The princess's eyes flashed and anger distorted her beautiful face for a moment before she could reign her emotions back in, her years in diplomatic training showing in this moment.

I watched her closely, challenging her with my eyes and waiting for her response when Galen and Nala both harrumphed to get our attention.

I looked to the older elf and his wife when Galen started to talk, “This wasn't very polite, Marcus and you know it and I think that Kalla just was unprepared for your sudden change in attitude even if I already assumed something like that because nothing is for free and you have to gain some advantages for selecting mortals like us as your guardians. I wouldn't be against becoming one knowing all the package includes. In regard of what the near future holds for us I even think that it would be perfect for me and my wives to ally with you because in case we are killed in the action you can revive us again, and knowing this I will be in the mids of the maelstorm hammering your enemies with everything I got.”

I nodded happy and saw Kitara and Nala also agreeing. Kalla let her shoulders sink when she realized that she was on the wrong side of the conflict and added, “I apologize for my attitude and will no longer argue about it but I have to admit that I thought of you as an easy going guy until now and it's hard to just change that. You didn't show any hard decision making and just followed the flow so I was surprised to suddenly get confronted with this new side of you. Is there more to follow where this came from?”

I leaned back in my chair and relaxed, releasing the tension in me now that the situation defused a bit, “I had a visit from Tiria just now and she told me some shocking news and hampered me also somewhat,” Guessing by the shocked looks of Kalla and Kitara it wasn't commonplace for gods to visit this realm,” I wanted to discuss it with you guys because there will be some decisions to make and I wanted you hear your opinion of some ideas I had. First Tiria limited my ability to manipulate mana down to a journeyman, so I will have to train this skill back to old heights and therefore I won't be able to create such strong enchantments again like I did with the heat-stone, “the disappointment on Galen's and Nala's Face was obvious.

“Second she told me that all of the other gods on this world and some others wished for their own city cores but she wouldn't grant them their wishes painting therefore a target on my back because they all will now try to seize me. I told her that to prevent that I will welcome all races in my city and build a massive temple for all the gods, so you will have to live peacefully with your enemies inside my walls as long as they keep to the rules,” all the elves seemed to have bitten in a lemon by the looks of their grumpy faces.

“The goblins and lizards are on their way here to catch me before that happens which brings us to point three. They are on the war path and will arrive in three weeks in front of my walls which puts some serious pressure on our combined efforts.”

The elves were shocked if I interpreted their pale faces right and the slight trembling of Nala's hands which were taken quickly by Galen and Kitara. Galen's first wife took me for a strong woman before but the prospect of another devastating fight against their former enemies hit her harder than I thought.

Kalla just closed her eyes shortly and then looked straight into mine, “Alright, tell me what ideas you sport. You seem quite relaxed regarding they are about to seize your core and destroy what you have build till now.”

I concentrated and before us appeared something from old japan which nowadays is called a caltrop made from stone and I had to thank my extensive movie watching for getting this idea. Figuring out how to create them and their possible uses was quite easy after remembering the scenes where they crippled infantry and cavalry alike by just throwing them in their way.

I pointed to the item and gave them an explanation about it, “ As you can see, this little sucker isn't very big but that makes it also easy to hide it in high grass. Distributed around the walls it will slow the enemy, hurt them and give our archers and mages enough time to cut down their numbers in the first engagement, but after that I think the enemy will adapt and try to clear them, “I paused for a moment and raised two fingers.

“So for my second defence I will create something that dungeons are famous for, namely traps. I will spread pitfalls all over the place with stone spears on the deep end, which will only trigger when a specific weight is on the upper part. To channel the enemy to the traps I will create a new plant which will become a bigger headache with my reduced mana manipulation but I will try it nonetheless. My plan is to create a bush with thorns on it that delivers a poison with deadly nightshade on it that makes the victims go nuts. I will have to make the bushes resistant to fire and hacking to avoid them being cut down easily after the enemy learns of their abilities. For all these things I will need massive amounts of mana and therefore you all will have to give me as much of it as possible. And then I have a last idea but I need some information about the elves first.”

After my long monologue they were silent and digested all the information I just gave them with Galen being the first to search my attention again, “That was much to take in and I will try to come up with some additions to your plan also but lets discuss first what you want to know.”

I smiled and looked to Kalla who still examined the caltrop before her,” Kalla, how many archers do you have and are all elves proficient with bows?”

Annoyed she looked at me, “I think there are about 30 archers altogether in the city and no, not all of us can use a bow just because we are elves although most people seem to think that we are born with one in the hands, “Looking down on her hands somewhat frustrated she continued, “Most of us are not even strong enough to fire 10 arrows in a row much less hit anything standing more than 10 meters away standing motionless.”

I pressed my lips together and thought about it for a moment before I created an image like a hologram in front of me on the table, showing a crossbow I had last studied on wikipedia because of an interest in the middle ages and their weaponry.

“That's a crossbow and the biggest advantage of it is that it can be used by weak and mostly untrained persons to hit things with some punch behind it. It has a slightly worse shooting rate than a bow but if 3 people work together and use more than one crossbow they can strain and fire almost as fast as a skilled archer and with enough crossbows you can even fire a massive salvo first and then let the better shooters take over. We could slaughter one to two hundred enemies at once with this.”

Galen examined the weapon closely from all directions, his eyes darting from one detail to the next when Kitara caught my eyes by raising one hand like a school girl back on earth. I had to smile when I saw her gesture and she answered also with a grin.

“Is this a weapon from your old world and how is it possible for you to create it if Tiria deleted your knowledge about it?”

I shrugged and took a more comfortable position on the chair,”She indeed deleted my understanding of most of the things I knew back there but if you have seen its function you can reverse engineer anything with enough time. The crossbow isn't very advanced and I had watched some elaborate designs so I was able to rediscover its workings quite easily, which will possibly cause Tiria to limit me again, but I hope that she will wait long enough with it that we are able to build a stronger defence.”

“We will have to give the plans to our craftsmen,” Kalla said with new found enthusiasm,”and see what they can do and how fast. We also will need more wood and sinews for the bowstrings. Marcus, can you take some of them here and show them this design?”

I nodded with reluctance and answered,” I could, but I would prefer to only have one of them in my inner mind. There is that guy named Dorien that is a carpenter and he could use the design to create a prototype which the others could copy and mass produce. I also haven't seen any of the mages use their battle magic to assess their abilities which could help me in figuring out a better defence plan. For example, how far can you throw a fireball or how big would a firewall be?”

Galen, Nala and Kalla looked completely blank at me and after some seconds Nala asked me, “What is a fireball?”