Chapter 9

The forgotten fortress

Pvt Leo -

6/2/25 Time Unknown

One day passed since we all came back to life, the strange man still has not woken up, the reason for him not waking up seems to deal with us, Trek had all of the orc mages check him and sure enough they found the cause.

The cause seems to deal with his magic levels, the mage's said it will take time for him to regain consciousness, we also counted everyone that's what took most of the time yesterday.

The total of beings the man brought back was 85,475, thus including Humans, Orcs, Ogres and giant wolves.

We have not reached the mountain yet, Trek says we still have another day of walking, it's a good thing we don't get tired anymore, we do have one problem and that's food.

Hunger sets in all of us, yet we don't die instead we just grow sluggish, we can feel just how much slower we do tasks, we begin to go slower then before.

But we have to get this man somewhere safe, ever since yesterday there has been gunfire and war horns sounding off in the distance, I believe the live cam was going as expected, someone with a high position sent the military back into the gate, now they are in constant battle it seems.

Traveling is getting more and more dangerous, the gunfire is getting closer, the orc armies can be heard from where we are now, we have to get to the mountain.

6/3/25 Time Unknown

The mountain in all of its glory, we arrived at the base of the mountain, sure enough Trek did not lie.

There was an abandoned camp, no, it was a large fortress, there were large walls made of giant stone blocks, the wall had stone barriers from the dark ages, once we entered the giant stone gateway there were at least 200 houses where people used to live.

There were a couple of granaries that had nothing left, there were multiple large overgrown farm fields the crops still planted, after this fortress was abandoned the crops grew out of the fields and into other parts of open fields.

This place had many different buildings ranging from houses, stores and even blacksmiths, this was truly a different world, I could only imagine what it used to look like, before their Gates appeared.

Trek and the other orcs looked around with sadness as they walked the main road, we were heading to a large building in the distance, it seemed to be a large building just a bit taller then the rest, they had no castles, just larger houses for the leaders.

We soon arrived at the large house and there was a large table that was overturned to face the door, the interior was a mess, there hung a banner that was once glorious now it's ripped, Trek flipped the table back over as he continued deeper into the building.

We had everyone go around the fortress city to enter all of the buildings and get anything useful, this included burnable items, orcs had a guilty look as they destroyed furniture for firewood, there were orcs who immediately went to the walls, they stood up there and looked into the distance keeping a eye on everything, the wall could fit 5 orcs standing back to back and still have space for walking, that was the width of the wall while there could be thousands of orcs on the wall at one time in case of emergencies.

Trek and myself with the commander plus a few others kept walking into the large house and we found a large bedroom it looked like a tornado hit the room, the bed was still intact for the most part besides a few rips and shreds in the sheets, the medic and the commander set the man on the bed, we just looked at him as he was silent not a single noise came out of him as he slept.

He looked peaceful in his sleep. we had a few mages stay by his side with some medics, we had the 2 marine stand guard at the door including that one crazy one, he should be safe in their hands.

As we walked outside the city was lively, all sorts of people and creatures alike walked around with a purpose, the humans looked around most of the time admiring the fantasy city, orcs gave them a laugh once a human got the courage to ask about the city or the buildings.

Trek smiled as he saw this and the LTC talked to him about similar things, asking about the buildings and questions alike, Trek and the commander then began to issue orders to soldiers and orcs, the ogres carried heavy items while the wolves stood guard around the town with a small group of orcs or soldiers.

The sun was slowly setting, by the end of the day we had people doing work where they had experience, orcs began to cultivate the fields while attending the smithies, they were using left over metals from when the people fled the city. They did not make weapons but nails in order to fix the buildings.

The reason why we began to turn this city back to shape is simple, we needed a place to call ours, at least until the man awoke, we needed food and roofs over our heads, we might be dead but we do have our own needs, standing in the sun all day is not that great.

everyone who was not doing a skill required job was taking turns on guard duty, when the smithies produced something or the farmers cultivated they noticed they can't do everything that they were able to do before they died, they could re learn it they said, with them doing it over and over they were able to do complete the task how they wanted, just not perfectly.

6/4/25 Time morning

In the morning we gathered the ones who are on guard duty or are reserve forces, we had them have a quick spar with each other and as expected they were affected by it as well, being hungry is one thing but this is different, the guard and fighting force was unable to perform their true combat capabilities, there fighting moves were sloppy they were no longer in sync as much as before.

Trek and the commander saw this as well, no, we all saw this even the ones having the spar, we learned after being brought back we had around %25 of our abilities while our LTC and Trek had %30 of theirs.

We all began to train with our selected weapons again we had no guns, we left them such we have no way to get ammo, we then picked up weapons from the city's armory there was a large amount left behind, they were in bad shape but the blacksmiths worked to repair them as best as they can.

