If you spot any glaring errors that spoils the reading experience for you please point them out with a comment.

# # # # # # # # # # #

Chapter 15: A Pleasant Drive in the Country.

I was going insane enchanting rocks! I needed a break. When I had created Ron’s magic wand, I hate saying that phrase, the resultant tool had even impressed me with its power and efficiency; that sounds awfully bad too. But as a weapon it was lacking in power and it wasn’t especially convenient to use because it needed to be supplied with compressed air. I on the other hand have both Fire Magic and Air Magic. It was time to make myself a new toy.

In my scrap bin, I found a piece of stainless steel tubing with a three inch O.D. and about a two and three quarter inch I.D., the tube or pipe was just over sixteen inches long. No puny little cutting torch for me, this thing would be able to melt a tank in one blast! Using some additional scrap metal and my Earth Magic, I fashioned a handle that looked like a pistol grip when I was done. I attached the new handle to one end of the pipe, which turned the resultant item into a large ‘handgun shaped’ looking thing. Using a fire brick for materials and more of my magic, I coated the inside and the outside of the last six inches of the pipe, that being the segment which was at the other end from the pistol grip. I attempted with my Earth Magic to alter the coating so that it would become extremely tough and have a minimal conductivity to heat, I was afraid of getting burned after my experience with the bullet ants. I used up the entire brick because of my paranoia and I must have reduced the pipe’s I.D., for those last six inches, to approximately an inch. I put a thin coating on the grip as well to play it safe. Finding the materials and putting it all together took me only an hour because I built it using solely my magic; it was a flagrant waste of my magical energies. It then took me about an hour and a half to enchant the thing.

When I had it complete, I got on my bicycle and rode back to the firing range. George was there with some flyers and craft-makers. Lieutenant Wind was training the new Guards in the art of aimed volley fire. I had heard from George that with so many large monsters now in the world that he wanted our troops to be experts in the use of synchronized volley fire. His thought was that five or more bullets striking a large monster almost simultaneously might possibly deter such a creature because the beast may interpret simultaneous strikes as one single blow or attack. While on the other hand, a large monster might just shrug off any bullets that hit it consecutively, because of the projectiles individual weakness, the idea kind of made sense to me.

George was looking on with pride while he watched Lieutenant Wind call out the orders to fire. Those at the practice range were using Hawken rifles; the Hermit still needed to enchant many more of the modern repeating firearms.

“First rank, kneel!” The Guards knelt as ordered. “First rank aim,” there was a short pause as they aimed, “Fuego! First rank, withdraw to the rear and reload. Second Rank, kneel. Second rank aim, Fuego!”

I looked at George who was grinning; he smiled back at me and spoke. “My favorite movie is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And I just love the ending of that movie, when the Bolivian Army shoots their asses. In the movie; an Army Officer calls out ‘Fuego’ and the guns thunder out; then a different officer calls out ‘Fuego,” followed by another crash of rifle shots. I promised myself that if I ever had my own army that I would change the command to shoot from ‘Fire’ to ‘Fuego’ and I finally got my chance to do it.

I shook my head. I noticed that all of our new non-human Guards were now sporting large American Flags on their apparel. “George, what’s with the Star and Stripes on their clothes?”

“Sometime soon we’re going to meet some other survivors, who have also learned how to fight and kill monsters. And if they see one of our new non-human friends, those survivors just might attack, without hesitating, but if they see them wearing the American Flag, they just might pause, giving us all a chance to talk before any blood is spilled. I don’t know how long we should have them wear those flags, because for the long term it’s a bad idea. We are in no way formally part of the United States Government and we shouldn’t pretend to be, and that is without even considering your own unique status as a Monarch, ruling over your own domain. But for the present those flags just might save some lives. Now that I think about it Boss, you should come up with your own flag.”

I believe the Captain of my Guard is now a few cards short of a full deck. “How about my smiling face, on a field of light green with the words ‘Fuck Off’ beneath it?”

