Alter Magus was in a military field tent with troops scattered and well hidden in the forest.

It was a military habit to hide from birds, wyvern riders and especially to hide from the piercing view of Carnage, which is me.

And luckily, the foliage blocked or diminished the view of both satellites, at least in normal mode. In infrared, it was a different story.

He was looking over countless reports in the form of scrolls, small scrolls brought by birds of prey, and he raised his head by instinct.

"DeathShadow..., I know you're there.."

And from a dark corner of the tent, a cloaked and cloth-covered individual appeared behind the general mage.

Her slender, rounded form suggested a dark elf, but that was all her figure showed.

She had no swords, but daggers and a black folding bow with pulleys to limit her size. A very sophisticated device for the time. Probably copied or restored from an artifact of another time. An old optical sight betrayed its origin and arrows copied from a period model removed any doubt.

"Lord!"

"What have you found?"

"We have not yet located the lair of the beast and the kill zone is very well guarded. The area is impenetrable by day and night.

We have tried to make trenches but the ground is rock and any structure placed is systematically destroyed, fire golems arrive and fire birds arrive and destroy the first stone placed.

In the area further south, however, they have rebuilt a village in the old world style."

She pulled out a map showing a village, a river and a road leading to the coast and to the east, lakes and geysers, showing a volcanic but extremely fertile area.

And huge rectangles.

Alter Magus : "What is this?"

"Yes, we were able to get close to this area. It is half wild but in these rectangles, they are swamps. They've been specially constructed and they're not deep. They look like huge water reservoirs, lakes.

But what is amazing is that there are iron cables, like nets stretched over the top on huge spring blades and these nets are too far apart to catch any animals. The further north you go, the closer they are, and at the end they are huge hills of wet gravel."

The mage remained thoughtful.

"Ah yes, further on, there are guarded caves and a tower guarding the marshes. The caves are guarded and any troops can be seen for miles around. Infiltrating is very difficult.

Do you have any idea what this could be used for?"

DeathShadow : "Other than to irrigate crops or transport something or to defend themselves, I have no idea.."

"MMmmm. Weird! No dragon or wyvern has ever built anything like this, and in the reports of the ancient world and some of the images we've saved, other than decorations, I can't think of anything that would explain this construction..."

DeathShadow : "Yet, next to it, there is a huge, wide road that ends in the north and south and there are symbols in ancient writing painted in yellow and white. And there is a regularly interrupted line in the middle."

AlterMagus: "I've seen this somewhere before....but I can't remember..."