Andrew didn't head straight back into the camp, instead opting to take a quick look inside the remaining outlying buildings. Circling the enclosed fort he found eight buildings mostly intact. They were small wooden hovels, no glass for the windows and little padding on the bedframes. Most were suprisingly well kept, and a quick glance revealed mostly simple clothes and the occasional small carved wooden sculpture or inscribed bone jewelry. Across the river he could see four buildings that looked untouched, but he didn't want to get his feet wet this early in the day so instead he headed back towards the palisade walls.

On his way he saw someone slip through the palisade doors and towards the wolf pens on the opposite side of camp. There was no one else around, he could hear a quiet conversation inside the walls, but most people seemed to be asleep. Andrew followed, raised a hand to call out, and watched as she crawled into the ruined building, cradling a small sack of something.

What is she doing? Hiding something?

Andrew approached the stables and could hear her talking softly, then what sounded like a dog's whine. He peeked inside and saw a woman he recognized from one of the bonfires last night. She was stooped over a half collapsed pen, where several small furry shapes were jumping up to try and nip at the shoulder length brown hair that hung down obscuring her face as she scattered bits of jerky down into the pen.

Oh, I see.

Andrew pulled back and waited. The woman emerged after a couple of minutes, clearly surprised to see Andrew. Her expression quickly became guarded as he approached.

"Hey, what can I do for you?" She said, trying very hard not to glance back at the ruined building and failing.

"Not much, I’m Andrew by the way, I was just exploring the buildings around here and saw you crawl inside one. Did you find anything good inside? I'm way to big to crawl in there myself and look around." Andrew chuckled and extended his hand, doing his best to look innocent.

We should be rationing food until we have a concrete meal source sorted out, and I think she knows it. I thought the kitchen staff gathered it all up for the most part. I'm not about to let a bunch of wolf pups starve, but they need to be accounted for when we make supplies estimates.

She shook his hand. "I’m Leah, nice to meet you." There was a long pause. "You saw inside didn't you."

Andrew smiled, "I did, yeah, you caught me. I think you're doing the right thing though."

"Then please don't tell anyone. I know we have to ration food, but they don't eat that much, and when they grow up they'll hunt for us. They're worth feeding, and they couldn't survive out there on their own!" She said in a rushed half hush.

"Okay, okay, don't worry about it we have plenty of food. Here, c'mon, walk with me." Andrew turned and gestured for the gates. "Do you think we can pull them out of there safely? They'll be more mouths to feed, but if the hobgoblins could make it out here so can we."

Most of the tension bled out of her body as she turned to walk with him. "Yes. There are four of them in there, and they're pretty small, probably less than a year old and around the size of a small dog." She paused again. "They're going to eat a lot, and they're going to get bigger fast, if they're anything like dogs from our world, I mean, I don’t know."

They passed through the gates and inside the walls. The doors to the med barn were slightly open and he recognized Sam and Kent, whom he shared a bonfire with last night. They were talking to Shelby who was flipping through a handful of pages and yawning.

"Well, it'll be good if you're right and they do grow fast. I wouldn't mind having some of those huge wolves helping us out. We'll have to be careful with them though." Andrew said, closing the distance between them and the group in front of the barn. He waved a greeting as he approached. "Morning guys, what'cha lookin at?"

"morning, hey, we're checking the breakfast menu." Shelby said, waving the papers. "These guys were pretty well stocked. I bet we could go six weeks if we ration out the food we've got, but I think we should try and keep this stuff as long as we can. Most of it is preserved better than I could do and we should save it for when we need to travel."

"Sounds good to me, does that mean we have a population list or something in there? We found a few more mouths to feed. We might need to talk about getting the wolf pens cleaned up a little too. Leah is the one who found them, she knows more than I do." Andrew said, gesturing to Leah, " I'm just here to grab some of my equipment from our cart. I might need some help carrying things If anyone's free, I'm still a little beat up from yesterday."

Andrew left Leah there with Shelby as he headed further into the barn, Sam and Kent broke off to join him and together they quietly made their way through the curtained off beds and sleeping people. They reached the wagons in the back, and Andrew picked through them until they found the one filled with ore and equipment Andrew's group left behind before attacking the camp. Someone had evidently gone out and grabbed it at some point during the day before while Andrew was asleep.

