Announcer: “Are you sure you want me to read this?”

Sponsor: “Go ahead, our advertising department says it’s a surefire, can’t miss, wiz-bang, attention grabber.”

Announcer: “Well, you are paying me. Thirty chocolate chip cookies and a fifth of scotch, right?”

Sponsor: “Just like we agreed, now read the script.”

Announcer: “The following episode of The Defective Hermit is brought to you by Swamp Boy. It is back. What do you mean ‘it is back?’ It hasn’t been gone; they just came out with three new episodes.”

Sponsor: “Will you just read the @#$% Script! We’ll throw in some fruit cake and a case of pumpkin beer, if you just read the script.”

Announcer: “The following episode of The Defective Hermit is brought to you by Swamp Boy. It is back, it’s better than ever, The New and Thrilling Adventures of James Drake. Watch as he flies without pants through the skies, ties up naked women, eats bugs and kills defenseless men. He surely should be a role model for all of today’s youth.

I really don’t think you should have had me read that blurb, your advertising department is nuts. You should have had me talk about the long chapters, magical potions, runes, wards, the Royal University and sailing ships. I know they are only in the last four chapters or so, but I really like the sailing ships, everybody likes sailing ships. That part where he flies, without his pants on, is just sick, you freak. You better come across with my pay you bum, because I know where you live.”

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I know, that I don’t have the best release rate for story chapters, but I hope that it helps that most of them are at least five thousand words. However I might have a little bad news for some of you. I was attempting to release alternating chapters for the two stories that I am writing. That hasn’t been working for me since it takes me too long to switch my mind back and forth from the two wildly different fantasy worlds. What I am going to be doing, from now on, is that I will only switch back to writing the other story when my muse sort of dries up for the one that I am currently working on, which normally takes one to three chapters. For example, I released three chapters of The Defective Hermit, in a fairly short time span, then I did three of Swamp Boy and now I’m back to doing DH.

I am fairly confident that by making this sort of change to my writing schedule that I will in fact be more productive for both stories in the long run. Despite my best efforts, I lose three days getting my mind to switch from world to world, so by doing it less often I can use those days to do more writing. I expect to crank out at least a couple of chapters before switching back to SB.

If you spot any mistakes please point them out, I would really appreciate it.

A note to Jakyl, who sent me a correction for DH by private message, I tried to send you a thank you but your profile has private message acceptance turned off.

This chapter is over eleven thousand words; I hope that you enjoy it.

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Chapter 23: Wild Boar Round Up

The walls grew in height, until finally her view was no longer partially blocked by the small forest. Captain Long was now looking at a gigantic fortress from less than one hundred yards away, she couldn’t even comprehend the walls that she saw curve off into the distance. For how long had the Hermit been preparing for this new world? How much did he spend? The massive citadel before her, must have taken years and hundreds of millions to build. Surely people would have heard, even with it being so far out of town, people would have talked. Vincent Standish would have been a major employer and the politicians would have loved him for it, though they might have doubted his sanity.

The convoy drove across a land bridge and through the massive entrance. She could hear hopeful shouts, coming from the rear passenger compartment, as the people back there realized that they were now safe, from the horrors outside of this mighty fortress’s walls. She turned to the driver who was hiding his grin. He damn well knew, how impressive the place really was and he wanted to show the Army Captain, who was refusing to trade any of her cannons, just how far out of her league the Hermit King really was. He turned towards her. “Welcome to the Stronghold of Hermit’s Forge, Captain Long.”

“How long did it take for him to build this place?” She asked in a voice filled with awe.

“My King built it almost completely by himself in less than a month.” The driver said while grinning at her.

Barbara Long suddenly couldn’t breathe and she felt a little like Alice who had just walked through the looking glass, because her True Sight skill was telling her that the driver of this truck was telling her the exact truth as he knew it.

Barbara was met by a man who introduced himself as Sir Stephen Monet, Castellan for the Stronghold of Hermit’s Forge, and by Lady Knight Jennifer Boon, who was the Hermit King’s Chief of Staff and Spokesperson. Evidently the King and his Military Commander no longer had any time for her.

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I had to meet with Clyde, Glen and Chester and see where else we could pick up some heavy trucks. We needed light bulbs too since so many of us were now living underground. What were we going to do, when we couldn’t find any more old fashioned incandescent bulbs, could we make our own? Or perhaps those people with Light Magic could do something?

First thing I had to do was take a trip to my bathroom. I walked in there to find two large plants cluttering the place up. What the heck? I brushed through the large leafy foliage and made my way to the porcelain throne; I would ask Isabella about them later. Either that or get a machete.

After grabbing a snack, I met with the shop and motor pool people. We marked out locations on a map where we could find some of things that the Stronghold needed. Chester said he knew of a used equipment lot that was fourteen miles away from us and he was sure that they had at least five Western Star dump trucks about the size of the T800 and all of them were in good to excellent condition. A comparatively short fourteen mile drive made that lot, a great deal more attractive than the Armory. But those big tough rigs at the Armory had certainly looked badass and I had weakness for such things.

Glen talked about the wealth of materials that his people were sorting out from the spider salvage. He had stars in his eyes, though he was a little upset that we hadn’t stopped and picked up those bulldozer parts that he wanted. We still needed steel and iron but we had just about everything else we might need, in terms of metal for now and probably for years to come for that matter.

Because of my prior career, I knew of a few sources that might have what we need. But the metal distributors, I knew about, would all require trips of twenty miles or more. As for our bridge, Fred Stone luckily knew of a major highway construction project that was within thirty miles of us, which had a fenced in storage lot filled with just the sort of steel that we needed for our drawbridge. I probably could have used my Earth Magic to make what we needed but I was still a beginner at this stuff. I’m not sure that me turning a whole bunch of scrap steel and iron into the parts that we needed to build a bridge, and that we would all be driving across, was particularly good idea at this time. Heck, now that I really think about it, making that giant trunnion that the bridge needs has me worried but we have no choice and I’ll certainly take my time and use only the best scrap available when I do create it. When I’m molding and blending those tons of scrap metal together into the huge pin, would it be possible for me to form the resultant product into something like tool steel? However, there’s a chance that if I aim for such a goal, that it might turn out being too brittle. A shock resisting tool steel should be good, but can I get enough of the necessary materials to produce a piece of metal that large and is my power precise enough, to alloy them properly together?

