Vern was enjoying himself. Nice to be away from endless meetings with the higher ups, or countless sessions checking up on the various teams in the field to keep them on their toes. Nice to just sit and drink a few beers in front of a roaring fire. A very, very, big, roaring fire. The barn and smokehouse were now a huge pile of charcoal that was slowly burning down. It would take another couple of days to burn out.

The other thing Vern was enjoying was the distinct lack of brown nosers. He'd had a long talk with Billy and this Ozzy fellow about what had been happening in the area. He'd gotten a concise report on Momco.'s attempts at sabotage and spying, but with none of the deferential treatment and sucking up he was used to in underlings.

Ozzy had some ideas for a new barracks to replace the flimsy huts; his suggestion was to 'go medieval.' Build a stone building with thick outer walls with windows and doors on the inside around a central courtyard. It would give the workers more protection from monsters, goblins, or sabotage by another corporation. Vern and Billy liked the idea. If it worked out, they could send the plans to other groups.

Billy also liked Ozzy's suggestion that the work crew build the new housing after hours. They would put in an 8 to 10-hour day and then a few more on their housing. Good incentive to work faster.

Later, several other workers joined their group. Other than making sure their beers got refilled, they hadn't seemed to show Billy or Vern any special treatment as they sat and drank. Sifting through their idle talk had filled Vern in on a number of subjects such as how many new calves were born each week, profits at the tavern, dangers on the local roads, and how to increase profits from the Legion fulfillment contract.

They'd even sketched out the plans for all the new buildings and corrals. Billy just had to nod his approval. It was more and more obvious how Billy was accomplishing so much. Vern wondered again how Billy had put together a crew like this in less than an hour. All the other managers assumed he'd done it ahead of time, but Vern knew he'd been as surprised as the rest of them. Yet somehow, he'd handed in a stack of contracts for competent workers almost immediately. Vern's gut told him there was more to it. Time to check into a few of them maybe.

The Contract Worker project was an overall success. Back on earth, this workforce was just part of the under-nourished poor living in the cramped habitat blocks and eating artificial food. Most of them were also in poor health with little or no access to healthcare. But here they were all physically superior people who could work 16 hours a day with little complaint and do the work of three people. As they settled into their roles and got some experience they were working faster and faster.

All of the ACME crews were doing an adequate job; but Vern didn't like adequate. He wanted the rest of the teams to do as well as Billy and he wanted Billy to get that city opened up. Still, he'd accomplished a lot in two weeks.

- 160 acres of land cleared for crops, fields laid out, irrigation dug, and crops planted.

- The fulfillment contract with the Legion was bringing in double profits.

- Half a million board feet of timber ready for construction.

-Tanning, leatherworking, and quarrying started.

- Half ownership in a local tavern that was turning immediate profits.

- Three miles of road that Caesar would be proud of.

Sure, some small setbacks like a Daemon burning down half of what they had built. But from the look of things, they'd have that sorted in a couple of days.

The road was a little overkill for this area, but a huge asset in the long run. Vern hadn't told Billy about 'Corporate Build Points' yet, or that he'd been delighted to see them show up. He'd keep that a secret just a bit longer. Billy worked better under pressure. Vern had been happily surprised when he received the notification.

ACME Corporation has earned the following for their Northern Division: Corporate Build Points x 30 for the construction of 3 miles of road that meets specifications for 'Road of the Emperor's Legions'. As per their contract, ACME Corporation may redeem build points for additional land and special buildings.

Vern was sure Billy wouldn't mind his crew building a bit more road.

========================================================

Ozzy was feeling better by around ten in the morning and ready to get to work. He'd sat listening to Vern and Billy talk for a couple of hours. Vern seemed in no hurry at all to do much more besides watch the bonfire where the barn used to be and slowly sip some beer. Ozzy had used the time to talk with Ben, Rolly, and Suzette, carefully moving the conversation around to highlight what they had been working on.

Ben and Rolly had whipped together some charcoal sketches of new buildings and a layout for them. Vern was focusing on the City and Billy was focused on Vern. It wasn't difficult to get approval for the plans. Billy wasn't a micro-manager. Show him you could do something, stay out of his hair, show results and he was happy. Ben had seen this when he set up the tanning operation and he'd filled in the others.

Ozzy stood up, stretched, and cracked his knuckles. "Ok folks, let’s get some work in. The gloomy clouds from dying should be off of everyone. We'll get some folks to head up with Mr. Billy and Mr. Vern to the end of the road and we can go over the building plans with everyone else. We’ll have a quick meeting and get to work on the new barn and smoke house."

Ozzy waited until they were a bit away from Billy and then asked the others some questions. "So, you all got a chunk of points?"

