by Ember Lane
The feeling slowly faded. The light seeped back into him, and he floated back to the ground.
Congratulations! You have founded your settlement. Barakdor favors those who build. You are awarded 1000 experience points.
Congratulations! You have exceeded 2500 XP. You have leveled up. You are now level 4. You have 6 unallocated attribute points.
Congratulations! You have opened up new attributes. You may now reallocate your points into Politics, Culture, and Defense.
Congratulations! You have been awarded a guide. The guide will help you carry out the tasks associated with building a great and powerful city.
Congratulations! You have been awarded the profession, Elder. You will be able to advance your profession as your settlement grows.
Lincoln looked at his stat board, but nothing much seemed to have changed.
Name: Lincoln Hart. Race: Human. Type: Builder.
Age: 46. Alignment: Mandrake. XP: 3000. Level: 4. Profession: Elder. Un/Al pts: 6. Reputation: Somebody.
Personal
Health Points: 80/80 Energy: 100/100 Mana: 10/0
HP Regen: 8/Min EN Regen: 10/Min MA Regen: 1/Min
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (8, 0), Stamina: (10, 0), Intelligence: (1, 0)
Wisdom: (1, 0), Luck: (12, 0)
Strength: (8, 0) Agility: (7, 0)
Skills: (Level, % to next level, Boosts %, Level Cap)
Divination: (3, 55, 0, 25), Stealth: (2, 44, 0, 8), Commerce: (1, 0, 0, 40), Pickpocketing: (1, 0, 0, 6), Brewing: (1, 56, 0, ∞), Perception: (1, 15, 0, 10), Blades: (4, 67, 0, 14), Close-Q-fighting: (4, 12, 0, 18), Staff-fighting: (4, 33, 0, 26), Swordsmanship: (3, 92, 0, 10), Magic: (1, 0, 0, 3), Concealment: (2, 33, 0, 10), Night-vision: (2, 76, 0, 12)
Talents: None. Quests: None
He looked it up and down again, but could see no trace of the new attributes, nor anything that would indicate he was now head of a settlement, apart from his profession. He looked at his companions, but they were all staring at something behind him.
“What?” he asked.
“Behind you,” they said as one.
Lincoln slowly turned and saw a strange being standing before him about his height and copper in color, with a shiny, bald head. Its eyes, nose, and mouth were all where they should be, and a cloak flowed from its neck and over its feet to give the impression that it was floating. It had a tablet in its hands. The being looked straight at him.
“I am your guide,” it said. “Do you wish to assign me a name?”
“Erm…” Lincoln replied, shuffling from foot to foot. “Bethe?”
“Bethe,” Bethe confirmed. “Would you like to name the settlement?”
“Joan’s Creek.”
“Joan’s Creek,” Bethe said slowly. “You’ll find you have a new city menu. Would you like to access your new menu?”
“Please,” said Lincoln, wondering why he was so tongue-tied.
Settlement name: Joan’s Creek.
Population: 0 Population capacity: 0
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Politics: (0, 0), Culture: (0, 0), Defense: (0, 0)
Build speed: N/A, Learning advancement: N/A, Defense bonus: N/A
Buildings:
Cottages: 0
Production
Farms: 0Sawmills: 0
Quarries: 0Mines: 0
Resources (Amount, Production rate, (Consumption-food only))
Food: (2000, 0, 0), Wood: (10,000, 0)
Stone: (5,000, 0), Ore: (5000, 0)
“What would you like to do first?” Bethe asked.
Lincoln shrugged and looked around at his companions. “Somewhere to stay?”
They all nodded.
“A cottage?”
A prompt popped up in his mind.
Cottage – Level 1 – Costs: 100 food, 500 lumber, 50 iron – time to build – 5 workers 1 day – provides 10 workers, attracts 10 population.
“For each cottage you build, you will get 10 workers,” Bethe explained. “Workers are not like general population. They require no food other than what it takes to perform the task, nor do they need shelter and can be set to perform a multitude of tasks from building to defense.”
