The next morning, I awoke well-rested. Sleeping in my bed after a feast left me feeling renewed, but that energy came with a strong sense of urgency. I had today and some of tomorrow to complete my preparations for going to war, and it didn’t feel like enough time. Certainly, I had kept some things at the ready, but a good portion of those were magical defenses tied to the tower.

If I pulled the gargoyles away, that would leave fewer defenses should Mirktal aim for my residence.

My first order of business was to send the air elementals I had stationed around the top of the tower north to survey the positions and forces against me. I wanted to see what, if any, of Sena’s forces remained behind to slow the advance and where the best place to join them would be.

I did this even before I attended breakfast. To my surprise, breakfast had become a very social endeavor, with all the guards, assistants, and mages all dining in on the first floor and chatting with each other.

Lilly didn’t join them, preferring to keep her own company at the smaller dining table outside the kitchen. I joined Lilly downstairs and we ate in a companionable silence that was only broken when she asked a single question.

“You’re going to fight Mirktal?” her voice shook with constrained emotion.

“I am,” I answered.

“Good,” she declared, more to herself than to me. Her golden eyes shone with determined anger for a moment before returning to the meal before her.

That small exchange served as a reminder to her of the promise I made to make those responsible for Walker’s death pay. While that included Mirktallean armies, it also included those in Sena’s army who gave him his orders. To an extent, I felt it also included myself, even if I knew my sense of guilt was driven by questions of whether I could have done more or prepared him better.

After eating, I tasked myself with checking the spellworks I had laid on the dungeon and the tower crystal.

Lilly walked beside me, though she didn’t speak. I almost allowed myself to become distracted in considering why or attempting a discourse to see if there were any words of wisdom that I could provide her. Yet, I didn’t. I had more than enough to do, and could only hope that she didn’t give into despair after I left. Between the duchess’s summons and the coming battles, I felt as if I were abandoning her.

Regardless of Lilly’s disposition, I began checking through the preparations I had made. I put in place a system that allowed the mana that the dungeon drew from the ley lines to fill the mana crystals that grew within it. I had connected those crystals back to the dungeon core in a complex spellform that allowed mana to be pulled up into the tower crystal and then flow further to the ring I had prepared. When the ring wasn’t drawing power, that energy would remain and grow the mana crystals in the dungeon.

It was an elaborate bit of spellcrafting that had taken me the better part of a year just to design, and months to perfectly place. It was completely worth it as well, for I could cast spells that would take entire corps of mages in synchronization to cast. Truly powerful spells. I’d already tested the distance and the power I could pull when I raised the towns on plateaus, so this morning’s task was simply to check the connecting spellwork a final time to ensure it remained complete.

At lunch, Lilly and I met with Rhaela the Red, and confirmed that I would employ her as a spymaster.

I doubted she had true experience at the task, but what she lacked there she made up with enthusiasm. While she may not stop or catch any high-level spies should they take interest in my tower, I didn’t see the harm in allowing her to attempt.

I also tasked her with providing training to Lilly. While it wouldn’t be a formalized class like she would obtain at the Arcanum, I felt it important to distract the girl with something she wasn’t already familiar with.

I could re-evaluate her course of study after my return from the battles ahead.

After lunch was when I prepared the second of my projects. If I was going to war, I wanted a powerful elemental by my side. One large enough that it could frighten entire armies.

One large enough to keep around to use against the hydra later. With this in mind, I stood at the top of my residence and pulled power from my ring to use [Earth Manipulation] on the surrounding bog.

As the mud began to slide towards my reflection lake and grow into a massive pile, I heard the villagers shout as they came to watch. My water elemental swam to the side of the lake, looping around the growing hill.

It took time to gather that much mud, as it wasn’t as deep as I might have wished, and in that time I found that many had gathered on the tower tops or the sides of the lake to watch.

When the top of the growing hill reached level with my tower, I stopped pulling in the mud and began to shape it. Unlike other materials, mud was best for a crushing or smashing attack. I also needed a beast with the capability to fight against the many separate heads of the hydra.

What I pictured was a monster that I had seen illustrations of in tomes with warnings of its nature.

A beast from the deep waters off the Laxtoni coast. I had come across versions of its young caught by fishermen and purchased to experiment on a half-century ago. Something that had a strong main body with many flexible and deadly limbs. It was midafternoon when I finished the shaping of the mud and left my tower to approach closer.

Of the useful gemstones gathered, I had paid close attention to the emeralds. While my first third-tier class was Pyromancer, courtesy of the Sena Mage Corps, my experience with geomancy was the one that I leaned on the most. The gemstone I’d purchased and those provided by Baroness Nix left me with a great supply that would undoubtedly be needed for the coming Pestilence.

Yet, I wasn’t done with constructing the form I wanted this elemental to take. On the underside of each tentacle, I added sharpened stone spikes a man’s height in length. It was a painstaking process that took more time than I would have liked.

After I completed the entire shape of the beast, I started adding in the emeralds and summoning elementals to inhabit the creation. First and second-tier elementals for each of the stone spikes in the limbs. Fourth tier elementals for the limbs themselves. The main body, though, was the most intensive. While my request for an elemental lord was eventually granted, it took time to communicate with the master of that domain.

Finally, I had to add the sapphires to summon third-tier water elementals. These elementals were tasked with keeping my new servant from drying out completely. Not that it couldn’t replace all its limbs with stone and continue to function—something that I ensured it could understand—but that the capability of a mud elemental to regenerate lost or damaged body parts was something that would surely be needed. Given what I had seen in the canyon the Pestilence inhabited, mud was likely the most common element left to use.

It was early evening when I completed it, the reflection of the sunset marred by my creation on the water. Lilly brought me a meal of warm fish soup and flaky flatbread that paired better than I would have expected. I was able to use the bread to spoon some of the meaty chunks from the soup, and in my haste to eat might have let some dribble on my beard.

“Master, what is this?” she asked quietly as I ate. Before us, the elemental was adjusting to its new body, the coiling limbs flexed and retracted with odd intervals. Its large body towered over the surroundings, a moving monument that demonstrated the power of magic. The spikes shook and shuddered, sometimes individuals and sometimes in groups. The pops of splattered mud and squelch of earth lifted from mud created an odd ambiance.

“This,” I gestured with a piece of bread, “Will be the most powerful fifth-tier elemental ever summoned in the Kingdom of Sena,” I answered proudly. To be fair, I wasn’t entirely certain of the summons made during the founding of the kingdom, though I suspected that anything this powerful would have left behind records. Not that anyone other than a historian would be able to argue against my claim—something I would be more than happy to partake in if the timing were better.

Lilly shook her head. “Master, I meant the shape. The arms and head. The way the teeth move. It’s,” she paused, “disturbing.”

“The shape?” I chortled, “That beast, my dear, is called an octopus.”