A New World, an immersive game experience

"Yeah, for some reason she appeared where they were when she returned." Elizabeth explained, "And they couldn't go north to Vlisia since the city is also besieged. "

"What about Juzna or Vistigo?" Pelaros asked, it was the two cities north of Ganalin, between Kynigo and Diades.

"Silver said that they didn't believe that the cities would be able to house them, especially since it is likely that they are also besieged. At the very least there should be plenty of raiding parties and running into any one of them would be catastrophic."

"We've been trying to confirm details, but the players we sent to the corner cities have had little success." Turning to look at Eldrian, Elizabeth sighed. Wishing that everyone could so act as brazenly as him to demand an audience with the city ruler and not stop until they succeeded.

However, few people were like Eldrian. And sometimes that was a good thing.

"I see, then they are likely going to move towards Ganalin first to stay as far from Juzna as possible. I can see why they decided so, but there is no guarantee that Kynigo would be safe either." Pelaros countered.

Hearing this, Eldrian recalled the message he had sent asking for the dwarfs to build fortifications between the cliffs and the mountains. Asking for an update, Nikki replied this time.

"It is being done, Mist informed me that they have finished the walls. However, the defenses have not been installed."

The speed was naturally shocking, however, Eldrian felt it should be normal if a kingdom placed its focus on it. After all, magic should be able to massively help in construction. He couldn't quite understand why there weren't many large fortifications of magical scale, but that was a topic for another time.

"Likely because they sent help to the rest of the kingdom," Eldrian mumbled, calling up his map he redid the map exploration. Its cost wasn't as much as before and was easily born by the orcs he had killed, he also expanded this detailed map exploration up to Diades and down towards Juzna.

This allowed him to get a clearer view of the geographical conditions surrounding them and that the refugees would need to travel. Taking a screenshot of this, Eldrian sent it to Silver. He wasn't sure what the other player's map looked like and asked for a return one.

'I see, regarding the normal map it is the same. I just have to pay XP.' Eldrian noted, asking her to outline the route they were going to take. He then used the map scouting function to check if there were any large orc bands nearby. And by nearby he meant within a few hundred kilometers.

'Seems Juzna is really surrounded.' Eldrian noted and shared this with Silver, when he came back to the meeting it seemed that Elizabeth and Pelaros were detailing where they should make fortifications around Kynigo. A massive detailed map of the Kynigo region now lay over the table.

"I'm not sure we should focus so much on the north. The orcs do not need to defeat us to have clear access to the capital. While we will be a danger as a rallying point, it is also about all that we will be. A possible danger that might never become real." Pelaros said.

"We should rather put more focus towards the south, the undead are surely not done. We need to retake the forts-"

"We don't have the manpower," Eldrian interrupted, while he hadn't investigated the forts deeply, the number of enemies in them was far too much for Kynigo's forces to handle.

Pyknos fort had around ten thousand undead, and Eldrian was certain that the number of unwilling would be high. He even suspected that there might be a few higher undead, and if they could make use of the magic tower then the dream of retaking it would be but a that; a dream.

"What of the cannons? Won't they be as effective on the offensive as defensive?" Pelaros asked.

"They will... However, we lack the materials to make more. We do not even have enough ammunition for defensive uses. In total the city has around 5000 standard iron cannonballs for the 100 standard outer cannons, these won't do much against enemies. Though it will destroy structures."

"As for the inner walls, we had forty cannons, lost three in our attempt to help Diades. Luckily, we did not lose all the cannonballs, so we should still have somewhere around 500. Then we have the one annihilations..." Eldrian turned to Elizabeth questioningly, who quickly admitted that the one on the field was precisely that one.

After all, the materials that had been used were not something that could easily be replicated. While weaker ammunition could be used, using a weaker cannon would exponentially weaken its effects.

"I see, well there you have it Pelaros. We can at most fire 500 effective attacks and we lack a way to resupply what we use. While the standard cannons would work well against walls. It won't do much against numerous enemies, and targeting stronger foes will be hard since they won't stand still and wait to be hit."

"I see..." Pelaros nodded and asked if there were truly no more materials left.

"Hah, that is only the beginning. Since the siege all the mines and many villages have been abandoned, we've focused on securing food and then focused on trade with the dwarves. So the mines are still inactive, we're not even sure if they are safe or not. Heck, I don't even know where these supposed mines are."

"As for stored materials, we've used them all and more. We've even used our network as Chosen, but those we have been trading with have become suspicious and are raising prices."

"Yet, we can't let the forts stay in the hands of the undead. How will we be able to give the remaining villages any security-" Pelaros countered but was quickly stopped by Eldrian.

"We aren't, all villages are going to be abandoned after the harvest," Eldrian replied, causing the centaur to stare at him like he was mad.

"And how are we to feed ourselves and all the refugees who are heading here?"

"Vertical farms, it's also something from our world." Turning to Elizabeth, Eldrian indicated for her to continue from here.

"Currently Therdul and Erik have started with the construction of the first. It is in the outer city, however, this type of farming can be moved to the inner city. They are only experimenting and confirming their theories for the moment."

Understanding that Eldrian was also out of the loop, Elizabeth went into a bit more details." The first vertical farm will make use of five elemental focals, which will be integrated into the natural structure of the farms."

"The first farm is set to produce lettuce, and estimations are that yield should be possible within two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Pelaros questioned while Eldrian instead asked via a message what these focals were.

"Yes, of the five focals, four are actually redundant. Their purpose is an expensive one, but seeing how little time we have they felt it was required to test if the theory fits practice." Elizabeth replied, Pelaros quickly understood after hearing that four would be redundant.

[[Elizabeth] - Elemental focals is how magic is incorporated into farming, it is a weak array that alters the elemental density to benefit the plants.]

"And what of all the animals?" Pelaros asked after taking a moment to try and wrap his head around what these vertical farms were really supposed to be. Of course, it would be easier to show him than to try and explain so Elizabeth had offered to take him to the first site after the meeting.

"The plan is to create these farms inside the inner walls, we will then turn all the land between the inner walls and the outer into grazing lands for domestic animals. Considering that the distance between the walls varies from eight to ten kilometers, we believe we should be able to keep enough animals for the entire population." Elizabeth replied.

AN: A big thanks to everyone who continues to support the story by simply reading on Web, voting for the story, or sharing comments. It is all greatly appreciated.