Ch. 69 Ara

It had been 3 days since Gabriel's group had returned home from the Village. Gabriel had spent most of the first day back completely revamping their home. He had even asked everyone to think about a name for the place as he was sick of just calling it home or the cave. His first morning was spent upgrading all of the internal walls and putting in more structural supports. He didn't know just how dangerously they were living until he gained the Architecture knowledge, but they were one landslide away from having the whole place collapse in on themselves. Gabriel had also started integrating some Steel into the walls while he was reconfiguring them. Unlike the prior smooth walls, now they had a brick pattern throughout the entirety of the base, adding to the previous castle feel of it.

The large support columns he had made were built with a spiral pattern and pictures of flying Ravens swirling around with it. The flooring he kept the same as he loved the first design he put into it, all he did was reinforce the tiling so it would be able to withstand much more than before. He upgraded every single room, floor, fixture, even going so far as to give his large bath a new design making it feel more luxurious than before. He also learned his books on Glass Blowing and Making/Breaking Locks so that he could start adding windows to the buildings he had created inside the cave. For the glass he created a small forge area inside the cave complete with ventilation using Air Wave Stones and tiny tunnels to the outside. With this he could easily make glass plates and put them where he needed. The outside walls around the yard area had been raised to 7m with 2 Watchtowers of 8m in height. The walls had been thickened as well and a new gate system had been painstakingly created over the span of a whole afternoon. Creating the mechanisms to make a standard raisable gate with an intricate inner and outer locking system took some serious effort on Gabriel's part. He had to make a lot of small parts and get them all to line up together properly so that when the lock was engaged it could be unlocked on either side and raise the gate temporarily before falling again. Once Gabriel had finished the gate and watchtowers, it looked like they had an actual castle now. Although, you couldn't see the castle itself just the outer walls. He had also created a better drainage system for the fields and added a few more obstacles to the training course.

When one looked inside the cave they would no longer think it was just a castle, but a temple worshipping Ravens. Gabriel was quite proud of the place and wanted to keep making it even more amazing. Finishing up his morning training and meditation, Gabriel ate a quick lunch the made his way to the River. He had gone everyday at noon and waited for an hour in meditation, in case Ara showed up to come visit for a while. So far, she had not shown up, but he did have an encounter with a few bandits which quickly turned into a slaughter. As he arrived he spotted a feather floating down the river and started looking for Ara, based on where the feather was she shouldn't be too far up river.

"Gabriel!" Ara saved Gabriel down from afar as he was walking up the river to the shallows. There was no bridge on the river as Gabriel didn't want an easy route for foot traffic around their base, but there was a shallow section of the river where you would only need to wade through knee high water. Ara started to make her way across the river as Gabriel got closer to her position. "What did you do a few days ago!?"

"I helped you to make a ton of gold and then left the village."

"No! What did you do when you left the village!?"

"Oh, that, yeah some soldiers tried to buy one of the boys from me, so I laughed at him."

"There has to be more to it than that...."

"They may have gotten offended and attacked me, and I may have killed a few of them as a warning..."

"Don't forget about the ones you dismembered! The soldiers have been searching the village on a daily basis looking for you. They've even put up a bounty on your head! You're in a ton of trouble Gabriel!" Ara finally made her way across the river and was fixing her gear before putting her boots back on. "They'll start searching the Forest in a few days."

"Hahahaha, let them come. I've been wanting some new training targets. The soldiers that attacked my home last week weren't strong enough to even withstand my attacks, maybe they'll send stronger ones this time."

"What!?" Lady Ara's jaw went slack and her eyes wide. She had never thought Gabriel would be the type to fight against an army for no reason, much less one to pick a fight over something so petty. "What do you mean attacked your home? Who?"

"Those soldiers last week they attacked my home and tried to claim it as their own. They brought a big group and wouldn't leave after I warned them, so I killed most of them and sent one back to their lord with a warning. Then they pulled that stunt when I was leaving town, so I did it again. Next time I'm going to go raise hell in his city."

"Lord Irizan's men attacked your home? Where do you live?" Rather than try to explain Gabriel just gestures for her to follow him. They were completely silent on the hour and half long walk to the walls. Gabriel was getting more and more excited as they got closer as Ara was only the second person to see his home. Being that he built it all up from a small 2 chamber cave into a unique castle since the last time someone new had seen, he was anxious to see her reaction. As they came out of the treeline, a small gasp escaped from Ara.

"You live here!? How? Where did this even come from? The walls are so thick and even the gate is made from Earth. Did you build this? How is your Earth Manipulation this strong?... even if you... and how do these...." Lady Ara turned into a fan girl in a matter of seconds, rushing to the gates and examining every thing in detail. She kept murmuring under her breath not even allowing Gabriel the time to answer any of her questions. "How does it open? I see a hole here, but where the key?"

Gabriel pulled out a small iron rod with several different protrusions coming off it. He pushed the rod into the key hole and turned it clockwise until a loud *thud* rang out from the sides of the gate. The gate slowly began to rise with a loud clicking noise every few centimeters it went up. After 30 seconds it locked into place at just over 3m up and the 2 of them walked inside. Gabriel turned around after they entered wanting to double check the gate mechanisms were working properly. After another 30 seconds the gate made a loud click noise and slammed to the ground. (Good, everything is working properly. Now I can get to training and everyone can do as they please in the meantime.)

"Welcome to our home. If you'd follow me we can get you a home set up. Do you have any preferences?" Lady Ara gave Gabriel a strange look as she followed behind him not understanding why he was walking toward a small cliff face. As they were walking she suddenly lost sight of Gabriel, even though she was only a couple of steps behind him, and came to a complete stop.

"Oh, I forgot you haven't been here before. C'mon." A hand suddenly came out of nowhere and grabbed her arm before dragging her gods know where. Once she's vision caught up with her, another involuntary gasp escaped her lips. Looking around the short hallway she was flabbergasted at the craftsmanship that went into the place. She started touching the pictures that were carved into the wall by Gabriel's own hands. "I suppose now I should say welcome to our home. This was once a Goblin Village that Gala, Acorn and I cleared out. After I got the Earth Manipulation book from you, I came back here and started to restructure this place into what you see now. That was an Illusion created by 3 Illusion Stones placed around the entrance to mask it."

"H-how d-d-did you d-do this?"

"Do you mean that literally because that's a really long explanation that I'm not really in the mood to give. Let's get you a tour and a place to stay, then we can share stories at dinner time or something."