It had previously been decided that the Armory Delegation would be spending two nights with us. That way they would have enough time to look around and make up their minds. I know that Captain Long was concerned about leaving her command for so long but she thought that she was the only one with the power to make a deal with us. We would just have to wait to hear her decision.

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Barbara Long was astonished and amazed at how smoothly the Hermit’s people were at handling the sudden influx of over a hundred refugees into their tiny Kingdom. She followed along since Steve and Jennifer seemed to be ones in charge of that activity. They were all shown to a small stone fortress with heavy steel doors. The doors were opened and they immediately saw a ramp wide enough for a truck. Descending the ramp they came to the Hermit’s Dungeon. It was well lit by the magical lights that she had been told about. There were two massive tunnels running side by side with cross tunnels between them. It reminded her of a city boulevard with a median between the two directions of traffic. Off of those tunnels were rooms of various sizes and the spaces down below were kept comfortably warm by the Hermit’s magic firestones. Some of the rooms even had raised wooden floors for additional comfort. It was more like a small underground city than anything else that she could think of.

Barbara had been introduced to the craft-makers and the flyers. She saw both groups helping the refugees. It all made her feel as if she had stepped into the pages of a fantasy novel.

She compared it to her own band of pitiful survivors and she almost wanted to weep because of the situation that she was in. As a commissioned officer, she was strictly limited in what she could do and what she wanted to do, might cause her to face a firing squad in these troubled times.

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I found out about the plants in my bathroom, they’re named Wooly Lambs Ear and it’s a previously existing plant that Isabella has modified and improved using her Plant Magic. It’s going to be our replacement for toilet paper. It grows leaves rapidly and my bum gives it two thumbs up. When you need to wipe, you just snip off a mature leaf or two. Civilization has been saved!

I was attending another Council Meeting, which sucked, but it was necessary. People needed to share information and express their concerns, I needed to hear what they had to disclose and afterwards we’ll invite Captain Long in and hear what she has to say in regards to my last offer.

Star was the first one to begin speaking. “Fellow members of the King’s Council, per the request of our King I have been looking into what percentage of humans have survived to this date. I was ably assisted by Jake Nord who was an elected Legislator for this region. He was quite familiar with the demographic data of his constituents; Mister Nord possessed invaluable information and is quite skilled at interpreting it. After interviewing the latest group of survivors, we have determined that the survival rate for isolated humans in our local area is between five and seven percent.

That does not include groups that organized themselves such as our own, the former County Road Group and Captain Long’s Command. If we include the County Group and Captain Long’s survivors, that pushes the number of survivors upwards but we must also allow for the larger population base that was in the same area for those two groups. Thus the survival rate rises to almost fourteen percent. If we include our own group and only count the humans that are here, the survival rate is twenty-two percent but that data is faulty since many of the Stronghold’s humans were picked up at Kilmer’s estate and the majority of those came from outside of our local area. Additionally, I feel that this Stronghold is a one of a kind statistical outlier and that the true human survival rate for our local environs lies between seven and fourteen percent, when all humans are looked at as a total aggregate.

I am sorry my King but after numerous discussions with knowledgeable people, it is my opinion that we cannot give you a global, national or even a regional survival rate for humans. Some high density urban areas might have fallen completely apart because of a lack of basic services or they might be where the United States government invested all of its resources and as a consequence those locales might be doing well. Then there are areas that have never had any services whatsoever and the people there may possibly be adjusting just fine because now they have access to magic. We also don’t know if the high frequency of monster encounters that we are experiencing is universal or not, so I can only give you with confidence the numbers that I presented just now and even then there is a significant variance between the high and low, so again, my King, my apologies for failing you.”

“Star thank you for that information. It is more than we had before and you did not fail me. Your presentation was excellent, overly butt-kissing but still excellent.” Ooh, she just gave me a nasty look. Good thing that I’m the King here.

Glen spoke next. “One of those refugees that arrived yesterday is a real find Vince. He was an M48 tank crewman in Vietnam and after that he was a mechanic and a drag car racer. Luckily for us, he knows all about hooking up multiple engines to power a single vehicle. He says that we’ve been over thinking the synchronizing issue. If what he says is true then we can put two, 200 hp engines into some of our vehicles or even two of the 330 hp engines, once we get them into production. Of course we’ll need to put in either two boilers or a single larger unit to supply steam to two engines. But we’ll fit them in somehow or modify our vehicles if needed. That is if we decide to put two engines into them.”

I had a question. “Glen, if one engine fails, can the other engine still provide power to the vehicle?”

“According to Rufus, yes the other engine should continue to function which will give us redundancy. I know that we’ve all been worried about a mechanical failure, while a vehicle is on the road or in a combat situation.”

“Our current vehicles have so far been working fine and we need them to stay in service. I think we should only try putting two engines into our new conversions for now. Clyde, Glen what to do you two think?”

Clyde answered first. “I agree and I hate to contradict Glen but I don’t think that our existing tanks have the room for another boiler without some heavy and time consuming modifications. Now, the new tank that Glen and I have been talking about, we can design it for two engines and two boilers. Rufus has got some excellent ideas about its design too.”

Glen spoke up. “I still think that I can wedge in another boiler into our tracked vehicles but I agree that your plan is the sensible one for now, Boss.”

Steve stood up to speak. “The current population of the Stronghold is now 678; the latest group had 128 people in it, of which 67 were adults. They seem to be overjoyed at being here, even with the shortage of bedding and furniture. The craft-makers have been performing herculean work in correcting that shortfall by utilizing lumber, fresh cut trees, monster hides and furs. We really should raid a bedding or fabric store as soon as we possibly can.”

I made a comment. “You know I think we passed a small fabric store on the way to the Armory. When we go back we’ll stop and check the place out.”

