Several of the graves were in the town, and it was daytime, so Fred couldn`t keep this activity secret from the humans. He just tried not to harm any of them. To them, it looked like Fred had conjured up some large earthen balls, and was playfully throwing them around. His shove/throws knocked a few humans off their feet, but seemed to cause no other problems. The shove/throws were loud, too, a big earthen thump, which made all the humans turn and look.

　　"What ARE you doing, Fred?" asked Martin.

　　"I`m digging up those dead demons and getting rid of them. They`re gross." Fred replied cheerfully.

　　"I thought they were difficult for you to control&" Martin said.

　　"They are. If I grab them. But it`s way easier if I throw them around. Like, in the air."

　　"Well, good, keep experimenting then." Martin shrugged, and made a show of a big sigh, like he didn`t want to admit it was interesting.

　　But in no time, Fred had all the demon remains out of the ground and flying eastward. Now this was really a game, as he tried to throw the lumps over the stream. This he accomplished almost perfectly. Almost. One thrown lump fell straight into the stream, with a big splash. "Oh mah god!" Fred shouted to himself, before stopping and laughing. The big splashdown hadn`t hurt anything. The only real problem was that the water was rehydrating the lump of dead demon, and washing bits of it away.

　　Weirdly, Fred felt a change. As more of the blood and gunk and sticky soil of the lump was washed away, the numb feeling also went away. As Fred watched, the demon remains slowly came apart and shrank as bits floated away. This lump had come to rest between the second and third bridges, and it didn`t seem like any humans were washing or drinking or bathing downstream of it. Fred thought that was good; he was sure the blood was still toxic.

　　Still, as more washed away, Fred felt that he had more control over what was left. After a few seconds of deep thought, Fred again cursed, and reached out to Kumbanaka and Martin.

　　"It`s water, you guys!" Fred nearly shouted. "Water! The demon blood stops my control. But not if it`s washed away!"

　　"You mean, if the demon blood is washed away, it won`t inhibit your control of the earth?" Martin asked.

　　"Yeah, that`s what I`m saying. This ball is& was& demon and dirt and demon blood all mixed together. And I couldn`t get a good grip on it. But now that the blood and dirt are mostly washed away, it doesn`t block me very much."

　　To prove it to himself, Fred grabbed what was left of the lump and dragged it under the ground (straight through the bottom of the streambed). This was pretty easy. "It works, yes!" Fred said.This narrative has been purloined without the author`s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

　　Then Kumbanaka blew his mind by asking, "What if it rained during the battle?"

　　"Holy shit, that`s brilliant!" Fred shouted. "That`s exactly what we need. Just think, those demons kill each other to stop my magic, and then the rain comes and washes it all away, and they killed themselves for nothing."

　　Just to be certain. Fred bounced another demon ball into the stream. He kept pushing the other eastward, though. His intention was simply to throw them beyond the border of his domain. The humans might still be able to see and smell them, but he wouldn`t have to. The new demon lump in the stream started washing away like the first one had. And the magic-blocking effect washed away, too, little by little.

　　"Yeah, it`s real. The power of water is real," Fred said to Kumbanaka and Martin.

　　"Well, humans have weather mages. They can summon storms to order," said Kumbanaka.

　　"Right! Awesome!" Fred cheered. "You`d have to tell them, though."

　　"Oh, I will. Aside from blocking your magic, the blood is so toxic that the humans will do anything to ameliorate it. If no weather mage is in residence now, the gryphons can fly one here quickly."

　　Now Fred had thrown all the demon remains fully outside of his domain, to the east. As he did this, Fred had watched the lookouts in the Towner Forts. They were mesmerized by the flying tar-lumps, and clearly continued to look and point at them, even when the lumps were out of Fred`s sight.

　　There were two demon lumps left; the two he`d dumped into the stream. He brought them together into one lump (which was still small, considering how much had washed away), and threw it as hard as he could. This throw got the lump from the stream, almost to the southern Tower Fort. From there one more throw got it out of his domain. Fred felt like that had been a job well done. He no longer had the numb little lumps bothering him, and they`d all learned something very valuable. He couldn`t wait to tell Jim.

　　Fred looked to the road. A new and large group of pilgrim/refugees was walking up the road, pointing at the flying lumps and talking to each other. Fred thought that there was still plenty of room for them, but the longer they stayed here, the more danger they were in. Fred hoped they knew that, and wondered where they`d go when the demon army actually showed up. Everyone would want to hide inside the walls, but there wasn`t as much space there.

　　For now, the new arrivals were guided to the east plains, where hot stones and latrines made it easy to set up more camps for more people. Fred continued to muse about what to do with all the refugees. He couldn`t assume they`d all escape when the demon army came, and anyway he had no idea where they would escape to. Beyond his own borders he had next to no idea about the geography, and no idea where the demon army would be coming from.

　　So he thought about housing the refugees here, and again remembered that digging was his superpower. "What about a big underground vault for all of them?" Fred wondered to himself. "I know I can make that." Instead of considering it some more, he just impulsively got to work.

　　He decided that the entrance would be just beside the road, up towards the Forest Temple. Just inside the tree line, he made a stone abutment, and made a big doorway into it. He extended this doorway straight into the mountain. He kept digging, pushing the 4 span by 4 span tunnel deeper into the mountain, until he`d gone over five hundred spans deep. This tunnel was pretty far west of his normal domain, and north of Martin`s lair.

　　Now, at the far end of the tunnel, he made a right-angle, and dug out a tunnel one hundred spans long. Then he widened it by thirty spans into a room. He felt that this size would be plenty big without being weak, or needing additional pillars to hold the roof up. Now he went back to the central hall, and made an identical room, but going right instead of left. This intersected another of those small caves with water running through it, which pleased Fred. "Now they`ll have water!" he crowed.

　　He finished the second 100x30 room, making the water run through it, and providing a deep basin for the water to collect in. He thought about making latrines for the people, but reasoned that this was an emergency bunker, to be used only during the battle, so people shouldn`t be inside for that long.

　　Instead, he made more rooms. Off the central hallway he made the 100x30 rooms to the right and left, and kept making them until there was only one hundred spans of hallway between the rooms and the outside. Fred had an idea that had been growing in his mind while he`d made this; he wanted multiple doors.

　　Big doors. Stone doors, that would resist as much as possible.