"HO!" Ten trainees and forty workers chorused and tugged at several long ropes.

With a cras.h.i.+ng sound, boulders were dragged away from the mine entrance and two trainees with prospecting experience clambered into the re-opened tunnel.

Remian watched them from where he sat atop Carrie. She and the wolfcats were running guard duty around the site of the nearer mine they had targeted earlier. Early scouts had reported that both mines had been sealed up, but could easily be re-opened. One mine was a Fire Copper lode; the other contained small deposits of jade. Both had previously been mined by the KarGoth family, who then sealed them up upon leaving the Frontier. They never came back.

More than five years (more like fifty!) had pa.s.sed since they left, thus all claims to these mines had long been forfeited.

There were other mines, other claims, all over the Wildlands. Many of those mines had been claimed by different nations, different sets of pioneers and colonists… in one case, a diamond mine had been claimed by no less than six different names in five different nations during different colonization efforts; three of those claims were still apparently 'legally valid' in the countries that they were made in, even though all of them had long ago abandoned the Wildlands.

These two in particular were under much simpler claims. Only one family claimed them, and they were made in the Ashdale nation with the Deutero company. According to Charlie, with those expiry dates long over, they only needed to work the mines to make a claim of their own.

To be honest, most of the world probably wouldn't care. These mines had long ago been abandoned, and the settlers of every nation had long since given up. Only the criminals and those born at Frontier Town stayed around the Wildlands, these days. There had been many adventurers here about a century ago, but since the New World (continent, really) was discovered, and the rich resources it held, hordes of them had sailed west, leaving this messy frontier to the beasts.

Afterward, the wars over the New World and all its resources raged, and the adventurers and pioneers who failed at this Frontier decided to build their own nation there. Libertaria rose up as an independent country and war after war was fought by those very adventurers who made the New World their home.

They never left. Most of those wars faded away half a hundred years ago, and Libertaria thrived. Now the turmoil was all in the region of the Seven Kingdoms and their neighbors. The world went on with its quarrels, all but forgetting this out-of-the-way corner where the beasts had challenged and defeated man and almost driven him out of their backyard.

No, the adventures were all out west and this land… this land was ruled by the Lords of the Wilds.

Unfortunately, it was a little hard to register a claim with any of them. The only one seeming to even give humans a chance on this land was Shadowflash and until now, Remian still had no idea where to find him or how to contact him.

Still. With his mate and son (Carrie and Vigil) being so friendly with them and helping them set up the mines and all, surely Shadowflash wouldn't be too opposed to Remian's crew mining these two lodes.

After all, the Wilds had no use for the likes of these minerals and the mines were going to be small from beginning to end. These lodes weren't particularly large and someone else had already mined the bulk of their resources ages ago. Remian's crew were practically sc.r.a.ping the bottom of the barrel here, for goods that the Wilds wouldn't even want. Shadowflash might not even care.

But even if Shadowflash didn't care, other local Wilds might. Never mind the resources; just having humans nearby was reason enough to attack. Remian saw quite a few staring at his crew as they pa.s.sed by. If not for Carrie and the other wolfcats, they would certainly have been attacked by now.

If the Wilds attacked, if the people were injured and he had to pay more medical bills, if their productivity was lowered by continued raids… Remian feared that the profits from these mines would drop so low, they'd earn less than Charlie's airs.h.i.+p would by trading on its own elsewhere. At that point, they might lose the last airs.h.i.+p still willing to drop by to do business with them. Right now all Remian had to offer Charlie were the last forty mana potions and the blue mana crystals on that cave wall. The minute those two were done, Remian feared that even Charlie would seek better business elsewhere and the Frontier would be abandoned completely.

The road could offer some security, if it were built. But that wasn't likely to happen for at least one year yet. Remian could do some trading with the rest of the world himself, if he had an airs.h.i.+p or ten… but for now, he had only these mines, so he'd best make the most of them.

"Structures are good!" the early scouts reported as they scoped out the Fire Copper mine. "Faint signs of ore around the top layer, but the mine goes six layers down at least. We'll need transportation for the lower layers."

"Logistics, move in!" Markus called. Arnold and his crew went in to set up rail-carts and elevators. One of the scouts came over to whisper something in Markus' ear. Markus grimaced, then turn to Remian. "We have a problem."

"What?" Remian asked.

"The KarGoths… they used magic for the machinery in the mine. The lifts and the mining carts all run on mana." Markus growled. "We brought coal and parts for steam engines, but this…!"