Suzette and Ben nodded. Rolly said, "Oh yeah, 18 points each. I like fights like that. Can we invite Timmy and his crew back for another one?"

Suzette didn't like that idea. "I don't trust those creeps. They work for Momco and one of them deliberately tossed fireballs at you guys. I was so pissed when Ben told me about that."

Rolly shrugged, "Yeah, but Ben took care of that. And we won in the end. If he hadn't been an asshole, we might have had to share EP with him. It all worked out great. Even got some points for some of the other guys. Not as many - I think Jorges said he got 6 points and so did a half dozen other folk who helped out at the end."

Ozzy stared off for a few seconds and then said. "Let’s grab those people and have a talk - tell them what we know about spending points. And make sure they know to keep quiet about it around Billy. Remember, we signed an NDA and can't talk about the first list we saw. Keep any discussion of skills to just what each of them can see."

Quickly enough they had a crew heading out with Billy and the folks they needed gathered around. Ozzy started off. "So, we wanted to talk about the skill points you all got. They have a lot of uses." It was a bit awkward. When they killed the wolf boss they hadn't mentioned the points and abilities to anyone. Now to explain how they knew so much, they had to come clean about keeping the info to themselves.

Cham stood up with his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, about that, see Jon and I sort of figured this out a while ago, but kind of kept quiet about it. Guess we should have filled you in."

"You did? How?" Now Ozzy was confused.

Jon continued. "We were logging through a stand of apple when all of a sudden the damn tree that I whacked started moving. It was thrashing with limbs and tossing rotten apples at us. We both started whacking at it with our axes and finally killed the thing after about 10 minutes."

Ben was intrigued, "Your axes worked as weapons on it? We fought a wolf but we sucked badly. Everything we did was counting as a default weapon."

Jon nodded, "Oh, yeah, for us too, that's why the fight was so long. But the only thing the two of us had done for a week was chop trees. We'd each gotten a couple of points in STR and DEX. That seemed to help. We missed a lot, but trees have a hard time dodging. Eventually we split it down the middle. Here, look."

Congratulations! You have chopped down 'Bad Apple', a level 2 Named Boss Treant.

You have earned 2 Core Skill Points.

You have earned 200 EP in your class.

You have earned 200 EP in STR.

You have found a sturdy branch made of ancient apple wood.

"Seemed like every other day or so we'd run into another annoyed tree. Elmer Elm was level 2, Sassy Frassy was level 3, and Rotbranch was a 2. We each have 15 Core Skill points now; 9 from killing treants and 6 from that Daemon."

Chad spoke up. "I bought Identification 1 with some points. It showed me that treants are vulnerable to axes. So even though we were only doing 10 damage plus another 10 for STR, that got doubled to 40. After we put some points into STR and gained some more EXP, it got a lot easier. I'm at 7 STR now and Jon is at 6. Sorry about keeping quiet. We kind of had a good thing going and were worried about the bosses finding out."

Suzette laughed. "Oh, aren't we all a bunch idiot gamers! We did the same thing. Time to come clean. Did anyone else kill a boss?"

It turned out that they had. Amy had been picking away at an exposed iron seam they found when a big chunk broke off and she got attacked by some sort of elemental.

Congratulations! You have shattered 'Rubble, the rock that walks!', a level 2 Named Boss Elemental.

You have earned 2 Core Skill Points.

You have earned 200 EP in your class.

You have earned 200 EP in STR.

You have found a perfectly round pebble.

Jorges had been attacked by a living flame out of his forge. The fight hadn't lasted long. He'd up-ended his quenching tank on it and killed it with water.

Congratulations! You have terminally soaked 'Fiero', a level 2 Named Boss Elemental.

You have earned 2 Core Skill Points.

You have earned 200 EP in your class.

You have earned 200 EP in STR or DEX.

You have found a rough fire crystal.

A few people only had the 6 points from the Daemon, while others, like Chad and Jon, had quite a bit more. The list of skills they could each bring up was a bit different. More points to spend seemed to unlock more expensive skills. Some people had been offered unique skills that seemed to be based on their jobs. Jorges could force stamina into his forge to increase the heat of the fire.

From experimenting with a fire crystal, you have unlocked the skill: Flesh to Flame.

This skill allows you to raise the temperature of your forge by expending stamina. Be careful not to feed too much into the fire or you'll make an ash of yourself Cost: 2 Core Skill Points

Flesh to Flame is a tertiary INT based skill.

Chad and Jon had both been offered an upgrade to logging.

You have unlocked the Core Skill: Timber!

This Core Skill allows you to fell trees 15% faster per rank. Cost: 2 point per rank. Max 5 ranks and a decrease in felling time of 75%.