“On second thought Vince, seeing as how that kind of flag might just get my soldiers shot and any other groups to declare war on us, I think that instead I’ll just mention the need for a flag to the rest of the council at our next meeting. By the way are you going to start attending any of those gatherings?”

“Fuck no, not unless I have to. I read the daily reports that you all send me, and that’s enough for the present time. Now if you can warn people to get the fuck out of my way, I’ve got a new tool to test.”

Captain Mesquida had the Guards fall back and watched as the Hermit donned a welder’s mask and gloves. Next Vince, standing sideways extended, what looked like a ridiculously large silver and red handgun, and as far from his body as was humanly possible for him to do. Suddenly there was roar.

I was a little afraid of what I had made. I put on some protective gear just to play it safe when testing my new Steel Cylinder of Red-hot Extermination. I had to resort to a thesaurus to get an acronym that I could actually pronounce for my new wand. In an effort to keep the heat as far away from me as was possible, I stretched out my arm as far as I could. I was still afraid of the heat burning me so while using my Air Magic, like a compressor, I forced an overly powerful flow of air into the end of tube that was closest to me. It was time to aid some heat to this sucker. I had previously decided, in an effort to play it safe, to use only a fraction of my power in this first test, flame on! Sometimes I can be really stupid. My wand shot back towards me, I lost my grip and the S.C.O.R.E. cracked into my welder’s facemask knocking me down. What the fuck happened and how come I’m not seeing any little birds or stars? In the cartoons there are always little birds and stars. I really need an official artist to follow me around so scenes such as this can be immortalized in tapestries that can then be displayed in “Stupidfucker’s School of Magic.” Such pieces of art would probably bring me students by the thousands.

George came running up to his fallen Boss. “Vince, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m unharmed and I meant to do that.” Who knew that snickering craft-makers and flyers sounded almost exactly the same as humans snickering?

“That’s great, it looked really cool. Do it again.”

I struggled to my feet and wrapped my frayed dignity around myself as I drunkenly walked towards my bike. “I’ve got no time to do that now, I have to get back to enchanting rocks and other important stuff, but maybe some other time.” My bicycle wobbled as I rode it back home. One of these days Gorgeous George you will get your comeuppance!

That night after dinner, Grace came into my cave. “Vince, I heard that you tested a new weapon at the firing range, can you tell me about it and maybe show it to me?”

I had just finished enchanting one of the two bolt action fifty caliber rifles that Sean had brought back from his old home. I think that the bullets it shoots are just big enough for my explosive fire enchantment. I wanted to glare at Grace but if I did then she would probably guess that my new weapon’s test results were not what I had predicted or expected them to be. Hell, if I tell her the truth she will then know of my stupidity. I showed her the SCORE and I kept quiet for the moment.

She asked me questions and I gave very short answers in reply, while I pretended to do some other stuff. Finally, “Vincent, I was an Aviation Machinist Mate in the Navy. What I think you built here, especially considering the way that you used it, is a crudely constructed jet engine. You definitely got more thrust out of it than I would have expected, but that could be because you just supplied it with an over abundance of both air and heat energy. Would you mind if I kept it for awhile? I would like to examine it more closely.” She held up the SCORE, looking at me. I promised myself that I would never tell anyone the acronym that I had so carefully thought up for the device.

I waved both her and it away. I had important work to do; I needed to enchant another rock. Also I needed to investigate how to make a voodoo doll and get a lock of Captain Mesquida’s hair.

The craft-makers and the flyers were used to working with primitive building materials. Add air powered tools and some modern materials, like screws and nails; and they were house building speed demons. They were constructing relatively crude dwellings but the buildings were well insulated with wooden floors. The structures also had running cold water and firestones for heat.

