NOVEL NEXT 146- A Fridge For The Goblins. Part 2.
"My lady, you have great potential. You cannot dismiss alternative uses of your magic just because they are not combat-related. Not that I am complaining about your warrior spirit, neither are they," he points toward the goblins and smiles seeing them so enthusiastic.
So the goblins and developing their village is interesting to him? But I won't complain about alternative uses of magic, since he already has his skeleton friends skinning trolls and gathering materials. I bet if necessary he'll put them to work mining quarries or plowing fields.
"Come on, let's go inside." I point toward the spacious cave entrance.
Which has to be spacious, or the mountain bear king wouldn't have fit.
That's another thing. The other cave was more discreet but this one... I need to do something to keep the soldiers from discovering us.
"Excellent, my lady. If you have a moment before you go to your fiancé's place, could you create some stairs in the rock and a small cave we could use as a cold storage facility? I plan to station several golems there to cool it down so the goblins can preserve the meat they hunt."
I had started walking but stop dead.
"Are you serious?"
Now he is laughing, but at me. Softly, in a very slight way that curves the corners of his lips.
Damn Ronan... Of course he's serious. He's taking this whole thing about helping me with goblin village logistics very seriously.
"Fine, my mana's maxed out and, like you say, this way I practice."
We go inside. Several goblins greet us, including the totem. I take Ronan to the area of the now-sealed crack.
"Great work," he tells me. "If you want, once the females give birth and we have the troll hide armor, we can clear out and conquer the ant hill. Besides, to continue developing the settlement, we'll need, apart from the forge, other infrastructure like a potion lab, a tannery, a carpentry shop, and a quarry. For starters."
Hearing him talk is honestly a bit overwhelming. The totem, however, watches him with bright eyes while nodding eagerly. Is he remembering old glories from his grandfather's time?
These guys are definitely going to get me in trouble, as if I didn't have enough problems with the pup.
"Do not worry, my lady. The totem and I will handle everything. You will only need to interact with the village interface and select upgrades."
"I'm convinced the king and queen must have something similar, some artifact to manage their kingdoms."
"Have you not asked Vincent?"
"Actually, it hasn't occurred to me. I will." I pause. "I'm going to make the fridge or cold storage or whatever we want to call it, and then I'm leaving. I want to reach the Lacor barony as soon as possible."
"I will come with you to show you the best place for it."
I follow Ronan back to the main cave. He points to a spot on one of the walls where I should excavate the stairs. I connect with the earth, and since I have mana to spare, I don't mind spending a point. With my 100-meter range, I search for earth in a sphere radiating out from my position. Nothing, all rock. From here, closer to the mountain wall than I was in the connecting tunnel, I can sense earth on the other side of the mountain. But going downward? Nothing. I don't form any intention with that distant earth, letting the spell consume itself and fade with my deliberate inaction. The mana is already spent.
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Now I cast stone control, spending two more points. This spell only has a 10-meter range and lets me manipulate 5 cubic meters of stone, so progress will be slow. Since I'm at it, I imagine a beautiful archway with geometric motifs carved into what will become the stair entrance. I use part of the extracted volume to compress the stone, making it denser. I don't know much about chemistry or geology, but I think I'm eliminating gaps and voids rather than changing the molecular structure—just making the rock more compact. The excess stone flows to one side of the cave, within my range. From there, it can be hauled to the forest or stored as raw material for bricks.
Like before, I find it fascinating how magic allows stone to flow and mold so easily.
I have to cast the spell again to finish the staircase descending downward. I made it spiral to optimize the space. The small bears won't fit, but goblins and even large, strong humans should have no problem.
Three more casts create the chamber, which is a small rectangular room of exactly 15 cubic meters. It measures 3 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 2 meters high. I'm down to zero mana points, and yes, I feel that familiar exhaustion. Since I'll need to meditate for a while anyway, I'll pay attention to whether this fatigue truly disappears as a side effect of the spell I hadn't noticed before.
Ronan orders his golems to cool the chamber down, and the totem stays to watch the process. I'd say supervising, but he's really just a spectator delighted with what we're doing for his people.
As I head back up to the main cave where I'll retreat for an hour to meditate—even though I have two licks from the seed available, I want at least 6 mana points; I've learned to be more cautious—Ronan and I chat, and the topic of his skeleton friends comes up.
"Actually, why did you only bring Tom?" I ask him.
"I had to order Bob and Joe to spend time with their family."
Order... I can just imagine it, the skeletons loyal to the end to their master, especially now that he's avenged them. And they're not loyal just because they're obligated to be, though I imagine that's part of it, but because their personalities make them choose loyalty.
Ronan's thing, his necromancy that anchors souls to the body, is not normal at all.
Anyway, I suppose the reunion between the two brothers and their parents, who thought they were dead, must have been both emotional and terrifying. I mean, they were dead.
I imagine Bob's reunion with his wife and daughter was similar. From what little Ronan told me, they recognized both the love of their life and their father in him. And they accepted him. I bet Mary shed a tear or two; without a doubt, I would have cried like a fool.
I hope the reunion with the parents went well too, because not everyone is prepared to process the return of a loved one in skeleton form.
"Do you know how it went with their parents?"
"Well, my lady, they are thrilled to have their sons back. And I want them to be able to live as normal a life as possible. Right now, I could raise them as zombies, but I do not think that would work.
"Even though spending more mana makes their appearance like they just died from natural causes, I have observed that some of the small zombie bears end up needing to eat. Plus they show more violent behaviors, especially when I have been away from them for a while.
"I mean, the small bears do not have souls. I did not preserve them like I did with the two larger bears. But even so, I do not trust it. I would not want to put anyone in danger, least of all my friends' families.
"I talked to them, and they agree that until I learn how to solve those complications, it is better they remain skeletons. In all this time, they have not had any problems continuing to be themselves."
"I understand."
Since we've arrived, I ask Ronan to wake me in an hour—who knows how he's going to measure it—and start meditating. I see him approach some goblins before I close my eyes.
It isn't even an hour, just a few more minutes, when Ronan gently shakes my shoulder to pull me out of my meditative state. I guess I don't glow every time I recover mana.
He walks me to the cave exit, where the same skeletal deer I rode before is waiting. I say goodbye and head off toward Baron Lacor's lands.
Traveling on some kind of flying creature would've been faster, but I'm not about to ride a golem platform powered by undead birds of prey. Speaking of flying creatures, I can finally release Myrthaxya now. I'll have to discuss that with Ronan.
First, we move through the forest until we reach Clearhaven village, which we pass by without stopping.
Yeah, it would be faster to teleport to the school and take a portal from there, but they won't give me permission. The reason for my trip is personal—it has nothing to do with the academy trials. That's why we're taking the route a horse would follow, which means taking the dirt road that connects Clearhaven to the next village.
This is more than six hours on horseback, but here the deer, fast and tireless, isn't sprinting but it does gallop the whole time. If I let it, I think it could get me there in two hours. Problem is, my ass can't handle that. So we make little stops and take a bit longer to arrive.