Ethan left the gnome capital with the others on horseback. He was joined by Arron, Rich, Lydia, and the half-dwarf he now knew the name of Harold. He still didn’t talk much on their journey. When they left Ethan admired the city and its people as they left the South gate and rode towards the far outposts. They passed one outpost on their way and rested within.

This outpost was fairly close to the capital so some of its luxuries followed as well. They stayed inside a stone building for the night and ate a large meal with freshly caught mana beast meat. They left early in the morning and only encountered a few stary mana beasts. The mana beasts were either scared off or slain by Rich.

Rich wielded a sword and shield as he fought them off. Lydia watched from behind occasionally casting a shield over him when she was needed. He then harvested their cores and stored them for later.

Their group arrived at the far outpost later in the afternoon. A few gnomes greeted them and took their horses to feed and care for.

“Come with me,” said Arron to Ethan. “I wanted you to first look over the defensive measures I had added to the barrier. If they implemented it right it should protect this place from direct sabotage.”

“Lead the way.”

Arron led Ethan to the side of the outpost leader's house. They stepped inside a small shed that had been barricaded from normal entry. Inside near the back was a stone pedestal with runes wrapping around the sides. Ethan could feel the magic emanating from it. He stepped closer.

“So, this is the defense pillar for this outpost?”

“Yeah. It is so powerful because it draws mana from deep within the earth. The pillar is actually buried quite deep and only this part is above ground and communicates with smaller pillars around the fenced walls to create the barricade. Usually, this area is untouched because the outpost leader just holds onto a key to activate the barrier. If you look around the bottom I had an additional metal base installed with the passive effects I think should work.”

Ethan knelt down and looked over the pillar. He ignored the runes around the stone and went right for the metal base that jutted from the ground. He moved around all four sides in turn before getting back up.

“You did a great job on this. I didn’t see any glaring problems. It should nullify ritual magics cast towards the outpost and stop undead from growing within the walls. I can say that these should be installed at the other outposts as soon as possible.”

“That’s great. I have the bases ordered but not all of the runic engravings are finished. I will let the crafters know that they have the go-ahead to finish as quickly as possible and install them everywhere including the gnome capital.”

“Depending on the defensive wards in the capital I think I may want to add some additional things because I assume at least that all eight areas of the capital have their own pillar.”

“I was not given the exact details of the pillars for securities sake, but I would have to agree as well. I was only given enough information to build them at the outposts. I haven’t even been able to see how they installed this base. They will likely repurpose this base I made and adjust and modify it to best fit the gnome capital.”

“Was there anything else you wanted me to see today?”

“Just my picks for team leaders within the magic training group. They all have decent magic potential in one area or another. I already had them tested before we arrived.” Arron took out a paper from his bag and handed it to Ethan.

Ethan scanned it and read over the information.

‘1. Mr. Carter - Earth Mage: Affinity Medium was chosen as defensive leader. 2. Ms. Walker - Nature Mage: Affinity Low to Medium was chosen as crowd management leader. 3. Mr. Lewis - Fire Mage: Affinity Medium was chosen as damage dealer leader. 4. Mr. Khan – Light Mage: Affinity Low was chosen as undead cleansing leader.’

He handed back the paper to Arron and he stuffed it back into his bag.

“Is low affinity light mage really the best we’ve got to work with?” asked Ethan.

“He’s the best one we’ve got of the three mages here that can cast light magic beyond the basic cantrips. But I think he will do well learning the spells. He should already be done memorizing the spells I sent with him before he arrived here. I can’t speak to the level of mastery, but he will be able to banish spirits when they come to attack us. We’ve got about two weeks to whip them into fighting shape. Only a few of them have dealt in combat before. We need to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“I’ll bring out my book of spells. My original copy is with Andre and Arthur.”

“How do you think they are doing? They should be finished and on their way back pretty soon if not already sailing back by now.”

“I don’t know. Lucas, Aria, and Kendra are all great adventurers and I have watched them train him for a while. They will face the challenge of killing a dragon bravely and without complaint. Andre and I have taught Arthur many spells. He also has the mana pool of a dungeon. They will come back ready to face the undead.”

“I hope we hear from them soon. It would be nice to get some backup soon. This outpost has already been evacuated of civilians and the gnome forces only have a token amount here. We are only here to delay the inevitable when the gnome capital gets attacked.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I know that there is no way that either we or they can hold a distant outpost near our borders like this. Let's hope that the undead forces arrive late.”

“Yeah, we’ve already implemented some precautions for that here so that the undead arrive as late as possible. I will have to show you tomorrow.”

Arron and Ethan left the shed and locked it up. The pair went to a large tent structure. There they found the cafeteria hall for the human troops. It was extra wide and stitched together from many smaller tents. Nearly a thousand people stuffed themselves inside to get served and then eat the food. Some left the tent quickly to eat outside. Arron and Ethan joined the line to get served by the gnome chefs that had prepared the food.

“Is it always going to be like this while we are here?” asked Ethan.