He took one quick look inside before suggesting they wheel the wagon outside before clink clanking their way through it in a room filled with recovering people. Sam and Kent quickly agreed and they began to slowly push the wagon out of the barn and into the courtyard outside.

"What's the plan boss man?" Kent said, standing and wiping the sweat from his brow. The sun was out in full force now and things were warming up. Andrew had not been able to help out very much with the wagon. Despite his high strength and vitality, his wounds from the previous day were still wearing on him and he wasn't able to muster as much strength as he would like.

"I'm going to set up a little temporary smelting gig out here. It'll let me get some work done while I wait for everybody to get up and ready to get organized." Andrew said, climbing up into the wagon and carefully rolling a sack of heavy river stones over to Sam. "Figure it would give me a chance to meet everyone and help get things organized."

Sam caught the bag and hauled it down as Andrew rolled one of the barrels of ore over as well. It took them about an hour to get the forge rebuilt and as Andrew worked he pointed out the runes and explained how they work. He hoped that a few people in camp would show interest so he could get some help with inscribing work, but Sam and Kent's seemed polite at best. They did help him get thing set up though, and as they worked more people filtered out of the camp's buildings and into the camp's interior. Many of them dragging boxes or barrels around to chat and watch Andrew work, others breaking off into smaller groups and talking softly in the shade of the surrounding walls.

Tyler was one of the last people capable of walking to make his way out of the large central building, he looked a little pale and winced when the sun hit his eyes, but saw Andrew doing the final bit of testing on his reconstructing mana smelter and hurried over to check it out. As he hurried over Andrew turned to Maddie, who had joined the crowd chatting around the smelter in progress.

"Hey can you get some of the kitchen staff together and see if you can gather everyone up? I think we should have a group meeting about our plans for the future." Andrew said.

Maddie quickly agreed and broke off from the group as Tyler arrived and started examining the mana smelter. Andrew showed him where to place his hands to power it, gave him an entirely unnecessary warning about burning himself, and then headed off into the crowd himself to find Kalan and Shelby.

They were close by and together, which was very convenient. They were also having a fairly heated conversation.

"--and I'm saying that right now is the best time. We have two, three weeks, before they can send anything back at us." Shelby said, exasperated. "Andrew. Settle a debate for us?"

Andrew was about to open his mouth when Kalan spoke up. "She wants to take a group scouting. Long distance, like, a week, maybe more out. Thinks it's the best time since the hobgoblins might not know about us yet. I think it's too dangerous. We would be too vulnerable here and the scouts many times more so. We should move as a group as much as possible."

"You've got me in a tight spot here, those are both very valid points. I think if we have enough willing volunteers for the scouting team we should take that chance though. We won't get another chance like this and we can't stay at this camp forever. I think it would be a good idea to have more info on the surrounding area before we go, don’t you? Anyway, I asked the kitchen staff to get everyone together, we should talk it out as a group. There are like 30 of us now, not 3. We need to keep that in mind." Andrew said. "We'll present the two ideas, see if anyone has an alternative, take a vote and see where that gets us. Yeah?"

"Alright."

"Fine."

"Okay, cool."

The whole camp was gathered within the next few minutes, seated on a motley collection of boxes, barrels and chairs commandeered from the surrounding buildings. Everyone freshly dressed in scavenged hobgoblin clothing, oversized and baggy with lots of belts. Most sported light injuries, not quite finished healing from the night of rest, some had more serious injuries and needed a bit of help to reach the circle, but by the end all thirty one survivors were gathered in a circle in the center of camp. Most were looking at Andrew, Kalan and Shelby, who were sitting together on one side.

"Okay, so hey everybody, I'm Andrew. Shelby, Kalan and I met a few weeks back, when I had the opportunity to free them from one of the hobgoblin caravans. Since then we've been working together to make our way here and get you out, and along with the help of Carter, Tyler, Bailey and all of you, we succeeded." A small cheer went up at that.

"Now, we need to figure out what we're going to do next. If anyone's taken a look at the maps in the big building over there, they'll see were quite a ways from any of the other hobgoblin camps. Two weeks travel on foot, minimum. So we're safe for a little while. There could be stragglers out there, so we can't let our guard down, but we should be safe from a major response for a little while." That got a bigger cheer.

