Rex was really quick at convincing the Rodenti chief to let us go ask the humans for help. Despite the preparations, the leader of this group of Rodenti understood how precarious their situation was. We didn't even have to mention how the location was exposed. The chief already knew about it. At the same time, he was down to earth. This might be a good plan but he wasn't willing to just bring everybody to a random location in hopes of getting something in return. If he were to take his people to the human village, he needed to be sure that they would accept their presence.
But at the same time, in order to bring the Rodenti back to the human village, I would have to take a group of them first so they could talk to the humans and agree to help, and only then come back to pick everybody up. Even if everything worked quickly and they needed only a couple minutes to come to an agreement about the assistance, we would still be wasting precious time in this back and forth instead of preparing more defenses.
I quickly talked to Rex, explained the situation, but told him to stay. If everything went wrong and the humans couldn't come to an agreement, we would likely have to split off to fight. Meaning that the defenses he was already preparing would still be useful, nonetheless. I only gave him a suggestion to not make anything that was too hard to bring to the human village. That way, his efforts wouldn't be wasted if things worked out.
Soon, I was leaving the Rodenti village together with the same group that greeted me when I arrived. Their leader was called Max, and there were two Rodenti women coming with us. Rosa and Rita. Honestly, I still couldn't really recognize the difference between a male and a female Rodenti. To me they all looked the same with only different shades of brown fur. But this was something for me to learn in the future. Right now we needed to move fast.
Max led us back to the battlefield since he was more accustomed to the area than I was. But then it was my turn to point the direction so we could arrive at the human village as soon as possible. Thankfully, my System was helping to make sure I wasn't going to get lost. In 45 minutes, thanks to us running instead of just walking, we arrived back at the human village and saw that people were already preparing some very interesting defenses.
Astrid had made some circle of trees around the village, or at least that seemed to be the idea, but only halfway of that wall was standing up. The rest was being dragged by a few of the humans together with Michael and Riley using silk strings to help pull the weight of the trees. Meaning that they were not as heavy as I initially thought.
Nonetheless, it was impressive. Especially once I saw Astrid carrying one of them by herself. The Huskcarver was once more proving that she was a beast when it came to physical prowess. Then again, she also had {As I Flow So Does The Current} in her memory bank. It seemed she swapped the skills since I could see that her entire body was soaked in water. It was likely that she was taking the benefits of that buff to improve her abilities. A smart move on her part.
Once we arrived, the humans jumped into position to fight. Only after the chief arrived they lowered her guard by a small amount did they relax, but everyone was still pretty much on edge.
"Max, it's better if you give me your weapons." I turned to the Rodenti.
"Why? Then we weak, we vulnerable. We prey."
"I know you're going to feel that you are on enemy lines and without any way to protect yourself. I promise that if any human tries something, I'm going to stop them. But if you want them to trust you, you need to at least show that you don't want to fight."
Max stared at me for a moment. Then I noticed a small patch of fur around his eye that wasn't brown. Instead, it was white, a single white spot that made him somehow less intimidating. Despite being a giant rat covered in scars, he grumbled and asked Rita and Rosa to pass their weapons as well.
They offered them to me, the stone spears that Rex had created. But before letting go, Max looked deep into my eyes one more time and said, "I trust you."
I nodded. "I won't betray that trust."
When the humans saw how the Rodenti were giving up their weapons, they relaxed even more, but it was far from being a casual conversation. Still, the village chief, that woman who'd talked to us when we arrived, stepped forward.
"I see you truly brought the Rodenti here."
"I told you I would. And thank you for using the right name."
The woman just gave a nod and continued. "Did you offer our assistance?"
"I am not offering your assistance. I am saying that both sides need to work together to fight against the Witch. No one is doing any favors to each other. We're all just trying to survive," I quickly replied.
Rita stared at me for a moment as if I were talking nonsense, but personally, I understood the politics behind that type of conversation. Or at least, I understood how things like this happened in the real world. One side would always try to get a leg up on the other. Unless you were very explicit in what you were saying, people would just turn around and say that you promised something entirely different.
The village chief nodded again. Then the chief looked at the Rodenti one by one before saying, "Yes. We are all in danger. And we would like your help."
Max stepped forward. "We offer help. We lost family. You lost family. Not your fault. Not our fault. Witch fault. We agree?"
The woman who was leading the human village gave an unenthusiastic smile. "Yes. The Witch is to blame for our suffering. Yet… I can't help but feel that you are asking more of us than we are of you. I mean, we don't know where you live, and now you know where our home is. If we are going to help you, we need to know exactly where you live in this forest."
I interjected into the conversation. "I get what you're coming from, but that doesn't sound like a good idea. Besides, it's something that can be solved later."
It was pretty obvious what the village chief wanted. She was already thinking about the future. What would happen once the Witch was gone. It was likely that this one fight wasn't going to be enough to create great peace between the two groups. Maybe they were already thinking about a way to get rid of the Rodenti once this danger was out of the way and the Witch was no longer a problem.
But Max spoke up before I could continue my thoughts. "She already knows." He pointed at me.
But the village chief shook her head. "No. She's not one of us. She's one of the strangers that just arrived. We need you to show where your home is to our people. Not just some person who just got here."
Max shrugged, "We need help bring family anyway. Anyone can come."
"How many of you are there?" the chief asked, ignoring my previous comments, although by her stare I was sure she wasn't going to let that slide so soon.
Max looked around. "About same number. Maybe couple more. Extra children."
"Very well. I know we are already wasting too much time, and we need to have these people to assist you." She gestured to the surrounding villagers, including Jacob, who was still clutching a pitchfork with both his hands and pointing at us. "We need to stay here to help fortify the village so we can be better prepared for the fight. But you can take a couple of them as long as you don't waste too much time."
