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"How much food do you have left in storage?" Lucius asked half-mindedly as he continued drawing up a plan on the soil.

"Storage?"

"Food reserves, how many days do you have left," Lucius elaborated, pausing whatever he was doing to look up at Shavak.

"The last boar we killed was several days ago. So we have a few more days before we have to eat again," Shavak replied hesitantly, unsure if he was answering Lucius\'s question properly.

"What?" Lucius asked in confusion, it took him another moment to realize that although these creatures had intelligence, they were still nowhere near to being referred to as \'truly\' civilized creatures.

"So your species can last several days without eating? That\'s good to know," he whispered to himself, realizing that he himself hadn\'t eaten in a while as well. Though at least now he knew that it was going to be easier feeding these creatures as compared to humans who had to eat every so often for them to be healthy.

"Are you guys familiar with the herbs of the forest?" Lucius asked, now looking at the pundits. To which they replied with sardonic stares.

"This is our area of expertise. We know every herb from the Nightmare Forest till the Immaculate Forest," one of them replied dismissively.

~Great, ego-maniacs,~ Lucius thought to himself, before pausing for a moment."Did you say, Nightmare Forest?"

"The section of the Forest south of here, the monster-infested lands," Avankor replied, a shiver traveling down his body.

"Monster infested? Like the predator creatures?"

"No, monsters. That\'s where the necromancer is from no doubt," Shavak added.

~Is the Nightmare Forest and Necropolis one and the same?~ Lucius thought to himself before deciding to investigate that issue later. Right now he had more important things to arrange.

"How many creatures are in this den?" he asked after some thought.

"Three hundred fully grown, and forty young," Shavak replied, before looking toward Avankor. As a king himself, Avankor had a duty to provide for his people as well.

"And my den had two hundred and seventy fully grown, and thirty young last time I checked," Avankor added, to which Lucius looked up with a sort of annoyance.

~Six hundred and forty creatures to feed? Meat won\'t be a sustainable way to properly feed everyone,~ he realized, before going back to his drawing.

So far he had drawn up a sort of low-detail map of different resource areas around the green forest. Such as herb locations, rock locations, boar and other meat hot spots, and a small section of the Immaculate forest that he and his children had explored.

"I\'ll need to go out and make sure that I have everything in its right place. I can\'t formulate plans without having a proper map to work with," Lucius announced.

The creatures in the room just stared at each other in confusion, of course, they didn\'t know anything about maps.

"While I do that, I\'ll need you to set aside a room with soft soil. Do you guys have a water source perhaps?" he asked immediately after.

"There is a river that runs throughout the den, will that be enough?" Shavak replied hesitantly. Lucius noticed that Shavak\'s scholars seemed to think his revealing this information was unwise.

"Everything will run along smoother if you don\'t hide anything. I understand that your people do not want to reveal all their secrets to an outsider you just met, but the lives of 640 creatures hang on every decision we make from this point on. Your secrets will rest with you in the grave if you don\'t cooperate," Lucius said, though he was certain that the grave idiom was wasted on them.

"Can you lead me to this... \'river\'?" he added shortly after.

Lucius had heard about subterranean rivers back on Earth, though he had never had the chance to visit one. If this really was a subterranean river, it was likely that it was connected to some larger water source, which could open up a new world of possibilities. Not to mention that the soil around that area would probably be extremely fertile.

A short silence followed shortly after, it seemed that Shavak and his scholars were unsure about whether to allow Lucius into the main den or not.

"Follow me," Shavak said after having debated with his scholars for nearly 5 minutes. It seemed that Shavak alone had agreed on this, as all seven of his scholars seemed unhappy with the decision.

After this, Lucius was led out of his room down a very long corridor, with guards stationed at regular intervals. The layout of these tunnels reminded him of his mission in the Shri\'killians labyrinth, though the twists and turns weren\'t nearly as complicated, and the tunnels here didn\'t move.

After traveling for 30 minutes, they finally walked through a tunnel that led toward a wide opening.

"An underground cave," Lucius whispered to himself as he could hear the sound of people talking echoing from the walls.

Even though they were underground there seemed to be some sort of blue glow coming from the sky. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that it was coming from the stalactite on the cave ceiling.

Now that he thought about it, all the other rooms were lit up by the same kind of rock as well.

"It\'s a beautiful place," Lucius whispered as Shavak spoke to the guards near the entrance of the cave. Now that there was more light, Lucius could see that the lack of food was really affecting everyone, as the guards seemed sluggish and frail.

As the group walked in, people began to gather around Shavak, adults and children alike stared at Avankor and Lucius in both fear and curiosity. Despair hung in the air, in was so thick that even Lucius himself was beginning to be affected.

He had seen this scene many times before; the most affected by war were usually the non-combatants.

"I take it they haven\'t seen outsiders before?" Lucius whispered to Avankor.

"Food is brought down here for the women and children, so most of them have never been to the surface," Avankor replied.

This much made sense as Lucius noticed that the women were noticeably smaller than the males, and more slender in appearance. They also seemed more humanoid compared to their male counterparts, which probably made them that much weaker.

"Father," a female voice called out from behind the crowd before a Chame wearing a red-cloth cloak walked to the front.

~So he has a daughter,~ Lucius thought to himself as Shamira stared daggers at him. ~Well, she doesn\'t seem to like me very much,~ he noted, before moving forward, and brushing past her.