"And?" I asked.

"I was sent to summon the Lord from through the portal," the guard said. "But there was nothing here but a room with some small doors in it. Banging on them was my only course of action. I did not mean any offence, magic room, could you please get the Lord?"

It can't have been more than six hours since I left the plains, and the army was already moving. The candidates for my army had started to arrive, but it would take an hour to convert all twelve of them.

"The Lord is busy," I said. "He needs time to prepare his forces. It is recommended that you evacuate anyone in the path of the army."

"I was told to get the Lord at all costs," the guard said. "That the Plains, and the world, was at stake. The world is ending, and the Lord would help. Please."

The guard was freaking out, pacing in the portal room and breathing rapidly. I felt bad for him. I didn't need my physical body there when I converted people to being a Demi-AI, I could explain things equally well through a presence. And with my power weaving through portals everywhere within the Pocket Dimension was in my range.

"He is on his way," I said. "Please, calm down."

I shuffled portals around, slipping one into the portal room that the guard was in while his back was turned.

"Okay, I'm here," I said. "Take me to Malusa."

The guard turned around, startled, his hands immediately going to his daggers before he nodded shakily. He led me out of the market and down several tunnels. He was on all fours, moving at a quick pace and nudging people aside with his head.

We left the main tunnel and turned down one that I had to crouch not to hit my head on the ceiling, but I was easily able to keep up with him. A minute later we entered the same room I had met Malusa in the last time, coming in through a side entrance. Malusa was still sitting at the head of the earthen table, but the skylight overhead was completely dark, the roots from the ceiling providing the only light.

As I stood back up to my full height a guard beside the tunnel exit went to put his hand on my shoulder. I ducked my shoulder around his hand and started walking into the center of the room, the guard who had escorted me stayed in the tunnel.

The guard cursed under his breath and he and another guard leapt after me, moving around to block my path.

"We have to search you," the first guard said.

"I see several problems with that," I said. "In order of severity for you. I don't want to be searched, anything you're looking to find would be within my dimensional space and so you wouldn't find it, I don't need a weapon to kill any or all of you, and finally, if I did need a weapon I would simply take yours."

Okay, maybe the reaction all guards seem to have with me isn't entirely unreasonable. The guard's fur actually bristled and he drew his daggers. He was standing right in front of me, and I simply reached out with both hands, grabbed the two blades between my thumb and finger, and pulled. All moving too fast for him to react. I flipped the daggers and grabbed them by their hilts, holding the blades along my forearms. I was still standing casually, not showing any aggression at all. The second guard blinked at me, not reacting at all.

"You wanted to see me, Malusa," I said. "Playing with your guards is entertaining, but I do have more important things I can be doing than showing them that they shouldn't mess with a Champion."

"Stand down," Malusa said. "If he meant me harm he would have done it before. You are putting everyone's lives in danger. Stand down."

The first guard still had his fur ruffled, but he reluctantly stepped to the side. I walked to the table and then turned back to face the guard whose daggers I had taken. He had returned to his post to the side of the tunnel and was standing with his arms crossed over his chest. The empty sheathes for his daggers were on his hips, the openings facing me. I calculated the exact force and spin that would be required.

"Your daggers," I said.

And threw them relatively hard at him. It took much less than a second for the daggers to travel and they slammed into the sheathes with a click that pushed the guard back against the wall. I had to throw them hard, if he had moved while they were in flight he would have been stabbed by one or the other. I nodded, satisfied, and turned back to face Malusa, sitting down in the chair closest to her.

"The guard you sent to fetch me said that the sun went out, and that the plains were dying from a wave of frost from the west," I said.

"Yes," Malusa said. "Though it is not as dire as that. The sun did set several hours earlier than it should have, even with it being winter, but that is only an issue if it stays dark for a prolonged time. More pressing is that heavy clouds have blocked out the stars, and it has begun snowing. It does not snow in the plains."

"It's never snowed here?" I asked.

