Fred found it was another hour or so until morning, when he could talk to Jim about the new demon. He decided to check his domain zone by zone, and generally found nothing too strange or remarkable. He saw that the three forts were now occupied by some humans. Not many, but some in each one, and a human in each of the tower tops. That was cheering; he`d wanted the humans to provide early warnings to him.

　　He looked in on the demon guy again; he`d turned more green, because his mud pit was properly boiling. In fact it was probably too hot. The mud was dried up and cracked, and bits were ejecting alarming amounts of steam. Fred turned down the heat a bit, and reformed the mud as a liquid slurry. "Stay that way!" He commanded the mud, in his mind, but he wasn`t at all sure the mud would listen. He`d have to check back.

　　He looked in on the lioness, and the change was startling. Not only was she fully healed, she`d grown. He`d gotten the feeling before that she was something special, but now she was& majestic. The tree was no longer big and thick; it was now just right for her larger frame. He was proud that she could come to his domain and regain all she once had been. He almost thought, "Go kill lotsa humans, Your Highness," before he caught himself. "What am I thinking??"

　　Fred also noticed that Kumbanaka was up investigating the teleport compound personally, and Martin had stepped out with him. "Good," Fred thought. "Mebbe Martin can tell me about that fresco wall thing. I`ll bug him about it later."

　　Happy with what he saw, he had a good lay down with Shelley and her family until morning. He waited, and called out a few times, but Jim didn`t respond. Fred really wanted to ask about the demon, but he reasoned that Jim had to tell everyone else about the demon bombers, and that took precedence over his problems. It did make him a bit anxious, though.

　　Then he thought about speaking with his drums. "What a good idea. I shoulda done it last night." So he got started, sending the ten starter beats, and the eight beats of his name. He spoke about the two walls he`d made. He spoke about how big his lioness got. He spoke about the new tower and lair he`d made for his dragon.

　　He was about to speak about his teleport circle, but reasoned that anyone could hear his message, including demons, and he wasn`t sure the demons should know just yet. He wanted the human kings to figure out what they wanted to do with it. He finished drumming by the time the sun was fully up, though the new walls threw deep shadows all over his domain in fresh new ways.

　　And then the gryphons arrived. An entire flock of them just appeared, another sudden surprise for Fred. They each had human riders, and they all landed in the top floors of his towers. As Fred watched, they set up a great deal of chaos, since other humans had been occupying the top floors already. But the gryphon riders apparently had priority; many humans were yelling and waving and abandoning their tents and bedding, to get out of the way of the very large (compared to a human) beasts.

　　Fred looked more closely, and saw the three towers completely full of people, generally. "Do I have to make more towers again?" He thought. But he couldn`t help thinking that flying mounts were quite cool, and would help the humans avoid surprise visits from demon hordes and such. Plus, it had been his idea to make accommodations for such beasts. He felt a bit proud of his foresight.

　　While he watched, one gryphon used its huge beak and claws to savage a human civilian who`d gotten too close. Its rider and other humans struggled to get it under control. "Geez, control your beasts, guys." Fred thought reprovingly. "Everyone`s gonna have to get along around here."

　　But after twenty minutes, the gryphons were all settled down and organized. Throughout the day, Fred would see the riders take off and land, and he could watch them fly so long as they didn`t fly too high or too far. He also noticed that, while they were patrolling, they would carefully avoid flying near Martin`s new tower. Martin spent the day very busy.

　　Of course the humans couldn`t miss him, so the morning was a bit subdued, though inside the domain the battles were constant and furious. It did seem like the humans knew of all the healing magic available in Fred`s domain, and so fought boldly and even foolishly, knowing that as long as they didn`t actually die, they stood little chance of being permanently disabled.If you come across this story on Amazon, it`s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

　　Speaking of healing, Fred checked in at the healing temple. Priestess Sharfroen and her team were working as hard as ever, but everyone was distracted by five colorful birds that had shown up out of nowhere. They were all different colors, and flew around, something like the tree fairies. But these were rather big birds, more like parrots, with big curved beaks and poofy head feathers. And they sang constantly. And they liked to cling to peoples` shoulders.

　　Fred thought about it, and then used his magic sight. His actual mage sight showed that the birds were quite innately magical, glowing with silver and white light. His lair sight, in contrast, showed Fred that the birds wanted roosts. They wanted rescesses in the upper dome of the healing temple, which could be used as nests. Plus, they wanted sticks or rods that they could stand on, like tree branches.