Out of all of the humans about 6,000 of us have weapons, those who did not have weapons were told to work somewhere else instead of guard duty, they did not mind that they were actually happy to do something besides guard duty.

Trek taught the guard force and fighting force how to fight more in sync and how to perform different attacks, while following his instructions we soon realized that Trek and LTC gives us a boost to learning our skills back.

The LTC went to help out where he had experience, he showed the farmers some ways to replant faster, and helped with the destruction of furniture and hauling heavy items, he was helping out like a normal soldier.

Everyone had a sense of unity with each other human or not we were now in this together.

As the afternoon approached we had a small guard force sent to reclaim the mines, our smithies needed more metals, and we had a person report that there were creatures in the mine.

I was with the guard force, we had about 25 orcs with 5 humans including myself, as we approached the mines we too heard noise and saw movements in the mine, the orcs were part of the heavy infantry in the first attack wave, so they still had their gear but it was damaged from the battle.

The ones who were with us has the less damaged gear with just a few cuts in different places on the armor, seemed like these orcs were killed by gunshot wounds as they all had a bullet hole in there chest piece in some part, we had 10 orcs form a shield wall in front as the rest followed behind them.

The armor was clanking as each step was taken, we went deeper into the darkness of the mine as we humans turned on the flashlight we were told to have with us at all times, the cave lit up as the orcs smiled at seeing the light.

As we kept moving in we saw all sorts of fallen rocks and carts still full of different kinds of ore, all different types, this mine must be rich in ore, as we kept walking it took about 18 minutes till we came to a large opening, it was a large cave.

It was massive and there we saw the creature or should I even call them that? Because They were not some fantasy creature. . . No, they were like me, They were human . . .

We all stood their jaws dropped, the orcs lowered their shields and were surprised just as much as we were.

"Keid juilr berkf" one of the humans said

They were not from earth, it was impossible for that to be.

Why do you ask? Because they were as small as children. wait after looking closely they look a lot like

"Gnomes!" A Man said as he squealed in glee.

I turned to look at the voice and I was not the only one even the orcs looked with a dumb look on their face, and of course it was a private who looked like he was 18 and just enlisted.

"What?.... That's what they are, just look at them, don't they look cute!" he said as if it was no question and that we had to say yes.

"Uh gnome? what are those I have never seen before now" a orc said confused.

"They are small human like creatures who in books are great inventors and engineers, like dwarves but without the blacksmithing and jewel making." the kid young soldier said

"Jileg Hurk!" one of the gnomes said while raising his head almost like it understood us and was saying yep that's us.

We looked at the small gnomes as more movement came from deeper in the mines and out came a medium size force of gnomes who came running, there was about 100 of the little guys, my bad little gnomes they all had some sort of weapon in their hands, they were rifles, not like ours they were shaped like muskets but had mags inserted into it, that meant they would fire more than one shot.

they might be 3 ft tall but seeing little people holding guns is fucking scary, they aimed at us some weapons had gems inserted into them and two gnomes had little fuel tanks on their back, and you know what I thought guns were bad but why the fuck do they have flamethrowers?

*thwomp . thwomp . thwomp* we heard came from the darkness

"Now what?'' We all said in unison besides the young soldier, he was freaking excited and could hardly contain himself.

Out of the darkness came a 8 ft tall mech, and inside of it had a gnome driving the damn thing.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" I yelled as the other turned to me with the same expression.

The young soldier just said with all of his might "THATS SO SICKKKKK!" he said so happily as the mech stood behind the force of gnomes.

The gnomes looked at the kid and they all just gave thumbs up, why? who?

Just who in the right mind gave small people the ability to make this? was all that I thought about while the mech's main body extended a a larger rifle that was the same as the gnomes just bigger and with a huge gemstone embedded in it, the mech then had a sword which was 5 feet on his back.

These little guys are fucking scary.

The young soldier then walked out in front of all of us and walked over to the gnomes, his facial expression was that of a girl meeting their celebrity crush. as he got closer and crouched down to their level a gnome stuck his rifle in the kids face, the kid just got even more excited.

All that was heard was "Oh he dead" from a orc. and then the agreeance from the other orcs

I facepalmed, What else was there to do?''

The young soldier then picked up the small man who had his gun in his face.

"Oh yeah he definitely dead now" the orc said and they agreed with him"

To our surprise the gnomes just laughed and walked up to the young soldier and tapped him on the back well, his leg now such he was standing.

"You are Soo cute!" The kid said.

The gnome in his hand blushed?

Yeah . . . I'm never going to forget seeing that.