"Now we need to decide on our overall strategy going forward."

The discussion took off from there and continued for several hours, but by midday nearly everyone was in agreement, so they took a break for lunch. Andrew acted mostly as a mediator, making sure that everyone's suggestion had a chance to be heard, discussed, and voted on. It was exhausting and he relished in his quiet lunch of dry hobgoblin rations. This was important, but he was getting starting to grow impatient with the minutia of debate.

Alright, I think we're getting close.

It looked like most people were finished with their meals, so Andrew took a deep breath and stood up to address the group once more.

"Okay, hope everybody had a good meal, I'm going to give a quick recap of the major plans we've agreed on so far before we continue. Firstly, we're not staying here, its far too familiar and close to the hobgoblins, but we're not going anywhere until we're good and ready. Second, Shelby and five others, sorry, I don't remember all your names, raise your hands? Right. These six have volunteered to head out west, away from the hobgoblin borders, to search for other people and a place to hole up and defend ourselves. They'll explore for seven days, then come back. Kip has a navigation skill that'll get them back to us, so we don't need to worry about them getting lost. Right? We're in agreement so far?" Andrew said.

He got a chorus of assent in response.

"Great. First priority is making sure that scouting team can leave as soon as possible, that means we need all hands on deck preparing good weapons and armor for them. They'll be in the most danger out of all of us in the coming weeks, and they'll need all the help they can get. Everyone knows their jobs for that already, we've got a couple people on tailoring clothing, a couple people on smelting and smithing, and a few that I'm going to be helping with inscribing runes.

Once we're done with that, we'll be working on food. Hunting, fishing, foraging, we need to stockpile supplies for our move. During that time we'll also be training skills, producing equipment and preparing defenses. When the scouting team returns to make their report in two weeks we'll have another meeting like this to discuss our travel plans." Andrew paused and looked over the crowd, "Are there any other proposals out there? Anyone have a major change of heart over lunch? No? Alright then, let's break and get to work!" Andrew said.

Then he gathered up everyone who volunteered to work on inscription and smithing and tasked them with searching the river for smooth stones. Their first job would be getting a few more mana forges up and running so that they could get started on smelting down the iron ore that was so plentiful in this camp. Then joined everyone else in combing the area again for usable weapons and equipment.

They reconvened in an hour to several significant piles, one of leather armor and fabric that could be resized, another of metal armor pieces too large for anyone to wear, a small pile of swords, bows and quivers full of arrows, another of tailoring and smithing tools. There were several people in camp who had sewing or tailoring skills already, so Andrew left the task of sizing and repurposing the leather armor to them. He focused on the pile of oversized armor. The iron would be raw material for new equipment.

Now what should I make? Metal armor is too heavy and time consuming so that’s out. I'll definitely make a few grenades for them, but those are also time consuming, and single use. All of the people heading out to scout are confident in their fighting abilities, and two of them have similar fire based catalysts like Kalan. Maybe I can make a mana enhancing weapon for them like his. I don't think either of the other four have picked out catalysts yet, but it would be a sustainable boost to attack power compared to grenades. Two short blades, should be doable with the help of item empowerment. But I'll need to get started on them right away if I want to work on grenades as well.

Andrew selected some smaller pieces from the pile of armor and piled them up inside of his crucible before pressing his hand to the circle and pumping it full of mana. Then he jogged back to the cart filled with their belongings that was pulled out into the courtyard so many hours ago. He dug around until he found the old Icebox they used to keep fresh meat cold and pulled it out. He took it to the river where several people were still out, collecting baskets and boxes of smooth river stones. He filled it with water before carrying it back to the cart and setting it down to charge with mana. The wooden box quickly went cold and he left it alone in the shade under the wagon.

The forge was still hot when Andrew checked and the inside of the crucible was a lumpy mass of bright orange. He left it to melt entirely and turned to dig through the pile of smithing tools. He found three workable chisels which he grabbed and set down next to the pile of oversized metal armor. He grabbed a hobgoblin pauldron from the pile with his left hand, and one of the chisels with his right, then closed his eyes and activated his Siphon Affinity skill, feeling the heavy, slow, slightly warm metallic affinity flow from the armor to the chisel. He continued to siphon the pauldron until it was beginning to steadily flake away in his hand, while the chisel felt just a bit heavier.

