"Antonio, you want to build a goddamn Roman Palisade?" Alejandro sounded shocked. I turned towards him, and then back to Antonio, who had the widest grin in the world plastered on his face.

"Hell, if we're gonna be building a wall, we might as well do it right. Who better to reference than the Romans themselves." Antonio deadpanned.

Turning back to the piece of park depicting the structure, I couldn't help but think, it looks like it's plenty doable... So, I voiced my support for Antonio. "Let's do it," and with that, the decision was finalized. We were making a Roman Palisade.

The work intensified after that, now that we had a clear direction and goal that we were moving towards. We decided that we would first put up a small section of the wall to make sure it worked as we planned it to, plus since both Antonio and Alejandro have never exactly built a palisade before. So, Kevin and I jumped at the task of shoveling away a ditch. We quickly realized that a normal, wooden-handled shovel would almost certainly break, so Alex gave us two of his metal-handled shovels to use.

He only had one that was spade-shaped, while the other was square-shaped. It turned out not to be much of an issue though, the soil gave way like butter with the pressure we put onto it. So what normally would have been a rather arduous task was made much easier through the system and our increased attributes once again.

It took us a little less than ten minutes before we had managed to dig a three-foot-deep and a foot wide ditch. We then continued the ditch until it was lengthened to about eight feet, enough to fit an entire section of our palisade wall. The wood was brought over by Alex, Dante, William, and my father. Afterwhich Antonio and Alejandro quickly shaved off the top ends into upside-down cone-shaped points.

With that task done, we maneuvered each of the log segments into the ditch. Each piece of timber was about nine or ten feet tall, give or take a foot. So, while the height wasn't uniformly perfect, it was still tall enough on average to be fine.

With the logs placed in, we then enjoined each end with a pair of the larger logs, marking the stabilizing posts. We then filled in the remaining space in the ditch with leftover rocks and dirt. Then came the next task, which was to grab the makeshift planks that Antonio and Alejandro had prepared. Each of the planks were eight feet long. and so we placed them along the backside of our row of logs.

The next task was rather simple. We had Dante and Alex hold the two ends of the large plank in place while Antonio and Alejandro hammered the nails through the segments. They went in smoothly, in fact, better than it looked like they would have. Of course, some of the nails went all the way through the plank as well as the opposite log. It was fine though, the shoddy work wasn't nearly as important as the functionality the wall was intended to serve.

With that done, we ended up shoveling the remainder of the dirt along the backside of the wall, forming a slightly elevated mound for us to stand on. As such, if one of us stood behind the wall, our head would be able to crest over the side and look over, while still providing an ample amount of cover if necessary. Granted, I doubted any undead or monsters would really be able to shoot projectiles... Though I probably shouldn't tempt fate. Regardless, they were mainly going to be meant as a barrier where we can still shoot down onto any assailants, whilst still being safe.

Measuring the wall though, it looked like the outside of the palisade was about seven feet high off the ground, which should be enough of a height to mount a defense. The inner side was about five-and-a-half to six feet off of the ground, as we had elevated up the inner side with the leftover dirt.

Stepping back, we were all quite satisfied with ourselves. Antonio then spoke up, "that should definitely do. Might not be the prettiest thing, but it sure as hell will function as a wall. Good work guys."

So with that, and after a short break eating some more canned food from our massive supply of it, we all went back to work. We needed to get about three thousand more logs, which would end up equating to a little over a thousand or so trees.

It took several hours, but we developed a system where we would have three people dedicated to just cutting the trees. It also got to the point where it only really took about two or three strikes at most to get a tree to sever. As such, we sped up the time we were gathering wood. The fourth member of our wood-cutting crew, William, would simply transport the logs back to Antonio and Alejandro where they both continued to clean up the logs into functional elements for our palisade.

So, while we left the five of them to their task, Kevin and I continued to labor away in the ditches. It turned out the overall task of digging the trench became much easier when we decided to split the work. I would use a digging bar and thrust it down about three feet, to turn the soil, and he would simply shovel it out and make sure the edges were wide enough. In that way, we worked until we had finished the entire seven-hundred stretch of the road.

With just a few hours of sunlight left, Kevin and I decided that heading back into the forest and actually checking out the dungeon would be a task best left for tomorrow. We should make as much progress as we could today with the wall, and then we'll let everyone else take over the palisade's construction tomorrow while we head to the dungeon.

As such, and after Alex's agreement, the decision was made that our dungeon delve would be done tomorrow. The rest of the day we ultimately managed to get rather close to the amount of timber it appeared would be required for the wall. This meant that tomorrow we would actually begin the construction of the palisade.