It was then Faith’s turn and she didn’t even bother to stand up. “We’ve had no idiots doing stupid things, since our last meeting.”

The Council all then voiced our collective thanks to Lady Knight Gomez for our new TP plants.

She stood up to receive our thanks and then launched into her own speech. “King Vincent and my fellow Councilors, I have concerns about this coming spring and summer. I personally wouldn’t mind if winter stayed around for another six months, we are doing well with our greenhouses and we now have the means to expand them. What has me worried is the thought of foreign invasive bugs and insects; creatures that are too numerous, too small and too voracious for us to fight with the means that we currently have available. Our world changed in mid October giving little time for any new insects to reproduce and make their presence felt before cold temperatures set in. I am no fan of insecticides but right now I wouldn’t mind it at all, if we had a secure stockpile of DDT. I have been trying to breed up some plants so that they naturally discourage pests but if I alter them too far, then they become unpalatable and possibly even unhealthy for human, flyer or craft-maker consumption. Many of us remember the fear of Africanized bees or the more modern fear of disease carrying mosquitoes but there are many places, in the world, that fear locusts even more. Who knows what small horrors will appear when things get warm again? I think that air filters sufficient to stopping the smallest of insects should be installed on all of our buildings and on the ventilation shafts for the dungeon. That way if something does appear, we can seal things up if necessary. I also believe that Knight Captain Mesquida should be looking into fighting a smaller foe, one their current weapons are inadequate for. While I fear the large monsters of our new world the thought of the small ones has me petrified. Imagine swarms of flying insects with the venom of a black widow spider. It is my firm belief that we need to prepare now, while we have the time to do something.” She resumed her seat, looking nervous and worried.

Mack spoke but remained seated. “Isabella, I’ll start looking into filtration systems right away. I don’t think we need to worry about HEPA standards but we might want to consider using something like those metal reusable filters, so that any creepy crawlies can’t bite their way through. We could have a layered defense, a large grate, followed by a smaller grate, then something like a window screen and finally the filter. But I’ll have something in place within a month.”

Isabella nodded her thanks, seeing that her concerns were being seriously accepted and not derided.

George was next with something to say. “We’ve been talking about having the majority of the Guard carrying two firearms. We’ve been debating what to pick, your speech Isabella had made me make up my mind; as soon as I can manage it all of our soldiers will start carrying a shotgun in addition to their regular weapon. Something like a sawed-off, five shot, pump action with a pistol grip carried in a back scabbard. It will add another six to eight pounds to their normal loads but it’s a heck of a lot better than a revolver. Of course, we’ll need to find more shotguns but when we fought those ants our rifles were nearly useless and I never want a repeat of that incident ever again. Some of my soldiers have Fire Magic and they’ve been getting better with it but I’ll try and increase their training in that regards. Boss, I know that your second attempt at creating a magic fire wand didn’t work out that well but you might want to give it another go. It is common knowledge that fire makes an excellent weapon against insects.”

I looked George right in the face. “That wand worked perfectly, asshole. But I will get with Grace; perhaps with her knowledge of jet engines, she can help me design something with a little less recoil.” George, being the good looking asshole that he is, just grinned at me. I’m going to turn him into a frog one day. As for Isabella, she was looking a lot less worried.

Sir Blender Apothecary after being visibly prodded by Star; spoke as well. “Lady Isabella just like you I have some skill with alchemy. Things are running much more smoothly with our black powder production. I have some extra time now and I would be happy to assist you with the development of any insecticides or insect repellants.”

Isabella nodded her thanks; Steve took the opportunity to put in his own two cents. “Our former world had an overabundance of bug repellants. I’m sure that if we just go out and look, that we will find more than enough insecticides and such, stocked in some nearby hardware store, big box store or warehouse. I’ll be sure to add that to our scrounging list. Hopefully, within a couple of weeks, we’ll have enough spare vehicles and people available that we can start sending out ‘shopping’ groups to search for the things that we need.”

Glen inserted a comment. “We’ve already manufactured a lot of engines, boilers and other parts; we just need the vehicles to convert. On a side note about a different topic, once we are able to do it, Captain Mesquida has agreed that the Guard will standardize on the 30-06 bolt-action rifle as their general purpose firearm. It uses a big powerful bullet and there is a lot of brass out there that we should be able to easily scrounge up. I think you can all see the benefit, if the majority of our soldiers’ rifles, all use the same cartridge caliber. Captain Mesquida, his officers and Sean have come up with their dream weapon. It has a detachable eight to ten shot magazine, sling, bayonet lug, mage light and possibly a low powered scope. There are some hunting rifles which already have detachable magazines but we probably won’t be able to find as many of those as we need. So as time permits, we will convert other 30-06 rifles into their dream firearm, we also hope to be able to make one standard magazine that will fit all of those rifles.”

George interjected. “Don’t forget Glen, that one or two members of each five soldier fire team will instead carry a fifty caliber rifle since bullets of that size can be enchanted.”

Glen nodded his head. “Yep, I know that you are the boss but since your doctrine is never to fight too far from the Stronghold or your armored vehicles, which all carry a shit load of 20mm rifles, I still feel that equipping your teams with anything more than one fifty caliber is a waste of our current manufacturing resources.”

George’s expression looked like he didn’t completely disagree with Glen’s viewpoint. I would let the two of them fight it out but if push came to shove, I would back George since he and his people were out at the sharp pointy end of things.

There was a little more discussion about various matters; most of it related to when we would start scrounging outside of the Stronghold in earnest. Then it was finally time to hear Captain Long, she was invited into our Council Room.

She appeared to be awfully nervous. Somehow she had managed to get her uniform cleaned and patched up. “Your Majesty and Honored Councilors, thank you for allowing me to speak with you today.” I gave Star the evil eye; I think she’s been filling the Captain’s head with too much proper protocol nonsense. She on the other hand, looked to be beaming with pride at a favorite student, as the Captain continued to speak. “I am not the wisest of women but I like to think that I am both an honest and honorable one. I find myself between the proverbial rock and a hard place. By my oaths to the United States, I should not be dealing with you but if I don’t, the people in my charge may very well perish. I am hoping that we can reach some accommodation that will satisfy us all and allow my people to come here, even if I cannot.”

