log 009
Right now, I am feeling quite euphoric. I have finally managed to complete the inscription process for the metal spell. I actually do not feel like making a log but I have to do so or the folks in the head office will enter into crisis mode. Anyway, it is better for me to leave a record of the formation that I am building and make sure that in case of my untimely demise, whoever will come here will at the very least know what the formation does. Misuing formations is the easiest way for you to cause a massive explosions, especially one linked to elemental node.
The class nine formation that I am building is a very basic nurturing formation among the druids known as the iron skin. this spell is used by the druids to increase the durability of their skin. The spell does this by adding an extremely thin layer of metal mana covering your skin. The spell itself is not very strong as often this layer of metal mana is often not strong enough to block the strike of a blade and even if it managed to do that, the metal mana gathered would dissipate in blocking that strike.
The main problem with this formation is because of the speed at which the spell works. For example, if a druid managed to run this spell for nearly a hundred years continuously without being consumed even once the metal mana layer that is going to cover the user will finally become visible and at this stage only a general level figure would be able to harm that druid. These druids actually have a special name, called as the iron druids. Even at its peak, the druids only had two iron druids.
That is goal of my metal formation is to constantly cast the iron skin spell on the fort and create a metal barrier for every inch of the place. You can see the speed of the spell for a human, so naturally for the fort it is going to be even slower. I would not be surprised that it would take a thousand years to reach a state similar to the iron druids. That is even after I have found a elemental node for the metal element. The spell can make use of any mana to do this, but pure metal mana is the best fort this task. It is kind of like using paint, it will naturally take longer to paint a building if he had to process and make his paint from scratch with its raw materials each time he had to paint. If the paint is already available, one just needs to paint it on. The elemental node is literally a stream of paint for me in the present context, a thin stream, but a stream nonetheless.
Hey, every bit of it will help me whenever the fort is going to be struck. Well, It is nearly a week since the last log and I have to admit that I have underestimated just how annoying the cold is going to be. First of all, why the fuck is this place is so fucking cold. I have enough mana in my body that I do not need to worry about the cold actually affecting my fighting capabilities.
That does not mean that I stop feeling the cold, if anything the cold that I am feeling is way worse than the cold that the soldiers above are feeling. They are quite warm sitting up there you know. I have been spending nearly all the days that I have since coming here, down in these tunnels and while they are covered in clothes to keep them warm, I have a thin layer of clothes to keep me warm. Anymore and my agility in battles will be affected. Honestly, why the fuck did I think that the vine armour was going to be useful in this fucking cold. Oh yeah, I have two of the three elemental nodes needed for this process. One is the metal node and the other is the earth node. That only leaves me with the water node, which it seems is going to take quite a bit more looking.
Well, rather than talking of my miserable time down there, I am going to focus on the situation of the temporary fort. Now, I have been learning on why exactly these folks even need have to attempt something like the temporary fort.
The temporary forts are actually a pretty recent tactic for the snowwinders, something that they have begun to implement only a couple of years ago. To explain why exactly they are needed I have to explain the problems that are faced by the snowwinders in their war with with the snowlords. The snowwinders are forced to fight in a very disadvantageous position.
The place that we are in, the northern valleys is a place that acts as the border between these two warring powers. On the snowlander side, this valley ends up in plateau beyond which we have the northern wastelands. The northern wastelands is not a place that a mage will go lightly to. To put it simply, the northern wastelands is a location where even mana has a tendency of freezing. They literally are said to form crystals of mana, that certain species use as fuel. Most of these species are now extinct, maybe due to their fascination with entering the northern wastelands. The only people that have any idea about the wastelands is our enemies.
Anyway, If we were to go to the snowwinders side, this fight will go on in the plains of the snowwind empire. That would put the snowwinders in a pretty weird position, since they would essentially be destroying their own land to fight the snowlords. It does not help that the land that the snowwinders are protecting is the farm lands of the snow wind empire.
