The next week was a hectic one at Grenus’ Hovel as the various teams stepped up their activity bit by bit. The camp itself came to look like a proper military installation after Larry’s continued efforts and, while they didn’t have enough to last a terribly long time, their coal stockpile was steadily increasing. They were even able to convince two more to join in on the mining duties as an excuse to get away from Larry’s attentions. It wasn’t much, but it was progress.

With Curly and Kila still about two weeks out by her estimation, there wasn’t a ton of work to be done on the blacksmithing front. The one dude that they had at present was mostly only good for making horseshoes and they had a distinct lack of horses in the area. They did manage to start putting some effort into tending the crop area a bit better. Tearing up the icy soil doing what they could to improve conditions. Eventually, Len struck upon the idea of taking one of the shallower mineshafts and closing it off from the elements. They then laboriously hauled piles of dirt into it (by bucket, sadly they didn’t have any carts to move it with), and made some attempts at indoor gardening. This proved mostly fruitless since they couldn’t get a light source into the area that was sufficient for Marble’s needs, but it was something to consider for the future. In the meantime, they did have some minor luck with coaxing one of the varieties of edible mushroom in the area to produce a little. Marble’s talents didn’t work nearly as well on the fungus as they did on greener crops, but it was a little more on the food front, at least.

The third day brought the return of the pair of hunters: Calista and Krys. They’d managed to catch a number of smaller game, and one decent sized buck with their efforts, and the entire Hovel was elated at their haul. One of the craftsmen set to work with the skinning and cleaning, Cookie set to work preparing the food, and overall there was much rejoicing. They ate well that night and introductions were made. Neither Calista nor Krys seemed that impressed with Len personally, but they did seem moderately pleased with the changes around the camp and said so. Again, it wasn’t much, but Len was glad for the progress.

On the fifth day, a representative from the Kelvach tribe approached the fort. Valkar called for her and she approached the man. He was a youngish man with a tightly bound ponytail and heavy furs, and had the look of someone not entirely sure with what he was doing. He had a cart with him loaded with barrels of the sand Len had requested and he looked quite tired from hauling it.

“Howdy,” said Len without formality.

“Hail, Lenore Wraithwhisper. Belar sent me to offer you this… sand. I trust you have a better idea for what you’ll be doing with it than I do?”

“Oh yeah. Big plans, let me tell you. Want me to have someone haul that in for you? Show you around the place?”

“Err, I suppose,” he said hesitantly. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure about all this. We haven’t had much contact with this place in years and we’d mostly assumed you’d died off.”

“Oh, we were giving it our best shot, I’ll grant you. I’m trying to turn things around a bit. Kind of odd that you’re all so comfortable with it. Weren’t there a lot of attempts to crush you through military force?”

The man laughed.

“That’s a generous description. Every once in a while a few of your number try to attack us and get mowed down by our archers before they come close to us. We were always on the move, you’re just in this one spot, easy to ignore, easy to avoid, and never a threat. Even with the changes the Head made, you’re no threat. Frankly, it’s just nice to have a change of pace. And, if you decide to BECOME a threat, well, we’ll deal with you then. No harm in extending our hospitality until that happens.”

“You know, it’s both refreshing and terrifying how comfortable you guys are with talking about how easily you could kill us all. Consider this a scouting trip, then. See how little a threat we are and see how I’m doing everything in my power to help our little camp evolve to the point where we might take two or three of you with us if you decided that mass slaughter was the best solution.

“Hey Weaver!” She bellowed.

Moments later, the surly Orc joined them.

“Take this cart in for our friend here while I show him around.”

To his credit Weaver didn’t offer any words of objection, having realized they’d do him little good.

“So, you got a name?”

“Fenris Belarson,” the man replied, offering his hand.

“Ah, as in son of Belar?” she asked, taking it.

“The same. Father seemed to think that this venture was worthy of a personal touch and said you were an interesting elf to meet. So far, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

There was a slight twinkle in his eyes that she rather liked, but clamped down on that to focus on the more important matters of showing him around the place. It didn’t take long to show him the whole place, and she avoided showing him the depths of the mines because she did have some ongoing plans for that. He nodded and complemented various things throughout the tour and gave friendly waves to the wary Orcs who really had no idea what to make of any of this. When they finished the tour, Len turned to him to ask the question that she’d been somewhat dreading.

“So, what do we owe you? I’m not actually clear on the exchange rate of sand to iron/coal ore.”

“It’s mostly a matter of man-hours, I should think. Still don’t have the foggiest what you’re gonna do with it all, but that’s not my business. Your stockpile looks a bit bare, truth be told, and I’d hate to clear you out of fuel. How about I take what ore I can fit in my cart and call it even. You can keep the barrels for yourself.”

“Sounds good to me. It’ll still be a while before our smith gets here, so we don’t have a ton of use for it just yet. Can I interest you in sticking around for the night? The food’s crap and the company’s worse, but it’s a roof over your head at least.”

“Another time, perhaps,” he smiled. “There are a fair number of naysayers on this whole ordeal and it’s probably best not to give them more to talk about than absolutely necessary.”

“Fair enough. Well, it’s been good having you. This sand should last us for a bit, so I don’t think this delivery will be a routine thing, but if you want to send someone by on a weekly basis, we could probably arrange some basic trade. As you can see, we’ve got a lot of gaps in our supply chain at present.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise the best of arrangements, but at the very least, we might be able to supply some simple wares. No weapons, of course, and we’d appreciate being able to at least keep some eye on your buildup, but those are details to be hammered out at a later date.”

She smiled carefully. That bit there was more than an idle comment. He was definitely open to the idea of further relations, but he was also very clear that it would be on his people’s terms, not Len’s. That was fine for the moment. She doubted her ability to bring these people into the Demon Lord’s service through military means anyway. Still, she needed to prove her worth to them and, more importantly, the worth of building an alliance. Regardless of what it was called on paper.

It would take time and patience but this was a first step towards something with potential, she just had to make sure things didn’t blow up in their faces. She bid Fenris goodbye and headed back to her tent to think on things more. She actually didn’t know what the next step would be for building a glassworks of any sort. She suspected that it’d have to be done inside the mine for the sake of climate control, but she hadn’t really wanted to devote too much planning of it ‘til Belar actually made good on his promise. Now that that had happened, she could really get to work on some ideas.

She was humming a pleased little tune when she noticed something sticking out of one of her packs. The letter from Astrid had worked its way out a bit and, oddly, seemed to have resealed itself. Cocking an eyebrow, she plucked it up to see what that might mean.