I haven't experimented around much with metal affinity, I suppose now's a good time to start. Ideally I would pull this from ingots I forged myself. Based on my last tests that should be a lot easier to transfer over, but the inscription team needs these chisels now, not in a few hours when my first ingots are done cooling.

Andrew repeated the process with the next two chisels then worked on empowering all three.

You will become a chisel, a precise instrument to inscribe runes on stone. You will keep your shape. You will transfer exactly enough force to carve delicate lines. You will become a chisel.

He used the same mantra when he created his first chisel but without using the sacrificial blood infusion skill he discovered through it's creation. The difference was clear, the chisels were streamlined and it became warm in his hand, but were otherwise largely unchanged. When Andrew pushed mana into the chisel the edge shined a bright silver. He closed his eyes and activated his mana sense, quickly focusing it on the chisel in front of him as the wave of nausea hit. The chisel glowed with a sharp inky black, the pure mana he was pushing into it. A concentrated wedge of sharp grey was concentrated in the tip, and as he watched, little bubbles of sharp grey mana cut their way through the inky black before working their way to the tip. As he focused the sharp grey mana shifted, like dense smoke clearing to reveal the shiny silver steel wedge of metallic mana.

Infusing the chisel with a bunch of concentrated metal affinity seems to be what causes it to convert pure mana into metal mana, and I'm guessing my empowering is what is causing that metal mana to gather at the tip of the chisel, probably increases the efficiency of pure mana to metal mana conversion too, but we don't have the time or paper for tests like that right now.

Andrew shut off his mana sense and took a deep breath, then sat down and quickly empowered the other two chisels. When he was done he grabbed all three and jogged over to the table where the group of inscribers and smelters to be were stacking smooth river stones into piles and loitering around amicably. "Hey hey, alright, you guys've got quite the collection there!" Andrew said, patting Tyler on the shoulder as he made his way through the group to the table, chisels in one hand, hammers in the other.

There were six people in the inscription group and Tyler was the most enthusiastic one of the lot. The rest of the table was filled out by the four well built, smithing smelting volunteers, Carter stood in the back, slouching slightly but still towering over the rest of the table. Andrew laid out the tools before dragging a chair over and beckoning the crowd to gather around him.

"Alright, I only have these three chisels for you, so you'll have to share. I'll get one made for each of you eventually, if you want one, but for now…" Andrew gestured vaguely to the three sets of tools, then grabbed a set of river stones and laid them out in a circle, all with a fair amount of stone touching. He had to sort through them a little to find stones that connected evenly. When he was finished he picked up one of the newly created chisels and a hammer.

I've gotten pretty used to the blood infused chisel, it feels strange to work with a hammer again. This chisel eats up mana way faster though, and I have a feeling it won't be anywhere near as powerful.

Andrew tried infusing mana into the chisel and pressing the tip into the wood of the table. It sunk in unnaturally easily. He tugged it out, then tried pressing it into the edge of one of his stones. It sunk in a little, more than it should to be sure, but it was a surface level scratch, and it pierced no further. He steadied the stone on the table and raised his hammer.

"Alright everybody, pay attention! These chisels eat up mana, so you guys will have to trade off to recharge, unless you have crazy mana regeneration, in which case congratulations. But yeah, each forge has three full circles in it, sixty four runes total. I'm going to start with a Fire mana gathering rune. I'll also be carving half of a connecting rune on either side of it. Those halves will have to connect up exactly with the other half of the connecting rune on the other stones, so it's important to lay out your circle of stones like this first." He said speaking loudly as he hammered on the chisel, expertly carving the rune into the stone as he worked.

Andrew spent an hour carving out half of a fire mana gathering circle, explaining as he went and having people rotate through watching closely. Fifteen minutes in he handed the other two sets over to confident inscription team members, and by the time he was ready to hand over the third set they were close to finishing their second rune. He took several breaks to pour the molten iron from his crucible into stone molds and refill the crucible with pieces of discarded hobgoblin armor.