"Never," Malusa said. "The God of Winter controls the snow, and before now we had been left to grow our food without hindrance. The wave of frost turned out to be highly localised, my guards sent someone to request your presence just after it started. It moved several hundred meters into the plains, killing the grasses there, before stopping. The affected area is only a few hundred meters wide."

"The army I saw had an area of frost around them," I said.

"Indeed," Malusa said. "Our agreement is that you stop them. There is a clan that is less than a kilometer away from the affected area."

"Evacuate them," I said. "I am preparing my own force to face the enemy, but it will take some time to finish setting it up. Longer if I keep being interrupted."

"I would have thought you would have taken them on with one paw behind your back," Malusa said.

"If you had any defensive features, at all, it might have been possible," I said. "But you live on the plains. They would simply engage me and send the rest of the army to kill you all."

I stood up and began walking back to the tunnel.

"If that is all," I said over my shoulder.

The guard who had tried to stop me before moved to block the tunnel entrance. I raised an eyebrow at him and then cuffed him behind the ear, forcing him to step to the side.

"I know that this is the heart of your domain, and you feel that you should be able to tell me what to do here," I said. "But you really can't." I looked back to Malusa and spoke louder. "I'm going to leave a temporary portal here. If you need to contact me again just ask for me through it."

I pulled out the thread portal from my pocket and reshaped it into a doorway which I then pressed into the soil of the wall next to the tunnel. The other side led to a portal room with a presence.

I walked through the wall of the portal room and towards the portal that led to the top of my fortress. I picked up another thread portal on my way past and began moving an internal Pocket Dimension portal towards the stone tables I'd made for conversions, the other side I had follow me.

There was a crowd of eleven people waiting for me on the stair landing outside of the portal. Two humans, two leprechauns, two beast people, a bear woman and a bull man, two Mountain Keepers, two Forest Keepers, and a lone Plains Keeper. We were just missing the second Plains Keeper candidate, but that was understandable as there were only twenty Plains Keepers that had made the transition to the Fortress so far.

"Hello and welcome," I said. "Please step through to the tables and take a seat."

They came through the portal and then followed me through to the conversion area, and I began adapting them to my power.

"Don't mind me," I said. "I'll continue setting up as we talk."

I made another seven tables to bring the total up to twelve, all surrounding a central area where I would stand. After that I walled the place in, making a room with electrical lights in the ceiling.

"Right," I said. "You each got a quest from your leaders to join the army that I am creating."

The humans and the Mountain Keepers nodded, while the other seven looked confused and worried. I repeated what I'd said in the beast people's language, then the Forest Keeper's language, and finally the Plains Keeper's language.

That just left the leprechauns looking at me expectantly. I sent Lizzie a ping and dropped into the common simulation at her response. We talked for a few minutes before she sent me a primer on the leprechaun language. I spent some time after that absorbing it, then returned to normal speed and repeated myself in the leprechaun language. It made a sort of sense that the most viable candidates wouldn't all speak what I was coming to see as the human language. They would have focused on their combat abilities. And once they were Demi-AI it wouldn't matter at all. It was just going to make explaining things a bit tedious. Though they had all gotten the quest fine...

Quest Preview Description You are being offered the chance to join the Fortress Army. The Fortress Army will be charged with protecting the Fortress and actively engaging its enemies. To be eligible to join the Army you must have your race changed to Demi-AI which will provide a form of immortality, so you cannot be killed in battle. Converting your race is a very painful process, as is resurrection upon death. This is a completely optional assignment, there will be no punishment for rejecting the quest. To complete the quest after accepting it, nod to Lord C.C. Assigned to The eleven people around Lord C.C. Quest type Progression Reward Race Change to Demi-AI Submit Quest Remove Quest

That looked to cover everything. I would be requiring an oath of loyalty to the Fortress and to myself, but that along with my usual pre-healing speech could be said on an individual basis when it came to their turn. I submitted the quest and watched as everyone read through it. I turned in a circle, looking at each of them in turn, and received a nod from them all.