READ WEBNOVEL Chapter 10 Silent Passing
After Fabulosa left for Basilborough, Yula and I guarded the dwarves as they built the watchtower in the northern woods. Days passed without incident. Citizens went about their routines.
Everyone relaxed in the evenings, save for Ally and Maggie, whose efforts shaped the idol into a humanoid form. Their progress would have been faster had they used wood, but they wanted something lasting and made from local gray-blue granite.
Charitybelle and Greenie became our other night owls. They surrounded themselves with glow stones and worked on a sawmill blueprint while everyone slept. Having the game validate each structure involved more designing than expected, and they pulled all-nighters to supply usable blueprints for Ally when the dwarves finished the watchtower.
I envied Greenie’s time with her. Their partnership reminded me of our time in the Belden library, where Charitybelle would happily chatter about every little thing that happened. We’d crack each other up, finding the dumbest humor hilarious.
For numbers, I needed silence to concentrate. With the Dark Room in Fabulosa’s care, I didn’t have a great place to work. Rocky’s ongoing meal preparations and cleanups made the roundhouse a little noisy during the day, and designing outside proved problematic, even if it wasn’t raining—which it had been.
When they worked late, I grew restless. Safe in the roundhouse, I didn’t need to watch for enemies all night, but I felt guilty while the pair toiled. Once, I went downstairs to keep them company, but they made it clear that distractions weren’t helpful. Usually, I eavesdropped on their conversations, hoping the engineering talk would lull me to sleep.
As they worked through the wee hours of the morning, I spotted red dots circling the camp from the north. At first, I mistook it for a hallucination. The dots moved down the river. Focusing on them produced no seismic information, which made sense for waterborne travel. The creatures could have been bipedal, quadrupedal, winged, or finned. They moved too slowly to be flying, so they probably swam.
I quietly rolled out of my bunk and whispered to Charitybelle and Greenie downstairs. “Hey guys, check your maps.”
Charitybelle turned to me with an inquiring look. “What do you think that is?”
I shrugged while approaching their work area.
The dots moved in tight groups, like lines of ducks or possibly otters. Would the game classify animals as hostiles?
Charitybelle furrowed her brows. “Those are boats. Look, the dots aren’t moving from side to side. They’re fixed formations—do you see?”
I counted eleven red dots in what must have been three boats. They moved at a constant speed on a fixed course. They likely passed us without knowing it, but I couldn’t know for sure. My mind raced to think of supplies we might have left along the shoreline, tipping them off about our position. Luckily, we drew water from the west side of Hawkhurst Rock, far away from these boats. Luckily, we hadn’t had time to build something that gave away our position, like a hand pump, pier, or channel.
I remembered Yula saying goblins couldn’t swim. They feared water so much they’d rather tunnel under a river than cross it. These weren’t goblins.
The dots changed their direction to the southeast when they cleared the river. Could those be kobolds?
Charitybelle had her eyes closed and groaned sympathetically to herself.
“Charity?”
She whispered. “I’m talking to Chloe. I had to wake her, but she agreed to do a flyby.”
As the red dots drifted past our settlement’s range of vision, Charitybelle grimaced. “She’s flying away now. Thank you, Chloe. That’s all, sweetheart. No, I’m sorry.” She sounded worried, and I couldn’t tell if she realized she spoke aloud to her bird. She opened her eyes a minute later with a worried expression. “They shot at her.”
“Who?”
“Orcs. They missed—so she’s okay. I told her to return home but not take a direct route to avoid leading them here. The orcs wore identical cloaks, but they wore armor underneath. I couldn’t see well in the dark, even with Chloe’s vision and two moons in the sky.”
That oddity of the scene struck me. Why would orcs head toward Flat Rock Island at night? They weren’t nocturnal, like kobolds or goblins.
No one offered further speculation. Hawkhurst had no means to investigate the matter.
After a long pause, I turned to Greenie and changed the subject. “Did you guys get the sawmill finished?”
The goblin focused on his design. “We’re still working out a few details.”
“I’ll watch for more dots.” I didn’t don my armor but remained wide awake and ready to gear up at the slightest sign of trouble.