[Stone Carving lvl 2 -> 4]

It took him twenty minutes to finish the other half of the fire circle with his personal chisel and by that time all six of his ingot molds were full. He took a short break, getting a drink of water and walking a quick circle of the camp. Then he headed back inside, and continued to supervise the inscribing group as they worked, offering advice and making small corrections here and there while he waited for the ingots to cool. He took some time to show the group how to create a fire mana binding circle by replacing the connecting runes with binding connector runes, carved out ten more ingot molds, and empowered each stone that made up the furnace to conduct mana.

[+1 Dexterity for performing precise work]

[+1 Wisdom for sustaining constant mana control]

[Empower Item lvl 8 -> 9]

The group broke for a quick torchlit dinner, mixing in with the other camp members and trading news. Work on the scout's armor was going well, and they were expected to finish by tomorrow afternoon. The scouts themselves were in good sprits, spending the day sparring and practicing with their weapons. The rest of the camp was gradually becoming more and more comfortable as other camp members cleared rubble and organized supplies.

As soon as dinner broke Andrew headed back to his ingot molds, popping the six ingots of red tinged metal into the dirt by the forge. He sat down, picked an ingot up in each hand, and began siphoning the fire affinity from one to the other. He was close, but it was getting late and fatigue was setting in. First he drained the fire affinity evenly from four ingots into the final two and set them aside. Then he siphoned the metal affinity from two of the ingots into the remaining two, until the ingots being drained flaked and crumbled away. He was left with four ingots. Two were tinted a reflective red and warm to the touch. Two were a shiny silver grey.

[Siphon Affinity lvl 4 -> 5]

Weapons for the scouts. Right, focus, just enough to get blacksmithing to ten. Weapons for the scouts. The fire ingots are for short blades. The metal ingots, spear heads?

Andrew got to work, finally putting the full extent of the workstation he assembled that morning to work. He started with the spearheads, heating a silvery ingot up in the forge, splitting it in two and hammering each side out into a rough spearhead. The metal seemed to cool and harden more quickly and Andrew had to reheat it several times. When he was done each of the four silvery spearheads had the slightest tinge of red to them, when light hit them right. He hammered each of the red ingots out into a thin pointy blade. These ingots only needed to be reheated in the forge once, and Andrew worked them in a daze, fighting exhaustion by torchlight.

The moon was out and most of the camp retreated inside for warmth and light. There were others in the courtyard with him, Carter watched him work while Tyler shared his torchlight and intently inscribed a fire binding circle. A group stayed active near the gates, keeping an eye out on the surrounding camp. He could hear Kalan sparring with one of the kitchen staff turned scout, Alex. They were fighting in and out of torchlight, circling around so the light was behind one, then the other.

Andrew let out a breath, set down his hammer and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The blades were finished. He still needed to make the handles, and find shafts for the spearheads, but those were tasks for tomorrow.

[+1 Strength for performing physical labor that pushes your limits]

[+1 vitality for pushing the limits of your physical endurance]

[Blacksmithing lvl 9 -> 10]

"Okay guys. I think I'm going to call it for tonight. We'll get this stuff finished up tomorrow, get those scouts out and on the road the day after. Good work everyone, g'night." Andrew waved to the group and headed inside, shuffling his way up to the large bedroom he first woke up in, before settling down on the bed.

Show Status.

Name: Andrew Neilson

Race: Human

Catalyst: None (6 Available)

Class: Scavenger lvl 45

Profession: None (4 Available)

Titles: Pioneer, Goblin Slayer I, Martyr I, Raid Leader I, Savior I

Status:

HP: 970/1,180

SP: 300/1,180

MP: 500/1270

Attribute points: 0

Strength: 76

Dexterity: 122

Vitality: 121

Intelligence: 130

Wisdom: 133

Skills:

-Perception lvl 7

-Camouflage lvl 1

-Mana Control lvl 10

-Woodcarving lvl 4

-Rune Inscription lvl 10

-Adaptive Weapon Mastery lvl 6

-Empower Item lvl 9

-Rune Modification lvl 5

-Blood Infusion lvl 1

-Stone Carving lvl 4

-Mana Inscription lvl 10

-Mana Smelting lvl 3

-Blacksmithing lvl 10

-Scavenger's Resilience lvl 4

-Lumberjack lvl 3

-Carpenter lvl 1

-Butcher lvl 1

-Pain Resistance lvl 3

-Fire Resistance lvl 1

-Siphon Affinity lvl 5

-Minor Translation lvl 1

-Mana Sense lvl 3

[Your current skills and achievements allow you to choose from the following Professions]

