The air in the cavern crackled. Not with magic, but with the quiet, simmering indignation of a man whose well-ordered life had been rudely interrupted. Tevis Obolga, proprietor of a nascent farm and self-appointed HOA president, gripped his rusty gardening hoe like a spear. Its wooden handle, usually smooth from repetitive tilling, now felt like a weapon of divine judgment. “Right,” Tevis declared, his voice mild, yet carrying an unnatural weight that made the ancient cavern stones hum. “First, we need to tidy things up a bit. Can’t have this sort of… unauthorized construction just lying around.” He gestured vaguely at the cosmic blueprints, then at the distant memory of the ruined war-barge. Oksia Miersa stared at her god's sudden stillness. The serene recluse had vanished, replaced by an authority more terrifying than any war god she had imagined. He wasn’t just annoyed; he was *offended*. “My lord,” she managed, her voice a hushed reverence. “Where do we… begin?” “The nearest forward operating base,” Tevis stated, as if discussing the most logical next step for weeding. “They’re the ones making all the noise, disturbing the local wildlife. And they definitely didn’t file for a permit.” He nudged the straw brim down against the cavern drip. “This requires a stern word. And perhaps a bit of soil enrichment.” Zevran, still somewhat dazed but fiercely loyal after his impromptu tea ceremony, merely nodded. His Imperial conditioning had been washed away, leaving behind a simple, soldierly understanding: Tevis commanded, and he obeyed. “Which base, Master Tevis?” “The one with the big, pointy towers,” Tevis replied, recalling a blurry image from his brief, accidental memory download. “And what’s that creature’s name again? Our plow-beast? Get him ready. And bring the… the toad. He needs some fresh air.” Oksia’s gaze drifted to the gargantuan, purring Abyssal Eye, still radiating its strange, pacified psychic hum. To Tevis, it was a ‘toad.’ To her, it was the Slumbering Calamity, now seemingly content as a colossal, multi-eyed house pet. “The… Calamity, my lord?” she stammered, her hands tightening on her belt. “You wish it to accompany us?” “Of course,” Tevis said with a genial smile. “It’s good for it to get out and stretch. And it’s surprisingly good at clearing paths. Just make sure it doesn’t eat any of the good soil.” Leading the walk, striding with the casual gait of a man inspecting a tomato patch, was Tevis Obolga. He wore his usual simple clothes, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and carried his rusty hoe and a battered watering can. Behind him, riding atop the colossal, purring form of the creature—its abyssal eye swiveling with an unnerving, feline curiosity—sat Oksia Miersa. Her armor, once dull and scarred, now gleamed with a faint, divine luster. Her sword was drawn, not in defiance, but in readiness to protect her god from any trivial annoyance. Zevran marched beside them, a quiet, resolute shadow. And then came the rest of the procession. The enormous swamp leviathan, its many eyes now wide and placid, lumbered along like an oversized, slightly confused draft horse. Behind it, a stampede of the swamp’s most feared denizens – hulking, multi-limbed bog-fiends, their chitinous hides slick with muck, and spectral fen-wraiths, their translucent forms shimmering – followed. Not with malice, but with a bewildered obedience, pushed along by the sheer, overwhelming *rightness* of Tevis’s presence. It was less an army and more a parade of terrified, domesticated horrors, all drawn by the divine glow of Tevis’s indignation. The forward operating base of *Avaron’s Aegis*, a bastion of black, spell-hardened stone, loomed through the swirling fog. Its watchtowers bristled with arcane projectors, and the air around it thrummed with a barrier of pure, concentrated defensive sorcery. Inside, the garrison chief, Kaelenus, a stern-faced officer with a long scar bisecting his left eye, observed the approaching spectacle through a scrying orb. “Report!” he barked, his voice tight with disbelief. “What in the name of the Blighted Abyss is *that*?” A young mage stammered, “Sir, it appears to be… a rustic. And… and the ancient beast? And… swamp horrors. They’re… following him.” Kaelenus slammed his fist on the table. “Following him? Are you mad? Prepare