Additional: Treants, Wood Golems, and similar creatures take an additional 20 points per hit from your felling tools.

Each of them had taken two ranks so far in Timber!, cutting 30% off their work time and making treants a lot easier to kill.

There was a distinct difference in Named bosses and Elite bosses from what they could tell. Chartok had been a level 5 Elite and pretty tough. The Daemon was a level 7 Elite and just scary as hell. The fact that Amy had killed a Named boss by herself meant they were much weaker; and they gave fewer points. It was interesting how they also seemed to drop trade skill items and not loot chests.

Ben started taking notes about skills and costs from each person. The group decided to meet up again on their next day off and have a longer discussion. For now, it was time to start rebuilding a barn.

=====================================================================

Everyone was in the tavern late that night. Suzette was working her job as a Barmaid. Ozzy was technically also working, but no one was causing a problem so he slowly sipped on an ale. They were still discussing how to spend their points. Ben was holding off on spending his points until he could have a good chat with Matthias.

Rolly also said he needed to talk to someone but wasn't saying more than that. "Sorry guys. I'm just beat. I really need a good night’s sleep. Hell, or a few days sleep. I'll catch up with you in the morning." He headed off to where he slept in the pasture, checking on Betty and Ferdinand on the way. Squirmie was anxious for some sleep too.

Suzette and Ozzy headed to their room after closing up sometime after midnight. Suzette said she had a bunch of stuff to tell Ozzy, but first wanted to see how he was spending his points. From experience, she knew that as long as he had points to spend and choices to make, most of his brain would be focused there. It wasn't that what she had to tell him was earth shattering important - she just liked having his full attention.

Since nothing was going to let them catch up with the other players, it made sense to play to their strengths. For Ozzy that was STR and CON. Without access to real weapons and armor, he had to substitute with damage from excess STR and having a lot of health.

CON was first up. They each had 1000 EP to put into the stats they used in the battle, which for Ozzy was STR and CON. He put 800 of the thousand EP into CON, raising it to level 5. The other 200 went to STR. CON was a priority for him. The feeling of snapping tendons because he was too strong wasn't something he wanted to feel again.

Next, he bought the last level of Spirit of the Ox that he was allowed until Tier 2. This brought his CON up to 8 and he could reliably use his full STR. He raised his skill cap on CON to 7. Eventually, with a lot of work, he could earn another two points and bring the stat to 10.

Damage dealing was next. Thinking about what Rolly had done, he tried to buy the first level in Melee Damage but got this message.

You do not have suitable natural weaponry such as horns, claws, or hooves. You may have these options in the future as part of your Heritage, depending on which bad decisions you make.

Obviously, Shepherds had something going that Butchers didn't. With that not an option he looked again at One Fist of Iron. There was more information in the skill.

One of First of Iron

Your unarmed attacks do +10 damage. To hit bonus based on STR instead of DEX.

Cost: 5

Rank 2

Increase damage by +10

Cost: 3

Rank 3

Increase damage by +10. You may perform weapon blocks with your hands taking minimal damage - assuming you had that skill.

Cost: 3

This had changed! Had he looked at it after buying the skill? Or maybe it was because of something else? They would all have to start reviewing their skills on a regular basis.

As this was his only real way to damage something that wasn't made of meat or undead, he took both levels in the skill. His hands immediately felt heavy and more powerful. Suzette thought she could see just a small shine of magic on them.

Ten points spent. He had nine more, counting the one he'd saved from last time. After seeing what the Daemon's aura had done to some people in the fight, he considered getting the skill that gave you an intimidating aura. It should help with his part time job as a bouncer, at the very least. This skill also had more information on further ranks.

Don't Mess Around with Jim

You have an Intimidating Aura, useable at will. Radius of 15'.

Cost: 3

Rank 2

Increase the power of your aura and radius from 15' to 30'

Cost: 2

Rank 3

Increase the power of your aura and radius from 30' to 45'.

Cost: 2

He bought the first rank. If it worked well, maybe he'd grab the other two ranks later. Bouncer wasn't necessarily a high priority. But that Daemon had shut down a couple of people just by being scary and ugly. It was worth keeping in mind.

At the end of the list was a utility skill he wanted. He wasn't sure why, but odd stuff came in handy at times; and not drowning was a plus.

Fish-breath 1

You may hold your breath 3x as long.

Cost: 1

Rank 2

You may hold your breath for 10 minutes.

Cost: 1

Rank 3

You may hold your breath for 30 minutes.

Cost: 1

One point was plenty. Five points left. He decided to keep 3 points for later, and buy 1 level in Spirit of the Bear. That would bring his STR to 10. He paid for the skill and dismissed the screens.

"Ok, your turn Suzy. What were you up to while you were gone. More than dress shopping I hope?"