“Pretty much unless you want to find and cook up your own food. It will be good though. In here we can get to know our future soldiers and start building the bonds we need to fight together,” said Arron.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as one interested in the military?”

“I jumped around in interest during my first year in the King’s Research Group. Some of that included military applications of magic. But now I’ve had to get further into that research and the military command structure. As have you a bit now that we are sudo soldiers for the gnome military,” said Arron.

“I guess that is true. I just haven’t quite had to deal with all of the bureaucracy yet and have been able to work independently without much oversight”

“That would be nice, but you aren’t in the King’s Research Group anymore and you aren’t working on your secret project at a lone gnome outpost anymore. Here there will be people responding to you and will look to you for training and instructions. And don’t forget that the gnome military commanders will be watching us. If we fail within a certain range of outcomes then the non-combatant humans residing in the capital may be forced to head elsewhere for asylum.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

They both were served their food and ate quickly. They brought their stuff to a small house where Rich, Lydia, and Harold also resided. Ethan went to bed early that night preparing for the first day of training others.

103 mage candidates lined up in the training yard in front of Arron and Ethan. Arron called out the names of Carter, Walker, Lewis, and Khan as the leaders. He also discussed the roles they would be required to fill with that name change. It largely included the requirement to improve their casting more than the others and fill more important roles once the outpost was sieged by the undead.

As a group, they went over [Mage Shield], [Magic Bolt], and the basic elemental spells. Each mage could only cast one or two elemental spells. From there they went over some basic drills and paired up to practice improving their casting speed. They each donned a basic absorption mail that could block one shot before recharging. They each took turns creating shields and trying to fire at each other.

With some of the more advanced students, they began learning multi bolt spells versions and how to make their attacks more lethal. Ethan taught Khan personally and went through the [Banish Undead] spell with him as well as [Holy Light]. Though he couldn’t personally cast the [Holy Light] spell he was familiar with how it worked and the mechanics behind it. It took some time but towards the end of their practice, Khan could cast [Holy Light] every one in ten times. He promised Ethan that he would work on improving on the spell before he was sent off to rejoin the other recruits.

In another training area, Rich finished up his own training session with his more than 900 fighters. His own group was doing much better. It was much easier to get the basics down for sword and spear fighting than it was for new spells. To one side archers fired arrows into targets. Rich was relieved that he wasn’t the only one training the fighters. Once the recruits had arrived more veteran fighters and gnome military personnel helped get everyone on the same page combat-wise. Because they were the largest force they also practiced formations and performed drills near the walls for different scenarios now that they were trained enough.

Once Rich was done looking over the fighters he left the outpost walls and inspected the future battlefield. The area had been cleared and traps of all kinds were being built. Some of the simplest were spiked pit traps. Holes were dug and wooden sticks lined the insides. Currently, walls were being prepared by an earth mage. The walls were a bit taller than Rich and were meant to provide a path to funnel undead through until the stronger undead came. Along other parts magical traps also hid.

Rich stepped over the in-progress areas and approached the mage. The mage turned around slowly.

“How have you been? How are the preparations going?” he asked the human mage.

He dropped his hands and collapsed the spell he was working on.

“Tiring but progress is being made. I have had some magical traps laid inside some of the walls along with remotely detonated traps prepared as well. I expect the zombies to start climbing the walls at a certain point if we make these pathways a bit too long, They may also try attacking the other sides which I have been trying to avoid but it will be inevitable.”

“How many are a part of the first wave?”

“From our current counts, the weaker forces will number close to three thousand with additional armored and giants following them. They seem like they want to just test our defenses with that amount. I’ve been having Anthony one of the gnome druids aggravate the wild beasts into attacking them. Some do it without our push. I am hoping that some of their numbers are cut down by them but if the undead gets too annoyed the revenants start shooting spells until they’ve cleared a portion of the forest.”

“Do you have numbers on how many magic undead like the revenant there are? They are my main worry.”

“Sadly not. I haven’t risked our scouts getting that close to magic enemies. They’ve already had a few close calls and the undead know we are watching them. I haven’t gotten any information on who is leading this force. The necromancer who seems content to throw these initial forces away to test us.”

“Then we will be ready to throw them some curveballs and let them underestimate us. Make sure that the druid attacks the undead with beasts one last time a day before. I would like their forces as weakened as possible when we meet them.”

“As would I. I will tell him your message, but he is quite busy right now. Most of our food stores come from him leading beasts to us because we can’t send regular hunting parties out anymore, but I will see what I can do. If you can have Ethan come by here later as well it would be much appreciated. I am hoping some of his darkness magic can conceal some of the other magic traps and maybe he has some ideas for some of his own. There is plenty of room for him to add them for a few days until I finish this.”

“I will also let Ethan know to stop by. I won’t keep you any longer. Good job so far.”

Rich left the mage to his work. The mage resumed the spell he had started casting. New walls of dirt rose from the ground and attached themselves to the outpost’s walls before hardening into a rock-like substance.