The Guard continued to grow. During the day I enchanted rocks, while at night I enchanted rifles, hot plates and IRODs (iron rods of death). I also accepted the sworn oaths of those that my Knights brought to me and in addition I knighted two of the craft-makers. I had a little surprise when I awakened Sean Murphy, he got both Earth and Fire Magic like I had expected but he also received Healing Magic as well. However, I was astonished by the two craft-makers that I knighted. Star Astrologer got four high powered magical abilities plus all of the physical enhancements. Blender Apothecary received talents suitable for his profession. But the most amazing thing of all is that both craft-makers may possibly be able to learn Enchantment Magic, albeit of a weak variety; though Blender has a slightly greater chance than Star. The two of them don’t have the ability yet but if I torture, I mean instruct them enough they just might learn the skill, I can only hope. But they will only be able to enchant magic that they have the corresponding ability for. Those two craft-makers along with Storm Wind and Night Storm now have seats on the Stronghold’s Council.

We were attacked during that two week time period but with our larger and improved combat forces we easily fought off the assaults whether they came from sentient or non-sentient monsters; though an attack by some giant sentient chameleons with a talent for Water Magic was worrisome for a short while. Steve’s appraisal of the beings revealed that they were handicapped by the season’s normally cold weather. If it had been warmer we might have been in trouble.

It was getting colder and if I was going to build the new walls then I would need protection from the elements. Reluctantly, I put in a request with Glen and the crew at the machine shop. They in the meanwhile had been working on the dump truck. They almost had the engine installed and they were working on armoring the truck cab. The windows had been replaced with transparent aluminum. Grace, Glen, Sean and I, all possessed Earth Magic while Glen also had Alchemy. Transparent aluminum is a ceramic composed of aluminum, oxygen and nitrogen. Between the three of us we figured out, how to utilize the oxygen and the nitrogen in the air that was around us, to make a thick plate of regular aluminum, transparent. We used that extremely tough material instead of normal glass for the truck’s windows. As for armoring the dump bed, Glen did something I thought was quite clever. He had Ron weld in an inner wall made up of quarter inch thick steel plates, set six inches inside the dump bed’s existing thicker tougher steel wall. The gap between the two walls was then filled with dry sand. Glen informed me that the old rum runners during the prohibition era used to do the same thing to their boats in order to defeat Coast Guard’s bullets, except the walls of the runners’ boats had been made of wood.

The shop had used some old tires to make hard rubber inserts for the dump truck’s existing tires; that was to give the vehicle a “run flat” capability. The dump body had the height of its walls increased and a roof added; also a doorway was cut through the dump body and into the cab. The power tilt mechanism on the dump bed had of course been removed but the rear gate had been turned into a full length powered ramp, for ease of entrance and exit. I thought it was a pretty bad ass vehicle and probably our most comfortable armored ride. I wanted more of them.

Glen, Sean and the rest of the shop crew were also busy making 20mm and now fifty caliber rifles as quickly as they could produce them. My tests with a fifty caliber bullet proved that I could indeed enchant the projectile but it had a little less than half the power of a 20mm bullet.

Even though a twelve gauge slug almost massed the same as a fifty caliber bullet, I could not enchant them. That was because I couldn’t engrave the full set of runes onto a slug. The size and shape of the slug prevented me, as well as the rifling on the sides of the projectile.

Clyde after his battle with the Giant Scorpions had gone to Sean and complained about the disappointing lack of effectiveness of the slugs that he had fired into the monsters. As a result, the shop had stopped making the Foster type of shotgun slugs and switched to producing slugs based on Brenneke’s slug design.

On the gun powder front Glen, Isabella and two other people with the Alchemy ability, have significantly improved our black powder. The new stuff is about twenty-five percent more powerful and produces far less smoke; however it still causes our enchanted SKS test rifle to jam, so we are still forced to use manual action firearms. A Gatling gun might work but figuring out how to make one will be very time consuming and I think that we will get much more bang for the buck by just building more fifty caliber rifles and supplying them with enchanted bullets.

It took me three weeks to enchant all of the rocks that I thought that I needed for the walls. Mack had already laid out the design for the octagon shaped fortress. Each of the eight walls was nine hundred feet long, surrounding an area almost ninety acres in size. Mack and his people had removed the trees and brush from those areas where walls and moat would soon be; the armored tractors had come in especially handy for that big job. Almost all of those cut down trees were used for home construction within our small compound.

