บท 113: Settlement
It took the convoy an additional two weeks to finish crossing the Hollow Mountains. It turned out going downhill was much harder than they initially expected, mostly due to the steep slopes the carriages almost rolled down.
At some points of the descent, groups of soldiers had to grab the back of the carriages and pull, counteracting their force down and relieving the beasts pulling them.
Ultimately, though, they successfully finished their journey and arrived on the edge of the Dead Tree's territory. The separation was stark, once they stopped descending and arrived on flat ground there was only about a hundred feet of open space between the mountains and the forest.
The forest was the beginning of the Dead Tree's territory, a wall of dilapidated trees signified that. The trees bordered on rotten, their bark looked soft and hung off the tree, their branches sagged, and what little leaves they had were corroded black.
Between the trees, in the little available space there was, a soft pink mist hovered in the air. The deeper into the forest one looked, the thicker the mist became until it was a heavy, red miasma that coated the forest.
As the carriages continued to pour in, groups of people gathered around and observed the forest. Emile stood at the forefront, a few feet away from the tree line and listened to the amalgamation of whispers that erupted behind him.
"I was hoping we'd never come back here." Blood scoffed.
"At least you don't have to go in there." Emile replied.
"What do you mean? If you're going, I'm going," he argued.
"The first ring isn't that scary, you guys don't have to start worrying yet." Willow commented.
"Ring?" Blood asked.
"You've been?" Emile followed.
"It's one of the trials to become Elder, your trancension rank naturally endows you with a resistance, it's to ensure people are the rank they say they are." Willow detailed.
"I never went in there."
"You were appointed under special circumstances. And besides, you're going in now."
"Ignored again…" Blood mumbled to himself.
"Elder Spright! The last carriage has arrived, your orders?" Mariah shouted, coming from behind.
Emile turned around and faced the swarm of eyes staring at him, everyone from the soldiers to the alchemists stood in an organized manner, each of them with their arms to their sides and silence in their mouths.
Emile narrowed his eyes at the group of people. He looked around, there wasn't that much space to work with. Normally he would build their settlement from the center out, eventually forming rings dedicated to specific work like Rising Tide, but due to the Dead Tree's territory he only had so much space to expand.
He leaned over into Willow's ear, "What are we supposed to build with?"
Willow returned the gesture and whispered into his ear, "To be a construction soldier you need a Gift for construction."
'Way to ask a stupid question Emile'
"Can all the construction workers come to me? And the soldiers, I want half of you to explore to the left and the other half to explore the right! Return before nightfall or once you find something to report! Dismissed!" Emile gave his orders.
Meanwhile, the group of ten builders approached Emile and stood in one row of ten. Like the soldiers, they were stiff as a board and kept a laser gaze forward.
"So… what do you guys do?" Emile asked.
For the next thirty minutes the group of ten detailed their Gifts. Not all of them were here for general construction, some of them were more specialized in areas such as blacksmithing, crafting, and sewing.
Emile dismissed those members along with the remaining alchemists who were ordered on standby. The remaining people were immediately put to work building a wall along the tree line.
Emile wasn't sure if any monsters lurked within the miasma or if they ever fled the forest, but he didn't want to take the risk. He ordered the wall to be ten feet high and to have a window five feet high every ten feet across.
That way, soldiers would be able to see into the forest and launch ranged and close attacks; the windows were not large enough to crawl through. Of course, Emile didn't know the size of the enemy creatures, so he also ordered for there to be bars in the windows to minimize the likelihood of something squeezing through.
Overall though, Emile would rather his soldiers be able to launch preemptive attacks versus waiting for the wall to be overrun. It was a trade off he's willing to make.
The builders got to work, one guy sat down next to the forest and sunk his hands into the stone. He molded the hard stone like clay and formed a brick.
A man next to him grabbed the brick, produced some sort of sticky substance from his palms, and placed the brick back on the ground.
Another pair of people aided them. One of them miracously summoned a brick mold the same size as the first guy, while the other guy liquified the rocky floor. Then, they poured the liquid stone into the mold and the man who liquified the stone was able to harden it again.
'I guess a Gift like earth bending wouldn't be in the construction team'
After assigning the builders their duties, Emile gathered the remaining alchemists and constructionists. He needed these two groups of people to get very familiar with one another, after all, the specialist constructionists will probably make a lot of things for the alchemists such as cauldrons, beakers, and kilns.
"I think that should be everyone." Emile stated aloud.
Excluding Mariah, the scout, and Francis of course.
"Mariah I'm leaving you in charge for the time being, just make sure everyone is kept safe. Willow, Blood and I are heading into the forest for a preliminary perimeter check. We're also gonna gather any plants and water we see for the alchemists."
"Would you like me to accompany you?" A new voice interrupted.
Emile looked over and noticed a very small person standing behind Francis. Definitely less than five feet, but over four feet and they had short brown hair and brown eyes. Their most noticeable feature, apart from their height, was a tattoo of an eyeball on their forehead.
"Who…?" Emile asked.
"Just call me Roy."
"Okay Roy, welcome to the team."
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