"We won't waste. Let's go," Max started walking back and gestured for me to give him his spear once again, which I did. Even though my eyes didn't leave the village chief.
There was something on her face that made me very suspicious of whatever she was planning. My gut wasn't telling me that she was working with the Witch, but there was something going on there. I just needed to figure out what.
The people who ended up joining us were Jacob and a woman named Camila, who spoke to us and defended us when the two groups called off from the fight. It took roughly an hour to get back, and the sun was starting to get low in the sky.
Having all the Rodenti grab their stuff and leave the village was extremely easy. They didn't seem to be very attached to material possessions. No one was complaining, no one was saying anything about leaving furniture behind or letting go of their home. Then again, living near a Witch like this might not be the most stable thing to do. Maybe this was why they were acting so differently. Or the Rodenti truly didn't care about' stuff'.
Less than 10 minutes later, we were all back on the ground, leaving the tree houses, which only Jacob climbed. Camila stayed on the ground, saying that she was scared of heights. Although I was pretty sure that she just didn't trust that the structures made by the Rodenti would be able to withstand her weight. Not that she was on the heavy side, but because of a fear of going up into a tree house made by giant rats.
Then, we were all rushing back to the human village. This time, however, we took a bit longer. We spent almost 2 hours to make the same distance. Not because the Rodenti were dragging their feet, or because the children that were with us started running around in the forest, which they did. But because we were all carrying the various barricade materials that Rex had created.
My companion really went all out in his efforts. He made giant caltrops and what were essentially spikes made out of dirt that they were thinking about putting around the trees to protect them from any attacks from below. All those would now be placed in the outer wall of the human village to add another layer of protection. Not to mention the 50 or so rudimentary stone weapons that caused Jacob and Camila to be very worried about their safety.
The only thing that the humans had over the Rodenti were the weapons, because this particular group of Rodenti wasn't able to make any by themselves and didn't have anyone to teach them powerful skills. But now that Rex showed up and was giving arguably better weapons than the ones the humans had, their advantage was gone. They didn't say anything despite those reactions, and we arrived back in the village.
Everybody was staring at us with curiosity, some worry, and confusion. The only ones who didn't seem to have that same prejudice against the Rodenti were the children, who all became excited to see the rat people that they had heard so much about.
It was clear to me that the people who died in this village were not too close to the children. Otherwise, they wouldn't be having this amount of curiosity towards the Rodenti. Their resentment would probably be boiling over the moment they stepped foot here.
Still, despite the initial tension of the arrival, the fact that Astrid, Michael, Riley, and Rex were all ready to start working on the new improved defenses the moment they arrived didn't leave much time for people to be weird about each other. Astrid cut down a tree, making a large noise, which was followed by Riley calling people to help bring the trunk to the village. Michael said something about the weapons that Rex had made, asking for Rex's help to set up the defenses in front of the walls.
Everybody snapped into motion, with only a handful of people from both sides not actively helping. They were the ones responsible for the children, which included the pregnant woman and her husband, and a couple of older Rodenti who wouldn't be much of a help in a physical work like this. They were the ones who would be taking care of the children now and during the battle that was supposed to happen later tonight.
The sun was already starting to set, and the golden hour had begun. We still had walls that needed to be placed, traps and barricades that should be made, and there was still an entire side of the village that was wide open for any attacks. It wasn't something that could be solved easily. Unless, of course, they had someone like me to help.
With the help of a few of the Rodenti who didn't really know what they could be doing, I grabbed a few boulders to place at the opposite end of the half-moon wall. I set them up far away from each other, enough so that I could trigger {Compression} and let them reach a size roughly much smaller than the wall but still much bigger than the original boulders. Forming a funnel into this place.
I knew that if we were going to fight the Witch, it was going to be a situation where we either win or we die. And since she was here to try to attack the village, escaping wouldn't be an option. At least not for the people who lived here.
I still had in the back of my head an escape plan, which pretty much involved grabbing my friends and running as far away as we could. But that was something that we were only going to do if it became clear that we were fighting against something way beyond our power. The biggest problem would be convincing them that this was the only way to do this. I had a feeling that Riley and maybe even Astrid would accept it. I felt confident that Rex would be someone who would be more interested in surviving than in dying a pointless death. But Michael, there was a good chance that he was going to refuse this plan of running away, and I would need to knock him out.
Still, using {Compression}, I made this funnel-like shape on one side of the village using the large rocks. But since I made them way bigger than they were supposed to be, anyone who tried to climb over them would likely cause the rock to break down, collapsing on itself and becoming just more rubble to stop and slow down the attackers.
That is, if we were actually going to deal with an army. Which wasn't something anyone was sure about. We, who had more experience in dealing with Lumerin, were assuming that she would have an army of Aranean behind them. After all, that was exactly what the Witch of the Silken Fortress had. And I was positive that Wistra would use that army in any situation where Riley wasn't with us.
Since we were now dealing with another one who called herself a Witch, we were going to deal with roughly the same type of being. Part of me really wanted to be wrong. Really wanted us to only have to fight one enemy. And one enemy that wasn't really that strong. But it wasn't as if there was much I could do. The only thing that could make any difference was how well prepared we were for this fight.
Slowly but surely, the sun started to set, giving way to the night. We still could have prepared more. There were parts of the wall surrounding the village that could have been improved. Traps that could be made. Weapons to be created. But now, it was all over. Night had come, and soon the Witch would too.
#### Author's Note ####
Who is going to cause more trouble? The Witch or the Chief?