Now it was time to pick up my new ride from Glen. He and the shop crew had it outside giving it a final polish. I had entrusted my green Caterham Seven 280 to them so that they could modify it. They had given the car a removable aluminum hard top, replaced the gasoline motor with a forty horsepower steam engine and made it so that either the driver or the passenger could open up a hole in the floor and put their feet on the ground. It wouldn’t go very fast but I didn’t need it to and later on I might have bigger engine installed when we had something better that would fit.

Mack had already been emplacing the enchanted rocks where I needed them to be for the wall project. There were one hundred and eighty charged large stones. Each of those rocks had six hand size stones that would demarcate the borders for the walls, moat and the land bridge across the moat. The wall was going to be twenty-five feet thick and the moat was going to be fifty feet wide.

The Council came up with a flag design, I just grunted when they gave it to me for approval. It consisted of three equal sized horizontal bands. The top and bottom band were sky blue, the middle band was white. In the center of the white band was a green army man with his rifle at the ready. To his left and right were a flyer and a craft-maker in their natural colors, both wearing army green and holding rifles. The flag is supposed to show the unity of our three species. Maybe I can get them to add “Fuck Off” to the lower blue band. All of the Guards now wear two armbands one with American Flag and the other with my domain’s flag.

I spent one day enchanting my modified car and finally it was time to start working on the wall. My bare feet were already calling me nasty names. I would ride on the passenger side while a series of drivers would drive extremely slowly in order to give me the time that I needed to work my magic as we traveled over the land. Having someone else drive my car just made the whole experience more miserable for me and really frosted my, magically recreated and impressively large, plums. I couldn’t drive because I needed to concentrate on my magic.

Other people, lots of other people, would be driving my car! A Caterham Seven, the direct descendent of the Lotus Seven, the same model car that The Prisoner drove in the old British television series. Almost every time I drove MY CAR before the Warning came, I would listen to the theme music from that old show, perhaps the greatest theme music ever made, while imagining myself as being someone cool. Now a series of asses, both literally and figuratively, would be sitting in the driver’s seat of MY CAR. “Grumble miserable assholes driving my car, the sacrifices I make, why the fuck, am I doing this? I ought to stuff them all in a box filled with bullet ants!”

We traveled along at only a mile per hour, if I had tried to walk at that speed I couldn’t have done it, it was just too slow but it was necessary for my magic. I called to my Earth Magic and I linked to all of the rocks that I had enchanted. We went around in an anti-clockwise direction on top of the ground where the wall would grow. The Sherman and the Priest kept pace with us to our right and a pair of armed flyers were, always overhead. Every two hours or so, a new ass would sit on the driver’s seat of my car. If they put just one scratch on my car, I’ll insert an iron rod of death into some orifice on their bodies!

Clyde Jenkins happily sat down in the driver’s seat of the little car. He had been looking forward to this all day long. He knew that he had to be quiet and drive slowly but he didn’t care. He noticed that Glen, who was just getting out of the Caterham, was looking quite pale and seemed to be shivering. Could he be sick? Maybe he has an upset stomach? Clyde sat down while imagining himself, to be Number Six and started driving the Seven. Soon Sir Clyde started to sense that something was very wrong in the little car, he glanced over at the Hermit who had his eyes tightly shut. Clyde could swear that he heard some barely audible muttering. He looked again at the Boss; no it wasn’t coming from him, because his lips were obviously too tightly clenched to be making any noise. Dark images and terrible scenes started to assail Clyde’s mind.

Massive dogs attacked once, while they almost made Sir Clyde jump through the car’s roof in a panic because his nerves were so frayed, the attack also distracted him from the invisible monsters that were within the small roadster. Soon Clyde was hoping for another external threat to his life. At the end of two hours he was a wreck. His body was twitching and he had developed two nervous tics, one in his right eye and the other a rapid shaking of the head. He clawed his way out the car and blindly stumbled past Ron who looked so eager to take his place in the little vehicle; that poor fool. Clyde went off to find a Healer or possibly an exorcist.

