Chapter 134: The Cliff Harbor
The golem smashed through the rocky cliff face, its thick arms gripping the edges of the fissure and recklessly widening it. Stone fragments and ice shards rained down like hail, the dull impacts echoing like rolling thunder.
Wade stood at a distance, directing the spirits to control the golem’s first phase of construction. After the initial breakthrough, the golem continued digging inward through the gaps. What would have been difficult terrain for humans proved fragile before the golem’s immense strength.
The golem labored for over an hour until its summoning duration expired. The once sheer cliff face now bore a dark cavern entrance slightly taller than the golem itself—about eight meters high. This allowed standard galleys with their masts (which typically reached six meters) to sail directly into the cave. With another third added to the height, reaching twelve meters, even the castle-like Icelandic warships docked at the Lizardmen Faction’s harbor could enter.
Wade’s vision was a concealed harbor where ships could dock without revealing themselves on the open sea. From across the water, this appeared merely as a narrow natural fjord backed by sheer cliffs dozens of meters high. Who would suspect a harbor hidden within the cliff itself?
Stepping into the cavern’s darkness, Wade found himself in a vast space reminiscent of a giant natural limestone cave. He turned slowly, exploring the chamber on foot.
Mia floated upward until she bonked against the ceiling, then drifted down like a feather. The impact seemed to bother her not at all. After testing the height, she began darting playfully above Wade’s head. He let her amuse herself while he spent the next two days summoning skeletal carpenters and golems to plan the cavern’s layout.
Though the carpenters had never designed a harbor before, cave construction followed similar principles—reinforcement and excavation. They adapted basement construction techniques to this cliffside harbor, designating the entrance chamber for docking while tunneling in three directions like the underground fortress in the wasteland, with separate living quarters for demi-humans.
By the third day, the expanded cavern had reached impressive dimensions. The catfolk and ratfolk communities relocated en masse to this new fjord dwelling. Riding sleighs, the demi-humans crossed dozens of kilometers in batches to reach this coastal sanctuary.
The Deer Blood Faction’s reindeer hauled food stores and winter clothing across snowfields and frozen seas to the cavern. Charcoal fires now illuminated the hollowed-out space, with rows of wool-and-sealskin sleeping bags laid across the stone floor.
Days passed with Wade shuttling between the wasteland and the developing harbor. During his visits, he summoned golems for large-scale excavation. The slow but immensely powerful constructs erected stone pillars to support ceilings, crushed rock into gravel, and mixed it with clay and straw to create reinforcing mortar.
When Wade returned to the wasteland, the dragonkin oversaw interior work according to the blueprints, directing ratfolk and catfolk laborers. They dispatched reindeer to abandoned outposts to salvage timber for clandestine transport into the cavern. Ratfolk wielded mining picks to carve interconnected chambers.
Their work went undisturbed—no demons haunted the icy seas, no Viking warships patrolled. In this forgotten corner of the world, an isolated cliff harbor gradually took shape.
After a month, the complex included food storage, reindeer pens, ratfolk quarters, catfolk sleeping nooks, and even a stone workshop. Though crude, all essential areas had been hollowed out with proper load-bearing, reinforcement, and waterproofing.
The northern ratfolk, native to snowy regions, proved exceptional cavern engineers. Unlike humans who relied on learned techniques, ratfolk possessed innate tunneling instincts and thrived in narrow subterranean spaces. They understood how to hollow mountains without collapse, creating drainage systems that prevented flooding. Few creatures could match their excavation expertise—it was their racial specialty.
They applied this knowledge to harbor construction, though now using iron picks instead of their claws on harder stone compared to their usual soft soil digs. Training ratfolk for construction proved far easier than combat preparation. No morale issues arose during excavation—no wages needed either. Just keep them well-fed, and they worked happily.
On a late February day, Wade materialized in the cavern once more. He gazed upward at the towering cliffs where rope-and-pulley systems suspended kerosene lamps, their amber glow illuminating the heights. A network of climbing ropes allowed ratfolk to ascend and maintain this lighting grid. Minimal illumination sufficed—both catfolk and ratfolk possessed darkvision, and the northern ratfolk could navigate by scent and touch in total darkness.
The cliff harbor remained mostly empty, hosting only three Viking longships dragged from an outpost. These meter-high vessels resembled elongated wooden boots—the only transport feasible across snowfields before the ice melted. Their shallow draft allowed movement even across grasslands; Vikings sometimes carried them overland during raids.
No upward exit existed in the harbor design. The eighty-meter cliff face presented insurmountable excavation challenges—connecting to the surface would require years of work. Once the ice melted, ships would become essential for reaching land. Swimming remained theoretically possible… if one fancied a several-kilometer aquatic trek.