The trip was easy to make for the seven dwarfs, thanks to their efforts of clearing the path every time they went. They walked between the two mountains gathering dust and ore in large amounts that were double than what they had gotten from their last trip. This was thanks to Urist carrying most of it like a mule using his strength.

Although they had to take more breaks to allow Urist to eat he felt it was worth it. With this much metal, the junkies at the forge could keep going on for some time. Instead of worrying about the weight he was instead checking the timer in his head every so often.

Watching the time tick before him and within his head, the sense of danger was growing within him. By now they were coming close back to base, they would reach in about a half hour and the timer was about to go off in ten minutes.

He decided to tell the expedition to wait a bit near some bamboo as to wait for the timer to hit. They all accepted their leader's selfishness and waited at a thicket and settled around taking a load off.

The minutes passed quickly with him watching the timer intently not wishing to spare a look away.

3… 2… 1…

Bamboo Seeding Event has begun

Happy hunting.

It was a lackluster message, but the changes around Urist and co. were eye-opening. All around them the bamboo limbs started to lengthen and flower at an exponential rate. The color of the flowers was a shade of blood making the air of greenery turn quite sinister.

Looking around, the party tensed at the sight not sure what to do in the situation. It didn’t take long though for the first seeds to appear around the group. Urist picked one of the seeds off the limb and started to examine it.

It was an ordinary plump seed of a bamboo plant, nothing that exceptional. He turned the seed over to Yri for her to look at it, using her ability she started to read. An Urist could see her face become completely pale reading the description.

Urist almost wanted to grab her shoulders and asked what she had seen, but held back the urge and waited for her to speak. The dwarfs also picked up on her expression and anxiously waited for Sarea to speak. She didn’t let them wait for long as she turned to Urist and gave a bitter smile.

“You really are crazy boss. You were right, these seeds might spell our doom if we don’t handle it correctly.”

“What did it tell you Saera, I want to know every single word and detail from what you learned. Take your time we aren’t in a rush yet.”

Taking a deep breath Saera looked at the seed and began to read once again.

“The seed is a grade G material. The abilities it has is increased growth, increased reproduction, and is considered a high energy source of food.”

Reaver asked a question, “So that’s it? Just more rats and good feed? I thought it would be more… You know terrifying.”

Yri looked and Reaver and sigh, “Maybe if that was just a few seeds, but this whole jungle is full of bamboo, and what of our north and south? We truly don't know how much bamboo is in the area. Another factor is I looked in the detail of how much energy this seed stores and ten or so seeds could fill a dwarf. Now imagine a rat, what would it become if it ate these seeds?

“I’ll tell you a baby rat that ate one would become an adult within an hour, after eating another seed it will have all the energy it needs to seek reproduction. And the most terrifying side effect is that the growth won’t stop, the more seeds it eats the larger it will become.”

Baikm responded, “Won’t it be fine? Still? I mean the branches won’t keep seeding anyways right?”

As if to dash the dwarfs hopes the seeds fell to the ground just then and the dwarfs watched as new seeds started to appear. But they also noticed another thing that these seeds were a little thicker than the last ones and grew just as fast.

While they had been talking only ten minutes passed causing the dwarfs to shudder. Urist’s whole back was covered in cold sweat watching the seeds grow back.

He turned to the group, “We are returning home at once! We will have no more breaks!”

Returning to base, Urist took in the sight, the earth mages had worked hard. He guessed they had covered about forty percent of the wooden wall with stones and harden earth. The construction of the watchtowers was also going well three of the ten having been built.

Well built wouldn’t be quite correct, saying that their foundations were finished would be better. They had been built because Unicy figured it would help the structural integrity of the walkway.

Along the part of the earthen covered wall, he could see the holes had been made. And on top of the wall, he could see Dwarfs setting up wooden pulleys on finished parts.

If he had a good amount of metal gears he would have opted to use them instead. Still, this cheaper alternative should be just as deadly. It worked like this, in total there would be twelve pulleys used in this construction, and the pulleys would be double looped by a rope. On one side would be a large pulley connected to the wall by a long and sturdy wooden pole and capped to prevent slippage.

On the other side was another pulley connected to the wall with a crank. The idea was one of the dwarfs would pull a pulley in which, turn the large pulley with maces on the face. In all honesty, a chain or gear system would have been a better idea, but with their limited metal and time, this would have to do.

For now he couldn’t admire the craftsmanship, first, he had to break the bad news to everyone.

That he was right.