　　Fred provided these things in a second, and all five of the birds flew up from the humans they`d been riding on, to take positions in the upper part of the dome. Now that they had what they apparently needed, their singing began to take on a more harmonious tone, and Fred could see that their magic was soothing and healing to all inside the temple.

　　Priestess Sharfroen could see that too. She started singing a wordless song, adding her voice in harmony to the birds`. Her acolytes took up the song, and the music, and the magic started to grow towards a crescendo of power. "Uh oh, here we go again," Fred thought. This felt like the big magic flash that had happened when the priestess had first appeared. It was a bit different, `cause ya know, bird magic, but the same big flash of magic washed out of the temple and across Fred`s whole domain, even traveling past the Glass Citadel and the whole town.

　　It washed up against Martin`s tower, causing Martin to sit up and cough in surprise. It washed deep into Fred`s Cave Zone, and over the big demon, who acted like it`d just been farted on. It screamed in offense, and started chopping all around its lair with its huge ugly cleaver. Curiously, Fred saw that the ogre was relaxed and unfazed by the sudden magic.

　　The magic pulse washed through the town, and many humans stopped what they were doing, got on their knees, and prayed. "Not to me, I hope," Fred thought. After the pulse passed, Fred saw that the kings came out to the center of town and led a big prayer thing together. There was much kneeling and speeches given. The cynical part of Fred couldn`t help assume that the powerful would take advantage of any strange event to cement their dominance over the rest of the humans. But that wasn`t really any of his concern.

　　Fred then felt something weird. Like someone monstrously huge was staring at him, like a human would look at a colorful bug. He felt sure he`d gotten the full attention of some god or other, and waited for something to happen, or some great voice to say something. Nothing did, however, and eventually the feeling went away. Still, it was freaky, and Fred asked Martin and Kumbanaka if they had felt it.

　　They had, and all three discussed the magic pulse and the (apparently) godly gaze. Fred explained about the five new birds, and they all humphed, and pondered it, with no real insights.

　　But the magic was very powerful, and the upshot of the sudden magic was that every human wore a golden glow about them for the whole rest of the day, and they quickly found out that the golden glow made them almost unkillable. This led to an afternoon of absolute slaughter for Fred`s creatures. Not a one was spared, though both the big demon and Martin showed the humans that they could still die for real, if they were torn into two pieces, and one piece was eaten.

　　Martin died twice, and both times he came back quickly enough to intercept any gold thieves that had made it out of his horde with sacks full of gold. This was exactly what Fred had been afraid of; he still felt that he`d given too much space to Martin, and he really wanted to discuss it with Jim.

　　The two kings seemed to have the most fun of the day. Together they`d rounded up as many riders as they could, and continuously attacked Martin, with much horn blowing and organized charges. Practically every human and horse was trampled, stomped, choked, poisoned, and blown over by Martin`s fierce swooping attacks. But he was also constantly harried by the gryphon riders who participated (not all did), and the humans were clever enough to recover all their wounded in a coordinated effort.

　　Another aspect of the free day of slaughter was the equipment. Many fighters now had the demonbane sword, and these swords were very effective against all of Fred`s creatures. Plus, more fighters wore more good armor, good shields, and good magic talismans than ever before.

　　Kumbanaka died in battle at noon, and took it in good cheer; it was the first time humans had gotten one of his fancy tokens. As planned, Fred didn`t replace the token that day, and wouldn`t until morning. Kumbanaka died several more times that day, but while the humans didn`t get another token, they got plenty of Treasure Sprites, and seemed to leave Kumbanaka`s mundane stuff alone, for the most part.

　　The lioness was a new and tremendously fierce opponent, which made her extremely popular. Fighters lined up from the Lined Hallway to the Front Steps, for a chance to battle her. The humans almost delighted in leaving their entrails in the lioness`s lair, but healing quickly after being dragged back outside. Fred kinda felt bad that this was how she started her first full day on the job. She didn`t seem upset by any of it, though.

　　Finally the shadows of the walls got long and deep, and the glow the humans had enjoyed wore off, and those foolish enough to press their luck died, or found themselves being dragged back down into the healing temple again. The battles ended, and the humans proceeded to enjoy a particularly intense bacchanalia that went long into the night, and was only cut short by the rainstorm that came later.

　　And Jim spoke up.