“Got it,” said Lincoln.
“Do you wish me to make the resources available?”
“Please.”
A pile of logs, some nails and hinges, and a basket full of food appeared about twenty yards away from them. Lincoln waited for it to start turning into a cottage. Nothing happened. He looked at Bethe.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well what?”
“Workers?”
“No cottage yet,” she replied.
He nodded. “Right lads, let’s build us a cottage.”
Ten minutes later, they’d eaten all the food and drank the small cask of ale that Bethe had supplied too. Lincoln looked around at all of them. “Right lads, now let’s build us a cottage.”
They chose a level spot right by the shore. Luckily, the dwarves came equipped with spades, hammers, and mallets. Lincoln had his troll pick, but Crags and Aezal had nothing. After a little, quite heated conversation, it was decided that as the warrior and the gnome knew nothing about building, they should prepare a camp for the night, hunt some food, and generally stay out of the way. After an hour, it was agreed that Lincoln should leave the dwarves to it. It appeared they had differing ideas on how to build a cottage.
Lincoln decided to walk along the lake’s shore and get a better feel of the place. Aezal and Crags had vanished into nearby woods, and Ozmic’s mallet banged away, only interrupted by Grimble’s barked orders.
Looking up at the sun, he guessed it was early afternoon. Apart from the noise of fevered construction, Lincoln could only hear the squawk of the fishing birds, the rustle of the swaying grass and the shimmering, breeze-blown leaves. A few yards of cattails lined the lake’s banks, alive with industrious insects flitting from one to the next. The swish and swirl of an otter made his heart jump, but he just ambled on, lost in the heady solace of this place. He came to a little inlet, a small copse a dozen or so yards back, and he sat there on the lake’s bank.
The city building appeared quite straight forward, but as he suspected, it was going to be laboriously slow. Though the token had given him reserves of food, lumber, stone, and iron, those would soon vanish. He understood he needed sawmills, quarries, mines, and farms to feed the village as it grew, but looking around, he also wondered if some of these things were…flexible. Then he smiled.
He wanted to understand the rules of this place. Surely he couldn’t just build sawmill after sawmill, produce endless wood, without exacting a price on the land around him. The same went for mining or quarrying the mountain, what price was there? To fulfil his promise to Joan, he had to work out the balance. What good would it be if the village was built and the land around ruined? But those thoughts weren’t what made him smile, it was because he was thinking of the land as real, and that made him happy. Aezal was real to him, as were Grimble and Ozmic, Crags…even Digberts. They were all real, especially Allaise, and Pete too.
Yet he knew he had a timespan. War was coming to the land, and what better time to build a refuge. What better time to do Joan’s work. He just had to figure how the land worked. Could it be that he could only use the timber that the trees could grow, so the sawmill was more to do with replanting the trees, or the volume each forest in the vale produced. The land must have to be in balance, and because he was cut off from everything, he had to maintain this vale’s balance. Or, build sawmills outside of the vale…that thought skimmed his mind…
He smiled again, knowing the constraints would make it so much easier to cheat, to manipulate, and filed those thoughts away in favor of another, sprouting idea. This place, Lincoln now thought; this place right here, on the banks, between the copse and the bulrushes; this place would be his. Five, he suddenly decided. He’d build five homes along here, one for each of them—not his com
panions now—but one for Alexa Drey, for Pog, Brandon, and the rude girl. A lakeside hut for them, if he could ever find them, that was. Or rather, if they could ever find him.
“Lincoln?”
He turned to see his city guide, Bethe, hovering by him. She looked remarkably…futuristic. He decided that guardian more suited her role.
“Would you like me to do anything for you?” Bethe asked.
“The workers that come with the cottages; tell me, are they true inhabitants, or just…helping hands?”
“They’re simple builders, farmers, and miners, but they are no way as effective as NPCs. You will need to attract folks to live here.”