the anti-entity wards! Deploy the Earthen Scourge protocols! Target the… the rustic first! He must be some kind of Warlock-Lord, controlling them all!” From the battlements, a volley of arcane destruction rained down. Bolts of pure, crackling energy, infused with curses designed to unravel flesh and spirit, screamed towards Tevis. Swirling vortexes of dark matter, capable of crushing stone to dust, manifested just ahead of the advancing line. The Earthen Scourge, a forbidden spell, ripped massive fissures in the ground, intending to swallow the entire retinue. Tevis, however, merely frowned. “Honestly,” he muttered, “such a waste of good fertilizer. And that’s terribly rude. Someone could trip.” With a flick of his wrist, Tevis swung his rusty hoe. It wasn’t a block, or a parry. It was the casual gesture of a man swatting a particularly annoying fly. The cosmic bolts, the dark matter vortexes, the very fissures in the earth – all dissolved. Not violently, but softly, like sugar in water. The raw, uncontrolled power behind them simply ceased to exist, replaced by a shower of sparkling, nutrient-rich dust that settled gently on the mud-fiends, making them twitch with confused, contented grunts. Kaelenus watched, throat tightening, as his most devastating spells vanished like mist. “Unleash the Siege Breaker! The Mana-Eater Cannons! Everything!” More energy surged, forming into glowing projectiles that slammed against the outer walls. Tevis shook his head. “See? They’re just making more of a mess. This really won’t do.” He stopped directly before Avaron’s Aegis. The redoubt walls, thirty feet high and impossibly thick, seemed to shrink under his gaze. He plunged the tip of his rusty hoe into the black, unyielding stone. There was no sound of shattering rock, no grinding of metal. Instead, a soft *shlurp* echoed across the marshland. The black stone, infused with centuries of defensive wards, began to ripple. Cracks spread, not with destruction, but with an almost organic growth. From within the fissures, green shoots emerged, pushing through the hard rock. They unfurled into vibrant, emerald leaves, then burst into blossoms of impossible color. The black stone, in moments, transformed. It became rich, dark soil, teeming with life, sprouting wildflowers, hardy ferns, and even plump, red radishes. The towering stronghold, the invincible Avaron’s Aegis, rapidly became a sprawling, fertile flowerbed. The battlements were now lined with blossoming vines, the arcane projectors sprouting sunflowers. Kaelenus, his cheek smeared with mud and petals, found himself standing knee-deep in freshly tilled earth, his polished leather boots ruined by a cluster of stubborn petunias. “By the gods…” a mage whispered, his voice trembling. “He’s… gardening the stronghold.” “The HOA president is quite thorough,” Zevran murmured, watching Tevis gently pluck a weed from a newly formed flowerbed, then offer it to a confused bog-fiend who sniffed it cautiously. Kaelenus, seeing his formidable stronghold reduced to a botanical curiosity, and with Tevis calmly eyeing a particularly stubborn patch of former wall, knew when he was defeated. “Retreat!” he shrieked, scrambling over a blossoming parapet. “Full retreat! Abandon the base!” The outpost soldiers, stripped of their arcane defenses and facing a cheerful rustic, a purring behemoth, and a host of bewildered swamp monsters, fled in disarray through the newly fertile mud. Tevis surveyed his handiwork, a satisfied smile returning to his face. “Much better,” he said, wiping a speck of mud from his cheek. “Now, to see if there are any other… unauthorized installations.” He turned to Oksia. “Did you see anything odd during the flight in? Maybe some sort of… pipe?” Oksia, still utterly mesmerized by the transformation, blinked. “A pipe, my lord? There was… a faint magical resonance from below. A deep hum, like a drain.” Tevis set his jaw. “A drain? Hmm. That won’t do at all. This is a retirement community, not a sewage system.” He plunged his hoe into the freshly tilled earth where the redoubt’s central keep had once stood. The ground gave way, revealing a massive, pulsing conduit, thick as a leviathan, burrowing deep into the world’s core, its energy thrumming with the stolen vitality of Zemora toward the distant throne city.

Tilling the Fortress