Faith spoke. “Captain so long as people are honorable, do not have a blue screen and agree to abide by the rules and laws that we have here within this Kingdom, they are generally not refused. But one of our rules is that all must work together for the common good.”

Captain Mesquida; was next to speak. “Captain, as I mentioned to you before, the Native American Peoples have nations within the United States so what we have here, while unusual is not unprecedented. Perhaps with our King’s consent you can setup an embassy compound within the Stronghold’s walls. However, while I hate to say it; I don’t think the United States or any other government, for that matter, has survived what has befallen this world. I will grant you, that there are probably many isolated compounds and military bases with the vestiges of the former government but I don’t see how they can possibly reconstruct this country. Considering how little time they had to prepare, I don’t see how any of those bases could possibly be in better shape than we are. The politicians would have naturally doubted the first Warning message and bureaucracies are famously slow to act.

Captain Long replied. “That’s the thing Sir Mesquida. According to my sources, they didn’t dismiss that first message. I heard a reliable rumor that NASA had detected something, something bad that they thought spelled the end for us all, a calamity that they would be powerless to prevent. Since they could do nothing about it, rather than tell the world, it was decided to keep the secret and let us live our final days in peace. Supposedly the disaster would have fallen upon us almost at the speed of light, so it would have all been over in an eye blink. But then came the Warning and it matched closely with NASA’s prediction. Suddenly, the people who feared that they could nothing could do something and they acted. Perhaps not well or efficiently but they did move faster than one might expect.

But while saying that, what with what has happened locally and the fact that I have had no contact with any higher command authority, I must assume that things have not gone well in those compounds and military bases that were supposed to be the linchpins for saving this country and its residents. I should have heard from someone within the past four months and I haven’t; despite the fact that are two small military bases within three hundred miles of here and numerous National Guard facilities within two hundred miles. I honestly don’t know what to do at this point.”

I decided to speak up. “Captain, I am trying to save people here. I have no wish to expand my country but I may very well do that in an effort to save more people. I haven’t made anyone here give up their former allegiances or citizenships, honestly I forgot to ask them and now that I am thinking about it, I still don’t care. I just ask incoming people to respect me and to obey my rules and commands. If they can’t do that, then they can leave. Those who have sworn to me or in other ways have shown that they want to be citizens of my country; I will protect to the best of my ability and if the United States Government mistakenly comes after anyone of them, it will be over my dead body. But that is assuming a worst case scenario and there is no reason to assume that any dealings that we might have, with any remnants of the United States will be so adversarial.

You have seen us fight Sky Krakens and seen the corpses of those mechanical spiders. You know that there are giants out there for us to fight. We need those 105mm howitzers of yours and while we are making our own cannons, they are not the precision instruments that yours already are. I am prepared to allow you, as Captain Mesquida suggested, the right to establish a walled embassy compound within this Stronghold. But as Lady Harper has said, your forces must contribute to the common good. We will help build your embassy and I will allocate five acres of land for your use. But you must pay the freight costs, for us to haul your people and things here.

You must also swear to abide by my rules, while you are within my kingdom and associated with us. If you decide to act against me, you must leave first and separate yourself and your people from this Stronghold and my country. Additionally, you must militarily put yourself under Captain Mesquida’s Command, so as to better defend this place and all of the people living here. Finally, I want two of your cannons and at least one hundred and fifty shells. While you are here, you will still own the remaining four but they will be stored in a secure building by the gate. You can take them with you whenever you exit this fortress but you can’t have access to them while you are inside the Stronghold. They could do too much damage, if someone dishonorable gets their hands on them.

You might think that I am forcing an unfair deal upon you, since this is a life or death situation for you but it is also a life or death situation for my people here; we might need a well made cannon in order to defeat some monster, or a gun crew might blow themselves up because we, due to our inexperience, failed to make that cannon properly. So that is why I am forcing such a hard choice upon you. I think that I am offering something that is more than fair. If you need time to consider my offer, you may take it.”

Captain Long took a deep breath. I was suddenly distracted by her rather large breasts. But I think a few of my male councilors were as well and not all of them were even human. “I have no choice your Majesty. I will accept your offer.”

Why did I suddenly feel like Doctor Evil? I had a strong urge to put my pinky to my mouth and say “Excellent!” “Good, I’ll get started on your compound this evening. It will have twelve foot high walls and be primarily underground. Since it will be in essence foreign soil, it will only connect to our own dungeon network at one point. I think we’ll put it by the northwestern wall. That keeps it off of our winter wheat and gives this compound room to grow without running up against your embassy.

While I am working; Lady Faith if you, Steve, George and Jen can draw up the necessary documents. Captain Long can review them and we can then start transporting people and materials tomorrow.”

After some more discussion I left the meeting. Mack followed me and we gathered up a few more people, such as Boris who had Earth Magic, and we walked over to the northwestern wall. The moat and the Stronghold’s octagonal wall were enchanted, so that supposedly, only I could work on them. But anyone could do things within our fortress. My assistants would do the aboveground work and I would take care of everything beneath the surface. I wouldn’t be able to finish the tunnel connecting, the embassy basement to the dungeon, but I should be able get almost a fourth of the underground living quarters completed tonight and we can finish up the rest during the next three to five days.

That night my sleep got interrupted by Grace shaking me awake. “Vincent Darling, you have to wake up.”

“Huh? What? Who? Sleepy! Go away.” My brain wasn’t functioning but I could tell there was no steam whistle alarm, so I could let my eyes close and go back to sleep. Did she call me darling? Sleepy brain dreamed stupid stuff, back to sleep for sleepy brain.

“Vincent there is a huge sounder of Daeodon Giganteas, on the land bridge and pushing against the front gates. The Captain is afraid of what might happen once they start shooting.”

My eyes snapped open. Daeodon Giganteas were giant prehistoric three meter tall feral hogs with long legs and jaws that belonged on an alligator. A large enough sounder of them might just crack our gates but more importantly; this was just like someone was delivering tons of barbecue, right to our very front door! Yeah Baby!