“Do you know how remote this place is?”
“I have mapped a schematic of the local area, as any guide would. You may initially end up with an imbalance of elves and dwarves. Mantilees are fairly common in the forests beyond the western caves, other than that. There is a…pull…once a cottage is built and empty. They will come, eventually.”
“So, to get things done, I’ll have to rely on the workers.”
Bethe looked back toward the half-built cottage. “It would certainly get things built…correctly.”
“Tell me, when they build a cottage, what order do they do it in?”
“Walls, roof, windows, and then door. Why?”
“Just a thought.” Lincoln sprang up and walked back to the site of his settlement.
“Ho Grimble! Ho Ozmic!” he called, as he approached.
They had managed to get two sets of four logs on top of each other in an L-shape. Not bad for an hour or so, but the allotted day looked like a distant target to Lincoln.
“What?” Ozmic growled.
“I want to try something.” He leaned in and told Ozmic and Grimble his plan. Two hours later they had a building consisting of two walls just over a foot high, and a front door hung in a frame. They all stood back.
“What now?” Ozmic asked.
“Well, if I’m not mistaken…”
Congratulations! You have just completed a level 1 cottage. You are awarded 10 XP and allotted 10 settlement workers. You can now house 10 folks. Increase to level 2 to increase the cottage’s capacity. You are rewarded 500 iron.
Ten workers appeared out of thin air. Like Bethe, they were copper in color, but unlike her they were featureless: just head, arms, legs and a torso. They immediately started completing the cottage properly.
“Bethe.”
“Yes, Lincoln,” she answered stiffly.
“I’d like to make another cottage.”
“Yes, Lincoln.”
“Oh, and Bethe.”
“Yes, Lincoln.”
“It’s not cheating, it’s just a shortcut.”
“Yes, Lincoln. Anything else?”
“Nope.” He turned to the dwarves. “Let’s build another front door.” This time, they had it done in under an hour.
Congratulations! You have just completed a level 1 cottage. You are awarded 10 XP and 10 settlement workers. You can now house 10 folks. Increase to level 2 to increase the cottage’s capacity. You are rewarded 500 iron.
“Bethe?”
“Yes, Lincoln.”
“I’d like to build another cottage.”
Once they had six cottages being rebuilt, Lincoln decided they needed a rest. They consisted of him and the dwarves. Aezal and Crags had returned a little while ago and watched in awe as the workers set about the cottages. Sitting, Lincoln had time to think things through a little further. He lit his pipe and wished he had some more ale. Unfortunately, they’d only traveled with the bare bones.
“Bethe?”
“Yes, Lincoln.”
“What do I need to build a sawmill?”
“One hundred food, 100 lumber, 250 stone, 300 iron. I have some plots allotted that would be perfect. Would you like to inspect them?”
“I trust you. How many workers? By my calculations we have thirty spare. It was five to build a cottage and not ten, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It costs five to construct a sawmill, and two to keep it functioning, but you can replace them as soon as you have settlers available. Do you wish to know the last thing that gets built to cheat again?”
“Will it produce lumber before it’s complete?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no benefit. Divert fifteen workers to build three sawmills, please.”
“It will be done. You have fifteen workers spare.”
“Quarries?”
“One hundred and eighty food, 500 lumber, 150 stone and 400 iron. Five workers, two to keep it maintained. I have plots allotted.”
“Two, please.”
“It will be done. Mines?”
“Can I afford one?”
“Two hundred and ten food, 600 lumber, 500 stone, 200 iron, and yes. At level 1 the rewards outstrip the cost, so yes, but you will lose 2 workers again.”
“Fine, do it.”
“Can I help you with anything else?”
“No, and sorry about the cheating.”
Bethe held his gaze. “No you’re not, and it was quite inventive.”
“Do you know any other shortcuts?” Lincoln asked.
“I’m a guide, and I can only tell you the rules.”
