Free The Clan by D. Rus Page A

managed to get would have been the castle's bare walls. Pay him in full and consider adding a bonus.
    (End of excerpt)
     
    * * *
     
    The attendance of the next morning's meeting was less than usual. We'd had too many things to do so virtually no one had gone to bed the night before. The Vets were busy improving the castle's defense potential and negotiating some of the more sensitive issues with the allies as well as making an inventory of the loot and building the castle into the clan's infrastructure.
    About fifteen people had gathered in the small hall which hadn't suffered much during the storming of the castle. The officers rubbed their tired eyes and drank gallons of coffee. The iridescent tobacco smoke hung under the ceiling creating an inappropriately festive atmosphere and making Frag wince. He didn't say anything, though.
    I kept nodding off, too. All through the night, the castle had been buzzing—literally, like a high-voltage transformer. The loot crew kept tapping the walls poking their noses into every corner while the others checked every nook and cranny for the last holed-up prisoners. The universal enthusiasm had got the better of me and now I was deeply missing the lost hours of sleep. Only my inner greedy pig diligently listened to every report making mental notes in my memory and marking the most relevant points in red.
    An officer from the analytic s group was summarizing the reports received, voicing their recommendations.
    "...the castle's defense potential has been restored by twenty percent. Three mana accumulators have been fully charged and talks are under way to convince the alliance to temporarily allot us three mages as mana generators. Unfortunately, due to the excessive speed of mana siphoning," he cast me an accusing look, "over half of the unique crystals have been destroyed to a total value of two million four hundred thousand gold. I strongly recommend we find resources to order more accumulators."
    Frag waved his recommendations away. "We're not millionaires. The clan's purse has its limits. There're more important expenditures to consider. Even with the remaining crystals the dome is a cut above the one we have in the East Castle. I'd love to know which of the Cats came up with the bright idea of using a shield three classes higher than the castle itself! A Colossus dome in a Bastion castle, who would have thought of that? Not in a Stronghold or even a Citadel but in a Bastion! Actually, we have to thank them for that. Both them and Max. Without him, we'd have still been bashing our heads against their shield barely affecting its regen levels and becoming the whole cluster's laughing stock, much to the Cats' delight. Dan, that's something you should have taken into account."
    "My fault, Sir," Dan mumbled habitually, making a show of knitting his eyebrows as if saying, we're not mind readers to have spies everywhere at twenty-four hours' notice .
    The officer waited for the General's nod and continued, "We have already started repairing all the non-regen damage to the buildings incurred during the attack. We expect it to be completed by the evening. We can't really improve the castle's defensive potential as the Cats have already maxed out everything they could: the height of the walls, the number of towers and all possible hits. Bastion is its limit. We could install minor dome shields over certain areas, I suppose. The main gates, for instance. But that would be overdoing it, I have to agree with the Cats on this one."
    "The emergence of the High Spell," Frag murmured, "makes it more like a new reality. I'd like you to leak information about our supposed mole at the Cats' who had presumably helped us to get access to the Shield Artifact. That will do two things: detract attention from Max and placate our allies as the sheer possibility of penetrating a dome shield within a few minutes overturns the entire clan war strategy. We've been hearing from other clusters about such lightning