39 I Look Like A Murder Hobo

Callum contacted Primrose as soon as he was able to see his castle. However, she didn't respond until he was inside the main entrance.

"You're back, Sir Murray! I saw the mark disappear from the map. Did you get them to stop fighting?"

"Umm, yes. In a fashion, I guess I did. Primrose, you don't have to say Sir or Mister to me all the time. Just my name is fine. Also, could you pull up all of the upgrades that will increase the capacity of the castle that can be done with our current resources?"

"But you're the Castle Lord, Sir!" she said in an appalled tone.

"I am the Castle Lord, but I'm new to this and I don't really care for all that pompous buffoonery that some nobles go on about; I used to be a farmer until very recently. You keep saying Sir and I'll start looking for my dad. Now about those upgrades?"

"Oh, uh, here are the upgrades, Sir . . . I mean, Callum," stammered the little fairy.

She displayed a truncated list of only four upgrades: Keep for 3000, Basement for 3500, Footprint for 4000, and Entrance Hall for 750.

"Explain to me what the Entrance Hall will do. Why is it so much cheaper? And what will these other upgrades do? Also, why can't I do anything with this menu?" Callum asked as he tried to pull up more information about what he was seeing.

"It's only a display from me and you can't change my menu. You'll have to be in the Core Room to make the changes yourself," Primrose said as she hovered above the menu.

"The Entrance Hall is cheap because it's growth later on is limited. The Basement and Keep upgrades are vertical upgrades, while the Footprint increases the width and length of your Keep. The dimension and vertical upgrades are linked to each other."

"What do you mean by linked to each other?"

"As the size in one dimension increases, the benefits to any future increases in the other area are greatly improved. Best of all, it's retroactive! Selecting the Footprint upgrade will not only affect the three floors you have now, but any future floor increases will be built at that larger size."

"Ok, if I wanted to increase the capacity of the Keep to at least 60 within an hour, what would you recommend?" Callum said as he started walking to the staircase. He had not been able to check out the basement earlier and wanted to see what it was like.

"Oh, that's easy! You really need an Entrance Hall and then you should add another level to the Keep."

Callum examined the basement and saw that it was almost the same layout as the second floor, except the rooms were slightly larger due to the absence of an outer hallway. He also continued to pepper Primrose with questions regarding the various upgrades.

He learned that he could add enchantments—like heating or magical shields—to his keep; that the Mana Siphon and Mana Battery upgrades wouldn't be visible to his new tenants; and miscellaneous information about how Castle Cores functioned.

Based on what he learned, Callum decided to follow Primrose's suggestions and started the upgrades for the Entrance Hall and adding another floor. Fortunately, they would only take thirty minutes to finish; the Baroness' party would have no idea that their shelter could magically expand.

The Entrance Hall added a room right in front of the current main doors, and would add a second set of reinforced doors that enemies would have to breach before they could gain access into the keep.

Immediately above the Entrance Hall, was a barracks room for ten soldiers with several murder holes set into the ceiling of the Entrance Hall; this would allow defenders to fire down on any enemies trying to breach the inner set of doors.

The two additions would bring the Keep's capacity up to 70 and it would let Callum hide his possession of the Castle Core a little longer; giving him extra time to determine the character of his new residents.

Mana was also spent making some minor internal adjustments. A fake door at the bottom of the basement stairwell would enable him to add a second level to the basement and allow him to pretend that there had always been a second level.

He also designated one of the rooms on the third floor as his; he reinforced that door, added a lock to the door, and anchored the magical entrance to his Core Room in his room. Lastly, he designated one of the basement rooms to act as a storage room and another one to be a kitchen.

The remaining mana went into adding basic furniture to the various rooms. For example, the beds didn't have any bedding. Rooms were prioritized before the hall was given some tables and benches as mana started to run low and he was forced to stop.

Primrose was instructed to add more benches and tables to the storage room so he could pretend they had been held in storage this whole time. Fortunately, the mana cost for these small, quality of life improvements were incredibly low compared to the other upgrades.

_________

Callum watched as Captain Xinyi led the Baroness' party into sight at the entrance to the valley. He hoped he had dealt with all the biggest issues. It was too late to make any other major changes without revealing his secret.

Primrose was standing on his shoulder as they watched the incoming party. Callum's nervous energy jostled her around a little before she flew off of him.

"Callum, you seem nervous. What are you worried about?" the hovering fairy asked him.

"I'm just nervous about our new guests. I hope I didn't overlook something that could give away the fact that this is a Caste Core construct, I don't really know them or how they would react if they found out."

Primrose was just starting to settle on a comfortable spot on Amarok's back when she darted over to an agitated hover in front of Callum's face.

"Wait! You're telling me that you don't know these people?"

Callum told Primrose everything that had happened leading up to the fealty agreement and all the terms that had been agreed to. By the end of the explanation, Primrose had grown to her larger size. Her blue eyes stared at Callum in dismay.

"Let me see if I got this right, you just met these people," she paused to get a confirmation nod from Callum before continuing, "And they swore oaths to you after one meeting?"

He nodded his head up and down, "Yes, they did."

"Callum . . . uh . . . have you recently seen what you look like?" she hesitantly questioned, cringing as she finished her sentence.

He tried to picture what he looked like to the Baroness; a tall 6 ft (1.8m) man with long dark hair and a large unkempt beard. He would have been covered in blood, his clothing bloodstained as well.

His clothing was falling apart and, at this point, was even more shoddily patched with bits of half-cured leather than anything that resembled actual clothing.

"I look like a murder hobo, don't I?"

Primrose reluctantly nodded her head and he got the sense of wolfish laughter coming from his bond with Amarok. He quickly sent a subtle glance over at his lupine companion.

'Is our bond improving, or is Amarok just a natural trickster who could always understand me better than I thought he could?' Callum quickly thought to himself.

"So the Baroness is either more desperate than we realized, or she's got a trick up her sleeve."