It was still early, so she didn’t bother to rouse Keseryn from her sleep. Let the kid get a bit more time in bed before she faced the day. She’d been spending time with Marble trying to pick up some pointers on the art of Herbimancy. Marble didn’t seem too optimistic at the girl’s chances, but seemed more comfortable with that company than other options she might have had, so Len didn’t see any reason to interfere.

Mostly, Len was concentrating on the fact that she had twelve more bodies coming shortly. She didn’t have any information about them but, judging by the ones that had been here when she arrived, they wouldn’t exactly be the cream of the crop. It’d be fine, she figured, but she also suspected that Astrid was up to something. That had been a rather abrupt decision to allow her those troops, and the number was significant. She was confident that Astrid wasn’t actually trying to screw her over with this, and she did think there were some benefits to it, but at the same time she couldn’t help but wonder what was really going through the Lord’s head.

That was simultaneously one of the more enjoyable aspects and absolutely infuriating things about dealing with the Demon Lord. Len could never quite get a proper read on her. Every interaction was a sort of test with no clearly established rules or end goal. Astrid definitely had her own motives in every action she undertook, but also didn’t seem exactly hostile or even adversarial just… mercurial.

No interaction that Len had had with the woman had played out exactly as she’d expected, even the ones that had ended in her favor had a tendency to introduce a wrinkle she hadn’t been prepared for. And all that ignored the nagging concern about that aura that she exuded. Something to do with being the Demon Lord, near as Len understood, but it made it a tad difficult to fully trust anything when dealing with her. As the Lord, Astrid seemed to have an effect on almost every other member of the Demon Army that she came in contact with. Not all of them, though. There were a number in her court that seemed to have strong power bases of their own who had influence over her that she didn’t care for. Len hadn’t had much time to learn those idiosyncrasies and wouldn’t have been interested in doing so even if she had.

Why all this mattered to Len was that she’d assumed she’d been immune to it at first. It had caused a bit of difficulty at the Grand Proving where she’d been trying to prove her worth to the Demon Army when she’d been unaffected by Astrid’s charms and been utterly confused why everyone else was. It had made her stand out in a way that had earned her direct attention that she probably would’ve been better off without. It had also earned her this post in the middle of nowhere, which wasn’t the most ringing endorsement of the ability.

The problem was, the more direct interest that Astrid had in her, the more she found herself a bit infatuated by it. Under normal circumstances, she’d probably have just assumed it was a crush. Astrid was smart, beautiful, and powerful, all things that Len liked in a crush even if she’d never really considered being with a woman, it was certainly an interesting prospect in this new world. But, again, there was that whole aura thing making her question every bit of her behavior around the woman.

Granted, most of that interaction the past month had been via a strange enchanted parchment that let them talk instantly simply by writing on it. Not as good as a smartphone, but she had to admit that the feeling itself was pretty cool. She’d gotten into the habit these past couple of days of having nightly chats with Astrid about nothing in particular. Just kind of killing time before bed. Astrid also happened to be a shameless flirt, which Len hated to admit was pretty good for her self-esteem at the moment.

As she tended to do on mornings when she’d slept poorly, Len found herself wandering the Hovel. The place was certainly coming along. The outer fortifications were still shabby, mostly just wooden logs with some stone reinforcements here and there. The barracks was of decent size, though not anything awe-inspiring. It had enough space for about one dozen more bodies comfortably, two dozen if creature comforts were shown less consideration. It was the sort of thing that’d need pretty rapid handling, but she also wanted to wait for more hands before they got too into that.

Her current plan was to spend energy hollowing out more space inside the mine, building in troop housing towards the top but taking advantage of the natural landscape instead of building another shack that would be likely to fall down. From what she’d seen, the Orcs that made up the bulk of the Demon Army, and thus could be expected to make up the bulk of any force coming her way, weren’t the biggest fans of living underground. She was betting that given the choice between being out in the cold and enjoying the shelter of a nice well-lit cave, she’d be able to convince them that not getting blasted with icy winds constantly would be an easy sell.

The greenhouse continued to make her smile. Ignoring certain setbacks, it was an achievement worth taking pride in (even if Ramus had done most of the real work, and she’d mostly just made the decision to do it). Everyone having fuller bellies had done wonders for their demeanors.