I had to concentrate on what I was doing so my various drivers couldn’t even talk to me. I kept on getting orange screen messages about Telepathic Intimidation; the damn persistent pop-ups almost broke my concentration!

Mack, Steve. George, Glen, Clyde and Star Astrologer were talking about the bizarre sensations that all of the drivers of Vince’s car were experiencing. While Star Astrologer had only been with the community for less than a month she had learned English in an uncannily quick fashion, almost as if she could read a person’s thoughts. It had been three days since Vince’s car had started going in endless mind numbingly slow circles around the Stronghold. Volunteers to drive the little car had almost disappeared. Glen was talking.

“I had been so happy to sit in the Seven, I knew that after the first twenty minutes or so that I would get bored but it was only going to be for two hours. I thought to myself how bad could that be, well it was horrible! As soon as I sat down, I started feeling this sense of dread overwhelming me. I knew that there was someone in the backseat, of that little car, who wanted to choke the life right out of me.”

Steve interrupted, giving Glen a look that conveyed that he thought that the man was nuts. “That car doesn’t even have a back seat!”

“I know that, that’s what made it even worse! It was like the car wanted me dead. No, it was worse than that, it was like the car wanted to torture me to death in the worst way possible!”

Clyde, who kept on looking behind his own back, agreed with Glen’s observations.

Star Astrologer spoke next. “I have talked with many people about our King. I have learned that he would prefer to be left to his own company and wishes that we were all gone. While saying that, he doesn’t wish us ill or to be put into any danger. So despite these feelings, he has opened up his home to us, offering us all a safe haven in these troubled times. He has worked long hours, spent a small fortune and even risked his life on numerous occasions to help secure our safety. But there are personal possessions that are painful for him to share. From what several people have told me, he is extremely attached to his three cars, I speak of the Belvedere, the Desoto, and the Caterham, even more so than his own house. I don’t think he likes other people to drive his automobiles. He must find it extremely galling for so many different people to be driving one his personal vehicles, yet he consciously swallows his anger for the greater good, but what about subconsciously? He is the most powerful magic user in this Stronghold by a considerable margin. Clyde and Glen, I wonder if you two would allow Stephen and I do to a full appraisal of the both of you. I think we might learn something useful that way.”

Both men were reluctant since most people now thought of a full appraisal as being too revealing but after a few minutes of thought and persuasive conversation they agreed. It took Steve and Star only a short while to learn something that both men had missed, because of their fragile emotional states. Clyde and Glen now had something new, “Resistance to Telepathic Attack.” Glen had a 36% resistance and Clyde had a 41%. No one else at the table had that ability.

George sat up straight when hearing the news and Star Astrologer’s eyes almost glowed. Captain Mesquida had been fearing what would happen if his soldiers ever had to face someone with mind control or telepathic powers. Whereas Star Astrologer remembered all too well the oppression and cruelty her people had faced while under the control of the Warriors of Sabok.

Even Glen and Clyde felt much better after learning that they had actually gained something from that horrible experience of driving the Seven. Thus began what would be always referred to as “Hell Week” in the Stronghold, even though it went on for over two weeks, but “Hell Two Weeks and a Bit,” didn’t have quite the same ring to it. Terrified human and craft-maker “volunteers” would be forced into, correction they would cheerfully sit down on the driver’s seat of the Seven. They were required to drive two slow loops around the Stronghold, and then the next screaming eager volunteer would take over, while the previous driver went to the infirmary for some enforced “nighty-night time” courtesy of either a bit of Healer’s magic or a hypodermic needle. Storm Wind was both sad and glad that his own people could not fit inside the tiny car.

