Mage And Wolf
Chapter 259

Everyone went to the location of their old houses to gather everything they could. The inside of the hotels are bare, but set up as three bedroom units in one and single bedroom units in the other. Family and single, or young couple buildings.

Despite the lack of anything like luxuries, werewolves are picking units to move all their surviving belongings into. They’ll have running water eventually, there are pipes, sinks, showers and toilets. They just don’t have a water supply yet. The pack well was damaged and needs repair and connection to the new buildings.

At the witches suggestion, they built large cisterns under them to store water from rainfall on the roof or pumped in from the wells. They’ve got large water filters already, in almost every house, so the ones that survived will be moved to the new buildings.

The werewolves laugh at the idea of Central heat. Out here in the middle of nowhere, wood stoves were the heat source for everyone. They just chopped what they needed every year and brought it back to dry. But we’re upgrading now. There’s a boiler in the basement and radiators all over the buildings, the heating system Lelou is used to.

Of course, the red Dragons heat piles of lava rock in the boiler with their breath, a duty of the caretaker in the Orphanages. But the idea is the same.

These ones are inscribed with high level fire talismans, courtesy of Karl. One more cultivation energy sink for the pack. The cast iron wood stoves for the living units are being brought from the old houses, so chimneys were installed, but that’s the extent of the buildings. Bare essentials.

As expected though, Karl did offer Alpha Conway a creation circle. They’re not short on monster cores here anymore, with hundreds of category 2 through 4 Beasts dead recently, so they can make the rest of what they need.

It seems nobody in the pack intends to sleep tonight. A constant stream of werewolves are moving personal belongings from the rubble of the pack into the newly built buildings all night long, stopping only when the sun comes up to eat breakfast.

The creation circle has been placed in the surviving pack house, and Lala was more than happy to show them how to use it. Karl went above and beyond with this one, not just creating basic ingredients and building materials, it will also create a number of favorite dishes, ready to be served. That alone was enough cause for the staff to celebrate.

A simple donation of a low grade monster core made enough breakfast for hundreds of hungry Wolves, and the kitchen staff is already working the cost of making meals that way into their budget. Three grade 2 or a grade 3 stone every day to create communal meals, until everyone gets settled into their new homes, then a single grade 2 stone should cover everyone who isn’t eating with their families at home.

I do warn them not to get too optimistic, both in Arcana and in Alpha Petros’s pack, almost everyone gathered at the dining hall for meals. Once word gets around that they only need to send the hunters out to collect a few stones for the base of the meal, they can expect a LOT of Wolves to come for meals.

By noon everyone is exhausted, but most of the personal effects have been recovered, and all but a few are settled in to their new homes. Those few being young orphans. The pack has been helping them out, but everyone had their own work to do, so they’re behind. Not to mention mentally devastated by the loss of their parents.

Alpha Conway has put them to bed in the pack house, while me and Karl sort through their former houses, collecting everything we can salvage to be sorted later. The destruction is shocking to say the least, only one building in the entire pack compound survived.

Every other building from houses to sheds was crushed flat by the rampaging monsters. Even for them, that’s abnormal. They don’t usually care about buildings, so they’re either under directions to destroy them, or something caused them to view buildings as a threat. To find the answer, we might have to travel back west following their path, but someone needs to warn those to the east.

I decide to see how that part of things is going, so I head up to Alpha Conway’s office and knock at the door.

"Come in. What news do you have for me?"

"We collected everything from the orphans houses and piled it in a rebuilt shed. It’ll be out of the weather now and they can sort it into their new homes when they get the chance. The witches have energized the wall inscriptions, as well as the central heating system, and we used magic to get some water into the cisterns, so you’ve got hot and cold running water in the new buildings. The well still needs repair though."

He nods along, noting every point I’ve made before replying. "I got ahold of the two nearest towns and the pack to the east of us, giving them the heads up. We don’t know what route the monsters are taking, but they’re taking precautions. The other pack also has a bunker set up, plus they have a pair of Mages, who are mates to their pack members, so they’re starting the wall. All they need is information on the Inscription to reinforce it in case they are in the path of the migration."

"I’ll see what we can do. Most everyone knows Karl, so he might know where the pack is to be able to get there." I say and Conway smiles.

"He’s been trouble for a long time. Maybe now that he’s mated he will calm down."

I laugh at his optimism. Did he forget who Karl is mated to? A High Priestess of the Death God isn’t exactly candidate number one when you’re hoping to instill good behavior.

"Any word from the west? Survivors, hints at what might have caused this chaos?" I ask and Conway shakes his head.

"Not a word out of the west. But there’s a storm out that way, makes for poor radio signals."