“How are they?” asked Akira.

“I have tried everything I know but the sickness has not been cured. All I can do for them right now is keep using my chants to see if it will help them get over it. The only good thing out of all this is that it's not contagious,” said Klyn as he exited one of the ship's connected small cabin rooms while wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Your healing chants and buffs are doing nothing but slowing the sickness,” said a pale Zundar. He was laying down on a large tarp hammock in the far corner of the dark damp room.

Their troubles with the sickness had started several days after they had started traveling down the river. Everyone that had been wounded in the cave became sick with their skin and faces turning pale each day that passed their strength weakened.

“You need to use the holy sorcery from the book to cure everyone,” said Zundar.

“I need more time! I have only started to study what you translated. It is hard enough trying to learn such complex sorcery but your writing is worse than Akira's scribbles he calls maps. I need a few more days to study it before I can try and see what happens. I'll need someone that will allow me to test it out on them.”

“You better test it on me as I have a stronger body than those guys in the other room,” said Zundar.

Over the next few days, Klyn spent almost all his time studying the notes in between taking care of the sick soldiers and Zundar.

“It's no use! No matter how many times I try to get it to work nothing happens!” said Klyn in frustration after failing once again.

“Is there a possibility the translation was wrong?” Akira asked Zundar.

“No, I am sure it is correct. The only thing that I can think of that could cause the sorcery to fail is that it may rely on the ancient language to activate the effects, so reading the translation might be just reading words,” said Zundar, his voice far weaker than the normal booming sound.

“So I've been wasting the last few days on something broken?” asked Klyn in frustration.

“Look on the bright side, you at least know and understand what the first part says,” said Akira.

“I can give you a crash course in the language and how to pronounce the chants,” said Zundar in between several coughs.

“I'll leave that to you while I go take care of other things,” said Akira as he left the room.

Ding!

Class upgrade 80%...

***

With the swift navigation of the Unfreezing river, they were able to quickly return to Kodria.

“Make sure to set up the hospital tents away from any of the main areas. Be careful when transferring the patients to the tents so that nothing bad happens,” said Klyn giving a few orders to his underlings before they finished unloading the infected from the ship.

“Klyn, come with me. There's a lot we need to report to the grand elders and I need you to help explain the sickness to them,” said Akira as he headed towards the castle keep.

On his way to the castle keep, many civilians and city guards recognized him and greeted him warmly.

Akira was happy to see the city was full of activity and the civilians he met all seemed to be happily going about their daily lives.

'I must do all I can to keep it this way. Those who get in the way must be put down no matter if they are part of the Earth tribe or not.'

“Piiii!” a loud screech rang out far above them. The screech was followed by a loud whistling of wind as something dived from the sky and headed straight towards Akira causing everyone to hurriedly surround Akira to protect him.

Swoosh!

Pii'per zoomed right over Akira's head and flew back into the sky fiercely flapping her wings as she headed back towards one of the castle keep's towers.

After seeing that they were in no danger Akira and his guards continued walking to the castle keep.

When they reached the castle Mileena and Azura were already waiting for Akira with Pii'per standing on Mileena's shoulders.

Akira was surprised to see someone who had not seen in a while standing on top of Pii'per 's head chattering while he ate some winter nuts that Mileena passed him.

It was a now somewhat chubby Stubby. It looked like he and Pii'per had gotten friendly with each other since he was last here.

“I'll talk with you guys after I report to the grand elders,” said Akira as he gave Mileena a hug and quickly jumped to the side to dodge Pii'pers wings.

He escaped into the castle before anyone could say anything.

***

“How sure are you about this?” asked Grand elder Carl.

“I heard it with my own ears, and I saw them meeting with the demigods. It was not a coincidence that they attacked us when we left that night,” said Akira.

“That rat Tormoid, I knew he was no good ever since he started causing problems back on Halrverold,” said Grand elder Aaron.

“How could he do something like this to his own tribe? Has he no honor?” asked chief Roc.

“To think he would even team up with the demigods...”

“I have no idea what he was thinking but the fact is that they are probably already marching north to prepare for coming to pay us a visit. We need to stop all other projects of focus on starting and finishing the second wall and other defenses before they arrive,” said Akira.

“It is a good thing that you managed to buy all of those ballista at the auction. With them we should have an easier time holding off any ship or ships that enter the lake and tries to come near the main island,” said chief Xend.

“Should we contact Grand elder Dùghall?” asked Grand elder Seoc.

“For help? I don't think he can do anything right now. But I think we should form a deeper friendship with them since they seem to harbor no ill will towards us. If the shaman messengers can contact them and warn them of the dangers that would probably be for the best. We may not be their only target,” said Akira.

“I will personally make sure that the communication between our clans goes smoothly,” said Grand elder Heigar.

“Grandfather the problem with the infections is really troublesome. I have been trying my best but the ancient language is rather hard to understand along with some concepts of healing that I don't quite understand. If you could help me on that as well I am sure we can cure the infected,” said Klyn who had been worrying about curing the infection for the past few weeks now.

