During those days, Craggy Falls was in a constant state of alert. Everybody wore armor outdoors and usually indoors as well. Squads of adventurers patrolled the streets and checked on the water systems every other hour to make sure the flow of blessed water was uninterrupted. The entire pipe network became an anti-undead deterrent, keeping them from Rising within the vicinity of town. However, now that bigger and stronger ones like Tier 3 zombie hounds and Tier 4 ghoul hounds had Risen, they would occasionally make their way toward the dense collection of living creatures that Craggy Falls represented. Low barriers that kept out Tier 1 and 2 Undead were unsufficient to stop the bigger ones, and there was no point raising stronger and higher barriers when they expected Tier 5 and 6 Undead in a matter of days. Plus, Craggy Falls was still expanding steadily. The perimeter defences set up around town were temporary. Day by day, tripod-mounted guns, sandbag barricades, a

In a certain treehouse on the southernmost of the Three Pines, an elder woman entered her home. Within was her adopted daughter, who greeted her with interest. “How did it go?” “Not good.” Ruth sat down on a rattan couch and rubbed her sore feet. “The Eagle Lord refuses to allow us to expand the treetop settlement any more.” “But… but it’s so little! And there’s so much tree…” Sandra trailed off, seeing the dark look on Ruth’s face. Ruth added grimly. “He’s actually asking us to move out.” Sandra gaped. “M-move out?! But… but the Undead…!” “The Undead is precisely why he doesn’t want us here.” Ruth grimaced. “He says it’s our fault.” “But… but it’s the Dragon Empire… and that Crown Prince…” Sandra spluttered. “Humans.” Ruth summarized. “He blames humans. Also, he says Aeyrie has been spending too much time away from home lately. He blames humans for that, too.” “But… won’t the birds be safer is we’re here to defend the

“Two hundred thousand Undead are coming?! Under the command of an Elder Lich?!” Remian burst out loud. “Before you panic, this one seems different. Rather than being hostile, he seems almost polite. He said he’s come to greet and worship the Great Dragon of Death, Ra’oul-dras.” “Oh, for crying out loud!” Just to keep things in perspective, an Elder Lich was classified as a being two Tiers higher than regular Liches. That is, the Conglomerate rated them at Tier 8.5, which was the same rating they gave to the Emperors of the Wilds such as the Deep Emperor, the Flame Emperor and the Wind Emperor. Heck, it was the same rating Kor’ag, Mal’thor, Zor’khan and almost all the other Great Dragons of Sorrel II were rated at. The sole exceptions to that were Nil’rak-dras and Ra’oul-dras, both of whom might well be rated at Tier 9. [Blast it, Zar’khan-dras, look at what your greed let through the Portal!] Remian fumed to himself. [Just how powerful were the beings

As it turned out, the Song Clan favored cold weapons over firearms or even crossbows. They especially liked cheap mass-produced synthmetal javelins, precisely balanced and weighed for throwing. Carbyne-edged swords and axes did very well too, and a few asked for polearms tipped with Carbyne. Generally, these weapons could be classified as Tier 5 or 6 types, except for one particular pure Carbyne broadsword, which might just slip into Tier 7. Ermine’s autofactories had churned out so many of those exact sort of weapons that her warehouses didn’t just have them stocked, they had them stacked. It was no issue for her to sell the Song Clan roughly a fifth of her stockpile. With that, Ermine not only got her pick of the meat and hides the Song Clan had preserved from the battlefield, she even came away with 450,000 Lir in coin. While the Migration no longer used Lir to trade (since they all used Clira), the New Dragon Empire and the Midlands warlords still did. If nothing

Three days later, Remian began his choosing process at Craggy Falls. “These are the candidates?” he asked Phoebe. There were twenty of them, lined up and looking polite and hopeful. All of them were below 13 years of age, supposedly had both interest and potential in electronics, and lived at Craggy Falls. Some of them were trailer park kids, others were the children of Adventurers, or members of the Church of Light, two were Sea People who knew Alani and one was even the bone fide youngest member of the original Circling Ravens gang. “There were more, but they couldn’t prove they had any knowhow with electronics. Some of them couldn’t even turn on a light switch.” Phoebe grimaced. “Their parents were most hopeful, but I couldn’t in good conscience count them in.” “Well, maybe next time. We can do another intake half a year from now, and again in a year. We’re going to need lots and lots of technicians, mechanics and engineers.” “I’ll let them