Suddenly, I was wide awake and looking at Grace. She hadn’t even bothered to put on a robe before coming to get me. She was wearing a large t-shirt as her nightdress. She quickly blushed pink and clutched a pillow to her chest.

I could hear some whispering voices coming from outside of my room. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying but I recognized George’s voice. He probably came over here, looking to add some more women to his harem. Turning him into a frog was too good for him. I dragged on my pants and stumbled out my bedroom door. Suddenly everyone stopped talking. There was George, Jen, Faith, Isabella and what the heck was Jean White doing in my house? Don’t tell me that she was living here too! I know that I’ve been seeing a little too much of her and her children lately.

I walked up to them growling. Seeing Gorgeous George being surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women, right after having my sleep interrupted just really ticked me off. He looked suddenly nervous for some reason. The only George that I liked was the one from the Jungle and I really wanted to smack the one that was in my house with a tree, or at least a big heavy branch.

“I am sorry to wake you my King. But we have a situation at the main gate. At first, there were only a couple of hogs and the watch decided to ignore them. It was their wish not to fire their rifles; they were hoping not to disturb anyone’s sleep. Then a few more pigs appeared, followed by a few more, till there were almost a hundred on the other side of the moat. Suddenly they were augmented by over two times their number and for some reason, many of them came across the land bridge and started pressing against the gate. Even with how strong that gate is, we fear what might happen once we start shooting. We may just need your assistance your Majesty, my apologies for having you awakened.”

“Okay, let me get dressed and we’ll see what’s happening.”

I quickly put on my new leather duds and my coal scuttle helmet. I suddenly felt like a German motorcycle dispatch rider from WWII. I wondered if I could make some kind of steam punk battle motorcycle. I’ll put it on my “to do” list, I think I have an empty slot on it, in about ten years.

I was still sleepy and grouchy when I started climbing the stairs, to the top of the wall. I was wide awake and very grouchy, by the time we reached the top. There must have been at least fifty Guardsmen on the wall walk. They were being led by Lieutenant Boris Khan. I looked over the wall. Holy shit; there were a lot of big pigs down there. There were so many of them and they were so large that even from my home I had felt their weight upon my land, as if someone was firmly pressing their hand against my body. I turned to face those encircling me.

“I’m going to state the obvious here. We want to kill all of those pigs. They are an invasive species from another world. Wild hogs, from this planet, are notorious for destroying the environment; those monsters down there just have to be worse. Also just one of those things is a huge threat to small groups of people, even if they have firearms. The only beneficial thing about them is that they taste good and each one of those pigs should give us at least a ton of meat. What with it being winter we’ll have plenty of time to harvest and store it too. We have some underground freezer rooms available but I’ll have to build some more for that much meat and we can construct additional smokehouses as well. I’m open to suggestions, as for how we can kill them all while still being able to salvage their meat, does anyone have any ideas?”

Jean White spoke up, what was she doing here? “Without bartizan turrets there is no way to hit them with enfilading fire. You might just be forced to bomb them and then have your marksmen, make what shots they can, as the hogs run away.”

“Jean, we will build your towers when we can. We’ve already conceded that we need them but other things have to come first. But in your redesign for this fortress, do us all a big favor and add some blasted freight elevators. I already hate going up the stairs we have now, when the walls become twice as tall, it will truly suck to climb all those steps.”

My words generated sounds of agreement from most of the surrounding Guardsmen. Except I heard Boris softly mutter “but it’s such good exercise.”

Jean’s eyes glazed over and it looked like she was already trying to figure out how and where to add the elevators.

Lieutenant Wind spoke up. “We don’t need to kill them all at once; we just need to confine them, so we can then take our time killing them. Your Majesty can you erect earth walls entrapping that huge horde?”

I looked back out over the parapet. “That is one big wall we would need. Even if we used some of the enchanted building stones that I’ve got stockpiled, it will take me almost an hour, that is if we can get at least five of those heavy rocks out there. I’ll have to be out there and on the ground too, to create that barricade. So how do we hold back the pigs while I’m building the wall and more importantly, what’s to prevent those monstrous hogs from eating me?”

“When my people have to transport our injured, we routinely use nets like you use stretchers to carry those who are incapacitated. Your Earth Stones weigh less than one of my adult clan members, it should be no problem for us to carry them out there and drop them into position. We can attempt to drop one such stone and see how they react, if the hogs ignore our actions we can continue with formulating a plan.”

“I can’t think of anything, so let’s see what happens when you drop a rock. I’m envisioning a half circle running up against the moat, surrounding the land bridge and that entire sounder of hogs.” I pointed out over the parapet showing Sir Wind what I meant. “Please drop the test rock at the point in the half-circle that is furthest away from us, directly opposite the land bridge.”

Storm nodded his understanding, gathered up another of his clan and took flight to collect the needed materials.

George spoke up. “Boss, in all of our encounters with those mutant hogs, they have been extremely aggressive and not ones to retreat. I don’t think that if you do start building a wall to fence them in, that they will care one little bit. But if they do, maybe we can use fire to hold them back. As for keeping you safe, which is the most important thing, perhaps we can somehow get you out there undetected and underground. I remember how quickly you built that little shelter when the King Mandrills attacked us. It seems that it should only take you a two or three minutes to get yourself underground, what with your powers.”

“Not a bad idea but I can’t turn invisible or teleport. I can sort of fly, however the way I do it, is noisy. But I’m willing to try any reasonable stratagem. While those pigs can’t hurt us right now, they do represent a long term danger and that is far too much meat delivered right to our door step, to ignore.” Suddenly I had an inspiration. “George I need to get back to my workshop. I need to test something. If the hogs start leaving, drop bombs on them and kill them anyway you can. Have someone inform me if Sir Wind’s test proves successful. I should be back in about an hour.” I hurried away from him; at least going down the stairs was easier than going up. I started thinking about the enchantment I needed to create.