“After the messages are sent I will head down to the tents with you and take a look at them. I am sure that we can figure out of that new book if we put our heads together. I am quite interested in seeing what the differences are between our modern chants and the holy sorcery of the ancients,” said Grand elder Hegir.

“Everyone, you have your tasks! We need to finish the main projects before anyone can arrive and cause problems,” said Grand elder Carl as he stood up.

“I'll go down to the training fields and make sure to whip them into shape before they come knocking,” said Grand elder Aaron.

“I'll go with you,” said chief Roc.

Ding!

Class upgrade 90%...

A new mission has been created!

A small army is being assembled to attack Kodria!

Finish preparations to defend the city of Kodria from the forces of Tormoid and Duke Erock!

Reward: to be decided...

A few minutes later everyone had exited the room leaving Akira to stare at the ceiling for a few seconds thinking of the future plans that needed to be completed in order to keep Kodria safe and free from the influences of the demigods and those like Tormoid.

***

With the return of Akira and his guards, Kodria began to buzz with even more activity as several projects were started. The boxed ballistas were unloaded from the ships and assembled on top of the towers of the outer wall and the castle keeps towers. Every soldier and city guard started participating in special practice drills to learn how to operate the ballista. They were given dummy targets to shoot at on the lake to further familiarize themselves with the defensive siege weapons.

While all that was going on the second wall had begun to take shape and although smaller in circumference it was shaping up to be even taller and thicker than the outer wall.

With Grand elder Hegir's knowledge on healing chants and Zundar's tips on understanding the ancient language, Klyn was able to make a breakthrough in his own understanding of the basics of the ancient holy sorcery.

He was now working on curing those infected and from the reports, Akira had read, It would not be long before they were fully cleansed of the sickness.

Akira was currently taking a short break from overseeing the building of the second wall and the training of the infantry and cavalry.

Mileena quietly sat to the side watching him as he was tinkering with one of the many sleds that Kodria used in the winter to travel everywhere.

She could not understand what he was doing so when Akira stopped for a break she asked to clear her curiosity, “What is that?”

“It's something I thought up when I remembered the chariots from Caidia. Trust me this is a revolutionary idea for the local area,” said Akira as he took a swig of lukewarm wine from his bone flask.

Mileena looked at the crude-looking sled with doubt.

“Hey don't look at Buster that way. He's a prototype, so of course he's not going to look that great. But I'm sure that this armored siding and the small swivel ballista will give us so much more flexibility on the battlefield. With the speed and range, we can hit the enemy hard and still stay out of their attack range.”

“Buster? You named it?”

“Yes.”

“Can you even make enough of them before any of the fighting starts? Isn't Delgar and everyone else at the forges working on repairs and creating ammunition and extra weapons and armor?” asked Mileena, deciding to ignore the fact that he had named an inanimate object.

“It's not that hard to work on them. I'm sure I can get a few people to help me,” said Akira.

“Akira are you in here?” asked Klyn as he entered the workshop.

“I am.”

“Grandfather wanted me to inform you that he has gathered a few of the brighter shamans that specialized in the healing chants and has given both Zundar and I the task of teaching them the ancient holy sorcery.”

“How is that going?” asked Akira.

“It is a huge pain. Zundar is the worst kind of teacher when it has to do with this type of stuff,” said Klyn.

“Hey, don't bad mouth me like that! I'm not that good with the book smart stuff. If you wanted me to teach you about combat there would be no one that could better explain it to you!” said Zundar from the doorway.

Akira watched as a pale Zundar walked into the room.

“Are you even fit to be up and walking?” asked Mileena.

“I may not look like it but my body is extremely robust. With a few more cleansings from Klyn I should be near full recovery,” said Zundar, before going into a fierce coughing fit.

“With Zundar's vague teachings we should be able to fully understand the basics 100%. The intermediate and the advanced portion of the book are still unknown, cryptic, and hard to read, even for Zundar it is near impossible to understand,” said Klyn.

“You know what they are calling themselves?” asked Zundar who had recovered from his fit of coughing.

“What?” asked Mileena.

“Holy shaman. What a bunch of oddballs,” said Zundar.

“You gave us that name as a joke, and now we are using it,” said Klyn as he turned away from Zundar and faced Akira. “Grandfather has approved the naming of the new group. We have been put in charge of learning all of the sorcery in the book. The book has been a real help in deepening my understanding of the healing chants in an unexpected way. It is actually quite compatible with our studies into healing, cleansing, and other similar stuff. With the holy shaman, we should be able to make sure that Kodria is not wiped out by a minor plague-like many other starting villages and cities all through history.”

“I am counting on you guys to become an important part of our defense. A healthy city will last longer than an unhealthy one. Sorry to put even more responsibility on your shoulders,” said Akira.

“What is that?” asked Klyn pointing to the crude sled.

“His name is Buster. He is just a prototype that will storm the future battlefields and help us dominate them,” said Akira with a satisfied nod of his head as pat Buster a few times and started to explain every new modification of the sled in great detail.