We finished digging through the stretch of soil that would mark the area our trench would cover, which happened to be our flank along the main road. It turned out we had actually only gone about seven hundred or so feet before we had made the decision to stop. The decision was easy, as it was that exact distance that marked where the boundary between the zone and the outside world became apparent. The heat also began to escalate rather quickly as we approached the boundary, and the still smoldering embers of the land beyond were disconcerting, to say the least. We had gotten used to the idea that things weren't too far from normal, considering we were still living and sleeping inside of a house, but the presence of the desolated outside world was a harsh reminder that our small refuge was simply that, a refuge. The world was far from normal and that was our new reality.

It wasn't just the landscape that caused us to stop though, no, it was the smell. It was the putrid stink of corpses and bodies, many burnt to a crisp. It was also the fact that when we looked out into the distance, we saw movement about ten houses down. After only a few moments staring down the street, we realized the movement signified the figure of a walking corpse, its flesh having long since been burnt off during the opening forrays of the flames into the area. It was obviously in a rather poor state, without any eyes or ears, it wandered aimlessly, however even from this distance I could see the soft bluish glow from its eyes indicating that despite obvious signs of sensory organs, the undead was most definitely still capable of being aware of its surroundings.

We agreed though to just ignore what was out there and get this over with. So, we followed what appeared to be the boundary of the mana zone and decided to use that as an indication of where our wall would continue. Of course, it wasn't perfect, as we had to make some changes to account for the landscape as well as our bisecting between the properties of two houses.

We simply marked the area by cutting a line straight through the grass into the soul with our shovels. It was rather easy as we only needed to press down with a bit of our strength and drag. It wasn't going to be exact, but it would serve as a good indicator for the others tomorrow as they continued to work on the palisade. As such it appeared that the wall would run about seven hundred feet along the main road, and then cut between two properties to another residential road for about three-hundred and fifty feet. After which it would follow about six hundred feet along that same residential road, before cutting through four more properties on our southern end for about another nine hundred feet, meandering through the adjoining residential properties.

All-in-all it looked as though we would need about 2,600 feet worth of palisade to cover the entire perimeter of the area we wanted to use to expand the community into. There were a total of about fourteen homes already present within the boundaries we set, and quite a bit of empty land between some of the properties filled with trees. Of course, quite a bit of renovation would need to be done if we wanted to make it perform all of the functions we needed for the community, but the hour-long walkaround served a solid role in helping give us perspective on exactly what we were accomplishing here.

Pulling up the ruler menu, I got an idea of where exactly we were in terms of our wood acquisition.

I was taken back a bit by the adjusted amount of timber that was going to be required for the palisade. Did it make an adjustment based on the trench lines we placed? If so, that was actually pretty impressive. The new menus once again showed just how useful they could potentially be. It also appeared we were well within striking distance of acquiring the remaining amount of wood we'd need for the palisade.

At this point though, the sun was already going down, and we were already running out of daylight. I heard a low growl begin to spread throughout the night, coming from the direction of the cemetery. I knew it was time for everybody to head back to the house.

It was apparent that the undead were becoming increasingly restless, and it only worsened at night. Looking up into the sky, I noted that the moon was just barely entering its waxing gibbous phase.

In sudden realization, I noted that I could actually see the sky again, and I smiled. It had been several days now since the sky had been completely obscured by the ash, but now the scene above only looked like a foggy and cloudy night. The moon was visible again. Yet... It almost appeared it was taking on a slightly reddish hue as compared to its normal white lunar glow. I shrugged it off though, figuring that perhaps it was just the massive amounts of ash in the air.

When we returned to the house, it looked as though everyone had already finished up for the day working on clearing the trees and preparing to build the palisade tomorrow.

As Kevin and I entered the kitchen, I could instantly tell just how exhausted everyone was, and so, I decided that it would likely be an appropriate time to tell them all we'll just postpone the council meeting for the next day, after Kevin, Alex, and I explored the Dungeon. Nobody complained, and as such we all spent the night in a rather uplifted spirit.

I couldn't help but wonder as I watched on from the sidelines at everyone laughing and enjoying themselves, perhaps it's the feeling of just getting something done and having a goal that's changing the atmosphere of the Community? Plus, it was also obvious everyone was beginning to become much more familiar and comfortable around one another.

My spirits were brought down however as I reflected on the sight of the area beyond the barrier marking the Mana Zone. So, while everyone else laughed, I could only frown. We really do need to get stronger, and quick too.