Hence the only real place where these two forces can fight is this region, this valley that borders both the regions. Yet one point that one must not forget is that even here the snowwinders fight at a disadvantage. At the onset of winter the valley has to face snowstorms with ice falling from the northern wastelands, which the snowlords make use of to strike the snowwinders. The snowwinders should have ended up dead in this exchange, especially the fact that the temperature at this place is enough to freeze most of these guys into a block of ice. They should have ended up dead or atleast at an disadvantage in this fight.
the main reason that the snowwinders have even managed to level the playing field is the fact that they have the frozen peaks. The frozen peaks acts as a place where the snowwinders can rest whenever they are not fighting. Otherwise in such a hostile environment just surviving would be hard, let alone fighting.
You can actually see a trace of that occuring in the temporary fort at the moment. The enemy has yet to strike us but it is quite clear that we are in a pretty deadly situation anyway. The enemy does not even need to appear at this fort for it fall. All that needs to happen is a decently powerful snowstorm has to hit us and the place will fall. Right now that is my main worry. I am not sure that If the metal spell that I have inscribed will even have a affect on the situation or if the base material that they have used for the fort is so weak that even a class nine formation will not be enough to make the fort durable enough for this place.
Anyway, as I was describing this means that the fight that is occuring here is essentially one of construction. The snowwinders will try to put up forts in the area and the snowlords will try to break them before the snowwinders can succeed in their task and if possible they will try to loot the fort to get useful materials. The snowlords have Quite the advantage in this matter since nobody can tell where they will strike next. They literally have the storms with them and an entire army does not hurt.
After all, even the construction of the simplest fort tends to take multiple months and during that period it is a prime target for the snowlords. So the temporary forts is actually the solutions that these guys have on this matter. Rather than try to build a proper fort in the traditional way, they are building a very large number of temporary buildings most which the snowlords might end up breaking in a couple of strikes. The cost of materials invested is not much, especially when the fort has been built in such a way that even if it has been broken it can reconstructed in a quick and efficient manner. Even if they don't become the next frozen peaks, these forts will act as outposts for it, greatly increasing snowwind influence in the place.
if even one of this buildings last for six months, it would completely be enough to satisfy the materials that have been invested into the task. That means that my present goal is to just make sure that fort will last for as long as possible. If they manage to make another fort last in the way that they have managed to make the frozen peaks last, at a fraction of the cost that they built the frozen peaks at, then they can keep doing this every year, for centuries if necessary.
I am beginning to understand why exactly I have been sent here and the reason that I have ended up here. I am essentially acting as an experiment for these people. Maybe it is my skill in formations, or my knowledge as a person of the black mountain that they want to test. Maybe they think that a stronger central formation is the way that they need to go to make these forts a success or something like that. (I certainly think so.)
Regardless, I cannot afford to fail in this task even if it is meant to be an experiment. The ruin that at the moment is holding all the people of my troop is at the moment protected by this exact fort. If at this moment the ruin is attacked I can send a group of soldiers to help protect them, but that is granted that these soldiers are not busy fighting for their lives because their fort that was meant to protect them has been destroyed because the wind is blowing too hard.
Now I am starting to wonder if I am making a mistake. Maybe a nurturing formation is not the way for me to go. Maybe I should have just focussed on inscribing a formation from the first day. After all a nurturing formation requires time to show its true power and that is something that I am not even sure if I have enough of. Well, a formation built is a path set. I cant change it even If I want to.
Regardless, I have managed to complete the very first and the most important part of the formation. The other parts of the formation can be added slowly and steadily with time, atleast the fort is not at risk for collapsing immediately. Now it is time for the riskiest part of the mission to begin, after all one can never tell the power of a formation without the first contact with the enemy.
I can already imagine the many ways that things can go wrong and that is not a feeling that I am enjoying. I hope the enemy will already come to this place and not let me torment myself like this.