As I stepped out onto the top of my tower, I immediately noticed Walker holding his arms high as his mana reinforced a magical shield. The shield he cast was a weaker spell, one that created a translucent blue bubble that radiated with dim light. Though, for a second-tier mage, it was a common one. The [Bandits], cowered inside it, pressing their bodies against the hip-high stone wall at the edge.

I looked beyond but didn’t see anything but grey clouds hanging low in the sky. The beasts were coming across waters, shadowing figures in the night. Trees swayed. Bushes rattled. The mists hung still in most places but swirled in others. Where it parted, I could see the normally still waters rippling from thousands of footprints. Then wind whipped by me in a whirring sound. So fast that my hair fluttered off my shoulders and ruffled my robe. Flyers!

Now, that I knew what was happening, I moved through the words and gestures to create a windshield around the whole of the roof. Where Walker’s was a glowing orb large enough to fit six men, mine was more fluid in shape. Like part of a tornado, with the tower as its base. I watched the skies, still seeing little in the dark.

Then it hit. A giant bat. It would have come right for my head. Mouth open. Needle-sharp teeth. I glimpsed it for only the briefest of moments. Then my shield knocked it to the side, faster than even it flew. Bats. Now knowing what to look for, I spotted them. A whole swarm. Moving so fast they were impossible for me to count. The swarm weaved over the forest, circling back for another attack.

I snorted. My shield would hold. Tier one beasts. Confident now, I walked towards the edge of the tower. Illumination orbs are barely a first-tier spell. Apprentices mastered them with ease. They had almost no mana costs. For all they were simple, illumination spells held a lot of utility. So I cast them out over the water. And I saw the wave in full. More than a thousand beasts. All across the waters, they charged. A poor charge. The snakes, giant ones, slithered at speed. But they outpaced the others. The boars and wolves were slowed to a walk. Stumbling and sloshing. Knee-high water for me was chest high for them. The muck at the bottom stirring and clinging to their fur to weigh them down even further.

The pits worked perfectly. In the still mists, they were almost perfectly hidden. Groups of five and ten squealed and yelped as they fell. That pleased me. But soon most were past the traps and on to my tower. Surrounding the stone wall, I watched as the animals threw themselves against it in mad charges. But they were flesh and it was stone. It was good to know that most first-tier beasts would be unable to get past the very first barrier.

A loud, sharp barking sound echoed across the waters, and from the tree line stepped a boar that made all the other animals seem tiny. This would be interesting. The beast walked across the waters making grunts at the animals that were slowed or stuck in the mud. It sniffed at a pit, before walking around it. Then it started trotting towards the tower. Then running. Faster. It was charging! I couldn’t help but grin as I watched. I’d feared for a moment I would need to come down from the tower to create an opening in the wall to test my inner defenses.

I glanced over at those standing with me, “Walker, Mena, go guard the door. Don’t let anything inside.”

I doubted it would come to that, but better safe than sorry. The boar smacked the wall with a sound I was certain could be heard miles away. The wall cracked. But it didn’t fall. Dazed, the boar shook its head. Then it trotted back and tried again. Then again. Then again.

It was past the tenth strike when the stone wall cracked enough to let the other beasts in. And in they came, a veritable flood of animals. Stupid, stupid animals that fell right into the waters, now three-quarters full. Some saw and tried to stop. The animals behind them just pushed them in.

The nearest fire elementals, two of them, began shooting waves of fire. A useless effort. Even when the beasts caught flame, they still were only moments from being pushed into the waters. There, I couldn’t make out a thing but a commotion of squirming beasts and water sprays. Blood and mud clouded my moat almost as soon as they started falling in.

It was disturbing how fast the bodies of the animals began piling up. None of the attacks harmed any of the elementals. Soon, a mountain of corpses lay before the opening, and more beasts came rushing over their dead kin. The larger boar just stood outside waiting and watching. But I was waiting and watching too. The pile of bodies was almost to the other side when it caught fire fully. The muddy and wet fur I’m sure delayed what would have otherwise been a swifter ignition.

As the flames grew higher, the many beasts slowed their charge until they stopped. The massive boar turned around as if to head back to the forest, but I already had what I wanted. The test was complete, and I knew where to better my defenses. It was only a preliminary design to begin with. I raised my hand and pointed at the monster. From my finger I cast a single lightning bolt spell. And it was enough. The monster squealed in pain, a squeal that soon stretched to signal its death.

The other monsters fled in all directions, some even falling into the pit traps in their mad dash to escape. Some, I noted, took the pathway towards Woodhoot, but I didn’t bother to chase them down. Those I sent should be more than up for the task. I turned to the two [Bandits] nearby, “Get some rest. There’ll be plenty of work tomorrow.”

