The first Lynx Mice reports started trickling in that evening.
Remian summarized it in his head, then glumly sat down at the far corner of the Guild Hall mumbling to himself for ten minutes straight. Mindy, George and Tim tried to give him privacy and space to think at first, but after a bit, Mindy’s concern and curiosity got the better of her and she went over to ask, “What happened?”
“It’s like this.” Remian squared off and spoke to her frankly. “The Lynxmice have thoroughly covered the entire East Side and divided it into four regions. The first region is the safest, where they need only worry about cats. There’s not much there, they say, just a lot of flour and old rations.”
“Uhuh.” Mindy nodded, still a bit blur.
“The second region is a little farther in to the East Side. There, they say that the humans drink more burning water than eat. There are a lot of humans in that area, and they like to chase Lynxmice around for no reason, or sometimes try
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Kingdom of the Weak 52. The Roving Albatross
Meanwhile, Charlie brought Mandy and the kids home. After the relief airships dropped them and the casualties of Remian’s crew off at Fal’Herim, Charlie brought these few farther north, across the Midlands Sea, past the peninsula where the Iron Legion first rose up, to a particular city in the southern regions of Ashdale Kingdom. With the help of Deutero services, they were bundled into carriages and delivered safely to his family’s front door. “Charlie… this is the fifth girl you’ve brought home, but I’ve never seen one so badly beaten up before…” his mom noted as the servants wheeled Mandy in. “What did you do to her?” “It wasn’t me!” Charlie protested. “The town was attacked by Wilds. These are just some of the survivors.” Charlie’s family lived in a hilltop villa. Among their neighbors, theirs was the very highest on the hill. It wasn’t overly large, or anything; it was simply where Charlie, his parents, siblings, grandfather, and his brother’s wi
Kingdom of the Weak 53. The Mines of Kara-Goth
“Heave!” Markus called. “HO!” Ten trainees and forty workers chorused and tugged at several long ropes. With a crashing sound, boulders were dragged away from the mine entrance and two trainees with prospecting experience clambered into the re-opened tunnel. Remian watched them from where he sat atop Carrie. She and the wolfcats were running guard duty around the site of the nearer mine they had targeted earlier. Early scouts had reported that both mines had been sealed up, but could easily be re-opened. One mine was a Fire Copper lode; the other contained small deposits of jade. Both had previously been mined by the Kara-Goth family, who then sealed them up upon leaving the Frontier. They never came back. More than five years (more like fifty!) had passed since they left, thus all claims to these mines had long been forfeited. There were other mines, other claims, all over the Wildlands. Many of those mines had been claimed by different natio
Kingdom of the Weak 54. The Foresight
“For your own safety, nobody is permitted south of the Mines of Kara-Goth!” a poster read in front of the Iron Legion camp. Below it was another poster; “Workers wanted, good pay, food and shelter provided, please contact Quarter-master Max at the Iron Legion camp.” A third poster next to that said, “Defense demonstration; the invincible airship gunboat ‘Foresight’ debuts Starday evening! Wilds cannot bite what they cannot reach!” followed by a few bullet points saying; ‘High-powered XL-ballista’, ‘Ammunition for 100 rounds’, ‘Tier 3-4 Wilds leather envelope’, ‘Ironwood deck’, ‘Frontier Town’s first custom-made ground-support battle airship!’. Remian considered that third poster which also sported a rough sketch of a ballista on it. One hundred rounds of ammunition was a bit of an exaggeration; that much ammo was only possible if they were leaving out all the other shooters and their weapons. If they wanted to put a squad of crossbowmen on the airship along with thei
Kingdom of the Weak 55. First Trade
Charlie brought the Roving Albatross in for a landing at the Frontier Town temporary airport. Ropes were dropped; workers began to tug his airship down from the sky and maneuvered down next to a long platform. Boarding ramps were extended and attached as the ship was tied down. “Nice ship!” Remian complimented, looking over it. Charlie grimaced. “Not as nice as I would have liked, but it’s all ours. You have a 40% share.” Now Remian grimaced. “How much do I owe?” “Eight million.” Charlie didn’t pull any punches. He showed Remian the bill and the loan receipt. “Bank interest rates are 10% per year.” Remian felt the blood drain from his face. 800,000 Lir in interest payments every year…! He suddenly felt like throwing up. “Relax. You’ve already made hundreds of thousands in a couple of weeks. At the rate we’ve been going…” Remian handed him a wooden box. Charlie sneaked a glance inside. “More mana potions? How many of these thing