As the kid set the gnome back down the one who spoke to us then yanked the kids leg as he pulled trying to get him to follow.

The kid looked to us then back to the gnome, who gave the kid a nod.

"Come on guys, they want to show us something!" the kid said as if he understood the gnome.

We just looked blankly at the kid as he just followed the gnome into the darkness, Oh and while picking up another gnome.

We looked at each other and we all sighed and followed them into the darkness. for a clear image they were sorta cute? I guess their faces had no wrinkles meaning they were young or they just don't exist for their race.

They did look like humans but with no wrinkly faces which I thought was just cheating, I'm 25 and Even I was not the best looking, yet these small humans had almost perfect faces, they were all clean they had nothing on their faces besides small moles or at least some of them, but they were small.

God is unfair, he gave all of the love to these little people, oh and they all had hair different colors in fact.

you know what I'm done. I'm done comparing myself to the gnomes. Anyways, they all wore uniforms. Men wore shirts and pants with many kinds of pockets and small miniature helmets the colors were black and yellow lines outlining their clothes and pockets, the helmets had an artistic design each one the same they looked amazing, badass even that's what makes them scary.

The ones with the flamethrowers wore suits of armor made out of metals, it too was black and yellow to protect themselves from the heat it seemed, while the mech was made out metal with the same colors.

We continued to walk that it felt like a hour has passed and that's when we saw it, a Gate which was the size of ours inside of the cave, as we got closer we heard drill sounds, we approached the opening where we saw multiple tunnels where the gnomes were driving drills into the stone to make more tunnels, the drills had tracks and a gnome was driving it, they were only 5 feet tall enough to fit a gnome and the width was like a car for them, there was at least a dozen of them with gnomes who carried rifles protecting them.

I though we saw the multi story building gate have a damn airship flew out of Gate it had gnomes on it as well, they held rifles but the airship had mounted weapons including cannons and mounted rifles that had 5 barrels, it was definitely a machine gun and once again they had a gemstone embedded on the side of it as well.

That airship had the length of two buses back to back, while the width was enough to have 30 gnomes walking around without bumping in each other and could fit more as well, on top of that, it could fit through the gate, our helicopters could fit, jets could but we did not fly them in such it would be too dangerous, such they could not land anywhere on the other side if something happened, but these gnomes are able to have their stuff fit in and out no problem such they are smaller and it was hovering due to large turbines as well as a blimp.

The airship was that out of a steampunk universe, actually everything they had was, maybe that's what their world is like.

The airship had a captains quarters as well which meant they had people under the deck as well, the size of that could not fit any of us bigger folks such the floor was probably not strong enough, but for them it could possibly hold at least 65 if not more gnomes, it flew about inside of the large cave as gnome soldiers walked the docks the height of the airship was 10 feet enough for gnomes to go under the main floor and the captain area was another 5 ft in that one area only, the blimp flew towards a light.

As I looked to the light it was an opening, it was the outside the gnomes Gate did connect to the outside of the cave, as I looked out the cave I saw gnomes building smaller houses that were 5 ft tall and walls that were 20 feet tall and some of it was already finished, gnomes built some of their machine guns and stood on the walls it could fit 5 gnomes with still space in the middle for others to walk by.

The kid was right they were geniuses, the walls had cover that could change its height all the gnomes had to do was pull up or push the wall down, that must mean there was mechanical parts inside of the wall, the wall was built out of new kind of metal it was a dark gray to make it blend in to the mountain.

The gnomes were building their own town it seemed and the airship flew to that town and it hovered above the ground as it landed and a ramp was let down, out of the ramp came out more materials to help with building the town, gnomes walked on and off of the airship there were other mechs but these ones had no weapons, they were meant for hauling objects.

As we went to the entrance of the portal the gnomes entered and we followed them, the other side was amazing to behold, there were thousands of gnomes and hundreds of airships flew about the sky of different sizes and different types of them, this was a large city which had their gate.

They had tall buildings that were 20 feet tall which is a two story for us but for them it was at least a 3 story for them there style was that of steampunk for sure but they did have houses like the dark ages as well they had gears turning on some of the buildings that had black smoke come out of chimneys.

That was not all they also had machines made out of gears walking around the town, they had different kinds, some had weapons like the rifle while others just hauled items, they were the same size of the gnomes some bigger than them.

We should not mess with these gnomes, they had vehicles like ours but made differently, it also ran on something even I'm clueless on, the gnome that led us here pointed to a large building in the distance, it was where the leader of the city is I'm guessing.

We all began to walk over to the building by following the gnomes, the civilian gnomes all looked at us and whispered in their language, they wore clothes like ours just everything else was different.

I continued to walk to the building and approached the doors, the gnomes opened them and inside was a table where a gnome was seated.