Arthur Ballard was not a difficult man to find. Bronwyn only had to ask a few colonists, each time being pointed in the same direction. She found him delegating tasks not far from where the attack had been on the eastern side of the camp. As Bronwyn approached his camp, she realized that, while she had been busy rushing to gain the lead, Arthur had been organizing the colony. What she thought had been just a massive jumble of tents actually had a very well-thought-out and utilitarian pattern. From the viewpoint of Arthur's tent, a dozen roads were going off in every direction across the meadow; should anyone need to, they could easily reach him. Bronwyn walked up behind him as he sent two men off on an unknown task. Clearing her throat, she spoke, “Ballard, sir, I’ve returned with the captives.”

Spinning around with a look of shock on his face, he stammered, “B-Bronwyn, you’re back already? How? There had to be a dozen of those bastards!”

“Closer to two, actually,” Bronwyn said with a satisfied grin. “They had a big fucker leading ‘em too. He knew some pretty fancy ice magic but didn't seem any smarter than the rest.” She paused for a moment letting her pride fall to the side. “Look, I know I fucked I up, but they’re back safe, every one of them. We got some basic weapons, too. I think maybe it’s time to set up the security detail, especially once people start finishing the orientation and know how to fight a bit.”

“It’s true, sir,” one of the colonists spoke up from behind her. “We saw it with our own eyes; she was a damn machine - wiped out the whole camp!”

Arthur Ballard held up a hand, silencing him. “That may be so, but we still had losses, Bronwyn. We had fifteen people die last night, fifteen people that were not yet ready for this world. What you did to save these men was brave, heroic, even, but it’s just one step toward making up for the trouble you’ve caused. I don’t know who you thought you were or what you expected to accomplish. There are five thousand people in this meadow; what were you going to do, single-handedly defend each and every one of them?”

Bronwyn clenched her fists and turned toward the formerly captive colonists. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but please, leave the weapons we gathered and go; Ballard and I need to speak.” She turned back to Arthur Ballard, awkwardly staring while she waited for the sounds of the colonists to fade. Looking at his self-righteous face, she grew more and more offended by the second. When they were finally alone, she spoke through gritted teeth, “Who do I think I am? I’m your fucking champion! You hired me to fight, and that’s what I’m doing! I tried being penitent, but I’m done. I’m tired of your chastisement.” Her voice rose to a shout now, “How the fuck was I supposed to know the System would bring the barrier down when one person finished? Yes, this world is fucked, but some people will push themselves, take risks, and fight for every inch! Those are the people that will be rewarded, and I’m going to be on top of that list!”

She walked up until she was an inch away from him, realizing now that she really had grown taller. She was always tall, but Arthur was around six feet, and she now found herself looking straight into his eyes. Her height was compounded by her points in strength which had caused her muscles to define and her shoulders to widen, making her physical presence a lot more intimidating than it used to be. “I suggest you and all your lackeys start making some progress with the System before your names are forgotten.” She checked her shoulder into his, causing him to stumble back as he was forming a response, and stalked off towards the center of the meadow.

She was fuming as she walked through the camp. Who the fuck was Arthur to criticize her actions? She obviously had no idea what would happen when she finished the tutorial. How did he get off criticizing her for thinking she could protect everyone and then blaming her in the next breath for everything that happened? Her silent brooding was broken by a sudden crunching and grinding sound in her right ear. Her hand shot up, and she grabbed hold of the little squirrel-turtle perched on her shoulder. Finally having caught it, she pulled it into view in front of her and saw it happily munching on a lock of her hair. “You’re lucky you’re cute, you little shit.” She chuckled and let out a long sigh. “What do you think? Did I overreact?” It stared at her blankly, still chewing on the clump of hair it held in its tiny hands. “Yeah, I don’t think so either; fuck that guy. Anyway, enough thinking about him; we need a name for you if you’re gonna stick around. Have a preference?” It finished chewing and started struggling in her grasp, attempting to climb up her arm and back onto her shoulder.

Bronwyn had an idea: she walked over to a muddy patch near the path and set the little creature down in the mud. It immediately, upon being released, scrambled up her pant leg, up her back, and onto her shoulder, leaving muddy little footprints as it went. She smiled and patted it on the head; it cautiously allowed the touch without trying to jump around. “Let’s see what you’re called then,” she murmured as she activated her Tracking skill on the footprints it left on her pants. To her delight, a small window did pop up in the corner of her vision. Unfortunately, when she tried to read the name, it said, “Skill level insufficient.” She noted that the footprints left behind emitted an almost blinding light, even in the midday sun, when viewed by her tracking skill. What in the hell was this little guy? The Tracking skill worked by detecting trace amounts of Energy left behind by creatures; if the Yeksa tracks were a candle, then these were like a bonfire.