It took me three, fourteen hour work days to prepare the base of the wall and I had thought that enchanting rocks was boring. In essence, I had to compact the earth and rock beneath where the walls would grow, into something like extremely dense and tough bedrock, I made that compressed rock as absolutely strong as I could. The ground, where the wall would be, had sunk in by over fifteen feet and I know that if not for the great preponderance of rocks and boulders, already in that soil that the ground would have sunk even further than that. Most of my land truly was completely worthless for farming, unless you were lucky enough to have Earth Magic.

I started moving earth, from the designated moat area, to where the walls would grow and it was a pain in the ass because I had to stabilize the outside wall of the moat while doing it or it would have collapsed into the growing moat. The side of the moat where the wall was going up had already been turned into dense stone during my preparatory work for the wall. It got too difficult for me to stabilize the outer wall of the moat and we were forced to spend one full day driving on top of the moat’s outside edge, in a clockwise direction this time, while I fused and compressed the earth making up the outer wall of the moat.

We had an expected problem after the third day of wall growth; our vehicles would temporarily have to stay either inside or outside of the wall. That was because in order to make the stone arch that would go over the Stronghold’s gate it would be necessary for me to finish the wall and then using my magic cut a short tunnel through the wall and to the land bridge that crossed the moat. For our safety and the safety of our vehicles we built a temporary fort using some spare fencing on the land bridge. Ladders permitted the tank crews, access to the Stronghold.

We had some other problems; we were attacked numerous times while working on the wall. Three notable occasions were by some enormous saber-toothed dog like monsters, the monstrous chickens reappeared (appraisal says that their proper name is Terror Bird) and some unseen archers or spearmen, we weren’t sure which because either they were shooting really big arrows or throwing really small spears. Even with our true sight no one caught sight of those particular foes. Luckily they only attacked once and even my car’s enchanted aluminum body and rubber tires could stop their projectiles. As for the giant dogs and chickens they got added to our larder. Roasted dog meat with onions wasn’t too bad.

The wall grew by about five feet per day and without my enchanted rocks, I would never have been able to do the job so quickly even with my Earth Magic. I concentrated on making the outside of the wall as glassy smooth as was possible; hopefully that feature would prevent monsters, like giant bullet ants, from easily being able to climb the Stronghold’s new wall.

Fourteen days later I was mentally exhausted, both my brain and my feet had gone numb. In fact my feet wanted to kick my ass. The wall was over forty feet high and it had battlements six feet in height and three feet thick. I had a problem, we had been driving my car on top of the wall, and currently I had no way to get it back down. On day fifteen I cut the tunnel to give us access to the land bridge. When I had grown the wall in that segment we had laid out a net of steel reinforcing rods to strengthen that portion of the wall.

The shop had just completed making steel faced thick wooden gates for the Stronghold, one double door for either end of the short tunnel. Both the tunnel and the land bridge were constructed wide enough for two way traffic. There was a smaller entrance for people in both gates.

Work was started on building four stairways to the wall walk on top of the curtain wall. For now we were using long ladders, later on I might grow a ramp so I could get my car down, but for the present time it’s under its custom car cover plus an additional tarp. The flyers of course have no problem getting to the top of the wall.

It took me an additional day and a half to cut an extremely deep channel from the moat to the ravine just north of the Stronghold. A similar amount of time to create the tunnels or pipes beneath the land bridge for proper water circulation, and then three days to adjust the water level of the moat. The last task was by far the most difficult but I finally had the water table fixed at slightly less than twenty-six feet beneath ground level, from its former thirty-two. I would have left it at the deeper value if not for the fact that I needed the water to flow down to the ravine and so as not to become a stagnant. While that task did call heavily on my Earth Magic, I did gain Water Magic while doing it. Later on I might add wind powered air bubblers to the moat, we do have plans for them.

When we were done, attackers were now faced with a moat slightly over fifty feet wide and fifty feet deep, with the water level almost twenty-five feet below them. The walls of the moat were smooth and the fortress side of the moat blended in seamlessly with the Stronghold’s walls for another forty-two feet or so above ground level, that did not include the battlements since they were broken up by the embrasures.

With the walls done, it was now time to get started on the dungeon.