Back in my mad hermit’s laboratory, I was engraving a rock that weighed over thirty pounds. I wish I could just stretch out my Earth Magic beyond the land bridge and raise that wall but my range wasn’t that great as of yet. My idea was to create a magical hole digger. I would drop the rock while I was still in the air. The rock would dig me a hole and I would lower myself into it, sealing the top once I was down safely inside.

It took me three attempts to get it right but finally I had a rock that when invoked and dropped on the ground, would make a hole ten feet deep and four feet in diameter in slightly over thirty seconds. I had a strong desire to label it as an “Acme Instant Hole” and start hunting for road runners.

While I had been working, I was told about the results of Storm’s experiments. The first drop was perfect, in fact instead of chasing away the hogs it actually seemed to attract them when the flyers returned to the Stronghold. The current theory now is that the hogs are hungry and since it’s known that feral pigs have an acute sense of smell, our hypothesis is that the Daeodon detect something good to eat inside our fortress. The flyers started dropping more enchanted rocks. With my reluctant agreement it was decided that they would attempt to drop twenty stones, which should shorten the time necessary for me to make the wall. They had no problem until the tenth rock, when a number of hogs got spooked and briefly ran off. They resumed dropping rocks but at number thirteen, a large group of hogs fled the scene. While most of them came back, a few did not. So it was decided that the flyers would stop dropping rocks.

Star wasn’t very happy with my plan but you can’t spit in the face of every opportunity that comes your way. I was leaving behind my rifle but my shotgun was going with me and it had a full load of slugs, however I doubted if such projectiles would even tickle those monsters.

I took off from the Western Wall. I was wearing my leathers and helmet; I had also added a pair of classic aviator goggles that I used to wear when driving my Caterham. I was flying belly down like a parachutist, being airborne that way required far less wind than if I was standing upright. It was my plan to circle the beasts and approach them from their rear. I had to say it was scary, while I had flown before it was never this high and generally I hovered rather than moved about. I kept my pace at about a fast walk because I wanted to make sure that I was keeping control of the mini-tornado that was holding me up.

It took me almost fifteen minutes to complete my flight, briefly I crossed above land that I hadn’t laid claim to as of yet. It had been my thought that it would make no difference, since I was utilizing Air Magic rather than Earth Magic but it did. Suddenly I felt weaker and it took much more effort on my part, to stay in the air. It was with a sigh of relief, when I crossed back over to my own property or rather airspace.

My mode of flight wasn’t exactly quiet but to my surprise instead of running off, the hogs if anything tried to get closer to the fortress. Perhaps they sought to shelter against its walls. At my designated target point, I dropped the rock. Thirty second later, I lowered myself down inside the new hole, letting myself drop for the final six feet or so.

The plan was for me to give myself at least a half an hour to recover and then get to work. I didn’t exactly do that. I started work immediately but I was working very slowly and everything that I was doing was below ground. First I needed two tunnels, going to my left and right. Those tunnels would extend around the perimeter of the half circle so I could make my magic work on those two far opposite ends of the proposed wall. The closer I was to the wall, the easier it would be for me build it. I used most of the dirt that I excavated from my tunnels to firm up the ground beneath where the wall would be. By working slowly and efficiently, I had my tunnels dug and my personal magical gas tank full, after approximately an hour.

I don’t know what had those hogs so focused on the Stronghold but well over two hours since their first appearance, they still hadn’t wandered off yet, despite their inability to break through the gates. When I left, the gates had been creaking and groaning but they had seemed sound and Captain Mesquida had both the Sherman and the Hellcat stationed side by side inside the gate tunnel, just in case those pigs did manage to break through.

I had thirteen fully charged Earth Stones to work with and an almost four hundred foot long wall to build, as quickly as I could manage. Why did I suddenly feel like I was in some kind of game show? “Yes I am Chuck Standish and this is ‘Can You Build a Wall, Before the Killer Hogs All Escape.’ Tonight we have Vince, say hello Vince. Fuck you Chuck.” My hallucination now shows studio security staff, beating the crap out of me for swearing live on network television. I am one weird hermit.

“Well time to, say it with me folks, Build That Wall!” And the studio audience goes wild. I started at the far eastern end, picking the spot furthest from any hogs. Almost immediately, I could feel through the ground a small number of them leave, from the opposite side. My plan was to slowly grow the wall to three feet in height, hopefully that would be small enough where they wouldn’t perceive it as a threat. Then once I had it that high, I would crank things up to my maximum and try to get it better than six feet tall as fast as I could. It took me fifteen minutes to get the wall up to three feet and except for the first bunch no more hogs wandered away.

I got at one end of the half circle, took a deep breath and I started walking, fast; pushing my power to grow the wall. I made it to the opposite end in about a minute and I think I had grown the wall a foot. I turned around as quickly as I could and now went the other way.

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It was still an hour before dawn. Captain Mesquida was looking out over the battlements and at the wall the Hermit was building. A tiny few of the pigs had fled the area but George had ordered everyone to hold their fire for now. The wall reached what looked like a meter in height when suddenly it started to increase rapidly in height. When it was what looked like two meters tall, a pack of hogs numbering about twenty charged the growing barricade.

George wasn’t worried because the wall was thick and at six feet, surely such massive monsters would not be able to leap such a structure. He was wrong.

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My tunnel was no longer a tunnel because I had used the overhead dirt to help build my wall. My idea was to turn the pigpen into a more permanent structure later on and make it part of the planned outer barbican. I figure waste not want not, but sometimes I can be really dumb. The wall was at least six feet in height when I sensed a small sounder of hogs running towards it. The dirty rat bastard fornicating pigs made it over my wall! What were they, Olympic class hogs practicing for the high jump? A number of them fell into my former tunnel which was now a deep ditch, a ditch which I was also in. Luckily those that fell in my mini-moat seemed to have hurt themselves just enough, where they weren’t a threat to me.

But the fallen swine were a road block to my magically growing the far end of the wall. I now had to stop fifty feet from the most western terminus, which forced me to put more demands on my Earth Magic in order to make the wall located there, grow higher.

