I walked through the stone wall of the army room and headed to the portal room that led to the Plains Keeper city on the plains, specifically to the room where I'd found Malusa, the Plains Keeper ruler, in the past. As soon as I entered the room the guards that lined the walls tensed. Malusa wasn't there.

"I'd like an update," I said. "Someone go fetch Malusa."

That ruffled the fur of the guards, but one left in what I assumed was to deliver my request. One of the guards approached me, stepping around to meet me head on, drawing his daggers as he did so. I studied him as he walked closer and I was pretty sure he was the same Plains Keeper that had first challenged me. I raised my eyebrow at him as he stopped a meter in front of me. He stabbed his daggers into the ground and then stood to look me in the eye.

"It was decided by those higher up to challenge you to a fight," he said.

"You want to fight me?" I asked. "That didn't work out so well for you last time as I recall."

"I was against it," he said. "But those are the orders that I have been given. Will you fight us?"

"When you say 'us', who are you meaning?" I asked.

"How many of us would you be comfortable fighting against?" He asked. "The opinion of my captain is that you only succeeded due to bluffing and intimidation. She feels that you need to prove your strength, or be shown your place."

"I guess I have a few minutes to spare while Malusa is on her way," I said. "There are twenty of you here, that seems a likely number. More or less won't make any difference to me. What are the terms of the fight?"

"To surrender or incapacitation," he said. "With an effort not to kill."

The guards began closing in from the walls, and I moved to the clear space in the center of the room. I still had my armour on, and the enchantment still had plenty of power. I doubted they would even be able to get past it.

"Begin," the first guard said, stepping back.

They rushed me all at once, trying to use their numbers against me. I didn't even try to block any of their stabs, just raised my hand up to hit each of them on the head one after another with enough force to put them down.

It only took me a few minutes to knock them all unconscious, all except the first guard who had stayed back, his daggers still stabbed into the ground. And it only took that long because I allowed each of them to attack me ten times before retaliating.

"That went even worse than I was expecting," the first guard said. "You were stabbed hundreds of times, you didn't block a single one, yet you're completely unharmed."

"It would have been simpler and quicker if I weren't specifically trying not to kill any of you," I said.

I extended the claws on each of my fingers, holding them up for him to see, and then equipped my sword. He held his hands up in a pacifying gesture.

"I believe you," he said. "You don't need to demonstrate."

"What is the meaning of this?" Malusa asked, entering the room with a guard following her.

"I came to get an update from you on the status of the Plains," I said. "And your guards were apparently ordered to challenge me to a fight. With a predictable result, I think."

Malusa frowned at me. "Are they all dead?" She asked.

"No, just unconscious," I said. "Though they didn't look as though they were holding anything back. If I hadn't upgraded my defences they probably would have stabbed me at least a few times. Still not enough to permanently affect me, but anyone else would likely have been killed."

"I will have words with my captain of the guard," Malusa said. "You asked for an update, the snow man army has continued to march over the plains, freezing and killing it as they go. They're about a third of the way to this city."

"We just finished dealing with the snow man progenitor," I said. "He was making an endless number of reinforcements that made stopping the army very difficult. The hope was that in killing him his drones would dissolve on their own, but that doesn't seem to have happened. With him dead it should be possible for us to clean up the rest of the army that is here. I'll go do that now."

Malusa left through the same entrance she had arrived through, and I stepped over the bodies of the guards to get back to the portal. I had some time to spend waiting for Taur to arrive at the wisp hive so I sent Chantelle a ping and joined her at her response.

"I came across a disturbing thing," I said after we'd finished greeting each other properly. "The Fortress Shop has meat from each of the species in the fortress. I can't see meat being able to be added to the System from a person without them at least being maimed from it, and being killed is more likely."

"It's been dealt with for now," Chantelle said. "We have several carnivorous species in the Fortress. There were some unfortunate instances of some individuals hunting and killing others. Two so far, and they've been executed."

I should have seen the problem before it happened. Cannibalism seemed to be pretty universally discouraged, but eating other species was typical and even required for the strictly carnivore species.

"Make sure it's known that buying meat from the Fortress Shop is fine," I said. "Killing any of my people is not. I will add meat of new species to the Fortress Shop myself, I can do it without hurting anyone."

Chantelle nodded. I spent the next few hours with her until I got a ping from Taur telling me they had arrived at the wisp hive.

I exited the portal that Taur was holding to the smell of blood. Taur and Stalia were covered in it. I used my power to clean their armour off and gave Stalia her new enchanted armour.

"Tough trip?" I asked.

"A bit tough with the snow," Taur said. "But the fighting was quite good, very cathartic and exactly what I needed. A pack of ice cats was stalking us almost from the snow man area."

Taur had stopped one hundred meters away from the wisp hive and I turned at a crackling sound to see the passive defence of the thin ice barrier sliding toward us. I began pushing heat into our armour when the ice disappeared, the red archwisp floating down from high up on the hive surrounded by his escort.

Our guide wisp left Stalia's hand when the arch wisp was ten meters away and acted as translator for me, or host for the archwisp, again.

"You did well," the archwisp said. "The alliance we were forced into broke when the snow man progenitor died."

"I was told, by that wisp, that killing the progenitor would kill all of his drones," I said. "That didn't happen. They all seem to be alive and continuing to act."

"This wisp didn't lie to you, it just didn't know any better," the archwisp said. "Usually the only thing that is able to kill a snow man progenitor is another snow man progenitor. When that happens the winner always tries to take over the connection to the drones of the loser. Nine out of ten drones die, one out of ten has their loyalty forcibly changed. In both cases it stops the snow men from following their last order, which is usually detrimental to the winner."

"That explains it," I said. "Thank you. We've just come to use your portal."

"I would rather not so many of you be so near to the hive," the archwisp said.

I nodded and Taur handed me the portal to the army room while Stalia handed me the God Banishment ward, both of them stepping through the portal. I made the portal smaller, placing it in the pocket of my armour, and set off toward the wisp portal at a run. The archwisp floated back up the hive.

I made my way through the wisp portal and back to the army room where I sank my power through the closed portal that led behind the snow man lines and unburied it from the ground there, opening it into a doorway.

"My lord," Jeff said. "This is something that we can easily take care of. You surely have more important things you could be doing."

"This is pretty important," I said. "I promised to stop the snow man army, after all. But I trust you to be able to finish it. Send me an alert if you come across the dragons, they looked as though they would be a good fight."

I left them to it in the army room, walking through the stone wall to my bed in the main Pocket Dimension. I laid back and pulled up my Goal Progress from the System.

Goal progress Species with which you have a treaty offering sanctuary from the end of the world. Major species 3/4 Forest Keepers Biome Forest Population 1,610 Minimum Viable Population 200 Mountain Keepers Biome Mountain Population 12 Minimum Viable Population 2 Plains Keepers Biome Plains Population 408 Minimum Viable Population 200 Minor species 3/5 (3/4) Beastpeople Biome Plains Population 111 Minimum Viable Population 60 Humans Biome Mountain, Forest, or Plains Population 208 Minimum Viable Population 120 Leprechauns Biome Mountain or Plains Population 590 Minimum Viable Population 90

The populations of the species within my fortress seemed to be doing well, just one more major species and two minor species and I would have the goal done. I needed to go to the ocean biome.