The next four days weren't quiet — they were focused.
And that made all the difference.
For the first time in weeks, there were no swarms looming just beyond the trees. No smoke on the horizon. No desperate rush to plug holes in a wall or bury the dead. The forest was still dangerous, but not ravenous. And in that brief stillness, Dalen's Hold finally had room to breathe.
Harold didn't let Dalen waste it.
Every morning started the same.
The sharp bark of orders echoed through the yard as Harold's soldiers drilled in open formation. Shieldwork. Paired sparring. Mana channeling drills that left the uninitiated doubled over in sweat. Harold ran through them too — alongside his personal guard, not moving with effortless economy yet. Dalen watched from the edge at first, then joined. His footing was awkward, his grip too tight on the wooden training sword Harold had given him, but he showed up.
That counted.
Some of the local adventurers joined the drills out of curiosity, trying to understand the strange discipline that animated Harold's people. It wasn't flashy. But it worked.
Hale took a personal hand in shaping the Hold's defensive core. Dalen's would-be captain, a wiry ex-warehouse foreman named Toman, was handed over for training and put through hell. Toman and the soldiers from Dalens Hold were put through Hale's personal training routine that had some of the veterans wincing sometimes. At least the river was right there to wash up at.
"This isn't about fighting monsters," Hale told the first squad one morning. "It's about fighting panic. You hold formation so the man next to you doesn't run. You hold for him. He holds for you. That's the game."
Toman nodded, bruised and winded but listening.
He would learn. Or someone else would.
While the rest of the Hold slept or nursed sore limbs, Harold worked alone in the back of his converted supply wagon. It had become a makeshift apothecary — lined with crates, worn benches, and long rows of drying herbs. Vials clinked in their racks. Potion crafting. Dozens of batches.
Healing first — what they needed most. Wounds, infections, old fractures, bad joints. Silent pain turned into movement again. Within four days, every soldier and villager who could be healed was. Some of them needed potions made just for them becaus the injuries were so old. So…healed.
They didn't cheer. They just stared — like they weren't sure if it was real.
"He thinks it's magic, but he's just cooking" Sarah had said, watching Dalen flee the alchemy stench.
"Sometimes that's all magic is," Harold replied, not looking up.
The nets by the shallows filled steadily now — rough cordage, anchored by stones and reinforced daily by laughing children who took the title "Fish Team" a little too seriously. One girl with a spoon declared herself Captain of the River Guard. Harold gave her a salute when he passed, and she turned bright red.
The fish weren't large, but they were consistent. A small economy was forming — smoked fish traded for firewood or cooking help.
The logging teams pushed deeper every day, chopping farther from the Hold, building paths to drag the haul back. What started as hesitant axe swings and dull hatchets turned into rhythm.
That wood fed the construction teams — and by the third day, the frame of a second hall had risen above the dirt.
Not the bronze mess that had spawned with the Hold. A real hall. With elevated stone footing, a central beam thick as a Tatanka's leg, and rough chalk lines marking space for a chimney.
"It'll take another week to finish after you leave," Dalen told Harold.
"But with this many people working? It'll happen."
The adventurers had turned the forest into a proper hunting ground again.
Small game returned daily — deer, boar, giant turkeys, and once, half a forest cat the size of a compact car. A few adventurers got too bold after finding signs of kobold raptors and had to be talked down.
"They hunt in packs," Sarah warned. "This isn't some taming quest."
Search missions turned up rare plants, minerals, and roots. Most Harold recognized. Some he didn't. One group — led, ironically, by the man Vera had laid flat on day one — returned with a mint-and-ash-smelling vine bundled in oilcloth.
"That's Aetherroot," Harold muttered, stunned. "This grows here?"
The forest, it turned out, was a hot spot. Mixed forest and jungle humidity, dense canopies, and ambient magical fallout combined into something volatile, fertile, and dangerous.
On the second night, a wiry man named Ellis came to Harold, hands wrapped in cloth, eyes sharp.
"I need tools," he said. "Or what passes for them."
"We don't have a forge," Harold warned.
"I'm not asking for a forge."
By morning, Ellis had carved a strip of dirt behind the second hall and turned it into a bare-bones workshop. Two pits. A rack. Soaking pits for shaping bone. A few fire-hardened stones. He crafted tools from scrap — chisels from arrowheads, clamps from bent nails, wedges and knives from split bone.
"This is what we used before metal," he told Dalen. "Before steam. Before comfort."
"It'll never be enough," Dalen said.
"Enough for what?"
"For progress."
"Don't need progress," Ellis shrugged. "Just traction."
By day four, people were calling it the workshop. Not because of how it looked — but because it worked.
The meals changed quietly.
A few older women dragged their cook fires together. Someone found an intact stew pot. Someone else built a table from scrap. Spices were shared. Benches carved. By the third night, over a hundred people ate at the same fire.
The stew was weak. The fish a little burnt. But it was food. And they ate together.
One kid fried insect meat on a flat stone and declared it "fine." Someone sang. Badly. Laughter followed.
A former shipping manager from Texas took over the day's schedule from Dalen without asking. He didn't stop her. She used pebbles to track assignments and left the slate board free for actual strategy.
"She's good," Carter said.
"Yeah," Harold murmured. "Keep an eye on her."
On the third night, Hale found Harold sorting herbs by the firelight near his workshop wagon.
"It's the third day."
"It is." Harold said.
"We could be back at the Landing."
Harold didn't reply immediately.
"We've been getting daily coded forum updates from Margaret."
"I know, but why are we still here?"
"Because we don't have to rush anymore." Harold explained.
"By the time we're back, the Landing'll be something new," Harold said.
Hale nodded, still skeptical. "So why keep investing here?"
Harold looked toward the second hall. Toward the laughter by the stew pot. Toward the patrols quietly moving along the berm.
"Because this place is in our sphere," Harold said. "When we upgrade to a town — and we will — we'll be able to start our own villages."
"And this Hold will be one of them?" Hale asked worriedly.
He watched a squad teach the kids how to properly lash crates with corded netting.
"Of course not, we can start our own villages at a higher level than this. We have the talent and people for it. But this place is in our sphere of influence and close to where I do want to start a village."
A long pause.
"So," Harold added, "what's the real issue?"
Hale didn't answer. Not fast enough.
"In a hurry to see your girlfriend?"
"She's not my—"
"Sure she's not," Harold smirked. "Tell you what. First leave rotation is yours. Take Margret and go see the sights. The mountains will be beautiful in the summer.."
Hale muttered something dark.
"What was that?"
The fires burned longer but not from fear. For the first time people weren't trying to go to sleep and forget their lives. They had lives to live again.
People shared tools. Shared pots. Shared jobs. They stopped surviving and started living.
Every night ended the same — Dalen beside Harold, both hunched over the command crate, reviewing the day.
Dalen took better notes now. Interrupted less. Asked clearer questions. Gave out a few orders himself.
"He's becoming a lord," Carter said on the third night.
"He'll do fine," Harold replied.
Carter just looked at him like he was crazy.
Harold just laughed a little, "You know I was worried about meeting him, he was a figure from my past. We never met but we knew of each other. I had heard a lot about him and a lot of it wasn't nice. I'm glad we got here before he turned into that.