“We validated blueprints hours ago, but Greenie thinks we can reduce material needs and build times. He’s going to give it another iteration.”
I nodded, barely listening.
My biggest concern focused on the orc’s return trip. The high riverbank and Hawkhurst Rock prevented seafarers from seeing signs of our settlement from the river. But the return trip offered a better vantage to see our buildings—especially if they saw us during daylight hours.
“I better wake up Yula. She’ll know what’s going on.”
After I woke her, the huntress came downstairs with Mr. Squeakers, her mouse, riding on her shoulder. After I told Yula what we’d seen, she showed no alarm. I couldn’t tell if she was sleepy or uninterested because she usually talked slowly.
“Orc trades weez gnoll. Gnolls are south, by kobold—who zey use for labor.”
“Why would they wear cloaks over armor?”
“Eet ees skullduggery. Internal orc matter. Probably hire gnoll to cause trouble. Zat ees why zey travel een dark maybe.”
We learned about gnolls in our Belden research. Gnolls commonly enslaved kobolds, but usually for only short terms of servitude. Kobolds frequently escaped by tunneling, and capturing replacements proved easier than pursuing escapees.
The hyena race bore biological relation to gigglers. Orc chieftains respected the gnoll’s predatory nature enough to hire them for raids against other orcs, assassinations, and purchasing black-market goods. The gnolls performed everyone’s dirty work.
Yula shrugged off my concerns that the travelers might have seen illumination from the glow stones or fireplace. She seemed more preoccupied with stroking Mr. Squeaker’s fur.
“For orc, dees ees goblin and kobold land. We care not for west of Orga. Ees no problem. Dots will return north een day or two. You see. Now, you let Yula sleep, yes?” She went back upstairs to her bunk before I could thank her. Abrupt departures typified her exits.
Charitybelle and Greenie returned to their drafts, and I resumed my watch for enemies.
The red dots never returned north.
When the morning broke, I groggily dressed, walked to Hawkhurst Rock, and scanned the lake’s horizon. Nothing disturbed the stilled surface of Otter Lake. Flat Rock Island lay only five miles away, yet so much moisture lingered in the morning air I could barely see it. Its proximity made me paranoid.
Charitybelle went to sleep before dawn. When she woke around midday, she joined us along the edge of Hawkhurst Meadow by the charcoal mounds about 2 miles north of the roundhouse.
We gave her the cheerful news—Greenie delivered Ally the final blueprint for the wind-powered sawmill. The work crew harvested wood near the mounds. We strategically placed our new watchtower further north to cover the logging site.
Bernard Silverview’s name appeared in the red watchtower slot in the labor window. We only had 24 people working on the lumber mill, and we’d lose a few more when the colliers raked out charcoal for the smithy.
I opened up the building’s blueprint and read its stats.
Create Building
Wind-powered Sawmill (tier 1)
Description
Resource Structure
Doubles timber production and increases lumber production by a factor of 10.
Details
Structural Points 200
Location -2.5, -12.7
Materials
Trees 8 logs
Timber 30 battens
Lumber 30 boards
Stone 20 blocks
Saw Blade 1
Build Estimate
3.4 days with 24 workers at 62 percent efficiency
Core Bonus
None
Our efficiency dampened my initial expectations. The 3.4-day estimate didn’t include the five it took to harvest materials. The nine-day project would drag on for weeks if our morale continued to drop, and my projections suggested it would.
I suspected why Charitybelle, whose math skills far surpassed my own, wanted me to take on this job. She couldn’t concentrate on designs if fears about the camp’s inner turmoils bogged her down.
I needed an event to inflate our spirits, and fermented barley drinks served as a temporary solution—the only excuse for celebrating rested on the imminent unearthing of our first batch of charcoal. To the dwarves, access to charcoal marked a milestone for progress because it activated the smithy. Flipping the Hawkhurst smithy online counted for celebration, and the absence of a red ribbon and giant scissors bothered no one.
We had four kegs of ale, enough for two more parties. I saw no reason to wait and announced the upcoming smithy ribbon-cutting ceremony. The ale doubled as a source of calories. Food ran low, and our hunting trips often yielded only lean meat.