She took time to peek in on Valkar. The grizzled Orc had taken the brunt of the damage in the fight with Venar and Tess, which had left him with any number of deep cuts from a poisoned weapon. He was mostly out of the woods, but she didn’t much care for the look of the bits of his arm that were visible above the bandages. He’d lost that arm saving Larry’s life, and she really hoped he’d wake up for her to thank him for that. By rights, he shouldn’t have been alive, but something in the crusty old bastard kept him hanging on.

It had struck her that, while this wasn’t the first time someone’s life had been on the line at her instruction, this was the closest someone had actually come to losing it. She hated the way that felt, the idea that someone could die because of her decisions. Valkar didn’t even really LIKE her, yet he’d done that. Because she’d decided that two under her command needed to be dealt with.

It was all a bit crazy. In her old life, she’d been an office worker. Nothing particularly interesting, just a day job that paid the bills. Lenore’s life, the other Lenore, the one whose memories she shared, had been just starting. She’d faced some minor risks in her life before the first Proving, but nothing that came close to what Len had seen in the months she’d been here. And the most command she’d ever had was over a younger brother who just wanted to be included in the games.

And here she was, someone with almost fifty total years of life experience, most of that spent as a child in two separate lives, expected to make decisions about the lives and livelihood of others. What the hell was wrong with this crazy ass world? She tried not to dwell on it, but the early morning combined with her weary mind did not seem to want to let go of the strain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw what she suspected was the cause of that lingering worry.

Pitch, her personal… demon? No, for all that it certainly fit the title of ‘demon’ better than most of the creatures she’d met in the Demon Army, Pitch was something else. For want of a better word, it felt older than demons. Regardless, it was something she had no interest in dealing with right now, so she pushed it out of her attention and back to the shadows. She felt a flash of mild irritation out of it from that strange empathetic link she had with it, but ignored the sensation and continued her tour of the camp.

She skipped the mess hall for the moment and moved into the mine. It was certainly coming along, they’d been working on it for years, so the upper levels were decently hollowed out already, with various shafts branching out into the mountain. To the left was a shaft she'd arranged for growing mushrooms in relative protection. Marble had been able to coax some growth out of it, but it hadn’t been as impressive as Len had hoped. Most of what they grew ended up used to make a cheap alcohol that they charitably called ‘wine’, that did the job, but it definitely wasn’t her preferred. Still, beggars and choosers, and all that.

To the right was Ramus’ workshop, she took an instinctive peek inside to make sure that no further accidents had happened. His latest rounds of panes were coming along quite nicely and had been stacked neatly. She was still trying to decide whether she wanted to build a second greenhouse, or use them for trade. They’d be needing new glassblowing supplies soon, since they’d gone through the bulk of the initial batch, but more growing space would be a better long-term option for trade. She didn’t want to overtax Marble, but the advantages of being able to grow any crop you wanted to quickly, gave so many great options.

And there, a bit deeper into the mine was Kila’s workshop. The young smith had already put a lot of effort into enhancing her space. She’d taken the tiny anvil she’d brought with her to craft better tools and a larger anvil. The better productivity they’d gotten out of the mine thanks to having more hands working it had let her really set to work at her craft. More than that, she was enjoying the freedom to craft more in line with her own interests rather than at the direction of a master. Len was almost surprised she wasn’t there already, but the woman had been up late, so it wasn’t so much of a shock, she supposed.

With all this craftwork on this tier, Len supposed it’d be better to take any living quarters down another level or push them back much further into the shaft. She didn’t really know, she made a note to talk to the team about that in a bit to settle on a proper course of action there.

Sighing, and feeling vaguely unfulfilled, Len headed back out into the camp proper and was startled to see Curly standing there. She kept meaning to ask him how he got so good at the sneakiness, but the time never felt quite right.

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Just thought you’d want to know, I’ve been out scouting and I think I’ve found some more banished humans.”

“Really? Think we could trade with them?”

“Dunno, they didn’t seem the friendliest sorts. Chased me off with pitchforks. Proper monster treatment. Still, there were five or six of them, so it might be worth looking into.”

“Huh, sounds interesting. How far away from here are they?”

“About a day’s walk or so. Plenty of time for you to be back in time for the new troops.”

“... Curly, did you come up with this because you’re tired of my pacing around the camp?”

“... Maybe.”