even the children and women will be helping us gather everything from that town.”
I looked into everyone’s eyes to make them understand how serious I was. “This is the absolute best option, and this is something that needs to happen. Francis will be the one to help us the most but now we also have horses that can help which will make things faster.”
“Me and my apprentices will focus on making the necessary carts so we can bring everything back. I will work with the appropriate people here to come up with the exact number of things that we need and the timetable that everyone will need to follow.”
I got back into my wartime mindset. Everything happened quickly and efficiently as I didn’t let anyone contradict my actions, but I did answer questions about why we were doing things and explained why they were needed. While this was slower now, down the line it will save countless hours. The most urgent things were done before 2 o'clock so I rushed off to meet the horses.
I only brought a few carrots as we didn’t have the food to waste. The leader of the horses was proud, but he was also strong. I was a bit mistaken about the reason he brought the herd here. It took quite a long time to figure out and then acquiesced to his demands. After all, he was a horse, so it was hard to understand his needs.
He wanted to see everything before agreeing to stay here. We toured all of the horse stables and the lands around here he even met with the war horses who quite quickly showed signs of submission to the horse leader. My heart started to relax.
It took about five hours before everything was finished with the horses. They had accepted the deal and the horse caretakers quickly started to work on getting everyone settled. When I made it back to the village, I headed to the meeting room where everyone was discussing important topics. I gave them an update on the horses which made everyone a bit more relaxed, but the situation was still quite tense.
When I started to take my armour off inside the meeting room everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me in confusion. “Everyone from now on shouldn’t where most if not all of their armour unless necessary. We will only keep 5 guards for the day and night shift for the wall everyone else will act as either hunters or regular citizens.”
“Only four knights will be in full armour and will act overbearingly. There will also be 3 minor nobles that you will pick amongst yourselves that would act like nobles and we need a complete dick bag in charge of everything. If you can find jewellery and an awful crown that this person can wear would be excellent. Try to get him to mimic my appearance and he needs to act like a dick bag. When the time comes, I will assume that persona.” I finally finished taking off all my armour and I started to think about what I was going to wear for my scouting mission.
“Excuse me Rich but why would we do that?” Came a confused voice. “Because we have to assume that someone might overhear or see us with some sort of ability or magic, and we have to start deceiving them from now on. Start thinking of ways to block other people from hearing or seeing us.” After a few moments, one of the mages quickly cast a spell which did something to the room.
“Sound blocking barrier. Our voices will no longer be heard outside this room,” said the mage. I nodded to him. “A good start but never only rely on one thing. Deception is best if it has multiple layers.”
Comments
Apinsig
Right now the child would not get a class if the chief worked hard then perhaps in 10-20 years that would work
Paxmorgana
Question for you: If the new goblin chief were to have a child, would the child be born with a class slot? Or are they too early in their rekindling of their species for that? It would be cool if the goblin chief demanded that the new goblin "prince" be apprenticed into the homesteader class when he comes of age in return for their joining the United Freeholds.
