There were roughly two hundred people left at the camp, a good chunk of people just left after the gates were open and more throughout the day and night.
As people were serving themselves a grain based breakfast, Maro yelled to get everyone's attention
"Good morning everyone, some of you may be wondering about your future… We have a couple months of grain that we can split amongst ourselves… For your plan, we will settle an abandoned and secluded dwarven fort… We are enemies of the kingdom, once word has spread we will all have bounties on us, we will never be able to rest within the confines of the Unity Kingdom"
"From what Kadrin told me, that ancient fort is huge enough to house a garrison of thousands, we can start a new life and offer an option to people who don't agree with the Kingdom… mainly fuck those Green fucking bastards. Free to kill, steal and rape with impunity under bullshit pretense… I've been here a week and I am fucking over it."
The people grumbled in agreement. Maro looked at the people, they were still recovering, weak… he wasn't sure they would even survive a week or two of marching across enemy land. The adrenaline of the escape was gone… they had to unlearn their 'survival at all costs' mentality and switch over to a thrive mentality.
He was glad for the dwarves in his company, they were more hardy for sure and excited to go to a legitimate dwarven ruin, return to their roots. The vast majority of Dwarves lived above ground ever since the demon lord of old chased them out of their mountains and underground cities, long ago.
They didn't even know of any Dwarves that had communities underground anymore, outside of mining operations within the kingdom.
"We have two weeks of marching… across enemy lands… we may not make it, but I promise we will burn and pillage every single village and town that houses those green shit stains"
With that, his new contingent of dwarf spear men repeatedly slammed the butts of their spears on the ground and shouted for war.
"We leave before Mid-day, pack up those who wish to join us"
He sat back down to chat with Kadrin and Gnarlo…
It had been a tough morning for Kadrin… Friga and Hilda took off earlier to go back to Friga's family estate. Turns out both of them were married and were only sent to the prison because they stabbed an Orc, who was being inappropriate, while shopping in town…
But Dwarves were an honourable race, they had a strict code, so despite being married… A promise is a promise. Maro was happy, he didn't want anyone falling in love with him while he casually enjoyed his new life, he had gotten burned one too many times in his old life… scorned lovers weren't good for the old life span.
"Don't worry Kadrin, we have many Dwarf women who have decided to stay. You'll get married one day"
Kadrin spat in anger "Maro, you do things the right way, I will walk in your footsteps… I don't want to ever get married anymore"
Kadrin then smiled remembering his night with Friga and then frowned again.
Meanwhile Gnarlo had become an item with the tall blonde human… An odd pair but it wasn't unheard of. Her name was Jenny, a low born woman, who's only crime was defending herself against a Goblin Lord's advances.
"You meatheads will never know how to keep a woman happy" Gnarlo piped
Maro and Kadrin both threw gravel at Gnarlo who cowered behind his new cloak. Gnarlo had decided to take Greentooth's Ornate wooden staff as a walking stick and took some fancy clothes from his closet as well.
"Lets take stock boys… looks like almost 250 people are staying with us. Roughly 70 Dwarf spearmen with shields, 25 Human swordsmen and 50 Gnomish Crossbow teams "
The armoury was stacked, Orcs and Wolfmen didn't really wear armour or shields so they had more than enough defensive equipment to fully suit up those 70 in chain mail, shields and helmets.
Weirdly most humans had left on their own, so they had around 25 swordsmen left and surprisingly most gnomes stayed. Those rascals got the worst treatment in the Kingdom, if you weren't a mage you were just a miniature version of a human, not good for hard labour and any academic pursuit was strongly limited to guild members. They would be happy to pillage with us.
But they had also found roughly 50 crossbows, another item that orcs and wolfmen didn't use. If they had, they would have been done for, they just needed to man the gate and shoot them down until reinforcements arrived.
But with those crossbows, he organized 2 man gnome teams to operate and shoot them. Maro had himself a solid little force, the only thing he was missing was cavalry. They also had about 100 women who had stayed to follow them… none of them really excited him.
"We have about a hundred camp followers, a couple of horses to pull the wagons that were left behind, A couple months of grain, a month of meat and a week of wine and a good chunk of silver"
"Kadrin, can you lead us to the Dwarf fortress?"
"Aye, it's been over a century since I looked upon it, but I remember" he spat… "let's get going"
"We have to be careful, there are for sure towns on our way and this far away from the capital, all the Orc and goblin tribes will be on the more feral side of things, they probably don't even speak common" Warned Gnarlo
"Nice, good opportunity to liberate some of us and to get some more silver… Can I count on gnomes for scouting?"
Gnarlo beamed with pride "For sure, you only see us because we let you see us"
The trio got up and started packing their private wagon full of all the luxuries. They filled it up with silver, wine and meat. Gnarlo had Jenny sit in the back while the three of them sat on the Coachmen's bench up front.
While they waited for the rest of the camp to get ready, they passed around a wine skin. For some reason Maro thought the week supply of wine wouldn't last 3 days. As he passed the skin to Kadrin he remembered he got 2 levels during his escape and opened up his character sheet.
Nice he thought, his stats got a decent raise and he even got some agility and dexterity points. He checked the skills tab, nice he got a new ability.
[War Cry - your roar thunders across the battlefield, you inspire allies and intimidate foes]
This game was really pushing him to be some frontline monster… he preferred not being heard or seen but he wasn't out of his element doing frontline assault work. He adapted and moved on.
"You guys know when the next green skin town is?" Maro wanted to test the effectiveness of his shout.
Gnarlo responded after a swig of wine "Probably 2-3 days away, there is good hunting in that area as well. The orc tribes should be situated near water sources and my boys can pick up some extra meat while scouting."