Frostbound

"Alright everyone. Great job!" I clapped to get everyone's attention. "Go get some rest!"

The time for preparing was over. What could be done was done, and only the Pure Crafters were left with last-minute touch-ups.

They weren't participating in the fighting the following day so they could afford to wear themselves out straight up until the timer hit zero.

Some were assigned to man the siege weapons, but there were far more builders than there were slots available for that.

The mood in the camp was tense. Everyone knew what tomorrow held, and that naturally raised tension levels. Most were sitting around fire pits chatting with friends, while others played games to distract themselves from the ticking clock.

One only had to look up at the alien obelisk to see it.

00:15:32:12

Fifteen and a half hours until the battle would begin.

As I walked through our camp, I spotted a few people sneaking drinks that they had stashed away to calm the nerves.

Beer, mead, and alcohol were all making a comeback now that the initial wave of food scarcity was evening out. We had allocated grain fields for exactly that back home in addition to the fields for food and animal feed.

Some took it upon themselves to make homemade brews or fermented wines and now that it was the night before, people were breaking open the stash.

If this was before the Change, leaders would throw a fit at the possibility of their army being hungover for a battle but that wasn't really a thing anymore. [Cleanse], anti-intoxication potions, and high Vitality all worked to flush the system of booze much faster than Before.