“Bethe,” Aezal called.
“Yes, Aezal.”
“Do we get more workers if we upgrade the cottages?”
“No.”
“But we’ll get them if we build another ten cottages.”
“Yes, but you haven’t got the population.”
Lincoln grinned at Aezal. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If you’re thinking we build a bunch of level 1 cottages and just leave them be until we’re done with the workers, then yes, that’s what I’m thinking, but not tonight, eh? Tomorrow we’ll have a cottage each and one spare for any who happen along.” Aezal sat back while Crags put some more logs on the fire.
“Folks’ll have a hard job finding that fissure, let alone climbing through it,” Ozmic muttered. The dwarf’s Mohican had flopped down and was now just a mess of mauve hair.
“We’ll get our worker friends to make it a bit easier,” Lincoln said. “Bethe, is there another way in and out of here?”
“There is a route under the ridge nearly opposite the fissure.”
“We’ll check it out tomorrow,” Grimble yawned as he said it. “You think it’ll rain tonight?”
Aezal snorted. “Nah, we’ll be okay.”
“Good,” said Lincoln. “I’m too tired to move.”
One by one, they all fell asleep.
The heavens opened two hours later.
13
Expansion
Lincoln woke, Aezal standing over him.
“Time to train.”
Looking around, Lincoln saw it was barely dawn. “Really? Now? After yesterday?”
“There will never be a good time: you’re about to build a settlement, about to become a leader, a politician, a teacher, and a warlord. Tell me, what spare time will you have?”
Lincoln pushed himself up, his bones actually aching. Aezal immediately steered him away from the site of the settlement and into a hollow, small hillocks all around.
“Here,” he said, and set his sack down, retrieving a pair of staffs. He threw one at Lincoln. “Sooner we get this done, the sooner you can play with your village.” He swung his staff, and he knocked Lincoln from his feet.
As the sun finally blinked over the eastern ridge, a sweaty, rejuvenated Lincoln finally set eyes on his newly built cottages. The six were evenly spaced along the lake’s bank, with enough room around each to upgrade.
They were simple affairs, but easily big enough to accommodate ten. He'd decided that he would improve them to level 2 the minute he had spare resources and labor. He wanted each to have a stone hearth more than anything, and a welcome fire to come home to. They had done it in under the allotted day, but then they had benefited from having extra workers on it from the sta
rt. With that in mind, Lincoln dispatched ten of the workers to go and help bring the sawmills, quarries, and the mines up to scratch faster.
Calling Bethe over, he walked to the river and along to its narrowest point.
“I want to build a bridge over the river. Can the workers do it?”
“A simple bridge? For a cart?”
“Yes.”
A prompt flashed up in Lincoln’s mind.
Bridge—cost: Food 200, lumber 1000, stone 500, iron 100. 5 workers 2 days. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N
Lincoln accepted, and the remaining workers walked over; the materials appearing soon after.
“You will have to build a warehouse soon. You only have a limited time where I can hold the settlements resources, though each mill, mine, quarry, and farm can store some,” Bethe told him.
“A day or two?” Lincoln asked, and Bethe told him yes.
Aezal and Crags had stoked the fire and were now cooking up a pot of broth while Grimble and Ozmic were fighting over the identical huts, each one wanting the one the other had claimed, and then changing their minds as soon as they swapped. Lincoln ambled over, but only once he’d watched the workers wading across the river, tying down a rope from bank to bank—the beginnings of a temporary crossing. Bethe was hovering by.
“Bethe,” he said, noticing her floating along beside him. “The sawmills. Tell me; how do they collect the wood?”
“A level 1 sawmill will use about a tree every ten days, so it requires an area that can sustain that production. With the amount of forests in the surrounding vale, you will only be able to have five high-level mills, unfortunately, the forest beyond the ridge could support countless sawmills, but it is outside your settlement’s range. Had you formed your settlement close to the edge, then you could have utilized it.”