Below, I told Walker and Mena the same thing. Lilly was sleeping in bed or pretending to be. I didn’t deem it necessary to bother her. I took a quick jaunt outside and repaired the wall. I snuffed the inferno of animal corpses and returned to the tower.

When I returned, all was quiet, but I didn’t feel tired. I felt an excited energy. The defense was, well, unsatisfactory. But that was fine. I didn’t expect immediate perfection. How many nights have I slept here, after all? The project was something I hoped to spend decades on. Immediate perfection wouldn’t have been near as interesting. I walked down the staircase, throwing out an illumination spell against the wall when I reached the bottom. I continued my work of sculpting out the room as I considered my tower plans.

Defensively, flyers were my foremost weakness. I could bind air or lightning elementals. Or both. I considered the ivy growing against the side of the tower. A nature elemental could be bound there, though I would need to research first. The Arcanum normally had at least one druidic instructor, but they were notorious for not keeping written records. I knew a few green magic spells, but not enough to summon an elemental.

The moat seemed to function well, though I never thought that any attacks would consist of throwing bodies at it until it was full. I would need to design a way of countering that strategy. Perhaps I should request a local bestiary tome, and look into local water or plant monsters that could be tamed. Did the [Bandits] think they could tame that giant spider? I’d need to ask.

The walls around the tower worked well, though that was only against first-tier creatures. I would need to harden them to withstand the force of at least a third-tier beast. Ideally, then I could enchant them or invest earth elementals into the wall. Maybe into the mud around it so that when something attacks the wall, they rise to defend it? I would need to think more on the subject. While earth elementals in stone were tough, in mud they were downright scary. And mud was incredibly hard to damage. If I summoned a third-tier earth elemental into the soil with a first-tier water elemental to support it, even fourth-tier monsters would have difficulties.

I finished the room, round to match the others. Only the center wasn’t open space. The center was a round pillar, hollow with an opening on two sides. Geometric designs matched the oven above, and I opened a hole in the ceiling allowing the fire elemental in the oven above to burn downwards. Warmth and flickering firelight soon filled the room. The stone I moved earlier, I pulled on some of it to create three walls dividing up the room. One, I envisioned to be a storeroom for our supplies, which connected to another room I envisioned as a kitchen. There was enough space at the landing at the bottom of the stairs for the tables and chairs to eat. The other room, taking almost a third of the whole was nearly identical in size to how the prison cell was above. If I was going to have servants and guards, then I would need a place for them to rest—preferably away from me. Or perhaps the room would serve another purpose.

Satisfied with what I’d done so far, I mounted the stairs, passing both the first and second floors to stand at the top of the tower. I was a little surprised that one of the [Bandits] was still there standing guard. The other was asleep on his bedroll.

“Sir,” the man said, and continued to watch the horizon. I noticed his bow was still strung and gripped in a hand.

“More monsters?” I asked.

“No, sir. You got ‘em good. Never seen nothin’ like that before,” he answered.

I nodded. It was pretty gruesome down in my moat at the moment. “Bit worse when it’s men though,” I spoke my next thoughts out loud. That seemed to surprise him.

“You seen that much killin’, sir?” He asked.

“I have,” I admitted, just as much to myself as to him.

I walked towards the edge of the tower and leaned on the wall. The view of the once-placid lake lay ruined. Instead of a clear reflection, eddies and currents of monsters caused ripples. Mounds of mud or trampled bodies lay above the water, splotches in what should have been a thing of beauty. Perhaps it was my emotional attachment to the surroundings or maybe the recollections his question threatened to bring on, but I found my earlier excitement soured.

I found my thoughts drifting as I looked out, thankful for the silence. This tower, my tower, was a remnant of childhood. For a long time, I resented my human mother’s passing. An extension of my grief at her loss and my sense of abandonment by it. It took many years to come to terms with it. It wasn’t her fault. Forty-something years I’d spent here with her, but half-elves aged differently. I was still a child when she passed, even after all that time. Both in body and mind. She, an aged human by that time, living the last years of her life.

Even now, I am uncertain of where my age would fall in human terms. Elves live for several thousand years. Humans are lucky to make a century. If I followed human standards, I should look like an elder, rather than in the early part of his third decade. If I followed elven lifetimes, I’d still be akin to a child. I haven’t met any other half-elves, either. The ones I’ve read about never made it past four centuries, but that was more due to a violent ending. I didn’t want that for myself.

But I didn’t want to grieve over and over again. Even now, I was pushing back thoughts of Ram’s death. I looked down at the tower beneath me, my thoughts circling back to it and what it represented to me. Much, much later in life, when grief and loss shook me once again, I’d come here seeking a refuge from myself. That was why I focused on the defenses. I didn’t just want the tower to feel like a safe place, but to be one.

And when I was safe, I would turn my mind back to fully completing my longevity spell.