Fatty walked out of the cave trembling followed by a smiling Adster not far behind.

“Now remember if you ever get injured, don’t hesitate to come to this big brother kay?~”

Fatty trembled at the light mage’s casual remark before running off to the wall. Hoping that some hard work would help him forget his harrowing experience. Urist watched the big man flee into the distance and decided to not say anything.

Gazing over at the wall construction sight he noticed that the work was picking up in pace ever since he put the statue down.

It won’t be long, should be done before dinner today. Hmm, one step closer to being safer. Now back to the store.

Urist spent the rest of his time looking through the potions, formations, and other items on the top of his mind making some discoveries. He found berserk potions that sold for 30 points a pop. It would double the strength and speed of the tier one user drawing out a user's adrenaline to boost their strength by a substantial amount for ten minutes.

The side effects being that the user would have their body wound enter a weakened state for two days. Urist bought the potion and a back pouch to store it for forty-five points. He stood up and put on the back pouch and put the potion inside with the pouch holding snug to his waist.

It would be better if he had pants, but it didn’t feel right to buy them since everyone else was still using beginner clothes. He only bought the back pouch to easily carry the potion and for other minor storage.

Moving onto formations he got nothing out of it thanks to the formations being too expensive and too much time to train in. So he focused on armor and got a headache at the prices and trying to find the correct armor to use.

They weren't fighting humanoids and looking at Fatty’s injuries the best defense they needed right now was feet and leg protection. Which would mean hard leather boots and the ideal leg protection against rats would be gambeson or thick leather pants.

Since gambeson was cheaper to buy, Urist decided to go with that type of armor instead of leather for a few reasons. Although it would slightly hard to move in it could serve a couple of purposes. Such as leg warmers in the night, easy to repair and didn’t chafe as much as leather.

So Urist bought twenty pairs to outfit the frontline with boots, socks, and pants telling them to train with the armor while they still had a chance. He spent 800 points to kit them out in the armor and felt a sting to point pool.

With that settled he sat back and rested his eyes for a bit to relax his mind before he tried to think of other ways to enhance their combat ability.

And so time passed like so...

As predicted the wall was finished and the defenses were being finished up. Under Urists orders, the earth mages got back to carving out the home to increase living space.

It had the dual purpose of getting facilities in place while ensuring enough space if they need to hold up inside as a final stand. Eating the rat stew filled the dwarf’s body full of energy, melting all exhaustion they had built up throughout the day.

Urist had talked with Vlad and learned as long as they didn’t eat the guts or brain, the meat would be very effective in curing exhaustion. The brains and guts would be dried by the water mages. They would then be stored in the crystal to be used later as medicine or other ways the blood dwarf mysteriously said.

If its a resource why not hoard it for later use? Such was Urist thoughts as he dug into the soup feeling a little more relaxed thanks to buying all those items.

Still, would it be enough?

‘Only time will tell…’

...

Watching the light fade into the darkness, Urist, and Emu the wind mage stood on guard duty along the walls. Torches were lit along the walls allowing the dwarfs to see far into the jungle of darkness. Seeds could be heard dropping in the night like large droplets of rain in a chaotic tune.

Emu yawned and turned to Urist, “Hey boss I know you always put us on guard duty, but do you need to look so agitated? I mean we have this wall what can those vermin do to us?”

Urist shook his head and stared out into the darkness, “Do you remember Vlad story? This is all just the calm before the storm. We must be ready at all times to act or we face being wiped out.”

“I think you worry too much I mean besides the seeds falling you here noth- Wait what is that sound?” The wind mages ears perked up to listen to the wind and the bewildered Urist did the same.

At first, only Emu was the only one who could hear the noise-making Urist look at him like he was crazy. But soon the noise picked up and Urist could tell what the sound was or to be exact the noises.

*crunch crunch*

*snap*

“SCREEE!!!”

The sounds that were once silent now resounded to the two ears loud and clear.

Emu’s turned to Urist showing his expression of horror, “My God… They are eating each other boss! They are fucking eating each other!”

Urist gave a grim reply, “What a terrifying opponent this king is pretty as evil as he is smart.”

“Boss? What do you mean?”

“I’m guessing he’s ordering his army to cannibalize the weaker rats to strengthen his army. All while trying to scare us by putting on a show.”

“B-b-but boss it’s just a rat how could it think that far ahead?”

“We are not in the world of logic anymore. We are dealing with the existence of a king and what Vlad has told me such things are the norm.”

“Then what do we do!?”

Closing his eyes Urist took a deep breath then exhaled and opened his eyes to stare at the sky.

“Plan, prepare, and conquer.”

Rat Tide timer activated 4 Days 15 Hours 04 Mins

Beast Swarm timer activated 12 Days 15 Hours 04 Mins

Point Amount: 5372