Back to our reporter

___

Things have gone somewhat to plan in the continued liquidation of the crusader’s forces. I have culled their forces heavily, even if only a fourth of the entire force are truly dead many are injured as well. While it was unexpected for them to truly bring over 3 thousand it was still close to estimations, though I am greatly annoyed by the fact that they have organized such a large force so easily. How much power does this church hold to gather so many? This is not a logical step when they gave up on scouts after entering the plains. Unimpeded sight does not mean you should be so complacent. I wanted to see how their forces fought which is why I did not obscure the vanguard.

Regardless they now cannot hope to take on my primary force now and more undead rise from the spawning points as time passes. I have cut their levy forces to barely more than half, shaved their knights by a third, and taken almost a sixth of their core mercenaries and adventurers. While the command and mage group are only minimally touched that is satisfying for now. My guerilla troops are busy with bolstering their numbers from the slain while the liberated slaves and supplies now move on another path to my holds guarded properly of course.

I can expect that my enlarged main force can finish the job in an acceptable fashion. I found more graves sites with my expedition forces bolstering my main forces by 50% and doubling my auxiliary forces(peons, workers, dire wolves, boneclaws, expendable infantry). Thanks to the various spawn sites which while are not as good as those I already found are acceptable. Bolstering the work forces, skirmish troops, and expendables is good enough. I expect the crusade will rest for a few days while the dead are gathered and cleansed along with what can be scavenged for use again. The survey work for the new site was finished while this was going on. The earthworks continue to rise as the workers toil at it.

Now while the crusaders are delayed if they truly are incompetent and hasty then perhaps they will leave the bodies but I doubt that. I expected losses from inadequate supplies which did not happen but they will be ground under by my boot soon enough. The process of either burning or protecting the dead will take some time what with the limited wood in the area and I don’t know exactly how generous the priests will be in placing wards around the dead. Attrition warfare is not just supply loss but also throwing bodies and buying time. There is nothing like undead for throwing bodies or buying time. The inherent weakness of undead compared to humans is hard to bridge though, I have spent decades on this with results but still too far. It took me time to realize that I was approaching this wrong. Yes improving each individual undead is useful but concentration is needed, spread my efforts too far and it collapses.

If only I could get my hands on wyrm or dragon bone but that is likely not to be the case until I can raid the kingdom’s treasury. Even that move is a little too high profile for me. Of course I could find a dragon on my own but I would rather not since the most common are fire dragons which of course undead...I could win through throwing everything at once but the losses would be intolerable for me as of right now. I do not have such luxury with my current forces. The workshops are not yet prepared for the next phase of expansion. I need to go beyond infantry and cavalry to truly have an edge. Some necromancers are obsessed with taking powerful dead to become their minions, they are too fixated on taking existing bone. All one needs is a small sample and they can go far. This is part of my hidden study, no one will be allowed to receive this portion of my knowledge. Not even my apprentices or whoever will be my successor, they must discover it themselves for there is much searching of one’s heart for this.

Shaking myself from this revelry I am still rather paranoid about the shadows remark by the goddess, but my enhanced warding measures have found nothing nor the physical patrols. Even my spectres have found nothing whether living, dead, or otherwise. I hate this feeling but I can only repeat once more that I can only go forward as the only path available to me despite my continued frustrations.

Deciding to check if anything had changed in the archives of the ring I find something rather important. The apparent declaration of holy war was not simply a figure of speech apparently, well...

“Yep it is not, however considering that you are really the only one of my followers here and you are obviously going to try your best not to die or lose your lands I did not mention anything as you are not going to be changing how you act anyway”

“So even if I do not actually worship you simply being your chosen counts?”

“Yes, you have done good work considering that besides you there are only a few shrines and that small group of worshippers on my side. This is normally considered a lost cause but of course you are not one to take such a thing lying down and have done splendidly so far. Just keep up your normal work and I can offer you a few hints to help you with a few of your material deficiencies later on”

“Hmph not like I can truly change what I will be doing anyway aside from I can presume burning every church of the God of Holy Light to the ground”

“While extreme yes that is about it, not like you are intending to leave any priests that attack you alive anyway”

“Not the most enlightening of talks as before but I suppose it is something and you truly have time do you not?”

“I admit this is entertaining and you understand the waiting game of course, with our scale that is simply extended even further so please do good work”

“Sighh of course”

This is not enough to distract me from my paranoia still different as it was from normal life, checking the links to all I see that there is no pressing issues. The acolytes are at work studying or working in the labs. My elites are busy with undead creation or patrols and while taking a stroll in order to spread my senses out none of the necromancers are doing anything particularly deviant. A group are gathering but it appears to be an experiment, hmm looks like they are trying to experiment with forming bones into weapons and controlling them remotely with necromancy. A so called flying sword, an interesting proposal if done properly bone is rather light but we will see how they progress.

Certainly something I will keep an eye on as they are not taking the proper measures at keeping it hidden, slack on this and it is your own fault. Speaking of which checking the wards again will be a good measure I suppose to keep things busy. Taking my surrogate for a nice stroll I pass a few respectful intakes who are now working as servants carrying food and other menial work for more support to their families in the villages. I keep them fed and not starving but if they want a bit more to be able to improve their lives then they should work harder. Not that they complain since this is an improvement to before with the famine starting to set in.

I liberated or took in several hundred slaves and refugees who were brave enough to head here. I had some peons and workers make new villages out of mud brick as obviously trees are not that plentiful until the new saplings grow up. A few coal mines certainly help cut down on wood fuel needs for other works. A few shrines and mana stone pillars helps keep things habitable and expands my domain of course. Still everyone who swears themselves to me with binding oath gets a nice necklace with a shielding effect from miasma, they all agreed after living under the harshness here deeper into the fields. Once again I am astonished at how wasteful the church of Holy Light is, they have craftsmen here and simply because they do not follow their doctrine or are not human do not make use of them.

As said quite a few of the slaves were not human and from various races, a number of dwarves and other groups known for their metal work certainly will be helpful. These people had been forced to work for years as slaves, joining me was a simpler choice for them. Not that I gave them any other options as well... I of course had to expend dungeon mana on creating more pillars to sustain them but a small price to pay for craftsmen, deficient as I am. They won’t be able to produce enough to fully sustain all my forces but if I can introduce some sort of mass production to them then it would certainly alleviate things, craftsman have their pride even after having been reduced to slaves once before.

I do not however need to force them to fully change, perhaps suggestions to have apprentices work on such matters as part of their training before working on more masterpiece work as normal. Certainly now that I provide a constant source of metal and fuel without charge for them to work with I expect some high quality pieces to eventually be made. Thanks to all this I now actually have my own little castle town here with skilled workers and supporting villages for food. However this is a little too vulnerable, those earthworks are high on the priority chain.

The city planning was a rather nice step up but still it is time to see if I can find something to allay my paranoia with. Habits formed over decades are not something easily broken, certainly kept me alive through assassination attempts but I can never truly rest because of it. There must be something I can do to keep my mind off of thinking about it, another walk around the place then even if it does not do much. I wonder if I have been inspecting them a little too much, well it is not a skin off my back.