I got the wall up barely another foot before I sensed some more hogs coming at it. This time, they didn’t make it over but they came close to succeeding. I must be fighting giant super jumping pigs. When the wall was nine feet tall, another group tried it and again they almost made it over. Finally I had the four hundred foot long wall, twelve feet high. That had better stop those alligator mouthed swine because I just had to take a break. I was exhausted, magic wise, and there was a small group of pigs, outside of my trap that I should better start worrying about.

Figuring that the top of my new wall was the safest place for me, I used some of remaining strength to call the winds, to lift myself out of the ditch and to the top of my ten foot wide wall. I noticed flyers overhead; I had heard the distinctive sounds of IRODs earlier, while I had been working. I guess Storm’s crew had taken care of those few hogs that had escaped.

As for myself, I sat my butt on the new wall, and began eating some monkey jerky. Star appeared shortly after I took my first bite; she glared at me and then stood ready with her shotgun.

I estimated that it would take me a half an hour to recover my strength, after which I would then resume working on the barricade. Star refused to sit down, she stood next to me while glaring at the pigs below us. Dawn was breaking, and I could hear the hogs snuffling at the wall. As for me, I kept my butt down with my left leg dangling off the outer lip of the wall and ate my jerky. It was good to relax.

I had time to scream “HOLY FUCK,” which was immediately followed by the sounds of gnashing teeth.

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Sergeant Richard Jacobs was up on the wall and manning a 20mm rifle. He breathed out a sigh of relief when the wall became too high for the Daeodon to jump over it. Then he saw the Boss float himself to the top of the wall and sit down, apparently he needed to rest.

Jacobs’ anxiety returned. He witnessed Lady Star teleport herself to the new wall. But instead of sitting down, she remained standing in plain sight of the pigs down below her. A large number of swine went to the wall near her location.

Rich called out, “Sharpshooters prepare to defend our King and the Wise One. Aim carefully and use standard ammunition.” He tightened down on his shoulder stock and followed his own words. Someone came up beside him.

“Sergeant,” it was Captain Mesquida, Rich didn’t take his eyes off the boar he was looking at. “What’s wrong, why did you give that order?”

“Haven’t you ever been to the circus, Captain? And seen the animal trainers make the elephants stand up on their hind legs? For that matter when those monsters screw one another in order to make little monsters they have just got to be climbing on top of each other’s backs, it’s only natural. Down there is our irreplaceable King, with only a couple of feet separating him from the teeth of those prehistoric porkers, if you don’t mind me saying so Captain, sometimes that man can be awfully stupid. DAMN IT!” Sergeant Jacobs shouted and then he began shooting.

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Lady Knight Star Astrologer didn’t trust the current situation or her King. He was acting like he was on a picnic. Suddenly a hog stood up and lunged across the wall. Instinctively, Star jumped backwards into empty space. She was falling towards the ditch when she abruptly vanished.

The Wise One reappeared in the safe room within her underground apartment. She had diligently practiced teleporting to that location in case an emergency forced her make a sudden unplanned jump, but what about her King? The Lady Knight ran out the door of her quarters. Her magical energy was nearly gone because of her two most recent teleports and she was still not comfortable teleporting to a location that she could not see, unless it was to someplace like her always vacant safe room. As she ran, she started cursing her idiot of a King in all the languages that she knew.

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The pig that tried to eat Star had gotten its head over half way to us. I was glad that I made the wall so thick, that I was sitting on the outside lip of it and that my pants were made of dark brown leather. I suddenly found the energy to launch a flame strike right into the mouth that was trying to eat me. I heard shots, I debated leaping down into the ditch and I looked around for Star, but she was gone.

I looked in the ditch but she wasn’t there. I started calling out for her. “Star, Star, where are you Star?” I don’t think another pig got her, maybe she teleported out in a desperate bid to save her own life while leaving me here to be eaten? I knew she was evil! Nothing can stop the Queen Pin of Crime. Now if I can lower myself down into the ditch, I can then clean and dry my pants hidden from view which will make me a happy hermit.

Oh crud, here comes Sergeant Tornado Challenger in for a landing. The hogs were squealing, grunting and roaring. The sharpshooters were firing. I only had one slim hope now, that a sharpshooter misses a shot and I’m struck instead.

After several embarrassing moments, I chased a grinning flyer away, retreated to the ditch and washed up, using a little of my Water and Fire Magic. I rested for slightly over a half an hour and then I finally resumed working on the wall but this time at a much more reasonable rate of five minutes per foot in height. A little over an hour later the wall was twenty-five feet tall and I figured it was time to go back to bed. I’d trust in Captain Mesquida’s forces to put those huge hogs down for good.

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The next morning Captain Long was starting to have doubts about signing, in a few hours, the Documents of Understanding which would formally state the relationship between her command and the Kingdom of Hermit’s Forge. But before she could change her mind, she was greeted by Lady Star who took her on a walk to what was supposed to be her new embassy compound. Barbara was a little puzzled by the Lady Knight’s frazzled looking appearance.

While strolling there, Star explained about how the scheduled departure for the Armory would be slightly delayed. “Captain Long, last night an unusually large number of Daeodon Giganteas, set up camp by the front gate. Those creatures are extremely destructive and deadly so it was decided that as many of them as possible should be destroyed. Our King succeeded in entrapping them but now we are forced to remove their bodies from the land bridge, which even with our heavy equipment will take several hours. But do not be concerned; we expect to have a path cleared by midday.”

“Just wonderful,” thought Captain Long, she was in fact worried about the people that she had left behind but what she saw when she arrived at her new embassy astonished her, and drove all other thoughts from her head. Because she knew for a fact, that last evening there had been absolutely nothing here but an empty field. Now a walled rectangular compound surrounded by a deep ditch lay before her. The walls were over twelve feet tall and four feet thick. At each of the four corners was a guard tower almost twenty feet in height. Inside the walls were several small stone buildings, one of which was very large. Star began speaking as they entered the larger structure.

“This will serve as the primary entrance to your underground areas. It also houses the majority of your bathing and toilet facilities. Without pumps or magic it is impossible to make water flow uphill to our septic services, so we try to avoid that if at all possible. We will be installing bathrooms underground with steam powered or wind driven pumps but we urge people to use the above ground washrooms whenever possible. If you follow me below ground, I will show you what my King has accomplished and explain what he still has to do.”