“Well, that’ll be a mystery to solve at a later date. How about for now I just call you…,” Bronwyn paused for a moment, thinking. “Hops?” The little critter let out a satisfied sounding chirp and nuzzled into the crook of her neck. Closing its eyes, Hops started to doze off, evidently tired from an adventurous day of nose nibbling and hair eating. Bronwyn smiled at the little creature and continued down the path.

She’d been walking for a little over a mile and passed hundreds of tents, noticing that most of the people she walked by were in surprisingly good spirits, given the situation. Over the last few days, she’d been constantly amazed by how well the average person seemed to handle everything going on. They were all initially hired to colonize a new planet, so some amount of mental fortitude had to be present, she supposed. Bronwyn noted that most of the people she passed were still working on the orientation, and many of them had begun the combat training today. One group of ten or so had realized the intro to ice magic spell could be used like a paintball gun, leaving a small frosty circle wherever it hit someone. They were sprinting around tents, laughing and zapping little bolts of ice at each other.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes of walking, she found the area in the meadow she had been thinking of. She was standing on a slightly raised hill, with a fairly large, spring-fed pond nested on the western edge of it. The pond was large enough to have some small fish swimming about in it, and occasionally one of the brightly colored ribbon birds would swoop down and grab one in its beak. The colonists had left this central portion of the meadow open for use as a community area, and Bronwyn thought it would be the perfect area to place the Settlement Stone.

“Well, Hops, what do you say we find out what this settlement stone is all about?” Earlier, on the walk back to the meadow, she had placed all of her belongings into the magic pouch she took from the Yeksa shaman. She reached her hand into the pouch now and thought of the stone, calling it to her hand. She sat down in the soft blue grass and crossed her legs, placing the dark-gray, obelisk-shaped stone in front of her. The foot-tall stone nestled down into the grass, almost as if it wanted to be in contact with the ground. She placed her hand on its surface and willed her Energy into it. Immediately, a System UI screen appeared in front of her:

***Settlement Stone, activate at the present location? Y/N***

“Yes,” Bronwyn spoke aloud, but she didn’t think she had to. In a way, she hoped that people were watching her and wondering what she was doing.

***Who is the leader of this settlement?***

Bronwyn hung up on this question for quite some time. Arthur Ballard would be the responsible answer. The more she thought about him, his stupid smug face, and his accusations, the less reasonable she felt. Her brash anger toward him from before resurfaced. Fuck being reasonable and fuck Arthur Ballard; she’d put in the work. They weren’t at his colony on Tau Ceti anyway; this was a different world, and there was no way the old settlement structure would stand once everyone started learning what they could do with Energy. She answered the prompt “Bronwyn Tallow.”

***What is the name of your settlement?***

Bronwyn inwardly grinned at this question; Ballard was going to throw a fit at not being the one to name the first human colony on this world. She thought about all the possibilities. She could be selfish and call it something after herself like “Tallow” or “Bronwyn’s Place.” She laughed at that. No, that wouldn’t do. She could name it after a famous Earth city like “New Boston” or “Paris 2.” Again, she laughed. She thought about how they were pioneers on a new world and how they’d come from space on a ship. She thought about how the System had robbed them of the accomplishment of landing and setting up a town on their own terms. She decided that future generations would remember that they came here in a spaceship - one of humanity’s greatest achievements. She said, out loud so the System could hear her, “First Landing.”

The prompt disappeared from her view, and she heard the sound of thousands of tiny cracks splitting the stone in front of her. Heat and steam burst forth from the cracks, and she scrambled backward, hurriedly clambering to her feet. In seemingly random order, segments of the stone split apart, stretched, and then re-fused with the whole. This occurred over and over, hundreds or thousands of times; all the while, steam lit with golden highlights burst forth from the seams of stone. With each cracking and fusing of the stone, the obelisk grew, and Bronwyn found herself backing up several times during the process. She watched, mouth agape, as the stone grew to immense proportions; after a minute or two, there was so much steam flowing down the sides of the hilltop that she was standing knee-deep in it, even at the top. It was hard to take her eyes off of the incredible process, but she did look around once when she heard excited voices, noticing that a large crowd was gathering at the base of the hill.

The stone continued to grow, cracking, fusing, and emitting gouts of dense steam the whole time. After what must have been fifteen or twenty minutes, it finally started to slow and gradually settled into its final, solid shape. The little obelisk-shaped stone was now a true monolith, towering thirty feet into the air, and each of its four sides was six feet wide at the base. It was still a dense gray-colored stone, and Bronwyn noticed that the golden-colored symbols and runes still seemed to float, somehow, beneath the surface of the stone. As the steam settled and dissipated, a System message appeared in front of her eyes, and from the gasps, everyone else’s:

***Colony: First Landing established. Area of influence: 25 square kilometers. Leader: Bronwyn Tallow.***