Time slowly passed. Crimson and brown started to take over the once vibrant green lands as the season turned. Their days were exhausting, yet slow paced, and soon began to blend together in memory. The only way they remembered how long things had been like this was the markings Alaric made on a large wooden board in the main hall. He put up a mark there every morning.

  Autumn soon arrived. Rain started to become more frequent, forcing them indoors for longer stretches of time. Yet they worked for as long as daylight allowed, and by the end of the week, the path for the waterway was finally cleared, the land surveyed, and the path it would take staked.

  Then began the hard labour. They scavenged every single shovel they found in the castle and got to work. Every able bodied man, aside from Robert and Charles got to work digging the waterway, while the women shared the work of scavenging for food and looking for brine springs.

  Robert accompanied Ava and Sarah on their search for salt, while Charles helped Harriet cook for the people.

  The soil on the forest floor was soft and moist. It was easy to dig in, all things considered. But a two meter wide and one meter deep trench quickly proved to be exhausting for even the fittest person. Even Alaric quickly started to feel the effects of exhaustion despite all the physical attribute enhancements he received from the system.

  The only thing that broke the monotonous nature of the work was seeing Cinder pass by, led by Sarah, pulling the small cart Alaric had made a while ago. Despite that, the hours crawled by slowly, turning into days.

  One week into the digging, the trench started to become somewhat visible along the entire path. It wasn’t even half a meter deep yet, but still, they felt proud.

  It was less than a week later when Robert and Ava barged into the main hall as the sun approached the horizon.

  “We found it!” Robert exclaimed. Ava nodded vigorously as they rushed to where Alaric and Sarah were sitting. “A large brine spring. It’s down by the valley,” he continued, pulling out a map Alaric had given them. “Here.”

  He pointed at a spot below the cliff, towards the north, beyond the waterfall. “It’s inside a large, wide cave.” Ava described. “Going there is simple, except that we need to hop over some river stones to pass over the water, but aside from that it’s just down the cliff, up north, over the river, all flat ground down there.”

  As he listened, his lips widened with a smile. A weight he didn’t even know was there lifted from his shoulders. “Great,” he breathed a sigh of relief. “Then we’ll have to set up a team tomorrow to start collecting it. The river is the only issue… how deep is it?”

  “Not too deep.” Ava shrugged. “Probably deep enough to get to my knees, at most.” She looked down at her own legs as she tried to measure her knees’ height.

  “Then you can take Cinder and the cart. Bring back as much of the water as you can. We’ll need to boil it here, doing it there would take too long, and we can’t risk anyone staying out after sundown.” Even if there wasn’t the Profaned Legion essentially waiting for them to step outside at night, he would have deemed it too dangerous.

  “We’ll go grab it at dawn then.” Robert smirked. “Then I’ll go out hunting.”

  We can smoke the meat. We can dry it, store it. He smiled as they went to get a bowl of stew. If they were careful and rationed the food, they could last the winter. And in spring, they’d get to work on the farms.

  He instinctively glanced upwards, half expecting a countdown to be there at the corner of his eye. All these plans and timelines only worked if the system didn’t throw another threat at them.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I don’t think it’s over yet.

  His smile vanished as he finished his meal. The distant fortress that stood tall where Fairford once was… It was a threat he couldn’t ignore. As much as he wished it, the Profaned Legion was unlikely to wait forever. Eventually, something was going to change, and they’d have to try and survive that.

  We can do it. We survived so far. We’re in a better position than ever before.

  The next day, as soon as dawn broke, people left the castle. Cinder, this time taken by Robert and Ava, headed down the cliff via the steep slope, while Alaric went back to digging. Victoria and the others were busy with the small garden they were trying to cultivate, and Laura took the women out to scavenge for more food.

  Running footsteps broke the calm, monotonous work they were going as the sun approached its zenith. Elizabeth dashed past most of the workers till she found him and came to a halt as she grabbed onto a tree for support.

  “They need you…” she wheezed, trying to catch her breath. “At the castle. Problem with… the brine spring. Hurry, please…” She pointed at the castle, then bent down as she tried to catch her breath.

  Alaric’s eyes widened. “Are they alright?” His heart sank as she took a moment to catch her breath.

  “Wounded,” she breathed out. “Clara healed them.”

  “Thanks.” He dropped the shovel and kicked the ground, breaking into a dash towards the castle.

  I should have sent Luna and Sol! He tightened his jaw and clenched his fist. How badly were they wounded? What had even happened? Questions whirled in his mind.

  He ran up the stairs leading inside, then nearly slid as he took a sharp turn left and dashed towards the makeshift hospital. He swung the door open, his gaze darted to the four people in the room, one by one.

  Ava was sitting on a bed cross legged. She was soaking wet, a fluffy towel was thrown over her shoulders. The left arm of her long-sleeved shirt was torn, and her skin was ever so slightly pink. Robert was sitting on a chair, his right hand resting on the table. His clothes were also soaked, and a towel placed on his knees. Clara’s hands hovered above his as she healed what looked like a rather deep cut.

  Harriet stood up as Alaric barged in. “They’re both fine now.” She said before he could even get a word out.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “To be honest,” Ava chimed in with a smirk. “You look worse than us.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d rather that than the opposite. What the hell happened?”

  Ava’s smirk vanished. “Something lives in the damn brine spring. We brought in the cart and everything, let Cinder out to graze, then started filling up the first barrel when it soaked us. I don’t even know what it was – just a gigantic wave appeared and knocked us over.”

  “I could swear I saw a tail. A sharp one. It’s what cut my hand.”

  “My arm got cut by a bloody rock of all things.” Ava grunted. “We had to go back cause Robert’s gun also got soaked.”

  Robert’s shoulders dropped. He looked down with a sad, almost tragic expression.

  “Cinder rushed in while all that happened,” Ava continued. “He kicked the thing… It made this really annoying noise and disappeared under the water. We saw a new wave forming and booked it.” She clenched her fist. “What are we supposed to do about it? We need the salt.”

  Thank the gods you’re alive.

  Alaric closed his eyes for a moment, letting his racing heart calm down. A wave of relief washed over him. He savoured it, glad they were mostly unharmed, then spoke. “We need the salt, yes.” He sat on a chair and rubbed his palm with his finger. “So, something that lives in the brine spring, and has a long tail that can cut?” They nodded to his words. “It’s not something I’ve ever read about. Ideas?”

  Everyone exchanged glances.

  That’s what I feared.

  “I mean… does matter? We need to lure it out and kill it.” Robert declared as Clara finally finished healing his hand. “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”

  She smiled, then sat down next to Alaric.

  “Maybe you can just… take it?” Ava suggested a moment later. “Use the mark on it?”

  Alaric hesitated. An aquatic creature wasn’t particularly useful in the current terrain. Not to mention his reduced mana. He touched the back of his hand, revealing his mana pool. About three quarters of it were crimson. Cinder took about two quarters, while Luna and Sol shared the final quarter. The blue portion was too small.

  "Oh." Ava sighed in disappointment. “We kill it then.”

  “Outside of the lake.” Alaric added, prompting them to look at him. “We can’t let it bleed into the water, can we?”

  “Bloody hell,” Robert cursed under his breath, drawing a judging gaze from Harriet. “How are we supposed to do that?”

  Alaric shrugged. “I don’t know. Give me some time to think. You don’t really have much of an idea on how big it is, do you?”

  They both shook their heads.

  Great.

  He got up, then slowly walked to the storage room below the castle. They’d know if it was some sort of gigantic water dragon. At least he hoped so. It had to be something smaller than that.