"Wha-" my eyes widened, the breath being taken out of me by the claw sticking out of both of my lungs and my neck. The giant moles that I had been killing for the past few days taking their revenge.

The world darkened, my brain losing oxygen as I ran out of breath. With my life force gone, I was not able to live any longer. I couldn't even self destruct as a final 'fuck you'.

As my consciousness left me I couldn't help but regret, regret that I hadn't taken revenge, that I hadn't lived enough, that I hadn't..

..

I woke to the sight of gray walls, the bedroom that I had slept in for so long in my sight again.

pαпdα Й?νê|,сòМ My hand reached down, the wound that I had taken from that undead having been healed.

"The king is awake!" I heard one of the more literate moles yell, the sound echoing through my ears as he ran past the door and into the hallway.

grumble

My stomach grumbled and I couldn't help but drool, I didn't know how many days had passed for my wound to not only have healed but for all of my energy to return with it. Though even if I knew that didn't take away from the fact that I was starving, so starving that I felt I could eat three or four full course meals.

That wasn't going to happen though, the pond that lay in the caver only held enough fish to keep us fed for the next months and me eating so much of it would deplete the population before they had a chance to breed and repopulate the pond. We were working on a solution to that, diverting the excess water into another tank where we would then populate that. Multiple habitats like this would allow for sustainable food sources but for now we didn't have nearly as much food as we would like to have.

Though my thoughts were broken by the opening of the door, a smell wafted into my nose as one of the giant moles brought a plate of fish into my room. Next to the bed was a small nightstand where the mole placed the food and walked to the hallway, presumably to wait on me if I needed anything.

I looked at the food and the delicious smell that it permeated the room with and raised my hand, picking it up to eat.

..

With great effort I was able to stand up, my legs sore from the disuse that was caused by my bedrest. I ignored that though, what was more important than my pain was for me to get to the throne room so that I could raise the morale of the moles.

With laborious steps I walked towards the exit of the room, "open" I quietly commanded, the door opening for me as I walked through it.

From there I made small commands here and there so as to make the journey towards the throne room easier.

Eventually I found myself at the door to the throne room and with another command the doors were quietly opened, my feet dragging me to the chair that I sat upon.

I looked around the room, to the various moles that had accompanied me throughout my journey. My gaze passed them all instead focusing straightforward as I addressed them.

"What has happened while I was indisposed?"

"My Lord, we have gone ahead and accepted some proposals that would strengthen the military force of your kingdom." One says, all the while handing me pieces of paper that detailed the proposals that were approved and disapproved. I quickly looked over them, on first and second glance none of them seemed wrong or harmful so I let it go.

"There was also major progress on expanding the food supply, with the mass amount of moles that had been born in the past weeks, we found it prudent to expedite the process. We are now capable of feeding every mole three meals a day and can support up to a 20 percent increase in the population." Another mole informed me, to which I nodded.

"Adjourned" I said, a headache filling my senses as the residual pain of my battle flared up.

..

"What are we to do, Gabriel and Naomi are gone" A worried voice said, whispering into my ear.

"We wait, there is no reason that they should abandon us," I began, looking to the worried subordinate that had asked me this. "We just need to continue fighting, if we are able to hold on for a few days there should be no reason that they have not made it back from Pandora's realm by then"historical

BANG BANG BANG

Arrows filled with fire flew towards the wooden walls as my eyes narrowed, my fingers reaching to my mouth.

"Hold your ears" I told my subordinate, my fingers reaching my mouth as I whistled.

Sound powerful enough to knock projectiles out of the arrow rang out, the ears of the elves that had sent them rupturing with it.

The arrows that had been sent were also sent of course landing in the field that separated them from us.

Sitting up, I grabbed the rudimentary flute that had been made for me and walked toward the battlefield. The whistle may have taken up a fourth of my energy reserves but it would quickly regenerate in the next hour. Though we would not have that much time, it was the whole reason that I was standing up to deflect their arrows, to make it seem as if it was useless to even think of firing them towards us. If they found that every volley of arrow was sent back to the ground they would find it useless though eventually they would figure it out and we would be bombarded before we could retaliate.

It was a stalling tactic, one made out of psychological theory.

I brought the flute to my mouth, a melody reaching to the elves' ears before it became piercing, their ears rupturing from the sound.

Though what surprised me was that they did not care for the damage, the elves recovered quickly and seemed to pick up their things hastily retreating to some place.

I heaved a sigh of relief but in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder what had happened for them to retreat so quickly, especially when they had been assaulting our fortress for the past few days.