[Arcane Inscriptionist: Capable of using mana to carve into the trickiest of materials, the Inscriptionist has a keen understanding of material properties and the use of mana to break them down. What the Inscriptionist lacks in creativity they make up for in efficiency, they are very specialized and you will not find another capable of equivalent inscription speed and accuracy]

[Ritualist: You have intimate experience with runic circles and are familiar with modifying them to fit a specific purpose. Their work is precise and requires a great deal of preparation, but given the opportunity they are capable of generating and directing immense power]

[Mana Smith: A blacksmith familiar with infusing their work with arcane power and handling materials with various affinities. The Mana Smith works from the ground up to perfect the inherent qualities of the metallic equipment they produce, using mana to enhance and alter the natural properties of the metal]

[Runic Artisan: A bespoke craftsman of the arcane and mana manipulation. The Runic Artisan has experimented extensively with runic circles and their interactions with the materials they're inscribed on. Runic Artisans are specialized in innovation and will grow quickly when creating something new, but will stagnate when they are not]

[Arcane Fabricator: The Arcane Fabricator is a master of efficiency and production, when creating items in bulk they work faster and make less mistakes. The more experience they have with an item the more pronounced this effect becomes but they gain less experience from creating new items than other professions]

[Ground Breaker: A true Pioneer everyman, the Ground Breaker lays the foundation of future society. They are equally comfortable sowing a field, framing a house, or forging a tool. You are capable of excellence in all the basic skills required to tame the wilderness, but you will master none. Note: choosing this profession will consume the pioneer title]

[Your current skills and achievements allow you to choose from the following Catalysts]

[Apprentice Elementalist: You have spend extended periods of time around heavily concentrated amounts of the four base elemental mana types and have found ways of manipulating and controlling them. An Elementalist specializes in generating, empowering and manipulating ambient elemental mana]

[Mana Battery: The Arcane Battery is a conduit for mana, with an enhanced mana pool and the ability to transfer mana directly into other creature's mana pools as well as inscribed runic circles. Over time the size of your mana pool and the distance over which you can transfer mana will increase]

[Rune Mage: Skilled in Mana Control and Rune Inscription, the Rune Mage is capable of manipulating and condensing mana into runic circles and then powering them from range. The complexity and quantity of runes will start small but increase with time]

[Mana Bomber: you gain a greater understanding of mana compression and release, and are capable of maximizing explosions created from mana. The mana bomber is a specialized craftsman capable of creating their own /explosive devices and will gain instinctive insights on the creation of new materials and trigger mechanisms]

[Runic Pioneer: You have begun to tread on a path unknown to even those of the age before. Runes were rare knowledge then, acquired by only the most dedicated of enchanters and closely guarded. You will be the first to tread the path of a pure rune mage. With time and dedication you will hold powers any nation would fear. Any home a fortress. Any weapon an unmatched tool of your will. With time to prepare the Runic Pioneer will have no threats. Your dedication to learning the runic arts, mana control, infusion, empowerment, and inscription allow you to access this class. Note: choosing this catalyst will consume the pioneer title]

[Runic Destroyer: Destruction is shaped by your hand. You utilize ancient knowledge to create instruments of widespread death and destruction. You follow recklessly in the footsteps of the enchanters who jealously guarded their secrets, experimenting without regard for your surroundings. With trial, error, and luck, you will survive to create weapons capable of changing the landscape and exterminating nations. This is a pure path towards the power that scoured all life from this planet's surface once before. Note: choosing this catalyst will consume the pioneer title.]

Andrew flopped backwards onto the bed, the screens shifting to follow.

Ritualist…. Manipulating big pools of mana huh, seems inflexible, but could have some crazy synergy. Mana smith is, okay. I think I can safely rule it out though, I want something to enhance the power of my runes. Rune Artisan looks perfect, but I'm a little concerned about the 'stagnate' part. Arcane Fabricator might turn out to be the best pick. The amount of grenades I could produce in a day.. Ground Breaker, consumes pioneer title, I need to look at the catalysts first.

His vision began to swim as his gaze drifted to the list of catalysts. He made it three words before drifting off to sleep.