"It's a magic-drive mine?" Remian winced. For a family with a dozen mages or so, supplying mana to a small mine's machinery might just be a minor inconvenience, but Remian only had Mindy. He himself had unstable powers; a sudden super spike in his mana output could prove disastrous.

"What are our options?" Remian asked. "Do we really need to pull Mindy away from the airs.h.i.+ps?"

"Unless you've got mana crystals to spare, it's either Mindy or we have to rebuild the entire system to use steam."

Remian hesitated. "How much would rebuilding the system cost?"

"Considering the mine has seven layers, at this size…" Markus squinted. "At least a million Lir. Maybe three million. Also, Arnold, Andros and the crews skilled with machinery would be busy for a month."

"We can't afford that." Remian decided. "Even if we could afford to buy the parts, we can't afford to have Arnold, Andros and the smiths on this for that long. We need those siege weapons."

He took out a blue mana crystal. He had a few on hand intending to sell them to Charlie upon his next visit, which was due tonight or tomorrow, but in this situation… "Try this."

"Blue?" Markus let out a low whistle. "Let's try it."

It was only the size of a finger, but a single blue crystal was worth a hundred yellow ones. It proved to be enough. Minutes later, the chugging of machinery started up and the first scouts were descending to the lower layers.

"Second layer, depleted!"

"Third layer, hardly anything left!"

"Fourth layer, everything nearby's been taken, but there's signs of a vein farther in."

"Fifth layer, minimal surface ores, but there should be more if we can dig for it."

"Sixth layer, we seem to have some good nodes nearby. We'll just need to dig."

"Seventh layer, veins are good and ready to mine right now!"

"Two good layers." Markus summarized. "Two in question, and three useless."

"Worth mining?" Remian queried.

"Worth trying." Markus nodded shortly. "Focus all efforts on the sixth and seventh layers! Let's take what we can grab easily first. Also, we should run some tests and see if we should open up an eighth layer."

"Can we take the top off? Mine it Libertaristyle?" Arnold asked. "It would go a lot faster if we can bring some serious machinery to bear."

"We can't afford serious machinery." Remian shook his head. "Or a big operation. We also need you to focus on weapons. I'm afraid this little operation will have to do."

"We can light up the first layer and make it more comfortable." Markus said suddenly. "I'm thinking that if we fortify this location, it might turn out to be a good underground base."

Remian looked around, thinking. "If we dig out both the mines, turn them into strongholds… the Beast Waves would have to pa.s.s right through here to reach the town. We don't need to fight them at the town gates. We could stop them here."

"Exactly. Except I'm not sure we can actually stop them at all." Markus said. "But if we raised a few guard towers here, and keep the twin strongholds supplied, they could do some serious damage to the Beast Wave as it pa.s.ses by. It could make things a lot easier for us who need to stop them at the town."

"That depends on what's coming next." Remian observed. "If Spike comes by again, this isn't going to slow him down."

What would the Secret Waves do if they found out about the strongholds? What kind of Wave were they going to send this week? It was about time for them to call it. Seeing the success that Spike alone achieved last time, they might very well call Spike again.

Unless they found out about the twice-as-strong Ballista. That thing could at least hurt Spike. If they attacked in advance from maximum range, they could injure Spike and slow him down long enough that whatever crystal they used to call him would run out of power before he reached the town and they'd win some peace for the next couple of weeks.

Except that if they found out about the Ballista and that it was mounted on an airs.h.i.+p, they might change tactics and send in a flood of fast Tier 3 and Tier 4 light Wilds and one slow firing Ballista wouldn't be able to stop them. They'd decimate the semi-settlement Remian's crew had built west of the town ruins.

Maybe they should just risk it all and attack the Secret Waves directly. But the Blood Claw gang tried that earlier, they got wiped out. Tim wasn't too clear on the actual strength of the Secret Waves, even now, but the fact that they'd beaten the Blood Claw so thoroughly indicated that they were a lot stronger than anyone suspected.

No. It wasn't time to make such a big gamble. Remian needed to build his strength first and fend off the Beast Waves while he was at it. If only there was a way to know for sure what they'd send…

Oh wait. There was. The Secret Waves seemed to have arranged the Beast Waves to counter whatever Remian and the Iron Legion set up to stop them, right?

So all they had to do was use that.

"Markus? How do you feel about putting on a show?" Remian let out a smile.