Open mouthed in amazement, Captain Long numbly followed behind. What with her trailing position, she failed to see Lady Star’s triumphant smile.

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I had been thinking about the snails’ ceramic materials the entire time I had been doing that boring work on the U.S. Embassy last night. And now in my workshop, after a long morning nap, I had proved to myself that my idea had been correct and that I could now manipulate the material without destroying it. I hurried to the shop so that I could show Glen.

He was busy talking to Scott Blaine, a blue screen, who is a skilled tool and die maker. They both looked up as I approached.

“Hello Glen, Hello Scott, I figured out how to manipulate the ceramics that we’ve been salvaging. I am now able to turn them into something like a thick molasses syrup without destroying their structural properties once I have them re-harden.”

Glen spoke, “That’s great boss that brings all kinds of ideas to mind and I know that Sean will be happy too, with that bit of information. Scott and I were just talking about new body armor for our people; we kind of feel that we let Quentin down, by not equipping him with the very best.”

“I feel bad about his death too Glen, but we are all working as hard as we can. Heck, I was sure that with our new walls that nothing would ever be able to surprise us but I was proven wrong yet again. Our new world has the disgusting habit of doing that to me.”

He nodded his head in agreement and resumed talking. “I was talking with George last night and we want to come up with some standard armor. Our idea is to make it all out of one particular titanium alloy that the snails had; it’s wonderful stuff and fully the equal, in terms of toughness, of our best steel armor plate but it’s over forty percent lighter and it has greater heat resistance to boot. Scott knows he can make us a wire pulling machine for the titanium and he’s pretty sure that he can build another machine that will turn that wire into chain mail cloth, which we can then use to manufacture suits of chain mail. Both machines will have to be enchanted to control heat and the second machine will have to be operated in a vacuum and run by someone with fire magic but it should be feasible. And once we have one machine done and figured out, we can build a couple more of them since the machines will probably have to run pretty slowly, while forming the links and welding them shut. But it is far better than doing it all by hand.

On top of the chainmail, people will wear a scaled armor vest, greaves, bracers and a helmet; all made out of titanium. Our new helmets will be more like a lobster tail design, in order to give us better neck protection, and they’ll have visors constructed out of transparent aluminum. Now that you can work with that ceramic material, except for the chainmail, we’ll probably ask you to plate or paint all of the other pieces, of the new body armor, with it.

After talking with Glen about the proposed armor, we then went to talk with Sean who was speaking with a new man that I didn’t recognize. I was soon introduced to Rufus Stokes, former M48 tank crewman and drag car racer.

Sean began talking. “Hello Vince, we’ve got some real interesting salvage we’re getting off of those spiders. For every big coilgun that they had, they also possessed two smaller ones that they didn’t bother converting to steam power. Those guns had particularly thick walls probably to withstand the massive recoil forces from their projectiles. The smaller cannons have an I.D. of seventy-four millimeters and they are beautiful pieces of metal. The shop here is still having problems making large pieces of precision metal and it seems to me that it would be waste not to use those smaller barrels. I am certain that they can be bored out to a larger inner diameter. The only problem that I can foresee is that titanium does not like to be rifled.”

Glen spoke up. “Sean, the Boss has figured out how manipulate the snails’ ceramics.”

Sean suddenly got a big smile. “Now that is good news. I’ve been talking with Rufus here and we’ve been discussing the 90mm gun that his old tank was equipped with and the benefits that size cannon would have over a 105mm. A ninety would be lighter, use less black powder and our tanks would be able to carry more shells, as well. To put a long story short, we want to bore out those 74mm titanium barrels, line them with the ceramics, and put rifling grooves into that material, turning those 74mm coilguns into 90mm rifled howitzers. What do you think?”

Glen spoke up before I could answer. “In my opinion, it would be a shame to waste all of those titanium barrels when they could be put to good use, especially since the existing ring grooves, which once held those magnets, are cut so deeply into the barrels, and would serve ideally in allowing a new ceramic liner an extremely firm way to “grip” the titanium alloy. As far as we’ve been able to determine the coils within the spider gun barrels were completely unpowered, at least we’ve found no wiring, instead the projectiles themselves contained what looks like a capacitor. We’ve guessed that the capacitors were charged just before they were put into the coilguns and fired.”

All three men were looking at me, as if I was the father and they had done something particularly brilliant, which they were extremely proud of and that I should praise them for, assholes. “Glen, if George likes it, I’ll be all for it. I have to concede that it sounds good but our military commander has to give it his stamp of approval, too.” They looked a little crestfallen but I had things to enchant to and tunnels to dig while the pigs were still being cleaned up. So I left them, as they continued to discuss their plan and pat each other on the back. Can you feel the love?

I’m going to let George and the other officers in the Hermit’s Guard decide which cannon the shop is going to make. I still remember hearing stories about how during WWII, American field generals were begging for a more powerful tank but they were repeatedly denied one, by some armchair generals back in the States, even though a more powerful tank had already been designed and was ready to be produced. Senior Officers, in Washington, insisted that the M4 Sherman was good enough yet it took on average, from what I am told, three Sherman tanks to kill one German tank. While M4 tanks might have been cheap to those people back in Washington at the time, what about all of the American tank crews that were lost? So I am going to stay out of any decision making process regarding which munition is to be built for our military, I’ll let the experts handle those things and I’ll support them as best as I can, unless I come up with a really cool idea that they don’t want to implement; like steam powered battle motorcycles.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

The large sounder of Daeodon that besieged the Stronghold was actually a collection of sounders and not a single herd. That large a group of hogs is not unknown in our world. The Bearded Pig can form temporary sounders of three hundred members and feral hogs in North America can have sounders with one hundred swine in it, though most sounders have between six to thirty pigs. I am certain that I’ve read of temporary sounders of up to four hundred hogs but I can’t find the reference at this time.

http://www.untamedscience.com/biodiversity/bearded-pig/

http://animals.mom.me/difference-between-pig-peccary-5943.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeodon