"

Kay! Kay!”

Kay glanced up from the gauntlets made of blood he’d solidified around his fingers when he heard someone shouting his name. He’d been refining his blood armor in the new training yard they’d made, which was really just a dirt yard a little ways away from anything.

“What’s up?” Kay asked as Leya ran up to him.

She stopped by his side and took a few deep breaths. “Darten found something when he was making that bunker you asked for, and Eleniah wants you to come look at it. She says come right now.”

Kay started walking towards the cliff. “What kind of something?” He picked up his pace and started jogging.

“He detected an open space behind where he was tunneling, so he asked Eleniah what to do since you were busy and she said open it while she was there, and it’s a tunnel!” She belted out as she ran next to him. “It looks like it’s going through the cliffs!”

“That…” A bunch of different possibilities ran through Kay’s head. “That could be a problem.”

They ran past the eating hall and the new “government building” that had been erected next to it and stopped at a tunnel heading inside the cliff. It was fifty or sixty feet away from the rest of the base and had some large rocks placed next to it. Almost everyone was gathered around the tunnel, staring into it.

“Kay’s here!” Someone called into the tunnel.

Eleniah stuck her head out. “Kay! Come look!”

Kay gingerly pushed his way through the small crowd of dwarves and stepped into the tunnel. It was pretty dark inside, the only light coming from a small crystal Darten was holding in his hand.

“What’s that?” Kay asked, staring at the crystal.

“This?” Darten glanced at it, “It’s a light crystal I made with a spell. I picked up that spell so that I’d always have light if I needed it.”

“How bright can they get?”

“Pretty bright; why?”

“Do they last awhile? We could use them for lighting things without using fire.”

“Well… They can last a while if I put some effort into making them, but they’re on all the time and-”

“Boys!”

They looked over at Eleniah, who was glaring at them both.

She shook her head and pointed farther down the tunnel. “Important things to look at?”

“Right, sorry.” Kay followed her down the tunnel.

The shaft Darten had made was obviously tall enough for him to fit in, which made it four feet taller than Kay. “I didn’t think that much about making buildings sized for different sizes of people,” Kay muttered to himself. “How often are we going to get massively tall people? And what about shorter species of people?”

Eleniah glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been to a few very multicultural places, and we can just steal some of their ideas. They aren’t hard to implement; it’s just a matter of realizing you need to do it.”

“Oh, good. So why’d you drag me down here? I feel like this is something you could have dealt with as second in command.” Eleniah had easily slotted into position as his second, with no complaints from anyone. Kay had some nebulous plans for increasing the number of “advisers” he had and making some kind of council, but right now, he had Eleniah as his number two, and Ahthia was holding onto the number three spot.

“Tunnels running through the cliffs where we’re trying to make out new home? Yeah, no, you’re going to check it out.”

The smooth, magically made tunnel ended at a rectangular archway. Past the archway was a different tunnel that was barely tall enough for Kay to stand-in. This one was much thinner as well, with only four feet between the sides. Technically it was three feet, nine, and three-quarters inches, but Kay had mentally set Spatial Determination to round to easier numbers. Knowing exact fractions of an inch had gotten annoying really fast.

“I was going to ask why you said ‘tunnels’, but this goes so far we have no idea if there’s more,” Kay said to Eleniah quietly. He looked in both directions as far as he could in the light of Darten’s crystal. “Can either of you tell if this is a natural tunnel? It’s certainly twisty enough to be one.”

Darten pointed at the part of the wall next to a jagged piece that shortened the width for a few inches. “See here? This spur was larger at some point, and it got worked down with a tool. So I’d say that this tunnel started off natural, but someone put it to use and made it easier to travel.”

Fantastic. Kay gestured for the other two to back up and followed after them. When they were at least a few feet away, Kay did some charades with Darten to communicate he wanted him to seal the entrance to the other tunnel as quietly as possible. After a few moments of silent gestures, Darten finally got the idea and concentrated on the opening. A minute later, it was sealed with a solid block of stone.

“We have no idea if anyone is using those tunnels, and we don’t have enough people to spare anyone to explore them yet. So we’re just going to leave them be for now.” Kay looked up at Darten, “Sorry to give you more work, but seal up this tunnel as best you can and make it look as natural as possible.”

“Completely close it off?”

Kay started walking outside, and they followed him. “Up until about…” He stopped a dozen feet from the exit. “Here. Then from there until the exit, fill it with spears of rock or something, making it painful and difficult to move through. If you can use magic to set some kind of traps, that would be even better. Then layer a sheet of stone across the entrance and leave some kind of mark on it.” He pointed at the crowd of dwarves that were still gathered around. “Leya and Dolik, you’re on guard duty. Stay with Darten until he’s done. If anything attacks, defend him while he seals up the tunnel. If you need to, send someone to… No, wait. Either of you still have your axe-gun?” Karl had gotten permission to hold onto most of them along with what shot and powder they still had after the explosion.

Dolik patted one on his belt. “I’ve still got mine and five or sit shots.”

“Good. Be safe, but keep it loaded, and if you need help, fire a shot off as a signal. Eleniah should hear it at a minimum, and she can reinforce you. Once the whole tunnel is sealed, help Darten think of a good marking that means ‘danger’. Use an old one or make a new one; it doesn’t matter, just make it easily recognizable.”

“We’re sealing the whole thing off?” Darten asked again, his confusion evident.

Kay turned around and started into the tunnel. “Like I said, we don’t have the people to go in there and see if it’s safe right now. We don’t know what’s in there. It could have nothing, or it could have tier six equivalent monsters running around. We just don’t know. Until we can prove it’s safe, we’re going to assume it isn’t.”

“Alright…” Darten shared a nod with Leya and Dolik, and they followed him back into the tunnel.

Kay walked off with Eleniah following him. He headed back to the “government building”, which was really just a one-room office. While he walked, he tried to mentally map where that tunnel might lead through the cliff but quickly gave it up. It could split off dozens or hundreds of times. The whole cliff could be honeycombed with tunnels. He scratched at his chin as he thought. He was starting to grow stubble again after shaving the other day. Maybe I should just grow a beard. Haven’t tried it before, so I don’t know what I’d look like. Anyway, the bunker idea is on hold for now. If we can find a good space in the cliff that there aren’t any tunnels near, then it might still be possible, but we’ll see.

They stepped into what Kay was starting to think of as his office, and Ahthia looked up from the paper she was writing on.

“How did it go?” Ahthia asked, “I heard there was another tunnel you ran into?”

“There was. It runs both directions through the cliff without any end we could see. There were signs of tool work in it, so I got Darten to block it off until we have the time and manpower to explore.”

She nodded in approval. “Smart.”

“Glad you approve.” Kay sat down in his chair at the end of the table. Devon had made quite a few pieces of furniture over the last couple of weeks and had gotten a good number of levels from it. He’d focused on tables and chairs to start with since they didn’t have all the materials needed to make good beds. “Now, my training time got cut short, so let’s jump back into planning.”

“Right.” Ahthia straightened her papers, and Eleniah took her seat, and they started discussing. “First off, the plans for a sewage system look good. With Darten and eventually Leya helping out, it won’t be too hard to replace the stone pipes we’ll use for now with metal ones once we can do so. The underground holding tank will also work as a stopgap until we can get a Sanitation Mage for the village.”

“Is Sanitation Mage on the recruitment list?” Kay asked.

Eleniah nodded.

“Good. Also, are we deciding to call it a village now for sure? We’ve been jumping around terms a lot.”

“Well,” Ahthia made a face, “Technically, until we get you a Noble Title, we’re an unrecognized settlement, so what we call ourselves in terms of village, town, city, whatever is usually dependent on size and population. Once we get you a Noble Title, we’ll be a settlement recognized by The World, so what we’re called will be based on your Title, size, population, and some other factors.”

“Should we go ahead and name the place to avoid any more confusion?”

“No, I’d wait until our new people arrive with Meten, let them feel part of the place by being part of naming it,” Eleniah suggested.

Kay tapped the table a few times as he had a quick internal debate. “That’s a good idea. Let’s just call ourselves a village for now, since our population will only be thirty or forty-something, and we’ll revisit the topic as necessary. What’s next?”

Ahthia flipped to the next page. “We should start preparing to have an economy sooner rather than later.”

“Kay and I have some money we can donate to the village coffers to get us started,” Eleniah said, holding up her spatial bag. “That should keep us going for a while.”

“We’d need places for people to spend their money.” Kay leaned his chair back and looked upward, “I don’t want to charge people for food until we’re absolutely ready for that. So what is there to spend on? We don’t have any luxuries for people to but yet, and to repeat myself, I don’t want us selling basic needs to people until we’re completely sure we’re stable and no one will suffer.”

Ahthia nodded. “I’m in complete agreement. I don’t think we’ll have a fully functioning economy set up for a while, even after Meten brings our new people back. I just want to keep your plan of planning ahead to prevent future problems going. If we have a plan set up before we need it, we can adjust it as necessary and get things going as smoothly as possible. Paying people isn’t something I want to scramble with.”

“Smart.” Kay took a breath to continue when Rhia burst into the room. “Giant birds are after my crops!”

Kay popped up from his chair. “Eleniah, with me, Ahthia, do whatever but keep safe.” He grabbed his halberd from where he’d propped it against the wall and started running towards the two fields they’d made for Rhia. “Today is problem day, huh?” He muttered as he ran.