"No," Malusa said. "If a Champion is coming to destroy the Plains Keepers, then you have been tasked to save us. Champions are assigned to sides that are then pitted against each other, as happened with the great battle between the gods of Good and Evil that led to both of them being killed. You must save us, correct?"

"I have been tasked with ensuring the survival of your species, among others, yes," I said.

"And you, Forest Keeper," Malusa said. "Do you believe that your Lord C.C. would have had the strength to save all of the Forest Keepers that died, along with the heart of your domain?"

"My Queen, and the fools on the council behind her, never would have allowed Lord C.C. to intercede," Mal'Thorn said. "But yes, Lord C.C. had the strength to stop the destruction of the Forest Keeper city."

"And I would have saved them had they asked," I said. "Otherwise my priority is the wellbeing of my own people. I am not tasked with saving the world."

"Perhaps you should be," Malusa said. "You need me to exile two hundred of my people. I need the army that you say is coming to be defeated."

"Exile is a strong word," I said. "Relocation would be a better way to phrase it. The standard of living for those living in my Fortress is high."

"Regardless," Malusa said. "They would not be allowed back to their home biome, correct?"

"Incorrect," I said. "They would be free to travel as they could afford it, and it is cheap to travel. The benefits of the Fortress would be what would make them choose to remain."

"Very well," Malusa said. "If the Plains fall then many people in the world will starve. We are the primary food providers, in grains and livestock, for the entire world. All biomes trade with us for their food. You said that you would have saved the Forest Keepers if they had asked you to. I am asking you to save us. Will you?"

She was much more forward thinking than I was expecting, considering her rudeness. And I was already in the process of forming my own army, so I had started on the path to fighting The Instructor's army. My people also wanted to fight him directly. This would just commit me to a time and a place. There really was only one answer that I could give.

"I will," I said.

"Then in return two hundred of my people will join you in your Fortress," Malusa said.

"Three hundred would be better," I said. "Two hundred was just the minimum."

"Done," Malusa said.

"What are the required living conditions for your people?" I asked. "Is a circular area one kilometer wide big enough?"

"For six sub-clans, yes, that should suffice," Malusa said. "In general terms our people need a large flat area with soil, sunlight, and access to fresh water. We do our own irrigation of the plains, but we have access to an underground river."

"How deep would the soil need to be?" I asked. "And who would the leader of the Fortress Plains Keepers be?"

"I volunteer to lead them," Ansar said. "It would ease the interaction to have someone who can speak other languages?"

"Fine, you can go," Malusa said. "And you will be taking your oddball clan with you. You can pick the other clans. The depth of the soil isn't terribly important, the warren here has its lowest floor twenty meters below the surface."

Twenty meters, plus a meter and a half for the grass... A high ceiling, so that it is easier to light with sun crystals. Call it fifty meters total.

"Twenty meters of soil is doable," I said.

"How long before it is ready?" Ansar asked.

I checked on the large excavator that I was making and found that it had finished an hour ago. I had meant to have it already working on clearing out a floor before I recruited the Plains Keepers. It was a one hundred a twenty meter loop, giving a portal thirty meters on a side when it was in a square. With preparation time, using gravity to move the majority of the stone, I could clear the nine hundred square meter footprint in about five minutes.

"It might be a little bit cramped initially," I said. "But you could start moving people over in half an hour. Half an hour after that you would have over six thousand square meters to use."

"You have the space already prepared for us, then," Ansar said. "It will take at least a day for the six clans to arrive here, let alone however long it will take to make it to your Fortress."

"It isn't already prepared," I said. "I just started digging out the stairs right now and I will start cutting out the stone after I have them all the way down to the bottom of the floor."

I was turning back to speak to Malusa when Mal'Thorn stepped past me and put his hand on Ansar's shoulder. Ansar was looking at me oddly, his mouth open and his nose twitching.

"You become accustomed to it," Mal'Thorn said. "Not only will you begin to take the impossible things he claims as the simple statement of fact that he sees them to be, but you will begin to do impossible things yourself. You will see."

Ah, that was how Plains Keepers expressed shock, I guess? I hadn't even noticed. Another good reason to bring people that were used to me with me when I recruited new people, they could take care of the details that I missed.

"Malusa," I said. "I will leave a portal here so that my new people can make their way to the Fortress, and it will allow quick travel in the future for merchants. Where would you like it placed?"

"Merchants?" Malusa asked. "You mean wagoners?"

"Maybe wagoners," I said. "But I have one enthusiastic merchant among my people who was quite taken with the idea of the inventory system. A full wagon of goods in the size of a bag at the higher end."

And now she was making the same face that Ansar was. I was pretty proud of how the Bags of Holding turned out, even if it was a follower who suggested the idea.

"I only asked to clarify how much room you needed," Malusa said. "Impossible things indeed. You can set it up in a dedicated stall in the market, then."

I nodded. "Somewhere close to the edge or an exit," I said. "It will be the main point of access for travellers in the Plains Biome until I get more portals set up."

Malusa waved a guard forward and spoke with him.

"Ansar," I said. "I'm going to want you to come back to the Fortress with us. Send any messages you need- Damn."

"My lord?" Mal'Thorn asked.

"Nothing serious," I said. "I just found an underground river underneath the Fortress by dropping my portal into it. The river is below the Plains Keeper floor, so it will be fine once I reinforce the underfloor."

I was suspicious that I had been able to dig down several hundred meters without any issue, but as soon as someone mentioned an underground river I hit one. It had the air of whoever was running the simulation was messing with me. But it would be easy access to a lot of fresh water for the Fortress.

We followed the guard that Malusa had been talking to while I fished my portal out of the river by pushing more stone through it. My immediate reaction when the portal had hit the water and then sunk with the weight of the silk steel thread was to plug the hole before my Pocket Dimension flooded too badly. There was quite a lot of water that had made it through, but it hadn't reached anything critical. All of the electrical equipment was insulated well enough.

We arrived at the Plains Keeper market having gone through a series of four meter wide tunnels in the soil, lit softly by the glowing thin roots that hung from the roof. The market itself was bustling with Plains Keepers and the occasional human, the large clear skylight in the roof five meters up giving the whole thing an open, airy feel.

The guard led us to a large stall that was next to a main tunnel leading out of the market and spoke with the owner who began packing up his wares. We were kicking someone out of a prime place in the market, which made me feel bad for him. I walked over to where the stallkeeper was muttering and pulled two Fortress Coins from my inventory.

The guard took a step towards us, his daggers coming slightly out of their sheathes as his hands rested on them.

"I'm not sure if you're trying to intimidate me, or this man," I said. "But I would suggest you step back."

The guard swept his eyes over me slowly from my head to my feet and back up. Elite guards, they just never seemed to respected me until I'd knocked them over. But then he surprised me by stepping back and nodding to me.

"As you say," He said.

I turned my attention back to the man whose stall we were taking. He had stopped packing up and was frowning at me. I handed him the coins.

"I apologise for taking your spot," I said. "These are quite valuable. When we are gone there will be a doorway in this stall that will lead to a Fortress Presence, if you say or think 'Fortress Shop' while in front of it you will be able to exchange them for items of value."

He looked at the guard, and then back to me. "Thank you, your lordship," He said, and then returned to his packing.

It took him a few more minutes to finish and after he had left I placed a thread portal against one of the cloth walls and formed it into a meter wide and two meter tall doorway. I moved the exit of the portal out of the portal room that it was in and to the general area of my Pocket Dimension, then led Mal'Thorn and Ansar through.

There was a small crowd of people waiting for me at the top entrance to my Pocket Dimension.