Morale
29 percent (afraid)
Factor Events
230 percent
Factor Security
46 percent
Factor Culture
55 percent
Factor Health
49 percent
The news went over with the dwarves, who’d been eyeing the untapped stores of the precious, golden liquid. We had a long-term plan for making ale, but it did little good now. With a plow, we could grow barley, but breweries weren’t tier 1 buildings. We needed a town hall to unlock more blueprints.
After a few sweeps through the forest with Yula, I joined Charitybelle and the ring of dwarves surrounding her. She volunteered to guard them while they chopped wood.
Her eyes closed, a signal that she sent her fine feathered spy plane for a high-altitude flyover of Flat Rock.
Hoping to hear an explanation of where the orcs went, I announced my presence. “Hey, C-Belle. Any updates from our eye in the sky?”
Charitybelle shook her head. “Chloe and I saw nothing on Flat Rock Island.”
I settled into the grass and waited for more news.
Charitybelle turned to me, still with closed eyes. “It’s late afternoon, so Chloe can see farther. She doesn’t need to be in bow range to see what’s happening. She’s cruising the western lakeshore right now.”
Charitybelle described an unextraordinary shoreline until she gasped. “Oh, wait, now. I see a portage path. The orcs pulled the boats onto the shore. They didn’t tie their canoes along the lakefront—they pulled them inland and covered them with branches. They’re trying to hide—but no one can hide from Chloe.”
Nearby dwarves stopped working and listened.
I smiled while waiting for developments. The tension must have been similar to families during World War II gathered around radios for news updates. The dwarves and I exchanged looks, but no one interrupted the live broadcast. Everyone froze in place around the governor.
She frowned. “That’s odd. One canoe is up in a bush. And the other two look like they’d sustained lots of damage. Something smashed one of them into bits.”
After a moment, Charitybelle continued her narration. “The orcs are all dead, and five kobolds died too. Weapons and gear are lying around. She’s flying down to one of the bodies for a closer—oh, no, Chloe! Eww!”
Charitybelle opened her eyes and curled her lips in disgust. “Bird’s eye report is over, guys.”
“Did the orcs attack the kobolds? Or vice versa?”
Charitybelle frowned, making a sour face, preemptively warding off calls for details. “I can’t tell. Trees block my vision, and when Chloe got close, she, ugh, went off-mission.”
After fifteen minutes, Chloe returned to Hawkhurst Meadow, swooping toward us. Everyone except Charitybelle ducked when the bird approached. The hawk’s flapping wings still intimidated me, but my girlfriend stood motionless while the bird landed on her arm. The bird of prey folded its wings and side-stepped onto her owner’s shoulder. She fed her Familiar morsels of ram—fresh as the day we killed it.
Charitybelle cooed and made baby noises as she fed her pet. “What a pretty bird you are!”
I grinned despite the worries that ambushes posed a danger to our camp.
Charitybelle drew on a piece of vellum the lake’s outline and marked where she thought the orcs landed their canoes.
Familiars didn’t contribute to their owner’s maps, so Charitybelle could only remember what she saw through the bird’s eyes. I studied the map as she spoke.
“Chloe doesn’t always look where I want—and she’s too far away to receive instructions. But I used Hawkhurst Rock and the Flat Rock as landmarks and size comparisons, so I have a rough idea of where the orcs landed.”
Charitybelle pointed to the map of the lake. “We’re on the deep end of the lake, and the water got greener the further south she flew. I think it turns into a big swamp. I’d guess the boats landed somewhere here.” She gestured to what looked like a ten-mile stretch of the western lakeshore.
My lungs deflated, and my shoulders slumped. That involved quite a search area. We didn’t have a boat, so it wasn’t something we could investigate soon. I wasn’t fond of walking, but it wasn’t like we had shipwrights wandering around, looking for things to do.
“Was it swampy where the orcs debarked?”
“No. The lowland looked walkable but had thick vegetation. I saw higher ground inland leading up to the Highwall Mountains.”
Higher ground appealed to me, but it sounded like a dangerous trip. Walking along the shore offered no retreat opportunities, and the hills and mountains belonged to kobolds.