Kingdom of the Weak 56. Brother from the Sea
They ended up agreeing to bring the families of the workers over as worker perks. They would not be paid, but they could live together. That ‘family’ would extend to the entire clan was an issue everybody was simply going to overlook. This also set a precedent for future workers, but Remian was fine with that. Frontier Town was severely underpopulated at the moment. Before the dust could settle, however, there was yet another surprise on the airship. This was the last passenger who got off the ship, a man dressed like one of the sea-people in a colorful short sleeve shirt sporting pictures of tropical fruit and khaki cargo shorts… “Kekoa! Who has seen Kekoa? Has anyone seen my brother?” the Sea Nation person went around asking everyone, showing them a picture. Remian frowned. He recognized that picture. That was the Sea Nation guy who didn’t quite make it here. “Have you seen Kekoa?!” this new Sea Nation person asked, shoving the picture at hi
Kingdom of the Weak 57. Beast Blitz
The demonstration went well, with an abundance of cheers and applause. Mindy, Candice and Denise showed off the performance of the Foresight in motion, the XL Ballista, and the height advantages of a crossbowman on an airship. The important thing was, the Foresight could fly and could shoot. There were a few unexpected wobbles, but the XL Ballista proved capable of accurately spearing wooden targets from 300 meters away. The shots not only hit the targets, they struck with enough force to tear right through them. At 400, the accuracy dropped and the targets were hit off-center, but still tore through the wood like nothing. At 500, half the shots were glancing blows, but even they managed to knock the targets over sideways. At 600, Candice began to miss, hitting three out of five, and there the demonstration shifted over to Denise. Shooting one of Candice’s high-powered crossbows from 100 meters in the air, Denise actually managed to hit a target 500 meters away. She
Kingdom of the Weak 58. Tim’s Day Off
First of all, one had to know that Tim was already at the East Side when the alarm drums sounded. No, wait, before that, it should be made known that Tim actually wasn’t supposed to be on the East Side. Remian had quite specifically told him that this would be his day off and to take it easy and go someplace safe or join the defenses as he liked. But to Tim, the safest place there was from an enemy attack would be the enemy’s own base; he wouldn’t attack himself, right? More importantly, there was still a lot of money in the money pool that he hadn’t stole- ahem! Appropriated for the Espionage Department yet. Since these gangsters were really their enemies, taking their resources and using them for your own side was simply sound military strategy; like Markus taught all the trainees, strategy was an important part of war that they had to learn. The amount of coins in the pool could flood the Lynxmice with cheese for generations to come. Already, Tim h
Kingdom of the Weak 59. Remian’s Left Foot
The wise and brave self-proclaimed ‘king of the Wildlands’ peeked his head out of his private den to witness a scene of absolute chaos. People, his people, were running around everywhere. “Aiiieeee!!” There in front of him was Abdul, garbed in only his underwear, running down the street yelling at the top of his lungs, being followed most earnestly by a Darkbok Antelope with its head humbly down and the pointy ends of its horns targeted most faithfully upon Abdul’s hinter areas. “Auuuu!!!” Beyond Abdul, the captain of today’s guard shift ran the other way, shrieking as he was similarly followed by a ‘faithful’ manticore. One ran left; one ran right – the pair of them crossed each others’ paths and did not so much as greet each other in passing. At least their pursuers were polite enough to pause and greet each other before pouncing upon their prey and… CHOMP. RIP. The ‘king of the Wildlands’ turned away, grimacing. The following scenes of nature in action were a little too natura
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